modern period, wears the badge of physics. The world is conceived from the
standpoint of nature, psychical phenomena are in part neglected, in part
see their inconvenient claims reduced to a minimum, while it is but rarely
that we find an appreciation of their independence and co-ordinate value,
not to speak of their superior position. The power which natural science
has gained over philosophy dates essentially from a series of famous
discoveries and theories, by which science has opened up entirely new and
wide outlooks, and whose title to be considered in the formation of a
general view of reality is incontestable. To mention only the most
prominent, the following have all posited important and far-reaching
problems for philosophy as well as for science: Johannes Müller's (Müller
died 1858) theory of the specific energies of the senses, which Helmholtz
made use of as an empirical confirmation of the Kantian apriorism; the law
of the conservation of energy discovered by Robert Mayer (1842, 1850;
Helmholtz, 1847, 1862), and, in particular, the law of the transformation
of heat into motion, which invited an examination of all the forces active
in the world to test their mutual convertibility; the extension of
mechanism to the vital processes, favored even by Lotze; the renewed
conflict between atomism and dynamism; further, the Darwinian theory[1]
(1859), which makes organic species develop from one another by natural
selection in the struggle for existence (through inheritance and
adaptation); finally, the meta-geometrical speculations[2] of Gauss (1828),
Riemann (_On the Hypotheses which lie at the Basis of Geometry_, 1854,
published in 1867), Helmholtz (1868), B. Erdmann (_The Axioms of Geometry_,
1877). G. Cantor, and others, which look on our Euclidean space of three
dimensions as a special case of the unintuitable yet thinkable analytic
concept of a space of _n_ dimensions. The circumstance that these theories
are still largely hypothetical in their own field appears to have stirred
up rather than moderated the zeal for carrying them over into other
departments and for applying them to the world as a whole. Thus,
especially, the Darwinians[3] have undauntedly attempted to utilize the
biological hypothesis of the master as a philosophical principle of the
world, and to bring the mental sciences under the point of view of the
mechanical theory of development, though thus far with more daring and
noise than success. The finely conceived ethics of Höffding (p. 585) is an
exception to the rule which is the object of this remark.
[Footnote 1: A critical exposition of the modern doctrine of development
and of the causes used to explain it is given by Otto Hamann,
_Entwickelungslehre und Darwinismus_, Jena, 1892. Cf.
also, O. Liebmann,
_Analysis der Wirklichkeit_; and Ed. von Hartmann (above, p. 610). [Among
the numerous works in English the reader may be referred to the article
"Evolution," by Huxley and Sully, _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 9th ed., vol.
viii.; Wallace's _Darwinism_, 1889; Romanes, _Darwin and after Darwin_,
i. _The Darwinian Theory_, 1892; and Conn's _Evolution of To-day_,
1886.--TR.]]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Liebmann, _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_, 2d ed., pp. 53-59.
G. Frege (_Begriffsschrift_, 1879; _The Foundations of Arithmetic_, 1884;
_Function and Concept_, 1891; "On Sense and Meaning" in the _Zeitschrift
für Philosophie,_ vol. c. 1892) has also chosen the region intermediate
between mathematics and philosophy for his field of work. We note, further,
E.G. Husserl, _Philosophy of Arithmetic_, vol. i., 1891.]
[Footnote 3: Ernst Haeckel of Jena (born 1834; _General Morphology_, 1866;
_Natural History of Creation_, 1868 [English, 1875] I _Anthropogeny_, 1874;
_Aims and Methods of the Development History of To-day_, 1875; _Popular
Lectures_, 1878 _seq_.--English, 1883), G. Jäger, A.
Schleicher _(The
Darwinian Theory and the Science of Language_, 1865), Ernst Krause
(Carus Sterne, the editor of _Kosmos_) O. Caspari, Carneri (_Morals and
Darwinism_, 1871), O. Schmidt, Du Prel, Paul Rée (_The Origin of the Moral
Feelings_, 1877; _The Genesis of Conscience_, 1885; _The Illusion of Free
Will_, 1885); G.H. Schneider (_The Animal Will_, 1880; _The Human Will_,
1882; _The Good and III of the Human Race_, 1883).]
