An Introduction to Philosophy

44. IS THE MATERIAL WORLD A MECHANISM?--So far we have concerned ourselves with certain leading problems touching the external world and the mind,--problems which seem to presen...

60. RATIONALISM.--As the content of a philosophical doctrine must be determined by the _initial assumptions_ which a philosopher makes and by the _method_ which he adopts in his...

35. IS THE MIND IN THE BODY?--There was a time, as we have seen in the last chapter (section 30), when it did not seem at all out of the way to think of the mind as in the body,...

I must warn the reader at the outset that the title of this chapter seems to promise a great deal more than he will find carried out in the chapter itself. To tell all that phil...

48. THE DOCTRINE OF REPRESENTATIVE PERCEPTION.--We have seen in Chapter II that it seems to the plain man abundantly evident that he really is surrounded by material things and...

23. WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT IT.--The plain man may admit that he is not ready to hazard a definition of space, but he is certainly not willing to admit that he is who...

88. BE PREPARED TO ENTER UPON A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT THINGS.--We have seen that reflective thought tries to analyze experience and to attain to a clear view of the elements tha...

83. THE PROMINENCE GIVEN TO THE SUBJECT.--When one reflects upon the number of lecture courses given every year at our universities and colleges on the history of philosophy, on...

30. PRIMITIVE NOTIONS OF MIND.--The soul or mind, that something to which we refer sensations and ideas of all sorts, is an object that men do not seem to know very clearly and...

40. IS IT CERTAIN THAT WE KNOW IT?--I suppose there is no man in his sober senses who seriously believes that no other mind than his own exists. There is, to be sure, an imagina...

15. SENSE AND IMAGINATION.--Every one distinguishes between things perceived and things only imagined. With open eyes I see the desk before me; with eyes closed, I can imagine i...

19. THINGS AND THEIR APPEARANCES.--We have seen in the last chapter that there is an external world and that it is given in our experience. There is an objective order, and we a...

7. COMMON THOUGHT.--Those who have given little attention to the study of the human mind are apt to suppose that, when the infant opens its eyes upon the new world of objects su...

12. HOW THE PLAIN MAN THINKS HE KNOWS THE WORLD.--As schoolboys we enjoyed Cicero's joke at the expense of the "minute philosophers." They denied the immortality of the soul; he...

80. THE QUESTION OF PRACTICAL UTILITY.--Why should men study philosophy? The question is a natural one, for man is a rational being, and when the worth of a thing is not at once...

27. TIME AS NECESSARY, INFINITE, AND INFINITELY DIVISIBLE.--Of course, we all know something about time; we know it as past, present, and future; we know it as divisible into pa...

52. REALISM.--The plain man is a realist. That is to say, he believes in a world which is not to be identified with his own ideas or those of any other mind. At the same time, a...

comment upon this chapter. The recommendations amount to this: that a man should be fair-minded and reasonable, free from partisanship, cautious, and able to suspend judgment wh...

71. COMMON SENSE ETHICS.--We may, if we choose, study the actions of men merely with a view to ascertaining what they are and describing them accurately. Something like this is...

54. THE MEANING OF THE WORDS.--In common life men distinguish between minds and material things, thus dividing the things, which taken together make up the world as we know it,...

materialist and the spiritualist maintain that there is in the universe but one kind of thing. Nevertheless, when we hear a man called a monist without qualification, we may, pe...

74. WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?--The reader has probably already remarked that in some of the preceding chapters the adjectives "metaphysical" and "philosophical" have been used as if...

In such books we are shown how terms represent things and classes of things or their attributes, and how we unite them into propositions or statements. It is indicated at length...

69. PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.--I think I have said enough in Chapter II (section 10) about what we mean when we speak of psychology as a natural science and as an independent d...

76. RELIGION AND REFLECTION.--A man may be through and through ethical in his thought and feeling, and yet know nothing of the science of ethics. He may be possessed of the fine...

78. THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND NON-PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES.--We have seen in the preceding chapters that certain of the sciences can scarcely be cultivated successfully in complete se...

in the "Meditations." In I, we have his sweeping doubt; in II, his doctrine as to the mind; in III, the existence of God is established; in VI, he gets around to the existence o...

