19th Century Philosophy, Misc

Frederick Bastiat’s last work was the Economic Harmonies, published in 1851. He died while completing it, and — though it had some uptake in the 19th century — in recent times scholarly interest has focused on his other work. In the Harmonies, he makes a remarkable claim: when properly understood, in a free market society all people’s economic interests are in harmony. If we consider that Karl Marx was arguing at the same time that those same societies are afflicted by (...) an endemic class struggle that can end only with the com-munist revolution, the contrast is sharp. In this paper, I explore Bastiat’s rationale for his claim, as a rejoinder to one of the influential arguments mounted by Marx against economic liberty. (shrink)

Reverend H.F.C. Logan is put forward as the formerly unidentified figure to which Robert Leslie Ellis referred in a journal entry of 1840 in which he wrote that it was due to his influence that William Whewell came to uphold particular Kantian views on time and space. The historical evidence of Ellis’s early familiarity with, and later commitment to Kant is noteworthy for at least two reasons. Firstly, it puts into doubt the accepted view of the second generation of reformers (...) of British algebra as non-philosophical, practice-oriented mathematicians. Secondly, in so far as Logan was the correspondent of William Rowan Hamilton, it re-emphasizes that the role of Kantianism in the transition from ‘symbolical’ to ‘abstract’ algebra in nineteenth-century British algebra requires closer scrutiny. (shrink)

The journey of Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras and his stay in Florence at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has been celebrated as an event that decisively shaped the course of European humanism. The later return of Enlightenment humanism to Ottoman lands in the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries can be described as the return of Chrysoloras. This return is generally known in a fragmentary form as a regional phenomenon: the story of Greek, Arab, Turkish and Jewish nationalisms (...) and of the Ottoman reforms. It is also framed historically as the evolution from a traditional and theological society to new forms of epistemic, literary, civic and national communities, while often leaving aside failures and later contradictory transformations. The present essay offers an integrative study of modern humanism in late Ottoman and post-Ottoman contexts. The migration of Enlightenment humanism to the Middle East raised a wide range of expectations, projecting a new national or imperial organization within a harmonious diplomatic relationship with Christian Europe and the Americas. Yet, the more the revivalist and reformist projects evolved, the more they involved ethnic and religious conflicts and colonial intervention. This article illuminates the rise and fall of humanism in Middle Eastern contexts. (shrink)

Leopardi employs the traditional distinction between infinite and indefinite in his works, prompting a question rarely asked in Leopardi studies: what is the role of the true infinite in Leopardi’s oeuvre? My contention is that the true infinite should not be dismissed as having no role in Leopardi’s production simply because it does not exist in reality. Rather, it is the supreme object of desire, the impossible ideal that his texts pursue. This idea is explored through a comparative reading with (...) the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose belief in the true infinite is not in question. Starting from Leopardi’s reflections on the infinite and his ‘theory of pleasure’, it becomes clear that the infinite cannot be expressed or comprehended by human beings, yet they must have some notion of it. This comparison, therefore, helps to reassess the role of the true infinite in Leopardi, which would otherwise remain hidden. (shrink)

Emil Lask provides the bridge from Kant to phenomenology but also from Kant to Kyoto School philosophy. Heidegger and Nishida, contemporaneously but independently, took Lask's collapsing of Neo-Kantian hylomorphism in distinct directions. They accepted Lask's anti-subjectivism while moving beyond his object-centrism. Heidegger broadened Lask's notion of lived experience in the direction of the "horizon" explicated in terms of temporality. Nishida takes it in terms of a pre-objective "predicate,” indicative of the "place" wherein beings, objects, grammatical subjects are implaced. Both assume (...) "world" as contextual (back)ground. The essay thus examines Heidegger and Nishida in light of Lask as a common source. In the conclusion I also address a few other related issues surrounding their relationship to Neo-Kantianism and transcendental philosophy in general. (shrink)

This essay describes and analyzes the four versions of the biblical story of Abraham proposed by Johannes de Silentio (a pseudonym used by Kierkegaard) in Fear and Tremblingto understand, from the movement of faith, how in none of these versions is the absurdity that claims the leap of the religious realized. Next, we explain Kierkegaard’s views on ethics and selfhood to then delve into the inextricable paradox that faith signifies and the radical movement that it demands for the existent.

Introduces seven women philosophers of art from long nineteenth-century Britain including Anna Barbauld, Joanna Baillie, Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, Emilia Dilke, and Vernon Lee Traces a logical progression amongst these women's views as they grappled with art's relations to morality and religion Shows that these women were well-known in their time and played important roles in establishing British philosophy of art Expands the rediscovery of women philosophers to a neglected area, philosophy of art.

