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A
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
IN EPITOME,
BY
DR. ALBERT SCHWEGLER.
_TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN_,
BY
JULIUS H. SEELYE.
THIRD EDITION.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
443 & 445 BROADWAY.
LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN.
1864.
ENTERED, according to act of Congress, in the year 1856,
BY JULIUS H. SEELYE,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Northern District of New York.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BY HENRY B. SMITH, D. D.
The History of Philosophy, by Dr. Albert Schwegler, is considered in
Germany as the best concise manual upon the subject from the school of
Hegel. Its account of the Greek and of the German systems, is of
especial value and importance. It presents the whole history of
speculation in its consecutive order. Though following the method of
Hegel’s more extended lectures upon the progress of philosophy, and
though it makes the system of Hegel to be the ripest product of
philosophy, yet it also rests upon independent investigations. It will
well reward diligent study, and is one of the best works for a text-book
in our colleges, upon this neglected branch of scientific investigation.
The translation is made by a competent person, and gives, I doubt not, a
faithful rendering of the original.
HENRY B. SMITH.
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK, _Nov. 6, 1855_.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
Schwegler’s History of Philosophy originally appeared in the “_Neue
Encyklopädie für Wissenschaften und Künste_.” Its great value soon
awakened a call for its separate issue, in which form it has attained a
very wide circulation in Germany. It is found in the hands of almost
every student in the philosophical department of a German university,
and is highly esteemed for its clearness, conciseness, and
comprehensiveness.
The present translation was commenced in Germany three years ago, and
has been carefully finished. It was undertaken with the conviction that
the work would not lose its interest or its value in an English dress,
and with the hope that it might be of wider service in such a form to
students of philosophy here. It was thought especially, that a proper
translation of this manual would supply a want for a suitable text-book
on this branch of study, long felt by both teachers and students in our
American colleges.
The effort has been made to translate, and not to paraphrase the
author’s meaning. Many of his statements might have been amplified
without diffuseness, and made more perceptible to the superficial reader
without losing their interest to the more profound student, but he has
so happily seized upon the germs of the different systems, that they
neither need, nor would be improved by any farther development, and has,
moreover, presented them so clearly, that no student need have any
difficulty in apprehending them as they are. The translator has
therefore endeavored to represent faithfully and clearly the original
history. As such, he offers his work to the American public, indulging
no hope, and making no efforts for its success beyond that which its own
merits shall ensure.
J. H. S.
SCHENECTADY, N. Y., _January, 1856_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE, by HENRY B. SMITH, D. D. iii
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
SECTION I.—WHAT IS MEANT BY THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 11
