History of Western Philosophy

Even Plato, without comparison the most transcendental philosopher of pre-Christian antiquity, knows no higher virtue than Justice; he alone recommends it unconditionally and for its own sake, while all the other philosophers make a happy life--vita beata--the aim of all virtue; and it is acquired through the medium of moral behaviour. Christianity

telling contrast here with ancient Greek sceptics, who instead cultivated detachment from the world. A ‘scientific philosophy’, Russell wrote in 1928, could fashion a ‘new morality’ that would ‘turn our earth into a paradise’.20 How this remarkable metamorphosis would come about he did not explain. He believed that reason did not move human beings

Attaining complete peace of mind is for Spinoza the true religious salvation, which makes us accept everything that happens to us as necessary rather than as something that we can change. The problem with such peace of mind, as Hegel points out, is that it is completely empty. The Stoic says that he is committed to “the true,” “the good,” and “the

According to the rules of reason, a given conclusion is to be deemed true if, and only if, it flows from a logical sequence of thoughts founded on sound initial premises. Considering mathematics to be the model of good thinking, philosophers began to search for an approximation of its objective certainties in ethical life too.