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Philosophy is the oldest form of systematic, scholarly inquiry. The name comes
from the Greek philosophos, "lover of wisdom." The term, however, has acquired
several related meanings: (1) the study of the truths or principles underlying
all knowledge, being, and reality; (2) a particular system of philosophical
doctrine; (3) the critical evaluation of such fundamental doctrines; (4) the
study of the principles of a particular branch of knowledge; (5) a system of
principles for guidance in practical affairs; and (6) a philosophical spirit or
attitude.
philosophical questions
Because the term philosophy has various meanings, the nature of the field can
be most easily grasped by examining the kinds of problems and questions the
field deals with. In the beginnings of Western philosophy, the pre-Socratic
thinkers dealt primarily with a metaphysical question: What is the nature of
ultimate reality as contrasted to the apparent reality of ordinary experience?
They tried to determine whether some ultimate constituents of the world would
be the real and basic elements, whereas everything else would be ephemeral and
merely a surface appearance. If such a reality existed, would it be permanent
and unalterable, or would it be subject to change or alteration like everything
else? The pre-Socratics generated some of the basic problems involved in
defining reality, that is, in finding something so basic that it cannot be
explained by anything else. They found their attempts to present logical
explanations of their metaphysical theories ran into paradoxical results.
Could a permanent, unchanging reality account for a changing world? ZENO OF
ELEA became famous for working out his paradoxes, which claimed nothing could
really change or move. Some of his paradoxes and some of those connected with
the Greek ATOMISM still play a role in modern theoretical physics.
Over time, some aspects of the attempt to delineate reality became separated
from the metaphysical quest and became the subject matter of the various
natural sciences. This development has accelerated since the 17th century.
The areas of study that have been peeled off from philosophy and assigned to
the natural sciences include astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology,
psychology, and others. An example of this process may be seen in the
consideration of a major metaphysical question, the relationship of mind and
body. Originally, Platonic metaphysics claimed that the body and the mind were
two separate and distinct entities. Plato, in fact, claimed the body was the
prison house of the soul or mind. In the 17th century, Rene DESCARTES
contended that mind and body were two separate and distinct substances that had
nothing in common although they interact. Several Indian schools of philosophy
hold a similar view. In the West this problem was gradually taken over by
psychologists and neurophysiologists. The present tendency is to reduce mental
phenomena to brain phenomena and thereby reduce the problem from a mind-body
problem to a body problem.
Philosophical methods
In view of the kinds of questions that philosophers deal with, what methods
does the philosopher use to seek the answers? The philosopher's tools are
basically logical and speculative reasoning. In the Western tradition the
development of LOGIC is usually traced to Aristotle, who aimed at constructing
valid arguments and also true arguments if true premises could be uncovered.
Logic has played an important role in ancient and modern philosophy--that of
providing a clarification of the reasoning process and standards by which valid
reasoning can be recognized. It has also provided a means of analyzing basic
concepts to determine if they are consistent or not.
Philosophy is both related to most disciplines and yet different from them.
Almost from the beginning of both mathematics and philosophy in ancient Greece,
relations were seen between them. On the one hand, the philosophers were
strongly impressed by the degree of certainty and rigor that appeared to exist
in mathematics as compared to any other subject. Some, like the
philosopher-mathematician PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS, felt that mathematics must be
the key to understanding reality. Plato claimed that mathematics provided the
forms out of which everything was made. Aristotle, on the other hand, held
that mathematics was about ideal objects rather than real ones; he held that
mathematics could be certain without telling us anything about reality. In
more modern times, Descartes and Baruch SPINOZA used mathematics as their model
and inspiration for formulating new methods to discover the truth about
reality. The philosopher-mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von LEIBNIZ, the
co-discoverer (with Isaac Newton) of calculus, theorized about constructing an
ideal mathematical language in which to state, and mathematically solve, all
philosophical problems. Similar views have been advanced in the 20th century
as ways of resolving age-old philosophical difficulties. Attempts to
accomplish this have found far from unanimous approval, however.
Philosophy has both influenced and been influenced by practically all of the
sciences. The physical sciences have provided the accepted body of information
about the world at any given time. Philosophers have then tried to arrange
this information into a meaningful pattern and interpret it, describing what
reality might be like. Western philosophers over much of the last 2,500 years
have provided basic metaphysical theories for the scientists to fit their data
into and as the data changed, their metaphysical interpretations have had to be
adjusted. Thus the scientific revolution of the 17th century, encompassing the
scientific work of Johannes Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, was accompanied by a
metaphysical revolution led by such thinkers as Descartes, Spinoza, and
Leibniz.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the prevailing philosophers in
England and France came to the conclusion that the sciences are, and ought to
be, completely independent of traditional metaphysical interpretations.
