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166-480: Johann Gottfried von Herder ( / ˈ h ɜːr d ər / HUR -dər ; German: [ˈjoːhan ˈɡɔtfʁiːt ˈhɛʁdɐ] ; 25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803) was a German philosopher , theologian, pastor , poet, and literary critic . He is associated with the Enlightenment , Sturm und Drang , and Weimar Classicism . He was a Romantic philosopher and poet who argued that true German culture

332-621: A Königsberg philosopher who disputed the claims of pure secular reason . Hamann's influence led Herder to confess to his wife later in life that "I have too little reason and too much idiosyncrasy", yet Herder can justly claim to have founded a new school of German political thought. Although himself an unsociable person, Herder influenced his contemporaries greatly. One friend wrote to him in 1785, hailing his works as "inspired by God." A varied field of theorists were later to find inspiration in Herder's tantalizingly incomplete ideas. In 1764, now

498-452: A Lutheran pastor , Herder went to Riga to teach. It was during this period that he produced his first major works, which were literary criticism . In 1769 Herder traveled by ship to the French port of Nantes and continued on to Paris. This resulted in both an account of his travels as well as a shift of his own self-conception as an author. By 1770 Herder went to Strasbourg , where he met

664-572: A counter-revolution . In response, the Assembly published the August Decrees which abolished feudalism . Over 25% of French farmland was subject to feudal dues , providing the nobility with most of their income; these were now cancelled, along with church tithes. While their former tenants were supposed to pay them compensation, collecting it proved impossible, and the obligation was annulled in 1793. Other decrees included equality before

830-471: A Parisian mob, and neither Bailly nor Lafayette could prevent it. In rural areas, wild rumours and paranoia resulted in the formation of militia and an agrarian insurrection known as la Grande Peur . The breakdown of law and order and frequent attacks on aristocratic property led much of the nobility to flee abroad. These émigrés funded reactionary forces within France and urged foreign monarchs to back

996-672: A Socialist in the Field of the Theory of Knowledge and Acquisition of Philosophy . Marx highly appreciated Dietzgen as a thinker. Noting a number of mistakes and confusion in his views, Marx wrote that Dietzgen expressed “many excellent thoughts, and as a product of the independent thinking of a worker, worthy of amazement.” Engels gave Dietzgen the same high assessment. “And it is remarkable,” wrote Engels, “that we were not alone in discovering this materialistic dialectic, which for many years now has been our best tool of labor and our sharpest weapon;

1162-439: A campaign for war against Austria and Prussia, often interpreted as a mixture of calculation and idealism. While exploiting popular anti-Austrianism, it reflected a genuine belief in exporting the values of political liberty and popular sovereignty. Simultaneously, conservatives headed by Marie Antoinette also favoured war, seeing it as a way to regain control of the military, and restore royal authority. In December 1791, Louis made

1328-468: A correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples) published in 1773 in a manifesto along with contributions by Goethe and Justus Möser . Herder wrote that "A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world." To him such poetry had its greatest purity and power in nations before they became civilised, as shown in

1494-516: A critical economic examination of capitalism. Marxism became one of the major forces on twentieth century world history. It is important to note that the groups were not as unified or as self-conscious as the labels 'right' and 'left' make them appear. The term 'Right Hegelian', for example, was never actually used by those to whom it was later ascribed, namely, Hegel's direct successors at the Fredrick William University (now

1660-683: A distinction opposed by a significant minority, including the Jacobin clubs . By mid-1790, the main elements of a constitutional monarchy were in place, although the constitution was not accepted by Louis until 1791. Food shortages and the worsening economy caused frustration at the lack of progress, and led to popular unrest in Paris. This came to a head in late September 1789, when the Flanders Regiment arrived in Versailles to reinforce

1826-418: A further attack on any attribution of the first words to the imitation of natural sounds, to the physiology of the vocal organs, or to social convention… [Herder argued] for the linguistic character of our cognition but also for the cognitive nature of human language. One could not think without language, as various Enlightenment thinkers argued, but at the same time one could not properly speak without perceiving

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1992-514: A great craze in Germany for that neglected topic. Herder was one of the first to argue that language contributes to shaping the frameworks and the patterns with which each linguistic community thinks and feels. For Herder, language is "the organ of thought." This has often been misinterpreted, however. Neither Herder nor the great philosopher of language, Wilhelm von Humboldt , argue that language (written or oral) determines thought. Rather, language

2158-492: A list of grievances, known as Cahiers de doléances . Tax inequality and seigneurial dues (feudal payments owed to landowners) headed the grievances in the cahiers de doleances for the estate. On 5 May 1789, the Estates-General convened at Versailles . Necker outlined the state budget and reiterated the king's decision that each estate should decide on which matters it would agree to meet and vote in common with

2324-810: A major influence on both philosophers and artists. French Revolution The French Revolution ( French : Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] ) was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 , and ended with the coup of 18 Brumaire in November 1799 and the formation of the French Consulate . Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy , while its values and institutions remain central to modern French political discourse. The causes of

2490-494: A majority by forging consensus with monarchiens like Mounier, and independents including Adrien Duport , Barnave and Alexandre Lameth . At one end of the political spectrum, reactionaries like Cazalès and Maury denounced the Revolution in all its forms, with radicals like Maximilien Robespierre at the other. He and Jean-Paul Marat opposed the criteria for "active citizens", gaining them substantial support among

2656-467: A new independent judiciary, with jury trials for criminal cases. However, moderate deputies were uneasy at popular demands for universal suffrage, labour unions and cheap bread, and over the winter of 1790 and 1791, they passed a series of measures intended to disarm popular radicalism. These included exclusion of poorer citizens from the National Guard, limits on use of petitions and posters, and

2822-816: A people’s state could be built in Prussian Germany through reform, without the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and of the state , thus rejecting the Marxist notion of class struggle . In 1872 the Kathedersozialisten formed in Germany the "Union of Social Policy". Their ideas were similar to those of the Fabian socialists in Britain. “Academic socialism” supported a variation of Otto von Bismarck ’s welfare state . The most notable “academic socialists” in Germany were Bruno Hildebrand , who

2988-775: A personal split. His unpopular attacks on Kantian philosophy were another reason for his isolation in later years. In 1802 Herder was ennobled by the Elector-Prince of Bavaria , which added the prefix "von" to his last name. He died in Weimar in 1803 at age 59. Herder was influenced by his academic advisor Immanuel Kant , as well as seventeenth-century philosophers Spinoza and Leibniz . In turn, he influenced Hegel , Nietzsche , Goethe , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Stuart Mill , Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel , Wilhelm von Humboldt , Franz Boas , and Walter Rauschenbusch among others. In 1772, Herder published Treatise on

3154-562: A philosophical founder of the revolution, wrote it was "manifestly contrary to the law of nature ... that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities." The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Catholic Church to the state; although the extent of religious belief has been questioned, elimination of tolerance for religious minorities meant by 1789 being French also meant being Catholic. The church

3320-411: A price, that of true nationality. Herder's patriotism bordered at times upon national pantheism , demanding of territorial unity as "He is deserving of glory and gratitude who seeks to promote the unity of the territories of Germany through writings, manufacture, and institutions" and sounding an even deeper call: But now! Again I cry, my German brethren! But now! The remains of all genuine folk-thought

3486-542: A representative body that had last met in 1614. The conflict between the Crown and the parlements became a national political crisis. Both sides issued a series of public statements, the government arguing that it was combating privilege and the parlement defending the ancient rights of the nation. Public opinion was firmly on the side of the parlements , and riots broke out in several towns. Brienne's attempts to raise new loans failed, and on 8 August 1788, he announced that

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3652-481: A representative of subjective idealism , Fichte rejected the Kantian " thing-in-itself ." Fichte declares as the starting point of his philosophy the absolute "I," which itself creates the world with all its laws. Fichte understands the activity of this "I" as the activity of thought, as a process of self-awareness. Fichte recognizes absolute free will , God and the immortality of the soul . He sees in law one of

3818-571: A result, the clergy and nobility could combine to outvote the Third Estate despite representing less than 5% of the population. Following the relaxation of censorship and laws against political clubs, a group of liberal nobles and middle class activists, known as the Society of Thirty, launched a campaign for the doubling of Third Estate representation and individual voting. The public debate saw an average of 25 new political pamphlets published

3984-550: A significant proportion of the 6 million Frenchmen over 25, while only 10% of those able to vote actually did so. Finally, poor harvests and rising food prices led to unrest among the urban class known as Sans-culottes , who saw the new regime as failing to meet their demands for bread and work. This meant the new constitution was opposed by significant elements inside and outside the Assembly, itself split into three main groups. 264 members were affiliated with Barnave's Feuillants , constitutional monarchists who considered

4150-445: A single body, and the following day approved a " suspensive veto " for the king, meaning Louis could delay implementation of a law, but not block it indefinitely. In October, the Assembly voted to restrict political rights, including voting rights, to "active citizens", defined as French males over the age of 25 who paid direct taxes equal to three days' labour. The remainder were designated "passive citizens", restricted to "civil rights",

4316-541: A speech in the Assembly giving foreign powers a month to disband the émigrés or face war, an act greeted with enthusiasm by supporters, but suspicion from opponents. Barnave's inability to build a consensus in the Assembly resulted in the appointment of a new government, chiefly composed of Brissotins . On 20 April 1792, the French Revolutionary Wars began when French armies attacked Austrian and Prussian forces along their borders, before suffering

4482-571: A synchronic issue rather than a diachronic one." And in this sense, when Humboldt argues that all thinking is thinking in language, he is perpetuating the Herderian tradition. Herder additionally advanced select notions of myriad "authentic" conceptions of Völk and the unity of the individual and natural law, which became fodder for his self-proclaimed twentieth-century disciples. Herderian ideas continue to influence thinkers, linguists and anthropologists, and they have often been considered central to

4648-410: A week from 25 September 1788. The Abbé Sieyès issued influential pamphlets denouncing the privilege of the clergy and nobility, and arguing the Third Estate represented the nation and should sit alone as a National Assembly. Activists such as Mounier , Barnave and Robespierre organised regional meetings, petitions and literature in support of these demands. In December, the king agreed to double

4814-418: Is all there is to observe, nothing more. There are no hidden aspects. Furthermore, via introspection we can only observe our individual will. This also leads Mainländer to the philosophical position of pluralism . Additionally, Mainländer accentuates on the idea of salvation for all of creation. This is yet another respect in which he differentiates his philosophy from that of Schopenhauer. With Schopenhauer,

4980-477: Is an individual in the realm of minds: it senses in accordance with an individual formation, and thinks in accordance with the strength of its mental organs. ... My long allegory has succeeded if it achieves the representation of the mind of a human being as an individual phenomenon, as a rarity which deserves to occupy our eyes." Herder has been described as a proto-evolutionary thinker by some science historians, although this has been disputed by others. Concerning

5146-531: Is but one and the same species of man throughout the whole earth". He also announced that "national glory is a deceiving seducer. When it reaches a certain height, it clasps the head with an iron band. The enclosed sees nothing in the mist but his own picture; he is susceptible to no foreign impressions." The passage of time was to demonstrate that while many Germans were to find influence in Herder's convictions and influence, fewer were to note his qualifying stipulations. Herder had emphasised that his conception of

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5312-419: Is designed to reveal the unconditioned cause that produces all natural phenomena. Schelling considered the absolute as a beginning capable of self-development through contradictions; in this sense, Schelling’s philosophy is characterized by some features of idealist dialectics . In his early philosophy, around 1800, Schelling assigned a special role to art, in which, according to him, the reality of "higher being"

5478-489: Is force, while space , matter , and motion are merely phenomenal. Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant. His main achievement was a complete oeuvre on almost every scholarly subject of his time, displayed and unfolded according to his demonstrative-deductive, mathematical method, which perhaps represents the peak of Enlightenment rationality in Germany . Wolff

5644-470: Is fully comprehended. Schelling interpreted art as "revelation." The artist, according to Schelling at this time, is a kind of mystical creature who creates in unconsciousness. For Schelling, the main instrument of creativity is intuition , "inner contemplation." In later life, Schelling evolves towards a mystical philosophy ( Mysterienlehre ). He was invited by the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV to

5810-616: Is rolling into the abyss of oblivion with a last and accelerated impetus. For the last century we have been ashamed of everything that concerns the fatherland. In his Ideas upon Philosophy and the History of Mankind he wrote: "Compare England with Germany: the English are Germans, and even in the latest times the Germans have led the way for the English in the greatest things." Herder, who hated absolutism and Prussian nationalism, but who

5976-428: Is self-movement, and its activity can be expressed only in thinking, in self-knowledge. It is internally contradictory, it moves and changes, passing into its opposite . Hegel presents the dialectical process of self-development in three main stages, which are ordered conceptually, not temporally. The first stage is logical, was describes the "pre-natural" structure being in the "element of pure thinking." At this stage,

6142-439: Is the harmonizing of primitive and derivative truth, of experience and intelligence, feeling and reasoning. Herder is the first in a long line of Germans preoccupied with this harmony. This search is itself the key to the understanding of many German theories of the time; however Herder understood and feared the extremes to which his folk-theory could tend, and so issued specific warnings. He argued that Jews in Germany should enjoy

6308-525: The Champ de Mars to sign. Led by Lafayette, the National Guard was ordered to "preserve public order" and responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd , killing between 13 and 50 people. The massacre badly damaged Lafayette's reputation: the authorities responded by closing radical clubs and newspapers, while their leaders went into exile or hiding, including Marat. On 27 August, Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued

6474-658: The Declaration of Pillnitz declaring their support for Louis and hinting at an invasion of France on his behalf. In reality, the meeting between Leopold and Frederick was primarily to discuss the Partitions of Poland ; the Declaration was intended to satisfy Comte d'Artois and other French émigrés but the threat rallied popular support behind the regime. Based on a motion proposed by Robespierre, existing deputies were barred from elections held in early September for

6640-577: The French Legislative Assembly . Although Robespierre himself was one of those excluded, his support in the clubs gave him a political power base not available to Lafayette and Bailly, who resigned respectively as head of the National Guard and the Paris Commune. The new laws were gathered together in the 1791 Constitution , and submitted to Louis XVI, who pledged to defend it "from enemies at home and abroad". On 30 September,

6806-556: The Humboldt University of Berlin ). (The term was first used by David Strauss to describe Bruno Bauer—who actually was a typically 'Left', or Young, Hegelian.) Friedrich Engels , also a Young Hegelian originally, was a friend and associate of Marx, together with whom he developed the theory of scientific socialism ( communism ) and the doctrines of dialectical and historical materialism . His major works include The Holy Family (together with Marx, 1844) criticizing

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6972-478: The Hôtel de Ville, some 7,000 of them marched on Versailles , where they entered the Assembly to present their demands. They were followed to Versailles by 15,000 members of the National Guard under Lafayette, who was virtually "a prisoner of his own troops". When the National Guard arrived later that evening, Lafayette persuaded Louis the safety of his family required their relocation to Paris. Next morning, some of

7138-589: The Kingdom of Prussia , his parents were teacher Gottfried Herder (1706–1763) and his wife Anna Elizabeth Herder, nee Peltz (1717–1772) grew up in a poor household, educating himself from his father's Bible and songbook . In 1762, as a youth of 17, he enrolled at the University of Königsberg , about 60 miles (100 km) north of Mohrungen, where he became a student of Immanuel Kant . At the same time, Herder became an intellectual protégé of Johann Georg Hamann ,

7304-665: The Lutheran philosopher who founded Christian theosophy , influenced later key figures including F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F. Hegel, who called him "the first German philosopher". Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was both a philosopher and a mathematician who wrote primarily in Latin and French . Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza , was one of the three great 17th century advocates of rationalism . The work of Leibniz also anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy , but his philosophy also looks back to

7470-905: The Middle Ages and mused whether "the times of the Swabian emperors" did not "deserve to be set forth in their true light in accordance with the German mode of thought?". Herder equated the German with the Gothic and favored Dürer and everything Gothic . As with the sphere of art, he also proclaimed a national message within the sphere of language . He topped the line of German authors emanating from Martin Opitz , who had written his Aristarchus, sive de contemptu linguae Teutonicae in latin in 1617, urging Germans to glory in their hitherto despised language. Herder's extensive collections of folk-poetry began

7636-570: The Old Testament , the Edda , and Homer , and he tried to find such virtues in ancient German folk songs and Norse poetry and mythology . Herder – most pronouncedly after Georg Forster 's 1791 translation of the Sanskrit play Shakuntala – was influenced by the religious imagery of Hinduism and Indian literature, which he saw in a positive light, writing several essays on the topic and

7802-543: The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and Franz Boas' coalescence of comparative linguistics and historical particularism with a neo-Kantian/Herderian four-field approach to the study of all cultures, as well as, more recently, anthropological studies by Dell Hymes. Herder's focus upon language and cultural traditions as the ties that create a "nation" extended to include folklore , dance, music and art, and inspired Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in their collection of German folk tales. Arguably,

7968-471: The Vendée , where only a few priests took the oath and the civilian population turned against the revolution. The result was state-led persecution of " Refractory clergy ", many of whom were forced into exile, deported, or executed. The period from October 1789 to spring 1791 is usually seen as one of relative tranquility, when some of the most important legislative reforms were enacted. However, conflict over

8134-462: The ascetic teachings of Vedanta and the Desert Fathers of early Christianity . Towards the end of Schopenhauer's life and in the years after his death, post-Schopenhauerian pessimism became a rather popular "trend" in 19th century Germany. Nevertheless, it was viewed with disdain by the other popular philosophies at the time, such as Hegelianism , materialism , neo-Kantianism , and

8300-424: The family is an ever-changing institution that has been shaped by capitalism . It contains an historical view of the family in relation to issues of class, female subjugation and private property. Joseph Dietzgen was a German leatherworker and social democrat, who independently developed a number of questions of philosophy and came to conclusions very close to the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels. After

8466-479: The intuitionist and irrationalist school of Lebensphilosophie in Germany, is credited with leading the Romantic revival in hermeneutics of the early 20th century. With his Schleiermacher biography and works on Novalis , Hölderlin , and others, he was one of the initiators of the Romantic renaissance in the imperial period. His discovery and annotation of the young Hegel 's manuscripts became crucial to

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8632-466: The parlements , the nobility, and those subject to new taxes. France primarily funded the Anglo-French War of 1778–1783 through loans. Following the peace, the monarchy borrowed heavily, culminating in a debt crisis. By 1788, half of state revenue was required to service its debt. In 1786, the French finance minister, Calonne , proposed a package of reforms including a universal land tax,

8798-644: The revolution of 1848 he emigrated to America and in 1864 in search of work, he went to Russia . Working in a tannery in St. Petersburg , Dietzgen devoted all his leisure time to works in the field of philosophy, political economy and socialism . In Russia he wrote a large philosophical treatise, The Essence of the Mental Labor of Man , a review of the first volume of Capital by Karl Marx . In 1869 Dietzgen returned to Germany, and then moved again to America, where he wrote his philosophical works Excursions of

8964-400: The scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason to first principles or a priori definitions rather than to empirical evidence . Leibniz is noted for his optimism – his Théodicée tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds . It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it

9130-466: The tribal outlook writing that "the savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species", isolated since "each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity". With no need for comparison since "every nation bears in itself

9296-514: The " personal God " after panlogist Hegelianism. The movement featured elements of anti-psychologism in the historiography of philosophy . The Young Hegelians drew on Hegel's idea that the purpose and promise of history was the total negation of everything conducive to restricting freedom and reason; and they proceeded to mount radical critiques, first of religion and then of the Prussian political system. They felt Hegel's apparent belief in

9462-481: The "absolute idea" appears as a system of logical concepts and categories, as a system of logic. This part of Hegel's philosophical system is set forth in his Science of Logic . At the second stage, the "idea" is considered "in its externality" as nature. Hegel expounded his doctrine of nature in The Philosophy of Nature . The highest, third step in the self-development of the idea is spirit, which Hegel, for

9628-427: The 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian philosophers such as Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843) and Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841). The neo-Kantian schools tended to emphasize scientific readings of Kant, often downplaying the role of intuition in favour of concepts. However,

9794-417: The Assembly and published on 26 August as a statement of principle. The Assembly now concentrated on the constitution itself. Mounier and his monarchist supporters advocated a bicameral system, with an upper house appointed by the king, who would also have the right to appoint ministers and veto legislation. On 10 September, the majority of the Assembly, led by Sieyès and Talleyrand , voted in favour of

9960-498: The Assembly was increasingly divided, while external players like the Paris Commune and National Guard competed for power. One of the most significant was the Jacobin club; originally a forum for general debate, by August 1790 it had over 150 members, split into different factions. The Assembly continued to develop new institutions; in September 1790, the regional Parlements were abolished and their legal functions replaced by

10126-623: The Assembly went into a non-stop session after rumours circulated he was planning to use the Swiss Guards to force it to close. The news brought crowds of protestors into the streets, and soldiers of the elite Gardes Françaises regiment refused to disperse them. On the 14th, many of these soldiers joined the mob in attacking the Bastille , a royal fortress with large stores of arms and ammunition. Its governor, Bernard-René de Launay , surrendered after several hours of fighting that cost

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10292-654: The Bastille in Paris on 14 July was followed by a series of radical measures by the Assembly, among them the abolition of feudalism , state control over the Catholic Church , and a declaration of rights . The next three years were dominated by the struggle for political control, and military defeats following the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792 led to an insurrection on 10 August . The monarchy

