I made a quick tour on the internet concerning the German philosophers of the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_philosophy#19th_century
http://westphilo.blogspot.be/2008/11/c-19th-century-philosophy.html
http://www.philosophybasics.com/general_quick_history.html#19th


I first show these results to later discuss them in the light of the relationship and contradictions between the several philosophers...

Especially in the light of the influence on 19th century's Victorian Britain
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/overview_victorians_01.shtml

Something to start with:
The 19th century British-German relationship
https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/geschichte/mitarbeiter/schwarz/rezension05.pdf


More comments tomorrow.

Kind regards, Paul.

Paul has started this thread as a result of exchanges in the bar - not exactly the right place for such a discussion, unless everyone is very drunk indeed. I posted the following in the Tumbleweed yesterday, but decided to put an edit at the end of the post last night - an edit that perhaps the Boss will act on if he returns - if he thinks appropriate, of course.

I hope the quotation from Middlemarch below may provoke further discussion here on Paul's thread.




Paul, I am getting some help today to transfer that article to Microsoft Word - I think it can be done - but I'm not sure how. Probably involves a subscription. It is such an interesting article, and several of the references to Schopenhauer about the difference between this world and the other I should like to quote. It's most definitely not "God-stuff" other world, but links to Plato and the forms, I'm sure. However, I thought, as I've said above, that this was more Kant than Schopenhauer - which is why I should like to discuss it with others who actually - unlike me - know what they are talking about. Schopenhauer apparently developed Kant's ideas, but I don't know how. I am most definitely no "heavyweight", and find my lack of understanding of the philosophical ideas explored in the article extremely frustrating. I think this is all so important from my Eng. Lit. point of view - no one, as far as I know apart from Ronald B. Hatch (author of the article) and Manchester University's Stevie Davies (who looked at the German Novalis' influence on EB), has done any real study of the importance and impact of the German philosophers on Emily Brontë's world view - critics have only been really interested in her reading of the German Romantic poets. Blackwood's Magazine, which we know all the Brontës devoured, ran regular articles and reviews about the philosophical and theological ideas coming out of Germany. Thinking about this has also made me understand more fully the importance of something from George Eliot's Middlemarch. Casaubon, the dried-up old intellectual to whom the young and beautiful  Dorothea struggles to be a good wife, has been working for years on a futile academic endeavour he calls The Key To All Mythologies. His trusting young wife's first awareness of Casaubon's intellectual shortcomings dawns when Will Ladislaw, the man who has fallen in love with her, casually but destructively remarks:

"If Mr Casaubon read German he would save himself a great deal of trouble."
"I do not understand you," said Dorothea, startled and anxious.
"I merely mean," said Will in an offhand way, "that the Germans have taken the lead in historical enquiries, and they laugh at results which are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have made good roads. While I was with Mr Casaubon I saw that he deafened himself in that direction: it was almost against his will that he read a Latin treatise written by a German..."

Not just history, of course: according to A.N. Wilson the Germans "then as now, were the supreme theological geniuses of the Western world. Theology was to all intents and purposes a German subject, as Dr Pusey in England had woefully discovered..."

I find it fascinating that a young girl living in the wilds of Yorkshire, kneading bread in her father's kitchen with a German grammar propped in front of her, could understand this when so many religious bigots (male), studying in Oxford at the time, did not.

I am content - as much as anyone ever is - but am most happy when discussing such things with intelligent people who also have a sense of humour. That's why I've posted here for so long. I am very unhappy at the thought of this place dying a death, and most distressed that my witterings - like this inappropriate one I'm just about to post here in the bar - may have contributed to its demise. I should have started a new thread when nordmann suggested it - or just shut up completely. Hard sometimes to know what to do for the best, even in this strange virtual world.



EDIT: Perhaps if Paul does decide to start a new thread, the Boss would kindly transfer the posts here - from mine of Mon 25 Sep 13.36 to this one - to the more appropriate new home. These long, intense ramblings really have no place in the bar unless they are stashed away in the depths of the cellar along with all the barrels of suspect German beer.

The two Monty Python YouTubes can stay.

Temperance thank you fro reply and I have here the article that you mentioned

https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/crcl/index.php/crcl/article/view/2238

From the PDF as you explained to me:
"Shopenhauer, following Kant believed that all objects in the material world were but the objectification of another dimension. In Kantian terms this other dimension was called the noumenal world. Shopenhauer preferred to call it the Will. Shopenhauer claimed "every individual is transitory only as phenomenon, but as thing-in-itself is timeless and therefore endless. But it is only as phenomenon that an individual is distinguished from the other things of the world; as thing-in-itself he is the will which appears in all, and death destroys the illusion, which separates his consciousness from that of the rest:this is immortality. His exemption from death, which belongs to him only as thing-in-itself, is for the phenomenon one with the immortality of the rest of the external world"

Tomorrow my comments and questions...

Kind regards, Paul.

A small interruption; does all that stuff above mean what we discussed as 10 year old s- that things probably didn't exist if no one was there to witness them? I recall that playground conversation before we then got back to a rather violent game of tag, since banned in schools.

And another thing. Surely many things German were of considered import at the time. Britain being a a long, long time in Brexit mode and just a scatter of islands of the NW French coast attending to trade and shackled with democracy and doing its own thing  at a time when much of Europe was very grand in both science and the arts. Her great cities remain testament of earlier strengths.

Whereas fashion  and smartness oozed out of France, note would also have been made of the heavier stuff   from Germany. And - dare I say it - the Protestant tradition is linked in there. Having said that in this more intellectual and  more elevated thread, I will cease the babble and go back to the bar and let better minds get stuck back in here.

About Kant from the wiki I mentioned:

Kant[edit]

In 1781, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) published his Critique of Pure Reason, in which he attempted to determine what we can and cannot know through the use of reason independent of all experience. Briefly, he came to the conclusion that we could come to know an external world through experience, but that what we could know about it was limited by the limited terms in which the mind can think: if we can only comprehend things in terms of cause and effect, then we can only know causes and effects. It follows from this that we can know the form of all possible experience independent of all experience, but nothing else, but we can never know the world from the “standpoint of nowhere” and therefore we can never know the world in its entirety, neither via reason nor experience.
Since the publication of his Critique, Immanuel Kant has been considered one of the greatest influences in all of western philosophy. In the late 18th and early 19th century, one direct line of influence from Kant is German Idealism.

My! critique as a layman about philosophy

" in which he attempted to determine what we can and cannot know through the use of reason independent of all experience. Briefly, he came to the conclusion that we could come to know an external world through experience, but that what we could know about it was limited by the limited terms in which the mind can think:"

In my humble opinion can the mind think without limitation? The only limit is the limit of experience on a given time? As time goes further (in the curbed universe or the infinite one? )
https://phys.org/news/2015-03-universe-finite-infinite.html
perhaps in the future the experience will confirm some unlimited "thinking" of the mind?

"never know the world from "the standpoint of nowhere" and therefore we can never know the world in its entirety, neither via reason nor experience"

Can someone, more knowledgeable than I, explain this sentence to me?

Kind regards, Paul.

There is a problem with the phrase "19th century German philosophers" in that the description glosses over the historical reality of German society throughout that century. That hundred years saw its transformation from a patchwork quilt of independent, often non-aligned, even more often non-conformist in terms of religious thought and societal mores, autonomous regions into one unified geo-political state which then had the challenge of accommodating this legacy of division in a country whose raison-d'être was to abolish such division in the interests of a perceived commonwealth which itself was not universally agreed in terms of character, function and design even by those who subscribed to it.

German philosophy (and to a lesser extent theology, philosophy's poorer relative) tended to reflect this clash of traditional autonomy versus invented unity, and one can see a development over the century from a concentration on the individual to that of society, or humanity, as a whole. Along the way attempts at a philosophical analysis of universal reality switched gradually from the existential approach to one of individual and experiential interpretation. It was to steer German thought into ground-breaking exploration of psycho-analysis and psychiatry at the century's close, but along the way the hugely profound existentialist theory as typified by Kant (when he concentrated on actual philosophy and wasn't side-tracked into spiritual dead ends) was gradually abandoned as German society coalesced into political unity.

It is arguable that "German philosophy" in terms of influence over other European thinkers never wavered much in strength over this time. However its substance along with the agency of influence, the character of this influence, the effect of this influence, and very much the point of such influence, changed fundamentally over the period - to the extent that it is hardly worth discussing "German philosophy" as a single concept at all over the 19th century, just as it is dangerous to assume that its "influence" also was a uniform concept over that period.

During the first half of that century, as German society along with the rest of Europe explored the suddenly extended bounds post-Napoleonic society appeared to present individuals in terms of potential, the philosophy it engendered mirrored this exciting leap into a new future probably more than elsewhere, and its appeal to fellow travellers who also saw an era of possibility opening up was immense.

Emily Brontë - mentioned before - would have fitted rather neatly into that definition being very much of that generation, a woman who saw no great reason to conform to the presumptions and dictats of her predecessors regarding limitations due to her sex or her social status. She was one of many such thinkers in the society and time in which she lived, and for these people there was much coming out of current German philosophical theory which could be directly related to their own experience.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Temperance thank you fro reply and I have here the article that you mentioned

https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/crcl/index.php/crcl/article/view/2238

From the PDF as you explained to me:
"Shopenhauer, following Kant believed that all objects in the material world were but the objectification of another dimension. In Kantian terms this other dimension was called the noumenal world. Shopenhauer preferred to call it the Will. Shopenhauer claimed "every individual is transitory only as phenomenon, but as thing-in-itself is timeless and therefore endless. But it is only as phenomenon that an individual is distinguished from the other things of the world; as thing-in-itself he is the will which appears in all, and death destroys the illusion, which separates his consciousness from that of the rest:this is immortality. His exemption from death, which belongs to him only as thing-in-itself, is for the phenomenon one with the immortality of the rest of the external world"

Tomorrow my comments and questions...

Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance,

The noumenal world from Kant or the Will from Shopenhauer isn't that the Abrahamic believers' "heaven"?
And to go further with the parallel, isn't the transitory individual phenomenon in contrast with the thing-in-itself, not the same as the Abrahamic religions' belief of the contrast of the mortal body with the immortal soul?

"and death destroys the illusion, which separates his consciousness from that of the rest:this is immortality. "
Is that not the same as we learned in our Roman-Catholic school about our immortal soul, which (or have I have to say "who"?)  leaves our dead body up to the immortal heaven (or down to hell , but that 's perhaps the dualism of the Zorohasterianism? The struggle between good and evil?)

"His exemption from death, which belongs to him only as thing-in-itself, is for the phenomenon one with the immortality of the rest of the external world"

"exemption from death" is that "freedom from death"?
And that freedom belongs to the phenomenon only as thing-in-itself?

"is for the phenomenon one with the immortality of the rest of the external world"

I don't understand the meaning of the word "one" in this context.
And I don't understand "the immortality of the rest of the external world" in this context

Kind regards, Paul.

nordmann wrote:

There is a problem with the phrase "19th century German philosophers" in that the description glosses over the historical reality of German society throughout that century. That hundred years saw its transformation from a patchwork quilt of independent, often non-aligned, even more often non-conformist in terms of religious thought and societal mores, autonomous regions into one unified geo-political state which then had the challenge of accommodating this legacy of division in a country whose raison-d'être was to abolish such division in the interests of a perceived commonwealth which itself was not universally agreed in terms of character, function and design even by those who subscribed to it.

German philosophy (and to a lesser extent theology, philosophy's poorer relative) tended to reflect this clash of traditional autonomy versus invented unity, and one can see a development over the century from a concentration on the individual to that of society, or humanity, as a whole. Along the way attempts at a philosophical analysis of universal reality switched gradually from the existential approach to one of individual and experiential interpretation. It was to steer German thought into ground-breaking exploration of psycho-analysis and psychiatry at the century's close, but along the way the hugely profound existentialist theory as typified by Kant (when he concentrated on actual philosophy and wasn't side-tracked into spiritual dead ends) was gradually abandoned as German society coalesced into political unity.

It is arguable that "German philosophy" in terms of influence over other European thinkers never wavered much in strength over this time. However its substance along with the agency of influence, the character of this influence, the effect of this influence, and very much the point of such influence, changed fundamentally over the period - to the extent that it is hardly worth discussing "German philosophy" as a single concept at all over the 19th century, just as it is dangerous to assume that its "influence" also was a uniform concept over that period.

During the first half of that century, as German society along with the rest of Europe explored the suddenly extended bounds post-Napoleonic society appeared to present individuals in terms of potential, the philosophy it engendered mirrored this exciting leap into a new future probably more than elsewhere, and its appeal to fellow travellers who also saw an era of possibility opening up was immense.

Emily Brontë - mentioned before - would have fitted rather neatly into that definition being very much of that generation, a woman who saw no great reason to conform to the presumptions and dictats of her predecessors regarding limitations due to her sex or her social status. She was one of many such thinkers in the society and time in which she lived, and for these people there was much coming out of current German philosophical theory which could be directly related to their own experience.

Nordmann,

"There is a problem with the phrase "19th century German philosophers" in that the description glosses over the historical reality of German society throughout that century. That hundred years saw its transformation from a patchwork quilt of independent, often non-aligned, even more often non-conformist in terms of religious thought and societal mores, autonomous regions into one unified geo-political state which then had the challenge of accommodating this legacy of division in a country whose raison-d'être was to abolish such division in the interests of a perceived commonwealth which itself was not universally agreed in terms of character, function and design even by those who subscribed to it."

That's perhaps a good approach as indeed the German unification happened during that century together with the Italian one.
And yes I read already in the links that I mentioned above about the change to Idealism, which was linked with the term "völkish" that I explained on a French forum.
But the unification took form under the umbrella of Prussia, which was it alone already the half of the population of the future empire and where there was already an unified tradition? But yes even in Prussia you had the recent British Hannover and the Rheinland, where there were perhaps still national traditions also in philosophy...?

Excuses Nordmann, I have to leave now to "go out" with the wife this afternoon...see you this evening...

Kind regards from a respectful Paul...with esteem for again a coherent but difficult message...but I understand such "stuff" is not easy to bring under words...

Nordmann,

struggling further through your text and it is perhaps better to take your two first paragraphs together as they are one unity?

There is a problem with the phrase "19th century German philosophers" in that the description glosses over the historical reality of German society throughout that century. That hundred years saw its transformation from a patchwork quilt of independent, often non-aligned, even more often non-conformist in terms of religious thought and societal mores, autonomous regions into one unified geo-political state which then had the challenge of accommodating this legacy of division in a country whose raison-d'être was to abolish such division in the interests of a perceived commonwealth which itself was not universally agreed in terms of character, function and design even by those who subscribed to it.

German philosophy (and to a lesser extent theology, philosophy's poorer relative) tended to reflect this clash of traditional autonomy versus invented unity, and one can see a development over the century from a concentration on the individual to that of society, or humanity, as a whole. Along the way attempts at a philosophical analysis of universal reality switched gradually from the existential approach to one of individual and experiential interpretation. It was to steer German thought into ground-breaking exploration of psycho-analysis and psychiatry at the century's close, but along the way the hugely profound existentialist theory as typified by Kant (when he concentrated on actual philosophy and wasn't side-tracked into spiritual dead ends) was gradually abandoned as German society coalesced into political unity.

And yes I think that you meant, (correct me if I am wrong) that the 19th century changed the whole time and the watershed could be the revolutions of 1848. And apparently the philosophy followed? or was the cause? of that change?
 When I said that the "völkisch" movement was a product of those philosophies, especially in Germany, you can be right that it was different in the several states of the former German speaking countries as for instance a Prussia or Bavaria to call but the two biggest ones. But my impression is that it was most developped in Prussia with Berlin?

I read in the links that I provided in my first message that Fichte was a reaction to Kant and Shopenhauer or an adaptation...and his philosophy (or his writings?) would the German nationalists have used for the "völkisch" interpretation of the state in contrast with France where the state (the "nation") was an abstract entity above the "Volk".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lkisch_movement
From the wiki:
The völkisch movement had its origins in Romantic nationalism, as it was expressed by early Romantics such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte in his Addresses to the German Nation published during the Napoleonic Wars, from 1808 onwards, especially the eighth address, “What is a Volk, in the higher sense of the term, and what is love of the fatherland?," where he answered his question of what could warrant the noble individual's striving "and his belief in the eternity and the immortality of his work," by replying that it could only be that "particular spiritual nature of the human environment out of which he himself, with all of his thought and action... has arisen, namely the people from which he is descended and among which he has been formed and grown into that which he is".^[4]
The movement combined sentimental patriotic interest in German folklore, local history and a "back-to-the-land" anti-urban populism with many parallels in the writings of William Morris. "In part this ideology was a revolt against modernity,"Nicholls remarked.^[5] The dream was for a self-sufficient life lived with a mystical relation to the land;^{[citation needed]} it was a reaction to the cultural alienation of the Industrial revolution and the "progressive" liberalism of the later 19th century and its urbane materialist banality.^{[citation needed]} Similar feelings were expressed in the US during the 1930s by the populist writers grouped as the Southern Agrarians.^{[citation needed]}
The völkisch movement, as it evolved, sometimes combined the arcane and esoteric aspects of folkloric occultism alongside "racial adoration" and, in some circles, a type of anti-Semitism linked to exclusionary ethnic nationalism. Many völkisch movements included anti-communist, anti-immigration, anti-capitalist and anti-Parliamentarian ideas.^{[citation needed]} Overtime, völkisch ideas of "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) came more and more to exclude Jews.^{[citation needed}


I have it together with he eugenist movement of the 19th century used in the roots of Nazism on several fora and I was surprized that in an intellectual discussion on Historum even an American moderator seemed to be completely ignorant and used only old fashioned arguments...

Kind regards and till tomorrow, Paul.

PS. Nordmann, what did you mean with "existential approach" in your second paragraph? I read already now about "existentialism" but I have the impression that it has nothing to to with that?
PPS. Is it a coincidence that in that century of intense philosophical movement the more "romantic"invention of the several national narrations took place as for instance the French one with a Clovis and the Gaulois roots...?

In philosophy existentialism tackles the subject of that which can be considered to exist. Originally this was confined to that which could be deemed to exist according to our ability to perceive such existence (the example Priscilla mentioned of the school playground discussion regarding the visible universe is fairly typical of initial philosophical approaches to this question). Kant, like a lot of his contemporaries, moved this idea of "perception" into the metaphysical (if the existence of perception itself is perceived, and if this entails no guarantee therefore that any two peoples' perception of perception is the same, can it follow that perception itself lies outside of perception, and if it does what remains to be perceived that as yet we have not even guessed at?). Fanciful and probably pointlessly complex an avenue of enquiry it may be, but it is still fixated on existence and therefore existential.

The problem with classifying later German philosophy as "idealism" is that in fact all philosophy is essentially idealist, in that each enquiry presumes an ideal answer to be found at its conclusion. How I would classify the direction in which "German" philosophy developed is that as Germany unified politically an increasingly limited definition of that which could be classed as "German" came to bear on most things, including philosophy. German philosophers didn't stop being existential, but an increasing number focused on the societal implications of their inquiries and in doing so shifted emphasis from that which could be experienced by the individual to that which could be deemed more universal, not only in terms of perception but - crucially - in terms of application. This is when you see a great divide open up between the "French" and "German" philosophies considered at the cutting edge of such thought. The former quite happily continued in the same vein as had once typified a rather more European approach than could be specifically ascribed to one country, whereas the latter most definitely applied a filter of relevance to the emergent German nation and society as they philophosised, one prominent aspect of this being the emphasis on "Dem deutschen Volke" to which you refer in a lot of what got published as leading German thought of the day, even before the rise of a rather toxic for of nationalism afterwards which probably in fact could not have happened without this development having first occurred.