Kierkegaard, like Plato, though using different methods and conclusions, sought to ground knowledge in the ineffability of subjectivity. For Plato, knowledge comes subjectively (internally); for Kierkegaard, it comes by God's grace through faith. Socrates becomes the facilitator for the slave in the /Meno/, as does God for the man of faith. Again, Kierkegaard is also concerned with passion. "...the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion; a mediocre fellow" (p. (...) 37). The paradox is necessitated by the metaphysical nature of the inquiry. Only knowledge through faith can approach the paradox since it is by definition beyond our knowledge. Passion must accompany the leap of faith, since knowledge acquisition for the man of faith is guided by God. (shrink)

How did “science,” once a term used to refer to universal knowledge, come to be applied to the epistemic practices of particular civilizational and racial groups? This essay approaches this question by examining the life and writings of John Augustus Abayomi Cole, a Sierra Leonean medical practitioner and public intellectual who in the late nineteenth century used the term “science” to describe African knowledge systems. Cole’s writing on science in Africa was explicitly anti-imperial and grounded in a critique of the (...) “materialism” of European society. While reminding Africa’s European conquerors of the folly of their civilizing mission, Cole at the same time urged the “Europized” elite of Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown to adapt themselves to African spiritual and scientific life. The essay argues that marginal intellectuals like Cole, whose thought was shaped by several interlocking local and intercontinental forces, were instrumental in generating the concept of civilization-specific science. (shrink)

Research has shown that there has often been overlap between the humanities and the sciences. This essay brings to the fore a prominent borderline case in cultural history, where the mix of disciplines that could contribute to its study became an issue of debate. It examines the attempts made by botanists throughout the nineteenth century, culminating around 1900, to call into question the monopoly of the humanities on cultural history. Botanists argued that botanical objects, such as the original forms of (...) ancient grains, were important historical sources, and the renowned Georg Schweinfurth even advocated a new concept of “culture” that prioritized the sciences. The essay argues that this development is part of the period’s discourse on the origins of human civilization, which included more and less productive encounters between the botanical study of the migration and development of plants over time and the study of human history. (shrink)

Este capítulo versa sobre a relação de Kierkegaard com um dos problemas filo- sóficos centrais da ontologia e epistemologia, i.e., o problema das categorias. O texto te- mos um tríplice objetivo: 1) explicitar que Kierkegaard se envolveu com o problema das categorias; 2) identificar o estado da questão dessa relação por meio de uma recensão da literatura; e 3) apontar os problemas ainda em aberto e o que está indeterminado dessa relação Kierkegaard-Problema das categorias a partir desses comentadores.

This paper contains a detailed exposition and analysis of The Philosophy of “As If“ proposed by Hans Vaihinger in his book published in 1911. However, the principal chapters of the book (Part I) reproduce Vaihinger’s Habilitationsschrift, which was written during the autumn and winter of 1876. Part I is extended by Part II based on texts written during 1877–1878, when Vaihinger began preparing the book. The project was interrupted, resuming only in the 1900s. My conclusion is based exclusively on the (...) texts written in 1876-1878: Vaihinger was, decades ahead of the time, a philosopher of modeling in the modern sense – a brilliant achievement for the 1870s! And, in the demystification of such principal aspects of cognition as truth, understanding and causality, is he not still ahead of many of us? According to Vaihinger, what we set beyond sensations is our invention (fiction), the correspondence of which with reality cannot (and need not) be verified in the mystical, absolute sense many people expect. (shrink)

Itsenäisen Suomen filosofian historia tunnetaan sen läheisistä suhteista anglosaksiseen akateemiseen maailmaan. Autonomian aikana suomalainen akateeminen filosofia suuntautui sitä vastoin saksankieliseen Eurooppaan. Esittelen tässä tekstissä joitain esimerkkejä saksalaisen filosofian vaikutuksesta suomalaiseen filosofiaan autonomian aikana.

