Reality is only gradually dawning on us, - piece by piece, development after development. This reality, I think we might reasonably conclude, is that there does exist, in total, a living universe; and we, as thinking men and women, can come to the conclusion that we are part of this universe, we have a place in it.

These developments were brought on by men, philosophers long since dead. Many wrote books, some with formidable titles, ones you might actually recall being on a long forgotten syllabus, one we had in hand during our greener days. If you were, once again, to pick one of these books up, - and perchance to read, perchance to reflect on these eternal thoughts, particularly in the light of our life experiences and in the light of the many social problems we see around us today, - one may join the group and become a philosopher.

Now, it is difficult to know where to begin with our subject. For the best understanding, it is not likely, that we should start with the classical Greeks; maybe René Descartes (1596-1650), the French philosopher who first formulated the axiom, Cogito ergo sum, "I think therefore I exist." But, I have elected to take a more traditional approach, I will, begin with the Greek philosophers and then slip through several centuries leaving the scholastics behind, and, come, to the times of Descartes.

And, so, it was the Greeks, who first came to grips with the slippery surfaces of existence, at least, in any formal way. They were curious, as are all healthy men; and, it is curiosity which leads men to seek out the obverse of any question:

"Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side. Nothing so thin, but has these two faces, and, when the observer has seen the obverse, he turns it over to see the reverse. Life is a pitching of this penny, - heads or tails. We never tire of the game, because there is still a slight shudder of astonishment at the exhibition of the other face, at the contrast of the two faces. A man is flushed with success, and bethinks himself what this good luck signifies. He drives his bargain in the street, but it occurs, that he also is bought and sold. He sees the beauty of a human face, and searches the cause of that beauty, which must be more beautiful. He builds his fortunes, maintains the laws, cherishes his children, but he asks himself, why? and whereto? This head and this tail are called, in the language of philosophy, Infinite and Finite; Relative and Absolute; Apparent and Real; and many fine names beside. Each man is born with a predisposition to one or the other of these sides of nature, and it will easily happen that men will be found devoted to one or the other. One class has the perception of Difference, and is conversant with facts and surfaces; cities and persons; and the bringing certain things to pass; the men of talent and action. Another class have the perception of Identity, and are men of faith and philosophy, men of genius." [Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)].8

Now what drives persons to adopt the Platonic ideal, to subscribe to a state of such a dreadful existence? It is the same thing that has driven all the conquerors found in history: In a word, egotism. This "cosmic philosophy,"9 this philosophy of Plato's which expresses the idea that there is the real and the unreal, the universe and the un-universe, is dualistic. The fact is, that the great natural world that we perceive, just, simply, exists; so far as we know it, it is neither good nor bad, it just exists: and, natural scientific laws may be used to define it.

To be a Platonist is to be one who aspires to change the world. He is convinced he is a philosopher king, a poet, a legislator, a person who knows what is good for others; one who is prepared to lie, (excuse me I should probably say maintain a myth) in the interests of order, -- necessary, if one is to deal with the "irrationality of the masses." Socialists, whether they belong to an organized political party or not, qualify on all counts; they are Platonist, though most of them could not begin to properly define the term at its roots.

You can believe God made you, and, thus, believe it is to Him you must turn; or you can believe we are determined by society, and to remake ourselves we must remake the men in whose society we find ourselves, or remove ourselves from that society. These are examples of theories that incapacitate men; these are examples of irrational theories. Men did indeed evolve the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves; but only for themselves. This rational capacity, which is at the center of each man's life, is how man survives, day to day. It cannot, however, be applied to a group unless every member of the group sees something in the joint action which will advance the interests of that particular member. Now, it is difficult to impart the objects of a rational plan to another person, in any event; but, to impart a rational plan to a group of persons, is, indeed, a very difficult challenge. For you see, in normal circumstances, each person in this life, is in it for themselves; and, will only subscribe to an imposing action were that person can see a real return to herself and her family. That there has to be something in it for a man to act, is in the nature of man: like it, or not.

Religious dissenters up to 1400, or so, were not much heard from -- not because there was no dissention; but, rather, that the dissenters had no means to get their views abroad. It was to be 1450 before moveable type, such as was used by Johannes Gutenberg was to be used for volume reproduction of the printed word.

The powerful Roman Catholic church came down, hard -- not only on those who professed novel religious ideas, but on any of those who gave, or who adopted a mechanical or scientific view of the world. You either subscribed to the dictated views of the church, immediately when called upon, or, you were branded a heretic and treated as such. One can hardly imagine the difficulties which both Galileo and Copernicus faced as they advanced their scientific theories.

