Read Ebook: A Beginner's History of Philosophy Vol. 2: Modern Philosophy by Cushman Herbert Ernest

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 277 lines and 130790 words, and 6 pages

INDEX 365

MAP SHOWING THE DECENTRALIZATION OF EUROPE 13

MAP SHOWING THE BIRTHPLACES OF THE CHIEF PHILOSOPHERS OF THE RENAISSANCE 30

BARUCH DE SPINOZA 84

MAP SHOWING THE BIRTHPLACES OF SOME OF THE INFLUENTIAL THINKERS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 144

MAP SHOWING THE UNIVERSITY TOWNS AND OTHER IMPORTANT PLACES CONNECTED WITH THE GERMAN IDEALISTS 280

A BEGINNER'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

VOLUME II

MODERN PHILOSOPHY

THE CHARACTERISTICS AND DIVISIONS OF THE MODERN PERIOD

This will explain why the short period of modern thought is traditionally divided into comparatively many periods. These subordinate periods ring out the changes through which the modern man feels that he himself has blindly passed in his inner life. Modern philosophy is no more local and temporary than the ancient; it is no less a part of a social movement; but the modern man is more alive to the differentiations of modern thought than he is to those of antiquity.

First to be mentioned are the inventions which belong to the Middle Ages, but which came into common use not before the beginning of the Renaissance. These played an important part in the total change of the society which followed. They were the magnetic needle, gunpowder, which was influential in destroying the feudal system, and printing, which would have failed in its effect had not at the same time the manufacture of paper been improved. Moreover at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century occurred the following events:--

THE RENAISSANCE

The first impression, however, of the Renaissance upon the reader is that it stands for no constructive problem whatever. The changes that usher in the Renaissance seem to speak of an epoch that is entirely negative, destructive, and revolutionary. The period seems from one side to be a declaration against time-honored traditions. The "new man" had risen superior to dogma and to Aristotle. Intellectual fermentation had set in, and never had so many attempts at innovation been so strenuously sought. The love for novelty filled the human mind, and the imagination ran riot. The movement toward modern individualism appeared in the decentralization that at this time was everywhere taking place. Latin, for example, ceased to be the one language for educated men, and the modern languages came into use. Rome ceased to be the only religious centre, and Wittenberg, London, and Geneva became centres. There was no longer one church, but many sects. Scientific centres became numerous. Many of the universities had arisen independently, and now Oxford, Vienna, Heidelberg, Prague, and numerous universities in Italy and Germany afforded opportunities for study equal to those of Paris. To the man who looks upon the Classic Period of Scholasticism in the Middle Ages as the golden age of united faith,--to that man the Renaissance will appear only as the beginning of the disintegration and revolution that he sees in modern times.

But a deeper insight into the Renaissance shows that its revolutionary, negative, and spectacular aspect is not its whole significance. No doubt a strong, universal, and well-centralized government and a unity of faith are social ideals. The reverence in which the name of Rome was held long after the empire had been destroyed, and the reluctance with which the first Protestants separated themselves from the Catholic church, show that the loss of such a unity is a real loss. But the church of the Middle Ages was not the carrier of all the treasure of the past, nor could the church with its own inherent limitations stand as representative of modern times. The new problem which the Renaissance faced might be destructive of much of the traditional past, but it contained many new elements. The "new man" found himself in a "new universe." He was obliged to undertake the solution of a far deeper problem than antiquity had ever attempted. He must orient himself in a larger world than the past had ever imagined. He must do this in the very presence of mediaeval institutions, which had not lost their spiritual nor their temporal power. The constructive problem before the man of the Renaissance was therefore an exceedingly complex one. How should he explain his relation to the "new universe" in a way that would not antagonize tradition? It was a new problem, a real problem in which the traditional factor was always persistently present.

The Similarities of the Two Periods. These two periods are alike in having the same motives. Both feel the same urgent need for new knowledge, for a new standard by which to measure their new knowledge, for a new method of gaining knowledge. From the beginning to the end of the Renaissance the "new man" was feeling his way about, was trying to orient and readjust himself in his "new universe." He was seeking new acquisitions to his rich stores of knowledge, to systematize his knowledge by some correct method, and to set up some standard by which his knowledge might be tested.

The Differences of the Two Periods. There are, however, some marked differences in the carrying out of these motives by each period, and to these we must give our attention.