In this essay, I will discuss a variety of considerations that Goethe expressed in his writings. I will with few exceptions address these writings in chronological order. I include both literary and scientific-philosophical works. In this way I hope to show that a certain theme is at the heart of Goethe’s thinking, and that Goethe’s later works expresses a sophisticated and “deep” account of this theme. In addition, I will try to explain how one can ascribe this Goethean theme to (...) major philosophers of the twentieth century – Cassirer, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein. The theme in question concerns the individuality of a human life in a metaphysical sense, characterizing the individual as situated “in between” Nature and Culture. By being both a child of Nature and a child of Culture, the fate of individuals is the transformation of previously given human concerns and practices. There never is a natural child nor a cultural formation securing human individuality. In Goethe’s words: The history of an individual human being is the individual human being. “Die Geschichte der Wissenschaft ist die Wissenschaft selbst, die Geschichte des Individuums, das Individuum”. See Hamacher. Hamacher’s book has been a major source for me! (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that Søren Kierkegaard’s oeuvre can be seen as a theater of ideas. This argument is developed in three steps. First, I will briefly introduce a theoretical framework for addressing the theatrical dimension of Kierkegaard’s works. This framework is based on a distinction between“performative writing strategies” and “categories of performativity.” As a second step, I will focus on Repetition: A Venture in Experimenting Psychology, by Constantin Constantius, one of the best examples of Kierkegaard’s innovative way of (...) doing philosophy. This strange and elusive book introduces the difficult and counter-intuitive notion of repetition. Repetition is a category of performativity that aims to activate the subjectivity of the reader. This performative effect is achieved by confronting the reader with an “unresolved”existential problem that is not yet drawn into clarity but is staged in all its confusions and contradictions. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Constantius relies here on a performative writing strategy that is animated by a dialectic of advance and withdrawal. In the last and third step, I will analyze Constantius’s own reflection on the performative dimension of his text. Constantius has left several clues behind, each of which suggests that he deliberately developed a performative writing strategy. (shrink)

In this article, the author explores one of the avenues through which the experiences of the European biblical studies were implemented in the Kyiv Theological Academy (КТА) in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the first time, the critical bibliographic reviews of biblical research works written by foreign scholars are being examined as a genre. In the comments and reviews made by the KTA professors, we observe a critical analysis of the experiences related to rationalistic (...) and orthodox apologetic trends as represented in foreign biblical studies, as well as a quest for conceptual and methodological allies in support of the Orthodox biblical apologetic perspective. These critical reviews represent a valuable asset indicating that the Kyiv theological academic studies had been incorporated in the global dimension of academic biblical studies. The broad range of subjects addressed in the reviews as well as their regularity and frequency testify to intensive professional communication within the theological academic community. In addition, the texts demonstrate the degree the Kyiv academics perceived the global issues and trends, the responses of scholars to methodological and conceptual challenges, and their perception of various hermeneutical models. The article specifies the stages in which the genre of review evolved from 1860s to early 1900s. From the key structural elements of the entire body of reviews and critical articles, the author distinguishes reviews of the Old Testament and New Testament studies in such thematic areas as isagogics, theology, exegesis, historical criticism, textual criticism, study of biblical languages, geography, archeology, history, chronology, and comparative studies of religion and culture. The subject areas of the reviews and critical articles specifically indicate significant development in the European biblical studies. (shrink)

In this article, the author carries on his research into critical bibliographic reviews of foreign biblical studies made by professors of Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In his analysis of the structure and topics of those reviews, the author spotlights how the European experience of biblical studies played a role in shaping of the Orthodox Biblical discourse in Kyiv Theological Academy. The European biblical studies of that period increasingly promoted the biblical (...) knowledge. Several leading intellectual centers were emerging as conceptual and methodological ‘camps’, including rationalistic, apologetic, and ‘moderate’ ones. Structurally, the foreign studies of Bible have been focusing on the origin, authorship, historicity, and authenticity of biblical books. Critical and apologetic interpretation strategies have been compared. The catalyzing effect was brought about by the text studies based on new critical editions of the Hebraic, Old Greek (LXX), and Greek New Testaments as well as new dictionaries and grammar books. Biblical studies were in pursuit of their proper place at the crossroads of theology and a wide range of historical, humanitarian and social sciences. Biblical studies were increasingly linked to current social and cognitive issues debated in the West. Remarkably, various biblical and non-biblical sources have been compared more and more frequently. Against this background, the sprouts of religious comparativism and early efforts of historical religious reconstructions have emerged. Finally, the comparison of historical and mythological elements in the Bible was the focal point of debates in the West for researchers of both the Old and the New Testaments. Critical bibliographic publications, in particular the large annual reviews of foreign literature, strongly illustrate that the Kyiv spiritual and academic biblical studies had been increasingly integrating in the global academic and theological dimension. (shrink)

