A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein, Second Edition

by Unknown Author

  Because the Essay is so diffuse and repetitious, various abridgements have been attempted, among which the most popular has been that by A.S. Pringle-Pattison, Oxford, 1924.

  Good introductory commentaries include Stephen Priest, The British Empiricists, London, 1990, and R.I.Aaron, John Locke, 3rd edn., Oxford, 1971. More challenging are: Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley and Hume: Central Themes, Oxford, 1971, especially useful on the theory of meaning and ideas; J.L.Mackie, Problems from Locke, Oxford, 1976, which relates Locke's concerns to modern debates in metaphysics and the philosophy of science; Michael Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, London, 1991: in many ways a model of scholarly research, which is also an impressive philosophical statement in its own right.

  Among collections of articles, the most useful is probably V.C.Chappell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge, 1994.

  The most useful edition of Berkeley is that edited by G.J.Warnock, entitled The Principle's of Human Knowledge and Other Writings, London, 1977. There are several useful commentaries available, including that by Bennett mentioned above, together with A.C.Grayling, Berkeley: The Central Arguments, London, 1986, and J.O.Urmson, Berkeley, Oxford, 1982.

  8 The idea of a moral science

  L.A.Selby-Bigge (ed.), British Moralists, vol. 1, Oxford, 1897, contains principal works by the writers mentioned.

  Other sources worth consulting are Shaftesbury, Characteristics, ed. J.M. Robertson, London, 1900, and W.E.Gladstone (ed.), The Works of Joseph Butler, 2 vols, Oxford, 1897. No satisfactory commentary on the British moralists seems to exist at present, although the chapter on Butler in C. D.Broad's Five Types of Ethical Theory, London, 1930, remains helpful.

  For standard editions of the works of the individual writers, the reader should consult the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul S.Edwards, London and New York, 1967.

  9 Hume

  The standard editions of the Treatise and Enquiries are those edited by L.A.Selby-Bigge and PH.Nidditch, Oxford, 1978 and 1975 respectively.

  Many editions exist of Hume's Essays, Moral and Political (1741-2), and recent editions have been enlarged to include most of Hume's incidental writings. The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) are also widely available in reliable editions.

  Among commentaries, the following deserve special mention: Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume, London, 1949: a path-breaking study which initiated the modern emphasis on Hume's 'naturalism'. Its gist can be obtained from reading: Barry Stroud, Hume, London, 1977, which gives what is fast becoming the orthodox reading of Hume, as the exponent of a'natural philosophy' of the mind. David Pears's Hume's System, Oxford, 1990, is a highly sophisticated work along the same lines, which also contains an interesting defence of Hume against the charge that his system leads to an irreversible scepticism.

  Among collections of articles that edited by V.C.Chappell (Hume, New York, 1966) is as readable as any.

  10 Kant I: The Critique of Pure Reason

  To date there is no acceptable edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in English, apart from the translation by Norman Kemp Smith, London, 1929. This translates and collates both editions, and contains marginal references to the original page numberings of each of them.

  There is a standard German edition of Kant, published as Gesammelte Schriften by the Prussian (subsequently German) Academy of Sciences between 1902 and 1968. This provides standard page numberings for many translations. More useful, because cheaper and more readily available is the twelve-volume Suhrkamp edition of Kant, which is, however, incomplete.

  Kant himself wrote a kind of introduction to his metaphysical views in the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, tr. P.G.Lucas, Manchester, 1953. There is also available in English a useful selection from Kant's 'pre-critical' writings (those written before the first Critique): G.B.Kerferd, D.K.E.Walford and P.G.Lucas (eds), Kant: Selected Pre-critical Writings, Manchester, 1968.

  A complete translation of the works of Kant, in conformity with the latest scholarship, is projected by Cambridge University Press; so far, however, the major works have not been retranslated for this edition.

  Among recent commentaries, the following are especially important: Jonathan Bennett, Kant's Analytic, Cambridge, 1966; Jonathan Bennett, Kant's Dialectic, Cambridge, 1974; P.F.Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, London, 1966; Ralph Walker, Kant, London, 1978; Henry E.Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, New Haven, 1983.

  Among collections of articles, the most useful are: L.W.Beck (ed.), Kant's Theory of Knowledge, Boston, 1974; Ralph Walker (ed.), Kant on Pure Reason, Oxford, 1987; Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant, Cambridge, 1994.

