1820 in philosophy

Last updated
List of years in philosophy (Table)
Related time period or subjects

Events

[1] [2]

Contents

Publications

Births

Deaths

Related Research Articles

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 18th/19th century German philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and the most important figure in German idealism. He is considered one of the fundamental figures of modern Western philosophy, with his influence extending to the entire range of contemporary philosophical issues, from aesthetics to ontology to politics, both in the analytic and continental tradition.

Idealism Philosophical view

In philosophy, idealism is a diverse group of metaphysical views which all assert that "reality" is in some way indistinguishable or inseparable from human perception and/or understanding, that it is in some sense mentally constituted, or that it is otherwise closely connected to ideas. In contemporary scholarship, traditional idealist views are generally divided into two groups. Subjective idealism takes as its starting point that objects only exist to the extent that they are perceived by someone. Objective idealism posits the existence of an objective consciousness which exists before and, in some sense, independently of human consciousness, thereby bringing about the existence of objects independently of human minds. In the early modern period, George Berkeley was often considered the paradigmatic idealist, as he asserted that the essence of objects is to be perceived. By contrast, Immanuel Kant, a pioneer of modern idealist thought, held that his version of idealism does “not concern the existence of things”, but asserts only that our “modes of representation” of them, above all space and time, are not “determinations that belong to things in themselves” but essential features of our own minds. Kant called this position “transcendental idealism”, holding that the objects of experience relied for their existence on the mind, and that the way that things in themselves are outside of our experience cannot be thought without applying the categories which structure all of our experiences. However, since Kant's view affirms the existence of some things independently of experience, it is very different from the more traditional idealism of Berkeley.

Dialectic or dialectics, also known as the dialectical method, is at base a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned methods of argumentation. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and the modern pejorative sense of rhetoric. Dialectic may thus be contrasted with both the eristic, which refers to argument that aims to successfully dispute another's argument, and the didactic method, wherein one side of the conversation teaches the other. Dialectic is alternatively known as minor logic, as opposed to major logic or critique.

Eternity in common parlance means infinite time that never ends. In classical philosophy, however, it is defined as what exists outside time as describing supranatural beings and forces, whereas sempiternity corresponds to the infinitely temporal, non-metaphoric definitions, as recited in requiem prayers for the dead. Thomas Hobbes and many others in the Age of Enlightenment drew on the classical distinction to put forward metaphysical hypotheses such as "eternity is a permanent Now".

Wilfrid Stalker Sellars was an American philosopher and prominent developer of critical realism, who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in the United States".

The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin, Principle, Form and Matter is the full title of an important work on the philosophical system of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) by James Hutchison Stirling (1820–1909), a Scottish idealist philosopher.

Social philosophy

Social philosophy is the study of questions about social behavior and interpretations of society and social institutions in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations. Social philosophers place new emphasis on understanding the social contexts for political, legal, moral, and cultural questions, and to the development of novel theoretical frameworks, from social ontology to care ethics to cosmopolitan theories of democracy, human rights, gender equity and global justice.

This is a list of philosophers from the Western tradition of philosophy.

Modern philosophy Philosophy in recent times

Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school, although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.

Absolute idealism

Absolute idealism is an ontologically monistic philosophy chiefly associated with G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Schelling, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as Josiah Royce, an American philosopher who was greatly influenced by Hegel's work, and the British idealists. A form of idealism, absolute idealism is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject to be able to know its object at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being. Otherwise, the subject would never have access to the object and we would have no certainty about any of our knowledge of the world. To account for the differences between thought and being, however, as well as the richness and diversity of each, the unity of thought and being cannot be expressed as the abstract identity "A=A". Absolute idealism is the attempt to demonstrate this unity using a new "speculative" philosophical method, which requires new concepts and rules of logic. According to Hegel, the absolute ground of being is essentially a dynamic, historical process of necessity that unfolds by itself in the form of increasingly complex forms of being and of consciousness, ultimately giving rise to all the diversity in the world and in the concepts with which we think and make sense of the world.

Organicism is the philosophical position which states that the universe and its various parts—including human societies—ought to be considered alive and naturally ordered, much like a living organism. Vital to the position is the idea that organicistic elements are not dormant "things" per se but rather dynamic components in a comprehensive system that is, as a whole, ever-changing. Organicism is related to, although remains distinct from, holism insofar as organicism prefigures holism; and the latter concept is applied within a broader scope to universal part-whole interconnections—such as anthropology and sociology—whereas the former is traditionally confined to philosophical and biological applications. Further, organicism is incongruous with reductionism, as well; for its consideration of "both bottom-up and top-down causation." Regarded as a fundamental tenet in natural philosophy, organicism has remained a vital current in modern thought, alongside both reductionism and mechanism, that has guided scientific inquiry since the early 17th century.

James Hutchison Stirling

James Hutchison Stirling was a Scottish idealist philosopher and physician. His work The Secret of Hegel gave great impetus to the study of Hegelian philosophy both in Britain and in the United States, and it was also accepted as an authoritative work on Hegel's philosophy in Germany and Italy. The book helped to create the philosophical movement known as British idealism.

The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1820s.

The Monadology is one of Gottfried Leibniz's best known works of his later philosophy. It is a short text which presents, in some 90 paragraphs, a metaphysics of simple substances, or monads.

Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily anti-religious but skeptical of specific or all religious beliefs and/or practices. Socrates was one of the most prominent and first religious skeptics of whom there are records; he questioned the legitimacy of the beliefs of his time in the existence of the Greek gods. Religious skepticism is not the same as atheism or agnosticism, and some religious skeptics are deists.

Western philosophy Philosophy of the Western world

Western philosophy refers to the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word philosophy itself originated from the Ancient Greek philosophía (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom".

Philosophy of happiness

The philosophy of happiness is the philosophical concern with the existence, nature, and attainment of happiness. Some philosophers believe happiness can be understood as the moral goal of life or as an aspect of chance; indeed, in most European languages the term happiness is synonymous with luck. Thus, philosophers usually explicate on happiness as either a state of mind, or a life that goes well for the person leading it. Given the pragmatic concern for the attainment of happiness, research in psychology has guided many modern day philosophers in developing their theories.

Tom Rockmore is an American philosopher. Although he denies the usual distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, he has strong interests throughout the history of philosophy and defends a constructivist view of epistemology. The philosophers whom he has studied extensively are Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Lukács, and Heidegger. He received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1974 and his Habilitation à diriger des recherches from the Université de Poitiers in 1994. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Duquesne University, as well as Distinguished Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University.

References

  1. Warburton, Nigel (2011). A Little History of Philosophy. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. pp. 121–152. ISBN   978-0-300-15208-1.
  2. Magee, Bryan (1988). The Great Philosophers: An introduction to western philosophy. Great Britain: Oxford University Press. pp. 98–230. ISBN   0192822012.
  3. N/A, n.d. Stirling, James Hutchison | Internet Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. [online] Iep.utm.edu. Available at: <https://www.iep.utm.edu/stirling> [Accessed 4 April 2020]./
  4. N/A, 2019. Herbert Spencer (Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy). [online] Plato.stanford.edu. Available at: <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spencer/> [Accessed 4 April 2020].
  5. "Jean-Baptiste Robinet". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  6. "Thomas Brown | British physician and philosopher". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  7. "List of Publications on the Economic and Social History of Great Britain and Ireland". The Economic History Review. 39 (4): 612–651. 1986. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.1986.tb01259.x. ISSN   1468-0289.