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A Critical History of Greek Philosophy A Critical History of Greek Philosophy W. T. Stace Project Gutenberg’s A Critical History of Greek Philoso- LONDON — BOMBAY — CALCUTTA — MADRAS phy, by W. T. Stace MELBOURNE This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with THE MACMILLAN COMPANY almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give NEW YORK — BOSTON — CHICAGO it away or DALLAS — SAN FRANCISCO re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd included TORONTO with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY Title: A Critical History of Greek Philosophy BY Author: W. T. Stace Release Date: August 12, 2010 [EBook #33411] W. T. STACE Language: English MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY *** 1920 Produced by Don Kostuch COPYRIGHT [Transcriber’s Notes] GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS This text is derived from a copy in the Ave Maria University BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. library, catalog number “B 171 .S8” {v} [End Transcriber’s Notes] PREFACE A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY This book contains the substance, and for the most part MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED the words, of a course of public lectures delivered during the first three are difficult in themselves, however clearly expressed. No months of amount of 1919. The original division into lectures has been dropped, explanation can ever render them anything but difficult to the matter the being more conveniently redivided into chapters. unsophisticated mind, and anything in the nature of “phi- losophy made The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was com- posed of easy” is only to be expected from quacks and charlatans. members of the general public, and not only of students. Greek philosophy is not, even now, antiquated. It is not For the most from the part they possessed no previous knowledge of philosophy. point of view of an antiquary or historian {vi} that its Hence this treasures are valuable. We are dealing here with living things, and not book, like the original lectures, assumes no previous special with mere knowledge, though it assumes, of course, a state of general dead things—not with the dry bones and debris of a bygone education age. And I in the reader. Technical philosophical terms are carefully have tried to lecture and write for living people, and not explained for mere when first introduced; and a special effort has been made fossil-grubbers. If I did not believe that there is to be found to put here, philosophical ideas in the clearest way possible. But it must in Greek philosophy, at least a measure of the truth, the be truth that remembered that many of the profoundest as well as the does not grow old, I would not waste five minutes of my most difficult life upon it. of human conceptions are to be found in Greek philosophy. “We do not,” says a popular modern writer, [Footnote 1] Such ideas “bring the young mind up against the few broad elemental questions the Arab mathematicians in Spain, or started with Roger that are the Bacon in questions of metaphysics .... We do not make it discuss, chemistry, or Sir Richard Owen in comparative anatomy correct it, .... It is time elucidate it. That was the way of the Greeks, and we wor- the educational powers began to realise that the questions ship that of divine people far too much to adopt their way. No, we metaphysics, the elements of philosophy, are, here and now lecture to our to be done young people about not philosophy but philosophers, we afresh in each mind .... What is wanted is philosophy, and put them not a through book after book, telling how other people have shallow smattering of the history of philosophy ... {vii} discussed these The proper questions. We avoid the questions of metaphysics, but we way to discuss metaphysics, like the proper way to discuss deliver mathematics semi-digested half views of the discussions of, and answers or chemistry, is to discuss the accumulated and digested to these product of human thought in such matters.” questions made by men of all sorts and qualities, in various remote [Footnote 1: H. G. Wells in “First and Last Things.”] languages and under conditions quite different from our Plausible words these, certain to seem conclusive to the own. It mob, is as if we began teaching arithmetic by long lectures upon notwithstanding that for one element of truth they contain the origin nine of of the Roman numerals, and then went on to the lives and untruth! The elements of truth are that our educational motives of system unwarrantably leaves unused the powerful weapon of oral philosophy, etc., they rest wholly upon a false parallel, and discussion—so involve forcibly wielded by the Greeks—and develops book knowl- a total failure to comprehend the nature of philosophic edge at the truth, and its expense of original thought. Though even here it must be fundamental difference from arithmetical, chemical, or remembered, physical truth. as regards the Greeks, (1) that if they studied the history If Eratosthenes thought the circumference of the earth to of be so much, philosophy but little, it was because there was then but whereas it has now been discovered to be so much, then the little later history of philosophy to study, and (2) that if anyone imag- ines that correct view simply cancels and renders nugatory the older view. the great Greek thinkers did not fully master the thought of their {viii} The one is correct, the other incorrect. We can ignore and predecessors before constructing their own systems, he is grievously forget the incorrect view altogether. But the development of mistaken, and (3) that in some cases the over-reliance on oral philosophy proceeds on quite other principles. Philosophi- cal truth is discussion—the opposite fault to ours—led to intellectual dishonesty, quibbling, ostentation, disregard of truth, shal- no sum in arithmetic to be totted up so that the answer is lowness, thus and absence of all principle; this was the case with the formally and finally correct or incorrect. Rather, the philo- Sophists. sophical As to the comparisons between arithmetic and philosophy, truth unfolds itself, factor by factor, in time, in the succes- chemistry and sive systems of philosophy, and it is only in the complete series to weld the various factors of the truth into a single organic that the whole complete truth is to be found. The system of Aristotle does or system, which should thus be the total result to date, is not simply another cancel and refute that of Plato. Spinoza does not simply question. Only one such attempt has ever been made, but abolish no one will pretend that it is possible to understand it without a thor- Descartes. Aristotle completes Plato, as his necessary com- ough plement. knowledge of all previous systems, a knowledge, in fact, of Spinoza does the same for Descartes. And so it is always. the The separate factors of the truth before they are thus combined calculation of Eratosthenes is simply wrong, and so we can into a afford to total result. Besides, that attempt, too, is now part of the forget it. But the systems of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, history Leibniz, of philosophy! etc., are all alike factors of the truth. They are as true now Hence any philosophical thinking which is not founded {ix} as they upon a were in their own times, though they are not, and never thorough study of the systems of the past will necessarily were, the be shallow whole truth. And therefore it is that they are not simply and worthless. And the notions that we can dispense with wrong, done this study, with, finished, ended, and that we cannot afford to forget and do everything out of our own heads, that everyone is them. to be his own Whether it is not possible to bring the many lights to a philosopher, and is competent to construct his own system single focus, in his own way—such ideas are utterly empty and hollow. Of these that it needs any enquiry, or that it is possible for anyone truths, indeed, to think we see a notable example in what the writer just quoted otherwise. Yet anyone who will take the trouble, not merely styles his superficially to dip into the history of philosophy, but thor- “metaphysic.” This so-called metaphysic is wholly based oughly to upon the submit himself to its discipline, will at least learn that this assumption that knowledge and its object exist, each on its is an own assumption, a very doubtful assumption, too, which no one account, external to one another, the one here, the other now has the there over right to foist upon the public without discussion as if it against it, and that knowledge is an “instrument” which in were an this axiomatic truth. He might even learn that it is a false external manner takes hold of its object and makes it its assumption. own. The And he will note, as an ominous sign, that the subjectivism very moment the word “instrument” is used here, all the which rest, permeates and directs the whole course of Mr. Wells’s thinking is including the invalidity of knowledge, follows as a matter of course. identical in character with that {x} subjectivism which was the Such assumption then—that knowledge is an “instrument”—our writer essential feature of the decay and downfall of the Greek philosophic makes, wholly uncritically, and without a shadow of right.
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