FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  
TERATURE The reader who wishes to have the idealistic argument sketched in the foregoing chapter developed more fully should read Berkeley's _Principles of Human Knowledge_. For the correction of Berkeley's sensationalistic mistakes the best course is to read Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_ or the shorter _Prolegomena to any future Metaphysic_ or any of the numerous expositions or commentaries upon Kant. (One of the best is the 'Reproduction' prefixed to Dr. Hutchison Stirling's _Text-book to Kant_.) The non-metaphysical reader should, however, be informed that Kant is very hard reading, and is scarcely intelligible without some slight knowledge of the previous history of Philosophy, especially of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, while some acquaintance with elementary Logic is also desirable. He will find the argument for non-sensationalistic Idealism re-stated in a post-Kantian but much easier form in Ferrier's _Institutes of Metaphysic_. The argument for a theistic Idealism is powerfully stated (though it is not easy reading) in the late Prof. T. H. Green's _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Book I. In view of recent realistic revivals I may add that the earlier chapters of Mr. Bradley's _Appearance and Reality_ still seem to me to contain an unanswerable defence of Idealism as against Materialism or any form of Realism, though his Idealism is not of the theistic type defended in the above lecture. The idealistic argument is stated in a way which makes strongly for Theism by Professor Ward in _Naturalism and Agnosticism_--a work which would perhaps be the best sequel to these lectures for any reader {28} who does not want to undertake a whole course of philosophical reading: readers entirely unacquainted with Physical Science might do well to begin with Part II. A more elementary and very clear defence of Theism from the idealistic point of view is to be found in Dr. Illingworth's _Personality Human and Divine_. Representatives of non-idealistic Theism will be mentioned at the end of the next lecture. [1] _Mind_, vol. iv. (U.S.), 1885. [2] I do not mean of course that in the earliest stages of consciousness this distinction is actually made; but, if there are stages of consciousness in which the 'I' is not realized, the idea of matter or even of an 'object' or 'not-self' existing apart from consciousness must be supposed to be equally absent. [3] I have dealt at length with this forgotten thinker in a Preside
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Idealism
 
idealistic
 
argument
 

consciousness

 

stated

 
Theism
 
Berkeley
 

reader

 

reading

 

Metaphysic


stages

 
theistic
 

defence

 

lecture

 
elementary
 

Prolegomena

 

sensationalistic

 

Science

 

unacquainted

 

Physical


Professor

 

Naturalism

 

strongly

 

defended

 

Agnosticism

 
undertake
 
philosophical
 

sequel

 
lectures
 

readers


matter

 

object

 

realized

 

existing

 

length

 
forgotten
 

thinker

 

Preside

 

supposed

 

equally


absent

 

distinction

 
Divine
 

Representatives

 

mentioned

 
Personality
 
Illingworth
 

earliest

 

metaphysical

 
informed