The church philosophers of the time, - for example the French philosopher, René Descartes (1596-1650) - employed what we have come to call the deductive method of thinking. But for a new breed of thinkers, a different approach was being adopted.10 Fearless men were stating that for knowledge to be valid it must be the result of experience; the natural world we live in must be approached by building, on, thoroughly tested theories, theories that fit in with our real life experiences; these theories were built up by employing an induction method of thinking.

In answer to the question of how man comes to know what he knows (the study of epistemology) we see that two theories have come about. There is the rationalist view, led by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and others; who sought to integrate a belief in the existence of certain innate ideas with an acceptance of the value of data received by experience. Empiricism (expounded by Hobbes, Hume, Locke) denied the existence of innate ideas altogether, maintaining that all knowledge comes from human experience. Kant and numerous people since have attempted to combine the two views.

Dualism is the belief that reality, subsists, both in thought and in matter. It is important in your intellectual dealings with others to recognize a dualist. He or she is a type of person who believes there does exist, a universe, beyond that in which one exists. A "dualist" believes in this world and in the next; he lives in this one and aspires to another. His line of thought comes from the misty dark ages, when everything be a mystery. As I have said, only gradually did man come to grips with the nature of the universe, of which he is part; culminating in Darwin's evolutionary and comprehensive vision. Seemingly taking his cue from Spinoza, Darwin, in his monistic vision, showed that reality is a unitary and continuous process with no dualistic split between soul and body, between matter and mind, between life and not-life. There is no cleavage between natural and supernatural. All phenomena, observed and unobserved, are of one universe; they are all natural to it.11

It was during this time, too, that religious dissenters were picking the church's lock which it had -- on what, and what was not, the correct mode of thinking. Wycliffe (1320-84) of England was one of the first dissenters (the church, as an official act, in 1415, ordered that his bones be dug up and burned.) Martin Luther (1483-1546), an ex-monk, of Germany, was another who attacked the church. Instead of disputing in Latin, as was the fashion in those days, Luther took up the new weapon of the printed word and scattered his views in a contemporary language, in his case the language used by the ordinary people of Germany. It is with these religious dissenters that we see in history the opening of an age which continues to this day: an age of multiplying ideas and weakening faith.

"You that will have all solid, and a world of pig-lead, deceive yourselves grossly. You believe yourselves rooted and grounded on adamant, and yet if we uncover the last facts of our knowledge, you are spinning like bubbles on a river, you know not whither or whence, and you are bottomed and capped and wrapped in delusions."12

"To reconcile the indifference and contingency of human actions with prescience; or to defend absolute decrees, and yet free the Deity from being the author of sin, has been found hitherto to exceed all power of philosophy. Happy if she be thence sensible of her temerity, when she pries into these sublime mysteries; and leaving a scene so full of obscurities and perplexities, return, with suitable modesty, to her true and proper province, the examination of common life; where she will find difficulties enough to employ her enquires, without launching into so boundless an ocean of doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction!"14

I mark the words the state could be a rational instrument "in bringing peace" to society. To those unacquainted with the history of the last two hundred years, I say to you: all the scientific observations are that man is best left, under appropriate criminal law, to govern himself. As Sir Karl Popper did, we might liken "social science" to "midwifery": it is the mother not the midwife who is obliged to go through the untidy and the painful business of delivering her baby. An important additional point that is to be made, by the way, is, that, not only can a state not be run by a controlling mind, but the controlling mechanisms, as the Roman statesman, Cicero, pointed out, cannot even be set by one controlling mind (much less by a committee): a lasting state can only evolve through the passing of several generations, viz., it comes into being only after the passage of a considerable period of time. "Our state, ..." as Cicero wrote fifty years before the birth of Christ, "Our state, on the contrary, is not due to the personal creation of one man, but of very many; it has not been founded during the lifetime of any particular individual, but through a series of centuries and generations. There never was in the world a man so clever as to foresee everything and that even if we could concentrate all brains into the head of one man, it would be impossible for him to provide for everything at one time without having the experience that comes from practice through a long period of history."16

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Aristotle:-
§ "The knowledge of the truth."

Bagehot:-
§ "The patient philosopher, who is cautious in his positions, dubious of his data, slow in his conclusions, must fail at once. He would be investigating while he should attack, inquiring while he should speak. He could not act upon a chance; the moment of action would be gone. A sanguine and speedy intellect, ready to acquire, by its very idea all but excludes the examining, scrupulous, hesitating intellect which reflects." (Biographical Studies, p. 62.)

Blake:-
§ "In every cry of every Man ... The mind-forg'd manacles I hear." (Songs of Experience, 1794.)

Cicero:-
§ "Philosophy is the cultivation of the mental faculties; it roots out vices and prepares the mind to receive proper seed."

Dewey:-
§ "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of man."

Diderot:-
§ "The first step towards a philosophy is incredulity."

