PHILOSOPHY

The publications of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle have echoed through the millennia and progress to affect the lives of individuals now. In A Short History of Greek Philosophy, prominent British writer John Marshall presents a comprehensive though the captivating narrative of the influential philosophical movements of ancient Greece, from the Sophists to the Sceptics to the Stoics.

Excerpt
The main purpose which I have had in View in writing this book has been to present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits of brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting — autfientz°c, as being based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary sources; interesting, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, in language freed as far as possible from technicality and abstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on questions of permanent significance and value. There has been no attempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried in their day to solve; but I have endeavored to show, by a sympathetic treatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but that in fact the philosophers of twenty-four centuries ago were dealing with exactly.

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM) is a book by Scottish enlightenment philosopher David Hume. In it, Hume argues (among other things) that the foundations of morals lie with sentiment, not reason.

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals is the enquiry subsequent to the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (EHU). Thus, it is often referred to as “the second Enquiry”. It was originally published in 1751, three years after the first Enquiry. Hume first discusses ethics in A Treatise of Human Nature (in Book 3 – “Of Morals”). He later extracted and expounded upon the ideas he proposed there in his second Enquiry. In his short autobiographical work, My Own Life (1776), Hume states that his second Enquiry is “of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best.”

Excerpt
Lative validity. The thought of Plato, of Aristotle, and of the heroes of modern philosophy is ever proving anew its fructifying power. Nowhere do we find such instructive errors as in the sphere of philosophy; nowhere is the new so essentially a completion and development of the old, even though it deem itself the whole and assume a hostile attitude toward its predecessors; nowhere is the inquiry so much more important than the final result; nowhere the categories “true and false” so inadequate. The spirit of the time and the spirit of the people, the individuality of the thinker, disposition, will, fancy–all these exert a far stronger influence on the development of philosophy, both by way of promotion and by way of hindrance, than in any other department of thought. If a system gives classical expression to the thought of an epoch, a nation, or a great personality; if it seeks to attack the world-riddle from a new direction, or brings us nearer its solution by important original conceptions, by a subtler.

This rare book of Mr. Romanes’ metaphysical writings retains exceptional significance. The writing of philosophical theory which he speaks for has a peculiar enchantment. He himself, it is simple, possessed absolute metaphysical forces, and he penned at first hand, and with the acuteness and originality of mind which is worth more than regular learning. He suffers for his separation from the work of other philosophers. The naivete which serves as the opening sentence of the text, that Hobbes is “the earliest writer who deserves to be called a psychologist,” is a trifle. But there is no evidence that he had studied the father of monists, Spinoza; and even though some sites in his essay might have been altered if he had lived, it hands out obstacles which, to a student of Spinoza, imply to be of the first magnitude. Though, like the other of his philosophical writing, even when it is unsatisfactory (and it seems to us unsatisfactory), it stimulates thought.

Mind and Motion and Monism is a classic religious studies text by George John Romanes. The subjects here discussed frequently occupied Mr. Romanes’ keen and versatile mind. Had not the hand of death fallen upon him while so much of the ripening grain of his thought remained to be finally garnered, some modifications and extensions of the views set forth in the Essay on Monism would probably have been introduced.

Moral Principles in Education by John Dewey is a “strong and reflected little handbook” on moral principles that is a clarification of rational psychology, ethics, and sociology, referring to moral teaching in the school. Dewey explains that we must differentiate between moral concepts and ideas of morality; between moral education and direct moral guidance. In the moral teaching provided by the school association, we should not accept training that is limited, pathological and formal; school time should develop for many social relationships and build up self-control and leadership in school activities typical of social life. In moral training from methods of instruction, we should seek active social service, inculcate positive motives and standards, and center interest in present activities as opposed to remote success as an end. 

