A History of Western Philosophy

Philosophy is a land between theology (dogma, unproved) and science (definite knowledge). Since it’s speculation on stuff we haven’t scientifically figured out, that is however conducted in a systematic way.

Science, unadulterated, is not satisfying; men need also passion and art and religion. Science may set limits to knowledge, but it should not set them to imagination.

Pre-Socratics

A big flaw of the greeks is that they exclusively reasoned deductively from self-evident truths, rather than inductively from observation (this is then fixed with the scientific method).

How language evolves (e.g. writing, hieroglyphs, then more and more stylized with the alphabet etc…) is super impactful: never underestimate how much the way we store information helps with evolving the content itself.

Bacchus was an extremely important religious figure since the cult allowed the civilized greeks to act barbaric and let their passions out. From this evolved the Orphic cults, which had far more emphasis on the spiritual aspect of it (chiefly the transmigration of the soul and the ascetism. They believe that life on earth was pain, and only through purification and renunciation one could escape the wheel). This aspect greatly influenced christian theology. A reformer of the the Orphics was the Pythagorean school, and a reformer of the Pythagoreans was Plato. So:     Bacchus -> Orphics -> Pythagoreans -> Plato -> Catholics

The political vehicles of Hellenism have always been non-Hellenic; but it was the Greek genius that so inspired alien nations as to cause them to spread the culture of those whom they had conquered.

Milesian School

Miletus, in Asia Minor. Thales:     “Everything is water” <- he conceived it as a scientific statement. Anaximander:     Believes that everything comes from a single primal substance which takes shape in fire, earth, wind and water. The proportion between these shifts but is balanced by a natural law (concept of intrinsic justice). Anaximenes:     “Everything is air”

Pythagoras

Was both a pure mathematician and a religious prophet Founded the pythagorean school, which was a mix of mathematics and mysticism. Believed in soul transmigration, and in the eternal rebirth of the soul.

Contemplation: the greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested scinece, and it is the main who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the wheel of birth.

The contemplation was mathematics, which had for them a profound religious significance. Plato, and thus Christianity, inherits tremendously from Pythagoras (he is the first one to come up with the idea that one can reach the eternal world solely through the intellect, and not the senses).

With him, begins mathematics as deductive reasoning. The contemplation was mathematics, which had for them a profound religious significance. They lay the geometric foundations for Euclid.

Heraclitus

Extreme contempt for all men, hates all other philosophers, loves war. Believed that the world was in a perpetual state of flux. Motion is derived from the combining of opposites (very Hegelian!), which is regulated by some universal justice. There is thus diversity in the universe, but the universe is one. This position towards change is actually quite radical, as many philosophers have sought to find some permanent substratum amid ever-changing phenomena.

Parmenides

Opposite of Heraclitus: nothing ever changes (from this we inherit the tamer idea of the indestructibility of substance). He is the first to approach metaphysics using logic. Our sense illude us in seeing a multitude, but everything is part of the One, which is essentially the whole, material universe. His argument is: if you can think about something, it must exist (and you can do so at any time, meaning it must exist at all times). Therefore, nothing changes since change implies that things start/stop existing. The flaw in the argument is that words change in meaning over time (e.g. saying George Washington when he was still alive has a very different meaning from saying George Washington now, which is instead now a memory).

Empedocles

Died by launching himself in the Etna to prove that he was a god. First to discover that air is a separate substance, was brilliant in astronomy (e.g. knew that light took time to travel) and medicine. Believed in flux like Heraclitus, but it was due to both Love and Strife. Inherited a lot from Pythagoras and the Orphics.

Athens

Before Athens the main poles where Ionia and Magna Grecia, only became important after the Persian wars, after gaining naval supremacy. Under Pericles, Athens enters a golden age and there is a tremendous production of art, literature, architecture and philosophy. They eventually faded into obscurity because of the Peloponnesian Wars, but philosophically, they reign supreme.

Anaxagoras

Was the one who introduced philosophy to Athens. Matter is continuous, and everything is infinitely divisible. The mind is physical, but its a special type of substance that only some have. The mind is also the prime motor, meaning its responsible for all movement in the universe.

The Atomists

Founded by Leucippus and Democritus. Atomism is an attempt to mediate between Parmenides’ monism and Empedocles’ pluralism! Atoms are indivisible, separated by empty space, always in motion, … Strict determinism, mechanistic conception: they explain the world mechanically, without relying on final causes (things happen out of necessity by natural laws, they don’t work towards any purpose). They accept the existence of the void, since you need empty space for things to move. (In subsequent centuries, this controversy is resolved by separating space and matter). For them, perception, soul and thought are also physical processes.

Protagoras (and the Sophists)

Chief of the sophists, aka the mercenaries of knowledge. Was a skeptic: some opinions are better than others, but no opinions are truer (makes sense, he’s a sophist). They taught how to argue, the content was irrelevant.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Socrates

The main sources for him are Xenophon and Plato, which have pretty diverging accounts. In Plato’s dialogues, it’s often harder to understand if he’s talking about the real Socrates or if he’s using him as a character in the dialogues. Sure of himself, indifferent to worldly successes, believed to be guided by the divine, curious. Was concerned with ethics rather than science. Had complete mastery of the soul over the body (very Orphic, stoic in this sense). Apology:     He was most likely killed because of his closeness to the aristocratics (remember, he was killed during the 30 tyrants).     Made people angry through his dialectic method. Fulfills his duties of philosopher to the bitter end.

Fear of death is not wisdom, since no one knows whether death may or may not be the greater good

Believed in reminescence: we don’t learn, we just remember.

Sparta

Had an influence on Greek thought that was both:

• Historical     Only concerned w/ war, land was cultivated by the helots.     Communal living, shared resources. Incredibly stable state.     Admired by other cities, reminiscent of a lost, braver, past.     Sparta’s political infrastructure was setup by the mythical person Lycurgus.
• Mythical     The myth of Sparta was mainly due to Plutarch and Plato.     Idea that it belonged to a mythical past.

Plato

Most important philosopher ever. Inherits from:

• Pythagoras: Orphic elements and general mysticism.
• Parmenides: the idea of the universe being eternal
• Heraclitus: things are not permanent
• Socrates: concern for moral problems.

Utopian State

For Plato, there is objective good, ethics is treated similarly as science (ie you can be objectively wrong about it). Ethics and metaphysics are the same thing for Plato, since world of ideas is where the Good resides.

3 classes: guardians (including the philosopher king), soldiers and commoners. Rigid hereditary hierarchy. Guardians     to be brought up under a strict regiment, where only specific media is allowed. (never exposed, even in fiction, to immoral behavior, eg a wicked man being happy).     must have no private property, so as to not be corruptable. Completely communal society, everything is shared, children are collectively brought up etc… Inspired by Sparta, had grown disillusioned w/ Athens after the death of Socrates Royal Lie     the government must make the population believe that the caste system is legitimized by the Gods, which create men of brass, silver and gold. Justice: to fulfill one’s role within the society (strongly organicist view).     The concept of intrinsic role, as wanted by Fate, has always been integral to Greek thought (hubris is the crime of going against one’s role)

Theory of Ideas and Knowledge

Strong dualism: opinion-knowledge, body-soul, ideas-sensible…

• Opinion: knowing about the sensible world, is not objective.
• Knowledge: knowing about the super sensitive world, which is objective. Of 2 types:
  • Understanding: (eg math) is inferior it rests on axioms / hypothesis, which can’t be proved.
  • Reason: pure logic, is perfect and coincides with the idea of Good. A philosopher is a man that has knowledge. (aka can sense the immutable). So the sensible is illusion, one can only know through thought (Rejection of empiricism). So knowledge is purely mental. The mind can understand things on its own (e.g. existence, since we can still understand existence even if we don’t have a specific organ for it). So knowledge is reflection / judgement of perception, not perception itself. Plato fails a bit, in the sense that he improperly applies logic like syntax to the real world (e.g. he applies the concept of enumeration to instances instead of groups, like saying “the moon is one” which makes no sense since the moon is not a group).

Seeing the world of ideas is seeing the Good. So ethics > science, since the latter is empirical.

All items in the world are instances of ideas (aka classes), which are eternal objects. Note that they are not thoughts, ie they exist independently of the mind. Russell criticizes this, saying that the ideas are just adjectives (for a CS parallel, they are attributes of the instance rather than the class of the instance).

Any hypothesis, however absurd, may be useful in science, if it enables a discoverer to conceive things in a new way; but that, when it has served this purpose by luck, it is likely to become an obstacle to further advance.

Theory of Immortality

Socrates dying is the pagan equivalent to the passion of Christ. Accepts his fate, without fear of death. The soul is immortal since knowledge is recollection. Knowledge is recollection since we can conceive stuff like a perfectly round circle, while that doesn’t actually exist in real life. Only philosophers, which know the Good, go to heaven (~ transmigration).

Cosmogony

The Demiurge didn’t create the universe, but he made the harmony (e.g. making the planets orbit regularly).

The nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fullness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Time

Aristotle

Became unquestioned, and (by no fault of his) became an obstacle to scientific progress. Wrote like a professor, no traces of “Bacchic enthusiasm”.

