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UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

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?hilosophy is usually connected with that current for political history, so as to distinguish three greatperiods,

Ancient,made

Mediaeval, and

Modern Philosophy.

Yet the

sections

in this

way

are not so favourable for the history of

philosophy as they perhaps are for political history. Other points of division must be made, equally important as regards the nature of the development and, on the other hand, the transition between the Middle Ages and modern times demands a shifting of the point;

of division on either side.

In consequence of this, the entire history of philosophy will here be treated according to the following plan of division, in a manner to be more exactly illustrated and justified in detail by the exposition itself(1):

scientific

The Philosophy of the Greeks: from the beginnings of from about 600 to thought to the death of Aristotle,

322

B.C.

(2)

to the passing

Hellenistic-Roman Philosophy: from the death of Aristotle from 322 b.c. to about away of Neo-Platonism,

500 A.D.

from the(4)

(3)

Mediceval Philosophy

:

from Augustine

to Nicolaus Cusanus,

fifth to the fifteenth century.

The Philosophy of

the

Renaissance : from the fifteenth to the

seventeenth century.

22

Introduction.

(5) The Philosophy of the Enlightenment: from Locke to the 1689-1781. death of Lessing, The German Philosophy : from Kant to Hegel and Herbart, (6)

1781-1820.(7)

The Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century.

PART

I.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS.Chr. A. Brandis, Handhucli der Geschichte der griechisch-rbmischen Philosophie. Berlin, 1835-66. 3 pts. in 6 vols.

Same

author, Geschichte der Entwickelungen der griechischen Philosophie

und

ihrer

Nachwirkungen im romischen Reiche.

2 pts.

Berlin, 1862-66.

1st vol. in 5th, Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen. 3 pts. in 5 vols. [Trans., with the excep2 vol. in 4th, 3-5 vols, in 3d ed. Leips. 1879-93.

tion of the portion

on the concluding

religious period, as six

works: Pre-

and Academy, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics (2 vols.). Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, History of Eclecticism, chiefly by S. F. Alleyne and Lond. and N.Y., Longmans.] O. J. Reichel. A. Schwegler, Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie. Ed. by K. Kostlin. 3dSocratic Philosophy (2 vols.), Socrates

and

the Socratic Schools, Plato

the Older

ed.

Freiburg, 1882.

L.

Striimpell,

Die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie.

2 pts.

Leips.

1854-61.

Munich, 1894. 2d ed. Windelband, Geschichte der alten Philosophie. {History of Ancient Philosophy, trans, by H. E. Cushman, N.Y., 1899. J In 8th ed. Hitter et Preller, Historia philosophies groeco-ro^nance (Grcecce'). An excellent collection of the most Edited by Wellman. Gotha, 1898."W.

important sources.[A.

W. Benn, The GreekGreece.

Philosophers.

2 vols.

Lond., 1883.

The PhilosoMagnus.

Lond. 1898.] Th. Gomperz, Griechische Denker. Vienna, 1897. Greek Thinkers. Lond. and N.Y., 1900.]

phy of

[Trans, by L.

that independent and self-conscious which seeks knowledge methodically for its own sake, then it is among the Greeks, and the Greeks of the sixth aside from some century B.C., that we first find such a science, tendencies among the peoples of the Orient, those of China and

If by scienceof

we understand

work

intelligence

India ^ particularly, only recently disclosed.Even

The great

civilised

be conceded that the beginnings of moral philosophy among the above moralising, and especially those of logic in India above incion which we shall dental reflections on the scientific formation of conceptions, not here pronounce, these remain so remote from the course of European philosophy, which forms a complete unity in itself, that a text-book has no The literature is brought together in Ueberoccasion to enter upon them. weg, I. 6. 231

if it

Chinese

rise

24

The Philosophy of

the Crreeks.

peoples of earlier antiquity were not, indeed, wanting either in an abundance of information on single subjects, or in general views of the universe but as the former was gained in connection with practical needs, and the latter grew out of mythical fancy, so they remained under the control, partly of daily need, partly of religious poetry and, as was natural in consequence of the peculiar restraint of the Oriental mind, they lacked, for their fruitful and independent;;

development, the initiative activity of individuals. Among the Greeks, also, similar relations existed until, at the timementioned, the mighty upward movement of the national life unfettered the mental powers of this most gifted of all peoples. For this result the democratic development of constitutions which in passionate party struggle tended to bring out independence of individual

opinions and judgments, and to develop the significance of personality, proved even more favourable than the refinement and spiritualisation of life

which increasing wealth of trade brought with

it.