Instead, the sciences should just try to describe and codify observations and
experiences. This approach has led in the last two centuries to a divorce of
philosophy from the sciences. What has developed in response is a new branch
of philosophy, the philosophy of science, which examines the methods of
science, the types of scientific evidence, and the ways the sciences progress.
A third intellectual area that has been intimately involved with philosophy is
religion. In ancient Greece some philosophers like ANAXAGORAS and Socrates
scandalized their contemporaries by criticizing aspects of Greek religion.
Others offered more theoretical approaches about the evidence for the existence
and nature of God or the gods. Some denied the existence of a deity. When
Christianity entered the Greek world, attempts were made to develop a
philosophical understanding of Christianity. Finally, toward the end of the
4th and beginning of the 5th century, Saint AUGUSTINE achieved a synthesis of
some of the elements of Platonic philosophy with the essentials of
Christianity. Throughout the Middle Ages, philosopher-theologians among the
Jews, Muslims, and Christians sought to explain their religions in rational
terms. They were opposed by antirational theologians who insisted that
religion is a matter of faith and belief and not of reasons and arguments.
After the Reformation, philosophers like Spinoza and David HUME began
criticizing the traditional philosophical arguments used by theologians. Hume
and Immanuel KANT sought to show that all of the arguments purporting to prove
the existence of God and the immortality of the soul were fallacious.
Philosophers sought to explain why people were religious on nonrational
grounds, such as psychological, economic, or cultural ones. The defenders of
religion found themselves estranged from the philosophers, who kept using the
latest results of science and historical research to criticize religion. Some,
like Kierkegaard, made a virtue of this estrangement, insisting that religious
belief is a matter of faith, and therefore not a matter of reason. More
recently, since World War II, a group of theologians who are interested in
recent philosophical developments and in the relationship between religion and
contemporary culture have attempted to discover what religious statements can
be intellectually meaningful. The history of the relation between philosophy
and theology is thus a long and mixed affair, running the gamut from clarifying
religion and providing a justification for it to tearing apart its intellectual
underpinnings and trying to see what is left that a 20th-century scientifically
oriented person can believe or take seriously.
branches of philosophy
The Pre-Socratics.
Western philosophy began in Greece, in the Greek settlement of Miletus in
Anatolia. The first known philosophers were THALES OF MILETUS and his
students, ANAXIMANDER and ANAXIMENES. Present-day knowledge of this MILESIAN
SCHOOL is based on fragments attributed to them by later writers. These first
philosophers were metaphysicians, seeking for an element or force behind
appearance that explained everything. Thales said that all was ultimately
water, Anaximander that it was boundless or the infinite, and Anaximenes that
it was air. Subsequent Greek philosophers, such as HERACLITUS and PARMENIDES,
argued about whether change or permanence was the basic feature of the world
and about whether one or more than one element was the fundamental constituent
of reality (see MONISM; PLURALISM). Greek philosophy before Socrates was
principally concerned with these metaphysical questions.
Socrates.
Socrates, an Athenian, was primarily interested in value questions that
affected what a person should do. At the time in Athens, the paid teachers,
the SOPHISTS, taught people how to live successfully; they did not raise the
Socratic question of what was the right way of life, however. Socrates did not
write anything, but he is vividly portrayed by his pupil Plato in the Dialogues
as being the "gadfly" of Athens, forever asking people why they are doing what
they are doing and making people realize that general principles were necessary
to justify their conduct. Socrates was finally arrested and accused of heresy
and corrupting the young of Athens. Socrates used his trial, described in
Plato's Apology, as a final opportunity to make his general point. His
accusers, he showed, did not know what the charges actually meant and had no
evidence for them. He reported that the Delphic oracle had said that he,
Socrates, was the wisest of all of the Athenians. Socrates said he was the
wisest because he alone knew nothing and knew that he knew nothing, whereas
everybody else thought they knew something. In spite of his eloquence and
wisdom, Socrates was convicted and sentenced to death.
Plato.
After Socrates' execution, his disciple Plato developed the first comprehensive
philosophical system and founded the Academy, the first formal philosophical
school. Plato contended that knowledge must be of universals (that is, of
general types or kinds) and not of particulars. To know a particular cat,
Miranda, the individual must first know what it is to be feline in general.
Otherwise he or she will not be able to recognize the particular feline
characteristics in Miranda. These universals, Plato claimed, were the basic
elements from which the world was formed. They are called the Forms, or
Platonic Ideas. Mathematics provides the most obvious cases of these Forms.
They are known not by sense perception but by reasoning. They are known by the
mind, not by the bodily organs. The world of Platonic Ideas is the unchanging
Forms of things. The philosopher should turn away from this world of
appearance and concentrate on the world of Forms. Plato, in his most famous
work, The Republic, said that the world would be perfect when philosophers are
kings and kings are philosophers. He believed that the philosopher-kings would
know what justice really is, and, based on their knowledge of the Forms, they
could then achieve justice in all societies.
