The History of Western Philosophy

3 Courses Taught at Christ College

Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen

I. ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL

A. Introduction.
1. History... of Western... Philosophy.
2. What is Philosophy?
a) How it arises.
b) Marks of a philosophical question.
c) The task of philosophy.
d) Key concerns (divisions) of philosophy.
3. When did philosophy begin?
4. Meaning of History.
a) The Biblical worldview.
b) Where is meaning found?
c) Biblical principles for interpreting history.
5. The Enduring Questions.
a) Ideas have consequences.
b) Antithesis (in principle).
c) Unregenerate answers lead to dialectical tension.
d) The major questions.
B. Ancient Cultures.
1. Egypt.
2. Mediterranean Powers.
3. Assyria and Babylon.
4. Persia.
5. Greece.
6. Rome.
C. Greek Poets and History.
1. Homer.
2. Hesiod.
3. Aeschylus.
4. Sophocles.
5. Peloponnesian War.
6. Euripides.
D. Milesian Problem of Matter.
1. Thales.
2. Anaximander.
3. Anaximenes.
E. Pythagoreans and the Wonder of Order.
F. Heraclitus vs. the Eleatics: the Problem of Identity and Change
1. Heraclitus.
2. Xenophanes.
3. Parmenides.
4. Zeno.
G. Pluralists (Atomism): The Philosophy of the Natural World
1. Empedocles.
2. Anaxagoras.
3. Democritus and Atomism (Materialism).
4. Anticipation of Modern Physics.
H. Philosophies of Life (Attitude/Ethics).
1. Sophism.
2. Cynicism.
3. Skepticism.

1
 4. Hedonism.
5. Epicureanism.
6. Stoicism.
7. Eclecticism
I. Plato.
1. Troubled context.
2. Life and relation to Socrates.
3. Idealistic Metaphysics and Rational Epistemology.
4. Normative Ethics and Utopian Politics.
J. Aristotle.
1. Life and relation to Plato.
2. Metaphysic of nature.
3. Empirical Epistemology.
4. Teleological Ethics and Politics of Moderation.
K. The Roman Period.
1. Evaluation of Plato and Aristotle.
2. Five Major Schools of Philosophy.
3. Christian Commentary.
4. Rise of the Roman Empire.
5. Review of Stoicism.
6. Review of Epicureanism.
7. Review of Skepticism.
L. The Advent of Christ.
1. Jesus the Messiah: the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
2. Philosophical Antithesis.
3. Political Antithesis.
4. Interaction with the Roman Empire.
M. Early Christian Era
1. Gnosticism and Mystery Cults
2. Neo Platonism and Plotinus
3. Ante Nicene Fathers (Patristics)
N. Augustine
1. Life and Two fold Struggle with Evil.
2. Correcting Plato’s Dualism.
3. God’s Providence and Rationale for Science.
4. Man’s Free Will and Necessity of Grace (vs. Pelagius).
5. Philosophy of History.
6. Faith and Reason.
7. Ethical Observations.
8. Assessment and retractions.
O. Medieval Period
1. The Culture of the Middle Ages.
2. Philosophical Overview of Periods and Problems.
3. Boethius.
4. Erigena.
5. Avicenna.
6. Anselm.
7. Roscellinus.
8. Abelard.
9. Averroes.
10. Bernard.
P. Aquinas and After
1. Thomas Aquinas.
2. Robert Bacon.
3. Duns Scotus.
4. William of Occam.
5. Nicholas of Cusa.
2
 6. Apologetical Assessment.
7. Key Characteristic: Synthesis.

II. RENAISSANCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT (1400-1800)

A. Recap and Review.
1. The ancient period.
2. Paganism—antithesis—synthesis.
3. The medieval period.
4. End of Middles ages and seeds of the Renaissance.
B. The Renaissance of Humanism.
1. Revival of Classical man-centeredness.
2. Cultural characteristics.
3. Political theorizing.
4. The scientific spirit.
5. Assessment and summary.
C. The Reformation of Christianity.
1. Contrast between renaissance and reformation.
2. Revival of N.T. faith & reaction against humanism.
3. Cultural effects.
4. Scientific advance.
5. Political reform.
D. Two Kinds of Enlightenment.
1. Calvin: revelation and regeneration.
2. Hobbes: materialism.
E. Continental Rationalism.
1. Descartes and dualism.
2. Spinoza and monism.
3. Leibniz and atomism.
F. British Empiricism.
1. Locke and psychologism.
2. Berkeley and idealism.
3. Hume and skepticism.
G. Enlightenment Movements.
1. English Deism.
2. Reid and Scottish common-sense realism.
3. The French Englightenment.
a) Voltaire.
b) Encyclopedists.
c) Sensationalists and materialists.
d) Rousseau and Romanticism.
4. German Aufklarung.
H. Loss of Optimism Regarding Reason.
1. Enlightenment optimism regarding rationality of the universe and man.
2. Collapse of confidence.
3. Recap and synopsis.
4. From confidence to despair regarding rationality.
5. Kant to the rescue.
I. Kant’s Critical Philosophy.
1. Two realms.
2. Transcendental epistemology.
3. Values and ethics.

III. NINETEENTH & TWENTIETH CENTURIES

(Lecture Outline and Reading Map).
A. Review: Rousseau & Kant (Johnson 1).
B. Hegel’s Absolute Idealism (Sahakina 10.4 5; Brown 3.2).
C. Schopenhauer’s Voluntarism and Mysticism (Sahakian 10.6).
3
D. Romanticism & Subjectivism (Johnson 2; Sahakian 10.3; 22.1; Brown 3.1,3,5).
E. Nietzsche’s Nihilism (Sahakian 12.4; Brown 3.4).
F. British Utilitarianism (Sahakian 11; Brown 3.4).
G. Materialism, Positivism, & Evolutionary Naturalism (Sahakian 12.1 3,5,7; 13; Brown 3.4).
H. Marxism (Johnson 3; Sahakian 14; Brown 3.4).
I. Retrospect and Prospect at Century’s End.
J. Process Philosophy: Bergson, Whitehead (Sahakian 12.6; 17.3.c).
K. Idealism (Sahakian 16.1,3).
L. Personalism (Sahakian 16.2).
M. Realism (Sahakian 17.1 3.b).
N. Phenomenology (Sahakian 21).
O. Existentialism (Johnson 9; Sahakian 22.2 3).
P. Pragmatism (Sahakian 15; Brown 3.4).
Q. Developments in Logic & Language: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Logical Positivism
(Johnson 8; Sahakian 17.2 3; 18; Brown 4.1,4).
R. Ordinary Language Analysis: Wittgenstein, Austin, Searl (Sahakian 19).
S. The Crisis of our Culture (Johnson 11 or 12; 13; Brown 4.2 3; Schaeffer 9 13).
T. Current Trends.
U. Concluding Assessment.

4
 Philosophical Vocabulary

GENERAL

Reason: man’s intellectual or mental capacity.

Presupposition: an elementary assumption or basic commitment or foundational perspective.

Worldview: a network of presuppositions which is not verified by the procedures of natural science but in
terms of which every aspect of man’s knowledge and experience is interpreted and interrelated.

Dualism: the general perspective that reality or man’s experience is properly interpreted by two different
kinds of explanation, the one religious and the other non-religious; thus the endorsement of a sacred/secular
distinction. [This should be distinguished from the specific metaphysical doctrine given the same name.]

Autonomous: characterized by self-sufficiency or independence from outside authority

(especially a transcendent authority); being a law unto oneself.

Transcendent: the quality of originating beyond man’s temporal experience or exceeding it.

Objective: the quality of having a public nature, independent of our thoughts.

Absolute: unconditioned by qualifications or limitations.

Relativism: all judgments are conditioned by factors like cultural milieu and individual bias; thus there is no
objective, absolute truth.

Humanism: (secularism), the view that man is the highest value and authority in terms of
knowledge or behavior, rather than any transcendent reality or revelation.

Rationalism: the general attitude that man’s autonomous reason is his final authority, in which case divine
revelation may be denied or ignored. [This should be distinguished from the specific epistemological
school given the same name.]

Rational: an adjective used for either: (1) whatever pertains to man’s intellect (cf. “reason”), (2) whatever is
based on the authority of man’s mind (cf. general attitude called “rationalism”), (3) whatever is known apart
from experience or observation (cf. the epistemological school of “rationalism”)

LOGIC: the study of principles for distinguishing correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning.

Judgment: a movement in thought which asserts a predicate (quality or relation) of a subject.

