Fichte and German Idealism

1982 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Patrick Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
General Level ◽  
Absolute Idealism ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The One ◽  
Dominant Influence

Fichte's reputation at the present time is in some respects a curious one. On the one hand, he is by common consent acknowledged to have exercised a dominant influence upon the development of German thought during the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Thus from a specifically philosophical point of view he is regarded as an innovator who (for good or ill) played a decisive role in transforming Kant's transcendental idealism into the absolute idealism of his immediate successors, while at a more general level he is customarily seen as having put into currency certain persuasive conceptions which contributed—less directly but no less surely—to the emergence and spread of romanticism in some of its varied and ramifying forms. On the other hand, however, it is noticeable that detailed consideration of his work has not figured prominently in the recent revival of concern with post-Kantian thought as a whole which has been manifested by philosophers of the English-speaking world. Although his name is frequently mentioned in that connection, one suspects that his books may not be so often read. In part this may be due to his particular mode of expounding his views, which at times attains a level of opacity that can make even Hegel's obscurest passages seem comparatively tractable. It is also true that Fichte's principal theoretical works—if not his semipopular writings—are largely devoid of the allusions to scientific, historical, psychological or cultural matters with which his German contemporaries were prone to illustrate their philosophical doctrines and enliven their more abstract discussions: there is a daunting aridity about much of what he wrote which can raise nagging doubts in the modern reader's mind about the actual issues that are in question. Yet the fact remains that by the close of the eighteenth century his ideas had already made a profound impact, capturing the imagination of a host of German thinkers and intellectuals. The problem therefore arises as to what preoccupations, current at the time, they owed their indubitable appeal and to what puzzles they were welcomed as proffering a solution. If these can be identified, it may become at least partially intelligible that Fichte should have been widely regarded as having provided a framework within which certain hitherto intractable difficulties could be satisfactorily reformulated and resolved. Let me accordingly begin by saying something about them.

Fichte and German Idealism

1982 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Patrick Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
General Level ◽  
Absolute Idealism ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The One ◽  
Dominant Influence

Fichte's reputation at the present time is in some respects a curious one. On the one hand, he is by common consent acknowledged to have exercised a dominant influence upon the development of German thought during the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Thus from a specifically philosophical point of view he is regarded as an innovator who (for good or ill) played a decisive role in transforming Kant's transcendental idealism into the absolute idealism of his immediate successors, while at a more general level he is customarily seen as having put into currency certain persuasive conceptions which contributed—less directly but no less surely—to the emergence and spread of romanticism in some of its varied and ramifying forms. On the other hand, however, it is noticeable that detailed consideration of his work has not figured prominently in the recent revival of concern with post-Kantian thought as a whole which has been manifested by philosophers of the English-speaking world. Although his name is frequently mentioned in that connection, one suspects that his books may not be so often read. In part this may be due to his particular mode of expounding his views, which at times attains a level of opacity that can make even Hegel's obscurest passages seem comparatively tractable. It is also true that Fichte's principal theoretical works—if not his semipopular writings—are largely devoid of the allusions to scientific, historical, psychological or cultural matters with which his German contemporaries were prone to illustrate their philosophical doctrines and enliven their more abstract discussions: there is a daunting aridity about much of what he wrote which can raise nagging doubts in the modern reader's mind about the actual issues that are in question. Yet the fact remains that by the close of the eighteenth century his ideas had already made a profound impact, capturing the imagination of a host of German thinkers and intellectuals. The problem therefore arises as to what preoccupations, current at the time, they owed their indubitable appeal and to what puzzles they were welcomed as proffering a solution. If these can be identified, it may become at least partially intelligible that Fichte should have been widely regarded as having provided a framework within which certain hitherto intractable difficulties could be satisfactorily reformulated and resolved. Let me accordingly begin by saying something about them.

scholarly journals Abraham Lincoln

1882 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 312-343
Author(s):  
Isaac N. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
American History ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Republic ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The One

The noblest inheritance we Americans derive from our British ancestors is the memory and example of the great and good men who adorn your history. They are as much appreciated and honoured on our side of the Atlantic as on this. In giving to the English-speaking world Washington and Lincoln we think we repay, in large part, our obligation. Their pre-eminence in American history is recognised, and the republic, which the one founded and the other preserved, has already crowned them as models for her children.

scholarly journals Race before Darwin: Variation, adaptation and the natural history of man in post-Enlightenment Edinburgh, 1790–1835

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-350
Author(s):  
BILL JENKINS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Human Variation ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

