Hermann Lotze

En réactualisant la question de la présence du platonisme dans les écrits de jeunesse de Heidegger (1919-1929), cet ouvrage comble une lacune importante dans les recherches heideggériennes, qui, jusqu’à présent, ont surtout souligné son anti-platonisme. L’auteur défend au contraire la thèse selon laquelle le rôle de la critique heideggérienne du platonisme est de préparer une réappropriation originale de Platon.
Dans un premier temps, il se penche sur la déconstruction heideggé-rienne des formes modernes du platonisme, que Heidegger appelle «platonisme tout à fait banal» à cause de leur caractère ahistorial, théorique et formel. Il met ensuite en lumière l’influence structurelle de la République de Platon sur l’ontologie fondamentale de Etre et Temps. Mais au Bien que Platon introduit dans l’allégorie, Heidegger substitue la temporalité comme horizon ultime du sens de l’être. Finalement, l’étude met en relief une présupposition latente dans l’œuvre de Heidegger selon laquelle le Sophiste et le Théétète contiennent en germe les idées principales de l’analytique existentiale et de l’ontologie fondamentale.
La réappropriation heideggérienne de Platon consiste ainsi dans le passage d’un platonisme théorique à un platonisme pratico-existential.

Abstract. In the present article, I will discuss Lotze’s attempt to “sublate” (aufheben) Hegel’s conception of logic in his Logic of 1874. I will demonstrate that Lotze operates as a filter by recasting many Hegelian notions in a way that will influence the 20th-century philosophers in a decisive manner. In the first section, I will focus on how, according to both Hegel and Lotze, the relationship between representation and language conditions the transition from sensible impressions to concepts. In the second section, I will discuss Lotze's re-elaboration of Hegel's idea of the objectivity of thought based on his notion of validity. In the third part, I will finally show how Lotze's revaluation of the function of imagination in the domain of “logic” (in a straightforward opposition to Hegel’s underestimation thereof) allows us to re-discover the early modern idea of logic understood as an ‘ars inveniendi’.

Einer der leitenden Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart ist der Begriff der Geltung bzw. Gültigkeit. Der Beitrag untersucht - ausgehend von einer Analyse des gegenwärtigen Phänomens der Geltung in seiner ökonomischen Form - dessen geschichtliche, logisch-ontologische Herkunft und orientiert sich dabei an der Prägung dieses Begriffs durch Hermann Lotze.

Auxier undertakes an exercise in the philosophy of culture and philosophy of history, one could call it the philosophical history of philosophy. Auxier outlines the background of American personalist philosophy and theology, and then Auxier traces these German roots through to the two primary schools of American personalist thought: the Boston University and the Harvard schools of personalism. Along the way Auxier points to the major influences and divergence of the development of American personalism. Auxier summarizes the principles of both schools as well as the views rejected, both philosophical and religious, by personalists.

Il volume analizza il problema del suono nella filosofia tedesca, dalla Critica del Giudizio di Kant alla psicologia della Gestalt. Vengono prese in esame la filosofia della natura del romanticismo e dell’idealismo, la psicologia filosofica della seconda metà del secolo e infine la scuola descrittivo-fenomenologica del primo Novecento. Il quadro che ne risulta è quello di un dibattito molto vivace che tocca fondamentali questioni di fisica acustica, psicologia della percezione ed estetica musicale, mettendo a confronto molti dei massimi autori del secolo. Tra i temi affrontati, il senso dei rapporti numerici insiti nelle relazioni tonali, l’indagine sui processi percettivi e cognitivi legati alle figure armoniche e melodiche, il significato estetico e metafisico del sentimento musicale. Sullo sfondo, le grandi trasformazioni nella prassi musicale del tempo e le notevoli conquiste della scienza acustica, delle quali i filosofi, in diversa misura, furono generalmente consapevoli.

The present paper provides an analysis of some key-concepts of Lotze's Logik, with a special focus on the notions of "idea" and "concept." In a direct confrontation with Heidegger and Frege, we will aim at showing that what is truly at stake in Lotze's separation between thought and representations is not merely the objectivity of the former in opposition to the subjectivity of the latter (as originally thought by M. Dummett), but rather the very concept of "synthesis" understood as characterizing the activity or essence of thought. After a first section dedicated to a meticulous analysis of Lotze's terminology, the essay will move on to the issue of concept-formation; finally, a reading of Frege's famous text known as 17 Key Sentences on Logic will be provided.

