ANIL MITRA, PH. D., COPYRIGHT ©
1988
2ND EDITION 2002 AND REVISED July 2007
note—2007
THERE IS A plan to introduce a section TITLED ‘Twenty first century trends’
Review the Sources for this Document
CONTENTS
OUTLINE
Bulleted links, 
,
point to the topic in the longer table of
contents below. Descriptive links point
to the head of the corresponding section in the text
Chapter 1—The Periods and Main Influences…
Chapter 3—Medieval Philosophy…
Chapter 5—The Recent Period: Late 19th
to 21st Century…
Chapter 6—The Future: A
Concept Of Philosophy… Journey
in Being… True
Philosophy…
Chapter 7—Transcendental and Real Logic…
The restriction to Western philosophy
Possibilities for a third edition
1 THE PERIODS AND MAIN INFLUENCES
2.1 RELIGIOUS ORIGINS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
2.2.3 Socrates and the Socratic schools
2.3 GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE AGE OF GREAT SYSTEMS
2.4 ETHICAL PERIOD (ABOUT 350—200 BCE)
2.4.1 Epicureanism and stoicism
2.4.2 Skepticism and eclecticism
2.5 GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD (150 BCE—500 AD)
2.6 THE DECLINE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
2.6.1 The closing of the school at Athens
2.6.2 The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
3.2 The periods of medieval philosophy
3.3 The patristic period: establishment of the Christian Church and dogma
3.4.1 Formative Period—the Schoolmen
4.2 THE BEGINNING OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 1550—1670
4.2.1 Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
4.2.2 Thomas Hobbes (1588—1679)
4.2.3 Blaise Pascal (1632—1662)
4.3 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: CONTINENTAL RATIONALISM
4.3.1 René Descartes (1598—1650)
4.3.2 Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza (1632—1677)
4.4 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: BRITISH EMPIRICISM
4.4.2 George Berkeley (1685—1753)
4.5 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: RATIONALISM IN GERMANY
4.5.2 Christian Wolff (1679—1754)
4.6 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: THE ENLIGHTENMENT
4.6.2 Materialism and evolutionism
4.6.3 Progress of the sciences
4.6.4 Charles—Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1685—1754)
4.6.5 Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712—1778)
4.7 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: IMMANUEL KANT (1724—1804)
4.7.3 The problem of knowledge
4.7.4 The first transcendental method
4.7.5 Preliminary analysis of experience
4.7.6 The theory of sense perception
4.7.7 The theory of the understanding
4.7.8 Kant’s forms of understanding
4.7.10 Knowledge of things-in-themselves
4.7.11 Impossibility of metaphysics
4.7.13 Use of metaphysics in experience
4.7.14 Use of teleology in nature
4.7.16 Some comments on the successors of Kant
4.8 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY AFTER KANT
4.8.1 A brief review of Kant’s progression of thought or presentation:
4.9 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: GERMAN IDEALISM
4.9.1 Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762—1814)
4.9.2 Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling (1775—1854)
4.9.3 Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768—1834)
4.9.4 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770—1831): the culmination of rational idealism
4.10 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AFTER HEGEL
4.10.1 Johann Friedrich Hebart (1776—1841)
4.10.2 A return to idealism: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
4.10.3 Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801—1887)
4.10.4 Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817—1881)
4.10.5 Friedrich Albert Lange (1828—1875)
4.10.6 Wilhelm Wundt (1832—1920)
4.10.7 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900)
4.10.8 Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846—1926)
4.10.9 Wilhelm Windelbland (1848—1915)
4.10.10 Ernst Cassirer (1874—1945)
4.11 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: FRENCH AND BRITISH NINETEENTH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
4.11.1 Claude Henri de Saint—Simon (1760—1825): a new science of society
4.11.2 August Comte (1798—1857)
4.12 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: BRITISH UTILITARIANISM
4.12.1 Jeremy Bentham (1748—1832):
4.12.2 John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
4.12.3 Herbert Spencer (1820—1903)
5 THE RECENT PERIOD: LATE 19TH TO 21ST CENTURY
5.1.1 Influences on recent philosophy
5.1.2 The effect on philosophy
5.2 THE RECENT PERIOD: SCHOOLS AND TRENDS OF PHILOSOPHY
5.2.1 20th Century Schools and Trends of Philosophy
5.2.2 Specialized Disciplines or Activities Within Philosophy
5.2.3 20TH Century Philosophers
5.3 THE RECENT PERIOD: INFLUENTIAL PHILOSOPHERS
5.3.4 Bertrand Arthur William Russell
5.3.5 Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
6.2 The obligations and needs of philosophy