Those within the broader German society who wished therefore to persevere with inquiry based on individual perception found themselves increasingly drawn towards theory regarding human psychological function, and they did this extremely well it must be said. However, like other "natural philosophers" before them in other disciplines, they soon could not be classed as philosophers any more and increasingly became regarded as "psychologists", operating firmly within a scientific ambit where pure philosophical conjecture is as welcome as a Rastafarian in the Ku Klux Klan. The others found themselves drawn to broad theories regarding human behaviour primarily as social animals, a trajectory which leaves existentialism behind and makes as broad assumptions about existence as theology is also inclined to do, theology being often by its very nature "philosophy but with built-in dead-ends, blind spots and taboos" almost all of which relate to unfounded presumptions regarding existence), and like theology therefore their philosophical musings all too often lent themselves (albeit often through misinterpretation) to becoming justifications for politically motivated social policies, as we know historically to our fellow cost.

Poor old theology - Cinderella staring sadly into the ashes around here. But there's no getting away from it: theology and philosophy are intertwined, are they not, unhappy, warring, jealous siblings, especially during the 19th century when all those immensely clever if incomprehensible (for most of us) philosophers and atheists decided to unplug the life-support on God their Father? How they hated him. In "Creation" the recent film about  Darwin, Thomas Huxley exclaims to his uneasy friend: "You've killed God, sir,...and I for one say good riddance to the vindictive old bugger!"

I'm reading a bit about Samuel Butler at the moment (see also the Moggy thread) whose posthumous book (published 1907), The Way of All Flesh, made such an impression. It actually deserves to be studied as a record of late Victorian family life and the peculiar psychological kinship between religious belief and the parent-child relationship. It was a book Butler had been working on intermittently for nearly three decades. He began it the year Sigmund Freud entered Vienna University as a medical student. (Butler's semi-Swiftian satire, Erewhon, whose sarcastic and overtly anti-Christian tone had, incidentally, at least according to his father, hastened his mother's death, had been published earlier in 1873.)The insufferable, bullying figure of Theobald Pontifax is a cruel portrait of Butler's own father, a clergyman. "MY MOST IMPLACABLE ENEMY (his capitals) from childhood onward has certainly been my father..." wrote Butler in his notebooks.

Implacable enemies. Were 19th century fathers, with their habit of thrashing belief into their sons, any worse than fathers of previous generations? Those writers and philosophers who were so anxious to kill God definitely seem to have had their theological obsessions after all: they couldn't, it seems, leave God the Father alone - did it all have something to do with unconscious dramas buried in childhood from which they could not escape?

It would be interesting to look into the family lives of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and the rest - seems not one of them was a  full shilling after all - and all had difficult relationships with their parents. Schopenhauer hated his mother, I believe - didn't his father commit suicide?

In ancient shadows and twilights
Where childhood had strayed,
The world’s great sorrows were born
And its heroes were made.
In the lost boyhood of Judas
Christ was betrayed.

(A.E. Russell - actually George William Russell).

EDIT:

PS 'God so hated the world that He gave several millions of English-begotten sons that whosoever believeth in them should not perish, but have a comfortable life.' Wilfred Owen - born 1893 - who also wrote:

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Sorry, going wildly off-topic, but this Oedipal thing and the death of God interests me.

If you're going to use a sibling analogy then you have to imagine a clever and a thick pair of brothers/sisters - the thick one being the elder of the two and consequently insistent on claiming to know everything as a result of having been first, the clever younger sibling quietly getting on with figuring things out. The younger sibling will share their musings with anyone interested, the older one will call their musings "findings" and insist on sharing them with everyone else whether they want to hear them or not.

Jealousy exists, but in the younger sibling's case it is fleeting and when it arises is primarily directed against the arrogance posing as self-assuredness in the older sibling's infuriating habit of claiming that more people listen to them, mainly because they shout loudest and often shout just what everyone else wants to hear, so consequently they must be right. The younger sibling, who explores the world on the basis that everything is doubtful, complicated, and probably ultimately inexplicable, can only envy the simplicity of the arrogant sibling's approach to such complexity.

The older sibling's jealousy is probably in fact all the more intense and bitter, but then it is rarely expressed anyway as that would be tantamount to admitting their easily demonstrable codswallop for what it really is.

They get on best in fact when they ignore each other completely except on special occasions such as a death in their mutual family (like when the logos died due to neglect) - just to draw the sibling analogy to its almost inevitable conclusion.

Well, as an only child now without any family whatsoever, I find these fallings-out between family members, two siblings whom I like and respect, very sad and very silly indeed. I like listening to the musings (not the shoutings) of both actually. I've always envied the family in the Oxo ad and wanted to be a part of such a group.

nordmann wrote:

...The younger sibling, who explores the world on the basis that everything is doubtful, complicated, and probably ultimately inexplicable...

But that's me! I must be a bit of a philosopher then without knowing it! How encouraging!

Maybe I'm a sort of Siamese twin? Or a child exposed on the mountain top?

This family analogy is getting a bit tortured. Best leave you and Paul to it.

Shit, I hadn't even got to the bit about how one sibling then finds out they were adopted all along!

"Here you are, everyone, a lovely bit of Hegelian scepticism that ends up with the bare abstraction of nothingness or emptiness which cannot get any further from there, but must wait to see whether something new comes along and what it is, in order to throw it too into the same empty abyss. Now put your Daily Express away, dad, and tuck in before it goes cold!"

I was worried that Hegel wasn't actually a sceptic at all and that I might be showing myself up here, so I googled: "Does anyone actually understand Hegel?"

I found the following very comforting and quite useful:


How To Fake Your Way Through Hegel

Now, the problem with Hegel is that, well, he is too Hegelian – too difficult to understand, too German and inaccessible, too time-consuming. Fear not, dear future Hegelians! Here are a few useful tips on faking your way through Hegel – if you follow these, you will surely come across as the most intelligent and thought-provoking expert on all things Hegelian.

Rule 1: Never (ever) actually read anything by Hegel.

First of all, of course, you cannot just come out and say you never read Hegel. No one reads Hegel, but no one ever admits to not having read Hegel. It’s a sacred law of (not) reading Hegel. In fact, you cannot ever say you are reading Hegel when you are reading Hegel for the first time (if you have committed this atrocious act, see Rule 2), you are always re-reading Hegel. Here is how you do it:

“I have been re-reading Hegel’s Jena Lectures recently. Some fascinating stuff, really helps you understand (insert more known works by Hegel), don’t you think?”

When you send things back to other pretending Hegelians, you are projecting confidence in your ability to fake having read Hegel. Don’t be afraid to use this move – they haven’t read Hegel either so they are not likely to come back with an objection to your interpretation.



I think this rule of never actually attempting to read Hegel may be safely applied to all German philosophers. I'm starting to wonder now whether George Eliot actually read Hegel: perhaps she was just faking it to please G.H. Lewes who never realised.

PS Somebody has written a book entitled Karl Marx and the Young Hegelians. They sound like a 1980s British band from Solihull.

Apologies, Paul - this really isn't fair on you. I don't mean to be so silly, it's honestly just a defensive reaction to nordmann's refusal to take anything to do with religion seriously - a position which I find neither fair nor reasonable.

Religion is hugely relevant in this discussion - the Germans were the ones to pronounce the death of God, after all. They were wrong - as Tolstoy ( following Kant) understood.

But what's the point? Such musings are just me trying to share - impose? - my thoughts on people who really just don't want to know. Best I leave you two to your discussion of things with as much grace as I can muster.

Couldn't resist:

But I cannot resist adding this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/anwilson/3615562/In-search-of-Tolstoys-truths.html


Tolstoy remained, at heart, a man of the Enlightenment. If we, as men and women, could learn to discard the pursuit of power, if we could restrain our lusts for sexual gratification and for money, the God we should see would not be a miraculous being, capable of making the dead rise from tombs, or cancelling out obvious moral evil by blood-sacrifice. It would be the inner God who speaks to everyone.

What War and Peace taught the young rationalists of Heidelberg was not a full-blown "Tolstoyanism" - vegetarianism, pacifism, and so forth. It was the more direct and simple truth that, within us all, there is a spark of soul that cannot be explained away, and which we all know to be there. Had the students of Heidelberg with whom Steiner shared his thoughts been more attentive to the works of Immanuel Kant, they might have recognised this as what Kant called the Categorical Imperative. No novelist has ever dramatised this certainty more surely than Tolstoy with his characters in War and Peace, such as Pierre, the archetypical Enlightenment rationalist, who sees the truth only when watching the life and death of a simple man among his fellow-prisoners. "Life is everything. Life is God... How simple and clear it is."



Exactly what I meant when I mentioned Tolstoy in my post earlier.

"...the God we should see would not be a miraculous being, capable of making the dead rise from tombs, or cancelling out obvious moral evil by blood-sacrifice. It would be the inner God who speaks to everyone." Exactly. I don't think this is "codswallop" - sorry, but I just don't. Tolstoy was steeped in the philosophy of Kant and, yes, of Schopenhauer too. Yet Schopenhauer also - with Nietzsche, of course -  so profoundly influenced Hitler. It's that odd dualism again: two men read the same stuff and come to such different conclusions...

Temperance wrote:

But I cannot resist adding this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/anwilson/3615562/In-search-of-Tolstoys-truths.html

What War and Peace taught the young rationalists of Heidelberg was not a full-blown "Tolstoyanism" - vegetarianism, pacifism, and so forth. It was the more direct and simple truth that, within us all, there is a spark of soul that cannot be explained away, and which we all know to be there. Had the students of Heidelberg with whom Steiner shared his thoughts been more attentive to the works of Immanuel Kant, they might have recognised this as what Kant called the Categorical Imperative. No novelist has ever dramatised this certainty more surely than Tolstoy with his characters in War and Peace, such as Pierre, the archetypical Enlightenment rationalist, who sees the truth only when watching the life and death of a simple man among his fellow-prisoners. "Life is everything. Life is God... How simple and clear it is."

