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

Arthur O. Lovejoy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 1976

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 of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists; traces the most important of their diverse samifications in subsequent religious thought, in metaphysics, in ethics and aesthetics, and in astronomical and biological theories; and copiously illustrates the influence of the conception as a whole, and of the ideas out of which it was compounded, upon the imagination and feelings as expressed in literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Great Chain of Being, employed as a title, would have suggested…what was 'probably the most widely familiar conception of the general scheme of things'—the idea of a world in which every being was related to every other in a continuously graded scale, with no possible form of diversity missing. Pursuing the biography of this idea through more than two thousand years, the distinguished author of these lectures makes clear its amazing influence on the thought and history of the Western World… Intellectual vigor, critical precision and an amazing knowledge of what mankind has thought and desired in other ages distinguishes this book. No student of the history of literature, science, or philosophy may well neglect it.
--Clifford Barrett (New York Times Book Review )

One of the great books of our generation.
--Marjorie Nicolson (American Scholar )

A fascinating and moving book… Everyone interested in the larger ironies of human history should read [it].
--Ernest Nagel (New Republic )

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… The learning exhibited in this book is vast.
--Raphael Demos (Modern Language Notes )

About the Author

Arthur O. Lovejoy taught philosophy for nearly forty years at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous works, including Essays in the History of Ideas and Revolt against Dualism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (January 31, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674361539
• ISBN-13: 978-0674361539
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #364,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 115 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic discussion of the influence of Platonic thought May 10, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

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.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovejoy's epic. December 4, 2002

By Stanley Allen

Format:Paperback

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.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic study in the history of ideas February 28, 2007

By filmnoirfan

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm not going to review this work as much as recommend it. They simply don't make scholars like Lovejoy anymore. I remember reading this as an undergrad in the 80s (bought to supplement my summer reading) and found it a most refreshing read compared to most of the trendy post-modernist "see-how-clever-I-am" works a la DeMan, Foucault, Derrida and their epigones that were de rigeur at the time. Read this to see how one can be a great thinker and write lucidly all at the same time. Amazing!