Bshp conference Spring 2006 Philosophy and Historiography: Abstracts
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- Session 6: Round table discussion of The Cambridge History of Philosophy , sponsored by Cambridge University Press (Umney Theatre)
The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the theories of philosophical and scientific historiography emerging from the works of Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) and William Whewell (1794-1866) respectively, and to delineate some connections between them.Focusing on some basic passages on historiographical theory found in Hegel’s Einleitung in die Geschichte der Philosophie (to which must be added paragraph 13 in the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences of 1830) and in Whewell’s Introduction to the third edition of the History of the Inductive Sciences, from the earliest to the present time (1857), I will argue that for both thinkers historiography has a fundamental task: to exhibit the unity of philosophy in one case, and the unity of science in the other, through a rational description of their historical development.In fact, for Hegel “philosophy can only arise in connection with previous philosophy, from which of necessity it has arisen”. The history of philosophy describes the becoming of philosophy “from a historical and external point of view”, showing that “the different [philosophical] systems are not irreconcilable with unity”. More precisely, there is only “one philosophy at different degrees of maturity”, and “the particular principle, which is the groundwork of each system, is but a branch of one and the same universe of thought”. The consequence is that “in philosophy the latest birth of time is the result of all the systems that have preceded it, and must include their principles; and so, if, on other grounds, it deserves the title of philosophy, will be the fullest, most comprehensive, and most adequate system of all”.In a similar vein Whewell, but with reference to the various branches of science. The development of each branch consists “in a long-continued advance; a series of changes; a repeated progress from one principle to another, different and often apparently contradictory”. This contradiction is only apparent, because “the earlier truths are not expelled but absorbed, not contradicted but extended; and the history of each science, which may thus appear like a succession of revolutions, is, in reality, a series of developments”: “Thus the final form of each science contains the substance of each of its preceding modifications”. For Whewell, the history of science shows that, “from the earliest to the present time”, we have a series of “epochs” in which the main scientific discoveries are made by scientists who are able to connect “facts” and “ideas” properly. These epochs are preceded by “preludes” that prepare them, and followed by “sequels” in which the acquired knowledge is increased and extended.After showing how Whewell’s theory of scientific historiography is linked to Hegel’s theory of philosophical historiography, I will also try to understand if these theories can still be meaningful for us today.Michael Schleeter (Pennsylvania State University), ‘Hegel and the myth of teleological historiography’ The historiography of philosophy has for at least two centuries been haunted by the question of whether the history of thought is fundamentally a history of rational progress, or a history of mere differences. In our time, this question would seem finally to have been settled, since the view of the history of ideas as rational progress has been largely discredited, along with G. W. F. Hegel, its greatest proponent. In my paper, I am concerned to reopen this question, and to reconsider this rejected view as well as this rebuffed philosopher. Specifically, I am interested in doing these things though a re-examination of two key Hegelian texts, namely, his Lectures on the Philosophy of History and his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Ultimately, I want to argue that Hegel provides good reasons for viewing history in general and the history of philosophy in particular as rational progresses, reasons that do not require the wholesale acceptance of his entire philosophical system. My paper begins with a brief discussion of the role of myth in Plato’s Republic. I focus upon the first two books of this text, and suggest upon these bases that the ensuing investigation into justice does not intend to arrive at a concept of justice that has eternal validity, but rather aims to discover a concept of justice that is necessary within a specific context to achieve specific ends. Indeed, at the end of the first book, Thrasymachus, after having been browbeaten by Socrates, remarks. ‘if you want to keep on questioning, go ahead and question, and, just as with old wives who tell tales [μυθους], I shall say to you, ‘all right’, and I shall nod and shake my head’ (Plato, 350e). The inquiry into justice is related here to the telling of myths, but myths that are essential for certain purposes. My paper then proceeds to a longer discussion of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History. I concentrate upon the introduction to this work, and identify the various reasons presented there for viewing the history of the world as a rational progress. I show that perhaps the most important one is that this view fulfils the deep human desire to see all things, including history, as rational or meaningful. In this way, this view might be seen as myth that is necessary to defend against the despair that would result from seeing all things as fundamentally irrational or meaningless. As Hegel writes, ‘before the pure light of this concourse of fortuitous circumstances, utterly vanishes’ (Hegel, 36). My paper concludes with a consideration of Hegel’s lectures on the History of Philosophy. I claim that the same reason for viewing the history of the world as a rational progress apply also to the history of philosophy. In both cases, these views function as myths that fulfil the human longing for meaning in the face of a potentially meaningless world. Michele Del Prete (Berlin), ‘The conclusion of the history of philosophy and the end of philosophy: Franz Rosenzweig’s anti-Hegelian interpretation of a Hegelian topos’ I. The strategy adopted by Hegel to achieve the identity between philosophy and the history of philosophy is a teleological one. Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie represent a furthur formulation of the Phänomenologie. The history of philosophy is considered to be the narration of the growth of the universal truth of philosophy through the mediation of all philosophers. The latter are merely a moment of Spirit (Geist), which is permanently in the process of fully developing itself. II. With his work Stern der Erlösung (1919) Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) intends to dismantle Hegel’s philosophy. This necessarily goes together with the presentation of an alternative vision of the history of philosophy. It is important to underline that Rosenzweig’s task is achieved through a reformulation of Hegel’s topoi. It is not surprising to find in the Stern and in several letters some examples that are identical with those contained in Hegel’s Vorlesungen, e.g. the beginning of philosophy with Thales’ saying that all is water, the quotation of the conclusion of Metaphysica Λ as the peak of Aristotelian cosmology, an overhasty condemnation of Indian thought. III. On the theoretical level we observe an analogous conception of the history of philosophy as a continuum (similar to the schema of the philosophia perennis). The Hegelian teleology of the history of philosophy is however subject to a restriction: it is only valid from Ionia to Jena, i.e. only until, but not after Hegel. To understand the limits of this analogy we have to consider a) the divergence between Rosenzweig and Hegel concerning Kant’s philosophy and his role in the history of philosophy and b) Rosenzweig’s new understanding of the value of the individual philosopher against the universality of the history of philosophy: a) With the Kantian distinction of phenomenon and noumenon there appears a region of Being that exceeds any grasp of thought. In Hegelian terms this means a limit to philosophy itself as idealism (see Hegel’s critique of Kant on this point in the Vorlesungen). When Rosenzweig praises Kant as the first real dualist in the history of philosophy it is because he considers him a thinker who 1) on the theoretical level makes idealism impossible and 2) on the historical level appears as a herald of the forthcoming dissolution of the unity of the history of philosophyb)If philosophy can no longer claim to be the science that refers to the universal (which in Hegel is also valid on the historical level), the history of philosophy cannot stand as the history of one universal truth. The individual philosophers thus gain a completely new autonomous value. IV. If the essential unity of the truth of philosophy is lost, the question of relativism (of multiple and different truths of the philosophers) arises. The concluding section considers Rosenzweig’ s contribution to this problem. This question, which after the collapse of idealism (i.e. the end of philosophy) can no longer be solved on a philosophical basis, is answered by Rosenzweig in theological terms. Chris Lauer (Pennsylvania State University), ‘Historiographical necessity in Heidegger’s Beiträge and Hegel’s Differenzschrift’ While philosophers have long recognized the violence in any historiography of philosophy, perhaps no two philosophers have been so vilified for imposing their own systems of thought on their predecessors as Hegel and Heidegger. These two thinkers, it is often complained, not only cover over the uniqueness that makes every great philosopher’s work irreducible to any other’s, but imagine such an overwhelming necessity guiding the history of philosophy as to deny the possibility of any essential deviation from its movement. In this paper I argue that while this view of Hegel and Heidegger is not entirely unwarranted, it overlooks what is most innovative in their respective accounts of historical freedom. Far from trying to impose an external framework on the history of philosophy, they are each trying to discern what it would mean for history to be guided by its own necessity. Though Heidegger was never satisfied with his articulation of this necessity and Hegel was forced in his Introduction to the Philosophy of History simply to call for “faith” in the intelligibility of history (p. 10), their resonances do show us something about what such an account of freedom in history would involve. In approaching these resonances, I focus on two texts in which the two philosophers explicitly concern themselves with the “need” (Bedürfnis) of philosophy: Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Of Ereignis) and Hegel’s essay on the Difference Between the Fichtean and Schellingian Systems of Philosophy. In the Contributions, Heidegger argues that the movement of metaphysics is guided neither by the whims and personalities of individual philosophers nor by the transcendent rational urge toward a system of everything, but by what he calls needfulness or distress (Not) (§17). His aim in introducing this concept is to take the historiography of philosophy seriously without thereby assuming any specific telos that would serve as the culmination of philosophy—to specify a freedom at work in history that is neither arbitrary nor determined by a concept. In the Differenzschrift, on the other hand, Hegel mocks Fichte for suggesting that freedom can be traced back historically to a “state of need [Stand der Not]” (p. 146). Freedom, Hegel argues, can only be properly conceived as a gift, and thus accounts of why it is needed fail to apprehend what is truly free in it. Yet by framing his introduction to contemporary philosophy in terms of its need (Bedürfnis), Hegel has already embraced a position similar to Heidegger’s, which might lead us to expect that their differences boil down to how they define Not. I suggest in the paper, however, that though Heidegger in 1936 and Hegel in 1802 are far closer than one might suspect, their differences are not solely lexical. Rather, Hegel’s rejection of the role of distress in the history of thought arises from a different sense of the proper attunement needed in a historiography of freedom. 16.30 Session 6: Round table discussion of The Cambridge History of Philosophy, sponsored by Cambridge University Press (Umney Theatre) Speakers: Michael Ayers (Cambridge), Tom Baldwin (York), Knud Haakonssen (Sussex), Quentin Skinner (Cambridge) Chair: John Rogers (Editor of the BJHP) Directory: philosophy philosophy -> Course descriptions fall 2016 phil 101: introduction to philosophy philosophy -> Freewill & Determinism philosophy -> Evolution and Philosophy Spring 2015 philosophy -> Philosophy Basics philosophy -> Consciousness in the World: Husserlian Phenomenology and Externalism philosophy -> Introduction to the philosophy of science philosophy -> Vita mark H. Bickhard philosophy -> Kant and skepticism philosophy -> The philosophy of duns scotus Download 147.88 Kb. Share with your friends:
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