UCLA
Welcome to the Music Library...
...the center for music research, study, and enjoyment at UCLA. We serve the departments of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music or any other UCLA department with a music component. Special collections and archives related to popular American music, film music, jazz, and classical music are housed in the Performing Arts Special Collections. The Ethnomusicology Archive collects recordings and video of world music.
1102 Schoenberg Music Building
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Circulation: 310.825.1353
Reference: 310.825.4882
Hours | Location | Contact
Sunday, December 7, 2008
East Asia: Politics, Economy, and Society
Korea Yearbook
Politics, Economy and Society
Edited by Rüdiger Frank, James E. Hoare, Patrick Köllner and Susan Pares
The Korea Yearbook is the source for up-to-date concise information on what is happening on the Korean peninsula. It features refereed articles on political, economic and social aspects of both South and North Korea, while its survey articles provide easy overviews of politics, the economy, and foreign relations of both Koreas, as well as inter-Korean relations. A true must for everybody interested in modern East Asia in general, and Korea in particular.
Politics, Economy and Society
Edited by Rüdiger Frank, James E. Hoare, Patrick Köllner and Susan Pares
The Korea Yearbook is the source for up-to-date concise information on what is happening on the Korean peninsula. It features refereed articles on political, economic and social aspects of both South and North Korea, while its survey articles provide easy overviews of politics, the economy, and foreign relations of both Koreas, as well as inter-Korean relations. A true must for everybody interested in modern East Asia in general, and Korea in particular.
Early Modern European Nations and Empire
NY UNIVERSITY
RSCP. 72100 -Early Modern Cultural Translations: City, Nation, Empire GC: M,
6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3/4 credits, Prof. Elsky, [92602] Cross listed with C L
80900 and ENGL 81100.
This course will focus on the various forms Renaissance and Early Modern culture has
taken in geographic space. It will concentrate on the translation of culture across borders
from the local to the national, the imperial, and the intercontinental.
We will draw on historical analysis to examine how cultural, literary, and visual forms
are transformed as they are absorbed in new locations and new political-geographical
formations. The central focus will be the processes by which cultural spaces are
imagined, projected, and crossed.
Our starting point will be current debates over the kinds of borders in which culture is
both produced and received; we begin with contemporary claims for the authenticity of
local communities and counter-claims for large cross-cultural geographic space; we will
consider how these claims bear upon debates concerning the "natural" locations of
Renaissance and Early Modern culture.
The locations of culture to which we will attend include the Italian city state (especially
Florence and Venice) and English, French, and Spanish nation states and transcontinental
empire.
The course culminates in the New World synthesis of European and indigenous cultural
forms that resulted from Early Modern trans-Atlantic exploration.
We will examine the historical conditions in which cities, states, and empires are
imagined and formed, the symbiotic and violent ways cultures appropriate each other,
and the forms in which those appropriations are artistically represented. Examples will be
drawn from the historical, literary and visual traditions, including case histories and the
theory of the state and empire; lyric, epic, travel narrative, and ethnographic description;
prints, drawings, architecture, and cartography.
Particular attention will be devoted to the relation of the formal qualities of works to their
geographical setting, especially where competing geographies and identity groups
intersect.
Emphasis will be placed on critical approaches and research problems as illustrated in
readings from political and cultural history, literary criticism, and art history as applied so
such figures as Dante, Petrarch, Donne, Jonson, Shakespeare, Columbus, Las Casas,
Oviedo, Garsilaso, Thevet, Léry, as well as the monuments of Venice and the major
English and Spanish cartographic projects in Europe and the New World.
Because this a cross-disciplinary course, students are encouraged to introduce material
drawn from their home discipline for discussion and assignments.
RSCP. 72100 -Early Modern Cultural Translations: City, Nation, Empire GC: M,
6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3/4 credits, Prof. Elsky, [92602] Cross listed with C L
80900 and ENGL 81100.
This course will focus on the various forms Renaissance and Early Modern culture has
taken in geographic space. It will concentrate on the translation of culture across borders
from the local to the national, the imperial, and the intercontinental.
We will draw on historical analysis to examine how cultural, literary, and visual forms
are transformed as they are absorbed in new locations and new political-geographical
formations. The central focus will be the processes by which cultural spaces are
imagined, projected, and crossed.
Our starting point will be current debates over the kinds of borders in which culture is
both produced and received; we begin with contemporary claims for the authenticity of
local communities and counter-claims for large cross-cultural geographic space; we will
consider how these claims bear upon debates concerning the "natural" locations of
Renaissance and Early Modern culture.
The locations of culture to which we will attend include the Italian city state (especially
Florence and Venice) and English, French, and Spanish nation states and transcontinental
empire.
The course culminates in the New World synthesis of European and indigenous cultural
forms that resulted from Early Modern trans-Atlantic exploration.
We will examine the historical conditions in which cities, states, and empires are
imagined and formed, the symbiotic and violent ways cultures appropriate each other,
and the forms in which those appropriations are artistically represented. Examples will be
drawn from the historical, literary and visual traditions, including case histories and the
theory of the state and empire; lyric, epic, travel narrative, and ethnographic description;
prints, drawings, architecture, and cartography.
Particular attention will be devoted to the relation of the formal qualities of works to their
geographical setting, especially where competing geographies and identity groups
intersect.
Emphasis will be placed on critical approaches and research problems as illustrated in
readings from political and cultural history, literary criticism, and art history as applied so
such figures as Dante, Petrarch, Donne, Jonson, Shakespeare, Columbus, Las Casas,
Oviedo, Garsilaso, Thevet, Léry, as well as the monuments of Venice and the major
English and Spanish cartographic projects in Europe and the New World.
Because this a cross-disciplinary course, students are encouraged to introduce material
drawn from their home discipline for discussion and assignments.
Continental Philosophy
ROMANTICISM (c.1785 - c.1830)
(AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM / PROTO-EXISTENTIALISM / GERMAN IDEALISM)
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SUB-PAGES
Topics:
Romantic Literature
Feminist:
19th Century Feminist Thought / Feminist Perspectives on 19th Century Thought
Post-colonial:
19th Century Non-Western Thought / Post-colonial Perspectives on 19th Century Thought
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ASSOCIATIONS
British Association for Romantic Studies
Society for German Idealism
International Conference on Romanticism (formerly American Conference on Romanticism)
North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR)
CONFERENCES
2009:
Breaking Boundaries: 1790s in Germany, Britain and France, Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, April 22-24
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, Vancouver, April 8-12
2008:
The Work of Romanticism, International Conference on Romanticism, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, October 16-19
German Idealism and the Foundation of Philosophy, Technische Universität, Berlin, Germany, October 10-12
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 18-23
2007:
Emancipation, Liberation, Freedom, Joint NASSR / BARS conference, Centre for Romantic Studies, Department of English, University of Bristol, July 26-29
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, April 4 and 7
Transcendental Idealism Workshop, Essex Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism Project, Institute of Philosophy, University of London, March 16-17
German Idealism and Normativity, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, March 14-15
2006:
Engaged Romanticism: Romanticism as Praxis, International Conference on Romanticism, Arizona State University, November 9-12
Scientia and Techne, Joint Annual Conference, NASSR-NAVSA, Purdue University, August 31-September 3
Romanticism, Environment, Crisis, Centre for Romantic Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, June 23-27
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, San Francisco, April 3-8
2005:
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 23-27
2004:
Debatable Lands, Biennial Conference, British Association for Romantic Studies, University of Newcastle, July 28-31
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 24-28
F. H. Jacobi and the Formation of German Idealism, Philosophy Programme, School of Advanced Study, University of London, March 5
2003:
Romantic Border Crossings, International Conference on Romanticism, Laredo, Texas, October 14-17
Romantic Cosmopolitanism, 12th Annual Conference, North American Society for Romanticism, University of Colorado, Boulder, September 9-12
Romanticism, History, Historicism, Department of English, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, June 18-22
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 27
2002:
Romantic Orientalism, Department of English, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, July 12-15
2001:
2000:
Annual:
Annual Conference, British Association for Romantic Studies
International Conference on Romanticism
COURSES
University of Chicago: German Romanticism: Literature, Philosophy, Science (Richards)
Concordia University: Kant and 19th Century German Philosophy (Zeman)
Earlham University: Nineteenth Century Continental Philosophy (Guven)
University of Kansas: Themes in Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy (Maybee)
University of London: German Idealism (Gardner)
Monash University: Romanticism and Revolution (Ackland)
University of New Mexico: Studies in British Romanticism (Harrison)
North Eastern Illinois University: Nineteenth-Century Continental Philosophy (Vessey)
University of Strathclyde: Romanticism (Furniss)
University of Texas, Austin: European Romanticism: 1996 / 2004 (Arens)
Yale University: German Idealism (Kreines)
American Transcendentalism:
Proto-Existentialism:
Brock University: The Beginnings of Existentialism (Brown)
University of Pennsylvania: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (Bowman)
Arts:
University of London, Queen Mary College: Poetic Ideology and Practice in English Romanticism (Hamilton)
University of Pennsylvania: Kant and the 19th Century: German Aesthetics from Kant to Nietzsche (Bowman)
University of Washington: Romantic Theory (Halmi)
The Sublime:
Boston College: The Sublime (Richardson)
Brown University: On the Sublime (Sng)
University of Dundee: Aesthetics of the Sublime (Jones)
University of Rhode Island: The Sublime (Jones)
JOURNALS
BARS Bulletin and Review
European Romantic Review
Idealistic Studies
Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus
Prism(s): Essays in Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism on the Net
Studies in Romanticism
PHILOSOPHERS / THEORISTS
In Chronological Order:
'Longinus' (1st Century CE) (see also Classical Literary Theory)
Edward Young (1683 - 1765) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Georg Hamann (1730 - 1788) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
William Godwin (1756 - 1836)
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757 - 1823)
William Blake (1757 - 1827)
Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814)
Germain Necker de Stael (1766 - 1817)
Wilhelm Humboldt (1767 - 1835
August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767 - 1845)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 - 1831)
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
Novalis [Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg] (1772 - 1801)
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772 - 1829)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
Heinrich von Kleist (1777 - 1811)
Georg Anton Friedrich Ast (1778 - 1841)
Thomas Peacock (1785 - 1866)
August Philip Böckh (1785 - 1867)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
John Keats (1795 - 1821)
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872)
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808 - 1884)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
By Nationality:
Ancient Greek and Hellenistic:
'Longinus' (1st Century CE) (see also Classical Literary Theory)
Denmark:
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)
Eire:
France:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Germain Necker de Stael (1766 - 1817)
Germany:
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Georg Hamann (1730 - 1788) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814)
Wilhelm Humboldt (1767 - 1835)
August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767 - 1845)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 - 1831)
Novalis [Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg] (1772 - 1801)
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772 - 1829)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
Georg Anton Friedrich Ast (1778 - 1841)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
August Philip Böckh (1785 - 1867)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872)
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808 - 1884)
Italy:
UK:
Edward Young (1683 - 1765) (see also Neo-Classical Literary Theory)
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) (see also Early Modern Thought)
William Godwin (1756 - 1836)
William Blake (1757 - 1827)
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
Thomas Peacock (1785 - 1866)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
John Keats (1795 - 1821)
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)
USA:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
By School of Thought:
American Transcendentalists:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Proto-Existentialists:
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
German Idealists:
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819)
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757 - 1823)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 - 1831)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872)
SOURCES: PRIMARY
Off-Line:
Anthologies:
General:
Furst, Lilian, ed. European Romanticism: Self-Definition. London: Methuen, 1980.
Schools of Thought:
German Idealism:
Behler, Ernst, ed. Philosophy of German Idealism. London: Continuum, 1987.
Bubner, Rudiger, ed. German Idealist Philosophy. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997.
Di Giovanni, George, and H. S. Harris, eds. Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of German Idealism. Albany: SUNY Press, 1985. Rev. ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000.
Ewing, A. C., ed. The Idealist Tradition: from Burke to Blanshard. Glencoe, NY: Free Press, 1957.
Stepelevich, Lawrence, ed. The Young Hegelians: an Anthology. Cambridge: CUP, 1983.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Behler, Ernst, ed. German Romantic Criticism.
Bernstein, J. M., ed. Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
German Aesthetics and Literary Criticism. 3 Vols. Cambridge: CUP.
Winckelmann, Lessing, Hamann, Herder, Schiller, Goethe. Vol. 3. Ed. H. B. Nisbet. 1985.
Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel. Ed. David Simpson. 1984.
The Romantic Ironists and Goethe. Ed. K. M. Wheeler. 1984.
Simpson, David, ed. The Origins of Modern Critical Thought: German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism from Lessing to Hegel. Cambridge: CUP, 1988.
Willson, A. Leslie, ed. German Romantic Criticism: Novalis, Schlegel Schleiermacher and Others. London: Continuum, 1982.
British Romanticism:
Bromwich, David, ed. Romantic Critical Essays. Cambridge: CUP, 1987.
Hill, John Spencer, ed. The Romantic Imagination. London: Macmillan, 1977.
Hoffman, Daniel G., and Samuel Hynes, eds. English Literary Criticism: Romantic and Victorian. London: Peter Owen, 1963.
Kitson, Peter J., ed. Romantic Criticism, 1800-1825. London: Batsford, 1989.
The Sublime:
Ashfield, Andrew, and Peter de Bolla, eds. The Sublime: a Reader in British Eighteenth Century Aesthetic Theory. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
Selected Individual Works:
General:
Schools of Thought:
German Idealism:
1797.
Anon. "The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism." Trans. Diana I. Behler. Philosophy of German Idealism. Ed. Ernst Behler. New York: Continuum, 1987. 161-166.
Boehme, Jacob. Mysterium Pansophicum.
Heine, Heinrich.
On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, and Other Writings. Ed. Terry Pinkard. Trans. Howard Pollack-Milgate. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Heine, Heinrich. "Die Romantische Schule." 1885. Vol. 8 of Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Manfred Windfuhr. 1979.
"The Romantic School." Trans. Helen Mustard. 1973. "The Romantic School" and Other Essays. Ed. Jost Hermand and Robert Holub. 1985.
Holderlin, Friedrich. Essays and Letters on Theory. Ed. and trans. Thomas Pfau. 1988.
von Kleist, Heinrich. 1910.
"On the Marionette Theatre."
von Kleist, Heinrich. "Über die allmähliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim Reden." 1805-1808.
"On the Gradual Construction of Thoughts while Speaking." Ed. and trans. David Constantine. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004.
British Romanticism:
The Sublime:
On-Line:
Archives:
Selected Individual Works:
SOURCES: SECONDARY
Off-Line:
Anthologies:
Socio-Historical Context:
Pilbeam, Pamela M., ed. Themes in Modern European History, 1780-1830. London: Routledge,.
General:
Ameriks, Karl, and Dieter Sturma, eds. The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.
Ferber, Michael, ed. A Companion to European Romanticism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Klemm, David E., and Gunter Zoller, eds. Figuring the Self: Subject, Absolute, and Others in Classical German Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997.
Kompridis, Nikolas, ed. Philosophical Romanticism. London: Routledge, 2006.