6.3 The possibilities of philosophy
6.3.1 Ways of Philosophical Understanding
6.3.2 Ways that are unique to philosophy
6.5 The education of the philosopher
7 TRANSCENDENTAL AND REAL LOGIC
INTRODUCTION
Sources
A History of Philosophy, Frank Thilly, 1914, 30 revised edition—Ledger Wood, 1957, has the virtues of brevity and impartiality (attempt to understand each system in its integrity; to formulate the tacit and implicit basic assumptions of each system: allowing the primary criticism to be the criticisms made by other—contemporary and later—philosophers. Often, the tacit assumptions are brought out by later philosophers of the same movement or tradition). This history is based in Thilly’s work, re-thought and adapted to my understanding
Thilly holds the view that the only complete systems of thought are Western. I wish to briefly examine possible bases of the claim. The claim is decomposable into two parts and the first is that the Western tradition contains complete systems of thought. What does that mean? It cannot mean that everything is known. It must mean, then, that there is something about the Western tradition that contains in principle completeness—the establishment of a world view of sufficient breadth and of methods that eliminate false views or aspects of the world view. However, Western thought of the 20th century has cast serious doubt on the completeness or possibility of completing any system. From the psychological point of view, what would convince one that a system of thought is complete? There is a tendency, perhaps tacit, that probably exists within all cultures and individuals—the natural belief in or identification with the paradigms of the culture. Such paradigms present a picture of the world; and the systems of thought of the culture are an elaboration of that picture. The psychological story cannot be whole in itself. It is embedded in a system of relations among attitudes (psychology) and the institutions of society. Together, these must adequately mesh with reality. The role of psychology would then be an over-compensation so that the tentative but otherwise valid common knowledge of society is seen as imbued with a degree of the absolute. To a degree this is functional; and, usually, held with some degree of ambiguity. Thus, with a degree of success of the elaborated picture there is a natural tendency to assume completeness. However, there is truly no way to demonstrate this completeness because such a demonstration would depend on another, larger, picture. Even within the western intellectual traditions (pictures) there is serious doubt—the intrinsic limitations of empiricism (e.g. Hume, Russell) and rationalism (e.g. Kant, Gödel)—regarding completeness. There is, however, a picture that casts doubt that possession of a complete paradigm / picture of the world is an ideal. It is the view of the community of life as an open community in an open universe. Our presence in the universe is an affirmation that an anchor in completeness is unnecessary; the openness affirms that ‘incompleteness’ is not a deficiency but may be properly taken as positive, as an opportunity
The second part to Thilly’s claim must be that there are no other complete systems of thought. That is true. However, there may well be other systems that have depths unfathomed by the West—see the introduction to Dictionary of Asian Philosophers, St. Elmo Nauman, Jr., 1978—just as Western science is in some ways far in advance of other systems
The open picture is a view that disaffirms the completeness of Western thought and presents to the West a place in the universe that is a positive opportunity—it is a view of opportunity and promise rather than gloom. It is not a cultural relativism. It assigns different strengths to different cultures, it validates the different cultures and it allows for cultural ascendance. Such ascendance, however, is not obtained by proclamation
In Journey in Being, I provide a positive picture where thought is not something that aspires to be complete within itself. Rather, thought and being move in relation to each other. Journey in Being provides an open picture. It also suggests the possibility of completeness of being in the sense of ‘Being = universe’ rather than in the sense of completeness of any given being or thought. That, however, is presented as a necessity rather than as an intrinsically ideal or joyful—or joyless—event or condition. Joy and other states are found in the contemplation and living out of every day life—and that includes the remote and ultimate as much as the present
There are many other sources—including many that may be implicit or forgotten
I have referred to the 15th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for many major and minor points
For recent philosophy, I have referred to Research Guide to Philosophy, by T. N. Tice and T. P. Slavens, 1983, and One Hundred Twentieth-Century Philosophers, by Stuart Brown, Diane Collinson and Robert Wilkinson, 1998