(2) The name is a figurative expression, and must not be taken literally. The true relation between mental phenomena and physical is given in certain common experiences that hav...

Locke's argument proceeds, as we have seen, on the assumption that we perceive external things directly,--an assumption into which he slips unawares,--and yet he cannot allow th...

the External World," and "Sensations and 'Things,'" in my "System of Metaphysics." In that work the discussion of the distinction between the objective order of experience and t...

65. INTRODUCTORY: THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES.--I have said in the first chapter of this book (section 6) that there is quite a group of sciences that are regarded as belonging p...

Section 56. Professor Strong's volume, "Why the Mind has a Body" (N.Y., 1903), advocates a panpsychism much like that of Clifford. It is very clearly written, and with Clifford'...

It would be an excellent thing for the student, after he has read the above chapters, to take up Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," and read and analyze the argument of Antinomie...

(2) We have seen that Huxley and Clifford cast doubts upon the validity of the inference, but, nevertheless, made it. Professor Strong, in the work mentioned in the notes to the...

interactionism see James's "Psychology," Chapter V. I wish the student would, in reading it, bear in mind what is said in my chapter on "The Atomic Self," above referred to. The...

philosophy, and look over the accounts of the different systems referred to, he will see the justice of the position taken in the text, namely, that philosophy was formerly syno...

We have a good illustration of the fact that there may be parallel streams of philosophic thought (section 87) when we turn to the Stoics and the Epicureans. Zeno and Epicurus w...

regard himself as a "natural" realist (the word is employed by him). See his "Lectures on Metaphysics," VIII, where he develops his doctrine. He seems to teach, in spite of hims...

Standpoint," "System of Metaphysics," Chapter II. I call especial attention to the illustration of "the man in the cell" (pp. 18 ff.). It would be a good thing to read these pag...

their science and its relation to philosophy, see; Keynes's "Formal Logic" (London, 1894), Introduction; Hobhouse's "Theory of Knowledge" (London, 1896), Introduction; Aikins's...

extracts from the two chapters of Whewell's "Elements of Morality" referred to in the text, and read them with the class. It is significant of the weakness of Whewell's position...

several works on metaphysics may be misled by a certain superficial similarity that is apt to obtain among them. One sees the field mapped out into Ontology (the science of Bein...

the scope of psychology the following from Professor Baldwin: "The question of the relation of psychology to metaphysics, over which a fierce warfare has been waged in recent ye...

One can be brought to a vivid realization of the fact that the sciences proceed upon a basis of assumptions which they do not attempt to analyze and justify, if one will take so...

Section 46. For a definition of Fatalism, and a description of its difference from the scientific doctrine of Determinism, see Chapter XXXIII, "Fatalism, 'Freewill' and Determin...

88. Be prepared to enter upon a New Way of Looking at Things. 89. Be willing to consider Possibilities which at first strike one as Absurd. 90. Do not have too much Respect for...

With the chapters on Space and Time it would be well for the student to read Chapter XIV, "The Real World in Space and Time," where it is made clear why we have no hesitation in...

Section 22. See Chapter XXVI, "The World as Unperceived, and the 'Unknowable,'" where Spencer's doctrine is examined at length, and references are given. I think it is very impo...

II in Sir William Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics" a discussion of the utility of philosophy. It has a pleasant, old-fashioned flavor, and contains some good thoughts. What...

which the philosophy of religion has to deal by turning to my "System of Metaphysics" and reading the two chapters entitled "Of God," at the close of the book. It would be inter...

1. The Beginnings of Philosophy. 2. The Greek Philosophy at its Height. 3. Philosophy as a Guide to Life. 4. Philosophy in the Middle Ages. 5. The Modern Philosophy. 6. What Phi...

83. The Prominence given to the Subject. 84. The Especial Importance of Historical Studies to Reflective Thought. 85. The Value of Different Points of View. 86. Philosophy as Po...

35. Is the Mind in the Body? 36. The Doctrine of the Interactionist. 37. The Doctrine of the Parallelist. 38. In what Sense Mental Phenomena have a Time and Place. 39. Objection...

30. Primitive Notions of Mind. 31. The Mind as Immaterial. 32. Modern Common Sense Notions of the Mind. 33. The Psychologist and the Mind. 34. The Metaphysician and the Mind.