Search results

"After a long struggle, Jewish emancipation was formally completed in Germany in 1871, when Wilhelm I abolished religious discrimination across the entire Reich. Yet the very same decade witnessed a new wave of antisemitism, one more vicious and virulent than anything before. At its centre was what is known as 'The Berlin Antisemitism Controversy'. How can this rise of antisemitism be explained when further liberal reform was expected? Can it help us understand the tide of antisemitism that was to engulf Germany fifty years later? In this outstanding book by a leading scholar of German philosophy, Frederick C. Beiser argues that to understand modern antisemitism we must go back in history. Beginning with the background of the controversy and examining the most important antisemitic thinkers of the 1870s and 1880s, he brilliantly analyses the beginnings of modern antisemitism in Germany. Beiser challenges received scholarship that the rise of antisemitism was caused by a failure of the Jews to assimilate and criticises the view, held by Hannah Arendt, that antisemitism was at its peak when Jews were perceived to be powerless and had lost their roles in government and finance. He argues instead that it was fuelled by a fear of Jewish domination that took multiple forms. Exploring antisemitism from both a historical and philosophical perspective, he situates antisemitism in relation to such fundamental questions as the conditions for citizenship in the modern state, what is meant by nationality, and what role religion should play in the state. He also vividly and expertly analyses the writings and arguments of those involved in the antisemitism crisis of the 1870s, including Wilhelm Marr, Constantin Frantz and Adolf Treitschke and thinkers who are here examined in English for the first time. The Berlin Antisemitism Controversy sheds much-needed light on an episode whose shockwaves resonate today. It is a superb account of a crucial period of not only German but European and Jewish history and essential reading for anyone interested in the causes and roots of antisemitism in Germany and beyond"--

"After a long struggle, Jewish emancipation was formally completed in Germany in 1871, when Wilhelm I abolished religious discrimination across the entire Reich. Yet the very same decade witnessed a new wave of antisemitism, one more vicious and virulent than anything before. At its centre was what is known as 'The Berlin Antisemitism Controversy'. How can this rise of antisemitism be explained when further liberal reform was expected? Can it help us understand the tide of antisemitism that was to engulf Germany fifty years later? In this outstanding book by a leading scholar of German philosophy, Frederick C. Beiser argues that to understand modern antisemitism we must go back in history. Beginning with the background of the controversy and examining the most important antisemitic thinkers of the 1870s and 1880s, he brilliantly analyses the beginnings of modern antisemitism in Germany. Beiser challenges received scholarship that the rise of antisemitism was caused by a failure of the Jews to assimilate and criticises the view, held by Hannah Arendt, that antisemitism was at its peak when Jews were perceived to be powerless and had lost their roles in government and finance. He argues instead that it was fuelled by a fear of Jewish domination that took multiple forms. Exploring antisemitism from both a historical and philosophical perspective, he situates antisemitism in relation to such fundamental questions as the conditions for citizenship in the modern state, what is meant by nationality, and what role religion should play in the state. He also vividly and expertly analyses the writings and arguments of those involved in the antisemitism crisis of the 1870s, including Wilhelm Marr, Constantin Frantz and Adolf Treitschke and thinkers who are here examined in English for the first time. The Berlin Antisemitism Controversy sheds much-needed light on an episode whose shockwaves resonate today. It is a superb account of a crucial period of not only German but European and Jewish history and essential reading for anyone interested in the causes and roots of antisemitism in Germany and beyond"--

Philosophy of Life explores the intellectual movement Lebensphilosophie, which flourished in Germany from 1870 until 1920, led by Nietzsche, Dilthey, and Simmel. This was the first Western intellectual movement to develop an entirely secular and humanist conception of life, believing that the meaning of life had to be found in life itself.

This is the first intellectual biography of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), one of the leading philosophers of his age, the competitor of Schelling and Hegel. He was an influential critic of idealism and an important forerunner of analytic philosophy.

