Initiation into Philosophy

CARTESIAN INFLUENCE.--Nearly all the seventeenth century was Cartesian, and in the general sense of the word, not only as supporters of the method of evidence, but as adherents...

DESCARTES.--The seventeenth century, which was the greatest philosophic century of modern times and perhaps of any time, began with Rene Descartes. Descartes, born at La Haye in...

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY AND MORALITY.--Christianity spread through the Empire by the propaganda of the Apostles, and more especially St. Paul, from about the year 40. Its success w...

FICHTE.--Fichte, embarrassed by what remained of experience in the ideas of Kant, by the part, restricted though it was, which Kant left to things in the external world, complet...

THE FREEDOM OF PHILOSOPHY: POMPONAZZO.--The freedom and even the audacity of philosophy rapidly increased. Learned and convinced Aristotelians were bent, either from sheer love...

LAROMIGUIERE: ROYER-COLLARD.--Emerging from the school of Condillac, France saw Laromiguiere who was a sort of softened Condillac, less trenchant, and not insensible to the infl...

KNOWLEDGE.--Kant, born at Koenigsberg in 1724, was professor there all his life and died there in 1804. Nothing happened to him except the possession of genius. He had commenced...

DOGMA.--After the invasion of the barbarians, philosophy, like literature, sought refuge in monasteries and in the schools which prelates instituted and maintained near them. Bu...

ARISTOTLE AND THE CHURCH.--From the thirteenth century, Aristotle, completely known and translated into Latin, was adopted by the Church and became in some sort its lay vicar. H...

PLATO A DISCIPLE OF SOCRATES.--Plato, like Xenophon, was a pupil of Socrates, but Xenophon only wanted to be the clerk of Socrates; and Plato, as an enthusiastic disciple, was a...

PHILOSOPHY.--The aim of philosophy is to seek the explanation of all things: the quest is for the first _causes_ of everything, and also _how_ all things are, and finally _why_,...

BERKELEY.--To the "sensualist" Locke succeeded Berkeley, the unrestrained "idealist," like him an Englishman. He began to write when very young, continued to write until he was...

DECADENCE OF SCHOLASTICISM.--The fourteenth century dated the decadence of scholasticism, but saw little new. "Realism" was generally abandoned, and the field was swept by "nomi...

LOCKE.--Locke, very learned in various sciences--physics, chemistry, medicine, often associated with politics, receiving enlightenment from life, from frequent travels, from fri...

THE SCHOOL OF PLATO; THEOPHRASTUS.--The school of Plato (not regarding Aristotle as belonging entirely to that school) was continued by Speusippus, Polemo, Xenocrates, Crates, a...

MORAL PHILOSOPHY.--Continuing to feel the strong impulse which it had received from Socrates, philosophy was now for a long while to be almost exclusively moral philosophy. Only...

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES.--Of Socrates nothing is known except that he was born at Athens, that he held many public discussions with all and sundry in the streets of Athens, a...

ALEXANDRINISM.--Amid all this, metaphysics--namely, the effort to comprehend the universe--appears somewhat at a discount. It enjoyed a renaissance in the third century of our e...

THE TWO TENDENCIES.--As might be expected to happen, and as always happens, the multiplicity of sects brought about two tendencies, one consisting in selecting somewhat arbitrar...

ARISTOTLE, PUPIL OF PLATO.--Aristotle of Stagira was a pupil of Plato, and he remembered it, as the best pupils do as a rule, in order to oppose him. For some years he was tutor...

DOCTRINES OF THE SOPHISTS.--The Sophists descend from Parmenides and Zeno of Elea; Gorgias was the disciple of the latter. By dint of thinking that all is semblance save the Sup...

THE LOGIC OF STOICISM.--Stoicism existed as a germ in the Cynic philosophy (and also in Socrates) as did Epicureanism in Aristippus. Zeno was the pupil of Crates. In extreme you...

VOLTAIRE; ROUSSEAU.--The French philosophy of the eighteenth century, fairly feeble it must be avowed, seemed as if dominated by the English philosophy, excepting Berkeley, but...

TRANSFORMISM AND EVOLUTION.--The great philosophic invention of the English of the nineteenth century has been the idea, based on a wide knowledge of natural history, that there...

It Is Fairly Accurate to Consider that from the Point of View of Philosophy, the Middle Ages Lasted until Descartes. Free-thinkers More or Less Disguised. Partisans of Reason Ap...

Philosophy is only an Interpreter of Dogma. When it is Declared Contrary to Dogma by the Authority of Religion, it is a Heresy. Orthodox and Heterodox Interpretations. Some Inde...