Contemporary political and socioeconomic conditions largely characterized by corruption and inequity have added new urgency to recurring calls for reorienting American public schools to their historic purpose: educating a citizenry both equipped and motivated to serve as the ultimate guardians of democracy.While the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson, and the founders of public schools, including Horace Mann, specified that rationale, perhaps no one has done more than John Dewey to detail the inextricable relationship between education and democratic society. In Moral Principles in Education and My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey reminds readers of public schools’ original purpose, identifying specific educational principles and practices that either promote or undermine their essential democratic goals.“There cannot be two sets of ethical principles,” he says, “one for life in the school, and the other for life outside of the school.” In these works and through such caveats, Dewey offers readers both the motivation to engage in the struggle for a new emphasis on educating for democratic citizenship and the guidance necessary to translate his theory into effective practice. 

The little essay of this compilation shows that Bertrand Russell’s persistent obsession: the disconnection, with constant-rising precision, of what is personal or intellectual dark from what it intends or capable of logical presentation. The first 5 essays he calls ‘entirely popular’: they comprise two on the revolutionary transformations in calculations in the last hundred years, and one on the value of science in human culture. The last 5, ‘considerably further technical’, are dealt with specific dilemmas of philosophy: the utmost nature of matter, the connection between the sense-data and physics, the problem of causality and various ways of knowing. In these one can observe the Russell process in operation, intellectual analysis dissecting the problem to its bare bones.

Philosophy and Religion is a classic religious philosophy text by Hastings Rashdall. “Theology is less a single science than an encyclopedia of sciences; indeed all the sciences which have to do with man have a better right to be called theological than anthropological, though the man it studies is not simply an individual but a race. Its way of viewing man is indeed characteristic; from this have come some of its brighter ideals and some of its darkest dreams. The ideals are all either ethical or social, and would make of earth a heaven, creating fraternity amongst men and forming all states into a goodly sisterhood; the dreams may be represented by doctrines which concern sin on the one side and the will of God on the other. But even this will cannot make sin luminous, for were it made radiant with grace, it would cease to be sin.”

Rudolf Eucken: A Philosophy of Life by Abel J. Jones. Rudolf Christoph Eucken; 5 January 1846–15 September 1926) was a German philosopher. He received the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature “in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his many works he has vindicated and developed an idealistic philosophy of life”, after he had been nominated by a member of the Swedish Academy. Before we outline Eucken’s philosophical position, it will be well if we can first be clear as to the special problem with which he concerns himself. Philosophers have or other considered all the problems of heaven and earth to be within their province, especially the intractable problems for which a simple solution is impossible. Hence it is, perhaps, that philosophy has been in disrepute, especially in English-speaking countries, the study of the subject has been very limited to a small class of students, and the philosopher has been regarded as a dreamy, theorising, and unpractical individual. Many people, when they hear of Eucken, will put him out of mind as an ordinary member of a body of cranks. From Eucken’s point of view this is the most unfortunate thing that can happen, for his message is not directed to a few advanced students of philosophy, but is meant for all thinking members of humans. The problem he endeavours to solve is far from being one of mere theoretical interest; It is matters of immediate practical concern to the life of the individual and of the community. To ignore him will be to cannot consider one of the most rousing philosophies of modern times.

The Categories is a content from Aristotle‘s Organon that takes account of all the kinds of things that can be the subject matter or the predicate of a proposition. They are “perhaps the single most heavily discussed of all Aristotelian notions”. The piece is concise sufficient to be broken down, not into books as is frequent with Aristotle’s activities, but into fifteen chapters.

The Categories give every object of mortal apprehension under one of ten categories (known to primitive authors as the Latin term praedicamenta). Aristotle intended them to take account of all that can be conveyed without composition or construction, then everything that can be the subject or the predicate of a proposition.

The Critique of Pure Reason (German: Kritik der reinen Vernunft; 1781; second edition 1787) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. Also referred to as Kant’s “First Critique”, the Critique of Practical Reason followed it (1788) and the Critique of Judgment (1790). In the preface to the first edition, Kant explains that by a “critique of pure reason” he means a critique “of the faculty of reason regarding all knowledge after which it may strive independently of all experience” and that he aims to reach a decision about “the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics.”

