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Full Idea
Early 19th century German philosophers retreated to the first and oldest level of speculation, for, like the thinkers of dreamy ages, they found satisfaction in concepts rather than in explanations - they resuscitated a prescientific type of philosophy.
Gist of Idea
Early 19th century German philosophers enjoyed concepts, rather than scientific explanations
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 197)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Dawn (Daybreak) (v 5)', ed/tr. Smith, Brittain [Stanford 2011], p.142
A Reaction
I have a suspicion that this may still apply to 'continental philosophy'. Personally I love explanations, which lead to understanding. But not all explanations are scientific.
Related Ideas
Idea 6845 Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley]
Idea 8217 Philosophy is a concept-creating discipline [Deleuze/Guattari]
| 20109 | Hegel inserted society and history between the God-world, man-nature, man-being binary pairs [Hegel, by Safranski] |
| 8215 | Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book [Hegel, by Derrida] |
| 20255 | Early 19th century German philosophers enjoyed concepts, rather than scientific explanations [Nietzsche] |
| 20260 | Carlyle spent his life vainly trying to make reason appear romantic [Nietzsche] |
| 22036 | In Hegel's time naturalism was called 'Spinozism' [Pinkard] |
| 20110 | Hegel, Fichte and Schelling wanted to know Kant's thing-in-itself, as ego, or nature, or spirit [Safranski] |
| 21943 | Since Kant, self-criticism has been part of philosophy [Gutting] |