Spiritual Crisis of the Beginning of the 20th Century: From Philosophical to Religious Interpretations

Author(s):  
Alexander V. Koltsov ◽  

The paper is an attempt to narrow down the notion of spiritual crisis which is now widely applied in research on history of culture of the 19th–20th centuries, with respect to history of German philosophy and observation of modern reli­giosity. The shift from the history of philosophy to the religious context is ful­filled through analysis of texts of two religious thinkers, A. Reinach and S. Frank, whose thought clearly demonstrates strong interconnection between the both fields. Analysis of contemporary studies on history of phenomenological philos­ophy (C. Möckel and W. Gleixner) lets firstly observe ways of application of Koselleck’s notion of crisis to investigations in the history of philosophy. Sec­ondly it discovers two possibilities of philosophical contextualization of the con­cept of spiritual crisis – on the one hand, as a constituent rhetorical element of the philosophical statement (Möckel), on the other hand, as a term which de­scribes the uniqueness of an intellectual situation of the beginning of the 20thcentury (Gleixner). Then these aspects of the rhetoric of crisis are applied to reli­gious philosophy of Reinach and Frank, what leads to interpretation of their works as a particular statement discovering the divine (or the holy) as a new cat­egory of religious consciousness.

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Shan Zhang

By applying the concept of natural science to the study of music, on the one hand, we can understand the structure of music macroscopically, on the other, we can reflect on the history of music to a certain extent. Throughout the history of western music, from the classical period to the 20th century, music seems to have gone from order to disorder, but it is still orderly if analyzed carefully. Using the concept of complex information systems can give a good answer in the essence.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Gekle

The history of mental development on the one and the history of his writings on the other hand form the two separate but essentially intertwined strands of an archeology of Ernst Bloch´s thought undertaken in this book. Bloch as a philosopher is peculiar in that his initial access to thought rose from the depths of early, painful experience. To give expression to this experience, he not only needed to develop new categories, but first and foremost had to find words for it: the experience of the uncanny and the abysmal, of which he tells in Spuren, is on the level of philosophical theory juxtaposed by the “Dunkel des gerade gelebten Augenblicks” (darkness of the moment just lived) and his discovery of a “Noch-nicht-Bewusstes” (not-yet-conscious), thus metaphysically undermining the classical Oedipus complex in the succession of Freud. In this book, psyche, work and the history of the 20th century appear concentrated in Ernst Bloch the philosopher and contemporary witness, who paid tribute to these supra-individual powers in his work as much as he hoped to transgress them.


Author(s):  
Karin de Boer

This chapter examines Hegel’s lectures on the history of modern philosophy in view of the tension between, on the one hand, his ambition to grasp philosophy’s past in a truly philosophical way and, on the other hand, the necessity to account for the actual particularities of a wide range of philosophical systems. Hegel’s lectures are put in relief by comparing their methodological principles to those put forward by his Kantian predecessor Tennemann. After discussing Hegel’s conception of modern philosophy as a whole, the chapter turns to his reading of Locke, Leibniz, and, in particular, Kant. In this context, it also compares Hegel’s assessment of Kant’s achievements to that of Tennemann. The chapter concludes by considering Hegel’s account of the final moment of the history of philosophy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (136) ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
Bento Silva Santos

Resumo: O artigo comenta globalmente algumas anotações da Vorlesung não proferida – “Os Fundamentos Filosóficos da Mística Medieval” (1918-1919) – na tentativa ainda fragmentária de esboçar uma compreensão fenomenológica da experiência mística. Assim, destaco, primeiramente, as duas observações iniciais de Heidegger sobre o sentido ambíguo da formulação “fundamentos filosóficos da mística medieval” ora com base na história da filosofia (1), ora com base na abordagem fenomenológica. Em segundo lugar, optando pela mística medieval como expressão (Ausdruck) da religiosidade cristã, Heidegger estabelece uma dupla distinção: de um lado, a religiosidade se distingue tanto da filosofia da religião como da teologia; de outro lado, a separação entre o problema da teologia e problema da religiosidade cristã (2). Por fim, em função desta oposição problemática entre teologia escolástica e mística medieval, trato brevemente da permanência ambígua do esquema de pensamento da teologia cristã no Denkweg de Heidegger, que pressupõe inegavelmente suas origens católicas (3).Abstract: This article broadly discusses Heidegger’s notes for his undelivered Vorlesung - “The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism” (1918-1919) - in a still fragmentary attempt to outline a phenomenological understanding of the mystical experience. In order to do so, I first highlight the two initial observations of Heidegger concerning the meaning of the ambiguous wording “philosophical foundations of medieval mysticism”, sometimes referring to the basis of mysticism in the history of philosophy (1), sometimes to its phenomenological approach. Second, I discuss Heidegger’s option to consider medieval mystic as expression (Ausdruck) of Christian religiousness. Thus, the author establishes a double distinction: on the one hand, religiousness distinguishes itself from both the philosophy of religion and theology, and on the other hand, the problem of theology is separated from that of Christian religiousness (2). Finally, in light of this problematic opposition between scholastic theology and medieval mysticism, I briefly deal with the ambiguous persistence of the model of thinking of the Christian theology in Heidegger’s Denkweg, that unmistakably presupposes his Catholic origins (3).