Posner, R., and J. N. Green, eds. Trends in Romance Linguistics and Philology. 2 Vols. The Hague: Mouton, 1981.
Schools of Thought:
German Idealism:
Ameriks, Karl, ed. Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.
Gersh, Stephen, and Dermot Moran, eds. Eriugena, Berkeley, and the Idealist Tradition. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2006.
Sandkühler, Hans Jörg, ed. Handbuch Deutscher Idealismus. J. B. Metzler, 2005.
Solomon, Robert C., and Kathleen M. Higgins, eds. The Age of German Idealism. Vol. 6 of Routledge History of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1993.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
British Romanticism:
Brown, Marshall, ed. Romanticism. Vol. 5 of Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.
Hill, John Spencer, ed. The Romantic Imagination. London: Macmillan, 1977.
The Sublime:
Silverman, Hugh, and Gary E. Aylesworth, eds. The Textual Sublime: Deconstruction and its Differences. Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.
Being:
Communication:
Human Nature:
Body:
Mind:
Self:
Knowledge:
Morality:
Nature:
Philosophy / Theory:
Religion:
Society:
Butler, Marilyn, ed. Burke, Paine, Godwin and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge: CUP, 1984.
Selected Individual Works:
Socio-Historical Context:
Doyle, William. Oxford History of the French Revolution. 1989.
Halliday, F. E. “The Industrial Revolution and Napoleonic War, 1783-1830.” England: a Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1964. 153-171.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962. Rpt. London: Abacus, 1997.
Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution. 2 Vols. 1962–64.
McCalman, I. Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
Pilbeam, Pamela M. "European Society in Revolution." Themes in Modern European History, 1780-1830. Ed. Pamela M. Pilbeam. London: Routledge, . 204-222.
General:
Ameriks, Karl. "The Legacy of Idealism in the Philosophy of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 258-281.
Ashton, Rosemary. "England and Germany." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 495-504.
Ashton, Rosemary. The German Idea: Four English Writers and the Reception of German Thought, 1800-1860. Cambridge: CUP, 1980. Rpt. London: Libris, 1994.
Beiser, Frederick C. The Romantic Imperative: the Concept of Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003.
Beiser, Frederick C. Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: the Genesis of Modern Political Thought, 1790-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will: the Revolt Against the Myth of an Ideal World." 1975.
The Proper Study of Mankind: an Anthology of Essays. Ed. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer. London: Pimlico, 1997. 553-580.
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. 207-237.
Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. Mellon Lectures, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1965. Pub. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Counter-Enlightenment." Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Vol. 2. Ed. Philip Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1973.
The Proper Study of Mankind: an Anthology of Essays. Ed. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer. London: Pimlico, 1997. 243-268.
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979. 1-24.
Berlin, Isaiah. "Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought." Mary Flexner Lectures, Bryn Mawr College, 1952. London: Chatto and Windus, , 2006.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Essence of Romanticism."
The Power of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000. 200-204.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Romantic Revolution: a Crisis in the History of Modern Thought."
The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History. Ed. Henry Hardy. London: Pimlico, 1996. 168-193.
Biddiss, Michael. "Reason and Romanticism: Currents of Social and Political Thought." Themes in Modern European History, 1780-1830. Ed. Pamela M. Pilbeam. London: Routledge, . 223-247.
Bowie, Andrew. "Critiques of Idealism I: the Early Romantics to Feuerbach." Introduction to German Philosophy: from Kant to Habermas. Cambridge: Polity, 2003. 94-117.
Brown, Marshall. "Romanticism and Enlightenment." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 25-47.
Cobban, Alfred. Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960.
See excerpt "The Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century." Romanticism and Consciousness. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Norton, 1970. 132-146.
Copleston, Frederick C. Modern Philosophy: from the Post-Kantian Idealists to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Vol. 7 of A History of Philosophy. New York: Newman, 1963.
Frank, Manfred. Einfuhrung in die fruhromantische Asthetik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989.
The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism. Albany: SUNY Press, 2004.
Garrard, Graeme. Counter-Enlightenments: from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. 2006.
Hamilton, Paul. Metaromanticism: Aesthetics, Literature, Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.
Harris, R. W. Romanticism and the Social Order, 1780-1830. London: , 1929.
Kitson, Peter J. "Beyond the Enlightenment: the Philosophical, Scientific and Religious Inheritance." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 35-47.
Krell, David Farrell. Contagion: Sexuality, Disease, and Death in German Idealism and Romanticism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1998.
Lovejoy, A. O. "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms." Annual Meeting, Modern Language Association, December 27, 1923. PMLA 39 (1924): 229-253.
Romanticism: Points of View. Ed. Robert F. Gleckner and Gerald E. Enscoe. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1962. 45-57.
English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. M. H. Abrams. Oxford: OUP, 1960. 3-23.
Essays in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1948. 228-253.
Lovejoy, A. O. "The Meaning of 'Romantic' in Early German Romanticism." Modern Language Notes 31 (1916): .
Essays in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1948. 183-206.
Lowith, Karl. Von Hegel zu Nietzsche: der revolutionare Bruch im Denken des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Zurich: Europa, 1941.
From Hegel to Nietzsche: the Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought. Trans. David E. Green. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1964. Rpt. 1991.
McMahon, Darrin M. Enemies of the Enlightenment: the French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity.
Masseau, Didier. Les Ennemis des philosophes: l’Antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières. Paris: Albin Michel, 2000.
McMahon, Darrin. Enemies of the Enlightenment: the French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Moscovici, Claudia. Romanticism and Post-Romanticism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007
Norton, Robert E. "The Myth of the Counter-Enlightenment." Journal of the History of Ideas 68 (2007): 635-658.
Pinkard, Terry. German Philosophy, 1760-1860: the Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Richards, Robert. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002.
Solomon, Robert C. "Romancing the Self: Fichte, Schelling, Schiller and Romanticism." Continental Philosophy since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self. Vol. 7 of Oxford History of Philosophy. Oxford: OUP, 1988. 44-55.
Thorslev, Peter. "German Romantic Idealism." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 74-94.
West, David. "Continental Critics of Enlightenment." An Introduction to Continental Philosophy. Cambridge: Polity, 1996. 27-34.
Historicism:
Hamilton, Paul. Historicism. London: Routledge, 1996.
Mandelbaum, Maurice. History, Man and Reason: a Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1971.
Meinecke, Friedrich. Die Enstehung der Historimus. 2 Vols. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1936.
Historicism: the Rise of a New Historical Outlook. Trans. J. E. Anderson. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972.
Popper, Karl. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957.
Troeltsch, Ernst. Der Historimus und Seine Probleme. Tubingen: Mohr, 1922.
Schools of Thought:
American Transcendentalism:
Rose, Anne C. Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830-1850. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981.
Proto-Existentialism:
Lowith, Karl. Von Hegel zu Nietzsche: der revolutionare Bruch im Denken des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Zurich: Europa, 1941.
From Hegel to Nietzsche: the Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought. Trans. David E. Green. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1964. Rpt. 1991.
Solomon, Robert C. From Rationalism to Existentialism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Solomon, Robert C. From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford: OUP, 1987.
West, David. "Beyond Theory: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Existentialism." An Introduction to Continental Philosophy. Cambridge: Polity, 1996. 117-153.
German Idealism:
Beck, Lewis W. "From Leibniz to Kant." The Age of German Idealism. Vol. 6 of The Routledge History of Philosophy. Ed. Robert Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins. London: Routledge, 1993. 5-39.
Beiser, Frederick C. German Idealism: the Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801. Cambriudge, MA: Harvard UP, 2002.
Beiser, Frederick C. "The Enlightenment and Idealism." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 18-36.
Beiser, Frederick C. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987.
Bowie, Andrew. "German Idealism: from Fichte to the Early Schelling." Introduction to German Philosophy: from Kant to Habermas. Cambridge: Polity, 2003. 58-78.
Bubner, Rudiger. Innovationen des Idealismus. Gottingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1995.
The Innovations of Idealism. Trans. Nicholas Walker. Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
Copleston, Frederick C. Modern Philosophy: from the French Enlightenment to Kant. Vol. 6 of A History of Philosophy. New York: Newman, 1960.
Dudley, Will. Understanding German Idealism. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2007.
Edwin, A. C. Idealism: a Critical Survey. London: Methuen, 1934.
Ewing, A. C. Idealism: a Critical Survey. London: Methuen, 1934.
Franks, Paul W. All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005.
Guyer, Paul. "Absolute Idealism and the Rejection of Kantian Dualism." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 37-56.
Henrich, Dieter. Between Kant and Hegel: Lectures on German Idealism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003.
Hoernle, R. F. A. Idealism as a Philosophy. 1927.
Kosch, Michelle. Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard. Oxford: OUP, 2006.
Mack, Michael. German Idealism and the Jew: the Inner Anti-Semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.
Pinkard, Terry. German Philosophy, 1760-1860: the Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Solomon, Robert C. "Romancing the Self: Fichte, Schelling, Schiller and Romanticism." Continental Philosophy since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self. Vol. 7 of Oxford History of Philosophy. Oxford: OUP, 1988. 44-55.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: OUP, 1953.
Behler, Ernst. German Romantic Literary Theory. Cambridge: CUP, 1993.
Berman, Russell A. Between Fontane and Tucholsky: Literary Criticism and the Public Sphere in Imperial Germany. 1983.
Bowie, Andrew. "German Idealism and the Arts." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 239-257.
Bowie, Andrew. "The Philosophy of Critique and the Critique of Philosophy: Romantic Literary Theory." From Romanticism to Critical Theory: the Philosophy of German Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1997. 65-89.
Bowie, Andrew. "Shifting the Ground: 'Where Philosophy Ceases Literature Must Begin.'" From Romanticism to Critical Theory: the Philosophy of German Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1997. 53-64.
Hammermeister, Kai. The German Aesthetic Tradition. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe. A History of German Literary Criticism, 1730-1980. 1988.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe. The Institution of Criticism. 1982.
Nancy, Jean-Luc, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. L'absolu littéraire: Théorie de la littérature du romantisme Allemand. Paris: Seuil, 1978.
The Literary Absolute: the Theory of Literature in German Romanticism. Trans. Philip Barnard and Cheryl Lester. Albany: SUNY Press, 1988.
British Romanticism:
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: OUP, 1953.
Allen, Graham. "Defences of Poetry." Romantic Writings. Ed. Stephen Bygrave. Milton: Keynes: Open UP, 1996. 71-89.
L., C. B. "Romantic and PostRomantic Poetics." Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
Perry, Seamus. "Romantic Literary Criticism." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 369-382.
Simpson, David. "Romanticism, Criticism and Theory." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 1-24.
The Sublime:
Balfour, Ian. "The Sublime Between History and Theory: Hegel, De Man, and Beyond." After Poststructuralism: Writing the Intellectual History of Theory. Ed. Tilottama Rajan and Michael J. O'Driscoll. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002. 110-126.
Battersby, Christine. The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference. London: Routledge, 2007.
Battersby, Christine. "Terror, Terrorism and the Sublime: Rethinking the Sublime after 1789 and 2001." Postcolonial Studies 6.1 (2003): 67-89.
de Bolla, Peter. The Discourse of the Sublime: Readings in History, Aesthetics and the Subject. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Ferguson, Frances. Solitude and the Sublime: Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Individuation. London: Routledge, 1992.
Hipple, Walter John. The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Picturesque in Eighteenth Century British Aesthetic Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1957.
Knapp, Steven. Personification and the Sublime: Milton to Coleridge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985.
Monk, S. H. The Sublime: a Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England. New York: MLA, 1935.
Morris, David B. The Religious Sublime: Christian Poetry and Critical Tradition in Eighteenth Century England. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1972.
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: the Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1959.
Paley, Morton D. The Apocalyptic Sublime. 1986.
Trott, Nicola. "The Picturesque, the Beautiful and the Sublime." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 72-90.
Watson, J. R. Picturesque Landscape and English Romantic Poetry. London: Hutchinson, 1970.
Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976.
Wood, Theodore E. B. The Word 'Sublime' and its Context, 1650-1760. The Hague: Mouton, 1972.
Being:
Communication:
Bleicher, Josef. "The Rise of Classical Hermeneutics." Contemporary Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. 11-26.
Esterhammer, Angela. The Romantic Performative: Language and Action in British and German Romanticism. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2000.
Grondin, Jean. Einfuhrung in die philosophische Hermeneutik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991.
"The Post-Kantian Transition from the Enlightenment to Romanticism: Ast and Schlegel." Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. 63-67.
Hall, R. A. Idealism in Romance Linguistics. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1963.
Iordan, I. An Introduction to Romance Linguistics, its Schools and Scholars. Lonon: Methuen, 1937.
Keach, William. "Romanticism and Language." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 95-119.
Leventhal, Robert S. The Disciplines of Interpretation: Lessing, Herder, Schlegel and Hermeneutics in Germany, 1750-1800. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994.
Robins, R. H. "Comparative and Historical Linguistics in the Nineteenth Century." A Short History of Linguistics. New York: Longman, 1967. 4th Ed. 1997. 189-221.
Smith, Olivia. The Politics of Language, 1791- 1819.
Terezakis, Katie. The Immanent Word: the Turn to Language in German Philosophy, 1759-1801. London: Routledge, 2007.
Todorov, Tzvetan. "The Romantic Crisis." Theories of the Symbol. Trans. Catherine Porter. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982. 147-221.
Human Nature:
Body:
Mind:
Self:
Goldstein, Jan. The Post-Revolutionary Self: Politics and Psyche in France, 1750-1850. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2005.
Knowledge:
Morality:
Nature:
Philosophy / Theory:
Religion:
Di Giovanni, George. Freedom and Religion in Kant and his Immediate Successors: the Vocation of Humankind, 1774-1800. Cambridge: CUP, 2005.