Exactly what I meant above. I don't think this is "codswallop" - sorry, but I just don't.

Sorry Temperance,

I wanted to say this evening to Nordmann sorry to answer first to Temperance and I had already prepared a lot in mind for you...and now I have to say sorry to you too...due to the clock already nearing half past eleven on the continent at the other side of the Channel (although you are so close just on the edge of that continental shelve):



It is not that I am afraid of the in depth discussion, you know me after all those years, but it is the workload.
Many times nearly four hours a day making time for the fora...

Kind regards from Paul, who understands how important that all is for you.

Temperance wrote:

... it's honestly just a defensive reaction to nordmann's refusal to take anything to do with religion seriously - a position which I find neither fair nor reasonable.

Au contraire - I take all assaults on logic very seriously indeed. I am not stupid enough to believe I can arrest them, but I will always try gamely to understand them.

Temperance wrote:

Religion is hugely relevant in this discussion - the Germans were the ones to pronounce the death of God, after all. They were wrong - as Tolstoy ( following Kant) understood.

In a discussion of philosophy religion is as important as one cares to make it. That's the infuriating (and very welcome) aspect to philosophy over theology, it excludes nothing.

The "declaration" that "God is dead" by Nietzsche is very misunderstood, as are a lot of that poor lad's other musings too (irony doesn't go down well in German culture, even now). In terms of philosophy as a developing discipline historically Nietzsche represents very much a deviation in the German context. He in fact tried to arrest the trend he identified (and found obnoxious) in which "German" mainstream philosophy was becoming very hard to distinguish from sociology. His rather strenuous efforts to bring the debate back into an existentialist context was (and still often is) portrayed as "anarchy" - something that speaks more of predominant contemporary German social mores than it does of Nietzsche's philosophy. I find Nietzsche fascinating to read, not because I have ever found great insights in his writings or indeed much to agree with when he sets out his hypotheses, but because in an historical context his thinking was indeed revolutionary and was a very eloquent argument for the freedom to think openly. In that sense he was identified as an enemy not only by theologians (who are wont anyway to identify threats to their suppositions as hostile) but also by contemporary "notable" philosophers, especially those who were following the general trend into sociology that their culture had decreed necessary to be taken seriously. I like Bertrand Russel for the same reason.

Temperance and Nordmann,

too late for an elaborated reply and still studying the history of philosophy. But I don't give up I will reply to both of you.
The whole evening with the Litus Saxonicus, the county of Boulogne, the county of Artois and that of Flanders and studies about toponymy of that region.

Kind regards and I don't forget you both, Paul. (about you statements I mean )

nordmann wrote:

 I like Bertrand Russel for the same reason.

Paul wrote:

...and still studying the history of philosophy.

It's all a bit of a waste of time though, isn't it? This story has been repeated by Peter Hennessy, Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at the University of London, so it must be true:


'You’re T. S. Eliot,’ said a taxi driver to the famous poet as he stepped into his cab. Eliot asked him how he knew. ‘Ah, I’ve got an eye for a celebrity,’ he replied. ‘Only the other evening I picked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him, “Well, Lord Russell, what’s it all about?” And, do you know, he couldn’t tell me.’

I prefer the "What's it all about then, Bertrand?" version, as quoted by T.S. Eliot's wife (she mentioned the incident in a letter to The Times), although it is of course very unlikely that a taxi driver would use a Christian name when speaking to such a distinguished passenger, but the more informal form of address does have a nice Baldrickian, democratic, post-war ring about it.

Back to cultivating our own gardens, I think. Mine is a complete mess.






Really hope he meant this, and that he wasn't being ironic: you can never tell with these clever men.

Temp wrote:

It's all a bit of a waste of time though, isn't it?

Au contraire again - misinterpreted philosophy has potentially dangerous consequences, as Hitler, Trump and others have adequately prove historically and in our own times. Since one can't stop people from thinking (well, not everyone all the time) and some will inevitably examine and communicate rather more profound mental constructs than others, and since the more profound the resulting hypothesis the more vulnerable it is to misinterpretation, then it is in fact vital that one at least attempts to understand what has been said. Agreement is optional. Comprehension however is a must, or at least a good effort to achieve it is.

Voltaire's quote is slightly out of context, and not ironic at all. It comes from an essay about religious tolerance, tolerance being a trait that he describes as an appurtenance available to humans, which supersedes religious belief and identity in that it is tolerance rather than any particular religious adherence or belief which is first and foremost in establishing a person's humanity. It therefore takes a primary position in natural law, which according to Voltaire will always trump any presumed "law" derived from a theological source.

So while it reads like a moral instruction, it is actually presented simply as an immutable fact - namely that humans' undeniable use of their ability to forgive demonstrates their humanity, not their faith, and whether they ascribe this inclination to a religious or natural origin it acts as a balance to another "first law of nature" that he also identified, the rather more prevalent inclination in the natural world to exploit another's weakness, error and folly. Voltaire correctly identified religion's demonstrable inability to eradicate that inclination, and in fact the essay cites several instances of how religion actually encouraged such exploitation, and deduced therefore that it was purely humanitarian aspirations which really mattered (however this may be presented by different religions as their own particular aim or, even worse, erroneously as their particular achievement).

Temperance,

"Back to cultivating our own gardens, I think. Mine is a complete mess."

Temperance I don't let you go ...Now that we "de koe bij de horens gevat hebben" (and see in English (is English a dialect from Dutch?) (we have taken the bull by the horns) we have not to give up our place...in my humble opinion...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

And Nordmann,

I have still so much to ask and say to you.
See you in the next days.

Kind regards from Paul.

Isn't it embarrassing when you realise you've got it all wrong? Or nearly all wrong? I think I have been taken in by the Hollywood version of Nietzsche. Seems he has been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

My thanks must go to nordmann for encouraging me me to look deeper and not take things for granted. Hate to admit that, but there you go. Lord knows where all this "looking deeper" will end. There is such a thing as a Christian humanist, after all, but not a Christian nihilist.



This isn't exactly deep, but it's a start, I suppose.

PS Nietzsche apparently said: "Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders." A very sensible observation, I think.

Nordmann,


on the old BBC forum I had a discussion about Nietzsche with a lady from Bulgaria, whose English was even worser than mine.
It was the first time that I came in contact with philosophy now some 12 years ago.
But it is not about philosophy yet but about history.
In the time it was still not known to the general public, but I found out that the sister of Nietzsche manipulated his writings to point them more in the Nazi direction. Nowadays it is all very well know thanks to research from Wiki and all that...
When I just tapped it in Google the first entrance was this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7018535/Criminal-manipulation-of-Nietzsche-by-sister-to-make-him-look-anti-Semitic.html
And yes, even a book about the question...
My question: Is it up to your knowledge now attested what is really written by Nietzsche and what by his sister?
For further discussion about Nietzsche and all, see you tomorrow as it is nearing midnight overhere again.

Kind regards and with esteem, Paul.

Temperance wrote:

Isn't it embarrassing when you realise you've got it all wrong? Or nearly all wrong? I think I have been taken in by the Hollywood version of Nietzsche. Seems he has been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

My thanks must go to nordmann for encouraging me (or challenging?) me to look deeper and not take things for granted. Hate to admit that, but there you go. Lord knows where all this "looking deeper" will end. Am I turning into a humanist?
PS Nietzsche apparently said: "Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders." A very sensible observation, I think.

Temperance,

glad to see you...I wanted to make a comparison to you between philosophy and religion and looking forward to comments from Nordmann...but unfortunately, now involved in an in depth discussion on Historum about the Litus Saxonicum and the reintroduction of bricks in Northern medieval Europe after an absence of nearly five hundred years...
See you perhaps tomorrow for this thread...

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Nordmann,
My question: Is it up to your knowledge now attested what is really written by Nietzsche and what by his sister?

It has always been rather common knowledge that certain redactions inserted by Peter Gast existed in the few books published after Nietzsche's sudden descent into mental and physical illness in 1889. Most of these relate to his two last books, published through friends - of whom Gast was most prominent in this regard - and of course Nietzsche's sister, who had assumed legal rights to her brother's estate due to him being pronounced mentally incompetent. However thanks to the publishers and Gast having kept copies of original manuscripts and drafts, and thanks to Gast's subsequent falling out with Elizabeth which prompted him to become open about these amendments (in that he made them available for scrutiny by gifting them to a friend though steadfastly refused to discuss the matter afterwards), and thanks even to Nietzsche himself who was aware of this redaction and complained in writing to both Gast and his sister, many of which letters remain in published form to be read, much of the content which is contestable as having been Nietzsche's originally intended utterances has always been well known.

Regarding Nietzsche's private correspondence to his sister which Elizabeth published later and which she liberally adjusted to promote her late husband's anti-semitic views, this was also generally known to have been the case even when first published, though the extent of the changes could never be accurately confirmed - some were more blatant than others. For this reason no one studying Nietzsche in any serious way has ever relied on those publications. However they have been available for over a century now and have indeed been used erroneously by many to form an opinion on Nietzsche, sometimes for what might be called a sinister agenda of their own and sometimes simply through ignorance of their provenance.

Elizabeth made an effort to "learn philosophy" at one point in the 1890s in a sort of crash course given by a mutual acquaintance of hers and Nietzsche's, and I think there is no doubt that this was with a view to taking over Gast's redactions of her brother's philosophical texts in a manner she hoped indiscernible to readers and closer to her late husband's views. The guy gave up in exasperation and, as a result, Elizabeth seems to have realised that this was one bit of her brother's oeuvre she really couldn't mess around with too much. She did indeed go to town on his letters, but his books - and especially all but his last two or three - are more or less completely dependable as his unadulterated thoughts. The final books, such as Ecco Homo and Twilight of the Idols, in fact were an effort to introduce new readers to his previously published works, which by the late 1880s were belatedly attracting a lot of interest. So even if Gast messed around with some sentences in these "primers", the texts consistently point to previous works in which the ideas are expounded in more detail, length and accuracy anyway. Elizabeth never managed to redact these, though she certainly wished to.