Kant builds on the work of empiricist philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume, and rationalist philosophers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. He expounds new ideas on space and time, and tries to provide solutions to the skepticism of Hume regarding knowledge of the relation of cause and effect and that of René Descartes regarding knowledge of the external world. It argues this through the transcendental idealism of objects (as appearance) and their form of appearance. Kant regards the former “as mere representations and not as things in themselves”, and the latter as “only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves”. This grants the possibility of a priori knowledge, since objects as appearance “must conform to our cognition… which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us.” Knowledge independent of experience Kant calls “a priori” knowledge, while knowledge got through experience is termed “a posteriori.” According to Kant, a proposition is a priori if it is necessary and universal. A proposition is necessary if it could not possibly be false, and so cannot be denied without contradiction. A proposition is universal if it is true in all cases, and so does not admit of any exceptions. Knowledge gained a posteriori through the senses, Kant argues, never imparts absolute necessity and universality, because it is always possible that we might encounter an exception.

The Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (Latin: Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata), usually known as the Ethics, is a philosophical treatise written in Latin by Benedictus de Spinoza. It was written between 1661 and 1675 and was first published posthumously in 1677.

The book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of Euclid in philosophy. Spinoza puts forward a small number of definitions and axioms from which he attempts to derive hundreds of propositions and corollaries, such as “When the Mind imagines its own lack of power, it is saddened by it”, “A free man thinks of nothing less than of death”, and “The human Mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the Body, but something of it remains which is eternal.”

The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle Ethics as a subject has been studied under significant influence of works of Aristotle, and his treatment of a philosophical question his predecessors Socrates and Plato had raised which. In its original form, this subject is concerned with the human aim of having a virtue of character (ethos), or having excellent and well-chosen habits. The acquisition of an excellent character is aimed at living well and eudaimonia a Greek word often translated as well-being, happiness or “human flourishing”. Ethics is a systematic study of how individuals should best live. This study was originally coupled with the closely related study of politics, including law-making. Politics influences how people are brought up, which therefore addresses the same question of how people should live, but from the standpoint of the community. The original Aristotelian and Socratic answer to the question of how best to live was to live the life of philosophy and contemplation.

The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, authored by Plato around 375 BC, concerning justice, the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. It is Plato’s best-known work, and has proven to be one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically.

In the dialogue, Socrates talks with various Athenians and foreigners about the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man. They consider the natures of existing regimes and then propose a series of different, hypothetical cities in comparison, culminating in Kallipolis, a utopian city-state ruled by a philosopher-king. They also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the role of the philosopher and of poetry in society. The dialogue’s setting seems to be during the Peloponnesian War.

“Written in the 6th century, The Consolation of Philosophy is the best-known—and most profound—work of the Christian theologian and philosopher St. Boethius. He composed this monumental work while he was unjustly imprisoned, directly before his unlawful execution. The Consolation—which takes the form of a dialogue between Boethius and ‘Lady Philosophy’–discusses a variety of important and weighty issues including ethics, the nature of God, God’s relationship to the world, the problem of evil, and the true nature of happiness. In particular, an often-emphasized and key theme throughout the book is the importance of both loving God and developing virtue. Because it is written in dialogue form, the literary qualities of the book are ‘light, ‘ which contrasts with the occasionally weighty topics it discusses. The Consolation of Philosophy was enormously influential on medieval and renaissance Christianity—statesmen, poets, historians, philosophers, and theologians all read and studied it extensively. It remains even today an important and instructive book. Both interesting and illuminating The Consolation of Philosophy is profitable for all readers and comes highly recommended.

“The book called ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’ was throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the sixteenth century, the scholar’s familiar companion. Few books have exercised a wider influence in their time. It has been translated into every European tongue, and into English nearly a dozen times, from King Alfred’s paraphrase to the translations of Lord Preston, Causton, Ridpath, and Duncan, in the eighteenth century.”