For Plato the ultimate Idea, which illuminated the rest of the pure ideas, was
the Idea of the Good. As Plato grew older he became more mystical about this
idea. The school of NEOPLATONISM, which began a few centuries after his death,
stressed these otherworldly and mystical elements, identifying the idea of the
Good with God.
Aristotle.
Plato's leading student, Aristotle, developed the most comprehensive
philosophical system of ancient times. Aristotle broke with Plato, stressing
the importance of explaining the changing world that humankind lives in as
opposed to the Platonic Ideas. Aristotle spent years studying the natural
sciences and collecting specimens, and about 90 percent of his writings are on
scientific subjects, mostly on biological ones. Aristotle believed he could
account for the changes and alterations in this world without either having to
deny their reality or having to appeal to another world. For Aristotle all
natural objects were composed of form and matter, and the changes that take
place in matter are the substitution of one form for another. This
substitution takes place because every natural object has a goal, or telos,
which it is its nature to achieve. Thus stones, because they are essentially
material, seek the lowest point, which is why they fall down. Each species is
ultimately trying to achieve a state of perfection which for Aristotle was a
state of perfect rest. The cosmos, as Aristotle saw it, is an ordered striving
for this perfection. The pinnacle of the order is the Unmoved Mover, the
ultimate cosmic agent, which fully and perfectly realizes its essence of
eternal thought. The heavenly spheres imitate the Unmoved Mover and by so
doing set the heavens in an eternal spherical motion; this process is repeated
by individual souls, and so on. Aristotle's vision of the Cosmos remained
central to Western thought until the time of Nicolaus Copernicus.
Medieval Period.
Greek philosophy was the major formative influence on the later philosophical
traditions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. In all three, the theories of
the Greeks, particularly Plato and Aristotle, were employed to clarify and
develop the basic beliefs of the religious traditions.
PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA introduced Platonic ideas and methods into Jewish thought,
particularly into the interpretation of Scripture about the beginning of the
Christian era. He exerted little influence on later Jewish thought, however,
and the Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages seems to have developed as a
movement parallel to those in Islam. Important figures in early medieval
Jewish thought include Isaac Israeli, SAADIA BEN JOSEPH GAON, and the
Neoplatonist Solomon IBN GABIROL. The most important Jewish thinker of the
Middle Ages, however, was MAIMONIDES. Maimonides developed a comprehensive
interpretation of religion and understanding based on Aristotelian principles
that was influential in the Christian West as well as among Jewish thinkers.
In the Islamic tradition as well the starting point was the work of Plato and
Aristotle. The 9th-century Neoplatonist al-KINDI was followed by al-FARABI,
who drew on both Plato and Aristotle to create a universal Islamic philosophy.
The most important of the medieval Muslim philosophers, however, was Avicenna
(ibn Sina). Starting from the distinction between essence and existence,
Avicenna developed a metaphysics in which God, the necessary being, is the
source of created nature through emanation. Both his metaphysics and his
intuitionist theory of knowledge were influential in the later Middle Ages as
well as in the later history of Islamic thought.
The first systematic Christian philosophy was that of ORIGEN, but for the
European Middle Ages no authority could rival Saint Augustine. Augustine
elaborated a Neoplatonist vision combining the metaphysics of PLOTINUS with an
elaboration of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. To this he added an
epistemology in which knowledge is achieved through illumination by grace. No
substantial movement arose beyond Augustine until the 12th century, when new
interest arose in logic and theory of knowledge. In this connection the most
important figures are Saint ANSELM and Peter ABELARD.
In the late 12th and early 13th centuries the writings of Aristotle were
reintroduced into the West, first in translations from the Arabic and later in
direct translation. After some initial resistance Aristotle became the
dominant philosophical authority and remained so until the Renaissance. First
Saint ALBERTUS MAGNUS and then Saint Thomas AQUINAS combined Aristotle's
philosophy with the tradition of Augustinian theology to produce a synthesis
holding that Aristotle was right about those things that are within the grasp
of reason, while what was beyond reason could only be known by faith. Thus
reason could prove that God exists, but his nature could be known only by
faith. More extreme Aristotelian schools developed and came into conflict with
the church, which, in 1277, issued condemnations of many positions held by
Aristotle and Aquinas, among others. In the 14th century two figures dominated
the scene: DUNS SCOTUS and WILLIAM OF OCCAM. Scotus developed an extemely
complex philosophy based on a number of earlier positions, and Occam's
critiques of metaphysics and epistemology remain paradigms of philosophical
argument.
Rationalism.
The synthesis of Christianity and Aristotelianism was a major form of
SCHOLASTICISM, which dominated European philosophy into the 17th century.
