German philosophy stands at the center of modern thought. Without Kant, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Husserl there would be no Anglo-American "analytical" style of philosophy. And without Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, the "Continental Philosophy" of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Badiou, and Zizek is incomprehensible. This compact introduction offers an illuminating discussion of German philosophy, presenting it as one of the most revealing responses to the problems of "modernity." The rise of the modern natural sciences and the related decline of religion raise a series of questions, which recur throughout German philosophy, concerning the relationships between knowledge and faith, reason and emotion, and scientific, ethical, and artistic ways of seeing the world. The book also highlights the ideas of early German Romantic philosophy, including the works of Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Schleirmacher, and Schelling, significant thinkers who are generally neglected in most existing English-language treatments of German philosophy. This Very Short Introduction will include reference to these thinkers and suggest how they can be used to question more familiar German philosophical thought. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
Andrew S. Bowie (born 1952) is Professor of Philosophy and German at Royal Holloway, University of London and Founding Director of the Humanities and Arts Research Centre (HARC).
He has worked to promote a better understanding of German philosophy in the Anglophone analytical tradition - including the works of Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried von Herder, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas, Albrecht Wellmer and Manfred Frank.
Frank and Habermas have spoken highly of his work in this area - with Habermas calling his work "masterly" and Frank calling him an "exceptional scholar", whose work represents "the most knowledgeable presentation in English of the history of the German contribution to so-called continental philosophy". The philosopher Charles Taylor has described his work on music as "excellent and densely argued".
He has translated the works of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Friedrich Schleiermacher. His recent work has focused on music and philosophy, and Adorno on the nature of philosophy. In addition to his philosophical work on music, he is a keen jazz saxophonist and has played with leading contemporary jazz musicians such as Al Casey and Humphrey Lyttelton.
He did his doctoral research on "History and the Novel" (1980) at the University of East Anglia, where he was taught by the renowned German writer and scholar W. G. Sebald (who later cited Bowie's work on Alexander Kluge in his Campo Santo). He studied German philosophy at the Free University of Berlin. He was Professor of Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University until 1999. He was also Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Philosophy department of Tübingen University. He is on the Advisory Council for the Institute of Philosophy.
كنت قد قررت ألا أكتب عن الكتاب، لكن حالة الفراغ تدفعنا، أحيانًا، للرجوع عمّا نقره الكتاب، إذا كان قد روعي فيه بعض الجوانب الدقيقة، كان من الممكن أن يكون الأفضل على الإطلاق، لكنه للأسف جاء مخيبًا للآمال إلى حد كبير الكتاب، كما هو بائن من اسمه، يحكي عن الفلسفة الألمانية، أصعب وأعقد ما أنتجه الفكر البشري على مر التاريخ، وأكثرهم متعة وثراءً كذلك لكن عيب الكتاب في رأيي هو كونه مختزلا، ليس ذلك الاختزال المعتاد من كتب المقدمات، لكنه اختزال أكثر منه إخلالًا الكتاب، في فصوله العديدة (تسعة فصول على ما أذكر، وراجعوني في ذلك، فذاكرتي مصابة بالشلل) اكتفى بالسرد التاريخي التقليدي والممل لكل جانب من جوانب الفلسفة وأصحابها، وهو، في ذلك، لا يختلف كثيرا عن مقالات ويكيبديا، وأن كان أكثر منها سوءًا الكتاب، حتى في سرديته البطئية، كان مخلا، وكان مبتورا، وكان مختزلا، ومقتصر على جانب واحد فقط أو جانبين من فلسفة كل شخص فشوبنهور، ونيتشه، لم يعرض لهما إلا فلسفاتهم الأخلاقية، وهايدجر، ذاك المستفز، لم يعرض سوى لتاريخ فكره، دون تلولوج إلى وجوديته وتقنياته وحتى هيجل، ذاك المعقد، لم يناقش مذهبه بشكل كافي لكنه اكتفا في كل باب على العرض التاريخي، مع بضعة كلمات حول الفلسفة، تجدها وكأنها مقتطعة أو مجتزأة من سياق أوسع وأكبر، فتجد نفسك، في الأخير، لم تستفد سوى النظرة التأريخية لكل مذهب، وهو مع ذلك مبتور أجمل الفصول، في رأيي، كان فصل كانط، والذي كان أكثرهم تعقيدا وإملالا، لكن مع بعض المثابرة وجدته شرح جيد إلى حد ما يعيب الكتاب الاكتفاء بالنقد دون شمولية العرض، فكيف يجوز لنا، نحن، وفي أول تعرف على الفلسفة الألمانية، أن ندرك كل تلك الدقائق؟ الكتاب مقبول في أغلبه، لكنه لن يعطيك ما تبتغيه، افتراضا من اسمه المعنون به أندرو بووي خفيف الظل، وكاتب يبدو عظيمًا، إلا أنه ممل ملول يفوق السلحفاة في بطئها (إن صح هذا القياس) الكتاب مقبول بشكل عام، وإن كان معقدا بعض الشيء في العديد من المواضع الترجمة مقبولة، لكنها ليست بالجودة التي اعتدت وتمنيت. لكن لا بأس
لم أحب هذا الكتاب بالمرة. ويبدو أنه مقدمة قصيرة جدا لكراهية الفلسفة.
أحترم جهد المترجم، لكنه لم يرق للمستوى المطلوب.
الكتاب فيه مشكلة بنيوية، أنه يستعرض كمية أفكار ثقيلة جدا في حيز محدود وضيق جدا. فإما أن تكون لديك فكرة جيدة عن المواضيع المنتقاة، وبالتالي فهذه المقدمة لن تمثل لك إضافة، لأنها شرح مختصر وسريع. أو ألا تكون لديك فكرة، وعندها سيبدو الكلام معقدا أو غير مفهوم.
والكتاب في رأيي أقل قيمة مثلا من كتب متخصصة عن كانط في سلسلة عقول عظيمة، أو هيجل ونيتشه وهابرماس في سلسلة مقدمة قصيرة جدا.
Кажется, автора книги больше всего интересуют три вопроса: Как немецкая философия находится в диалоге с Кантом? Как она реагирует на современный себе научный прогресс? В какой мере она привела к Холокосту?
По-моему, для того чтобы ввести непосвященного человека в тему, не хватает объяснений, почему мы в принципе до сих пор читаем и обсуждаем эти идеи. Так как на каждого философа/философское направление отведено всего по 15 страниц, выбор того, на чём сфокусироваться, был довольно странный. Хотя вообще-то и эти три вопроса интересные (ну, кроме того, что про Канта…), но ответы на них даны не достаточно внятные.
Особенно грустное впечатление произвели упоминания Гегеля: постоянно подчеркивалось, что непонятно, что он имел в виду, и что его можно трактовать по разному. Но ведь то, что он непонятно писал, я поняла сама еще на втором курсе бакалавриата, открыв оригинал 😭. А эту книгу специально читала, чтобы мне дали контекст, с которым я смогла понять, как именно его понять…
Я бы никому из своих друзей не посоветовала эту книгу как введение в тему и не хотела бы, чтобы её советовали мне :D А от книг из серии a very short introduction как будто бы ожидаешь противоположного. Поэтому есть ощущение, что книга не удалась.
أهو هو دا الاختصار المخل اللي بيقولوا عليه بقى، كتاب مناسب تماما لكل حد بيكره الفلسفة الألمانية أو كل ما هو ألماني علشان يستشهد بيه قد إيه هي موضوعات كريهة بسبب طريقة عرض الكتاب البشعة. وحشتني الكتب اللي كنت بقرأها لمزاجي وبمزاجي عمومًا.
