Philosophy

It is probable that those who seek after anything whatever, will either find it as they continue the search, will deny that it can be found and confess it to be out of reach, or will go on seeking it. Some have said, accordingly, in regard to the things sought in philosophy, that they have found the truth, while others have declared it impossible to find, and still others continue to seek it. Those who think that they have found it are those who are especially called Dogmatics, as for example, the Schools of Aristotle and Epicurus, the Stoics and some others. Those who have declared it impossible to find are Clitomachus, Carneades, with their respective followers, and other Academicians. Those who still seek it are the Sceptics. It appears therefore, reasonable to conclude that the three principal kinds of philosophy are the Dogmatic, the Academic, and the Sceptic. Others...

Philosophical Interpreters of the Universe, of the Creation and Constitution of the World. 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 , with what design, with a view to what, things are. That is why, taking "principle" in all the senses of the word, it has been called the science of first principles. Philosophy has always existed. Religions—all religions—are philosophies. They are indeed the most complete. But, apart from religions, men have sought the causes and principles of everything and endeavoured to acquire general ideas. These researches apart from religious dogmas in pagan antiquity are the only ones with which we are here to be concerned. THE IONIAN SCHOOL: THALES.—The Ionian School is the most ancient school of philosophy known. It dates back to the seventh century before...

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK LONDON, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HENRY JAMES JR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The present volume is an attempt to carry out a plan which William James is known to have formed several years before his death. In 1907 he collected reprints in an envelope which he inscribed with the title ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism’; and he also had duplicate sets of these reprints bound, under the same title, and deposited for the use of students in the general Harvard Library, and in the Philosophical Library in Emerson Hall. Two years later Professor James published The Meaning of Truth and A Pluralistic Universe , and inserted in these volumes several of the articles which he had intended to use in the ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism.’ Whether he would nevertheless have carried out his original plan, had he lived,...

Some people are subject to a certain delicacy of passion , which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosperous event, as well as a piercing grief when they meet with misfortune and adversity. Favours and good offices easily engage their friendship, while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure, but they are sensibly touched with contempt. People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent sorrows, than men of cool and sedate tempers. But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one who would not rather be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal; and when a person that has this sensibility of temper meets...

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. While the one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money. Their thinking is part of the business of writing. They may be recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating; again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their writing is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover paper. This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and...

Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge by D. Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Dunelm.) Fellow of the British Academy Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford London: Duckworth & Co. 3 Henrietta St. Covent Garden 1909 All rights reserved {v} Man has no deeper or wider interest than theology; none deeper, for however much he may change, he never loses his love of the many questions it covers; and none wider, for under whatever law he may live he never escapes from its spacious shade; nor does he ever find that it speaks to him in vain or uses a voice that fails to reach him. Once the present writer was talking with a friend who has equal fame as a statesman and a man of letters, and he said, 'Every day I live, Politics, which are affairs of Man and Time, interest me less, while Theology, which is an affair of God...

Aristotle{1} divides the blessings of life into three classes—those which come to us from without, those of the soul, and those of the body. Keeping nothing of this division but the number, I observe that the fundamental differences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes: {Footnote 1: Eth. Nichom ., I. 8.} (1) What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education. (2) What a man has: that is, property and possessions of every kind. (3) How a man stands in the estimation of others: by which is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellowmen, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. This is shown by their opinion of him; and their opinion is in...

B. A. (Cantab) M. A. (Pb.) Ph. D. (Munich). LONDON LUZAC & Co. 46, Great Russell Street W. C. 1908 Printed by E. J. BRILL.—LEIDEN (Holland). DEDICATION to Professor T. W. ARNOLD M. A. My dear Mr. Arnold , This little book is the first-fruit of that literary and philosophical training which I have been receiving from you for the last ten years, and as an expression of gratitude I beg to dedicate it to your name. You have always judged me liberally; I hope you will judge these pages in the same spirit. Your affectionate pupil Iqbal . The most remarkable feature of the character of the Persian people is their love of Metaphysical speculation. Yet the inquirer who approaches the extant literature of Persia expecting to find any comprehensive systems of thought, like those of Kapila or Kant, will have to turn back disappointed, though deeply impressed by...