Besides the theory of knowledge, in the elaboration of which the most
eminent naturalists[1] participate with acuteness and success, psychology
and the practical disciplines also betray the influence of the scientific
spirit. While sociology and ethics, following the English model, seek an
empirical basis and begin to make philosophical use of statistical results
(E.F. Schäffle, _Frame and Life of the Social Body_, new ed., 1885; A. von
Oettingen, _Moral Statistic in its Significance for a Social Ethics_, 3d
ed., 1882), psychology endeavors to attain exact results in regard to
psychical life and its relation to its physical basis--
besides Fechner and
the Herbartians, W. Wundt and A. Horwicz should be mentioned here. Wundt
and, of late, Haeckel go back to the Spinozistic parallelism of material
and psychical existence, only that the latter emphasizes merely the
inseparability _(Nichtohneeinander)_ of the two sides (the cell-body and
the cell-soul) with a real difference between them and a metaphysical
preponderance of the material side, while the former emphasizes the
essential unity of body and soul, and the higher reality of the spiritual
side.
[Footnote 1: Helmholtz, Virchow (born 1821), Zöllner (1834-82; _On the
Nature of Comets_, 1872), and Du Bois-Reymond (born 1818), who, in his
lectures _On the Limits of the Knowledge of Nature_, 1872, and _The Seven
World-riddles_, 1880 (both together in 1882, and reprinted in the first
series of his _Addresses_, 1886), looks on the origin of life, the
purposive order of nature, and thought as problems soluble in the future,
but declares, on the other hand, that the nature of matter (atoms)
and force _(actio in distant)_, the origin of motion, the genesis of
consciousness (of sensation, together with pleasure and pain) from the
knowable conditions of psychical life, and the freedom of the will, are
absolute limits to our knowledge of nature.]
%(b) Idealistic Reaction against the Scientific Spirit.%--In opposition to
the preponderance of natural science and the empirico-skeptical tendency of
the philosophy of the day conditioned by it, an idealistic counter-movement
is making itself increasingly felt as the years go on.
Wilhelm Dilthey[1]
abandons metaphysics as a basis, it is true, but (with the assent of
Gierke, _Preussische Jahrbücher_, vol. liii. 1884) declares against the
transfer of the method of natural science to the mental sciences, which
require a special foundation. In spite of his critical rejection of
metaphysics, Wilhelm Windelband in Strasburg (born 1848; _Preludes_, 1884)
is, like Dilthey, to be counted among the idealists. In opposition to the
individualism of the positivists, the folk-psychologists--at their head
Steinthal and Lazarus (p. 536); Gustav Glogau[2] in Kiel (born 1844) is
an adherent of the same movement--defend the power of the universal over
individual spirits. The spirit of the people is not a phrase, an empty
name, but a real force, not the sum of the individuals belonging to the
people, but an encompassing and controlling power, which brings forth
in the whole body processes (_e.g._, language) which could not occur in
individuals as such. It is only as a member of society that anyone becomes
truly man; the community is the subject of the higher life of spirit.
[Footnote 1: Dilthey: _Introduction to the Mental Sciences_, part i.,
1883; _Poetic Creation_ in the Zeller _Aufsätze_, 1887;
"Contributions to
the Solution of the Question of the Origin of our Belief in the Reality of
the External World, and its Validity,"
_Sitzungsberichte_ of the Berlin
Academy of Sciences, 1890; "Conception and Analysis of Man in the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" in the _Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie_, vols. iv., v., 1891-92.]
[Footnote 2: Glogau: _Sketch of the Fundamental Philosophical Sciences_
(part i., _The Form and the Laws of Motion of the Spirit_, 1880; part
ii., _The Nature and the Fundamental Forms of Conscious Spirit_, 1888);
_Outlines of Psychology_; 1884.]
