Best of
Philosophy

1921

The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods


Antonin Sertillanges - 1921
    Sertillanges's teachings are as timeless as any truths which describe the genuine nature of things. . . . This book is highly recommended not only for intellectuals, but also for students and those discerning their vocation in life."--New Oxford Review"[This] is above all a practical book. It discusses with a wealth of illustration and insight such subjects as the organization of the intellectual worker's time, materials, and his life; the integration of knowledge and the relation of one's specialty to general knowledge; the choice and use of reading; the discipline of memory; the taking of notes, their classification and use; and the preparation and organization of the final production."--The Sign

Tertium Organum


P.D. Ouspensky - 1921
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1921
    Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. For Wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. He famously summarized the book in the following words: 'What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.' David Pears and Brian McGuinness received the highest praise for their meticulous translation. The work is prefaced by Bertrand Russell's original introduction to the first English edition.

Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines


René Guénon - 1921
    In Part I Guenon clears away certain ingrained prejudices inherited from the 'Renaissance', with its adulation of the Greco-Roman culture and its compensating depreciation-both deliberate and instinctive-of other civilizations. In Part II he establishes the fundamental distinctions between various modes of thought and brings out the real nature of metaphysical or universal knowledge-an understanding of which is the first condition for the personal realization of that 'Knowledge' which partakes of the Absolute. Words like 'religion', 'philosophy', 'symbolism', 'mysticism', and 'superstition', are here given a precise meaning. Part III presents a more detailed examination of the Hindu doctrine and its applications at different levels, leading up to the Vedanta, which constitutes its metaphysical essence. Lastly, Part IV resumes the task of clearing away current misconceptions, but is this time concerned not with the West itself, but with distortions of the Hindu doctrines that have arisen as a result of attempts to read into them, or to graft onto them, modern Western conceptions. The concluding chapter lays down the essential conditions for any genuine understanding between East and West, which can only come through the work of those who have attained, at least in some degree, to the realization of 'wisdom uncreate'-that intellective, suprarational knowledge called in the East jana, and in the West gnosis.

Ethics: Origin and Development


Pyotr Kropotkin - 1921
    Starting with the moral principle in nature, to the moral conceptions of primitive people, Kropotkin traces the development of moral teachings from ancient Greece, Christianity and the Middle Ages through to the 19th century philosophers. In this way Ethics gives answers to two fundamental problems of morality: its origin and historical development, and its goals and standards. Kropotkin is still today one of the most influential moral voices in the quest for universal human happiness. He wanted this book "to inspire the young generation to struggle, to implant in them faith in the justice of social revolution, and to light in their hearts the fire of self-sacrifice." This was Kropotkin's final masterpiece which was left unfinished at his death and is the swan song of this great humanitarian, scientist, and anarchist. It constitutes the crowning work and the resume of all his scientific, philosophical, and sociological views, at which he arrived in the course of his long and unusually rich life.

A Way of Life: An Address to Yale Students, Sunday Evening, April 20,1913


William Osler - 1921
    With a Foreword by John P. McGovern. "Ours is a world that has multiplied in complexity beyond anything dreamed in Osler's day. Tension and anxiety, uncertainty and stress are the inevitable result of our civilizations' rapid advance, mental and emotional ills its hallmarks . . . contemporary man desperately needs to learn the lesson of 'sufficient unto the day.' A Way of Life offers an antidote, in the form of a life style. But is the goal attainable? Osler's own life, marked by brilliant achievement in many spheres, testifies to the efficacy of sound habits of work and discipline, established early and followed strictly within 'daytight compartmentsÂ�."Â�From the Foreword by John P. McGovern.

A Treatise on Probability


John Maynard Keynes - 1921
    Chapters Include: The Meaning Of Probability - Probability In Relation To The Theory Of Knowledge - The Measurement Of Probabilities - The Principle Of Indifference - Other Methods Of Determining Probabilities - The Weight Of Arguments - Historical Retrospect - The Frequency Theory Of Probability - The Theory Of Groups, With Special Reference To Logical Consistence, Inference, And Logical Priority - The Definitions And Axioms Of Inference And Probability - The Fundamental Theorems Of Necessary Inference - The Fundamental Theorems Of Probable Inference - Numerical Measurement And Approximation Of Probabilities - Some Problems In Inverse Probability, Including Averages - The Nature Of Argument By Analogy - The Value Of Multiplication Of Instances, Or Pure Induction - Some Historical Notes On Induction - The Meanings Of Objective Chance, And Of Randomness - Some Problems Arising Out Of The Discussion Of Chance - The Application Of Probability To Conduct - The Nature Of Statistical Inference - The Law Of Great Numbers - The Theorems Of Bernoulli, Poisson, And Tchebycheff - Etc., Etc.