In the Natural Science Period the Renaissance had practically become dead both in Germany and in Italy. The reason for this is not far to seek. In Italy, in 1563, the Council of Trent had fixed the dogma of the church and had made it impossible for the church to assimilate anything more from antiquity. The so-called Counter-Reformation set in, and Italy became dumb under the persecutions of the Inquisition. Furthermore, the discovery of the sea-route to the East had turned commerce away from Italy. When we look to Germany, we find a similar situation. The Thirty Years' War had devastated the land and had made intellectual life wholly impossible.

The scientific method used in the Natural Science Period was the mathematical. The world of experience was found to coincide with the number system, and therefore mathematics was used as the symbol to determine the form of nature events. Induction and deduction were used in different combinations. The period has been characterized as the time of "the strife of methods." Induction and deduction became in fact the new methods of finding the truth about the "new world." Whatever is clear and distinct, like the axioms, must be taken as true. All other knowledge must be deduced from these axiomatic certainties. In contrast with the magical methods of the Humanistic Period, which point beyond nature for an explanation of nature, here in the Natural Science Period mathematics need not lead the explanation farther than nature herself.

In the Natural Science Period this uncertainty was dispelled because dogma came into violent conflict with science. It was soon found that questions in physics involved metaphysics, and that the new science touched the church doctrines at every point. In 1563 the church authorities at the Council of Trent settled dogma for all time. Great conflicts arose between the church and the secularizing spirit. The scientist became wary. He tried to avoid any intrusion upon the field of theology, and he insisted that his own field existed quite independent of theological dogma. But practically it was impossible for science not to take heretical positions, and this was especially true of the Rationalistic School, which tried to construct a new scholasticism. Safe independence of thought was not gained until the next period , and this was brought to pass by political changes.

THE HUMANISTIC PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE

As examples of the first epoch of the Renaissance we have selected Cusanus , Paracelsus , and Bruno . These three men will represent fairly well the wide interests of this epoch, and more especially its neo-Platonic spirit and its methods. The reader will see from their dates that the lives of these three philosophers nearly cover the Humanistic Period. Cusanus lived during the last half century of the Middle Ages and the first decade of the Humanistic Period; Paracelsus's life covers the middle of the Humanistic Period; Bruno lived during the last part of the period, and his death coincides with the last year of the period. All three were neo-Platonists. They had been so impressed with the nature-world that had opened before them that they were mystic nature-worshipers--pantheists, to whom neo-Platonism became the truest philosophical standard. All three were scientists in different degrees. Yet Cusanus, the cardinal of the church, and Bruno, the speculative philosopher, contributed more to science than Paracelsus, who aspired to medical science. This seeming inconsistency in their lives is not difficult to explain. Paracelsus merely reflects the science of the time; while Cusanus and Bruno anticipate the Natural Science Period--the one by his empirical discoveries, the other by his mystic speculations which were almost prophecies.

Cusanus was a scientist of no small merit. He died before the great discoveries were made; but he anticipated Copernicus in his belief that the earth rotated on its axis; he anticipated Bruno in conceiving space to be boundless and time unending; he proposed a reform in the calendar; he was the first to have a map of Germany engraved. He condemned the prevalent superstitions of the church and the use of magic in explaining nature events. Thus he anticipated the science of the time of Bacon, Hobbes, and Descartes, and transcended his own period.

In other respects Cusanus belongs in this period with Bruno and Paracelsus. He did not seek to discover a new method; but he turned back to the revived traditional Greek systems for an explanation of the "new world." He found in the mystic numbers of Plato and the Pythagoreans the principle of all scientific investigation. The world of nature phenomena must be accounted for by the spiritual world. Cusanus uses almost the identical language of Bruno, when he says that the world is the mirror of God and that man is an epitome of the universe. In the neo-Platonic spirit of the Humanists, he regarded the world as a soul-possessing and articulate Oneness. Although a scientist, he conceived science to be only a conjecture, which in its unreality reveals the inner interconnections of the real world--the world of the spirit.