If folk-psychology, whose title but imperfectly expresses the comprehensive
endeavor to construct a psychology of society or of the universal spirit,
is, as it were, an empirical confirmation of Hegel's theory of Objective
Spirit, Rudolf Eucken[1] (born 1846), pressing on in the Fichtean manner
from the secondary facts of consciousness to an original real-life,
endeavors to solve the question of a universal becoming, of an
all-pervasive force, of a supporting unity ("totality") in the life of
spirit (neither in a purely noëtical nor a purely metaphysical, but) in a
noölogical way, and demands that the fundamental science or doctrine of
principles direct its attention not to cognition by itself, but to the
activity of psychical life as a whole.
[Footnote 1: Eucken: _The Unity of Spiritual Life in the Consciousness and
Deeds of Humanity_, 1888; _Prolegomena_ to this, 1885. A detailed analysis
of the latter by Falckenberg is given in the _Zeitschrift für Philosophie_,
vol. xc, 1887; cf. above, pp. 17 and 610.]
We have elsewhere discussed the more recent attempts to establish a
metaphysic which shall be empirically well grounded and shall cautiously
rise from facts.[1] In regard to the possibility of metaphysics three
parties are to be distinguished: On the left, the positivists, the
neo-Kantians, and the monists of consciousness, who deny it out of hand. On
the right, a series of philosophers--e.g., adherents of Hegel, Herbart, and
Schopenhauer--who, without making any concessions to the modern theory of
knowledge, hold fast to the possibility of a speculative metaphysics of the
old type. In the center, a group of thinkers who are willing to renounce
neither a solid noëtical foundation nor the attainment of metaphysical
conclusions--so Eduard von Hartmann, Wundt,[2] Eucken, Volkelt (pp. 590,
617). Otto Liebmann (born 1840; _On the Analysis of Reality_, 1876, 2d
ed., 1880; _Thoughts and Facts_, Heft i. 1882) demands a sharp separation
between the certain and the uncertain and an exact estimation of the degree
of probability which theories possess; puts the principles of metaphysics
under the rubric of logical hypothesis; and, in his _Climax of the
Theories_, 1884, calls attention to the fact that experiential science, in
addition to axioms necessarily or apodictically certain and empeiremes
possessing actual or assertory certainty, needs, further, a number of
"interpolation maxims," which form an attribute of our type of intellectual
organization _(i.e._, principles, according to the standard of which we
supplement the fragmentary and discrete series of single perceptions and
isolated observations by the interpolation of the needed intermediate
links, so that they form a connected experience). The most important of
these maxims are the principles of real identity, of the continuity of
existence, of causality, and of the continuity of becoming. Experience is
a gift of the understanding; the premises, as a rule, latent in ordinary
consciousness, on whose anticipatory application our experience is based
throughout, assert something absolutely incapable of being experienced.
If, in order to the production of a "pure experience,"
we eliminate all
subjective additions of the understanding contained in experiential thought
(all that cannot be present at the moment or locally at hand, in short, all
that cannot be the direct object and content of actual observation),
this breaks up into an unordered, unconnected aggregate of discontinuous
perceptual fragments; in order that a complete and articulated condition
of experience may result, these fragments (the purely factual content of
observation, the incoherent matter of perception) must be supplemented and
connected by very much that is not observed.
[Footnote 1: R. Falckenberg, _Ueber die gegenwärtige Lage der deutschen
Philosophie_, inaugural address at Erlangen, Leipsic, 1890.]
[Footnote 2: Wundt: _Essays_, 1885, including
"Philosophy and Science";
_System of Philosophy_, 1889. On the latter cf.
Volkelt's paper in the
_Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xxvii. 1891; and on the _Essays_ a
notice by the same author in the same review, vol.
xxiii. 1887.]
Further, a reaction against crude naturalism is observable in the practical
field, though political economists (Roscher) and jurists take a more active
part in it than the philosophers. Personally R. von Jhering (1818-92;
_Purpose in Law_, 2 vols., 1877-83, 2d ed., 1884-86) stands on idealistic
ground, although, rejecting the nativistic and formalistic theory, he is in
principle an adherent of "realism," of the principle of interest and social
utility (the moral is that Which is permanently useful to society).
Finally, similar motives underlie the growing interest in the history
of philosophy. The idealistic impulse seeks the nourishment which the
un-metaphysical present denies to it from the great works of the past, and
hopes, by keeping alive the classical achievements of previous times, to
enhance the consciousness of the urgency and irrepressibleness of the
highest questions, and to awaken courage for renewed attempts at their
solution. Thus the study of history enters the service of systematic
philosophy.
%(c) The Special Philosophical Sciences.%--The more the courage to attack
the central problems of philosophy has been paralyzed by the neo-Kantian
theory of knowledge and the coming-in of the positivistic spirit, the more
lively has been the work of the last decades in the special departments:
the transfer of the center of gravity from metaphysics to the particular
sciences is the most prominent characteristic of the philosophy of the
time. Logic sees century-old convictions shattered and new foundations
arising. Psychology has entered into competition with physiology in regard
to the discovery of the laws of the psychical functions which depend
on bodily processes, while metaphysical questions are forced into the
background and there is a growing distrust of the reliability of inner
observation. The philosophy of religion is favored with undiminished
interest and aesthetics, after long neglect, with a renewal of attention;
the philosophy of history is about to reconquer its former rights.
There is, moreover, an especially lively interest in ethics; and the
investigation of the history of philosophy is more widely extended than
ever before. We will close our sketch with a short survey of the particular
disciplines.
In the department of _logic_ the following should be mentioned as classical
achievements: the works of Christoph Sigwart of Tübingen (vol. i. 1873,
2d ed., 1889; vol. ii. 1878), of Lotze (p. 605), and of Wundt (vol. i.
_Erkenntnisslehre_, 1880; vol. ii. _Methodenlehre_, 1883). Besides these,
Bergmann (p. 620), Schuppe (p. 619), and Benno Erdmann (_Logik_, vol. i.
1892) deserve notice.
In _psychology_ the following writers have made themselves prominent:
Wilhelm Wundt at Leipsic (born 1832), _Grundzüge der physiologischen
Psychologie_, 1874, 3d ed., 1887; A. Horwicz, _Psychologische Analysen auf
physiologischer Grundlage_, 1872 _seq_.; Franz Brentano in Vienna (born
1838), _Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte_, vol.
i. 1874; Carl
Stumpf of Munich (born 1848), _Ueber den psychologischen Ursprung der
Raumvorstellung_, 1873, _Tonpsychologie_, vol. i. 1883, vol. ii. 1890;
Theodor Lipps of Breslau (born 1851), _Grundthatsachen des Seelenlebens_,
1883. The following may be mentioned in the same connection: J.H. Witte,
_Das Wesen der Seele_, 1888; H. Münsterberg, _Die Willenshandlung_, 1888,
_Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie_, 1889 _seq_,; Goswin K. Uphues
at Halle, _Wahrnehmung und Empfindung_, 1888, _Ueber die Erinnerung_, 1889;
H. Schmidkunz, _Psychologie der Suggestion_, 1892; H.
Ebbinghaus, the
co-editor of the _Zeitschrift für Psychologie una Physiologie der
Sinnesorgane_, 1890 _seq_.; H. Spitta; Max Dessoir, _Der Hautsinn_, in
the _Archiv für Anatomie una Physiologie_, 1892. The following works are
psychological contributions to the theory of knowledge: E.L. Fischer,
_Theorie der Gesichtswahrnehmung_, 1891; Hermann Schwarz, _Das
Wahrnehmungsproblem_, 1892. Finally we may add A. Dorner in Königsberg,
_Das menschliche Erkennen_, 1887; and E.L. Fischer, _Die Grundfragen der
Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1887.