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Introduction -- I. Kant's Critique of Idealism -- Introduction: Kant and the Problem of Subjectivism -- 1 Idealism in the Precritical Years -- 2 Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism -- 3 The First Edition Refutation of Skeptical Idealism -- 4 The First Edition Refutation of Dogmatic Idealism -- 5 Kant and Berkeley -- 6 The Second Edition Refutation of Problematic Idealism -- 7 Kant and the Way of Ideas -- 8 The Transcendental Subject -- 9 The Status of the Transcendental -- 10 Kant's Idealism in the Opus postumum -- II. Fichte's Critique of Subjectivism -- Introduction: The Interpretation of Fichte's Idealism -- 1 Fichte and the Subjectivist Tradition -- 2 The Battle against Skepticism -- 3 Criticism versus Dogmatism -- 4 Freedom and Subjectivity -- 5 Knowledge of Freedom -- 6 Critical Idealism -- 7 The Refutation of Idealism -- 8 The Structure of Intersubjectivity -- III. Absolute Idealism -- 1 Absolute Idealism: General Introduction -- 2 Hölderlin and Absolute Idealism -- 3 Novalis' Magical Idealism -- 4 Friedrich Schlegel's Absolute Idealism -- IV. Schelling and Absolute Idealism -- Introduction: The Troublesome Schellingian Legacy -- 1 The Path toward Absolute Idealism -- 2 The Development of Naturphilosophie -- 3 Schelling's Break with Fichte -- 4 Problems, Methods, and Concepts of Naturphilosophie -- 5 Theory of Life and Matter -- 6 Schelling's Absolute Idealism -- 7 The Dark Night of the Absolute -- 8 Absolute Knowledge -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 • Kant, Hamann, and the Rise of the Sturm und Drang -- 2 • Jacobi and the Pantheism Controversy -- 3 • Mendelssohn and the Pantheism Controversy -- 4 • Kant, Jacobi, and Wizenmann in Battle -- 5 • Herder's Philosophy of Mind -- 6 • The Attack of the Lockeans -- 7 • The Revenge of the Wolffians -- 8 • Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie -- 9 • Schulze's Skepticism -- 10 • Maiman's Critical Philosophy -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Weltschmerz' is a study of the pessimism that dominated German philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Pessimism was essentially the theory that life is not worth living. This theory was introduced into German philosophy by Schopenhauer, whose philosophy became very fashionable in the 1860s. Frederick C. Beiser examines the intense and long controversy that arose from Schopenhauer's pessimism, which changed the agenda of philosophy in Germany away from the logic of the sciences and toward an examination of the value of life. He examines the major defenders of pessimism (Philipp Mainlander, Eduard von Hartmann and Julius Bahnsen) and its chief critics, especially Eugen Duhring and the neo-Kantians. The pessimism dispute of the second half of the century has been largely ignored in secondary literature and this book is a first attempt since the 1880s to re-examine it and to analyze the important philosophical issues raised by it. The dispute concerned the most fundamental philosophical issue of them all: whether life is worth living

Beiser's intellectual biography comprehensively and accessibly maps out Herman Cohen's intellectual development over seven decades. Maintaining that most interpretations have failed to appreciate the philosophical depth and sophistication of Cohen's Judaism, Beiser argues that his religion was in fact consistent with his radical rationalism

Weltschmerz' is a study of the pessimism that dominated German philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Pessimism was essentially the theory that life is not worth living. This theory was introduced into German philosophy by Schopenhauer, whose philosophy became very fashionable in the 1860s. Frederick C. Beiser examines the intense and long controversy that arose from Schopenhauer's pessimism, which changed the agenda of philosophy in Germany away from the logic of the sciences and toward an examination of the value of life. He examines the major defenders of pessimism (Philipp Mainlander, Eduard von Hartmann and Julius Bahnsen) and its chief critics, especially Eugen Duhring and the neo-Kantians. The pessimism dispute of the second half of the century has been largely ignored in secondary literature and this book is a first attempt since the 1880s to re-examine it and to analyze the important philosophical issues raised by it. The dispute concerned the most fundamental philosophical issue of them all: whether life is worth living

Neo-Kantianism was an important movement in German philosophy of the late 19th century: Frederick Beiser traces its development back to the late 18th century, and explains its rise as a response to three major developments in German culture: the collapse of speculative idealism; the materialism controversy; and the identity crisis of philosophy.

Frederick C. Beiser has written about two of the most important idealist philosophers in Germany after Hegel: Adolf Trendelenburg and Rudolf Lotze. He addresses every aspect of their philosophy - logic, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics - and traces their intellectual development from their youth until their death

Histories of German philosophy in the nineteenth century typically focus on its first half-when Hegel, idealism, and Romanticism dominated. By contrast, the remainder of the century, after Hegel's death, has been relatively neglected because it has been seen as a period of stagnation and decline. But Frederick Beiser argues that the second half of the century was in fact one of the most revolutionary periods in modern philosophy because the nature of philosophy itself was up for grabs and the very absence of certainty led to creativity and the start of a new era

Frederick C. Beiser tells the story of the emergence of neo-Kantianism from the late 1790s until the 1880s. He focuses on neo-Kantianism before official or familiar neo-Kantianism, i.e., before the formation of the various schools of neo-Kantianism in the 1880s and 1890s (which included the Marburg school, the Southwestern school, and the Gottingen school). Beiser argues that the source of neo-Kantianism lies in three crucial but neglected figures: Jakob Friedrich Fries, Johann Friedrich Herbart, and Friedrich Beneke, who together form what he calls 'the lost tradition'. They are the first neo-Kantians because they defended Kant's limits on knowledge against the excesses of speculative idealism, because they upheld Kant's dualisms against their many critics, and because they adhered to Kant's transcendental idealism. Much of The Genesis of Neo-Kantianism, 1796-1880 is devoted to an explanation for the rise of neo-Kantianism. Beiser contends that it became a greater force in the decades from 1840 to 1860 in response to three major developments in German culture: the collapse of speculative idealism; the materialism controversy; and the identity crisis of philosophy. As he goes on to argue, after the 1860s neo-Kantianism became a major philosophical force because of its response to two later cultural developments: the rise of pessimism and Darwinism.