The temperamentalist thesis
(From A History of Philosophy, Thilly)
…is the thesis that personal and cultural factors are important in philosophical thought—in addition to intellectual, logical and philosophical ones
The two types of temperament—according to William James:
Rationalist (‘tender-minded’): intellectualistic, idealistic, optimistic, religious, free-willist, monistic and dogmatic (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hegel)
Empiricist (‘tough-minded): sensationalistic, materialistic, pessimistic, irreligious (deterministic, perhaps), pluralistic and skeptical (Democritus, Hobbes, Bacon, Hume)
Of course: all philosophy is rational in its use of criticism; no philosopher is a pure temperament; some philosophers—Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley—straddle the classification; and, this simple scheme of classification does not exhaust the possibilities for precision, dimensionality or completeness
The first edition
This history of Western philosophy began as an endeavor to provide myself with a coherent picture of philosophy. The following brief paragraphs define the aims
What is significant about the historical approach to philosophy? A good history of philosophy, whatever its shortcomings, will, among other things, give the reader a perspective on philosophy: philosophy as in-process, the relations of philosophy to life and to the other academic disciplines, show how the attempt to understand the world must introduce radical elements of novelty. As a consequence of the radical novelty, systems of metaphysics are relative to one-another. Views that eschew radical metaphysics are, therefore, based in a closed view of knowledge and the world. In the open view, metaphysics is at once serious and play
A good history of philosophy is a contribution to philosophy. It is a contribution to the understanding of the nature of philosophy—the study, description and demarcation of philosophy is philosophy. And, a good history provides an environment that enhances the quality of action. History of philosophy provides an environment for the conduct of philosophy
The restriction to Western philosophy
The restriction to Western philosophy is practical. First, is my desire to understand a tradition. To include other thought would have been a diluting influence
Having obtained an adequate understanding of Western philosophy and thought, the next step is a placement and broadening of that thought. Both these objectives can be accomplished by, as one way, the parallel study of Western and non-western systems. And, as stated above, ‘there may well be other systems that have depths unfathomed by the West.’ Perhaps what has been accomplished in the West by way of empiricism is complemented in other systems by placement in the universal. That statement is of course both polarized and a simplification
My writing includes, elsewhere, considerations of other systems. When occasion arises and time permits, I will strengthen those other writings and attempt a mesh of the following systems: Western, Eastern and native
The second edition
The changes in the sections on Greek, Medieval and Modern philosophy have not undergone significant revision but there are numerous minor changes
The following sections are completely new as of January 2002. The source for a number of these sections was One Hundred Twentieth-Century Philosophers, by Stuart Brown, Diane Collinson and Robert Wilkinson, 1998
Chapter 1—The Periods And Main Influences. Chapter 2—The Recent Period: Late 19th To 21st Century. Chapter 6—The Future. Chapter 7—Transcendental and Real Logic
Chapter 6—The Future is a discussion of trends and possibilities and is not intended to be predictive; The Future has the following sections
Philosophical nihilism considers the trend in which it is considered to be problematic to make positive statements in philosophy. Some of the influences or forces that resulted in this trend and the related conceptions of philosophy and the role of philosophy are discussed in Influences on recent philosophy and subsequent sections including The Effect on Philosophy
The obligations and needs of academic philosophy considers some of the functions that academic philosophy undertakes. It is not suggested that these functions are necessary although there is some degree of obligation that are felt by academic philosophers in virtue of the social and economic environment of the university
The possibilities of philosophy in the Western and other academic traditions considers the possibilities of philosophy from the point of view of its heritage as an intellectual pursuit. The theme is elaborated in the following sub-sections: Ways of Philosophical Understanding, Ways that are unique to philosophy, Further considerations
A Concept Of Philosophy synthesizes and broadens previous conceptions of philosophy