The more the luxuriant developmentold bonds of the

of individualism loosened the

common

consciousness, of faith, and of morals, and

threatened the youthful civilisation of Greece with the danger of anarchy, the more pressing did individual men, prominent by their position in life, their insight, and their character, find the dutyof recovering in theirlost.

own

reflection theits

measure that was becoming

This ethical reflection found

representatives in the lyric

and gnomic

poets, especially, however, in the so-called seven ivise

men}

movement, in which individual opinions asserted their independence, should trench upon the religious life already so varied, in which the opposition between the old mystery-cults and the aesthetic national mythology stimuAlready in the coslated the formation of so many special types.^ mogonic poetry the poet had dared to portray the heaven of the myths according to his own individual fancy the age of the seven sages began to read its ethical ideals into the gods of the Homeric poetry, and in the ethico-religious reformation attempted by Pythagoras,^ coming as it did in the outer form of a return to the old strictness of life, the new content which life had gained came all the moreIt could not fail to occur, also, that a similar;

clearly to view.1 The "seven sages," among whom Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon are usually named, while with regard to the rest tradition is not agreed, must not, with the exception of Thales, be regarded as representatives of science. Diog. Laert. I. 40 Plato, Protag. 343. 2 Cf. E. Rohde (Psyche, 2d ed., 1897) for the influence of religious ideas. 2 Pherecydes of Syrus is to be regarded as the most important of these cosmogonic poets he wrote in prose at the time of the first philosophies, but his mode of thought is still mythical throughout, not scientific. Fragments of his writings collected by Sturz (Leips. 1834).;

;

:

The Philosophy of

the Greeks.

25

conditions of fermentation the science of the Greeks which they gave the name philosophy was born. The independent reflection of individuals, aided by the fluctuations of religious fancy, extended itself from the questions of practical life to the knowledge of Nature, and there first won that freedom from external ends, that limitation of knowledge to itself, which constitutesto

From such

the essence of science. All these processes, however, took place principally in the outlying parts of Greek civilisation, in the colonies, which were in advanceof the so-called Mother-country in mental as in material develop-

In Ionia, in Magna Grsecia, in Thrace, stood the cradles of It was only after Athens in the Persian wars had assumed together with the political hegemony the mental as well, which she was to keep so much longer than the former, that Attic soil, consecrated to all the muses, attracted science also. Its advent was at the time of the Sophists it found its completion in the doctrine and school of Aristotle. It was in connection with the disinterested consideration of Nature that reflection first rose to the scientific construction of conceptions. The result of this was that Greek science devoted all the freshness of youthful joy and knowledge primarily to the problems of Nature, and in this work stamped out fundamental conceptions, or Forms of thought, for apprehending the external world. In order to turn the look of philosophy inward and make human action the object of its study, there was first need, for one thing, of subsequent reflection upon what had, and what had not, been accomplished by this study of Nature, and, for another thing, of the imperious demands made by public life on science now so far matured as to be a social factor. The effect of this change might for a time seem to be to check the pure zeal for research which had marked the beginnings, but after positive results had been reached in the field of the knowledge of man's inner nature this same zeal developed all the more vigorously, and led to the construction of those great systems with which purely Greek philosophy reached its consummation. The philosophy of the Greeks divides, therefore, into three periods a cosmological, which extends from about 600 to about 450 b.c. an anthropological, which fills out about the second half of the fifth century b.c. (450-400) and a systematic, which contains the development of the three great systems of Greek science, those of Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle (400-322).ment.science.;

;

;