Metaphysics

Criticizes the theory of ideas: example, a man is an animal, so is the ideal man a man or an animal? if yes, there are as many ideal animals as species, but the ideal animal should be one <- essentially, you can’t characterize things by a single category. Metaphysical optimism: things become more and more perfect, the universe moves with a purpose. Theory of Universals: distinguishes between:     - Proper names (substances), the this.     - Attributes (universals), which thus only exist in particular things.     Universals are dependent on substances to exist, but not viceversa.     Also essence, which are the set of attributes that make you yourself. Matter and Form:     - Matter is what makes up substance,     - Form is what bounds it. (So a thing becomes a thing because it gets bounded by form).     Bare matter is potentiality, which becomes more and more actual as it changes (aka gains form). God is pure actuality => doesn’t change. Soul and Body     Soul <- form of the body, makes it alive / actual and gives the body unity.     Mind != Soul, mind is less tethered to the body and is immortal.     The soul perceives the sensible, while the mind does the non-empirical thinking (eg math, philosophy) and is thus impersonal / universal (sensory experience is different, but thinking about math is done in the same way for all).     Soul has both a vegetative (which plants also have) and an appetitive state. God:     First Cause, pure thought, unchanged.     It’s the final cause of the universe (the end to reach), meaning it gives the reason for change to occur in the universe, as the universe is aware of God and moves to be close to God.

Ethics

Organicist View: the objective of his ethics is to have a good community, not good individuals, so subordination can be just and the master is more just than the slave.

It is an ethics for the few, only the philosophers. Virtue     Mean between extremes, comes from both habit and knowledge.     Is a means to end, which is happiness.     The most virtuous (and thus happiest) activity is meditative contemplation. Justice is right proportion, which is not always equality (so the aristocracy deserves more). Just Man:     Magnanimous, proud of himself, despises who despises him, is skilled and in an exceptional social position, etc… (very different from christian ethics).     There can be few just man (since, by definition, a just man is extraordinary), is this a good definition of morality? So virtue is not possible for slaves.

Aristotle consider merits ethical, while Christianity splits the two: you can be a good painter and still have no moral merit, which is solely based on will, and not on circumstances. It’s a very cold ethics, doesn’t factor in human emotions and compassion.

Politics

Organicist view, the State conceptually comes before everything. Says that immoral acts should not be outlawed, since otherwise the act of not doing them would not be a virtue anymore. Democracy:     Was very democratic (e.g. representatives chosen randomly, the assembly being above the law etc…). Considers elected representatives to be a feature of oligarchies.     Is bad since people think they should be equal in all regards.     citizens was actually a restricted group of people who had land and didn’t have to work for a living.

Rejects democracy and oligarchy, embraces aristocracy and monarchy, as he retains that the more virtuous should rule (assumes aristocrats and monarch are virtuous). The former are based on virtue, the first on wealth / fake equality. This is stupid, since inequality (and thus forms of government) in the long run always stems from inequality of wealth, so you can’t really have a government based on virtue (since it converges to a government based on wealth).

Education always to purse virtue, never usefulness. This was also the ruling class, so power and culture were detained by the same. This is not the case anymore.

Logic

His most important contribution Syllogism: major premiss, minor premiss, conclusion.     Essentially: Class A has property B $\land$ Class C is subclass of A $\implies$ Class C has property B (or instead of property, some instance have the property, etc…) Aristotle believed that deductive inference could be reduced to a syllogism. Critiques:

1. All Greeks are men != Socrates is a man, since in the first case the set of things the subject describes cannot be bounded, so we can’t really assert its truthfulness the same way we can with the second statement.
2. Syllogism do not cover all of deductive inference (e.g. if a horse is an animal, the head of a horse is the head of an animal).
3. Over-estimating deduction: doesn’t give empirical induction to much attention, which is valuable as, while it doesn’t yield a certain answer, it can generate new information.

He says that first premises must be obtained by looking at the essence of a thing, aka the properties that cannot change without the thing losing its identity.

Substance is just a convenient way of collecting events into bundles

What Aristotle says is stupid, since it’s really giving a linguistic convenience (the fact that we group similar phenomena together under a common name) metaphysical value. The essence / substance of a thing thus only consists in those properties that we use to recognize the thing and give it its name. But this is only convenience / convention, it has no metaphysical value.

Physics

Nature of a thing: the end to the existence of the thing. Motion:     Derives from Will: humans / animals by personal will (imperfect) the heavenly bodies by the will of a Demagogue like being.     Motion is fulfilling potentiality / the nature of a thing (e.g. an acorn becoming an oak). (Makes no sense due to relativity of motion, so nothing moves in an absolute sense)

Early Greeks Mathematics and Astronomy

Contributed eminently to math and astronomy than philosophy and writing. Formal, deductive math is a Greek invention. Method of exhaustion -> precursor to integral calculus. Super good at geometry: nothing went beyond The Elements until the renaissance

No one, in Greek times, supposed that conic sections had any utility; at last, in the seventeenth century, Galileo discovered that projectiles move in parabolas, and Kepler discovered that planets move in ellipses. Suddenly the work that the Greeks had done from pure love of theory became the key to warfare and astronomy.

Aristarchus hypothesized the Copernican view of the planets. The merit of the Copernican view is not truth, but simplicity! Finding the simplest model is a very good scientific approach.

Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle

3 Ancient periods:

1. City States
2. Hellenistic World
3. Roman Empire

Hellenistic World

Period of greatest Greek cultural domination and progress. Alexander:     Causes this golden age for Greek culture.      Culturally strongly identified with Greece (vs. barbaric Macedonia).      Still, pretty cosmopolitan in attitude since he had to hold vast territories and did not have the resources to do so by force.      Alexandrian becomes the main cultural hub in the Mediterranean. After his death, there is instability and fear: not the intellectuals, but the armies dominate, and the new Hellenic cities are less organized. This is reflected in the intellectual attitude: the purpose of life becomes to escape misfortune rather than achieve good.

The psychological preparation for the other-worldliness of Christianity begins in the Hellenistic period, and is connected with the eclipse of the City State.Down to Aristotle, Greek philosophers, though they might complain of this or that, were, in the main, not cosmically despairing, nor did they feel themselves politically impotent. When political power passed into the hands of the Macedonians, Greek philosophers, as was natural, turned aside from politics and devoted themselves more to the problem of individual virtue or salvation. They no longer asked: how can men create a good State? They asked instead: how can men be virtuous in a wicked world, or happy in a world of suffering?

Cynics

They despised luxury, saw philosophy as a thing for the common man. A philosophy of retreat, void of the enthusiasm of Plato and Aristotle, which is why cynics sought to be independent of the world. <- a philosophy for the weary.

Skeptics

Exercise “dogmatic doubt”: nobody knows, and nobody can ever know (vs scientific skepticism). So no positive (i.e. affirming) statements. General reflection of a population that was disillusioned with the world. Doesn’t survive long term since the general temperament was turning more and more towards dogmatism and salvation doctrines. <- people want to be consoled.

Epicureans

All the principles laid out by Epicurus, nobody changes them (very dogmatic). A man can be happy even while relying on the simplest things. Pleasure is good, but too much of it makes it unenjoyable. A philosophy aimed to delete pain, rather than seek joy: the preferable state is that of equilibrium and violent joys stray away from that. It’s a “careful” philosophy, which reflects the general sentiment of fear of the time. Terrified / hated religion, as it was seen as the supernatural interference which lead to the soul not dying, and thus continuing to suffer. <- the death of the soul was seen as a positive (v different from Christianity).

Stoicism

Focused on the ethical doctrine Gospel of endurance, not hope: it was a wearysome age. Strongly materialist (at least the early ones like Zeno) and determinist. The universe is an endless cycle of conflagrations. We are prisoners of our own body, but our mental freedom can never be taken away. God / Providence / Nature / Reason: essentially the soul of the world, benevolent and determines everything. (immanent substance).

Virtue:     To be virtuous is to act in accordance to Nature (very Christian-y same thing as being obedient to God)=> goodness depends solely upon oneself, and anybody can be virtuous in all circumstances.     Virtue is the sole good: not health, happiness, passions, … => it is an end to itself.     Not virtue to do good, but good to do virtue.     Violently rejected passions, as they are an obstacle to virtue.

Marcus Aurelius: emperor, was incredibly burdened by his duties.

He is a pathetic figure: in a list of mundane desires to be resisted, the one that he finds most seductive is the wish to retire to a quiet country life. For this, the opportunity never came. Some of his Meditations are dated from the camp, on distant campaigns, the hardships of which eventually caused his death.

Philosophers can escape themselves, but not their periods.

It is remarkable that Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are completely at one on all philosophical questions. This suggests that, although social circumstances affect the philosophy of an age, individual circumstances have less influence than is sometimes thought upon the philosophy of an individual. Philosophers are usually men with a certain breadth of mind, who can largely discount the accidents of their private lives; but even they cannot rise above the larger good or evil of their time. In bad times they invent consolations; in good times their interests are more purely intellectual.

Metaphysical contradiction: the universe is strictly deterministic, yet free will exists and a man can only sin out of his own volition. <- contradictory, will can be strongly influenced. Happiness Contradiction: pursuit of happiness is worthless, but if so exercising virtue by making others happy vs making others sad is the same (only the exercise of virtue matters, not the ends).

Believed all humans were born equal (Christianity steals this).