Epicurus:-
§ "To say that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it is passed and gone is like saying that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it is passed and gone."

Froude:-
§ "Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve." (Calvanism, 1877.)

Goldsmith, Oliver (1731-1774):-
§ "Philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey."

Hobbes:-
§ "Leisure is the mother of philosophy." (Leviathan.)

Holmes:-
§ "There is one disadvantage which the man of philosophical habits of mind suffers, as compared with the man of action. While he is taking an enlarged and rational view of the matter before him, he lets his chance slip through his fingers." (The Professor of the Breakfast Table.)

Hume:-
§ "There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality." (An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding.)
§ "Philosophical decisions are nothing but the reflections of common life, methodized and corrected." (An Enquiry ...)

Keats:-
§ "Do not charms fly, At the mere touch of cold philosophy?"
§ "Philosophy will clip an angel's wings."

Keyser, Cassius J.:-
§ "The term philosophy signifies that which philosophers are doing... The meaning of the term is a function of two variables - time and clime." (As quoted in Mencken's Dictionary.)

Macaulay:-
§ "The ancient philosophy was a treadmill, not a path. It was made up of revolving questions, of controversies which were always beginning again. It was a contrivance for having much exertion and no progress." (In Macaulay's essay on, "Lord Bacon.")

Montaigne:-
§ "To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death."

Newton:-
§ "Philosophy is such as impertinently litigious lady that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits as to have to do with her." (In a letter to Edmund Halley, June 20, 1687)

Proverb:-
§ "Good health or bad makes our philosophy."

Rochefoucauld:-
§ "Philosophy triumphs easily over past, and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy."

Russell:-
§ "That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes, his gears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all devotions, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins - all these things, if not beyond dispute, are, yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."
§ "Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naive humanism: the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us either happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy." (What I Believe.)

Shakespeare:-
§ "Adversity's sweet milk - philosophy." (Romeo and Juliet.)
§ "There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (Hamlet.)

Socrates:-
§ "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Voltaire (Philosophic Dictionary):-
§ "Without philosophy we should be little above the animals."

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Anarchy:
§ While most would conclude that a state of anarchy is a state of political disorder, anarchy in its true meaning is a "theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty." The OED continues and qualifies that one should not imply that a state of anarchy means a state of disorder. Like a vacuum, I doubt very much if anarchy can, in the natural order of things, exist for long. For an extended discussion, see bluepete's essay "On Government."

Aesthetics:
§ "Of or pertaining to sensuous perception, received by the senses." Aesthetics attempts to determine the nature of beauty and the criteria of artistic judgment.

Analogical Reasoning:
§ See Deductive Reasoning.

Art:
§ (See blupete's essay, "On Art.")

Axiom:
§ "A proposition that commends itself to general acceptance; a well-established or universally-conceded principle; a maxim, rule, law." (OED.)

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Concept:
§ "The product of the faculty of conception; an idea of a class of objects, a general notion or idea." (OED.) "Concepts are merely the results, rendered permanent by language, of a previous process of comparison." (Sir W. Hamilton, Logic (1859).

Contradiction, Law of ...:
§ 'A' cannot be both 'A' and 'not A'. (See deductive reasoning; and see logic.)

Cynicism:
§ Cynicism is the characteristic of the sect of philosophers called the Cynics, a sect of philosophers in ancient Greece, founded by the Greek philosopher Antisthenes (c. 444-370), a pupil of Socrates. The cynics "were marked by an ostentatious contempt for ease, wealth, and the enjoyments of life; the most famous was Diogenes, a pupil of Antisthenes, who carried the principles of the sect to an extreme of asceticism." (OED.)

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Deductive Reasoning:
§ I quote Professor Morris Kline of New York University: "However basic the concepts and axioms, it is the deductions from the axioms that allow us to acquire totally new knowledge to correct our sense perceptions. Of the many types of reasoning - for example, inductive, analogical, and deductive - only deductive guarantees the correctness of the conclusion. To conclude that all apples are red because 1000 apples are found to be red is inductive reasoning, therefore not reliable. Similarly, the argument that John should be able to graduate from college because his identical twin who inherited the same faculties did so, is reasoning by analogy, and is certainly not reliable. Deductive reasoning, on the other hand, although it can take many forms, does guarantee the conclusion. Thus, if one grants that all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, one must accept that Socrates is mortal. The principle of logic involved here is one form of what Aristotle called syllogistic reasoning. Among other laws of deductive reasoning Aristotle included the law of contradiction (a proposition cannot be both true and false) and the law of excluded middle (a proposition must be either true or false). "He and the world at large accepted unquestioningly that these deductive principles which applied to any premises yielded conclusions as reliable as the premises. Hence, if the premises were truths, so would be the conclusions. It is worthy of note that Aristotle abstracted the principles of deductive logic from the reasoning already practiced by mathematicians. Deductive logic is, in effect, the child of mathematics." [Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 48.]
(See further under Inductive Thinking.)

