Читать книгу A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy онлайн

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A good many years of experience in teaching the history of philosophy to beginners have convinced me that students come to the subject with four classes of ideas, with which they can correlate philosophic doctrines: good geographical knowledge, some historical and some literary knowledge, and many undefined personal philosophical opinions. Of course, their personal philosophical opinions form the most important group, but more as something to be clarified by the civilizing influence of the subject than as an approach to the subject itself. The only “memory-hooks” upon which the teacher may expect to hang philosophic doctrines are the student’s ideas of history, literature, and geography. If the history of philosophy is treated only as a series of doctrines, the student beginning the subject feels not only that the land is strange, but that he is a stranger in it. Besides, to isolate the historical philosophical doctrines is to give the student a wrong historical perspective, since philosophic thought and contemporary events are two inseparable aspects of history. Each interprets the other, and neither can be correctly understood without the other. If the history of philosophy is to have any significance for the beginner, it must be shown to give a meaning to history.