Journey in Being considers an endeavor that results from a synthesis of the possibilities of philosophy and the potential of being. This endeavor is taken up in the author’s website of the same name: Journey in Being
The final section of Chapter 6—The Future, True Philosophy, considers an extension of the idea of philosophy, in light of Journey in Being to action and to the ‘forward’ motion of civilization
The final chapter, Transcendental and Real Logic, was added June 2004
Possibilities for a third edition
Integrate with History
Show the evolution of thought
The latest thought is not always the peak of thought; it may be concerned with some local issue or it may be a peak in some specific direction: identify peaks of thought and action
Identify and develop the History of Philosophy as progressing toward the Transcendental Logic; what possibilities does that logic have as instructive and as ultimate
Combine history of philosophy with philosophy as in Journey in Being (Essay | Site.) Note that these references contain significant conceptualizations of philosophy and (its) history
Incorporate Indian and other philosophies; incorporate ‘ethnographic’ studies of metaphysical systems where ‘metaphysics’ is interpreted informally (‘informal’ does not imply ‘inferior’)
1 THE PERIODS AND MAIN INFLUENCES
In the following table, a philosopher, school or temperament—e.g. rationalism—is directly influenced by the ones above it
|
PERIOD |
RATIONALIST |
EMPIRICIST |
||
|
700 BC |
Pre Socratic Philosophy |
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|
600 BC |
Parmenides (philosopher of permanence) |
Democritus (atomism) |
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|
400 BC |
Socrates |
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|
Plato |
Aristotle |
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|
300 BC |
|
Epicurus: Materialism |
Cynicism |
Skepticism (to 200 AD); Stoicism |
|
Christ |
|
|
||
|
300 AD |
|
|
||
|
500 AD |
Neo-Platonism; St. Augustine, Boethius |
|
||
|
800 AD |
Medieval Philosophy; Johannes Scotus Erigena |
|
||
|
1100 AD |
Scholasticism |
|
||
|
1200 AD |
Aquinas; Duns Scotus |
|
||
|
1400 AD |
William of Occam; Renaissance Platonism |
|
||
|
1600 AD |
Rationalism; Descartes; Spinoza |
Empiricism; Bacon; Hobbes; Locke |
||
|
1700 AD |
Leibniz |
Berkeley; Hume |
||
|
1800 AD |
Kant; Hegel |
J.S. Mill |
||
|
Late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries |
Neo-Kantianism; Neo-Hegelianism; Marxism; Existentialism; Neo-Thomism; Post-modernism… |
Analytic and Linguistic Philosophy |
||
2 GREEK PHILOSOPHY
2.1 RELIGIOUS ORIGINS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
Two aspects of Greek religion are selected for their significance:
Anthropomorphic religion of the gods of Olympus—made familiar by the Homeric epics…Gods exhibit, on a most majestic scale, human passions and concern for the affairs of human beings. The Homeric conception of the Gods as subject to fate may have contributed to the attitude of mind that produced the first Greek philosophy: the Milesian natural philosophy of the sixth century BCE
Religious revival of sixth century BCE—associated with mystery cults. Mystery cults—local forms of gods: symbolizing individualism…the Dionysian cults join with the Orphic: doctrine of the immortal soul and its transmigration…perhaps incline toward philosophy—especially metaphysics—and especially to religiously oriented philosophies of Pythagoreans, of Parmenides and of Heraclitus
2.2 GREEK PHILOSOPHY: ORIGINS
2.2.1 Early Greek philosophy
2.2.1.1 Problem of Substance (Metaphysics)—and The Philosophy of Nature
Thales c. (624—550 BCE): water is original stuff (possible observation: nourishment, heat, seed, contain moisture), out of water everything comes –but Thales does not indicate how
Anaximander c. (611—547 BCE): the essence or principle of things is the infinite—a mixture, intermediate between observable elements, from which things arise by separation; moisture leads to living things…All animals and humans were originally a fish. All return to the primal mass to be produced anew
Cosmology: physical: sphere of fire leads to eternal motion: separation: hot, cold leads to hot, surrounds cold on a sphere of flame: heat: cold leads to moisture leads to air: fire leads to rings with holes: heavenly bodies: sun (farthest), moon, planets
Anaximines (588—524 BCE): first principle is definite: air; it is infinite. From air all things arise by rarefaction and condensation—a scientific observation
These three philosophers—Thales, Anaximander and Anaximines, of Miletus, represent advance from qualitative-subjective to quantitative-scientific explanation of modes of emergence of being from a primary substance
Pythagorean School: Pythagoras of Samos (c. 575—500 BCE). The Pythagorean School was concerned less with substance than with the form and relation of things. Numbers are the principles of things—number mysticism. Origin, in astronomy, of the dual: systematic, fixed stellar system and chaotic, dynamic—terrestrial—world. Ethics, too, rooted in number-mysticism
