This is the first history in English of German historicism, the intellectual tradition which holds that history is the key to understanding all human values, beliefs and actions. Beiser surveys the key thinkers from the mid-18th to the early 20th century and illuminates the sources and reasons for this revolution in modern thought.
The first comprehensive critical examination in any language of the German national tradition of historiography This is the first comprehensive critical examination in any language of the German national tradition of historiography. It analyzes the basic theoretical assumptions of the German historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and relates these assumptions to political thought and action. The German national tradition of historiography had its beginnings in the reaction against the Enlightenment and the French Revolution of 1789. This historiography rejected the rationalistic theory of natural law as universally valid and held that all human values must be understood within the context of the historical flux. But it maintained at the same time the Lutheran doctrine that existing political institutions had a rational basis in the will of God, though only a few of these historians were unqualified conservatives. Most argued for liberal institutions within the authoritarian state, but considered that constitutional liberties had to be subordinated to foreign policy—a subordination that was to have tragic results. Mr. Iggers first defines Historismus or historicism and analyzes its origins. Then he traces the transformation of German historical thought from Herder's cosmopolitan culture-oriented nationalism to exclusive state-centered nationalism of the War of Liberation and of national unification. He considers the development of historicism in the writings of such thinkers as von Humboldt, Ranke, Dilthey, Max Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke; and he discusses the radicalization and ultimate disintegration of the historicist position, showing how its inadequacies contributed to the political débâcle of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism. No one who wants to fully understand the political development of national Germany can neglect this study.
Diotima's Children is the first comprehensive re-examination of the rationalist tradition of aesthetics as it prevailed in Germany in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This tradition is of the greatest historical importance because it gave birth to modern aesthetics, art criticism, and art history.
Histories of German philosophy in the nineteenth century typically focus on its first half—when Hegel, idealism, and Romanticism dominated. By contrast, the remainder of the century, after Hegel's death, has been relatively neglected because it has been seen as a period of stagnation and decline. But Frederick Beiser argues that the second half of the century was in fact one of the most revolutionary periods in modern philosophy because the nature of philosophy itself was up for grabs and the very absence of certainty led to creativity and the start of a new era. In this innovative concise history of German philosophy from 1840 to 1900, Beiser focuses not on themes or individual thinkers but rather on the period’s five great debates: the identity crisis of philosophy, the materialism controversy, the methods and limits of history, the pessimism controversy, and the Ignorabimusstreit. Schopenhauer and Wilhelm Dilthey play important roles in these controversies but so do many neglected figures, including Ludwig Büchner, Eugen Dühring, Eduard von Hartmann, Julius Fraunstaedt, Hermann Lotze, Adolf Trendelenburg, and two women, Agnes Taubert and Olga Pluemacher, who have been completely forgotten in histories of philosophy. The result is a wide-ranging, original, and surprising new account of German philosophy in the critical period between Hegel and the twentieth century.
Frederick C. Beiser presents a study of the pessimism that dominated German philosophy from the 1860s to c. 1900: the theory that life is not worth living. He explores its major defenders and chief critics, and examines how the theory redirected German philosophy away from the logic of the sciences and toward an examination of the value of life.
Neo-Kantianism was an important movement in German philosophy of the late 19th century: Frederick Beiser traces its development back to the late 18th century, and explains its rise as a response to three major developments in German culture: the collapse of speculative idealism; the materialism controversy; and the identity crisis of philosophy.
Questions of truth, ethics, state power, and propaganda, of how to render account of catastrophes and reconcile oneself with one's past are not only crucial to our time, they were also central to the German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954). Probably no generation of historians before Meinecke had lived through more unsettling transformations, during which these questions were most pressing. Reinbert Krol's analysis of Meinecke's intellectual development does not only give us insight into his philosophy of history - which turns out to be more conciliatory than previously assumed - it can also be a source of inspiration for scholars of history today.
Frederick C. Beiser presents a study of the two most important idealist philosophers in Germany after Hegel: Adolf Trendelenburg and Rudolf Lotze. Trendelenburg and Lotze dominated philosophy in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century. They were important influences on the generation after them, on Frege, Brentano, Dilthey, Kierkegaard, Cohen, Windelband and Rickert. Late German Idealism is the first book on this significant but neglected chapter in European philosophical history. It provides a general introduction to every aspect of the philosophy of Trendelenburg and Lotze—their logic, metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics—but it is also a study of their intellectual development, from their youth until their death. Their philosophy is placed in the context of their lives and culture.
The story of German philosophy from the Middle Ages to today In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, Vittorio Hösle traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science, from the Middle Ages to today. A Short History of German Philosophy addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther’s Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of German philosophy from Leibniz to Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities; and the German Idealists. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy; the foundation of the historical sciences; Husserl’s phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers after 1945. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the recent past. A philosophical history remarkable for its scope, brevity, and lucidity, this is an invaluable book for students of philosophy and anyone interested in German intellectual and cultural history.
In The Europe Illusion, Stuart Sweeney considers Britain’s relationships with France and Prussia-Germany since the map of Europe was redrawn at Westphalia in 1648. A timely and far-sighted study, it argues that integration in Europe has evolved through diplomatic, economic, and cultural links cemented among these three states. Indeed, as wars became more destructive and economic expectations were elevated these states struggled to survive alone. Yet it has been rare for all three to be friends at the same time. Instead, apparent setbacks like Brexit can be seen as reflective of a more pragmatic Europe, where integration proceeds within variable geometry.