Having said all the above, it is worth pointing out that Elizabeth's interventions concentrated on two specific areas of her brother's philosophy to which she and her husband had objected. Nietzsche's refusal to exempt anti-semitism from his criticism of all social constructs founded on a form of moral imperitavism of course angered Förster who, like a few others of his time and later, maintained social and intellectual reputations (as they saw them) based on such dubious imperatives anyway. She also tried clumsily to expunge her brother's obvious preference for the amoral in almost anything - be it analysis of history, thought, behaviour or even in how he conducted his relationships with others. Their correspondence shows how much she detested this, and also how little she understood what he was trying to achieve with it as the basis of an alternative hypothesis concerning why society had developed as it had and by extension therefore how it could be made to change to be better.

That this is the basis for the accusations of "nihilism" and "anarchism" levelled against Nietzsche is one of those unfathomable occurrences where the actual truth of a matter is apparently abandoned very early in a process despite the evidence for that truth never having actually disappeared. In an existential approach to his work then Nietzsche was in fact echoing many others who also questioned the absolute root, function and point of morality (and not just philosophers but also many theologians for whom it was probably even more of a burning question). But being a German of his time it is also noticeable that he consistently sought to point out that his musings could actually contribute to a betterment of society itself - such sociological implications had become de rigueur in his place and time. It is so ironic therefore that people now hold him up incorrectly as the epitome of the opposite, and in fact that no one much cares to see anymore that his deductions regarding future societal development were in fact of far less importance, even to him, than that of the existentialist beliefs he expounded which made them possible. Within those beliefs - and highly critical all of them were against much that conventionally received "wisdom" then deemed self-evidently "good" -  it is still difficult to find one in which betterment is in fact not an aim; a better attitude towards time as a universal context, a better attitude towards others, a more honest understanding of social structures, a better understanding of the motive to be moralistic and a better application of morality. As with much of existentialism there is always a tendency to be over complex while still running the risk of being naive, and this can be criticised, but criticism of a philosophy predicated on the notion of betterment as being "nihilistic" just cannot be made.

So, with reference to the thread's title, it is probably a fair comment if rather damning observation regarding how average people assess the relevance of philosophy, as it also is about how philosophy itself propagates after original publication, that arguably one of the best known German philosophers of the 19th century and who also could arguably be said to have had most apparent influence, wasn't actually understood at all by the overwhelming majority of people who assisted in that propagation and ensured that such influence could continue - not to mention the countless numbers of people who then claimed to have been influenced by something which they quite obviously had not understood if they had read it, and even more likely had never even actually read at all.

Something was doing some influencing, but in what sense has it been Nietzsche's philosophy? And in fact the same question can be asked of many such influential philosophers over many years, not just in 19th century Germany.

nordmann wrote:

Something was doing some influencing, but in what sense has it been Nietzsche's philosophy? And in fact the same question can be asked of many such influential philosophers over many years, not just in 19th century Germany.

Did Darwin's work have more influence - everywhere - than all the philosophers, German or French, put together? Just been reading this:


https://philosophynow.org/issues/29/Nietzsche_and_Evolution

Well written and cogent scientific theory will always exert more influence in any real sense than philosophical theorising.

One danger is to conflate the notion of theory in each case, an error all too many make. Another danger is to fail to differentiate between types of influence.

The article outlines Nietzsche's reaction to having read Darwin's book, part of which was to revise some fundamental aspects to his own view of cause and effect in societal and human development, even though these changes were not actually supported scientifically in Darwin's book and were never intended to have been by its author. That is still however direct and easily observable influence. The article also states that this revision did not lead Nietzsche to abandon his belief in the cyclical patterns within universal development. In fact it should have done - evolutionary theory in no way conforms to the notion that either linear or circular patterns naturally pertain in the development of species - so this could be used to illustrate how Darwin's theory failed to exert influence in Nietzsche's case.

More contemporary, and better, examples can be found which also illustrate how Darwin's Theory, and its subsequently expanded findings, have obviously influenced philosophical thinking. Equally it is easy to find glaring examples of how they have failed to do so. And that is without even going into the area of theological debate in which the extremes between direct influence of evolutionary theory and indirect influence through violent rejection are even greater.

But it's a scientific theory and therefore never going to go away. It cannot fail therefore to exert influence in some form on anyone who applies their brain to an understanding of the universe, however they approach it. Any philosophical musings which attempt to refute it or present an alternative reality as scientific fact will not survive, and never have - philosophers, unlike theologians, have always been loath to suspend or ignore established scientific theory in their struggle to understand things. Science wins - in terms of influence and veracity. As it should do, of course.

Why does it have to be a matter of "winning" or "losing"?

What on earth does that mean? And what is veracity?

"Science has explained nothing: the more we know, the more fantastic the world becomes, and the profounder the surrounding darkness."

Was Aldous Huxley wrong to aver this?

I meant that science wins over any attempt to replace it with an imitation based purely on assertion, precisely because of its "veracity", its duty to conform to facts. At least this is what "veracity" means here on earth, since you ask specifically regarding that location. It is assumed it means the same elsewhere, so though the nature of "fact" may not have universal application we still persist in believing that the duty of theory to conform to it will not waver.

Re your quote, I don't think Huxley was wrong to aver that at all. Though I imagine he would have been as excited as anyone else who wonders at the universe after recent advances in scientific knowledge, especially regarding what science has now demonstrated in relation to what he called "the surrounding darkness". Non-baryonic matter does not surround the world as such, but more precisely it pervades the universe, including our world. And that is indeed fantastic, demanding of explanation and understanding too, and in the profoundest sense. Dark energy, likewise understandable only through hypothesis, still accounts for over two thirds of energy in the known universe, which also indicates how much more there is to be known than we know now. Huxley may have used what is now a rather out-dated concept of light and dark, and to dismiss the sum of scientific knowledge as "nothing" seems a little hyperbolic on his part (especially when dismissing the art of scientific observation which had allowed the distinction of which he avails in the same sentence), but his main point was quite correct. The more fantastic indeed.

Getting back to the original theme - one easily discernible path of influence in which German philosophy helped shape Britain is through Victoria's husband.

Albert, unlike his wife or indeed those we think of as typical of the family he married into up to the present day, received and did well in a rather academic education, part of which was spent at the then newly established University of Bonn. From its inception and right up to today, Bonn has a deserved reputation for excellence in the teaching of philosophy, and Albert's fellow students included Karl Theodor Ferdinand Grün, the political activist whose philosophy - also honed at Bonn - included such diverse principles as "God" being an alienated representation of human sociality ("species being"), and who had such profound influence later on so many proto-Marxists and socialists throughout Europe, including Proudhon in France and just about every early German Marxist.

Albert, like Grün and Feuerbach, would have picked up from his tutors a requirement to question the nature of everything - including God - and in a very German trend at the time become adept at finding real social applications for whatever theory this inquiry produced. Grün and Feuerbach were to find such an approach a natural avenue later into revolution, and (like many Hegelians as they all styled themselves) into political philosophy designed to justify Marxist theory (which was fundamentally economic) in moralistic terms. These arguments were essentially the basis for every socialist and communist manifesto written afterwards, notably in Russia, and even today are prevalent in Central and South America, China, North Korea, and South-East Asia when a justification for socialist or communist policy is sought, however garbled, bowdlerised or transmuted they have become over the passage of time.

Albert however was on a different trajectory. Much to the annoyance of the British establishment, and it appears much to the delight of Victoria who he also encouraged in his "Young Hegelian" views, he saw his position in Britain as one ideally placed to translate this as yet nebulous theory into political reality. The thrust of such theory in political terms was essentially democratisation (it is forgotten that socialism originated as a logical extension of that process) and the dismantling of institutions which promoted the internal alienisation and manufactured divisions on which non-democratic systems depend.

Albert's efforts in the struggle against slavery and in particular Britain's role in that campaign are sometimes referred to even now - he was an enthusiastic sponsor and vocal supporter of every political and military measure which would lead to its total abolition. However unlike most other leading abolitionists of his day his stated motivation was not essentially religious and did not depend on theological justification. It is often overlooked how he argued both privately and publicly for the abolitionist cause in terms of economic theory and social justice - something which now would be expected but then was quite a revolutionary mind-set, and perceived often as a threat for that reason.

His encouragement of Victoria to directly engage in the political process, to avoid partisanship in doing so, and to especially get engaged in policies in which representation and accountability to the people played a major role, was one she enthusiastically responded to and in fact continued to do so after his death. In doing so she established the monarchy as at least a player in the political process of legislation, with her prime ministers expected to explain their policies and intentions and to expect a response from her at these meetings if it was warranted. Both she and Gladstone were to see this almost as a chore, Disraeli and herself had a much better working relationship. But this was a relationship not between the monarch and her prime minister anyway, it was primarily the establishment of the notion that the monarch's input in the parliamentary process still had a constitutional basis and power. There had been no notion of "constitutional monarchy" prior to this - now it is considered the defining characteristic of the relationship between monarchy and state, not just in the UK but in many other countries too. It had been Albert who had insisted that this protocol of face to face engagement became a standard feature of that relationship, and it is one that persists constitutionally to this day.

