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The Great Chain of Being: A Study of The History on an Idea
Philosophy, Sociology, Literary Studies
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
About the author
Arthur O. Lovejoy
42 books31 followersArthur Oncken Lovejoy was an influential American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the field known as the history of ideas.
Lovejoy was born in Berlin, Germany while his father was doing medical research there. Eighteen months later, his mother committed suicide, whereupon his father gave up medicine and became a clergyman. Lovejoy studied philosophy, first at the University of California, then at Harvard under William James and Josiah Royce. In 1901, he resigned from his first job, at Stanford University, to protest the dismissal of a colleague who had offended a trustee. The President of Harvard then vetoed hiring Lovejoy on the grounds that he was a known troublemaker. Over the subsequent decade, he taught at Washington University, Columbia University, and the University of Missouri. He never married.
As a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University from 1910 to 1938, Lovejoy founded and long presided over that university's History of Ideas Club, where many prominent and budding intellectual and social historians, as well as literary critics, gathered. In 1940, he founded the Journal of the History of Ideas. Lovejoy insisted that the history of ideas should focus on "unit ideas," single concepts (often with a one-word name), and study how unit ideas combine and recombine with each other over time.
In the domain of epistemology, Lovejoy is remembered for an influential critique of the pragmatic movement, especially in the essay The Thirteen Pragmatisms, written in 1908.
Lovejoy was active in the public arena. He helped found the American Association of University Professors and the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. However, he qualified his belief in civil liberties to exclude overriding threats to a free system. At the height of the McCarthy Era (in the February 14, 1952 edition of the Journal of Philosophy) Lovejoy stated that, since it was a "matter of empirical fact" that membership in the Communist Party contributed "to the triumph of a world-wide organization" which was opposed to "freedom of inquiry, of opinion and of teaching," membership in the party constituted grounds for dismissal from academic positions. He also published numerous opinion pieces in the Baltimore press. He died in Baltimore on December 30, 1962.
Lovejoy was born in Berlin, Germany while his father was doing medical research there. Eighteen months later, his mother committed suicide, whereupon his father gave up medicine and became a clergyman. Lovejoy studied philosophy, first at the University of California, then at Harvard under William James and Josiah Royce. In 1901, he resigned from his first job, at Stanford University, to protest the dismissal of a colleague who had offended a trustee. The President of Harvard then vetoed hiring Lovejoy on the grounds that he was a known troublemaker. Over the subsequent decade, he taught at Washington University, Columbia University, and the University of Missouri. He never married.
As a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University from 1910 to 1938, Lovejoy founded and long presided over that university's History of Ideas Club, where many prominent and budding intellectual and social historians, as well as literary critics, gathered. In 1940, he founded the Journal of the History of Ideas. Lovejoy insisted that the history of ideas should focus on "unit ideas," single concepts (often with a one-word name), and study how unit ideas combine and recombine with each other over time.
In the domain of epistemology, Lovejoy is remembered for an influential critique of the pragmatic movement, especially in the essay The Thirteen Pragmatisms, written in 1908.
Lovejoy was active in the public arena. He helped found the American Association of University Professors and the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. However, he qualified his belief in civil liberties to exclude overriding threats to a free system. At the height of the McCarthy Era (in the February 14, 1952 edition of the Journal of Philosophy) Lovejoy stated that, since it was a "matter of empirical fact" that membership in the Communist Party contributed "to the triumph of a world-wide organization" which was opposed to "freedom of inquiry, of opinion and of teaching," membership in the party constituted grounds for dismissal from academic positions. He also published numerous opinion pieces in the Baltimore press. He died in Baltimore on December 30, 1962.
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January 5, 2019
It has famously been said that all of Western philosophy constitutes nothing more than a series of footnotes to Plato. In this book, Arthur Lovejoy tries to take on the monumental task of charting the history of the Platonic idea that all the components of creation, both corporeal and non-corporeal, consist in an ascending chain, known as “The Great Chain of Being.” This chain starts from the lowliest component of creation and leads all the way up to the ultimate, which is none other than God. This conception of the universe was considered natural throughout much of human history and helped easily answer the question of mankind’s role in creation.
This is an arcane topic even under the best conditions. I have to say though that Lovejoy is a particularly bad writer. He writes in pivoting, meandering, byzantine sentences, compounding the difficulty by forging into French and Latin whenever the mood strikes him. After slogging through two chapters I figured out that he typically uses something like forty sentences to make a point that can actually be distilled in one. Realizing this made getting through the rest of the book much less frustrating, as it’s not necessary to agonize over every impenetrable run-on sentence to get to the core of what he’s trying to tell you. I will try and summarize some of the important points below.
The Platonic idea of God, and subsequently The Great Chain of Being, embodied three key characteristics: plenitude, continuity and gradation. God is the all-encompassing supreme link in the chain. Being plentiful by nature, God could could not help but overflow into creation and give Being to everything that could possibly exist. Things that exist are given Being only because of the existence of God. God is also the Platonic form of The Good, and can be partly understood by us that way. The natural world is an unfolding and working out of this Goodness, which we can reflect on, if we wisely choose to do so. The things and beings which exist in this natural world are linked to each other in a continuous fashion, with no gaps between them. They are structured in a hierarchical manner in which the place and role of each is clear. All together, the components of existence structured gradationally constitute The Great Chain of Being. Understanding this chain leads us to rationally understand the necessary existence of God as the supreme link, as well as our own position somewhere in between the status of corporeal and spiritual beings.
This is not simple subject matter to unpack. As difficult as it may be to comprehend today, however, its important to understand that this chain-based idea of reality was considered axiomatic for much of human history. It’s a worldview that rationally explains the existence of beings like angels, since humans, seeing themselves as one link in The Great Chain of Being can easily comprehend the necessary existence other links above themselves — more sublime and less corporeal — leading eventually up to God. Since the natural world is also an expression of God, overflowing with plenitude into creation, understanding and studying the world was thus a task not considered as divorced from “religion.” Apprehending the laws of nature was nothing more than reflecting upon the expressions of God and was thus a form of worship. Traditional scientific endeavor was therefore never considered a demoralized, purely secular sphere of activity in the epistemology of Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu philosophers, at least until the current era.
It is easy to see how naturally accepting an idea like The Great Chain of Being would lend itself to accepting a hierarchically structured world with relation to not just plants and animals, but other human beings as well. It is an idea that chafes against the modern notion of progress, which of course is resolutely egalitarian. Reading this book, I was struck by how familiar the concept of The Great Chain of Being was from religious philosophy. This includes not just the hierarchical structure of creation, both corporal and non-corporeal, but also the traditional interpretations of how a human being can gain knowledge within this chain. According to the traditional view, knowledge can be gained either by ratiocinative activity, including the “scientific” study of the God-created natural world, or through what may be called “revelation.” The latter is knowledge that comes from reflecting upon and appealing to the ultimate link in the chain directly, which, of course, is God.
The idea of The Great Chain of Being fell out of favor in Western philosophy in the 19th century, seemingly for good. This came about less due to any scientific advancement than to philosophical conclusions which decided that certain components of the idea were irreconcilable. Lovejoy gives a detailed history of the breakdown, but essentially the idea achieved a peak of popularity again in the 18th century before the concepts of plenitude and continuity were decided to be mutually exclusive. Since then society has largely stopped litigating the issue, as it has forgotten it ever existed in the first place.
There may be lessons in the idea of The Great Chain of Being yet, however. According to the traditional belief, if any one link in the chain were to be severed and the gradation of the chain was thus rendered discontinuous and imperfect, all of creation would be collapse. This is a belief worth reflecting on in an era of mass extinction and environmental chaos. It also bears notice that without a clearly accepted concept of how human beings relate to both the natural world and the metaphysical one, which the chain provided, many people have been set adrift spiritually and psychologically. It's no longer clear to anyone why human beings, plants or animals exist, or what they exist for. True or not, people in the time of The Great Chain of Being never experienced the pain of believing their own existence to be superfluous.
It’s quite impressive to reflect that this book, based on lectures given in the 1930s, was one of the first to take seriously the fact that ideas have distinct histories, and to attempt to map the history of one particularly consequential one. Despite that, it is hampered by its extreme deficiencies when it comes to form. Lovejoy seems to be willfully indifferent to the reader’s ability to comprehend the subject he's talking about, which is too bad. If I were not already familiar with the crux of what is discussed here through Islamic philosophy I would probably have been baffled by this book. It’s a dense and at times positively impenetrable work, but one that contains some useful insights for those prepared to confront it.
This is an arcane topic even under the best conditions. I have to say though that Lovejoy is a particularly bad writer. He writes in pivoting, meandering, byzantine sentences, compounding the difficulty by forging into French and Latin whenever the mood strikes him. After slogging through two chapters I figured out that he typically uses something like forty sentences to make a point that can actually be distilled in one. Realizing this made getting through the rest of the book much less frustrating, as it’s not necessary to agonize over every impenetrable run-on sentence to get to the core of what he’s trying to tell you. I will try and summarize some of the important points below.
The Platonic idea of God, and subsequently The Great Chain of Being, embodied three key characteristics: plenitude, continuity and gradation. God is the all-encompassing supreme link in the chain. Being plentiful by nature, God could could not help but overflow into creation and give Being to everything that could possibly exist. Things that exist are given Being only because of the existence of God. God is also the Platonic form of The Good, and can be partly understood by us that way. The natural world is an unfolding and working out of this Goodness, which we can reflect on, if we wisely choose to do so. The things and beings which exist in this natural world are linked to each other in a continuous fashion, with no gaps between them. They are structured in a hierarchical manner in which the place and role of each is clear. All together, the components of existence structured gradationally constitute The Great Chain of Being. Understanding this chain leads us to rationally understand the necessary existence of God as the supreme link, as well as our own position somewhere in between the status of corporeal and spiritual beings.
