Miscellaneous Articles

The Philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau The vast intellectual movement which made its appearance at the close of the "Glorious Revolution" in England (1688) and continued until the French Revolution (1789) is called Illuminism, or the Enlightenment. ...

The Philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau The vast i...

Modern philosophy becomes empirical in tendency with Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Criticism awoke, old theological systems with their traditional authority and ecclesiasticism were challenged. The individual asserted his independence. Ph...

Modern philosophy becomes empirical in tendency wi...

Preliminary Remarks It should be noted, before reading the critique of John Locke's philosophy given below, that Locke, while in error on many points regarding the traditional philosophical questions, made a major contribution to the development of m...

Preliminary Remarks It should be noted, before rea...

I. General Notions John Locke had determined the fundamental principle of Empiricism: the immediate object of knowledge is sensations which the subject experiences within himself. From this doctrine arose the problem of determining whether outside th...

I. General Notions John Locke had determined the f...

I. General Notions John Locke had constructed a theory of knowledge in which the subject was closed up within himself. The object of such knowledge was consequently ideas (subjective impressions) and not things. If ideas are the immediate object of o...

I. General Notions John Locke had constructed a th...

I. General Notions Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes were not truly conscious of the phenomenalistic consequences of their theory of knowledge, which was based on Empiricism. Both considered sensation as phenomenal presentations and also as representat...

I. General Notions Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes...

I. General Notions Hobbes' system is a synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism. The fundamental points of Hobbes' doctrine are: (1) All reality is matter and derived from matter; (2) Matter is endowed with intrinsic movement; (3) Intellectual, moral ...

I. General Notions Hobbes' system is a synthesis o...

I. General Notions Francis Bacon (picture) was a man who was brilliant in many ways: as a scientist, as a philosopher, and as an enthusiastic innovator in the methods of science, which he considered to be means for establishing the dominion of man on...

I. General Notions Francis Bacon (picture) was a m...

It is from the views of Descartes that most of the metaphysical systems of the last three centuries begin, trying to improve upon them, or to overcome what they regard as difficulties in the Cartesian system. Background study: The Philosophy of Rene ...

It is from the views of Descartes that most of the...

I. General Notions Of the two problems left unsolved by Descartes (the relationship between the infinite and the finite, and between spirit and matter) Malebranche retains the distinction between the two substances (God and the creature, spirit and m...

I. General Notions Of the two problems left unsolv...

I. General Observations Rene Descartes (picture) is justly considered the father of modern philosophy and the founder of the rational method as applied to philosophical research. In fact, he is the first philosopher to begin with the impressions whic...

I. General Observations Rene Descartes (picture) i...

I. General Notions The thought of Leibniz represents a synthesis of Cartesian Rationalism and Aristotelio-Scholastic thought. The two problems that must be solved are always the same: the relationship between God and the world, and the relationship b...

I. General Notions The thought of Leibniz represen...

I. General Notions Of the two problems left unsolved by Descartes (the determination of the relationship God and the world and between the soul and the body), Spinoza answers the first by affirming the unity of substance and reducing the world to a m...

I. General Notions Of the two problems left unsolv...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Renaissance, as an age of transition, was not conducive to the building of great philosophical systems. It contained, in germinal form, the directive ideas of modern times, but under the guise of the pa...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Re...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Renaissance, as an age of transition, was not conducive to the building of great philosophical systems. It contained, in germinal form, the directive ideas of modern times, but under the guise of the pa...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Re...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Renaissance, as an age of transition, was not conducive to the building of great philosophical systems. It contained, in germinal form, the directive ideas of modern times, but under the guise of the pa...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Re...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Renaissance, as an age of transition, was not conducive to the building of great philosophical systems. It contained, in germinal form, the directive ideas of modern times, but under the guise of the pa...

Background: The New Consideration of Nature The Re...

Modern philosophy seems to be a maze of contradictory theories which have arisen in a relatively short period of time. Almost every thinker has his own particular brand of theory, more or less at variance with that of his fellow-philosophers. There s...

Modern philosophy seems to be a maze of contradict...

A Study and Critique The philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries carried forward, in the main, the theories of Bacon, Locke, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, and tried to reason the world out of existence. Existence is reduced to thoughts or idea...

A Study and Critique The philosophers of the 18th ...

A Study and Critique The period of transition from medieval to modern philosophy ended with the 16th century. In the 17th, there appeared more or less rounded systems of non-Scholastic and anti-Scholastic philosophy. The most notable philosophers of ...

A Study and Critique The period of transition from...

Modern philosophy is an outgrowth of the spirit and work of Roger Bacon, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. These men claimed that philosophy should be a free and independent inquiry concerning truth and life. All modern philosophy is in quest ...

Modern philosophy is an outgrowth of the spirit an...