There was a moment in the last century when the Gallican church hoped for a return of internal union and prosperity. This brief era of hope coincided almost exactly with the middle of the century. Voltaire was in exile at Berlin. The author of the Persian Letters and the Spirit of Laws was old and near his end. Rousseau was copying music in a garret. The Encyclopædia was looked for, but only as a literary project of some associated booksellers. The Jansenists, who had been so many in number and so firm in spirit five-and-twenty years earlier, had now sunk to a small minority of the French clergy. The great ecclesiastical body at length offered an unbroken front to its rivals, the great judicial bodies. A patriotic minister was indeed audacious enough to propose a tax upon ecclesiastical property, but the Church fought the battle and won. Troops had just...

It seems impossible to separate by any exact line the genuine writings of Plato from the spurious. The only external evidence to them which is of much value is that of Aristotle; for the Alexandrian catalogues of a century later include manifest forgeries. Even the value of the Aristotelian authority is a good deal impaired by the uncertainty concerning the date and authorship of the writings which are ascribed to him. And several of the citations of Aristotle omit the name of Plato, and some of them omit the name of the dialogue from which they are taken. Prior, however, to the enquiry about the writings of a particular author, general considerations which equally affect all evidence to the genuineness of ancient writings are the following: Shorter works are more likely to have been forged, or to have received an erroneous designation, than longer ones; and some kinds of composition,...

I have often wondered by what show of argument the accusers of Socrates could persuade the Athenians he had forfeited his life to the State. For though the crimes laid unto his charge were indeed great—“That he did not acknowledge the gods of the Republic; that he introduced new ones”—and, farther, “had debauched the youth;” yet none of these could, in the least, be proved against him. For, as to the first, “That he did not worship the deities which the Republic adored,” how could this be made out against him, since, instead of paying no homage to the gods of his country, he was frequently seen to assist in sacrificing to them, both in his own family and in the public temples?—perpetually worshipping them in the most public, solemn, and religious manner. What, in my opinion, gave his accusers a specious pretext for alleging against him that he introduced...

There is a curious impression to-day in the world of thought that Pragmatism is the most audacious of philosophic novelties, the most anarchical transvaluation of all respectable traditions. Sometimes it is pictured as an insurgence of emotion against logic, sometimes as an assault of theology upon the integrity of Pure Reason. One day it is described as the reckless theorizing of dilettanti whose knowledge of philosophy is too superficial to require refutation, the next as a transatlantic importation of the debasing slang of the Wild West. Abroad it is frequently denounced as an outbreak of the sordid commercialism of the Anglo-Saxon mind. All these ideas are mistaken. Pragmatism is neither a revolt against philosophy nor a revolution in philosophy, except in so far as it is an important evolution of philosophy. It is a collective name for the most modern solution of puzzles which have impeded philosophical progress from time...

I well remember the interest excited among the learned Hindus of Calcutta by the publication of the Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha of Mádhava Áchárya in the Bibliotheca Indica in 1858. It was originally edited by Paṇḍit Íśvarachandra Vidyáságara, but a subsequent edition, with no important alterations, was published in 1872 by Paṇḍit Táránátha Tarkaváchaspati. The work had been used by Wilson in his "Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus" (first published in the Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi., Calcutta, 1828); but it does not appear to have been ever much known in India. MS. copies of it are very scarce; and those found in the North of India, as far as I have had an opportunity of examining them, seem to be all derived from one copy, brought originally from the South, and therefore written in the Telugu character. Certain mistakes are found in all alike, and probably arose from some illegible...

Schopenhauer is one of the few philosophers who can be generally understood without a commentary. All his theories claim to be drawn direct from the facts, to be suggested by observation, and to interpret the world as it is; and whatever view he takes, he is constant in his appeal to the experience of common life. This characteristic endows his style with a freshness and vigor which would be difficult to match in the philosophical writing of any country, and impossible in that of Germany. If it were asked whether there were any circumstances apart from heredity, to which he owed his mental habit, the answer might be found in the abnormal character of his early education, his acquaintance with the world rather than with books, the extensive travels of his boyhood, his ardent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and without regard to the emoluments and endowments of...

