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Adventures in Philosophy |
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Select: Felicite de Lamennais - Victor Cousin - Antonio Rosmini-Serbati Vicenzo Gioberti |
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III. PHILOSOPHY OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY OUTSIDE GERMANY England During the first half of the nineteenth century the countries of Europe, with the exception of Germany, paid little attention to Kantian Criticism and Romantic Idealism. Indeed, in England the current of thought was developed almost entirely apart from the influence of German philosophy. English philosophers invariably followed the empiricist tradition of the past.
France In France Kant, Fichte and Schelling had some influence on philosophical thought. However, the main currents of thought followed the general trends of French philosophy. Worthy of mention are:
All these, however, shed little light upon the problems of speculative philosophy and made no real contribution to the Perennial Philosophy.
Felicite de Lamennais (1782-1854) Although Lamennais (picture) radically changed his religious and political standpoint at least three times and cursed what he had adored in the preceding period of his life, his mind preserved, despite all shifts, traits of imposing constancy. Lamennais was a keen metaphysician and, at the same time, a passionate sociologist, a thinker whom Schelling, after a long discussion with him, called "the greatest dialectician of the epoch," and an enthusiast whose imagination evidenced a dramatic tension and power. In his early youth, Lamennais, like his father who was a corsair and a descendant of corsairs, was an ardent supporter of the left wing of the French Revolution. In 1804 he abjured all revolutionary ideas and subsequently became a Catholic priest. His Essai sur I'indifference en matiere dc religion (1817), translated into English, German, Italian and Spanish, maintains that religion is the fundamental principle of human action. Society, therefore, cannot be indifferent to religious doctrines, and must crush atheists, deists and heretics. In 1824, Lamennais reached the zenith of his ultramontanism, displaying more papal-mindedness than the Pope himself, as well as extreme royalism. But, in 1829, he advocated separation of Church and State, admonished the Church to sever its cause from that of the kings, and advocated the alliance between the Catholic Church and democracy, while maintaining the principle of the spiritual leadership of the Pope. Severely rebuked by the Pope, Lamennais, in 1834, published his Paroles d'un Croyant (Words of a Believer) of which more than 100,000 copies were sold within a few weeks. He returned to the deism of his youth, and became the herald of "spiritual democracy" and radical republicanism, yet always protesting that without faith in God, human rights and duties must collapse and no civil loyalty can persist. Lamennais was one of the founders of the Second French Republic, the initiator of Catholic liberalism and Christian socialism. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
The disrespect largely prevalent for the philosophy of Victor Cousin (picture) is based upon his emphasis of eclecticism, a term he used to characterize his method, disregarding the pejorative meaning of the word which implied shallowness and dependence. Although Cousin does not belong to that small nucleus of great philosophers, many of his ideas influenced American transcendentalism while others parallel modern American views, and continue to inspire European philosophers. Cousin was attracted by that which is common to humanity. He was convinced that mankind could not be skeptical; that it needed a common faith (not necessarily a religious faith, but certainty). He maintained that the mission of philosophy was to explain faith, not destroy it. His philosophical studies were principally aimed at the elevation of the soul, not at insight into the mystery of things. His cardinal principle asserted that truth was contained in each of the philosophical systems known throughout historical time; that every major philosopher had made a contribution to the knowledge of truth, and that their composite contributions comprised the whole truth, even though they contained some errors. Modifications of Cousin's concepts are manifested in Wilhelm Dilthey's "doctrine of philosophical types," and Benedetto Croce's identification of philosophy with its history. Cousin believed that he had discovered a method of intellectual distillation whereby the method of essential truth could be extrapolated from the various historical systems. He called this method of critical choice eclectivism. It was based upon his belief that spontaneous reason, freed from the control of the will, became pure in its contemplation, and thereby was able to behold essential truth. As a young man, Cousin adhered to the Scottish school of Thomas Reid; in the period from 1815 to 1833 he was seized by a "metaphysical fever," and studied Hegel and Schelling, both of whom he later came to know personally. In 1840 he returned to the Scottish school of philosophy, and severely criticized his earlier writings. However, it was the writings of his "metaphysical fever" that had the greatest influence on American thought. Cousin was the intermediary whereby the transcendentalists acquainted themselves with German idealism, for his was a more lucid, if not altogether correct, presentation. For a time, James Marsh (the founder of Transcendentalism), Theodore Parker, Charles sumner, and George Bancroft were his devoted adherents; James Walker and Caleb Henry maintained his views somewhat later. Emerson, too, was indebted to Cousin, although he rightly declared that Cousin's method of "distillation" was the result of optical delusion. Cousin became a peer of France, royal councilor, and minister of public education during the regime of Louis Philippe. He was attacked by the clergy for his defense of the liberty of science, and later by the radical leftists. He became politically obscure after the coup d'état of Napoleon III. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Italy In Italy, Pasquale Galluppi (1770-1846) was the first to bring Italian philosophy into contact with German thought through his translations of the principal works of the German thinkers. Italian philosophers were opposed not only to Kantian Criticism and Idealism, but also to Empiricism and Sensism. They endeavored to develop their thought in accordance with Italian Catholic tradition and to overcome Idealism through the affirmation of the transcendence of God. The most representative thinkers of this movement are Rosmini-Serbati and Gioberti. Antonio Rosmini-Serbati (1797-1855) The concern of Rosmini (picture) was the restoration of morality and religion in opposition to the atheism of the sensists and Idealists. Sensism and Idealism were connected with the problem of knowledge. Thus Rosmini believed that to defeat them he must find a starting point in the problem of knowledge. For him, this starting point was the idea of being, Platonically conceived and similar to a Kantian category. The degrees of the process of knowledge are:
The first three are subjective types of knowledge; judgment, on the contrary, is objective, because it applies to empirical data the idea of being, which is universal and absolute. Rosmini stands as one of the first to undertake the restoration of Scholastic philosophy. Although his thought is influenced by St. Augustine's philosophy rather than the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, his entire philosophy is a constant affirmation of the transcendence of God. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On The Internet
According to Vincenzo Gioberti (picture), the essential condition for objective knowledge must be found in the Absolute Being (God); thus the fundamental act of human knowledge must be connected with Him, not in the sense that we see God intuitively -- which would be pure ontologism -- but that we see some operation of God -- that is, His creative act. The part Gioberti acted in the history of the Italian struggle for national unity is more important than the consequence of his philosophical thoughts. Gioberti was a faithful son of the Catholic Church and a convinced liberal in the sense of early nineteenth century liberalism. An ordained priest in 1825, he sympathized with the revolutionaries who endeavored to liberate Italy from Austrian domination but differed from them because he intended to entrust the Pope with the task of organizing the country politically. Popes Leo XII, and Pius VIII and Gregory XVI were opposed to any change of both the political and the cultural order, and Gioberti was exiled to France in 1833. When Pius IX was elected Pope in 1846, Gioberti built his hopes upon him, and for a short time, the new Pope seemed to justify Gioberti's expectations. After the outbreak of the revolution in 1848, Gioberti returned to Italy but he was soon disappointed, for the revolution was crushed and Pius IX denied his early liberalism. Gioberti continued in his efforts to reconcile the papacy and political liberalism and to defend the holy see against reproaches on the part of the liberals. But his strength was broken by his painful experiences, and he died soon after the end of the revolution. In Gioberti's philosophy there is a conspicuous difference between his fundamental concepts and his method. While his method relied upon immediate intuition of the Absolute, his system was concerned with the dialectical relations between essence and existence. He stated that there is a permanent processus by virtue of which essence creates existence, and existence returns to essence. The individual, whose source is divine, is subject to the same processus. The universal spirit returns to universality after having passed the stages from sensibility to intelligibility. Gioberti's last years were all the more unhappy since, in addition to his political failure, he became aware of the severe opposition of Italian philosophers to his doctrine. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On The Internet
The second half of the nineteenth century is marked by a broad new movement of thought called Positivism. This movement arose in opposition to the abstractionism and formalism of the transcendental Idealists, who had made nature a "representation" of the ego. The purpose of the new school of thought was to lay greater stress upon immediate experience, upon the positive data obtained through the senses.
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