The literature of _moral philosophy_ has been substantially enriched by
Wundt, _Ethik_, 1886, 2d ed., 1892; and Friedrich Paulsen, _System der
Ethik_, 1889, 2d ed., 1891. We may mention, further, Baumann (p. 601);
Schuppe, _Grundzüge der Ethik und Rechtsphilosophie_, 1882; Witte,
_Freiheit des Willens_, 1882; G. Class in Erlangen, _Ideale und Güter_,
1886; Richard Wallaschek, _Ideen zur praktischen Philosophic_, 1886;
F. Tönnies in Kiel, _Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft_, 1887; A. Döring,
_Philosophische Güterlehre_, 1888; Th. Ziegler, _Sittliches Sein und
Werden_, 2d ed., 1890; G. Simmel, _Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft_,
vol. i. 1892.
Of the newer works in the field of _aesthetics_, in addition to A.
Zeising's _Aesthetische Forschungen_, 1855, C. Hermann's _Aesthetik_,
1875, and Hartmann's _Philosophie des Schönen_, 1887, we may mention the
_Einleitung in die Aesthetik_ of Karl Groos, 1892, and the following by
Lipps: _Der Streit über die Tragödie_, 1890; _Aesthetische Faktoren der
Raumanschauung_, 1891; the essay _Psychologie der Komik (Philosophische
Monatshefte_, vols. xxiv.-xxv. 1888-89), and _Aesthetische
Litteraturberichte_, (in the same review, vol. xxvi.
1890 _seq_.).
Among the writers and works on the _philosophy of history_ we may note
Conrad Hermann in Leipsic (born 1819), _Philosophie der Geschichte_, 1870;
Bernheim, _Geschichtsforschung und
Geschichtsphilosophie_, 1880; Karl
Fischer, _Ist eine Philosophie der Geschichte wissenschaftlich erforderlich
bezw. möglich?_ Dillenburg Programme, 1889; Hinneberg, _Die philosophischen
Grundlagen der Geschichtswissenschaft_ in Sybel's _Historische
Zeitschrift_, vol. lxiii. 1889; A. Dippe, _Das Geschichtsstudium mit
seinen Zielen und Fragen_, 1891; Georg Simmel, _Die Probleme der
Geschichtsphilosophie_, 1892.
In the _philosophy of religion_, which is discussed especially by the
theologians, a neo-Kantian and a neo-Hegelian tendency confront each other.
The former, dividing in its turn, is represented, on the one hand, by
the Ritschlian school--W. Herrmann in Marburg (_Die Metaphysik in der
Theologie_, 1876, _Die Religion im Verhältniss zum Welterkennen und zur
Sittlichkeit_, 1889), J. Kaftan in Berlin (_Das Wesen der christlichen
Religion_, 1881)--and, on the other, by R.A. Lipsius in Jena (born 1830;
_Dogmatik_, 1876, 2d ed., 1879; _Philosophie und Religion_, 1885). The
latter is represented by A.E. Biedermann of Zurich (1819-85; _Christliche
Dogmatik_, 1868; 2d ed., 1884-85), a pupil of W. Vatke, and by Otto
Pfleiderer of Berlin (born 1839; _Religionsphilosophie_, 1879; 2d ed.,
1883-4). The neo-Kantians base religion exclusively on the practical side
of human nature, especially on the moral law, derive it from the contrast
between external dependence on nature and the inner freedom or supernatural
destination of the spirit, and wish it preserved from all intermixture
with metaphysics. According to the neo-Hegelians, on the contrary, the
theoretical element in religion is no less essential; and is capable of
being purified, of being elevated from the form of representation, which is
full of contradictions, into the adequate form of pure thought, capable,
therefore, of reconciliation with philosophy. Hugo Delff (_Ueber den Weg
zum Wissen und zur Gewissheit zu gelangen_, 1882; _Die Hauptprobleme der
Philosophie und Religion_, 1886) follows Jacobi's course.
