Reviews for A System of Natural Philosophy: In Which the Principles of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydrauli...

The average rating for A System of Natural Philosophy: In Which the Principles of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydrauli... based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-25 00:00:00 Bernard B Lewis Royce's Religious Aspect of Philosophy Although I have been studying Josiah Royce for several years, I had not read in full Royce's first book until recently, when I read the work upon receiving the gift of an Amazon Fire. Royce (1855 -- 1916) was an American idealist philosopher. Idealism teaches that reality is mental or spiritual in character. With the demise of idealism, Royce fell into philosophical obscurity following his death, but there has been a revival of interest in aspects of his work in recent years. Royce taught at Harvard for many years where he was a friend of William James. He wrote "The Religious Aspect of Philosophy: A Critique of the Basis of Conduct and of Faith" (RAP) in 1885, three years after, with James' help, he received a position at Harvard. Most modern readers of Royce study his "late" writings including "The Philosophy of Loyalty", "The Sources of Religious Insight" and "The Problem of Christianity". In these works, Royce appeared to downplay his commitment of the philosophical Absolute of his earlier writings in favor of a philosophy of community and an ethical theory stressing the importance of loyalty. Even before these books, Royce had earlier, in 1897, participated in a colloquium in which the philosopher George Howison severely criticized the RAP for its alleged downplaying of the importance of human individuality and for its pantheism. The colloquium formed the basis for a book, "The Conception of God" and probably led Royce to rethink and expand upon his understanding of the Absolute and its relationship to individual human lives. Thus there is a question of how much of the RAP survives in the latter writings of Royce. Be that as it may, I learned a great deal from the book and found that it increased my understanding of Royce. In his biography, "The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce" John Clendenning aptly described the RAP as "a homily in the form of a philosophical argument. It is also a kind of prose Divine Comedy. The paths to heaven, it insists lead through hell: moral insight rises from despair; absolute truth is founded on skepticism. These two paths: the ethical and the metaphysical, give the book its organization." (Clendenning, p. 126) The title of the book indicates its focus on religious questions, a focus Royce had throughout his life. In the first paragraph of the book, Royce said that "the religious problems have been chosen for the present study because they first drove the author to philosophy, and because they, of all human interests, deserve our best efforts and our utmost loyalty." A deeply religious individual, Royce was not a member of any religious denomination and did not attend religious services. In this respect, his book, even with its late Victorian and idealistic tones, will resonate with many religious seekers of today. Royce finds that religion (including non-theistic religions such as Buddhism) consists of three elements: 1. a moral code, 2. an understanding of the nature of reality and 3. a feeling of enthusiasm and commitment to a way of life. His book examines philosophically the first two of these, as feelings, Royce finds, are beyond the scope of philosophical thinking. The book consists of two large parts, the first devoted to the nature of morality and the second to the nature of reality. In both parts of his study, Royce adopts an approach based on initial skepticism and doubt. Royce does not, in the manner of Descartes, try to find a fundamental indubitable truth to push doubt aside. Rather he tries to work through doubt to see where it will lead. In considering the nature of morality in the book's first part, Royce examines both realistic approaches which try to find morality derived from the nature of human life and idealistic approaches which attempt to take an ethical insight and apply it to the world of the every day. He tries to show how both approaches are found wanting and lead to skepticism. Royce arrives an approach in which every individual approach to morality is both right and also partial because it ignores the competing values and insights of other approaches. His approach leads him to a criticism of individualism. He argues that all ethical approaches, and, indeed all individual persons, are best understood as part of an all-encompassing whole in which their individual understandings and ways of life play a supportive part. The second part of the book takes much the same approach. Royce examines various scientific or materialistic understandings of reality and finds them both self-contradictory and insufficient to support a religious vision of life. He then adopts a system of "hypotheses" derived from Kant which he views as a sort of second-best approach. In the final chapters of the book, Royce develops