Philosophy and Religion

Philosophy is concerned with the problems of human behaviour which arise at the interface of the conflicts that emerge between opposing sets of values. Philosophical discussion of these problems requires an experienced, contemplative mind and a mastery of logical argumentation, in particular a firmly-based ability to draw a clear distinction between what we know and what we do not know. German philosophy has made significant contributions to the international debate, in the first instance in the context of rationalism, with Leibnitz and Wolf, and that of the historical anthropology of the Aufklärung, represented above all by Herder. Kant then shifted the basis of philosophical enquiry to concern itself with the conditions that govern the possibility of acquiring scientific knowledge and exercising the faculty of reason. Disputed as his universalistic approach of discursive reason may still be, his examination of the nature of modern philosophical activity retains its stimulating value. International influence also spread from the philosophical activity of the early Romantics, as well as from representatives of German idealism such as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. These two currents of thought gave differing responses to the question of the consequences for modern times of the French Revolution.

In the course of the nineteenth century critical voices were heard, often irreconcilable with each other, on the philosophy of reason, voices that have had in their turn contradictory influences on the twentieth century. In his self-centred ethic of compassion Schopenhauer inquired into both the positive and negative effects of the creation of the Will. Marx claimed that the scientific analysis of the capitalist system would be linked to a revolutionary movement of the proletariat that would lead to a world society free of economic exploitation. As Nietzsche saw its, nihilism, the denial of life, was a product of the Judaeo-Christian reaction against the optimistic, yea-saying activities of flamboyant, elitist forms of power. This led to a new cultural challenge – man’s achievement of self-conquest.

In contrast to these critiques of reason the end of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth witnessed new approaches to the philosophical function of reason. These new approaches originated either in the principle of empirical knowledge, as in the model advanced by Mach, or in the principles of formal logic, associated with Frege. Both aspects then merged in the context of neo-Kantianism and subsequently in the Vienna School (Carnap, Neurath) and the Berlin School (Reichenbach), and later in the early work of Wittgenstein and Karl Popper.

In contrast Dilthey incorporated reason hermeneutically in the historical nexus of experience, expression and understanding. To this Husserl opposed a different phenomenology of concepts and perceptions in order to involve the values of absolute subjectivity, criticising in his later works the alienation of science and technology from the physical world as subjectively experienced. Cassirer developed the philosophy of symbolic forms as a basic framework, in terms of which cultural change was to be understood. In the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse) modern processes of rationalisation were used to provide a new foundation for a critique of society in Marxist terms. Scheler’s phenomenological neutralisation of the antithesis of the physical and the psychological paved the way for Plessner’s foundation of the discipline of philosophical anthropology, which located the mind-body dichotomy in the principle of the unfathomability of man (Misch).

The proponents of these new directions in modern philosophy were forced into exile during the Nazi era. Only a handful returned to Germany after the Second World War, most prominent among them in the 1960s being the members of the Frankfurt School. Only since the 1970s has interest been revived in a number of other thinkers. During his years of ’inner emigration’ in Nazi Germany Karl Jaspers evolved an existentialist philosophy which aimed at a reconciliation with the philosophy of reason. Heidegger’s existentialism, on the other hand, was politically discredited and suffered, as he himself understood the situation, as the victim of a change of philosophical direction in favour of a humanistic philosophy of being. Its transformation after the Second World War led to Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, which also attracted considerable international attention.

In other developments Lorenzen initiated the philosophy of constructivism, while Henrich put forward a philosophy of subjectivity based on a reconstruction of German idealism. Apel’s transformation of philosophy drew attention to the semiotic foundation of the philosophy of pragmatism, leaving Habermas to expand further its transatlantic connections. His rationalistic linguistic studies led to the emergence of a new critical approach to the study of society. Luhmann, on the other hand, discarded the traditional philosophy of reason in favour of self-centred systems.

In the meantime exchanges of views between contemporary German philosophers and Anglo-American representatives of modern neo-pragmatic trends have resumed on a traditional basis (Abel, Frank), whilst links with quasi-transcendental movements in contemporary French philosophy (Foucault, Derrida) have become stronger, as exemplified by the work of Waldenfels and Welsch. At the same time there is a systematic renaissance of modern trends based on philosophies derived from the German tradition.