AbstractThis paper draws on material from the dissertation books of the University of Edinburgh's student societies and surviving lecture notes from the university's professors to shed new light on the debates on human variation, heredity and the origin of races between 1790 and 1835. That Edinburgh was the most important centre of medical education in the English-speaking world in this period makes this a particularly significant context. By around 1800 the fixed natural order of the eighteenth century was giving way to a more fluid conception of species and varieties. The dissolution of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ made interpretations of races as adaptive responses to local climates plausible. The evidence presented shows that human variation, inheritance and adaptation were being widely discussed in Edinburgh in the student circles around Charles Darwin when he was a medical student in Edinburgh in the 1820s. It is therefore no surprise to find these same themes recurring in similar form in the evolutionary speculations in his notebooks on the transmutation of species written in the late 1830s during the gestation of his theory of evolution.

scholarly journals The Sin of Laura: The Meaning of Culture in the Education of Nineteenth-Century Women

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-271
Author(s):  
Marjorie R. Theobald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Female Education ◽  
Education Of Women ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Feminist Historiography ◽  
English Speaking World

Abstract In the iconography of nineteenth-century female education, the centralfigure is a woman at the piano. This figure embodies a form ofeducation, the female "accomplishments" — music, art, modern languages, literature, and the natural sciences — which was widespread in Britain by the end of the eighteenth century and which spread rapidly throughout the English-speaking world. Yet this form of education has been overlooked or dismissed by both mainstream and feminist historiography. This paper considers the rise of the accomplishments curriculum as a precursor to the emergence, late in the nineteenth century, of the “worthwhile education” of women. This earlier development, in the author's view, requires a reconsideration of that sacred cow of feminist theory, the man/culture, women/nature dichotomy. A study of the female accomplishments also illustrates the earlier rise of the enduring and oppressive myth that there is a natural affinity between the humanities and the female mind — with its equally enduring implication that there is a natural affinity between science and the male mind. Historians of the Edwardian period have noted that the rational, scientific frame of mind, which underpinned the capitalist exploitation of the natural world, was considered to be a "natural" male predilection. Feminist historians have rightly exposed the use of this pseudo-science as a justification of the contemporary intellectual subjugation of women. They have, however, failed to note that intellectual attitudes which were evident more than a century earlier, and which underpinned the emergence of the female accomplishments, ensured that women would be excluded from the great intellectual adventure of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals The main problems of political science of religion

2002 ◽  
pp. 68-74
Author(s):  
K. Banek
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Geography Of Religion ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The One

Every year, an increasing number of scholarly and popular works on issues relating to the relationship between the fields of religion and politics appear around the world, especially in the English-speaking world. This shows, on the one hand, the growing importance and relevance of these problems, and on the other, the great interest of researchers in such issues. These works focus primarily on the connections and processes that take place in the world of Islam, in particular at the junction of the Islamic Christianity. Based on this, we can say that in our eyes a new scientific discipline is being created, which, on the model of existing religious disciplines (philosophy of religion, psychology of religion, sociology of religion and geography of religion), can be called the political science of religion.

Fuentes hemerográficas del siglo XVIII: recepción de Cervantes en obras teatrales y composiciones musicales británicas

2019 ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Mónica Amenedo-Costa
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
Comic Opera ◽  
Literary Periodicals ◽  
Literary Journals ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

RESUMENLas revistas literarias inglesas «The Monthly Review» (1749-1845) y «The Critical Review» (1756-1817) volcaron su atención hacia la producción de reseñas bibliográficas de trabajos según iban apareciendo en el mercado editorial tanto británico como internacional. Las informaciones generadas a partir de este ejercicio periodístico son especialmente relevantes para el estudio de la recepción de autores y textos pertenecientes al ámbito hispano en el ámbito anglosajón y se han empleado en este trabajo para abordar la recepción de Cervantes en obras teatrales y composiciones musicales británicas del siglo XVIII, tales como «Angelica; or, Quixote in Petticoats» (1758), «The Padlock: A Comic Opera» (1768), «Don Quixote. A Musical Entertainment» (1776), «Barataria; or, Sancho turn’d Governor» (1785) y «The Mountaineers, a Play in Three Acts» (1793).PALABRAS CLAVECervantes, revistas literarias, recepción, Gran Bretaña, siglo XVIII. TITLEEighteenth-century Journal Sources: Reception of Cervantes in British Plays and Musical CompositionsABSTRACTThe English literary periodicals «The Monthly Review» (1749-1845) and «The Critical Review» (1756-1817) offered comments on newly printed works as they came out both in Great Britain and abroad. The information provided by these two review journals is of particular relevance to the study of the reception of Spanish authors and their works in the English-speaking world, and has been analysed in this work to explore the critical reception of Cervantes in eighteenth-century British plays and musical compositions such as «Angelica; or, Quixote in Petticoats» (1758), «The Padlock: A Comic Opera» (1768), «Don Quixote. A Musical Entertainment» (1776), «Barataria; or, Sancho turn’d Governor» (1785) and «The Mountaineers, a Play in Three Acts» (1793).KEY WORDSCervantes, literary journals, reception studies, Great Britain, Eighteenth century.