Dialectic Method:
§ In general terms the word means the existence or working of opposing forces, or tendencies. It is, as the OED explains, "the art of critical examination into the truth of an opinion; the investigation of truth by discussion ..." In applying the term to legal matters: it is, as one author put it, the "art of cross-examination and refutation." In modern philosophy, it is a branch of logic in the art of reasoning and\or disputing. It is a classic approach, one at which Socrates was a master. It was a process of thinking (faulty) which was employed by Hegel.

Dualism:
§ Dualism is the belief - that reality, subsists, both in thought and in matter. To Dualists, certain ideas are innate, held independent of experience, such as, for example, the existence of God. Such innate ideas are held as a priori truths.
Dualism is to be compared to materialism and to idealism. Leibniz was a dualist, so was Plato. Some would restrict dualism to the philosophy of Kant, representing a bridge between empirical and rationalist views. I give it a wider meaning and note that it shows in the philosophies of a number of thinkers through the years.

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Empiricism:
§ To an empiricist, all validity in knowledge must be a result of experience. Locke, Bacon and Hume were empiricists. An empiricist is one who subscribes to the notion that knowledge comes to us through experience. There is no such thing as innate ideas; there is no such thing as moral precepts; we are born with an empty mind, a soft tablet ready to be writ upon by experimental impressions. Thus, empiricism opposes the rationalist belief in the existence of innate ideas. A doctrine basic to the scientific method. Certain philosophers would call themselves empiricists though claiming that there are certain a priori truths (e.g., principles of mathematics and logic); but, it is better thought (see John Stuart Mill) that even the most sacred "a priori truths" are generalizations deduced from experience.
An empiricist, incidently, is not to be confused with a skeptic or a cynic.

Enlightenment:
§ See The Age of Reason.

Epicureanism:
§ In its more genteel definition, Epicureanism is that situation where one devotes his or her life to refined and tasteful sensuous enjoyment. In plainer terms, Epicureanism has come to mean that where one has made a dedication to making pleasure the chief object in life. Epicureanism is, however, in its strict definition, a philosophy which relates to the ethical and physical system of philosophy taught by Epicurus.
"Stoicism, Epicureanism and Scepticism express the same tendency of the subject to renounce the possibility of self-satisfaction. The Stoics and the Epicureans consider knowledge as a means of practical life, whose object is the happiness attainable only by reason freed from passion, that is, by virtue, according to the first, or by sense and pleasure aided by calculation, according to the second."17

Epistemology:
§ Epistemology investigates the nature of knowledge and the process of knowing. It is the science of determining the nature and limits of human knowledge. Epistemology, as a branch of philosophy, deals with the origin and nature of knowledge. The conclusions of Rationalists and of Empiricists, in their study of epistemology, are different.

Ethics:
§ Ethics deals with the problems of right conduct. Ethics is the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles, which may be viewed as the individual's standard of conduct or as a body of social obligations and duties. Theories of conscience have ascribed the moral awareness of right and wrong to divine will; to an innate sense (e.g. Rousseau); or to the set of values derived from individual experience (e.g., Locke and Mill). Idealists such as Plato have contended that there is an absolute good to which human activities aspire. Moral codes have frequently been based on religious absolutes, but Kant's categorical imperative attempted to set up an ethical criterion independent of theological consideration.18
A majority (probably a large majority) in the general population, will have to subscribe to basically the same ethics if the population is to survive. The argument, as I see it, is not, in a surviving population, if moral awareness of right and wrong exist; but how this common moral code (common set of values) is adopted and adapted through time.

Evil & Good): § See Spinoza.

Excluded Middle, Law of:
§ 'A' must be either 'A' or 'not A'. (See deductive reasoning; and see logic.)

Existentialism § (See Sartre.)

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Freewill § (See Spinoza.)

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Good & Evil § (See Spinoza.)

Grammar:
§ The English grammarian, Lindley Murray (1745-1826)19 said: "English grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety."
The OED on Grammar: "That department of the study of a language which deals with its inflexional forms or other means of indicating the relations of words in the sentence, and with the rules for employing these in accordance with established usage; usually including also the department which deals with the phonetic system of the language and the principles of its representation in writing. ... In early English use, grammar meant only Latin grammar, as Latin was the only language that was taught grammatically. ... grammar is a body of statements of fact - a 'science'; but a large portion of it may be viewed as consisting of rules for practice, and so as forming an 'art'."

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Hedonism § (See Epicureanism.)

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Idealism:
§ Idealism is that belief that there is no reality, that reality subsists only in thought. Idealism is to be compared to materialism and to dualism. (For idealism, see Plato and see Kant.)

Identity, The Law of Identity:
§ 'A' is 'A.' (See logic.)

Inductive Thinking:
§ I have always thought of it (inductive thinking) as thinking from the bottom up; as opposed to thinking from the top down (deductive). One who uses a deductive approach accepts notions (often having no basis in reality) and then proceeds to build on such notions; it is, more often than not, a fruitless (sometimes harmful) process; one ends up "building castles in the air."
The inductive approach always builds up from a solid base. A theory, based on real experiences, is struck; it is then tested rigorously and continuously; all experiences must support the theory. Some theories have been so thoroughly tested over years that they have become accepted facts of nature. However, even though they may be well tested and put to considerable use, theories always remain theories.20
It has been through the inductive method of thinking that men like Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727) laid down the bricks and cemented into place the foundation of our modern age.
(See further under Deductive Reasoning.)

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Logic:
§ Logic is a system of laws governing the process of valid reasoning; it is the systematic study of valid inference.21 "The vulgar notion of logic," as the OED points out, "has been largely that it is a system of rules for convincing or confounding an opponent by argument." Logic is to be distinguished from rhetoric, in that logic deals in truth and "rhetoric is planted in popular opinions and manners."22
Classical, or Aristotelian, logic is concerned with the formal properties of an argument, not its factual accuracy. Aristotle (in his his syllogistic approach) posited that there are 3 propositions basic to all logical thought: the law of identity (A is A), the law of contradiction (A cannot be both A and not A) and the law of the excluded middle (A must be either A or not A). Though Aristotelian logic has basically held sway in the Western world for 2,000 years, it is not the only logic. John Stuart Mill in the 19th century helped to formulate the scientific method of induction, i.e., movement from specific perceptions to generalizations. Most systems of logic have been, since the 19th century, largely supplanted as a field of study by symbolic logic, which replaces ordinary language with mathematical symbols. Symbolic logic draws on the concepts and techniques of mathematics, notably set theory, and in turn has contributed to the development of the foundations of mathematics.

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Materialism:
§ Materialism is the view that all things are rooted in material nature. It is a view that is widely held and comes down to us from the early Greeks such as Epicurus and the proponents of Stoicism. This is not a theory that suited those who were in control during the times leading up to about 1700, the religionists. Though they were prepared to accept dualism, the thinkers of the church preferred idealism; materialism was a threat to the medieval dominance of the scholastics. The theory of materialism was renewed and developed beginning in the 17th century, especially by Hobbes, and, in the 18th century, John Locke.

Metaphysics:
§ Metaphysics is an area of study which concerns itself with the existence of things. Are things real? Or, do they exist simply in ones mind? Is the mind real? These are some of the elementary questions that come to one who inquires into the nature and ultimate significance of the universe. Those who hold reality subsists only in thought are idealists (idealism); those who hold reality to subsists in only matter are materialists (materialism); and those who hold that reality subsists in both in thought and in matter are dualists (dualism).
I suppose it might be said that the difference between science and philosophy is in the question asked: -- With science, it is asked: "How does it happen?" The answer is to be found in physics. With philosophy, it is asked: "Why does it happen?" The answer may be found in metaphysics.

Moral Codes:
§ A moral code is a set of moral teachings or practical lessons. Further, from the OED, we see that morals are usually taught23 by way of a fiction or of a fable; but, sometimes, of a real occurrence. I would assert that a moral code is always based, in the first instance, as a result, at some point in history, of a "real occurrence"; though most often forgotten. If a moral is made (and to Dickens, there's a moral in everything24), the moral is usually better than the temporary point being made.
Because of its definition (so often misunderstood), morals differ from the truth at least to this extent: though some people are mistaken, truth is an absolute and is to be the same for everyone; on the other hand, each individual (though many in compared sets may be the same) has his or her own particular set of morals built up as a result of their own particular set of experiences.25
Each individual will have "hidden pieces" in their particular set of morals, which, on upon being brought out, would likely bring on feelings of shame. Morals are, however, correctable, or, better put, changeable, according to one's new experiences: so too, the process of changing one's morals is likely an on going one.

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Pantheism § (See Spinoza.)

Phrenology:
§ "The scientific study or theory of the mental faculties." The OED continues, "... that the mental powers of the individual consist of separate faculties, each of which has its organ and location in a definite region of the surface of the brain, the size or development of which is commensurate with the development of the particular faculty; hence, the study of the external conformation of the cranium as an index to the development and position of these organs, and thus of the degree of development of the various faculties. The theory is based on the notion that the hard skull can be; pushed out of placed, by muscle-less, jelly like, brain tissue. The theory is wholly erroneous: as the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams said, "I have never been able to prevail on myself to think of phrenology as a serious occupation. I have classed it with alchemy [and] with judicial astrology ..."; or Emerson, "Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry."

