A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues

A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues PDF

Author: André Comte-Sponville

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2002-09

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780805045567

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Drawing on thinkers from Aristotle to Simone Weil, by way of Aquinas, Kant, Rilke, Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Rawls, among others, Comte-Sponville elaborates on the qualities that constitute the essence and excellence of humankind.

Treatise on Ethics (1684)

Treatise on Ethics (1684) PDF

Author: Nicolas Malebranche

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 9401124809

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explanation might be understood in relationship to our mental, moral, and spiritual life, leapt to his attention and was to occupy it from that day until his death. II. MALEBRANCHE'S THEORY OF BEING His fIrst work, The Search After Truth, appeared from 1674-76, some fourteen to sixteen years after his dramatic encounter with Descartes' work; to this day it is the only work unfailingly associated with his name, though it was the first of nine studies and several volumes of responses in which he went on to explore and develop his thought. Malebranche criticizes the prevailing theories of sense perception, imagination, memory and cognition, and fIrst proposes his own theory of how we acquire and evaluate ideas - from mathematical to physical, and moral to self-reflective. Underlying this theory is his rejection of Scholastic Aristotelian metaphysics, in which particular beings are said to have powers or forms that act on our minds to inform us. Malebranche - here in company with other critics . of that metaphysics from Montaigne to Bacon and Hobbes - argues that the prevailing view of beings endowed with powers by which they act unilaterally, as "causes" in the full sense of that word, makes no sense and cannot be confirmed by experience. For Malebranche, on the other hand, power can be predicated univocally only of God. Created beings have only that limited power given by God under the conditions of creation.

The Moral Treatises

The Moral Treatises PDF

Author: St. Augustine of Hippo

Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 3849672042

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The moral treatises contain much that will instruct and interest the reader; while some views will appear strange to those who fail to distinguish between different ages and different types of virtue and piety. Augustine shared with the Greek and Latin fathers the ascetic preference for voluntary celibacy and poverty. He accepted the distinction which dates from the second century, between two kinds of morality: a lower morality of the common people, which consists in keeping the ten commandments; and a higher sanctity of the elect few, which observes, in addition, the evangelical counsels, so called, or the monastic virtues. He practiced this doctrine after his conversion. He ought to have married the mother of his son; but in devoting himself to the priesthood, he felt it his duty to remain unmarried, according to the prevailing spirit of the church in his age. His teacher, Ambrose, and his older contemporary, Jerome, went still further in the enthusiastic praise of single life. We must admire their power of self-denial and undivided consecration, though we may dissent from their theory.

Treatise on the Virtues

Treatise on the Virtues PDF

Author: St. Thomas Aquinas

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2019-08-15

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0268158037

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In his Treatise on the Virtues, Aquinas discusses the character and function of habit; the essence, subject, cause, and meaning of virtue; and the separate intellectual, moral, cardinal, and theological virtues. His work constitutes one of the most thorough and incisive accounts of virtue in the history of Christian philosophy. John Oesterle's accurate and elegant translation makes this enduring work readily accessible to the modern reader.

A Treatise on the Moral Ideals (Classic Reprint)

A Treatise on the Moral Ideals (Classic Reprint) PDF

Author: John Grote

Publisher:

Published: 2015-09-27

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13: 9781330624418

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Excerpt from A Treatise on the Moral Ideals In the Author's Introduction to the Exploratio Philosophica, the present treatise is alluded to in words to which I have already called attention in my Preface to his Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy. After mentioning that he had contemplated publishing an answer to Mr J. S. Mill's Utilitarianism in the year 1863, he continues, 'I altered my mind as to this, and determined rather to put together in an uncontroversial form what seemed to me the truth, in opposition to what I thought error. This, if it please God, is in the way of being accomplished, subject to all the delays which interest in other employments, uncertain health, and some not, I think, uncalled for scrupulousness and anxiety as to what, one writes on a subject so important, may throw in the way of it.' The Exploratio itself was published in 1865, and the Author died in the summer of the following year. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Treatise of Morals

Treatise of Morals PDF

Author: David Hume

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-26

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 9781440079191

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Excerpt from Treatise of Morals: And Selections From the Treatise of the Passions Hume's main philosophical interest was, as he tells us himself, in morals and politics. "I cannot forbear." he says in the last section of the fourth part of Book I., "having a curiosity to be acquainted with the principles of moral good and evil, the nature and foundation of government, and the cause of those several passions and inclinations which actuate and govern me." The discussion of logical and metaphysical principles in the first book is intended as an introduction to the moral and political subjects of the second and third. Yet the connection between Books II. and III. and Book I. is not strict. Hume's morals do not depend on his metaphysics; rather the purpose of his metaphysical discussions is to show that reason is impotent both in science and in conduct, and therefore has no bearing at all on moral inquiries. The second part of the Treatise makes it clearer than ever that Hume's scepticism is a criticism of reason and not of life. The self whose existence he explained away in Book I. is taken for granted in Books II. and III.; and in his account of the will Hume insists emphatically on the reality of moral causation. For the first part of the Treatise has established the independence and self-sufficingness of the passions and of man's moral nature, and defended them against all dictation of reason. In these books therefore Hume leaves his scepticism behind him. He is no longer a revolutionary. His moral theory follows in its main outlines the sentimentalist school of the eighteenth century. In morals and politics he is "on the side of the angels," and plays his part in making objections to the doctrines of Mandeville and Hobbes, who are the two Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century in morals and politics, as Hume himself was to be in metaphysics. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.