The Skeptical Tradition Around 1800
The Skeptical Tradition Around 1800

Author: J. van der Zande

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 655

ISBN-13: 9401734658

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In the early 1980s the late Charles B. Schmitt and I discussed the fact that so much new research and new interpretations were taking place concerning various areas of modem skepticism that we, as pioneers, ought to organize a conference where these new findings and outlooks could be presented and discussed. Charles and I had both visited the great library at Wolfenbiittel, and were most happy when the Herzog August Bibliothek agreed to host the first conference on the history of skepticism, in 1984 (published as Skepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. R. H. Popkin and Charles B. Schmitt [Wiesbaden, 1987, Wolfenbiitteler For schungen, vol. 35]) Charles and I projected a series of later conferences, the first of which would deal with skepticism and irreligion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unfortunately, however, Charles died suddenly in 1986, while lecturing in Padua. Subsequent to his death Constance Blackwell, his companion of many years, established the Foundation for Intellectual History to support research and publica tion on topics in the history of ideas that continued Schmitt's interests. One of the first ventures was to arrange and fund the already planned conference on skepticism and irreligion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After many difficulties and problems, the conference was sponsored and funded by the Foundation for Intel lectual History, one of its first public activities. It was held at the lovely facilities of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar in 1990.

Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung
Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung

Author: Sébastien Charles

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9400748108

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The Age of Enlightenment has often been portrayed as a dogmatic period on account of the veritable worship of reason and progress that characterized Eighteenth Century thinkers. Even today the philosophes are considered to have been completely dominated in their thinking by an optimism that leads to dogmatism and ultimately rationalism. However, on closer inspection, such a conception seems untenable, not only after careful study of the impact of scepticism on numerous intellectual domains in the period, but also as a result of a better understanding of the character of the Enlightenment. As Giorgio Tonelli has rightly observed: “the Enlightenment was indeed the Age of Reason but one of the main tasks assigned to reason in that age was to set its own boundaries.” Thus, given the growing number of works devoted to the scepticism of Enlightenment thinkers, historians of philosophy have become increasingly aware of the role played by scepticism in the Eighteenth Century, even in those places once thought to be most given to dogmatism, especially Germany. Nevertheless, the deficiencies of current studies of Enlightenment scepticism are undeniable. In taking up this question in particular, the present volume, which is entirely devoted to the scepticism of the Enlightenment in both its historical and geographical dimensions, seeks to provide readers with a revaluation of the alleged decline of scepticism. At the same time it attempts to resituate the Pyrrhonian heritage within its larger context and to recapture the fundamental issues at stake. The aim is to construct an alternative conception of Enlightenment philosophy, by means of philosophical modernity itself, whose initial stages can be found herein. ​

The Dimensions of Hegel's Dialectic
The Dimensions of Hegel's Dialectic

Author: Nectarios G. Limnatis

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2011-10-20

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 1441131434

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The Dimensions of Hegel's Dialectic examines the epistemological import of Hegelian dialectic in the widest sense. In modern philosophy, German idealism, Hegel in particular, is said to have made significant innovative steps in redefining the meaning, scope and use of dialectic. Indeed, it is dialectic that makes up the very core of Hegel's position, yet it is an area of his thought that is widely neglected by the available literature despite the increased interest in Hegel's philosophy in recent years. This book brings together an international team of expert contributors in a long-overdue discussion of Hegelian dialectic. Twelve specially commissioned essays address the task of making sense and use of Hegel's dialectic, which is fundamental not only for historical and hermeneutic reasons, but also for pragmatic ones; a satisfactory response to this challenge has the power to clarify Hegel's legacy in the current debate. The essays situate the dialectic in the context of German idealism with a clear-sighted elucidation of the problems that Hegel's dialectic is called upon to solve.