Physics:
§ Physics is the science which examines the properties of matter and energy. It is usual to exclude from any discussion "those properties of matter which depend simply on the nature of the different forms of matter (Chemistry), as also the properties of matter and energy as related to living things (Biology). The line of demarcation separating Physics and Chemistry," as the OED points out "has never been very clear, and of late years has practically vanished."
However, the term physics has changed its meaning down through the years (like so many terms, or words). At the beginning of the time when science became a serious study, circa 1800, physics concerned itself with all Natural Bodies, "and of their proper Natures, Constitutions, Powers, and Operations"; it was a term "for that science which treats of the nature of the qualities which beings derive from birth, in contradistinction to those acquired from art - of the whole mass of beings comprising the universe - and of the laws which govern those beings; natural philosophy." By the break of the 20th century, physics attempted to embrace "the theory of those agents which were formerly designated as imponderables - light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc.; and all these are now treated as forms of motion, as different manifestations of the same fundamental energy."
The OED: "In current usage, [physics is] restricted to The science, or group of sciences, treating of the properties of matter and energy, or of the action of the different forms of energy on matter in general (excluding Chemistry, which deals specifically with the different forms of matter, and Biology, which deals with vital energy). Physics is divided into general physics, dealing with the general phenomena of inorganic nature (dynamics, molecular physics, physics of the ether, etc.), and applied physics, dealing with special phenomena (astronomy, meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, etc.). There is a tendency now to restrict the word to the former group."

Positivism § (See Comte.)

Priori (A Priori):
§ A priori is a Latin phrase (before) "used to characterize reasoning or arguing from causes to effects, from abstract notions to their conditions or consequences, from propositions or assumed axioms (and not from experience); deductive; deductively." (OED.) (See blupete's essay "On Argument"):

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Rationalism:
§ The rationalists were of the view (as if it could be severable from the human being as a living whole) that mind is superior to the matter which makes up the human body. "Descartes, the rationalist, employing the deductive method, reduces all to that for which the mind can vouch, irrespective of experience."26 A rationalist is to be distinguished from a empiricist, such as Hume, who approaches a subject by induction. (For an exposition of the theories of rationalism see Descartes, Leibniz and Berkeley.)

Reason § (See deductive reasoning.)

Reason, Age of:
§ The enormous scientific and intellectual advancements made in the 17th century, the Enlightenment, -- the Age of Reason -- brought about in Western Thought, the age of the scientific man. The thinkers of the age were no longer content to accept the cosmos and its contained life as a mystery to be simply accepted. The time had come for man to test his theories which flooded into his mind; to test these theories with his observations and to reset these theories in accordance with his accumulated observations: and, seemingly without end, to continue to retest and to reset.
"... the closed and authoritarian system of the Middle Ages was replaced by the open and relativistic world of modern times. The closed geography of feudal Europe was pried open, first by the Crusades, then by the discovery of new trade routes, and finally by the world-wide explorations of the great navigators. The flat two-dimensional earth became a spheroid, three-dimensional world. The limited and static spatial theory of Ptolemy gave way to the dynamic heliocentric theory of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Time, as well as space, was broadened. The development of chronology, the recovery of ancient monuments, and speculations about the future expanded the temporal scope of men's views. Economically, the closed and largely self-contained feudal estates were replaced by cities and towns, with the mutual interdependence that comes from the specialization of labor, till the whole medieval scheme of production was made over into the 'free' system of commerce and industry."27
The Age of Reason threw up on the shore such representatives as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Swift, Hume and Kant. The social and political ideals as presented by these illuminati were enforced by "enlightened despots" such as Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Catherine II of Russia, and Frederick II of Prussia. Diderot's Encyclopédie and the United States Constitution are representative documents of the Age of Reason.

Renaissance:
§ There is debate as to when the Renaissance period began and ended; likely, 1350-1600. It is a period of time during which people shook away the mystic and barbaric ways of the Dark Ages and filled in the empty spaces with culture which now expresses itself in the art it left behind; it took its cue from the classical Greek and Roman models. (See treatment of this subject given within bluepete's essay, "On Science.")

Rhetoric:
§ Rhetoric in general is the art of persuading; it is the skill in the faculty of using eloquent and persuasive language. At one time it was a formal art to be studied: "In the Middle Ages rhetoric was reckoned one of the seven 'liberal arts'," along with grammar and logic.

