The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy: And Other Essays in Contemporary Thought |
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absolute action activity Aristotle belief brute character cognitive conception concrete CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXPERIENCE constitution course crete criterion distinct effect elements empirical empiricism empiricist ence epistemology eternal existence experienced experimental fact factor final fulfilment function genuine Greek hence human ical idea ideal idealist individual inquiry intel intellectual intellectualist intelligence Kant knowl logical matter meaning medieval ment metaphysical method mind mode modern moral nature Neo-Kantian notion object objective idealism operation organization origin paleontologist perception perience petrifaction philosophy physical Plato possible practical pragmatic pragmatist present principle priori PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE psychology pure purpose question rational rationalist reality realization reason reference reflective relation scientific Scientific Methods sciousness sensation sensationalist sense situation smell social Socrates specific spiritual standpoint statement teleology term theory things thinking thought tical tion transcendent transcendental true truth ultimate universe values
Popular passages
Page 202 - Our observation employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge from whence all the ideas we have or can naturally have do spring.
Page 188 - O, sir, to wilful men, The injuries, that they themselves procure, Must be their schoolmasters...
Page 2 - Species introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion.
Page 8 - ... gradually into existence, than when they are only considered as produced at once in a finished and perfect state.
Page 17 - But if insight into specific conditions of value and into specific consequences of ideas is possible, philosophy must in time become a method of locating and interpreting the more serious of the conflicts that occur in life, and a method of projecting ways for dealing with them: a method of moral and political diagnosis and prognosis.
Page 125 - Thinking is the attempt to satisfy a special impulse, and the attempt implies an assumption about reality. You may avoid the assumption so far as you decline to think, but, if you sit down to the game, there is only one way of playing. In order to think at all you must subject yourself to a standard, a standard which implies an absolute knowledge of reality; and while you doubt this, you accept it, and...
Page 59 - Democracy is an absurdity where faith in the individual as individual is impossible; and this faith is impossible when intelligence is regarded as a cosmic power, not an adjustment and application of individual tendencies.
Page 6 - The conception of eidos, species, a fixed form and final cause, was the central principle of knowledge as well as of nature. Upon it rested the logic of science. Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes, holding them thereby within the metes and bounds of fixed truth. Completely to know is to relate all special forms to their one single end and good: pure contemplative intelligence.
Page 7 - I cannot without great wonder, nay more, disbelief, hear it being attributed to natural bodies as a great honour and perfection that they are impassible, immutable, inalterable, etc.: as, conversely, I hear it esteemed a great imperfection to be alterable, generable, and mutable.
Page 17 - Finally, the new logic introduces responsibility into the intellectual life. To idealize and rationalize the universe at large is after all a confession of inability to master the courses of things that specifically concern us. As long as mankind suffered from this impotency, it naturally shifted a burden of responsibility that it could not carry over to the more competent shoulders of the transcendent cause.