This is not simple subject matter to unpack. As difficult as it may be to comprehend today, however, its important to understand that this chain-based idea of reality was considered axiomatic for much of human history. It’s a worldview that rationally explains the existence of beings like angels, since humans, seeing themselves as one link in The Great Chain of Being can easily comprehend the necessary existence other links above themselves — more sublime and less corporeal — leading eventually up to God. Since the natural world is also an expression of God, overflowing with plenitude into creation, understanding and studying the world was thus a task not considered as divorced from “religion.” Apprehending the laws of nature was nothing more than reflecting upon the expressions of God and was thus a form of worship. Traditional scientific endeavor was therefore never considered a demoralized, purely secular sphere of activity in the epistemology of Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu philosophers, at least until the current era.
It is easy to see how naturally accepting an idea like The Great Chain of Being would lend itself to accepting a hierarchically structured world with relation to not just plants and animals, but other human beings as well. It is an idea that chafes against the modern notion of progress, which of course is resolutely egalitarian. Reading this book, I was struck by how familiar the concept of The Great Chain of Being was from religious philosophy. This includes not just the hierarchical structure of creation, both corporal and non-corporeal, but also the traditional interpretations of how a human being can gain knowledge within this chain. According to the traditional view, knowledge can be gained either by ratiocinative activity, including the “scientific” study of the God-created natural world, or through what may be called “revelation.” The latter is knowledge that comes from reflecting upon and appealing to the ultimate link in the chain directly, which, of course, is God.
The idea of The Great Chain of Being fell out of favor in Western philosophy in the 19th century, seemingly for good. This came about less due to any scientific advancement than to philosophical conclusions which decided that certain components of the idea were irreconcilable. Lovejoy gives a detailed history of the breakdown, but essentially the idea achieved a peak of popularity again in the 18th century before the concepts of plenitude and continuity were decided to be mutually exclusive. Since then society has largely stopped litigating the issue, as it has forgotten it ever existed in the first place.
There may be lessons in the idea of The Great Chain of Being yet, however. According to the traditional belief, if any one link in the chain were to be severed and the gradation of the chain was thus rendered discontinuous and imperfect, all of creation would be collapse. This is a belief worth reflecting on in an era of mass extinction and environmental chaos. It also bears notice that without a clearly accepted concept of how human beings relate to both the natural world and the metaphysical one, which the chain provided, many people have been set adrift spiritually and psychologically. It's no longer clear to anyone why human beings, plants or animals exist, or what they exist for. True or not, people in the time of The Great Chain of Being never experienced the pain of believing their own existence to be superfluous.
It’s quite impressive to reflect that this book, based on lectures given in the 1930s, was one of the first to take seriously the fact that ideas have distinct histories, and to attempt to map the history of one particularly consequential one. Despite that, it is hampered by its extreme deficiencies when it comes to form. Lovejoy seems to be willfully indifferent to the reader’s ability to comprehend the subject he's talking about, which is too bad. If I were not already familiar with the crux of what is discussed here through Islamic philosophy I would probably have been baffled by this book. It’s a dense and at times positively impenetrable work, but one that contains some useful insights for those prepared to confront it.
July 16, 2012
The Great Chain of Being is one of the foremost books of intellectual history, which is, as the subtitle reads, the study of the history of an idea. Here, in fact, the Great Chain of Being specifically refers to two complementary ideas first postulated by Plato and the Greeks, which the book then attempts to investigate over the succeeding millennia. The first idea (the principle of plenitude) stated that the Creator, being omnipotent, all-powerful, and faultless, could only create a world which contained everything that could ever be conceived. The second idea (the principle of continuity) was a deduction of the first: if everything that could ever be conceived was to actually exist, the steps between each thing would be absolutely miniscule ... if not, there would be a gap within which some other conceivable thing could be placed. Together the two ideas form a plan and structure of a world composed of an infinite number of links ranged in hierarchical order from the least to the greatest, eventually reaching (to the point that infinity can be reached) the Creator himself, wherein which each link differs from its neighbor above and its neighbor below by the least possible degree. This is the Great Chain of Being.
For most of its history, the idea of the Great Chain of Being was used to extol the virtue and greatness of the Judeo-Christian god, and its two constituent parts were seen as two sides of the same teleological argument in favor of the greatness of God. By the Enlightenment, however, some thinkers (Liebniz first, but Schelling most explicitly) recognized that, when extended to its logical end, the principle of continuity was incompatible with the principle of plentitude, as they resulted in two competing tenets: respectively, an admiration by man of God's creation for itself, and a constant striving by man to imitate God's goodness.
Yet, recognizing man's unique and wholly necessary placement in the universe is mutually exclusive from attempting to upend such a place by striving to ascend to the next place in the line of creation. Schelling noted that the Great Chain of Being required of man both a piety towards the God of things as they are [including] an adoring delight in the sensible universe (so that man could better appreciate the fullness of life as created by God) and also suppression of the natural interests and desires (so that man could better prepare for whatever ascension he could attain), and Schelling's intellectual successors of the Romantic period concluded that the Great Chain of Being served as an argument against, and not for, the existence of God.
For most of its history, the idea of the Great Chain of Being was used to extol the virtue and greatness of the Judeo-Christian god, and its two constituent parts were seen as two sides of the same teleological argument in favor of the greatness of God. By the Enlightenment, however, some thinkers (Liebniz first, but Schelling most explicitly) recognized that, when extended to its logical end, the principle of continuity was incompatible with the principle of plentitude, as they resulted in two competing tenets: respectively, an admiration by man of God's creation for itself, and a constant striving by man to imitate God's goodness.
Yet, recognizing man's unique and wholly necessary placement in the universe is mutually exclusive from attempting to upend such a place by striving to ascend to the next place in the line of creation. Schelling noted that the Great Chain of Being required of man both a piety towards the God of things as they are [including] an adoring delight in the sensible universe (so that man could better appreciate the fullness of life as created by God) and also suppression of the natural interests and desires (so that man could better prepare for whatever ascension he could attain), and Schelling's intellectual successors of the Romantic period concluded that the Great Chain of Being served as an argument against, and not for, the existence of God.
July 25, 2019
Istorija ideja je sinteza, ne konglomerat – njeni okviri podrazumevaju odabrane i povezane procese izdvojene iz povesti kulture. U potrazi za velikim lancem bića, njegovim objedinujućim izrazima od antike (Platon, Plotin) do romantizma (Šeling, Šiler), Lavdžoj obrazuje i jedan metodološki lanac – pokazuje kako treba promišljati u okvirima istorije ideja, odnosno, kako ostvariti sintezu. Iako je izuzetno temeljan, Lavdžojev uvid predstavlja samo uvod u istraživanje. Rezultat tog uvida/uvoda je da se kao ključni principi u poimanju sveta javljaju princip punine i princip kontinuiteta. Interpretacije ovih principa temeljno određuju pogled na svet – s jedne strane pitanje početka (svega) i smer istorijskog hoda (kako nešto iz ništa? – horror vacui), s druge strane pitanje toka (kako obuhvatati prirodu i njene prelaze). Okviri lanca bića vezani su i za etičku i estetičku, ali i za naučnu i ontološku problematiku. Lajbnicove monade i njihova (ne)promenjljivost, (biološko-evolucionističko) pitanje „karike koja nedostaje”, teodicija (Volterov niski udarac (286) – optimizam ne ostavlja prostor za nadu, ukoliko je ovo „idealan svet”, kako se možemo nadati boljem? Ili – kako je Bog stvorio idealni svet ako postoje fosili – vrste koje se menjaju?)...
Tu je i još mnogo zanimljivih povezivanja uobličenih u miniekskurse. Među njima uzajamnost istorije baštovanstva (mode) i romantizma (23), izlaganje preparirane sirene sa Fidžija u režiji devetnaestovekovnog šoumena P. T. Barnama (276), Robine koji je u rotkvicama video nešto nalik na lice i udove (pitam se, pitam da li je Beket za to znao kad mu Vladimir i Estragon jedu rotkvice), zrnce peska koje sadrži milione bića (152) i – na više mesta – moja omiljena tema – vanzemaljski život (Bruno, Kant).
Prevod dobar (Gorana Raičević), oprema dobra (Akademska knjiga), a Lavdžojev stil odnegovan, otmeno akademski (šarmantno mi je kako u nekoliko navrata neke ideje ljutito naziva budalastim – posebno je osetljiv na antropocentrizam). Međutim, veoma me je iritiralo stalno navođenje „aktualno” umesto „aktuelno”. Doduše, to je do mene.
Sve u svemu – apsolutna preporuka za sve ljubitelje filozofije i istorije kulture.
Tu je i još mnogo zanimljivih povezivanja uobličenih u miniekskurse. Među njima uzajamnost istorije baštovanstva (mode) i romantizma (23), izlaganje preparirane sirene sa Fidžija u režiji devetnaestovekovnog šoumena P. T. Barnama (276), Robine koji je u rotkvicama video nešto nalik na lice i udove (pitam se, pitam da li je Beket za to znao kad mu Vladimir i Estragon jedu rotkvice), zrnce peska koje sadrži milione bića (152) i – na više mesta – moja omiljena tema – vanzemaljski život (Bruno, Kant).
Prevod dobar (Gorana Raičević), oprema dobra (Akademska knjiga), a Lavdžojev stil odnegovan, otmeno akademski (šarmantno mi je kako u nekoliko navrata neke ideje ljutito naziva budalastim – posebno je osetljiv na antropocentrizam). Međutim, veoma me je iritiralo stalno navođenje „aktualno” umesto „aktuelno”. Doduše, to je do mene.
Sve u svemu – apsolutna preporuka za sve ljubitelje filozofije i istorije kulture.
July 25, 2011
I found myself wading through the first couple of chapters or so of Lovejoy’s book. He writes English prose as if it were bad German: a thicket of long sentences one must hack through, most of them containing numerous subordinate clauses, asides, and commas like this sentence, before finally reaching the reward of the main verb. But once I got used to his grammatical style, I became engrossed. Recommended for those with a interest in the history of ideas, a field that Lovejoy apparently did much to develop. A classic in the field which probably hasn’t been improved greatly as a history of the chain of being, even though the book is based on lectures delivered in 1933.
The great chain of being refers to the belief that there is a continuous series of creatures and objects with God at the top and rocks, maybe even atoms, at the bottom. In between, in descending order, are spiritual creatures such as angels, humans, apes, lions, , spiders, tuna, worms, amoebas, seaweed, roses, and so on down to fossils and rocks. Not only is this chain continuous, meaning that there are no breaks or gaps in the series, but gradation is an important concept as well. What this means is that in each kind of creature or thing there are resemblances with the creature just above or below that kind of creature or thing in the chain. Think of a real steel chain. Each link on the chain entwines with the links on either side of it. Of course this example is inadequate as all the chain links are identical. But if you think of humans, the epitome of mortal life on earth, it is the only earthly creature that shares a spiritual nature with the angels and a physical nature as well as other resemblances with the apes. This means that the lowest animal and the highest plant, whatever they are, must be linked. The importance of the continuity of the chain is that if any niche or link that isn’t filled by the appropriate creature or natural object causes, all of reality to collapse.
Along with continuity and gradation, the third key concept in the idea of the great chain of being is plenitude. Plenitude refers to the fullness of reality, meaning that every possible creature or natural object that could possibly exist actually does exist. God could not have done otherwise, thus putting a bit of a cramp on his power, though many people didn’t notice. If there were gaps in which a possible creature did not exist in fact, that break in the chain would result in catastrophe. This idea of plenitude led many people to believe in the 17th century that there must be life on the other planets, even intelligent life, maybe even life forms more intelligent than humans. And that there must be planets orbiting the stars also filled with intelligent beings and other creatures and objects unimagined by us.
The sources of this idea of the chain of being were Plato and Aristotle. Plato came up with the idea of plenitude, Aristotle with the ideas of continuity and gradation. The Neoplatonist Plotinus further developed the ideas and the great chain of being eventually became an integral part of Christian theology. Lovejoy points out that rather than being rather close to God, we humans were really much closer to the bottom of the pile. Rather than indicating that the Earth was the center of the cosmos and therefore in an exalted position, we learn from Lovejoy that we humans are much closer to Hell than the Empyrean residence of God and his favored angels. A Newton is closer to the centipedes than he is to God, although Newton was closer to the angels than to the rest us.
The notions of plenitude and continuity required that every slot in the chain must be occupied. This meant that the universe is static, never changing or developing. When the astronomers of the 17th century discovered the nature of the planets and the stars, the natural inclination of the educated public was to assume that those worlds were all filled with life.
Lovejoy spends several chapters on the 18th century when thinking about the chain of being both culminated and began to break down. He explains why not only Leibniz but many others argued that the world that exists must be the best of all possible worlds. At the same time, with the gradual development science and technology, and the challenge of brought to bear by the idea of progress, the idea of the great chain of being gradually changed to include some dynamic aspects until only vestiges of the original idea remained in the richness of nature as seen by the German romantics. Ideas of species evolution were already in the air several decades before Darwin proved it.
The idea of the chain of being embodied an ethic. The world is organized so that the place of every thing in it must occupy the place it is in and no other. That includes the human world. European men are at the top of the human heap, while sub-Saharan Africans populate the bottom. The rest of the races occupy the spots in between. It becomes easier to understand, though no less loathsome, why slavery was justified in the eyes of many, and social improvement from the lower nether levels of society to the higher echelon was almost impossible. It also makes the divine right of kings easier to fathom. The way the world is, is the way the world should be.
Lovejoy examines the writings of dozens of thinkers, especially the philosophical poets. However, he spends almost no ink on the Scottish thinkers of the 18th century. He never even mentions Adam Smith. I imagine they had no sympathy for this idea. I doubt that many of us, at least in the economically advanced nations, would accept such a chain of being. We are to enthralled with the idea of progress, which is the antithesis of the idea of the great chain of being.
The great chain of being refers to the belief that there is a continuous series of creatures and objects with God at the top and rocks, maybe even atoms, at the bottom. In between, in descending order, are spiritual creatures such as angels, humans, apes, lions, , spiders, tuna, worms, amoebas, seaweed, roses, and so on down to fossils and rocks. Not only is this chain continuous, meaning that there are no breaks or gaps in the series, but gradation is an important concept as well. What this means is that in each kind of creature or thing there are resemblances with the creature just above or below that kind of creature or thing in the chain. Think of a real steel chain. Each link on the chain entwines with the links on either side of it. Of course this example is inadequate as all the chain links are identical. But if you think of humans, the epitome of mortal life on earth, it is the only earthly creature that shares a spiritual nature with the angels and a physical nature as well as other resemblances with the apes. This means that the lowest animal and the highest plant, whatever they are, must be linked. The importance of the continuity of the chain is that if any niche or link that isn’t filled by the appropriate creature or natural object causes, all of reality to collapse.
Along with continuity and gradation, the third key concept in the idea of the great chain of being is plenitude. Plenitude refers to the fullness of reality, meaning that every possible creature or natural object that could possibly exist actually does exist. God could not have done otherwise, thus putting a bit of a cramp on his power, though many people didn’t notice. If there were gaps in which a possible creature did not exist in fact, that break in the chain would result in catastrophe. This idea of plenitude led many people to believe in the 17th century that there must be life on the other planets, even intelligent life, maybe even life forms more intelligent than humans. And that there must be planets orbiting the stars also filled with intelligent beings and other creatures and objects unimagined by us.
The sources of this idea of the chain of being were Plato and Aristotle. Plato came up with the idea of plenitude, Aristotle with the ideas of continuity and gradation. The Neoplatonist Plotinus further developed the ideas and the great chain of being eventually became an integral part of Christian theology. Lovejoy points out that rather than being rather close to God, we humans were really much closer to the bottom of the pile. Rather than indicating that the Earth was the center of the cosmos and therefore in an exalted position, we learn from Lovejoy that we humans are much closer to Hell than the Empyrean residence of God and his favored angels. A Newton is closer to the centipedes than he is to God, although Newton was closer to the angels than to the rest us.
The notions of plenitude and continuity required that every slot in the chain must be occupied. This meant that the universe is static, never changing or developing. When the astronomers of the 17th century discovered the nature of the planets and the stars, the natural inclination of the educated public was to assume that those worlds were all filled with life.
Lovejoy spends several chapters on the 18th century when thinking about the chain of being both culminated and began to break down. He explains why not only Leibniz but many others argued that the world that exists must be the best of all possible worlds. At the same time, with the gradual development science and technology, and the challenge of brought to bear by the idea of progress, the idea of the great chain of being gradually changed to include some dynamic aspects until only vestiges of the original idea remained in the richness of nature as seen by the German romantics. Ideas of species evolution were already in the air several decades before Darwin proved it.
The idea of the chain of being embodied an ethic. The world is organized so that the place of every thing in it must occupy the place it is in and no other. That includes the human world. European men are at the top of the human heap, while sub-Saharan Africans populate the bottom. The rest of the races occupy the spots in between. It becomes easier to understand, though no less loathsome, why slavery was justified in the eyes of many, and social improvement from the lower nether levels of society to the higher echelon was almost impossible. It also makes the divine right of kings easier to fathom. The way the world is, is the way the world should be.
Lovejoy examines the writings of dozens of thinkers, especially the philosophical poets. However, he spends almost no ink on the Scottish thinkers of the 18th century. He never even mentions Adam Smith. I imagine they had no sympathy for this idea. I doubt that many of us, at least in the economically advanced nations, would accept such a chain of being. We are to enthralled with the idea of progress, which is the antithesis of the idea of the great chain of being.
November 19, 2009
Lovejoy essentially invented the field of "history of ideas" as something beyond the study of philosophy. Here he traces the transmission of the idea of the "Great Chain of Being" (i.e. the idea that there is a hierarchy of creation) from ancient Greece through modern times, arguing that it so imbued western culture that it often unconsciously influenced habits of mind and patterns of thought.
In America, intellectual history as a field derives from Lovejoy's tenure at Johns Hopkins and his founding of the History of Ideas club there.
In America, intellectual history as a field derives from Lovejoy's tenure at Johns Hopkins and his founding of the History of Ideas club there.
October 18, 2016
Arthur Lovejoy analyzes a powerful if flawed concept’s “control” over Western mind since Plato. The chain of being is the continuum of “substance/essence/stuff” beginning with God (or Plato’s Good) and ending with either inorganic life or nothingness itself. The chain of being hinges around three concepts: plenitude, continuity, and gradation.
Summary of the Idea
At the top of the chain is pure Being. At the bottom is pure nothingness. Further, Good is coterminous with Being. Thirdly, good is self-diffusive. So far this isn’t too bad. It becomes tricky when it becomes “ontologized.” a) the line between Creator and creature is fuzzy; b) if something is lower on the chain, is it less good? What’s the difference between less good and bad?
If there is an infinite distance between God and not-God, and all of this is placed on a “scale” or chain, then is there not an infinite distance between each link in the scale? This was Dr Samuel Johnson’s critique, and it highlighted the problem of the chain of being: reality had to be static and exist all at once. This called creation into question, since if the Good is necessarily self-diffusive, then it had to diffuse into creation. God had no freedom to do otherwise. Ironically, this Idea also called evolution into question: if there is an infinite distance between the links, then there is no changing from one link to another.
Analysis
This book’s value lies in its being a prime example of clear, penetrating thinking. In each chapter Lovejoy presents a new difficulty with the idea of a chain of being and the force is cumulative. The chain functions as a snapshot of the God-world relationship. Since God is perfect, and the chain is a diffusion of his goodness, and since God is eternally perfect, then we must see this eternal perfection. If not, we have to find “the missing link” (and is not evolution a mere temporalizing of the chain?)
Summary of the Idea
At the top of the chain is pure Being. At the bottom is pure nothingness. Further, Good is coterminous with Being. Thirdly, good is self-diffusive. So far this isn’t too bad. It becomes tricky when it becomes “ontologized.” a) the line between Creator and creature is fuzzy; b) if something is lower on the chain, is it less good? What’s the difference between less good and bad?
If there is an infinite distance between God and not-God, and all of this is placed on a “scale” or chain, then is there not an infinite distance between each link in the scale? This was Dr Samuel Johnson’s critique, and it highlighted the problem of the chain of being: reality had to be static and exist all at once. This called creation into question, since if the Good is necessarily self-diffusive, then it had to diffuse into creation. God had no freedom to do otherwise. Ironically, this Idea also called evolution into question: if there is an infinite distance between the links, then there is no changing from one link to another.
Analysis
This book’s value lies in its being a prime example of clear, penetrating thinking. In each chapter Lovejoy presents a new difficulty with the idea of a chain of being and the force is cumulative. The chain functions as a snapshot of the God-world relationship. Since God is perfect, and the chain is a diffusion of his goodness, and since God is eternally perfect, then we must see this eternal perfection. If not, we have to find “the missing link” (and is not evolution a mere temporalizing of the chain?)
March 12, 2011
Very fine examination of the Platonic notions about the dual nature of God that gave birth to the Great Chain of Being and its implications for later Western thought. I predict repeated re-readings in the years to come.
January 21, 2021
Fascinating and full of incredible anecdotes. A pretty tough style, which probably comes from being a set of transcribed lectures. Otherwise, it's a one of a kind book.
June 25, 2026
I was forced to truncate this review. The full version is on my Substack.
Anyone who today ventures to contemplate the immane edifice of classical metaphysics and theology with any appreciable measure of insight or seriousness will almost surely come away from the exercise with two impressions which, by a kind of near-ineffable magic, prove themselves to be simultaneously complementary and conflicting: first, that this enterprise, so justly deemed to be the very foundation stone of Western thought for more than two millennia, represents one of the truly heroic flights of the human mind; and second, that at the very heart of this magnificent project sits a mystery which is as vexatious and bewildering as it is essential and ineradicable. On the one hand, classical theology reveals to us, as both the starting point and the terminus of its investigations, a God who is non-contingent, non-composite, unconditioned, impassible, infinite, and absolutely and utterly beyond all distinction, differentiation, or change. On the other, we are told that the world around us — the world of contingency, mutability, temporality, generation, corruption, birth, death, and decay — is the product of this very same simple, unconditioned, and imperishable being. How can the infinite birth the finite? How does Absolute Stillness create roiling change?
In The Great Chain of Being, Arthur Lovejoy bestows upon us a masterful chronicle of the variegated and often ingenious attempts of countless savants to answer this epochal question. As the book is an incontrovertible classic in the field of intellectual history, any attempts to praise it would be at once wholly superfluous and miserably inadequate. Nevertheless, encomia are amply in order. Lovejoy’s book traverses an enormous field; he speaks with learning and authority on subjects ranging far beyond the metaphysics and theology that are his chief concerns; epic poetry, theodicy, the cosmographical speculations in vogue during the Renaissance and early modern periods, and even 18th-century biological theories fall comfortably within the purview of his erudition; and those who understand that, whatever psychological wellsprings or socioeconomic interests may, from time to time, impel men to profess certain beliefs, it is ideas and ideas alone that, in the grand course of history, have ruled their minds and directed their actions, are keenly enjoined to follow along.
Recalling Alfred North Whitehead’s lapidary and undeniable dictum that all of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, Lovejoy introduces us to what he calls the principle of plenitude. This principle states, in essence, that anything whose existence is not self-contradictory must exist. The ultimate justification of this principle is to be found in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus and runs as follows: The realm of our everyday experience, though a mere shadow of the true reality, is ultimately quite intelligible. This, Plato insists, could not be so unless there were immaterial and immutable essences — what Plato calls Forms — which set down the paradigms of things and encompass multiple concrete instances under the penumbrae of their universality.
However, since the sole constraint upon whether or not a Form may exist is that it not be self-contradictory, the question arises of which Forms God — the Ultimate Form of Forms — saw fit to grant the privilege of a further embodied existence. Plato’s answer, and the answer of an extensive cavalcade of philosophers who have followed him down the centuries, is: All of them. Strange though this answer may appear, Plato insists that it is true because, were it not true, it would imply that God is stingy about granting being to finite things, even though any impartation of mere finite being to anything else would do nothing at all to diminish His own Infinite Being.
Moreover, as Lovejoy points out, many philosophers also justified the principle of plenitude by appealing to the principle of sufficient reason, the basic metaphysical postulate that every contingent fact must be explainable, either in terms of some other contingent fact, or in terms of some necessary proposition. If only some of the Forms were allowed to be instantiated, it is not clear what non-arbitrary basis there might for this decision, thus making the physical universe into nothing but a capricious excrescence of the divine will — a conclusion that, to all thoroughgoing and consistent rationalists, was unacceptable.
Additionally, the principle of plenitude has often been closely conjoined with two other principles which are, in truth, its mere corollaries: the principle of continuity, which declares that, in the scale of being, every conceivable grade, shade, and quality of every attribute must, with no breaks of any sort, appear in the universe; and the principle of gradation, which depicts the great chain of being as a hierarchically arranged ladder whose ascending rungs showcase ever greater orders of perfection. As they worked their way through the history of Western thought, these three principles displayed some truly astonishing fecundative powers.
Plotinus, for instance, who had such an incalculable influence on the history of Christian thought, reasoned from all of the foregoing principles to the conclusion that the One could not do otherwise than to create, that He is driven, by an ineluctable internal principle of His own nature, to spontaneously gush forth His being and generate a universe that teems with all possible forms in innumerable abundance. Hence, Lovejoy alleges that, latent within Plotinus’ thought, are not one God but two: the first being the all-sufficient, perfect, and immutable One, who is neither constrained by nor dependent upon anything; and the second being the God of overflowing and exuberant creativity, of ceaseless, ungovernable, irrepressible force, who, by His own nature, cannot do otherwise than to diffuse Himself.
The alternating swings of emphasis between the one conception and the other form the stuff of Western intellectual history. Though, as Lovejoy is careful to note, the strictly intellectual conflict between these two notions can, in a manner of speaking, be resolved via the venerable doctrine of the concordance of opposites, resolving the practical conflict between the ethical ideals to be derived is quite another matter. Given that the highest aim of human life is to imitate God, how ought one to go about imitating Him? Should one retreat into the contemplative life and rid oneself of worldly attachments, or ought one instead to suck out the marrow of life with all due alacrity, walking in the footsteps of God the Creator by means, say, of art or politics?
With the dialectical stage thus set, Lovejoy guides us splendidly through some of the Western thought’s most momentous turns. He lays utterly to waste the widely believed but unsupportable notion that Copernican astronomy diminished man’s view of himself and his place in the cosmos. In fact, it is a rather straightforward deduction from the Plotinian theory of emanation that the center of the universe is no place of honor at all. Being flows from the One down a descending series of stages and only reaches the final point of material existence after a lengthy peregrination. Thus, we, sitting at the center of the universe, receive, according to this old view, only the dregs of existence and have no legitimate cause to be proud. My reaction to seeing Lovejoy dismantle this fable that was rather like T. H. Huxley’s upon first encountering Darwinian theory: “How very stupid of me not to have thought of that!”
Though I lack the space to discuss every subject which Lovejoy treats with his critical eye, I am obliged to pause to discuss Lovejoy’s exquisite account of the origin of Romanticism, a discussion so insightful and so penetrating that, were his book to contain nothing else of any value, it would still, on the strength of this alone, deserve serious attention. As the Augustan Age wound down to a close, the principle of plenitude began to encounter certain not inconsiderable dangers. Perhaps the most blunt and unavoidable of these was the obvious empirical problem that all possible beings were not to be found inhabiting the earth. More than this, as the fields now known as archaeology and paleontology struggled to be born, investigators began to uncover all manner of fossils, suggesting quite heavily to them that a vast number of types of creatures which once existed on this planet exist here no longer. How is it, it came to be asked, that the Deity, infinitely good as He must be, might have prevented some creatures from existing? How could He have left gaps in creation?
To dodge these and other tangles which came to afflict the principle of plenitude, subsequent thinkers invented the ingenious expedient of temporizing it. While is not the case, they generously conceded, that creation displays its refulgently infinite richness and diversity now, they nevertheless insisted that, when its history and temporal evolution are viewed sub specie aeternitatis, it surely must do so. Thus arises the conception of the world as an unfinished and ever-developing project; and from this, it also swiftly follows that God, in His work to bestow being upon all conceivable things, must ever strive and struggle to do so, must fight against the recalcitrance of finitude, must spill forth ever-newer forms and try ever-grander experiments.
This cosmic and theological dynamism had, as its clear practical corollary, the idea that struggle, diversity, and individuality are to be valued for their own sakes, that the true way to imitate God is to fight against the fates, to strive and never to be satisfied, to create without cease and always work to produce the new, the previously unseen, the dazzlingly original. In this, the entire Sturm und Drang of Romanticism, with its passionate cult of passion and its total worship of originality, was born.
Given that The Great Chain of Being is a book so boundlessly and so appropriately teeming with richness, can I have any criticisms to make of it? Alas, constraints of space force me to restrict myself to voicing only one, and it concerns something that Lovejoy says nearly at the very end of his book:
This, I must ruefully admit, is a rather disappointing coda to an otherwise virtuoso performance. Lovejoy is, of course, entirely correct that there is an inextirpable tension between the infinity and changelessness of God and the finitude and temporality of our world; but from this, the conclusion that the principle of sufficient reason is to be rejected cannot be so cavalierly drawn — at least not without utterly devastating consequences to Lovejoy’s own project in The Great Chain of Being, and, indeed, to any argument either for or against anything at all. The principle of sufficient reason must be either swallowed whole and treated as a universal and exceptionless truth, or it must be utterly cast into the flames and dismissed as entirely inapplicable to the world. Half measures, adopted either in a spurious commitment to balance or in a facile attempt to reach a sort of higher synthesis, are not permitted us here.
Perceiving this is, indeed, a rather simple matter. As Michael Della Rocca demonstrates in his paper PSR, those wishing to adopt only a partial and limited version of the principle of sufficient reason, in which only some contingent facts are explainable but others are not, must implicitly draw a line of demarcation separating these two categories. The moment one posits two distinct classes of explainable and unexplainable things, the question forthwith arises why those things which are in the explainable class are explainable why those things which are are in the unexplainable class are unexplainable. If one replies that there is no reason for this separation — that it, in short, is unexplainable — then one has thereby undermined any grounds for belief in the restricted form of the principle of sufficient reason. And if one replies instead that there is a reason for the separation — that there is an explanation for why some things are explainable and others are not — then one has, paradoxically, explained something about the class of unexplainable things, and thereby also explained something about the members of that class. When discussion lights upon the principle of sufficient reason, therefore, matters are stark and simple: it is either all or nothing. And presumedly, since to here choose nothing would instantly reduce Lovejoy’s grand project of historical genealogy, so skillfully undertaken in The Great Chain of Being, to ashes, he would much prefer to choose all.
It is my firm belief that, in facing the contradictions the Lovejoy puts before us, we ought make no effort to deny them; instead, we should gird up our loins like men, face them without fear, and walk the path that has been blazed for us by those like Heraclitus and the great Cardinal Cusanus.
Consider for a moment the inscrutable conundrum with which I began my discussion: When God created the world, did He do so by way of a free, arbitrary, and groundless choice, or was He motivated to do so by the irresistible internal promptings of His own nature? Did He choose to pull from nothingness a creation which, of itself, could add nothing to His greatness, or did He, as the Romantics boldly asserted, need to do so?
It would seem that we are trapped here between Scylla and Charybdis — and yet, I insist that matters are not truly so. For what, after all, is “reason”? The votaries of God’s arbitrary choice implicitly declare that reason, too, is but one of His creations, one which He might have made in any way that pleased Him and which only takes the form of our acquaintance because God deemed, quite without reason, that it should do so. The partisans of rational ineluctability, for their part, frame reason as though it were a force that stood outside even the Almighty. In truth, reason is both of these things, and it is neither of them. Reason is not God's arbitrary creation, nor is it a force extrinsic to Him: Rather it is Him. God’s decisions are both perfectly rational and perfectly arbitrary: rational because they proceed from His rational nature, which is Himself, and arbitrary because there is nothing beyond this nature — beyond God’s very Self and Identity — to constrain them. Thus, God’s arbitrary choice is the very paradigm of rationality — though this is the case not because God capriciously declares it to be so, but rather decidedly because that is simply what reason is.
Here, in short, we have arrived at Nicholas of Cusa’s doctrine of the coincidence of opposites. God is neither inexorable reason nor arbitrary will, and yet, He is both, sublated into a higher synthesis. And because this awe-inspiring and ineffable mystery — which stretches our reason further than it can go and yet shows us that our intellective powers can nevertheless almost glimpse, as through a glass darkly, the very dimmest shadow of the beatific vision — reveals the true nature of the divine nature, its consequences percolate down to everything that Lovejoy saw fit to discuss in his book. Is God reason or will? — He is both. Is God self-contained perfection, or is He an overflowing striving? — He is both. Do biological and cosmic evolution proceed across a continuous gradient, or do they make leaps? — They do both. Is evil, as the 18th-century optimists maintained, ultimately necessary to the very structure of things on account of the physical world’s finitude, or is it something that is meant to be overcome? — It is both. Shall humanity imitate God by withdrawing into contemplation of eternal perfection, or shall it join Him as He acts in the world and add its stamp to His glorious and beautiful design? — It must do both.
Though Lovejoy does mention the doctrine of the coincidence of opposites, he does not do so any detail, and it is clear that, in the final analysis, he regards it as scarcely more than a rather miserable subterfuge. This, in my view, is a catastrophic error. For, after all, we do reside in the grip of history; history’s great seesaw, with its swings between one Zeitgeist and another, one ideal and another, one side of a contradiction and another, is nought but the image of God’s own coincidentia oppositorum, the fingerprint of His work upon us all; and it is therefore God’s project — and ours — to realize His eternal design within the frame of temporality. That, surely, as nothing else, is a miracle worthy of the divine.
Anyone who today ventures to contemplate the immane edifice of classical metaphysics and theology with any appreciable measure of insight or seriousness will almost surely come away from the exercise with two impressions which, by a kind of near-ineffable magic, prove themselves to be simultaneously complementary and conflicting: first, that this enterprise, so justly deemed to be the very foundation stone of Western thought for more than two millennia, represents one of the truly heroic flights of the human mind; and second, that at the very heart of this magnificent project sits a mystery which is as vexatious and bewildering as it is essential and ineradicable. On the one hand, classical theology reveals to us, as both the starting point and the terminus of its investigations, a God who is non-contingent, non-composite, unconditioned, impassible, infinite, and absolutely and utterly beyond all distinction, differentiation, or change. On the other, we are told that the world around us — the world of contingency, mutability, temporality, generation, corruption, birth, death, and decay — is the product of this very same simple, unconditioned, and imperishable being. How can the infinite birth the finite? How does Absolute Stillness create roiling change?
In The Great Chain of Being, Arthur Lovejoy bestows upon us a masterful chronicle of the variegated and often ingenious attempts of countless savants to answer this epochal question. As the book is an incontrovertible classic in the field of intellectual history, any attempts to praise it would be at once wholly superfluous and miserably inadequate. Nevertheless, encomia are amply in order. Lovejoy’s book traverses an enormous field; he speaks with learning and authority on subjects ranging far beyond the metaphysics and theology that are his chief concerns; epic poetry, theodicy, the cosmographical speculations in vogue during the Renaissance and early modern periods, and even 18th-century biological theories fall comfortably within the purview of his erudition; and those who understand that, whatever psychological wellsprings or socioeconomic interests may, from time to time, impel men to profess certain beliefs, it is ideas and ideas alone that, in the grand course of history, have ruled their minds and directed their actions, are keenly enjoined to follow along.
Recalling Alfred North Whitehead’s lapidary and undeniable dictum that all of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, Lovejoy introduces us to what he calls the principle of plenitude. This principle states, in essence, that anything whose existence is not self-contradictory must exist. The ultimate justification of this principle is to be found in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus and runs as follows: The realm of our everyday experience, though a mere shadow of the true reality, is ultimately quite intelligible. This, Plato insists, could not be so unless there were immaterial and immutable essences — what Plato calls Forms — which set down the paradigms of things and encompass multiple concrete instances under the penumbrae of their universality.
However, since the sole constraint upon whether or not a Form may exist is that it not be self-contradictory, the question arises of which Forms God — the Ultimate Form of Forms — saw fit to grant the privilege of a further embodied existence. Plato’s answer, and the answer of an extensive cavalcade of philosophers who have followed him down the centuries, is: All of them. Strange though this answer may appear, Plato insists that it is true because, were it not true, it would imply that God is stingy about granting being to finite things, even though any impartation of mere finite being to anything else would do nothing at all to diminish His own Infinite Being.
Moreover, as Lovejoy points out, many philosophers also justified the principle of plenitude by appealing to the principle of sufficient reason, the basic metaphysical postulate that every contingent fact must be explainable, either in terms of some other contingent fact, or in terms of some necessary proposition. If only some of the Forms were allowed to be instantiated, it is not clear what non-arbitrary basis there might for this decision, thus making the physical universe into nothing but a capricious excrescence of the divine will — a conclusion that, to all thoroughgoing and consistent rationalists, was unacceptable.
Additionally, the principle of plenitude has often been closely conjoined with two other principles which are, in truth, its mere corollaries: the principle of continuity, which declares that, in the scale of being, every conceivable grade, shade, and quality of every attribute must, with no breaks of any sort, appear in the universe; and the principle of gradation, which depicts the great chain of being as a hierarchically arranged ladder whose ascending rungs showcase ever greater orders of perfection. As they worked their way through the history of Western thought, these three principles displayed some truly astonishing fecundative powers.
Plotinus, for instance, who had such an incalculable influence on the history of Christian thought, reasoned from all of the foregoing principles to the conclusion that the One could not do otherwise than to create, that He is driven, by an ineluctable internal principle of His own nature, to spontaneously gush forth His being and generate a universe that teems with all possible forms in innumerable abundance. Hence, Lovejoy alleges that, latent within Plotinus’ thought, are not one God but two: the first being the all-sufficient, perfect, and immutable One, who is neither constrained by nor dependent upon anything; and the second being the God of overflowing and exuberant creativity, of ceaseless, ungovernable, irrepressible force, who, by His own nature, cannot do otherwise than to diffuse Himself.
The alternating swings of emphasis between the one conception and the other form the stuff of Western intellectual history. Though, as Lovejoy is careful to note, the strictly intellectual conflict between these two notions can, in a manner of speaking, be resolved via the venerable doctrine of the concordance of opposites, resolving the practical conflict between the ethical ideals to be derived is quite another matter. Given that the highest aim of human life is to imitate God, how ought one to go about imitating Him? Should one retreat into the contemplative life and rid oneself of worldly attachments, or ought one instead to suck out the marrow of life with all due alacrity, walking in the footsteps of God the Creator by means, say, of art or politics?
With the dialectical stage thus set, Lovejoy guides us splendidly through some of the Western thought’s most momentous turns. He lays utterly to waste the widely believed but unsupportable notion that Copernican astronomy diminished man’s view of himself and his place in the cosmos. In fact, it is a rather straightforward deduction from the Plotinian theory of emanation that the center of the universe is no place of honor at all. Being flows from the One down a descending series of stages and only reaches the final point of material existence after a lengthy peregrination. Thus, we, sitting at the center of the universe, receive, according to this old view, only the dregs of existence and have no legitimate cause to be proud. My reaction to seeing Lovejoy dismantle this fable that was rather like T. H. Huxley’s upon first encountering Darwinian theory: “How very stupid of me not to have thought of that!”
Though I lack the space to discuss every subject which Lovejoy treats with his critical eye, I am obliged to pause to discuss Lovejoy’s exquisite account of the origin of Romanticism, a discussion so insightful and so penetrating that, were his book to contain nothing else of any value, it would still, on the strength of this alone, deserve serious attention. As the Augustan Age wound down to a close, the principle of plenitude began to encounter certain not inconsiderable dangers. Perhaps the most blunt and unavoidable of these was the obvious empirical problem that all possible beings were not to be found inhabiting the earth. More than this, as the fields now known as archaeology and paleontology struggled to be born, investigators began to uncover all manner of fossils, suggesting quite heavily to them that a vast number of types of creatures which once existed on this planet exist here no longer. How is it, it came to be asked, that the Deity, infinitely good as He must be, might have prevented some creatures from existing? How could He have left gaps in creation?
To dodge these and other tangles which came to afflict the principle of plenitude, subsequent thinkers invented the ingenious expedient of temporizing it. While is not the case, they generously conceded, that creation displays its refulgently infinite richness and diversity now, they nevertheless insisted that, when its history and temporal evolution are viewed sub specie aeternitatis, it surely must do so. Thus arises the conception of the world as an unfinished and ever-developing project; and from this, it also swiftly follows that God, in His work to bestow being upon all conceivable things, must ever strive and struggle to do so, must fight against the recalcitrance of finitude, must spill forth ever-newer forms and try ever-grander experiments.
This cosmic and theological dynamism had, as its clear practical corollary, the idea that struggle, diversity, and individuality are to be valued for their own sakes, that the true way to imitate God is to fight against the fates, to strive and never to be satisfied, to create without cease and always work to produce the new, the previously unseen, the dazzlingly original. In this, the entire Sturm und Drang of Romanticism, with its passionate cult of passion and its total worship of originality, was born.
Given that The Great Chain of Being is a book so boundlessly and so appropriately teeming with richness, can I have any criticisms to make of it? Alas, constraints of space force me to restrict myself to voicing only one, and it concerns something that Lovejoy says nearly at the very end of his book:
But the history of the idea of the Chain of Being — in so far as that idea presupposed such a complete rational intelligibility of the world — is the history of a failure; more precisely and more justly, it is the record of an experiment in thought carried on for many centuries by many great and lesser minds, which can now be seen to have had an instructive negative outcome. The experiment, taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most grandiose enterprises of the human intellect. But as the consequences of this most persistent and most comprehensive of hypotheses became more and more explicit, the more apparent became its difficulties; and when they are fully drawn out, they show the hypothesis of the absolute rationality of the cosmos to be unbelievable. It conflicts, in the first place, with one immense fact, besides many particular facts, in the natural order — the fact that existence as we experience it is temporal. A world of time and change — this, at least, our history has shown — is a world which can neither be deduced from nor reconciled with the postulate that existence is the expression and consequence of a system of ‘eternal’ and ‘necessary’ truths inherent in the very logic of being. Since such a system could manifest itself only in a static and constant world, and since empirical reality is not static and constant, the ‘image’ (as Plato called it) does not correspond with the supposed ‘model’ and cannot be explained by it. Any change whereby nature at one time contains other things or more things than it contains at another time is fatal to the principle of sufficient reason, in the sense which we have seen it to have had for those philosophers who understood it best and believed in it most devoutly. (pp. 329-330)
This, I must ruefully admit, is a rather disappointing coda to an otherwise virtuoso performance. Lovejoy is, of course, entirely correct that there is an inextirpable tension between the infinity and changelessness of God and the finitude and temporality of our world; but from this, the conclusion that the principle of sufficient reason is to be rejected cannot be so cavalierly drawn — at least not without utterly devastating consequences to Lovejoy’s own project in The Great Chain of Being, and, indeed, to any argument either for or against anything at all. The principle of sufficient reason must be either swallowed whole and treated as a universal and exceptionless truth, or it must be utterly cast into the flames and dismissed as entirely inapplicable to the world. Half measures, adopted either in a spurious commitment to balance or in a facile attempt to reach a sort of higher synthesis, are not permitted us here.
Perceiving this is, indeed, a rather simple matter. As Michael Della Rocca demonstrates in his paper PSR, those wishing to adopt only a partial and limited version of the principle of sufficient reason, in which only some contingent facts are explainable but others are not, must implicitly draw a line of demarcation separating these two categories. The moment one posits two distinct classes of explainable and unexplainable things, the question forthwith arises why those things which are in the explainable class are explainable why those things which are are in the unexplainable class are unexplainable. If one replies that there is no reason for this separation — that it, in short, is unexplainable — then one has thereby undermined any grounds for belief in the restricted form of the principle of sufficient reason. And if one replies instead that there is a reason for the separation — that there is an explanation for why some things are explainable and others are not — then one has, paradoxically, explained something about the class of unexplainable things, and thereby also explained something about the members of that class. When discussion lights upon the principle of sufficient reason, therefore, matters are stark and simple: it is either all or nothing. And presumedly, since to here choose nothing would instantly reduce Lovejoy’s grand project of historical genealogy, so skillfully undertaken in The Great Chain of Being, to ashes, he would much prefer to choose all.
It is my firm belief that, in facing the contradictions the Lovejoy puts before us, we ought make no effort to deny them; instead, we should gird up our loins like men, face them without fear, and walk the path that has been blazed for us by those like Heraclitus and the great Cardinal Cusanus.
Consider for a moment the inscrutable conundrum with which I began my discussion: When God created the world, did He do so by way of a free, arbitrary, and groundless choice, or was He motivated to do so by the irresistible internal promptings of His own nature? Did He choose to pull from nothingness a creation which, of itself, could add nothing to His greatness, or did He, as the Romantics boldly asserted, need to do so?
It would seem that we are trapped here between Scylla and Charybdis — and yet, I insist that matters are not truly so. For what, after all, is “reason”? The votaries of God’s arbitrary choice implicitly declare that reason, too, is but one of His creations, one which He might have made in any way that pleased Him and which only takes the form of our acquaintance because God deemed, quite without reason, that it should do so. The partisans of rational ineluctability, for their part, frame reason as though it were a force that stood outside even the Almighty. In truth, reason is both of these things, and it is neither of them. Reason is not God's arbitrary creation, nor is it a force extrinsic to Him: Rather it is Him. God’s decisions are both perfectly rational and perfectly arbitrary: rational because they proceed from His rational nature, which is Himself, and arbitrary because there is nothing beyond this nature — beyond God’s very Self and Identity — to constrain them. Thus, God’s arbitrary choice is the very paradigm of rationality — though this is the case not because God capriciously declares it to be so, but rather decidedly because that is simply what reason is.
Here, in short, we have arrived at Nicholas of Cusa’s doctrine of the coincidence of opposites. God is neither inexorable reason nor arbitrary will, and yet, He is both, sublated into a higher synthesis. And because this awe-inspiring and ineffable mystery — which stretches our reason further than it can go and yet shows us that our intellective powers can nevertheless almost glimpse, as through a glass darkly, the very dimmest shadow of the beatific vision — reveals the true nature of the divine nature, its consequences percolate down to everything that Lovejoy saw fit to discuss in his book. Is God reason or will? — He is both. Is God self-contained perfection, or is He an overflowing striving? — He is both. Do biological and cosmic evolution proceed across a continuous gradient, or do they make leaps? — They do both. Is evil, as the 18th-century optimists maintained, ultimately necessary to the very structure of things on account of the physical world’s finitude, or is it something that is meant to be overcome? — It is both. Shall humanity imitate God by withdrawing into contemplation of eternal perfection, or shall it join Him as He acts in the world and add its stamp to His glorious and beautiful design? — It must do both.
Though Lovejoy does mention the doctrine of the coincidence of opposites, he does not do so any detail, and it is clear that, in the final analysis, he regards it as scarcely more than a rather miserable subterfuge. This, in my view, is a catastrophic error. For, after all, we do reside in the grip of history; history’s great seesaw, with its swings between one Zeitgeist and another, one ideal and another, one side of a contradiction and another, is nought but the image of God’s own coincidentia oppositorum, the fingerprint of His work upon us all; and it is therefore God’s project — and ours — to realize His eternal design within the frame of temporality. That, surely, as nothing else, is a miracle worthy of the divine.
March 23, 2020
Lovejoy is a terrible writer, but the subject of this book was so fascinating that it made for an interesting read anyway. Also, Lovejoy doesn't have too much competition in this field, as no-one else has produced an equally lengthy book on the subject of The Great Chain of Being. Anyway, the story begins with Plato and Aristotle, continues on through the Neoplatonists into the Middle Ages, and then comes to an end in the eighteenth century, when with the new developments in science and philosophy the interest in the great chain of being faded away, from the mainstream of European thinking at any rate. The basic idea of the great chain is that all living creatures are connected in a single hierarchical chain which rises upward to the Oneness of God, which is both the source and the end of all life. There are plenty of interesting quotes, and fascinating philosophical insights, but Lovejoy fails to present all the material in a concise or accessible manner. He waffles on much of the time, failing to get to the point; the entire book of 300 plus pages could be reduced to much less than a hundred pages in terms of its actual content. To anyone with an interest in such matters, it is worth reading but be prepared to enter into the task of reading this book with all the patience you possess as you will have to wade through pages of specious verbiage to finally get to whatever the point of the passage is supposed to be about. My rating of three stars actually reflects a compromise between the one star of Lovejoy's writing and the five stars of the interest of the subject of the book.
Update March 2020: I have just finished re-reading this book and realise that I largely misjudged it the first time around. Therefore I am giving it five stars and revising my earlier comments. It does have to be said that Lovejoy waffles a lot, but the scope of his comments are much wider than I registered at first. He tackles such issues as whether God has any choice in what he does: if not, then God is a kind of mechanical necessity; if yes, then there is a certain amount of arbitrariness in the creation. The book is much deeper than is apparent at first. I will certainly re-read it at some time in the future, by which time I might well be in a position to fully understand all the issues it raises.
Update March 2020: I have just finished re-reading this book and realise that I largely misjudged it the first time around. Therefore I am giving it five stars and revising my earlier comments. It does have to be said that Lovejoy waffles a lot, but the scope of his comments are much wider than I registered at first. He tackles such issues as whether God has any choice in what he does: if not, then God is a kind of mechanical necessity; if yes, then there is a certain amount of arbitrariness in the creation. The book is much deeper than is apparent at first. I will certainly re-read it at some time in the future, by which time I might well be in a position to fully understand all the issues it raises.
February 10, 2014
A classic but a bit of a slog, stylistically. The three big "unit-ideas" are Continuity, Gradation, and Plenitude. With breathtaking erudition Lovejoy unpacks not only the regularity with which these ideas have manifested themselves in the European philosophical and literary tradition (which he construed as a single ongoing conversation) but also the varied and often contradictory ways they have been unfolded and deployed. Methodologically, Lovejoy is interested only in yeh interplay of the ideas themselves: he eschews any effort to ground the ideas or their variability in particular social times and places. This creates a "seminar in the sky" effect: this is he sense it which it is a history of IDEAS rather than a history of INTELLECTUALS.
February 13, 2015
i HAVE been trying to read this book for 3 weeks. Just could not get into it. I have little Interest in the thoughts of those from 1,700 years ago nor do I want to read about Plato and his thoughts. I got up to th 17th century and gave up. A total waste of time for me.perhaps I will return to it when I am old. ha
September 30, 2018
Oi! 200 words where 10 would suffice. Still, beneath the verbiage a thorough study of the Great Chain of Being lives.
June 21, 2025
The Great Chain of Being is a fascinating and ambitious philosophical study that traces the historical evolution and metamorphosis of a single idea, one that originated with Plato and gradually absorbed layers of meaning from other major thinkers. At its core lies the principle of plenitude, attributed to Plato, which proposes that a morally perfect and omnipotent God must bring into existence all possible forms of life. The absence of any possibility would imply a limitation and a contradiction to divine perfection. Thus giving rise to the belief in a universe that is infinitely full and abundant. Ironically, this conception unsettled the human ego, as it displaced the notion that man was the singular, central creation of God and the universe.
This idea was reinforced by Aristotle’s principle of continuity, which posits that nature does not make leaps: that all change unfolds gradually, without abrupt breaks. Later, Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason added further metaphysical rigor, insisting that everything must have a reason or cause for its existence.
Together, these principles manifest in what Lovejoy terms the Great Chain of Being : a hierarchical ontology in which every entity occupies a fixed and purposeful place, ordered from the lowest material forms to the highest spiritual realities, with God at the summit. Humanity, in this schema, served as the pivotal link between the physical and the divine/spiritual.
What makes Lovejoy’s account so engrossing is his ability to show how this single metaphysical construct reverberated through centuries of intellectual, religious, and social history. He carefully documents how different philosophers and theologians reinterpreted and reappropriated the Chain across time. The notion of a “spiritual hierarchy” eventually came to justify various forms of discrimination, including those based on race, gender, class, and religion. (For examples, Europeans saw themselves more rational and in turn closer to divinity than those of other races. Hence, placing themselves higher on the hierarchy)
Although its explicit influence diminished in the modern era, Lovejoy shows how vestiges of the Great Chain still linger in cultural thought: in why we call the lion the “king of the jungle” or view oak trees as the leader of trees. These remnants reflect the deeply embedded hierarchy that once shaped not just metaphysics, but values, aesthetics, and social order.
Reading this book was a great experience. I had no prior awareness of just how prominently this idea permeated the medieval and early modern imagination. Lovejoy’s work is dense but intellectually rewarding, a must-read for anyone interested in the history of ideas and how philosophical concepts evolve, persist, and shape the world in often invisible ways!
This idea was reinforced by Aristotle’s principle of continuity, which posits that nature does not make leaps: that all change unfolds gradually, without abrupt breaks. Later, Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason added further metaphysical rigor, insisting that everything must have a reason or cause for its existence.
Together, these principles manifest in what Lovejoy terms the Great Chain of Being : a hierarchical ontology in which every entity occupies a fixed and purposeful place, ordered from the lowest material forms to the highest spiritual realities, with God at the summit. Humanity, in this schema, served as the pivotal link between the physical and the divine/spiritual.
What makes Lovejoy’s account so engrossing is his ability to show how this single metaphysical construct reverberated through centuries of intellectual, religious, and social history. He carefully documents how different philosophers and theologians reinterpreted and reappropriated the Chain across time. The notion of a “spiritual hierarchy” eventually came to justify various forms of discrimination, including those based on race, gender, class, and religion. (For examples, Europeans saw themselves more rational and in turn closer to divinity than those of other races. Hence, placing themselves higher on the hierarchy)
Although its explicit influence diminished in the modern era, Lovejoy shows how vestiges of the Great Chain still linger in cultural thought: in why we call the lion the “king of the jungle” or view oak trees as the leader of trees. These remnants reflect the deeply embedded hierarchy that once shaped not just metaphysics, but values, aesthetics, and social order.
Reading this book was a great experience. I had no prior awareness of just how prominently this idea permeated the medieval and early modern imagination. Lovejoy’s work is dense but intellectually rewarding, a must-read for anyone interested in the history of ideas and how philosophical concepts evolve, persist, and shape the world in often invisible ways!
October 21, 2023
As a history of an idea, consider the task well undertaken and accomplished. Lovejoy is thorough and completely undistracted in tracing this idea through two thousand years of philosophical thought. The first chapter, The Study of the History of Ideas, is worth a read on its own merit.
But as a book, this is poorly executed. As the author himself admits in preface, the lectures are written down almost exactly as they were orally delivered, and so whatever vocal inflection you would’ve taken for granted in keeping you on track is completely lost, and the problem is further exacerbated in that, they did in fact add in plenty of extra citations and quotes to flesh out the arguments. The result is a book of dense philosophy that is poorly written. Who ever heard of such?
It’s worth noting that this is the only modern book of its kind. No one else has seemed interested in pursuing this idea of the Chain of Being in any fruitful way prior to the 1700s, let alone in following it from Plato to Romanticism in excruciating detail. The whole point of this book is that the philosophers through the ages took the principles of the Chain for granted until a certain Romantic strain finally revealed the self-contradictory nature of it all and this succeeded in flipping certain of these principles completely upside down.
But as a book, this is poorly executed. As the author himself admits in preface, the lectures are written down almost exactly as they were orally delivered, and so whatever vocal inflection you would’ve taken for granted in keeping you on track is completely lost, and the problem is further exacerbated in that, they did in fact add in plenty of extra citations and quotes to flesh out the arguments. The result is a book of dense philosophy that is poorly written. Who ever heard of such?
It’s worth noting that this is the only modern book of its kind. No one else has seemed interested in pursuing this idea of the Chain of Being in any fruitful way prior to the 1700s, let alone in following it from Plato to Romanticism in excruciating detail. The whole point of this book is that the philosophers through the ages took the principles of the Chain for granted until a certain Romantic strain finally revealed the self-contradictory nature of it all and this succeeded in flipping certain of these principles completely upside down.
September 24, 2025
There are a few initial rules:
(1) The world is abundant in kinds.
(2) Kinds form a continuum.
(3) Kinds are arranged in order.
Each rule runs into trouble. The simplicity of God seems at odds with the richness of the world.
The qualitative differences between kinds, together with their supposed continuity (usually conceived quantitatively), are either unintelligible or incoherent.
Chapters 3–6 have more philosophical interest.
What is also of interest: since the theodicean or optimistic moral picture is frustrating, dissatisfaction with it encourages the temporalization of the great chain of being—thus one reason for the idea of progress. On this basis, the principle of continuity becomes a reason for the Romantics, and for Schelling, to support diversitarianism.
(1) The world is abundant in kinds.
(2) Kinds form a continuum.
(3) Kinds are arranged in order.
Each rule runs into trouble. The simplicity of God seems at odds with the richness of the world.
The qualitative differences between kinds, together with their supposed continuity (usually conceived quantitatively), are either unintelligible or incoherent.
Chapters 3–6 have more philosophical interest.
What is also of interest: since the theodicean or optimistic moral picture is frustrating, dissatisfaction with it encourages the temporalization of the great chain of being—thus one reason for the idea of progress. On this basis, the principle of continuity becomes a reason for the Romantics, and for Schelling, to support diversitarianism.
October 26, 2017
My parochial education was sadly lacking in philosophical history and thought with its focus primarily on religious teachings. I am delighted to realize that my self-education as an adult allows me to read these serious philosophical lectures on the history of some formative Platonic ideas with pleasure and understanding. Now, 80+ years after the lectures were given, I can see the results of this history in the continuing evolution of Western cultural thought and belief.
February 11, 2018
Tracing across eras from the age of the Platonists the notion of plenitude in a (rather!) academic study.
It began with the Platonic explanation of the universe having so many manifestly imperfect things: what was perfect was the universe, and its perfection consisted of having every possible type of being.
Onward through its mutations. The philosophers who debated whether God had created freely. The philosophers who insisted, as soon as the notion of other worlds like ours arose, that obviously they had to be inhabited. The philosophers who rejected the notion of progress because it would require that the plenitude not be complete at some point.
It began with the Platonic explanation of the universe having so many manifestly imperfect things: what was perfect was the universe, and its perfection consisted of having every possible type of being.
Onward through its mutations. The philosophers who debated whether God had created freely. The philosophers who insisted, as soon as the notion of other worlds like ours arose, that obviously they had to be inhabited. The philosophers who rejected the notion of progress because it would require that the plenitude not be complete at some point.
May 14, 2018
A seminal text in the history of ideas that may be both obsolete and cursory but nonetheless important as an introduction to the contours of Western thought.
March 17, 2024
freedom is the ability to choose good and thus God places temptation and evil so we have to freedom to make decisions.
September 7, 2025
I think I know how to read yet I cannot read a paragraph without wondering what I just read
September 19, 2023
În toate versiunile sale, platonismul este legat de ideea de plenitudine, de „scară a ființei”.
Ce desemnează, totuşi, plenitudinea (wholeness)? Termenul a fost definit, în 1936, de către Arthur O. Lovejoy, în The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Plenitudinea numeşte, mai întîi,
În volumul din 1980, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, fizicianul David Bohm a extins principiul plenitudinii, afirmînd că separaţia dintre subiect şi obiect (dintre cunoscător şi cunoscut) nu este un dat originar, ci o consecinţă (nefastă) a limbajului care obligă mintea să gîndească în diviziuni, sciziuni şi separaţii. De fapt, „realitatea şi conştiinţa sînt legate”. Asta rămîne de văzut.
Cartea lui David Bohm nu mi s-a părut convingătoare. În schimb, lucrarea lui Arthur O. Lovejoy a fost și rămîne o capodoperă.
Ce desemnează, totuşi, plenitudinea (wholeness)? Termenul a fost definit, în 1936, de către Arthur O. Lovejoy, în The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Plenitudinea numeşte, mai întîi,
i) continuitatea diferitelor ordine de existenţă şi este o idee care apare în (neo)platonism, dar culminează în metafizica lui Leibniz. De altfel, Leibniz este primul gînditor care defineşte principiul continuităţii (care e un alt nume pentru principiul plenitudinii). Între specii nu există locuri goale, neocupate, vacante. Între regunul vegetal și cel animnal trebuie să existe o ființă care deține cîte ceva din amîndouă. Leibniz a identificat această ființă miraculoasă în așa-numitul „miel scitic”.
ii) În al doilea rînd - şi ca o consecinţă a acceptării continuităţii ordinelor realităţii -, filosoful care primeşte ideea de plenitudine trebuie să admită în acelaşi timp următorul principiu logic: orice este posibil tinde să se realizeze în timp; nu există posibil fără o împlinire (actualizare) a lui.
În volumul din 1980, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, fizicianul David Bohm a extins principiul plenitudinii, afirmînd că separaţia dintre subiect şi obiect (dintre cunoscător şi cunoscut) nu este un dat originar, ci o consecinţă (nefastă) a limbajului care obligă mintea să gîndească în diviziuni, sciziuni şi separaţii. De fapt, „realitatea şi conştiinţa sînt legate”. Asta rămîne de văzut.
Cartea lui David Bohm nu mi s-a părut convingătoare. În schimb, lucrarea lui Arthur O. Lovejoy a fost și rămîne o capodoperă.
January 17, 2011
Lovejoy traces the idea of the “Great Chain of Being”, and the impact it has had on Western thought over the past 2500 years. This book is really focused on the atomic principles formulating the “Great Chain”: principle of sufficient reason, principle of plenitude, and principle of continuity; focusing on the different ways they have been interpreted to affect the course of Western philosophy and theology.
Highly recommended to anyone interested in better understanding how some core ideas in society have evolved over the past 2500 years. The concepts presented were the primary world-view until the end of the Eighteenth Century, but they have been largely forgotten. If anything, this book helps to put any literature written before the 1800s into better context. Only downside to the book was that some of the quotations were in languages other than English with no translations provided.
Highly recommended to anyone interested in better understanding how some core ideas in society have evolved over the past 2500 years. The concepts presented were the primary world-view until the end of the Eighteenth Century, but they have been largely forgotten. If anything, this book helps to put any literature written before the 1800s into better context. Only downside to the book was that some of the quotations were in languages other than English with no translations provided.
July 17, 2016
Dense book on the idea of plentitude that starts with Greek philosophy then concludes with Leibnitz’s famous philosophical writings on the “best of all possible worlds”.
I happen to disagree with the author’s conclusions, but find the narrative one of the best on the subject matter nevertheless. The explanation of Medieval cosmology in particular with regard to the Ptolemaic universe is enchanting.
The imaginative affect of en-visioning that time in history through the authentic descriptions of Lovejoy is worth the read alone.
The latter half of the book is heavy treading. Simply put, the basic premise is that everything that can be created is created because everything that can be is.
In other words, there is no possibility of “gaps” in the "chain of being" that leave metaphysical reality in potential without actualizing the possible in the existing physical universe.
The world is necessarily filled to the brim.
I happen to disagree with the author’s conclusions, but find the narrative one of the best on the subject matter nevertheless. The explanation of Medieval cosmology in particular with regard to the Ptolemaic universe is enchanting.
The imaginative affect of en-visioning that time in history through the authentic descriptions of Lovejoy is worth the read alone.
The latter half of the book is heavy treading. Simply put, the basic premise is that everything that can be created is created because everything that can be is.
In other words, there is no possibility of “gaps” in the "chain of being" that leave metaphysical reality in potential without actualizing the possible in the existing physical universe.
The world is necessarily filled to the brim.
June 14, 2016
The book presents a very typical idea of many societies, where , fathers and in general families canalize their children to serve their interests. It shows also in a way how, sometimes women are not given the value of a thinking human being and are led by others without any consideration of their wishes, opinions and desires, it is true that men usually over lead women but they are not to be blamed either because this is a result of a long history full of religious superstitions, misinterpretations of religion and miss-use of power. It is the whole society to be blamed and I think the way to fix that is to raise the new generations in a new way that calls for justice between genders and focuses more of their mental and intellectual abilities and potential instead of spreading another discriminatory speech against men and blame them for something, yes they use but were not the founders of .
May 22, 2011
This book provides an astonishing tour through the history of philosophy by following the fate of the idea of a Great Chain of Being. I'm not going to try to summarize this story. The book sat on my shelf for many years. I finally picked it up during my study of eighteenth century ideas. I found Lovejoy's characterization of the Enlightenment and Romanticism the parts of the book I was best able to follow. His description of Romaticism's struggle to resist the Enlightenment's inclination to universalize and to insist on the inclusion of the varieties of particularities in our world view was very helpful. Of all things, it made Foucault's project much more intelligible to me. For this alone I would thank Lovejoy.
December 10, 2019
Brilliant book. This work single-handedly kicked off an entire field and genre, the history of ideas. I had to skip through most of it because it was too dense and boring, but the first chapters on Plato and Platonism, my oh my, I could read them again and again. His cutting distinction between this worldly and other-worldly mysticism is sharp as steel and tuns over the common understanding of those categories 180 degrees. Thinking about it now, I’m actually going to re-read those highlighter soaked pages right now.
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July 2, 2015
Excellent exposition of the idea of the basis of our world view from Classical Greece to the Enlightenment. It is somewhat dated (1936) but Dr. Lovejoy's views are brilliantly served up for consumption by the educated elite of his time. This is strictly lectures for a graduate level university audience. He expects his listeners to be able to understand Latin, Classical Greek, German and French. He does not simplify as much as he explains. He requires much knowledge on the part of his reader. It is the seminal work in the field and requires close reading.
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