Among the numerous works on the _history of philosophy_, besides the
masterpieces of Zeller, J.E. Erdmann, and Kuno Fischer, the following are
especially worthy of attention:
Cl. Bäumker in Breslau, _Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen
Philosophie_, 1890; H. Bonitz, _Platonische Studien_, 3d ed., 1886,
_Aristotelische Studien_, 1862 _seq., Index Aristotelicus_, 1870, _Kleine
Schriften_; P. Deussen (born 1845), _Das System der Vedanta_, 1883, H.
Diels in Berlin, _Doxographi Graeci_, 1879; Eucken in Jena (p. 17), _Die
Methode der aristotelischen Forschung_, 1872, Address _Ueber den Werth der
Geschichte der Philosophie_, 1874; J. Freudenthal in Breslau (born 1839,
pp. 63, 118), _Hellenistische Studien, 3 Hefte_, 1879, _Ueber die Theologie
des Xenophanes_, 1886; M. Heinze in Leipsic, _Die Lehre vom Logos in der
griechischen Philosophie_, 1872; G. Freiherr von Hertling in Munich (born
1843), _Materie und Form und die Definition der Seele bei Aristoteles_,
1871, _Albertus Magnus_, 1880; H. Heussler in Basle (p.
65 note),
_Der Rationalismus des XVII. Jahrhunderts in seinen Beziehungen zur
Eniwickelungslehre_, 1885; Fr. Jodl in Prague (born 1849; pp. 16, 221
note); A. Krohn (1840-89), _Sokrates und Xenophon_, 1874, _Der platonische
Staat_, 1876, _Die platonische Frage_, 1878--on Krohn, an obituary by
Falckenberg in the _Biographisches Jahrbuch für Alterthumskunde, Jahrg_.
12, 1889; P. Natorp (pp. 88 note, 598), _Forschungen zur Geschichte des
Erkenntnissproblems im Alterthum_, 1884; Edmund Pfleiderer in Tübingen
(born 1842; p. 113 note[1]), _Empirismus und Skepsis im D. Humes
Philosophie_, 1874, _Die Philosophie des Heraklit im Lichte der
Mysterienidee_, 1886; K. von Prantl (1820-88), _Geschichte der Logik im
Abendlande_, 4 vols., 1855-70; Carl Schaarschmidt (pp.
88 note, 117-118);
_Johannes Sarisberiensis_, 1862, _Die Sammlung der platonischen Schriften_,
1866; L. Schmidt in Marburg (born 1824), _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_,
1881; Gustav Schneider, _Die platonische Metaphysik_, 1884; H. Siebeck in
Giessen, _Untersuchungen zur Philosophie der Griechen_, 1873, 2d ed., 1888,
_Geschichte der Psychologie_, part i. 1880-84; Chr. von Sigwart (born 1830;
pp. 17, 118); Heinrich von Stein in Rostock (born 1833), _Sieben Bücher zur
Geschichte des Platonismus_, 1862-75; Ludwig Stein in Berne, editor of the
_Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie_, founded in 1877, _Die Psychologie
der Stoa_, I. _Metaphysisch-Anthropologischer Theil_, 1886, II.
_Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1888, _Leibniz und Spinoza_, 1890; L. Strümpell,
_Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie_, 1854, 1861; Susemihl in
Greifswald, _Die Politik des Aristoteles_, Greek and German with notes,
1879, further, a series of essays on Plato and Aristotle; Teichmüller (p.
601); Trendelenburg (pp. 600-601), _Aristotelis de Anima_, 2d ed., by
Belger. 1887; Th. Waitz, _Aristotelis Organon_, 1844-46; J. Walter in
Königsberg, _Die Lehre von der praktischen Vernunft in der griechischen
Philosophie_, 1874, _Geschichte der Aesthetik im Alterthum_, 1892; Tob.
Wildauer in Innsbruck, _Die Psychologie des Willens bei Sokrates, Platon,
und Aristoteles_, 1877, 1879; W. Windelbund in Strasburg (pp. 15-16),
_Geschichte der alten Philosophie_, 1888; Theob. Ziegler in Strasburg,