A History of Philosophy

CHAPTER 1: THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Why Study the History of Philosophy? Why Study Copleston’s A History of Philosophy? Copleston’s A History of Philosophy as Ignatian Humanism How Should One Organize the History of Philosophy? Postscript: A Short Biography of Frederick Charles Copleston Bibliography CHAPTER 2: GREECE AND ROME Introduction The Birth of Greek Philosophy The Pioneers: The Philosophical Cosmologists of Ionia The Socratic Period Plato Plato’s Doctrine of the Forms Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Ethics Post-Aristotelian Philosophy Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 3: MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY Introduction Early Christian Thought in the Patristic Period St Augustine and the City of God The Pseudo-Dionysius Boethius and the Consolation of Philosophy The Carolingian Renaissance John Scottus Eriugena From the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries The Thirteenth Century Syntheses of Reason and Revelation St Thomas Aquinas and the Great Synthesis of Faith and Reason Scotus and the Franciscans Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 4: LATE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY Introduction William of Ockham and the end of the Great Synthesis of Faith and Reason Marsilius of Padua on the Church and the State Meister Eckhart and the Speculative Mysticism of the Fourteenth Century The Philosophy of the Renaissance Suárez and the Scholasticism of the Renaissance Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 5: THE RATIONALISTS: DESCARTES TO LEIBNIZ Introduction Descartes on the Mind and the Body Pascal, Cartesianism and Malebranche Spinoza and the Philosophy of God or Nature Leibniz and the Substance of Reality Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 6: BRITISH PHILOSOPHY: HOBBES TO HUME Introduction Thomas Hobbes on Materialism, Mechanism and Power John Locke and the Empirical Foundations of British Philosophy Berkeley and the Lockean Legacy David Hume and the Experience of Scepticism Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 7: THE ENLIGHTENMENT: VOLTAIRE TO KANT Introduction Rousseau and the Origins of Society The German Enlightenment and the Rise of the Philosophy of History Kant and the Modern Vision of Reason Kant on Morality and Religion Aesthetics, Teleology and the Opus Postumum Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 8: EIGHTEENTH- AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN PHILOSOPHY: FICHTE TO NIETZSCHE Introduction Fichte and the Fundamental Principles of Philosophy Schelling and the Idea of Nature, Schleiermacher and the Feeling of Dependence Hegel and the Adventure of Spirit Schopenhauer’s Reaction Against the Transformations of Metaphysical Idealism Feuerbach’s Turn to Anthropology Marx and Engels and the Critique of Capitalism Kierkegaard and the Search for Authenticity Nietzsche and the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity Conclusion: Retrospect and Prospect Bibliography CHAPTER 9: UTILITARIANISM AND EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY Introduction The Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill The Legacy of British Empiricism and the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer The Idealist Movement in Great Britain Idealism in America The Pragmatist Movement The Revolt Against Idealism Bertrand Russell and the Pursuit of a Logical and Scientific Philosophy Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 10: NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURY FRENCH PHILOSOPHY Introduction From the Revolution to Auguste Comte From Auguste Comte to Henri Bergson From Bergson to Sartre Phenomenology and Structuralism Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 11: RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY Introduction Historical and philosophical themes Peter Chaadaev: Philosophy and the Problem of Russia Slavophile and Westernizing Developments Literature, Religion and Philosophy: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solovyov Russian Marxism: Plekhanov, Lenin and the Soviet Union Russian Philosophers in Exile and the Westernizer-Slavophile Legacy Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 12: LOGICAL POSITIVISM AND EXISTENTIALISM Introduction Contemporary British Philosophy Logical Positivism and Verification Existentialism Conclusion Bibliography CHAPTER 13: CONCLUSIONS, OMISSIONS AND PROSPECTS Introduction Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity MacIntyre on Virtue, Character and Community Charles Taylor on the Self and Transcendence Towards a Philosophy of the Future Bibliography