Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte. Band 47

The notion of a µéσον, formally defined as the »middle term« in a syllogism, plays a pivotal role in Aristotle’s theory of scientific demonstrations ( πóδειξις) in his Analytica Posteriora. It is via the µéσον that the distinctive traits of a demonstration – the employment of causal notions and of statements concerning the essence of things – enter into demonstrative syllogisms. This, however, raises problems with respect to the provability of statements concerning the essence of things that Aristotle seems to accept in certain passages of the Analytica Posteriora, as opposed to well-known passages in the Metaphysics. It is shown in which sense essences are in fact demonstrated by their being employed – via the µéσον – in a demonstration, without, however, being mentioned in the conclusion of such a demonstration. The importance Aristotle ascribes to the µéσον in Analytica Posteriora suggests a more flexible, less formalistic understanding of Aristotle’s view of science, while still being based on an analysis of the formal structure of the syllogism.

Among the most important aesthetic concepts – especially in the 18th century – are those of the beautiful and the sublime. Yet, in the various aesthetic theories these two concepts are employed in conjunction with one another in very different ways. There is one system in which the beautiful is the fundamental aesthetic value and the sublime i.e. the great – including grandeur and dignity – is only one of a number of defining characteristics of the beautiful (Baumgarten). There is another system in which the sublime is the highest degree of the beautiful i.e. of the extraordinary precious (Mendelssohn). The most influential systems are dichotomous classifications of the respective aesthetic qualities. These classifications themselves exhibit differences: The beautiful and the sublime oppose each other as loveliness (that is small, fair etc.) creating affection on the one hand, and the astonishing-sublime (that is vast, obscure etc.) creating a shudder on the other, but which in some cases can be blended with the beautiful (Burke). Alternatively, the concepts of the beautiful and the sublime are disjunctive in a way that they exclude each other: The beautiful is limited and gives positive pleasure; the sublime is unlimited, it depresses and uplifts the viewer at the same time and therefore gives a negative pleasure (Kant). – The concepts of the beautiful and the sublime are obviously characterized according to the system in which they appear.

This article examines the change in meaning of the Spanish term ›invención‹, from ›search for and collection of existing premises‹ to ›invention of something new‹, a change which took place in the 18th century. Dictionaries and representative examples of Spanish literature from the Age of Enlightenment are analysed. The rôle of ›invención‹ in painting changes particularly which becomes apparent by a comparison of Palomino in the first half of the 18th century to Goya and his contemporaries in the second half. Major differences between the two artists consist in self-assurance and self-assessment.The ›invención‹ also plays an important rôle in the discussion of the term ›Genius‹, a discussion which had already begun in Spanish Renaissance and which continued intensively through the 18th century.

In the Critique of Judgment Kant often uses the phrase »technic of nature«, especially in the »Critique of Teleological Judgment«. Since Hegel the Kantian theory ofthe purposiveness of nature has often been described as Aristotelian, but scientists have not paid enough attention to the fact that Kantian »technic of nature« is much closer to the Stoic theory of purposiveness which he combines with contemporary medical and biological thoughts: A Latin equivalent, »ars naturae«, can be found in Cicero, the idea of self-healing nature in the medical tradition which goes back to Hippocrates and Galen and was present in many – not only medical – works in the eighteenth century. Kant himself does not give any hints to the reader that in using the phrase he was influenced by special sources, but the consequences he draws are Stoic ones: Nature is a system in which all things are both purposive for other things and causally determined. Besides this correspondence between Kant and the Stoics special Kantian problems arise from the fact that in Kant nature can only be thought as technical by reflective judgment: A higher reason has to be postulated, the status of which cannot be totally clarified.

The concept of »power of judgment« (Urteilskraft) develops both before Kant and in Kant in conjunction with that of »taste«. Throughout this history it is understood as bearing on objects with a direct connection to the humanity of human beings: truth, value, and beauty. More precisely, the focus is the relation between the One (universality: understanding) and the Many (particularity: sensibility) with respect to these objects. The understanding of this power vacillates historically between these two extremes, so that it is sometimes placed in the neighborhood of the faculty of taste (sensibility as subjectivity and as receptivity for the particular) and sometimes in that of the understanding as the faculty of strict objectivity or universality. In the Kant of the third Critique this power comes to be conceived as an independent faculty whose function is to mediate between universality and particularity, i.e., between objectivity and subjectivity.

Until today the question of »theodicy« is very much contested among philosophers and theologians. Some hold the problem to be principally unsolvable, while others take the question for unavoidable. Since Leibniz the notion is generally used to explain the origin and function of evil or its allowing by God. This article deals with some occurences of »theodicy« in the 18th and 19th century, overlooked until now. Besides, the widely known essais on theodicy are interpreted as being permanent transformations of the original question. E. g. Kant designes a concept of »authentic theodicy« in which man is called up to fight against the evil by his own means. During the French Revolution G. Forster hopes for a kind theodicy as political improvement of mankind. For Schelling and Hegel the course of world history is the real theodicy. Finally, for Nietzsche art is the only sufficient theodicy, the aesthetic justification of the world. Later on Nietzsche attacks all kinds of theodicy as they ask for the meaning of existence instead of believing in the innocence of all development.

The article undertakes a reconstruction of the historical changes in the understanding of the term »projection«. The analysis begins with a consideration of the current discussion about the problem why the term was suddenly employed as a category of religious criticism in the middle of the 19th century. The article makes clear, that the existing literature has not satisfactory clarified the problem. Afterwards, by means of a reconstruction of the historical development of the term »projection«, the author undertakes to elucidate the question, seeking to lay a new foundation for the discussion. The article concludes that the radical changes in the understanding of the term »projection« only can be understood properly in the light of the drastic historical changes in cultural perception and media.

The article discusses three uses of the term »postmodern« by Rudolf Pannwitz, which first appeared in his 1917 book Die Krisis der europäischen Kultur. WhereasWolfgang Welsch interpreted this concept as a new version of Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch, the article instead proposes to regard the »postmodern man« as an update of Nietzsche’s letzter Mensch and therefore as a negative image of a threatening development towards superficiality and a lack of creativity, both of which prevent the overcoming of the modern intellectual crisis based on nihilism and decadence. Although Pannwitz had no subsequent influence on postmodernity discourses, he had thus already sketched the concept of postmodernity-as-posthistoire. Furthermore, the article presents two additional and so far overlooked instances of »postmodern« in Pannwitz’s work, namely from his 1921 autobiography Grundriss einer Geschichte meiner Kultur and from his 1951 article Der Nihilismus und die werdende Welt. The three examples arise from a relatively coherent array of cultural-philosophical concepts that delve into issues of modernity, classicism, romanticism, and naturalism.

After the exposition of I. Kant’s theory of nature as a mechanism, we turn to Kant’s idea that organisms are an exception and cannot be explained through the mechanism of nature. Organisms are characterized through a circular causality. The idea of the whole, an idea of the thinking subject, causes the functioning of organisms. F.W.J.Schelling takes up Kant’s conception that the organism is characterized through the interaction of the parts, but he dispenses with the idea of the whole as a causal agent. The part has a generative power to produce the whole. With this, Schelling’s Naturphilosophie suggests that mind depends on matter.