A Biographical History of Philosophy

An accessible study of major Ancient Greek and later British, German and French philosophers, offering insight into Victorian intellectual interests.

George Henry Lewes (Author), John Lubbock (Foreword by)

9781108050241, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 July 2012

662 pages
21.6 x 14 x 3.7 cm, 0.83 kg

The philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes (1817–78) published this work in two volumes in 1845–6. This is a reissue of an 1892 printing, which brought the volumes into one book. Lewes wrote widely on literature, science and philosophy, and was also the long-term intimate companion of George Eliot. This book is a narrative history, rather than an encyclopedia, of key philosophers. It is, therefore, a partial and personal study instead of an exhaustive textbook. The first volume concentrates solely on Greek philosophy, beginning with the Pre-Socratics and ending with the Neo-Platonists. The second volume jumps to Francis Bacon, concentrating on British, German and French philosophy, and addressing, among others, Spinoza, Locke, Hume and Kant, and ending with Auguste Comte. Containing both historical anecdotes and pithy analyses of ideas, this book reflects the expertise and intellectual sympathies of a Victorian polymath.

Introduction
Part I: Preface
Introduction
1. Speculations on the nature of the universe
2. Speculations on the creation of the universe, and on the origins of knowledge
3. Intellectual crisis
4. A new era opened by the invention of a new method
5. Partial adoption of the Socratic Method
6. Complete adoption and application of the Socratic Method
7. Philosophy again reduced to a system
8. Second crisis of Greek philosophy
9. Philosophy allies itself with faith
10. Appendix
Part II: Preface
Introduction
1. Foundation of the inductive method
2. Foundation of the deductive method
3. Philosophy reduced to a question of psychology
4. The subjective nature of knowledge being established leads to idealism
5. The arguments of idealism carried out into scepticism
6. The origin of knowledge reduced to sensation by the confusion of thought with feeling
7. Second crisis - idealism, scepticism, and materialism producing the reaction of common sense
8. Recurrence to the fundamental question respecting the origin of knowledge
9. The demonstration of the subjectivity of knowledge once more leads to idealism
10 Objective idealism
11. The third form of idealism, viz., absolute idealism
12. Final crisis in the history of philosophy, and definite establishment of positivism
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of Western philosophy [HPC]