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Ideas for 'Introduction to the Philosophy of History', 'Frege on Knowing the Foundations' and 'A Philosophy of Boredom'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 5. Later European Thought
9307 Modern Western culture suddenly appeared in Jena in the 1790s [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: Foucault was right to say that Jena in the 1790s was the arena where the fundamental interests in modern Western culture suddenly had their breakthrough.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2)
     A reaction: [Hölderlin, Novalis, Tieck, Schlegel, based on Kant and Fichte] Romanticism seems to have been born then. Is that the essence of modernism? Foucault and his pals are hoping to destroy the Enlightenment by ignoring it, but that is modern too.
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / d. Nineteenth century philosophy
20109 Hegel inserted society and history between the God-world, man-nature, man-being binary pairs [Hegel, by Safranski]
     Full Idea: Before Hegel, people thought in binary oppositions of God and the world, man and nature, man and being. After Hegel an intervening world of society and history was inserted between these pairs.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840]) by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 05
     A reaction: This is what Popper later called 'World Three'. This might be seen as the start of what we islanders call 'continental' philosophy, which we have largely ignored. Analytic philosophy only discovered this through philosophy of language.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
9297 You can't understand love in terms of 'if and only if...' [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: I once began reading a philosophical article on love. The following statement soon came up: 'Bob loves Kate if and only if...' At that point I stopped reading. Such a formalized approach was unsuitable, because the actual phenomenon would be lost.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Pref)
     A reaction: It is hard to disagree! However, if your best friend comes to you and says, 'I can't decide whether I am really in love with Kate; what do you think?', how are you going to respond. You offer 'if and only if..', but in a warm and sympathetic way!