History of Western Philosophy

4.10.2 a Return To Idealism: Arthur Schopenhauer [1788-1860]

Thing-in-itself is will

4.10.3 Gustav Theodor Fechner [1801 1887]

Pan psychism: the entire universe and its strata of various scales [micro to macro] contain minds

4.10.4 Rudolf Hermann Lotze [1817 1881]

Bridged the gap between classical German philosophy and 20th-century idealism

Reconciled: monism pluralism: mechanism teleology; realism idealism; pantheism theism.

"Theistic idealism"included in his objective: to do justice to the ethical-religious idealism of Fichte and the scientific interpretation of natural phenomena ["A thinker well-fitted by training and temperament to re-establish philosophy" after the realistic reaction to Hegelian idealism.]

4.10.5 Friedrich Albert Lange [1828 1875]

German Neo-Kantian and Socialist, wrote Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart [1866; History of Materialism] in which he refuted materialism.

4.10.6 Wilhelm Wundt [1832 1920]

Knowledge flows from the facts of consciousness

4.10.7 Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

Will to power: the active principle

4.10.8 Rudolf Christoph Eucken [1846 1926]

German Idealist philosopher, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature [^1908], interpreter of Aristotle, and author of works in ethics and religion Universal spirited process forms the ground of all being

4.10.9 Wilhelm Windelbland [1848 1915]

A historian of philosophy who did not systematically expound his views but expressed them in unconnected essays. He regarded himself as in the tradition of German idealism but did not see himself as Neo-Kantian, Neo-Fichtean or Neo-Hegelian. His main position was that whereas science determines facts, philosophy determines values a system of philosophy in which value has a central role.

4.10.10Ernst Cassirer [1874-1945]

Noted for his analysis of cultural values.

Cassirer felt it necessary to revise Kantianianism to include a wider range of human experience. Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, 3 vol. [192329; The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms], is an examination of mental images and functions of the mind that underlie every manifestation of human culture. Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff [1910; Substance and Function], treats concept formation to which he brought a Kantian slant a concept is already pre-existent before any task involving the classification of particulars can even be performed; humankind is essentially characterized by a unique ability to use the "symbolic forms" of myth, language, and science in structuring or imaging experience and in understanding.

4.11 MODERN PHILOSOPHY: FRENCH AND BRITISH NINETEENTH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY

Beginnings of Positivism, And its Interaction with Empiricism After the French Enlightenment, there was a positivist reaction against sensationalism and materialism in France, but the various movements do not possess the vigor to satisfy an age which still held the ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity.

4.11.1 Claude Henri de Saint-Simon [1760-1825]: a new science of society. To reform society with a basis in Christian love we need to turn away from the [then] period of skepticism negation and criticism we need a positive philosophy

4.11.2 August Comte [1798-1857]

His motive: social reform requires social science. Science is natural laws which are facts and relations which are positive knowledge

4.11.2.1 Stages of knowledge

According to Comte: The theological precedes the metaphysical which precedes the positive which is real, useful [origins: utilitarianism], exact [not mere negative, that is, criticism]