It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a (...) systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society. (shrink)

It is not easy for an Englishman to acquire a competent knowledge of French philosophy. For one thing there are so many French philosophers writing so many books, and for another the multiplicity of men is matched by the variety of views. In a country where a knowledge of philosophy is expected of any cultivated man, and where the flourishing of philosophy in school and university curricula is regarded as a condition of intellectual freedom, this variety is accepted as part (...) of the cultural background. Professor Bréhier's Transformation de la Philosophie Française must, even so, be of great value to French readers, because of the author's capacity-so admirably shown already in a History of Philosophy that is unquestionably the best now obtainable-to pick out what is essential in a welter of theories, arguments, and mere pronouncements. To English readers, whose knowledge of the background is necessarily limited, this book is particularly valuable, not only for the clarification it brings, but also for a bibliography that is closely related to the text. M. Bréhier observes that French philosophers of the generation that followed and criticized Durkheim, Bergson and Brunschwicg showed themselves acutely conscious of the discontinuities of things, and puritanically averse to the construction of philosophical systems. M. Bréhier, however, does not take this anti-systematic, pluralist tendency at its own valuation. French philosophy, he thinks, is in a phase that makes it comparable to medieval philosophy. It was characteristic of medieval philosophy that it comprised no individually constructed systems like those, for example, of Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, which have grown up and died away in Europe since the Renaissance. The main reason for this was that Christianity itself provided a common system which was never to be questioned, so that philosophers concerned themselves not with systems, for that would have led to heresy, but with particular problems. Part of M. Bréhier's parallel with modern times is that some Christians and all Marxists aim to produce the same condition. (shrink)

The last survey of philosophy in France to appear in this journal was published in July 1939. Although the circumstances of the war do not seem to have prevented the publication of philosophical books in France to the extent that they have done so in this country, they have pretty effectively limited their transmission across the Channel until the last year or two. In consequence it is by no means easy to re-establish continuity between the publications of the pre-war period (...) and the rather random trickle of new books now being received by the editor of Philosophy. Some useful information on the intervening period is contained in an article by Professor Lalande in the Philosophical Review for January 1946. Readers of this article or of the files of the Revue Philosophique will find that in 1940 occurred the deaths of Abel Rey, known for his work on science in the ancient world, and of the philosopher and sociologist Célestin Bougié. In 1941 Bergson died. 1944 saw the death of Léon Brunschvicg, whose Descartes et Pascal lecteurs de Montaigne appeared that same year. Jean Cavaillfès, a logician known for his works published in 1938 on the axiomatic method and the theory of groups, was shot by the Germans for his part in the resistance movement. Maurice Halbwachs, for many years associated with the Année Sociologique died in Buchenwald in 1945. As for books that appeared during the war, I have not seen Professor Le Senne's Traité de Morale Générale, which appeared in 1942. (shrink)

It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a (...) systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society. (shrink)

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