Sublime

Though an atheist, Ayer rejected the idea that one could even talk about atheism with meaning, because it was just as nonsensical to say “There is no God” as it was to say “God exists,” as neither statement could ever be verified.

There was no purpose in the universe; there were only atoms governed by mechanical laws. He disbelieved in popular religion* and he argued against the nous of Anaxagoras. In ethics he considered cheerfulness the goal of life, and regarded moderation and culture as the best means to it. He disliked everything violent and passionate; he disapproved o

Kant maintained that every human being is an end in himself, and this may be taken as an expression of the view introduced by Christianity. There is, however, a logical difficulty in Kant’s view, since it gives no means of reaching a decision when two men’s interests clash. If each is an end in himself, how are we to arrive at a principle for deter

Leibniz, in his private thinking, is the best example of a philosopher who uses logic as a key to metaphysics. This type of philosophy begins with Parmenides, and is carried further in Plato’s use of the theory of ideas to prove various extra-logical propositions. Spinoza belongs to the same type, and so does Hegel. But none of these is so clear cu

Pythagoras, as everyone knows, said that “all things are numbers.” This statement, interpreted in a modern way, is logically nonsense, but what he meant was not exactly nonsense. He discovered the importance of numbers in music, and the connection which he established between music and arithmetic survives in the mathematical terms “ harmonic mean”

His chief importance is in logic and theory of knowledge. His philosophy is a critical analysis, largely linguistic. As for universals, i. e., what can be predicated of many different things, he holds that we do not predicate a thing, but a word. In this sense he is a nominalist. But as against Roscelin he points out that a “flatus vocis” is a thin

Ethical theories may be divided into two classes, according as they regard virtue as an end or a means. Aristotle, on the whole, takes the view that virtues are means to an end, namely happiness. “The end, then, being what we wish for, the means what we deliberate about and choose, actions concerning means must be according to choice and voluntary.