Shaw (his “Quintessence of Ibsenism”): * see EndNote<A>

essay written 1891, analysis of the works of Ibsen & his reception in England;  Shaw illustrates the imperfections of British society; he was responding to the Fabian Society’s request in 1890 to highlight socialism in contemporary literature.

 

Nietzsche (his metaphysics): * see EndNote<B>

His thoughts, fragmented & constantly evolving, were antithetical to metaphysics.  In Human, All Too Human (1878), a book of aphorisms, he considers metaphysics (as well as morality & religion) arguing it was based on errors which promoted linguistic constructs (concepts and names) above sensory experience & appearance; this give rise to imaginary worlds “beyond” the world.  He abandons the metaphysical romanticism of Schopenhauer & Wagner, looking instead to materialism & science. 

 

stratum:

a layer of material, naturally or artificially formed, often one of a number of parallel layers one upon another

 

Epicurus (his metaphysics):

they were materialistic atomists: all reality consists of indestructible material elements, "atoms", which move through empty space & colliding according to deterministic mechanical laws. In the beginning all atoms rained downward in parallel paths, but some occasionally swerved from setting up chain reaction collisions which led to the clumping of atoms into the physical objects which formed the natural world from stars & planets to human bodies.  Humans are giant collections of atoms which can interact with other objects only via collisions between material atoms.  Knowledge is simply sensation which in turn is nothing more the collisions between atoms and human sense organs (another bundle of atoms.). 

 

Stoics (their metaphysics):

Only bodies can act or be acted upon, thus, only bodies exist; the Stoics were corporealist materialists: only bodies are capable of causing anything & God too is a corporeal entity immanent throughout the whole of creation, directing development down to the smallest detail.  The entire cosmos is a living thing with 2 un-generated & indestructible first principles: matter (utterly inert) and eternal reason (logos) – the intelligent designing fire or a breath (pneuma) which structures matter in accordance with its plan.  God was identified with pneuma or fire.  All things including the universe have a life cycle which is forever repeated; it begins from a state in which all is fire, through the generation of the elements, to the creation of the world & eventually back to the state of pure designing fire called ‘the conflagration’

 

metaphysics:

combination of 2 Greek words together meaning "after the natural"; coined in first century AD by compiler of Aristotle’s works in a treatise to which he gave the name “Metaphysics”; branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, relationships between mind & matter, between substance & attribute, between potentiality & actuality; it studies questions related to what existence is.

 

world-city:

Spengler’s term for the groining domination of urban over rural during the winter period, see also megalopolitan

 

Hegel:

see Chapter I, pages 19, 22, 45 Chapter X page 357 and above page 366

 

Schopenhauer:

see Chapter I pages 7, 23, 24, 29, 45 Chapter II, page 67 Chapter IV page 125 Chapter IX page 308, Chapter X pages 342, 352, 353, 355 and above page 366

 

Lotze:

(1817-1881) German philosopher & logician with a medical degree; he developed teleological idealism, a metaphysics in which the explanation for something was based on the function of its end, its purpose; his medical studies were pioneering works in scientific psychology; his philosophy aimed to classify nature, soul, mind, history & culture in a great unifying concept while also considering advances in the inorganic sciences, biology, medicine & psychology.  His magnum opus, The Mikrokosmus(1856–1864), is a unified survey, from inanimate nature, through animate, to the mind and to man, encompassing history & culture; he posited that throughout the inanimate, animate & spiritual worlds, hidden purposes were active, science, using analysis of causality, explains only the arrangement of the causal relations; the key to understanding were ideas & values, not in mechanical processes.  His goal was to unite the results of scientific research with an ethical & religious world view, demonstrating harmony between natural laws & the world of human values.

