9 ideas
| 22002 | 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. |
| 22021 | 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. |
| 22010 | 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. |
| 22036 | 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. |
| 22048 | Idealism is the link between reason and freedom [Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Idealism was conceived as a link between reason and freedom. | |
| From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], 14 Conc) | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to see the Romantic era as the Age of Freedom, which followed the Age of Reason. This idea fits that picture nicely. Pinkard says that paradoxes resulted from the attemptl |
| 8840 | There are five possible responses to the problem of infinite regress in justification [Cleve] |
| Full Idea: Sceptics respond to the regress problem by denying knowledge; Foundationalists accept justifications without reasons; Positists say reasons terminate is mere posits; Coherentists say mutual support is justification; Infinitists accept the regress. | |
| From: James Van Cleve (Why coherence is not enough [2005], I) | |
| A reaction: A nice map of the territory. The doubts of Scepticism are not strong enough for anyone to embrace the view; Foundationalist destroy knowledge (?), as do Positists; Infinitism is a version of Coherentism - which is the winner. |
| 8841 | Modern foundationalists say basic beliefs are fallible, and coherence is relevant [Cleve] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary foundationalists are seldom of the strong Cartesian variety: they do not insist that basic beliefs be absolutely certain. They also tend to allow that coherence can enhance justification. | |
| From: James Van Cleve (Why coherence is not enough [2005], III) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that they have got onto a slippery slope. How certain are the basic beliefs? How do you evaluate their certainty? Could incoherence in their implications undermine them? Skyscrapers need perfect foundations. |
| 1868 | The world was made as much for animals as for man [Celsus] |
| Full Idea: The world was made as much for the irrational animals as for men. | |
| From: Celsus (On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) [c.178], §V) | |
| A reaction: A good remark. It seems to be a classic distortion of European Christianity that the world is made for us, and that animals only exist to fill our sandwiches. |
| 1867 | Christians presented Jesus as a new kind of logos to oppose that of the philosophers [Celsus] |
| Full Idea: Christians put forth this Jesus not only as the son of God, but as the very Logos - not the pure and holy Logos known to the philosophers, but a new kind of Logos. | |
| From: Celsus (On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) [c.178], III) |