The article is devoted to the analysis of the theological-academic ontological doctrine of the three types of being formulated within the framework of the Russian theological-academic philosophy of the 19th century. The study of this problem in the context of the general analysis of the phenomenon of theological-academic philosophy allows expanding our understanding of the genesis of Russian philosophy and its religious-philosophical component. The main aim of the article is the historical-philosophical analysis (on the material (...) of philosophical courses of Russian theological academies and original works of professors of academies) of the doctrine about three types of being, which was developed within the framework of the theological-academic philosophy in Russia in the 19th century. The set goal is achieved by means of textual and religious analysis methods, as well as historical-functional, historical-genetic, and comparative research methods. The authors conclude that the specificity of theological-academic philosophizing was determined by confessional affiliation and consisted in its theistic form: the transversal theme of all theological-academic interpretations was the problem of being. Thus, theological-academic ontology took the form of the doctrine of God as an absolute being and the world as its derivative. The theological-academic doctrine of the three types of being and the synthesizing function of the absolute in relation to theological and material being cannot be characterized as quite logical and consistent. The notion of God as an absolute being is conditioned by the aspiration of theological-academic philosophers not to go beyond traditional orthodoxy and is one of the main specific features of theological-academic philosophical interpretations of religious consciousness. At the same time, the historical and philosophical analysis of the works of professors from Russian theological academies allows tracing how the powerful ideological and theoretical potential accumulated in Russian theological academies after their reforms in the 19th century contributed to the development of professional philosophy in Russia, the development of a philosophical categorical apparatus and the systematic formation of Russian philosophical thought. The development of this theme responds to the urgent research tasks of the history of philosophy. Further, this topic is very interesting not only for historians of philosophy but also for historians of religion, historians of orthodoxy, and culturologists. (shrink)

The general subject of the book is the re-discovery of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed by the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement in Germany of the nineteenth and beginning twentieth Germany. Since this movement is inseparably connected with religious reforms that took place at about the same time, it shall be demonstrated how the Reform Movement in Judaism used the Guide for its own agenda of historizing, rationalizing and finally turning Judaism into a philosophical enterprise of ‘ethical monotheism’. The study follows (...) the reception of Maimonidean thought, and the Guide specifically, through the nineteenth century, from the first beginnings of early reformers in 1810 and their reading of Maimonides to the development of a sophisticated reform-theology, based on Maimonides, in the writings of Hermann Cohen more then a hundred years later. (shrink)

The second half of the 19th Century saw a revolution in both European politics and philosophy. Philosophical fervour reflected political fervour. Five great critics dominated the European intellectual scene: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Friedrich Nietzsche. "Nineteenth-Century Philosophy" assesses the response of each of these leading figures to Hegelian philosophy - the dominant paradigm of the time - to the shifting political landscape of Europe and the United States, and also (...) to the emerging critique of modernity itself. Both individually and collectively, these thinkers succeeded in revolutionizing theology, philosophy, psychology, and politics. The period also saw the emergence of new schools of thought and new disciplinary thinking. The volume covers the birth of sociology and the social sciences, the development of French spiritualism, the beginning of American pragmatism, the rise of science and mathematics, and the maturation of hermeneutics and phenomenology. (shrink)

The second half of the 19th Century saw a revolution in both European politics and philosophy. Philosophical fervour reflected political fervour. Five great critics dominated the European intellectual scene: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Friedrich Nietzsche. "Nineteenth-Century Philosophy" assesses the response of each of these leading figures to Hegelian philosophy - the dominant paradigm of the time - to the shifting political landscape of Europe and the United States, and also (...) to the emerging critique of modernity itself. Both individually and collectively, these thinkers succeeded in revolutionizing theology, philosophy, psychology, and politics. The period also saw the emergence of new schools of thought and new disciplinary thinking. The volume covers the birth of sociology and the social sciences, the development of French spiritualism, the beginning of American pragmatism, the rise of science and mathematics, and the maturation of hermeneutics and phenomenology. (shrink)

This book is a transcription from tapes of a course given by Tillich in the spring quarter of 1963 at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The title is somewhat misleading as Tillich spends a very limited amount of time on the period after Nietzsche--no doubt because of lack of time in the course schedule--and also devotes an entire third of the book to developing the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophical, theological, and cultural background for nineteenth-century Protestant theology. (...) He is especially good on the Enlightenment and the way in which Hume, Rousseau, and Kant, though undeniably enlightened, prepared the way for the Romantic reaction to the superficial rationalism that had culminated in Deism and the bourgeois ideal of reasonable religion. Romanticism itself is viewed as the attempt to resolve the problem of the relation between the finite and the infinite; and Schleiermacher and Hegel are treated in detail as the ones who picked up the romantic problematic and carried it through to systematic theological and cultural synthesis. Tillich then explores the breakdown of the synthesis as it passed through the historical problem of Christianity, the anthropological problem, the proto-existential criticism of Schelling and Kierkegaard, the sociopolitical criticism of Marx, and the voluntaristic and Lebensphilosophie criticism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From here on Tillich appears to be racing with the school calendar. He gives a rapid review of the neo-Kantian-Ritschlian, Erlangen, and Harnackian schools of liberal theology, and concludes by touching briefly upon Bultmann, Troeltsch, Barth, and his own thought. The course was meant to be a survey, but Tillich's presentation of the material is so deft and unerring, and so gently guided in its historical and conceptual unfolding by his own favored theological and religious categories, that the overall impression is of a theological meditation on homo religiosus.--E. A. R. (shrink)

This article attempts to present the dialogue between 19th – century Kyiv academic philosophers and Kant regarding the issues related to the “pedagogical paradox” formulated in his Lectures on Pedagogy. The main finding is the specific contributions made by Kyiv academics to Kant’s reasoning about education. Such a peculiarity was defined by the educational paradigm based on the requirements of the Charters of the Russian theological academies, which mandated that all philosophical doctrines be considered from the perspective of (...) Orthodox Christian dogma. This approach led to the recognition of the child’s full right to humanity, thereby reinforcing Kant’s postulate on the universal significance of education. Simultaneously, it expanded the possibilities for overcoming the contradiction of the pedagogical paradox, allowing Kyiv academic philosophers to pose a fundamental question about how to create a space of freedom in education. By acknowledging the capacity for moral freedom as inherent in the child’s nature, the strategic logic of pedagogical interaction in the reasoning of Kyiv academics shifted from Kant’s “active expectation” – where the child intellectually matures to understand moral ideas – to a logic of “interactive support,” where educators assist the child in realizing their personhood through accessible forms of moral activity. Consequently, within the context of these discussions, the theme of pedagogical creativity emerged prominently in the Kyiv philosophical and pedagogical discourse of the 19th century, underscoring the impossibility of standard solutions in a field where freedom and necessity are constantly negotiated. (shrink)