In the neo-Platonic manner Paracelsus conceived the world as fundamentally a developing vital principle . Man is this cosmic force individualized . The laws that operate in the world are the same as in man, except that in man they are hidden. The study of nature's laws, as they lie open, will reveal how those same laws operate in a human being. Now the vital principle in nature manifests itself in three realms: the terrestrial, the astral or celestial, and the spiritual or divine. The Archaeus or vital principle in man must have the same realms of activity. There is man's body, which gets its strength from the terrestrial realm of nature; man's mind, which is nourished by the stars; man's soul, that feeds on faith in Christ. Perfect health, therefore, consists in the sympathetic interaction of these three realms in man. A complete medicine consists of physics, astronomy, and theology.

But Paracelsus was a chemist, and the terrestrial nature of man was his peculiar interest. The theologian may prescribe for the human soul, and it is the duty of the astronomer to care for the human intellect; but the practical physician must understand the human body. Here is the Archaeus imprisoned in the gross terrestrial body! It is in continual warfare with that body. What is the nature of that body which is so hostile to the human vital principle? Here Paracelsus introduces his strange chemical analysis which characterizes him as a Renaissance physician. Nature has three essences of which all bodies are composed: mercury, that makes bodies liquid; sulphur, that makes them combustible; salt, that makes them rigid. These essences are compounded in such a way that from them the four elements--earth, air, water, and fire--are derived. Each one of these elements is controlled by elemental spirits. The earth is controlled by gnomes, the water by undines, the air by sylphs, and the fire by salamanders. Thus the chemical analysis of Paracelsus discovers four sets of spirits with which the physician is obliged to deal. Gnomes, sylphs, undines, and salamanders are in warfare with the human vital principle for control. When the Archaeus is in any way checked by these, there is disease; when the Archaeus has them under control, the man has health. The medicines that the physician administers are determined by their effectiveness in helping the Archaeus in its battle against the hostile spirits. This makes medicine a field for the magician in the control of spirits.

The fundamental thought of the Humanistic Period was expressed by Bruno in his imaginative conception of the divine beauty of the living All. Poet as well as philosopher, he was consumed by a love for nature as a beautiful religious object. He revolted from all asceticism and scholasticism. The "new world" in which he found himself was to him the emblem of God. The thought of that chief of neo-Platonists, Plotinus, of the beauty of the universe had never been so sympathetically regarded as by the Renaissance; in the hands of Bruno this beauty became the manifestation of the divine Idea. Philosophy, aesthetics, and religion were identical to him. To express his thought he employed the usual neo-Platonic symbol of the all-forming and all-animating light. Bruno was no patient student of natural phenomena as such, but a lover of the great illumination of nature facts by the great soul behind them. He was not interested in any single group of phenomena, as was Paracelsus; but he loved them all as a religion. Not only externally but internally is the universe an eternal harmony. When one gazes upon it with the enthusiasm of a poet, its apparent defects will vanish in the harmony of the whole. Man needs no special theology, for the world is perfect because it is the life of God. Bruno is a universalistic optimist and a mystic poet. Before this cosmic harmony man should never utter complaint, but should bow in reverence. True science is religion and morality.

THE NATURAL SCIENCE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE

Countries other than Italy and Germany come upon the philosophic stage during the eighty-nine years of the period of teeming natural science. England is represented by Bacon and Hobbes, France by Descartes, Holland by the Jew, Spinoza, and, at the end of the period, Germany by Leibnitz. Still Italy yields the most influential thinker of them all,--Galileo, who is the most prominent of a long series of astronomers coming from many countries. The most completely representative is Descartes, who was the founder of the Rationalistic school; for he was not only interested in mathematics itself, but in the application of mathematics to metaphysical questions. Neither as influential as Galileo, nor as comprehensive as Descartes, the Englishmen, Bacon and Hobbes, were nevertheless important as the forerunners of the English empirical school. Spinoza is more of a "world's philosopher" than any of the others, and he joins in his doctrine the scholasticism of the Middle Ages and the mathematics of the Renaissance; while Leibnitz occupies the position between the Enlightenment and the Renaissance.

The most prominent of these astronomers were--

Copernicus, 1473-1543, a Pole. Bruno, 1548-1600, an Italian. Tycho Brahe, 1546-1601, a Dane. Kepler, 1571-1630, a German. Galileo, 1564-1641, an Italian. Huyghens, 1629-1695, a Hollander. Newton, 1642-1722, an Englishman.

