Introduction to Philosophy

Western Philosophy

• Early
• Medieval
• Modern

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History of Western Philosophy> • Speculation and Dispute: The Presocratics ]|[ Socrates • Plato: Soul and Forms ]|[ Society and Virtue ]|[ Education and Justice ]|[ Love • Aristotle: Logic and Physics ]|[ Reality and Knowledge ]|[ Ethics ]|[ Politics • Hellenistic Thought: Cosmos and Morality • Philosophy and Religion: Augustine ]|[ Scholasticism ]|[ Arab and Jewish Thought • Late Scholasticism: Bonaventure and Aquinas ]|[ Scotus and Ockham Early Modern Philosophy • The Renaissance: Humanism and Science ]|[ Machiavelli ]|[ Hobbes • Descartes: Method ]|[ Doubt and Existence ]|[ Mind and Body ]|[ Cartesianism • Variations: Spinoza and Unity ]|[ Leibniz and Plurality • Locke: Origin of Ideas ]|[ Human Knowledge ]|[ Government • Extensions: Moralists and Bayle ]|[ Berkeley and Immaterialism • Hume: Mitigated Skepticism ]|[ Self and Morality ]|[ Religion Recent Modern Philosophy • The Enlightenment: British ]|[ Continental • Kant: Synthetic A Priori ]|[ Experience and Reality ]|[ The Moral Law • Absolute Idealism: Fichte and Hegel ]|[ Later Idealists • Social Concerns: Bentham and Mill ]|[ Marx and Engels • Other Reactions: Kierkegaard ]|[ Nietzsche • Pragmatism: Peirce ]|[ James ]|[ Dewey, Mead, & Addams Contemporary Philosophy • Beginnings: Logic and Mathematics ]|[ Phenomenology • Philosophical Analysis: Moore ]|[ Russell • Alternatives: Realism ]|[ Logical Positivism • Linguistic Analysis: Wittgenstein ]|[ Ryle and Austin ]|[ American Analysis • Existentialism: Heidegger ]|[ Sartre ]|[ de Beauvoir • Postmodernism: Critical Theory ]|[ Deconstruction • Feminism: Theory ]|[ Ethics ]|[ MacKinnon < According to the theory of Leibniz, which has also been regarded as idealistic, our mind constructs from its own resources (de son propre fond) its scheme of the world; but , thanks to a pre-established harmony (harmonie préétablie), it accords with reality. This view, however, furnishes no solution for the epistemological problem. Kant claims that his critical philosophy is both a "transcendental idealism" and an "empirical realism"; but he declares ideas are "illusions of reason", and such ideal principles as cause and purpose are simply devices of thought which can be employed only in reference to phenomena. Fichte took Kant as his starting--point but finally rose above the level of subjectivism and posited a principle of reality, the absolute Ego. Hegel's doctrine can be termed idealism so far as it seeks the highest principle in the absolute idea, which finds its self-realization in form, concept, etc.--a view which amounts virtually to monism. The various offshoots of Kantian philosophy are incorrectly regarded as developments of idealism; it is more accurate to describe them as "illusionism" or "Solipsism", since they entirely sweep away objective reality. In this connection a German philosopher declares: I affirm without hesitation that the assertion, 'the existence of the world consists merely in our thinking', is for me the result of a hypertrophy of the passion for knowledge. To this conclusion I have been lead chiefly by the torture I endure in getting over 'idealism'. Whosoever attempts to take this theory in downright earnest, to force his way clean through it and identify himself with it, will certainly feel that something is about to snap in his brain (Jerusalem, "Die Urtheilsfunktion", Vienna, 1886, p.261). Similar conclusions are reached by J. Volkelt (Erfahrung u. Denken, Hamburg, 1886, p. 519); Any man who carries his theoretical doubts or denial of the external world so far that even in his everyday experience he is forever reminding himself of the purely subjective character of his perceptions. . .will simply find himself flung out of the natural course and direction of life, stripped of all normal feeling and interest, and sooner or later confronted with the danger of losing his mind completely. It is certainly a matter of regret that the terms idea, idealist, and idealism, originally so rich in content, should be so far degraded as to signify such aberrations of thought. The present writer, in his "Geschichte des Idealismus" (2nd ed., Brunswick, 1907) has taken the ground that the original meaning of these terms should be restored to them. In the index of this "Geschichte" and in his monograph, "Die Wichtigsten Philosophischen Fachausdrücke" (Munich, 1909), he traces in detail the changes and meaning which these words have undergone