II.—CLASSIFICATION 16
III.—GENERAL VIEW OF THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 17
1. The Ionics 17
2. The Pythagoreans 18
3. The Eleatics 18
4. Heraclitus 18
5. The Atomists 19
6. Anaxagoras 19
7. The Sophists 20
IV.—THE IONIC PHILOSOPHERS 21
1. Thales 21
2. Anaximander 22
3. Anaximenes 23
4. Retrospect 23
V.—PYTHAGOREANISM 23
1. Its Relative Position 23
2. Historical and Chronological 23
3. The Pythagorean Principle 24
4. Carrying out of this Principle 25
VI.—THE ELEATICS 27
1. The Relation of the Eleatic Principle
to the Pythagorean 27
2. Xenophanes 28
3. Parmenides 28
4. Zeno 30
VII.—HERACLITUS 31
1. Relation of the Heraclitic Principle
to the Eleatic 31
2. Historical and Chronological 32
3. The Principle of the Becoming 32
4. The Principle of Fire 33
5. Transition to the Atomists 33
VIII.—EMPEDOCLES 35
1. General View 35
2. The Four Elements 35
3. The Two Powers 36
4. Relation of the Empedoclean to the Eleatic
and Heraclitic Philosophy 36
IX.—THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY 37
1. Its Propounders 37
2. The Atoms 37
3. The Fulness and the Void 38
4. The Atomistic Necessity 38
5. Relative Position of the Atomistic Philosophy 39
X.—ANAXAGORAS 40
1. His Personal History 40
2. His Relation to his Predecessors 41
3. The Principle of the νοῦς 41
4. Anaxagoras as the close of the Pre-Socratic
Realism 42
XI.—THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY 43
1. The Relation of the Sophistic Philosophy to
the Anaxagorean Principle 43
2. Relation of the Sophistic Philosophy to the
Universal Life of that Age 44
3. Tendencies of the Sophistic Philosophy 46
4. Significance of the Sophistic Philosophy from
its relation to the Culture of the Age 47
5. Individual Sophists 48
6. Transition to Socrates, and characteristic
of the following Period 51
XII.—SOCRATES 52
1. His Personal Character 52
2. Socrates and Aristophanes 55
3. The Condemnation of Socrates 57
4. The Genius of Socrates 60
5. Sources of the Philosophy of Socrates 61
6. Universal Character of the Philosophizing
of Socrates 62
7. The Socratic Method 64
8. The Socratic Doctrine concerning Virtue 66
XIII.—THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES 67
1. Their Relation to the Socratic Philosophy 67
2. Antisthenes and the Cynics 68
3. Aristippus and the Cyrenians 69
4. Euclid and the Megarians 70
5. Plato as the complete Socraticist 71
XIV.—PLATO 72
I. PLATO’S LIFE 72
1. His Youth 72
2. His Years of Discipline 73
3. His Years of Travel 73
4. His Years of Instruction 74
II. THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY
AND WRITINGS 75
III. CLASSIFICATION OF THE PLATONIC SYSTEM 82
IV. THE PLATONIC DIALECTICS 83
1. Conception of Dialectics 83
2. What is Science? 84
(1.) As opposed to Sensation 84
(2.) The Relation of Knowing to Opinion 86
(3.) The Relation of Science to Thinking 86
3. The Doctrine of Ideas in its Genesis 87
4. Positive Exposition of the Doctrine of Ideas 91
5. The Relation of Ideas to the Phenomenal World 93
6. The Idea of the Good and the Deity 95
V. THE PLATONIC PHYSICS 96
1. Nature 96
2. The Soul 98
VI. THE PLATONIC ETHICS 100
1. Good and Pleasure 100
2. Virtue 102
3. The State 102
XV.—THE OLD ACADEMY 107
XVI.—ARISTOTLE 108
I. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE 108
II. UNIVERSAL CHARACTER AND DIVISION OF THE
ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY 109
III. LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS 112
1. Conception and Relation of the Two 112
2. Logic 113
3. Metaphysics 115
(1.) The Aristotelian Criticism of
