A brief history of modern philosophy
The translator's preface;
Professor Harold Hoffding is already well known to the English-speaking world through the translations of his Psychology, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Problems of Philosophy and his History of Modem Philosophy (2 vols.), all published by The Macmillan Company.
The fact that his works are rapidly finding their way into English and other languages are the best evidence of the esteem in which his work is held and of his importance as a thinker. Born in 1843, professor of philosophy in Copen- Hagen since 1883, Doctor Hoffding has worked over the whole field of philosophy with great thoroughness.
The original (German) edition from which this translation is made appeared in 1905. It is therefore the fit of his ripest scholarship. The book is clear, compact, and comprehensive.
The various schools are analyzed and criticized, and the thread of continuous development is constantly kept clearly in view. These features constitute the exceptional merit of the book as a text. The student is constantly aware that a familiar spirit is safely guiding him through the bewildering maze of philosophic problems and tentative solutions.
As a psychologist, Doctor Hoffding is an empirical introspectionist. He is thoroughly modem in his antipathy towards metaphysical speculation. He discovers a native tendency in man, manifesting itself in the impulse towards well-being, the source or further meaning of which is beyond our knowledge, which furnishes the basis of ethics. Religion is the reaction of the human mind to the sense of value and represents the highest function of the human mind. As a critical empiricist, he possesses a peculiar advantage in the interpretation of the trend of philosophic thought. We offer this book to the English student because of its merit, as an efficient guide to the understanding of modem philosophy.
Some of the contents:
Introduction i
FIRST BOOK
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE RENAISSANCE
A. The Discovery of the Natural Man 4
1. Pomponazzi, Machiavelli, Montaigne 4
2. Vives, Melanchthon, Althusius, Grotius 8
3. Bodin, Cherbury, Bohme 9
4. Ramus, Sanchez, Bacon 15
B. The New Conception of the World 21
1. Nicholas of Cusa 22
2. Telesis 24
3. Copernicus 26
4. Bruno 28
C. The New Science 35
1. Leonardo 36
2. Kepler 37
3. Galileo 39
SECOND BOOK
the great systems
the great systems
1. Descartes 44
2. Hobbes 58
3. Spinoza 67
4. Leibnitz 79
THIRD BOOK
ENGLISH EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHY
1. Locke 91
2. Newton 96
3. Berkeley 98
4. Shaftesbury 102
5. Hume 106
6. Smith 113
FOURTH BOOK
PHILOSOPHY OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE AND GERMANY
A. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment in France and
Rousseau 118
1. Voltaire and the Encyclopedists 118
2. Rousseau 123
B. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment in Germany and
Lessing 132
1. The German Enlightenment 132
2. Lessing 135
FIFTH BOOK
IMMANUEL KANT AND THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY
A. Theoretical Problems 140
1. The Development of the Kantian Theory of Knowledge 140
a. First Period. 1755-1769 140
b. Second Period. 1 769-1 761 140
2. Critique of Pure Reason 144
a. Subjective Deduction 144
b. Objective Deduction 146
3. Phenomena and Thing-in-itself 148
4. Criticism of Speculative Philosophy 150
B. The Ethico-religious Problem 153
1. The Historical Development of the Kantian Ethics. 154
2. The Specifically Kantian Ethics 155
3. The Religious Problem 156
4. Speculative Ideas on the Basis of Biology and
^Esthetics 159
C. Opponents and First Disciples 162
1. Hamann, Herder, Jacobi 163
2. Reinhold, Maimon, Schiller 165
SIXTH BOOK
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ROMANTICISM
A. The Speculative Systems 171
1. Fichte 171
2. Schelling 177
3. Hegel 182
B. The Critical Romanticists 189
1. Schleiermacher 189
2. Schopenhauer 194
3. Kierkegaard 201
'C. The Under-current of Criticism in the Romantic
Period 205
1. Fries 205
2. Herbart 207
3. Beneke 211
D. The Transition from Romanticism to Positivism. .213
1. The Dissolution of the Hegelian School 213
2. Feuerbach 214
- Author: Harald Høffding was a Danish philosopher and theologian.
- Publication date:1912
- Translator: Charles Finley Sanders