The philosophy of the Greeks forms the most instructive part of the whole history of philosophy from a theoretical point of view, not only because the fundamental conceptions created in it have become the permanent foundations

26

The Philosophy of

the Greeks.

for all further development of thought, and promise to remain such, but also because in it the formal presuppositions contained in the postulates of the thinking Reason itself, attained sharp formulation as set over against the material of knowledge, which, especially at the beginning, was still relatively small in amount. In this the Greek philosophy has its typical value and its didactic

importance. These advantages appear already in the transparency and simplicity of the entire development, which enable us to see the inquiring mind at first turned outward, then thrown back upon itself, and from this point of view returning to a deeper apprehension of reality as a whole. There is, therefore, scarcely any controversy with regard to this course of the general development of Greek philosophy, though different expositions have located the divisions between the periods at different points. Whether Socrates IS made to begin a new period, or is placed together with the Sophists in the period of Greek Enlightenment, depends ultimately only on whether the result (negative or positive), or the object-matter of the philosophising, is regarded as That, however, Democritus must in any case be sepaof decisive importance. rated from the " Pre-Socratics " and assigned to the great systematic period of Greek Philosophy, has been proved by the Author ui his survey of the History of Ancient Philosophy, ch. V., and the objections which the innovation has encountered have not sufficed to convince him of any mistake.

CHAPTER

I.

THE COSMOLOGICAL PERIOD.S.

A. Byk, Die vorsokratische Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer organischenGliederung.2 Parts.Leips. 1875-77.

[J. Burnet,

Early Greek Philosophy.

Lond. 1892.]

The immediate backgroundphy was formed byworld, anduniverse,so,

for the beginnings of

Greek philoso-

the cosmogonic poetry, which aimed to present

in mythical garb the story of the prehistoric ages of the givenin the

form of narratives of the origination of the

made use of prevailing ideas as to the constant mutations of things. The more freely individual views developed in this process, the more the time factor in the myth retreated in favour of theemphasising of these abiding relations and the question finall}^ emerged: "What is then the original ground of things, which outlasts all temporal change, and how does it change itself into these particular things, or change these things back into itself?" The solution of this question was first attempted in the sixth;

century by the Milesian School of natural philosophy, of which Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes are known to us as thethree chief representatives.

Information of

many

kinds,

which had

long been publicly accumulating in the practical experience of thesea-faring lonians, stood at theirdisposal, as well as

many

true

observations, often of an acute sort.

They kept

in touch, also,

no

doubt, with the experience of the Oriental peoples, especially the

whom they stood in so close relation.^ Knowledge from these various sources was brought together with youthful zeal. The chief interest fell upon physical questions, particularly uponEgyptians, with1 The influence of the Orient upon the beginnings of Greek philosophy has been overestimated by Glabisch (Die Beligion und die Philosophie in ihrer tppltgeschichtlichen Entwicklung, Breslau, 1852) and Rotli {Geschichte unserer

In the case of abendldndischen Philosophie, 2 Vols., Mannheim, 1858 ff.). information upon particular fields such influence is certainly to be recognised on the other hand, the scientific conceptions are throughout independent works;

of

Greek thought.27

28

The Philosophy of

the G-reeks.

[Part

I.

the great elementary phenomena, to explain which many hypotheses were thought out. Besides this, interest turned chiefly to geographical and astronomical problems, such as the form of the earth, its relation to the sidereal heavens, the nature of the sun, moon, and planets, and the manner and cause of their motion. On the other hand, there are but feeble indications of a zeal for knowledge applied to the organic world and man.

Such were the objects of experience studied by the first "philosophy." It stood quite far removed from medical science, which, to be sure, was limited to technical information and proficiency in the art, and was handed down as a secret doctrine, guarded in priest-like fashion in orders and schools, such as those of Khodes, Cyrene, Crotona, Cos, and Cnidus. Ancient medicine, which aimed expressly to be an art and not a science (so Hippocrates), came into contact with philosophy when this was an all-embracing science, only at a late period and quite transiently. Cf. Haser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin, I. (2d ed., Jena, 1875). So also the beginnings of mathematics go along independently beside those of ancient philosophy. The propositions ascribed to the Milesians make the impression of individual pieces of information picked up and put together, rather than of results of genuine research, and are quite out of relation with their doctrines in natural science and philosophy. In the circles of the Pythagoreans, also, mathematical studies were at first evidently pursued for their own sake, to be drawn all the more vigorously into the treatment of general problems. Cf. G. Cantor, Geschichte der Mathematik, I. (Leips. 1880).

