From Reflexivity to Immediacy: Knowledge in Classical and Contemporary German Philosophy

In contemporary human sciences, the concept of activity continues to play a key, methodologically central role, since it is used in attempts to give a universal characterization of either the whole human world (in classical German and Marxist philosophy) or the inner world of a concrete individual (primarily in Soviet psychology). In either case, the category of activity is elevated to the level of a universal, ultimate abstraction, which, in E.G. Iudin's words, "combines empirical certainty with theoretical depth and methodological constructiveness" [11, p. 249].

In this essay I want to examine Husserl’s relation to the “classical” German background of his thought with respect to one concept in particular: history. Since Herder and Kant, German philosophers had devoted special attention to history and accorded it an important place in their thought. The central role of history in German philosophy reached its peak in Hegel, and although there was a widespread backlash against the dominance of Hegelian thought after his death, many aspects of his thought survived in the German philosophy of the nineteenth century. History was one of these. Thinkers as diverse as Karl Marx, the historians of the Historical School, and Wilhelm Dilthey denounced the Hegelian philosophy of history and were firmly convinced that they had liberated themselves from it. And indeed each of these rejected important features of Hegel’s philosophy of history. But they retained, sometimes even without realizing it, the underlying historicization of reason and experience that lay at the heart of Hegel’s philosophy.

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of consideration of the problem of historical consciousness of the youth in modern German philosophy. The article analyzes the basic models of historical consciousness of the youth, established in German philosophy and social sciences and humanities in the late XX and beginning of the XXI centuries. The comparative analysis of static and dynamic models was conducted. The article emphasizes the idea that the problem of historical consciousness of young people is of prime importance in the contemporary studies of historical consciousness . Historical consciousness of the youth is transforming into a self- concept from a separate aspect of the study of historical consciousness. The most important feature of all the attempts of philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of historical consciousness of young people in Germany is a close connection with pedagogy and didactics of history. The article notes that the focus on the narrative approach to the understanding of the nature, structure and features of the transformation of historical consciousness contributed to epistemological and psychological aspects of the studies of historical consciousness of young people, as well as to the desire to consider it especially in the individual context.

Twentieth century philosophy on the continent has passed through two quite distinct phases with respect to historic reference. During the period immediately following World War II, Karl Jaspers asserted that "Emmanuel Kant is the nodal point of modern philosophy, the absolutely indispensible philosopher." Few scholars, I suspect, would have contested this assertion with any vigor. But now it is entirely evident, as both Vincent Descombes and Riidiger Bubner contend in their respective analyses of modern "French" and "German" philosophy, that once the contemporary philosopher has worked through the critical philosophy of Kant, he must pass through the even more encompassing shadow of Hegel. The common element between these two excellent studies has precisely to do with how the Hegel renaissance during the past fifty years or so, and especially the past twenty, is the dominant influence on modern French and German philosophy. Descombes begins his work, out of Kojeve, with an explicit statement to this effect: "It may well be that the future of the world, and thus the sense of the present and the significance of the past, will depend in the last analysis on contemporary interpretations of Hegel" (D, 9). Kojeve made this observation in 1933 when few were listening the great watershed of Hegel studies not to take place for another thirty years in the works of scholars such as Charles Taylor, J.N. Findlay, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Each of these persons, in their respective ways, asserted that the critical responses of both the so-called "Left" and "Right" interpretations were profoundly deficient that Hegel must be read for Hegel and not filtered through various twentieth century ideologies such as neo-Marxism, Existentialism, Freudianism, and so forth. The early Heidegger, as Bubner shows, was one of the

‘Karl Marx was a German philosopher.’ It is with this seminal sentence that Leszek Kolakowski begins his great work on The Main Currents of Marxism: its Rise, Growth and Dissolution (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978). Both the two terms in the predicate expression are crucial. It is most illuminating to think of Marx as originally a philosopher, even though nothing in his vastly voluminous works makes any significant contribution to philosophy in any academic understanding of that term. It is also essential to recognize that for both Marx and Engels philosophy was always primarily, indeed almost exclusively, what they and their successors called classical German philosophy. This was a tradition seen as achieving its climactic fulfilment in the work of Hegel, and one which they themselves identified as a main stimulus to their own thinking. Thus Engels, in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, claimed that ‘The German working-class movement is the inheritor of German classical philosophy’.