the Platonic Doctrine of Ideas 116
(2.) The Four Aristotelian Principles,
or Causes, and the Relation
of Form and Matter 120
(3.) Potentiality and Actuality 123
(4.) The Absolute Divine Spirit 124
IV. THE ARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS 127
1. Motion, Matter, Space, and Time 127
2. The Collective Universe 128
3. Nature 129
4. Man 129
V. THE ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS 131
1. Relation of Ethics to Physics 131
2. The Highest Good 132
3. Conception of Virtue 134
4. The State 135
VI. THE PERIPATETIC SCHOOL 136
VII. TRANSITION TO THE POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY 137
XVII.—STOICISM 138
1. Logic 139
2. Physics 140
3. Ethics 142
(1.) Respecting the Relation of Virtue
to Pleasure 142
(2.) The View of the Stoics concerning
External Good 142
(3.) Farther Verification of this View 143
(4.) Impossibility of furnishing a System
of Concrete Moral Duties from this
Standpoint 143
XVIII.-EPICUREANISM 145
XIX.—SCEPTICISM AND THE NEW ACADEMY 148
1. The Old Scepticism 149
2. The New Academy 150
3. The Later Scepticism 151
XX.—THE ROMANS 152
XXI.—NEW PLATONISM 154
1. Ecstasy as a Subjective State 154
2. The Cosmical Principles 154
3. The Emanation Theory of the New Platonists 155
XXII.—CHRISTIANITY AND SCHOLASTICISM 157
1. The Christian Idea 157
2. Scholasticism 159
3. Nominalism and Realism 160
XXIII.—TRANSITION TO THE MODERN PHILOSOPHY 161
1. Fall of Scholasticism 161
2. The Results of Scholasticism 162
3. The Revival of Letters 163
4. The German Reformation 164
5. The Advancement of the Natural Sciences 165
6. Bacon of Verulam 166
7. The Italian Philosophers of the Transition Epoch 167
8. Jacob Boehme 169
XXIV.—DESCARTES 172
1. The Beginning of Philosophy with Doubt 173
2. Cogito ergo sum 173
3. The Nature of Mind deduced from this Principle 173
4. The Universal Rule of all Certainty follows from
the same 174
5. The Existence of God 174
6. Results of this Fact in Philosophy 176
7. The Two Substances 177
8. The Anthropology of Descartes 177
9. Results of the Cartesian System 178
XXV.—GEULINCX AND MALEBRANCHE 180
1. Geulincx 180
2. Malebranche 182
3. The Defects of the Philosophy of Descartes 183
XXVI.—SPINOZA 184
1. The One Infinite Substance 185
2. The Two Attributes 186
3. The Modes 188
4. His Practical Philosophy 189
XXVII.—IDEALISM AND REALISM 192
XXVIII.—LOCKE 193
XXIX.—HUME 198
XXX.—CONDILLAC 201
XXXI.—HELVETIUS 203
XXXII.-THE FRENCH CLEARING UP AND MATERIALISM 205
1. The Common Character of the French Philosophers
of this Age 205
2. Voltaire 206
3. Diderot 206
4. La Mettrie’s Materialism 207
5. Système de la Nature 208
(1.) The Materiality of Man 208
(2.) The Atheism of this System 209
(3.) Its Denial of Freedom and Immortality 210
(4.) The Practical Consequences of these
Principles 210
XXXIII.—LEIBNITZ 211
1. The Doctrine of Monads 213
2. The Monads more accurately determined 214
3. The Pre-established Harmony 215
4. The Relation of the Deity to the Monads 216
5. The Relation of Soul and Body 217
6. The Theory of Knowledge 218
7. Leibnitz’s Théodicée 219
XXXIV.—BERKELEY 220
XXXV.—WOLFF 222
1. Ontology 224
2. Cosmology 225
3. Rational Psychology 225
4. Natural Theology 226
XXXVI.—THE GERMAN CLEARING UP 227
XXXVII.—TRANSITION TO KANT 229
1. Examination of the Faculty of Knowledge 230
2. Three Chief Principles of the Kantian Theory
of Knowledge 232
XXXVIII.—KANT 235
I. CRITICK OF PURE REASON 238
1. The Transcendental Æsthetics 238
(1.) The Metaphysical Discussion 239
(2.) The Transcendental Discussion 239
2. The Transcendental Analytic 241
3. The Transcendental Dialectics 246
(1.) The Psychological Ideas 247
(2.) The Antinomies of Cosmology 248
(3.) The Ideal of the Pure Reason 249
(_a._) The Ontological Proof 249
(_b._) The Cosmological Proof 250
(_c._) The Physico-Theological
Proof 250
II. CRITICK OF THE PRACTICAL REASON 252
(1.) The Analytic 254
(2.) The Dialectic: What is this Highest
Good? 256
(_a._) Perfect Virtue or Holiness 257
(_b._) Perfect Happiness 258
(_c._) Kant’s Views of Religion 259
III. CRITICK OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT 262
1. Critick of the Æsthetic Faculty of Judgment 263
(1.) Analytic 263
(2.) Dialectic 265
2. Critick of the Teleological Faculty
of Judgment 266
(1.) Analytic of the Teleological Faculty
of Judgment 267
(2.) Dialectic 267
XXXIX.—TRANSITION TO THE POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY 268
XL.—JACOBI 271
XLI.—FICHTE 279
I. THE FICHTIAN PHILOSOPHY IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM 282
1. The Theoretical Philosophy of Fichte,
his Wissenschaftslehre, or Theory
of Science 282
2. Fichte’s Practical Philosophy 295
II. THE LATER FORM OF FICHTE’S PHILOSOPHY 301
XLII.—HERBART 303
1. The Basis and Starting Point of Philosophy 304
2. The First Act of Philosophy 304
3. Remodelling the Conceptions of Experience 305
4. Herbart’s Reals 306
5. Psychology connected with Metaphysics 310
6. The Importance of Herbart’s Philosophy 311
XLIII.—SCHELLING 312
I. FIRST PERIOD: SCHELLING’S PROCESSION FROM FICHTE 314
II. SECOND PERIOD: STANDPOINT OF THE DISTINGUISHING
BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND OF MIND 318
1. Natural Philosophy 318
(1.) Organic Nature 319
(2.) Inorganic Nature 321
(3.) The Reciprocal Determination of the
Organic and Inorganic World 321
2. Transcendental Philosophy 322
(1.) The Theoretical Philosophy 323
(2.) The Practical Philosophy 324
(3.) Philosophy of Art 324
III. THIRD PERIOD: PERIOD OF SPINOZISM, OR THE
INDIFFERENCE OF THE IDEAL AND THE REAL 326
IV. FOURTH PERIOD: THE DIRECTION OF SCHELLING’S
PHILOSOPHY AS MYSTICAL, AND ALLIED TO NEW
PLATONISM 333
V. FIFTH PERIOD: ATTEMPT AT A THEOGONY AND COSMOGONY,
AFTER THE MANNER OF JACOB BOEHME 335
(1.) The Progressive Development of Nature
to Man 337
(2.) The Development of Mind in History 337
VI. SIXTH PERIOD 338
XLIV.—TRANSITION TO HEGEL 339
XLV.—HEGEL 343
I. SCIENCE OF LOGIC 346
1. The Doctrine of Being 347
(1.) Quality 347
(2.) Quantity 348
(3.) Measure 348
2. The Doctrine of Essence 349
(1.) The Essence as such 349
(2.) Essence and Phenomenon 350
(3.) Actuality 351
3. The Doctrine of the Conception 352
(1.) The Subjective Conception 352
(2.) Objectivity 353
(3.) The Idea 353
II. THE SCIENCE OF NATURE 353
1. Mechanics 354
2. Physics 355
3. Organics 355
(1.) Geological Organism 355
(2.) Vegetable Organism 355
(3.) Animal Organism 356
III. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 356
1. The Subjective Mind 356
2. The Objective Mind 358
3. The Absolute Mind 362
(1.) Æsthetics 363
(_a._) Architecture 363
(_b._) Sculpture 363
(_c._) Painting 364
(_d._) Music 364
(_e._) Poetry 364
(2.) Philosophy of Religion 364
(_a._) The Natural Religion of the
Oriental World 364
(_b._) The Religion of Mental
Individuality 364
(_c._) Revealed, or the Christian
Religion 365
(3.) Absolute Philosophy 365
A
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
SECTION I.
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
To philosophize is to reflect; to examine things, in thought.
Yet in this is the conception of philosophy not sufficiently defined.