  Published by THE VEDANTA SOCIETY OF SAN FRANCISCO 2963 Webster Street San Francisco, California U. S. A. Copyright, 1921, by Vedanta Society of S. F. THE INNER CONSCIOUSNESS How to Awaken and Direct It In theoretical as well as applied psychology no term is more misleading, or confusing than the term consciousness. We use the term often in our conversation; we come across it in our study; but when we are asked to define it properly, to explain its significance, its meaning, or the idea for which that word stands, we are unable to do so. And that is because there are so many varied ideas concerning consciousness. There are so many aspects of consciousness, there are so many states of consciousness that we get mixed up—that is, we confuse one with the other. So we must know thoroughly the true significance of the term. Then we can make...

It seems impossible to separate by any exact line the genuine writings of Plato from the spurious. The only external evidence to them which is of much value is that of Aristotle; for the Alexandrian catalogues of a century later include manifest forgeries. Even the value of the Aristotelian authority is a good deal impaired by the uncertainty concerning the date and authorship of the writings which are ascribed to him. And several of the citations of Aristotle omit the name of Plato, and some of them omit the name of the dialogue from which they are taken. Prior, however, to the enquiry about the writings of a particular author, general considerations which equally affect all evidence to the genuineness of ancient writings are the following: Shorter works are more likely to have been forged, or to have received an erroneous designation, than longer ones; and some kinds of composition,...

In the fifth part of Ludwig Traube's Palaeographische Forschungen , (which I had the honor of publishing after that great scholar's death) [1] evidence was presented for Traube's apparently certain discovery of the very handwriting of John the Scot. In manuscripts of Reims, of Laon, and of Bamberg, he had observed certain marginal notes which were neither omitted sections nor glosses, but rather the author's own amplifications and embellishments of his work. Johannes had made such additions to his De Divisione Naturae in the Reims manuscript, and they all appear in that of Bamberg. In the latter manuscript there are fresh additions—or enlargements as I shall call them in the present paper—which have similarly been absorbed into the text in two manuscripts now in Paris. We thus have, in an interesting series, the author's successive recensions of his work. One of the shorter forms is the basis of the text...

Confucius was born in the year 550 b.c. , [1] in the land of Lu, in a small village, situated in the western part of the modern province of Shantung. His name was K'ung Ch'iu, and his style (corresponding to our Christian name) was Chung-ni. His countrymen speak of him as K'ung Fu-tzu, the Master, or philosopher K'ung. This expression was altered into Confucius by the Jesuit missionaries who first carried his fame to Europe. Since the golden days of the Emperors Yao and Shun, the legendary founders of the Chinese Empire, nearly two thousand years had passed. Shun chose as his successor Yü, who had been his chief minister, a man whose devotion to duty was such that when engaged in draining the empire of the great flood—a task that took eight years to accomplish—he never entered his home till the work was done, although in the course of...

This book is the account of the life and activity of one who is living and acting. Herodotus tells us the Greeks had a proverb which forbade them to pronounce any man happy before he is dead. We may certainly take his warning to this extent,—that we should refrain from attempting to fix a philosopher's thought so long as he continues to think. Benedetto Croce has, it is true, presented his Philosophy of Mind in such "questionable shape," that it gives the student the impression of finality, the feeling that a doctrine which throughout the history of philosophy has been struggling for expression has now at last come to light. But this appearance of finality is due to a certain artistic power which Croce possesses in an eminent degree, the power of reliving the past and making history interpret life. Beneath all his systematization there is the germ of a...

The volume before us brings us at once to a period which, in the matter of time, lies a full generation behind us, but which is as foreign to the present generation in Germany as if it were quite a century old. And, still, it was the period of the preparation of Germany for the revolution of 1848, and all that has happened to us since is only a continuation of 1848, only a carrying out of the last will and testament of the revolution. Just as in France in the eighteenth, so in Germany in the nineteenth century, revolutionary philosophic conceptions introduced a breaking up of existing political conditions. But how different the two appear! The French were engaged in open fight with all recognized science, with the Church, frequently also with the State, their writings were published beyond the frontiers in Holland or in England, and they themselves...