A History of Western Philosophy: Kant and the Nineteenth Century, Revised, Volume IV [Paperback]

W. T. Jones (Author), Robert J. Fogelin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 1975 | ISBN-10: 0155383167 | ISBN-13: 978-0155383166 | Edition: 2

A history of Western Philosophy that concentrates on major figures in each historical period, combining exposition with direct quotations from the philosophers themselves. The text places philosophers in appropriate cultural context and shows how their theories reflect the concerns of their times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 2 edition (October 3, 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0155383167
• ISBN-13: 978-0155383166
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #413,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Approaching the modern age..., December 29, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Western Philosophy: Kant and the Nineteenth Century, Revised, Volume IV (Paperback)

This book, 'Kant and the Nineteenth Century', is the fourth volume of a five-volume series on the history of Western Philosophy by W.T. Jones, professor of philosophy in California. This series is a very strong, thorough introduction to the course of Western Philosophy, beginning at the dawn of the philosophical enterprise with the pre-Socratics in ancient Greece to the modern thinkers such as Wittgenstein and Sartre. It has grown, over the three decades or so of its publication, from one to four then to five volumes. It has remained a popular text, and could serve as the basis of a one-year survey of philosophy for undergraduates or a one-semester survey for graduate students. Even advanced students in philosophy will find this valuable, all major topics and most minor topics in the course of philosophy are covered in these volumes.

Jones states that there are two possible ways for a writer to organise a history of philosophy -- either by addressing everyone who ever participated in philosophy (which could become rather cumbersome if one accepts the premise that anyone could be a philosopher), or to address the major topics and currents of thought, drawing in the key figures who address them, but leaving out the lesser thinkers for students to pursue on their own. Jones has chosen the latter tactic, making sure to provide bibliographic information for this task.

This volume, 'Kant and Nineteenth Century', starts where the last volume leaves off, as philosophy is coming of age as a discipline removed from the direct control and overarching influence of the church and, to a lesser extent, the politics of those in governmental authority. The world of the Renaissance and Reformation gave way to a world of continuing renovation and revolution, in America most notably as a start, and then throughout the rest of the Western Hemisphere and through Europe in many places.

The period of the Enlightenment, the few centuries following the Renaissance and Reformation, is often called the Age of Reason. To a large extent, the historical presence of the church was withdrawing, and the dominance in intellectual and social circles of a humanist, empirical and rationalist mode was now firmly established. By the time of the nineteenth century, however, the confidence in the rationalist model was beginning to wane, with nothing clearly taking its place (this has continued into the twentieth century). Onto this stage, the first major thinker to emerge was Immanuel Kant, a wide-ranging thinker whose greatest contributions were probably in the field of knowledge, reason, ethics and metaphysics.

Kant became the standard by which other philosophers would be measured. Hegel and Schopenhauer both dealt with responses to and reactions against Kantian ideas. Hegel's though became a standard by which history itself would be measured as a discipline. Following quickly was the rise of the Utilitarianists, Comte and Marx (whose ideas would not see their fullest political expression until the twentieth century). In Europe, the century culminates in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (whose philosophy also influenced twentieth century politics, having been co-opted by the National-Socialists of Germany). Meanwhile America was beginning to produce philosophers, such as C.S. Pierce and William James. Jones also includes a relatively unknown philosopher, F.H. Bradley, who is little known outside of philosophical circles, but was important continuing the Hegelian legacy into the twentieth century.

Each volume ends with a glossary of terms, and a worthwhile index. The glossary warns against short, dictionary-style definitions and answers to broad terms and questions, and thus indicates the pages index-style to the discussion within the text for further context. The one wish I would have would be a comprehesive glossary and index that covers the several volumes; as it is, each volume has only its own referents.

This is minor criticism in a generally exceptional series. It is not easy text, but it is not needlessly difficult. The print size on the direct quotes, which are sometimes lengthy, can be a strain at times, but the reading is worthwhile.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I only like the exciting parts, August 22, 2011

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Western Philosophy: Kant and the Nineteenth Century, Revised, Volume IV (Paperback)

Way too much philosophy.