Romanticism:
§ The Romantic label is to be pinned to only a small period of time which does not go much beyond the limits of 1800 and 1825. (It heralded an encompassing age which covered certainly all of the 19th century and which, in some ways, is still with us.) We may well mark the beginning of the Romantic Period with the year 1793, the year Godwin brought out his work, Political Justice. Finally we see regular people reading about and speaking about the great topics of democracy, government and of a country's constitution. This Romantic movement (as it happened in England), though considerably damped by the Napoleonic wars, continued throughout the first quarter of the 19th century and on up to the passing of the great Reform Bill of 1832. It was during this period, as millions began to read, that great literary and political agitators came to the fore; it is a period in history which is rich in material, and which might be profitably studied by any aspiring politician.

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Scepticism:
§ Scepticism is a school of philosophy which is rooted deep in Greek antiquity. The school was headed by Pyrrho (360-270 BC). Sceptics doubt that it is possible to gain real knowledge of any kind. They hold "that there are no adequate grounds for certainty as to the truth of any proposition whatever. Also, often applied in a historically less correct sense, to those who deny the competence of reason, or the existence of any justification for certitude, outside the limits of experience." (OED.) Pyrrho "taught that we can know nothing of the nature of things, but that the best attitude of mind is suspense of judgment, which brings with it calmness of mind." (Chambers.)
(See Epicureanism.)

Scholasticism:
§ Scholasticism is a philosophic system based on Aristotelian principles. These principles were preserved through the Dark Ages by certain Arab philosophers. St. Thomas Aquinas was the most prominent of the scholastics. These philosophers, who would have a most difficult time defending themselves these days, are referred to in the history books as the "schoolmen." ("The frivolous Distinctions, barbarous Terms, and obscure Language of the Schoolmen." [Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, iv. xlvii. 383.])

Science:
§ Science is the method by which we go about gathering up and analyzing our experiences as these experiences come into being. Science is an inductive method of thinking. Men like Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727) employed this method. (See treatment of this subject given within on bluepete's essay on "Science.")

Socialism:
§ A system of government advocated by idealists, whereby certain citizens, who set themselves up as being in charge, go about selling vanishing dreams in exchange for choking taxes. (See blupete's essay, "The Siren's Song.")

Social Contract:
§ The theory runs as follows: Given a choice, a typical person would give up certain of his rights in exchange for peace and security. He would put himself under government and follow its rules, fairly made and fairly enforced. This arrangement is in the nature of a contract, an exchange. A citizen would be better able to secure his liberty and his property by giving up a little of each to a central authority. The idea of a social contract is premised on the notion that an individual's liberty and property are better secured if we band ourselves together then if we are left alone, each to our own devices.
The social contract theory was first developed by Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes wrote his "masterpiece of political philosophy" Leviathan, in 1651. It was eagerly picked up by Rousseau.
The first question anyone should ask about such a theory is why would pre-social or pre-civil man ever voluntarily agree to submit himself to the authority of another individual or group of individuals. He would only submit to the authority of another, if he figured, by so doing, his lot in life would be better. This in turn raised the question as to what life was like to pre-civil man. Hobbes had a nauseating view of man in his natural state. To espouse the beliefs of Hobbes is to accept that men are no better, seemingly worse, then a bunch of animals. Personally, though he be no angel, I subscribe to a more generous view of the nature of man.28

Solipsism:
§ Where one is of the view that "I alone exist"; then he or she subscribes to "solipsism." (See Schopenhauer.)

Sophist:
§ A Sophist is one who makes a specious argument. Such a form of argument is either used deliberately, in order to deceive or mislead, or employed as a means of displaying ingenuity in reasoning. In ancient Greece, a sophist was a person who was "specially engaged in the pursuit or communication of knowledge; esp. one who undertook to give instruction in intellectual and ethical matters in return for payment." This meaning, as dealt with by the OED, is not the meaning today: to call a person a sophist is to disparage that person when contrasted with a true philosopher.

Stoicism:
§ A Stoic is a person without a tear, who smiles and lets the world have its way. Stoicism is that which a school of Greek philosophers studied. The school was founded by Zeno (342-270 BC). Zeno's school was named the Painted Porch (Stoa Poikile). The teachings of this school is "characterized by the austerity of its ethical doctrines for some of which the name has become proverbial. The Stoics talk of fate, which is superior to the gods. Stoick Philosophers discard all Passions in general; superior to his own passion and that of others ..." (OED.) (See Rabelais and see Epicureanism.)

Syllogism:
§ Aristotle, in his Organon, held that any logical argument could be reduced to a sequence of 3 propositions; 2 premises and a conclusion; this is known as a syllogism. (See logic.)

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Totalitarianism:
§ Totalitarianism is absolute control possessed by government, or, almost by definition, by one person. (See treatment of this subject within blupete's essay, "On Government.")

Transcendentalism § (See Thoreau.)

Truth:
§ (See blupete's essay, "On Truth.")