This is the first article recreating the full history of research on the Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda made by students and teachers of the Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century. The analysis highlights the qualitative diversity of research interpretations of Skovoroda’s figure and his creative work in cultural, historical, and biographical contexts, while identifying common features that unite those different scientific perceptions. The article demonstrates that the academic research (...) interest in Skovoroda’s heritage was both due to the desire to introduce this little-known at that time figure of the Ukrainian thinker by creating a variety of attractive images, and to prove that idealistic direction prevailed in local philosophy since the beginning of its formation. Disclosing the multilayered structure of interpretations of Skovoroda present in the scientific studies of theological academic researchers, enabled the author to show simultaneous unity and diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches found within the national academic interpretational field and determined by different philosophical, scientific, cultural, educational, and sociopolitical priorities of researchers. (shrink)

By contextualising the striking similarities in Feuerbach and Kierkegaard’s conceptions of sin as infinite qualitative difference, and the related question of the individual and the species as a shared response to the Hegelian Entzweiung, this article seeks to offer a new framework for understanding Feuerbach’s critique of Christian theology and of Kierkegaard’s famous articulation of the infinite qualitative difference as simultaneously ontological, hamartiological, and soteriological. It argues that Kierkegaard offers a modification of the Feuerbachian account to argue against Feuerbach’s (...) conclusion that the Christian doctrine of sin negates qualitative differences between individual humans, and to conversely affirm that sin differentiates not just God and humans, but each single individual too. Kierkegaard might be said to at once uphold Feuerbach’s critique of Hegelian theology, while inverting Feuerbach’s anti-theological programme by harnessing the ambiguities that appear in Feuerbach’s account of sin. It is thereby shown how both Feuerbach and Kierkegaard make use of Hegelian logic, both through their formal application of the concepts of quality and quantity, as well as their creative appropriation of the notion of Entzweiung. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AMERICAN OATHOLlC THEOLOGY AT CENTURY'S END: POS'I100NCIL!IAR, POSTMODERN, POST...THOMISTIC * J. A. D1No1A, O.P. Domiinican House of Studies Washiington, D.O. I N CENTURY'S END-.a iascinaiting recent hook describing the decades at the turn of the centuries from the 990s throiUgh the 1990s-cultural historian Hillel Schwartz writes: "The millennial year ~000 has gravitamona1l tides of maximal reach. Its entire precedirng hundred years, our century, has come (...) to he felt as a final epoch, a time of grotesque·extremity...." 1 Along with other modern intellectual inquiries, American Catholic theology has felt the pull of the app :voaching miHenium. Any interpretation of its current stateas well as of the 'l:"ole that the ·thought of St. Thomas Aquinas may continue to play in it--'ll.eeds to take account of long range intellectual and theological trends. Clearly, the main currents in fate 20th century American Catholic theology result at least in part from the play of large tides reaching over the past hundred years and hey;ond. Among the most significant of these is Ohrist]anity's continuing endeavor to meet the pl'leS'sing surge of modernity. This endeavor engaged the energies of Catholics and Protestants for nearly two centuries, :before reaching 1someth:ing orf a climax in the Second Vatican C01Uncil. Assimilating the 1Work of several *A version of this paper was presented on May 4, 1990 in Rome at an Angelicum University symposium on the role of St. Thomas in contemporary thought. 1.Hillel.Schwartz, Oentury's End: A Oultural History of the Fiin de Siecle from the 990s through the 1990s (New York: Doubleday, 1990), p. 239. 499 500 J. A. DI NOIA1 O.P. generrutions of,bishops and theologians, the Council oombined a reaffirmation of the Catholic Christian identity of the Church with a positive, a:lbeit critical, approach to modernity. Now, just when disagreements about the conciliar stance to modernity preoccupy and divide eurrent American Catholic theologians, the advent of " :postmodernity " is being hailed in a1,chitecbure, literary oriticism, science, philosophy, and other fields. No wonder the decades ushering in the 21st century have seemed to many "a final epoch, a time of grotesque extremity " in theology an:d in Church life. The condition of late 20th century American theology is intelligible, I shall af'gue here, only when viewed in the perspective of the complex responses of Catholic and Protestant Christianity to the once swelling and now receding tides of modernity. The fortunes of the study of Aquinas ha,V'e shifted in tandem with these :fluctuations. In both Aquinas's late 19th century 11evival and, at least in American CathoJic circles, his late 20th century eclipse, alternative Christian assessments of the challenge of moderniity figured prominently. But the situation is again in flux. There is a recovery of Aquinas underway, in connection with theological developments that encompass at least a measure of the refreshing postmodern agenda. It is here, I shall suggest, that we can identify some of the most creative currents at work in present-day American theology. I Although united in their appeal to the authority of Vatican II, rival American Catholic theological positions are divided by two opposed readings of the nature of the conciliar response to modernity and its implioataions for the theo1ogica:l a:genida. Acco1 •ding to one reading, the Coundl is understood to commend,a strong reaffirmation o.f Catho·lic Christian identity, taking the broadest view of its historic traditions, yet open to the cultural and religious pluralism characteristic of our times. But in the eyes of a numerous and influential group of American theologians, such a reading reverses the true priorities of AMERICAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGY 501 the Council. It was not resfomtion, ibut modernization, dialogue, a.nd social oommitment that V:atican IT chiefly sought to culti¥ate in the contemporary Church. To a. large extent, the state of theology in the U.S. (and perhaps elsewhere as well) refLects the predominance of the second interpreta.tion of the Council. Ressourcement or aggiornamento? As the conciliar documents reveal, both of these progmms were ruddressed and embraced by Viatican II. But which of them has priority? The documents themselrves... (shrink)

This article aims to reveal the semantic dynamics of narratives on Rousseau in Kyiv academic philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries. through the separation of the informational layer from the rhetorical one in their content and the identification of hidden (unarticulated) elements that determined both the general nature of the narrative and the evaluative judgments of the narrators. Based on archival primary sources and printed editions (mostly bibliographic rarities), a historical and philosophic study of the narratives (...) on Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his philosophy of education performed, which were created and broadcast by professors of Kyiv Theological Academy and St.Volodymyr University Pamfil Yurkevych, Sylvester Gogotskyi, Markellin Olesnitskyi, Mykola Makkaveiskyi, Oleksandr Selikhanovych, and Vasyl Zenkovskyi. Keeping almost the same informational core, the narratives of Kyiv academicians on Rousseau differ significantly in terms of rhetoric. While the “older generation” goes into philosophical criticism of the pedagogical ideas of the Swiss thinker as the Stranger, the “younger ones”, limiting themselves to remarks about their controversial nature, represent him as the Self. This difference is due to both personal factors and institutional conditions for the development of Kyiv academic philosophy, as well as changes in the general political situation in the period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (shrink)

The paper describes that period of the Hungarian philosophy, in which it became professionalized, namely the Kant argument, which was the first step the Hungarian philosophy took towards its being public. The question has to be answered whether Kant’s thought could become a part of it. Due to political developments as well as the pressure of the church the turn of the century witnessed the shift from epistemology to the issues of moral philosophy and theology. (...) Thus the conditions for the reception of Kantianism and post-Kantian philosophy in the 19th century have been created. The fundaments for the development of axiology were laid as well. The paper covers the main phases of the debate with their leading representatives. (shrink)