Inference: a movement in thought which draws a conclusion from premises.

Fallacy: an error in reasoning or a mistaken inference.

Deduction: inferring with necessity a particular conclusion from general premises.

Induction: inferring with probability a general conclusion from particular premises.

5
EPISTEMOLOGY: the study of the nature and limits of human knowledge.

Belief: a mental state affirmative of a proposition.

Knowledge: justified, true belief.

Certainty: the property of a proposition that it cannot fail to be true.

Confidence: the psychological property of feeling assurance that a proposition is true.

Skepticism: the view that denies the possibility of knowledge or certainty (sometimes
limited to certain areas).

Mysticism: the view that reality is ineffable and transcends precise conceptual schemes;
thus it is known by non-rational means.

Intuition: direct, immediate (non-discursive) knowledge.

a priori: independent of observation, experience, or sense perception.

a posteriori: dependent upon observation, experience, or sense perception.

Innate idea: a concept known a priori and characterized by universality and necessity.

Rationalism: the view that some knowledge is a priori.

Empiricism: the view that all knowledge is a posteriori.

Phenomenalism: the view that what we know is mind-dependent, so that knowledge is

limited to appearance (the data of inner or outer sense).

ETHICS: the study of right and wrong actions and attitudes.

Metaethics: the study of the meaning and justification of fundamental moral terms and judgments.

Hedonism: the view that pleasure is the sole good.

Voluntarism: the view that asserts the primacy of will over intellect (as explanatory of human behavior,
God’s nature, or the universe as a whole).

Utilitarianism: the view that goodness is the quality of promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.

Emotivism: the view that moral utterances are mere expressions of feeling (and are thus
non-informative in function).

Marxism: dialectical materialism (the sole reality, matter, develops through history according to the pattern
of thesis C antithesis C and then synthesis or resolution at a higher level), leading to revolution and then the
state-less society.

METAPHYSICS: the study of the nature, structure, and origin of what exists.

Ontology: the theory of being itself.

Cosmology: the study of the universe, its origin, and its process of development.
6
Universal: a general concept (idea, form) which is predicable of many individuals.

Particular: an instance of a universal.

Essence: that-about-a-thing-that-makes-it-what-it-is.

Accidents: the non-essential properties of a thing.

Existence: the actuality of a thing: that it is.

Substance: (1) whatever is real; (2) something’s essence; (3) whatever exists in its own right and depends
on nothing else; (4) that which underlies (or has) the properties of a thing.

Contingent: the quality of not being necessarily determined: whatever may or may not be the case.

Determinism: the view that there is no contingency, for every event is necessary (according to some laws);
thus the view that every event is the theoretically predictable consequence of antecedent causes.

Behaviorism: determinism applied to every detail of man’s behavior.

Materialism: the view that the whole of reality consists of matter.

Dualism: the view that there are two ultimate and irreducible principles for explaining reality: mind and
matter (body).

Monism: the view that reality consists of only one kind of substance.

Solipsism: the view that everything other than one’s self is a state of one’s self.

Teleology: the view that the universe is characterized by design or purpose.

SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY

Realism: the view either that (1) universals are independently real (vs. nominalism,
conceptualism), or (2) objects of knowledge exist independently of the mind (vs. idealism), or (3) reality is
not greatly different from appearance (vs. phenomenalism).

Nominalism: the view that only particulars are real; universals are only a name given to an observable
similarity.

Conceptualism: the view that universals are neither independently existing, nor mere names, but rather
concepts abstracted from the particulars by the mind.

Idealism: the view that fundamental reality is mind-dependent or mental in nature (thus non-spatial and
non-sensuous). Subjective idealism holds that to be is to be perceived. Objective idealism maintains that
there is no categorical distinction between the knower and what he knows—that both are part of absolute
thought.

Pragmatism: the view that the meaning of a statement is its practical consequences in experience, and
that truth is satisfactory problem-solving (success).

Logical Positivism: the view that all meaningful sentences are verifiable scientifically or logically
(scientism).

7
Linguistic Analysis: the view that conceptual confusions should be resolved by clarifying our use of words
and getting back to ordinary usage.

Process Philosophy: the view that all reality is united into one interdependent, evolving whole.

Existentialism: the view that “existence precedes essence,” so that man is radically free to choose what
he will be.