2.2.1.2 Problem of change
…arises from the intuition that something from nothing is impossible
Problem of Change:
Qualitative Theories of Change: Empedocles (495—435 BCE) and Anaxogoras (500—428 BCE). Quantitative theories: Atomism: transition from teleology to mechanism: Leucippus and Democritus (460—370 BCE). Metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, theory of knowledge, theology and ethics
Heraclitus (535—475 BCE) born Ephesus: (1) Fire and universal flux, (2) opposites and their union, (3) harmony and the law
Eleatic School: Xenophanes (570—480 BCE) Colophon, precursor, first basis of skepticism in Greek thought, Parmenides—founder of philosophy of permanence—change is relative: combination and separation (becoming)…paradoxes of being and nonbeing, Zeno (of the paradoxes) (490—430 BCE) and Melisus of Samos are defenders of the doctrine
Democritus: same concept in atomic form. Metaphysics, ontology: space: nonbeing exists; motion in space: atomic. Psychology, theory of knowledge: information from object to sentient: propagation of actions through toms in air, soul atoms: the finest in-between body atoms
2.2.2 Age of sophists
The development of Greek thought led to a spirit of free inquiry in poetry: Aeschylus (525—456 BCE), Sophocles (490=405 BCE), Euripedes (480—406 BCE); history: Thucydides (b. 471 BCE); medicine: Hippocrates (b. 460 BCE). The construction of philosophical systems ceases temporarily; the existing schools continue to be taught and some turn attention to natural-scientific investigation… The resulting individualism made an invaluable contribution to Greek thought but led, finally, to an exaggerated intellectual and ethical subjectivism. The Sophists who were originally well-regarded came gradually to be a term of reproach partly owing to the radicalism of the later schools: their subjectivism, relativism and nihilism. For Protagoras, all opinions are true (though some ‘better’); for Gorgias none are true (there is nothing; even if there were something we could not know it; if we could know it we could not communicate it). ‘Sophists exaggerated the differences in human judgments and ignored the common elements; laid too much stress on the illusoriness of the senses… Nevertheless, their criticisms of knowledge made necessary a profounder study of the nature of knowledge.’
2.2.3 Socrates and the Socratic schools
Socrates (469—399 BCE), Xenophon: ‘The Socratic problem was to meet the challenge of sophistry, which, in undermining knowledge, threatened the foundations of morality and state.’ Socratic method: includes the elements: (1) skeptical, (2) conventional, (3) conceptual or definitional, (4) empirical or inductive, (5) deductive… a ‘dialectical’ process for improving understanding of a subject
The treatment to this point has been more detailed since (1) I am relatively ignorant of it, and (2) a detailed study of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle—a natural study of the tree supreme Greek philosophers—is left for later
Ethics: knowledge is the highest good. Knowledge is virtue
2.3 GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE AGE OF GREAT SYSTEMS
2.3.1 Plato (427—347 BCE)
The method of Socrates suggested: a system of thought to be worked out. Plato’s system incorporates and transforms the doctrines of his predecessors…The problems suggested are the intimate ones: meaning of human life, human knowledge, human conduct, human institutions which depend for an adequate answer upon the study, also, of their interrelations and their place as parts of the larger Ontological Question (and indeed are not comprehensible without an ontology—at least ‘an implicit’ one). Plato developed such a system
The division of philosophy into (1) logic or dialectic (including theory of knowledge), (2) metaphysics (including physics and psychology), and (3)ethics…is implied in Plato’s work
Dialectic and Theory of Knowledge: Plato recognizes the importance of the problem of knowledge
Sense perception, opinion cannot lead to genuine knowledge
Eros, the love of truth, is necessary for advance…it arouses the contemplation of beautiful ideas…dialectic is the art of thinking in concepts: the essential object of thought
Ideas do not have origin in experience…we approach the world with ideals: truth, beauty, the good; in addition to the value-concepts. Plato also came to regard mathematical concepts and certain logical notions, or categories, such as being and nonbeing, identity and difference, unity and plurality, as inborn, or a priori
Therefore, conceptual knowledge is the only genuine knowledge
What guarantee, then, is there of the truth of conceptual knowledge? (Plato’s answer is based on the metaphysics of certain of his predecessors, especially Parmenides: thought and being are identical; Parmenides speaks of or indicates the world of logical thought as true, and the world of sense perception as illusion.)
