Hegel's Conception of the Study of Human Nature

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
H. B. Acton

It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society.

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
H. B. Acton

It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society.


Author(s):  
Jean Wahl

In this, the third chapter from the work that began the twentieth-century Hegel renaissance in France, Wahl’s 1929 Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel, he relates the chapter on “the Unhappy Consciousness” to earlier and later chapters of the Phenomenology (“Master and Slave,” “Stoicism and Scepticism,” “Culture,” “Revealed Religion,” “Absolute Knowing”) as well as Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of history. Wahl’s was the first major French study of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), marking a turn away from Hegel’s Science of Logic to the affective and experiential basis of Hegel’s dialectical method.


Author(s):  
Hoyt Cleveland Tillman

Cheng Hao was a pivotal figure in the creation of a Confucian tradition that was to become the basis for intellectual and state orthodoxy in China from the thirteenth century to the twentieth century. His decision to seek the Confucian Way (dao) through a direct and personalized reading of the classics was later projected as the beginning of this movement. From a new perspective, he redirected Confucian discourse on such cardinal concepts as humaneness and human nature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-126
Author(s):  
Milica Smajevic-Roljic

During the twentieth century, a standard narrative of early modern philosophy was established in the English-speaking world, according to which all authors of this period were divided into two schools of thought: rationalist and empiricist. The main goal set in this text is to examine the central features of this narrative to show its incompleteness and inadequacy in presenting the relations that existed between the figures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We will see that convincing critiques of this theory have been made in the last few decades, which point out its main flaws. The second goal of this paper is to show, by analyzing the texts of Immanuel Kant, that he is not responsible for the creation and dissemination of this narrative, although in the secondary literature the opposite is often claimed.


Author(s):  
المختار الأحمر

الملخّص يتناول البحث علاقة الفطرة بالشريعة في التفكير الإسلامي، وما تطرحه هذه العلاقة سواء على مستوى بيان الجوانب المتعلقة بخَلْق الإنسان وما فُطِر عليه ابتداء، وهذا البعد يمثّل الجانب التكوني في مفهوم الفطرة، أو على المستوى المتعلق بالشريعة وفطريتها، أي أنها جارية وفق ما يدركه العقل وتشهد به الفطرة، وهذا البعد يمثّل الجانب التشريعي الذي يطرحه مفهوم الفطرة. لقد زخرت أغلب الكتابات بتناول جانبا واحدا مما يتيحه أو يعكسه مفهوم الفطرة، لكن البحث في العلاقة التناسبية بين الفطرة والشريعة، وما يتيحه هذا النظر المتلازم بين المفهومين على مستوى الإمكانات المتعلقة بقدرات الإنسان الفطرية في فهم وتعقّل الخطاب الشرعي والأحكام التكليفية، والوقوف على غاياته ومقاصده، يبقى في حاجة إلى البحث والاستقصاء. ولذلك تأتي هذه الدراسة لتسليط الضوء على الجانب التشريعي والتكويني في علاقة الشريعة بالفطرة، باعتبارهما نظامين متلازمين يتيحان فهم طبيعة الشريعة وأحكامها ومقاصدها من جهة، وتحديد جوهر وماهية الإنسان الفطرية وإمكاناته في تعقّل هذه الشريعة من جهة ثانية.                  الكلمات المفتاحية: الفطرة، الشريعة، الدين، التكاليف، العقل. Abstract This research addresses the relationship between premordial human nature (fitrah) and Islamic law (SharÊÑah) within the frame of Islamic thought, while exploring the questions it raises at two levels. The first level explains the aspects related to the creation of man and what has initially been bestowed upon him, which represents the evolutionary aspect of the concept of fiÏrah. The second level is related to SharÊÑah and its nature, which evolves according to what is percieved by reason and witnessed by fiÏrah; this represents the legislative aspect presented by the concept of fiÏrah. The majority of studies to date address a single aspect of the illustrations of the concept of fiÏrah. However, research on the dialectic relationship between fiÏrah and SharÊÑah and what its relevant concurrent view provides at the level of potentials related to human innate capacities in understanding and realizing SharÊÑah discourse and mandatory provisions as well as understanding its objectives  remains scarce and requires further research and investigation. Therefore, this study intends to shed light on the legislative and evolutionary aspects of the relationship between SharÊÑah and fiÏrah as two interconnected systems that allow for the understanding of the nature of SharÊÑah, its provisions and purposes, as well as identifying the essence of human innate nature and its potential in perceiving SharÊÑah. Keywords: human nature (fiÏrah), Islamic law (SharÊÑah), religious mandates (TakÉlif), religion, intellect (ÑAqal).


Author(s):  
Julian Wright

This chapter asks wider questions about the flow of time as it was explored in this historical writing. It focuses on Jaurès’ philosophy of history, initially through a brief discussion of his doctoral thesis and the essay entitled ‘Le bilan social du XIXème siècle’ that he provided at the end of the Histoire socialiste, then through the work of three of his collaborators, Gabriel Deville, Eugène Fournière, and Georges Renard. One of the most important challenges for socialists in the early twentieth century was to understand the damage and division caused by revolution, while not losing the transformative mission of their socialism. With these elements established, the chapter returns to Jaurès, and in particular the long study of nineteenth-century society in chapter 10 of L’Armée nouvelle. Jaurès advanced an original vision of the nineteenth century and its meaning for the socialist present.


Author(s):  
Bonnie Effros

The excavation of Merovingian-period cemeteries in France began in earnest in the 1830s spurred by industrialization, the creation of many new antiquarian societies across the country, and French nationalism. However, the professionalization of the discipline of archaeology occurred slowly due to the lack of formal training in France, weak legal protections for antiquities, and insufficient state funding for archaeological endeavors. This chapter identifies the implications of the central place occupied by cemeterial excavations up until the mid-twentieth century and its impact on broader discussions in France of national origins and ethnic identity. In more recent years, with the creation of archaeological agencies such as Afan and Inrap, the central place once occupied by grave remains has been diminished. Rescue excavations and private funding for new structures have brought about a shift to other priorities and research questions, with both positive and negative consequences, though cemeteries remain an important source of evidence for our understanding of Merovingian society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Jill Felicity Durey

This article illuminates two short stories by John Galsworthy through examining them with the help of his diaries and letters, a handful of unpublished letters by his nephew from an internment camp and secondary historical sources. It argues that the stories, when read in conjunction with these sources, are highly revealing about human nature during Second World War and also about Galsworthy’s prescient fears concerning a second twentieth-century world war, which he did not live to see.


1993 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Christian Wilson

In the latter half of the nineteenth century no New Testament scholar in the English speaking world was more respected than J. B. Lightfoot. His New Testament commentaries and his magisterial five volume work on the Apostolic Fathers were models of the scholarly thoroughness of British erudition coupled with the humility of Anglican piety. Their influence would reach well into the twentieth century.


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