  11 Kant II: Ethics and aesthetics

  Kant wrote a number of works on ethics, of which the most important are: Critique of Practical Reason, tr. L.W.Beck, New York, 1965; Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, tr. H.J.Paton, New York, 1964; Lectures on Ethics, tr. L.Infield, New York, 1973; Die Metaphysik der Sitten, translated in two parts: (i) The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, tr. J.Ladd, New York, 1965; (ii) The Doctrine of Virtue, tr. Mary J.Gregor, New York, 1964.

  Kant's aesthetic theory is contained in the third Critique: Critique of Judgement, tr. with an extensive introduction by Werner S.Pluhar, Indianapolis, 1987. (Two older translations exist—both inadequate.)

  Commentaries include: Roger Scruton, Kant, Oxford, 1982: a short commentary on the whole of Kant's philosophy, which tries to show the place of the ethical and aesthetic theories within it; L.W.Beck, A Commentary on Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason', Chicago, 1960; Henry E.Allison, Kant's Theory of Freedom, New Haven, 1991; Anthony Savile, Aesthetic Reconstructions: The Seminal Writings of Lessing, Kant and Schiller, Oxford, 1987.

  The English-language sources for post-Kantian idealism include the following:

  Fichte

  The Science of Knowledge, with the first and second introductions, ed. and tr. Peter Heath and John Lacks, Cambridge, 1982. This gives the Wissenschaftslehre in its most complete form, with useful addenda and commentary, in an up-to-date translation. The student should beware of nineteenth-century translations of this work.

  Schelling

  System of Transcendental Idealism, tr. Peter Heath, with an introduction by Michael Vater, Charlottesville, Va., 1978. This is the principal source for Schelling's philosophical ideas. In addition the reader might consult: Of Human Freedom, tr. James Gutman, Chicago, 1936, and The Ages of the World, tr. F.de Wolfe Bolman Jr., New York, 1942, which expounds Schelling's influential theory of history.

  Schiller

  On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters, ed. and tr. Elizabeth M.Wilkerson and L.A.Willoughby, Oxford, 1982.

  12 Hegel

  Hegel translations and editions were hastily put together in the last century, and the hitherto authoritative English-language versions finally published by T.M.Knox are now themselves giving way to newer versions, incorporating the more sober hopes enter A Hegel Dictionary, Oxford, 1992.

  The works of Hegel that are important for the argument of this chapter are: Hegel's Science of Logic, tr. A.V.Miller, with a foreword by J.N.Findlay, London, 1969; Hegel's Logic: Part of the Encyclopedia, tr. William Wallace, 3rd edn, Oxford, 1975; The Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A.V Miller, with a foreword by J.N.Findlay, Oxford, 1977.

  Commentaries on Hegel are appearing with increasing frequency. Charles Taylor's Hegel, Oxford, 1975, was a pioneering attempt to look at Hegel through the eyes of analytical philosophy. More useful for the student, however, is Robert Solomon's attempt to reconstruct the argument of the Phenomenology, entitled In the Spirit of Hegel, Oxford, 1983. More sober and succinct is Stephen Houlgate, Freedom, Truth and History: An Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy, London, 1991.

  The most useful collection of articles is: Frederick C.Baiser, The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, Cambridge, 1993.

  I merely touch on the aspect of Hegel's thinking which has been most widely in
fluential—namely, the philosophy of history, and the theory of the Zeitgeist. This is contained in: Lectures on the Philosophy of History, tr. J.Sibree, London, 1890, reissued New York, 1956.

  13 Reactions: Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

  Schopenhauer

  There are two translations of Schopenhauer's major work, with two different terms ('idea' and 'representation' ) used to translate Schopenhauer's 'Vorstellung'. 'Representation' is to be preferred, since Schopenhauer has another use for the term 'Idea' . The World as Will and Idea, tr. R.B.Haldane and J.Kemp, London, 1906; The World as Will and Representation, tr. E.F J.Payne, India Hills, Colo., 1958.

  There are many editions of Schopenhauer's shorter essays. Perhaps the best is: Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, tr. E.F.J.Payne, Oxford, 1974.

  Commentaries are for the most part unexciting. Perhaps the most reliable, from the point of view of philosophical history, is that by Christopher Janaway: Schopenhauer, Oxford 1994.