Roman Empire

Augustus brings the first 200 years of peace to the Mediterranean since the beginnings of Greek civilization. After that, the armies realized their power and continuous intestine wars weakened Rome, which had become too big to be administered efficiently. It split, with the eastern empire more Greek than Latin.

The Greeks were far more advanced than the Romans under many aspects: art, philosophy, but also agriculture and manufacturing. The Romans, however were superior militarily and in social cohesion / logistics. The Romans realized their barbariousness, and embraced Greek culture (e.g. the Gods, believing to be descendants of Troy, …). The Romans were culturally parasitic on Greece: they didn’t add anything.

Constantine’s adoption of Christianity was politically successful, whereas earlier attempts to introduce a new religion failed; but the earlier attempts were, from a governmental point of view, very similar to his. All alike derived their possibility of success from the misfortunes and weariness of the Roman world. The traditional religions of Greece and Rome were suited to men interested in the terrestrial world, and hopeful of happiness on earth. Asia, with a longer experience of despair, had evolved more successful antidotes in the form of other-worldly hopes; of all these, Christianity was the most effective in bringing consolation. But Christianity, by the time it became the State religion, had absorbed much from Greece, and transmitted this, along with the Judaic element, to succeeding ages in the West.

The Romans (+ Alexander) are the reason why Greek culture is as popular as it is, and why so many parts of the world became civilized. The long domination of Rome also made the concept of a universal governing body more realistic (idea then adopted by the Church). Greek culture was kept alive as much by the Arabs as by the Romans.

Plotinus

Founder of Neolatonism. Lives during the period of greatest disarray for the Roman empire, but ignores it and instead contemplates an eternal world of beauty and perfection. <- as Christians do: other-world as a way to escape the hopelesness of reality. Super influential for christian theology, which is highly Platonic. Gave a lot of emphasis to subjective experiences, since seeing the nous and the divine is something personal and intellectual <- causes subjectiveness to invade all doctrines.

The Fathers of Catholic Philosophy

Catholic philosophy derives from:

• Plato, neoplatonists, and the Stoics: metaphysics
• Jews: history and morals
• Orphic cults: theories about the soul and salvation

- The History of Catholicism: I-XIII Centuries

The thirteenth century had brought to completion a great synthesis, philosophical, theological, political, and social, which had been slowly built up by the combination of many elements. The first element was pure Greek philosophy, especially the philosophies of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle. Then came, as a result of Alexander’s conquests, a great influx of oriental beliefs. These, taking advantage of Orphism and the Mysteries, transformed the outlook of the Greek-speaking world, and ultimately of the Latin-speaking world also. The dying and resurrected god, the sacramental eating of what purported to be the flesh of the god, the second birth into a new life through some ceremony analogous to baptism, came to be part of the theology of large sections of the pagan Roman world. With these was associated an ethic of liberation from bondage to the flesh, which was, at least theoretically, ascetic. From Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia came the institution of a priesthood separated from the lay population, possessed of more or less magical powers, and able to exert considerable political influence. Impressive rituals, largely connected with belief in a life after death, came from the same sources. From Persia, in particular, came a dualism which regarded the world as the battleground of two great hosts, one, which was good, led by Ahura Mazda, the other, which was evil, led by Ahriman. Black magic was the kind that was worked by the help of Ahriman and his followers in the world of spirits. Satan is a development of Ahriman. This influx of barbarian ideas and practices was synthesized with certain Hellenic elements in the Neoplatonic philosophy. In Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and some parts of Plato, the Greeks had developed points of view which were easy to combine with those of the Orient, perhaps because they had been borrowed from the East at a much earlier time. With Plotinus and Porphyry the development of pagan philosophy ends. The thought of these men, however, though deeply religious, was not capable, without much transformation, of inspiring a victorious popular religion. Their philosophy was difficult, and could not be generally understood; their way of salvation was too intellectual for the masses. Their conservatism led them to uphold the traditional religion of Greece, which, however, they had to interpret allegorically in order to soften its immoral elements and to reconcile it with their philosophical monotheism. The Greek religion had fallen into decay, being unable to compete with Eastern rituals and theologies. The oracles had become silent, and the priesthood had never formed a powerful distinct caste. The attempt to revive Greek religion had therefore an archaistic character which gave it a certain feebleness and pedantry, especially noticeable in the Emperor Julian. Already in the third century, it could have been foreseen that some Asiatic religion would conquer the Roman world, though at that time there were still several competitors which all seemed to have a chance of victory. Christianity combined elements of strength from various sources. From the Jews it accepted a Sacred Book and the doctrine that all religions but one are false and evil; but it avoided the racial exclusiveness of the Jews and the inconveniences of the Mosaic law. Later Judaism had already learnt to believe in the life after death, but the Christians gave a new definiteness to heaven and hell, and to the ways of reaching the orte and escaping the other. Easter combined the Jewish Passover with pagan celebrations of the resurrected God. Persian dualism was absorbed, but with a firmer assurance of the ultimate omnipotence of the good principle, and with the addition that the pagan gods were followers of Satan. At first the Christians were not the equals of their adversaries in philosophy or in ritual, but gradually these deficiencies were made good. At first, philosophy was more advanced among the semi-Christian Gnostics than among the orthodox; but from the time of Origen onwards, the Christians developed an adequate philosophy by modification of Neoplatonism. Ritual among the early Christians is a somewhat obscure subject, but at any rate by the time of Saint Ambrose it had become extremely impressive. The power and the separateness of the priesthood were taken from the East, but were gradually strengthened by methods of government, in the Church, which owed much to the practice of the Roman Empire. The Old Testament, the mystery religions, Greek philosophy, and Roman methods of administration were all blended in the Catholic Church, and combined to give it a strength which no earlier social organization had equalled. The Western Church, like ancient Rome, developed, though more slowly, from a republic into a monarchy. We have seen the stages in the growth of papal power, from Gregory the Great through Nicholas I, Gregory VII, and Innocent III, to the final defeat of the Hohenstaufen in the wars of Guelfs and Ghibellines. At the same time Christian philosophy, which had hitherto been Augustinian and therefore largely Platonic, was enriched by new elements due to contact with Constantinople and the Mohammedans. Aristotle, during the thirteenth century, came to be known fairly completely in the West, and, by the influence of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, was established in the minds of the learned as the supreme authority after Scripture and the Church. Down to the present day, he has retained this position among Catholic philosophers. I cannot but think that the substitution of Aristotle for Plato and Saint Augustine was a mistake from the Christian point of view. Plato’s temperament was more religious than Aristotle’s, and Christian theology had been, from almost the first, adapted to Platonism. Plato had taught that knowledge is not perception, but a kind of reminiscent vision; Aristotle was much more of an empiricist. Saint Thomas, little though he intended it, prepared the way for the return from Platonic dreaming to scientific observation.

From Augustine to the Renaissance, church had monopoly of thought. Opposed to the feudal aristocracy: pagan, barbaric and ignorant. The intellectual domination of the church ends due to Enlightenment, which offers an alternative intellectual class, and the great Monarchies, which became strong enough to counter the Church.

The mood of thoughtful men, throughout the whole period, was one of deep unhappiness in regard to the affairs of this world, only rendered endurable by the hope of a better world hereafter.

The life of the good here below was a pilgrimage to the heavenly city; nothing of value was possible in the sublunary world except the steadfast virtue that would lead, in the end, to eternal bliss.

Jewish Philosophy

Greatly influence Christianity, esp in terms of sacred history, righteousness as being something possible for the masses, and salvation beyond life on Earth.

Initially, Yahweh was a tribal war god, one of many: “Thou shalt have non other gods but me”, and the concept of all but one religion being true was actually an innovation. The Jews where stubborn, and had not assimilated in the culture of their conquerors (vs. all other populations). The Jews thus saw their imprisonment as punishment for their sins => from this emerges the concept of chosen people and exclusivity. After being persecuted by Antiochus IV, they started to believe in immortality => way to cope by believing that divine justice would be carried out after death. They importance of the Law became greater and greater, and became very hostile to changes in the doctrine.

Jews, like Christians, thought much about sin, but few of them thought of themselves as sinners.

Sin was a way to reconcile outwards defeat with self-importance: they suffered not because they were not important, but because they were wicked

In Christianity, sin is a way to reconcile the existence of suffering with the absolute love of God.

Great hostility between Jews and Christians (as they believed that they had failed to recognize the Messiah), but the Mohammedans treated them well, and they weren’t persecuted.

Christianity: Centuries I-IV, the Beginning

Christianity, at first, was preached by Jews to Jews, as a reformed Judaism

But Saint Paul made it more accessible and universal, removing stuff like circumcision and dietary restrictions (ie less Jewish). The more it becomes hellenized, the more the theology gets well-defined, using stuff mainly from Plato (the Jewish theology was always really simple).

Why was Christianity so popular?

1. Had the fervor / threatening character (e.g. our religion is the only correct one, everything else and you’ll go to Hell, was not common at the time) of Judaism, but not the exclusivity (both in the theology (chosen people) and in the rituals / customs).
2. Promise of divine justice for the oppressed after death
3. Concept of miracles
4. Pure and austere morals
5. Integration with the Roman empire (most important)

Why did Constantine choose Christianity?

Probably Rostovtseff is right in holding that a large part of the army was Christian, and that this was what most influenced Constantine. However that may be, the Christians, while still a minority, had a kind of organization which was then new, though now common, and which gave them all the political influence of a pressure group to which no other pressure groups are opposed. This was the natural consequence of their virtual monopoly of zeal, and their zeal was an inheritance from the Jews.

