Pathways of Philosophy

A study of the descent of Western idealism in the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions as continued by outstanding creative thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Includes as well the following representatives of the Platonic descent: Paracelsus, Francis Bacon, Jakob Boehme, and Immanuel Kant. These philosophers and mystics have influenced profoundly the entire course of modern civilization. Their lives are significant, for only when we know the men themselves can we interpret correctly the force and character of their ideals through the examples of their lives and ideas.