Analysis belongs to science, and gives us knowledge; philosophy must provide a synthesis for wisdom. Click here to watch a video on the notes from this book. Durant's writing is full of stories about them that enliven the book. For its demands often conflict so much with the personal welfare of him who is concerned that they undermine it.”. Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BC. every triumph sharpens the sting of later defeats. Men prepare themselves with life-long study before becoming authorities in physics or chemistry or biology; but in the field of social and political affairs every grocer’s boy is an expert, knows the solution, and demands to be heard. This section contains 1,555 words (approx. Some would have it that he went to Judea and was moulded for a while by the tradition of the almost socialistic prophets; and even that he found his way to the banks of the Ganges, and learned the mystic meditations of the Hindus. “An emotion can neither be hindered nor removed except by a contrary and stronger emotion.”, “Men who are good by reason—i.e., men who, under the guidance of reason, seek what is useful to them—desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of mankind.”, “Since fear of solitude exists in all men, because no one in solitude is strong enough to defend himself and procure the necessaries of life, it follows that men by nature tend towards social organization.”. Bacon begins his project for the great reconstruction of philosophy in the late sixteenth century. The only thing unqualifiedly good in this world is a good will—the will to follow the moral law, regardless of profit or loss for ourselves. The Protagoras is a strangely disjointed text. It is the categorical imperative in us, the unconditional command of our conscience, to “act as if the maxim of our action were to become by our will a universal law of nature.”. . Religion also has something to do with life. Without them, sensations could never grow into perceptions. Kant: Phenomena and noumena; 6 5. Not feeling wise at all, he was sure — he says with some irony — there must have been others wiser than himself. “If what you have seems insufficient to you,” said the Roman Stoic Seneca (d. 65 A.D.), “then, though you possess the world, you will yet be miserable.”, In Epictetus the Greco-Roman soul has lost its paganism, and is ready for a new faith. The Blind Men and the Elephant is a famous Indian fable that tells the story of six blind sojourners that come across different parts of an elephant in their life journeys. Your submission has been received! . . Philosophy (from Greek: φιλοσοφία, philosophia, 'love of wisdom') is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. This study guide contains the following sections: This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Principles of Philosophy. Study Guide. HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY & PHILOSOPHERS Presocratics-Aristotle. Religion also has something to do with life. The time spent in a chamber in almost unbearable conditions inspired something in him. Voltaire's romances, trips to the Bastille and exile to avoid recapture add humor to sections about his part in the French Revolution. Summary of Existentialism. From these “Dissertations” and Aurelius’ “Meditations” there is but a step to “The Imitation of Christ.”, “The wit and mind of man,” as Bacon put it, “if it work upon the matter, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and bringeth forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.”, As knowledge grew, fear decreased; men thought less of worshiping the unknown, and more of overcoming. He answers, because of greed and luxury. with the famous Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato. “The Consolation of Philosophy Summary” The book starts with a story that really represents the beginning of one incredible journey. “Some books are to be tasted,” reads a famous passage, “others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested”; Bacon offers some preliminary hints on how to rise in the world. The Story of Philosophy - Spinoza Summary & Analysis Will Durant This Study Guide consists of approximately 71 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Story of Philosophy. . This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses. It becomes in the long run the greatest. Hence the highest kind of knowledge is the fourth form, which comes by immediate deduction and direct perception, as when we see at once that 6 is the missing number in the proportion, 2:4::3:x; or as when we perceive that the whole is greater than the part. Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. This Frankenstein summary provides a detailed synopsis of the plot of Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel. . Plato was a Greek philosopher known and recognized for having allowed such a considerable philosophical work.. In summary we can said that from Hegel's view, the history of the world is awareness of freedom and the philosophy of history is thoughtful evaluation of history… In middle class the ennui is represented by the Sundays and want by the weekdays.”. An idol, as Bacon uses the word (reflecting perhaps the Protestant rejection of image-worship), is a picture taken for a reality, a thought mistaken for a thing. Click here to listen to a podcast based on these book notes. Liddell Hart. This is a concept pondered and considered for thousands of years and we're still nowhere closer to an answer. a dialogue with a mythical, imaginary, or allegorical figure). He employs Cartesian radical doubt in the beginning as he concentrates on our knowledge of the physical world. It conducts its heroes through a thousand dangers and difficulties to the goal; as soon as this is reached it hastens to let the curtain fall; for now there would remain nothing for it to do but to show that the glittering goal in which the hero expected to find happiness had only disappointed him, and that after its attainment he was no better off than before. Fatigue, like pain, has its seat in the brain; muscles not connected with the cerebrum (like the heart) never tire. It is a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world. Virtue, or rather excellence,48 will depend on clear judgment, self-control, symmetry of desire, artistry of means; it is not the possession of the simple man, nor the gift of innocent intent, but the achievement of experience in the fully developed man. . We do not know. . And because they are à priori, their laws, which are the laws of mathematics, are à priori, absolute and necessary, world without end. division of labor must be by aptitude and ability, not by sex; if a woman shows herself capable of political administration, let her rule; if a man shows himself to be capable only of washing dishes, let him fulfil the function to which Providence has assigned him. To adapt Hegel’s phrase about Spinoza: to be a philosopher, one must first have been a Kantian. Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. Boethius find himself before a Roman prosecutor after being charged for high-treason. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre. . Plato’s thought: A philosophy of reason. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. Morality, said Jesus, is kindness to the weak; morality, said Nietzsche, is the bravery of the strong; morality, says Plato, is the effective harmony of the whole. This story can be interpreted in many ways. A short summary of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1 This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1. Varying foods have varying mental effects: rice makes for Buddhism, and German metaphysics is the result of beer. Francis Bacon Summary and Analysis. Everything else can satisfy only one wish; money alone is absolutely good, . Stories are a connected series of event(s) involving at least one character. Now the peculiar excellence of man is his power of thought; it is by this that he surpasses and rules all other forms of life; and as the growth of this faculty has given him his supremacy, so, we may presume, its development will give him fulfilment and happiness. What’s that noise? One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.” Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt—particularly to doubt one’s cherished beliefs, one’s dogmas and one’s axioms. The Universal History is nothing but the manifestation of the divine process of absolute Spirit, the gradual progress by which it becomes aware of itself. Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King's College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, "without any gaps." Immanuel Kant. So, for example, when knowledge attempts to decide whether the world is finite or infinite in space, thought rebels against either supposition: beyond any limit, we are driven to conceive something further, endlessly; and yet infinity is itself inconceivable. The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers is a 1926 book by Will Durant, in which he profiles several prominent Western philosophers and their ideas, beginning with Socrates and Plato and on through Friedrich Nietzsche.Durant attempts to show the interconnection of their ideas and how one philosopher's ideas informed the next. (And yes, I’ll start adding philosophers from other traditions after some more work on the Western story. When some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing, and delivers knowledge out of the slavery of the will, the attention is no longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free from their relation to the will, and thus observes them without personal interest, without subjectivity, purely objectively,—gives itself entirely up to them so far as they are ideas, but not in so far as they are motives. Search . The Story of Philosophy - Spinoza Summary & Analysis Will Durant This Study Guide consists of approximately 71 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Story of Philosophy. The reference is noted with the book icon that appears when you click on a sentence.) Disclaimer All of the graphics and some of the text have been reproduced from the works referenced without citation. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. His early success with spreading Greek culture into Asia Minor does not continue further … The author says Schopenhauer almost becomes an optimist by playing flute after he eats dinner alone. Like a sensible pessimist, he had avoided that pitfall of optimists—the attempt to make a living with the pen. Rene Descartes. December 11, 2017 Existentialism John Messerly [We are] condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, [we are] responsible for everything [we do.] 2 Educator answers. The entire first part is a reflection on the story (the events and those that tell of the events, and those who give meaning). In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him; and In that I am his pupil.”. It contains five Books, which are written in a combination of prose and verse. Durant provides little historical information about Thomas Aquinas, Scholasticism and other philosophical schools of slight interest to him. Plato believes that a nation cannot be strong unless it believes in God. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement; this will better enable you to find out the natural bent of the child (536). “Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.”, “There is a story of a Frenchman who, having been three weeks here, proposed to write a book on England; who, after three months, found that he was not quite ready; and who, after three years, concluded that he knew nothing about it.”. The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers is a 1926 book by Will Durant, in which he profiles several prominent Western philosophers and their ideas, beginning with Socrates and Plato and on through Friedrich Nietzsche. Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Top 20 Business Books; Top 20 Money Books; TOP 20 Sales Books; Top 20 Personal Development Books; Top 20 Spiritual Books; 50 Words to Your Dreams. Some would have it that he went to Judea and was moulded for a while by the tradition of the almost socialistic … A brilliant and concise account of the lives and ideas of the great philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Croce, Russell, Santayana, James, and Dewey—The Story of Philosophy is one of the great books of our time. Critique of Practical Reason. He dislikes the ideal of equality, and argues with Plato that the equality of unequals is inequality. Sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity.