The objective of this article is to present an overview, based on the most recent specialist research, of Neoplatonist developments in the Cologne tradition of the later Middle Ages, with specific reference to a unique Proclian commentary presented by the German Albertist Dominican, Berthold of Moosburg (ca. 1300–1361). Situating Berthold in the post-Eckhart Dominican crisis of the 1340s and 1350s, his rehabilitating initiative of presenting this extensive (nine-volume) commentary on the Neoplatonist Proclus Lycaeus’ (412–485) Elements of Theology in his (...) Expositio super Elementationem theologicam Procli, the only of its kind from the Middle Ages, is contextualised with reference to Berthold’s discursive indebtedness to his Dominican predecessors, Albert the Great (ca. 1200–1280), Ulrich of Strasbourg (ca. 1220–1277) and Dietrich of Freiberg (ca.1250 – ca.1310), as well as two Dutch-Cologne successors, the Albertist Heymeric of Camp (1395–1460) and the Carthusian Thomist Denys de Leeuwis (1402–1471). Berthold’s unique contribution to the philosophical discourse of the Middle Ages is indicated therein that the Expositio provided a synthesis of the late Medieval version of Neoplatonism and contemporaneous German–Dominican theories. By contextualising the work of his Cologne predecessors and successors in the broad idea-historical landscape of antiquity and Neoplatonism, the article argues that Berthold succeeded in linking the Neoplatonic legacy with Cologne Albertism and provided an impetus for the overall consolidating ability of the Cologne tradition. By juxtaposing Berthold and his Expositio with the more conventional legacies of Ulrich, Dietrich, Heymeric and Denys, this exceptional Latin-Western intellectual tradition from Cologne is expanded and enriched with regard to its notable Neoplatonic contributions to philosophy in the later Middle Ages. Contribution: This article contributes to scholarship in Medieval philosophy by presenting an overview of Neoplatonist developments in the Cologne tradition of the later Middle Ages, with specific reference to the Proclian commentary presented by the German Albertist Dominican, Berthold of Moosburg (ca. 1300–1361). By contextualising the work of Berthold’s Cologne predecessors and successors in the broad idea-historical landscape of antiquity and Neoplatonism, the article indicates that Berthold succeeded in linking the Neoplatonic legacy with Cologne Albertism and provided an impetus for the overall consolidating ability of the Cologne tradition during the later Middle Ages. (shrink)

Cosmology was central to many intellectual currents in late antiquity. Inspired by classical texts, notably Plato's Timaeus and Aristotle's Physics, thinkers of the period pondered questions about the world's origin and its physical constitution. This volume, with contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, illustrates the range and diversity of these reflections. Fascination for cosmology connected Plato and Proclus with Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. For readers interested in ancient philosophy, early Christian theology, and the history of science, this (...) volume provides a unique insight into a history that is still too often neglected. L'intérêt évident pour la cosmologie platonicienne, en particulier pour le Timée, et, en parallèle, l'attention renouvelée pour toute une tradition commentariste aristotélicienne, influencent profondément la façon de comprendre et de formuler certaines questions liées à l'origine du monde et à sa constitution physique à la fin de l'Antiquité. Grâce aux contributions d'un groupe interdisciplinaire d'universitaires, ce volume illustre la grande diversité de ces réflexions. Pour les lecteurs intéressés par la philosophie ancienne, la théologie paléochrétienne et l'histoire des sciences, ce volume offre un aperçu unique d'une histoire encore trop souvent négligée. (shrink)

The Neoplatonist Proclus, in his commentary on Euclid's Elements, appears to have been the first to systematically cut imagination's exclusive ties with the sensible realm. According to Proclus, in geometry discursive thinking makes use of innate concepts that are projected on imagination as on a mirror. Despite the crucial role of Proclus' text in early modern epistemology, the concept of a productive imagination seems almost not have been received. It was generally either transplanted into an Aristotelian account (...) of mathematics or simply ignored. In this respect, Johannes Kepler is a remarkable exception. By rejecting the traditional meta-mathematical framework, Kepler was the first to incorporate the productive side of imagination within an early modern philosophy of mathematics. Moreover, by securing imagination's sensory input, he transformed Proclean imagination into a tool for cosmic self-knowledge. -/- . (shrink)

In 1825, Johann Theodor Voemel published Nicholas of Methone’s Refutatio institutionis theologicae Procli Platonici. Thus, for the first time an important document of Byzantine philosophy became accessible to researchers, which also allowed important insights into the medieval history of the reception of Proclus’ Institutio theologica in the Byzantine Empire. The essay reconstructs the genesis of this edition and the history of its early reception. While it focuses on Creuzer’s contribution to the publication of Refutatio, it also takes the (...) achievements of Johann Theodor Voemel and Carl Ullmann into consideration. In so doing, the essay provides new findings concerning the study of Neoplatonism during the classical period of German philosophy. (shrink)

The article presents the results of the authors’ research on the cosmological views of Johannes Keppler in his Latin treatise Harmonices Mundi. The authors discuss the background of composing the treatise concerning the philosophical, religious, and cultural contexts of that period, and give a brief overview of the structure of the treatise, Kepler’s theory and his third law of harmony. The paper demonstrates the connection and reception of philosophical ideas on the harmony of the world in Kepler’s treatise and ancient (...) philosophers, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Proclus. This shows that Kepler’s philosophical and scientific views largely depended on his theological background. The authors discuss the perception of ancient cosmological ideas in Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi relating to Pythagorean tetractys, five Platonic solids or regular polyhedral, and cosmic harmony as well as Proclus’ theoretical mathematics. (shrink)

Proclus' commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus is arguably the most important commentary on a text of Plato, offering unparalleled insights into eight centuries of Platonic interpretation. It has had an enormous influence on subsequent Plato scholarship. This edition offers the first new English translation of the work for nearly two centuries, building on significant recent advances in scholarship on Neoplatonic commentators. It provides an invaluable record of early interpretations of Plato's dialogue, while also presenting Proclus' own views on (...) the meaning and significance of Platonic philosophy. The present volume, the fifth in the edition, presents Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus, dealing with Proclus' account of static and flowing time; we see Proclus situating Plato's account of the motions of the stars and planets in relation to the astronomical theories of his day. The volume includes a substantial introduction, as well as notes that will shed new light on the text. (shrink)

At First, the article analyses Hamann’s path to self-knowledge and self-love as a path of Socratic ignorance, which is indeed the highest form of knowledge. For Hamann Socrates is the predecessor of Christ, and Socratic ignorance (I know that I know nothing) is the path to divinization. Subsequently, it is pointed out, how Hryhorii Skovoroda explains the path of self-knowledge and self-love. To illustrate this thought, he makes use of the Ovidian Narcissus myth. Concerning the figure of Narcissus, Skovoroda distinguishes (...) the following three aspects: 1. The Egyptian Narcissus, 2. The Hebraic Narcissus and 3. The Christian Narcissus, i.e. Jesus Christ. These three aspects and corresponding assertions of the Bible designate Skovoroda’s path to divinization. Finally, it points out similarities between Hamann’s and Skovoroda’s understanding of self-knowing and self-love and their fundamental impact for the philosophy of Franz von Baader and his criticism of modern subjectivism. (shrink)

This chapter argues that recent attempts to make sense of the delusion of thought insertion in terms of a distinction between two notions of thought ownership have been unsuccessful. It also proposes an alternative account, in which the delusion is to be interpreted in the light of its prehistory.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Fichte in Jena The year was one of rare calm for Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Behind him lay more than a decade of employment as an ...

Si l’on connaît aujourd’hui le dialogue fructueux que Paul Ricœur a noué avec les penseurs structuralistes, on ignore largement son positionnement face à la mouvance poststructuraliste. Faut-il opposer la philosophie de Ricœur au poststructuralisme à la française ou au contraire doit-on montrer qu’elle en est une variante singulière? C’est la seconde option qui est ici défendue. Certes, le poststructuralisme ne doit pas être considéré comme une école de pensée mais comme une reconstruction qui relève de l’histoire de la philosophie. Dans (...) la mesure où les horizons de dépassement du structuralisme ont été posés de manière chaque fois particulière, il est préférable de parler de poststructuralismes au pluriel. C’est la raison pour laquelle J. Michel propose des confrontations dyadiques entre Ricœur et certains de ses contemporains que l’on regroupe habituellement dans cette mouvance. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr’s computational theory of vision is not intentional, claiming that the formal scientific theory does not include description of visual content. They also argue that the theory is internalist in the sense of not describing things physically external to the perceiver. They argue that these claims hold for computational theories of vision in general. Beyond theories of vision, they argue that representational content does not figure as a topic within formal computational theories (...) in cognitive science. I demonstrate that Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims about Marr’s theory are false. Marr’s computational theory contains a mathematical theory of visual content, based on empirical psychophysical evidence. It also contains mathematical descriptions of distal physical surfaces and objects, and of their optic projection to the perceiver. Much computational research on vision contains these types of intentional and externalist components within the formal, mathematical, theories. Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims demonstrate inadequate study and understanding of Marr’s work and other research in this area. Computational theories of vision, by containing empirically based mathematical theories of visual content, to this extent present naturalizations of semantics. (shrink)

_Contents:_ Translator's Introduction_ Selected Bibliography Note on the Text _ The Vocation of Man__ Preface Book One: Doubt Book Two: Knowledge Book Three: Faith.

Contents \t\t\t\t\t \tTRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION \t\t1 \t \tNOTE ON THE TRANSLATION \t\t39 \t OBSERVATIONS ON THE FEELING OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME \t\t\t\t\t \tSECTION ONE: \t\t\t\t \t\tOf the Distinct Objects of the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime \t\t45 \tSECTION TWO: \t\t\t\t \t\tOf the Attributes of the Beautiful and Sublime.

We claim that adjustable parameters play a crucial role in building and applying simulation models. We analyze that role and illustrate our findings using examples from equations of state in thermodynamics. In building simulation models, two types of experiments, namely, simulation and classical experiments, interact in a feedback loop, in which model parameters are adjusted. A critical discussion of how adjustable parameters function shows that they are boon and bane of simulation. They help to enlarge the scope of simulation far (...) beyond what can be determined by theoretical knowledge, but at the same time undercut the epistemic value of simulation models. (shrink)

In this article I wish to re-examine the vexed issue of the possibility of idealism in ancient and medieval philosophy with particular reference to the case of Johannes Scottus Eriugena (c. 800–c. 877), the Irish Neoplatonic Christian philosopher. Both Bernard Williams and Myles Burnyeat have argued that idealism never emerged (and for Burnyeat, could not have emerged) as a genuine philosophical position in antiquity, a claim that has had wide currency in recent years, and now constitutes something of an orthodoxy.1. (...) Myles Burnyeat, “Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed,” Philosophical Review 91 (1982): 3–40, repr. in Godfrey Vesey, ed., Idealism—Past and Present (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1982), pp. 19–50. Hereafter this essay will be cited in the version printed in Vesey, ed. Richard Sorabji (instancing Gregory of Nyssa) and Werner Beierwaltes (citing Proclus and Eriugena), and Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson (discussing Plotinus), on the other hand, have all argued that idealism is to be found in the Neoplatonic tradition, a tradition neglected by Burnyeat.Richard Sorabji, “Gregory of Nyssa: The Origins of Idealism,” in Time, Creation and Continuum. Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 287–96; Werner Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen. Studien zur neuplatonischen Philosophie and ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985). See also Beierwaltes, “Die Wiederentdeckung des Eriugena im Deutschen Idealismus,” in Platonismus und Idealismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1972), pp. 188–201, and his “Zur Wirkungsgeschichte Eriugenas im Deutschen Idealismus und danach. Eine kurze, unsystematische Nachlese,” in Eriugena. Grundzüge seines Denkens (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1994), pp. 313–330. Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, “Cognition and its Object,” in Lloyd P. Gerson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1996), pp. 217–49, esp. pp. 245–49. But see, Lloyd P. Gerson, Plotinus (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 227, n.3, who maintains that Plotinus is not an idealist. Similarly, in a 1989 study, I argued not only that idealism was a genuine possibility in late classical and in medieval philosophy, but that that the ninth-century Carolingian philosopher Johannes Eriugena presents a striking example of an extremely radical, almost fantastical, idealism.Dermot Moran, The Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena. A Study of Idealism in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1989). Of course, the whole discussion depends entirely on what is meant by ‘idealism’. Burnyeat uses Berkeley’s immaterialism as his standard for idealism, and it is this decision, coupled with his failure to acknowledge the legacy of German idealism, which prevents him from seeing the classical and medieval roots of idealism more broadly understood. (shrink)

The display of artefacts always implies an external mediation that influences, and often codifies, the reception of the exhibits. Objects are manipulated, restored, appropriated, staged, in short displayed, through various representational strategies that include pedestals, labels, and showcases. These elements, that we could define as parerga, are often ignored because of their utilitarian function. Yet, they play an important role in the history of the artefacts and define the setting in which the objects can exert their agency. They not only (...) shape their meaning, but also determine the effect that these artefacts have on their viewers. Framing devices create the conditions for interactions between the individual and the object to take place. This publication aims to explore the relation between artefacts and viewers as they are manifested in framing devices, and to develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the power of objects on display. (shrink)

Aim of the lectures -- Early Brahmanical literature -- Panini's grammar -- A passage from the Chandogya Upanisad -- The structures of languages -- The Buddhist contribution -- Vaisesika and language -- Verbal knowledge -- The contradictions of Nagarjuna -- The reactions of other thinkers -- Sarvastivada Samkhya -- The Agamasastra of Gaudapada -- Sankara -- Kashmiri Saivism -- Jainism -- Early Vaisesika -- Critiques of the existence of a thing before its arising -- Nyaya -- Mimamsa -- The Abhidharmakosa (...) bhasya of Vasubandhu -- The Abhidharmasamuccaya of Asanga and its bhasya -- Bhartrhari -- The problem of negation -- Dignaga and verbal knowledge -- The Bodhisattvabhumi -- Prajnakaragupta -- Indian thinkers and the correspondence principle -- Appendix. The Mahaprajnaparamitasastra and the Samkhya tanmatras. (shrink)

This chapter explores the ideological dimension of dehumanization in the context of National Socialism, focusing on the connection between concepts of humanity and dehumanizing images. NS regarded itself as a political revolution, realizing a new concept of humanity. Nazi ideologues undergirded the self-understanding of NS by developing racist anthropologies. I examine two major strands of Nazi ideology, focusing on their diverging strategies of dehumanization, and arguing that they were dependent on different anthropological frameworks. Richard Walther Darré held a naturalistic concept (...) of humanity and advanced biologistic forms of dehumanization. Alfred Rosenberg developed a dualistic anthropology that combined metaphysical and natural features. He dehumanized certain groups of people by reducing them to being human in a natural sense only. Moreover, I aim to show that the key motifs of these racist worldviews were prevalent in the scientific and philosophical debates on anthropology in early-twentieth-century Germany. I thus explore the general orientation of both the naturalistic and the anti-naturalistic strand in anthropological thought, unfold the animalizing tendencies of these views, and emphasize their conformity with the key motifs of Nazi ideology. The case of NS should thus exemplify the dehumanizing potential of anthropological theories. (shrink)

Pars 1. Contemplativa -- Pars 2. Activa.

Zunächst Pfarrer in Berlin-Charlottenburg, dann Professor für Philosophie in Halle, repräsentiert Eberhard die nachwolffianische deutsche Popularphilosophie, der an praktisch und pädagogisch wirksamer Aufklärung im Zusammenspiel mit den fortschrittlichen politischen und religiösen Kräften lag. In diesen Lehrbüchern repräsentiert Eberhard sich als Aufklärer auf dem philosophischen Niveau der ästhetischen, hermeneutischen und historischen Modifikation des Wolffschen Systems und der neuerlichen Rezeption der Philosophie Leibniz’, zumal der Erkenntnistheorie der 1765 erschienenen „Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain“. Eberhard wurde aufgrund seiner Theorie des Denkens und Empfindens (...) als Schüler Leibniz’ bezeichnet; und er verfasste denn auch eine Leibniz-Biographie. Er hielt zeitlebens an den wolffianischen Standards von Rationalität fest und widersetzte sich nicht nur dem normativen Rekurs auf „Empfindsamkeit“ in Literatur und Religion, sondern auch der sog. Glaubensphilosophie Friedrich Heinrich Jacobis, erst recht der zeitgenössischen Wiederkehr von Okkultismus und Esoterik. Johann August Eberhard, professor of philosophy in Halle, is one of the foremost exponents of the Popularphilosophie of the German Enlightenment. He was a major contributor to Friedrich Nicolai’s "Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek", and advanced unorthodox opinions on religious and political issues. (shrink)

This translation and commentary is based on the Critical Text and Indices of Proclus: Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, Amsterdam 1954, by L. G. Westerink. Index II has been of great help in the translation, and the commentary is much indebted to the critical apparatus. Dr. Westerink has also been kind enough to forward his views on the relatively few problems which the Greek text has presented. A further debt is owed to the review of Dr. Westerink's (...) text by Prof. E. R. Dodds in GNOMON 1955 p. 164-1, chiefly for some references and some emendations to the Greek text. W. R. M. Lamb's Loeb translation of Alcibiades I has helped considerably in construing the lemmata, which Signor Antonio Carlini has found to have been inserted by a later hand from a Plato MSS. of the W family. Evidence for this is their discrepancy with the text as read in the main body of the commentary (d. Studi Classici e Orientali, vol. x, Pisa 1961). On the personal side, the whole work has received the benefit of constant advice from Prof. A. H. Armstrong. It was he who first suggested the undertaking, and he has been kind enough to read through the translation and commentary, making many corrections and helpful suggestions. In particular lowe him the parallels with Plotinus and thanks for a Socratic patience in my more obtuse moments. (shrink)

The commentary on Plato's Republic by Proclus (d. 485 CE), which takes the form of a series of essays, is the only sustained treatment of the dialogue to survive from antiquity. This three-volume edition presents the first complete English translation of Proclus' text, together with a general introduction that argues for the unity of Proclus' Commentary and orients the reader to the use that the Neoplatonists made of Plato's Republic in their educational program. Each volume is completed (...) by a Greek word index and an English-Greek glossary that will help non-specialists to track the occurrence of key terms throughout the translated text. The first volume of the edition presents Proclus' essays on the point and purpose of Plato's dialogue, the arguments against Thrasymachus in Book I, the rules for correct poetic depictions of the divine, a series of problems about the status of poetry across all Plato's works, and finally an essay arguing for the fundamental agreement of Plato's philosophy with the divine wisdom of Homer which is, in Proclus' view, allegorically communicated through his poems. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

1. Parmenides bis Hegel -- 2. Das 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.

Philosophers and historians have long been suspicious of modal and counterfactual claims. I argue, however, that historians often legitimately use modal and counterfactual claims for a variety of purposes. They help identify causes, and hence help explain events in history. They are used to defend judgments about people, and to highlight the importance of particular events. I defend these uses of modal claims against two arguments often used to criticize modal reasoning, using the philosophy of science to ground the truth (...) of modal claims. This analysis puts several important points into perspective, including how certain we can be about our claims about what might have been, and the role that determinism plays in those claims. The proper analysis of modality shows, I argue, that counterfactual claims are legitimate and important, if often uncertain, and that issues of determinism are irrelevant to the modal claims used in historical analysis. (shrink)

Episodic memory has been analyzed in a number of different ways in both philosophy and psychology, and most controversy has centered on its self-referential,autonoeticcharacter. Here, we offer a comprehensive characterization of episodic memory in representational terms and propose a novel functional account on this basis. We argue that episodic memory should be understood as a distinctive epistemic attitude taken toward an event simulation. In this view, episodic memory has a metarepresentational format and should not be equated with beliefs about the (...) past. Instead, empirical findings suggest that the contents of human episodic memory are often constructed in the service of the explicit justification of such beliefs. Existing accounts of episodic memory function that have focused on explaining its constructive character through its role in future-oriented mental time travel do justice neither to its capacity to ground veridical beliefs about the past nor to its representational format. We provide an account of the metarepresentational structure of episodic memory in terms of its role in communicative interaction. The generative nature of recollection allows us to represent and communicate the reasons why we hold certain beliefs about the past. In this process, autonoesis corresponds to the capacity to determine when and how to assert epistemic authority in making claims about the past. A domain where such claims are indispensable are human social engagements. Such engagements commonly require the justification of entitlements and obligations, which is often possible only by explicit reference to specific past events. (shrink)

The philosophy of Christian Wolff is regarded to represent one of the most important schools of thought of the 18th century Enlightenment. The influence of this philosophy was based on a network of followers and disciples who propagated Wolff s work in the scholarly community and defended it against critics. This book, for the first time, explores the role of Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel. As imperial count, minister in the Cabinet of Poland Saxony and an agent of the Court of (...) Vienna, he was the decisive figure who initiated this network and led it for more than one and a half decades until his death in 1749. ". (shrink)

Designing and building complex artifacts like simulation models often rely on the strategy of modularity. My main claim is that the validation of simulation models faces a challenge of holismHolism because modularityModularity tends to erode over the process of building a simulation model. Two different reasons that fuel the tendency to erosion are analyzed. Both are based on the methodologyMethodology of simulation, but on different levels. The first has to do with the way parameter adjustment works in simulation; the second (...) comes from how different groups of software programmers work together. The chapter will conclude by drawing lessons about how holism challenges the validation of simulation and by discussing a corollary to conformational holism: the boundary between validation and verification tends to become blurred, thus undermining a strategy that insists on keeping them separate. (shrink)

The paper proposes a strategy for understanding metaphysical grounding in deflationary terms and, more generally, proposes a form of methodological deflationism with respect to the notions of ground. The idea is to define a deflationary is grounded in-predicate by appeal to the two-place non-causal connective ‘because’ and a deflationary truth predicate. To this end, we discuss the explanatory role of the truth-predicate in non-causal explanations and develop a theory of truth for the language of the ‘because’-connective. We argue that at (...) least from a logical perspective our deflationary notion of ground is up to the task. (shrink)

Der dritte Band der Studienausgabe enthält die beiden zentralen Vorlesungen der praktischen Philosophie Fichtes aus der späten Berliner Zeit, die Rechtslehre von 1812 und die Sittenlehre von 1812. Ihnen vorangestellt sind die >Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten, die Fichte im Sommersemester 1811 gehalten hat. Aufbauend auf der Bestimmung der wissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Erkenntnis in seinen Einleitungsvorlesungen in die Philosophie (s. Band I und II), zeigt Fichte hier, was das Wesen des Wissenschaftlers bzw. des Gelehrten ausmacht, seine spezifische Aufgabe und (...) seine sittliche Verantwortung in der Welt. - Fichtes Rechtslehre wird streng nach der Handschrift ohne weitergehende Ergänzungen wiedergegeben; so lassen sich die Unterschiede zur Grundlage des Naturrechts von 1796 bei aller Strukturähnlichkeit deutlich erkennen. - Ganz im Sinne der späten Wissenschaftslehre als Lehre der Erscheinung des Absoluten geht die Sittenlehre 1812 von einem höchsten Grundsatz aus, dem absoluten Bilden, das als oberstes Ideal, in Fichtes Terminologie als Begriff, erscheint. Die Analyse des Satzes Der Begriff sey Grund der Welt. (shrink)

"The eye that gathers impressions is no longer the eye that sees a depiction on a surface it becomes a hand, the ray of light becomes a finger, and the imagination becomes a form of immediate touching."-Johann Gottfried Herder Long recognized as one of the most important eighteenth-century works on aesthetics and the visual arts, Johann Gottfried Herder's Plastik (Sculpture, 1778) has never before appeared in a complete English translation. In this landmark essay, Herder combines rationalist and empiricist (...) thought with a wide range of sources-from the classics to Norse legend, Shakespeare to the Bible-to illuminate the ways we experience sculpture. Standing on the fault line between classicism and romanticism, Herder draws most of his examples from classical sculpture, while nevertheless insisting on the historicity of art and of the senses themselves. Through a detailed analysis of the differences between painting and sculpture, he develops a powerful critique of the dominance of vision both in the appreciation of art and in our everyday apprehension of the world around us. One of the key articulations of the aesthetics of Sturm und Drang, Sculpture is also important as an anticipation of subsequent developments in art theory. Jason Gaiger's translation of Sculpture includes an extensive introduction to Herder's thought, explanatory notes, and illustrations of all the sculptures discussed in the text. (shrink)