The purpose of this book is to highlight Carl Stumpf's contributions to philosophy and to assess some of the aspects of his work. This book brings together several specialists of Stumpf and the school of Franz Brentano, and includes fourteen original studies (in English and German) on the various aspects of Stumpf's philosophy, and some of his unpublished writings. This book is divided into four sections, and also includes a general introduction on the reception and actuality of Stumpf's philosophy. The (...) first section examines the historical sources of his philosophy, the second examines some of the central themes of his work and the third examines his relationship to other philosophers. The fourth section consists of notes taken by Husserl during Stumpf's lectures on metaphysics in Halle, Stumpf's introduction to the edition of his correspondence with Brentano, which he prepared in 1929, and some important letters pertaining to this correspondence. This book also provides a comprehensive bibliography of Stumpf's works. (shrink)
This essay addresses the interrelations between philosophy and experimental sciences that lie at the heart of Carl Stumpf’s epistemology. Following a biographical exposé demonstrating how Stumpf succeeded in acquiring a dual competence in both philosophical and scientific fields, we examine the vast array of academic disciplines encompassed by his research. Such a biographical treatment aims, indeed, to better promote the thrust of Stumpf’s assertion that philosophical enquiries should always be carried out in close connection with scientific practices, and underlines how (...) philosophico-scientific interactions established his work as a central pillar in the history of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German thought. (shrink)
This essay illustrates the main aspects of the discussion between Brentano and Stumpf about «tonal fusion». In his Tonpsychologie, Stumpf essentially moved from a Brentanian standpoint. Yet, he did not adopt Brentano’s subsequently developed new theory of «sensible qualities», so that a polemic eventually arouse between them. Far from representing a marginal issue, the episode is relevant to our understanding of their relationship. The discussion as to the mechanism of tonal fusion reveals a general divergence between Brentano and Stumpf concerning (...) the idea of human sensibility as a whole and of the method of psychology. (shrink)
In his Spinozastudien Stumpf dismisses the commonplace interpretation of Spinoza’s parallelism in psychophysical terms. Rather, he suggests to read Ethics, II, Prop. 7, as the heritage of the scholastic doctrine of intentionality. Accordingly, things are the intentional objects of God’s ideas. On this basis, Stumpf also tries to make sense of the puzzling spinozian doctrine of the infinity of God’s attributes. In support of this exegesis, Stumpf offers an interesting reconstruction of the history of intentionality from Plato and Aristotle to (...) the late Scholastics. Besides its intrinsic value, Stumpf’s confrontation with Spinoza is illuminating in explaining his own position concerning a crucial phenomenological question such as intentionality. Actually, Stumpf avoids defining the mental in terms of intentionality and maintains, rather, a moderate but professed dualistic position, thus deeply diverging from both Brentano and Husserl. (shrink)
The ancient Greeks already used to give ethnic names to their different scales, and observations on differences in music of the various nations always raised the interest of musicians and philosophers. Yet, it was only in the late nineteenth century that “comparative musicology” became an institutional science. An important role in this process was played by Carl Stumpf, a former pupil of Brentano’s who pioneered these researches in Berlin. Stumpf founded the Phonogrammarchiv to collect recordings of folk and extra-European music (...) and a dedicated journal, the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft. Gifted in the field of science no less than in that of musicology, Stumpf developed an empirically-oriented approach to phenomenology, deeply divergent from Husserl’s and highly influential over the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology. A self-declared “outsider” among armchair philosophers, Stumpf experimentally investigated the perception of sounds and the origins of musical consonance. Developing the physiological studies of Ernst Weber on the sense of touch, Stumpf discovered that two sensations of tone, given at the same time, tend to mix in a certain degree. Musical consonance – he claimed – lays in this level of “tonal fusion”, not in the allegedly “natural” series of the harmonic partials of a vibrating chord, as suggested by the naturalists of all times from Pythagoras to Stumpf’s great contemporary Hermann Helmholtz. Accordingly, no musical system can claim for preponderance over the others: Stumpf’s researches in comparative musicology served to corroborate his theses on “tonal fusion” and the psychological foundations of consonance. Although Stumpf later revised and finally abandoned this theory, its permanent value lays in its opposition to dominant naturalistic approaches. The commitment for comparative musicology at the Berlin School is then no concession to a positivistic fashion for exoticism. The fundamentally Eurocentric stance of naturalistic theories of music is also fiercely contrasted by Stumpf’s pupil Erich Hornbostel, who suggests that music ought to be considered as culture, rather than as nature, and focuses attention on the eventually melting human cultures. The Berlin school flourished until the Nazis forced most of its exponents to emigration and, for tragically obvious reasons, heavily discouraged researches on these topics. (shrink)
Together with other influential psychologists of the time, Wundt considers internal data as absolute evidence, grounding psychology on this assumption. In opposition to his former mentor, Külpe aims at rehabilitating Kant’s transcendental aesthetics. Yet, he is far from embracing transcendentalism and rejects Kant’s skepticism as to the possibility of a scientific psychology. Nevertheless, Külpe believes that Kant is right in considering internal data as unreliable for scientific purposes: accordingly, psychology should share the same scientific methodology of any other science.
Stumpf’s doctrine of the categories is of great importance for our understanding of his philosophy. This theme had been widely discussed among German thinkers after Kant; Brentano himself had repeatedly dealt with it since his early works. However, Stumpf considerably diverges from Brentano on this crucial philosophical topic. Although a systematic discussion can be found only in Stumpf’s posthumous Erkenntnislehre, his core ideas on the categories can be traced to his early work on space of 1873. In fact, Stumpf claims (...) that the peculiar relationship between extension and color is analogous to the relationship that holds between substance and accidents. Thus, like any other category, substance empirically stems from perception. Sensory experience, for Stumpf, is made up of perceptual wholes, whose attributes are typically bound to each other, rather than separately given in bundles, as Hume and other associationists used to assume. Thus, the achievements of Stumpf’s holist psychology effectively contributes a solution to this classic metaphysical problem. (shrink)
This essay focuses on realism in ontology and on the problem of defining reality. According to the definition given by many realists, reality is independent of our thoughts, conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, etc. Yet, this merely negative definition of reality has some disadvantages: it implies a dualistic view, and it is incompatible with scientific realism. As an alternative, I introduce and discuss the traditional definition of reality as effectiveness, or capability of acting. I then attempt to determine to what extent (...) this definition can be helpful in the debate concerning ontological realism. (shrink)
Il presente lavoro considera le tesi kantiane sul carattere esposte nella prima Critica e nell’Antropologia pragmatica. Il problema filosofico principale sollevato dal concetto di carattere è quello della sua controversa mutabilità: noi ereditiamo un carattere invariabile, oppure l’educazione o altri fattori possono influenzarlo? La risposta di Kant, altamente complessa, coinvolge la metafisica e l’antropologia. La prima afferma che il carattere è la regola dell’azione causale, che altrimenti sarebbe casuale e imprevedibile. La seconda stabilisce che il carattere non è né ereditario (...) e immutabile, né influenzabile dall’educazione. Kant pensa invece a una improvvisa rivoluzione che conduce alla formazione del carattere morale. Grazie allo studio del carattere empirico dell’uomo, considerato senz’altro come essere libero, l’antropologia indirizza pragmaticamente la ricerca al miglioramento dell’essere umano, dal singolo alla specie. (shrink)
Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)
Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)
Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)
Il saggio analizza l’Antropologia pragmatica di Kant alla luce degli altri scritti critici e precritici, delle Lezioni, delle fonti e del dibattito critico internazionale più recente. Viene chiarito anzitutto il rapporto tra antropologia e critica della ragione: gli esiti della Dialettica trascendentale impongono a Kant di individuare un nuovo assetto per la scienza empirica dell’uomo superando la prospettiva scolastica. Ciò si manifesta nell’adozione del termine «antropologia», che tuttavia Kant distingue dalle antropologie mediche del tempo, per lo più deterministiche, grazie all’impostazione (...) «pragmatica». La psicologia empirica viene inglobata ma riformata nel nuovo progetto: nella Didattica Kant sottolinea gli aspetti problematici o «negativi» nell’uso delle facoltà: si individuano così gli «elementi» di un’antropologia poi utilizzati nella Caratteristica per definire il senso della «destinazione» razionale dell’uomo nel senso del concetto cosmico della filosofia. (shrink)
L’opera filosofica di Novalis, inedita e frammentaria per ragioni biografiche, è stata a lungo trascurata. Gli studi fichtiani e l’interesse per la scienza sono alla base della sua «Enciclopedistica», nella quale la filosofia della musica ha un posto rilevante. Novalis conosce la scienza acustica del suo tempo e riconduce i rapporti tra suoni e figure a una forza formatrice presente nella natura fin dal livello inorganico. La medesima forza si presenta poi nell’uomo tramite la voce, espressione più autentica della libertà (...) assoluta dell’Io. Lungi da ogni «sentimentalismo» l’identità di uomo e natura si manifesta in una rarefatta estetica simbolica condensata da Novalis nell’immagine dell’«arpa eolia». (shrink)
La filosofia austriaca presenta tratti di originalità nei suoi esponenti: anzitutto B. Bolzano, F. Brentano e la sua scuola. Grazie all’influenza di Herbart essa rimane estranea all’idealismo e al neokantismo e sviluppa temi poi decisivi nel novecento come la fenomenologia e la filosofia analitica.
Formatosi alla lezione di Franz Brentano e di Hermann Lotze, maestro a Halle di Edmund Husserl e in seguito, a Berlino, dei fondatori della psicologia della Gestalt – Köhler, Koffka e Wertheimer – Carl Stumpf fu uno dei massimi esponenti della filosofia del suo tempo. Filosofo dai vasti interessi, ma anche psicologo di rango, attento studioso di filosofia della musica e pioniere dell’etnomusicologia, Stumpf è una figura indubbiamente originale, il cui lungo itinerario intellettuale appare sempre più imprescindibile per comprendere l’evoluzione (...) del pensiero filosofico della seconda metà dell’Ottocento e del primo Novecento in Germania. Estraneo ai dogmi del positivismo allora imperante, ma anche alla fascinazione trascendentale della fenomenologia husserliana, Stumpf concepisce la riflessione filosofica come esercizio critico aperto all’esperienza e tuttavia capace di trascenderla per mirare alle vette della speculazione metafisica ed etica. Gli scritti qui tradotti consentono, con l'aiuto dell'apparato critico, di dare corpo all’idea di una rinascita della filosofia, che riecheggia il titolo di una conferenza berlinese di Stumpf del 1907, ma che ben si attaglia al suo progetto filosofico complessivo. (shrink)
Il lavoro analizza la tempestiva ricezione da parte di Cornelio Fabro della filosofia di Carl Stumpf, così come esposta nella postuma Erkenntnislehre. Fin dai lavori dei primi anni Quaranta Fabro adotta una concezione della ‘fenomenologia’ distante da quella di Husserl perché ricalcata sulla definizione stumpfiana. Più in generale, Fabro si ispira a Stumpf ancor più che allo stesso Brentano. A partire dalla distinzione tra ‘fenomeni' e ‘funzioni psichiche’ Stumpf è infatti capace di proseguire il rilancio dell’aristotelismo con coerenza ancor maggiore (...) del maestro, all’insegna di un pieno riconoscimento del significato conoscitivo della percezione contro gli tipici di eccessi di ogni forma di intellettualismo. (shrink)
The work of Theodor Waitz is an important but hitherto unnoticed source of Dilthey’s concept of ‘human sciences’. Waitz was an outstanding philosopher and psychologist who, in the late 1850s, devoted himself wholeheartedly to empirical anthropology. In this field Waitz distinguished himself for his defence of the unity of humankind against mainstream polygenic and racial doctrines. Waitz inspired Dilthey’s articulation of psychology into two branches: the ‘descriptive’ one and the ‘explanative’ one. Even more remarkably, in a work reviewed by Dilthey (...) in warmly favourable terms, Waitz explicitly mentioned and defined the ‘sciences which treat of the spirit ’. Some of Dilthey's most interesting ideas are thus prefigured in Waitz’s long underrated work. (shrink)
Ehrenfels, Höfler and Witasek competently contributed to a musical aesthetics based upon the principles of the Graz school. In spite of a shared general psychological framework, they deeply differ in applying it to the aesthetics of music. A double tendency can be pointed out. Ehrenfels and Höfler enthusiastically supported Richard Wagner and vindicated the aesthetic value of his music. Accordingly, they made large use of analogies between musical and organic Gestalten. In a platonic vein, Höfler also thinks of melodies as (...) timeless objects, which are discovered rather than created by great artists. On the contrary, Witasek’s approach is quite rationalistic. Avoiding any intrusion of metaphysics, he describes the intellectual and emotional processes involved in hearing a piece of music. Wholly independently of Wagnerism, Witasek explains the complexity of musical experience in the general terms of Meinongian psychology. (shrink)
Il panorama editoriale odierno mostra ormai con chiarezza i segni di una rinascita e al tempo stesso di una profonda trasformazione della filosofia della musica. Il momento appare quindi particolarmente favorevole per una riconsiderazione della storia più recente di un problema che fin dall’antichità non ha mai smesso di offrire materia di riflessione al pensiero filosofico ai più alti livelli.
Hegel’s treatment of character in §395 of Encyclopedia is considered together with the commentaries given in his lectures. In these texts Hegel addresses some philosophical problems concerning character. In Hegel’s view, in fact, human character has a “natural basis” and yet depends on a free individual choice. Attention is drawn at Kant’s treatment of the same subject matter in Anthropology form a pragmatic point of view, which is the source of Hegel’s tripartite arrangement of Naturell, temperament and character. Diverging from (...) Kant, however, Hegel introduces a dialectic development within the development of character. (shrink)
Il volume presenta una storia della filosofia della musica. A partire dalle idee sulla musica dei filosofi antichi, attraverso le concezioni medievali e rinascimentali, il volume considera l'impatto della rivoluzione scientifica, la stagione illuminista e gli sviluppi ottocenteschi, per giungere infine al ricco dibattito contemporaneo. Tra i principali autori trattati: i pitagorici, Platone, Aristotele, Aristosseno, Boezio, Agostino, Tomaso d'Aquino, Ficino, Galileo, Mersenne, Cartesio, Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Novalis, Schelling, Wackenroder, Hoffmann, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Hanslick, Helmholtz, Nietzsche, Bloch, Adorno, Jankélévitch, Wittgenstein, Langer, (...) Kivy, Levinson, Scruton. (shrink)
