Table Of ContentTHE GREAT CONVERSATION
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T H E GR E AT
C O N V E R SAT I O N
A Historical Introduction to Philosophy
EIGHTH EDITION
NORMAN MELCHERT
Professor Emeritus, Lehigh University
DAVID R. MORROW
Visiting Fellow, George Mason University
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Melchert, Norman, author. | Morrow, David R., author.
Title: The great conversation : a historical introduction to philosophy /
Norman Melchert, Professor Emeritus, Lehigh University; David R. Morrow,
Visiting Fellow, George Mason University.
Description: Eighth edition. | New York : Oxford University Press, 2018.
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018011655 | ISBN 9780190670610 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy–Textbooks.
Classification: LCC BD21 .M43 2018 | DDC 190–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011655
Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by LSC Communications Inc.
United States of America
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CONTENTS
A Word to Instructors xiii the soul 31
A Word to Students xv how to live 33
Acknowledgments xxi
3. APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN
1. BEFORE PHILOSOPHY: MYTH ANCIENT INDIA 35
IN HESIOD AND HOMER 1
The Vedas and the Upaniṣads 35
Hesiod: War Among the Gods 2 The Buddha 38
Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Excellence 4 the four noble truths and the
noble eightfold path 39
2. PHILOSOPHY BEFORE right view 41
SOCRATES 9 Non-Self and Nāgasena 43
The Brahmanical Schools 45
Thales: The One as Water 10
vaiŚeṢika 46
Anaximander: The One as the Boundless 11
nyĀya 48
Xenophanes: The Gods as Fictions 13
The Great Conversation in India 53
Sketch: Pythagoras 15
Heraclitus: Oneness in the Logos 17
4. THE SOPHISTS: RHETORIC
Parmenides: Only the One 22
AND RELATIVISM IN ATHENS 55
Zeno: The Paradoxes of Common Sense 27
Atomism: The One and the Many Reconciled 28 Democracy 55
the key: an ambiguity 29 The Persian Wars 56
the world 30 The Sophists 58
v
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vi Contents
rhetoric 60 the dialogue 135
relativism 62 commentary and questions 142
physis and nomos 63 Phaedo (Death Scene) 144
Athens and Sparta at War 67 translator’s introduction 144
Aristophanes and Reaction 69 the dialogue (selection) 145
commentary and questions 147
5. REASON AND RELATIVISM IN
CHINA 75
8. PLATO: KNOWING THE REAL
A Brief History of Ancient China 75 AND THE GOOD 148
Mozi 77
Knowledge and Opinion 149
The School of Names 80
making the distinction 149
The Later Mohists 82
we do know certain truths 151
Zhuangzi 83
the objects of knowledge 152
Sketch: Laozi 88
the reality of the forms 154
The World and the Forms 155
6. SOCRATES: TO KNOW
how forms are related to the
ONESELF 91
world 155
Character 92 lower and higher forms 158
Is Socrates a Sophist? 95 the form of the good 160
What Socrates “Knows” 97 The Love of Wisdom 162
we ought to search for truth 98 what wisdom is 162
human excellence is knowledge 99 love and wisdom 165
all wrongdoing is due to ignorance 100 The Soul 168
the most important thing of all is to the immortality of the soul 169
care for your soul 100 the structure of the soul 170
Morality 171
7. THE TRIAL AND DEATH OF
The State 177
SOCRATES 102 Problems with the Forms 179
Euthyphro 103
translator’s introduction 103
9. ARISTOTLE: THE REALITY OF
the dialogue 103
THE WORLD 182
commentary and questions 111
Apology 116 Aristotle and Plato 182
translator’s introduction 116 Logic and Knowledge 184
the dialogue 117 terms and statements 185
commentary and questions 129 truth 187
Crito 135 reasons why: the syllogism 188
translator’s introduction 135 knowing first principles 190
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Contents vii
The World 192 The Stoics 241
nature 193 Profile: Marcus Aurelius 244
the four “becauses” 194 The Skeptics 246
is there purpose in nature? 195
teleology 196
12. JEWS AND CHRISTIANS:
First Philosophy 197
SIN, SALVATION, AND LOVE 253
not plato’s forms 198
what of mathematics? 199 Background 253
substance and form 199 Jesus 255
pure actualities 201 The Meaning of Jesus 259
god 201
The Soul 203 13. AUGUSTINE: GOD AND
levels of soul 204 THE SOUL 261
soul and body 205
Wisdom, Happiness, and God 267
nous 206
God and the World 270
The Good Life 208
the great chain of being 270
happiness 208
Sketch: Hypatia of Alexandria 273
virtue or excellence (areté) 212
evil 273
the role of reason 213
time 274
responsibility 216
Human Nature and Its Corruption 277
the highest good 217
Human Nature and Its Restoration 282