  Kierkegaard

  It is almost impossible to distinguish the central from the peripheral among Kierkegaard's many and varied writings. However, I have drawn on the following: Either/Or: 4 Fragment of Life, tr. David F. and Lillian Marvin Swenson, Oxford, 1944; 'Fearand Trembling'and 'Repetition', ed. and tr. H.V. and E.H.Hong, Princeton, N.J., 1983; The Concept of Dread, tr. with an introduction by Walter Lowrie, Princeton, N.J., 1944; The Sickness unto Death, tr. W.Lowrie, Princeton, N.J., 1941; Concluding Unscientific Postscript, tr. David FSwenson, completed by Walter Lowrie, Princeton, N.J., 1941.

  Among the commentaries on Kierkegaard, that by W.Lowrie, Kierkegaard, New York, 1938, remains illuminating.

  Nietzsche

  Nietzsche is most accessible through well-edited selections, such as: The Portable Nietzsche, tr. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, New York, 1954, 1968; Basic Writings, tr. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, New York, 1992; 4 Nietzsche Reader, tr. and ed. R.J.Hollingdale, Harmondsworth, 1977.

  For the specific works referred to, see : 'Twilight of the Idols' and'The Antichrist', tr. R.J.Hollingdale, with an introduction by Michael Tanner, London, 1990; Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, tr. with an introduction by R.J.Hollingdale, Harmondsworth, 1973; Thus Spake Zarathustra, tr. with an introduction by R.J.Hollingdale, Harmondsworth, 1969; 'The Birth of Tragedy' and'The Case of Wagner', tr. with commentary by Walter Kaufmann, New York, 1967; The Gay Science, tr. Walter Kaufmann, New York, 1974; The Will to Power, tr. Walter Kaufmann and R.J.Hollingdale, New York, 1967. This last contains Nietzsche's posthumous writings, with some of his most abstract and philosophical ideas.

  Nietzsche attracts commentators from many disciplines, and with many aims. The following are readable: Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher, New York, 1965: a book which draws the teeth of Nietzsche the moralist; Michael Tanner, Nietzsche, Oxford, 1994: a lively survey and introduction, which tries to save Nietzsche from the charge of nihilism; Erich Heller, The Importance of Nietzsche, Chicago, 1988: a work that explores the real Nietzsche and his relation to the literary tradition that created him: a necessary antidote to the laboured attempts to recast Nietzsche as a metaphysician. Alexander Nehemas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Harvard, 1985: a distinctly modern, maybe post-modern, interpretation.

  For Max Stirner, see The Ego and His Own, ed. and abridged by John Carroll, New York, 1971.

  14 Political philosophy from Hobbes to Hegel

  Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. with introduction by Michael Oakeshott, Oxford, 1947.

  Spinoza, Political Works, tr. and ed. A.G.Wernham, Oxford, 1958.

  Locke, Two Treatises of Government, critical edn, ed. PLaslett, London, 1960.

  Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Everyman edn.

  Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, tr. T.Nugent, New York, 1949.

  J.J.Rousseau, Political Writings, tr. and ed. C.A.Vaughan, 2 vols, Cambridge, 1915.

  G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, tr. H.B.Nisbet, ed. Allen W.Wood, Cambridge, 1991.

  Commentaries: It is difficult to provide a guide to the literature that has accumulated in this area of philosophical history. One of the most interesting of the commentaries on Hegel's Philosophy of Right remains that of Karl Marx ( Cambridge, 1970). For Locke, see J.W. Gough, John Locke's Political Philosophy: Eight Studies, Oxford, 1950. The introduction by M.Oakeshott to the edition cited of the Leviathan is one of the liveliest and most adventurous commentaries on that work. Perhaps the best way to acquire a modern understanding of these complementary political philosophies is to compare modern works which defend some Lockean or neo-Lockean doctrine of the 'natural right (e.g. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, Oxford, 1974) with those which regard allegiance, in the manner of Hegel, as prior to the recognition of individual rights (e.g. Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism, 2nd edn, London, 1984).

  15 Marx

  Confusion in the texts of Marx's principal works, while less than that which still prevails in the case of Leibniz, is great enough to cause me not to give a proper bibliography. There is another reason for this, namely that many of the writings are fragm entary, and almost all stand in need of an editor.The task of editor has been ably accomplished by David McLellan, in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Oxford, 1977, and by Allen W.Wood, Marx: Selections, London, 1988. Both contain all the important philosophical writings, together with a guide to Capital, selections from which they reprint.