This chapter traces how theism was developed by leading 19th and 20th century figures (Schleiermacher, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rahner, and Tillich) responding to Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy. Part one deals with the ontological nature of subjectivity itself and what it reveals about the conditions of the possibility of a subject’s relation to the Absolute. Part two explores the role of subjectivity and interiority in the individual’s relation to God, and part three takes a look at the (...) theme of the “unhappy consciousness,” how its development led to important attacks on theism, and the resources available to theology in countering these attacks. (shrink)

Following conventional wisdom Theology as an academic discipline (taught at Universities) is something which developed only in the Middle Ages, or in a certain sense even as late as the 19th century. The present essay in contrast traces its origins to Classical Antiquity and outlines its development in early Christianity, especially with a view to institutions of higher education that existed in Late Antiquity, e. g. in rhetoric and philosophy. It concludes that there were forms of (...) academic theological discourse in Late Antiquity which were to become the basis of later developments in the discipline. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Philosophy of the Yogasūtra: An Introduction. Series: Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies by Karen O’Brien-KopChristopher Key Chapple (bio)The Philosophy of the Yogasūtra: An Introduction. Series: Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies. By Karen O’Brien-Kop. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. Pp. xii + 186, Paper $22.95, ISBN 978-135-02-8616-0.This concise book summarizes key parts of the speculative content of Patañjali’s Yogasūtra, leaning heavily on Gerald Larson’s translation of the (...) commentary attributed to Vyāsa. True to its title, this book emphasizes the philosophical arguments regarding ontology and the origins of things. It explains the firm distinction made in Sāṃkhya and Yoga between an unchanging consciousness or Self (ātman/puruṣa) and an ever-changing realm of actions (karma) and substances (dravya) emanating from primordial matter (prakṛti) and expressed through her three modes (guṇa-s) of heaviness (tamas), passion (rajas), and lightness (sattva). This perspective differs radically from other Indian systems as well as from ancient Greek thought and the European Enlightenment tradition that gave way to analytical and continental philosophy.Sāṃkhya and Yoga proclaim that all manifestation arises from a pre-existent cause (sat-kārya-vāda). This position distinguishes these schools from Buddhism, which proclaims the constant rise and fall of constituents of reality (dharma-s), and the various schools of Vedānta, which aver toward a unified view of reality that tends to dismiss the realm of change as ultimately insignificant or even unreal. O’Brien-Kop deftly summarizes various debates on causation. The book mentions the theological nuance that the inclusion of the existence of Īśvara brings to the Yoga table. However, these explorations are more in the realm of theory than practice. For instance, the book neglects the important reference to one’s chosen deity (iṣṭa-devatā, II:44) and leaves unexplored some decidedly theological, religious and devotional implications of the Yogasūtra.The author could have been more careful in explicating Jainism. Statements such as “all forms of action are morally dubious” and that “only death can bring liberation” (p. 60) repeat tropes often heard about Jain thought that echo Hindu and Buddhist critiques. This position overlooks the nuances contained in Umasvati’s Tattvārthasūtra that delineate the Jain 14-fold progression of ascent (guṇasthāna-s) wherein an individual attains a state of freedom while living in the human body at the 13th stage.This book sets the stage for further research into under-explored areas of the Yogasūtra. The rich celebration of the efficacy of ethical comportment in [End Page 1] the second chapter, though competently summarized in O’Brien-Kop’s chapter seven, calls out for further explication. The details regarding the body and the subtle body found in the third chapter of the Yogasūtra receive scant attention. One would hope that in future works the author will engage interlocutors such as Merleau-Ponty and Luce Irigaray on breath and embodiment. O’Brien-Kop’s chapter nine, “The Aesthetics of Freedom” calls into focus the centrality of the enlightenment process through which Buddhi, the bridge between conscious awareness and the material real, reverts increasingly toward sattva, the most refined and hence most liberating state of being. Brief mention is made here of the body’s perfectibility (p. 148). The discussion of metaphor at the end of the chapter invites a more extended conversation about light, jewels, and steadiness. This book advances conversations long in process about the nature and purpose of Yoga. The Yogasūtra was rediscovered in the 19th century and popularized by Swami Vivekananda, whose book Raja Yoga introduced the Yoga tradition to millions worldwide. Scholars such as Dasgupta, Eliade, Feuerstein, Larson, Barbara Stoler Miller, Rukmini, Whicher, Bryant and many others have helped bring rigor to the study of this important text, complementing the many popular translations by Swamis and teachers of modern postural Yoga.The book includes discussion questions at the end of each of the chapters. It is written in a manner accessible to undergraduate students of philosophy. O’Brien-Kop reminds us that the philosophical rigor of the... (shrink)

