PHILOSOPHY Then and Now
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PHILOSOPHY Then and Now A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Ideas That Have Shaped Our Thinking by Zaine Ridling, Ph.D. Access Foundation 2001 Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought © Copyright 2001, Zaine Ridling All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. ii Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought Table of Contents Preface ................................................................................................................iii Introduction ........................................................................................................ vi PART I: HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY ....................................... 2 The Writing of the History of Philosophy ................................................... 3 Ways of Ordering the History ............................................................... 3 Factors in Writing the History of Philosophy ....................................... 5 Shifts in the Focus and Concern of Philosophy .................................... 7 Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy ........................................................ 9 The Pre-Socratic Philosophers................................................................ 9 Cosmology and the Metaphysic of Matter ......................................... 9 Monistic Cosmologies ...................................................................... 9 Pluralistic Cosmologies ................................................................. 14 Epistemology of Appearance ............................................................... 16 Metaphysic of Number ........................................................................ 17 Anthropology and Relativism .............................................................. 19 The Seminal Thinkers of Greek Philosophy ............................................. 21 Socrates ................................................................................................. 21 Plato ...................................................................................................... 23 Life .................................................................................................... 24 Philosophy ......................................................................................... 25 Aristotle ................................................................................................ 28 Philosophy ......................................................................................... 28 Disciples and Commentators ............................................................ 32 Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy ............................................................ 32 Stoics .................................................................................................... 33 Epicureans ............................................................................................ 35 Sceptics ................................................................................................. 36 Neo-Pythagoreans and Neoplatonists .................................................. 37 iii Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought Medieval Philosophy .................................................................................. 39 Early Medieval Philosophy .................................................................. 40 Augustine ........................................................................................... 41 Boethius ............................................................................................. 42 Greek Fathers of the Church and Erigena ........................................ 43 Anselm ............................................................................................... 44 Bernard of Clairvaux and Abelard .................................................... 45 Transition to Scholasticism ........................................................................ 47 Arabic Thought .................................................................................... 48 Jewish Thought .................................................................................... 49 The Age of the Schoolmen ......................................................................... 50 Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon .................................................. 50 William of Auvergne ............................................................................ 51 Bonaventure .......................................................................................... 52 Albertus Magnus .................................................................................. 53 Thomas Aquinas ................................................................................... 54 Averroists ............................................................................................. 56 Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages .......................................................... 57 Duns Scotus .......................................................................................... 58 William of Ockham .............................................................................. 59 Meister Eckhart .................................................................................... 60 Nicholas of Cusa .................................................................................. 61 Modern Philosophy .................................................................................... 62 The Renaissance and Early Modern Period ........................................ 62 Dominant Strands of Renaissance Philosophy .................................... 64 Political Theory ................................................................................. 65 Humanism ......................................................................................... 67 Philosophy of Nature ........................................................................ 70 Rise of Empiricism and Rationalism ................................................... 74 The Empiricism of Francis Bacon .................................................... 74 The Materialism of Thomas Hobbes ................................................ 75 Rationalism of Descartes .................................................................. 77 Rationalism of Spinoza and Leibniz ................................................. 81 Literary Forms and Sociological Conditions ....................................... 84 iv Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought The Enlightenment ..................................................................................... 86 Classical British Empiricism and Its Basic Tasks ............................... 87 Origin and Nature of Reason in Locke and Berkeley ...................... 88 Basic Science of Man in Hume ........................................................ 91 Nonepistemological Movements in the Enlightenment ...................... 92 Materialism and Scientific Discovery .............................................. 92 Social and Political Philosophy ........................................................ 93 Professionalization of Philosophy .................................................... 95 Critical Examination of Reason in Kant ............................................. 98 Literary Forms .................................................................................... 100 The 19th Century ...................................................................................... 101 German Idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel ............................ 102 Positivism and Social Theory in Comte, Mill, and Marx ................. 106 Independent and Irrationalist Movements ......................................... 110 The 20th Century ...................................................................................... 113 Individual Philosophies of Bergson, Dewey, and Whitehead .......... 114 Marxist Thought ................................................................................. 116 Analytic Philosophy ........................................................................... 117 Logical Positivism ........................................................................... 117 Linguistic Analysis ......................................................................... 120 Continental Philosophy ...................................................................... 121 Phenomenology of Husserl and Others .......................................... 122 Existentialism of Jaspers and Sartre ............................................... 123 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 125 Bibliography ............................................................................................. 127 v Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought PART II: WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS .................................134 Introduction ...............................................................................................135 Ancient and Medieval Schools ................................................................136 Aristotelianism ...................................................................................136 The