This book is about the legitimation of Hegel's philosophy. Its central thesis is that Hegel's philosophy is one of human experience. The point of Hegel's philosophy of history, the author argues, is an apologetic one: to disclose how human experience connects the activity of philosophical thought to the intellectual attitude which assent to the Christian Incarnation requires. It is this connection alone which legitimates Hegel's conception of philosophy as absolute knowledge. The rationale for that connection is made manifest to us (...) by Hegel's philosophy of history, of which the focus is his philosophical engagement with the experience of his own time. (shrink)

The first study of its kind, The Impact of Idealism assesses the impact of classical German philosophy on science, religion and culture. This second volume explores German Idealism's impact on the historical, social and political thought of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Each essay focuses on an idea or concept from the high point of German philosophy around 1800, tracing out its influence on the intervening period and its importance for contemporary discussions. New light is shed on key developments (...) of Idealist thought, such as Marxism, Critical Theory and feminism, and previously unexamined areas of Idealism's influence are discussed for the first time. This unique, interdisciplinary collection traces the impact of Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte and others in Britain, Europe, North America and beyond. Its insights represent vital contributions to their respective fields, as well as to our understanding of German Idealism itself. (shrink)

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) is the progenitor of modern linguistics and the originator of the modern teaching and research university. However, his work has received remarkably little attention in the English-speaking world. Humboldt conceives language as the source of cognition as well as communication, both rooted in the possibility of human dialogue. In the same way, his idea of the university posits the free encounter between radically different personalities as the source of education for freedom. For Humboldt, both linguistic and (...) intellectual communication are predicated firstly on dialogue between persons, which is the prerequisite for all intercultural understanding. Linking Humboldt's concept of dialogue to his idea of translation between languages, persons, and cultures, this book shows how Humboldt's thought is of great contemporary relevance. Humboldt shows a way beyond the false alternatives of "culturalism" (the demand that a plurality of cultural and faith-based traditions be recognized as sources of ethical and political legitimacy in the modern world) and "universalism" (the assertion of the primacy of a universal culture of human rights and the renewal of the European Enlightenment project). John Walker explains how Humboldt's work emerges from the intellectual conflicts of his time and yet directly addresses the concerns of our own post-secular and multicultural age. (shrink)