Kurze Encyklopädie der Philosophie

Elementary instruction is not to be sought here.*) The customary knowledge of the scholar in every field, who, progressing with the times, also occasionally looks toward philosophy, is assumed here. Furthermore, the following four main propositions:

• the fundamental concepts of practical philosophy are aesthetic;
• the fundamental concepts of metaphysics are contradictory;
• the fundamental concepts of psychology are mathematical;
• for the foundation of natural philosophy, Synechologie the study of continuity is required,

should at least be historically familiar, and the bewilderment which they often tend to cause among Kantians and modern Spinozists upon first hearing should be a thing of the past.

Regarding the first of these propositions, which has countless adherents even if they do not understand how to articulate it, one will find the proof and various explanations in the book. It points to the well-known honestum et turpe the honorable and the base, whose Stoic development indeed appears to Cicero like a rounded pebble, yet to practiced eyes is almost as recognizable as true logic is to Aristotle.

*) Notwithstanding the technical term Elementarlehre theory of elements, which Kant also used as a heading in the Critique of Pure Reason.