Two stories have dominated the historiography of early modern philosophy: one in which a seventeenth century Age of Reason spawned the Enlightenment, and another in which a skeptical crisis cast a shadow over subsequent philosophy, resulting in ever narrower "limits to knowledge." I combine certain elements common to both into a third narrative, one that begins by taking seriously seventeenth-century conceptions of the topics and methods central to the rise of a "new" philosophy. In this revisionist story, differing approaches to (...) the central subject matter of early modern metaphysics--knowledge of substances through their essences and causal powers--arise as a result of disagreements about the powers of the human cognitive faculties. Methodological writings are seen as attempts to direct readers in the proper use of their cognitive faculties. The early modern rejection of the Aristotelian theory of cognition ranks equally in importance with rejection of Aristotelian doctrines about nature. Skepticism is more often than not a tool to be used in teaching the reader the proper use of the cognitive faculties, or indeed in convincing the reader of the existence or inexistence of certain cognitive faculties or powers. Instead of early modern "epistemology" or "theory of knowledge," one speaks, with seventeenth century writers, of theories of the cognitive faculties and their implications for the possibility of human knowledge. The early modern rejection of Aristotelian logic can then be seen as reflecting a negative assessment about the fit between syllogistic reasoning and logic as an art of reasoning or thinking which refines the use of the cognitive faculties. -/- Central to this new historiography is the story of the relation between the intellect and senses as cognitive faculties or powers. The development of philosophy from Descartes to Kant can be portrayed as a series of claims about the power of the intellect to know the essences of things, with resulting consequences for ontology and the foundations of natural philosophy. I illustrate this revised narrative by comparing three conceptions of the intellect in three philosophical settings, provided by several late scholastic Aristotelians, Descartes, and Locke. I have two aims: first, to exhibit the central role played by the conception of intellect or understanding in these authors, and, second, to locate their discussions of the cognitive faculties in relation to recent understandings of psychology, epistemology, logic, mind, and their relations. Early modern writings do not easily fit into the modern categories of epistemology and psychology; more generally, the early modern concern with the workings of mind does not coincide with recent conceptions of naturalism. These findings can help us to see problems with our current categories. (shrink)

This work attempts to show that the Scottish common sense philosophers Thomas Reid, James Oswald and James Beattie, had a substantial influence upon the development of German thought during the period of the late enlightenment. Their works were thoroughly reviewed in German philosophical journals and translated into German soon after they had appeared in English. Whether it was Mendelssohn, a rationalist, Lossius, a materialist, Feder, a sensationalist, Tetens, a critical empiricist, or Hamann and Jacobi, irrationalist philosophers of faith, important philosophers (...) read the Scots and found them relevant for the solution of their problems. The Scots were seen as not just opposing Hume's skepticism, but also as complementing his more positive tenets. The most important chapter of this work shows that even Kant, who in this regard is known only for his devastating criticism of the Scots, learned much from them. It is argued that the Scottish influence opens a new perspective for the understanding of the German enlightenment, revealing how central were the twin problems of idealism versus realism, on the one hand, and of philosophical justification versus mere descriptive metaphysics, on the other. (shrink)

Traite elementaire de philosophie, a l'usage des classes / par Paul Janet,...Date de l'edition originale : 1879Ce livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.Les oeuvres faisant partie de cette collection ont ete numerisees par la (...) BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.En entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.Nous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous esperons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entiere satisfaction.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.frhttp://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k83933s. (shrink)

The Fate of Reason is the first general history devoted to the period between Kant and Fichte, one of the most revolutionary and fertile in modern philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclecticism RediscoveredUlrich Johannes SchneiderMichael Albrecht, Eklektik. Eine Begriffsgeschichte mit Hinweisen auf die Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1994 (Quaestiones 5), 771p.Patrice Vermeren, Victor Cousin. Le Jeu de la Philosophie et de l’Etat, Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1995 (Collection “La philosophie en commun”), 390p.Not so long ago eclecticism was held to be little more than a non-systematic form of thinking or constructing, and still today that is the generally accepted (...) meaning of the term. Moreover, eclecticism has lost its traditional bad reputation and seems increasingly attractive to late twentieth-century thought in search of non-dogmatic and non-systematic forms of philosophizing. At the same time, however, historians of philosophy are discovering that eclecticism was a distinct and important feature of European intellectual history. In particular eclecticism can be recognized within early modern thinking especially at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in France the philosophy of the nineteenth century can be seen as essentially eclectic until the revolution of 1848.Whatever the significance of the postmodern state of mind, recent views concerning philosophical eclecticism are largely the product of researches into the history of philosophy. There is an obvious inclination of today’s intellectual historians to investigate background figures of European modernity. The increasing willingness of historians to enlarge the notion of philosophy in both its disciplinary and historical definition seems to be in agreement with a similar disposition of contemporary philosophers. As we can learn from Michael Albrecht’s and Patrice Vermeren’s books, a critical appreciation of eclecticism throws light both on the conditions of contemporary philosophizing and on the politics of philosophy in the modern age.What Albrecht does in his encyclopedic examination of eclectic ideas is very different in scope and method from Vermeren’s study of Cousin. However, [End Page 173] both authors address philosophy as a university discipline, and both suggest that eclecticism resonates in certain strategic ways with contemporary lines of thinking. Although the eclecticism of early modern Germany and that of nineteenth-century France arose in different contexts, here, too, there are important similarities. Both varieties wanted to distance themselves from the mainstream philosophy of their time—German eclectics fighting the influence of Cartesianism, while France’s foremost eclectic, Cousin, was trying to supersede Hegel and Schelling.The first to point out the importance of eclecticism in early modern European philosophy was Helmut Holzhey, 1 and the most condensed account of the whole “syndrome” was given by Horst Dreitzel. 2 We know now that eclecticism was unjustly removed from the history of philosophy. In its past articulation, mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, eclectic thinking combined the claim for freedom of thought with the rejection of dogmatism and sectarianism. Michael Albrecht shows with great diligence and with more than abundant evidence that eclecticism is a genuine part of modern scientific and philosophical thought, and any reader of Albrecht’s long list of eclectic thinkers can have no doubt about the importance of the idea.Over more than six hundred pages Albrecht divides his findings into forty-eight chronological chapters. He tries not to comment on his subject, although eclecticism quickly reveals itself as a tricky thing. Albrecht talks loosely about “the idea of eclecticism,” the “eclectic thought,” the “eclectic claim” because he wants to keep the idea of eclecticism close to the literal sense of the word: in Greek ek-legere means selecting, or choosing. Broadly speaking, philosophical eclecticism turns out to be in general just a claim. It was used by those who did not want to be regarded as dogmatic, sectarian, or systematic thinkers. Albrecht reports that claiming to be eclectic did in practice not amount to very much, and indeed he notes (457) that no philosopher ever wrote an eclectic work.Around 1600 Justus Lipsius and Jacopo Manzoni were among the very first to advocate eclecticism openly, and here already Albrecht draws his general conclusion: “Practically no author embracing eclecticism... has made the idea work” (382). This is especially true for philosophers. In medicine and in physics we know of Daniel Sennert and Johann Christoph Sturm who practiced a method based on... (shrink)

The history of philosophy.--Socrates, the founder of moral science.--Aristotle.--Jacob Boehme, the German philosopher.--Descartes.--Kant.

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