Albert's contributions to educational and social reform in Britain are well documented. His obsession with translating scientific advancement into economic and social improvement is also well known. What is not so well known these days was the role he played in saving Palmerston from impeachment or dismissal in 1848 when his foreign policy, based largely on support for the revolutions in Europe which threatened to destabilise the entire continent and even lead to the deposition of royalty, caused panic within the British establishment. Far from panicking, Albert, a person of devout adherence to constitutionalist principles in a country which effectively did not have one (and still doesn't), a holder of the Hegelian principles which could not see any move to effective representation as innately dangerous, and confident that rather than this being a threat to aristocratic wealth but a way to formalise its justification in a broader democratic system than currently prevailed, used his aristocratic position and influence over Victoria to belay that development while simultaneously corresponding with some of the very revolutionaries who were causing such panic - namely his old classmates - urging them to set forth reassuring constitutional alternatives guaranteeing existing fortunes while laying the foundations for better distribution of that wealth. We can quibble over how much influence he exerted over them, but we can see from the correspondence that they spoke the same language, in every sense.

The spate of revolutions were defined by a range of unique characteristics, and each played out in a different way with different immediate outcomes, but what resulted ultimately in post-revolutionary Europe after 1848 was a shift to constitutional monarchy in general, a process of political compromise the Young Hegelian in Albert would have been proud to have had even a tiny role in initiating.

One can argue that it was Albert's nature rather than his philosophical outlook which underlay these actions and policies. However there is no denying that he pursued a rather blatant agenda throughout, and whether he acknowledged that agenda's origin to his education at Bonn or not, it resembled in essence and effect that of other graduates from that philosophical academy who were less humble in describing their ideals as philosophy and better positioned socially to do so. He played a significant historical role in shaping modern Britain, and even a role in shaping Europe at the time, and in terms of influence it is hard to find a more obvious route from philosophical theory into long-term social effects, some of which we are still feeling, than as personified by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Nordmann,

that is an elaborated answer on university level. Are you perhaps a university professor? Or only a thinking man, who reasons logical?
I read it all and thanks again. I read especially about the deeds of Albert of Saxe - Coburg and Gotha, which were completely new to me.  And Albert seems to have been quite another kettle of fish than our first Leopold of Saxe - Coburg and Gotha...
As I read now about Nietzsche from you with his many aspects, I will first study the subject, as I have still some rememberings from my BBC research, and will then come with my questions to you.

Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance,

I don't know anymore where I promised you to speak about the siblings and their difference, but here it goes...
My hesitating layman's approach to the difference between philosophy and religion (or have I to say "theology?)
Both you and Nordmann have to correct me if I am wrong...

There will be always  antagonism between the two not only in the 19th century, but at all times...

Philosophy

The truth is sought by reasoning and if a new concept arises and is more reasonable and more logical than the other one the new one will be discussed until a new more reasonable one comes out...

Religion

Religion is based on faith in something that a kind of philosopher ahs thought about as inspired by something supernatural and from then on the "book" has to be believed as the uninvariable truth (apart of the people of the "book" the muslims have also a "book"). The Christians have that speciality that in their belief it was God himself, who came to earth to say how it all was.

Both try to seek about what each human wants to know about his destiny and place in the universe.
Perhaps is Confucius a philosopher, but in my opinion it becomes a "school" in which the adherents want to act for eternity, while philosophy is always temporal and one system only stands till something more reasonable and more logical appears?

Kind regards, Paul.

Paul, speaking of nordmann's posts, wrote:

...that is an elaborated answer on university level. Are you perhaps a university professor ...?

I'm sure we all agree with your comment, Paul, but I have to admit that (with the greatest of genuine respect) I thought ruefully yesterday afternoon of the Empress of India's famous complaint to G.W. E. Russell about that other eminent Victorian in her life: "He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting." I rather suspect Albert had that tendency too.

My original, rather clumsy, sibling analogy mentioned religion as the 19th century Cinderella, sitting by the hearth staring at the cold ashes of her belief, but do philosophy and science always have to be religion's bullying step-sisters? Thomas Aquinas after all wrote that faith and reason cannot be in conflict: was he wrong? I suppose many - then and now - would say yes (if they bothered to reply at all), and that it was/is just accepted that the great thinkers of the nineteenth century - German and other - had demonstrated the triumph of reason against superstition and mumbo-jumbo (is mumbo jumbo the same as woo woo?): there is therefore simply nothing more to be said on the subject. For so many God wasn't just dead as Pius X gamely ascended the Apostolic throne in 1903: He was safely buried in an overgrown grave in a corner of a neglected parish church and had been left to rot. Nothing and nobody on earth could resurrect Him this time. But Pius X was determined to have a go - just been reading about this Pope - Pius X vehemently opposed modernism, which claimed that Roman Catholic dogma should be modernized and blended with nineteenth-century philosophies. He "viewed modernism as an import of secular errors affecting three areas of Roman Catholic belief - theology, philosophy, and dogma" - and he was having none of it. But for all they made this Pope a saint, it was a lost battle he was still trying to fight.

And yet, and yet - for all Lyell had shown that God, if existent at all, could not possibly have created the world in six days, and Darwin had made the even more disturbing discovery that Hume was right and there was no need to posit a notion of "purpose" behind nature at all and, of course that the new Biblical scholars made a complete and utter nonsense of fundamentalism, and that the great philosophers had argued poor God out of his Universe - for all this, thinking and intelligent human beings - not just the ignorant and superstitious -  continued to pray and still apparently needed to pray. Odd.

And it wasn't because Pius X was right in his belief that the only way human beings could preserve their religion as the terrible new 20th century dawned was by ignoring all the thinking of the previous century (poor man actually died in the utmost gloom, three weeks after the outbreak of WW1, convinced that atheism, mayhem and nihilism would engulf the world and he was right) - many thinking and intelligent men and women were still religious, but knew it must be in a different way. Simone Weil wrote: "Christ likes us to prefer truth to him, because, before Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go to the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms." Ironically, Pius X would undoubtedly have united with Marx, Huxley and Darwin in considering these words of a female Catholic mystic to be utter nonsense. The spiritual struggles and exile of such a thinker - so intense and so strange - are surely not something the contemporaries of George Eliot - all those clever men - would have been able to fathom.

Father George Tyrrell, another spiritual exile, a gentle and caring Jesuit priest whom the Catholic church ended up excommunicating in 1907, wrote to a friend in that year: "I quite understand your desire for a life of prayer - the nostalgia for the old days - God knows I feel it. But I think they will return for us all in some better form. I find the Breviary lives again after a long transition period of death. One has to pass through atheism to faith: the old God must be pulverised and forgotten before the new can reveal himself to us."

But enough. Nordmann's direction of your thread towards consideration of Albert would suggest a desire to gently move us away from such stuff: religion - even if relevant to the history - bores and irritates people around here, so I shall shut up (how many times have I promised that?). I shall have my bowl of porridge and then go to Exeter for a look around the shops.

Temp wrote:

But enough. Nordmann's direction of your thread towards consideration of Albert would suggest a desire to gently move us away from such stuff

Purely to keep the discussion in line with the thread's stated theme.

I do not preclude religion from this theme, by the way. Your quote above from the pope itemising theology, philosophy and dogma as three important areas of religious observation also helps highlight an important effect of 19th century German philosophy on European thought during his lifetime.

Whatever about Pius X "gamely ascending the papal throne" (I suspect he didn't really see it as a dare worth taking on), he did so as a man firmly of the opinion that philosophy was as much within his church's remit as theology and dogma, and it is important to remember that within the Roman Catholic Church of his time it was the function of the latter to dictate the parameters within which the other two could be conducted in as far as the church controlled such matters, just as he also believed it would now be his job to enforce that control. The church in fact still retains that opinion, recent popes have actually steered their organisation some ways back to this being a fundamental precept behind its reason to exist.

But the fact is that by the first decade of the 20th century the pope, even amongst Catholics, was by no means in a majority when he placed "philosophy" within his organisation's remit, where it admittedly had traditionally been in European history for a very long time. The effect of this inclusion historically had been centuries of academic treatment of the subject as an adjunct to theology, often blended totally into that other subject, and therefore well within the church's control - so while access to great philosophical discourses from ancient history was not denied the student, and modern discourses not altogether discouraged, both were taught, understood and conducted through a very specific theological filter imposed by church authorities, using dogma often as their ultimate weapon in that fight against unwanted deviation.

What Germans had produced, especially in the years immediately following the Napoleonic wars, was an alternative take on the institutionalised teaching and treatment of philosophy. Historically one can trace the motive probably in no small measure back to Reformation thinking, itself at core a theological stance. However now there was an added element to the mix - many small independent states (and some larger ones) embarked on a flurry of social reformation typified in part by the establishment of new universities, in which the commercial, statutory and parliamentary institutions became the great enablers of development and social reform. Traditional mainstays such as aristocratic sponsorship and religious organisational control within that process now became severely restricted, and often even non-existent. Bonn was part of this trend but by no means unique. If you examine Prince Albert's advocacy of university reform in Britain in the period you can immediately see this new German model at its root. But that was not surprising - he not only approved of such reform but saw himself as a direct beneficiary of it and proof of its worth in his own right.

If one studies the history of philosophy and theology as academic subjects within educational curricula over the centuries one can see how this was when that definitive split occurred in earnest - when audacious new educational establishments finally divorced these two subjects from each other. A very telling example of this is Grün at Bonn. Like many others he enrolled in both theology and philosophy and this was considered normal at the time. However as he progressed he and his fellow students were invited to opt for one or the other in other to pursue a degree. This had not been normal at all beforehand. Nowadays of course we would regard the distinction as completely natural and sensible, especially in terms of studying for a degree, and in fact it became standard to enforce a distinction academically throughout the rest of Europe very quickly indeed (interestingly not in Russia, however).

Attempted deviation from this trend was problematic. For example, when Cardinal Newman set up the exclusively Catholic University in Dublin just a few decades later as an alternative to Trinity College (which had been open to Catholics as well as Protestants and included in Albert's reforms), he attempted to reintegrate theology and philosophy as combination disciplines, just as he had studied them and just as his masters in Rome dictated they should be. His first students in this Catholic-only establishment (and remember this was at a time when a resurgence of Catholic post-emancipation faith was sweeping through that country's society at almost every level) objected however to this "unnatural" combination. The effect was one of confusion in his establishment for a period while the different religious and secular authorities fought it out, and many students in the meantime elected to go elsewhere for both their theological and philosophical instruction, to the point that even this intentionally atavistic establishment in theological and educational terms had to eventually settle for what had become the status quo in Europe on that score.

