Analysis of the main thinkers who shaped European philosophy, in their historical context Philosophy is essentially historical. The element of wonder that drives philosophical inquiry, as well as the timeless nature of questions about humanity and the world, are both intertwined with their specific contexts of origin. The answers to these questions are historically situated interpretations of reality.Moreover, historicity itself is part of philosophical reflection. Any engagement with history (including this book) is inherently situated within a historical framework. A comprehensive understanding of the history of philosophy is, therefore, indispensable if one wishes to function as a philosopher.This historical introduction to European philosophy addresses the historicity of philosophy in its twofold sense. The first part provides insight into the vicissitudes of philosophical rationality from antiquity to the present day, with an emphasis on the relation between philosophical reflection and other domains of European intellectual history, such as science, politics, art, and literature. The second part deals with philosophy as a “historical-hermeneutical” discipline.The book functions both as a handbook for introductory philosophy courses and as a monograph on European philosophy and intellectual history for a non-specialist audience.Gerd Van Riel is professor of ancient philosophy at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy. Guy Claessens is postdoctoral researcher at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy. Philosophy is essentially historical. The element of wonder that drives philosophical inquiry, as well as the timeless nature of questions about humanity and the world, are both intertwined with their specific contexts of origin. The answers to these questions are historically situated interpretations of reality. Moreover, historicity itself is part of philosophical reflection. Any engagement with history (including this book) is inherently situated within a historical framework. A comprehensive understanding of the history of philosophy is, therefore, indispensable if one wishes to function as a philosopher. This historical introduction to European philosophy addresses the historicity of philosophy in its twofold sense. The first part provides insight into the vicissitudes of philosophical rationality from antiquity to the present day, with an emphasis on the relation between philosophical reflection and other domains of European intellectual history, such as science, politics, art, and literature. The second part deals with philosophy as a “historical-hermeneutical” discipline. The book functions both as a handbook for introductory philosophy courses and as a monograph on European philosophy and intellectual history for a non-specialist audience. INTRODUCTION 1. Plato’s cave 2. Philosophy and ideology 3. The historicity of philosophy Part 1. THE FORTUNES OF PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALITY Chapter 1. PHILOSOPHY IN ANTIQUITY (6th c. BC - 6th c. AD) 1. The origins of philosophical rationality 1.1 From mythos to logos 1.2 The natural philosophers: the development of a cosmology Heraclitus: ‘everything flows’ Parmenides: ‘being is’ 1.3 The emergence of ethics The relativism of the Sophists Socrates (469-399 BC) 2. Philosophy becomes a system 2.1 Plato (428-347 BC) Under the spell of Socrates The soul The intelligible The problem of moral education The moral order of the state Knowledge Participation The Good Detaching the soul from the body 2.2 Aristotle (384-322 BC) A systematic science The categories Four causes Form and purpose: teleology Soul as form Form and matter: hylomorphism Change: act and potency Ethics The divine 3. Later Antiquity: Philosophy as a way of life An increase in scale: Hellenism (323-30 BC) and the Roman Empire (c. 200 BC-475 AD) The Stoics Epicureanism Neoplatonism Chapter 2. THE MEDIEVAL PERSPECTIVE (5th-15th Centuries) Christianity 1. The Early Middle Ages: Augustine (354-430) The will and reason The enlightenment of the mind (illumination) Philosophia Christiana Early medieval intellectual life 2. The High Middle Ages: The rediscovery of Aristotle Medieval (Aristotelian) natural philosophy 3. The Integration of Aristotle Aristotelian sources of conflict 3.1 The Synthesis of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Reason and faith Knowledge Universals God The human soul Ethics 3.2 The Nominalism of William of Ockham (c. 1285–c. 1348) Reaction against realism Particulars, not universals Ockham’s razor ...cuts both ways Chapter 3. THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY (15th-19th Centuries) 1. Violence The crisis 2. The New Science Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Science and philosophy drift apart Nature as an enemy to conquer 3. The rise of the subject 4. Modern philosophy at the service of science and subject 4.1 The rationalism of René Descartes (1596-1650) Doubt First certainty: ‘I think, therefore I am’ Dualism The problem of the bridge Second certainty: the existence of God Third certainty: the existence of the external world The mathematical structure of reality 4.2 The empiricism of John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776) ‘No innate ideas!’ Skepticism Mind, substances and causality Science in crisis? 4.3 The critical idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Rationalism and empiricism A Copernican revolution The transcendental point of view Analysis of cognition: Phase 1. Transcendental aesthetic Phase 2. Transcendental analytic Phase 3. Transcendental dialectic Traditional metaphysics as an impossible science Critique of practical reason 4.4 The absolute idealism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831) The starting point: the French Revolution The project: thinking the absolute The enemy to conquer: the understanding Hegel’s reaction to Kant Idealism The dialectical method Spirit 4.5 Philosophy as a social practice: Karl Marx (1818-1883) Historical materialism Against Hegel Labor Division of labor, private property and exploitation Self-alienation Class struggle Philosophy as a social practice Chapter 4. THE END OF MODERNITY? (19th-20th Centuries) 1. Revolution 2. Limits of the belief in science The belief in progress debated 3. Dethroning the subject The ‘masters of suspicion’ 4. A philosophical revolution New emphases in contemporary philosophy 4.1 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), philosophizing with a hammer Mummified Concepts Rejection of ‘the’ truth Rejection of ‘Platonism’ and the Judeo-Christian tradition Rejection of morality Rejection of religion Where do we go from here? 4.2 Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and phenomenology The crisis of scientific rationality A transcendental standpoint Phenomenology Intentionality The lifeworld as (re)construction Objectivity 4.3 Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and existential phenomenology Dasein Existentials Our dealings with things in the world Mit-sein and Mit-Dasein The ‘They’ (das Man) Openness (Entschlossenheit) Temporality Thrownness, projection and fallenness Anxiety Death Being and time – and beyond 4.4 Hannah Arendt (1906-1975): The active life Vita activa The banality of evil 4.5 Existentialism: freedom at its peak ‘Pour soi’ and ‘en soi’ ‘L’être et le néant’ Condemned to be free 4.6 The deconstruction of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) Structuralism Language Writing Deprecation of writing ‘La différance’ The world as text Deconstruction Time and the ‘undeconstructible’ 5. A new voice in an old debate: Analytic philosophy 5.1 Philosophy of language ‘Continental’ and ‘analytic’ philosophy 5.2 The scientific nature of the language of logic: L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (‘Wittgenstein I’) The program: to avoid ‘chatter’ Meaning, reference and truth Only empirical statements are meaningful Philosophy as clarification of language The mystical The separation of factuality and values 5.3 The reality of ‘ordinary’ language: L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (‘Wittgenstein II’) 5 Language-game ‘Meaning is use’ Language as a tool-box Forms of life Part 2. PHILOSOPHY AS A HISTORICAL-HERMENEUTICAL SCIENCE Introduction 1. Historicism 2. History repeats itself – or doesn’t it? Oswald Spengler and Karl Popper Patterns in history Karl Popper’s criticism 3. The question of ‘meaning’ in the humanities and social sciences Positivism in the social sciences Chapter 1. THE BIRTH OF HERMENEUTICS AS A SCIENCE 1. The emergence of a general hermeneutics 2. The reproductive hermeneutics of F. Schleiermacher (1768-1834) Universal hermeneutics Reproductive hermeneutics The hermeneutical circle Chapter 2. HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING IN THE HUMANITIES 1. Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911): Verstehen Objective Spirit Nacherleben 2. Martin Heidegger on understanding and interpretation Fore-structures Sinn 3. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s historicization of understanding Historically-effected consciousness Prejudices Tradition Fusion of horizons Three criticisms of Gadamer. 1. Emilio Betti Criticism 2. Jürgen Habermas Criticism 3. Jacques Derrida New Historicism EPILOGUE: IS THIS THE END? Postmodernism The end of history? Bibliography of quoted works Name index