The Great Chain of BeingFrom later antiquity down to the close of the eighteenth century, most philosophers and men of science and, indeed, most educated men, accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and structure of the world.In this volume, which embodies the William James lectures for 1933, Arthur O. Lovejoy points out the three principles—plenitude, continuity, and graduation—which were combined in this conception; analyzes their origins in the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists; traces the most important of their diverse samifications in subsequent religious thought, in metaphysics, in ethics and aesthetics, and in astronomical and biological theories; and copiously illustrates the influence of the conception as a whole, and of the ideas out of which it was compounded, upon the imagination and feelings as expressed in literature. |
Contents
LECTURE PAGE | 3 |
The Chain of Being and Some Internal Conflicts | 67 |
The Principle of Plenitude and the New Cosmog | 99 |
Copyright | |
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absolute actual aesthetic animals appear argument Aristotle assumption attributes Chain characteristic chiefly conceived conception consequence consists constitution cosmic created creation creatures degree deity Descartes distinctive diversity divine doctrine earth eighteenth century emanationism Essay essence essential eternal evil existence expressed fact finite Friedrich Schlegel germs globe human Ibid ideas imperfect implied individual infinite infinity inhabitants Kant kind Leibniz less logical man's manifest matter means medieval merely metaphysical mind monads moral nature necessarily necessary necessity Neoplatonic Nicolaus Cusanus notion object observes otherworldliness passage perfection Philos philosophers planets Plato Platonistic Plotinus possible precisely principle of plenitude principle of sufficient rational reality realized Robinet scale Schelling Schriften seems sense sensible Soame Jenyns sort soul species Spinoza stars sufficient reason Summa contra Gentiles supposed temporal tendency theodicy theology theory things thought Timaeus tion true truth universe W. D. Ross whole wholly writers