The Art of Seeing Things


John Burroughs - 1921
    A departure from previous John Burroughs anthologies, this volume celebrates the surprising range of his writing to include religion, philosophy, conservation, and farming. In doing so, it emphasizes the process of the literary naturalist, specifically the lively connection the author makes between perceiving nature and how perception permeates all aspects of life experiences.

Philosophical Remarks


Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1921
    His verdict: "The theories contained in this new work...are novel, very original & indubitably important. Whether they are true, I do not know. As a logician who likes simplicity, I should like to think that they are not, but from what I have read of them I am quite sure that he ought to have an opportunity to work them out, since, when completed, they may easily prove to constitute a whole new philosophy." Philosophical Remarks] contains the seeds of Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mind & of mathematics. Principally, he here discusses the role of indispensable in language, criticizing Russell's The Analysis of Mind. He modifies the Tractatus's picture theory of meaning by stressing that the connection between the proposition & reality isn't found in the picture itself. He analyzes generality in & out of mathematics, & the notions of proof & experiment. He formulates a pain/private-language argument & discusses both behaviorism & the verifiability principle. The work is difficult but important, & it belongs in every philosophy collection."—Robert Hoffman, Philosophy "Any serious student of Wittgenstein's work will want to study his Philosophical Remarks as a transitional book between his two great masterpieces. The Remarks is thus indispensible for anyone who seeks a complete understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy."—Leonard Linsky, American Philosophical Association

Selected Letters


Friedrich Nietzsche - 1921
    Also included are letters of biographical interest which, in Middleton’s words, “mark the stresses and turnings of his life.” Among the addressees are Richard Wagner, Erwin Rohde, Jacob Burkhardt, Lou Salomé, his mother, and his sister Elisabeth. The “annihilating split” in Nietzsche’s personality that has been associated with his collapse on a street in Turin in 1889 is described in a moving letter from Franz Overbeck which forms the Epilogue. Index.

The Focus of Life


Austin Osman Spare - 1921
    Often obscure, magical and fragmentary, it invites exploration of a strange Nietzschean landscape through what Spare termed ‘the labyrinth of the alphabet.’ But the recent discovery of Spare’s original conceptual folio for the book, once owned by the respected writer E.M. Forster, has revealed an unseen series of powerful magico-erotic drawings – termed by Spare ‘blasphemous Ideographs’ – that provide an important key to understanding the ‘secret ritual of Self-Love’ that underlies this evocative and deeply personal work.

Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1


Charles Norton Eliot - 1921
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Philostratus: Lives of the Sophists. Eunapius: Lives of the Philosophers


Philostratus - 1921
    170-205 CE, was a Greek sophist who studied at Athens and later lived in Rome. He was author of the admirable "Life of Apollonius of Tyana" (Loeb nos. 16 and 17) and of "Lives of the Sophists," a treasury of information about notable sophists. Philostratus's sketches of sophists in action yield a fascinating picture of the predominant influence of Sophistic in the educational, social, and political life of the Empire in the second and third centuries.The Greek sophist and historian Eunapius was born at Sardis in 347 CE, but went to Athens to study and lived much of his life there teaching rhetoric and possibly medicine. He was initiated into the mysteries and was hostile to Christians. His "Lives of Philosophers and Sophists" (mainly contemporary with himself) is our only source for knowledge of Neo-Platonism in the latter part of the fourth century.

Ecstatic Confessions: The Heart of Mysticism


Martin Buber - 1921
    It features the author's seminal introduction to mysticism, "Ecstasy and Confession," which probes the nature of what Buber terms the "most inward of all experiences.... God's highest gift." Buber sifted through texts from oriental, pagan, Gnostic, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim sources down the centuries to cull those moving records that manage to convey some quality of an experience that is essentially beyond the power of words to capture. Ecstatic Confessions orchestrates these reports from the edge of human experience into a revealing look at the nature of the ecstatic experience itself and the tension arising from the mystic's compelling need to give witness to an event that can never truly be verbalized.