History of Western Philosophy

The main doctrines to which the school remained constant throughout are concerned with cosmic determinism and human freedom. Zeno believed that there is no such thing as chance, and that the course of nature is rigidly determined by natural laws.

He begins with scepticism in regard to the senses. Can I doubt, he says, that I am sitting here by the fire in a dressing-gown? Yes, for sometimes I have dreamt that I was here when in fact I was naked in bed. (Pyjamas, and even nightshirts, had not yet been invented.) Moreover madmen sometimes have hallucinations, so it is possible that I may be i

Lying, Plato says explicitly, is to be a prerogative of the government, just as giving medicine is of physicians.

The conception involved here is that of organism: a hand, when the body is destroyed, is, we are told, no longer a hand. The implication is that a hand is to be defined by its purpose—that of grasping—which it can only perform when joined to a living body. In like manner, an individual cannot fulfil his purpose unless he is part of a State. He who

In these books Descartes begins by explaining the method of “Cartesian doubt,” as it has come to be called. In order to have a firm basis for his philosophy, he resolves to make himself doubt everything that he can manage to doubt.

The metaphysics of Heraclitus are sufficiently dynamic to satisfy the most hustling of moderns: “This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling and measures going out.” “The transformations of Fire are, first of all, sea; and half of the s

There are certain political goods, of which three are specially important: national independence, security, and a well-ordered constitution.

Occam, he holds, was mainly concerned to restore a pure Aristotle, freed from both Augustinian and Arabic influences.

Kant’s most important book is The Critique of Pure Reason, (ist edition 1781 ; 2nd edition 1787.) The purpose of this work is to prove that, although none of our knowledge can transcend experience, it is nevertheless in part a priori and not inferred inductively from experience.

Fear of invisible power, if publicly allowed, is religion; if not allowed, superstition.