10. CONFUCIUS, MENCIUS, AND Augustine on Relativism 284
XUNZI: VIRTUE IN ANCIENT The Two Cities 285
CHINA 220 Augustine and the Philosophers 287
reason and authority 288
Confucius 220
intellect and will 288
the way of confucius 221
epicureans and stoics 289
ritual propriety 223
good government 224
14. PHILOSOPHY IN THE
Mencius 226
ISLAMIC WORLD: THE GREAT
differentiated love 226
CONVERSATION SPREADS
human nature is good 228
OUT 292
Xunzi 230
The Confucians’ Legacy 233 A Sea Change in the Mediterranean Basin 292
Al-Kindī, the “Philosopher of the Arabs” 294
11. EPICUREANS, STOICS, AND
Al-Fārābi, the “Second Master” 297
SKEPTICS: HAPPINESS FOR THE
religion as subordinate to
MANY 235
philosophy 297
The Epicureans 236 emanation and the active intellect 298
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viii Contents
Sketch: The Celestial Spheres 299 17. RENÉ DESCARTES:
certitude, absolute certitude, and DOUBTING OUR WAY TO
opinion 299 CERTAINTY 360
Avicenna, the “Preeminent Master” 300
The Method 362
existence and essence 301
Meditations on First Philosophy 364
the necessary existent, god 302
meditation i 366
the soul and its faculties 304
Commentary and Questions 368
Al-Ghazālī 306
meditation ii 369
Sketch: Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) 309
Commentary and Questions 372
The Great Conversation in the Islamic World 309
meditation iii 375
Commentary and Questions 381
15. ANSELM AND AQUINAS: meditation iv 384
EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE IN
Commentary and Questions 387
GOD AND THE WORLD 311 meditation v 388
Anselm: On That, Than Which No Greater Can Commentary and Questions 391
meditation vi 392
Be Conceived 311
The Transfer of Learning 315 Commentary and Questions 398
What Has Descartes Done? 400
Thomas Aquinas: Rethinking Aristotle 316
a new ideal for knowledge 400
Sketch: Averroës, the Commentator 317
a new vision of reality 401
philosophy and theology 318
problems 401
from creation to god 319
the preeminence of epistemology 402
the nature of god 324
humans: their souls 326
humans: their knowledge 328
18. HOBBES, LOCKE, AND
humans: their good 330
BERKELEY: MATERIALISM
Ockham and Skeptical Doubts—Again 335
AND THE BEGINNINGS OF
EMPIRICISM 404
16. FROM MEDIEVAL TO
Thomas Hobbes: Catching Persons in the Net of
MODERN EUROPE 340
the New Science 404
The World God Made for Us 340 method 405
Reforming the Church 344 minds and motives 406
Revolutions 348 Sketch: Margaret Cavendish 407
humanism 348 Sketch: Francis Bacon 412
skeptical thoughts revived 350 the natural foundation of
copernicus to kepler to galileo: moral rules 413
the great triple play 353 John Locke: Looking to Experience 416
The Counter-Reformation 358 origin of ideas 417
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Contents ix
idea of the soul 419 Sketch: Baruch Spinoza 477
idea of personal identity 419 Sketch: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 478
language and essence 420 Reasoning and the Ideas of Metaphysics:
the extent of knowledge 422 God, World, and Soul 479
of representative government 424 the soul 481
of toleration 426 the world and the free will 482
George Berkeley: Ideas into Things 427 god 483
abstract ideas 428 the ontological argument 484
ideas and things 430 Reason and Morality 485
god 434 the good will 486
the moral law 488
19. DAVID HUME: UNMASKING Sketch: Jean-Jacques Rousseau 490
THE PRETENSIONS OF autonomy 491
REASON 438 freedom 492
How Newton Did It 439
21. GEORG WILHELM
Profile: Émilie du Châtelet 440
FRIEDRICH HEGEL: TAKING
To Be the Newton of Human Nature 441
The Theory of Ideas 443 HISTORY SERIOUSLY 496
The Association of Ideas 444
Historical and Intellectual Context 497
Causation: The Very Idea 445
the french revolution 497
The Disappearing Self 451
the romantics 498
Rescuing Human Freedom 453
Epistemology Internalized 498
Is It Reasonable to Believe in God? 455
Sketch: Arthur Schopenhauer 501
Understanding Morality 458
Self and Others 504
reason is not a motivator 458
Stoic and Skeptical Consciousness 507
the origins of moral judgment 460
Hegel’s Analysis of Christianity 508
Is Hume a Skeptic? 462
Reason and Reality: The Theory of Idealism 509
Spirit Made Objective: The Social Character
20. IMMANUEL KANT: of Ethics 511
REHABILITATING REASON History and Freedom 516
(WITHIN STRICT LIMITS) 465
22. KIERKEGAARD AND MARX:
Critique 467
TWO WAYS TO “CORRECT”
Judgments 468
HEGEL 521
Geometry, Mathematics, Space, and Time 470
Common Sense, Science, and the A Priori Kierkegaard: On Individual Existence 521
Categories 473 the aesthetic 522
Phenomena and Noumena 476 the ethical 525
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