For Plato, knowledge is correspondence of thought and reality (or being)—knowledge must have an object. If the concept is to have value as knowledge, something real must correspond to it—realities must exist corresponding to all our universal ideas: there must be, for instance, pure absolute beauty corresponding to the concept of beauty…conceptual knowledge presupposes the reality of a corresponding ideal or abstract objects…Or, in contrast to the transient world of the senses, which is mere appearance, illusion: true being is unchangeable, eternal. Conceptual thought alone can grasp eternal and changeless being: it knows that which is, that which persists, that which remains one and the same in all diversity, namely the essential forms of things
2.3.1.1 Plato’s theory of knowledge:
Conjecture Mere sense impression Guess (opinion)
Belief Sensible objects Sense perception (opinion)
Understanding Mathematical and other Hypothesis (and education)
Rational (insight) Forms or ideas Dialectic
Hierarchy of the Sciences: Arithmetic; geometry; astronomy; harmonies; dialectic—the coping stone of the sciences
Dialectic knowledge considers forms as constituting a systematic unity—as related to the form of the Good; rests on categorical first principles—not hypothesis
2.3.1.2 Doctrine of ideas: (Plato’s most original philosophical achievement.)
According to Plato, universals exist. Corresponding to the concept of horse, as example, there is a universal or ideal entity; it is the idea that is known in conceptual knowledge, reason
The variety of ideas or forms is endless: there are ideas of things, relations, qualities, actions and values…(these are some classes of ideas): of tables and chairs; of smallness, greatness, likeness; of colors and tones; of health, rest and motion; of beauty, truth and goodness…The ideas or archetypes constitute a well-ordered world or rational cosmos; arranged in a connected, organic unity, a logical order subsumed under the highest idea: the Good
The Good, the supreme idea, the logos or cosmic purpose, the unity of pluralities, the source of all ideas…is also the truly real. The function of philosophy, by exercise of reason, is to understand this inner, interconnected order of the universe and to conceive its essence by logical thought
Outline of the doctrine: (1) The forms, or ideas defined as objects corresponding to abstract concepts are real entities. The Platonic form is the reification or entificiation of the Socratic concept; (2) there are a variety of forms; (3) they belong to a realm of abstract entities, a ‘heaven of ideas’, separate from their concrete exemplification in time and space (the Platonic dualism); (4) form is archetype, particular: copy; form is superior: forms are real, particulars mere appearances; (5) the forms are neither mental—they exist independently of any knowing mind, even God’s—nor physical: yet real; (forms are non-temporal and non-spatial: eternal and immutable); (7) they are logically connected in a ‘communicative’ hierarchy in which the supreme form is the Good; (8) forms are apprehended by reason, not sense; (9) the relation between a particular and a form which it exemplifies is ‘participation’; all particulars with a common predicate participate in the corresponding form; a particular may participate simultaneously in a plurality of forms or successively (in change) in a succession of forms
2.3.1.3 Philosophy of nature
Matter (the second principle, diametrically opposed to the idea) is the raw material upon which the idea is impressed. Dualism. Matter is perishable, imperfect, unreal, nonbeing
2.3.1.4 Cosmology
The Demiurge or Creator (more an architect than a creator) fashions the world out of matter in the patterns of the ideal world…The four factors in creation enumerated in Timmaeus are (1) the Demiurge or God: the active principle or dynamic cause of the world; (2) the pattern as archetype of the world; (3) the receptacle: the locus and matrix of creation; matter; brute fact; source of indeterminacy and evil; and (4) the form of the Good
Plato’s cosmology, garbed in myth: an attempt to identify the causes in (and creation of) the actual world (interpretation)
The influence of Plato’s doctrine of ideas, and cosmology is enormous—upon Aristotle: the four causes of Aristotle are the four factors in Plato’s cosmology… and in Christian (medieval) thought…(argument from design)
2.3.1.5 Psychology
‘Faculty’ psychology: (1) rational faculty (mind), (2) spirited faculty (emotions…it is doubtful that Plato considered will and free choice), (3) appetitive faculty: desire, motivation
2.3.1.6 Doctrine of immortality
(From psychology: the part of the individual, which ‘knows’ sense impression and opinion, is the body; the soul knows or has genuine knowledge or science. Because the soul possesses apprehension of ideas prior to its contact with the world: all knowledge is reminiscence and all learning is awakening.)