Social Formation:
On-Line:
Socio-Historical Context:
General:
Baumer, Franklin L.: Romanticism (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
Berlin, Isaiah: The Counter-Enlightenment (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
Boeree, C. George: Romanticism
Brians, Paul: Romanticism
Droz, Jacques: Romanticism in Political Thought (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
Gutmann, James: Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
History Guide: The Romantic Era
Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Romanticism
Jones, Roger: Romanticism
University of London: Nineteenth Century German Philosophy
McMahon, Darrin M.: The Counter-Enlightenment and the Low-Life of Literature in Pre-Revolutionary France Past and Present (1998)
Melani, Lilia: Romanticism
Moscovici, Claudia: The Philosophy of Postromanticism
Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Age: Introduction
Rajan, Tilottama: Hermeneutics 1: Nineteenth Century (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
Rotenstreich, Nathan:
Volksgeist (DHI)
Zeitgeist (DHI)
Victor Hugo Website: Romanticism
WebMuseum: Romanticism
Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
Counter-Enlightenment
Category Romanticism:
Fin de Siècle
German Romanticism
Neo-Romanticism
Post-Romanticism
Romanticism
Romantic Nationalism
Schools of Thought:
American Transcendentalism:
Goodman, Russell: Transcendentalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Transcendentalism
Proto-Existentialism:
German Idealism:
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: German Idealism
Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
German Idealism
Hegelianism:
Neo-Hegelianism
Right Hegelians
Young (Left) Hegelians
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Berman, Russell A.: German Theory and Criticism 3: Nineteenth Century (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
Gillies, Steven:
German Theory and Criticism 1: Sturm und Drang - Weimar Classicism (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
German Theory and Criticism 2: Romanticism (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
Sturm und Drang
Weimar Classicism
British Romanticism:
The Sublime:
Fludernik, Monika: The Sublime (Literary Encyclopedia)
Magrini, J. M.: On the Sublime
McLemee, Scott: Difference Between the Sublime and the Beautiful Omnivore 33
Patten, Janice: The Sublime
University of Virginia: Incorporating the Sublime: Burke, Kant and Freud
Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Sublime
Being:
Communication:
Human Nature:
Body:
Mind:
Self:
Knowledge:
Morality:
Nature:
Philosophy / Theory:
Religion:
Society:
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMES / RESEARCH CENTRES / RESEARCH PROJECTS
Europe:
Germany:
Universitaat des Saarlandes: Manfred Engels: Romantische Anthropologie
Netherlands:
University of Nijmegen: Centrum voor Duits Idealisme [Centre for German Idealism]
UK:
University of Bristol: Centre for Romantic Studies
University of Essex: Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism Project
Roehampton University: Centre For Research in Romanticism
University of Wales, Aberystwyth: Centre for Romantic Studies
WWW GATEWAYS
Socio-Historical Context:
General:
Gamer, Michael (University of Pennsylvania): Romantic Links, Electronic Texts, and Home Pages
Romantic Circles
Voice of the Shuttle: Romantics
Whitney, Elizabeth: English Romanticism
Schools of Thought:
American Transcendentalism:
American Transcendentalism Web
Lewis, Jone Johnson: The Transcendentalists
Proto-Existentialism:
German Idealism:
Kant und der deutsche Idealismus (Kant and German Idealism)
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
British Romanticism:
The Sublime:
Voller, Jack G.: The Sublime and the Gothic The Literary Gothic
(AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM / PROTO-EXISTENTIALISM / GERMAN IDEALISM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUB-PAGES
Topics:
Romantic Literature
Feminist:
19th Century Feminist Thought / Feminist Perspectives on 19th Century Thought
Post-colonial:
19th Century Non-Western Thought / Post-colonial Perspectives on 19th Century Thought
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ASSOCIATIONS
British Association for Romantic Studies
Society for German Idealism
International Conference on Romanticism (formerly American Conference on Romanticism)
North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR)
CONFERENCES
2009:
Breaking Boundaries: 1790s in Germany, Britain and France, Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, April 22-24
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, Vancouver, April 8-12
2008:
The Work of Romanticism, International Conference on Romanticism, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, October 16-19
German Idealism and the Foundation of Philosophy, Technische Universität, Berlin, Germany, October 10-12
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 18-23
2007:
Emancipation, Liberation, Freedom, Joint NASSR / BARS conference, Centre for Romantic Studies, Department of English, University of Bristol, July 26-29
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, April 4 and 7
Transcendental Idealism Workshop, Essex Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism Project, Institute of Philosophy, University of London, March 16-17
German Idealism and Normativity, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, March 14-15
2006:
Engaged Romanticism: Romanticism as Praxis, International Conference on Romanticism, Arizona State University, November 9-12
Scientia and Techne, Joint Annual Conference, NASSR-NAVSA, Purdue University, August 31-September 3
Romanticism, Environment, Crisis, Centre for Romantic Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, June 23-27
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, San Francisco, April 3-8
2005:
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 23-27
2004:
Debatable Lands, Biennial Conference, British Association for Romantic Studies, University of Newcastle, July 28-31
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 24-28
F. H. Jacobi and the Formation of German Idealism, Philosophy Programme, School of Advanced Study, University of London, March 5
2003:
Romantic Border Crossings, International Conference on Romanticism, Laredo, Texas, October 14-17
Romantic Cosmopolitanism, 12th Annual Conference, North American Society for Romanticism, University of Colorado, Boulder, September 9-12
Romanticism, History, Historicism, Department of English, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, June 18-22
Annual Meeting, Society for German Idealism, APA Pacific Division, March 27
2002:
Romantic Orientalism, Department of English, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, July 12-15
2001:
2000:
Annual:
Annual Conference, British Association for Romantic Studies
International Conference on Romanticism
COURSES
University of Chicago: German Romanticism: Literature, Philosophy, Science (Richards)
Concordia University: Kant and 19th Century German Philosophy (Zeman)
Earlham University: Nineteenth Century Continental Philosophy (Guven)
University of Kansas: Themes in Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy (Maybee)
University of London: German Idealism (Gardner)
Monash University: Romanticism and Revolution (Ackland)
University of New Mexico: Studies in British Romanticism (Harrison)
North Eastern Illinois University: Nineteenth-Century Continental Philosophy (Vessey)
University of Strathclyde: Romanticism (Furniss)
University of Texas, Austin: European Romanticism: 1996 / 2004 (Arens)
Yale University: German Idealism (Kreines)
American Transcendentalism:
Proto-Existentialism:
Brock University: The Beginnings of Existentialism (Brown)
University of Pennsylvania: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (Bowman)
Arts:
University of London, Queen Mary College: Poetic Ideology and Practice in English Romanticism (Hamilton)
University of Pennsylvania: Kant and the 19th Century: German Aesthetics from Kant to Nietzsche (Bowman)
University of Washington: Romantic Theory (Halmi)
The Sublime:
Boston College: The Sublime (Richardson)
Brown University: On the Sublime (Sng)
University of Dundee: Aesthetics of the Sublime (Jones)
University of Rhode Island: The Sublime (Jones)
JOURNALS
BARS Bulletin and Review
European Romantic Review
Idealistic Studies
Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus
Prism(s): Essays in Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism on the Net
Studies in Romanticism
PHILOSOPHERS / THEORISTS
In Chronological Order:
'Longinus' (1st Century CE) (see also Classical Literary Theory)
Edward Young (1683 - 1765) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Georg Hamann (1730 - 1788) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
William Godwin (1756 - 1836)
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757 - 1823)
William Blake (1757 - 1827)
Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814)
Germain Necker de Stael (1766 - 1817)
Wilhelm Humboldt (1767 - 1835
August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767 - 1845)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 - 1831)
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
Novalis [Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg] (1772 - 1801)
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772 - 1829)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
Heinrich von Kleist (1777 - 1811)
Georg Anton Friedrich Ast (1778 - 1841)
Thomas Peacock (1785 - 1866)
August Philip Böckh (1785 - 1867)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
John Keats (1795 - 1821)
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872)
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808 - 1884)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
By Nationality:
Ancient Greek and Hellenistic:
'Longinus' (1st Century CE) (see also Classical Literary Theory)
Denmark:
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)
Eire:
France:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Germain Necker de Stael (1766 - 1817)
Germany:
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Georg Hamann (1730 - 1788) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814)
Wilhelm Humboldt (1767 - 1835)
August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767 - 1845)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 - 1831)
Novalis [Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg] (1772 - 1801)
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772 - 1829)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
Georg Anton Friedrich Ast (1778 - 1841)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
August Philip Böckh (1785 - 1867)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872)
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808 - 1884)
Italy:
UK:
Edward Young (1683 - 1765) (see also Neo-Classical Literary Theory)
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) (see also Early Modern Thought)
William Godwin (1756 - 1836)
William Blake (1757 - 1827)
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
Thomas Peacock (1785 - 1866)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
John Keats (1795 - 1821)
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)
USA:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
By School of Thought:
American Transcendentalists:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Proto-Existentialists:
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
German Idealists:
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) (see also Early Modern Thought)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819)
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757 - 1823)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814)
G. W. F. Hegel (1770 - 1831)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854)
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872)
SOURCES: PRIMARY
Off-Line:
Anthologies:
General:
Furst, Lilian, ed. European Romanticism: Self-Definition. London: Methuen, 1980.
Schools of Thought:
German Idealism:
Behler, Ernst, ed. Philosophy of German Idealism. London: Continuum, 1987.
Bubner, Rudiger, ed. German Idealist Philosophy. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997.
Di Giovanni, George, and H. S. Harris, eds. Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of German Idealism. Albany: SUNY Press, 1985. Rev. ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000.
Ewing, A. C., ed. The Idealist Tradition: from Burke to Blanshard. Glencoe, NY: Free Press, 1957.
Stepelevich, Lawrence, ed. The Young Hegelians: an Anthology. Cambridge: CUP, 1983.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Behler, Ernst, ed. German Romantic Criticism.
Bernstein, J. M., ed. Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
German Aesthetics and Literary Criticism. 3 Vols. Cambridge: CUP.
Winckelmann, Lessing, Hamann, Herder, Schiller, Goethe. Vol. 3. Ed. H. B. Nisbet. 1985.
Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel. Ed. David Simpson. 1984.
The Romantic Ironists and Goethe. Ed. K. M. Wheeler. 1984.
Simpson, David, ed. The Origins of Modern Critical Thought: German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism from Lessing to Hegel. Cambridge: CUP, 1988.
Willson, A. Leslie, ed. German Romantic Criticism: Novalis, Schlegel Schleiermacher and Others. London: Continuum, 1982.
British Romanticism:
Bromwich, David, ed. Romantic Critical Essays. Cambridge: CUP, 1987.
Hill, John Spencer, ed. The Romantic Imagination. London: Macmillan, 1977.
Hoffman, Daniel G., and Samuel Hynes, eds. English Literary Criticism: Romantic and Victorian. London: Peter Owen, 1963.
Kitson, Peter J., ed. Romantic Criticism, 1800-1825. London: Batsford, 1989.
The Sublime:
Ashfield, Andrew, and Peter de Bolla, eds. The Sublime: a Reader in British Eighteenth Century Aesthetic Theory. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
Selected Individual Works:
General:
Schools of Thought:
German Idealism:
1797.
Anon. "The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism." Trans. Diana I. Behler. Philosophy of German Idealism. Ed. Ernst Behler. New York: Continuum, 1987. 161-166.
Boehme, Jacob. Mysterium Pansophicum.
Heine, Heinrich.
On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, and Other Writings. Ed. Terry Pinkard. Trans. Howard Pollack-Milgate. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Heine, Heinrich. "Die Romantische Schule." 1885. Vol. 8 of Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Manfred Windfuhr. 1979.
"The Romantic School." Trans. Helen Mustard. 1973. "The Romantic School" and Other Essays. Ed. Jost Hermand and Robert Holub. 1985.
Holderlin, Friedrich. Essays and Letters on Theory. Ed. and trans. Thomas Pfau. 1988.
von Kleist, Heinrich. 1910.
"On the Marionette Theatre."
von Kleist, Heinrich. "Über die allmähliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim Reden." 1805-1808.
"On the Gradual Construction of Thoughts while Speaking." Ed. and trans. David Constantine. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004.
British Romanticism:
The Sublime:
On-Line:
Archives:
Selected Individual Works:
SOURCES: SECONDARY
Off-Line:
Anthologies:
Socio-Historical Context:
Pilbeam, Pamela M., ed. Themes in Modern European History, 1780-1830. London: Routledge,.
General:
Ameriks, Karl, and Dieter Sturma, eds. The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.
Ferber, Michael, ed. A Companion to European Romanticism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Klemm, David E., and Gunter Zoller, eds. Figuring the Self: Subject, Absolute, and Others in Classical German Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997.
Kompridis, Nikolas, ed. Philosophical Romanticism. London: Routledge, 2006.
Posner, R., and J. N. Green, eds. Trends in Romance Linguistics and Philology. 2 Vols. The Hague: Mouton, 1981.
Schools of Thought:
German Idealism:
Ameriks, Karl, ed. Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.
Gersh, Stephen, and Dermot Moran, eds. Eriugena, Berkeley, and the Idealist Tradition. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2006.
Sandkühler, Hans Jörg, ed. Handbuch Deutscher Idealismus. J. B. Metzler, 2005.
Solomon, Robert C., and Kathleen M. Higgins, eds. The Age of German Idealism. Vol. 6 of Routledge History of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1993.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
British Romanticism:
Brown, Marshall, ed. Romanticism. Vol. 5 of Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.
Hill, John Spencer, ed. The Romantic Imagination. London: Macmillan, 1977.
The Sublime:
Silverman, Hugh, and Gary E. Aylesworth, eds. The Textual Sublime: Deconstruction and its Differences. Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.
Being:
Communication:
Human Nature:
Body:
Mind:
Self:
Knowledge:
Morality:
Nature:
Philosophy / Theory:
Religion:
Society:
Butler, Marilyn, ed. Burke, Paine, Godwin and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge: CUP, 1984.
Selected Individual Works:
Socio-Historical Context:
Doyle, William. Oxford History of the French Revolution. 1989.
Halliday, F. E. “The Industrial Revolution and Napoleonic War, 1783-1830.” England: a Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1964. 153-171.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962. Rpt. London: Abacus, 1997.
Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution. 2 Vols. 1962–64.
McCalman, I. Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
Pilbeam, Pamela M. "European Society in Revolution." Themes in Modern European History, 1780-1830. Ed. Pamela M. Pilbeam. London: Routledge, . 204-222.
General:
Ameriks, Karl. "The Legacy of Idealism in the Philosophy of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 258-281.
Ashton, Rosemary. "England and Germany." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 495-504.
Ashton, Rosemary. The German Idea: Four English Writers and the Reception of German Thought, 1800-1860. Cambridge: CUP, 1980. Rpt. London: Libris, 1994.
Beiser, Frederick C. The Romantic Imperative: the Concept of Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003.
Beiser, Frederick C. Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: the Genesis of Modern Political Thought, 1790-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will: the Revolt Against the Myth of an Ideal World." 1975.
The Proper Study of Mankind: an Anthology of Essays. Ed. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer. London: Pimlico, 1997. 553-580.
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. 207-237.
Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. Mellon Lectures, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1965. Pub. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Counter-Enlightenment." Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Vol. 2. Ed. Philip Weiner. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1973.
The Proper Study of Mankind: an Anthology of Essays. Ed. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer. London: Pimlico, 1997. 243-268.
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979. 1-24.
Berlin, Isaiah. "Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought." Mary Flexner Lectures, Bryn Mawr College, 1952. London: Chatto and Windus, , 2006.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Essence of Romanticism."
The Power of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000. 200-204.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Romantic Revolution: a Crisis in the History of Modern Thought."
The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History. Ed. Henry Hardy. London: Pimlico, 1996. 168-193.
Biddiss, Michael. "Reason and Romanticism: Currents of Social and Political Thought." Themes in Modern European History, 1780-1830. Ed. Pamela M. Pilbeam. London: Routledge, . 223-247.
Bowie, Andrew. "Critiques of Idealism I: the Early Romantics to Feuerbach." Introduction to German Philosophy: from Kant to Habermas. Cambridge: Polity, 2003. 94-117.
Brown, Marshall. "Romanticism and Enlightenment." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 25-47.
Cobban, Alfred. Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960.
