Some problems of philosophy : a beginning of an introduction to philosophy / by William James.

  • William James
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some problems of philosophy : a beginning of an introduction to philosophy / by William James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    For rationalistic writers conceptual know- ledge was not only the more noble knowledge, but it originated independently of Concept- ualknow- al] perceptual particulars. Such con- ledge — the rational- | cepts as God, perfection, eternity, in- — finity, immutability, identity, abso- lute beauty, truth, justice, necessity, freedom, duty, worth, etc., and the part they play in our mine, are, it was supposed, impossible to explain as results of practical experience. The empiricist view, and probably the true view, is that they do result from practical experience. ! But a more important question than that as to the origin of our concepts is that as to their Aristotle. It should be said that its profundity has been challenged by Prof. A. J. Stewart. (Plato’s Doctrine of Ideas, Oxford, 1909.) Aristotle found great fault with Plato’s treatment of ideas as heav- enly originals, but he agreed with him fully as to the superior excel- lence of the conceptual or theoretic life. Ia chapters vii and viii of book x of the Nicomachean Ethics he extols contemplation of universal rela- tions as alone yielding pure happiness. ‘ The life of, God, in all its ex- ceeding blessedness, will consist in the exercise of philosophic thought; and of all human activities, that will be the happiest which is most akin to the divine.’ 1 John Locke, in his Essay concerning Human Understanding, books i, ii, was the great popularizer of this doctrine. Condillac’s Traité des Sensations, Helvetius’s work, De Homme, and James Mill’s Analysis of the Human Mind, were more radical successors of Locke’s great book.
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