The ‘Continental’ Tradition?

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 27-43
Author(s):  
Alan Montefiore
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Continental Tradition ◽  
The One

AbstractThere is – of course – no one such thing as the continental tradition in philosophy, but rather a whole discordant family of notably distinct traditions. They are, nevertheless, broadly recognisable to each other. For much of the last century, however, most of those engaged in or with philosophy in continental Europe, on the one hand, and in the English-speaking world, on the other hand, had surprisingly little knowledge of, interest in or even respect for what was going on in the other. Happily, the situation today is vastly improved on each side of the philosophical channel. What follows is an attempt to gain some understanding of the background to this long-standing (and still to some diminishing extent persistent) mutual incomprehension from the standpoint of one who came to philosophy as a PPE student in the Oxford of the late 1940s.

Manilamen and seafaring: engaging the maritime world beyond the Spanish realm

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 364-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filomeno V. Aguilar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

AbstractAlthough the Philippines is hardly known for sending out migrants prior to the twentieth century, and even among seafarers only the galleon age is remembered, this article provides evidence of transcontinental maritime movements from the late eighteenth century until the early twentieth century. These migrants were known in the English-speaking world as Manilamen. Most were seafarers, but some became involved in pearl-shell fishing, while others engaged in mercenary activities. They settled in key ports around the world, their numbers in any one location fluctuating in response to changing circumstances. Despite relocation to distant places, the difficulties of communication, and the impetus toward naturalization, Manilamen seem to have retained some form of identification with the Philippines as homeland, no matter how inchoately imagined.

scholarly journals Nishida Kitaro’s Logical Theory as a Reflection of the Rationality of Japanese Language and Culture

2018 ◽  
pp. 59-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liubov Karelova
Keyword(s):  
Decisive Role ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Language Models ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The One

The search for the backbone of the types of rationality inherent in different cultures keeps on to be an open problem, which remains relevant to the need of closer intercultural interaction in the global world. At the same time, the analysis of the logic of language as the basis for the study of rationality types continues to occupy an important place. Meanwhile, the studies of grammatical structures and language models from the point of view of their connection to a certain type of thinking and influence on the method of philosophizing are still quantitatively inferior to the researches of lexical aspects. Expansion of this type of research with the involvement of a diverse cultural material over time will allow us to reach the level of establishing regularities of a more general nature. This article contributes to the development of this issue. The author deals with the approaches to the defnition of the paradigm of Japanese rationality proposed by researchers of grammatical features of the Japanese language, on the one hand, and the “logic of place” concept and the “absolutely contradictory identity” principle of prominent philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945), on the other hand. A special attention is drawn to the structural similarity of the grammatical form highlighted by linguists, in which the decisive role belongs to the predicate, and to Nishida’s logical model reflecting specifcs of subject-predicate relationship as well as perception of opposition in terms of “contradictory self-identity.” In the conclusion of the article, the author demonstrates the relationship of this model with the certain idea of subject, the type of epistemology overcoming dualism, the processual and cosmocentric comprehension of the world that can be traced in Nishida’s statements.

scholarly journals Redeeming the Canon: Transdisciplinary Collocations

Linguaculture ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Felix Nicolau
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Harold Bloom ◽  
Push Forward ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
And Performance ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Aesthetic

The canon in the English speaking world has been remolded under the influence of later developments in technology and media. Posthumanism and Communication and Performance Studies push forward the demythization – initiated by the Cultural Studies – of the aesthetic isolationism of the New Criticism. The new developments do not dispute the primacy of the aesthetic/truthful criteria used for informing the canon, but they disclose the fact that we cannot ignore the complexity of contemporary society. My study envisages new approaches in selecting items for the new arch-canon, with reference to specialized canons and also personal canons. How much is utopia and how much is dystopia in building an arch-canon in the English speaking world? Can we create a canon which will serve pure communicative purposes instead of the customary colonialist ones? The canon is subject to fashion too, but fashions know inner delimitations. Every time a certain fashion is resurrected, it displays new encodings, too, superposed to the old ones. Nothing in history has been resumed between the same coordinates. A trustworthy canon cumulates many fashions and combines them into a multi-discourse super-fashion. But, in the end, the canon cannot contest the perishable ingredient in its composition. Even Harold Bloom acknowledged that when he selected only twenty-six writers to support his point of view. What raises the canon above the run-of-the-mill fashion is that it never wanes entirely; it simply substitutes some of its components, modernising its structure. The canon is an ever-lasting system endowed with the ability to eliminate and draft values in accordance with cultural imperatives. At the same time, the survivalist representation of the canon is limited, as its main mission is to safeguard and propose values. That is why the canon has to be formed with an eye to the updated chart of values; otherwise it would completely miss its momentum and power of influence.

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