See excerpt "The Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century." Romanticism and Consciousness. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Norton, 1970. 132-146.
Copleston, Frederick C. Modern Philosophy: from the Post-Kantian Idealists to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Vol. 7 of A History of Philosophy. New York: Newman, 1963.
Frank, Manfred. Einfuhrung in die fruhromantische Asthetik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989.
The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism. Albany: SUNY Press, 2004.
Garrard, Graeme. Counter-Enlightenments: from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. 2006.
Hamilton, Paul. Metaromanticism: Aesthetics, Literature, Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.
Harris, R. W. Romanticism and the Social Order, 1780-1830. London: , 1929.
Kitson, Peter J. "Beyond the Enlightenment: the Philosophical, Scientific and Religious Inheritance." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 35-47.
Krell, David Farrell. Contagion: Sexuality, Disease, and Death in German Idealism and Romanticism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1998.
Lovejoy, A. O. "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms." Annual Meeting, Modern Language Association, December 27, 1923. PMLA 39 (1924): 229-253.
Romanticism: Points of View. Ed. Robert F. Gleckner and Gerald E. Enscoe. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1962. 45-57.
English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. M. H. Abrams. Oxford: OUP, 1960. 3-23.
Essays in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1948. 228-253.
Lovejoy, A. O. "The Meaning of 'Romantic' in Early German Romanticism." Modern Language Notes 31 (1916): .
Essays in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1948. 183-206.
Lowith, Karl. Von Hegel zu Nietzsche: der revolutionare Bruch im Denken des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Zurich: Europa, 1941.
From Hegel to Nietzsche: the Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought. Trans. David E. Green. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1964. Rpt. 1991.
McMahon, Darrin M. Enemies of the Enlightenment: the French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity.
Masseau, Didier. Les Ennemis des philosophes: l’Antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières. Paris: Albin Michel, 2000.
McMahon, Darrin. Enemies of the Enlightenment: the French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Moscovici, Claudia. Romanticism and Post-Romanticism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007
Norton, Robert E. "The Myth of the Counter-Enlightenment." Journal of the History of Ideas 68 (2007): 635-658.
Pinkard, Terry. German Philosophy, 1760-1860: the Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Richards, Robert. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002.
Solomon, Robert C. "Romancing the Self: Fichte, Schelling, Schiller and Romanticism." Continental Philosophy since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self. Vol. 7 of Oxford History of Philosophy. Oxford: OUP, 1988. 44-55.
Thorslev, Peter. "German Romantic Idealism." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 74-94.
West, David. "Continental Critics of Enlightenment." An Introduction to Continental Philosophy. Cambridge: Polity, 1996. 27-34.
Historicism:
Hamilton, Paul. Historicism. London: Routledge, 1996.
Mandelbaum, Maurice. History, Man and Reason: a Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1971.
Meinecke, Friedrich. Die Enstehung der Historimus. 2 Vols. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1936.
Historicism: the Rise of a New Historical Outlook. Trans. J. E. Anderson. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972.
Popper, Karl. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957.
Troeltsch, Ernst. Der Historimus und Seine Probleme. Tubingen: Mohr, 1922.
Schools of Thought:
American Transcendentalism:
Rose, Anne C. Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830-1850. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981.
Proto-Existentialism:
Lowith, Karl. Von Hegel zu Nietzsche: der revolutionare Bruch im Denken des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Zurich: Europa, 1941.
From Hegel to Nietzsche: the Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought. Trans. David E. Green. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1964. Rpt. 1991.
Solomon, Robert C. From Rationalism to Existentialism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Solomon, Robert C. From Hegel to Existentialism. Oxford: OUP, 1987.
West, David. "Beyond Theory: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Existentialism." An Introduction to Continental Philosophy. Cambridge: Polity, 1996. 117-153.
German Idealism:
Beck, Lewis W. "From Leibniz to Kant." The Age of German Idealism. Vol. 6 of The Routledge History of Philosophy. Ed. Robert Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins. London: Routledge, 1993. 5-39.
Beiser, Frederick C. German Idealism: the Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801. Cambriudge, MA: Harvard UP, 2002.
Beiser, Frederick C. "The Enlightenment and Idealism." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 18-36.
Beiser, Frederick C. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987.
Bowie, Andrew. "German Idealism: from Fichte to the Early Schelling." Introduction to German Philosophy: from Kant to Habermas. Cambridge: Polity, 2003. 58-78.
Bubner, Rudiger. Innovationen des Idealismus. Gottingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1995.
The Innovations of Idealism. Trans. Nicholas Walker. Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
Copleston, Frederick C. Modern Philosophy: from the French Enlightenment to Kant. Vol. 6 of A History of Philosophy. New York: Newman, 1960.
Dudley, Will. Understanding German Idealism. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2007.
Edwin, A. C. Idealism: a Critical Survey. London: Methuen, 1934.
Ewing, A. C. Idealism: a Critical Survey. London: Methuen, 1934.
Franks, Paul W. All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005.
Guyer, Paul. "Absolute Idealism and the Rejection of Kantian Dualism." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 37-56.
Henrich, Dieter. Between Kant and Hegel: Lectures on German Idealism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003.
Hoernle, R. F. A. Idealism as a Philosophy. 1927.
Kosch, Michelle. Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard. Oxford: OUP, 2006.
Mack, Michael. German Idealism and the Jew: the Inner Anti-Semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.
Pinkard, Terry. German Philosophy, 1760-1860: the Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Solomon, Robert C. "Romancing the Self: Fichte, Schelling, Schiller and Romanticism." Continental Philosophy since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self. Vol. 7 of Oxford History of Philosophy. Oxford: OUP, 1988. 44-55.
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: OUP, 1953.
Behler, Ernst. German Romantic Literary Theory. Cambridge: CUP, 1993.
Berman, Russell A. Between Fontane and Tucholsky: Literary Criticism and the Public Sphere in Imperial Germany. 1983.
Bowie, Andrew. "German Idealism and the Arts." Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. 239-257.
Bowie, Andrew. "The Philosophy of Critique and the Critique of Philosophy: Romantic Literary Theory." From Romanticism to Critical Theory: the Philosophy of German Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1997. 65-89.
Bowie, Andrew. "Shifting the Ground: 'Where Philosophy Ceases Literature Must Begin.'" From Romanticism to Critical Theory: the Philosophy of German Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1997. 53-64.
Hammermeister, Kai. The German Aesthetic Tradition. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe. A History of German Literary Criticism, 1730-1980. 1988.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe. The Institution of Criticism. 1982.
Nancy, Jean-Luc, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. L'absolu littéraire: Théorie de la littérature du romantisme Allemand. Paris: Seuil, 1978.
The Literary Absolute: the Theory of Literature in German Romanticism. Trans. Philip Barnard and Cheryl Lester. Albany: SUNY Press, 1988.
British Romanticism:
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: OUP, 1953.
Allen, Graham. "Defences of Poetry." Romantic Writings. Ed. Stephen Bygrave. Milton: Keynes: Open UP, 1996. 71-89.
L., C. B. "Romantic and PostRomantic Poetics." Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
Perry, Seamus. "Romantic Literary Criticism." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 369-382.
Simpson, David. "Romanticism, Criticism and Theory." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 1-24.
The Sublime:
Balfour, Ian. "The Sublime Between History and Theory: Hegel, De Man, and Beyond." After Poststructuralism: Writing the Intellectual History of Theory. Ed. Tilottama Rajan and Michael J. O'Driscoll. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002. 110-126.
Battersby, Christine. The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference. London: Routledge, 2007.
Battersby, Christine. "Terror, Terrorism and the Sublime: Rethinking the Sublime after 1789 and 2001." Postcolonial Studies 6.1 (2003): 67-89.
de Bolla, Peter. The Discourse of the Sublime: Readings in History, Aesthetics and the Subject. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Ferguson, Frances. Solitude and the Sublime: Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Individuation. London: Routledge, 1992.
Hipple, Walter John. The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Picturesque in Eighteenth Century British Aesthetic Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1957.
Knapp, Steven. Personification and the Sublime: Milton to Coleridge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985.
Monk, S. H. The Sublime: a Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England. New York: MLA, 1935.
Morris, David B. The Religious Sublime: Christian Poetry and Critical Tradition in Eighteenth Century England. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1972.
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: the Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1959.
Paley, Morton D. The Apocalyptic Sublime. 1986.
Trott, Nicola. "The Picturesque, the Beautiful and the Sublime." A Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 72-90.
Watson, J. R. Picturesque Landscape and English Romantic Poetry. London: Hutchinson, 1970.
Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976.
Wood, Theodore E. B. The Word 'Sublime' and its Context, 1650-1760. The Hague: Mouton, 1972.
Being:
Communication:
Bleicher, Josef. "The Rise of Classical Hermeneutics." Contemporary Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. 11-26.
Esterhammer, Angela. The Romantic Performative: Language and Action in British and German Romanticism. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2000.
Grondin, Jean. Einfuhrung in die philosophische Hermeneutik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991.
"The Post-Kantian Transition from the Enlightenment to Romanticism: Ast and Schlegel." Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. 63-67.
Hall, R. A. Idealism in Romance Linguistics. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1963.
Iordan, I. An Introduction to Romance Linguistics, its Schools and Scholars. Lonon: Methuen, 1937.
Keach, William. "Romanticism and Language." Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. 95-119.
Leventhal, Robert S. The Disciplines of Interpretation: Lessing, Herder, Schlegel and Hermeneutics in Germany, 1750-1800. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994.
Robins, R. H. "Comparative and Historical Linguistics in the Nineteenth Century." A Short History of Linguistics. New York: Longman, 1967. 4th Ed. 1997. 189-221.
Smith, Olivia. The Politics of Language, 1791- 1819.
Terezakis, Katie. The Immanent Word: the Turn to Language in German Philosophy, 1759-1801. London: Routledge, 2007.
Todorov, Tzvetan. "The Romantic Crisis." Theories of the Symbol. Trans. Catherine Porter. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982. 147-221.
Human Nature:
Body:
Mind:
Self:
Goldstein, Jan. The Post-Revolutionary Self: Politics and Psyche in France, 1750-1850. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2005.
Knowledge:
Morality:
Nature:
Philosophy / Theory:
Religion:
Di Giovanni, George. Freedom and Religion in Kant and his Immediate Successors: the Vocation of Humankind, 1774-1800. Cambridge: CUP, 2005.
Social Formation:
On-Line:
Socio-Historical Context:
General:
Baumer, Franklin L.: Romanticism (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
Berlin, Isaiah: The Counter-Enlightenment (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
Boeree, C. George: Romanticism
Brians, Paul: Romanticism
Droz, Jacques: Romanticism in Political Thought (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
Gutmann, James: Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy (Dictionary of the History of Ideas)
History Guide: The Romantic Era
Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Romanticism
Jones, Roger: Romanticism
University of London: Nineteenth Century German Philosophy
McMahon, Darrin M.: The Counter-Enlightenment and the Low-Life of Literature in Pre-Revolutionary France Past and Present (1998)
Melani, Lilia: Romanticism
Moscovici, Claudia: The Philosophy of Postromanticism
Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Age: Introduction
Rajan, Tilottama: Hermeneutics 1: Nineteenth Century (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
Rotenstreich, Nathan:
Volksgeist (DHI)
Zeitgeist (DHI)
Victor Hugo Website: Romanticism
WebMuseum: Romanticism
Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
Counter-Enlightenment
Category Romanticism:
Fin de Siècle
German Romanticism
Neo-Romanticism
Post-Romanticism
Romanticism
Romantic Nationalism
Schools of Thought:
American Transcendentalism:
Goodman, Russell: Transcendentalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Transcendentalism
Proto-Existentialism:
German Idealism:
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: German Idealism
Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
German Idealism
Hegelianism:
Neo-Hegelianism
Right Hegelians
Young (Left) Hegelians
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
Berman, Russell A.: German Theory and Criticism 3: Nineteenth Century (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
Gillies, Steven:
German Theory and Criticism 1: Sturm und Drang - Weimar Classicism (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
German Theory and Criticism 2: Romanticism (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)
Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
Sturm und Drang
Weimar Classicism
British Romanticism:
The Sublime:
Fludernik, Monika: The Sublime (Literary Encyclopedia)
Magrini, J. M.: On the Sublime
McLemee, Scott: Difference Between the Sublime and the Beautiful Omnivore 33
Patten, Janice: The Sublime
University of Virginia: Incorporating the Sublime: Burke, Kant and Freud
Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Sublime
Being:
Communication:
Human Nature:
Body:
Mind:
Self:
Knowledge:
Morality:
Nature:
Philosophy / Theory:
Religion:
Society:
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMES / RESEARCH CENTRES / RESEARCH PROJECTS
Europe:
Germany:
Universitaat des Saarlandes: Manfred Engels: Romantische Anthropologie
Netherlands:
University of Nijmegen: Centrum voor Duits Idealisme [Centre for German Idealism]
UK:
University of Bristol: Centre for Romantic Studies
University of Essex: Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism Project
Roehampton University: Centre For Research in Romanticism
University of Wales, Aberystwyth: Centre for Romantic Studies
WWW GATEWAYS
Socio-Historical Context:
General:
Gamer, Michael (University of Pennsylvania): Romantic Links, Electronic Texts, and Home Pages
Romantic Circles
Voice of the Shuttle: Romantics
Whitney, Elizabeth: English Romanticism
Schools of Thought:
American Transcendentalism:
American Transcendentalism Web
Lewis, Jone Johnson: The Transcendentalists
Proto-Existentialism:
German Idealism:
Kant und der deutsche Idealismus (Kant and German Idealism)
Topics:
Arts:
German Romanticism:
British Romanticism:
The Sublime:
Voller, Jack G.: The Sublime and the Gothic The Literary Gothic
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Contemporary Philosophy
Truth, Contemporary Philosophy, and the Postmodern Turn
J. P. Moreland
(Delivered at the Evangelical Theological Society, November 18, 2004)
It is difficult to think of a topic of greater concern than the nature of truth. Indeed, truth and the knowledge thereof are the very rails upon which people ought to live their lives. And over the centuries, the classic correspondence theory of truth has outlived most of its critics. But these are postmodern times, or so we are often told, and the classic model, once ensconced deeply in the Western psyche, must now be replaced by a neo-pragmatist or some other anti-realist model of truth, at least for those concerned with the rampant victimization raging all around us. Thus, "We hold these truths to be self evident" now reads "Our socially constructed selves arbitrarily agree that certain chunks of language are to be esteemed in our linguistic community." Something has gone wrong here, and paraphrasing the words of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Newman, "We came, we saw, and we conked out!"
The astute listener will have already picked up that I am an unrepentant correspondence advocate who eschews the various anti-realist views of truth. In what follows I shall weigh in on the topic first, by sketching out the correspondence theory and the postmodern rejection of it, and second, by identifying five confusions of which I believe postmodern revisionists are guilty. I shall close by warning that not only are postmodern views of truth and knowledge confused, but postmodernism is an immoral and cowardly viewpoint such that persons who love truth and knowledge, especially disciples of the Lord Jesus, should do everything they can to heal the plague that postmodernism has and inevitably does leave.