 

Herbart:

(1776–1841) German post-Kantian philosopher, a founding figure of modern psychology & educational theory; in psychology he developed useful notions of the threshold of the consciousness & the “subconscious”, fundamental to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.  As a philosopher he contrasted Hegel, especially with regard to aesthetics; he posited that philosophy begins with reflection upon our empirical conceptions & consists in the reformation and elaboration of its 3 primary divisions: logic, metaphysics & aesthetics; a radical interpreter of Kant & he proposed a grand mathematization of the mind; his ideas had little traction in mid-19th century or later German academics, in part due to his polemics against German Idealism.

 

Stoic (his body):

as fully materialist corporealists they denied the reality of spiritual existences; their metaphysics decreed only Body exists, all action proceeds by bodily contact; every form of causation is reduced to the efficient cause, motion from one body to another.

 

Marx & Engels (and Hegelian philosophy): * see EndNote<C>

Marx (1818-83) & Engels (1820-95) co-authored The Communist Manifesto in 1848, boldly proclaiming "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles".  They also collaborated in the production of Capital (1867–1883) which would become the bible of the communist monument.  Both are credited with being the founders of Marxism.  Both were also loosely associated with the Yong Hegelian Movement, based on the ideas of Hegel.

 

Stirner ( and Hegelian philosophy): * see Endnote<D>

(1806-56) German post-Hegelian philosopher, harbinger of individualist anarchism; he focused on the Hegelian ideas of social alienation & self-consciousness; a forerunner of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory & postmodernism; his main work was The Ego and Its Own or The Individual and his Property (1845), which was a radical anti-authoritarian and individualist critique of contemporary Prussian & modern western society.

 

Hebbel (and Hegelian philosophy): * see Endnote<E>

(1813-1863) German poet and dramatist who added a new psychological dimension to German drama & used Hegel’s concepts of history to dramatize conflicts in his historical tragedies.  He was concerned not so much with the individual aspects of the characters or events as with the historical process of change as it led to new moral values.  He always insisted that despite obvious parallels he had evolved his metaphysical truths independently of the romantic nature philosophy of German idealism.  However he had early in life steeped himself in the writings of Feuerbach, a Left Hegelian considered the bridge between Hegel & Marx.

 

imperative mood:

a grammatical mood that forms a command or request; an example is the English phrase "Go."; it implies a second-person subject (you),

 

Cousin:

(1792-1867) French philosopher, founder of "eclecticism", a briefly influential school of French philosophy that combined German idealism & Scottish Realism; in 1817 & 1818 in Germany he met Goethe, Schleiermacher, Schelling, & Hegel; his philosophy (eclecticism) posited that mind can accept all carefully thought-out & moderate interpretations of the world, no system is seen as false, merely incomplete; he directed his students to study the history of philosophy  & choose from each what is true & thereby arrive at a complete philosophy.  He influenced French educational policy, the introduction of the history of philosophy as a major discipline in higher schools in France was a lasting accomplishment of Cousin.

 

Bentham:

see Chapter IV, page 150

 

Comte:

see chapter I, page 24

 

Mill:

(1806-73) English philosopher, political economist & civil servant; developed classical liberalism & applied it to social & political theory & political economy; he prompted the freedom of the individual over & above unlimited state & social control;  also a proponent of utilitarianism (Bentham), and investigated scientific methodology; a Liberal Party MP he was an early feminist & called for women's suffrage.

 

Spencer:

(1820-1903) English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist & sociologist, contributed to a broad range of subjects (ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, psychology), the single most famous European intellectual in the late 19th century.  His expression "survival of the fittest" (in Principles of Biology -1864), based on Darwin's On the Origin of Species, reflected his theory of social Darwinism which he projected into sociology & ethics; natural selection & evolution was the progressive development, in nature, biolgy, the human mind, culture & societies;

  

Alles Vergangliche ist nur ein Gleichnis:

German, meaning “Everything that is past is only a parable” taken from Goethe Faust part II;

the full quote:

“All that must disappear

Is but a parable;

What lay beyond us, here

All is made visible;

Here deeds have understood

Words they were darkened by;

The Eternal Feminine

Draws us on high.”