In this paper, I compare Lotze's, Lipps', and Voigtländer's notion of feelings of self-worth. I identify three lines of thinking operative in Voigtländer's theory of self-feelings. While acknowledging the uniqueness of her theory, which presents a synthesis of quite heterogeneous traditions, I argue that her proposal must be read with due caution. For, not only do some of the traditions she seems to rely on present central points of reference in the genesis of the ideologies of National Socialism, her own views on self-feeling are also conspicuously compatible with eugenic thinking.

Lotze and Husserl on First and Second Generality In this paper, I present Lotze's and Husserl's efforts to describe an original dimension of generality that is given in direct perceptual experience and precedes logical or conceptual generality. Accordingly, Lotze and Husserl both distinguish between first and second generality. I argue that Lotze influenced Husserl significantly on this important matter. After presenting Lotze's views on first generality and sketching out his theory of second generality, I move to consider Husserl, who identifies first generality in the strict sense with individual essences and in a broader sense with concrete essences. I then discuss Husserl's characterization of second generality, which he associates with generic essences and pure eide. I conclude by spelling out the way in which the consideration of Lotze sheds new light on the key problem of eidetics in Husserl's phenomenology.

When not ignored by scholars, Lotze's logic is understood as an example of either psychologism or Pla-tonism. As a matter of fact, despite his allowance for the topic of the origin of concepts, Lotze manages to avoid logical psychologism. At the same time, concepts cannot be said to have validity (Geltung) in the same way as propositions in themselves do: were this the case, one could actually ascribe Lotze a form of Platonism. Avoiding the crass dichotomy between realism and nominalism, Lotze works out a meticulous analysis of the relation between general concepts and our knowledge of reality, which is perfectly compliant with his teleological worldview.

The present contribution elucidates Husserl’s relationship to Lotze in the light of Winthrop Bell’s notes on Husserl’s 1912 seminar on Lotze’s theory of knowledge. Once again, these notes make it clear that Husserl highly appreciated the chapter on Plato’s theory of ideas from Lotze’s 1874 'Logic' and his anti-psychologistic view of logic, as far as it goes. However, it also becomes clear that Husserl rejected both Lotze’s account of the origins of objectivity in terms of the doctrine of “achievements of thinking (Denkleistungen)” and the discussion of skepticism in the 1874 'Logic' against the background of his own (Bolzano-inspired) conception of intentionality and his treatment of the epistemological “problem of transcendence” in the framework of the “phenomenological reduction”.

This paper focuses on the period of study in Germany of the philosopher Carlo Cantoni (1840-1906). Moving from the discovery of a manuscript by Cantoni containing the notes of the lectures held by Rudolf Hermann Lotze in Göttingen during the winter term 1865-1866, I will first reconstruct the historical context of Cantoni’s German staying. I will then analyse the significance of this period for his philosophical training; I will consider in particular Cantoni’s production between the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s of XIX century, casting light on the further development of his thought as well.

Il volume ricostruisce la storia di un problema classico, quello del rapporto tra anima e corpo, in seno alla filosofia tedesca dell'Ottocento e del primo Novecento. Il tentativo di applicare alla sfera psichica i procedimenti di misurazione e quantificazione tipici delle scienze naturali, scatenò all’epoca un vivace dibattito intorno alla natura dell’anima e ai limiti di applicabilità del metodo scientifico. Al centro di questo nodo problematico si colloca idealmente la psicofisica, disciplina ideata da G.Th. Fechner sulla base delle ricerche fisiologiche di E.H. Weber, ma anche sotto l'influsso determinante del pensiero di Schelling. A metà strada tra la metafisica del XVII secolo e le novecentesche discussioni sul Mind-Body Problem, l’ampia querelle sulla psicofisica coinvolse le maggiori personalità filosofiche del tempo, impegnandole su questioni che rimangono a tutt'oggi di grande attualità teoretica. Muovendo da una puntuale ricerca delle origini del problema, individuabili nell'opera di Kant, il volume affronta le principali scuole di pensiero dell'Ottocento per concludersi infine con l'esame degli importanti contributi offerti dalla scuola descrittivo-fenomenologica di Brentano e dai massimi esponenti del Circolo di Vienna

The paper examines the Lotzean background of Husserl’s logic with respect to the so-called Frege’s principles, the context principle (“the word has a meaning only in the context of a sentence”), the priority thesis (the judgment is prior to the concepts in it), and the principle of compositionality (the sense of a complex expression is compounded out of the senses of its constituents). While some commentators hold that for Frege, the context principle, inherited from Lotze, is an expression of his epistemological view of logic, Husserl’s indebtedness to Lotze is diametrically opposite: he owes to Lotze a kind of ontological holism, which is independent of the context principle.

In the following paper we will seek to understand what Edmund Husserl, in his second Logical Investigation, refers to as "idealism", against the backdrop of Rudolf Hermann Lotze's interpretation of Plato's doctrine of Ideas in the third book of his Logic. This will raise not only the question of Husserl's indebtedness to Lotze with respect to the Ideenhlehre in terms of Geltung, but first and foremost of the " Platonism " of the idealism defended in his first masterpiece.

The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand it aims to show the main traits of Lotze’s theory of emotion, focusing specifically on the correlation between emotion and self-consciousness, and, on the other hand, to demonstrate how Lotze’s theory of emotion plays a key role in the phenomenology of emotional life as propounded by Max Scheler. Indeed their shared belief is that one should be able to understand one’s own individuality through one’s emotional state and not through theoretical operations such as reflection or thinking. Accordingly I argue that Lotze and Scheler suggest an emotional account of self-consciousness which manifests itself as closely related to an individual’s moral sensibility.

In this article I examine R. H. Lotze’s attempt to ground morality in benevolence without thereby appealing to the constitution of human nature. In the first section I consider Francis Hutcheson’s earlier approach, who understands benevolence as a fundamental affection characterizing our psychology. The second section briefly turns to Kant’s critique of Hutcheson. The third section discusses some basic concerns of Lotze’s ethics. Subsequently I reconstruct Lotze’s analysis in chapter two of the Grundzüge der praktischen Philosophie, where he puts forward the claim about the foundational role of benevolence for ethics. I conclude with some considerations about the promise and problems of Lotze’s approach.

This book highlights Carl Stumpf’s contributions to philosophy and to assess some of the aspects of his work. The book is divided into four sections, and also includes a general introduction on Stumpf’s philosophy. The first section examines the historical sources of his philosophy, the second examines some of the central themes of his work and the third examines his relationship to other philosophers. The fourth section consists of notes taken by Husserl during Stumpf’s lectures on metaphysics in Halle, Stumpf’s introduction to the edition of his correspondence with Brentano, which he prepared in 1929, and some important letters pertaining to this correspondence. This book also provides a comprehensive bibliography of the works of Stumpf

The present paper provides the first presentation of Jean Hering's dissertation Lotzes Lehre vom Apriori (1914) in light of Husserl's assessment of Lotze's theory of knowledge in the Logik. After a preliminary discussion of some of the main aspects of Husserl's dismissal of both the metaphysical presuppositions and the absurd consequence of Lotze's stance on knowledge, the case will be made for considering Hering's critical approach to Lotze's view on the a priori as a further development of Husserl's position. In the conclusion, some remarks will be offered on how Hering elaborates on what he calls the "philosophical concept of the a priori." 1. Positio Quaestionis As Edith Stein relates in her autobiography while recalling the years she spent in Göttingen, Husserl was quite fond of Johannes Hering and had the highest opinion of his philosophical talent: "Hering had used a work on Lotze as a thesis for his state exam. His treatise on essence, essentiality and the idea-which later was published in the Jahrbuch-was taken from that thesis" (Stein 2010, p. 239). The thesis mentioned by Stein that Hans or Johannes or Jean Hering (as he is also known) used to pass his 1914 exam (Schriftliche Hausarbeit für die Prüfung der Befähigung zum höheren Lehramt) is: Lotzes Lehre vom Apriori. Eine Philosophische Studie. This is a work of the greatest interest, and one which has thus far been completely overlooked by scholars: 1 the reason for such silence being that Hering never published the text of the dissertation (with the exception of a revised version of the Appendix, whose original title was Fragmente zur Vorbereitung einer künftigen Lehre vom 1 It is telling that the title of the dissertation is usually, and wrongfully, referred to as Die Lehre vom Apriori bei Lotze. In the following, we will be quoting directly from the original typescript preserved at the Médiathèque protestante in Strasbourg.

An accessible synopsis of themes developed at length in the 360-page study of the principle of sufficient reason as it applies to the act of inference understood in terms of the onto-epistemological first principle of knowledge, namely that "knowing is of being" (in both senses of "of").  The book includes as an appendix this concise and highly readable rendering of its main themes.

In the present article, I will discuss Lotze's attempt to "sublate" (<em>aufheben</em>) Hegel's conception of logic in his <em>Logic </em>of 1874. I will demonstrate that Lotze operates as a filter by recasting many Hegelian notions in a way that will influence the 20th-century philosophers in a decisive manner. In the first section, I will focus on how, according to both Hegel and Lotze, the relationship between representation and language conditions the transition from sensible impressions to concepts. In the second section, I will discuss Lotze's re-elaboration of Hegel's idea of the objectivity of thought based on his notion of validity. In the third part, I will finally show how Lotze's revaluation of the function of imagination in the domain of "logic" (in a straightforward opposition to Hegel's underestimation thereof) allows us to re-discover the early modern idea of logic understood as an 'ars inveniend...

