The First Principles of Knowledge

by John Rickaby

Part One
Preface
1. Definition of Truth
2. In What Act of the Mind a Truth May Be Found Completely Possessed
3. Definition of Certitude and of the States of Mind Falling Short of Certitude
4. Kinds and Degrees of Certitudes
5. Metaphysical and Physical Certitude
6. The Order of Precedence between Natural and Philosophic Certitude
7. The Charge of Discord (or at least of want of co-operation) between Natural and Philosophic Certitude
8. Universal Scepticism
9. Cartesian Doubt
10. The Primary Facts and Principles of the Logician
11. Retrospect and Prospect
12. The Rejection of Various Theories about the Ultimate Criterion of Certitude
13. Evidence as the Ultimate Objective Criterion of Truth
14. The Origin of Error in the Understanding Part Two.
1. Short Introduction
2. The Trustworthiness of the Senses
3. Objectivity of Ideas, Whether Singular or Universal
4. Exaggerated Realism, Nominalism, and Conceptualism
5. Consciousness
6. Memory
7. Belief on Human Testimony
8. Belief on Divine Testimony *** from the beginning of - Preface. A few words will be enough to put exactly before the reader the object at which the present volume aims. A well-known criticism on the Aristotelian Logic is the complaint, that it provides for the consistency of thought with thought, but not for the consistency of thought with things; that it secures right processes upon given or assumed materials, but does not guarantee the materials upon which the processes are conducted. To supply the want thus indicated, several modern logicians have curtailed or omitted portions of the old Logic, and added new chapters, of which the following headings may serve as specimens, taken from Mr. Bain's "Uniformity and Laws of Nature," "Elimination of Cause and Effect," "Experimental Methods," "Frustration of the Methods," "Chance and its Eliminations," "Secondary Laws, Empirical and Derivative," "Explanation of Nature," "Hypotheses," "Classification," "Logic of Mathematics," "Logic of Physics," "Logic of Chemistry," "Logic of Biology," "Logic of Rhetoric," "Logic of Politics," "Logic of Medicine." These titles show the kind of addition that now-a-days is asked, beyond the simple bill of fare found in the Aldrich who satisfied the students of a past generation, and to many even afforded more than they wanted. It is unfortunate that those who in this country were, perhaps, the loudest in their clamours that logic should take account of the reality which hitherto it had seemed to neglect, should have embraced a system of philosophy which is fatal to firm belief in any reality beyond thought itself. Messrs. Mill and Bain assuredly have not directly tended to take men out of idealism, and make them realists. Yet the former was explicit enough in his {1} "I conceive it to be true, that Logic is not the theory of thought as thought, but of valid not of thinking, but of correct thinking. . . . In no case can the thinking be valid unless the concepts, judgments, and conclusions resulting from it are conformable to fact. And in no case can we satisfy ourselves that they are so by looking merely at the relations of one part of the train of thought with another. We must ascend to the original sources, the presentations of experience, and examine the train of thought in relation to these."

Genres: Philosophy

430 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 21, 2009