7 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. |
| 9413 | An event is a change in or to an object [Lombard, by Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Lombard holds that an event is a change in or to an object. | |
| From: report of Lawrence B. Lombard (Events [1986]) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 2.1 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as more plausible than Davidson's view that events are primitive, or Kim's that they are exemplifications of properties. Events then exist just insofar as we wish to (or are able to) discriminate them. |
| 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 |
| 21971 | Transcendental philosophy is the subject becoming the originator of unified reality [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Transcendental philosophy is the act of consciousness whereby the subject becomes the originator of itself and, thereby, of the whole object of technical-practical and moral-practical reason in one system - ordering all things in God | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Posthumous notes [1799], 21:78, p.245), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06 App | |
| A reaction: This is evidently Kant's last word on the matter (c.1799), and Moore says he was drifting close to Fichte's idealism, in which reality is actually (sort of) created by our own minds. Disappointing! God's role here is unclear. |