The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language. They had for the most part not been previously available in English. In his introduction, Professor Barnard analyses the basic premises of Herder's political thought against the background of the Enlightenment. He examines Herder's concepts of language, community and culture, his theory of historical interaction, and his approach to the problem of change and (...) progress. Finally, he provides a brief comparative analysis of traditionalist thought following the French Revolution, showing how substantive writers like Burke differed from Herder despite the close similarity of political vocabulary. (shrink)

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language.

Macho, Thomas (2021)Arrebatar la vida: El suicidio en la ModernidadAlberto Ciria (trad.)Barcelona: Herder, 521 p.ISBN 978-84-254-4290-2.

La relevancia de Vico en cuanto precursor de la noción de "comprensión" y adelantado de la rehabilitación de las "Ciencias del Espíritu" ha sido frecuentemente puesta de manifiesto. Ha sido mucho menos estudiada en España, sin embargo, la contribución seminal de Johann G. Herder, que, independientemente de Vico, desarrolla en el último tercio del siglo XVIII un interesante esbozo de teoría de la "comprensión".Vico's relevance as precursor of the concept of "comprehension" and pioneer of the rehabilitation of the "Geisteswissenschaften" (...) is well known. It's not been studied as much in Spain, however, the founding contribution of Johann G. Herder, who, independent of Vico, develops in the last third of the 18th century an interesting outline of theory of "comprehension". (shrink)

In this article, I develop the concept and practice of ‘listening to difference,’ examining J.G. Herder’s aural theory of cultural diversity as primarily worked out in the ‘Treatise on the Origin of Language’ (1772). I examine the sources Herder critiqued to outline his aural theory of linguistic and cultural difference, which have thus far only been summarily mentioned if at all in scholarship despite the prominence of the ‘Treatise’ in intellectual history and philosophy. These sources comprise the travelogues (...) of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century French scientists, mathematicians, diplomats, and Jesuit missionaries who described the inadequacy of Romanized orthography to accurately transcribe the sounds and pronunciations of the indigenous peoples they encountered throughout the Americas, Thailand, and China. Herder’s critical readings of travelogues showcased the unintended failures and interruptions in European colonial practices of listening. I argue that it was the French travellers’ failure to erase difference, to transform it into identity or, in other words, into a universalist monolingualism, which produced a consciousness of cultural and linguistic difference, even if repressed. The sounds of the spoken indigenous languages exposed the limits of the paradigms of Catholic and European linguistic classification. Instead, the exemplary technologies for preserving difference in scriptural and listening practices were for Herder the Hebrew alphabet and the oral transmission of poetry in ancient and Indigenous cultures. Listening to difference, as I define it, involves an openness to listening to the voices and sounds of the othered by listeners who recognize their distinct situated, embodied positionalities. It offers alternate possibilities to conceive of human diversity as continually in formation and not as a static or progressive hierarchy. (shrink)

The eme r gence of the concept of pr o g ress is cu r rent l y associated with th e Enlightenment o r , going som e w hat further back, with the que r elle des anciens et des modernes in the 1 7 t h centu r y . Y et the notion of pr o g ress can be traced back to a signi f icant l y earlier period: the foundations of a possi b (...) le Christian pr o g ress i vism w ere, in m y opinion, laid b y St. Augustine; this ess a y e xplores its guidelines. J . G. Herde r ' s reaction a g ainst the notion of pr o g ress proposed b y the Enlightenment possesses also a Christian inspiration. While Enlightened pr o g ress i vism conce i v es past cultures as o v ercoming steps in a rising staircase, Herde r , in turn, claims that each of them amounted to a "self-centered sphere" and w as therefore v alua b le in its o wn right. The sense of the e xistence of past generations cannot lie in p a ving the w a y for future ful f illment as this w ould be incompati b le with d i vine l o v e, w hich estimates each of its creatures in its o wn right, as an unrepeata b le ind i vidual. In contrast to Enlightened a r r o g ance (contempt for the "obscurantist" past), Herder presents a "democratic" vi e w of History within w hich all epochs h a v e the same v alue. (shrink)

In recent work, Adlam (2022b), Chen & Goldstein (2022), and Meacham (2023) have defended accounts of laws that take laws to be primitive global constraints. A major advantage of these accounts is that they’re able to accommodate the many different kinds of laws that appear in physical theories. In this paper I’ll present these three accounts, highlight their distinguishing features, and note some key differences that might lead one to favor one of these accounts over the others. I’ll conclude by (...) briefly discussing a version of a “constraint” account that I think is especially attractive. (shrink)

This essay is written on the following premises and argues for them. “Enlightenment” is a word or signifier, and not a single or unifiable phenomenon which it consistently signifies. There is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as “the Enlightenment,” but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided. In studying the intellectual history of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth, we encounter a variety of statements made, and assumptions proposed, to which the (...) term “Enlightenment” may usefully be applied, but the meanings of the term shift as we apply it. The things are connected, but not continuous; they cannot be reduced to a single narrative; and we find ourselves using the word “Enlightenment” in a family of ways and talking about a family of phenomena, resembling and related to one another in a variety of ways that permit of various generalizations about them. We are not, however, committed to a single root meaning of the word “Enlightenment,” and we do not need to reduce the phenomena of which we treat to a single process or entity to be termed “the” Enlightenment. It is a reification that we wish to avoid, but the structure of our language is such that this is difficult, and we will find ourselves talking of “the French” or “the Scottish,” “the Newtonian” or the “the Arminian” Enlightenments, and hoping that by employing qualifying adjectives we may constantly remind ourselves that the keyword “Enlightenment” is ours to use and should not master us. (shrink)

Critical scholarly edition of J. G. Fichte's Closed Commercial State.