10458-528: The Civil Constitution led to a state of near civil war in southern France, which Barnave tried to defuse by relaxing the more punitive provisions. On 29 November, the Assembly approved a decree giving refractory clergy eight days to comply, or face charges of 'conspiracy against the nation', an act opposed even by Robespierre. When Louis vetoed both, his opponents were able to portray him as opposed to reform in general. Brissot accompanied this with

10624-565: The Constituent Assembly was dissolved, and the Legislative Assembly convened the next day. The Legislative Assembly is often dismissed by historians as an ineffective body, compromised by divisions over the role of the monarchy, an issue exacerbated when Louis attempted to prevent or reverse limitations on his powers. At the same time, restricting the vote to those who paid a minimal amount of tax disenfranchised

10790-539: The Crown. The royal family left the palace in disguise on the night of 20 June 1791; late the next day, Louis was recognised as he passed through Varennes , arrested and taken back to Paris. The attempted escape had a profound impact on public opinion; since it was clear Louis had been seeking refuge in Austria, the Assembly now demanded oaths of loyalty to the regime, and began preparing for war, while fear of 'spies and traitors' became pervasive. Despite calls to replace

10956-402: The Estates-General. However, he stated that the three estates were sacrosanct and it was up to each estate to agree to end their privileges and decide on which matters they would vote in common with the other estates. At the end of the session the Third Estate refused to leave the hall and reiterated their oath not to disperse until a constitution had been agreed. Over the next days more members of

11122-623: The European revolts of the 1780s inspired public debate on issues such as patriotism, liberty, equality, and democracy. These shaped the response of the educated public to the crisis, while scandals such as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace fuelled widespread anger at the court, nobility, and church officials. France faced a series of budgetary crises during the 18th century, as revenues failed to keep pace with expenditure. Although

11288-469: The French'. Historian John McManners argues "in eighteenth-century France, throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence." One suggestion is that after a century of persecution, some French Protestants actively supported an anti-Catholic regime, a resentment fuelled by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire . Jean-Jacques Rousseau , considered

11454-400: The German worker Joseph Dietzgen rediscovered it independently of us and even independently of Hegel.” The Kathedersozialismus movement (academic socialism) was a theoretical and political trend that arose in the second half of the 19th century in German universities. The “academic socialists” – mostly economists and sociologists belonging to the “ Historical School ” – tried to prove that

11620-451: The June 1791 Le Chapelier Law suppressing trade guilds and any form of worker organisation. The traditional force for preserving law and order was the army, which was increasingly divided between officers, who largely came from the nobility, and ordinary soldiers. In August 1790, the loyalist General Bouillé suppressed a serious mutiny at Nancy ; although congratulated by the Assembly, he

11786-544: The Origin of Language and went further in this promotion of language than his earlier anti-French injunction to "spew out the ugly slime of the Seine . Speak German, O You German". Herder now had established the foundations of comparative philology within the new currents of political outlook. Herder wrote an important essay on Shakespeare and Auszug aus einem Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker (Extract from

11952-465: The Parisian proletariat, many of whom had been disenfranchised by the measure. On 14 July 1790, celebrations were held throughout France commemorating the fall of the Bastille, with participants swearing an oath of fidelity to "the nation, the law and the king." The Fête de la Fédération in Paris was attended by the royal family, with Talleyrand performing a mass . Despite this show of unity,

12118-560: The Philosophical Sciences ( Logic, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Spirit ) (1817), Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821). Immanuel Kant 's criticism of rationalism was a source of influence for early Romantic thought. Hamann 's and Herder 's philosophical thoughts were also influential on both the proto-Romantic Sturm und Drang movement and on Romanticism itself. The philosophy of Fichte

12284-685: The Republic was replaced in 1795 by the Directory , and four years later, in 1799, the Consulate seized power in a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte on 9 November. This event is generally seen as marking the end of the Revolutionary period. The Revolution resulted from multiple long-term and short-term factors, culminating in a social, economic, financial and political crisis in the late 1780s. Combined with resistance to reform by

12450-429: The Revolution had gone far enough, while another 136 were Jacobin leftists who supported a republic, led by Brissot and usually referred to as Brissotins . The remaining 345 belonged to La Plaine , a centrist faction who switched votes depending on the issue, but many of whom shared doubts as to whether Louis was committed to the Revolution. After he officially accepted the new Constitution, one recorded response

12616-470: The Third Estate declared itself to be the National Assembly of France and that all existing taxes were illegal. Within two days, more than 100 members of the clergy had joined them. Shaken by this challenge to his authority, the king agreed to a reform package that he would announce at a Royal Session of the Estates-General. The Salle des États was closed to prepare for the joint session, but

12782-560: The Third despite representing less than 5% of the population. Although the Catholic Church in France owned nearly 10% of all land, as well as receiving annual tithes paid by peasants, three-quarters of the 303 clergy elected were parish priests, many of whom earned less than unskilled labourers and had more in common with their poor parishioners than with the bishops of the first estate. The Second Estate elected 322 deputies, representing about 400,000 men and women, who owned about 25% of

12948-756: The Young Hegelians, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), a study of the deprived conditions of the working class in Manchester and Salford based on Engels's personal observations, The Peasant War in Germany (1850), an account of the early 16th-century uprising known as the German Peasants' War with a comparison with the recent revolutionary uprisings of 1848–1849 across Europe, Anti-Dühring (1878) criticizing

13114-399: The abolition of grain controls and internal tariffs, and new provincial assemblies appointed by the king. The new taxes, however, were rejected, first by a hand-picked Assembly of Notables dominated by the nobility, then by the parlements when submitted by Calonne's successor Brienne . The notables and parlements argued that the proposed taxes could only be approved by an Estates-General,

13280-403: The age, into the region, into the whole history, and feel one's way into everything". The historian should be the "regenerated contemporary" of the past, and history a science as "instrument of the most genuine patriotic spirit". Germans did not have a nation-state until the nineteenth century. Those who spoke Germanic languages lived in politically unconnected lands and groups. Herder was among

13446-868: The artist is freed from the power of the will only temporarily. As soon as he turns into an ordinary mortal, his greedy will again raises its voice and throws him into the embrace of disappointment and boredom. Above the artist stands, therefore, the Hindu sage or the holy ascetic . Hegel was hugely influential throughout the nineteenth century; by its end, according to Bertrand Russell , "the leading academic philosophers, both in America and Britain, were largely Hegelian". His influence has continued in contemporary philosophy, especially in Continental philosophy . Among those influenced by Hegel immediately after his death in 1831, two distinct groups can be roughly divided into

13612-573: The authority of the Pope over the French Church. In October, thirty bishops wrote a declaration denouncing the law, further fuelling opposition. When clergy were required to swear loyalty to the Civil Constitution in November 1790, it split the church between the 24% who complied, and the majority who refused. This stiffened popular resistance against state interference, especially in traditionally Catholic areas such as Normandy , Brittany and

13778-483: The calling of the Estates General of 1789 , which became radicalised by the struggle for control of public finances. Louis XVI was willing to consider reforms, but often backed down when faced with opposition from conservative elements within the nobility. Enlightenment critiques of social institutions were widely discussed among the educated French elite. At the same time, the American Revolution and

13944-521: The clergy joined the National Assembly. On 27 June, faced with popular demonstrations and mutinies in his French Guards , Louis XVI capitulated. He commanded the members of the first and second estates to join the third in the National Assembly. Even the limited reforms the king had announced went too far for Marie Antoinette and Louis' younger brother the Comte d'Artois . On their advice, Louis dismissed Necker again as chief minister on 11 July. On 12 July,