The linguistic turn in German philosophy was initiated in the eighteenth century in the work of Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried von Herder, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. It was further developed in this century by Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer extended its influence to contemporary philosophers such as Karl-Otto Apel and Jrgen Habermas. This tradition focuses on the world-disclosing dimension of language, emphasizing its communicative over its cognitive function. Although this study is concerned primarily with the German tradition of linguistic philosophy, it is very much informed by the parallel linguistic turn in Anglo-American philosophy, especially the development of theories of direct reference. Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference. Part I is a reconstruction of the linguistic turn in German philosophy from Hamann to Gadamer. Part II offers the deepest account to date of Habermas's approach to language. Part III shows how the shortcomings of German linguistic philosophy can be avoided by developing a consistent and more defensible version of Habermas' theory of communicative rationality.

Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference. The linguistic turn in German philosophy was initiated in the eighteenth century in the work of Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried von Herder, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. It was further developed in this century by Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer extended its influence to contemporary philosophers such as Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. This tradition focuses on the world-disclosing dimension of language, emphasizing its communicative over its cognitive function. Although this study is concerned primarily with the German tradition of linguistic philosophy, it is very much informed by the parallel linguistic turn in Anglo-American philosophy, especially the development of theories of direct reference. Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference. Part I is a reconstruction of the linguistic turn in German philosophy from Hamann to Gadamer. Part II offers the deepest account to date of Habermas's approach to language. Part III shows how the shortcomings of German linguistic philosophy can be avoided by developing a consistent and more defensible version of Habermas' theory of communicative rationality.

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche pointed out that the classical German Philosophy was the expression of a covert Theology. In fact, from Lessing to Hegel, through Kant, trough the Idealists and the Romantics, German philosophers and thinkers studied in protestant schools and seminaries, for the most part, of pietist orientation. This article shows the general characteristics of pietism and how it influenced the problems statement, the doctrines and ideas of some of these philosophers.

I hesitate to say this, but I am afraid that this chapter, more than most thus far, is rather long on the social theory and short on nursing practice. There is a reason for this. The topic that we are going to examine is not at all easy. Embedded as it is in the complex intellectual world of German philosophy, there is no quick way of explaining it. On the grounds that a rapid sweep would merely leave readers puzzled, I have opted for going through critical theory at a deliberating pace. The chapter starts by examining the roots of critical theory in classical German philosophy. It then goes on to address the ideas of the first wave of critical theorists, paying especial attention to Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. I then move on to the central figure of the discussion, Jürgen Habermas, and his theory of communicative action. Following this, we get to health care issues. Two approaches are taken. First, I review critical theory critiques of medicine, and then I go on to recount my own Habermasian analysis of the adoption of communicative action in new nursing.

Mansel had clearly seen the challenge confronting Christian apologetics in the 1850s, that the new interest in German idealism and the prevailing utilitarian mood of English philosophy posed a threat to the relevance of traditional Christian apologetics. Mansel also attacked 'Modern German Philosophy' in 1859, in which he said that this movement was based 'on assumptions which it is impossible to verify if true, and impossible to convict if false … the reality of which we are in search can never be attained in the form of an absolute unity'.1 A few years previously, Mansel had written a satirical sketch entitled, The Phrontisterion, or Oxford in the 19th Century that had been occasioned by the appointment of a Commission to 'enquire into the State, Discipline, Studies and Revenues of the University and Colleges of Oxford'. Some feared that undue weight would be given to developments in German universities with a result that the spiritual nature of the English system would be undermined by godless 'usefulness': I have it now! the Universities. Long as those monkish rookeries exist They'll be a drag upon us go a-head men; At least with Church Establishment. Abroad They manage these things differently: The Burschen Fight at the barricades; and Herr Professor Will sketch you twenty Paper-Constitutions Shall only cost the foolscap. No subscribing To Articles, no tests of Church Communion; But good Free Trade, religious and political, Progress and Agitation. But at Oxford There's nought but bigotry and priestcraft. KeywordsNineteenth CenturyContinental PhilosophyGerman IdealismAnglican IdealismChristian TheismThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The point of this study is to reconsider the roots of German idealism in pre-Kantian German modern philosophy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, or in pre-Enlightenment philosophy, which paved the way for the Enlightenment. Considered for far too long as depending solely on Leibniz and stigmatized as dogmatic-all too often it is referred to and summed up as Leibnizo-Wolffian-modern German philosophy appears, under close examination, to bear the mark of scepticism. This scepticism is precisely embodied by Thomasius, who is in many ways the father of German modern philosophy and a contemporary opponent of Leibniz. The aim of this paper is to reconsider the important series of philosophical transformations from Leibniz to Kant. I will be arguing that the pervasive nature of scepticism in the thought of Thomasius and his followers enabled the striking spread of Hume's philosophy in modern German philosophy, Wolff included. In this way, I hope to contribute to understanding the sources of modern philosophy through what can be called, with Foucault in mind, an archaeology of the Auftlarung, with the aim of rethinking Kant's own contribution.

