The Development of Religion—Its Relation to Theology, as the Reflective Form of the Religions Consciousness—Increasing Influence of Reflexion in the Highest Religious, especially in Judaism and Christianity—How a Religion grows into a Theology—How Theology and Religion, Reason and Faith, become opposed to each other—Importance of the Interests on both sides—The Danger of sacrificing either of them to the other—The Idea of Evolution as an Eirenicon—The unity of man's life in its different phases—Carlyle's view of the Alternation of Action and Reflexion—Objections to the Law of Evolution, (1) from those who separate Philosophy from Life, (2) from those who separate Life from Philosophy—In what sense Theology begins in Greece
The Central Idea of Religion, and its Reflective Expression in Theology—The Opposition of the Secular and the Religious Consciousness—That the Idea of Religion is expressed only in the Highest Religion—Answer to an Objection to this View—Three Periods in the Development of Theology—Characteristics of the Theological Philosophy of Greece—Characteristics of the Theology of the Early Christian and Medieval Periods—Characteristics of Modern Theology or Philosophy of Religion
Plato as the Father of Theology—His Mysticism and his Idealism—The Eleatic and Ionic Schools—The One and the Many—Socrates—His Relation to Anaxagoras—His Limitation of Philosophy to Ethics—His Idea of the Moral Life as an Art—His View of the Place of Knowledge in Morality—Onesidedness of this View—The Conscious and the Unconscious in Moral Life—Individualistic Tendencies of Socrates and the Minor Socratics—Plato's Philosophy as a Synthesis of Pre-Socratic with Socratic Ideas
Plato as the Disciple of Socrates—His Dissatisfaction with the Socratic view of Ethics—The Dialogue Protagoras as the Turning-point—Socrates opposed as a scientific Hedonist to the Morality of Opinion—The Problem of the Meno—The Myth of Reminiscence and its Meaning—The Development of Knowledge from Opinion to Science—Right Opinion as Inspiration—The New View of Ethics in the GorgiasDoing What We Will, and Doing What Seems Best—Opposition of a Science of Ethics which begins with the Idea of the Whole to Hedonism—Light thrown by this Distinction upon the Theory of Ideas
Development of the Ideal Theory—Negative Relation of Ideas to Sense and Opinion exhibited in the Phaedo—Their Positive Relation exhibited in the Symposium—The Mystic and the Artist—Plato's Metaphysical Attempt to combine these two Relations—The Systematic Unity of Ideas—The Principle of Anaxagoras and his Application of it—Plato's Criticism of Anaxagoras—His method not different from that of the Physical Philosophers—Plato's Substitute for it—The Theory of Ideas and the Method of Dialectic—Regress to the Highest Idea—Plato's View of the Relation of Final to Efficient Causes.
Note on Plato's Relation to Anaxagoras—The δεύτερος πλου̂ς—Ideas as Causes—The Regressive Method and the Hierarchy of Ideas
The Republic as an Educational Treatise—The Organic Idea of the State—Plato's Opposition to Individualism—His Socialism—The Philosopher-King—That Virtue is Knowledge only for the Ruler—The Ideal too great for the City—State—Plato's Criticism of the Mythology of Greece and his Proposals for its Improvement—Mythology for the Many and Philosophy for the Few—Possibility of such a Division between Faith and Reason—Two Ways of Idealism—The Idea of Good—The Unworldliness of the Philosopher—Difficulty of connecting Contemplation with Practice—Three ways of Defining the Idea of Good: First, by Extension of the Individual Ideal of Socrates; Secondly, by the Analogy of the Sun; Thirdly, by the Synthesis of the Principles of the Sciences—Criticism of the Neo-Platonic Explanation of the Idea of Good—Difficulty of Defining the Ultimate Principle of Unity—Mystic and Idealistic Solutions of it—The Relation of the Idea of Good to God
Necessity of Uniting Analysis and Synthesis in Dialectic—Plato's Conception of the Art of Rhetoric—His Method of Division—His Attempt to Combine the Eleatic with the Heraclitean Doctrines—His Criticism of Sensationalism and the Doctrine of Flux in the Theaetetus—His Criticism of Abstract Idealism and the Eleatic Conception of the One in the Sophist—The Problem of the One and the Many in the Parmenides—Ideas not Abstractions or Separate Substances, but Principles of Unity in Difference—Ideas neither purely Objective nor purely Subjective—The Unity of Thought and Reality—Absolute Reality of Mind—Are Minds the only Real Substances—Possibility of Degrees of Reality—Plato's Grades of Souls
