The notion that knowledge is derived from a higher source than is
practical activity, and possesses a higher and more spiritual
worth, has a long history. The history so far as conscious
statement is concerned takes us back to the conceptions of
experience and of reason formulated by Plato and Aristotle. Much
as these thinkers differed in many respects, they agreed in
identifying experience with purely practical concerns; and hence
with material interests as to its purpose and with the body as to
its organ. Knowledge, on the other hand, existed for its own
sake free from practical reference, and found its source and
organ in a purely immaterial mind; it had to do with spiritual or
ideal interests. Again, experience always involved lack, need,
desire; it was never self-sufficing. Rational knowing on the
other hand, was complete and comprehensive within itself. Hence
the practical life was in a condition of perpetual flux, while
intellectual knowledge concerned eternal truth.
This sharp antithesis is connected with the fact that Athenian
philosophy began as a criticism of custom and tradition as
standards of knowledge and conduct. In a search for something to
replace them, it hit upon reason as the only adequate guide of
belief and activity. Since custom and tradition were identified
with experience, it followed at once that reason was superior to
experience. Moreover, experience, not content with its proper
position of subordination, was the great foe to the
acknowledgment of the authority of reason.
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