Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Anaxarchus, Terry Pinkard and Alain Badiou

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
Wolff's version of Leibniz dominated mid-18th C German thought [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: The dominant philosophy of mid-eighteenth century Germany was Wolffianism, a codified and almost legalistically organised form of Leibnizian thought.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], Intro)
     A reaction: Kant grew up in this intellectual climate.
Romantics explored beautiful subjectivity, and the re-enchantment of nature [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Early Romanticism can be seen as the exploration of subjective interiority and as the re-enchantment of nature (as organic). Hegel said they had the idea of a 'beautiful soul', which (he said) either paralysed action, or made them smug.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], 06)
     A reaction: [compressed, inc Note 1] A major dilemma of life is the extent of our social engagement, because it makes life worthwhile, but pollutes the mind with continual conflicts.
The combination of Kant and the French Revolution was an excited focus for German philosophy [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: After the French Revolution, philosophy suddenly became the key rallying point for an entire generation of German intellectuals, who had been reading Kant as the harbinger of a new order.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], Pt II Intro)
     A reaction: Kant was a harbinger because he offered an autonomous status to each individual, rather than being subservient to a social order.
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / d. Nineteenth century philosophy
In Hegel's time naturalism was called 'Spinozism' [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: In Hegel's time the shorthand for the Naturalistic worldview was 'Spinozism'.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], 10)
     A reaction: Spinozism hit Germany like a bomb in 1786, when it was reported that the poet Hölderlin was a fan of Spinoza.
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 5. Modern Philosophy / c. Modern philosophy mid-period
In ontology, logic dominated language, until logic was mathematized [Badiou]
     Full Idea: From Aristotle to Hegel, logic was the philosophical category of ontology's dominion over language. The mathematization of logic has authorized language to become that which seizes philosophy for itself.
     From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 8)
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Philosophy aims to reveal the grandeur of mathematics [Badiou]
     Full Idea: Philosophy's role consists in informing mathematics of its own speculative grandeur.
     From: Alain Badiou (Mathematics and Philosophy: grand and little [2004], p.11)
     A reaction: Revealing the grandeur of something sounds more like a rhetorical than a rational exercise. How would you reveal the grandeur of a sunset to someone?
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself [Badiou]
     Full Idea: The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself.
     From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998])
     A reaction: Too good to pass over, too crazy to file sensibly, too creepy to have been filed under humour, my candidate for the weirdest remark I have ever read in a serious philosopher, but no doubt if you read Lacan etc for long enough it looks deeply wise.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
Philosophy has been relieved of physics, cosmology, politics, and now must give up ontology [Badiou]
     Full Idea: Philosophy has been released from, even relieved of, physics, cosmology, and politics, as well as many other things. It is important for it to be released from ontology per se.
     From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 3)
     A reaction: A startling proposal, for anyone who thought that ontology was First Philosophy. Badiou wants to hand ontology over to mathematicians, but I am unclear what remains for the philosophers to do.