Title: The six great themes of western metaphysics and the end of the Middle Ages
First published: 1994
Description: Heinz Heimsoeth (1886-1975) is one of the premier historians of philosophy of the twentieth century. Most of his eminent scholarly career focused on modern European philosophers; Immanuel Kant, in particular; and German Idealists, in general. He is perhaps best known for his wide-ranging work, The Six Great Themes of Western Metaphysics and the End of the Middle Ages, which has fascinated students of philosophy and its history since it was first published in 1922.

This book is dramatically different from customary surveys of philosophers and systems of the past. Heimsoeth does not view the history of philosophy primarily as a collection of biographies, or systems, or ultimate solutions; rather he sees it mainly as a history of problems.

In reading this book one genuinely encounters what is meant by Problemgeschichte, a longitudinal history of some of the most basic metaphysical issues in philosophy and life: God and the world, infinity in the finite, soul and external world, being and life, the individual, and understanding and will.

In his introduction Heimsoeth advances a bold thesis about historical periodization, namely that the roots of modern philosophical thought lie not in the Renaissance, as was commonly believed, but rather in the period of late Scholasticism, commonly called the "decline" of Scholasticism.

Instead of adopting the usual tripartite schema of ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy, Heimsoeth adopted a two-part schema consisting of ancient and modern metaphysics: ancient metaphysics dominates philosophy right through the period of the High Middle Ages and Scholasticism.

His main thesis is that the roots of modern thought lie specifically in Christianity, especially the nominalism and German mysticism of the late Middle Ages. The great key to Christian thought, as Heimsoeth sees it, lies in the discovery of the soul, of genuine inwardness and spirituality, which stood in dramatic contrast with the ancient concept of soul as simply a kind of "engine" or source of motion for a living body.

The six chapters that make up the body of his book set out to demonstrate Heimsoeth's double thesis that modern Western metaphysics is based essentially on the link between the Christian late Middle Ages and modern German philosophy and that both of them stand in opposition to Greek antiquity.

The Six Great Themes is charged with a most useful engagement for the philosophical mind. That it continues to be available in Germany some three-quarters of a century after its original publication and that it has been translated into Spanish, Dutch, and now, English, is a testament to its methodology, periodization, and concept.

Heimsoeth enters boldly into the historical drama of Western philosophical thought at its deepest level and tells a story focused not so much on actors as on the plot itself: the great metaphysical questions about philosophy and life.
Subjects: Philosophy, Medieval, History, Metaphysics, Medieval Philosophy
LC classification: B738.M47 H4513 1994