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Fernanda Henriques

This paper explores the thought of Paul Ricœur from a feminist point of view. My goal is to show that it is necessary to narrate differently the history of our culture – in particular, the history of philosophy – in order for wommen to attain a self-representation that is equal to that of men. I seek to show that Ricoeur’s philosophy – especially his approach to the topics of memory and history, on the one hand, and the human capacity for initiative, on the other hand– can support the idea that it is possible and legitimate to tell our history otherwise by envisioning a more accurate truth about ourselves. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Maria Buck

While in the early days of the European history of culture the Alps were seen as forbidding, since the 1970s environmental activists have used this description, turning it the other way round — now it is the Alps that are increasingly threatened by today’s environmental problems. Noise, air pollution, deforestation and problems relating to ozone depletion threaten the ecologically sensitive Alpine range. The problems affect not just the Alps, but owing to geographical and topographic conditions their consequences are particularly strong here. Thus the Alps constitute a reference framework as well as a point of origin for the thematisation of ecological problems. Defenders of the Alps were especially critical of the claims — or, more openly, designs — of the European Union in the area of transport, tourism and energy. The relations between the Alps and the European Union constituted a unique moment in the discussion of environmental activists. On the one hand they styled the Alps as a model ecological region in contrast to the economy-focused European Union, and on the other the European Union served as a common enemy, which turned the Alps into a political argument in declaring unity of this space. This unity was, according to the defenders of the Alps, important in the context of securing and forcing through the region’s internal needs. To sum up, the Alps were presented as a place where various, partly opposing, economic, ecological and political interest met, and a place appropriated, depending on the context, as a living, cultural and economic space, as Europe’s roof and water tower, or as a holiday idyll and sports arena. Given the collaboration of Alpine environmentalists crossing state borders south and north of the Brenner Pass, and within the extraordinarily politically and socially heterogenous resistance movement in North Tirol, a question arises: to what extent have the Alps generated unique forms of identification for these figures? The author of the article argues that for Alpine environmentalists the Alps are both a discursive and a physical space, used as an identity-building element and space of activity.


Author(s):  
Beloglazov I.A. ◽  
Biryukova N.V. ◽  
Nesterova N.V.

The authors of the work analyzed the sources that characterize the influence of absinthe on human culture. Absinthe, an alcoholic drink containing wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.), was banned in the early 20th century due to unusual properties attributed to the side effects of drinking this alcohol. This review contains information about the history of the drink. On the one hand, absinthe left its mark in the culture as a “muse” for the creators, remaining forever imprinted in the works of various types of art, on the other hand, it became the main enemy for the most part of society because of the harmful properties that was characterized by researchers of the 19th century.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-202
Author(s):  
Teodor I. Oizerman ◽  

Theodor Oizerman’s article “On The Meaning of the Question‘What is Philosophy?’” was first published in the journal “Voprosy filosofii”, 1968, vol. 11. Since that the issue has become a bibliographical rarity and still does not exist in a digital form. Other versions of the article were rewritten in the form of book chapters and transformed in the context of the current situation. This proposed publication bases on one of the older versions, which, is, on the one hand, close to the original author’s intention, and on the other hand, lacks a certain dependence on the ideological context. The text, however, includes some critically important arguments appearing only in later editions. In general, the article is of central significance in terms of its place in the Metaphilosophy concept proposed by Oizerman, which later the following books have manifested: “The Problem Of The History Of Philosophy”(1969, 1983), “The Foundations For The Theory Of The Historico-Philosophical Process” (1983, in co-authorship with A.S. Bogomolov), “Philosophy As A History Of Philosophy” (1999), “Ambivalence Of Philosophy” (2011); “Metaphilosophy: Theory Of The Historico-Philosophical Process” (2009). A number of references due to the difficulty of reading the archived article text have been omitted or taken from new editions. The text has been prepared and edited by Ilya T. Kasavin.


1972 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 165-181
Author(s):  
Oliver Johnson

Of all the kinds of arguments that philosophers use to support their conclusions, the one type that I find personally to stick longest and most vividly in my mind is the verbal pictures they occasionally draw. Whether this is a result of the fact that I myself think best in pictorial terms or, as I would rather like to believe, is a tribute to the verbal artistry of the writers themselves, it remains true that, for me, the history of philosophy is punctuated with pictures, some pleasing and others perplexing. I need hardly mention Plato; with the Allegory of the Cave, the Myth of Er, the Charioteer of the Soul, and countless others he is beyond question the supreme master of the art. But other examples easily come to mind. I see Descartes seated in solitude before the fire in his dressing gown, suddenly to be surprised by a malignant demon, who appears at his shoulder to whisper insinuatingly into his ear that 2 plus 2 does not equal 4 at all. Or William James on a camping trip with friends trying to decide whether one of their number who keeps circling a tree on which a squirrel clings - and in turn circles the tree at equal speed, keeping the tree between him and his tormenter and never permitting the latter to get into a position behind his back - does or does not circle the squirrel, as he undoubtedly does circle the tree to which the squirrel clings. Or, I see G. E. Moore - and it is this picture that gives rise to the present paper - carefully contemplating two complete, independent, and quite different worlds, trying to decide which of the two is intrinsically better than the other.


Author(s):  
Thomas Grundmann

What is the epistemic significance of reflecting on a discipline’s past for making progress in that discipline? The author assumes that the answer to this question negatively correlates with that discipline’s degree of progress over time. If and only if a science is progressive, then what people have thought and argued in the past in that discipline ceases to be up to date. This chapter distinguishes different dimensions of disciplinary progress and subsequently argue that veritic progress, that is, collective convergence to truth, is the most important dimension for disciplines with scientific ambitions. It then argues that, on the one hand, veritic progress in philosophy is more significant than many current philosophers believe, but that, on the other hand, it also has severe limitations. The author offers an explanation of these limitations that suggests that the history of philosophy should play some role, though only a minor one, in systematic philosophy.


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