This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of the relevance of naturalism and theories of nature in Classical German Philosophy. It presents new readings from internationally renowned scholars on Kant, Jacobi, Goethe, the Romantic tradition, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Marx that highlight the significance of conceptions of nature and naturalism in Classical German Philosophy for contemporary concerns. The collection presents an inclusive view: it goes beyond the usual restricted focus on single thinkers to encompass the tradition as a (...) whole, prompting dialogue among scholars interested in different authors and areas. It thus illuminates the post-Kantian tradition in a new, wider sense. The chapters also mobilize a productive perspective at the intersection of philosophy and history by combining careful textual and historical analysis with argument-based philosophizing. Overall, the book challenges the stereotypical view that Classical German Philosophy offers at best only an idealistic, one-sided, anachronistic, and theological view of nature. It invites readers to put traditional views in dialogue with current discussions of nature and naturalism. Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Classical German Philosophy, 19th-Century Philosophy, and contemporary perspectives on naturalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 in pre-Socratic scholarship. But he does not do justice to the religious mood which pervades the whole poem (a mood which is set by the prologue which casts the whole work into the form of some kind of religious revelation). The prologue is considerably more than a mere literary device, and the poem is more than logic. Generally, Jaeger9 and Guthrie are surely correct in (...) their judgment that any adequate interpretation of Parmenides' work (as well as that of the other early Greek thinkers) must be willing to take into account its essentially theological character and religious inspirationl~ not always grasped through strict analysis and exegesis. g Theolooy of the Early C-reekPhilosophers, trans. Edward S. Robinson (Oxford, 1947), p. lff, 90ft. agCf. Guthrie's excellent statement: "...Parmenides was at one with Heraclitus in claiming a prophetic or apocalyptic authority for his teaching." And again, the Greeks believed in "an inspiration whereby-the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men" (p. 6). ED. L. MILLER University of Colorado AN UNKNOWN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SEXTUS EMPIRICUS* I. Introduction Included in a collection of manuscripts and early printed books recently acquired by the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from the Paris bookdealer Paul Jammes ~ are three manuscripts attributed to a certain Nicolas de la Toison, Baron de Bussy. Two of the three volumes contain extensive Latin commentaries on the major writings of Aristotle.2 The third is a miscellaneous volume written in three different hands, which contains, among other things, a complete French translation of the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 160-210).3 I * I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Richard O'Brien, Western European Bibliographer of the UCLA Library, for his help in numerous ways, who made it possible for me to consult this material during my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before it had been officially catalogued by the Library. I would also like to thank Professors Donald Kalish and Robert Yost of the UCLA Department of Philosophy for their support in making it possible for the collection to be purchased. 1For a brief description of the collection as a whole see Charles B. Schmitt, "Acquisition of Early French Books and Manuscripts", UCLA Librarian, XIX (1966)~25. 2These two manuscripts are bound m red leather with gold tooling. Thear present shelf mark is Collection 968, Box 2. On the spines is written: (1) PHILOSOPHIA.TO.I, and (2) METAPHYSIC ET PHYSICA TO.2. They measure approximately 10 X 14 cm. and each contains about 600fois. At the beginning of Vol. I, in a later hand (19th century?), we read: "Nicolas de la Thoison, baron de Bussy, qui 6crivit ces m6moires, 6tait conseiller laic au Parlement de Bourgogne. Il fur pourru par la r6signation de Pierre Catherine le IV Ddcembre M.DC.XLV et regu le XXIX janvier M.DC.XLVI. I1portait: de queueles dune bands d'or charges en coeur d'une quints feuiUe d'azur--ainsi qu'on le volt dans le Parlement de Bourgogne [Dijon, 1649]de Pierre PaiUot, p. 326." There is also a drawing of the coat-of-arms which has been described. That the de la Toison coat-of-arms is a quintefeuille is verified by Theodore de Renesse, Dictionnaire des figures h$raldiques (Brussels, 1894-1903) III, 461. The passage cited above from the manuscript is directly quoted from Pierre Paillot, Le Parlement de Bouroongne [I], son origins, son $tablissemerit, et son progr~s (Dijon, 1649), p. 326. s A description of this manuscript will be found in the Appendix. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY shall here only give a preliminary survey of this third manuscript, pointing out some of the more interesting features and mentioning some problems connected with it which should be investigated further in more detail. As is now well-known the writings of Sextus Empiricus, which form the major extant compendium of ancient skeptical philosophy, had quite a significant impact on sixteenth and seventeenth-eentury thought, after their reintroduction in the sixteenth century. ~ Sextus' works were available in printed Latin editions after 15695 and the Greek text was printed in... (shrink)

The first half of the 19th century witnessed a wide-range debate concerning the relation between the speculative philosophy of religion and the theology of that time. Referring to a remark of Hegel in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, in which he depicted Protestant theology of that time as unphilosophical and unscien- tific, a philosophical-theological controversy started in which several prominent German and Danish intellectuals took part. Among the discussed issues were the relations (...) between philosophy and theology, the legitimacy of metaphysical inter- pretation of Christian dogmas, the limits of rationality, the issue of pantheism or the relatedness of modern philosophy of religion to medieval speculative mysticism. (shrink)

The A to Z of Kierkegaard's Philosophy provides a contextual introduction to Kierkegaard's 19th century world of Copenhagen, a chronology of events and key figures in his life, as well as definitions of the key systems of his thought-theology, existentialism, literature, and psychology. The extensive bibliographical section covers secondary literature and electronic materials of help to researchers. The appendix includes detailed information on his writings, along with a list of his pseudonyms.

Does theology belong within the academy or the church? How do Christian teachings - on God, revelation, and humanity - contribute to the activity of knowing? This volume offers a fresh reading of Bavinck's theological epistemology and argues that his Trinitarian and organic worldview utilizes an eclectic range of sources. Sutanto unfolds Bavinck's understanding of what he considered to be the two most important aspects of epistemology: the character of the sciences and the correspondence between subjects and objects. Writing (...) at the heels of the European debates in the 19th-20th century concerning theology's place in the academy, and rooted in historic Christian teachings, Bavinck's argument remains fresh and provocative. He argued that because the universe was created by the God as described in Christian thought as the Trinity (One God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and thus a God who is absolute unity-in-diversity) knowledge of the universe can be characterized as a singular organism. This volume, exploring archival material and heretofore untranslated works, then applies this reading to current debates on the relationship between theology and philosophy, nature and grace, and the nature of knowing. (shrink)

This article examines the widespread diagnosis of a »crisis of rhetoric« around 1800 from the hitherto largely neglected perspective of the sermon. Four exemplary cases are used to show how rhetoric continues and transforms itself. Franz Theremin reaffirms the function of rhetoric and represents the largely unbroken continuity of rhetorical knowledge in 19th century homiletics and preaching practice. Johann G. Fichte develops the format of a philosophical sermon supposed to serve precisely as a propaedeutic of critical philosophy, (...) which is in itself anti-rhetorical. Friedrich D.E. Schleiermacher develops a new conception of the sermon and also a highly influential conception of religion from the problem of the communicability of religious knowledge. Karl P. Moritz proclaims a religion of art in the form of a sermon and narrates the comical failure of this proclamation, thus exposing the very limits of a sacralization of art. Through these four case studies we can gain a more precise understanding of the »crisis of rhetoric« and envision an interdisciplinary research on the sermon in which literary studies and theology would cooperate closely. (shrink)

Historically, many Christians have understood God’s transcendence to imply God’s properties categorically differ from any created properties. For multiple historical figures, a problem arose for religious language: how can one talk of God at all if none of our predicates apply to God? What are we to make of creeds and Biblical passages that seem to predicate creaturely properties, such as goodness and wisdom, of God? Thomas Aquinas offered a solution: God is to be spoken of only through analogy (the (...) doctrine of analogy). Gavin Hyman argues Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy was neglected prior to the early-modern period and the neglect of analogy produced the conception of a god vulnerable to atheistic arguments. Contra Hyman, in this paper, I show early-modern atheism arose in a theological context in which there was an active debate concerning analogy. Peter Browne (1665–1735) and William King (1650–1729) offered two competing conceptions of analogical predication that were debated through the 19th century, with interlocutors such as the freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729), theologian/philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), and skeptic David Hume (1711–1776). Lastly, I discuss the 18th century debate over theological analogy as part of the background relevant to understanding Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

The article shows the development of historical and philosophical problems in Neo-Scholasticism and Neo-Thomism. There are two key goals that authors of historical and philosophical models of the development of intellectual culture sought to solve: primarily, this is the legitimation of Scholasticism as a philosophical tradition, and secondly, its actualization in the context of the philosophical and theological discussions of their time. After the 1840s catholic intellectuals realized a gap to the medieval and post-medieval scholastic tradition, and their historical and (...) philosophical research ceased to be a tool for legitimizing of interpretation of Thomism, which claims to be authoritative. Intervention of scholasticism into the problems of philosophy in the 19th century led to a determination of their relationship to Kant and post-Kantian projects of transcendental philosophy. As a result, Joseph Maréchal SJ formed a project of Transcendental Thomism: he moved from the strategy of legitimizing scholasticism through historical and philosophical material to the strategy of transformation of Thomism to form the program of Scholasticism that would correspond to the “Epoch of Criticism”. (shrink)

