De Veritate, prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verisimili, a possibili, et a falso [1] is the major work of Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury. He published it in 1624 on the advice of Grotius. [2]
De Veritate, prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verisimili, a possibili, et a falso [1] is the major work of Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury. He published it in 1624 on the advice of Grotius. [2]
De Veritate combines a theory of knowledge with a partial psychology, a methodology for the investigation of truth, and a scheme of natural religion. The author's method is prolix and often far from clear, but does contain the skeleton and much of the soul of a complete philosophy. Giving up all past theories as useless, Herbert professedly endeavours to constitute a new and true system. Truth, which he defines as a just conformation of the faculties with one another and with their objects, he distributed into four classes or stages:
The faculties of the mind are as numerous as the differences of their objects, and are accordingly innumerable; but they may be arranged in four groups. The first and fundamental and most certain group is the Natural Instinct, to which belong the notitiae communes, which are innate, of divine origin and indisputable. The second group, the next in certainty, is the sensus internus (under which head Herbert discusses amongst others love, hate, fear, conscience with its communis notitia, and free will); the third is the sensus externus; and the fourth is discursus, reasoning, to which, as being the least certain, we have recourse when the other faculties fail. The ratiocinative faculties proceed by division and analysis, by questioning, and are slow and gradual in their movement; they take aid from the other faculties, those of the instinctus naturalis being always the final test. Herbert's categories or questions to be used in investigation are ten in number whether (a thing is), what, of what sort, how much, in what relation, how, when, where, whence, wherefore. No faculty, rightly used, can err "even in dreams"; badly exercised, reasoning becomes the source of almost all our errors. The discussion of the notitiae communes is the most characteristic part of the book.
The exposition of them, though highly dogmatic, is at times strikingly Kantian in substance. "So far are these elements or sacred principles from being derived from experience or observation that without some of them, or at least some one of them, we can neither experience nor even observe." Unless we felt driven by them to explore the nature of things, "it would never occur to us to distinguish one thing from another."
It cannot be said that Herbert proves the existence of the common notions; he does not deduce them or even give any list of them. However, each faculty has its common notion; and they may be distinguished by six marks: their priority, independence, universality, certainty, necessity (for the well-being of man), and immediacy. Law is based on certain common notions; so is religion.
Though Herbert expressly defines the scope of his book as dealing with the intellect, not faith, it is the common notions of religion he has illustrated most fully; and it is plain that it is in this part of his system that he is chiefly interested. There is little polemic against the received form of Christianity, but Herbert's attitude towards the Church's doctrine is distinctly negative, and he denies revelation except to the individual soul. In the De veritate Herbert produced the first purely metaphysical treatise, written by an Englishman. Herbert's real claim to fame is as "the father of English Deism". [3] The common notions of religion are the famous five articles, which became the charter of the English deists. [4] [5] Charles Blount, in particular, acted as a publicist for Herbert's idea.
The initial reception for De Veritate was largely negative, with Herbert's friend, Pierre Gassendi, offering destructive criticism. Mersenne translated it into French, and sent a copy to René Descartes. [6] Descartes possibly did not take the book seriously until late in 1639; but then produced an essay on metaphysics himself in short order. [7]
Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe. More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God—often, but not necessarily, an impersonal and incomprehensible God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it, solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature.
The distinction between subject and object is a basic idea of philosophy.
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification", often in contrast to other possible sources of knowledge such as faith, tradition, or sensory experience. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".
The Book of Healing is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by Abu Ali ibn Sīna from medieval Persia, near Bukhara in Maverounnahr. He most likely began to compose the book in 1014, completed it around 1020, and published it in 1027.
Jaime Luciano Balmes y Urpiá was a Spanish philosopher, theologian, Catholic apologist, sociologist and political writer. Familiar with the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Balmes was an original philosopher who did not belong to any particular school or stream, and was called by Pius XII the Prince of Modern Apologetics.
Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631. The lunar crater Gassendi is named after him.
Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury KB was an English soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher of the Kingdom of England.
Matthew Tindal was an eminent English deist author. His works, highly influential at the dawn of the Enlightenment, caused great controversy and challenged the Christian consensus of his time.
Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Métaphysiques. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected by A. Baillet.
Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.
The Novum Organum, fully Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae or Instaurationis Magnae, Pars II, is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.
Nous, from Greek: νοῦς, is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.
Principles of Philosophy is a book by René Descartes. In essence, it is a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version followed in 1647.
Ietsism is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – that "there must be something undefined beyond the mundane which may or may not be possible to be known or proven", but on the other hand do not accept or subscribe to an established view of the nature of a deity offered by any particular religion. Some related terms in English are agnostic theism, advocates of eclecticism, the perennial philosophy, deists, or those who are spiritual but not religious.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
Common sense is "knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument". As such, it is often considered to represent the basic level of sound practical judgement or knowledge of basic facts that any adult human being ought to possess. It is "common" in the sense of being shared by nearly all people. The everyday understanding of common sense is ultimately derived from historical philosophical discussions. Relevant terms from other languages used in such discussions include Latin sensus communis, Ancient Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις, and French bon sens. However, these are not straightforward translations in all contexts, and in English different shades of meaning have developed. In philosophical and scientific contexts, since the Age of Enlightenment the term "common sense" has been used for rhetorical effect both approvingly and disapprovingly. On the one hand it has been a standard for good taste, good sense, and source of scientific and logical axioms. On the other hand it has been equated to conventional wisdom, vulgar prejudice, and superstition.
Christian deism is a standpoint in the philosophy of religion stemming from Christianity and Deism. It refers to Deists who believe in the moral teachings—but not the divinity—of Jesus. Corbett and Corbett (1999) cite John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as exemplars.
Deism, the religious attitude typical of the Enlightenment, especially in France and England, holds that the only way the existence of God can be proven is to combine the application of reason with observation of the world. A Deist is defined as "One who believes in the existence of a God or Supreme Being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason." Deism was often synonymous with so-called natural religion because its principles are drawn from nature and human reasoning. In contrast to Deism there are many cultural religions or revealed religions, such as Judaism, Trinitarian Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and others, which believe in supernatural intervention of God in the world; while Deism denies any supernatural intervention and emphasizes that the world is operated by natural laws of the Supreme Being.
Catholicism and Deism are two theologies that have opposed each other in matters of the role of God in the world. Deism is the philosophical belief which posits that although God exists as the uncaused First Cause, responsible for the creation of the universe, God does not interact directly with that subsequently created world. As deism is not organized, its adherents differ widely in important matters of belief, but all are in agreement in denying the significance of revelation in Christian Scripture and Tradition. Deists argue against Catholicism by either, only considering Scripture to be a helpful moral tool, or denying: its divine character, the infallibility of the Church and Traditions, and the validity of its evidence as a complete manifestation of the will of God. Deism is first considered to have manifested itself in England towards the latter end of the seventeenth century.