As the Christian acquired political power, disputes on heresies started (mostly on the trinity and on incarnation), and were used as a pretext to fight others and gain power. Eventually Catholicism beats out Arianism and all other major heresies.

While the State was feeble, incompetent, governed by unprincipled self-seekers, and totally without any policy beyond that of momentary expedients, the Church was vigorous, able, guided by men prepared to sacrifice everything personal in its interests, and with a policy so far-sighted that it brought victory for the next thousand years.

Saint Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine

Active in the period between Constantine and the barbaric invasions. Were all completely devoted to the Church, unconcerned with the secular problems that were causing the fall of the empire. Saint Ambrose     Established the independence of Church from the State.     Incredibly powerful, and expert at dealing with Emperors and general politics: this + being loved by the people, allowed the Church to gain power over the State.

Saint Jerome     Created the Vulgata (first latin bible): initially controversial since he was helped by Jews, which many thought would falsify the texts that predicted the Messiah.

Saint Augustine     Obsessed with sin, struggled with it in his early life.     Was incredibly cultured in philosophy, Plato has a great influence on him.     Originally Manichean, then Skeptic, then finally catholic.     Laid down a lot of the theology.     Knowledge must come through logic whenever possible and from the Scripture for everything else.     Theory of Time:         Deeply influenced by the necessity to agree w the scriptures.         God is not merely an architect: he created matter, not only order an arrangement. Time was thus created along with the universe: thus God didn’t exist “before” the universe, as it’s separate from time. So Time is a subjective and relative experience.     City of God:         Defense of Christianity, especially in light of the Sack of Rome (which pagans attributed to abandoning the pagan Gods).         Main influence is that the State must be subservient to the Church in all religious matters.         Explains the last centuries of history through a Christian lens, essentially adapts the Jewish view of history as oppression of the less fortunate     Theory of Salvation:         Man cannot be virtuous with its own free will, we are all wicked and only through God’s grace we are saved. <- very Calvinist.

It is strange that the last men of intellectual eminence before the dark ages were concerned, not with saving civilization or expelling the barbarians or reforming the abuses of the administration, but with preaching the merit of virginity and the damnation of unbaptized infants. Seeing that these were the preoccupations that the Church handed on to the converted barbarians, it is no wonder that the succeeding age surpassed almost all other fully historical periods in cruelty and superstition.

Christianity: Centuries V-VI

Age of the fall of the Empire: no intellectual activity, Europe becomes decentralized as roads and large scale commerce breaks down. Theology was still being worked out (e.g. on the nature of Christ (double?, divine or not?, …), as seen by people like Nestorius). Still a lot of platonic influence (e.g. Boethius, far more platonic that christian).

Saint Benedict and Gregory the Great

Monasticism:     Was one of the great contributions to the power and omnipresence of the church.     Later on they became more “useful”, but when it initially developed in Egypt and Syria, they were very eremitic and ascetic.

Saint Benedict: adapts monasticism to the West, making it less extreme. All western monasteries are modeled after the ones he establishes.
Gregory the Great:     Astute statesman, greatly expands the power of the Church by leveraging the existing anarchy due to the barbarian invasions. Sends a ton of letter to various bishops and rulers, often scorning them for their conduct or for problems in their territories.

The Schoolmen

Christianity: Centuries VII-X, the Dark Ages

Initially fairly subservient to Byzantium, but the Emperor is then defeated by the Lombards. Pope saves itself from the Lombards by allying with Charlemagne (which causes a fracture with the Eastern church / empire, which did not recognize Charlemagne). Pope became very independent from secular authority, (vs the orthodox patriarch), and the emperors had to rely on the Pope for legitimization. Here starts the idea that legitimate power came from both Pope and Emperor. 200 year decline after the death of Charlemagne: the papacy becomes subservient to the Roman aristocracy, the clergy taken over by lay magnates, in line with the general dark ages Europe was going through, caused by the barbarian kings having no power over their vassals (India, China, and Islam where instead flourishing).

To us, it seems that West-European civilization is civilization, but this is a narrow view. Most of the cultural content of our civilization comes to us from the Eastern Mediterranean, from Greeks and Jews. Our superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to political institutions slowly built up during the Middle Ages. There is no reason, in the nature of things why this superiority should continue.

John the Scot     Stated that both scriptures and reason are both sources of truth, but that if the 2 conflict, reason is right.     Reconciled Neoplatonism with Christianity => quite unorthodox, strong sense of pantheism linked with a christian interpretation of Plato’s Logos.

Christianity: Century XI, the Ecclesiastic Reform

Europe starts to make sustained, rapid progress for the first time in 500 years. Reform in the monasteries first and then the clergy, motivated both by an apparent state of corruption and a desire to separate clergy from laity, and obtain intellectual monopoly and strengthen how their religious powers were perceived. The Church becomes more centralized, which in turns makes it appear more legit. Priest could marry, but they forbid it so that they wouldn’t inherit their wealth, and also to make them more separate from the laymen. They crack down on simony, concubinage and investitures (which made bishops informally subservient to the Emperor). Pope clashes with the Emperor (Worms, anti-popes etc…) but becomes more and more independent from him.

Anselm:     Invents the Ontological Argument: essentially, God = “the greatest possible object of thought”. Existence > not existence => “the greatest possible object of thought” must exist => God exists.     ^ more generally, is there stuff whose existence is proven by the mere fact that we can conceive it?

Mohammedan Culture and Philosophy

Expands incredibly rapidly in the East, thanks to Persia and the Eastern empire being weak from continuous conflict (so they conquer without much destruction). Simple monotheism (no complicated theology like Christianity), duty to conquer for Islam, but not to persecute Christians and Jews. Initially the caliphate supported Islam for political rather than religious reasons (conquests more to acquire better land / resources than spreading the word).

Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be underrated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization, education, books, and learned leisure.

Century XII: Free cities and Scholasticism

Pope vs Emperor continues, the Pope gains more power over the clergy and is now equal in power to the Emperor. Lombard League (free cities) + Pope vs Emperor Barbarossa, who is defeated.

The rise of free cities is what proved of most ultimate importance in this long strife. The power of the Emperor was associated with the decaying feudal system; the power of the Pope, though still growing, was largely dependent upon the world’s need of him as an antagonist to the Emperor, and therefore decayed when the Empire ceased to be a menace; but the power of the cities was new, a result of economic progress, and a source of new political forms.

Scholasticism     Confined within christian orthodoxy.     Aristotle is supreme authority, focused on dialectics, which causes them to ignore empirical evidence and to focus on verbal distinctions / subtleties (and to extend them to metaphysics).     Abelard: championed dialectic as the way to gain truth (other than the scriptures), made a lot of people wake up from their dogmatic slumber.     Saint Bernard: far more mystical, sought truth through subjective experience, strongly disliked that the Pope had temporal powers.

Century XIII: Frederick II and The Inquisition

The power motive becomes more and more important in the papacy (the reform had given them a lot of stability/legitimacy, so they weren’t as concerned with appearing holy). Frederick II     Spent time in Sicily, incredibly culturally diverse (Italians, Arabs, Germans and Byzantines had all been there).     Lots of conflicts w Pope and Lombard League, ends up defeated.

Frederick, in spite of his abilities, could not have succeeded, because the antipapal forces that existed in his time were pious and democratic, whereas his aim was something like a restoration of the pagan Roman Empire. In culture he was enlightened, but politically he was retrograde. In his conflict with the papacy, he published controversial statements as to the dangers of ecclesiastical absolutism, which would have been applauded in the sixteenth century, but fell flat in his own day. Thus, although he was free from the superstitions of his age, and in culture far above other contemporary rulers, his position as Emperor compelled him to oppose all that was politically liberal.

Saint Francis:

In the matter of saintliness, Francis has had equals; what makes him unique among saints is his spontaneous happiness, his universal love, and his gifts as a poet. His goodness appears always devoid of effort, as though it had no dross to overcome. He loved all living things, not only as a Christian or a benevolent man, but as a poet. He felt a duty to lepers, for their sake, not for his; unlike most Christian saints, he was more interested in the happiness of others than in his own salvation. He never showed any feeling of superiority, even to the humblest or most wicked.

The Francescans however abandon his teaching completely:

The net result of Saint Francis’s life was to create yet one more wealthy and corrupt order, to strengthen the hierarchy, and to facilitate the persecution of all who excelled in moral earnestness or freedom of thought.

Both the Emperor and the Pope decline in power, as England and France become stronger. Anti-papal forces now have democratic tones (eventually, Reformation).

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Most influential both scholastic and christian philosopher. Convinces the church that Aristotle > Plato as the basis of Christian philosophy. States that all religious truths proven by reason can also be proven by faith (and the 2 are never in contradiction), but that some truths are accessible only w faith. Justifies many of his positions only with reason, and only after shows that they are in accordance to the Scriptures (a bit disingenuous, since the conclusion is fixed from the beginning, philosophy is only used after faith). Faith is an alternative to reason which everybody (the ignorant, …) can access. God is both essence and existence, and has every positive attribute: things differ from God by not having attribute (e.g. plants are like God since they are alive, but also unlike him since they are not intelligent). Happiness is not achieved with virtue (mean) but by contemplating God (end).

