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Kultur, Bildung, Geist
RAYMOND GEUSS
History and Theory 35 May, 1996), 151-164
I distinguish three strands in the discussion of "culture" in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany. One is centered around the analysis of the diverse folkways of various human groups. A second focuses on the cultivation of individual talents and capacities. The third treats aesthetic experience and judgment and its relation to forms of sociability. I discuss some of the various ways in which these three strands of discussion interacted historically and suggest some ways in which the study of this historical episode might be relevant to contemporary discussions of "culture."
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The Origins of the Modern Historiography of Ancient Philosophy
WOLFGANG-RAINER MANN
History and Theory 35 May, 1996), 165-195
A new approach to the historiography of the history of philosophy was first proposed near the end of the eighteenth century. It is useful to regard it as an alternative to two others, sometimes conceived of as exhausting the possibilities: a purely philosophical approach, and a purely historical one, both of which I consider in section I. The bulk of the paper is devoted to what I call "the modern historiography of the history of philosophy" (briefly characterized in section II). Its origins are closely tied to the renewal of philology. Section III recounts the methodological innovations of the New Philology and their relevance for approaching texts--including philosophical ones--from the past. In section IV, I consider some moves made by early proponents of "modern historiography"--in particular their implicit demand for an internal rather than an external history of philosophy, that is, an account that allows us to understand how and why philosophy has changed through time, in terms of philosophical factors: how, for example, one set of philosophical considerations led to a certain view; how reflecting on that view led philosophers to perceive various difficulties, and to perceive philosophical responses to those difficulties, and so on. The goal is to exclude, to as great an extent as possible, external factors, that is, factors which are not themselves philosophical views or arguments. In section V, I turn to Christian A. Brandis (1790-1867) whose methodological reflections and historiographical practice mark an enormous advance over his predecessors and even over some of his successors, like W. Jaeger. I conclude (section VI) by arguing that some "philosophical" objections brought against the way of proceeding advocated by Brandis fail. In the course of describing this new approach and its origins, I hope also to make clear why it is more attractive than the two other possibilities briefly considered in section I.
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Shipwrecked: Patocka's Philosophy of Czech History
AVIEZER TUCKER
History and Theory 35 May, 1996),196-216
Czech history defies dominant Western progressive historical narratives and moral evolutionism. Czech free-market democracy was defeated and betrayed three times in 1938, 1948, and 1968. The Czech Protestants were defeated in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consequently, Czechs have a different perspective on the traditional questions of speculative philosophy of history: Where are we coming from? Where are we going? What does it mean? They ask further: where and why did history go wrong?
Jan Patocka (1907-1977), the leading Czech philosopher and the author of Charter 77 of human rights, traced the repeated historical tragedies of the Czechs to the origins of their national movement in the imperial liberation of the serfs in the eighteenth century, debating the dominant nationalistic belief in national historical continuity, leading to linguistic nationalism. Patocka accused his nation of being "petty," of low social origins and interests, unlike their elitist neighbors. Despite his obsession with aristocracies bent on any transcendence, Patocka thought that the Czechs should have fought the Nazis in 1938 for the transcendental ideal of democracy. Linguistic nationalism led the Czechs and their leaders to choose life in slavery in their Hegelian conflict with the German masters.
The Czech reception of Patocka's philosophy of Czech history has been mixed. I criticize the philosophical, political, and historical shortcomings of Patocka's discussion. Contemporary Czech attitudes to their history are forgetfulness; new Czech historicism tracing a continuity from Jan Hus to Václav Havel; and a search for historical truth and philosphical understanding of history that has political implications.
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