Man, as thinking, also employs those practical activities concerned in
the adaptation of means to an end; the whole body of sciences also, even
those which do not in strict sense belong to philosophy, still lie in
the realm of thought. In what, then, is philosophy distinguished from
these sciences, _e. g._ from the science of astronomy, of medicine, or
of rights? Certainly not in that it has a different material to work
upon. Its material is precisely the same as that of the different
empirical sciences. The construction and disposition of the universe,
the arrangement and functions of the human body, the doctrines of
property, of rights and of the state—all these materials belong as truly
to philosophy as to their appropriate sciences. That which is given in
the world of experience, that which is real, is the content likewise of
philosophy. It is not, therefore, in its material but in its form, in
its method, in its mode of knowledge, that philosophy is to be
distinguished from the empirical sciences. These latter derive their
material directly from experience; they find it at hand and take it up
just as they find it. Philosophy, on the other hand, is never satisfied
with receiving that which is given simply as it is given, but rather
follows it out to its ultimate grounds; it examines every individual
thing in reference to a final principle, and considers it as one link in
the whole chain of knowledge. In this way philosophy removes from the
individual thing given in experience, its immediate, individual, and
accidental character; from the sea of empirical individualities, it
brings out that which is common to all; from the infinite and orderless
mass of contingencies it finds that which is necessary, and throws over
all a universal law. In short, philosophy examines the _totality_ of
experience in the form of an _organic system_ in harmony with the laws
of thought. From the above it is seen, that philosophy (in the sense we
have given it) and the empirical sciences have a reciprocal influence;
the latter conditioning the former, while they at the same time are
conditioned by it. We shall, therefore, in the history of the world, no
more find an absolute and complete philosophy, than a complete empirical
science (_Empirik_). Rather is philosophy found only in the form of the
different philosophical systems, which have successively appeared in the
course of history, advancing hand in hand with the progress of the
empirical sciences and the universal, social, and civil culture, and
showing in their advance the different steps in the development and
improvement of human science. The history of philosophy has, for its
object, to represent the content, the succession, and the inner
connection of these philosophical systems.
The relation of these different systems to each other is thus already
intimated. The historical and collective life of the race is bound
together by the idea of a spiritual and intellectual progress, and
manifests a regular order of advancing, though not always continuous,
stages of development. In this, the fact harmonizes with what we should
expect from antecedent probabilities. Since, therefore, every
philosophical system is only the philosophical expression of the
collective life of its time, it follows that these different systems
which have appeared in history will disclose one organic movement and
form together one rational and internally connected (_gegliedertes_)
system. In all their developments, we shall find one constant order,
grounded in the striving of the spirit ever to raise itself to a higher
point of consciousness and knowledge, and to recognize the whole
spiritual and natural universe, more and more, as its outward being, as
its reality, as the mirror of itself.
_Hegel_ was the first to utter these thoughts and to consider the
history of philosophy as a united process, but this view, which is, in
its principle, true, he has applied in a way which would destroy the
freedom of human actions, and remove the very conception of contingency,
_i. e._ that any thing should be contrary to reason. Hegel’s view is,
that the succession of the systems of philosophy which have appeared in
history, corresponds to the succession of logical categories in a system
of logic. According to him, if, from the fundamental conceptions of
these different philosophical systems, we remove that which pertains to
their outward form or particular application, &c., so do we find the
different steps of the logical conceptions (_e. g._ being, becoming,
existence, being _per se_ (_fürsichseyn_) quantity, &c.). And on the
other hand, if we take up the logical process by itself, we find also in
it the actual historical process.
This opinion, however, can be sustained neither in its principle nor in
its historical application. It is defective in its principle, because in
history freedom and necessity interpenetrate, and, therefore, while we
find, if we consider it in its general aspects, a rational connection
running through the whole, we also see, if we look solely at its
individual parts, only a play of numberless contingencies, just as the
kingdom of nature, taken as a whole, reveals a rational plan in its
successions, but viewed only in its parts, mocks at every attempt to
reduce them to a preconceived plan. In history we have to do with free
subjectivities, with individuals capable of originating actions, and
have, therefore, a factor which does not admit of a previous
calculation. For however accurately we may estimate the controlling
conditions which may attach to an individual, from the general
circumstances in which he may be placed, his age, his associations, his
nationality, &c., a free will can never be calculated like a
mathematical problem. History is no example for a strict arithmetical
calculation. The history of philosophy, therefore, cannot admit of an
apriori construction; the actual occurrences should not be joined
together as illustrative of a preconceived plan; but the facts, so far
as they can be admitted, after a critical sifting, should be received as
such, and their rational connection be analytically determined. The
speculative idea can only supply the law for the arrangement and
scientific connection of that which may be historically furnished.