14110-459: The concept of nationality and of patriotism – "he that has lost his patriotic spirit has lost himself and the whole worlds about himself", whilst teaching that "in a certain sense every human perfection is national". Herder carried folk theory to an extreme by maintaining that "there is only one class in the state, the Volk , (not the rabble), and the king belongs to this class as well as

14276-456: The corpuscles of the mechanical philosophy of René Descartes and others. Monads are the ultimate elements of the universe . The monads are "substantial forms of being" with the following properties: they are eternal, indecomposable, individual, subject to their own laws, un-interacting, and each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony (a historically important example of panpsychism ). Monads are centers of force ; substance

14442-638: The dismissive tag of 'contrary to nature' gained a particularly extensive form in the course of the development of reactionary German romanticism ( Savigny , the historical law school , etc.). The antithesis of 'organic growth' and 'mechanical fabrication' was now elaborated: it constituted a defence of 'naturally grown' feudal privileges against the praxis of the French Revolution and the bourgeois ideologies underlying it, which were repudiated as mechanical, highbrow and abstract. Wilhelm Dilthey , founder (along with Nietzsche, Simmel , and Klages ) of

14608-497: The economy grew solidly, the increase was not reflected in a proportional growth in taxes, their collection being contracted to tax farmers who kept much of it as personal profit. As the nobility and Church benefited from many exemptions, the tax burden fell mainly on peasants. Reform was difficult because new tax laws had to be registered with regional judicial bodies or parlements that were able to block them. The king could impose laws by decree, but this risked open conflict with

14774-552: The emerging positivism . In an age of upcoming revolutions and exciting new discoveries in science , the resigned and a-progressive nature of the typical pessimist was seen as detriment to social development. To respond to this growing criticism, a group of philosophers greatly influenced by Schopenhauer such as Julius Bahnsen (1830–81), Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906), Philipp Mainländer (1841–76), and even some of his personal acquaintances developed their own brand of pessimism, each in their own unique way. Working in

14940-430: The end of history conflicted with other aspects of his thought and that, contrary to his later thought, the dialectic was certainly not complete; this they felt was obvious given the irrationality of religious beliefs and the empirical lack of freedoms—especially political and religious freedoms—in existing Prussian society. They rejected anti-utopian aspects of his thought that "Old Hegelians" have interpreted to mean that

15106-578: The eternal holiday of poetry. The quietist and aestheticist mood of Romanticism, the reflection and idealization of the mood of the aristocracy , again emerges in Schopenhauer ’s philosophical system The World as Will and Representation , ending with a pessimistic chord. Schopenhauer argued that at the heart of the world and man lies the “ will to life ,” which leads them to suffering and boredom, and happiness can be experienced only by those who free themselves from its oppressive domination. Even

15272-427: The ethical aspects of neo-Kantian thought often drew them within the orbit of socialism , and they had an important influence on Austromarxism and the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein . The neo-Kantian school was of importance in devising a division of philosophy that has had durable influence well beyond Germany. It made early use of terms such as epistemology and upheld its prominence over ontology . By 1933 (after

15438-630: The existing Prussian state. And here the master’s claim was viewed as paradox, at best; the Prussian regime indeed provided extensive civil and social services, good universities, high employment and some industrialization, but it was ranked as rather backward politically compared with the more liberal constitutional monarchies of France and Britain. Speculative theism was an 1830s movement closely related to, but distinguished from, Right Hegelianism. Its proponents ( Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1796–1879), Christian Hermann Weisse (1801–1866), and Hermann Ulrici (1806–1884) were united in their demand to recover

15604-630: The first German intellectuals to craft a foundation for German cultural unification and German national consciousness based mostly on German language and literature. While rationality was the prime value of Enlightenment philosophers, Herder's appeal to sentiment places him within German Romantiscm. He gave Germans new pride in their origins, modifying that dominance of regard allotted to Greek art ( Greek revival ) extolled among others by Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . He remarked that he would have wished to be born in

15770-410: The full rights and obligations of Germans, and that the non-Jews of the world owed a debt to Jews for centuries of abuse, and that this debt could be discharged only by actively assisting those Jews who wished to do so to regain political sovereignty in their ancient homeland of Israel. Herder refused to adhere to a rigid racial theory , writing that "notwithstanding the varieties of the human form, there

15936-556: The greatest inheritor of Herder's linguistic philosophy was Wilhelm von Humboldt. Humboldt's great contribution lay in developing Herder's idea that language is "the organ of thought" into his own belief that languages were specific worldviews ( Weltansichten ), as Jürgen Trabant argues in the Wilhelm von Humboldt lectures on the Rouen Ethnolinguistics Project website. Herder attached exceptional importance to

16102-475: The happiest people, and in their works, along with knights chained in armor, poets, painters and musicians usually appear. Schelling considered an artist to be incomparably higher than a philosopher, because the secret of the world can be guessed from his minutia not by systematic logical thinking, but only by direct artistic intuition (" intellectual intuition "). Romantics loved to dream of such legendary countries, where all life with its everyday cares gave way to

16268-500: The history of life on earth, Herder proposed naturalistic and metaphysical (religious) ideas that are difficult to distinguish and interpret. He was known for proposing a great chain of being . In his book From the Greeks to Darwin , Henry Fairfield Osborn wrote that "in a general way he upholds the doctrine of the transformation of the lower and higher forms of life, of a continuous transformation from lower to higher types, and of

16434-639: The ideal of a person's individuality. Although he had from an early period championed the individuality of cultures – for example, in his This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity (1774), he also championed the individuality of persons within a culture; for example, in his On Thomas Abbt 's Writings (1768) and On the Cognition and Sensation of the Human Soul (1778). In On Thomas Abbt's Writings , Herder stated that "a human soul

16600-506: The ideas of Fichte, subsequently created his own philosophical system. Nature and consciousness, object and subject, Schelling argued, coincide in the Absolute; Schelling called his philosophy "the philosophy of identity." In natural philosophy , Schelling set himself the task of knowing the absolute, infinite spirit that lies at the basis of empirical visible nature. According to Schelling, the science of nature, based exclusively on reason,

16766-464: The king would summon an Estates-General to convene the following May. Brienne resigned and was replaced by Necker . In September 1788, the Parlement of Paris ruled that the Estates-General should convene in the same form as in 1614, meaning that the three estates (the clergy, nobility, and Third Estate or "commons") would meet and vote separately, with votes counted by estate rather than by head. As

16932-564: The land and collected seigneurial dues and rents from their tenants. Most delegates were town-dwelling members of the noblesse d'épée , or traditional aristocracy. Courtiers and representatives of the noblesse de robe (those who derived rank from judicial or administrative posts) were underrepresented. Of the 610 deputies of the Third Estate, about two-thirds held legal qualifications and almost half were venal office holders. Less than 100 were in trade or industry and none were peasants or artisans. To assist delegates, each region completed

17098-593: The language and wisdom of the Indians )." In the opinion of György Lukács , Friedrich Nietzsche 's importance as an irrationalist philosopher lay in that, while his early influences are to be found in Romanticism, he founded a modern irrationalism antithetical to that of the Romantics Even in his post-Schopenhauerian period, however, Nietzsche paid some tributes to Romanticism, for example borrowing

