Introduction: German Thought since Kant

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Introduction: German Thought since Kant

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This chapter is in the book Modern German Thought from Kant to Habermas

Introduction: German Thought since KantINTRODUCINGASURVEY of modern French philosophy, Vincent Descombes summarizes the post-war developments covered by his book as follows:In the recent evolution of philosophy in France we can trace the pas-sage from the generation known after 1945 as that of the “three H’s” to the generation known since 1960 as that of the three “masters of suspicion”: the three H’s being Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, and the three masters of suspicion Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.1What is perhaps most striking about these six named maîtres à penser is that they are all German, or at least German-speaking. Descombes’s observa-tions thus illustrate well the outstanding importance of German thought: for over two centuries, German thinkers have mattered in philosophy, not just in the German-speaking world, but world-wide.The reputation of philosophy teaching in Berlin, in particular, ensured that from the time of Hegel in the 1820s until the Second World War what is now known as the Humboldt University acted as a magnet for generations of the world’s brightest philosophical talents.2 Notable exam-ples include the Dane Søren Kierkegaard, the Americans George Santayana and W. E. B. Du Bois, the Russian Alexandre Kojève, the Romanian Emil Cioran, and the Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre. The renown of German philosophy has been such that, just as people have mastered ancient Greek in order to read Plato or the New Testament, many who could not make the pilgrimage to Berlin — or to other important university towns such as Freiburg, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Marburg3 — have learned German 1 Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, trans. L. Scott-Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980), 3. The phrase “masters of suspicion” was borrowed from another leading modern French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur. Cf. Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1970), 32.2 On German university philosophy in general, see U. J. Schneider, “The Teaching of Philosophy at German Universities in the Nineteenth Century,” History of Universities 12 (1993): 197–338.3 In Marburg, for example, José Ortega y Gasset and Boris Pasternak studied under the neo-Kantians Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, while the list of notable

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Introduction: German Thought since KantINTRODUCINGASURVEY of modern French philosophy, Vincent Descombes summarizes the post-war developments covered by his book as follows:In the recent evolution of philosophy in France we can trace the pas-sage from the generation known after 1945 as that of the “three H’s” to the generation known since 1960 as that of the three “masters of suspicion”: the three H’s being Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, and the three masters of suspicion Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.1What is perhaps most striking about these six named maîtres à penser is that they are all German, or at least German-speaking. Descombes’s observa-tions thus illustrate well the outstanding importance of German thought: for over two centuries, German thinkers have mattered in philosophy, not just in the German-speaking world, but world-wide.The reputation of philosophy teaching in Berlin, in particular, ensured that from the time of Hegel in the 1820s until the Second World War what is now known as the Humboldt University acted as a magnet for generations of the world’s brightest philosophical talents.2 Notable exam-ples include the Dane Søren Kierkegaard, the Americans George Santayana and W. E. B. Du Bois, the Russian Alexandre Kojève, the Romanian Emil Cioran, and the Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre. The renown of German philosophy has been such that, just as people have mastered ancient Greek in order to read Plato or the New Testament, many who could not make the pilgrimage to Berlin — or to other important university towns such as Freiburg, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Marburg3 — have learned German 1 Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, trans. L. Scott-Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980), 3. The phrase “masters of suspicion” was borrowed from another leading modern French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur. Cf. Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1970), 32.2 On German university philosophy in general, see U. J. Schneider, “The Teaching of Philosophy at German Universities in the Nineteenth Century,” History of Universities 12 (1993): 197–338.3 In Marburg, for example, José Ortega y Gasset and Boris Pasternak studied under the neo-Kantians Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, while the list of notable

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