And the data of philosophy are much more concrete and various in kind than those of mathematics. It goes on to ask whether that is so and what is required if our supposed knowledge is to be possible. Philosophy can claim, on this account, to be a good training in self-critical rationality and a valuable accompaniment to any study in which reasoning plays an important part, but is not explicitly reflected on. In so far as the study of philosophy includes the study of its history it can provide some acquaintance with the overall shape of the large movements of the mind in history. It often does this badly by disconnecting past philosophers from each other and from their intellectual environment.
Philosophy also has indirect uses.
Christian theology, in successive phases, was the child of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. Scientific psychology and economics developed from associationist and utilitarian philosophies of mind and action. Philosophy at least played some part in the transformation of history from mere chronicle into explanatory narrative and has tempted it at times into metahistorical systematization of history as a whole. In the present epoch linguistics has largely extricated itself from the maternal embrace of philosophy. Quinton, Lord The Rt.