Philosophy History Tutorial (Volume 1)

Author: (German) Windelband
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1997-02-01
Features: The opening chapters of this book were published two years ago. After multiple unpleasant delays and disruptions, the book has finally been completed and presented to the readers. Readers should not confuse this book with outlines or similar materials. Such books are sometimes compiled from lecture notes on general philosophy. What I now offer to the readers is a serious textbook. In this book, I intend to describe the evolution of various European philosophical ideas in a comprehensive and concise manner, aiming to demonstrate: the principles and principles upon which our current scientific understanding and judgment of the universe and life are based, what motivations led people to grasp and develop them in the historical process. This purpose determines the entire form of the book. Accordingly, the historical and literary evidence we rely on, as well as biographies and documentary materials, are necessarily limited to a small scope, and the selection is limited to opening the way for further research for readers to obtain rich primary materials. The arguments of the philosophers themselves are only briefly quoted when they provide arguments or basic principles of lasting value in thought. In addition, the author occasionally quotes passages from the original works to support a particular view. The selection is always focused on the novel and fruitful things proposed by individual thinkers; while personal ideological tendencies, although academically acceptable, are mostly only briefly mentioned if they do not pique philosophical interest. As even the external form of this exposition shows, the focus is on the development of substantial things from the perspective of philosophy, namely the history of problems and concepts. My main purpose is to understand this development as a continuous, interconnected whole. Our theories about the universe and life arise from various lines of thought, and the interweaving of these lines of thought in history is the specific object of my research. I am convinced that this problem cannot be solved through innate logical structures, but only through a comprehensive and unbiased investigation of the facts. If it seems that the ancient part occupies a considerable portion of this book in the exposition, it is based on this belief: if we want to gain a historical understanding of the reality of human intellect, then the concepts obtained from the concrete reality of nature and life through the Greek spirit will be more important than all the things people have thought about since then—except for Kantian philosophy. With this task determined, I had to make sacrifices; no one is more distressed about this than I am. A purely thematic treatment of the historical development of philosophy does not allow for a profound description of the character of the philosophers that is worthy of their true value. This can only be touched upon when their character can actively play a role as a causal factor in the combination and transformation of concepts. In order to better grasp the inherent necessity of the internal connections in the process of mental development, I had to sacrifice the artistic charm of the personal style of the great figures who propelled the development of philosophy, and the special artistic charm that was given to academic lectures and a broader exposition of the history of philosophy.