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Utilitarianism:
§ Utilitarianism is a theory in that branch of philosophy known as ethics, the theory that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the goodness or badness of its consequences. Or, in John Stewart Mill's words: "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."29 The founder of this theory, Jeremy Bentham, held that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the fundamental and self-evident principle of morality. Bentham's student, John Stuart Mill, used the principles of utilitarianism to advocate political and social reform, increased democracy, and the emancipation of women. Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of utilitarianism as follows: "The ethic based upon the greatest happiness principle, which came to be known as utilitarianism, was, when taken seriously, somewhat opposed to orthodox moral teaching. It is true that eminent divines, such as Bishop Butler, had adopted the principle, and that until it became the watchword of the Radicals, no one found it objectionable. But any theory which judges the morality of an act by its consequences can only by a fortunate accident agree with the conventional view, according to which certain classes of acts are sinful without regard to their effects. No doubt the precept 'Thou shalt not steal' is, in general, very sound, but it is easy to imagine circumstances in which a theft might further the general happiness. In a utilitarian system, all moral rules of the ordinary kind are liable to exceptions."30

² Great Novelists.

³ I shall observe: who ever had first started this little story about David Hume and Mr. White likely did not fully appreciate, that Hume, of all the philosophers, was the least likely to make such an inquiry, "What books did you read." Though an answer to such a question is usually quite revealing, it seems strange to think that Hume would ask it. Hume was not at all "bookish" about philosophy, to Hume "philosophical decisions are nothing but the reflections of common life, methodized and corrected."

⁴ Sir Julian Huxley (1887-1975); New Bottles for New Wine, from the preface.

⁵ There are many rigorous systems of Eastern philosophy with which, in the context of this work, I do not deal. I treat them briefly in another work, "Religions Of The World."

⁶ The splendour of Greece extended between 465 BC to 300 BC.

⁷ It was fundamental to the speculations of the Greeks that knowledge of things were to be found "always outside the mind in the object." See, Miraglia's work, Comparative Legal Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1921). Luigi Miraglia (1846-1903) was a professor of the Philosophy of Law in the University of Naples.

⁸ The first two opening paragraphs in Emerson's "Montaigne; or, the Sceptic," Representative Men.

⁹ See Bertrand Russell.

¹⁰ I should state there is nothing new to the method of inductive thinking, it can be traced back to Aristotle.

¹¹ See Sir Julian Huxley, Evolutionary Humanism, p. 120.

¹² Emerson, Representative Men.

¹³ Henry Alphern, An Outline History of Philosophy (Forum House, 1969) p. 188-9.]

¹⁴ "Of Liberty and Necessity," p. 95.

¹⁵ "This is the foundation of all. We are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do."

¹⁶ As quoted by Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 3rd Ed., 1991.) at p. 88.

¹⁷ Miraglia, Op. Cit.

¹⁸ Historically, the source of an ethical criterion has been equated with religion, though it might well be equated with a number of things, including for the good of the state (see Hegel and Marx); the good of the individual or a group (see the Hedonism of Epicurus or the monisism of Hobbes, or the Utilitarianism of Bentham, or the democracy of Locke). Other theories exist: such as the instrumentalism of John Dewey, for whom morality is relative to individual experience.

¹⁹ Murray's works include: English Grammar, English Exercises and English Reader, and were long the standards in English schools.

²⁰ For example, classical Newtonian theory was completely relied upon and accepted as true for generations; now, it is questioned; now, we have a theory of matter and energy based on that branch of physics developed from the ideas of Einstein in relation to atomic structure, which, in the 20th century, has evolved into quantum mechanics.

²¹ "Logic, or the science of the general principles of good and bad reasoning." Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations. "Logic is not the science of Belief, but the science of Proof, or Evidence." (John Stuart Mill).

²² Bacon, 1605.

²³ This is why it is so important, as a collective publicly sponsored task, to see to the proper education of the young; sadly, all to often, the young do not obtain a proper or full set of morals where the job is left just to the parents.

²⁴ The OED cites Dombey ii.

²⁵ As Byron, in 1820, in his letter to his friend Murray, who was likely expressing surprise at how many young and attractive aristocratic Italian ladies were agreeable to bed down with this lame lord, Byron, said: "the moral of the Italian is not your moral; their life is not your life."

²⁶ Henry Alphern, An Outline History of Philosophy (Forum House, 1969) p. 124.

²⁷ From Frederic R. White's introduction to his work, Famous Utopias of the Renaissance (Chicago: Packard, 1946) at pp. x-xi.

²⁸ For Bentham's reference to the social contract theory see the Theory of Legislation (1789) (London: Paul, Trench, Trubner; 1931) pp. 81-82.

²⁹ Utilitarianism (1863), ch. 2.

³⁰ See Bertrand Russell's Dictionary of Mind, Matter & Morals (New York: Citadel Press, 1993), p. ,266.