Arguments for Immortality: Epistemological: (1) The soul has contemplated eternal ideas and only like can know like: (2) from the doctrine of reminiscences. Metaphysical: (1) From the simplicity of the soul: it cannot be produced by composition or destroyed by disintegration, (2) from vitality: as the source of its own motion, the soul is eternal (a survival of atomistic conceptions) (first cause argument, perhaps)…and various other metaphysical arguments. Moral and Valuational: from the superiority and dignity of the soul: it must survive the body; a variation: everything is destroyed by its ‘connatural’ evil; the evils of the soul (its worst vices: injustice, etc.) do not destroy the soul—hence its indestructibility. (There are hardly any arguments advanced in the literature on immortality which are not foreshadowed by Plato.)
2.3.1.7 Ethics
Ethical being is one in which the superior principles dominate: rationality. Wisdom: reason over other impulses of the soul; bravery: reason over emotion (fear, pain); temperance: reason over desire…Justice: wisdom with bravery and temperance
2.3.1.8 Politics
Plato’s theory of the state (in The Republic) is based on his ethics. Social life is a means to perfection of individuals. Laws result from imperfection of individuals which leads to the state. Classes in society result from functions of the soul; harmony among the classes results from functional relations of the healthy soul:
Ruling class: those embodying reason (philosophers)
Warriors: the spirited. Their function: defense
Agriculturists, workers, merchants, artisans: lower appetites. Their function: production
Justice in state: each class functions according to its character
The ideal society is a family: Plato opposes monogamy, private property, recommends for the two upper castes—who are to be supported by workers—communism and common possession of wives and children…Plato recommends: eugenic supervision of marriages and births, exposure of weak children, compulsory state education, education of women for war and government, and censorship
The state is an educational institution, the instrument of civilization; its foundation must be the highest kind of knowledge which is philosophy. The education of the children of higher classes will follow a definite plan: identical for the sexes during the first twenty years: myths selected for ethicality, gymnastics for body and spirit; poetry, music –harmony, beauty, proportion and philosophical thought; reading, writing; mathematics which tends to draw the mind from the concrete and sensuous to the abstract and real. At 20, superior young men will be selected and shall integrate their learning. At 30, those who show greatest ability in studies, military officers, etc., will study dialectic for five years. Then they will be put to test as soldiers, militias and in subordinate civic offices. Starting at the age of fifty, the demonstrably worthy will study philosophy until their turns come to administer the offices for their country’s sake
2.3.2 Aristotle (384—322 BCE)
Aristotle’s Problems: Plato’s system had difficulties and inconsistencies to be overcome; it was left to Aristotle to reconstruct it in a more consistent and scientific manner. First, the problem of transcendent ideas and the degradation of the world of experience to mere appearance and, second, the concept of the secondary Platonic element matter and the gulf between form and matter provided difficulties. Other difficulties: changing forms, immortal souls in human bodies, makeshift nature of the Demiurge
Aristotle claims the changeless eternal forms but as inherent, immanent in things: form and matter are eternally together…Because of his realism, Aristotle studied science sympathetically, his theories always in close touch with it and he encouraged the natural sciences
2.3.2.1 Extant writings
1. Logic: Organon includes: Categories, De Interpretationae, Prior and Posterior Analytics (includes induction and the syllogism), Topics, Sophistic Fallacies (Topics are largely concerned with dialectic reasoning)
