The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea

by Arthur O. Lovejoy and Arthur Lovejoy

Book Overview

From later antiquity down to the close of the eighteenth century, most philosophers and men of science and, indeed, most educated men, accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and structure of the world. In this volume, which embodies the William James lectures for 1933, Arthur O. Lovejoy points out the three principles--plenitude, continuity, and graduation--which were combined in this conception; analyzes their origins in the philosophies...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674361539
• ISBN13: 9780674361539
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

The Great Chain of Being.

_The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea_ is a publication of the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard in 1933 by philosopher and historian of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy, by Harvard University Press. Arthur O. Lovejoy (1873-1962) was a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University who had studied under William James and Josiah Royce. He developed the study of the history of ideas, which study he outlines and explains in the first lecture presented in this volume. The lectures presented here develop the history of an idea ("the great chain of being") which played a central role in the development of Occidental philosophy. Lovejoy explains in his preface to these lectures that the use of the phrase "the great chain of being" to describe the universe was used to refer to three characteristics of the constitution of the world: that these characteristics implied a certain conception of the nature of God, that this conception was conjoined with another to which it was in latent opposition to itself, and that most of the religious thought of the West has thus been at variance with itself. Lovejoy further maintains that the "great chain of being" was used to supply the basis for resolving the problem of evil and showing that the scheme of things was both intelligent and rational. Two further principles play a central role in Lovejoy's explication of the "great chain of being": "the principle of plenitude" and "the principle of continuity". The principle of plenitude may be traced back to Aristotle and simply states that all things that are possible will be, and it lies behind the ontological proof for the existence of God of Saint Anselm. The principle of continuity maintains that the qualitative differences of things must constitute a linear or continuous series. In providing a history of this central concept, Lovejoy traces the development of Western philosophy from the ancient Greeks (Plato and Aristotle), through the medieval period, to the rationalists (Leibniz and Spinoza), through some Eighteenth Century attempts to understand the universe, to the Romantic period (the German romantics and the metaphysical poets), to the modern day (in which the "great chain of being" was overturned and temporality came to play a unique role in the philosophies of individuals such as Bergson, Whitehead, and James). Lovejoy's lectures are very learned and show an incredible depth of philosophical understanding, as he traces the history of this idea. At the end, Lovejoy is to maintain that the idea eventually was overcome because it involved a static picture of the universe, and new philosophical systems (mentioning those of Schelling and Whitehead for example) came to allow for a temporal understanding of the universe and a God that evolves with it. (While his rejection of the notion of the "great chain of being" is perhaps over-hasty, particularly in light of what we now know about the "Big Bang" and the creation of the

A pioneering work that created a new field of study

With this book Lovejoy invented the area of study called ' The History of Ideas'. His tracing of a single idea through all its historical transformations gave a new interpretation to the concept of ' idea itself'. Ideas were not 'eternal unchanging concepts' but were evolving forms who took on new meanings in new situations.

Lovejoy's epic.

This is the landmark book of the field Lovejoy single-handedly invented (and of which perhaps he is still the sole master): the history of ideas. He wrote some other essays about different ideas and their histories (one of my favorites is about the concept of the "fortunate fall"), but this is his magnum opus and it reads like a thrilling detective story. He's a sleuth looking underneath the various intellectual currents over a 1500 year period in western thought, finding a culprit lurking in many of the failed philosophies and fashions we think we know -- the idea of the "great chain of being" foisted on us by Plato and his heirs.The book is worth the first two exhilarating chapters alone. After that, the book can get pretty heavy at times; and Lovejoy's long-thought-train, multi-disciplinary, multi-lingual approach can leave one a little lost in some passages. Keep going to the end, though -- the book gradually builds up to an amazing set of climaxes in the last few chapters. He shows how the various thinkers draw out all of the contradictory implications of the the original idea until the thing peters out into a strewn splatter of waste.It's funny and thought-provoking, and it will peel your mind like an onion.

A classic discussion of the influence of Platonic thought

Lovejoy was a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. This book represents an expanded version of a series of lectures given by Lovejoy at Harvard during the second half of the academic year 1932-33. The fact that this book remains in print over 60 years later is testimony to the fact that it has become a classic. The book concerns the Great Chain of Being, a way of looking at reality that can be traced to Plato and Aristotle. We begin with the supposition that existence is superior to non-existence. A good God, Plato argues, would allow any non-contradictory being to exist. God thus created a Universe full of all possible things. This Lovejoy calls the principle of plenitude, the maximally full World. From Aristotle later writers evolved the idea that changes in Nature were continuous; that "Nature makes no leaps." This became the principle of continuity. Eventually, philsophers would postulate a vast chain of Beings stretching from the perfect (God) to the nearly non-existent (lifeless matter). Mankind was somewhere in the middle of the chain - above the animals (specifically the Ape), but below the Angels. The principles of continuity and plenitude were integral to the thinking of many philosophers and scientists. Lovejoy traces how numerous thinkers - St. Thomas, Liebniz, and Schelling figure most prominently - wrestled with the implications of plenitude and continuity. Could plenitude explain evil? How could one account for change if God had created the chain at the beginning of History? Lovejoy also traces the fate of two contradictory Platonic conceptions of God. Plato had painted God as an Other-Worldly and self-sufficient being on one hand while also describing how God had manifested his thought in the real world. The chain was God's thought concretely expressed. This is not a book for someone who is a neophyte to philosophy. However it is an important book, particularly for understanding the intellectual foundations of much scientific and philosophical speculation of the past several hundred years. Lovejoy succeeds in showing how the Great Chain of Being lead to a number of surprising intellectual developments including Romanticism's appreciation for diversity. His writing is very clear. At times the book is amusing and it is always pleasurable to read.