Sceptical Doubt and Disbelief in Modern European Thought
Sceptical Doubt and Disbelief in Modern European Thought

Author: Vicente Raga Rosaleny

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-19

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 3030553620

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This volume examines modern scepticism in all main philosophical areas: epistemology, science, metaphysics, morals, and religion. It features sixteen essays that explore its importance for modern thought. The contributions present diverse, mutually enriching interpretations of key thinkers, from Montaigne to Nietzsche. The book includes a look both at the relationship between Montaigne and Pascal and at Montaigne’s criticism of religious rationalism. It turns its attention to an investigation into the links between ancient scepticism and Bacon’s Doctrine of the Idols, as well as into the ancient problem of the criterion in Cartesian philosophy. Next, three essays focus on more general topics, like modern sceptical disturbances, clandestine literature and irreligion. Two essays investigate the role of scepticism in Bayle’s moral thinking and his theory of religious toleration. Hume’s sceptical philosophy is the subject of two papers by distinguished scholars. In addition, many contributors address the presence of scepticism in Kant and in the German Idealism, such as the role of Schulze's scepticism in the works of the young Hegel. The book closes with a paper on Nietzsche and scepticism, and an essay on the role of Popkin’s and Schmitt’s works on modern scepticism. This collection continues along a rich, fruitful path opened by Richard H. Popkin and pursued by many important scholars, like Gianni Paganini, John-Christian Laursen, and José Raimundo Maia Neto. It re-establishes that necessary dialogue between researchers of scepticism from all over the Americas, which began with Popkin, Oswaldo Porchat and Ezequiel de Olaso long ago. This insightful reflection on modern European scepticism will also serve as an important resource in the history of modern philosophy.

Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy
Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy

Author: Peter K. J. Park

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2013-03-11

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1438446438

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Winner of the 2016 Frantz Fanon Prize for Outstanding Book in Caribbean Thought presented by the Caribbean Philosophical Association In this provocative historiography, Peter K. J. Park provides a penetrating account of a crucial period in the development of philosophy as an academic discipline. During these decades, a number of European philosophers influenced by Immanuel Kant began to formulate the history of philosophy as a march of progress from the Greeks to Kant—a genealogy that supplanted existing accounts beginning in Egypt or Western Asia and at a time when European interest in Sanskrit and Persian literature was flourishing. Not without debate, these traditions were ultimately deemed outside the scope of philosophy and relegated to the study of religion. Park uncovers this debate and recounts the development of an exclusionary canon of philosophy in the decades of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. To what extent was this exclusion of Africa and Asia a result of the scientization of philosophy? To what extent was it a result of racism? This book includes the most extensive description available anywhere of Joseph-Marie de Gérando's Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie, Friedrich Schlegel's lectures on the history of philosophy, Friedrich Ast's and Thaddä Anselm Rixner's systematic integration of Africa and Asia into the history of philosophy, and the controversy between G. W. F. Hegel and the theologian August Tholuck over "pantheism."

The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers
The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers

Author: Heiner F. Klemme

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-06-30

Total Pages: 939

ISBN-13: 1474256007

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The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers is a landmark work. Covering one of the most innovative centuries for philosophical investigation, it features more than 650 entries on the eighteenth-century philosophers, theologians, jurists, physicians, scholars, writers, literary critics and historians whose work has had lasting philosophical significance. Alongside well-known German philosophers of that era-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel-the Dictionary provides rare insights into the lives and minds of lesser-known individuals who influenced the shape of philosophy. Each entry discusses a particular philosopher's life, contributions to the world of thought, and later influences, focusing not only on their most important published writings, but on relevant minor works as well. Bibliographical references to primary and secondary source material are included at the end of entries to encourage further reading, while extensive cross-referencing allows comparisons to be easily made between different thinkers' ideas and practices. For anyone looking to understand more about the century when enlightenment thinking arrived in Germany and established conceits were challenged, The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers is a valuable, unparalleled resource.

Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology
Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology

Author: John H. Zammito

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 0226978591

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If Kant had never made the "critical turn" of 1773, would he be worth more than a paragraph in the history of philosophy? Most scholars think not. But this text challenges that view by revealing a precritical Kant who was immensely more influential than the one philosophers think they know.

Voltaire's Jews and Modern Jewish Identity
Voltaire's Jews and Modern Jewish Identity

Author: Harvey Mitchell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-08-21

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1134002343

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Harvey Mitchell’s book argues that a reassessment of Voltaire’s treatment of traditional Judaism will sharpen discussion of the origins of, and responses to, the Enlightenment. His study shows how Voltaire’s nearly total antipathy to Judaism is best understood by stressing his self-regard as the author of an enlightened and rational universal history, which found Judaism’s memory of its past incoherent, and, in addition, failed to meet the criteria of objective history—a project in which he failed. Calling on an array of Jewish and non-Jewish figures to reveal how modern interpretations of Judaism may be traced to the core ideas of the Enlightenment, this book concludes that Voltaire paradoxically helped to foster the ambiguities and uncertainties of Judaism’s future.