Franciscans

Bacon:     Emphasis on experiments more than arguments <- Arabic influence. Duns Scotus:     Nothing can be known without divine intervention.

Principle of individuation: given two instances belonging to the same class, does their essence always differ?

2 types of attributes:

• Accidental: can change without the identity changing
• Essential: define the identity.

For Scotus, the difference in essence is given by position. Leibniz says this distinction is false, and that everything is really essence (and thus they always differ: if they were all the same, they’d be indistinguishable). We can also get rid of substance, since everything is just a bundle of qualities.

William of Occam:     Proponent of separation of Church and State, more democratic processes within the Church and the State, and was in favor of free speech.     States that logic is an instrument of philosophy of nature (so empirical stuff) and can thus be independent of metaphysics (the two had been stuck together in the last few centuries).     Science: deals with terms that point at things     Logic: deals with terms that point at terms.     For him, metaphysically, universale ante rem (God creates instances from the universals), but for human knowledge, universale post rem. So we can’t perceive universals, all we have is bundles of individual events, meaning that knowledge is perception (opposite of Plato)     States that you can study knowledge and logic without metaphysics and theology <- hugely influential for scientific mindset

Eclipse of the Papacy

Loses monopoly on knowledge, which becomes more lay (new rich commercial class). The papacy had lost a lot of moral authority, was far more worldly and concerned with collecting taxes and acquiring land and power, and also the Great Schism had made it seem weak and uninspiring. Revolts against papal domination, both by monarchs and puritan believers. Wycliffe:     Opposed to the papacy, on moral, but then also doctrinal grounds. States the primacy of the State over the Papacy. The post XV century culture is pagan.

The Early Modern World

Decreasing Authority of the Church, Increasing Authority of Science. Feudal Aristocracy and Pope lose power, merchants and States prevale. Liberal (i.e. associated with commerce) and individualistic culture.

This sublunary sphere appeared no longer as a vale of tears, a place of painful pilgrimage to another world, but as affording opportunity for pagan delights, for fame and beauty and adventure. The long centuries of asceticism were forgotten in a riot of art and poetry and pleasure. Even in Italy, it is true, the Middle Ages did not die without a struggle; Savonarola and Leonardo were born in the same year. But in the main the old terrors had ceased to be terrifying, and the new liberty of the spirit was found intoxicating. The intoxication could not last, but for the moment it shut out fear. In this moment of joyful liberation the modern world was born.

Philosophy is far more individualistic and subjectivist. Much more faith in mankind, practical science becomes a communal endeavor.

The Renaissance

Substitute authority of the Church with authority of the ancients (more emancipated, since the ancients disagreed, but still subject to authority). Very complex and fractured political landscape, tons of factions. Many conflicts, but none of them were serious enough to interfere with trade or intellectual development. Break down the scholastic system, intellectual activity is an end itself, not just to preserve the christian dogma. (Much more first hand knowledge of philosophers). Intellectual unorthodoxy, but still friendly since they were often funded by the Pope.

The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make men think rationally, but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense

The Renaissance in northern Europe had a far more religious, reformative angle. (Lead to the Reformation).

The curiosity of the Renaissance men was first satiated through the antiquity, then through the real world

The men of the Renaissance had an immense curiosity; “these minds,” says Huizinga, “never had their desired share of striking incidents, curious details, rarities and anomalies.” But at first they sought these things, not in the world, but in old books. Erasmus was interested in the world, but could not digest it in the raw: it had to be dished up in Latin or Greek before he could assimilate it. Travellers’ tales were discounted, but any marvel in Pliny was believed. Gradually, however, curiosity became transferred from books to the real world; men became interested in the savages and strange animals that were actually discovered, rather than in those described by classical authors. And so the curiosity of the Renaissance, from having been literary, gradually became scientific. Such a cataract of new facts overwhelmed men that they could, at first, only be swept along with the current. The old systems were evidently wrong; Aristotle’s physics and Ptolemy’s astronomy and Galen’s medicine could not be stretched to include the discoveries that had been made. Montaigne and Shakespeare are content with confusion: discovery is delightful, and system is its enemy. It was not till the seventeenth century that the system building faculty caught up with the new knowledge of matters of fact.

Machiavelli

Highly empirical political philosophy. “Intellectual honesty about political dishonesty”.

In regard to ecclesiastical principalities, he says in The Prince, the only difficulty is to acquire them, for, when acquired, they are defended by ancient religious customs, which keep their princes in power no matter how they behave.

Critical of the Church, both for the evil conduct that undermines religious beliefs, and for how the temporal power prevents Italy from being unified. Religion is important within the state as a social cement.

Power is not legitimized by anything (e.g. God), it is for those who can seize it. A prince must be deceptive, and disregard, on occasions, his moral principles. A State is successful if it stable and can achieve its goals (no morality involved). Virtuous behavior is useful insofar as it gives you support of the people (and can often be approximately replaced by propaganda).

Erasmus

Catholic Humanist, hated scholastics. Critical of immorality of the Church, but repelled by the violence of the Reformation. Praised belief that came purely from the heart, not from the head and an elaborate theology (describes it as Folly, which is actually a compliment). Unlike Luther, believed in free will.

Thomas More

Utopia:     Perfectly equal society, no ownership or currency.     Hedonistic ethics, religious tolerance.     Against war, killing of animals, harsh punishments. <- very liberal in this regard.

It must be admitted, however, that life in More’s Utopia, as in most others, would be intolerably dull. Diversity is essential to happiness, and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect of all planned social systems, actual as well as imaginary.

The Reformation

Against the Italian Renaissance and the Pope. New theology: abolish purgatory, reject Indulgences and organized churches, predestination. Gradually the ideal of doctrinal unity was abandoned => more intellectual freedom, especially in Protestant countries where the clergy had less power.

The Rise of Science

Complete mental shift, physics is now a science (no more animism, so belief that motion is determined by the soul, and that the universe moves due to divine intervention. Furthermore, there is no “end” to the universe moving, it’s just laws).

The men who founded modern science had two merits which are not necessarily found together: immense patience in observation, and great boldness in framing hypotheses.

Man is not anymore the center of the universe, though he feels a sense of pride in such discoveries that the medieval sense of sin prevented.

Copernicus     Dethrones Earth from its geometrical preeminence.

Apart from the revolutionary effect on cosmic imagination, the great merits of the new astronomy were two: first, the recognition that what had been believed since ancient times might be false; second, that the test of scientific truth is patient collection of facts, combined with bold guessing as to laws binding the facts together.

Kepler     Orbit are ellipses -> massive departure from established astronomy, and all the associated aesthetic biases that regarded circular orbits as obvious.

Galileo     Ardent believer of heliocentrism and empiricism. Scientific method.

Newton:     Laws of motion, deduces and justifies most behaviors in planetary theory.

Francis Bacon

Deeply practical philosophy, aimed at giving men scientific tools to overcome nature. Separation of philosophy and theology, truth can come from both the empirical world and revelations. Founder of a new kind inductive method, pioneers the use of logic within science. Make tables related to empirical observation and from this derive low generality laws, from which you can get more and more general laws. Focus on trying to disprove your hypothesis, by founding counter evidence. Ineffective since it supposes that once you have your data ordered the hypothesis comes naturally, but it’s usually the hardest part of the research. Furthermore, your hypothesis often determines how you collect data. We are susceptible to “idols”, a.k.a. biases (esp inductive ones).

The thing that is achieved by the theoretical organization of science is the collection of all subordinate inductions into a few that are very comprehensive —perhaps only one. Such comprehensive inductions are confirmed by so many instances that it is thought legitimate to accept, as regards them, an induction by simple enumeration. This situation is profoundly unsatisfactory, but neither Bacon nor any of his successors have found a way out of it.

Hobbes

Empiricist and rigid determinist, but still valued mathematics. Strong materialism: life is but the motion of the limbs, the succession of our thoughts is determined by well-defined laws. Nominalist: without words there are no objects: objects have no properties, they are merely linguistic labels we assign them.

There is no such thing as static happiness, for happiness involves continual progress: it consists in prospering, not having prospered.

Leviathan     Men, in a state of nature, are equal: from their instinct of self-preservation, stems both a desire to be free and a desire to dominate others.     Men form social contracts and coalesce into communities ruled by a central authority, in order to restraint themselves from waging war with each other.     Citizens choose an authority, and then lose all their political rights: the authority has unlimited power (!= from Locke’s view), on laws, education, …     The right of power of the Sovereign is not due to God, it’s due to holding the collective freedom of all men within the country (scandalous for the time).      Every community is faced with 2 dangers: anarchy and despotism; Hobbes was deadly afraid of the first.

Descartes

First modern philosopher: while still scholastic in a lot of ways, sets out to build new foundations for philosophy.

The bridge between scholasticism and modern phylosophy.

There is in Descartes an unresolved dualism between what he learnt from contemporary science and the scholasticism that he had been taught at La Fleche. This led him into inconsistencies, but it also made him more rich in fruitful ideas than any completely logical philosopher could have been. Consistency might have made him merely the founder of a new scholasticism, whereas inconsistency made him the source of two important but divergent schools of philosophy.