While up to the 19th century there were philosophers within Judaism, these sages neither perceived themselves as Jewish philosophers nor did the Jewish community categorized them under this term. This situation changed with the rise of historicism. The first academically trained scholars in Judaism faced a new challenge: almost all leading contemporay German philosophers operated with a concept of a Christian philosophy which left no room for an acknowledgement of Jewish contributions to the history of philosophy. (...) Zunz was the first Jewish scholar who took issue with this Christian challenge when he coined the term Jewish philosophy. Zunz followed Boeckh when he drew a distinction between Philosophy within Judaism and Jewish philosophy. Zunz used the first term for the historical contributions of Jews in the history of philosophy. If the modern scholar does examine the Jewish sources properly with the historical-critical method, the conclusions will lead him to a Jewish philosophy. Since Jewish philosophy for Zunz did not represent the Jewish Volksgeist, he did not elaborate further upon it. After Zunz, Geiger preferred a different approach. Since Geiger understood himself as a theologian who was closer to Schleiermacher, he described an alternative dialectical relationship by confronting the histoical-critical examination of Jewish philosophical sources now with Jewish theology. Munk's Esquisse set the standard for all subsequent histories of Jewish philosophy. He was not interested in a contemporary Jewish philosophy but focussed exclusively on what Zunz had rendered philosophy within Judaism. His aim was to give back Jewish philosophy its rightful place as an integral part of the history of Western philosophy. Munk's groundbreaking studies were triggered by Ritter. Even though Munk's conception still has a certain heuristic value, the deficiency of this approach is obvious as well. (shrink)

1848 is a watershed in Dutch political and intellectual history. In the wake of liberalism positivism and empiricism dominated Dutch philosophy. In this paper it is argued that Spinoza’s philosophy played an important part in developing a liberal Weltanschauung. Dutch Spinozism started with the theological dissertation of Johannes van Vloten, who from the 1860s onwards became the great pamphleteer of Spinozism. However due to his break with Christianity he remained an exception in Dutch intellectual life. The Utrecht professor (...) of philosophy Cornelis Willem Opzoomer and his friend the classical scholar D. Burger jr., for example, propagated a liberal Christianity purged from its mythical elements. Adopting Schleiermacher’s example Opzoomer developed a morality inspired by Ethics V. In 1850 he turned to J. S. Mill and A. Comte. From that year onwards he justified the methodological unity of the natural and ‘moral’ sciences in Spinoza’s doctrine of the passions. According to Burger the Ethics contains an obsolete metaphysics, but due to its morality consistent with science the book deserves a large 19th-century readership. In 1858 he translated Spinoza’s main work into Dutch. (shrink)

Nineteenth century Christian thought about self and relationality was stamped by the reception of Kant’s groundbreaking revision to the Cartesian cogito. For René Descartes (1596-1650), the self is a thinking thing (res cogitans), a simple substance retaining its unity and identity over time. For Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), on the other hand, consciousness is not a substance but an ongoing activity having a double constitution, or two moments: first, the original activity of consciousness, what Kant would call original apperception, and (...) second, the reflected self, the “I think” as object of reflection. Both are essential to the possibility of an awareness of a unified experience. Such an awareness is achieved only insofar as the self is capable of reflecting on its activity of thinking. As such, the possibility of self-consciousness, or the capacity to reflect on one’s own acts of thought is essential to the constitution of the self. This new model of the mind became the starting point to the thought of central 19th century figures such as Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), J. G. Fichte (1762-1814), Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). This chapter will explore their reception of Kant’s model of self-consciousness, the controversies surrounding its development and exposition, and the advantages of this model for theological reflection. The idea of mind as essentially capable of reflection provided an account of how the self can stand in an ontologically immediate relation to God constitutive of the self, while at the same time allowing that the self’s consciousness of itself is distinct from this original moment, so that a limited or false consciousness of self is possible. As such the task of the self is to recognize (that is, to realize in and through self-consciousness) who it most truly is, both in relation to God, and in relation to self and other. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive reference source on 18th-century authors writing in the English language about philosophical ideas and issues. It features authors taken from 1689 through to the mid-19th century, the period beginning with John Locke and ending with Dugald Stewart. The word philosophical is used in a wide, 18th-century sense. Therefore, the Dictionary includes epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, education, politics, rhetoric, science, medicine, biology, geology, chemistry and theology.

Filling a gap in scholarship on 19th- and 20th-century religious thought, this book discusses the philosophy and theology of the influential Marburg School in Germany before 1914, focusing on the writings of Hermann Cohen, its leader, and on the Ritschlian theologian Wilhelm Herrmann, Karl Barth's teacher. In addition, Fisher examines Barth's earliest writings and clarifies the little-known liberal phase of Barth's theology.

The tendencies in bourgeois ideology that are intimately associated with religion constitute one of the subjects of current interest for criticism from the Marxist standpoint. The trend toward establishment of a clerical philosophy has long since been noted: its roots go back to the 19th century. But it has only been in the years between the two world wars, and during the present period that such currents as Neo-Thomism, Christian spiritualism, religious existentialism, and the like have flourished (...) and, what is particularly important, have exercised serious influence on secular intellectuals in the capitalist countries. (shrink)

As indicated by the title, this book contains seven very scholarly essays on Jewish life and thought in the 19th century. Of particular interest to philosophers is Prof. Emil L. Fackenheim's essay, "Samuel Hirsch and Hegel: A Study of Hirsch's Religionsphilosophie der Juden." In this essay, Fackenheim's masterful knowledge of Hegel is clearly visible. The thirty page essay contains a profound awareness of the theological problems inherent in Hegel's philosophy of religion as well as an awareness of (...) how these problems were explicitly engendered by Hegel's metaphysics. As an introduction to some of Hegel's basic themes, Fackenheim has provided an invaluable, if, unfortunately, all too brief, introduction.—D. J. B. (shrink)

Brings together the key writings of Ferdinand Christian Baur across theology, biblical studies, early Christian history, and philosophy, showing his crucial role in the development of 19th-century thought.