What is the Correspondence Theory of Truth?
In its simplest form, the correspondence theory of truth says that a proposition is true just in case it corresponds to reality, when what it asserts to be the case is the case. More generally, truth obtains when a truth bearer stands in an appropriate correspondence relation to a truth maker:
truth bearer -------> correspondence relation --------> truth maker
Certain clarifications are called for. First, what is the truth bearer? The thing that is either true or false is not a sentence, statement or other piece of language, but a proposition. A proposition is, minimally, the content of a sentence. For example, "It is raining" and "Es regnet" are two different sentences that express the same proposition. A sentence is a linguistic object consisting in a sense perceptible string of markings formed according to a culturally arbitrary set of syntactical rules, a grammatically well-formed string of spoken or written scratchings/sounds. Sentences are true just in case they express a true proposition or content. We will return to the topic of propositions later.
What about truth-makers? What is it that makes a proposition true? The best answer is facts. A fact is some real, that is, obtaining state of affairs in the world, for example, grass’s being green, an electron’s having negative charge, God’s being all-loving. For present purposes, this identification of the truth-maker will do, but the account would need to be filled out to incorporate future states of affairs that will obtain or counterfactual states of affairs that would have obtained given such and such.
Returning to present purposes, consider the proposition that grass is green. This proposition is true just in case a specific fact, viz., grass's being green, actually obtains in the real world. If Sally has the thought that grass is green, the specific state of affairs, (grass actually being green) "makes" the propositional content of her thought true just in case the state of affairs actually is the way the proposition represents it to be.
Grass’s being green makes Sally’s thought true even if Sally is blind and cannot tell whether or not it is true, and even if Sally does not believe the thought. Reality makes thoughts true or false. A thought is not made true by someone believing it or by someone being able to determine whether or not it is true. Put differently, evidence allows one to tell whether or not a thought is true, but the relevant fact is what makes it true. It goes without saying that "makes" in "a fact makes a proposition true" is not causal, but rather, is a substitution instance of "in virtue of"the proposition is true in virtue of the fact.
Our study of truth bearers has already taken us into the topic of the correspondence relation. Correspondence is a two-placed relation between a proposition and a relevant fact that is its intentional object. A two-placed relation, such as "larger than", is one that requires two things (say, a desk and a book) before it holds. Similarly, the truth relation of correspondence holds between two things a relevant fact and a proposition just in case the fact matches, conforms to, corresponds with the proposition.
Why Believe the Correspondence Theory?
What reasons can be given for accepting the correspondence theory of truth? Many are available, but the simplest is the descriptive argument. The descriptive argument focuses on a careful description and presentation of specific cases of coming to experience truth to see what can be learned from them about truth itself. As an example, consider the case of Joe and Frank. While in his office, Joe receives a call from the university bookstore that a specific book he had ordered Richard Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul has arrived and is waiting for him. At this point, a new mental state occurs in Joe's mind the thought that Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul is in the bookstore.
Now Joe, being aware of the content of the thought, becomes aware of two things closely related to it: the nature of the thought's intentional object (Swinburne's book being in the bookstore) and certain verification steps that would help him to determine the truth of the thought. For example, he knows that it would be irrelevant for verifying the thought to go swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Rather, he knows that he must take a series of steps that will bring him to a specific building and look in certain places for Swinburne's book in the university bookstore.
So Joe starts out for the bookstore, all the while being guided by the proposition that Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul is in the bookstore. Along the way, his friend Frank joins him, though Joe does not tell Frank where he is going or why. They arrive at the store and both see Swinburne's book there. At that moment, Joe and Frank simultaneously have a certain sensory experience of seeing Swinburne's book The Evolution of the Soul. But Joe has a second experience not possessed by Frank. Joe experiences that his thought matches, corresponds with an actual state of affairs. He is able to compare his thought with its intentional object and "see," be directly aware of, the truth of the thought. In this case, Joe actually experiences the correspondence relation itself and truth itself becomes an object of his awareness. "Truth" is ostensively defined by this relation Joe experiences.
Postmodernism and Truth
Postmodernism is a loose coalition of diverse thinkers from several different academic disciplines, so it is difficult to characterize postmodernism in a way that would be fair to this diversity. Still, it is possible to provide a fairly accurate characterization of postmodernism in general, since it friends and foes understand it well enough to debate its strengths and weaknesses.
As a philosophical standpoint, postmodernism is primarily a reinterpretation of what knowledge is and what counts as knowledge. More broadly, it represents a form of cultural relativism about such things as reality, truth, reason, value, linguistic meaning, the self and other notions. On a postmodernist view, there is no such thing as objective reality, truth, value, reason and so forth. All these are social constructions, creations of linguistic practices and, as such, are relative not to individuals, but to social groups that share a narrative.
Postmodernism denies the correspondence theory, claiming that truth is simply a contingent creation of language which expresses customs, emotions, and values embedded in a community’s linguistic practices. For the postmodernist, if one claims to have the truth in the correspondence sense, this assertion is a power move that victimizes those judged not to have the truth.
Five Confusions that Plague Postmodernism
According to Brian McLaren, making absolute truth claims becomes problematic in the postmodern context. Says McLaren, "I think that most Christians grossly misunderstand the philosophical baggage associated with terms like absolute or objective (linked to foundationalism and the myth of neutrality)….Similarly, arguments that pit absolutism versus relativism, and objectivism versus subjectivism, prove meaningless or absurd to postmodern people…" McLaren not only correctly identifies some central postmodern confusions, but his statement indicates he exhibits some of the confusions himself. Let’s try to unpack some of the philosophical baggage to which McLaren refers and bring come clarity to the confusion.
#1 Metaphysical vs. epistemic notions of absolute truth
The first postmodern confusion involves metaphysical vs. epistemic notions of absolute truth. In the metaphysical and correct sense, absolute truth is the same thing as objective truth. On this view, people discover truth, they do not create it, and a claim is made true or false in some way or another by reality itself, totally independently of whether the claim is accepted by anyone. Moreover, an absolute truth conforms to the three fundamental laws of logic, which are themselves absolute truths. According to objectivism, a commitment to the absolute truth of some proposition P entails no thesis about a knowing subject’s epistemic situation regarding P.
By contrast with the metaphysical notion, postmodernists claim that a commitment to absolute truth is rooted in Cartesian anxiety and its need for absolute certainty and, accordingly, claim that acceptance of the absolute truth of P entails acceptance of the conjunction of P’s truth in the objective sense and the possibility of a (finite) knowing subject having Cartesian certainty with respect to P. Thus, one postmodernist recently opined that commitment to objective truth and the correspondence theory is merely "…an epistemic project [that] is funded by Cartesian anxiety,’ a product of methodological doubt…"
As I have already pointed out, this claim is entirely false philosophically. Advocates of a correspondence theory of objective truth take the view to be a realist metaphysical thesis and they steadfastly reject all attempts to epistemologize the view. Moreover, historically, it is incredible to assert that the great Western thinkers from Aristotle up to Descartes correspondence advocates all had any concern whatever about truth and Cartesian anxiety. The great correspondence advocate Aristotle was hardly in a Cartesian quandary when he wisely pointed out that in the search for truth, one ought not expect a greater degree of epistemic strength than is appropriate to the subject matter, a degree of strength that varies from topic to topic. The correspondence theory was not born when Descartes came out of his stove, and postmodernists lose credibility when they pretend otherwise.#2 Two confusions about epistemic objectivity
Postmodernists also reject the notion that rationality is objective on the grounds that no one approaches life in a totally objective way without bias. Thus, objectivity is impossible, and observations, beliefs and entire narratives are theory-laden. There is no neutral standpoint from which to approach the world. Therefore, observations, beliefs and so forth are perspectival constructions that reflect the viewpoint implicit in one's own web of beliefs. For example, Stanley Grenz claims that postmodernism rejects the alleged modernist view of reason which "…entails a claim to dispassionate knowledge, a person’s ability to view reality not as a conditioned participant but as an unconditioned observer to peer at the world from a vantage point outside the flux of history."
Regarding knowledge, postmodernists believe that there is no point of view from which one can define knowledge itself without begging the question in favor of one's own view. "Knowledge" is a construction of one's social, linguistic structures, not a justified, truthful representation of reality by one's mental states. For example, knowledge amounts to what is deemed to be appropriate according to the professional certification practices of various professional associations. As such, knowledge is a construction that expresses the social, linguistic structures of those associations, nothing more, nothingless.less.
These postmodernist claims represent some very deep confusions about the notion of objectivity. As a first step towards clearing away this confusion, we need to draw a distinction between psychological and rational objectivity. It is clear from the quote above that Grenz’ confused understanding of objectivity is at least partly rooted in his mistaken conflation of these two senses. Psychological objectivity is detachment, the absence of bias, a lack of commitment either way on a topic.
Do people ever have psychological objectivity? Yes, they do, typically, in areas in which they have no interest or about which they know little or nothing. Note carefully two things about psychological objectivity. For one thing, it is not necessarily a virtue. It is if one has not thought deeply about an issue and has no convictions regarding it. But as one develops thoughtful, intelligent convictions about a topic, it would be wrong to remain "unbiased", that it, uncommitted regarding it. Otherwise, what role would study and evidence play in the development of a one's approach to life? Should one remain "unbiased" that cancer is a disease, that rape is wrong, that the New Testament was written in the first century, that there is design in the universe, if one has discovered good reasons for each believe? No, one should not.
For another thing, while it is possible to be psychologically objective in some cases, most people are not psychologically objective regarding the vast majority of the things they believe. In these cases, it is crucial to observe that a lack of psychological objectivity does not matter, nor does it cut one off from knowing or seeing the world directly the way it is, or from presenting and arguing for one's convictions. Why? Because a lack of psychological objectivity does not imply a lack of rational objectivity and it is the latter than matters most, not the former.
To understand this, we need to get clear on the notion of rational objectivity. Rational objectivity is the state of having accurate epistemic access to the thing itself. This entails that if one has rational objectivity regarding some topic, then one can discern the difference between genuinely good and bad reasons/evidence for a belief about that topic and one can hold the belief for genuinely good reasons/evidence. The important thing here is that bias does not stand between a knowing subject and an intentional object nor does it eliminate a person's ability to assess the reasons for something. Bias may make it more difficult, but not impossible. If bias made rational objectivity impossible, then no teacher including the postmodernist herself could responsibly teach any view the teacher believed on any subject! Nor could the teacher teach opposing viewpoints, because she would be biased against them!
We will return below to the topic of cognitive access to the objects of consciousness, but for now I simply note that Grenz exhibits the twin confusions, so common among postmodernists, of failing to assess properly the nature and value of psychological objectivity, and of failing to distinguish and properly assess the relationship between psychological and rational objectivity.
#3 Confusions between classical foundationalism and foundationalism per se
Postmodernists reject foundationalism as a theory of epistemic justification. For example, as they assert "the demise of foundationalism," Stanley Grenz and John Franke observe with irony, "How infirm the foundation." Rodney Clapp claims that foundationalism has been in "dire straits" for some time, avowing that "few if any careful thinkers actually rely on foundationalist thinking," even though they cling like addicted smokers to "foundationalist rhetoric." Says Clapp, evangelicals "should be nonfoundationalists exactly because we are evangelicals." Nancey Murphy is concerned to justify a "postmodern" theological method in the face of "a general skeptical reaction to the demise of foundationalism in epistemology."
A major reason for this rejection is the idea that foundationalism represents a quest for epistemic certainty and it is this desire to have certainty that provides the intellectual impetus for foundationalism. This so-called Cartesian anxiety is alleged to be the root of foundationalist theories of epistemic justification. But, the argument continues, there is no such certainty and the quest for it is an impossible one. Further, that quest is misguided because people do not need certainty to live their lives well. Sometimes Christian postmodernists support this claim by asserting that the quest for certainty is at odds with biblical teaching about faith, the sinfulness of our intellectual and sensory faculties, and the impossibility of grasping an infinite God.
Unfortunately, this depiction of the intellectual motives for foundationalism represents a confusion between foundationalism per se and an especially extreme Cartesian form of foundationalism, with the result that versions of modest foundationalism are simply not taken into consideration. To see this, note that "foundationalism" refers to a family of theories about what kinds of grounds constitute justification for belief, all of which hold the following theses:
A proper noetic structure is foundational, composed of properly basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs, where non-basic beliefs are based either directly or indirectly on properly basic beliefs, and properly basic beliefs are non-doxastically grounded, that is, not based entirely on other beliefs;
The basing relation which confers justification is irreflexive and asymmetrical; and
A properly basic belief is a belief which meets some Condition C, where the choice of C marks different versions of foundationalism.
Classical foundationalism, of which the Cartesian project is the paradigm example, holds that Condition C is indubitability (or some relevantly similar surrogate): the ground of the belief must guarantee the truth of the belief. It is recognized in nearly all quarters that classical foundationalism is too ambitious. Even granting, as I certainly would, that there are some indubitable beliefs, there simply aren’t enough of them to ground our entire noetic structure. Further, it clearly seems that certain beliefs which are not indubitable may legitimately be held as properly basic, for example, beliefs grounded in perception, memory, or testimony. And more: classical foundationalism is motivated largely by the belief that certainty is a necessary condition of knowledge, or that one must know that one knows in order to have knowledge. But these analyses are either too strict or lead to an infinite regress, leading in either case to the skeptic’s lair.
In point of fact, the past three decades have witnessed the development of various versions of foundationalism that avoid the criticisms leveled against the classical version. Among contemporary epistemologists, modest foundationalism of some form is, as one philosopher put it, the "dominant position." Thus, it is intellectually irresponsible for Clapp, Murphey and others to claim that foundationalism is losing favor among philosophers. As far as I can tell, apart from intellectual dishonesty, this false viewpoint can be sustained only by conflating classical foundationalism with foundationalism per se, but this is simply mistaken as the widespread acceptance of modest foundationalism makes clear. Modest foundationalism holds that Condition C is something weaker than indubitability: the ground of the belief must be truth-conducive. Thus at least some properly basic beliefs in a modest foundationalism are defeasible (subject to being shown to be false by subsequent evidence).#4 Confusions about the identity of the truth bearer
As we have already seen, the informed correspondence theorist will say that propositions are truth bearers. What is a proposition? Minimally, it is the content of declarative sentences/statements and thoughts/beliefs that is true or false. Beyond that philosophers are in disagreement, but most would agree that a proposition 1) is not located in space or time; 2) is not identical to the linguistic entities that may be used to express it; 3) is not sense perceptible; 4) is such that the same proposition may be in more then one mind at once; 5) need not be grasped by any (at least finite) person to exist and be what it is; 6) may itself be an object of thought when, for example, one is thinking about the content of one's own thought processes; 7) is in no sense a physical entity.
By contrast, a sentence is a linguistic type or token consisting in a sense perceptible string of markings formed according to a culturally arbitrary set of syntactical rules. A statement is a sequence of sounds or body movements employed by a speaker to assert a sentence on a specific occasion. So understood, neither sentences nor statements are good candidates for the basic truth bearer.
It is pretty easy to show that having or using a sentence (or any other piece of language) is neither necessary nor sufficient for thinking or having propositional content. First it’s not necessary. Children think prior to their acquisition of language how else could they thoughtfully learn language and, indeed, we all think without language regularly. Moreover, the same propositional content may be expressed by a potentially infinite number of pieces of language and, thus, that content is not identical to any linguistic entity. This alone does not show that language is not necessary for having propositional content. But when one attends to the content that is being held constant as arbitrary linguistic expressions are selected to express it, that content may easily be seen to satisfy the non-linguistic traits of a proposition listed above.
Second, it’s not sufficient. If erosion carved an author less linguistic scribble in a hillside, for example, "I’m eroding", then strictly speaking it would have no meaning or content, though it would be empirically equivalent to another token of this type that would express a proposition were it the result of authorial intent.
Postmodernists attack a straw man when they focus on the alleged inadequacies of linguistic objects to do the work required of them in a correspondence theory of truth. Speaking for himself and other postmodernists, Joseph Natoli claims that "No one representation, or narrative, can reliably represent the world because language/pictures/sounds (signifiers) are not permanent labels attached to the things of the world nor do the things of the world dwell inside such signifiers." Unfortunately, even granting the fact that language (and certain sensations) is problematic if taken to represent things in the world (e.g., that the language/world hookup is arbitrary), it follows that human subjects cannot accurately represent the world only if we grant the further erroneous claim that representational entities are limited to language (and certain sensations). But this is precisely what the sophisticated correspondence theorist denies.
Again, Richard Rorty says "To say that truth is not our there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is not truth, that sentences are elements of human language, and that human languages are human creations. Truth cannot be out there cannot exist independently of the human mind because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there….Only descriptions…can be true and false." It should be obvious that Rorty attacks a straw man and that his argument goes through only if we grant that sentences are the fundamental truth bearers.#5 Confusions about perception and intentionality
Postmodernists adopt a highly contentious model of perception and intentionality, often without argument, and they seem to enjoin serious consideration of a prima facie more plausible model. The result is that postmodernists are far too pessimistic about the prospects of human epistemic success.
Postmodernists adopt a linguistic version of Rene Descartes’ idea theory of perception (and intentionality generally). To understand the idea theory, and the postmodern adaptation of it, a good place to start is with a common sense, critical realist view of perception. According to critical realism, when a subject is looking at a red object such as an apple, the object itself is the direct object of the sensory state. What one sees directly is the apple itself. True, one must have a sensation of red to apprehend the apple, but on the critical realist view, the sensation of red is to be understood as a case of being-appeared-to-redly and analyzed as a self-presenting property. What is a self-presenting property? If some property F is a self-presenting one, then it is by means of F that a relevant external object is presented directly to a person, and F presents itself directly to the person as well. Thus, F presents its object mediately though directly, and itself immediately.
This is not as hard to understand as it first may appear. Sensations, such as being-appeared-to-redly, are an important class of self-presenting properties. If Jones is having a sensation of red while looking at an apple, then having the property of being-appeared-to-redly as part of his consciousness modifies his substantial self. When Jones has this sensation, it is a tool that presents the red apple mediately to him and the sensation also presents itself to Jones. What does it mean to say that the sensation presents the apple to him mediately? Simply this: it is in virtue of or by means of the sensation that Jones directly sees the apple itself.
Moreover, by having the sensation of red, Jones is directly aware both of the apple and his own awareness of the apple. For the critical realist, the sensation of red may, indeed, be a tool or means that Jones uses to become aware of the apple, but he is thereby directly aware of the apple. His awareness of the apple is direct in that nothing stands between Jones and the apple, not even his sensation of the apple. That sensation presents the apple directly, though as a tool, Jones must have the sensation as a necessary condition for seeing the apple. On the critical realist view, a knowing subject is not trapped behind or within anything, including a viewpoint, a narrative, an historical-linguistic perspective. To have an entity in the external world as an object of intentionality is to already be "out there"; there is no need to escape anything. One is not trapped behind one’s eyeballs or anything else. It is a basic fallacy of logic to infer that one sees a point-of-viewed-object from the fact that one sees an object from a point of view.
Before leaving the critical realist view, it is important to say that the theory does not limit self-presenting properties to those associated with the five senses and, therefore, does not limit the objects of direct awareness to ordinary sensory objects. The critical realist will say that a knowing subject is capable of direct acquaintance with a host of non-sense-perceptible objects one's’s own ego and its mental states, various abstract objects like the laws of mathematics or logic, and spirit beings, including God.
By contrast, for Descartes’ idea theory, one’s ideas, in this case, sensations, stand between the subject and the object of perception. Jones is directly aware of his own sensation of the apple and indirectly aware of the apple in the sense that it is what causes the sensation to happen. On the idea theory, a perceiving subject is trapped behind his own sensations and cannot get outside them to the external world in order to compare his sensations to their objects to see if those sensations are accurate.
Now, in a certain sense, postmodernists believe that people are trapped behind something in the attempt to get to the external world. However, for them the wall between people and reality is not composed of sensations as it was for Descartes; rather, it is constituted by one’s community and its linguistic categories and practices. One’s language serves as a sort of distorting and, indeed, creative filter. One cannot get outside one’s language to see if one’s talk about the world is the way the world is. Thus, Grenz advocates a new outlook, allegedly representing some sort of consensus in the human sciences, that expresses "a more profound understanding of epistemology. Recent thinking has helped us see that the process of knowing, and to some extent even the process of experiencing the world, can occur only within a conceptual framework, a framework mediated by the social community in which we participate."
It has been noted repeatedly that such assertions are self-refuting. For if we are all trapped behind a framework such that simple, direct seeing is impossible, then no amount of recent thinking can help us see anything; all it could do would be to invite us to see something as such and such from within a conceptual framework. Given the self refuting nature of such claims, and given the fact that we all experience regularly the activity of comparing our conceptions of an entity with the entity itself as a way of adjusting those conceptions, it is hard to see why anyone, especially a Christian, would adopt the postmodern view. In any case, I have seldom seen the realist perspective seriously considered by postmodern thinkers, and until it is, statements like Grenz’ will be taken as mere mantras by many of us.
Final Remarks about the Immoral Nature of Postmodernism
For some time I have been convinced that postmodernism is rooted in pervasive confusions, and I have tried to point out what some of these are. I am also convinced that postmodernism is an irresponsible, cowardly abrogation of the duties that constitute a disciple’s calling to be a Christian intellectual and teacher.
In her provocative book entitled Longing to Know, Ester Meek asserts that humans as knowers exercise a profound responsibility to submit to the authoritative dictates of reality. Thus, "It is not responsible to deny objective truth and reality in knowing; it is irresponsible. It is not responsible to make the human knower or community of knowers the arbiters of a private truth and reality; it is irresponsible." Again, Meek claims that "Good, responsible knowing brings blessing, shalom; irresponsible knowing brings curse." In another place Meek warns that "…the kind of freedom implied by the thought that we humans completely determine our reality leaves us with a gnawing sense of the relative insignificance of our choices. I think it leads not to total responsibility but to careless irresponsibility, both with regard to ourselves and with regard to other humans, not to mention to the world. And, paradoxically, it leads not to a deeper sense of [communal or individual] identity and dignity but to a disheartening lack of it."
We Evangelicals need to pay careful attention to Meek’s claims. As humans, we live and ought to live our lives not merely by truth, but by knowledge of truth. Knowledge of truth gives us confident trust and access to reality. Moreover, as those called to be teachers and scholars for the church and, indeed, for the unbelieving world, we are called not only to impart and defend truth, but to impart and defend knowledge of truth and, even more, to impart and defend knowledge of truth as knowledge of truth. This entails that we must impart and defend the notion that we do, in fact, have knowledge of important spiritual and ethical truths. Among other things, this gives confidence in truth and knowledge to those we serve. Thus, we are irresponsible not simply if we fail to achieve knowledge of reality; we are doubly irresponsible if we fail to impart to others knowledge as knowledge. The corrosive affects of postmodernism eat away at the fulfillment of these duties and responsibilities that constitute our calling from Almighty God.
Meek goes on to point out that the achieving of knowledge and the teaching of it as knowledge "...calls for courageous resolve. And this courageous resolve, when proven true, merits the deep admiration of others." The need for such courage is especially grave today as we labor in an intellectual milieu in which the worldviews of naturalism and postmodernism both entail that there is no non-empirical knowledge, especially no religious or ethical knowledge.
Faced with such opposition and the pressure it brings, postmodernism is a form of intellectual pacifism that, at the end of the day, recommends backgammon while the barbarians are at the gate. It is the easy, cowardly way out that removes the pressure to engage alternative conceptual schemes, to be different, to risk ridicule, to take a stand outside the gate. But it is precisely as disciples of Christ, even more, as officers in His army, that the pacifist way out is simply not an option. However comforting it may be, postmodernism is the cure that kills the patient, the military strategy that concedes defeat before the first shot is fired, the ideology that undermines its own claims to allegiance. And it is an immoral, coward’s way out that is not worthy of a movement born out of the martyrs’ blood.
About the Author
J. P. Moreland, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He has authored or co-authored many books including Christianity and the Nature of Science, Scaling the Secular City, Does God Exist?, Immortality: The Other Side of Death and The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Times. He is also co-editor of Christian Perspectives on Being Human. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals, including Christianity Today, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and The American Philosophical Quarterly. Dr. Moreland served with Campus Crusade for 10 years, planted two churches, and has spoken on over 100 college campuses.
Resources by J. P. Moreland Available from Stand to Reason
J. P. Moreland
(Delivered at the Evangelical Theological Society, November 18, 2004)
It is difficult to think of a topic of greater concern than the nature of truth. Indeed, truth and the knowledge thereof are the very rails upon which people ought to live their lives. And over the centuries, the classic correspondence theory of truth has outlived most of its critics. But these are postmodern times, or so we are often told, and the classic model, once ensconced deeply in the Western psyche, must now be replaced by a neo-pragmatist or some other anti-realist model of truth, at least for those concerned with the rampant victimization raging all around us. Thus, "We hold these truths to be self evident" now reads "Our socially constructed selves arbitrarily agree that certain chunks of language are to be esteemed in our linguistic community." Something has gone wrong here, and paraphrasing the words of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Newman, "We came, we saw, and we conked out!"
The astute listener will have already picked up that I am an unrepentant correspondence advocate who eschews the various anti-realist views of truth. In what follows I shall weigh in on the topic first, by sketching out the correspondence theory and the postmodern rejection of it, and second, by identifying five confusions of which I believe postmodern revisionists are guilty. I shall close by warning that not only are postmodern views of truth and knowledge confused, but postmodernism is an immoral and cowardly viewpoint such that persons who love truth and knowledge, especially disciples of the Lord Jesus, should do everything they can to heal the plague that postmodernism has and inevitably does leave.
What is the Correspondence Theory of Truth?
In its simplest form, the correspondence theory of truth says that a proposition is true just in case it corresponds to reality, when what it asserts to be the case is the case. More generally, truth obtains when a truth bearer stands in an appropriate correspondence relation to a truth maker:
truth bearer -------> correspondence relation --------> truth maker
Certain clarifications are called for. First, what is the truth bearer? The thing that is either true or false is not a sentence, statement or other piece of language, but a proposition. A proposition is, minimally, the content of a sentence. For example, "It is raining" and "Es regnet" are two different sentences that express the same proposition. A sentence is a linguistic object consisting in a sense perceptible string of markings formed according to a culturally arbitrary set of syntactical rules, a grammatically well-formed string of spoken or written scratchings/sounds. Sentences are true just in case they express a true proposition or content. We will return to the topic of propositions later.
What about truth-makers? What is it that makes a proposition true? The best answer is facts. A fact is some real, that is, obtaining state of affairs in the world, for example, grass’s being green, an electron’s having negative charge, God’s being all-loving. For present purposes, this identification of the truth-maker will do, but the account would need to be filled out to incorporate future states of affairs that will obtain or counterfactual states of affairs that would have obtained given such and such.
Returning to present purposes, consider the proposition that grass is green. This proposition is true just in case a specific fact, viz., grass's being green, actually obtains in the real world. If Sally has the thought that grass is green, the specific state of affairs, (grass actually being green) "makes" the propositional content of her thought true just in case the state of affairs actually is the way the proposition represents it to be.
Grass’s being green makes Sally’s thought true even if Sally is blind and cannot tell whether or not it is true, and even if Sally does not believe the thought. Reality makes thoughts true or false. A thought is not made true by someone believing it or by someone being able to determine whether or not it is true. Put differently, evidence allows one to tell whether or not a thought is true, but the relevant fact is what makes it true. It goes without saying that "makes" in "a fact makes a proposition true" is not causal, but rather, is a substitution instance of "in virtue of"the proposition is true in virtue of the fact.
Our study of truth bearers has already taken us into the topic of the correspondence relation. Correspondence is a two-placed relation between a proposition and a relevant fact that is its intentional object. A two-placed relation, such as "larger than", is one that requires two things (say, a desk and a book) before it holds. Similarly, the truth relation of correspondence holds between two things a relevant fact and a proposition just in case the fact matches, conforms to, corresponds with the proposition.
Why Believe the Correspondence Theory?
What reasons can be given for accepting the correspondence theory of truth? Many are available, but the simplest is the descriptive argument. The descriptive argument focuses on a careful description and presentation of specific cases of coming to experience truth to see what can be learned from them about truth itself. As an example, consider the case of Joe and Frank. While in his office, Joe receives a call from the university bookstore that a specific book he had ordered Richard Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul has arrived and is waiting for him. At this point, a new mental state occurs in Joe's mind the thought that Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul is in the bookstore.
Now Joe, being aware of the content of the thought, becomes aware of two things closely related to it: the nature of the thought's intentional object (Swinburne's book being in the bookstore) and certain verification steps that would help him to determine the truth of the thought. For example, he knows that it would be irrelevant for verifying the thought to go swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Rather, he knows that he must take a series of steps that will bring him to a specific building and look in certain places for Swinburne's book in the university bookstore.
So Joe starts out for the bookstore, all the while being guided by the proposition that Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul is in the bookstore. Along the way, his friend Frank joins him, though Joe does not tell Frank where he is going or why. They arrive at the store and both see Swinburne's book there. At that moment, Joe and Frank simultaneously have a certain sensory experience of seeing Swinburne's book The Evolution of the Soul. But Joe has a second experience not possessed by Frank. Joe experiences that his thought matches, corresponds with an actual state of affairs. He is able to compare his thought with its intentional object and "see," be directly aware of, the truth of the thought. In this case, Joe actually experiences the correspondence relation itself and truth itself becomes an object of his awareness. "Truth" is ostensively defined by this relation Joe experiences.
Postmodernism and Truth
Postmodernism is a loose coalition of diverse thinkers from several different academic disciplines, so it is difficult to characterize postmodernism in a way that would be fair to this diversity. Still, it is possible to provide a fairly accurate characterization of postmodernism in general, since it friends and foes understand it well enough to debate its strengths and weaknesses.
As a philosophical standpoint, postmodernism is primarily a reinterpretation of what knowledge is and what counts as knowledge. More broadly, it represents a form of cultural relativism about such things as reality, truth, reason, value, linguistic meaning, the self and other notions. On a postmodernist view, there is no such thing as objective reality, truth, value, reason and so forth. All these are social constructions, creations of linguistic practices and, as such, are relative not to individuals, but to social groups that share a narrative.
Postmodernism denies the correspondence theory, claiming that truth is simply a contingent creation of language which expresses customs, emotions, and values embedded in a community’s linguistic practices. For the postmodernist, if one claims to have the truth in the correspondence sense, this assertion is a power move that victimizes those judged not to have the truth.
Five Confusions that Plague Postmodernism
According to Brian McLaren, making absolute truth claims becomes problematic in the postmodern context. Says McLaren, "I think that most Christians grossly misunderstand the philosophical baggage associated with terms like absolute or objective (linked to foundationalism and the myth of neutrality)….Similarly, arguments that pit absolutism versus relativism, and objectivism versus subjectivism, prove meaningless or absurd to postmodern people…" McLaren not only correctly identifies some central postmodern confusions, but his statement indicates he exhibits some of the confusions himself. Let’s try to unpack some of the philosophical baggage to which McLaren refers and bring come clarity to the confusion.
#1 Metaphysical vs. epistemic notions of absolute truth
The first postmodern confusion involves metaphysical vs. epistemic notions of absolute truth. In the metaphysical and correct sense, absolute truth is the same thing as objective truth. On this view, people discover truth, they do not create it, and a claim is made true or false in some way or another by reality itself, totally independently of whether the claim is accepted by anyone. Moreover, an absolute truth conforms to the three fundamental laws of logic, which are themselves absolute truths. According to objectivism, a commitment to the absolute truth of some proposition P entails no thesis about a knowing subject’s epistemic situation regarding P.
By contrast with the metaphysical notion, postmodernists claim that a commitment to absolute truth is rooted in Cartesian anxiety and its need for absolute certainty and, accordingly, claim that acceptance of the absolute truth of P entails acceptance of the conjunction of P’s truth in the objective sense and the possibility of a (finite) knowing subject having Cartesian certainty with respect to P. Thus, one postmodernist recently opined that commitment to objective truth and the correspondence theory is merely "…an epistemic project [that] is funded by Cartesian anxiety,’ a product of methodological doubt…"
As I have already pointed out, this claim is entirely false philosophically. Advocates of a correspondence theory of objective truth take the view to be a realist metaphysical thesis and they steadfastly reject all attempts to epistemologize the view. Moreover, historically, it is incredible to assert that the great Western thinkers from Aristotle up to Descartes correspondence advocates all had any concern whatever about truth and Cartesian anxiety. The great correspondence advocate Aristotle was hardly in a Cartesian quandary when he wisely pointed out that in the search for truth, one ought not expect a greater degree of epistemic strength than is appropriate to the subject matter, a degree of strength that varies from topic to topic. The correspondence theory was not born when Descartes came out of his stove, and postmodernists lose credibility when they pretend otherwise.#2 Two confusions about epistemic objectivity
Postmodernists also reject the notion that rationality is objective on the grounds that no one approaches life in a totally objective way without bias. Thus, objectivity is impossible, and observations, beliefs and entire narratives are theory-laden. There is no neutral standpoint from which to approach the world. Therefore, observations, beliefs and so forth are perspectival constructions that reflect the viewpoint implicit in one's own web of beliefs. For example, Stanley Grenz claims that postmodernism rejects the alleged modernist view of reason which "…entails a claim to dispassionate knowledge, a person’s ability to view reality not as a conditioned participant but as an unconditioned observer to peer at the world from a vantage point outside the flux of history."
Regarding knowledge, postmodernists believe that there is no point of view from which one can define knowledge itself without begging the question in favor of one's own view. "Knowledge" is a construction of one's social, linguistic structures, not a justified, truthful representation of reality by one's mental states. For example, knowledge amounts to what is deemed to be appropriate according to the professional certification practices of various professional associations. As such, knowledge is a construction that expresses the social, linguistic structures of those associations, nothing more, nothingless.less.
These postmodernist claims represent some very deep confusions about the notion of objectivity. As a first step towards clearing away this confusion, we need to draw a distinction between psychological and rational objectivity. It is clear from the quote above that Grenz’ confused understanding of objectivity is at least partly rooted in his mistaken conflation of these two senses. Psychological objectivity is detachment, the absence of bias, a lack of commitment either way on a topic.
Do people ever have psychological objectivity? Yes, they do, typically, in areas in which they have no interest or about which they know little or nothing. Note carefully two things about psychological objectivity. For one thing, it is not necessarily a virtue. It is if one has not thought deeply about an issue and has no convictions regarding it. But as one develops thoughtful, intelligent convictions about a topic, it would be wrong to remain "unbiased", that it, uncommitted regarding it. Otherwise, what role would study and evidence play in the development of a one's approach to life? Should one remain "unbiased" that cancer is a disease, that rape is wrong, that the New Testament was written in the first century, that there is design in the universe, if one has discovered good reasons for each believe? No, one should not.
For another thing, while it is possible to be psychologically objective in some cases, most people are not psychologically objective regarding the vast majority of the things they believe. In these cases, it is crucial to observe that a lack of psychological objectivity does not matter, nor does it cut one off from knowing or seeing the world directly the way it is, or from presenting and arguing for one's convictions. Why? Because a lack of psychological objectivity does not imply a lack of rational objectivity and it is the latter than matters most, not the former.
To understand this, we need to get clear on the notion of rational objectivity. Rational objectivity is the state of having accurate epistemic access to the thing itself. This entails that if one has rational objectivity regarding some topic, then one can discern the difference between genuinely good and bad reasons/evidence for a belief about that topic and one can hold the belief for genuinely good reasons/evidence. The important thing here is that bias does not stand between a knowing subject and an intentional object nor does it eliminate a person's ability to assess the reasons for something. Bias may make it more difficult, but not impossible. If bias made rational objectivity impossible, then no teacher including the postmodernist herself could responsibly teach any view the teacher believed on any subject! Nor could the teacher teach opposing viewpoints, because she would be biased against them!
We will return below to the topic of cognitive access to the objects of consciousness, but for now I simply note that Grenz exhibits the twin confusions, so common among postmodernists, of failing to assess properly the nature and value of psychological objectivity, and of failing to distinguish and properly assess the relationship between psychological and rational objectivity.
#3 Confusions between classical foundationalism and foundationalism per se
Postmodernists reject foundationalism as a theory of epistemic justification. For example, as they assert "the demise of foundationalism," Stanley Grenz and John Franke observe with irony, "How infirm the foundation." Rodney Clapp claims that foundationalism has been in "dire straits" for some time, avowing that "few if any careful thinkers actually rely on foundationalist thinking," even though they cling like addicted smokers to "foundationalist rhetoric." Says Clapp, evangelicals "should be nonfoundationalists exactly because we are evangelicals." Nancey Murphy is concerned to justify a "postmodern" theological method in the face of "a general skeptical reaction to the demise of foundationalism in epistemology."
A major reason for this rejection is the idea that foundationalism represents a quest for epistemic certainty and it is this desire to have certainty that provides the intellectual impetus for foundationalism. This so-called Cartesian anxiety is alleged to be the root of foundationalist theories of epistemic justification. But, the argument continues, there is no such certainty and the quest for it is an impossible one. Further, that quest is misguided because people do not need certainty to live their lives well. Sometimes Christian postmodernists support this claim by asserting that the quest for certainty is at odds with biblical teaching about faith, the sinfulness of our intellectual and sensory faculties, and the impossibility of grasping an infinite God.
Unfortunately, this depiction of the intellectual motives for foundationalism represents a confusion between foundationalism per se and an especially extreme Cartesian form of foundationalism, with the result that versions of modest foundationalism are simply not taken into consideration. To see this, note that "foundationalism" refers to a family of theories about what kinds of grounds constitute justification for belief, all of which hold the following theses:
A proper noetic structure is foundational, composed of properly basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs, where non-basic beliefs are based either directly or indirectly on properly basic beliefs, and properly basic beliefs are non-doxastically grounded, that is, not based entirely on other beliefs;
The basing relation which confers justification is irreflexive and asymmetrical; and
A properly basic belief is a belief which meets some Condition C, where the choice of C marks different versions of foundationalism.
Classical foundationalism, of which the Cartesian project is the paradigm example, holds that Condition C is indubitability (or some relevantly similar surrogate): the ground of the belief must guarantee the truth of the belief. It is recognized in nearly all quarters that classical foundationalism is too ambitious. Even granting, as I certainly would, that there are some indubitable beliefs, there simply aren’t enough of them to ground our entire noetic structure. Further, it clearly seems that certain beliefs which are not indubitable may legitimately be held as properly basic, for example, beliefs grounded in perception, memory, or testimony. And more: classical foundationalism is motivated largely by the belief that certainty is a necessary condition of knowledge, or that one must know that one knows in order to have knowledge. But these analyses are either too strict or lead to an infinite regress, leading in either case to the skeptic’s lair.
In point of fact, the past three decades have witnessed the development of various versions of foundationalism that avoid the criticisms leveled against the classical version. Among contemporary epistemologists, modest foundationalism of some form is, as one philosopher put it, the "dominant position." Thus, it is intellectually irresponsible for Clapp, Murphey and others to claim that foundationalism is losing favor among philosophers. As far as I can tell, apart from intellectual dishonesty, this false viewpoint can be sustained only by conflating classical foundationalism with foundationalism per se, but this is simply mistaken as the widespread acceptance of modest foundationalism makes clear. Modest foundationalism holds that Condition C is something weaker than indubitability: the ground of the belief must be truth-conducive. Thus at least some properly basic beliefs in a modest foundationalism are defeasible (subject to being shown to be false by subsequent evidence).#4 Confusions about the identity of the truth bearer
As we have already seen, the informed correspondence theorist will say that propositions are truth bearers. What is a proposition? Minimally, it is the content of declarative sentences/statements and thoughts/beliefs that is true or false. Beyond that philosophers are in disagreement, but most would agree that a proposition 1) is not located in space or time; 2) is not identical to the linguistic entities that may be used to express it; 3) is not sense perceptible; 4) is such that the same proposition may be in more then one mind at once; 5) need not be grasped by any (at least finite) person to exist and be what it is; 6) may itself be an object of thought when, for example, one is thinking about the content of one's own thought processes; 7) is in no sense a physical entity.
By contrast, a sentence is a linguistic type or token consisting in a sense perceptible string of markings formed according to a culturally arbitrary set of syntactical rules. A statement is a sequence of sounds or body movements employed by a speaker to assert a sentence on a specific occasion. So understood, neither sentences nor statements are good candidates for the basic truth bearer.
It is pretty easy to show that having or using a sentence (or any other piece of language) is neither necessary nor sufficient for thinking or having propositional content. First it’s not necessary. Children think prior to their acquisition of language how else could they thoughtfully learn language and, indeed, we all think without language regularly. Moreover, the same propositional content may be expressed by a potentially infinite number of pieces of language and, thus, that content is not identical to any linguistic entity. This alone does not show that language is not necessary for having propositional content. But when one attends to the content that is being held constant as arbitrary linguistic expressions are selected to express it, that content may easily be seen to satisfy the non-linguistic traits of a proposition listed above.
Second, it’s not sufficient. If erosion carved an author less linguistic scribble in a hillside, for example, "I’m eroding", then strictly speaking it would have no meaning or content, though it would be empirically equivalent to another token of this type that would express a proposition were it the result of authorial intent.
Postmodernists attack a straw man when they focus on the alleged inadequacies of linguistic objects to do the work required of them in a correspondence theory of truth. Speaking for himself and other postmodernists, Joseph Natoli claims that "No one representation, or narrative, can reliably represent the world because language/pictures/sounds (signifiers) are not permanent labels attached to the things of the world nor do the things of the world dwell inside such signifiers." Unfortunately, even granting the fact that language (and certain sensations) is problematic if taken to represent things in the world (e.g., that the language/world hookup is arbitrary), it follows that human subjects cannot accurately represent the world only if we grant the further erroneous claim that representational entities are limited to language (and certain sensations). But this is precisely what the sophisticated correspondence theorist denies.
Again, Richard Rorty says "To say that truth is not our there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is not truth, that sentences are elements of human language, and that human languages are human creations. Truth cannot be out there cannot exist independently of the human mind because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there….Only descriptions…can be true and false." It should be obvious that Rorty attacks a straw man and that his argument goes through only if we grant that sentences are the fundamental truth bearers.#5 Confusions about perception and intentionality
Postmodernists adopt a highly contentious model of perception and intentionality, often without argument, and they seem to enjoin serious consideration of a prima facie more plausible model. The result is that postmodernists are far too pessimistic about the prospects of human epistemic success.
Postmodernists adopt a linguistic version of Rene Descartes’ idea theory of perception (and intentionality generally). To understand the idea theory, and the postmodern adaptation of it, a good place to start is with a common sense, critical realist view of perception. According to critical realism, when a subject is looking at a red object such as an apple, the object itself is the direct object of the sensory state. What one sees directly is the apple itself. True, one must have a sensation of red to apprehend the apple, but on the critical realist view, the sensation of red is to be understood as a case of being-appeared-to-redly and analyzed as a self-presenting property. What is a self-presenting property? If some property F is a self-presenting one, then it is by means of F that a relevant external object is presented directly to a person, and F presents itself directly to the person as well. Thus, F presents its object mediately though directly, and itself immediately.
This is not as hard to understand as it first may appear. Sensations, such as being-appeared-to-redly, are an important class of self-presenting properties. If Jones is having a sensation of red while looking at an apple, then having the property of being-appeared-to-redly as part of his consciousness modifies his substantial self. When Jones has this sensation, it is a tool that presents the red apple mediately to him and the sensation also presents itself to Jones. What does it mean to say that the sensation presents the apple to him mediately? Simply this: it is in virtue of or by means of the sensation that Jones directly sees the apple itself.
Moreover, by having the sensation of red, Jones is directly aware both of the apple and his own awareness of the apple. For the critical realist, the sensation of red may, indeed, be a tool or means that Jones uses to become aware of the apple, but he is thereby directly aware of the apple. His awareness of the apple is direct in that nothing stands between Jones and the apple, not even his sensation of the apple. That sensation presents the apple directly, though as a tool, Jones must have the sensation as a necessary condition for seeing the apple. On the critical realist view, a knowing subject is not trapped behind or within anything, including a viewpoint, a narrative, an historical-linguistic perspective. To have an entity in the external world as an object of intentionality is to already be "out there"; there is no need to escape anything. One is not trapped behind one’s eyeballs or anything else. It is a basic fallacy of logic to infer that one sees a point-of-viewed-object from the fact that one sees an object from a point of view.
Before leaving the critical realist view, it is important to say that the theory does not limit self-presenting properties to those associated with the five senses and, therefore, does not limit the objects of direct awareness to ordinary sensory objects. The critical realist will say that a knowing subject is capable of direct acquaintance with a host of non-sense-perceptible objects one's’s own ego and its mental states, various abstract objects like the laws of mathematics or logic, and spirit beings, including God.
By contrast, for Descartes’ idea theory, one’s ideas, in this case, sensations, stand between the subject and the object of perception. Jones is directly aware of his own sensation of the apple and indirectly aware of the apple in the sense that it is what causes the sensation to happen. On the idea theory, a perceiving subject is trapped behind his own sensations and cannot get outside them to the external world in order to compare his sensations to their objects to see if those sensations are accurate.
Now, in a certain sense, postmodernists believe that people are trapped behind something in the attempt to get to the external world. However, for them the wall between people and reality is not composed of sensations as it was for Descartes; rather, it is constituted by one’s community and its linguistic categories and practices. One’s language serves as a sort of distorting and, indeed, creative filter. One cannot get outside one’s language to see if one’s talk about the world is the way the world is. Thus, Grenz advocates a new outlook, allegedly representing some sort of consensus in the human sciences, that expresses "a more profound understanding of epistemology. Recent thinking has helped us see that the process of knowing, and to some extent even the process of experiencing the world, can occur only within a conceptual framework, a framework mediated by the social community in which we participate."
It has been noted repeatedly that such assertions are self-refuting. For if we are all trapped behind a framework such that simple, direct seeing is impossible, then no amount of recent thinking can help us see anything; all it could do would be to invite us to see something as such and such from within a conceptual framework. Given the self refuting nature of such claims, and given the fact that we all experience regularly the activity of comparing our conceptions of an entity with the entity itself as a way of adjusting those conceptions, it is hard to see why anyone, especially a Christian, would adopt the postmodern view. In any case, I have seldom seen the realist perspective seriously considered by postmodern thinkers, and until it is, statements like Grenz’ will be taken as mere mantras by many of us.
Final Remarks about the Immoral Nature of Postmodernism
For some time I have been convinced that postmodernism is rooted in pervasive confusions, and I have tried to point out what some of these are. I am also convinced that postmodernism is an irresponsible, cowardly abrogation of the duties that constitute a disciple’s calling to be a Christian intellectual and teacher.
In her provocative book entitled Longing to Know, Ester Meek asserts that humans as knowers exercise a profound responsibility to submit to the authoritative dictates of reality. Thus, "It is not responsible to deny objective truth and reality in knowing; it is irresponsible. It is not responsible to make the human knower or community of knowers the arbiters of a private truth and reality; it is irresponsible." Again, Meek claims that "Good, responsible knowing brings blessing, shalom; irresponsible knowing brings curse." In another place Meek warns that "…the kind of freedom implied by the thought that we humans completely determine our reality leaves us with a gnawing sense of the relative insignificance of our choices. I think it leads not to total responsibility but to careless irresponsibility, both with regard to ourselves and with regard to other humans, not to mention to the world. And, paradoxically, it leads not to a deeper sense of [communal or individual] identity and dignity but to a disheartening lack of it."
We Evangelicals need to pay careful attention to Meek’s claims. As humans, we live and ought to live our lives not merely by truth, but by knowledge of truth. Knowledge of truth gives us confident trust and access to reality. Moreover, as those called to be teachers and scholars for the church and, indeed, for the unbelieving world, we are called not only to impart and defend truth, but to impart and defend knowledge of truth and, even more, to impart and defend knowledge of truth as knowledge of truth. This entails that we must impart and defend the notion that we do, in fact, have knowledge of important spiritual and ethical truths. Among other things, this gives confidence in truth and knowledge to those we serve. Thus, we are irresponsible not simply if we fail to achieve knowledge of reality; we are doubly irresponsible if we fail to impart to others knowledge as knowledge. The corrosive affects of postmodernism eat away at the fulfillment of these duties and responsibilities that constitute our calling from Almighty God.
Meek goes on to point out that the achieving of knowledge and the teaching of it as knowledge "...calls for courageous resolve. And this courageous resolve, when proven true, merits the deep admiration of others." The need for such courage is especially grave today as we labor in an intellectual milieu in which the worldviews of naturalism and postmodernism both entail that there is no non-empirical knowledge, especially no religious or ethical knowledge.
Faced with such opposition and the pressure it brings, postmodernism is a form of intellectual pacifism that, at the end of the day, recommends backgammon while the barbarians are at the gate. It is the easy, cowardly way out that removes the pressure to engage alternative conceptual schemes, to be different, to risk ridicule, to take a stand outside the gate. But it is precisely as disciples of Christ, even more, as officers in His army, that the pacifist way out is simply not an option. However comforting it may be, postmodernism is the cure that kills the patient, the military strategy that concedes defeat before the first shot is fired, the ideology that undermines its own claims to allegiance. And it is an immoral, coward’s way out that is not worthy of a movement born out of the martyrs’ blood.
About the Author
J. P. Moreland, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He has authored or co-authored many books including Christianity and the Nature of Science, Scaling the Secular City, Does God Exist?, Immortality: The Other Side of Death and The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Times. He is also co-editor of Christian Perspectives on Being Human. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals, including Christianity Today, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and The American Philosophical Quarterly. Dr. Moreland served with Campus Crusade for 10 years, planted two churches, and has spoken on over 100 college campuses.
Resources by J. P. Moreland Available from Stand to Reason
British and Romantic Victorian Cultures
Stacey on Romantic, Victorian and Modern British Literature (MU ENG264-Dr. J. Glance)
References: Longman Anthology of British Literature, 2nd Compact Ed., Vol. B., (2003).
“Women and the fiction that is written about them”
-Virginia Woolf
from A Room of One’s Own, Chapter 1
Could Virginia Woolf’s life story be the reason she rejected Victorian ideals? Her “own roots went deep in Victorian literary culture” (Longman, p.1222). I believe it was because she was denied a formal education and it is stated that “the sense of having been deliberately shut out of education by virtue of her sex was to inflect all of Woolf’s writing and thinking”(Longman, p.1223).
It seems only natural that Woolf (the quintessential victim of sexism by her brothers’ objectification and incest) would reject the Victorian leaning of group-think (hypocritical) morality. How immoral a society that would dismiss the self-determination of their members and allow the oppression of so many of their members; specifically women?
Woolf’s stance in A Room of One’s Own (that a woman writer needs her own room and money) reflects her understanding that as long as women are financially-disadvantaged, they will continue to be at a disadvantage both educationally and socially.
BLAST & Percy Wyndham Lewis (1884-1957)
The mere existence and publication of the Vorticist Manifesto, in Lewis’ arts magazine Blast which announced the “END OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA” (Longman, p.1082) seemed progressive for any Christian country. Britain, as we know, was a little distracted by WWI. Only a war with so much human casualty could distract from a movement claiming the end of the Christian era. It appears that the Manifesto addressed concerns of both the literary and artistic communities.
The footnotes of the Manifesto were invaluable because much of it seemed like “an inside joke” or better said, “an inside list of insults”. The list of those “blasted” was divided into seven categories, “members of the literary and cultural establishment, popular/snobbish fads, high-minded popular writers, mediocre figures, and fuzzy-minded reformers”(Longman, p.1089). The last two categories were the most amusing: “popular figures whom the Vorticists just didn’t like and blasting just for the fun of it…or for reasons known only to the insiders”(Longman, p.1089).
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
It is said that “we have not, because we ask not”. When one begins to read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, it is immediately obvious that this will not resemble the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. The introductory quote from Dante’s Inferno implied that the narrator did not think much of himself, nor did he think much of me (as he takes me on this journey of his thoughts). On the other hand, instead of an insult to the reader, it could have been a warning. The warning could have been that “you could get as lost as me (as I take you on this journey in my mind) and you may not make it back”. We knew, early on, that this would be no typical love song.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
It is always interesting to watch a poet’s personal life and interests come through in his/her poetry. Learning about Yeats’ Irish Protestant ancestry in the midst of the Catholic Irish nationalist movement and his interest in “various mystical movements” (Longman, p.1114) give special meaning to his imagery in his poem The Second Coming.
Yeats’ reference in the first stanza to the “The best who lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” reminds one of the feeling of superiority that many of his Irish Protestant ascendancy minority felt toward the Irish Catholic majority’s nationalist movement.
The references to Spiritus Mundi “the belief in a storehouse of all human experience and knowledge from his occult studies” (Longman, p.1115) and what sounds like a sphinx of “a shape with lion body and the head of a man” are reflective of Yeats’ personal interests in non-traditional spiritual ideology. In spite of his non-traditional spiritual thoughts, it appears that Yeats is mourning the “twenty centuries” of the traditional but dying Christian era that is in danger of the impending birth of an approaching “rough beast” that “slouches toward Bethlehem to be born” .
George Bernard Shaw “G.B.S.” (1856-1950)
My knowledge of Shaw is limited to his play Pygmalion as the basis for the play My Fair Lady which I have only seen in its big screen adaptation. The film adaptation is comedic and enjoyable, especially by a musical-lover like me, but the undercurrent of desire for social-class acceptance by Eliza is unsettling for a social scientist like me. When I learned of G.B.S.’s leanings toward socialism, poverty, and gender equality, along with his anti-formal education stance, the musical-play made even more sense. How progressive for Shaw to use humor to address social issues of gender equality and what the freedom of self-determination brings with it. For example, “Eliza knows that Higgins does not need her, just as her father did not need her” (Longman, p. 1071). It is a story (as Shaw ends Pygmalion) of how specifically, Eliza relates to the men in her life, and how generally, women relate to men on both personal and societal levels.
References: Longman Anthology of British Literature, 2nd Compact Ed., Vol. B., (2003).
“Women and the fiction that is written about them”
-Virginia Woolf
from A Room of One’s Own, Chapter 1
Could Virginia Woolf’s life story be the reason she rejected Victorian ideals? Her “own roots went deep in Victorian literary culture” (Longman, p.1222). I believe it was because she was denied a formal education and it is stated that “the sense of having been deliberately shut out of education by virtue of her sex was to inflect all of Woolf’s writing and thinking”(Longman, p.1223).
It seems only natural that Woolf (the quintessential victim of sexism by her brothers’ objectification and incest) would reject the Victorian leaning of group-think (hypocritical) morality. How immoral a society that would dismiss the self-determination of their members and allow the oppression of so many of their members; specifically women?
Woolf’s stance in A Room of One’s Own (that a woman writer needs her own room and money) reflects her understanding that as long as women are financially-disadvantaged, they will continue to be at a disadvantage both educationally and socially.
BLAST & Percy Wyndham Lewis (1884-1957)
The mere existence and publication of the Vorticist Manifesto, in Lewis’ arts magazine Blast which announced the “END OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA” (Longman, p.1082) seemed progressive for any Christian country. Britain, as we know, was a little distracted by WWI. Only a war with so much human casualty could distract from a movement claiming the end of the Christian era. It appears that the Manifesto addressed concerns of both the literary and artistic communities.
The footnotes of the Manifesto were invaluable because much of it seemed like “an inside joke” or better said, “an inside list of insults”. The list of those “blasted” was divided into seven categories, “members of the literary and cultural establishment, popular/snobbish fads, high-minded popular writers, mediocre figures, and fuzzy-minded reformers”(Longman, p.1089). The last two categories were the most amusing: “popular figures whom the Vorticists just didn’t like and blasting just for the fun of it…or for reasons known only to the insiders”(Longman, p.1089).
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
It is said that “we have not, because we ask not”. When one begins to read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, it is immediately obvious that this will not resemble the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. The introductory quote from Dante’s Inferno implied that the narrator did not think much of himself, nor did he think much of me (as he takes me on this journey of his thoughts). On the other hand, instead of an insult to the reader, it could have been a warning. The warning could have been that “you could get as lost as me (as I take you on this journey in my mind) and you may not make it back”. We knew, early on, that this would be no typical love song.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
It is always interesting to watch a poet’s personal life and interests come through in his/her poetry. Learning about Yeats’ Irish Protestant ancestry in the midst of the Catholic Irish nationalist movement and his interest in “various mystical movements” (Longman, p.1114) give special meaning to his imagery in his poem The Second Coming.
Yeats’ reference in the first stanza to the “The best who lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” reminds one of the feeling of superiority that many of his Irish Protestant ascendancy minority felt toward the Irish Catholic majority’s nationalist movement.
The references to Spiritus Mundi “the belief in a storehouse of all human experience and knowledge from his occult studies” (Longman, p.1115) and what sounds like a sphinx of “a shape with lion body and the head of a man” are reflective of Yeats’ personal interests in non-traditional spiritual ideology. In spite of his non-traditional spiritual thoughts, it appears that Yeats is mourning the “twenty centuries” of the traditional but dying Christian era that is in danger of the impending birth of an approaching “rough beast” that “slouches toward Bethlehem to be born” .
George Bernard Shaw “G.B.S.” (1856-1950)
My knowledge of Shaw is limited to his play Pygmalion as the basis for the play My Fair Lady which I have only seen in its big screen adaptation. The film adaptation is comedic and enjoyable, especially by a musical-lover like me, but the undercurrent of desire for social-class acceptance by Eliza is unsettling for a social scientist like me. When I learned of G.B.S.’s leanings toward socialism, poverty, and gender equality, along with his anti-formal education stance, the musical-play made even more sense. How progressive for Shaw to use humor to address social issues of gender equality and what the freedom of self-determination brings with it. For example, “Eliza knows that Higgins does not need her, just as her father did not need her” (Longman, p. 1071). It is a story (as Shaw ends Pygmalion) of how specifically, Eliza relates to the men in her life, and how generally, women relate to men on both personal and societal levels.
African Studies
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Africa: Country Pages
Map of Africa
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USA Travel Warnings
Algeria Niger
Angola Gabon Nigeria
Benin Gambia Reunion
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Cameroon Kenya Seychelles
Cape Verde Lesotho Sierra Leone
Central African Rep. Liberia Somalia
Chad Libya South Africa
Comoros Madagascar Sudan
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Congo (DRC, Zaire) Mali Tanzania
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Djibouti Mauritius Tunisia
Egypt Morocco Uganda
Equatorial Guinea Mozambique Western Sahara
Eritrea Namibia Zambia
Ethiopia Zimbabwe
Editor: Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.
Africa: Country Pages
Map of Africa
National Holidays
USA Travel Warnings
Algeria Niger
Angola Gabon Nigeria
Benin Gambia Reunion
Botswana Ghana Rwanda
Burkina Faso Guinea Sao Tome & Principe
Burundi Guinea-Bissau Senegal
Cameroon Kenya Seychelles
Cape Verde Lesotho Sierra Leone
Central African Rep. Liberia Somalia
Chad Libya South Africa
Comoros Madagascar Sudan
Congo (Brazzaville) Malawi Swaziland
Congo (DRC, Zaire) Mali Tanzania
Cote d'Ivoire Mauritania Togo
Djibouti Mauritius Tunisia
Egypt Morocco Uganda
Equatorial Guinea Mozambique Western Sahara
Eritrea Namibia Zambia
Ethiopia Zimbabwe
Editor: Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.
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