Historicism and the beginning of interdisciplinarity in the intellectual history of the 19th – early 20th century human being in time

В статье исследуется становление междисциплинарности в интеллектуальной истории XIX – начала ХХ в. Методологическим основанием историзма этого периода, соединяющего различные области исторических, филологических, социальных наук и психологии, стала идея связи человека со временем его жизни и рефлексивно со временем культуры и социума (концепт «человек во времени»). Философия абсолютного идеализма Гегеля принимала человека только как «чистую» природу, как рациональность. Показана трансформация понимания человека от «великого характера» в гегелевской философии истории к человеку времени ренессансной культуры Я. Буркхардта, сверхчеловеку будущего в философии Ф. Ницше и к целостному человеку во времени социума и культуры в науках о духе В. Дильтея. При всем различии трех концепций выявлено сходство методологических оснований в установлении связи человека со временем его жизни и историческим временем культуры и в принятии идеи человека как фундаментальной для различения эпох или типов в истории культуры. Автор считает, что Дильтей дал первый опыт философского обоснования наук о духе как междисциплинарного гуманитарного проекта, в центре которого находилась идея целостного человека времени своего «жизнеосуществления», и определил историзм как смысл гуманитарного знания в целом. The article examines the formation of interdisciplinary in intellectual history in the 19th – early 20th century. The methodological basis of the historicism of this period, which unites various areas of historical, philological, social sciences and psychology, was the idea of a person's connection with the time of his life and reflexively with the time of culture and society (the concept of “human being in time”). Historicism of the philosophy of absolute idealism by G.V.F. Hegel accepted human being only as "pure" nature, as rationality. In the 1860s at the University of Basel J. Burckhardt, F. Nietzsche and W. Dilthey developed the idea of human being in time in the history of culture, philosophy and hermeneutics. The transformation of understanding of a person is traced from a "great character" in Hegel's philosophy of history to a person of the time of the Renaissance culture developed by Burckhardt, to the Übermensch of the future in the philosophy of Nietzsche and to an integral person in the time of society and culture in the sciences of the spirit of Dilthey. The present study reveals the similarity of methodological foundations of the three concepts in establishing a connection between a person with the time of his life and the historical time of culture; and in accepting that the idea of ​​man was fundamental for distinguishing between eras or types in the history of culture. The author believes that Dilthey was the first to produce philosophical substantiation for the sciences of the spirit as the basis of an interdisciplinary humanitarian project, in the center of which is the idea of a whole person of the time of his "life-fulfillment", аnd defined historicism as the meaning of humanitarian knowledge in general.

The Metaphysics of Powers in Kant and Hegel

This chapter explores the metaphysics of powers as articulated in the modern German idealist tradition, running from the Leibniz-Wolffians, through Kant’s “transcendental” idealism, to Hegel’s “absolute” idealism. These various forms of idealism are shown to share a common understanding of the nature of powers in general, as metaphysically distinct from what is merely ideal, and as possessing real existence over and above any mental ideas or representations—not least so as to serve as both the cause of, and the support for, the real existence of ideas themselves. Beyond these broad points of convergence on the ontology of powers as such, the chapter also traces out developments in the accounts of powers given in the various branches of metaphysica specialis (cosmology, psychology, theology). More generally, the chapter aims to revisit the question of the precise significance of the idealisms in this tradition upon the metaphysics of powers in particular.

‘O Plato! Plato!’: Don Juan versus the Philosophers

Critics who take Byron seriously as a thinker tend to locate his personal philosophy within the history of scepticism. In Cantos I and II of Don Juan, Byronic doubting takes the form of a critique of idealism, with a particular focus on Plato. This essay argues that Byron’s scepticism has philosophical implications beyond the critique of Platonism, that it works also to undermine the major idealist movement of his day - German absolute idealism. Byron’s embodied ethic is evident both in the narrator’s comments and within the narrative of Juan’s affair with Haidée. The form this critique of idealism takes anticipates Nietzsche’s ‘revaluation of values’ as well as Derrida’s deconstruction in that it isolates a traditionally hierarchised pair of oppositions and revalues the hierarchy.

Green and Sidgwick

The end of the nineteenth century saw a rethinking of German idealism led by Thomas Hill Green, and a refinement of utilitarianism by Henry Sidgwick. This chapter examines their restatements of the two great late modern syntheses: absolute idealism and utilitarian liberalism. For both, the crisis of religion was fundamental. In Green’s case this meant a return to absolute idealism, with religion at its core, and a new application to the politics of liberalism. In Sidgwick’s case it led to an implicit nihilism. Sidgwick’s analysis of normative ‘intuition’ is discussed, his thesis of the dualism of practical reason is examined, and it is pointed out that on his own penetrating account of normative warrant, neither egoism nor utilitarianism is warranted. The final section of the chapter reconsiders the role of sentiment, will, and reason as bases of impartiality.

James Frederick Ferrier

Following a general discussion of how idealism relates to both agnosticism and empiricism, its origin in nineteenth-century British philosophy are explored through consideration of how Ferrier reacted to the philosophy of William Hamilton. Insisting that the minimal epistemic unit is always subject-plus-some-object, Ferrier challenged agnosticism by claiming that we could only be ignorant of what we might at some point know, and this challenge is examined by means of a detailed exploration of his conceptions of knowledge, ignorance and the contradictory, before it is explained how this stance leads to a form of absolute idealism and belief in the existence of God. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Ferrier’s influence on the British Idealists.

The Scottish Idealists: Absolute Idealism and Personal Idealism

From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century British Idealism was a leading school of philosophical thought and the Scottish Idealists made important contributions to this philosophical school. In Scotland, there were two types of post-Hegelian idealism: Absolute Idealism and Personal Idealism. This article will show the ways in which these philosophical systems arose by focusing on their leading representatives: Edward Caird and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison.