Part Two
Continuing with our study:
I Googled the name Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, which took me to the following link:
Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following excerpts were taken from the above site:
Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (14 March 1706, Wolmirstedt 4 July 1757, Halle) was a German Protestant theologian. He was a brother to philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762).
He studied theology at the University of Halle, and in 1728 the 22-year old Baumgarten, a Hallensian Pietist and bibliophile, was appointed as minister of the "Marktkirche Unser Lieben Frauen" (Market Church of Our Dear Lady). In 1730 he became an associate professor at Halle, where in 1734 he was appointed a full professor of theology. In 1748 he was named as university rector. At the end of his life he translated encyclopedic articles and biographies from English into German.[1]
Baumgarten was a follower of the philosophical teachings of Christian Wolff (1679-1754), and is regarded as a transitional theologian from the Pietism of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) to that of modern rationalism. He was a prodigious writer and published works on exegesis, hermeneutics, dogmatics and history. He was author of the first sixteen volumes of the Allgemeine Welthistorie (General World History), which after his death, was continued by his assistant Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791).
Here things have a tendency to get rather interesting. If you haven't taken notice, there is a consistent use of the title German Rationalism. This title is going to be joined by another title, German Philosophy. Notice the above sentence, Baumgarten was a follower of the philosophical teachings of Christian Wolff (1679-1754), and is regarded as a transitional theologian from the Pietism of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) to that of modern rationalism.
It is now time to follow the next name, Christian Wolff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Wolff_(philosopher)
The following excerpt was taken from the above site:
Christian Wolff (less correctly Wolf; also known as Wolfius; ennobled as: Christian Freiherr von Wolff; 24 January 1679 9 April 1754) was a German philosopher.
He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant. His main achievement was a complete oeuvreon 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.
Notice, He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant. What is the common thread among these men? For one, they were all German Philosophers. Let's see what that heading uncovers:
German philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following excerpts were taken from the above site:
German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz through Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein to contemporary philosophers. Søren Kierkegaard (a Danish philosopher) is frequently included in surveys of German (or Germanic) philosophy due to his extensive engagement with German thinkers.[1][2][3][4]
I want you to notice the names above. Two of the above names were mentioned on the site pertaining to Christian Wolff (above); those names were: 1) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and 2) Immanuel Kant. Later on this same page, these two men are briefly discussed.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (16461716) 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 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[5] 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 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.
We see above the words, The work of Leibniz also anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, but his philosophy also looks back to the scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason to first principles or a priori definitions rather than to empirical evidence. Today, we here much about empirical evidence, (that evidence which is obtained through observation or experience), Leibniz, refused to observe the fact that all of the scripture of his day, was that which all the churches of Europe, and all of Asia Minor had been using from the time of Christ until his day. The only exception of course, was the Church of Rome.
I want you to take notice to the philosophy of Leibniz. Notice in the second paragraph it states, It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it 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.
Does this mean that Leibniz does not believe in Heaven as described in the Bible? A place that has no sorrow, pain, suffering, or sin. This is the rationalism that both Leibniz and other German Philoshers/ Rationalists believed.
On the same site we read:
In 1781, Immanuel Kant (17241804) 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 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 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.
I would like you to notice the last paragraph, Since 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.
Please remember, what we have seen in the previous articles is that the root, or beginning of textual criticism is in German rationalism, German philosophy, and here we see that one of the greatest influences in all of western philosophy is a man named Immanuel Kant who had a direct line of influence called German Idealism. (Which just happens to be covered on the same site.)
The German Idealists believed there were problems with Kants system and sought to place it on firmer grounds. They were also greatly concerned with the problem of freewill as understood through Kantianism: practical reason presupposes a freewill, and yet according to theoretical reason, everything is predetermined in a complete system of causality. Therefore either everything in possible experience isnt predetermined, which contradicts the universality of pure reason, or the freewill is outside the system of causality and can have no effect on it, rendering the will useless.
The three most prominent German Idealists were Johann Gottlieb Fichte (17621814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling(17751854) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831). On some interpretations, Hegel did away with Kantianism altogether to achieve absolute knowledge, while others read him as working within the confines of Kantianism. His method of dialectics has become a commonplace means of reasoning in continental philosophy.
Again, please notice the names in the second paragraph: ...Johann Gottlieb Fichte (17621814), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling(17751854) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831).
The last name above was that of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He is spoken of still further.
Among those influenced by Hegel was a group of young radicals called the Young Hegelians, who were unpopular because of their radical views on religion and society. They included Ludwig Feuerbach (18041872), Bruno Bauer (18091882) and Max Stirner (18061856) among their ranks.
Karl Marx (18181883) 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 a critical economic examination of capitalism. Marxism has had a massive effect on the world as a whole.
I find it interesting that Karl Marx is listed among German Idealist. By the time of the late 1800's, the seed that had been planted back in the late 1700's by Semler in 175391 while teaching as a professor that the entirety of the Old and New Testaments were not divinely inspired and fully correct, and challenged the divine authority of the biblical canon, their nature, and their manner of transmission; had developed into textual criticism on one branch, and Marxism on another branch.
Jack