The article deals with the anthropological views of M. Olesnytskyі, a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy, whose creative work has not yet been properly studied. It reveals the connection of his anthropological ideas with moral theology and ethical doctrine, which he had taught for a long time in the KTA. Anthropological implications of the moral formation of a human person are also paid attention to, in particular, the dependence of the moral character on anthropological factors. In this context, the (...) writing considers Olesnytskyі’s views on the peculiarities of a person’s body-build. The Kyiv scholar focused on the principles of human corporeality based on natural conditions. In particular, Olesnytskyі stressed that it was the earth’s conditions that formed the bodily nature of man. The article also explores those religious ideas that influenced the anthropological views of the Kyiv scholar, which is quite understandable in view of his Christian outlook. Olenytskyі demonstrates the possibility of effective application of contemporary philosophical studies to the theological and anthropological analysis of man as an individual. In this sense, the conceptual connections of the anthropological views of the Kyiv scholar with the ones of the influential contemporary European philosophers and anthropologists, such as А. Schopenhauer, R. H. Lotze, F. Schleiermacher, E. von Hartmann, and others, become clearly evident. The article emphasizes the significance of the concept of the unconscious for the moral anthropological doctrine of Olesnytskyі; it also argues for the connection of this concept to the leading European doctrines of the unconscious, which were elaborated in philosophy and psychology in the second half of the 19 th century. (shrink)

In this article, the author examines different theories and approaches to mass movements in the historical process and their impact on the condition of Western culture. In the short introduction, the main historical, cultural and philosophical origins of the mass movements from antiquity to present time are described. This paper examines the question why the social and cultural influence of the man of mass is difficult to predict. To answer this question, the author demonstrates the continuing transition from the psychology (...) of the crowd to the structure of mass instinct and collective interaction. The first part exposes general psychological characteristics of the mob according to the ideas of Gustave Le Bon. Le Bon describes masses as emotional, irresponsible, uncritical and conservative, although marks heroism and sacrifice as their positive manifestations. In the second part, the author reflects upon the perspective of Gabriel Tard on this problem. Tard’s term “public opinion” deals with the representatives who – while living in separation – participate in the mass communication. In the third part, attestations of the mass such as humility, conformism and obsession are investigated based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud. The next point of the article is devoted to Jose Ortega y Gasset’s concept of the revolt of masses. Ortega captures the ambivalence of masses who express the power ambition and indifference to culture. From the point of view of Hannah Arendt, masses become terrible, self-satisfied, atomized, unstructured and anonymous. However, Elias Canetti defines masses as compressed and scattered, closed and open, fast and slow. Yet different parameters of the masses one can find in Siegfried Kracauer’s writing – namely aesthetics, technicism, ritual. Finally, in the last part, the author appeals to Jean Baudrillard’s approach to the problem who declares that masses became silent and indistinct. (shrink)

It is generally known that the influential Kyiv researcher, professor of the St. Volodymyr University and honorary member of the Kyiv Theological Academy Ivan Sikorsky made a significant contribution to the development of the psychological science of his times and gained great authority among his colleagues in the West. In recent years, many studies have been launched in Ukraine, whose authors are trying to demonstrate the relevance of his work also in terms of contemporary science. It remains unclear as to (...) when and how he was recognized in the West, which of his colleagues he influenced in his own life, how his academic achievements are now appreciated in foreign professional circles. Trying to fill this gap, the author of the paper created Sikorsky’s personal profile on the Internet platform “Google Scholar”. This Internet-based platform is regularly used to calculate citations of the contemporary scholars and publications. However, as it has turned out, Google Scholar may also be a useful tool for the historical research. This search engine collates information on almost all of the Sikorsky’s works, including those written or translated into foreign languages and published abroad. Despite the fact that Google Scholar identified and included in its own list not all of the existing references, it nevertheless helped to reconstruct a rather large and representative bibliography. Combining the quantitative and qualitative analysis of relevant information from Google Scholar as well as such tools as Google Books, Internet Archive, JSTOR, etc. helps to clarify and substantially expand the understanding of Sikorsky’s place within the history of science and the treatment of his works in the West. As it is clearly shown in the article, he became one of the brightest domestic representatives of the leading trends in the world psychology. A significant number of Western experimental psychologists of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century were actively referring to his pioneering researches on the phenomenon of mental fatigue in children. It is also shown that the contribution made by Sikorsky to the development of psychology and pedagogy has not been forgotten by the contemporary researchers. (shrink)

The article analyzes Petro Kudriavtsev’s historical philosophical conception in the context of basic tendencies and reference points of development of historical philosophical science in Europe in 19th – the beginning of 20th cent. For this purpose, the place and significance of reception of European philosophy in the P. Kudriavtsev’s historic philosophical works are identified. Furthermore, the article discusses the complex of philosophical and historical ideas that appeared to be productive for development of Kudriavtsev’s original historical philosophical conception. The latter is (...) proved to be formulated in the process of deep creative interpretation of European historical philosophical studies achievements, such as ethics and philosophical constructions of the European thought. The author finds out the particularity of the P. Kudriavtsev’s original approach to understanding of historical philosophical process, based on comprehension of rationalism and empiricism, two opposite models of historical philosophical knowledge. Besides, the author argues for the similarity in approach to the history of philosophy between P. Kudriavtsev and the representatives of historical-philosophical tradition after Hegel. Reconstruction of P. Kudriavtsev’s historical philosophical conception allows the author to conclude, on the one hand, that conception reflected one of the central problems in Western European philosophy on the edge of 19 th – 20 th centuries – the problem of values. On the other hand, the conception was aimed to oppose the relativistic and nihilistic tendencies, which dominated in Modern European philosophy. (shrink)

