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Joseph Alexander Leighton Biography

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“Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systemic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality.”

PhilosophyRealityResultsTheoryReflectionAspectHarmonyRegardInsightDataAnalysisReasoningConceptionPrincipalComprehensiveTotalitySynthesis
Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton
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“It is doubtful whether our present system of popular education does not retard independent or self thinking as much as it promotes it. All genuine education is self-education. It will incite the individual to think for himself, by rethinking what the race's great thinkers have already thought for him, thus enabling him to go ahead under his own mental steam.”

ThinkingDoeSelfIndividualRaceIndependentGenuineThinkerSteamDoubtfulSelf EducationEnablingRetardGreat ThinkersRethinkingPopular Education
Book:The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy
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“God is a wider consciousness than we are, a pure intelligence, spiritual life and actuality. He is neither one nor many, neither man nor spirit. Such predicates belong only to finite beings.”

MenSpiritualSpiritConsciousnessPureSpiritual LifeFiniteActuality
Book:Typical Modern Conceptions of God: Or, The Absolute of German Romantic Idealism and of English Evolutionary Agnosticism, with a Constructive Essay
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“The more serious poetry of the race has a philosophical structure of thought. It contains beliefs and conceptions in regard to the nature of man and the universe, God and the soul, fate and providence, suffering, evil and destiny. Great poetry always has, like the higher religion, a metaphysical content. It deals with the same august issues, experiences and conceptions as metaphysics or first philosophy.”

MenFirstsSoulPhilosophySufferingUniverseEvilBeliefDealsRaceDestinyIssuesFateSeriousHigherPhilosophicalRegardStructureConceptionProvidenceMetaphysicsMetaphysicalAugustNature Of ManGreat PoetGreat Poetry
Book:The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy
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“Death is not regarded as a natural affair by primitive man. Death is believed to be due to the intervention of some malevolent or at least not well disposed power. Normally it should not take place. So we have all through history crude explanations of death, as e.g., the influence of the serpent, the devil, sin.”

MenShouldWellsNaturalSinInfluenceDevilAffairDuesExplanationPrimitiveInterventionCrudeSerpentPrimitive Man
Book:The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy
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“This is the very heart of true morality--not to struggle, not to fight with any weapons, for one's self alone--but to struggle and to fight for the common interest, to wield the power of brain and good right arm if need be for one's family, for the ordered community of life, for the state, for moral principles, humanity, and the common good.”

IfsNeedsHeartSelfStatesHumanityFightingInterestCommunityCommonBrainMoralPrinciplesStruggleArmsMoralityWeaponsCommon GoodMoral PrinciplesCommon Interests
Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton
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“If the spiritual values of human existence at its highest term of development and achievement do not endure, amidst all the changes and chances of this mortal universe, there seems to be no stable or coherent meaning in existence. Then the universe is irrational--indeed it is no universe at all.”

IfsHumansSeemsSpiritualValuesUniverseTermChanceExistenceDevelopmentAchievementHighestEndureMortalsStableIrrationalHuman ExistenceSpiritual Values
Book:Man and the Cosmos - An introduction to Metaphysics.
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“Immediate knowledge tells us only that God is, not what he is. But if God is not an empty Being beyond the stars, he must be present in the communion of human spirits, and, in his relation to these, he is the One Spirit who pervades reality and thought. Hence there can be no final separation between our immediate consciousness of him and our mediated knowledge of reality.”

IfsHumansRealitySpiritStarsConsciousnessEmptyRelationFinalsSeparationCommunionHuman SpiritBeyond The Stars
Book:Typical Modern Conceptions of God: Or, The Absolute of German Romantic Idealism and of English Evolutionary Agnosticism, with a Constructive Essay
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“A system of philosophy, or metaphysics, is a union of a world view and a life view in one harmonious, complete, integral conception. In so far as any man strives to attain, by rational inquiry, a consistent and comprehensive view of life and reality, he is a metaphysician.”

MenWorldPhilosophyRealityViewsUnionsStriveRationalConsistentConceptionMetaphysicsStrifeInquiryComprehensiveHarmoniousWorld View
Book:Man and the Cosmos - An introduction to Metaphysics.
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“Faith in the continuance and enhancement of the intrinsic values--faith in truth, in beauty, in friendship, in love and harmony of life--in short, faith in reason and the worth of spiritual life--such faith is only another name for faith in the persistence of spiritual individuality. For, I repeat, these values are real only as functions of personal experience and deed. To have faith in the permanence of intrinsic values is to assume the enduring reality of selves who know truth, feel beauty, who love and win spiritual harmony.”

KnowsFeelsRealSelfReasonRealitySpiritualValuesWinningNamesFunctionHarmonyAssumingEndureIndividualityDeedsPersistenceRepeatsHave FaithSpiritual LifePersonal ExperiencesPermanenceIntrinsic ValueEnhancementContinuance
Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton
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“Human progress is not an uninterrupted march forward. It is a slow and devious movement with haltings and twistings. The pathway of man ascends and descends, wanders off into mazes. At times the trail seems to lose itself in the wilderness of human passion and folly. But inch by inch it goes forward with halting steps.”

MenHumansSeemsPassionLosesStepsProgressMovementWanderFollyWildernessMarchInchesTrailsPathwaysMazesHuman ProgressDevious
Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton
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“Today one might be tempted to say that patriotism is the last refuge of the tribal religion dedicated to the worship of German, French, English and Russian Gods of Battles. Surely such a religion has nothing in common with the religion which counsels for the disciple non-resistance, unstinted forgiveness, and the elimination of all rancor?”

MightTodayLastsCommonBattleWorshipResistanceDedicatedRefugeDiscipleTemptedEliminationRancor
Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton
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