He talks not like a teacher, but an explorer: new-found confidence, vs middle ages were the authority of previous authors was sacred. Total amount of motion in the universe is constant, but the Soul can alter its direction: mind and body behave separately (i.e. mind and matter cannot interact) but they run in sync. => though Descartes thought that only the material world was deterministic, this opens the flood gates for a vision of universal determinism, where even the movements of the mind are mechanically determined.

Cartesian doubt: both the empirical world and logic can be illusory: I could have an hallucination, and there could be an evil demon tricking me into making logical errors. However, “Cogito, ergo sum” (thinking incorrectly still means I’m thinking). Revolution, matter is only knowable by inference from what is known of the mind. So radical mind, body dualism. => the 2 worlds can be studied independently. Possible critique: he really only proves that thoughts exist, not that there is an “I”.

Things are true whenever they are clear and distinct. Matter is a construction of the mind, not of the senses. (e.g. wax can have wildly different properties according to the senses, but still be “wax” => we don’t use the sense to perceive/know things, only the mind). The world however, still exists, since God exists and is good and would not trick us.

The method of critical doubt, though Descartes himself applied it only half-heartedly, was of great philosophic importance. It is clear, as a matter of logic, that it can only yield positive results if skepticism is to stop somewhere. If there is to be both logical and empirical knowledge, there must be two kinds of stopping points: indubitable facts, and indubitable principles of inference.

Spinoza

Politically close to Hobbes: no right or wrong in nature, and in society the wrong is determined by the law (thus the sovereign can do no wrong).

Absolute Pantheism (and Logical Monism) there is only one substance, God, with thought and everything else being attributes of God: so souls, matter are just adjectives.

Finite things are defined by their boundaries, physical or logical, that is to say, by what they are not: “all determination is negation.”

We are only different in negation! The positive (ie real) part is shared. Same deterministic view as Descartes, but does not allow free will: logic necessity and the will of God are the same thing.

Ethics:     Deductive, axiomatic treatment of ethics (everything is proved).     Strong believe that ethics follows from metaphysics and is thus provable.     The ethics follows by logical necessity because there is no free will! So really this ethics is merely descriptive, not prescriptive, since people cannot really decide.     Emotions:         Derive from self-preservation (which however, takes on a more universal dimension once we realize that we are part of the same whole).         Ethics is rational =>wrong action is an intellectual mistake.         Doesn’t reject emotions like the stoics, but has a similar doctrine of understanding their causes and not being swayed by them.     Time:         God doesn’t see time, he sees all eras at the same time. We must model our own ethics after how God sees the universe, and thus regard all eras equally. Deterministic reality => worrying about the future more than the past is useless.     Evil:         Only appears like it exists to us because we only see some attributes of God (matter, souls, …) if you see everything, there is no evil.         So misfortunes to you are not misfortunes to the universe, merely noise.     Love:         One’s mind must be occupied by an intellectual love for God (ie the Universe) which comes from understanding its truth + joy.         Unhappiness usually stems from loving things which are subject to variation => loving God better than loving people.         Love is virtue itself, not a reward for it! If you love God, you are will be naturally virtuous as a result: “We do not rejoice in love because we control our lusts, but we control our lusts because we rejoice in love”

Leibniz

2 sides (philosophical systems) of Leibniz:

• Public, optimistic, theological view (Shallow)
• Private, Spinozistic, logical and coherent (Deep)

Metaphysics:     Extensions is not an attribute of substance => there is an infinite number of substances (Monads), each of which is essentially a point in space, but really its a soul! Monads cannot interact with each other, but rather spontaneously mirror reality (not because of the universe, out of their own will) => causality is an illusion.     Man is made of infinite monads, but only a single one is the Soul.

Proofs of God:     1. Ontological:         Perfection: whenever a simple quality is positive and absolute (limitless).         perfect qualities can always coexist in the same being. => we can conceive a being with all perfect qualities, including existence => God exists.         Essentially essence (quality) implies existence.         Wrong! Kant “existence is not a predicate”.     2. Cosmological:         Everything, including the universe, must have a sufficient reason (will of somebody) => God is where the sufficient reason of the universe originates. This is just a repackaged ontological argument, since to have being that exists without sufficient reason, you need a necessary being, whose essence implies existence.     3. Pre Established Harmonies:         Since the monads act in harmony but don’t interact, there must be a common orchestra conductor.         Essentially the “fine-tuned” argument for God but with monads.

Theological Optimism:     There are many logically possible worlds, and we live in the best one, which God chose. Pain exists, but only to allow greater goods to exist (also why sin is the price to pay for free will).

Private Philosophy:     Leibniz actually had a more controversial philosophy, which he kept hidden.     Analytical Propositions: subject contains the predicate (E.g. “a tall men is tall”).     Law of Contradiction: all analytical propositions are true statements.     Law of Sufficient Reason: all true statements are analytical propositions!         Essentially because a subject is defined by all its predicates and thus contains them. This is even true for empirical observations (e.g. “I make a journey”, since the journey partially defines me. This is even true for future events, meaning that the subject already contains all future events=> no free will).     Why do some things exists and some don’t? Because some things are co-impossible, and thus only one can exists. The things that exists are thus the ones that are the most compatible with the existence of other things. Note that is a purely logical explanation, God is not present.

Liberalism

Early liberalism was protestant, religiously tolerant, valued commerce and property, self-determination of the communities. Strong individualism, which had been lost during the Middle Ages when the Church caused philosophical thinking to be a lot more collective. <- caused by Protestantism, which asserted that councils could err and that faith/truth must be an individual pursuit. We also see this in Descartes, where knowledge starts from the Self.

This is an example of a general principle: a philosophy developed in a politically and economically advanced country, which is, in its birthplace, little more than a clarification and systematization of prevalent opinion, may become elsewhere a source of revolutionary ardour, and ultimately of actual revolution. It is mainly through theorists that the maxims regulating the policy of advanced countries become known to less advanced countries. In the advanced countries, practice inspires theory; in the others, theory inspires practice.

Locke

Theory of Knowledge

Very practical in his philosophy, uses common sense as a way to show that “theoretical principles cannot be quite correct so long as their consequences are condemned by an appeal to common sense” . Lack of dogmatism, differs from predecessors by being more skeptic about his beliefs (says that love of truth means not believing blindly in things). Reason is about investigating things which are both certain (logic) and which are likely but not certain (empirical stuff). -> so exchange of information becomes important, as the collection of experiences is more informative than a single person.

Disliked metaphysics (rejects Plato’s theory of ideas!), founder of empiricism. For him, ideas are derived from:

• Sensations (experience)
• Perception (the mental post processing of sensations) ^ actually a pretty revolutionary doctrine, since it was believed that the mind had a lot of a priori knowledge. Radical in terms of universals (e.g. the ideas in Plato): for him, e.g. the Idea of Man, is just a way to bundle a series of particulars, which means that ideas are themselves particulars. Criticizes the idea of essence, as it is only a verbal issue: it makes no sense to speak about essence, as it comes after we name the thing (does “body” have essence? Depends on how you define body).

Distinct species is not a fact of nature, but of language: the set of all “things” is just an amorphous mass, WE decide where to draw the boundaries. The different between things is continuous / gradual, we are the ones to draw discrete boundaries.

Problem with empiricism is that it assumes that sensations:

• Have causes and such causes are external.
• There is a correlation between the sensation as it happens and how we perceive it. Thinks of people as rational animals, that work towards maximizing their own pleasure. Kinda wrong! Pleasure is due to the desire, not the desire due to the pleasure.

Political Philosophy

Hereditary Monarchies:     The arguments used by the Church to promote the Pope and limit the powers of the monarchs are the predecessors of the arguments in favor of the right for self governance.     Some attempts at developing systems to justify the divine right of kings, fails due to the religious / political landscape being too fractured.     ^ interesting point: political inheritance doesn’t exist anymore, but economic inheritance does.

State of Nature and Natural Law     So where does the origin / legitimacy of government come from?     Natural Law: comes from God, and the social contract comes from it.     State of Nature: people under natural law, not savages, more so virtuous anarchists who do not need to be governed.     But if it is so good, why do we need government? Because every man must defend its own rights. (and according to Locke, especially property)

When states form, the states are now in state of nature towards each other!

“The belief of the badness of the remote past only came with the doctrine of evolution”

Social Contract:     Who bestows power to governors? Either God (monarchies) or the people (social contract).     He also reasons that judiciary and executive should be independent, why? Because government is supposed to solve that every man should fend for themselves, but if the monarch is both judge and plaintiff, there is no neutral party that decides.     Social contract is useful legal fiction (isn’t really true historically), and has some holes: e.g. in practice, people don’t willfully agree to the social contract, since leaving one’s country if one does not agree with its contract is difficult in practice.

Property:     Strong defender of private property (e.g. the military may have control over a soldier’s life, but not his property).     Come up with labor theory of value! Where value of product is function of the labor expended upon it. Theory doesn’t make sense in industrialized society (a lot of factors determine the value, equipment, raw material, intellectual property, … e.g. how much does a factory worker contribute to the value of the final product?)

Checks and Balances:     Separate judicial, legislative, and executive power, with reciprocal counterweights. What happens when they are in contrast? In practice, violence decides who wins (the winner determines the legality of the matter).

Locke’s political philosophy is increasingly antiquated: modern states have so much power over their citizens that it’s harder to model them as contracts between citizens (if a citizen does not like the contract, what can he do realistically?).