Jeffrie G. Murphy's third collection of essays further pursues the topics of punishment and retribution that were explored in his two previous collections: Retribution, Justice and Therapy and Retribution Reconsidered. Murphy now explores these topics in the light of reflections on issues that are normally associated with religion: forgiveness, mercy, and repentance. He also explores the general issue of theory and practice and discusses a variety of topics in applied ethics - e.g., freedom of artistic expression, the morality of gambling, (...) and the value of forgiveness in psychological counseling. As always, his perspective may be described as Kantian; and, indeed, this collection contains the first extended piece of Kant scholarship that he has done in years: a long essay on Kant on theory and practice. (shrink)

It is proved that the relevance logic \ has no structurally complete consistent axiomatic extension, except for classical propositional logic. In fact, no other such extension is even passively structurally complete.

The great value of this book does not lie in any new discovery but in its being the most comprehensive monograph to date on the major ideas of Jacobi's thinking as well as on the relationship of the "philosopher of faith" to the leading German thinkers of his time. The first chapters are devoted to a subtle analysis—focussing mainly on his novels—of the moral aspirations underlying his philosophical oeuvre. The next major theme is the well-known polemics with M. Mendelssohn on (...) Lessing's alleged Spinozism—and this is a good pretext for Prof. Verra to display his vast learning by passing in review the views of Herder, Gœthe, and Hegel on Spinoza and continuously referring to the highly important book of Heydenreich. The last three chapters deal with Jacobi's "mature" thought centered around the problem of an intuitive knowledge of reality and his violent polemics against philosophical demonstration as such, which leads necessarily—according to him—to Spinozistic pantheism, i.e., atheism. It is in these chapters that Jacobi's criticism of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling is treated. The footnotes are at the end of the chapters, and they should be read separately. They are sheer delight for anyone a little at home in this period of German intellectual history. There is also a forty page appendix: the bibliography of Jacobi's letters of which not less than 1291 are known to Prof. Verra.—M. J. V. (shrink)

Descartes nimmt in Anspruch, daß sein Argument des Deus malignus über die Einwände der Skeptiker hinausgehe. Was fügt es dem Traumargument hinzu? Die verbreitete Ansicht, der Dämon stelle die Erkenntnis mathematischer und logischer Wahrheiten in Frage, wird im folgenden diskutiert und zurückgewiesen. Die richtige Interpretation lautet: Die Annahme des Dämons unterstützt den Skeptizismus und verstärkt die Zweifel an der Existenz äußerer Objekte. Es werden drei Einwände gegen diese Interpretation erörtert und zurückgewiesen. Eine andere Auffassung vertritt Frankfurt: Die Rolle des Traumarguments (...) sei wesentlich begrenzt; die durch den Dämon aufgeworfenen Zweifel seien umfassender. Eine genaue Analyse der Entwicklung des Traumarguments in der Ersten Meditation führt zur Widerlegung dieser Interpretation. (shrink)

Most Gentzen systems arising in logic contain few axiom schemata and many rule schemata. Hilbert systems, on the other hand, usually contain few proper inference rules and possibly many axioms. Because of this, the two notions tend to serve different purposes. It is common for a logic to be specified in the first instance by means of a Gentzen calculus, whereupon a Hilbert-style presentation ‘for’ the logic may be sought—or vice versa. Where this has occurred, the word ‘for’ has taken (...) on several different meanings, partly because the Gentzen separator ⇒ can be interpreted intuitively in a number of ways. Here ⇒ will be denoted less evocatively by ⊲.In this paper we aim to discuss some of the useful ways in which Gentzen and Hilbert systems may correspond to each other. Actually, we shall be concerned with thededucibility relationsof the formal systems, as it is these that are susceptible to transformation in useful ways. To avoid potential confusion, we shall speak of Hilbert and Gentzenrelations. By aHilbert relationwe mean any substitution-invariant consequence relation onformulas—this comes to the same thing as the deducibility relation of a set of Hilbert-style axioms and rules. By aGentzen relationwe mean the fully fledged generalization of this notion in whichsequentstake the place of single formulas. In the literature, Hilbert relations are often referred to assentential logics. Gentzen relations as defined here are their exactsequentialcounterparts. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

Originally published in 1913. Author: Henri Lichtenberger Language: English Keywords: History Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.Keywords: English Keywords 1900s Language English Artwork.