17264-426: The law of Perfectibility." However, biographer Wulf Köpke disagreed, noting that "biological evolution from animals to the human species was outside of his thinking, which was still influenced by the idea of divine creation." German philosopher Albertus Magnus is seen as one of the greatest philosphers of the middle ages. His works covered a wide field of science and philosophy. Jakob Böhme (1575–1624),

17430-403: The law, opening public office to all, freedom of worship, and cancellation of special privileges held by provinces and towns. With the suspension of the 13 regional parlements in November, the key institutional pillars of the old regime had all been abolished in less than four months. From its early stages, the Revolution therefore displayed signs of its radical nature; what remained unclear

17596-441: The limited terms in which the mind can think: if we can only comprehend things in terms of cause and effect, then we can only know causes and effects. It follows from this that we can know the form of all possible experience independent of all experience, but nothing else, but we can never know the world from the "standpoint of nowhere" and therefore we can never know the world in its entirety, neither via reason nor experience. Since

17762-519: The lives of 83 attackers. Taken to the Hôtel de Ville , he was executed, his head placed on a pike and paraded around the city; the fortress was then torn down in a remarkably short time. Although rumoured to hold many prisoners, the Bastille held only seven: four forgers, a lunatic, a failed assassin, and a deviant nobleman. Nevertheless, as a potent symbol of the Ancien Régime , its destruction

17928-466: The manifestations of the “I". Speaking with progressive slogans of defending the national sovereignty of the Germans from Napoleon , Fichte at the same time put forward chauvinist slogans, especially in his Addresses to the German Nation (1808), for which Fichte is regarded as one of the founders of modern German nationalism . Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , who initially adhered to

18094-475: The members of the Estates-General were not informed in advance. On 20 June, when the members of the Third Estate found their meeting place closed, they moved to a nearby tennis court and swore not to disperse until a new constitution had been agreed. At the Royal Session the king announced a series of tax and other reforms and stated that no new taxes or loans would be implemented without the consent of

18260-479: The metaphysical framework of Schopenhauer, Philipp Mainländer sees the "will" as the innermost core of being, the ontological arche . However, he deviates from Schopenhauer in important respects. With Schopenhauer the will is singular, unified and beyond time and space. Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism leads him to conclude that we only have access to a certain aspect of the thing-in-itself by introspective observation of our own bodies. What we observe as will

18426-442: The monarchy with a republic, Louis retained his position but was generally regarded with acute suspicion and forced to swear allegiance to the constitution. A new decree stated retracting this oath, making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would be considered abdication. However, radicals led by Jacques Pierre Brissot prepared a petition demanding his deposition, and on 17 July, an immense crowd gathered in

18592-681: The most part, presents as it increasingly comes to know itself in history. Hegel reveals this stage of development of the "absolute idea" in his work Philosophy of Spirit from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences and in his lectures at the University of Berlin, many of which cover material not found in his published writings. The highest stage of spirit is presented as in the forms of art , religion , and philosophy . The main works of Hegel are The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Science of Logic (1812–1816), Encyclopedia of

18758-411: The nation encouraged democracy and the free self-expression of a people's identity. He proclaimed support for the French Revolution , a position which did not endear him to royalty. He also differed with Kant's philosophy for not placing reasoning within the context of language. Herder did not think that reason itself could be criticized, as it did not exist except as the process of reasoning. This process

18924-422: The other estates. On the following day, each estate was to separately verify the credentials of their representatives. The Third Estate, however, voted to invite the other estates to join them in verifying all the representatives of the Estates-General in common and to agree that votes should be counted by head. Fruitless negotiations lasted to 12 June when the Third Estate began verifying its own members. On 17 June,

19090-651: The peasant". Explanation that the Volk was not the rabble was a novel conception in this era, and with Herder can be seen the emergence of "the people" as the basis for the emergence of a classless but hierarchical national body. The nation, however, was individual and separate, distinguished, to Herder, by climate, education, foreign intercourse, tradition and heredity. Providence he praised for having "wonderfully separated nationalities not only by woods and mountains, seas and deserts, rivers and climates, but more particularly by languages, inclinations and characters". Herder praised

19256-519: The philosophy of Eugen Dühring , Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880) studying the utopian socialists Charles Fourier and Robert Owen and their differences with Engels' version of socialism, Dialectics of Nature (1883) applying Marxist ideas, particularly those of dialectical materialism , to science , and The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) arguing that

19422-449: The phrase "God is dead". His problem, then, was how to live a positive life considering that if you believe in God, you give in to dishonesty and cruel beliefs (e.g., divine predestination of some individuals to Hell), and if you don't believe in God, you give in to nihilism. He believed he found his solution in the concepts of the Übermensch and Eternal Recurrence . His work continues to have

19588-436: The politically and religiously radical 'left', or 'young', Hegelians and the more conservative 'right', or 'old', Hegelians. The Right Hegelians followed the master in believing that the dialectic of history had come to an end—Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit reveals itself to be the culmination of history as the reader reaches its end. Here he meant that reason and freedom had reached their maximums as they were embodied by

19754-417: The post of professor at the University of Berlin with the aim of combating the then-popular ideas of the left-liberal Young Hegelians . It was during this period of his life that Schelling created the mystical "philosophy of revelation". Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is widely considered to be the greatest German idealist philosopher. According to Hegel’s system of objective or absolute idealism , reality

19920-477: The preface to the 1803 edition of Shakuntala . After becoming General Superintendent in 1776, Herder's philosophy shifted again towards classicism , and he produced works such as his unfinished Outline of a Philosophical History of Humanity , which largely originated the school of historical thought. Herder's philosophy was of a deeply subjective turn, stressing influence by physical and historical circumstance upon human development, stressing that "one must go into

20086-402: The professional nature of university education. In 1781, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) published his Critique of Pure Reason , in which he attempted to determine what we can and cannot know through the use of reason independent of all experience. Briefly, he came to the conclusion that we could come to know an external world through experience, but that what we could know about it was limited by

20252-464: The protestors broke into the royal apartments, searching for Marie Antoinette, who escaped. They ransacked the palace, killing several guards. Order was eventually restored, and the royal family and Assembly left for Paris, escorted by the National Guard. Louis had announced his acceptance of the August Decrees and the Declaration, and his official title changed from 'King of France' to 'King of

20418-424: The publication of his Critique , Immanuel Kant has been considered one of the greatest influences in all of western philosophy. In the late 18th and early 19th century, one direct line of influence from Kant is German Idealism . German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and

20584-473: The real power in Europe, as the western Europeans would reject Christianity and rot away, while the eastern European nations would retain their religion and their idealism, and would this way become the power in Europe. More specifically, he praised Ukraine's "beautiful skies, blithe temperament, musical talent, bountiful soil, etc.… someday will awaken there a cultured nation whose influence will spread… throughout

20750-430: The rentier and mercantile classes, while the living standards fell for wage labourers and peasant farmers who rented their land. Economic recession from 1785, combined with bad harvests in 1787 and 1788, led to high unemployment and food prices, causing a financial and political crisis. While the state also experienced a debt crisis, the level of debt itself was not high compared with Britain's. A significant problem