For fourteen centuries the ancient Ptolemaic astronomy had been regarded by the learned as beyond question. Although complex and unwieldy, it explained all phenomena satisfactorily enough as they appeared to the senses; and it brought phenomena into a system. To recapitulate it: the world-all was conceived as a hollow sphere with the earth as the centre and the fixed stars in the periphery, while the planets were supposed to move in epicycles. The universe was divided into the heavenly and terrestrial realms, which were occupied by various spirits. God resided outside this hollow sphere and held it, as it were, in his lap.

The history of the changes leading up to our modern astronomical conception makes a vivid chapter. How Copernicus contributed the idea of placing the sun at the centre of things, Kepler the idea of the orbits of the planets as ellipses, Bruno the idea of the boundlessness of space and time, and how Galileo, corroborating these theories by empirical investigations, was put under the ban of the church--all this shows what heroism must have been required to tear down a time-honored and firmly intrenched traditional conception. Probably the speculative astronomers were not conscious that they were undermining the whole astronomical structure, and probably their sole motive was to simplify the Ptolemaic conception, not to destroy it. For Copernicus accepted the Ptolemaic system, except that he put the sun instead of the earth at the centre, and thereby simplified it by making many of the epicycles unnecessary; and Kepler simplified it further by supplanting the epicycles with ellipses. However, the result was inevitably an entirely new conception of the universe, and with it a new conception of the relation among particular material things. It was in this way that new scientific methods arose.

The demand that the new conception of the universe be verified in concrete experiments, if it were to replace the old Ptolemaic system, the revival of the study of Archimedes, the rivalry in trade and inventions among the Italian towns, were three causes for the demand for greater exactness. Investigation, experiment, and invention came into vogue. Magic, alchemy, astrology, and conjurations were no longer accepted as serious methods. In the Middle Ages deduction had been purely the logical employment of the syllogism in theological discussions, while induction, so far as it was used at all, had been the reference of nature phenomena to spiritual forces. Now deduction and induction come to be used for other purposes, and mathematics is necessarily conjoined with both. The new Natural Science period is essentially a "strife of methods"; it is the period when the true plan of scientific procedure is being determined. It is here that the importance and influence of Galileo is seen upon modern science and philosophy.

A mathematical law never exactly coincides with any particular concrete relations. A mathematical law is an hypothesis or ideal construction. What value, then, has a mathematical law for science? The orbits of planets are described as ellipses, but no actual planet moves in a perfect ellipse. The ellipse is an hypothetical, mathematical orbit for a planet which has no disturbing influences upon it. We get at such a law by the method of concomitant variations; and the value of it consists in the simplification and system that it gives the facts. For example, knowing that a planet would move in an ellipse if it suffered no perturbations, and then knowing the influences upon any particular planet, we can calculate its orbit. Mathematical law, although ideal, is the common rule under which all nature phenomena can be brought. However, only by measurements founded on the tests of observation and experiment can we know how far the claims of such deduction are supported. Measure everything measurable, and calculate the measurement of those things not directly measurable.

Nature, therefore, must be called upon to explain her own phenomena. Since the laws of nature are found by investigating nature phenomena as we experience them, the laws must be a part of nature and can be found nowhere else. To explain nature phenomena by referring them to spiritual influence is no real explanation. To say that God moves the planets is to involve the subject in mystery. Here is where Galileo shows that he does not belong to the Scholastics or the Mystics or the Humanists. He searched for some constant element, and not for a "vital force" behind nature phenomena. He declared this constant element to be motion--measurable motion. He is the author of the theory that mechanics is the mathematical theory of motion. Science was therefore taken by him out of the paralyzing grip of the theologian.

What must be our attitude in the presence of this traditional philosophy? We must dispossess ourselves of the prejudices that have misled the past, for they form the obstacles to our true knowledge of the world. The roots of the errors that have infected philosophy are "fantastic, contentious, and delicate learning." We must not, indeed, trust to our every-day perceptions; for although science is based on our perceptions, our every-day perceptions are corrupted by our uncritical habits of thought. Thus there have arisen perversions and falsifications, of which we must first of all be rid. Bacon calls these Idols. Idols are false images, that intervene between us and the truth and are mistaken for reality. Bacon makes four general classes of Idols:--

The Idols of the Tribe, or the presuppositions common to the human race.