During the Renaissance other forms of ancient philosophy began to be revived
and used as ammunition against the scholastics. This involved the Renaissance
Platonists and the Skeptics, as well as others interested in esoteric doctrines
like that of the Kabbalah. In terms of the future development of philosophy,
the revival of ancient skepticism played the greatest role. This view,
popularized by Montaigne in the late 16th century, raised the fundamental
epistemological problem of what can be known. The methods of the new
scientific schools conflicted with, and thus brought into question, the
principles inherited from the Middle Ages. Rene Descartes proposed a method
for guaranteeing knowledge. He argued that in order to provide a secure
foundation for knowledge it was necessary to discover "clear and distinct
ideas" that could not be doubted and could serve as a basis for deriving
further truths. He found such an idea in the proposition "I think, therefore I
am." Using this as a paradigm, Descartes drew a distinction between thinking
substance and extended substance, or mind and matter. He went on to draw
conclusions about God, nature, and mind that continue to be influential. For
this reason Descartes is often considered the founder of modern philosophy.
A few years after Descartes's death, Baruch de Spinoza offered his theory to
improve on that of Descartes. Spinoza insisted that only one substance, God,
exists, and that two of his attributes are thought and extension. Everything
that is and that can be known about is an aspect of God. Spinoza's God,
however, was the antithesis of the God of traditional religion. God, or Nature
(as Spinoza put it), was the laws from which everything followed. In Spinoza's
pantheistic world everything had to be what it was, and everything was to be
understood rationally. The mind and body were two aspects of the same thing,
which was to be understood either logically or in terms of natural science. A
third great 17th-century rationalist was Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. The
basic unit of his metaphysics, equivalent to a substance, was the monad, a
center of force or energy. Each monad was internally determined by its
definition. Monads could not interact, but, due to a "preestablished harmony,"
the action in one monad coincided with that in another. God chose the monads
in the world so that it would be the best of all possible worlds. (A world
with more or less or different monads would not be as good, or God would have
chosen it.) Leibniz believed that the truths about monads could be discovered
by rational analysis.
Empiricism.
Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz were all rationalists in their epistemologies;
they stressed a world of metaphysical truths that could be discovered by
reason. In contrast to this kind of philosophizing, a quite different approach
developed in Great Britain, stressing the importance of sense experience as the
basis of knowledge (see EMPIRICISM). Starting with Sir Francis BACON, the
empirical theory of knowledge was propounded both as a way of eliminating
various metaphysical and theological difficulties and as a way of genuinely
advancing knowledge. The most important statement of this theory was made by
John LOCKE. He claimed that all knowledge comes from sense experience.
Individuals are, however, forced to believe that underlying experience is some
indefinable kind of substance. No one can be completely certain of direct
intuitive inspections of his or her ideas, less certain of demonstrations from
them, and still less certain of what Locke called "sensative knowledge,"
knowledge of the reality of experience. In spite of the limitations on
knowledge, humans can know enough to function in this world.
Bishop George BERKELEY saw Locke's theory as having dangerous skeptical and
irreligious tendencies because of its reliance on a material substance for
ideas to belong to. Berkeley insisted that the only things truly known are
ideas and that ideas can only exist in the minds that perceive them. Matter is
simply complexes of sensations. Nothing really exists except perceiving and
being perceived (esse est percipere). What holds the world together is that
God perceives everything all of the time. Berkeley's IDEALISM gained few
adherents. If it is granted that all of our knowledge consists only of sense
experiences, no evidence exists that the world is any more than ideas and the
minds they are in. In philosophy this position is called SOLIPSISM, the view
that the only reality is the self.
Berkeley was followed by David Hume, who showed that a thoroughly consistent
empirical theory of knowledge leads to a complete skepticism. Hume's major
contribution was to show that an individual cannot gain any causal information
about experience, or about what is beyond immediate experience, from empirical
knowledge. He or she can neither deduce nor induce the cause or the effect of
experience (see CAUSALITY). Individuals thus have no basis for accepting that
the future must resemble the past. It is only habit or custom that leads them
to expect and believe that the items found constantly conjoined in experience
will remain so in the future. Hume also argued that from empirical data humans
could have no real knowledge of substance, mind, or even God. They are reduced
to complete skepticism except that habits or customs make them unjustified
believers.
20th Century.
Twentieth-century philosophy has been characterized in part by its revolt
against Hegelianism. PRAGMATISM in the United States and the modern empiricism
of Bertrand Russell, LOGICAL POSITIVISM, and linguistic philosophy in both
Britain and America all rejected Hegelian metaphysics. The pragmatists wanted
an earthy theory--that the truth is that which works--as an expeditious way of
solving problems. From William JAMES to John DEWEY pragmatism dominated
American thought in the first half of this century. Logical positivism, based
on modern developments in logic and an empiricism like Hume's, was the joint
result of English thinkers like Russell and an Austrian group called the Vienna
circle, whose most influential member, Ludwig WITTGENSTEIN, had been a student
of Russell's at Cambridge. The English and Austrian positivists and linguistic
philosophers challenged any form of metaphysical thinking and insisted that
something could be said to be true if (and only if) it could be verified by
logical or scientific procedures. No metaphysical claim, they insisted, could
meet this test (see ANALYTIC AND LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY).
Eastern Philosophy
------------------
The means by which this ignorance is overcome are elaborated by the YOGA
school. While accepting much of the Samkhya position, Yoga, as developed by
Patanjali (2d century BC), believes in a supreme self or purusha, identified
with the god Isvara. The method of Yoga is to bring the self to understanding
by meditation designed to curb the constant changes brought on by involvement
in the perceived world. The knowledge acquired through meditation is an
intuitive, nonrational, and direct cognition of the nature of things. This
intuition is the cessation of individuality and the identity of the self with
the eternal purusha. Some form of Yoga is recognized as a practical method of
enlightenment by most of the other Indian schools.
Nyaya is closely associated with Vaisheshika, and they are often grouped
together. The emphasis in Nyaya is on methods of argument, and particularly on
the elaboration of logical theory, which is used to justify Vaisheshika
metaphysics. Nyaya distinguishes various forms and origins of knowledge, as
originally put forward by the school's founder Gantama (2d century BC). In the
course of time Nyaya developed a variety of arguments for the existence of God,
as conceived by Vaisheshika, some of which parallel the classic arguments in
the Western traditions.
The Mimamsa is often divided into two main branches, the Purva Mimamsa and the
Uttara Mimamsa. The Mimamsa sutra of Jainini dates perhaps from the 4th
century BC and begins a tradition in which the two most important later figures
are Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara, both 7th century AD. The Mimamsa in
general is concerned with establishing the nature and demands of religious law
or duty (DHARMA) as it is found in the Vedas. As such it tends to emphasize
the practical, although Mimamsa thinkers have made important contributions to
logic and theory of knowledge.
Of the three nonorthodox schools, the first two can be dealt with briefly.
Charvaka is known only from fragments referred to in the works of its
opponents. It seems to have been an extreme materialist reaction to the Vedic
teachings and to have argued for the primacy of life in the world, the
extinction of the individual at death, and perhaps an ethic of personal
gratification. JAINISM, on the other hand, is an ethical religion that arose
in the 6th century BC. It insists on the distinction between matter and soul
and argues for a realistic atomism in the context of an atheistic universe.
Salvation is achieved through the three jewels of faith, knowledge, and
practice of the virtues, which are nonviolence, truth telling, not stealing,
chastity, and not being attached to worldly goods and concerns.
The analysis of these doctrines differed from school to school, however, and
within a few centuries of the Buddha's death a variety of positions had
developed, traditionally held to have been 18. The two most important
divisions were the Mahasanghikas and the Sthaviras, the former identifying with
the larger community and the latter claiming to continue the tradition of the
elders. Out of these two groups developed Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, a
division that continues to this day.
Among the Mahayana schools the Yogacara and the Madhyamika are the two most
important. The Yogacara differs markedly from the three schools noted above in
arguing that only consciousness is genuinely real and that perceived objects
are ultimately illusory. The claim is that, because objects are constituted by
instantaneous events, they have no duration and thus cannot be said to exist.
The unenlightened consciousness laboring under the law of karma does not
realize this, but through the practice of yoga and moral discipline liberation
can be achieved, and the identity of the perceived world with consciousness can
be grasped.
The first recognized philosopher in China, however, was CONFUCIUS (541-497 BC).
Confucius taught that the goal of the philosopher was to become learned, but
this concept means more than merely knowing a large number of facts. Rather,
on the basis of a broad learning in the classic texts, the canon of which he
essentially formulated, Confucius held that a person, regardless of his or her
social status, could become aware of the moral order of the cosmos and of his
or her proper place in it. He taught the primacy of the family, and the duties
incumbent upon its various members, stressing harmony and unity and the
self-evident goodness of the ethical life. This vision has in many ways
remained a dominant one in CONFUCIANISM.
Only the two main strands in Chinese thought have been mentioned. The Moists,
who taught the existence of a Supreme Spirit that possessed equal and universal
love for all people; the Legalists, who advocated a practical philosophy of
political domination; and the Buddhists, who became important from the 4th
century AD on, also exercised wide influence in Chinese thought. Within the
Neoconfucian tradition a variety of positions emerged. In the last century
Western philosophical and political thought has entered the Chinese tradition,
most importantly Marxism. In Chinese philosophy, as in the other traditions
examined, drawing any firm conclusions about the future is impossible. G. S.