The publication of John Stuart Mill's Three Essays on Religion in 1873 prompted a remarkable diversity of responses. Anonymous authors in the prominent literary and theological reviews of the day joined philosophers, from empiricists to idealists, and theologians, from Anglicans to Unitarians, in commenting on the Essays . The judgements passed upon Mill himself ranged from 'honest' to 'impudent'. Dr Sell here gathers and introduces a representative selection of the reviews, essays and extracts that met this important work. The writers, (...) although diverse, are at least united in one view - that what Mill had written mattered - and their debate continued for many years - the contributions cover a quarter of a century of controversy. -- Three Essays on Religion is at the heart of the 19th-century challenge to Christianity - the responses gathered here show its enormous impact and influence --useful supplementary reading for a variety of philosophy and theology courses. (shrink)

"Kant, Kantianism and Idealism" presents an overview of German Idealism, the major movement in philosophy from the late 18th to the middle of the 19th Century. The period was dominated by Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, whose work influenced not just philosophy, but also art, theology and politics. The volume covers not only these major figures but also their main followers and interpreters. These include Kant's younger contemporary Herder, his early critics such as Jacobi, Reinhold, (...) and Maimon, and his readers Schiller and Schlegel - who shaped much of the subsequent reception of Kant in art, literature and aesthetics - as well as Schopenhauer, whose unique appropriation and criticism of theories of cognition later had a decisive influence on Nietzsche. The "Young Hegelians" - such as Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and David Friedrich Strauss, whose writings would influence Engels and Marx - are also discussed. The influence of Kant and German Idealism also extended into France, shaping the thought of such figures as Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon, whose work would prove decisive for subsequent philosophical, political, and economic thinking in Europe in the second half of the 19th century. (shrink)

Fr. Paweł Siwek, SJ may be considered the only Polish Jesuit philosopher of the 20th century to have achieved worldwide recognition. This article surveys his work from a broad perspective reflecting philosophy, psychology and theology as pursued in Catholic circles in the 19th and 20th centuries. We review his achievements, while also offering an interpretation. We put forward the thesis that he found his own way of practising neo-Thomism in the spirit of Pope Leo XIII’s Aeterni (...) Patris. To substantiate our claims, we first briefly sketch his biography, providing a synthetic overview of the relevant contexts for his philosophical oeuvre. We then identify his four main areas of interest: namely, the history of philosophy, systematic philosophy, the scientific psychology of religion and spirituality, and Christian apologetics in the face of world religions and spiritual movements. In our conclusion, we discuss the main traits of his intellectual work, along with its impact. (shrink)

In this article, I would like to use the case of Rudolf Eucken to examine how the historiography of philosophy, and especially the interpretation of German Idealism, became a medium of national self-assurance. By referring to the philosophical classics of German Idealism, Eucken, at the end of the 19th century, develops a model of a publicly effective philosophy to which he ascribes the task of contributing to the recovery of unity and strength. My aim is to (...) work out the social background and the social function of this characterisation of the history of philosophy. The thesis I would like to develop is that Eucken, in reaction to his perception of social crises and the inner-scientific questioning of the role of philosophy, attempts to establish philosophy as a fundamental element of the historical discourse and practices of the new German nation state. This historical discourse, into which philosophy attempts to inscribe itself, can be interpreted, following Durkheim’s sociological reflections on religion, as an attempt to sacralise the nation. This reveals the social function of this form of philosophical historiography: it becomes the theology of the new German nation state. (shrink)

Recent historiography of 19th century biology supports the revision of two traditional doctrines about the history of biology. First, the most important and widespread biological debate around the time of Darwin was not evolution versus creation, but biological functionalism versus structuralism. Second, the idealist and typological structuralist theories of the time were not particularly anti-evolutionary. Typological theories provided argumentation and evidence that was crucial to the refutation of Natural Theological creationism. The contrast between functionalist and structuralist approaches to (...) biology continues today, and the historical misunderstanding of 19th century typological biology may be one of its effects. This historical case can shed light on current controversies regarding the relevance of developmental biology to evolution. (shrink)

Complete collection of Schwarzschild’s essays on the neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen. Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was arguably the leading expositor of German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), undertaking a lifelong effort to reintroduce Cohen’s thought into contemporary philosophical discourse. In The Tragedy of Optimism, George Y. Kohler brings together all of Schwarzschild’s work on Cohen for the first time. Schwarzschild’s readings of Cohen are unique and profound; he was conversant with both worlds that shaped Cohen’s thought, neo-Kantian German idealism and (...) Jewish theology. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from ethics, socialism, the concept of human selfhood, and the mathematics of the infinite to more explicitly Jewish themes. This volume includes two of Schwarzschild’s previously unpublished manuscripts and a scholarly introduction by Kohler. Schwarzschild shows that despite its seeming defeat by events of the twentieth century, Cohen’s optimism about human progress is a rational, indeed necessary, path to peace. George Y. Kohler is Director of the Joseph Carlebach Institute and Senior Lecturer of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He is the author of Reading Maimonides’ Philosophy in 19th Century Germany: The Guide to Religious Reform. (shrink)

The most fundamental subject and aim of the Islamic belief system is the subject of maʿrifatullah (knowing Allah). Studies on this subject are mostly called ithbāt al-wājib (the demonstration of God) in the literature. They are considered the most valuable work for kalām, philosophy and mysticism schools. Kalām schools started to use this conceptualization intensively after Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, mainly under the influence of Ibn Sīnā. Sūfis, on the other hand, most participated in these studies based on the theory (...) of the unity of existence. In kalām, all the principles of belief are ultimately grounded to explain and strengthen faith in Allah. For this reason, belief in Allah is referred to as aṣl al-uṣūl (the origin of all principles). Throughout history, scholars of kalām discussed the creedal issues of Islam in the Muslim society while it tried to answer the creedal issues abroad by the expanding Islamic geography with studies on ithbāt al-wājib. In this framework, the problems of prophecy and the hereafter are included in kalām. Since the beginning of the history of kalām, it has used the theory of atomism to a large extent, especially in defending the existence of Allah against materialists. The systematisation of Islamic philosophy and mysticism in time, the kalām cosmological argument, the argument from contingency of philosophers and the argument from kashf and ilhām of Sūfis strengthened this area from three different branches. On the other hand, the interaction of these schools within themselves and the diversification of the interlocutors of studies on ithbāt al-wājib brought these arguments closer together. The convergence in terms of terminology, subject and methodology, especially after Shahrestānī and Rāzī, revealed the tradition of philosophical theology. In this process, theologians began to use both the concepts of temporality (hudūth) and contingency (imkān) to use ontological, cosmological and teleological proofs. Dawānī, one of the eminent figures of these studies in the last periods of Ottomans, is the subject of our research, due to his skills in utilising these proofs of ithbāt al-wājib and his influence in the studies after him. His review of the matter can be observed in his effort in his works where he deals with the so-called deficiencies and errors of his predecessors regarding ithbāt al-wājib. For this reason, many annotations and commentaries were made for his treatises and ideas until the 19th century. Especially, the advance of materialism in the West in this century showed great influence on many scholars and intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire seems to be a parallel historical experience. Therefore, it has become necessary to utilise the arguments for the existence of Allah by supporting each individual argument together. In this regard, in our study, to see the process, we also discussed the views of Aḥmad Nūrī, one of the scholars in the last period Ottoman, who dealt with the common arguments about ithbāt al-wājib produced by the three primary schools of Islamic thought: kalām, Islamic philosophy and mysticism. (shrink)

