Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte. Band 53

The modern term ›fascination‹ refers to a strong allocation of attention without submitting entirely to understanding. In this paper the concept of this experience is traced back to Plato. Some of Plato’s descriptions of the effect of Socrates conceptualize ›fascination‹ without using a specific term. A cluster of terms (aporia, ekplexis, shame, eros) as well as descriptions of physiological experiences and metaphors of the source domains ›force‹ and ›divided self‹ allow to indicate them as prototypical descriptions of fascination. References to Plato by Marsilio Ficin and Friedrich Nietzsche expose the importance of Socrates in the conceptual history of fascination.

Normally in nowadays philosophical research the term ‚Neoplatonism‹ is coined and it was used the first time by Jacob Brucker in the first half of the 18th century. But there are signs that the concept is much older. So this essay follows the trace of the term ›Neoplatonism‹ from german philosophical historians, like Büsching and Brucker, back to the Cambridge Platonists and tries to demonstrate that the origin of the concept is based on some texts of the late antiquity which act first on the research of the early modern philosophy.

Spinoza is known for his radical views on freedom. In this article, it is explored to what extent this reputation is justified. He integrates human actions in the necessary development of the universe and seems to leave no room for human freedom. The position of God is relevant, since it is Spinoza’s starting-point in general and appears to require an intricate conception of freedom; it may be demanded whether this can be clarified. In the case of man, the difficulty lies primarily in the degree to which Spinoza takes his own characterization of necessity seriously; there seems to be an inconsistency here. The final section provides a possible way out of this conundrum, by focusing on the possible basis of an action.

The article traces the origin of a work that, on many accounts, can be considered as one of the landfalls of 18th century debate on sensibility, Petro Verri’s Discorsosull’indole del piacere e del dolore. Firstly published in Livorno in 1773 under the title Idee sull’indole del piacere, the text was significantly revised at the end of the ’70, when Verri was at work on his most controverse book, Osservazioni sulla tortura (Milano 1804), and then finally included in Milano 1781 edition of the Discorsi. As noted by Franco Venturi, in Italy the debate concerning the notions of pleasure, pain and happiness was started around the middle of the century by the Italian translations of Maupertuis’s Essai de morale and of La Mettrie’s Anti-Sénèque. Traces of such a debate can be seen also in Verri’s booklet, though pleasure is defined there as »sudden breaking of pain«, mainly under the influence of Locke, Dubos and Helvétius. Moreover, significant clues are reminiscent also of Burke’s Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which, through the French translation, already found a profitable use in Beccaria’s Ricerche intorno alla natura dello stile. Verri’s synthesis is an original achievement where philosophical and medical refl ections on sensibility meet the crucial issue of the relationship between law and justice, which was at the heart of his Osservazioni sulla tortura. The latter work was left unpublished until the beginning of the 19th century, but many of its themes can be traced in the Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore, whose concluding sections give therefore a decisive contribution to the illuministic struggle against death penalty.

The article traces the origin of a work that, on many accounts, can be considered as one of the landfalls of 18th century debate on sensibility, Petro Verri’s Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore. Firstly published in Livorno in 1773 under the title Idee sull’indole del piacere, the text was significantly revised at the end of the ’70, when Verri was at work on his most controverse book, Osservazioni sulla tortura (Milano 1804), and then finally included in Milano 1781 edition of the Discorsi. As noted by Franco Venturi, in Italy the debate concerning the notions of pleasure, pain and happiness was started around the middle of the century by the Italian translations of Maupertuis’s Essai de morale and of La Mettrie’s Anti-Sénèque. Traces of such a debate can be seen also in Verri’s booklet, though pleasure is defined there as »sudden breaking of pain«, mainly under the influence of Locke, Dubos and Helvétius. Moreover, significant clues are reminiscent also of Burke’s Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which, through the French translation, already found a profitable use in Beccaria’s Ricerche intorno alla natura dello stile. Verri’s synthesis is an original achievement where philosophical and medical refl ections on sensibility meet the crucial issue of the relationship between law and justice, which was at the heart of his Osservazioni sulla tortura. The latter work was left unpublished until the beginning of the 19th century, but many of its themes can be traced in the Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore, whose concluding sections give therefore a decisive contribution to the illuministic struggle against death penalty and torture, which was started in 1764 by Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene.

