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German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism

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I have to say this book is an indispensable guide for gaining a background in the philosophy of German idealism. If you read this book, you will learn about the philosophical problems that Kant, Fichte, and Hegel among others were grappling with well enough to be able to describe much of terminology in their philosophical treatises. Also the author's very clear writing style will help you learn the philosophy without a massive headache. This is the real strength of the book because other volumes treating the same topic are are often so dense and confusing that they won't be useful to a beginner. The other strength of the book is that it makes the philosophy relevant by illustrating its impact on German political and cultural identity. One such insight reveals the way the Holy Roman Empire's class of intellectual elites appropriated Kant's Critique of Pure Reason for political ends. These men used the philosophical work to challenge their rulers' claims to absolute authority. By paying attention to German idealism's cultural connections, Terry Pinkard has shown Kant's philosophy to be an important contribution to the social changes of its time rather than merely a set of abstract questions about the nature of reality to be discussed late-at-night by bored college students.

As in his lauded biography of Hegel, Pinkard does an amazing job in this book. To those "analytic" philosophers, still under the influence of the cavalier early 20th century rejection of the idealist tradition by Russel et. al., this is a must read. Pinkard presents detailed, cogent, and clear reconstructions of the key positions of the most important philosophers in Germany between Kant and Schopenhauer. Being a Hegel scholar, he understandably devotes a great deal of attention to Hegel's work. But, other figures, included the neglected early Romantics and the later Schelling, are given fair and lucid consideration. Pinkard's work (along with that of some other recent scholars) is a clarion call - the German tradition needs to be taken seriously, and needs to be treated in a fashion that is freed from the post-modernist humbug that it, in part, inspired. If only there were more books like this!

_German Philosophy 1760 - 1860: The Legacy of Idealism_ by Terry Pinkard is a unique book which examines the sorts of philosophical systems being proposed in Germany during that time period. Although at first Germany was not united, philosophy came to take on a unique German flavor, often meaning little more than the opaqueness of the language. For a generation of disenfranchised youth, Goethe captured the spirit of the times in his novel (with mistranslated title), _The Sorrows of Young Werther_. The first part of this book deals with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who created a "Copernican revolution" in philosophical thought with the writing of his three _Critiques_. Kant provided the foundation that many youth of the period were seeking in terms of philosophical thought. The second part of this book deals with post-Kantians, many of them founders of the Romantic movement, who took off from Kant's philosophy in the _Critiques_. Two issues played a central role for these early post-Kantian figures, one being the French Revolution and the other being the issue of Spinoza's pantheism (and alleged atheism). Two early individuals involved in the controversy over Spinoza were Jacobi, who argued against both Kant and Spinoza and is often associated with a dark kind of irrationalism, and Reinhold who defended Kant against these claims in the 1780s. In the 1790s, Fichte came to play an important role in philosophy, extending the thought of Kant with a form of subjectivism in his _Wissenschaftslehre_. The 1790s also witnessed the Romantic appropriation of Kantianism. Many of these early Romantics wrote for the journal _Athenaum_. These included the poets Holderlin and Novalis, the Protestant theologian of sentimentalism Schleiermacher, the brothers Schlegel who wrote in fragments, and the philosopher Schelling. Originally Schelling came to embrace Spinoza; however, later in his career he would become more conservative and reject him while explicitly defending Christian revelation. In addition, Jacob Fries played some role as a non-Romantic philosopher who appropriated Kant. The third part of this book deals strictly with Hegel. Hegel's _Phenomenology of Spirit_ provided an early groundwork for his _Encyclopedia_ and _Logic_. The book also covers some of Hegel's later lectures including his _Philosophy of Right_. Finally, the fourth part of this book deals with the revolution in question. This includes sections on Schelling's attempts at restoration in the second half of his career and on the philosophers Schopenhauer (a radical pessimist) and Kierkegaard (an early Danish existentialist). Finally, Hegel's philosophy was turned on its head and idealism abandoned for materialism in the writings of the Left Hegelians (who became increasingly radical) including such figures as Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels. This book gives an excellent introduction to German philosophy during a crucial period of years. Mostly this philosophy reflects the influence of Kant as well as the spirit of the times in which large sections of the youth and intelligentsia felt abandoned and left to pursue a life of autonomy.

The sudden flowering of German classical philosophy in the generation of Kant and the aftermath of the French Revolution is one of the enigmas of world history. Gestating in Kant and then taking off in the 1780's and 90's this exploration and journey took philosophy to a height it has since lost to the vagaries of prgmatism and analytic philosphy. The author of the recent excellent biography of Hegel surveys the whole terrain up to the time of Schopenhauer, the last thunderclap of this storm. It is hard to cover this difficult and vast terrain, and if one is a student of Hegel, or else Kant, one will end up with half or less of the extraordinarily difficult totality in motion. The author has no Hegelian agenda to color the account and the result is a superb short summary.