2. Natural sciences: Physics (8 books); On the Heavens (4); Origin and Decay (2); Meteorology (4); Cosmology (spurious), Botany (spurious); History of Animals (10); On the Parts of Animals (4); On the Progression of Animals; On the Origin of Animals (5); On the Locomotion of Animals (spurious)
3. Psychology: On the Soul (3, treating sensation, memory, imagination, thought); Parva Naturalia (including De Memoria et Reminiscentia, On Dreams…)
4. Metaphysics: (14) ‘First Philosophy’
5. Ethics: Nicomachean Ethics (10) Eudaemian Ethics (revision of Nicomachean by Eudaemas); Magna Moralia, the Greater Ethics (compilation of the two proceeding)
6. Politics: (8, apparently incomplete); On the Constitution of Athens (discovered 1890) (the work on economics attributed to Aristotle is not authentic)
7. Rhetoric: Rhetoric to Theodectes (based on Aristotle’s teachings); Rhetoric to Alexander (spurious); Rhetoric (3, the third is of doubtful authenticity), Poetics (part of 2 books extant; concerned with principle forms of literature: epic, tragic, comic)
2.3.2.2 Philosophy and the sciences
The universe is an ideal world, an organic whole of interrelated parts, a system of eternal, unchangeable ideas or forms: these are the ultimate essences and causes…ideas are, in contrast to Plato, immanent in the world giving it form and life…experience is real—the basis of knowledge; starting from experience we rise to the science of ultimate principles
Genuine knowledge is not merely factual but consists in knowing the reasons and causes of things. Philosophy or science in the broad sense is reasoned knowledge. Metaphysics is concerned with being qua being
Aristotle’s classification of sciences: (1) Logic, the method of inquiry, (2) theoretical sciences (mathematics, physics, biology, psychology and first philosophy or metaphysics), (3) practical sciences in which knowledge is a means to conduct (ethics, politics), (4) productive sciences in which knowledge is subordinate to artistic creation (poetics)
2.3.2.3 Logic
The creation of the science of logic is in a certain sense Aristotle’s most amazing achievement (there is no parallel case in intellectual history where a single thinker has brought to completion a new science). (There have been only two revolts against the Logic in recent times—Francis Bacon’s advocacy of inductive method and the nineteenth-twentieth century revolution in mathematical logic.)
Function: method of obtaining logic: the science of sciences
Theme: analysis of form and content of thought. Scientific truth is characterized by strict necessity: to establish a scientific proposition it must be proved that it could not possibly be otherwise
Demonstration: the form of thought: propositions from propositions: the syllogism
Intuition or induction: establishment of primary propositions. Intuition is the apprehension of the universal element in the particular: or induction
Content: the doctrine of the categories (also part of his metaphysics): categories are the fundamental, indivisible concepts of thought: the most fundamental and universal predicates that can be affirmed of anything, not mere forms of thought or language but also predicates of reality…the ten categories (1) what (e.g., man: substance), (2) how it is constituted (e.g., white: quality), (3) how large (quantity), (4) relation (double, greater…), (5) where (space), (6) when (time), (7) posture, (8) condition (e.g., armed: state), (9) activity (what it does), (10) what it suffers (what is done to it)
2.3.2.4 Metaphysics
Substance (that which exists), abstractly defined in metaphysics, is a key concept…and is in sharp contrast to the Platonic notion. In rejecting the Platonic theory of ideas, Aristotle offers two broad criticisms (seven actual items): (1) ideas, though intended to explain the nature of things, are not adequate to do so, and (1) the relation between things and ideas is inexplicable (and even somewhat contradictory leading to a regress: the idea of the relation, the idea of the idea of…)
In contrast to Plato who held that things were incomplete copies of uni