Since the late 19th century, when the “new science” of psychology and interest in esoteric and occult phenomena converged – leading to the “discovery” of the unconscious – the dual disciplines of depth psychology and mysticism have been wed in an often unholy union. Continuing in this tradition, and the challenges it carries, this volume includes a variety of inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of depth psychology, mysticism, and mystical experience, spanning the fields of theology, religious studies, (...) and the psychology of religion. Chapters include inquiries into the nature of self and consciousness, questions regarding the status and limits of mysticism and mystical phenomenon, and approaches to these topics from multiple depth psychological traditions. (shrink)

Iamblichus has long lived under the shadow of Plotinus. One can easily recognize this from the historiography of the Neoplatonic school starting, for example, with J.J. Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae (1742) and continuing with Hegel and 19th century historians like Simon and Vacherot in France, Kroll and Zeller in Germany. But from Praechter on Iamblichus was acknowledged more and more as an original thinker and the real systematizer of the late Neoplatonic School. We can see more clearly now (...) that the inclusion of theurgy into Neoplatonism does not mean a simple abandonment of philosophy or rational discourse, and that the discipline of textual exegesis does not negate the originality of the commentator. In Proclus, for one, these complementary strains are strongly present. In rebuilding the whole Platonic system, Iamblichus - the Chrysippus of Neoplatonism - skillfully incorporated elements like the Chaldean triads which were unknown to Plotinus, and presented a completely new account of the nature of theology. This feat shows a genius no less impressive, albeit of another type, than the one disclosed by Plotinus himself. (shrink)

English summary: This volume looks at the so far little studied connections between the philosophy of Schelling and the historiographic waves in theological, philosophical and historical discourse during the first half of the 19th century. The reception of Schelling in theology, philosophy and history relates primarily to his writings around 1800. The essays in this volume firstly analyze the considerable impact that these texts had on the structure of contemporary debate. Secondly, they analyze the interdependence (...) of the historical theology that was beginning to take root and Schelling's emerging later philosophy. Thirdly, they examine the reception of Schelling's philosophy of history from the perspective of Friedrich Schleiermacher and historical academic discourse, as well as David Friedrich Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur and the Landhut Romantics. German description: Der vorliegende Band thematisiert die bislang nur wenig erforschten Zusammenhange zwischen der Philosophie Schellings und den Historisierungsschuben in den theologischen, philosophischen und geschichtswissenschaftlichen Diskursen der ersten Halfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Rezeption Schellings in Theologie, Philosophie und Geschichtswissenschaft bezieht sich vor allem auf dessen Schriften um 1800. Die Beitrage des Bandes untersuchen sowohl die breite Wirkung dieser Texte in den zeitgenossischen Debattenkonstellationen sowie die Wechselwirkungen zwischen der sich etablierenden historischen Theologie und der Herausbildung von Schellings Spatphilosophie als auch die Rezeption der Geschichtsphilosophie Schellings bei Friedrich Schleiermacher sowie in den geschichtswissenschaftlichen Diskursen, bei David Friedrich Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur sowie in der Landshuter Romantik. Mit Beitragen von: Christopher Arnold, Ulrich Barth, Christian Danz, Georg Essen, Malte Dominik Kruger, Christof Landmesser, Michael Murrmann-Kahl, Georg Neugebauer, Jan Rohls, Oliver Wintzek, Johannes Zachhuber. (shrink)

What the title of this article means to me after decades on a university faculty is very broad. It would include topics of my research and writing, of my graduate and undergraduate teaching, and of what I read in the area, including papers that have been submitted to me as editor of the American Journal of Psychology. What I can write here focuses on my research and writing and related metatheoretical views, including what I have considered the deeper and more (...) significant questions formulated in philosophy of mind and submitted to empirical investigation in psychology. Of most active concern today, and over the years, are those asking about the roles of consciousness, symbolic representation, and volition in mental activity and action. Is symbolic representation carried out consciously or unconsciously, or both? This paper recognizes the 19^th century attempt to establish a science of consciousness, a behavioristic movement that rejected consciousness as being the soul of theology, a cognitive metatheory giving some place to consciousness but emphasizing non-conscious symbolic representation. This summarizes our experimental examinations of my theories of the source of intentional action, of causal reasoning, and of explicit and implicit learning. It also summarizes the overarching mentalistic metatheory I have described. (shrink)

Leibniz and Kant were the most important figures in German philosophy from the late 17th to the early 19th century. This volume examines the relationships between their philosophies, illuminating fundamental questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical theology, and assessing Kant's understanding of his philosophical predecessor.

The article highlights the features of Candidate Degree works of the Kyiv Theological Academy students of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th centuries as the most important element of their educational and scientific training. Based on a wide range of primary sources, the author refutes the false identification of works for obtaining of the degree of Candidate of Theology, written in the Orthodox theological academies of the Russian Empire, with the modern Candidate dissertations. Considering these works (...) as qualifying works for obtaining an academic degree of Candidate of Theology that are of similar status as the modern diploma works of higher education institution students, the author argues that such an approach does not diminish their importance and their great source potential in the study of scholarly work of the Orthodox theological academies of the 19th – early 20th centuries. Based on the example of the Kyiv Theological Academy, the article reveals the important role of independent research work of the students, their mastering of skills of academic reading and writing in creating Candidate Degree works of quality; explains the procedural moments associated with their preparation, review, and evaluation. Based on the preserved manuscripts of Candidate Degree works of the Kyiv Theological Academy students, the paper outlines their subjects related to Bible Studies, Patrology, Dogmatic, Comparative, Moral, Pastoral Theology, Liturgy, and Homiletics, which are considered chiefly on historical material. The author stresses the particular popularity of the studies in History of the Church at the Kyiv Theological Academy, as well as other theological academies, particularly the study of history of the Orthodox Church and its hierarchy in so-called Southewestern Krai of the Russian Empire, as well as the history of the Kyiv Theological Academy of the 17th – 19th centuries. The article clarifies that contrary to the requirements of the Most Holy Synod to offer and choose the topics of exclusively theological nature for the qualification works, The Kyiv Theological Academy found the opportunity to realize the interest of students in other humanities – first of all, philosophy, the evidence of which is more than one hundred remaining manuscripts of Candidate Degree works on philosophical issues. (shrink)

