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This chapter discusses the impact of Green's views on his contemporaries and subsequent generations of philosophers. Green's metaphysical and ethical views were sympathetically received and developed in Britain by Bernard Bosanquet, Edward Caird, R. B. Haldane, J. S. Mackenzie, J. H. Muirhead, R. L. Nettleship, Hastings Rashdall, D. G. Ritchie, and Arnold Toynbee. His metaphysical and ethical views also had an influence in the United States. The young John Dewey developed his form of pragmatism out of idealist metaphysical and epistemological claims, and he articulated an ethics of self-realization in conscious response to Green. Later, Brand Blanshard showed the influence of Green, among others, in reacting to the then dominant Logical Positivism by defending a form of absolute idealism and a form of ethical naturalism.

Chapter 3 tried to explain some of Aquinas's basic (or metaphysical) views, ones that we need to understand in order to follow him when it comes to his approach to God and evil. They are not theological views. They are ones that Aquinas thought defensible by reasonable argument without recourse to divine revelation. This chapter adds to the account of such views by turning to what Aquinas thought in general about “goodness” and “badness.” These are terms that always feature prominently in discussions of God and evil, but how did Aquinas understand them? He did not do so by drawing on beliefs about God. Rather, some of his beliefs about God depended on what he thought of goodness and badness without reference to God, thinking that formed a critical backdrop to his overall position on God and evil. That is why we need at this stage to be clear as to what it amounts to.

This chapter examines Heidegger's essentially metaphysical view of technology and some of the inconsistencies in his use of and interpretation of his own technologies. It first reviews Heidegger's reception and continuation of influence within the philosophy of technology. Some three and a half decades since his death, while there is some evidence that Heidegger is virtually the only still strongly visible philosopher of technology of his generation, there is also evidence that this reputation is fading. It then turns to a postphenomenological analysis concerning Heidegger's blindness to distinctions and multistabilities that may be found in technologies. It uses the example on the pen and the typewriter because it focuses upon Heidegger's own technologies, reveals the weaknesses in his “phenomenology”, and shows his nostalgic taste for older technologies.