Less hardcore Catholic establishments had no such reticence, and even traditionally Catholic societies like Italy and Spain embraced the distinction swiftly and permanently within their academic establishments. And of course what this distinction reinforced was the idea that a graduate in theology could now no longer infer a commensurate degree of competency in philosophy, and vice versa. Their exclusivity as disciplines was established as being of far more importance than whatever perceived overlaps might persist between them, and where such overlaps occurred these were now open to examination and analysis independently from within each discipline, the wildly differing conclusions from each approach thereby only emphasising further the reason why they should never be academically conflated again.

So by the time Pius made his comment he was already a hundred years behind the reality of predominant academic interpretation of how these disciplines should be engaged intellectually or, if he held aspirations for a regain of control of philosophical instruction, he was very mistaken about his prospects. In a way this was understandable on his part - ultra-conservative Catholic thinking had spent so long demonising this trend instead of attempting to comprehend its inevitability that it now just wasn't intellectually competent enough to understand the world it found itself in, at least with respect to political philosophy which had developed in complexity and effect way beyond a point where the Catholic church now had much to add to the ensuing global debate, let alone halt it or even address its many obvious effects in any intelligent manner. Its own published dogmatic responses in fact show conclusively the extent to which it didn't even understand the debate that it was so vehemently condemning.

That movement to retrieve philosophical discourse from under church control had been translated from aspiration to reality in the German statelets in early 19th century Europe, after some smaller scale experimentation in that regard in post revolutionary France and the USA. It was in German universities however where the divorce was made final (in the USA for example a blurring of the distinction is still in evidence), and allowed what Pius lamented as "modernism" and very radical philosophical theory to emerge. He was right to identify this as what had been repressed through centuries of church control where it could be applied directly and through other broadly religious control exercised elsewhere. He was maybe not so right in thinking such repression was morally superior to what was now emerging. "Modernism" after all is a broad pan-philosophical stance which has no monopoly on good or bad effects - both of which we experience today as a result of its adoption - but then an analysis of these effects is simply all the more necessary for that, and this is also exactly what German philosophical academies encouraged from day one, to the point even that analysis of societal effect became a defining characteristic of German philosophy itself.

Those who lamented the "old days" and who saw their faith as being under attack or eroded by what they identified as "modern" philosophy over which they had no control were underestimating the dynamic quality of how faith itself is observably developed within society by its members, and therefore available as an option to individuals to retain, reject or adopt, and interpret or even have interpreted for them as they will (such as the wish to hold a belief in the concept of "prayer" as referred to in your post and which is not "odd" or difficult to understand in the slightest), and they also completely underestimated just how ancient some of these "modernist" philosophies actually were, so ancient in fact in some instances that they had conceivably contributed to the establishment of the original theological doctrine on which their faith had been founded before historical traces of this development had then disappeared from ready view - a product mainly of the church having suppressed this aspect to philosophical discourse and examination over such a long time. However thanks to education there is now less excuse for anyone to so underestimate the historical provenance of any philosophical stance, and that is also very much in part a legacy of 19th century German philosophers and how they reinvented the approach to their discipline.

Excellent post. Thanks for detailed and interesting reply. Gosh, this is all heavy going though. Can we have a break for a bit now?

Deleted.

Comments about dancing - even Nietzsche's - are not relevant on this serious thread.

Thanks again, nordmann, for your instructive message. Each day I learn more about the question...and in what eloquent language.

I read a bit about Nietzsche, enfin starting with the wiki
But I will make an apart message of it.

Thanks again to lead me gradually in the 19th century history of philosophy and its relationship with theology. Its all new to me and I learned from it.

Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance,

"But enough. Nordmann's direction of your thread towards consideration of Albert would suggest a desire to gently move us away from such stuff: religion - even if relevant to the history - bores and irritates people around here, so I shall shut up (how many times have I promised that?)."

Temperance,

"religion - even if relevant to the history"

Religion is relevant to history

Of course it is relevant. Religion accompagnied humans from the dawn of humanity. And we can discuss why.

"Religion bores and irritates people around here"

Nothing at all, at least not me and seemingly not "nordmann" too.

Nordmann was right to refocus on the 19th century while in fact that was the subject of the thread.

As I am now so involved in the matter I will start a new thread: The relationship of philosphy with theology.
Temperance, we have to "clear it out?", to elucidate, to entangle it in a debate. I hope you join us without fear or false modesty (I mean with "false modesty" that you are on a higher level to discuss the question than I am)
I started already on Google with:
(and even between qotationmarks")
"what is theology?"
And you will not believe it, but all were links from "bible" thingies...until at the end I had something "independable"...not an easy research it predicts...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

nordmann,

I started with Nietzsche and from the wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
But as I read it now it is a bit complicated to evoke what I wanted to say and instead will take the history link of my first message:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_philosophy#19th_century
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was initially a proponent of Schopenhauer. However, he soon came to disavow Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook on life and sought to provide a positive philosophy. He believed this task to be urgent, as he believed a form of nihilism caused by modernity was spreading across Europe, which he summed up in the phrase "God is dead". His problem, then, was how to live a positive life considering that if you believe in God, you give in to dishonesty and cruel beliefs (e.g. divine predestination of some individuals to Hell), and if you don't believe in God, you give in to nihilism. He believed he found his solution in the concepts of the Übermensch and Eternal Recurrence. His work continues to have a major influence on both philosophers and artists.

From my discussion with the Bulgarian lady on the BBC I remember our discussion about the Übermensch
In my remembering it was the state of going beyond one's normal capacities by one's sheer will.
And that seemed a good thing to  me. But now as I read more in depth...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch
"Zarathustra first announces the Übermensch as a goal humanity can set for itself. All human life would be given meaning by how it advanced a new generation of human beings. The aspiration of a woman would be to give birth to an Übermensch, for example; her relationships with men would be judged by this standard.^[7]
Zarathustra contrasts the Übermensch with the last man of egalitarian modernity, an alternative goal which humanity might set for itself. The last man appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the Übermensch impossible."
And now I see Nietzsche's disdain for the "last man"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man
In my opinion is the society of the last man (der letzte Mensch) more important than the one of the Übermensch.

"According to Nietzsche, the last man is the goal that modern society and Western civilization have apparently set for themselves. After having unsuccessfully attempted to get the populace to accept the Übermensch as the goal of society, Zarathustra confronts them with a goal so disgusting that he assumes that it will revolt them.^[1] Zarathustra fails in this attempt, and instead of repelling and manipulating the populace into pursuing the goal of the Übermensch, the populace take Zarathustra literally and choose the "disgusting" goal of becoming the last men. This decision made leaves Zarathustra disheartened and disappointed.
The lives of the last men are pacifist and comfortable. There is no longer a distinction between ruler and ruled, strong over weak or supreme over the mediocre. Social conflict and challenges are minimized. Every individual lives equally and in "superficial" harmony. There are no original or flourishing social trends and ideas. Individuality and creativity are suppressed.
Nietzsche warned that the society of the last man could be too barren and decadent to support the growth of healthy human life or great individuals. The last man is only possible by mankind having bred an apathetic person or ethnic group who are unable to dream, who are unwilling to take risks, and simply earn their living and keep warm. The society of the last man is antithetical to Nietzsche's theoretical will-to-power, the main driving force and ambition behind human nature, according to Nietzsche, as well as all other life in the universe."

I don't say that there has to be a complete egalitarian society, but the social cooperation within the group in the beginning of mankind was one of the reasons that the Homo Sapiens became predominant in the world of animals and more and more the scientists see it as the start of the human language and the larger brains, which led to consciousness and a "mind".
And this society is not egalitarian as there is a distribution of tasks for the better working of the group and there are who are gifted with a better thinking and others who have more societal capacities, but as a group each one respect the other for the efficient working of the group. And all that is even more present in the 20th or 21th century.
I therefore don't see the aversion of Nietzsche for the "last man"? Or he misinterpretated the society in which he lived? And you even don't have to be a Christian believer to see that that is the destination of man? And all that is not a brake on the self development of the individual to exceed his own possibilties by a strong will to succeed?

Tomorrow more about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return


Kind regards, Paul.

Paul wrote:

I hope you join us without fear or false modesty...

Don't quite know how to respond to that, Paul!

I'm not too sure it's a good idea to ask Wiki: "What is theology?" Even Saint Augustine regretted googling that.

Paul, isn't the thread meant to be looking at what might be determined as German philosophers' effect on Europe in the 19th century?

Getting stuck within a discussion about Nietzsche and how his views - even those which have escaped misrepresentation - have affected post-19th century Europe seems off-topic and maybe the subject of another discussion. However even in that other discussion I would be loathe to get sucked into an interpretative argument over his real "intentions", interesting and all as it may be to analyse subsequent misinterpretations they are not really germane (no pun intended) to the topic. In discussions about philosophy it is always better to start with simple personal contentions which coincide with earlier published theory, using cited texts only to support them after having been clearly and hopefully simply made. This makes communication simpler and your arguments easier for your reader to - well - read. Chunks of non-contextual wikipedia texts and the like may make perfect sense to you as you post them, but they are murder to assimilate and I confess I now hop over most of them. I am either aware of the point and context already so did not need such generous chunks of quoted text, or I realise that ploughing through them is still no guarantee I will actually get the point you are trying to make (and that is when they are in fact the most relevant excerpts one can find - they are not always in fact relevant enough). Establish your contention, by all means, but do so in your own words.