The Idols of the Cave, or individual prejudices due to natural individual disposition, situation in life, etc.

The Idols of the Forum, or the traditional meanings of words, by which we substitute the word for the idea. These are the worst illusions.

The Idols of the Theatre, the theories or philosophic dogma, which command discipleship from groups of men and have not been subjected to our own criticism.

Bacon's classification of our prejudices as Idols is a critical attempt to separate, in what passes for knowledge, the subjective, which has become traditional, from the real. Logic, religion, and poetry have had a bad effect on science, as is especially shown in the theatrical character of philosophy.

There must be an exhaustive collection of particular instances.

There must then be an analysis and comparison of these instances, for to Bacon induction was not a mere enumeration of single instances. Negative instances, and instances of difference of degree, must be taken into account. Hasty generalizations must be avoided, and we must ascend gradually from the particular to the general.

In passing from Bacon to Hobbes we come to a very different type of man. Bacon had risen to fame by his own genius, in spite of the hostility of his powerful relatives; Hobbes was a hard-headed man, with a narrow outlook, but with undoubted talents, which were fostered all his life under the patronage of the Devonshire family. Bacon was a practical politician; Hobbes was a doctrinaire and theoretical political writer. Of the voluminous literary remains of Bacon his philosophy forms but a small part; Hobbes had a general philosophical system, with which his classical and theological studies have connection.

In the succeeding chapter we shall review the philosophy of the rationalist, Descartes, who was a contemporary of Hobbes. We shall find that Descartes and Hobbes are alike in this: that both employed Galileo's mathematical theory as authoritative. They differed, however, in the way in which they used Galileo's theory. Descartes reduced mathematics to the rational, and conceived it to be the instrument of the reason; Hobbes reduced the rational to the mathematical, and conceived the reason as a form of mechanics. The starting-point of Descartes was the subjective, and he was held at a standstill until the relation of thought and mechanics was solved by him. The point of view of Hobbes was objective, and since all was mechanical, he discussed only incidentally the relation between thought and mechanical existence. Hobbes conceived the world in the terms of only one series, the mechanical. Descartes' main motive was to preserve the rational; and, consequently, the world to him consisted of a double or dualistic series of terms. We therefore place Descartes, with Spinoza and Leibnitz, in a group called Rationalists. Hobbes was a materialist, and his greatness consisted in going the full length of materialism: he went beyond all the scientists of his time by extending the mechanical theory to the mental life.

Of the three influences upon Hobbes, his inherited timidity is seen in his conservative political theory; the influence of his father is seen in his theory of religion; the influence of the "new" mathematical science is seen in his whole philosophy, especially in his psychology.

The independence of knowledge with reference to theology on the one side, and to physical reality on the other, is well illustrated in Hobbes's discussion of language. Speech consists of words, which are only the counters of things. Words are markers by which men may know a thing as "seamen mark a rock." Science consists in their manipulation. Science combines them by addition and subtraction into judgments and syllogisms, and thereby constructs a body of demonstrated principles. Words are only counters, and he is a fool who mistakes the counter for the coin of reality. Words only represent reality, and the law of their use is mathematics. Truth and falsity are terms that are concerned with the correct or incorrect manipulation of these verbal counters and not with real things.

But the history of the philosophy of the Renaissance is not yet completed. Contemporary with Bacon and Hobbes, there was a movement on the Continent which was more characteristic of the Renaissance, and indeed more important to it than the movement in England. This was the school of Rationalists, to which we now turn.

THE RATIONALISM OF THE NATURAL SCIENCE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE

If the position of those was difficult who tried to keep themselves strictly within the limits of science, how much more fraught with personal danger was the position of those who openly constructed a new metaphysics? It would mean that a challenge was issued to the old Scholasticism by the same human reason that had already challenged and overthrown the old science. The group of men who did this were the Rationalists. The Rationalists were interested in science, but they were more interested in the metaphysical problems that science aroused. The human reason had been successful in the reconstruction of physics by the use of mathematics. Why should it not also be able to reconstruct metaphysics and set it, too, upon a mathematical basis? The leaders of this school were Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and the Occasionalists,--Malebranche and Geulincx. The Rationalists advanced a new conception not only of nature, but of God; new theories not only of the human body, but of the soul. Their task was the dangerous one of bravely invading the hitherto impregnable realms of the spirit.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet