Crimson 786’s Reviews > The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers > Status Update

Comte's Positivism & Darwin's Evolution... overlapped by Derby's lazy and uneducated Herbert Spencer, who ran away 48 miles on first day, 47 on the second & 20 on third.. only to return for three yrs education, without remembering what exactly did he learn.
An exaggerated urge for symmetry and order.

O' Schopenhauer; the great pessimist! how could you arrive at such a great conclusion: fear of death is the beginning of Philosophy and the final cause of religion.

Mind; indispensable organ for the perception of dialectical process
Mind & philosophy; to discover the unity that lies potential in diversity
Ethics;unify character & conduct
Politics;unify individuals into a state
Religion;reach hat absolute where all opposites are resolved into unity - matter & mind, subject & object, good & evil, are one
God; system of relationship in which all things move & beings hv significance

Life is not made for happiness, but for achievement.History is not the theatre of happiness; periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they're periods of harmony & this dull content is unworthy of a man

Struggle is the law of growth; character is built in the storm&stress of the world;man reaches his full height only through compulsion, responsibilities&suffering. Rationale of Pain; stimulus to reconstruction

Great men are not so much begetters, as midwives, of the future; what they bring forth is murdered by the spirit of the age (Zeitgeist). The genius merely place another stone on the pile, as others have done; somehow his has a good fortune to come last, and when he places his stone, the arch stands self supported

George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel;Stuttgart 1770-Berlin 1831

Contemporary of Goethe, Napoleon & Beethoven, Mocked as "the official philosopher"
Inspired Hegelian right & left including Karl Marx

• Zeitgeist
• Idea; a group of relations
• Dialectical Movement; contrast/ opposition leading to complex whole. Identity of opposites, the golden mean (Aristotle)
• Culture begins with resolute self effacement

"Dialectical movement" - Of all relations, the most universal is that of contrast or opposition. Every thought, or thing, or idea, or situation-leads irresistibly to its opposite, and then unites with it to form a higher or more complex whole.

"identity of opposites " Thesis, antithesis and synthesis constitute the formula and secret of all development and all reality (Fichte)

Despite being extremely interesting, Kant was difficult. An inevitable break from the book, left me struggling to find my tempo and concentration... Finally I am over with the chapter on Kant.

The reward of Kant was exceedingly inspirational 9 1/2 pages section on Hegel. So profound, so incisive.

Dialectical movement, higher & complex whole, identity of opposites, Zeitgeist were impressive concepts

I think many things with the clearest conviction, which I never have the courage to say; but I will never say anything which I do not think

Kant's criticism of reason & exaltation of feeling, prepared for the volunteerism of Schopenhauer & Neitzsche, intuitionism of Bergson, pragmatism of William James, laws of thought & reality and Hegel's system of philosophy, the unknowable influenced Spencer