Vue d’aujourd’hui, la « querelle du matérialisme » ferait aisément figure d’un moment oublié de la vie intellectuelle européenne. Or une enquête historique dans les témoignages des acteurs de l’époque restitue une perspective tout autre : par sa durée, son extension, son impact intellectuel, elle apparaît comme « l’une des controverses intellectuelles les plus importantes de la 2e moitié du XIXe siècle » (Beiser, 2014). Philosophie, science, religion et politique s’y entrecroisent d’une façon qui révèle dans la société moderne des lignes de clivage à multiples facettes. Antérieure à la crise darwinienne, la querelle du matérialisme en constitue le terrain d’émergence tout en se constituant de façon indépendante sur des enjeux différents.

http://www.classiques-garnier.com/editions/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_garnier.tpl&product_id=3011&vmcchk=1&Itemid=1

Le séminaire se propose de réfléchir sur l'émergence de la notion de sens comme catégorie directrice de la philosophie, et non plus seulement comme objet de l'herméneutique, à partir de Kant et jusqu'à l'émergence de la pensée contemporaine. Les corpus étudiés privilégieront la philosophie allemande sans exclure d'autres apports.

In diesem Papier geht es um die Frage, ob folgendes sehr einfaches Argument gültig ist oder nicht.

Aron küsst Nora und existiert. Also existiert auch Nora.

Der erste Anschein spricht dafür. Denn andernfalls könnte  Aron existieren und Nora küssen, obwohl sie nicht existiert. Die genaue Untersuchung des Arguments führt jedoch zu einigen merkwürdigen Ergebnissen:

Mit dem Werkzeug der modernen Logik lässt sich nicht erklären, ob solche Argumente gültig sind. Aber Naturwissenschaftler verwenden fast ausschließlich Argumente dieses Typs wenn sie begründen wollen, dass etwas existiert. Dunkle Materie kann man zwar nicht küssen, aber Physiker begründen ihre Existenz mit Argumenten desselben Typs.  Aber auch manche sehr alte Argumente gehören zum selben Typ. Das gilt z.B. für Ren\'e Descartes' berühmtes "Cogito ergo sum".

ECole Normale Supérieure de Lyon - Site René Descartes - 15 parvis René Descartes - Les mardis de 10h30 à 12h30


Mardi 9 février (salle F008) : Charlotte Morel (CNRS, IHRIM) : Un sens moderne de la métaphore anthropologique du microcosme : le Mikrokosmos de Lotze.

Mardi 1er mars  (salle F112) : Gérard Raulet (Paris IV), Walter Benjamin, matérialisme anthropologique vs philosophie de la reconnaissance.

Mardi 8 mars (salle F112), Audrey Rieber (ENS Lyon), L'homme : animal symbolique. L'anthropologie selon Ernst Cassirer.

Mardi 22 mars (salle F112), Christian Berner (Université Paris X), L'homme et le monde. La question de l'anthropologie philosophique chez Karl Löwith (1897-1973).

Mardi 5 avril (salle F112),  Gerard Hartung (Universität Wuppertal), Perspectives actuelles : de l'anthropologie philosophique à l'anthropologie interdisciplinaire.

Mardi 26 avril (salle F120) : Karin Parienti (Universität Freiburg im Bresgau), Günther Anders: une anthropologie philosophique sous le signe de la honte, de Rembrandt à la bombe atomique.

Mardi 3 mai (salle F004), Marc de Launay (CNRS, UMR 8547), Leo Strauss : le secret d'Europe.

Mardi 17 mai (salle F004), Michel Espagne (CNRS, UMR 8547), Itinéraire d'un philosophe-anthropologue : Theodor Waitz (1821-1864).

The purpose of this article is twofold: on one hand it is aimed to highlight the theoretical significance of the Husserlian criticism toward the psychologistic-logical accounts according to the most contemporary interpretive proposals – through the resulting determination of what «psychologism» means from the epistemological point of view – on the other hand it is focused on the decisive role played by H. Lotze in the development of the phenomenological idea of a pure logic: this debt has not yet been sufficiently emphasized. In addition the identification of an univocal definition of «psychologism» represents a fundamental step in order to define in which way the phenomenological correlation between ideal and real realm is possible. Thematically speaking the primary function underlining the Husserlian anti-psychologism lies especially in its generative aspect dealing with the identification of the conditions of possibility of the categorial intuition and of the pure logical laws.