This article concerns genealogy of ideas from the Marburg school of neo-Kantian philosophy in’s early works in the context of intellectual and educational tendencies in Europe and the Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century. Yevhen Spektorskyi is known as a prominent philosopher and lawyer, professor, and the last president at the Saint Volodymyr University. Analyzing his early works, which were strongly connected to his teaching and scientific activities at the law faculty of Warsaw University, the author recognizes (...) several key factors as the reasons for considerable development of the main neo-Kantian ideas of the philosopher. Firstly, Spektorskyi’s research interests were strongly influenced by the intellectual communication with his teacher, professor, and lawyer Oleksandr Blok, whose research was concentrated on the idea of classification of the sciences and its further substantiating. Secondly, we know that at the beginning of 20th century Spektorskyi was on several long-term educational secondments in European educational institutions, which allowed him to immerse into intellectual life of that time. In the article, the author focuses on analysis of Spektorskyi’s published works and unpublished manuscripts of the years 1903–1910. It is clarified that their main issues concern essential notions and arguments of critical idealism and its implications for the procedures of rational argumentation of sciences by setting ideal goals and clarification of regulative ideas for the social scientists in their research. The article also examines Spektorskyi’s logical structure of critique of the founder of the Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism Hermann Cohen. The critique concerns the development of ethics as “mathematics of natural science” and argues for the creative and productive rethinking of neo-Kantian ideas by Spektorskyi. (shrink)

Those who have emphasised Nietzsche's naturalism have often claimed that he emulates natural scientific methods by offering causal explanations of psychological, social, and moral phenomena. In order to render Nietzsche's method consistent with his methodology, such readers of Nietzsche have also claimed that his objections to the use of causal explanations are based on a limited scepticism concerning the veracity of causal explanations. My contention is that proponents of this reading are wrong about both Nietzsche's methodology and his method. I (...) argue for this by: first, showing that Nietzsche was suspicious of causal explanations not only on sceptical grounds but also for reasons provided by his psychological analysis of our tendency to look for causes; and second, arguing for a non-causal interpretation of Nietzsche's approach to psychological explanation. (shrink)

Tämä artikkeli käsittelee J. V. Snellmanin sijoittumista hegeliläisen filosofian kentälle. Hegeliläinen koulukunta jakautui 1830-luvun kuluessa oikeisto-, vasemmisto- ja keskustahegeliläisyyteen. J. V. Snellmanin filosofian tutkimuksessa on usein nostettu esiin Carl Ludwig Michelet’n (1843, 314) luonnehdinta Snellmanista vasemman keskustan hegeliläisenä. Michelet’n käsitys on edeltävässä tutkimuksessa yleisesti hyväksytty. Sitä, mikä tekee Snellmanista nimenomaan vasemman keskustan eikä esimerkiksi oikean keskustan edustajaa ei kuitenkaan juuri ole pohdittu. Esitän seuraavassa muutamia huomioita, joiden myötä kuva Snellmanin sijoittumisesta hegeliläisten kentässä tarkentuu.

The current literature suggests that the use of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s approaches to phenomenology is still practiced. However, a clear gap exists on how these approaches are viewed in the context of constructivism, particularly with non-traditional female students’ study of mathematics. The dissertation attempts to clarify the constructivist role of phenomenology within a transcendental framework from the first-hand meanings associated with the expression of the relevancy as expressed by interviews of six nontraditional female students who have studied undergraduate mathematics. Comparisons (...) also illustrate how the views associated with Husserl’s stance on phenomenology inadvertently relate to the stances of the participants interviewed as part of the study. The research questions focus on the emotional association with studying mathematics and how pre-conceived opinions regarding the study of mathematics may have influenced the essences of the experiences of the participants who have studied collegiate-level mathematics. The essences of the experiences of the participants are analyzed using bracketing and epoché to ensure personal biases of the researcher do not affect the interpretation of the expressed essences of the participants. Data collection is accomplished through two series of qualitative interviews seeking the participants’ firsthand impressions of how they view the way instructional design is oriented with regard to mathematics. Additional questions seek to illuminate the participants’ point of view regarding their emotional association with mathematics as well as their opinions and theoretical perspectives on the study of mathematics. (shrink)

Antonio Rosmini is practically unknown in Lutheran Sweden. Apparently, only one significant Swedish text has been published about his philosophy, an essay in 1879 by Professor E.O. Burman at the University of Uppsala. After a brief introduction of Burman, some illustrative excerpts from his essay are presented in Italian translation.