what becomes his famous "argument from error". This argument purports to show that the very existence of human error and doubt presupposes, under pain of infinite regress, the existence of an all-inclusive ideal Absolute in which all errors are recognized and resolved. This argument, which gets modified and restated in Royce's subsequent writings, forms the basis for Royce's Absolute Idealism. Royce's argument is challenging but has been rejected by most subsequent thinkers with the advent of modern, symbolic logic. Still, the argument is insightful if not convincing and William James in his own philosophizing had to fight his way out of it. Royce's book has a great deal to say about religion and the theory of evolution. He views his Absolute Idealism as a way to allow science to take whatever direction the facts indicate without impacting the existence or nature of the Absolute. Throughout the book, he wrestles with the problem of evil, which is a difficulty for every theistic or pantheistic philosophy. With its focus on ultimate questions of religion and reality, Royce, in the opinion of many readers of his own time and since, moved too quickly over the more humble questions of philosophical logic and reasoning. Later in his life, Royce became increasingly fascinated with developments in logical theory, particularly under the influence of his friend Charles S. Peirce. The book is written in a florid, wordy, yet lyrical style with a strong hortatory, persuasive component. The best-known part of the RAP is the "argument from error" which remains important to Royce throughout his life. But something is to be learned from placing the argument in the context of this book, which is not always done in the secondary literature on Royce. It is always best to explore a philosopher for oneself rather than through commentaries. The RAP is inspiring and thoughtful in itself even with the modifications and qualifications Royce made to its approach in his subsequent works. Readers with a serious interest in American philosophy, Royce, or philosophy of religion and in the history of American philosophy will benefit from reading Royce's "The Religious Aspect of Philosophy". Robin Friedman

Review # 2 was written on 2016-03-29 00:00:00 Sheridan Greene الفلسفة تهتم بالفعل والاعتقاد ، ويعدان من الموضوعات المباشرة للنقد الفلسفي . ومن وجهة اخرى طالما ان الفلسفة تقترح قواعد عامة للسلوك او تقدم نظريات عن العالم ، فلا بد ان يكون لها وجهة دينية . فيحتاج الدين لعقلانية الفلسفة ، ولا تتجاهل الفلسفة مشكلات الدين. الابيقوريون اعلنوا اعتمادهم على الوقائع الطبيعية فإنهم يعلنون صراحة بأن الغاية النهائية تحقيق المصلحة الشخصية . فلا بد ان يجمع الفرد بين كنز الصداقة ومصلحته الشخصية ، اذ لا يمكن فصل المشاعر القوية عن الآمال المرغوبة والمصالح الذاتية . وجاد الرواقيون بفكر اخلاقي جديد يقترب من الفكر المسيحي اذ اقاموا مثلهم الاخلاقية العليا على مبدأ المساواة الكاملة لكل الناس امام العقل الكلي الذي يجب ان يتطابق الكل معه . ان التمييز بين الغيرية والانانية باعتبارهما صفتين اخلاقيتين يجب ان يعتمد على الفعل الشخصي للانسان نفسه ، وليس على اي حدث خارجي ، والوسائل التي قد تسخدمها لتحقيق مرادك . ان عاطفة التعاطف ليست عاطفة غيرية ، بل عاطفة أنانية ، ولذا لا يتغلب التعاطف على الانانية وانما يدعمها ويغذيها في معظم الاحيان. ولا يمكن الثقة في عاطفة كهذه حتى يسند اليها عمل الحدس الخلقي . ان التشاؤم المنكب على ذاته والناتج من تحليل الرومانسية لذاتها ، يعبر عن التصميم على اقامة عالم جديد يكون اكثر نبلاً من عالم الاهواء السلبية الذابلة . بعض الدوافع الني توضح السبب الحقيقي للتشاؤم الحديث ويعد عدم استقرار المثل العليا ، الخطر الاكبر الذي يمكن ان تتعرض له المذاهب المثالية . تعد مشكلة من مشكلات الحياة اليومية العملية ذاتها . وأسوأ ما يمكن ان يصرح به الشكاك الاخلاقيون يتمثل في القول بأن كل اختيارات المثل العليا اختيارات هوائية ، ولا اساس لأي مثل أعلى الا الرغبة . البصيرة الخلقية ، والتفسير الصحيح في حل كثير من المشكلات الصعبة ، كما يرى الصوفيون فليس بسبب ان تلك الغايات الاخلاقية تكون في حقيقتها غاية واحدة ، وإنما بسبب اننا بوصفنا كائنات اخلاقية ، نقوم بتوحيدها في لحظة إدراكنا لها إدراكاً حدسياً فتتوحد كل الغايات يمكن ان تقدم البصيرة الخلقية حلاً للصراع بين الغيرية والانانية . ان البصيرة الخلقية تتمثل في ادراك الطبيعة الباطنية الحقة لإرادات متعارضة معينة كائنة في هذا العالم بالفعل . ان البصيرة الاخلاقية المطلقة تدرك الطبيعة الداخلية الحقة لكل الارادات المتصارعة في العالم . تتضمن البصيرة الخلقية بطبيعتها عند الذين يحصلون عليها ، الرغبة في تحقيق الانسجام بقدر الامكان بين الارادات المتصارعة والكائنة في العالم . اذا كانت البصيرة تهتم مباشرة بإرادتين متعارضين ، فإن هذه البصيرة تتضمن الرغبة في الفعل .اذا كانت البصيرة الخلقية بغايات عامة متصارعة تعبر عن نفسها في أنماط من السلوك ، فإنها تتضمن الرغبة في الفعل ، يحوى حياة كل هذه الرغبات ضمن وجوده الخاص . حينئذ تتضمن البصيرة الخلقية الرغبة في الفعل وتضع في اعتبارها كل نتائج الفعل على كل الغايات التي قد تتأثر بهذا الفعل . عالم المسلمات ، ترتبط المسلمات بعملية المعرفة بالواقع ، انها ترتبط ارتباطاً وثيقاً ، فكثير من انماط الفكر تعتمد على الايمان الاعمى . يضيف العلم مسلمة خاصة به ، اذ يعتبرها نتاج القانون العام للاقتصاد الذي يحكم كل الاعمال العقلية .وهي ان عالم الظواهر يدرك دائماً وفي كل في أبسط صورة . تقول الفلسفة المثالية ان عالم الوقائع الجامدة او الميتة ، يعد وهماً ، والحياة الروحية حياة حقيقية .