Locke’s Influence

“Two main types of philosophy in modern Europe”

• British philosophy: starts with Locke, inherited by Hume, Berkeley, Bentham …
  More focus on empiricism: broad survey of facts, from that deduce modest conclusions. Solid ground, but the “pyramid” can only grow so tall.
• Continental philosophy: starts with Descartes, then Kant, Leibniz, etc.
  More rationalism: starts from a small logical principle, logically deducing much from it. Taller “pyramid”, but shaky.

Contempt for happiness is easier when the happiness is other people’s than when it is our own. Usually the substitute for happiness is some form of heroism. This affords unconscious outlets for the impulse to power, and abundant excuses for cruelty. Or, again, what is valued may be strong emotion; this was the case with the Romantics. This led to a toleration of such passions as hatred and revenge.

Berkeley

Matter does not exist on its own—only through being perceived!
But God perceives everything, so things always exist (which is why God exists, or existence would be “jerky”).

Matter is but an interface!Matter is a bundle of sensible qualities: we see only light and color, we hear only sounds—i.e., only what we can gather by using this interface really exists. The black-box, unobservable behavior present in the “core” of the object does not exist.These different aspects have contiguity, which leads us to perceive them as belonging to “one thing”, but this is just mental convenience and doesn’t tell us anything more about the interface.

Fallacy: Sure, if a thing exists we can perceive it, but something being un-perceivable does not mean it does not exist. So perception is not a sufficient tool for explaining reality.

So what do we mean by perception:

• Physicalist View: a thing is perceived <=> it affects physical matter (this means we can say both that a person perceives a car and that a valley perceives the rain that forms it).
• Theory of Knowledge: percepts = things we know without inference (immediately true, so the senses). But how do we go from percepts to inferring other events?
  • We can’t (inference can only be deductive, radical rationalism)
  • We can only infer from our direct percepts (e.g. we can say that something we experience did in fact happen)
  • We can infer from our own percepts and those of others that are similar (e.g. I can infer from other people having headaches, but it stil has to be witnessed by some mind).
  • (Common Sense): there are events that no one experiences (e.g. star dying).

How do we describe mind and matter? Both as groups of events!

• Mind: group of events connected to each other by memories (since all a mind does is either remember of be remembered).
• Matter: group of events (how it is perceived by other minds).

Hume

Develops the empiricism of Locke and Berkeley massively, makes it self-consistent.

Perception

Perception is either:

• Impressions: empirical experiences, are immediate.
• Ideas: mental image of concepts, simple ones are directly linked to the corresponding impression (e.g. thinking of a horse), complex ones are composed from impressions (e.g. thinking of a horse with wings). The ideas we remember and are close to an impression are memories, otherwise they are imagination.

Abstract Ideas are still particulars

“General Ideas are nothing but particular ones, annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive significance, and makes them recall upon occasion other individuals, which are similar to them”. “The mind cannot form any notion of quantity or quality without forming a precise notion of it”.

Critique: ideas are often vague, e.g. if I remember a flower I saw there are a lot of different colors that could be plausible. Humans are but bundles of perceptions, rapidly succeeding themselves, and are in perpetual flux.

Self

Refutes the idea of Self (we don’t perceive it, thus we can have no idea of it, thus it does not enter my mind), because:

• All things that are (directly) imperceivable (such as my own brain) can still be defined in terms of perceived things (e.g. I can perceive the MRI machine, which perceives my brain).
• Psychology is still a physical thing, so we can explain all of it without introducing something un-perceivable (the Self).
• So the Self is simply a bundle of perceptions like all others (not special). The Self can only enter our knowledge as a bundle of perceptions! Crazy consequences, e.g. the subject - object relationship is not fundamental.

Probability

Relationship between percepts can be of 2 types:

• Certain, depend only on ideas: resemblance, contrariety, degree of quality, proportion.
• Probable, are spatial temporal: causation, identity, relation of place/time.

Causality

First, we cannot witness causation itself: we only observe two events in temporal succession, and infer (not deduce) that the first caused the second. Repetition gives us constant conjunction, but it still yields no logical necessity between A and B. “Necessity exists only in the mind, not in the objects.” So:

• Causation is not an occult tie; it is just conjunction/succession (events occurring close together, one after the other).
• Induction by enumeration has no deductive justification.
  => Empirical belief rests on habit/custom rather than rational proof. Complete rational bankrupty (all courses of actions are equally valid).

Kant and Hegel—represent a pre-Humian type of rationalism, and can be refuted by Humian arguments. The philosophers who cannot be refuted in this way are those who do not pretend to be rational, such as Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

Critique: while we cannot be certain of causality, repeated observation increases the odds that A in some sense, is responsible for B happening (think Bayesian Inference). But note that this principle cannot be empirically justified (bc circular reasoning), so it must be grounded in logic.

Break From Enlightenment

Romantics:     Revolt against the enlgithmenet era ethics and asestehtiics. Highlighting direct, irratioanl and passions.     Utiliatiran standards are replaced by aesthetics (the tiger is more praiseworthy than the worm).     Rejection of social bonds (anarchice tendendice), self-development is the fundamental principle of ethics.     Comtempt for capitalism (but because it’s rational and aristocratic, not out of preouccutpation for the proletariat like socialism).

Rousseau

Appeals to the heart and sensibility. Anti-intellectual and anti-civiliazion, civilization is evil because it introduces unnatural inequalities and is contrary to the state of nature.

Theology

Shifts the proofs for the existence of God from having rational appeal (e.g. scholastics) to having emotional appeal.

“I do not deduce these rules from the principles of a high philosophy, but I find them in the depths of my heart, written by Nature in ineffaceable characters.”

Following your emotions <=> being virtuous.
Scriptures and the Church are not needed, since Natural Religion reveals itself automatically (reason is obscure and difficult, away with it!).

Political Philosophy

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”

Social Contract: for self-preservation, man gives up all his rights and goods to the community (no inherent rights of man are preserved).
The state has a will, which is the combined will of all the individuals in the state (where selfish interests cancel each other out and we are only left with what is good for the community). Rousseau says that groups within the state (e.g. churches, parties) interfere with this will, since they make the will of people tangled and astray.

Kant

As seem with Hume, empiricism kinda collapsed onto itself. Kant addresses this by equipping empiricism with some rationalist priors. Although none of our knowledge can transcend experience, there is some knowledge which is not derived from experience.

Predicates can be:

• Analytic: the predicate is contained in the subject; no new knowledge is added (e.g. “a tall man is tall”).
• Synthetic: everything else (e.g. things we can only know through experience).

Also distinguishes between:

• Empirical: derived from (ours or somebody else’s) experience.
• A priori: mathematics (2^32 = 65536 does not need confirmation by experience).

Geometry is synthetic a priori because its propositions extend knowledge and are grounded in pure spatial intuition, not in empirical observation. (Not in line with modern standards, where we don’t confound pure geometry (axioms and their consequences, no bearing to spatial intuition) and physical geometry, e.g. for special relativity, where geometry is empirical.)

Things in themselves: what generates phenomena (perceptions); we cannot directly observe them.
Phenomena: what we perceive, split into:

• Sensations: what is caused by the things in themselves.
• Forms: What is caused by our own subjective mental apparatus (priors).

Kant: things in themselves are unknowable, but we have mental priors (categories) which can help us organize our sensations coming from them. Note that there is no reason for us to assume that these categories are in any way applicable to the things in themselves, only to our perception (phenomena) of them.

Categories: things like quantity, relation, quality, …

He disproves the ontological proof: existence is not a predicate (i.e. it does not give a property to the subject). Rather, God exists because moral law demands justice, which can only be ensured by Providence.

Space and Time: synthetically a priori, because they are the preconditions/structure that make observation possible at all (cannot reason about different perceptions being distinguished from one another (i.e. in different places/time) without space and time).

Critique: doesn’t give any criteria for how the “ordering” of sensations should be done (i.e. there is no bearing between the things themselves and phenomena). But e.g. if A always happens after B, I have some reason to believe that there is a causal relationship between the two.

Critique of Practical Reason (Moral)

All morals are a priori, opposite of utilitarianism. Morality is wholly in the intention rather than in the result.

Categorical Imperative: synthetic and a priori:
“Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural” (This is more a necessary condition than a sufficient one.)

XIX Century

Lots of scientific and economic progress, followed by major social turmoil.
Germany becomes unified under Prussia and becomes an intellectual powerhouse.

Downstream from the French Revolution:

• Rationalist revolt: utilitarians and Marx
• Romantic revolt: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and (later) fascism

The period is dominated by nationalism, romanticism, and idealism: emotionally charged philosophy, emphasizing will (and sometimes violence) at the expense of reason and science. Economics and science/technica also become major influences on philosophy (e.g., Marx).

Social Darwinism becomes prevalent:

• Counters the liberal claim that all men are born equal: a biological framing is used to legitimize domination by the strong over the weak (often supporting nationalism and organicist views, where the “fittest” nations/groups survive).
• Also reinforces belief in progress as something fundamental.

Industrialism:

• Increases confidence in humanity’s ability to accelerate progress (no change seems impossible).
• Produces a split between workers and owners, which is fundamentally non-democratic.

Men become deeply aware of the power achievable through science and industry.

Hegel

Hugely influential (many of the eminent philosophers after him are Hegelian).

