Talk:German idealism

message: Is it a fact that Hegel is now considered to be one of the greatest philosophers in history? It is my opinion that this is not true and should not be stated in this article.
:In response to anonymous poster above:
Obviously, depends on who you ask -- there's countless interpretations of Hegel and countless views of his place in the history of philosophy.  However, I think that there can be no question that Hegel has profounly influenced the shape of philosophy (for better or worse).  Regardless, the sentence in question does not seem appropriate for a encyclopedia article. --MalcolmMcC 06:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hegel Sentence

message: In reference to the Kant section, why does "history" seem to "speak" that Marx was not an anti-idealist?
Lestrade 17:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voice of History 

message: What does "Plotinus temporalized" mean?
:Does my explanation in the article help? --goethean ॐ 22:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plotinus Temporalized 

message: I can't find a connection between Herder and idealism.
Lestrade 01:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you accept the claim in the opening paragraph that "German idealism was born of the need to retain a variation of the concept of God after Kant had demonstrated its senselessness," then I think Herder clearly belongs to the German Idealist movement. His philosophical anthropology made a valuable contribution to vitalistic pantheism which was an important part of intellectual milieu.... In Kant's feud with Herder, a tension emerges over the value of "speculation" and the nature of "life." These fundamentally un-Kantian notions would come to have an impact in Schelling and Hegel... I'm also inclined to include Hamann whose Pietist response to Hume fits quite nicely with the oversimplified definition of German Idealism that I quoted from the opening paragraph. --Brijohn6882 (talk) 01:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Please find a secondary source to back up your claims. — goethean ॐ 20:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herder 

message: We need to plan a major reworking of this article. It's a shame that a subject this important is in such a state.  Wish I had more time to work on this!   In the meantime, any ideas for improvements in organization? --MalcolmMcC 06:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To say that the article needs urgent care and that it is a shame that it is in such a state is to say nothing. MalcolmMcC, please show us how the article can be improved. If you don't have enough time to provide us with a better article, what is the point of your critical judgments? Let's see MalcolmMcC's article on German Idealism. You can write it a few sentences at a time instead of all at once. We'll wait.Lestrade 15:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This article can't be improved by having it praise German Idealism. German Idealism was basically a theology without a God. Fichte created (posited) a Berkeleyan divine observer who was the observing subject for all observed objects. We individual subjects are supposed to be parts of that divine observer. That was his Absolute, who was supposed to be directly known through Reason. Fichte's fantasy can be described, but why should it be appreciated?Lestrade 13:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This Article Needs Urgent Care

message: The Schopenhauer citation is a nice read but imho here misplaced, especially as Schopenhauer's opinion is far from being a consented claim, lest "conclusion" nowadays. Of course there could be a reference to Spinoza when talk comes on influences to german idealism, but here i'd like to cut it out. Greetings, Ca$$e 09:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By all means, remove it. In its place, we might be able to include references regarding the topic in U.S. popular culture, like so many other Wikipedia articles. Are there any rap songs, cartoons, or car-chase movies that mention German Idealism?Lestrade 13:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spinozist Conclusion

message: given that this article is about German Idealism, carrying commentary by a modern American is out of place. yes, Wilber has ideas about these philosophers -- and so do nearly all other philosophers. hence the commentary is out of place. i would immediately delete it myself, but that is the kind of wiki-censorship that is not in the spirit of what we do, so i'll wait a few days after this post...
mitch  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.68.189.65 (talk) 05:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ken WIlber? 

message: "German Idealism" is a proper noun nowadays, not a description. It names those philosophers from Kant through to, oh, say, Schopenhauer. So it should be capitalized. The capitalized form is, in any case, universal in English-language writing.
:::Schopenhauer was not a menber of the German Idealist group of philosophers.Lestrade (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Why arent Schopenhauer a "member of the German Idealist group of philosophers"? He considered himself a transcendental idealist.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.46.18.25 (talk) 01:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: See section entitled "Germans and idealism" below.Lestrade (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

text: I agree about capitalization, although a whole swathe of articles should be changed: German idealism, British idealism,  Objective idealism, Absolute idealism and Subjective idealism, and looking at the Idealism category, maybe Actual idealism, Epistemological idealism, Monistic idealism, Transcendental idealism and Platonic idealism.John Z (talk) 23:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Tried to move this myself, won't let me, the redirect German Idealism is preventing it, as it has had trivial edits.  Will ask an admin to, maybe will get input for other pages.John Z (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia has a specific style guide called MOS:DOCTCAPS: "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or "schools" of thought and practice, and fields of academic or professional study are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name". --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:22, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Title