The efforts of the Milesians to determine the nature of the one world-ground had already in the case of Anaximander led beyond experience to the construction of a metaphysical conception to beused for explanation, viz. the airupov, and thereby drew science away from the investigation of facts to the consideration of conceptions. While Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic School, drew the consequences which result for the religious consciousness from the philosophical conception of the unity of the world, Heraclihis, in. hard struggle with ideas that were obscure and religiously coloured, analysed destructively the presupposition of an abiding substance, and allowed only a law of change to stand as ultimate content of knowledge. All the more sharply, on the other hand, did the Eleatic School, in its great representative, Parmenides, shape out the conception of Being until it reached that regardless boldness of formulation which, in the following generation of the School, was defended

by Zeno, and softened down in some measure only by Melissus. Very soon, however, a series of efforts appeared, which brought anew into the foreground the interest in explanatory natural science that had been thrust aside by this development of the first metaphysical antitheses. In behalf of this interest more comprehensive this time, efforts were made toward an enrichment of knowledge more than in the case of previous observations, questions and hypotheses from the organic and physiological realms were kept in;

Chap.

1.]

The Cosmological Period.

29

mind; and the attempt was made to mediate with explanatorytheories between the opposing conceptions of Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Out of these needs arose, about the middle of the fifth century, by side, and with many reciprocal relations, positive and polemical, the theories of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus, founder The number of these theories of the Atomistic School of Abdera. and their well-known dependence upon one another prove that in spite of the distance by which individual men and schools found themselves separated, there was already a great vigour in exchange The picture of this life takes of thought and in literary activity. on a much fuller form as we reflect that tradition, in sifting its material, has obviously preserved only the memory of what was most important, and that each of the names remaining known toside

us indicates, in truth, an entire circle of scientific activity. The Pythagoreans, during this same period, occupied a peculiarposition at one side.

They

also took

up the metaphysical problem

given by the opposition between Heraclitus and the Eleatics, but hoped to find its solution by the aid of mathematics, and, by theirtheory of numbers, as whose first literary representative Philolaus is known, added a number of most important factors to the further

league

movement of thought. The original purpose made itself felt in their doctrines, in

or tendency of theirthat, in fixing these,

they conceded a considerable influence to considerations of (ethical or aesthetic) worth. They indeed attempted a scientific treatment of ethical questions as little as did the entire philosophy of this period, but the cosmology which they based upon their astronomical ideas, already widely developed with the help of mathematics, isyet at the same time permeated by sesthetic and ethical motives.Thales, Anaximander, and AnOf the Milesian School only three names aximenes have been handed down to us. From this it appears that the school

what was then the Ionic capital during the entire sixth century, and perished with the city itself, which was laid waste by the Persians in 494,flourished inafter the battle of Lade.

Thales, sprung from an old merchant family, is said to have predicted the solar eclipse in 585, and survived the invasion of the Persians in the middle of the sixth century. He had perhaps seen Egypt, and was not deficient in mathematical and physical knowledge. So early an author as Aristotle did not know writings from him. Anaximander seems to have been little younger. Of his treatise irepl (pvaews Biisgen, a curious fragment only is preserved. Cf. Neuhauser (Bonn, 1883).

Ueber dasIt is

des A. (Wiesbaden, 1867). difficult to determine the period of Anaximenes.S.ireipov

It falls

probably about

Almost nothing of his work wepl - 154, 14 (after Theophrastus) also the continuation of the passage in the following note. 3 Simpl. Phys. (D.) Q^ 24, 18. Cf. Th. Ziegler, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos.,1

Anaximenes.