The Argument of the Phaedo—Connection of the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul with the conception of Transmigration—Wordsworth and Plato—Inference from the Nature of the Objects of Intelligence as contrasted with Sensible Objects—The Ontological Argument for Immortality—Its Relation to the Ontological Argument for the Being of God—Objections to both—Restatement of them in a better form—Argument of the Republic—The Soul not destroyed by the Death of the Body—Argument of the Phaedrus—The Soul as Self-mover—The Relation of all Souls or Minds to the Divine Intelligence
The Relation of the Ideal to the Phenomenal World—The Ideal World Organic in itself—Distinction of its Differences from the Differences of the Phenomenal World—The Question whether Plato misconceived the Abstraction of Science—The Limit and the Unlimited in the Philebus—Distinction of Being and Becoming, of Knowledge and Opinion, in the Timaeus—The Substratum of the Changing Qualities of the Phenomenal World—Its Identification with Space—The Phenomenal as an Image of the Ideal—Dilemma as to its Reality—How the Conditions of Time and Space cause Imperfection—The Distinction of the Conditions and the Causes of Things—The Goodness of God as the Cause of the Existence of the World—The Soul as a Mediating Principle between Mind and Body—Mathematical Principles as Intermediates between Ideas and Sensible Thing—The Universe as the Only-Begotten Son of God—The Mystic and Idealistic Aspects of Plato's Philosophy—Is God for Plato Transcendent or Immanent?
Supposed Opposition between the Platonic and Aristotelian Types of Mind—Aristotle's Relation to Plato—Plato's Tendency to Unify and Aristotle's to Distinguish—Ambiguity of the two Doctrines, that the Individual is the Real, and that the Universal is the Real—How they Differ and how they may be Reconciled—Common Source of Error in both Philosophies—Aristotle's Empiricism—His Conception of Organic Unity and Development—How far he carries these Ideas—Man as a Complex Being not One with Himself—That Discursive Reason and the Feelings of Love and Hate belong to the Perishable Part of Man—Aristotle ultimately more Dualistic than Plato
The Definition of the Soul—The Life of Nutrition and Reproduction in Plants—The Life of Sensation and Appetite in Animals—The Life of Reason and Will in Man—The Division of the Practical from the Contemplative Life—Beginnings of this Division in Plato and its Completion in Aristotle—Sense in which Ethics is a Science—Dependence of Moral Science upon Practice—How it can assist Practice—Man as a σύνθεтον—The Bliss of the Contemplative Life—How far Man can Partake in it—The Religious Aspect of Ethics and of the Contemplative Life
Aristotle's View of the Relation of Reason and Passion—His Ambiguous Utterances as to the Will—Tendency to forget the Unreflective Activity of Reason—Difficulties in Relation to the Free Activity of Reason in Contemplation—Experience as the Beginning of all Knowledge—Conception of Science as Demonstration—Various Views of Scientific Method—Aristotle's Actual Method higher than his Logical Theory—Connexion of his Method with his Individualism—Whether an Individual Substance can be regarded as part of a more Comprehensive Individual Substance—Difficulties in the Definition of Substance—Account of Reason in the De Anima—Its two Aspects—Its Relation to Objects—Distinction of Actual and Potential Reason—The Relation of Reason to Sense—The Intuitive Reason and its Freedom from Error—Sensible and Intelligible Matter—How far Intuitive Reason frees itself from both—Difficulties as to the purely Affirmative Nature of Intuitive Reason—Whether the Object of Aristotle's Intuitive Reason is Abstract—Tendency to Mysticism as the Result of Aristotle's View
Aristotle's Exaltation of Theory contrasted with Kant's View of the Primacy of Practical Reason—Kant's View of Experience and its Relation to the Ideas of Reason—The Ideas of God, Freedom and Immortality—Knowledge and Belief—Belief founded on the Will to Believe—Likeness and Difference of the Kantian and the Aristotelian views—Insufficiency of Subjective Grounds of Belief—Kant's View of the Relation of Teleology and Mechanism—Teleological Conceptions in Modern Biology—How Kant supplies the Means of Transcending his own Conception of Knowledge—Relation of Consciousness and Self-consciousness—The Identity beneath the Difference of Reason and Will—Relativity of the Opposition of What Is to What Ought To Be—Aristotle's View of the Relation of Formal and Final to Efficient and Material Causes—The False Ideal of Exact Science—In what Sense the Highest Object is the Simplest—Why we find Contingency in the Lives of Animals and Men—The Unity of the Ideal and the Real—The Unity of the Theoretical and the Practical Consciousness