DAVIS
Bibliography
pragmatism
--------------------------------
(prag'-muh-tizm)
Pragmatism is a philosophical movement, developed in the United States, which
holds that both the meaning and the truth of any idea is a function of its
practical outcome. Fundamental to pragmatism is a strong antiabsolutism: the
conviction that all principles are to be regarded as working hypotheses rather
than as metaphysically binding axioms. A modern expression of EMPIRICISM,
pragmatism was highly influential in America in the first quarter of the 20th
century and assumed renewed importance in the 1970s.
Origen
--------------------------------
(ohr'-i-jin)
Origen, c.185-c.254, is generally considered the greatest theologian and
biblical scholar of the early Eastern church. He was probably born in Egypt,
perhaps in Alexandria, to a Christian family. His father died in the
persecution of 202, and he himself narrowly escaped the same fate. At the age
of 18, Origen was appointed to succeed Clement of Alexandria as head of the
catechetical school of Alexandria, where he had been a student.
Between 203 and 231, Origen attracted large numbers of students through his
manner of life as much as through his teaching. According to Eusebius, he took
the command in Matt. 19:12 to mean that he should castrate himself. During
this period Origen traveled widely and while in Palestine (c.215) was invited
to preach by local bishops even though he was not ordained. Demetrius, bishop
of Alexandria, regarded this activity as a breach of custom and discipline and
ordered him to return to Alexandria. The period following, from 218 to 230,
was one of Origen's most productive as a writer.
Locke, John
--------------------------------
John Locke, b. Aug. 29, 1632, d. Oct. 28, 1704, was an English philosopher
and political theorist, the founder of British EMPIRICISM. He undertook his
university studies at Christ Church, Oxford. At first, he followed the
traditional classical curriculum but then turned to the study of medicine and
science. Although Locke did not actually earn a medical degree, he obtained a
medical license. He joined the household of Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 1st
earl of SHAFTESBURY, as a personal physician. He became Shaftesbury's advisor
and friend. Through him, Locke held minor government posts and became involved
in the turbulent politics of the period.
In 1675, Locke left England to live in France, where he became familiar with
the doctrines of Rene Descartes and his critics. He returned to England in
1679 while Shaftesbury was in power and pressing to secure the exclusion of
James, duke of York (the future King JAMES II) from the succession to the
throne. Shaftesbury was later tried for treason, and although he was
acquitted, he fled to Holland. Because he was closely allied with Shaftesbury,
Locke also fled to Holland in 1683; he lived there until the overthrow (1688)
of James II. In 1689, Locke returned to England in the party escorting the
princess of Orange, who was to be crowned Queen MARY II of England. In 1691,
Locke retired to Oates in Essex, the household of Sir Francis and Lady Masham.
During his years at Oates, Locke wrote and edited, and received many
influential visitors, including Sir Isaac Newton. He continued to exercise
political influence. His friendships with prominent government officers and
scholars made him one of the most influential men of the 17th century.
Locke's view that experience produces ideas, which are the immediate objects of
thought, led him to adopt a causal or representative view of human knowledge.
In perception, according to this view, people are not directly aware of
physical objects. Rather, they are directly aware of the ideas that objects
"cause" in them and that "represent" the objects in their consciousness. A
similar view of perception was presented by earlier thinkers such as Galileo
and Descartes. Locke's view raised the question of the extent to which ideas
are like the objects that cause them. His answer was that only some qualities
of objects are like ideas. He held that primary qualities of objects, or the
mathematically determinable qualities of an object, such as shape, motion,
weight, and number, exist in the world, and that ideas copy them. Secondary
qualities, those which arise from the senses, do not exist in objects as they
exist in ideas. According to Locke, secondary qualities, such as taste, "are
nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce ideas in use by their
primary qualities." Thus, when an object is perceived, a person's ideas of its
shape and weight represent qualities to be found in the object itself. Color
and taste, however, are not copies of anything in the object.
Bibliography: Aaron, Richard I., John Locke, 3d ed. (1971); Collins, James
D., The British Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, Hume (1967); Cranston, Maurice,
John Locke: A Biography (1957); Dunn, John, Political Thought of John Locke
(1969); Gough, J. W., John Locke's Political Philosophy: Eight Studies, 2d
ed. (1973); Mabbott, J. D., John Locke (1973); Sahakian, Mabel L. and
William S., John Locke (1975); Yolton, John W., John Locke and the Way of Ideas
(1956) and, as ed., John Locke: Problems and Perspectives (1969).
social contract
--------------------------------
The social-contract theory concerns the origin of organized society, holding
that the state originally was created through a voluntary agreement entered
into among individuals living in an anarchical state of nature. This contract
defines and regulates the relations among the members of society and between
the individual and the governing authority. The social-contract theory
challenged the DIVINE RIGHT of kings as the basis for a state's legitimacy and
laid the foundation for theories of constitutional government.