;

I.

16

ff.

50matter inits

The G-reeks

:

Cosmological Period.

[Part

I.

successive changes in the universe.in

everything exaggerated by Heraclitus to the claim that everything is conThe " other " was for him eo tinually changing into its opposite. The "flux of things " became transformed in his ipso the opposed.is

the

world

in

process

of constant

The observation that change was

poetic rhetoric into a ceaseless strife of opposites,(7roAe/i,os)

and

this strife

he declared to be the father of things. All that seems to be for a shorter or longer time is the product of opposed motions and forces which in their operation maintain themselves in equilibrium.

The universe

is

thus at every

moment

a unity divided in

itself and again re-united, a strife which finds its reconciliation, a want that finds its satisfaction. The essence of the world is the

invisible

solved.sites.

harmony The world

inis

which all differences and oppositions are Becoming, and Becoming is unity of oppo-

These antitheses, according to the view of Heraclitus, present themselves particularly in the two processes taking place in contrary directions, through which, on the one hand, fire becomes changed into all things, and, on the other hand, all things change

back intointo water

fire.

The same

stages

are

passed through in both

processes: on the ^'way downivard"

fire

passes over, by condensation,

on the "way upivard" earth and water, by rareand these two ways are alike. Change and counter-change run on side by side, and the semblance of a permanent thing makes its appearance where for a time there is as much counter-change upon the one way as there is change upon the other. The fantastic forms in which Heraclitus put these views envelop the essential thought of a sequence of changes taking place in conformity to law, and of a continual compensation of these changes. The world is produced from the fire in ever-repeated rhythm and at fixed intervals of time, and then again flashes up in fire, to arise from it anew, a Phoenix.^ In this ceaseless transformation of all things nothing individual persists, but only the order, in which the exchange between the contrary movements is effected, the laio of change, which constitutes the meaning and worth of the whole. If in the struggle between opposites it seems as though something new were constantly arising, this new is at the same time always a perishing product. The Becoming of Heraclitus produces no Being, as the Being of Parmenides produces no Becoming.

and

earth,

faction, pass over into fire

;

1 In details his physical, and especially his astronomical, ideas are weak. Metaphysical inquiry is more important with him than explanatory investigation. He shares this with his opponent, Parmenides.

Chap.

1, 5.]

Cosmic Processes

:

Parmenides^ JEmpedoeles.

51

4. In fact, the doctrine of Being held by the Eleatics excluded with plurality and change, events or cosmic processes, also. According to their metaphysics an event or occurrence is incomprehenThis metaphysics tolerates no physics. sible, it is impossible.

Parmenides deniesTrapcK Tov iovTos):

to time, as to space, independent reality (aAAo

tinctions.

him there is only timeless Being with no disAlthough Parmenides added to the first part of his didactic poem, which presents the doctrine of Being, a second part which treats physical problems, this is yet done with the protest in advancefor

that he

is

here presenting not truth, but the " opinions of mortals."

At the

basis of all these ordinary opinions lies the false presupposi-

Being there is still and motion, rest on the interaction of these opposites, which are then further designated A Weltanschauung is then as light and darkness, warmth and cold. portrayed in poetic imagery, in which fire shapes the dark empty space into corporeal structures, a mode of representation which in part reminds us of Heraclitus, and in part accords with the astronomical teaching of the Pythagoreans. The all-ruling Fire-power (8at/Awv), as inexorable necessity (Sik?;), with the help of love (e'/ows) forces together what is akin, working from the centre of the world outward. Appropriation of the doctrines of others and polemic against them appear in motley mixture, agreeably to the purpose of the whole. Over this tissue thus interwoven hovers a poetic breath of plastic formative power, but original research and clear conception, previously rejected, that in addition to

another. Non-being.

All becoming,

all plurality

tions are lacking.5.

Ideas more definite, and more usable for explaining the par-

ticular, are

found among the successors, who transformed theEleatic

conception of Being into the conceptions of element, homoiomerise,

and atom, expressly for this purpose. They all declare that by occurrence or coming to be nothing else is to be understood than the motion of unchangeable corporeal particles. EmjJedodes and Anaxagoras seem still to have sought to connect with this the denial of empty space, a principle which they received from Parmenides. They ascribed to their substances universal divisibility, and regarded parts as capable of displacement in such a way that as these parts mixed and reciprocally interpenetrated, all space should be always filled out. The motion in the world consists, then, in this

1 The hypothetical exposition of how the world would have to be thought if, in addition to Being, Non-being, plurality, and becoming were also regai'ded as real, had, on the one hand, a polemic purpose; and on the other, it met the want of his disciples, who probably demanded of the master an explanation of his own of the empirical world.

52

The

G-7'eeJcs

:

Cosmological Period.is

[Part I

displacement of the parts of matter, each of which

always crowd-

ing and displacing the other. Things at a distance from one another cannot act upon one another, except as parts of the one flow out andpenetrate into the other.

This action

is

the more possible in pro-

portion as the efluxes of the one body resemble in their spatial

form the pores of the other. So at least Empedocles taught, and the assumption of an infinite divisibility of substances is attested in the case of Anaxagoras also. Another picture of occurrence more akin to the present way of thinking is that presented by Leucippus. The atoms which impinge upon each other in empty space act upon each other by pressure and impact, group themselves together, and so form greater or smaller things or masses which are not separated and destroyed until some impact or pressure of other masses comes from without. All occurrence and coming to be consists in this process in which atom-complexes are successively formed andshattered.

The fundamental formEmpedoclesit is

of world-motion in all three systems, how(Stv?^).

ever, is that of the vortex, of circular rotation

According to

brought about by the forces of love and hate acting among the elements according to Anaxagoras it is begun by the Reason-stuff acting according to ends, and then continues with according to Leucippus it is the result mechanical consistency; ;

always occurring from the collision of several atoms. The principle of mechanism was with Empedocles still enveloped in myth, with Anaxagoras it first made a half-successful attempt to break through the covering, and was completely carried through only b}'" Leucippus. What hindered the first two from reaching this position was theintroduction oftheory.

considerations

of

The one was

for tracing the

worth into their explanatory good and the evil back to cor-

responding powers of mind, which were, to be sure, not ascribed to any being, but mythically hypostatised the other believed that he could explain the order of the whole only from the assumption that;

purposive, rationally considered impulse had originated the motions.

Yet both came

so near the ]3osition of Leucippus as toioiL

demand a

teleological explanation

the beginning only of the vortex-motion;

the farther course of the motions, and thus even/ individual occur-

they explained, as did Leucippus, purely mechanically, by the pushing and crowding of the particles of matter after these are once in motion in the manner determined. They proceeded so consistently in this that they did not exclude from this mechanical explanation even the origination and functions of organisms, among which, moreover, plants are regarded as being as truly animate as are animals. Anaxagoras is reproached for this by Plato and Aristotle,rence,

;

Chap.

1, 5.]

Cosmic Processes

:

Anaxagoras, Leucippus.

53

and an expression of Empedocles has been handed down/ according to which he taught that the animals had arisen here and there, without any rule, in odd and grotesque forms, and that in the course oftime only thosefitted for life

maintained themselves.

The principle

of the survival of the

biology of to-day,lated.

i.e.

which plays so great a part in the in Darwinism, is here already clearly formufittest,

On

the ground of these ideas, an interesting contrast discloses the three investigators, as regards their atti-

itself in the case of

tude toward cosmogonic theories.tionis

For Empedocles and for Leuit is

cippus, namely, the process of world-formation and world-dissolu-

a perpetual one

;

for Anaxagoras, on the contrary,all.

one

that takes place once for

Between the

first

two there;

is

again

the difference that Empedocles, like Heraclitus, teaches that the

world arises and perishes in periodic alternation while Atomism, on the contrary, holds that a countless number of worlds come into being and pass away. According to the principles of Empedocles, to be more explicit, there are four different states of the elements their complete intermixture, in which love alone rules, and hate is excluded, he calls cr