Naomi Beck’s very readable book examines the reception of Herbert Spencer’s work among Italian and French intellectuals from 1860 to 1900, focusing on the role of biology in analyses of society and politics. Although its topic is narrow, the book is relevant to historians interested in Social Darwinism, positivism, early social science, and comparative history. It also provides a case study for scholars of the reception and transformation of ideas.

This article aims to determine to what extent photographic practices in psychology, psychiatry and physiology contributed to the definition of the external bodily signs of passions and emotions in the second half of the 19th century in France. Bridging the gap between recent research in the history of emotions and photographic history, the following analyses focus on the photographic production of scientists and photographers who made significant contributions to the study of expressions and gestures, namely Duchenne de Boulogne, Charles Darwin, (...) Paul Richer and Albert Londe. This article argues that photography became a key technology in their works due to the adequateness of the exposure time of different cameras to the duration of the bodily manifestations to be recorded, and that these uses constituted facial expressions and bodily gestures as particular objects for the scientific study. (shrink)

After introductory surveys of Poincaré’s role in the Dreyfus case and of his “Fourth Geometry,” I turn to the main question. The problem confronting both Poincaré and Einstein was how to reconcile the phenomena of electrodynamics, notably the optical principle of relativity, with the principles of Newtonian mechanics. I show that, on such questions as the existence and role of the ether and the relation between kinematics and dynamics, Poincaré and Einstein held diametrically opposed views. Poincaré did everything to preserve (...) the old viewpoint, while Einstein abandoned the absolute time and proposed a new mechanics. (shrink)

In Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire: Rhetoric and Performance in a Theology of Eros Carl S. Hughes develops an original approach to Søren Kierkegaard’s religious writings. As is well known, Kierkegaard published these religious writings under his own name. Some interpreters take this to mean that he no longer relies on the poetics of indirect communication that underlies his pseudonymous works. According to them, the religious writings finally formulate Kierkegaard’s true views in a direct and unambiguous way. Others have (...) suggested that these religious writings are just as indirect as all the others. Hughes belongs to the second camp. In his illuminating book, he convincingly shows that the indirect method of writing is not undermining the religious content of Kierkegaard’s works, as is feared by many interpreters from the first camp, but is essential for sustaining it. That is why Hughes believes that Kierkegaard’s indirect mode of writing is of vital importance for contemporary theology as a discipline. (shrink)

Die Poesie ist für Hegel die Endform der Kunst, in der die Kunst im Allgemeinen durch die Religion überwunden wird. Die These, dass die Poesie den anderen Künsten, d.h. der Architektur, der Skulptur, der Malerei und der Musik, überlegen ist, spricht von einer besonderen Hierarchisierung und Periodisierung, die Hegel zwischen die verschiedenen Kunstformen einführt. Das Kriterium für diese Hierarchisierung und Periodisierung ist offensichtlich das gleiche, nach dem Hegel die Kunst wiederum als eine der Religion und der Philosophie unterlegene Form betrachtet. (...) Dass die Poesie eine den anderen Künsten überlegene Kunstform ist, ist auf den ersten Blick eine überraschende These; und sie wirkt noch überraschender, wenn man sie durch die These ergänzt, dass die Kunst wiederum durch die Religion und die Philosophie als weitere Phasen eines linearen Prozesses aufgehoben wird. Um was für einen linearen Prozess handelt es sich hier eigentlich? Ein linearer Prozess wohin? Der Prozess, von dem Hegel in diesem Kontext spricht, ist ein Erkenntnisprozess, und zwar ein ziemlich spezifischer Erkenntnisprozess, nämlich Erkenntnis des Absoluten. Die Poesiegattung, die für Hegel die Endphase der Kunst ausmacht, ist das moderne Drama, in dessen Zentrum die Darstellung des Charakters und der Handlungen seiner verschiedenen Gestalten steht. Was hat das alles aber mit dem Absoluten zu tun? Was haben das Drama und seine Subgattungen - der Tragödie, der Komödie, der Satire usw. - mit Religion und Philosophie zu tun? Hegel verbindet außerdem die Kunst mit dem Absoluten als eine Erkenntnisform desselben. Aber in welchem Sinne ist die Kunst Erkenntnis? Ist Kunst nicht eher Darstellung und Ausdruck subjektiver Gefühle und Ideen - und eben nicht ein Erfassen der Realität, eben nicht eine Erkenntnisform der Wirklichkeit? Um den allgemeinen Sinn von Hegels Ästhetik und dadurch die besondere Rolle, die er darin der Poesie zuschreibt, verstehen zu können, ist es unentbehrlich, die oben gestellten Fragen zu beantworten. Ein theoretisches und exegetisches Modell zu liefern, das imstande ist, eine solche Aufgabe zu erfüllen, ist das Ziel dieses Beitrags. (shrink)

This volume constitutes the first collective critical study of German philosophy in the nineteenth century. A team of leading experts explore the influential figures associated with the period--including Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Frege--and provide fresh accounts of the philosophical movements and key debates with which they engaged.

Artykuł przedstawia historię sporów i polemik naukowych na temat teorii ewolucji oraz publikacji Karola Darwina, jakie miały miejsce w w Polsce w drugiej połowie XIX wieku.

We may correctly say that Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most influential Christian-religious thinkers of the modern era, but are we equally justified in categorizing his writings as foundationally religious? This paper challenges a prevailing exclusive-theological interpretation that contends that Kierkegaard principally writes from a Christian dogmatic viewpoint. I argue that Kierkegaard’s religion is better understood as an outcome of his philosophical analysis of human nature. Conclusively, we should appreciate Kierkegaard first as a philosopher, whose aim is the explication (...) of human subjectivity, and not primarily as an orator of Christian orthodoxy. (shrink)

During the period 1860-1880, a number of physicists and mathematicians, including Maxwell, Stewart, Cournot and Boussinesq, used theories formulated in terms of physics to argue that the mind, the soul or a vital principle could have an impact on the body. This paper shows that what was primarily at stake for these authors was a concern about the irreducibility of life and the mind to physics, and that their theories can be regarded primarily as reactions to the law of conservation (...) of energy, which was used among others by Helmholtz and Du Bois-Reymond as an argument against the possibility of vital and mental causes in physiology. In light of this development, Maxwell, Stewart, Cournot and Boussinesq showed that it was still possible to argue for the irreducibility of life and the mind to physics, through an appeal to instability or indeterminism in physics: if the body is an unstable or physically indeterministic system, an immaterial principle can act through triggering or directing motions in the body, without violating the laws of physics. (shrink)

This article draws on Elias’s observations on the origins of political economy and sociology as well as his theory of involvement and detachment to supplement standard accounts of the history of sociology. It shows how, in the 1840s, sociology bifurcated into two tracks. Track I was the highly ‘involved’ partisan track associated with Marx and Engels and track II was the relatively ‘detached’, non-partisan track pursued by Saint-Simon, Comte, Lorenz von Stein and others. These two tracks continue to shape contemporary (...) sociology as basic orientations. The polarization of class conflict predicted in Marx’s theory is contrasted with the class interdependence model in Lorenz von Stein, in particular. Elias’s work is understood as a synthesis of later developments in track II in which he strongly reaffirmed the historical separation of sociology from philosophy. Elias’s work is presented as a central theory of society and as a promising alternative to the prevailing practice of theoretical eclecticism in sociology. (shrink)

In the course of the last few decades, Bolzano has emerged as an important player in accounts of the history of philosophy. This should be no surprise. Few authors stand at a more central junction in the development of modern thought. Bolzano's contributions to logic and the theory of knowledge alone straddle three of the most important philosophical traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries: the Kantian school, the early phenomenological movement and what has come to be known as analytical (...) philosophy. This paper identifies three Bolzanian theoretical innovations that warrant his inclusion in the analytical tradition: the commitment to ‘logical realism’, the adoption of a substitutional procedure for the purpose of defining logical properties and a new theory of a priori cognition that presents itself as an alternative to Kant's. All three innovations concur to deliver what counts as the most important development of logic and its philosophy between Aristotle and Frege. In the final part of the paper, I defend Bolzano against a common objection and explain that these theoretical innovations are also supported by views on syntax, which though marginal are both workable and philosophically interesting. (shrink)