PInkard's book is probably the most modern of the introductions to the period in that this interpretation is the onemost free of all of the metaphysical and epistemological focus that was so frequent in texts on German Idealism even up until the early 90s. Even Beiser's excellent introduction to this period still maintains some threads to older interpretations, but he does make these explicit. PInkard's text provides us with a unique narrative that links all of the texts together: the so-called "Kantian Paradox". This paradox poses the question: if we choose to be self-legislating, what influenced us to make the choice to be self-legislating (and this something would have had to be an external influence). In contrast to Beiser, whose link is the question of how to prove the reality of the external world, Pinkard promotes freedom (self-legislation) to be the main challenge that the Idealists (and Romantics) tried to answer (although he does readily admit the myriad of other issues that drove them forward).
His introduction to Kant is brief, being only 100 odd pages, but it contains some of the most lucid and insightful exegesis of Kant's system in the English speaking world. I particularly like how he cast Kant, and Transcendental Idealism as a whole, not as an epistemological theory (what has come to be called 'Weak Transcendental Idealism), but as a theory that poses the following thesis: nothing escapes the workings of reason ('Strong Transcendental Idealism'). His discussion of the third critique, which he references throughout the book, shows the rarely emphasised insight that this work was the starting point for the departures and adaptations post-Kantians would instigate and develop.
The weakest point in the book is the middle discussion on the Romantics, where Pinkard tries to cover a large amount of material within a very short amount of time. But even here both students and Professors can learn a great deal about the development of thought in the 1790's and early 1800's. The discussion of Hegel, of course, is incredibly insightful, and his non-metaphysical reading of Hegel truly justifies Hegel's place as an important played in 20th Century philosophy.
Overall this is a very good introduction to German Idealism for anyone interested in German Idealism, regardless of their place in academic life. Of course, with any topic as complex as this, extra reading is required, but Pinkard has given us a book that rightly deserves a place on every philosopher's shelf. Its main benefit, as I mentioned above, is that it shows us the German Idealist free of the metaphysical baggage placed on them for the past 150 years, and gives us a picture of a period of history that could enlighten us immeasurably today.

First, some background. I have a Ph.D. in philosophy and history of philosophy from Cornell. I studied for a year with R. M. Hare at Oxford, and attended Norman Malcolm's classes at Cornell. I got my Ph.D. when linguistic and analytic philosophy were still considered the cutting edge, and I still consider myself in that camp.

Over the years, I have moved into another profession, but have a continued interest in philosophy and continue to read about it. I have been looking for a good book on German philosophy. Some of the reviews indicated that the writing in this book was clear, so I bought it.

I was hoping for something like "The Secret of Kant": somthing that would explain in clear terms what Kant was all about, and explain what it was (about his philosophy) that subsequent philosophers found so mesmerizing.

Unfortunately, I didn't find that. I waded through the opening chapters on Kant, but instead of finding Kantian gobble-de-gook explained ("de-gobbled" if you will) I simply found it repeated.

I won't say this is a bad book. If you find Kantian idealism a compatible milieu, then this might be a very good book for you. But I want to warn folks who are coming from an Anglo-American analytical background, and looking for an entree into an understanding of Kant, etc. You won't find it here.

I am beginning to suspect that it doesn't exist anywhere, and that this business about the "transcendental" will never look (to my empirical Anglo-American sensibility) like anything other than complete hocus-pocus. In any event, be warned. If you have similar suspicions, and are trying to determine if there is anything out there that can disconfirm your suspicions and change your mind, you won't find it in this book. In philosophy, the English Channel is *still* wider than the Atlantic Ocean.

(Additional Note - August 10, 2007)

I have had the book for a month now, and had a chance to examine it more carefully. And my judgment has grown even harsher.

Here is an example of Pinkard's writing. On page 320 he discusses Schelling's "growing suspicion that ... all the post-Kantians had in effect confused logic with existence; they had labored under the illusion that a coherent, consistent system of thought was necessarily identical with the way the world had to be. (Later philosophers would label something like this a form of 'verificationism,' the doctrine that nothing could be said to be unless it could be humanly verified to be -- unless, for example, propositions asserting its existence could be shown to be in accordance with accepted standards of evidence -- a doctrine that seemed to make what existed dependent on human capacities for verification.)"

First, a simple examination of the sentence construction here shows how bad the writing is. Second, this passage shows that Pinkard (like many of the subjects of this book) is a horribly fuzzy thinker, or a horribly fuzzy writer, or both. With the term "verificationism" Pinkard must be referring to the early Logical Positivists. To describe verificationism as a doctrine that "seemed to make what existed dependent on human capacities for verification" is absurd. Verificationism was an attempt to develop criteria that would allow us to distinguish meaningful statements from statements that (although they appear to be meaningful) are not. Only in the most fevered excesses of philosophical hyperbole could that be jumbled around to the point that the Logical Positivists could be made to look like post-modern relativists. And it is no defense to pick nits and say that Pinkard is attributing this view to "later philosophers" and not espousing it himself. This is just plain bad writing.