In philosophy, Conditioned and Unconditioned are terms which were introduced by Sir William Hamilton. The Unconditioned is regarded by Sir William Hamilton as a genus including two species: the Infinite, or the unconditionally unlimited, and the Absolute, or the unconditionally limited; and the thesis which he maintains and expounds, and which forms one of the leading doctrines of his philosophical system, is that the Unconditioned, as thus explained, is entirely unthinkable. The mind is confined, in point of knowledge though not of faith, to the limited and conditioned - the Conditioned being the mean between two unconditionates, mutually exclusive and equally inconceivable, but of which, on the principles of contradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as necessary. Thus infinite space is inconceivable by us, while at the same time it is equally impossible to us to conceive of space as finite; yet one of these must be admitted necessary, and our conception is in some sense a mean between the inconceivables. The doctrine was applied by Mansel to determine the limits of religious thought. Research Conditioned
Abbreviations
General Information
Research Conditioned