I am only reading the fourth volume of A History of Western Philosophy (Second Edition, Revised, 1952, 1969, 1975) by W. T. Jones, called:

Kant and the Nineteenth Century.

Scholars enjoy treating philosophy as a rational approach to life and events which offers them the opportunity to write such absurdities as:

For Marx, reality was coextensive
with Kant's spatiotemporal manifold:
There is no transcendent realm
beyond the world encountered
in experience. Theology and metaphysics,
which claim to provide information
about such a transcendent world,
are only ideologies, by-products of social forces
and thus without cognitive references. (p. 178).

Scholars who enjoy reducing thinkers like Kant to a few defined points of view will enjoy the way in which Jones produces a summary of Kant's practical reasons for accepting God as the transcendental Original Being, quoting Kant:

So also all the other transcendental properties,
such as Eternity, Omnipresence, etc. which are
presupposed in reference to such a final purpose,
must be thought in Him.

Marx did not accept the religion of Kant, but sought a higher purpose for history in his analysis of class struggle. Such a failure to abide by transcendental limitations is still possible within the summary of Kant views submitted by Jones:

(2) Experience is a spatiotemporal manifold in which distinctions are made, . . . (p. 98)
(3) The natural sciences are limited to describing and generalizing about this spatiotemporal manifold and the various "objects" distinguished within it, including self (the science of psychology) and not-self (physics, chemistry, and so on). (p. 99).
(4) Experience - the spatiotemporal manifold - is dependent on "transcendental" conditions. Because they are "transcendental," these conditions are not in experience . . . (p. 99).

Attempting to apply this kind of analysis to religion is not expected by orthodox Christianity. According to Jones:

. . . this "as-if" purposefulness actually supplements [the presuppositions of the natural sciences] and makes a complete and harmonious world view possible.
This position is obviously a long way from the view of providence that the orthodox Christian understands. Kant's reply to this implied criticism would doubtless have been that the orthodox Christian does not really understand what he is demanding of philosophy, and that when one tries to come to grips with the orthodox Christian's idea, it collapses into confusion and anthropomorphism. (p. 98).

The chapter after Kant quotes a number of famous poets of Romanticism. An Ode by Wordsworth proclaims:

Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! (p. 104).

Hegel expects a rational universe to produce agreement regarding the truth. Quoting Hegel on the nature of activity, which usually gets the best of us:

In this way the knowing activity
is the artful device which,
while seeming to refrain from activity,
looks on and watches how
specific determinateness with its concrete life,
just where it believes it is working out
its own preservation and its own private interest,
is, in point of fact, doing the very opposite,
is doing what brings about its own dissolution
and makes itself a moment of the whole. (p. 111).

Hegel wrote of triads and subtriads, each of which displays the same pattern of triplicity. Jones sees a basic triad, the main triad, and a final triad. Then the family has three phases. An old way of thinking was passing away. Hegel expected some future:

This gradual crumbling to pieces . . .
is interrupted by the sunrise, which,
in a flash and at a single stroke,
brings to view the form and structure
of the new world. (p. 141).

Schopenhauer and some utilitarians get mentioned before Marx. To put in in one of Marx's nutshells:

therefore, changed men are products
of other circumstances and changed
upbringings, . . .
the educator must himself be educated. (p. 191).

For a time, Kierkegaard "lived a gay and social life and was regarded by those who knew him as clever but rather superficial." (p. 211). Turning to literary life, Kierkegaard tried to distinguish a real choice from mere wishing or wanting. Socrates and Abraham aroused his admiration. Evaluating his own times, he had to admit:

Our age reminds one vividly of
the dissolution of the Greek city-state:
Everything goes on as usual, and yet
there is no longer anyone who believes in it. (p. 234).

Nietzsche is quoted to establish a need for self-torture. Bad conscience was invented in order to hurt himself. Other outlets for cruelty have been blocked.

Indeed, in the last paragraphs quoted,
Nietzsche anticipated the main arguments
of Freud's Civilization and its Discontents
by almost half a century. (p. 246).

Nietzsche experienced creative tension as the initial chaos, frenzy, and destruction that produce a "dancing star" (p. 261).