A more comprehensive view, which contradicts the above-given Hegelian
notion, is the following. The actual historical development is, very
generally, different from the theoretical. Historically _e. g._ the
State arose as a means of protection against robbers, while
theoretically it is derived from the idea of rights. So also, even in
the actual history of philosophy, while the logical (theoretical)
process is an ascent from the abstract to the concrete, yet does the
historical development of philosophy, quite generally, descend from the
concrete to the abstract, from intuition to thought, and separates the
abstract from the concrete in those general forms of culture and those
religious and social circumstances, in which the philosophizing subject
is placed. A _system_ of philosophy proceeds synthetically, while the
_history_ of philosophy, _i. e._ the history of the thinking process
proceeds analytically. We might, therefore, with great propriety, adopt
directly the reverse of the Hegelian position, and say that what in
reality is the first, is for us, in fact, the last. This is illustrated
in the Ionic philosophy. It began not with being as an abstract
conception, but with the most concrete, and most apparent, _e. g._ with
the material conception of water, air, &c. Even if we leave the Ionics
and advance to the being of the Eleatics or the becoming of the
Heraclitics, we find, that these, instead of being pure thought
determinations, are only unpurified conceptions, and materially colored
intuitions. Still farther, is the attempt impracticable to refer every
philosophy that has appeared in history to some logical category as its
central principle, because the most of these philosophies have taken,
for their object, the idea, not as an abstract conception, but in its
realization as nature and mind, and, therefore, for the most part, have
to do, not with logical questions, but with those relating to natural
philosophy, psychology and ethics. Hegel should not, therefore, limit
his comparison of the historical and systematic process of development
simply to logic, but should extend it to the whole system of
philosophical science. Granted that the Eleatics, the Heraclitics and
the Atomists may have made such a category as the centre of their
systems, and we may find thus far the Hegelian logic in harmony with the
Hegelian history of philosophy. But if we go farther, how is it? How
with Anaxagoras, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle? We cannot,
certainly, without violence, press one central principle into the
systems of these men, but if we should be able to do it, and could
reduce _e. g._ the philosophy of Anaxagoras to the conception of “the
end,” that of the Sophists to the conception of “the appearance,” and
the Socratic Philosophy to the conception of “the good,”—yet even then
we have the new difficulty that the historical does not correspond to
the logical succession of these categories. In fact, Hegel himself has
not attempted a complete application of his principle, and indeed gave
it up at the very threshold of the Grecian philosophy. To the Eleatics,
the Heraclitics and the Atomists, the logical categories of “being,”
“becoming,” and being _per se_ may be successively ascribed, and so far,
as already remarked, the parallelism extends, but no farther. Not only
does Anaxagoras follow with the conception of reason working according
to an end, but if we go back before the Eleatics, we find in the very
beginning of philosophy a total diversity between the logical and
historical order. If Hegel had carried out his principle consistently,
he should have thrown away entirely the Ionic philosophy, for matter is
no logical category; he should have placed the Pythagoreans after the
Eleatics and the Atomists, for in logical order the categories of
quantity follow those of quality; in short, he would have been obliged
to set aside all chronology. Unless this be done, we must be satisfied
with a theoretical reproduction of the course which the thinking spirit
has taken in its history, only so far as we can see in the grand stages
of history a rational progress of thought; only so far as the
philosophical historian, surveying a period of development, actually
finds in it a philosophical acquisition,—the acquisition of a new idea:
but we must guard ourselves against applying to the transition and
intermediate steps, as well as to the whole detail of history, the
postulate of an immanent conformity to law, or an organism in harmony
with our own thoughts. History often winds its way like a serpent in
lines which appear retrogressive, and philosophy, especially, has not
seldom withdrawn herself from a wide and already fruitful field, in
order to settle down upon a narrow strip of land, the limits even of
which she has sought still more closely to abridge. At one time we find
thousands of years expended in fruitless attempts with only a negative
result;—at another, a fulness of philosophical ideas are crowded
together in the experience of a lifetime. There is here no sway of an
immutable and regularly returning law, but history, as the realm of
freedom, will first completely manifest itself at the end of time as the
work of reason.