هذا الكتاب ليس "مقدمة قصيرة جداً" في الواقع، بقدر ما هو مختصر دسم ومضغوط جداً لموضوع الفلسفة الألمانية، وبالتالي فهو لا يصلح لمن يرغبون بالدخول إلى هذا الموضوع. لكي تقرأ هذا الكتاب وتستمتع به، يجب أن تكون لديك خلفية كبيرة عن فلاسفة ألمانيا ومفكريها. بخلاف ذلك، ستضيع وقتك بقراءته. :)
I was standing in a bookshop waiting for my companion to finish so that we could leave and I glanced at the book carousel that contained the “A Very Short Introduction” series and I noticed this one by Andrew Bowie. I had come across Bowie’s name some fifteen or so years earlier when I read some reference to him drawing upon German philosophy in writing about aesthetics. This seemed interesting because most of the writing I knew about ‘culture’ drew upon French sources (structuralism, post structuralism, etc), but I will admit the probable reason his name stuck in my mind was that it was 'Bowie' and I imagined him delivering his philosophy lectures wearing platform shoes, a yellow jump suit and having bright red spiky hair. So, here is an introduction to German philosophy in 137 pages (or 125 if you leave out the index and bibliography) – which is slightly ridiculous: Kant gets 15 pages (one of those being an illustration), Hegel gets six. But, luckily, Bowie cheats and doesn’t try and sum up all German philosophy since Kant, rather he focuses on one problem or ‘crisis’, that of ‘modernity’: modernity forcing “cultures to confront the results of the rise of the natural sciences and of new forms of production and exchange.” (p. 1) The book considers how German philosophy has dealt with this question, taking in the big names – Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger – and a number who, with my superficial knowledge of German philosophy, I hadn’t heard of. I haven’t the technical knowledge to judge Bowie’s responses to these lines of philosophical thought, whether he has represented the individual thinkers in a fair way or whether he has focused on the right things and left out the right things, but he deals with complex and difficult ideas in very clear ways. If the point of an introduction is to map out a certain territory that will give the reader a confidence to set out on a journey, then I think this short book does it superbly well.
I have to admit I came into reading this book already knowing a bit about Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger, so maybe that made it easier and more fun for me. But I was surprised by how interesting Hegel was; I always skipped Hegel because of his interest in the metaphysical notion of "Spirit" as guiding history. But his ideas seem to foresee phenomenology;
" Looking at how the subject can be in true contact with the object may be the wrong way to consider the theory of knowledge. Hegel uses the metaphor of learning to swim. Unless one goes in the water, one cannot learn to swim, in the same way as one cannot know without always already being involved with what is to be known."
Almost every thinker mentioned had something interesting to say, and showed me how much more there was to German philosophy. I was especially excited by the German Romanticists and Critical Theorists. Because this book is "very short", the focus seems to be mainly on a few things, how each thinker approaches the nature of subject-object relations (in regards to the theory of knowledge), or their response to the rise of science and modernity and the following "disenchantment" of the world (this is a term borrowed from Max Weber to mean how the rise of science eliminated all mystery in the world by explaining everything (eventually) into a standard model of science.) and thus what then is the role of philosophy (i.e. does science bring about the "end of philosophy").
DO NOT expect to fully understand any of these philosophers after reading this, but if you're interested in those topics above then this is a very short but concise introduction of how one of the most exciting traditions in philosophy approaches it.
Probably the least accesible & most boring of all this series that I’ve read so far. So much potential, with this topic, to be fascinating, so it’s a shame.
My reading of this was stretched out for probably too long, maybe would have benefited from doing it all in a day or two as connections between time periods would be more apparent in quicker successive presentation, but I still believe I gained a lot out of the book.
Certain particularities of how philosophers' ideas were explained were a bit hard to hold on to for me, but it is really hard to hold that as a fair critique in the space that the book has to flesh out each philosophers' connection to the broader history of German philosophy without going through their movements of arriving at their conclusions. For Kant, for example, there were sections I found very easy to follow as I have previously read some of his work, but it was done in a way that I would not have personally summarized his thought, but I understand that it had to be positioned even more so in a historical lens to be understood for a relevant meaning.
If the purpose of the book was to get one intrigued about the questions that German philosophy has confronted and still seeks to confront, I think it did a great job, at least for me. I plan to read some of Hegel's works soon, and understanding the way in which his ideas connect to broader themes in German philosophy like individual-world relations, subject-object relations, the aim of philosophy as an explanatory or meaningfully constructive practise, analytic vs continental perspectives, and the inescapability of confronting philosophical problems outside of political contexts or pragmatic usage of thought are all ideas that will be at the forefront of my mind going foreward.
