Basal Concepts in Philosophy: An Inquiry Into Being, Non-being, and Becoming |
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absolute spirit achieved actuality adequate agnosticism animal intelligence annul antecedent arises Aristotle assertion becomes causation ceived conceived conception conscience consciousness constitution creation creative energy creature datum Descartes dialectic distinction divine dual dualism embodies empirical ethical evil existence freedom function ground Hegel highest historic human spirit idea ideal identified identity immanent imperfect inner insight intellect intelligence intuition Kant Leibnitz lute manifestation mechanical forces mediation metaphysical monal monistic moral motive movement mutability negation negative sphere non-being norm not-self ontologic opposite organism pantheism philosophy Plato positive presupposition primal progress psychic logos psychic nature purus rational reality realized REESE LIBRARY reflection relation relative religion religious Schopenhauer sciousness seen self-conscious self-existent sense species specious present Spinoza spiritual activity spiritual evolution spiritual potence spiritual principle springs stages synthesis teleologic theism theory thinking thought tion tive transcendent true unity UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA volitional whole world-series
Popular passages
Page 67 - James sees now the primordial « fact of our immediate experience » to be that of « the specious present », « the practically cognized present is no knife-edge », but a saddle-back, with a certain breadth of its own on which we sit perched, and from which we look in two directions into time.
Page 67 - there be three times, past, present, and to come:" yet perchance it might be properly said, "there be three times; a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future.
Page 129 - ... sin. But so smoothly and so inevitably, as we have before said, did he always appear to follow that law of the moral order, which to us it costs such effort to obey, that only in the very wrench and pressure of his violent death did any pain of dying, any conflict between the law of the flesh and the law of the spirit, in Christ become visible.
Page v - THE motive of this volume is a desire to restore the primacy of certain conceptions which are in danger of disappearing from our modern thinking, and to reform others which, as I think, have been wrongly or inadequately conceived.
Page v - The order in which the basal concepts emerged in my own thinking, is substantially as follows : Having, by historic study and reflection, become convinced of the identity of the logos with the principle of conscious personality, I began to see its value as a means of penetrating the opaque absolute of the agnostic creed, and obtaining an intelligible conception of its inner nature and connection with the relative. The application of the...
Page 18 - The intuition of this is as old as Socrates and Plato. In modern philosophy Hegel is the one thinker whose system has embodied the insight most clearly *• and adequately ; and for this reason, in spite of all its shortcomings, Hegelism reaches the high-water mark of modern speculation. Its failure, therefore, to ground rationally the sphere of relativity in the Absolute has thrown modern thought back upon itself in a wave of philosophic despair.
Page 41 - Non-being as an objective and antithetic term in reality thus arises as a necessary consequence of being itself when conceived as spirit and construed in the light of the logos-principle. How, then, can the category of non-being be shown to be philosophically necessary ? Its value arises chiefly as a principle of disjunction and discrimination. So applied it brings some vital philosophical conceptions to the birth which it would otherwise be very difficult
Page 42 - The negative sphere is being's opposite, and is negative in the sense that it lacks the ground-principle of self-existence which is the essence of being. Logically then, a creature originating in this sphere will be relative and mutable, its ground and rationale being not in itself but in another. In the idea of the negative we thus find the key to a problem over which all philosophy has puzzled ; namely, how an absolute energy could produce a creature that is only relative. The outgoing energy can...
Page 41 - In the first place it makes a disjunction between the immanent and the exeunt energizing of the Absolute not only conceivable but also rational, in the motive it supplies for it in spirit's intuition of its own negative and opposite. The very self-assertion of being which is its essence will lead it to assert itself against and upon its opposite for its suppression and annulment.
Page 38 - Non-being cannot be conceived as any kind of activity, or as a potency out of which anything develops. It has no type and can be represented by no positive, constructive categories. It negates all positive predication. The only guiding clew we can have to its characterization is that of antithesis and opposition.