Western Philosophic Systems and Their Cyclic Transformations. Philosophical Explorations.

Brumbaugh, Robert Sherrick:

ISBN 10: 0809317710 / ISBN 13: 9780809317714

Published by Southern Illinois University Press. 31.12.1992., 1992

About this Item

XVI, 156 Seiten / p. leicht bestoßen, ansonsten tadelloser Zustand / slightly bumped, otherwise perfect condition - Proliferation of philosophic systems beyond the powers of most persons to find harmonies between them, let alone beyond some principle for unifying them, and even beyond hope of making more than a hasty, prejudiced choice of philosophy, is nothing new. The ablest thinkers, however, have found ways to make good use of this congeries. Both Plato and Aristotle, however differently, expanded and refined their own philosophies in order to make sound judgments on the opinions of markedly diverse forerunners, then to assimilate such uneven contributions into their own systems. Modern studies are well agreed that this diversity was as characteristic of the Dark and Middle Ages as it was of the classical period; and many were the encyclopedias and gammas seeking in one way or another to collect the scattered truths of their predecessors, placing them in new orders and modifying them appropriately in those imposing summaries of knowledge and wisdom. More recent efforts to bring about this harmony have foresworn any actual assembling of a new system built upon the foundation - or the rubble, as you prefer - of the old, separating an overview of philosophy from the composing of a system with its own battalions of details. Volumes on this prospective overview tend nowadays to be short books devoted to definitions of philosophy, classifications of its parts and its types, and, less often, resolutions of its partisan-in spired conflicts. The author of the present work uses this shorter format and brings a host of insights to the task of relating the philosophies that history has furnished. ISBN 9780809317714 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 518 15,6 x 1,9 x 23,5 cm, Originalleinen / Cloth.

Seller Inventory # 1202879

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Western Philosophic Systems and Their Cyclic Transformations. Philosophical Explorations.
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. 31.12.1992.
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809317710
• ISBN 13: 9780809317714
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Gut
• Weight: 518 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophie

About this title

Synopsis

This study of Western philosophic systems, their types, history, relations, and projected future in the next half century, stems from Robert S. Brumbaugh’s forty-year fascination with the paradox of the many consistent overarching systems of ideas that are nevertheless mutually exclusive.

Brumbaugh argues that when we isolate these systems’s patterns and look at them more abstractly, they consistently fall into four main types, and the interaction of these four types of explanation and order is a dominant theme in the history of Western philosophy.

In Brumbaugh’s view these four philosophic systems are not, as some critical historians and thinkers have claimed, so different that they are mutually unintelligible, forcing us to make a choice among them that is entirely arbitrary. But neither are they, as a majority of past thinkers and historians have hoped, simply parts of some single "right" or "orthodox" scheme. Their mutual understanding requires a method of transformation that interprets one to another without destroying their diversity.

The history of Western philosophy from the fifth century A.D. to the present shows a pattern of alternating revolutions in systematic method and direction of explanation. Brumbaugh feels that the pattern is continuing in a change toward a revised Platonism, just beginning with the twenty-first century. He anticipates that it will be a Platonism of a new texture, one that has matured and learned a great deal in the course of the adventures of its ideas through space and time.

About the Author

Robert S. Brumbaugh is professor emeritus of philosophy, Yale University, among whose many books is Platonic Studies of Greek Philosophy.