message: It was just a matter of time. Goethean finally executed the deletion that was fated to occur. However, it might be of interest to someone that John Oxenford's article "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy,"
in the Westminster Review, January and April issue of 1853, had a quotation on page 400 that refers to the German Idealists and their goal as mentioned in the passage that Goethean deleted. It was a passage written by a famous philosopher who must be left unnamed because of the perennial animosity that exists toward him in the philosophical establishment. In his Critique of Pure Reason (A 584–A 630), Kant had demonstrated the failure of philosophy to prove the existence of God. The three proofs (Ontological, Cosmological, and Physico–theological) were shown by Kant to be faulty. The German Idealists, however, made an attempt to rescue the concept of God by designating it with the word "Absolute." The philosopher's allegorical account is as follows: "What now have these gentlemen done with their old friend the cosmological demonstration, now so hardly pressed, and laid upon its back. Oh, they imagined a right cunning device. 'Friend,' they said to the cosmological demonstration, 'you are in a sad plight, a sad plight indeed, since your unlucky encounter with that old hard–headed fellow of Königsberg—aye, in as sad a plight as your two brothers, the ontological and physico–theological demonstrations. Never mind, we will not desert you—in fact, you know we are paid to assist you,—but—it cannot be helped—you must change your name and dress, for if we call you by your own name, everybody will run away. In your incognito, we will take you under the arm, and introduce you into society, only mind—incognito it must be. Your object shall henceforth bear the name of the "Absolute,"—….' "Lestrade (talk) 17:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If you attribute Oxenford's views to Oxenford, rather than treating them as divine writ, you can put them back in the article. — goethean ॐ 18:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, although the article is already overweighted toward criticism in the "Responses to idealism" section.John Z (talk) 23:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Goethean's deletion

message: An article on German idealism should convey the basic fact that this philosophy consisted of the writings of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Other writers, previous, contemporary, and subsequent, were not German idealists. Other philosophers may have been German and they may have been idealists of some sort, but the name "German idealists" designates the various thoughts of only those three men.Lestrade (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's some reading material for you. — goethean ॐ 19:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article may be overinclusive, but there are four, not three philosophers invariably included in the number of German Idealists- Kant too.John Z (talk) 20:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that German idealism was a post–Kantian philosophy.Lestrade (talk) 02:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a discussion of a similar point at talk:Absolute_idealism under Merge Discussion.  As the German wiki article says, German Idealism is an "idea constellation." The other big three were arguing with Kant, largely using his vocabulary, and were enormously influenced by him.  It is not like modern Continental and Analytic Philosophy, which don't have much to do with each other.  For example, look at the Cambridge Companion and Ameriks' introductory essay there, which include Kant. So I'm restoring the Kant picture.John Z (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

text: Oh, and by the way, I think the Schopenhauer quote in the Ortega y Gasset section belongs under Schopenhauer. I'd remove the first paragraph of Schopenhauer mostly - what is controversial or important about the fact of Spinoza's influence on "the trio"?  There's also the mention of the ding-an-sich there.  Did Schopenhauer really say that the later idealists (mis)used the ding-an-sich?  They all rejected the idea, Hegel called it "nothing", and thus didn't use it at all.John Z (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Trio

message: Is it possible to "boil" the article "down" to a few basic doctrines of German idealism? For example, can it be said that German idealism teaches that the ground of all being is the Absolute and that this foundation can be known (but not thought) through the intellectual intuition of reason? The basic doctrines of German idealism would be those few characteristics that are shared in common by the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and any other people who are considered to be members of this set.Lestrade (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Fundamental tenets

message: One of the problems with the name "German Idealism" is that it is ambiguous. There is a set of doctrines created by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel that is called "German Idealism." There is another classification of philosophies called "German Idealism" that includes people who were both Germans and Idealists. This other classification includes Kant and Schopenhauer. To make things worse, the name "Idealist" is extremely ambiguous.Lestrade (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Germans and idealism

message: "This distinguished [transcendental idealism] from earlier 'idealism', such as George Berkeley's, which held that we can only directly know the ideas in our minds, not the objects that they represent."
"Kant's transcendental idealism consisted of...understanding that the mind directly knows only phenomena or ideas."
If this isn't contradictory, it should be rewritten to be made more clear.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.10.123.123 (talk) 16:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: An attempt to resolve the contradiction was made as follows: "This distinguished it [transcendental idealism] from earlier 'idealism,' such as George Berkeley's, which held that external objects have actual being or real existence only when they are perceived by an observer. …Kant's transcendental idealism consisted of … understanding that the mind directly knows only phenomena or ideas." Berkeley's idealism was dogmatic and ontological. It was about being or that which exists. Kant's idealism was skeptical and epistemological. It was about what can be known.Lestrade (talk) 21:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction

message: Under the subheading 'Meaning of Idealism' I believe a mistake may have been made. The phrase "we consider something that appears without respect to the specific manner in which it appears", while proving its royal self, may actually read differently to how the author intended. Rather than "...we consider something that appears without respect to the specific manner in which it appears", the author may have intended to say, "we consider a thing's appearance without comprehending precisely any innate constitution it may possess regardless".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by GetSnufflegartened (talk • contribs) 15:25, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake under subheading 'Meaning of idealism'.