Sublime

It was William of Occam who propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence.

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can

Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature is divided into three books, dealing respectively with the understanding, the passions, and morals. What is important and novel in his doctrines is in the first book, to which I shall confine myself.

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.

All social inequality, in the long run, is inequality of income. That is part of the argument for democracy: that the attempt to have a “proportionate justice” based on any merit other than wealth is sure to break down. Defenders of oligarchy pretend that income is proportional to virtue; the prophet said he had never seen a righteous man begging h

The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages. What are we to think of him ethically? (I am concerned only with the man as Plato portrays him.) His merits are obvious. He is indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humourous to the last moment, caring more for what he belie

This passage is interesting, as showing already the twofold argument for belief which is characteristic of Christian philosophy. On the one hand, pure reason, rightly exercised, suffices to establish the essentials of the Christian faith, more especially God, immortality, and free will. But on the other hand the Scriptures prove not only these bare

The triumph of science has been mainly due to its practical utility, and there has been an attempt to divorce this aspect from that of theory, thus making science more and more a technique, and less and less a doctrine as to the nature of the world. The penetration of this point of view to the philosophers is very recent.

CHAPTER X Protagoras