Elements of Metaphysics: -1909

by A.E. Taylor

Originally published in 1909. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.

Genres: Philosophy

446 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

Alfred Edward Taylor was a British idealist philosopher. He was born in 1869, the son of a Wesleyan minister. Among many distinguished appointments, he held the chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh from 1924 to 1941. His main interests were Platonic philosophy and the theology of Christianity, and his contributions in both these fields have been of far-reaching importance. "Does God Exist?" was his last considerable work on the philosophy of religion before his death in 1945.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The systematic unity of reality is a single principle in and through multiplicity. The whole system is a single experience, and its consistents are also experiences. A systematic whole is not an aggregate, nor a mechanical whole of parts, nor an organism. The whole exists for its parts and they for it (p. 85).

Reality is a systematic whole forming a simple individual experience. The systematic whole is composed of constituents, which are their individual experiences. In each of these constituents, the nature of the whole system manifests itself with each one contributing its distinct content to the whole system; suppression of any of them alters the character of the whole. The nature of the whole determines the character of each of its constituents. The whole and its constituent members are in complete interpenetration and form a systematic unity (p. 104).