1,999 research outputs found

    Neo-Kantianism in Germany and France

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    After Cassirer: Art and Aesthetic Symbols in Langer and Goodman

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    Philosophy of Science and Democracy. Some reflections on Philipp Frank"s "Relativity – a richer truth".

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    Philipp Frank"s book Relativity – a richer truth1 shows something we do not find very often after World War 2: a philosopher of science acting as a public intellectual. Taking part in the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, Philipp Frank intervened in the public debate about the causes of Nazism and how to defend democracy and liberalism against totalitarian ideas and politics. Could philosophy of science contribute to such a struggle? Philipp Frank thought it could, he even thought that Philosophy of Science should play a crucial role in it. It"s obvious that this position should be of some interest for philosophers in Austria and Europe today. Of course, any serious analysis of Frank"s position would have to take the whole historical constellation into account. Between the beginning of the conference in 1940 and the publication of the book in 1951 the historical situation had dramatically changed. And therefore one has to distinguish several political dimensions in Frank"s arguments. Let me just make a short remark on the plurality of political perspectives Frank"s discourse opened up. Philipp Frank defined the role science should play in democracy not only in contrast to the role of science as it was conceived by totalitarian governments. Of course he criticised the Nazis" and Soviets" �philosophies of science� several times (see for instance p. 73, 98, 103p.). But he also made very clear that in the 40ies and 50ies not even the majority of scholars and university teachers in the US supported the specific view of science which Frank thought was so important to the advancement of democracy (for instance 59pp.). His rather critical comments on the teaching of science in the post war / cold war period show what he thought the really important political impact of science was. As far as I can see, these comments did not loose their significance

    Reassessing Neo-Kantianism. Another Look at Hermann Cohen’s Kant Interpretation

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    This article is a novel assessment of Hermann Cohen’s theoretical philosophy, starting out from his Kant interpretation. Hermann Cohen was the head and founder of the Marburg School of Neo- Kantianism. In the beginning, hence, I will commence with some initial reflections on the makeup and importance of this school, before I move on to Cohen’s revolutionary Kant interpretation and its ramification for the Marburg School in general

    Binary synthesis: Goethe's aesthetic intuition in literature and science

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    Argument This essay seeks to identify the cultural significance of Goethe's scientific writings. He reformulates, in the light of his own concrete experience, “crucial turning-points” (Hauptmomente) in the history of science – key ideas, the historical understanding of which is vital to present understanding – thus situating his own scientific work at the bi-polar center of the Western scientific tradition, conceived as the dramatic interplay over centuries of two opposing modes of thought. For in his experimentation he recaptures the glimpse of living form gained in aesthetic perception (Anschauung), from which such inherited theoretical positions are ultimately derived. At each stage of this process, imagination, in its aesthetic modality, is essential, for it alone reveals the world as it truly is. The literary quality of his writings on nature, as on culture, reveals Goethe's stylistic achievement in devising a medium in which the insights gained in contemplation may be so transmitted as to make a similar, imaginative, appeal to his reader – re-enacting the abstract-concrete equilibrium characterizing all aesthetic experience. Matching his style to the subtle, delicate, connectedness of Nature, Goethe recreates the delights of participating in natural creativity. His Janus-faced, scientific-literary, style illustrates “binary synthesis,” the principle that unites Goethe's science with his art

    Panofsky - Warburg - Cassirer. From Iconology to Image Science

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    Neither the art historians Panofsky and Warburg nor the philosopher Cassirer had any interest with their cultural-historical research in fact-based, historical questions. An approach that had become common in the 19th century due to the loss of validity of the speculative aesthetics. On the contrary, instead of this substantial understanding as the documentary concept represents, these researchers focused on a functional understanding of art historical sources. Nevertheless, in contrast to this starting point, Panofsky invented a methodological procedure, the so-called iconological method, which in turn led back to a documentary-focused historical analysis of artistic artefacts that is still recognized today. The goal is to rediscover the original background of Panofsky´s method. This should make it clear that the original idea of the image concept pursued by Warburg and Cassirer, which had been lost or obscured by the aftermath of National Socialism in Germany, can be made fruitful in a new light today. This path may open up iconology to “image science”/Bildwissenschaft and thus transform the former from a purely historical approach to an understanding relevant to cultural processes and thus to human action

    Galileo, Plato and the Scientific Revolution

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    This paper retraces the history of one of the founding thesis of modern historiography of science (the Galileo's Platonism thesis), starting from its first appearance in the context of the Neo-Kantian school of Marburg up to its final assessment in the works of Koyre. Following these debates provides us with a privileged point of view to observe the emergence of the concept of scientific revolution, which appeared for the first times in the current usage in Koyre's Galileo Studies
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