El papel de filosofía y humanidades en forjar un “ideal de humanidad” se refiere no sólo a las difíciles relaciones que éstas tradicionalmente han tenido con los poderes mundanos, sino, sobre todo, a su papel protagónico como guías de un ideal de humanidad y valores espirituales en tiempos de crisis. Kant defendió el papel de los ideales racionales de la “facultad de filosofía” a fines del s. XVIII, ante la teología, el derecho y la medicina. La reflexión de Fichte cuando (...) la nación alemana luchaba por su existencia luego de su derrota por los ejércitos napoleónicos a inicios del s. XIX, da un impulso decisivo a los valores del idealismo alemán. Un siglo después, ante la misma nación alemana, nuevamente derrotada en la primera guerra mundial y sin hallar respuestas a su aflicción en las ciencias exactas ni en su cultura determinada por la técnica, Husserl ve en “el ideal de Humanidad de Fichte” la respuesta a aquello que puede darle su ultima satisfacción: la producción teleológica de un mundo humano, en el que pueda realizarse un orden mundial moral, único fin, fundamento y valor absoluto de la humanidad. Hoy nos hallamos en otro momento de peligro: no sólo el del positivismo naturalista desplazando desde el s. XIX a la formación humanística. El mayor de los peligros es ahora la alianza de ese naturalismo con el mundo globalizado del presente, bajo el imperio de la estan-darización burocrática y corporativa al servicio de la producción desenfrenada de dinero.The role of philosophy and the human sciences in forging an “ideal of humanity” concerns not only the tensions that they traditionally have had with worldly powers. It mostly deals with their primal role as guides of an ideal of humanity and spiritual values in times of crisis. Kant defended the central role of the “Faculty of Philosophy”’s rational ideals by the end of the 18th century, as opposed to Theology, Jurisprudence and Medicine. Fichte’s reflection when the German nation was fighting for its survival after its defeat by the Napoleonic armies at the beginning of the 19th century, gives a decisive impulse to the values brandished by German Idealism. A century later, facing the same German nation newly defeated at World War I, and without any answers to its affliction either in exact sciences nor in its culture determined by technology, Husserl finds in “Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity“ the answer to that which can give it its lasting satisfaction: the teleological production of a human world, in which a world moral order may arise, as humanity’s sole goal, foundation, and absolute value. Today we find ourselves in another moment of danger: not only that of a naturalistic positivism displacing a humanistic education. The greatest of all dangers is currently the alliance of this naturalism with the Golden calf installed in the globalized world of today, under the empire of the bureaucratic and corporative standardization at the service of the frenzied production of money. (shrink)

"... the most important contribution to Kierkegaard studies to be published in English in recent years.... Not only is it a fascinating, surprising, and perceptive study of Kierkegaard within his time and world, Kirmmse has produced a research resource, a reference work, that is simply without parallel or equal." —Michael Plekon "It is a rare work of philosophy that not only clarifies its subject but also places it within an intellectual and historical context. In his study of 19th- (...) class='Hi'>century Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, Kirmmse accomplishes both, setting a standard... " —Library Journal "... an outstanding contribution to Kierkegaard research... The book is intellectual history of the highest calibre." —So[slash]ren Kierkegaard Newsletter "This excellent book is recommended for all collections on Kierkegaard... For all readers." —Choice "This richly researched and readable book supplies an important contribution to the widespread reappropriation of Kierkegaard’s thought currently taking place."—Theology Today "This book is a tour de force in intellectual history." —Review of Metaphysics "Kirmmse's book is a major work of scholarship that confers on Kierkegaard's social and intellectual universe a depth and a richness of detail that will permanently alter the familiar stereotypes about Kierkegaard's isolation from his fellow Danes and his supposedly fanatical campaign against philistine Denmark and its corrupt state church." —American Historical Review Against the background of Denmark’s evolution from a mercantile economy to a broad-based agricultural economy, Kirmmse reinterprets Kierkegaard’s thought as a reaction to the tensions within his society. (shrink)

The review demonstrates that there are four main historiographical approaches to explanation of the role of Mendelssohn’s philosophy in the emergence of the Haskalah project: (1) traditional approach (created by the Jewish historiography in the second half of the 19th century; it stressed secular and culture-centered character of Haskalah, making it closer to German intellectual tradition); (2) social historiography (it treated Haskalah as a consequence of and reaction to the processes of global social and political modernization); (3) (...) the approach practiced by researchers of early Jewish proponents of Enlightenment’s (determination of the intellectual foundations of Haskalah in the early Maskilim projects); (4) the researches of Mendelssohn's Jewish texts, the concept of “Political Theology”, and the interpretation of Mendelssohn’s ideas in the works of Leo Strauss (new interpretation of the role of Mendelssohn in the creation of Haskalah). (shrink)

The article presents the first attempt of a complete and systematic analysis of historic and theological publications of teachers and pupils of the Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the 19th – beginning of 20th century in the field of studying the history of relations of Catholicism and Protestantism with Orthodox on the Ukrainian lands. The specifics of Kyiv academic historians studies was determined by the social and-political circumstances in the middle of the 19th (...) class='Hi'>century and denoted by an attempt to comprehend this issue in the perspective of the history of interconfessional relations of two Western Christian traditions with the eastern tradition of Orthodoxy in the historical gap of the 16th – 17th centuries – the period of the largest confrontation in confessional relations in Ukraine. The author clarifies the characteristic features of researching the question of inter-confessional interaction in the 15th – 17th centuries, which are expressed in attempts to describe the coexistence of three denominations as multidimensional and provoking а variety of different interpretations. Historical studies present the attempt to show confessional interaction in the political and legal aspects and to provide historical interpretations to the ground of philosophy of history. The article proves the tendency of Kyiv academic researchers to move away from the established Russian historiography of the 19th century view at confessional relations in Ukraine through the prism of hard confrontation and outline in religious life Ukraine conditions and circumstances of inter-confessional dialogue. Also, historians in their studies repeatedly note the significant educational and outlook influence of Western Christian denominations on the formation of educational, cultural, theological, literary traditions in Ukraine. (shrink)

In the middle of the 19th century a new value began to appear in Western Europe - the belief that (in the words of Matthew Arnold) 'the exercise of a creative activity is the true function of man'. This book gives an account of the stages by which, and the reasons why, this development occurred at that time. In so doing it reveals a historical puzzle, for the main factors which can be seen to have given rise to (...) the new value - mainly scientific, technological, economic and political - were not reflected in the value itself, for that was applied almost exclusively to artistic and cultural activity. John Hope Mason sets out to explain this puzzle by showing how throughout European history there have been two radically different views of the creative attribute. An early example of one view was the character of Prometheus in Greek mythology; influential examples of the second were the figures of God the Creator in Judaeo-Christian theology and the neo-Platonic One in Hellenistic philosophy. The book shows how the contrast represented by those figures informed discussions of genius in the 18th century and indicates why the notion of creativity which came to prevail then assimilated it with purely aesthetic and moral concerns. Combining a broad perspective with a close analysis of key figures - from Adam Smith, Rousseau and Kant, to Arnold, Marx and Nietzsche - this book casts a new light on a central value of the modern world. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill was one of the most important political and social thinkers of the nineteenth century, and his writings on human rights, feminism, the evils of slavery, and the environment are still widely read and influential today. Published after Mill’s death to avoid controversy, the three essays in this edition, _Nature_, _Utility of Religion_, and _Theism_, represent Mill’s considered position on religion. Mill argues that belief in a supernatural power holds us back, but that a conception of the (...) meaning and value of being human, or Religion of Humanity, could make the world a better place. Essential in understanding Mill’s views on religion and his practical philosophy, these essays are also significant contributions to the philosophy and psychology of religion. Appendices include Mill’s other writings on religion, his early influences, contemporary reviews, and other 19th century writings on religion and science. (shrink)