Does not believe in multiplicity: things that appear separate really are just an illusion and part of a single system (an organism), which is the Absolute / Spirit / Reality. The idea is thought thinking about itself (there is nothing outside it), i.e. subject and object are the same.

Time and Space are fake/misleading because they imply separatedness and multiplicity.

What is real is rational, and what is rational is real. (If something is rational, it can and will exist in the world. If something is real, it has to be rational / self-consistent).

No predicate that is about a part of Reality is true; it must be of Reality as a whole. (Because we assume that every proposition has a subject and a predicate, which means relations are not real since they have 2 subjects (e.g. uncle is a nephew). So it must be that the subject is the nephew=uncle pair. But then all the things we consider to be individual are really connected with other things, so the only real subject is all of Reality).

Dialectic process for acquiring knowledge: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

History unfolds dialectically toward the realization of freedom. Freedom means obedience to rational law, which individuals recognize as their own (very convenient). Spirit is embodied in social institutions and historical processes; individuals pursue their own ends, but through them Spirit progressively comes to know and actualize itself. The modern German monarchy represents, for Hegel, the highest historical expression of this rational freedom.
Every age has nations and people (world-historical individuals) who embody the aims of the Spirit and carry onwards the dialectical transition.

Organistic view, State above individual (the state, not the individuals, is the earthly embodiment of the Spirit).

Holism: if you consider things as not part of the whole, you cannot make any true statement about them, because this separation changes their character fundamentally.
Critique: if this is true, how can knowledge even start? To know one thing, we need to first know all other things, but how could we know all those other things in the first place? Resolution: to talk about an object we don’t need to know everything about it, just enough to distinguish him from anything else.

States are individual, and they should aim to maintain their own freedom (so war is justified: it is how, in the state of nature, individuals (i.e. states) resolve disputes).

For Hegel, the State is good as an end, not just a means (for Liberals it’s just a means to the end of human freedom / self-actualization)

Critique: due to holism, he says that States are preferable over an anarchic collection of individuals, but does not apply the same reasoning for an international federation of States. Also ignores other institutions in favour of the state.

Byron

Aristocratic rebel, discontent in a cosmic / moral way with how the world is created. Believing himself fated to wickedness, he leaned into it: treating open, elemental sin as a mark of distinction.
Huge cultural influence in Continental Europe: him and Napoleon are seen as romantic heroes that counter the modern industrial tendencies.

Schopenhauer

“He was anti-democratic, believed in spiritualism and magic: in his study he had a bust of Buddha and Kant”.

Unusual: pessimist, favours eastern religions over Christianity.
He is the first to stress the importance of Will.

Will: is singular and timeless; it determines all life, is wicked (pessimism), and the cause of our suffering (no such thing as happiness: either unfulfillment (pain) or attainment (temporary satiety)).

(Schopenhauer’s very approximate interpretation of) Nirvana: Answer to the wickedness of will: once a man sees past the veil of Maya (illusion), he is able to see that the distinction between him and others is only apparent (all knowledge is illusory). He can then take on the suffering of the whole world and quiet its Will, which is the cause of his misery.

Enlightenment leads the saint to see the world as it really is: governed by a wicked and omnipotent Will

Nietzsche

Huge influence on the arts and literature more than philosophy.

Ethics:
True virtue (as opposed to the conventional one) is only achievable by a minority: it isolates you, and is hostile to others. Higher men must make war on the masses, and resist the democratic tendencies.
Individualist, admirer of strength of will, discipline, and ability to endure and inflict pain. Compassion is a weakness (more of a fact, like the Old Testament, but not the New one).
Those who win have a stronger will / are superior to the defeated, so they (and, by biological inheritance of the same trait) and their successors should rule.

Ethics such as that of Christianity and Buddhism have their emotion basis in universal sympathy: Nietzsche’s in a complete absence of it.

Christianity:
Despises it, says that it causes the acceptance of “slave morality”, where all are equal.
It aims at taming the hearts of men by inventing sin and repentance, and making them meek.
Believes that Christian love is a response to fear and the impossibility to overpower your rivals (he does not conceive genuine love for others).

Despises things like the Church and the French Revolution, where the weak (majority) band together to overpower the strong.

Utilitarianism

Strong political influence, especially downstream on socialism.
Strong beliefs in reason to solve all problems, anti-romantic.

Pleasure and good are fundamentally the same.

2 principles:

• association principle: kind of like Pavlov’s but more general; ideas / sensations and actions are paired through repeated observation. Used to explain how law and education must associate actions (good, bad behaviour) with pleasure / pain.
• greatest happiness principle: a state is preferable over another if it involves more pleasure and/or less pain than another. This takes precedence over liberty of individuals.

“If each man must always pursue his own Pleasure, ethics is reduced to prudence: you may do well to further the interests of others in the hope that they in turn will further yours. Similarly in politics all co-operation is a matter of deal-making.”

The Benthamites become more radical over time:

• increasing belief in equality (he states that the morality of the time falsely claimed that there was identity in the interest of the governor and the governed, but really it was only suited for the former).
• increased confidence in his theory (e.g. rejects religion because it did not maximize happiness).

From the utilitarians, in particular their Malthusian economic views, descended:

• Darwinism: struggle for existence is a biological extension of the Malthusian crisis.
• Socialism: backlash against the free-market.

Marx and Historical Materialism

Materialist and rationalist. Gives socialism a philosophical backbone.
His philosophy, more strongly than others, is an expression of the particular time in which the philosopher lived (strongly practical and anthropo-centric philosophy).

History:
Like Hegel, the world evolves dialectically; but unlike Hegel, it’s matter, not the Spirit, that is the driving force. In practice, how Man relates to matter (i.e. mode of production).

Materialist conception of History; politics, philosophy of the time are a function of the means of production (and to a lesser extent, distribution).

Historical dialectical triad is: Feudalism -> Capitalism -> Socialism. Social classes are the vehicle through which the dialectic expresses itself.

The world remains divided into 3 ideals:

• Liberals: rationalistic and empirical, belief in equality, descend from Bentham and Locke
• Marxists: rationalistic and empirical, belief in equality, descend from Marx
• Fascists: anti-rational and unscientific, concentration of power, descendants from Rousseau and Nietzsche.

XX Century

Bergson

Rousseauian revolt against reason and established philosophy, nocurages action over contemplation. Dualistic philosophy, struggle of life vs matter.
Evolution is not mechanical / deterministic, but a creative impulse of life (e.g. animals split from plants because they had a stronger desire to move). The Mind operates thorug:

• Intellect: is the power to understand matter, by being able to distinguish different types of matter (e.g. science). Multiplicty of matter is illusory
• Intuition is the power to understand life, it does not divide and understands things holistically (e.g. art)

There are no things, only action

In his system, time and space are profoundy dissilar: space is the stuff of matter, time of life (but not time in the “mathematical sense” but in what he calls duration). Duration: lived time, the continuous flow of inner experience, instantiated by the mind, where moments are noy laid out in succession buy they interpenetrate each other. It exhibits itself in memories, which are moments of the present that hold the past, meaning that past and present are not mutually external but interpenetrate each other. “The past is tha twhich acts no longer, the present which is acting” (circular definition, since by using tenses we are implying some pre-existing notion of space and time). Thus opposes the “cenmaatographic” view fo the world, which represents the world as a fixed succession of staets, arather than a dynamic interpreneteration of past and presnet.

James

Invented raidcla empriicism: the subject object relation is not fundamentla. Consciousness should not be a frst principle. The world is only made up of “pure experience”, and that knowing is not an “axiom”, but some specific relation to between 2 pure experiences. WIll to Believe: we must “believe truth” and “shun error”. Being a skeptic means missing triths in fear of them being error. WE should however be optimistic and belief, which in turn encourages us to look for more evidence which will clarity things. Also some truths becoem so by virtue of us beleiving (e.g. belief that I can improve myself). Critique: does not incorporate probability of belief, more so deals in absoutes.

Pracmatism: an idea is true as long as it is profiable to our lives and happiness. (uses it to justify belief in God (note: this can justify belief in god as true/good, but not its existence)).

James, treats religion as a human phenomena, he’s uninterested with the actual object of relligion.

Dewey

Partial Hegelian influence, metaphysical organicist view. Insturmentalism: truth is not final / static /eternal, but an evolving thing. Inquiry: the process where an organism adjusts to an environment (or adjusts the environment) in order to make it more safisfactory (which is more intended as functional / useful). Inquiry is the axiom of knowledge, not truth!

Truth: defined upon inquiry, is what those who inquire eventually converge to.

Note that this means that truthness (rather “warranted assertibility”) can change over time, e.g. if a fact becomes more or less satisfactory to us.

Aside: for Russell, truth is related to surprise (believing in false causes high surprise, since our world model is poorly fitted!!), but not only, since truth is external/independent of algorithms, and some statements cannot be empirically tested.

Logical Analysis

Aka analytic phylosophy. Origiins is in the attempts to formalize the foundations of math (what is a number? a number $n$ is the set of all collections with $n$ elements). Trying to map arbitrary to statements to a better defined syntax (e.g.”Dante wrote the divine comedy” -> There exists exactly one entity $c$ for which the statement ”$c$ wrote the Divine Comedy” is true). Analytical Empirism: incorporate mathematics into classical empiricism. It makes very clear that it’s not concerned with questions of moral value, only scientific ones (unlike most phylosophy).