Johann Friedrich Herbart bringt ein wissenschaftliches Verständnis von Philosophie auf, das sich prägend auf den Aufbau seines Systems sowie auf die Begründung von Psychologie, Ästhetik, Pädagogik und deren gegenseitige Beziehungen auswirkt. Ausgehend von neuen funktionalistischen Interpretationen seiner Philosophie wird gezeigt, wie durch eine relationale Methodologie eine pluralistische Wissenschaftsauffassung ermöglicht wird, welche einerseits die selbständige Entwicklung einzelner Disziplinen rechtfertigt, andererseits deren formalen Zusammenhang nachweist. Der systematische Bezug der Pädagogik wird aus Sicht der Philosophie festgelegt. Hinsichtlich ihrer Möglichkeit, Begründung und wissenschaftlichen Verortung (...) wird die Pädagogik auf der Basis einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Herbarts Metaphysik und Ästhetik exakt bestimmt. Herbart behauptet die Abhängigkeit der Pädagogik von Psychologie (als angewandter Metaphysik) und praktischer Philosophie (der Ästhetik beigeordnet), welche er einmal als die dunkle und die helle Seite der Pädagogik bezeichnet. Psychologie liefert die Mittel, praktische Philosophie den Zweck der Erziehung: die Tugend. Das gegenseitige Verhältnis dieser beiden Disziplinen, die Herbart wissenschaftlich neu begründet, gilt vorab aufzuklären, soll doch der notwendige psychische Mechanismus Bildsamkeit, Freiheit und Einsicht tragen. Durch seinen funktionalistischen Ansatz untermauert Herbart eine relationale Erklärung von Bewusstsein und Ichheit sowie einen konkreten ästhetischen Formalismus. Nicht nur hilft er auf diese Weise der Lehre der Seelenvermögen ab, sondern er schafft auch die philosophischen Bedingungen des Erziehens und einer autonomen Pädagogik. Hiermit ist der wissenschaftliche Ort der Pädagogik bestimmt. (shrink)

G.W.F. Hegel focuses his treatment of Sophocles' drama, Antigone , in the Phenomenology of Spirit, on the ideal of mutual recognition. Antigone was punished with death for performing the burial ritual honoring her brother, Polyneices, to whose irreplaceability she attests in her well-known speech of defiance. Hegel argues that Antigone's loss of Polyneices was the irreparable loss of reciprocal recognition. Only in the brother sister relation, Hegel thought, could there be equality in mutual recognition. I argue that this equality cannot (...) be found in a marriage union with a husband or in the public sphere of civil society. Situating Hegel's account of marriage in the Philosophy of Right within the history of marriage and historical literature on the emerging market economy of Hegel's time, I demonstrate that Hegel's perception of equality in the reciprocal recognition of the brother sister relation was a function of both economic realities and his relationship with his sister, Christiane. I show desire in the Phenomenology to be the desire for dominance, and I show the brother sister relation to be free of desire. (shrink)

In the 1890s Ludwig Mach employed photography for visualizing streamlines in the emerging field of aerodynamic research. Étienne-Jules Marey developed a similar approach at the turn of the century. The two projects can be related to a number of current discussions on the history of scientific photography. The case of Ludwig Mach demonstrates how the collection of numerical data became both the subject and the challenge of a line of research intimately linked to the capacities of photography. At the end (...) of the nineteenth century, the particular potential of scientific photography is very often defined by comparison with the limited power of the human eye. In contrast, the example of streamline photography underlines that the requirements of the research context are critical for successfully employing photography. Marey’s studies point to a tension between his characterization of chronophotography as a method for analyzing the elementary units of processes in nature on the one hand and the necessary summation of single moments in time in his recordings of streamlines on the other. What Marey usually qualified as a cumbersome confusion was here the prerequisite of observation. The ’philosophy in machines’ ultimately limited the success of streamline photography; it aided in debates about qualitative matters, but could hardly provide what most interested scientists and engineers: reliable numbers. (shrink)

From Kant to Croce is a comprehensive, highly readable history of the main currents and major figures of modern Italian philosophy, described in a substantial introduction that details the development of the discipline from 1800 to 1950.

Philosophy is traditionally understood as the search for universal truths, and philosophers are supposed to transmit those truths beyond the limits of their own culture. But, today, we have become skeptical about the ability of an individual philosopher to engage in "universal thinking," so philosophy seems to capitulate in the face of cultural relativism. In Introduction to Antiphilosophy, Boris Groys argues that modern "antiphilosophy" does not pursue the universality of thought as its goal but proposes in its place the universality (...) of life, material forces, social practices, passions, and experiences --angst, vitality, ecstasy, the gift, revolution, laughter or "profane illumination" --and he analyzes this shift from thought to life and action in the work of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Derrida, from Nietzsche to Benjamin. Ranging across the history of modern thought, Introduction to Antiphilosophy endeavors to liberate philosophy from the stereotypes that hinder its development. --Publisher. (shrink)

Some recent version of mysticism -- Empty epiphanies in modernist and postmodernist theory -- The gender of human togetherness -- Histories of modern selfhood -- Meister Eckhart's anthropology -- Becoming God in fourteenth-century Europe -- The makings of the modern self -- Taking leave of Sigmund Freud -- Everyday acknowledgments.