Staying on topic should not be that difficult, I would have thought. "German philosophers" can be taken to mean those who became eminent in the period, or it can mean the thrust of German philosophy in general as dictated by those who engaged in the subject as students, enthusiasts and educators. "Influence on Europe" also has a rather self-explanatory range of definitions, be it European politics, culture, society, thinking, or even philosophy and how those operating within these spheres in Europe were influenced, or claimed to be influenced, by German philosophy in particular.

At all times we have to be careful to distinguish between German philosophers as dictated purely by their geographical abode with differing or even contradictory views, and a general school of philosophical thought that was interpreted as being "German" because the bulk of its participants contributed to what became a philosophical ethos associated more with Germany than elsewhere. Both are valid terms, but each includes elements which cannot be assigned to the other, so one needs to be rather explicit.

The 19th century, I hope, is a scope we all understand?

PS. The way I see Nietzsche in terms of this discussion is that he exerted very little influence at all while he wrote, except in that he helped highlight the trend of his immediate German contemporaries towards what has later been termed "functional analysis". His insistent return to existentialist principles when philosophically analysing matters has been likened to a similar attempt in France to reinforce a Platonic approach over the Aristotelian one even when examining the physical, as opposed to the metaphysical, universe. In my opinion he wasn't even very good at this - but his importance is that his work demonstrated the divergent principles at play. There is no "good" or "bad" philosophical approach to take, but there is certainly "bad" philosophy to be found within each approach, normally by people who cannot then follow through on their arguments. I'd have placed him in that category, and also reckon that's why so much has been subsequently misinterpreted or interpreted in contradictory ways by later readers.

How did the French - the great philosophers of Europe - respond to German thought, especially after the Franco-Prussian war? Surely all things German were regarded with suspicion after that conflict? Sincerely hope this is not a stupid question - I know absolutely nothing about the war of 1870. This is not "false modesty" - just honest ignorance.


This is from the London Illustrated News, 17th September, 1870: Discussing the War in a Paris Café. Discussing the War and dangerous German ideas?

That's an excellent question in my view, and one that is overlooked when the development of philosophical theory is chronologically assessed normally during philosophy studies. The early part of the 19th century saw divergence between "French" and other European schools of philosophy as the former pursued what could loosely be described as a headlong plunge into existentialist theory. But the motive for this plunge and its popularity in France cannot be explained without at least some reference to national identity, international antipathies, and all these other factors which were also shaping far more than simply philosophical trends.

If the French philosophers were (consciously or unconsciously) reacting to what they perceived as "foreign" strands with which they wished to avoid association in order to produce their own distinctively national "brand", then in the early part of the century that which they wished most to be seen as distinct from was what was then perceived as "English" philosophy, as exemplified by a line of respected thinkers from Locke through to Hume with some Americans en route, all of whom were eminently Aristotelian in that their analysis, however complex, could always in some way be related to what might be called the "real physical universe" in which we all have to function. It may not have been "functional analysis" but it certainly had a functional application. In reality I reckon myself that this antipathy had much more to do historically with the famous falling-out between Hume and Rousseau half a century beforehand, one which ultimately had little to do with philosophical disagreement and everything to do with real or imagined injury to Rousseau's (and by extension France's) pride and which escalated rapidly into a nationalist "cause" in a pre-revolutionary France in which all sides that were later to so violently address their differences could get mileage from such displays of "national offence", however flimsy the premise on which they were based. Post-revolutionary France simply continued in this vein with even more vehemence, and the "philosophical divide" between the nations became a crucial matter of official national identity, especially in a France now obliged to emphasise the worthiness of its birthright at every conceivable opportunity as a real state with a valid and unique identity, despite the terrible trauma and violence which had accompanied that birth. There was no going back, and the philosophical school it fostered was just another facet of this political development.

Having said that, the French trend towards what might be called a "Platonic" assessment of matters which contains validity sometimes only through reference to the metaphysical, was not without merit however and definitely encouraged others to follow suit, including it must be said some eminent German philosophers of that period. However "German" at that point meant very little as a valid label of identity except still in a somewhat nebulous way, so it was really the emergent Prussian philosophers, centered in Berlin and its academic environs, who were probably the first to show the same type of nationalistic antipathy to "foreign" schools of philosophy such as the French had developed as an identifiable "brand" (and probably most of all at that time because the "others" were primarily French) and seemingly attempted in response to establish their own national "brand" (lots of inverted commas here, but you can see why). It was this "brand" which, like much else in the unified Germany which Prussia later engineered, that then became perceived as the "German" one.

So yes, subsequent political developments, and especially violent ones including the spread of reactionary and revolutionary political ideologies mid-century as well as full scale military invasions later, forced everyone who had already adopted such a stance to harden it considerably.

The point is that none of this invalidates the worth of any school of philosophy emerging from any of these regions, but it certainly can be shown to have had a considerable bearing on how it was perceived in terms of popularity. Unfortunately then, as now, "popularity" is often misconstrued as "proof of validity", and as the century progressed a lot of time and words were wasted - and all too vocally - on attempting to "prove" why respective brands were "better" than others etc.

German unification only intensified this process further, and it is then that the "French" versus "German" divergent philosophical schools were deemed almost to be mutually exclusive of each other. It was as difficult for a French philosopher advocating Aristotelian empiricism to be taken seriously at home as it was for a German philosopher who wished to explore the existentialist implications of what such empiricism often throws up.

Nietzsche is an example of someone working within one "school" who wished still to incorporate the better attributes of the other, and for that reason was never considered a serious player in his own patch. In any case he didn't do it very well either, but the point was that more cogent thinkers who maybe could have done it better just weren't to be found. The same happened in France. In Britain it was probably even worse in terms of progressing philosophical theory - one can argue that the prevailing academic establishment view there was that any bold philosophical assertion could mistakenly align the thinker nationally with another political regime so it was better simply to stick to the non-committal fuzzy stuff (hence it is no mere coincidence that some eminent theologians emerged as "British" at the time, often even with an emphasis on their nationality too when being presented for study - by theologians it must be said). It could be said that Britain "opted out" of a philosophical debate which now had an extremely nationalistic characteristic to it, and this reflects exactly British establishment policy in almost all other matters at the time regarding this new and peculiarly 19th century political phenomenon, the reaction to which in Britain was simply to choose to see nationalism as everyone else's affair but not its own, and to ruthlessly "discourage" even discussion of the phenomenon within its jurisdiction (as the Irish amongst were to find to their chagrin and terrible cost at the time).

All the while this was going on political ideologists of every hue, and especially those whose ideology did not necessarily have any nationalist alignment at all, felt at liberty to cherry-pick elements from all of these divergent "brands" to suit their respective aims (in that respect they are not too dissimilar from theologians), but this - along with every other aspect of their thinking and activities - was labelled "subversive", and in a sense that's exactly what it was. That it subverted nationalist principles was often self-evident, but it also was held to subvert then prevalent philosophical theory which had been formulated within the schools this nationalism had helped to define. However it also represented the most immediately effective means of ever drawing up any type of valid political theory in a philosophical sense, however accidentally or by hit-and-miss guesswork, from a convergence of these "national brands" which rarely happened any other way. Ironically for Britain, where the "nationalist problem" had been deemed officially not even to exist, it was often within its own borders where such ideologists found relatively safe and neutral ground to spend time perfecting their respective theories. The country may have had nothing officially to add to the progress of philosophy which could be translated into political ideology at this point in history, but through its back door it facilitated that very process which was now nigh-on impossible elsewhere in Europe without falling foul of the various authorities, and it was Germans with their built-in requirement to include such a translation into "real politik" in their philosophies in order to be taken seriously by their peers who most spectacularly availed of the opportunity.

It is too easy to over simplify (as Plato joked), but this pervasive nationalism which was artificially employed to separate these philosophical schools in the 19th century also had a good side-effect. It encouraged concerted and specialised application of philosophical theory by people essentially "trapped" within certain schools through dint of their nationality which otherwise may not have occurred at all. These often found themselves (sometimes to their own discomfort) in line with the more cogent of what these "subversives" operating in philosophical no-man's land also had deduced, but what they effectively ended up doing was adding strong philosophical validation to what otherwise had been deduced through reactionary political theorisation. One great "ism" to emerge from this specialisation ultimately endorsing what previously had been seen purely as ideological theory was socialism, and despite its later connotations per popular usage of the term, it was this "ism" which effectively crystallised political theory globally into that which places representation and welfare at the core of political systems, all others now generally seen as deviant, to the point where even political ideologues who find both concepts essentially abhorrent use the political language engendered by the emergence of this theory to phrase their own ideological policies and intentions. No claim to hold power can afford to omit reference to these principles any longer if that claim is not immediately to be discounted as invalid, even if their use belies the ideologue's true intent. This is the world we inhabit now, and it is arguable that it would not have come around as quickly or indeed at all if the necessary philosophical groundwork and think-tanks of isolated Aristotelean ideologists had never transpired. And it must be said that this was always therefore, in terms of conformity to philosophical ideas, more likely to come from a German source, the way things had crystallised in the decades beforehand.

It is too much to say then that this is also something we owe German philosophers of the 19th century (Marx was more an economic theorist than a philosopher), but it is something we very much owe the general milieu in which they ended up thinking, and this had demonstrably nationalistic reasons for existing that owed little to philosophy at all.

Temperance wrote:

Paul wrote:

I hope you join us without fear or false modesty...

Don't quite know how to respond to that, Paul!

I'm not too sure it's a good idea to ask Wiki: "What is theology?" Even Saint Augustine regretted googling that.

Dear Temperance,

I didn't ask wiki...I checked google which was in the past very trustworthy, as long as you checked the entries about their "about us" to get not entangled in von Däniken stories.
If you put a sentence between quotation marks on google and other search robots it gives only the entries with exactly the sentence in it...Well on this manner I had to check several pages (5 or 7), some 200 entries? before I had something independent...all the former ones where Bible related sites...
And I will start a new thread (I have the choice between the philosophy and the religion forum) but I will put my thread on the religion one: The influence of theology on pilosophy.

Kind regards from you brother (in spirit, mind, soul?), Paul.