THE GREAT CHAIN of BEING: a STUDY of the HISTORY of an IDEA. the WILLIAM JAMES LECTURES DELIVERED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 1932-1933. (PHILOSOPHY, Greek, Leibniz, Spinoza)

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. As New. 1970. Hardcover. 0674361539 .*** FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request *** - *** IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT - 382 pp. Near mint condition -- Ninth Printing -- William James Lectures, delivered 1932-1933. -- CONTENTS: Introduction: the Study of the History of Ideas; The Genesis of the Idea in Greek Philosophy: the Three Principles; The Chain of Being and Some Internal Conflicts in Medieval Thought; The Principle of Plenitude and the New Cosmography; Plenitude and Sufficient Reason in Leibniz and Spinoza; The Chain of Being in Eighteenth-Century Thought, and Man's Place and Role in Nature; The Principle of Plenitude and Eighteenth-Century Optimism; The Chain of Being and Some Aspects of Eighteenth-Century Biology; The Temporalizing of the Chain of Being; Romanticism and the Principle of Plenitude; The Outcome of the History and Its Moral; Notes. -- DESCRIPTION: "Men are galvanized by ideas and act as vehicles for them. Such a ruling idea is that of the great chain of being. Prof. Lovejoy's study records the birth, the growth, the vicissitudes, transformations, and finally the senility, and perhaps the death of this idea. The study is as fascinating as that of the rise and decay of an empire, and, in fact, it is the study of the empire of an idea over human minds throughout many centuries. Prof. Lovejoy's approach is fresh and different." - Modern Language, Notes -- with a bonus offer--; .