Admired by philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Freud, Benjamin, and Wittgenstein, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 1799) is known to the English-speaking world mostly as a satirist. An eminent experimental physicist and mathematician, Lichtenberg was knowledgeable about the philosophical views of his time, and interested in uncovering the philosophical commitments that underlie our common beliefs. In his notebooks (which he called his Waste Books) he often reflects on, challenges, and critiques these philosophical commitments and the dominant views of the Enlightenment, German idealism, and British empiricism.
Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation provides a critical account of the key connections between twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and nineteenth-century German idealist G. W. F. Hegel. While Hegel has been recognized as one of the key targets of Deleuze s philosophical writing, Henry Somers-Hall shows how Deleuze s antipathy to Hegel has its roots in a problem the two thinkers both try to address: getting beyond a philosophy of judgment and the restrictions of Kant s transcendental idealism.
Plotinus, the Roman philosopher (c. 204-270 CE) who is widely regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, was also the creator of numerous myths, images, and metaphors. They have influenced both secular philosophers and Christian and Muslim theologians, but have frequently been dismissed by modern scholars as merely ornamental. In this book, distinguished philosopher Stephen R. L. Clark shows that they form a vital set of spiritual exercises by which individuals can achieve one of Plotinus’s most important goals: self-transformation through contemplation.
German Idealism as Constructivism is the culmination of many years of research by distinguished philosopher Tom Rockmore—it is his definitive statement on the debate about German idealism between proponents of representationalism and those of constructivism that still plagues our grasp of the history of German idealism and the whole epistemological project today. Rockmore argues that German idealism—which includes iconic thinkers such as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel—can best be understood as a constructivist project, one that asserts that we cannot know the mind-independent world as it is but only our own mental construction of it.
Ancient Roman authors are firmly established in the Western canon, and yet the birth of Latin literature was far from inevitable. The cultural flourishing that eventually produced the Latin classics was one of the strangest events in history, as Denis Feeney demonstrates in this bold revision.