20916-616: The representation of the Third Estate, but left the question of counting votes for the Estates-General to decide. The Estates-General contained three separate bodies, the First Estate representing 100,000 clergy, the Second the nobility, and the Third the "commons". Since each met separately, and any proposals had to be approved by at least two, the First and Second Estates could outvote

21082-593: The revolution were a combination of social, political, and economic factors which the ancien régime ("old regime") proved unable to manage. A financial crisis and widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General in May 1789, its first meeting since 1614. The representatives of the Third Estate broke away, and re-constituted themselves as a National Assembly in June. The Storming of

21248-424: The rise of Nazism ), the various neo-Kantian circles in Germany had dispersed. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was initially a proponent of Schopenhauer . However, he soon came to disavow Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook on life and sought to provide a positive philosophy. He believed this task to be urgent, as he believed a form of nihilism caused by modernity was spreading across Europe, which he summed up in

21414-519: The royal bodyguard, and were welcomed with a formal banquet as was common practice. The radical press described this as a 'gluttonous orgy', and claimed the tricolour cockade had been abused, while the Assembly viewed their arrival as an attempt to intimidate them. On 5 October, crowds of women assembled outside the Hôtel de Ville , agitating against high food prices and shortages. These protests quickly turned political, and after seizing weapons stored at

21580-496: The ruling elite , and indecisive policy by Louis XVI and his ministers, the result was a crisis the state was unable to manage. Between 1715 and 1789, the French population grew from 21 to 28 million, 20% of whom lived in towns or cities, Paris alone having over 600,000 inhabitants. This was accompanied by a tripling in the size of the middle class, which comprised almost 10% of the population by 1789. Despite increases in overall prosperity, its benefits were largely restricted to

21746-588: The same. That is, for these conjectured ancestors, the sheep were the bleating, and vice-versa. Hence, prelinguistic thought did not figure largely in Herderian conjectural narratives. Herder even moved beyond his narrative of human origins to contend that if active reflection ( besonnenheit ) and language persisted in human consciousness, then human impulses to signify were immanent in the pasts, presents, and futures of humanity. Avi Lifschitz subsequently reframed Herder's "the organ of thought" quotation: "Herder's equation of word and idea, of language and cognition, prompted

21912-441: The silencing of the will is a rare event. The artistic genius can achieve this state temporarily, while only a few saints have achieved total cessation throughout history. For Mainländer, the entirety of the cosmos is slowly but surely moving towards the silencing of the will-to-live and to (as he calls it) "redemption". Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in

22078-472: The source of legitimate authority was more apparent in the provinces, where officers of the Ancien Régime had been swept away, but not yet replaced by new structures. This was less obvious in Paris, since the National Guard made it the best policed city in Europe, but disorder in the provinces inevitably affected members of the Assembly. Centrists led by Sieyès, Lafayette, Mirabeau and Bailly created

22244-437: The standard of its perfection, totally independent of all comparison with that of others" for "do not nationalities differ in everything, in poetry, in appearance, in tastes, in usages, customs and languages? Must not religion which partakes of these also differ among the nationalities?" Following a trip to Ukraine , Herder wrote a prediction in his diary ( Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769 ) that Slavic nations would one day be

22410-556: The state assumed responsibilities such as paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned. On 13 February 1790, religious orders and monasteries were dissolved, while monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 12 July 1790 made them employees of the state, as well as establishing rates of pay and a system for electing priests and bishops. Pope Pius VI and many French Catholics objected to this since it denied

22576-592: The subjective boundaries in which Kant concluded aesthetics, referring it only to features of judgment. Schelling's aesthetics, understanding the world as an artistic creation, has adopted a universal character and served as the basis for the teachings of the Romantic school." It is argued that Friedrich Schlegel's subjectivism and his glorification of the superior intellect as property of a select elite influenced Schelling's doctrine of intellectual intuition , which György Lukács called "the first manifestation of irrationalism ". As much as Early Romanticism influenced

22742-466: The title of his book The Gay Science ( Die fröhliche Wissenschaft , 1882–87) from Friedrich Schlegel 's 1799 novel Lucinde . Lukács also emphasized that the emergence of organicism in philosophy received its impetus from Romanticism: This view, that only 'organic growth', that is to say change through small and gradual reforms with the consent of the ruling class, was regarded as 'a natural principle', whereas every revolutionary upheaval received

22908-484: The true essence of religion lies not in the active love of one’s neighbor, but in the passive contemplation of the infinite. In Schelling ’s philosophical system, the creative absolute ( God ) is immersed in the same passive, motionless state. The only activity that the Romantics allowed is that in which there is almost no volitional element, that is, artistic creativity. They considered the representatives of art to be

23074-457: The views of Friedrich Engels . Dühring’s views on philosophy, political economy and socialism found support among some Social Democrats , in particular by Eduard Bernstein . Engels dedicated his entire book Anti-Dühring to criticizing Dühring's views. An idiosyncratic opponent of German idealism, particularly Hegel's thought, was Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 –1860). He was influenced by Eastern philosophy , particularly Buddhism , and

23240-407: The vitalistic interpretation of Hegelian philosophy in the post-war period; his Goethe study likewise ushered in the vitalistic interpretation of Goethe subsequently leading from Simmel and Gundolf to Klages. Passivity was a key element of the Romantic mood in Germany, and it was brought by the Romantics into their own religious and philosophical views. The theologian Schleiermacher argued that

23406-565: The will is available through art only to a select few, Schopenhauer proposed another, more accessible way of overcoming the "I" – Buddhist Nirvana . In essence, Schopenhauer, although he was confident in the innovation of his revelations, did not give anything original here in comparison with the idealization of the Eastern world outlook by reactionary Romantics – it was indeed Friedrich Schlegel who introduced this idealization in Germany with his Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier ( About

23572-502: The world has already essentially reached perfection. They included Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72), David Strauss (1808–74), Bruno Bauer (1809–82) and Max Stirner (1806–56) among their ranks. Karl Marx (1818–83) often attended their meetings. He developed an interest in Hegelianism, French socialism, and British economic theory. He transformed the three into an essential work of economics called Das Kapital , which consisted of

23738-407: The world in a uniquely human way… man would not be himself without language and active reflection, while language deserved its name only as a cognitive aspect of the entire human being." In response to criticism of these contentions, Herder resisted descriptions of his findings as "conjectural" pasts, casting his arguments for a dearth of cognition in humans and "the problem of the origin of language as

23904-574: The world." One of his related predictions was that the Hungarian nation would disappear and become assimilated by surrounding Slavic peoples; this prophecy caused considerable uproar in Hungary and is widely cited to this day. This question was further developed by Herder's lament that Martin Luther did not establish a national church, and his doubt whether Germany did not buy Christianity at too high

24070-449: The young Goethe . This event proved to be a key juncture in the history of German literature , as Goethe was inspired by Herder's literary criticism to develop his own style. This can be seen as the beginning of the Sturm und Drang movement. In 1771 Herder took a position as head pastor and court preacher at Bückeburg under William, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe . By the mid-1770s, Goethe

24236-482: The young Schelling's Naturphilosophie (his interpretation of nature as an expression of spiritual powers), so did Late Romanticism influence the older Schelling's mythological and mysticist worldview ( Mysterienlehre ). According to Lukács, Kierkegaard 's views on philosophy and aesthetics were also an offshoot of Romanticism. Schopenhauer also owed certain features of his philosophy to Romantic pessimism : "Since salvation from suffering associated with