Hobbes, Thomas
--------------------------------
(hahbz)
Thomas Hobbes, b. Apr. 5, 1588, d. Dec. 4, 1679, was an English
philosopher, scientist, and political theorist. The son of an Anglican
clergyman, he entered Oxford University when he was 14 or 15 years old,
receiving a bachelor's degree in 1608. He then became a tutor to the Cavendish
family and traveled with them a number of times to the Continent. After 1621
he translated a few of Francis Bacon's essays into Latin, and in 1628 he
published an English version of Thucydides' works.
During his stay in France from 1629 to 1631, he studied Euclid and became
especially interested in mathematics. On his third continental trip
(1634-1637), he met and was influenced by Galileo, Marin Mersenne, and Rene
Descartes. In 1646 he became tutor to the prince of Wales, the future Charles
II, then exiled in Paris. There Hobbes wrote his main work, Leviathan; or the
Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651), a
philosophical study of the political absolutism that replaced the supremacy of
the medieval church. Four years later he published his De Corpore (Concerning
Body), in which he restricted philosophy to a study of bodies in motion. In
his Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance (1656), he elaborated a
theory of psychological DETERMINISM. His writings provoked immediate
opposition. Hobbes considered philosophy a practical study of two kinds of
bodies: natural and civil. The latter, "made by the wills and agreement of
men," he called "the Commonwealth." He declared that natural bodies include
everything for which there is rational knowledge of causal processes. Hobbes
took a mechanistic view, explaining things in terms of the movement of bodies
through space. He also considered human thought as an action of bodies. Since
everyone is subject to physical and mathematical laws that allow no exceptions,
one's apparent freedom is simply the absence of external constraint.
Leviathan has been termed nominalist, materialist, absolutist, and
anticlerical. The work's NOMINALISM lies in Hobbes's rejection of any
universal reality corresponding to universal concepts and words. He considered
all reality as individual and all groupings as conventional. In Leviathan,
Hobbes held that the natural state of humans is constant war with each other;
their lives are "nasty, brutish, and short." Society arises only by convention.
From self-interest, people make peace and obtain security inasmuch as they
delegate total power to the state, that is, ultimately to the monarch. Once
that happens, the monarch's decrees are absolute in all areas of life,
including the family and religion.
Hobbes concluded that rebellion against the state breaks society's basic
contract (see SOCIAL CONTRACT) and is punishable by whatever penalty the
monarch may exact in order to protect his subjects from a return to the
original state of nature. The ideas of Thomas Hobbes were challenged by both
the parliamentarians and churchmen of his day; some considered trying him for
heresy. Nevertheless, he has been recognized as a great political theorist and
philosopher. JOHN P. DOYLE
liberalism
--------------------------------
Liberalism, a political philosophy that emphasizes individual freedom, arose in
Europe in the period between the Reformation and the French Revolution. During
the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries the medieval feudal order gradually gave way
as Protestantism, the nation-state, commerce, science, cities, and a middle
class of traders and industrialists developed. The new liberal order--drawing
on Enlightenment thought--began to place human beings rather than God at the
center of things. Humans, with their rational minds, could comprehend all
things and could improve themselves and society through systematic and rational
action. Liberal thinking was hostile to the prerogatives of kings,
aristocrats, and the church; it favored freedom--a natural right--from
traditional restraints. These notions did much to precipitate the American and
French revolutions and were important factors in various uprisings in the 19th
century. Liberalism sought to expand civil liberties and to limit political
authority in favor of constitutional representative government and promoted the
rights to property and religious toleration. In the economic sphere, classical
liberalism was opposed to direction by the state, arguing with Adam SMITH and
David RICARDO that the forces of the marketplace were the best guide for the
economy (see LAISSEZ-FAIRE).
In its full flower in the 19th century, liberalism stood for limited government
with a separation of powers among different branches such as the legislative,
executive, and judicial and for free enterprise in the economy. Because of the
reaction against the excesses of the French Revolution, however, liberalism
shed some of its reliance on rationalism and began to base itself on
utilitarianism. A link was thus forged between early revolutionary
individualism and a new idealistic concern for the interests of society.
In England the Liberal party, which espoused liberal doctrines, came into being
(1846) under the leadership of Lord John Russell (later Earl Russell) and
William E. GLADSTONE. In France, liberalism developed in opposition to the
policies of the restored Bourbon kings and became a major force in the Third
Republic; leading French liberals were Leon GAMBETTA and Georges CLEMENCEAU.
In the United States the most characteristic representative of liberalism was
Woodrow WILSON.
