Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1885 — German Philosophy and Philosophers. [ARTICLE]

German Philosophy and Philosophers.

When we speak of German philosophy we do not mean to imply that it differs essentially from the philosophy of other countries. We refer to it thus shfaply to point out the path that German thinkers have followed, especially in the domain of purely speculative thought. In this department the philosophy of Germany takes high rank—according to many authorities the highest. At least, for a century past, abstruse speculation has been chiefly represented by the thinkers of that country, and with the awakening, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, of a renewed passion for “practical” knowledge, Germany has keen allowed to bear the palm in the realms of metaphysics with no danger of a rival. The philosophic system of other countries, that of Bacon in England, Descartes in France, and Spinoza in Holland, awakened little attention in Germany. The works of John Locke, however, did attract some notice, and the system of Leibnitz, who is regarded as the founder of modern German philosophy, may be sajd to he -founded upon Locke’s speculations. Leibnitz was a marvelous specimen of precocious genius, his first philosophical treatise beingwritten at the age of 17. He lived from 1616 to 1716, and waaone of the finest scholars of his own, or, indeed, any age. His system of philosophy supposed the mind and body to be two distinct machines, acting independently of, but in harmony with, each other. He also held to the theory of “monads,” that is, the indestructible entities of matter and of mind, claiming the Deity to be the prime monad, and asserted that all ideas were innate. The great opponent of Leibnitz was Christian Wolf, who founded all his philosophy on logical propositions, and set aside those very doctrines on whiph Leibnitz grounded his reasoning. After these'two philosophers had passed away, there was a term pf quiescence in German philosophy, broken by the teaching of Emanuel Kent, the philosopher of “Pure Reason,” and the father of modern philosophical criti-" cism. The central point of his system lies in the proposition that before we can know anything concerning objects, and what degree or knowledge perception can give us. Kant’s “Critique of the Pure Reason,” published in 1781, is one of the most remarkable philosophical works ever written. Fichte was a disciple of h ant, but went beyond his master in transforming all knowledge into pure idealism. Fichte’s works have been largely translated into English, and Constitute the most brilliant and beautiful philosophical system ever enunciated. A kind of revolutionary excitement was aroused in German thought by Fichte’s writings, and for twenty-five years new and wonderful systems of philosophy were a spontaneous growth in that country. Of these, however, few survived. Schelling was the next writer to gain a general influence. He was at first simply an expounder of Fichte, but gradually elifninated a philosophy of his own, founded on the theory that the true sources of knowledge are not experience or reflection, but intellectual intuition. This theory has betrayed the followers of Schelling into the numberless absurdities of mysticism. Hegel, who succeeded Schelling as the dominant spirit of German phical thinker. The foundation of his system is, that the union of assertion and negation, the harmonizing of every proposition with its contradictory is the source of all knowledge. The Hegelian system has been modified largely by the speculations of Schleiermacher, Schubert, and others, but it still remains the most powerful school of German philosophy. Th’te principal opposing system is that of Schopenhauer, whose fundamental doctrine is that the only essential reality in the universe is will, all phenomena being but manifestations of the single original will. In conclusion, we may remark that notwithstanding all the absurdities to which German speculative philosophy has given birth, it has had a beneficial influence, not only on the intellectual life of Germany, but also upon that of the entire world.— lnter Ocean.