  Commentaries: Elementary—Peter Singer, Marx, Past Masters series, Oxford, 1980. Advanced—G.A.Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History, Oxford, 1979. Both of those concentrate on the mature theories of Marx; the second is unique in Marxian scholarship, in that it treats its subject matter entirely from the methodological standpoint of analytical philosophy. The best short commentary on Marx's immediate predecessors is W.T.Brazill: The Young Hegelians, New Haven and London, 1970. For the latter-day followers of the early Marx see George Lukacs: History and Class Consciousness, tr. R.Livingstone, London, 1971, in which the theory of alienation and the later theory of 'false consciousness' are combined to form the idea of 'reification' ; and also the writings of philosophers of the 'Frankfurt School' , in particular Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, Oxford, 1941; and Jürgen Habermas, Theory and Practice, tr. J.Viertel, London, 1974.

  16 Utilitarianism and after

  A new standard edition of Bentham's works is in the course of preparation. Meanwhile the basic text is J.Bowring (ed.), The Works of Jeremy Bentham,

  11 vols, Edinburgh, 1838-43 (incomplete). The Fragment on Government and Introduction exist in several reliable popular editions, as does Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

  J.S.Mill, 4 System of Logic, London, 1843; Utilitarianism, On Liberty and the Autobiography exist in many popular editions.

  FH.Bradley, Ethical Studies, Oxford, 1876; The Principles of Logic, Oxford, 1883; Appearance and Reality, Oxford, 1893.

  R.L.Nettleship, The Works of Thomas Hill Green, London, 1885-8.

  On utilitarianism in general the best modern commentary is by J.J.C.Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against, Cambridge, 1973.

  On Bradley the most interesting commentary is that by Richard Wollheim, Harmondsworth, 1959; see also A.Manser and G.Stock (eds), The Philosophy of F.H.Bradley, Oxford, 1984.

  17 Frege

  Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, tr. J.L.Austin, Oxford, 1950; Philosophical Writings, ed. M.Black and P.T.Geach, Oxford, 1952, 3rd edn 1980.

  Commentaries: W. and M. Kneale, The Development of Logic, Oxford, 1962, chapter 8. (This book provides an unsurpassed history of the subject of logic, and makes the revolutionary character of Frege's logic easy to grasp.) Also M.Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language, London, 1973: a diffuse and difficult work, which nevertheless has done much to impress on the philosophical public the importance of Frege. The Begriffsschrift is translated in Frege, Philosophical Writings. Michael Dummett has continued his commentaries on Frege with Frege and Other Philosophers, Oxford, 1991,
and Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics, Oxford, 1991.

  18 Phenomenology and existentialism

  FBrentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, tr. L.McAlister et al., London, 1973.

  E.Husserl, Logical Investigations, tr. J.N.Findlay, 2 vols, London, 1970; Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology, tr. W.R.Boyce Gibson, London, 1931; Cartesian Meditations, tr. D.Cairns, The Hague, 1960; Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness, tr. J.S.Churchill, ed. M.Heidegger, The Hague, 1964.

  M.Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. J.Macquarrie and E.S.Robinson, New York, 1962.

  J.PSartre, The Psychology of Imagination, tr. B.Frechtman, New York, 1948; Being and Nothingness, tr. Hazel E.Barnes, New York, 1956.

  M.Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, tr. Colin Smith, London, 1962; Signs, tr. R.C.McCleary, Evanston, 1964.

  A general, but uncritical and obscure, survey is contained in H.Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, 2 vols, The Hague, 1960. There is an excellent introduction to Husserl by David Bell: Husserl, London, 1990. On Heidegger it is worth reading the famous paper by Rudolf Carnap: 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through the Logical Analysis of Language' (1932), published in A.J.Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, Chicago, 1959. There is, however, no balanced commentary, to my knowledge, on this philosopher. Sartre has the benefit of Mary Warnock's The Philosophy of Sartre, London, 1965, and also Iris Murdoch's Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, New Haven, 1953, and Arthur Danto's Sartre, London, 1975 (Modern Masters Series, Fontana). Perhaps the best account, however, is that by David Cooper, Existentialism, Oxford, 1990. There is also a Cambridge Companion to Sartre, ed. C.Howells, Cambridge, 1992. On Wilhelm Dilthey, see H.PRickmann (ed.), Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Writings, London, 1980.

  19 Wittgenstein

  Bertrand Russell, 'On Denoting', the article which presents the theory of descriptions, is collected together with other expressions of Russell's logical atomism in Logic and Knowledge, ed. R.C.Marsh, London, 1956.