I became interested in this book to better understand the German response to modernity. As the book describes, modernity "forces cultures to confront the results of the rise of the modern natural sciences and of new forms of production and exchange."
A major tension here is "How do we deal, as in many situations we must, with the clashes between the way science tells us the world is and the other ways in which people interpret and feel about their world." In my own opinion, Psychology, Biology, and related fields help some to explain some of these things but still have a long way to go.
This book covers major German philosophers of the period starting with Kant and ending around Heidegger. I learned more about the different philosophers of the time.
As it feels now, a lot of the philosophy seems a little but certainly not entirely out-of-date. The rise of Psychology and advances in Biology and related fields would no doubt give these philosophers a lot of new material on which to philosophise if they could time-travel to the present.
I really enjoyed how this book framed the relevance of German philosophy to contemporary Western (and global) culture and how it discussed the historical progression of ideas from Kant to the 20th Century. With it being a short introduction to a very challenging subject matter, it makes sense that this would be a dense read, and there are parts I had to and will have to read over and over again before I grasp what's being said. All in all however, I'm feeling both inspired and enlightened for having read this book and am reading more about the philosophers it mentions currently.
It really is a short introduction to German philosophy. I am just a fan of philosophy and know next to nothing about it. But I enjoyed the book, found it relatively accessible to read, and did find it entertaining as well.
It is very interesting to know how modern German philosophy has shaped the country’s and world’s history and current thinking.
Wasn't the easiest read for someone outside philosophy. Also felt like it was just a long grocery list of philosophers with little inference. Personally, didn't deliver for me. But I also can't think of a way I could have written this better myself.
A very short introduction. Only the major thinkers are presented. And they are in a positive light, just like any academic paper pusher would have done.
موضوع "الفسلفة الألمانية" معقد جدا و مع ذلك تم محاولة اختصاره بشكل رهيب في عدة صفحات، فتحولت إلى مقدمات تاريخية موجزة لاشخاص و أفكار الفلسفة الالمانية. ضف على ذلك مشكلة -المشكلة المشهورة- في ضعف الترجمات العربية. أعتقد أن المترجم حاول إن يبذل جهد لا باس به لكنه لم يكن أبدا على المستوى المطلوب لفهم مواضيع كهذه، حتى في معظم الأوقات شعرت أنه ترجم الجمل ترجمة حرفية -شكلية- من غير تغير مواقع الكلمات و الجمل بما يتناسب مع اللغة العربية.
إلماحة عن أهم اتجاهات الفلسفة الألمانية وشخصياتها وأفكارها بدءاً بالاتجاه المثالي عند كانْت، ومن بعده فريدريش جاكوبي، شيلينج، هيجل، والرمانسية الألمانية وممثلاها الأولين شلِجل ونوفاليس. فكر ماركس الفلسفي والاجتماعي هو محورُ أحد الفصول ويليه آخر عن فلسفلة شوبنهور ونيتشه، وانتهاءً بهايدجر والمدرسة النقدية الحديثة عند فالتر بينامين، تيودور أدرونو، وماكس كوهايمر، ويورجن هامبرماس.
يعيب الكاتب الاختزال وعدم وضوح أسلوبه ومفرداته في مواضع، وتحْمل الترجمة جزءاً من اللوم.
لم استطع أن اعطيه أى نجمة فهو على غير عادة المقدمات التى قرأتها من قبل والتى استفدت منها كثيرا واستمتعت بقراءتها..هذه مقدمة دسمة ومملة وصعبة ولا أعلم حتى الان هل العيب فى الترجمة أم فى المؤلف لأنى تأكدت أن هناك الكثير مثلى لم يعجبوا به للأسف
If you make a book titled "German philosophy" I expect you to have something poignant to say, some underlying theme. This doesn't have, it's just a collection of philosophical musings that just happen to have originated in Germany...