The concept of »transcendental« is undoubtedly one of the most important terms in Kantian philosophy. For over one hundred and fifty years major Kantian scholars have debated its origin and set out various interpretations. The Kant Forschung has recently established four different possible sources: 1) Schulmetaphysik 2) Ch. Wolff; 3) A. G. Baumgarten; 4) J. H. Lambert. The aim of this essay is to suggest a different origin and genesis of the Kantian concept of »transcendental« by the methodologies of Quellengeschichte and Begriffsgeschichte, investigating the philosophical and historical background of Königsberg from the beginning of the seventeenth century to Kant and to show reasons for the shift of the concept of »transcendental« from metaphysics to logic. The doctrine of transcendentals was very much alive in Königsberg and already in Scholastic philosophers the »transcendentals« shifted its interest from being to the knowable, from ontology to logic. However, up to 1763, Kant accepts the Wolffian doctrine of transcendentals and the concept of »transcendental« is synonymous to »metaphysical«. In the second half of the Sixties, probably in the wake of the preparatory works to the Beweisgrund, Kant goes deeply into the interpretation of Baumgarten and the »transcendental« becomes synonymous with »essential« in opposition to »metaphysical«. In the wake of Crusius’ reflections, instead, »transcendental« becomes »logical« in contrast with »metaphysical«. Beginning in the Seventies, in the preparatory fragments to the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, the »transcendental« establishes itself as a synonymous of »logical« and »essential« in opposition to »metaphysical« and »real«, and it concerns the object of knowledge in general without any reference to the experience. From this conception derives the concept of »transcendental« of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft as an examination of the condition of the possibility of an a priori knowledge. In the conclusion I argue that Kant did not deduce the doctrine of transcendentals from his logic, but that both doctrines are developed simultaneously and that Kant always tried to integrate them with each other. Fragments of the second half of the Seventies show a progressive attempt of this integration, which was doomed to fail.

In this essay, I first present Husserl’s project of phenomenology as first philosophy, its meaning and its scope. My second intention in this text is to lay out the project of the »science of the lifeworld«. But my intention is not merely exegetical; instead, I want to show how both projects hang together systematically. Clarifying this project is a special lacuna in Husserl scholarship as well as in phenomenology and in the reception of Husserl’s thought in general. Scholars typically either see the science of the lifeworld as a »hermeneutical« project, disregarding its transcendental underpinnings; or they stick to Husserl’s trans-cendental considerations in conjunction with his focus on subjectivity, ignoring the lifeworld. By showing how both projects belong together I rectify an erroneous Husserl image, and demonstrate how the lifeworld can be a topic within transcendental philosophy.

Initiated by Erich Rothacker, a »Kommission für Begriffsgeschichte« was founded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and chaired by Hans Georg Gadamer to establish Begriffsgeschichte as a common method for several disciplines of the humanities. On the basis of unpublished correspondence the article (I.) describes the organization of activities of the commission up to its end in 1966, i. e. before in 1971 the first volumes of the two great dictionaries of conceptual history were published, and (II.) offers a documentation of the discussions during the conferences, preserved in the archives of the DFG. An analysis of the documents reveals that the participants’ approach to textual material was somehow arbitrary regarding conceptual history. It therefore provided no substantial support or inspiration for the two dictionaries in course and failed to engage in general reflection on Begriffsgeschichte which could have helped to establish it methodologically.

Apart from the main source for the concept ›history of ideas‹ which is related to Arthur O. Lovejoy, new aspects appeared which lightened up the history of the concept a bit further. Lovejoy’s own teacher, William James and also his intellectual forerunner Charles S. Peirce obviously played a role for the formation of the concept. Another, hitherto unknown source can be found in the works of Herbert G. Wells, explicitely in his 1920 edition for the British reader in which he states: »Human history is in essence a history of ideas« (p. 596,col. 2). From here the article follows the further use and development of the concept by British (R.G. Collingwood, I. Berlin), American and European scholars.