By the 20th century, political and economic thinking among liberals had begun
to shift in response to an expanding and complex economy. Liberals began to
support the idea that the government can best promote individual dignity and
freedom through intervention in the economy and by establishing a state
concerned about the welfare of its people. With the rise of the WELFARE STATE,
the new liberals also looked to government to correct some of the ills believed
to be caused by unregulated capitalism. They favored TAXATION, MINIMUM WAGE
legislation, SOCIAL SECURITY, ANTITRUST LAWS, public education, safety and
health laws, and other measures to protect consumers and preserve the
environment (see GOVERNMENT REGULATION). Some liberals became socialists,
although opposing doctrinaire Marxism and communism. The more traditional
liberals, who held to the ideas of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, found
themselves classed as conservatives. LENNART FRANTZELL
Jainism
--------------------------------
(jy'-nizm)
Jainism is a religious faith of India that is usually said to have originated
with Mahavira, a contemporary of the Buddha (6th century BC). Jains, however,
count Mahavira as the last of 24 founders, or Tirthamkaras, the first being
Rishabha. The 1971 census of India counts 2,600,000 Jains, mostly concentrated
in the western part of India. Jainism has been present in India since
Mahavira's time without interruption, and its influence has been significant.
The major distinction within Jainism is between the Digambara and Svetambara
sects, a schism that appears to date from about the 1st century AD. The major
difference between them is that whereas the Svetambaras wear white clothes, the
Digambaras traditionally go naked. Fundamentally, however, the views of both
sects on ethics and philosophy are identical.
The most notable feature of Jain ethics is its insistence on noninjury to all
forms of life. Jain philosophy finds that every kind of thing has a soul;
therefore strict observance of this precept of nonviolence (ahimsa) requires
extreme caution in all activity. Jain monks frequently wear cloths over their
mouths to avoid unwittingly killing anything by breathing it in, and Jain
floors are kept meticulously clean to avert the danger of stepping on a living
being. Jains regard the intentional taking of life, or even violent thoughts,
however, as much more serious. Jain philosophy posits a gradation of beings,
from those with five senses down to those with only one sense. Ordinary
householders cannot help harming the latter, although they should strive to
limit themselves in this regard by refraining from eating meat, certain fruits,
or honey or from drinking wine. In addition Jain householders are expected to
practice other virtues, similar to those in HINDUISM. The vows taken by the
Jain monks are more severe. They eventually involve elements of ASCETICISM:
fasting, peripatetic begging, learning to endure bodily discomfort, and various
internal austerities constituting a Jain variety of YOGA. Jainism is unique in
allowing the very spiritually advanced to hasten their own death by certain
practices (principally fasting) and under specified circumstances.
nominalism
--------------------------------
Nominalism is the designation usually applied to any philosophical system,
ancient or modern, that denies all objectivity, whether actual or potential, to
universals; in other words, nominalists grant no universality to mental
concepts outside the mind. In this sense, the philosophical systems of
EPICURUS, WILLIAM OF OCCAM, George BERKELEY, David HUME, John Stuart MILL, and
of contemporary linguistic analysis may be called nominalistic in that they
attribute universality only to words (nomina), mental habits, or concepts and
maintain the objective existence only of the concrete, individual thing.
Nominalism is simultaneously opposed to the philosophical IDEALISM of Plato and
to the moderate REALISM of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. The principal
objection of nominalists is to the attribution of objective existence to ideas
formally as they exist in the mind and fundamentally (or potentially) as they
exist in particulars having some similarity to each other in any given class or
species. JAMES A. WEISHEIPL
innate ideas
--------------------------------
Innate ideas are ideas or functions originating in the mind apart from sense
experience. Different theories of innate ideas have appeared over the
centuries. PLATO believed that people developed understanding in a previous
life but were born into their present life in a condition resembling
forgetfulness. All learning, according to this theory, is remembering what one
once knew explicitly and still somehow knows despite having forgotten it. For
the Stoics, all people have certain "common notions" that are the roots of
science and morality prior to any sense experience. Saint AUGUSTINE adapted
the Platonic remembrance theory and spoke of a nonsensory source of knowledge
in a divine illumination. Saint BONAVENTURE and his disciples repeated this
doctrine. In the 17th century, Rene DESCARTES taught that ideas such as God,
the soul, and even geometrical axioms, are innate, having been implanted by
God. Variations on this are found among Cartesian and rationalist thinkers in
the next century. What may be regarded an an innate-ideas doctrine is also
present in the writings of Immanuel KANT, for whom space and time, "the
categories" of understanding, and the "pure ideas" of God, the soul, and the
world, all derived from the structure of the knower prior to sensation. For
Kant, as for others accepting innate ideas, morality is not rooted so much in
experience as in common forms or rules possessed by everyone anterior to any
experience. JOHN P. DOYLE