We ignore the history of philosophy at our peril. Engels, who typically conflates Marx and Marxism, points to the relation of Marxism to the tradition while also denying it. In his little book on Feuerbach, Engels depicts Feuerbach as leading Marx away from Hegel, away from classical German philosophy, away from philosophy and towards materialism and science. This view suggests that Marx is at best negatively related to Classical German philosophy, including Hegel. Yet Engels elsewhere suggests that Marx belongs to the classical German philosophical tradition. In the preface to Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Engels wrote: “We German socialists are proud that we trace our descent not only from Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen, but also from Kant, Fichte and Hegel” (Marx & Engels, Collected Works). In this paper I will focus on Marx’s relation to Fichte. This relation is rarely mentioned in the Marxist debate, but I will argue, it is crucial for the formulation of Marx’s position, and hence for assessing his contribution accurately. One of the results of this study will be to indicate that Marx, in reacting against Hegel, did not, as is often suggested, ‘leave’ philosophy, but in fact made a crucial philosophical contribution.

The aim of the paper is to provide a philosophical and historical background to current discussions about the changing relationships between the university and the state through revisiting the classical model of the university as discussed in classical German philosophy. This historical detour is intended to highlight the cultural rootedness of the modern idea of the university, and its close links to the idea of the modern national state. The paper discusses the idea of the university as it emerges from the philosophy of Wilhelm von Humbold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schleiermacher, as well as - in the 20 th century - Karl Jaspers and Jurgen Habermas. More detailed questions discussed include the historical pact between the modern university and the modern nation-state, the main principles of the Humboldtian university, the process of the nationalization of European universities, the national aspect of the German idea of culture (Bildung), and the tension between the pursuit of truth and public responsibilities of the modern university. In discussing current and future missions and roles of the institution of the university today, it can be useful to revisit its foundational (modern) German idea. In thinking about its future, it can be constructive to reflect on the evident current tensions between traditional modern expectations of the university and the new expectations intensified by the emergence of knowledge-based societies and market- driven economies. From the perspective of the tensions between old and new tasks of the university, it is useful to look back at the turning point in its history.

The volume brings together contributions in the spirit embodied by Marek J. Siemek († 2011) and Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz († 2021), two Warsaw philosophers truly devoted to Classical German Philosophy. They were simultaneously in a relationship between thinker and adept, and thinker and thinker. They both taught philosophy, with a strong emphasis on classic German philosophy, at Warsaw University. Under the theme “Ethical Theory in Classic German Philosophy Then and Now,” students and companions continue their discussions with both of them.

The theme of property is directly relevant to some of the most divisive social and political issues today, such as wealth inequality and the question of whether governments should limit it by introducing measures that restrict the right to property. Yet what is property? And when seeking to answer this question, do we tend to identify the concept with just one dominant historical form of property? In this book, David James reconstructs the theories of property developed by four key figures in classical German philosophy - Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Marx. He argues that although their theories of property are different, the concept of social recognition plays a crucial role in all of them, and assesses these philosophers' arguments for the specific forms of property they claim should exist in a society that is genuinely committed to the idea of freedom.