24402-469: Was " Vive le roi, s'il est de bon foi! ", or "Long live the king – if he keeps his word". Although a minority in the Assembly, control of key committees allowed the Brissotins to provoke Louis into using his veto. They first managed to pass decrees confiscating émigré property and threatening them with the death penalty. This was followed by measures against non-juring priests, whose opposition to

24568-622: Was a well-known author, and used his influence at the court of Weimar to secure Herder a position as General Superintendent. Herder moved there in 1776, where his outlook shifted again towards classicism . On 2 May 1773 Herder married Maria Karoline Flachsland (1750–1809) in Darmstadt . His son Gottfried (1774–1806) was born in Bückeburg . His second son August (1776–1838) was also born in Bückeburg. His third son Wilhelm Ludwig Ernst

24734-479: Was born 1778. His fourth son Karl Emil Adelbert (1779–1857) was born in Weimar . In 1781 his daughter Luise (1781–1860) was born, also in Weimar. His fifth son Emil Ernst Gottfried (1783–1855). In 1790 his sixth son Rinaldo Gottfried was born. Towards the end of his career, Herder endorsed the French Revolution , which earned him the enmity of many of his colleagues. At the same time, he and Goethe experienced

24900-894: Was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment . The most prominent German idealists in the movement, besides Kant, were Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , (1775–1854) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), who was the predominant figure in nineteenth century German philosophy. Also important were the Jena Romantics Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), Novalis (1772–1801), and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829). August Ludwig Hülsen , Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi , Gottlob Ernst Schulze , Karl Leonhard Reinhold , Salomon Maimon , Friedrich Schleiermacher , and Arthur Schopenhauer also made major contributions. As

25066-521: Was created by an all powerful and all knowing God, who would not choose to create an imperfect world if a better world could be known to him or possible to exist. In effect, apparent flaws that can be identified in this world must exist in every possible world, because otherwise God would have chosen to create the world that excluded those flaws. Leibniz is also known for his theory of monads , as exposited in Monadologie . They can also be compared to

25232-489: Was criticised by Jacobin radicals for the severity of his actions. Growing disorder meant many professional officers either left or became émigrés, further destabilising the institution. Held in the Tuileries Palace under virtual house arrest, Louis XVI was urged by his brother and wife to re-assert his independence by taking refuge with Bouillé, who was based at Montmédy with 10,000 soldiers considered loyal to

25398-685: Was dependent on language. He also turned away from the Sturm und Drang movement to go back to the poems of Shakespeare and Homer . To promote his concept of the Volk , he published letters and collected folk songs. These latter were published in 1773 as Voices of the Peoples in Their Songs ( Stimmen der Völker in ihren Liedern ). The poets Achim von Arnim and Clemens von Brentano later used Stimmen der Völker as samples for The Boy's Magic Horn ( Des Knaben Wunderhorn ). Herder also fostered

25564-467: Was greeted by Bailly and accepted a tricolore cockade to loud cheers. However, it was clear power had shifted from his court; he was welcomed as 'Louis XVI, father of the French and king of a free people.' The short-lived unity enforced on the Assembly by a common threat quickly dissipated. Deputies argued over constitutional forms, while civil authority rapidly deteriorated. On 22 July, former Finance Minister Joseph Foullon and his son were lynched by

25730-467: Was imbued with the spirit of the whole German Volk , yet as a historical theorist turned away from the ideas of the eighteenth century. Seeking to reconcile his thought with this earlier age, Herder sought to harmonize his conception of sentiment with reasoning, whereby all knowledge is implicit in the soul; the most elementary stage is the sensuous and intuitive perception which by development can become self-conscious and rational. To Herder, this development

25896-401: Was known for his pessimism . Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation (1818), claimed that the world is fundamentally what we recognize in ourselves as our will . His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fulfilled. Consequently, he eloquently described a lifestyle of negating desires, similar to

26062-588: Was of pivotal importance for the Romantics. The founder of German Romanticism, Friedrich Schlegel , identified the "three sources of Romanticism": the French Revolution , Fichte's philosophy, and Goethe 's novel Wilhelm Meister . Schelling , who was associated with the Schlegel brothers in Jena , took many of his philosophical and aesthetical ideas from the Romantics, and also influenced them on their own views: "In his philosophy of art, Schelling emerged from

26228-457: Was one of the first to use German as a language of scholarly instruction and research, although he also wrote in Latin, so that an international audience could, and did, read him. A founding father of, among other fields, economics and public administration as academic disciplines, he concentrated especially in these fields, giving advice on practical matters to people in government, and stressing

26394-453: Was openly against Marx and Engels, Gustav von Schmoller , Adolph Wagner , Lujo Brentano , Johann Plenge , Hans Delbrück , Ferdinand Toennies and Werner Sombart . In the labor movement in Germany, their line was supported by Ferdinand Lassalle . Eugen Dühring was a German professor of mechanics , philosopher and economist. In philosophy he was an eclectic who combined positivism , mechanistic materialism and idealism. He criticized

26560-829: Was replaced by the French First Republic in September, and Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. After another revolt in June 1793 , the constitution was suspended, and adequate political power passed from the National Convention to the Committee of Public Safety , led by the Jacobins . About 16,000 people were executed in what was later referred to as Reign of Terror , which ended in July 1794 . Weakened by external threats and internal opposition,

26726-400: Was that tax rates varied widely from one region to another, were often different from the official amounts, and collected inconsistently. Its complexity meant uncertainty over the amount contributed by any authorised tax caused resentment among all taxpayers. Attempts to simplify the system were blocked by the regional Parlements which approved financial policy. The resulting impasse led to

26892-465: Was the appropriation of the outer world within the human mind by means of distinguishing marks ( merkmale ). In positing his arguments, Herder reformulated an example from works by Moses Mendelssohn and Thomas Abbt . In his conjectural narrative of human origins, Herder argued that, although linguistic morphemes and logographs did not determine thought, the first humans perceived sheep and their bleating, or subjects and corresponding Merkmale , as one and

27058-514: Was the constitutional mechanism for turning intentions into practical applications. On 9 July, the National Assembly appointed a committee to draft a constitution and statement of rights. Twenty drafts were submitted, which were used by a sub-committee to create a Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , with Mirabeau being the most prominent member. The Declaration was approved by

27224-449: Was the largest individual landowner in France, controlling nearly 10% of all estates and levied tithes , effectively a 10% tax on income, collected from peasant farmers in the form of crops. In return, it provided a minimal level of social support. The August decrees abolished tithes, and on 2 November the Assembly confiscated all church property, the value of which was used to back a new paper currency known as assignats . In return,

27390-477: Was to be discovered among the common people ( das Volk ). He also stated that it was through folk songs, folk poetry, and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation ( der Volksgeist ) was popularized. He is credited with establishing or advancing a number of important disciplines: hermeneutics , linguistics , anthropology , and "a secular philosophy of history." Born in Mohrungen (now Morąg , Poland) in

27556-670: Was viewed as a triumph and Bastille Day is still celebrated every year. In French culture, some see its fall as the start of the Revolution. Alarmed by the prospect of losing control of the capital, Louis appointed the Marquis de Lafayette commander of the National Guard , with Jean-Sylvain Bailly as head of a new administrative structure known as the Commune . On 17 July, Louis visited Paris accompanied by 100 deputies, where he

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