Concluding Remarks

1
Concluding Remarks

• Philosophy 151
• Winter, 2004
• G. J. Mattey

2
A Century of Philosophy

• The writings covered in this course represent
  only a fraction of the output of philosophers in
  the nineteenth century
• The focus has been on philosophers in the
  continental tradition
• Important philosophical work was done as well in
  Great Britain, the United States, and France as
  well as other places
• There were other important German authors

3
Developments in Great Britain

• The greatest philosopher of the century, John
  Stuart Mill (1806-1873), refined empiricism and
  utilitarianism
• Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) introduced
  Kantianism in the middle of the century
• Late in the century, a form of idealism inspired
  by Hegel became dominant
• T. H. Green (1836-1882)
• F. H. Bradley (1826-1924)
• Bernard Bosenquet (1848-1923)

4
Developments in the United States

• Early in the century, New England
  transcendentalism arose in literary circles
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
• The distinctively American philosophy,
  pragmatism, emerged late in the century
• William James (1842-1910)
• Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)

5
Developments in France

• The main contributions of French philosophers in
  the century were in the area of social philosophy
• Auguste Comte (1798-1857) traced a progression of
  thinking from the theological to the metaphysical
  to the positive
• Radical social change was advocated
• Claude-Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825)
• Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)

6
Developments inGerman-Speaking Countries

• Two late-century thinkers developed the concept
  of intentionality
• Franz Brentano (1837-1917)
• Alexius Meinong (1853-1920)
• History of philosophy was brought up to exact
  scholarly standards
• There was a neo-Kantian series of revisions of
  Kants doctrines
• Initiated in 1860 by Kuno Fischer (1824-1907)

7
Logic

• A number of important developments in logic took
  place in the nineteenth century
• Some followed traditional lines
• Bernard Bolzano (Germany, 1781-1848)
• John Stuart Mill (England, 1806-1873)
• Developments in mathematics stimulated the rise
  of symbolic logic
• Geometry stimulated work in axiomatics
• Algebra stimulated work on a logical calculus

8
Algrebra of Logic

• George Boole (England, 1815-1864) produced the
  first algebraic formulation of logic
• He gave a symbolic representation of the logical
  notions of negation, conjunction, and disjunction
• Further contributions were made by
• Augustus DeMorgan (England, 1806-1871)
• John Venn (England, 1834-1923)

9
Predicate Logic

• Predicate logic was given a complete formulation
  at the end of the century
• Gottlob Frege (Germany, 1848-1925) published the
  first full axiomatization of predicate logic in
  1879
• C. S. Peirce independently developed a logic of
  relations in 1883

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The Main Influences of our Authors

• Schopenhauer anticipated Freud
• Hegelianism gave inspired idealism in the
  English-speaking countries
• Marxism spawned revolutionary movements in
  Russia, China, and many smaller countries
• Kierkegaards writings initiated modern
  existentialism
• Niezsches work was the inspiration for both
  fascism and anti-establishmentarianism

11
Freud and Schopenhauer

• The psychological doctrines of Sigmund Freud
  (1856-1939) bear an uncanny resemblance to those
  of Schopenhauer
• Freud claimed never to have read Schopenhauer
  until later in life
• There are several correspondences
• Schopenhauers will and Freuds id
• Sexuality is a primary explanatory feature
• Their doctrines of repression are similar
• They understood mental illness similarly

12
Absolute Idealism

• In 1865, James Hutchison Sterling published The
  Secret of Hegel
• T. H. Green subsequently adapted elements of
  Kantianism as the solution to the notorious
  problems of British empricism
• The understanding trumps sensation
• F. H. Bradley, directly influenced by Hegel, held
  reality to be an absolute sentient whole of
  experience

13
The Rise and Decline of Marxism

• Marx and Engels predicted workers revolutions
  that did not come to pass
• One of their followers, V. I. Lenin (1870-1924)
  fomented a successful revolution in Russia in
  1917
• Mao Zedong (1893-1976) took over China in 1949
• The Soviet Union has fallen and China has become
  capitalist
• Marx still influences some intellectuals

14
Kierkegaard and Existentialism

• Kierkegaard is considered the first philosopher
  to understand existence as pertaining primarily
  to human existence
• Thus he is thought to be the founder of
  twentieth century existentialism
• His emphasis on choice and his description of
  anxiety are echoed in existentialist literature,
  especially
• Martin Heidegger (Germany, 1889-1976)
• Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1905-1980)

15
Nietzsche and his Sister

• Niezsches early legacy was defined by his
  sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
• Her husband, Bernhard Förster, was an anti-semite
  and German nationalist
• With the failure of Bernhard Försters colony in
  Paraguay, she promoted her brother
• She repressed Ecce Homo, where Nietzsche
  repudiated doctrines she attributed to him
• She published discarded notes as his final
  work, which she entitled The Will to Power

16
Niezsche and German Nationalism

• During World War I, Nietzsches Also Spracht
  Zarathustra was used as an inspiration for German
  soldiers
• Nietzsches notion of the overman was converted
  into that of the superiority of the German nation
• His notion of power was associated with
  militarism and imperialism
• This distortion of his doctrines was taken over
  by Hitler and the Nazis

17
Nietzsche and Foucault

• The philosophy of the French thinker Michel
  Foucault (1926-1984) is closely tied to
  Nietzsches thought
• Foucault revived the genealogy of concepts
• He wrote an essay on Nietzsches conceptions of
  genealogy and history
• He placed central emphasis on relations of power
  within social institutions

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Post-Modernism

• Post-modernism was initially a reaction againts
  modern architecture
• It became generalized into a reaction against
  modernity
• In philosophy, it revolts against classical
  foundationalist thinkers such as Descartes and
  Kant
• The post-modern reaction began, in my view, as a
  reaction against Hegel, the most modern of all
  philosophers

19
The Legacy

• The philosophers of the nineteenth century left
  an indelible legacy for future thought and for
  the conduct of life
• They explored many ground-breaking possibilities
• They considered deeply the place of the human
  being in a world without a God
• And they left humanity much richer as a result of
  their unbridled creativity

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• Das Ende

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• Written
• Produced
• Directed
• Narrated
• by
• G. J. Mattey

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Cast(In Order of Appearance)

• Immanuel Kant
• Johann Gottlieb Fichte
• Arthur Schopenhauer
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
• Karl Heinrich Marx
• Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
• Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
• Fyodor MikhailovichDostoevsky

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Music by

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Ludwig von Beethoven
• Franz Schubert
• Robert Schumann
• Fredric Chopin
• Franz Liszt
• Richard Wagner
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Johannes Brahms

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Thanks to

• Sun Microsystems,
• for the free use of StarOffice 7
• Sproul Social Science Administration,
• for the loan of an ancient laptop computer
• Greg Damico,
• for lightening my load
• Sandy Tsai,
• for her unfailing support

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• No non-human animals were harmed in the
  production of this series of slides