Characteristics of the Present Age Johann Fichte Author
- neues Buch2014, ISBN: 2940012343222
Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)***Translator's NoteThe reader will do well to bear in mind that the 'Present Age' … Mehr…
Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)***Translator's NoteThe reader will do well to bear in mind that the 'Present Age' characterized in these lectures was the great transition period of Modern Europe, — the Age of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and the Encyclopaedists on the one hand, and of Lessing, Kant, Goethe and Schiller on the other.—William Smith***Contents:Lecture 1: Idea of Universal HistoryLecture 2: General Delineation of the Third AgeLecture 3: The Life According to ReasonLecture 4: The Life According to Reason continuedLecture 5: Farther Delineation of the Third AgeLecture 6: Scientific Condition of the Third AgeLecture 7: Earlier Condition of the Scientific or Literary World, and its Ideal ConditionLecture 8: Mysticism as a Phenomenon of the Third AgeLecture 9: The Origin and Limits of HistoryLecture 10: The Absolute Form of the StateLecture 11: Farther Definition of the Idea of the StateLecture 12: Historical Development of the StateLecture 13: Influence of Christianity on the StateLecture 14: Development of the State in Modern EuropeLecture 15: Public Morality of the Present AgeLecture 16: Public Religion of the Present AgeLecture 17: Conclusion***An excerpt from the beginning of:Lecture I. - Idea of Universal History The End of the Life of Mankind on Earth is this, — that in this Life they may order all their relations with Freedom according to Reason. This Earthly Life may be divided into Five Principal Epochs.WE now enter upon a series of meditations which, nevertheless, at bottom contains only a single thought, constituting of itself one organic whole. If I could at once communicate to you this single thought in the same clearness with which it must necessarily be present to my own mind before I begin my undertaking, and with which it must guide me in every word which I have now to address to you, then from the first step of our progress, perfect light would overspread the whole path which we have to pursue together. But I am compelled gradually, and in your own sight, to build up this single thought out of its several parts, disengaging it at the same time from various modifying elements: this is the necessary condition of every communication of thought, and only by this its fundamental law does that which in itself is but one single thought become expanded and broken up into a series of thoughts and meditations.Such being the case, and especially as I am not here to repeat what has been already known of old, but to put forth new views of things, — I must request of you at the outset not to be surprised if our subject does not at first manifest that clearness which, according to the laws of all communication of thought, it can acquire only through subsequent development; and I must entreat you to look for perfect light only at our conclusion, when a complete survey of the whole shall have become possible. Nevertheless it is the duty of every man who undertakes to propound any subject whatever, to take care that each separate thought shall assume its proper place in his arrangement, and be produced there with all the distinctness which it is possible to throw around it in that place, at least for those who can appreciate distinct language, and are capable of following a connected discourse; and I shall use my most earnest efforts to fulfil this duty.With this first and only premonition, let us now, without farther delay, proceed to our subject.A philosophical picture of the Present Age is what we have promised in these lectures. But that view only can be called philosophical which refers back the multiform phenomena which lie before us in experience to the unity of one common principle, and, on the other hand, from that one principle can deduce and completely explain those phenomena. The mere Empiricist who should undertake a description of the Age would seize upon some of its most striking phenomena, just as they presented themselves to casual observation, and recount these, without having any assured conviction that he had understood them all, and without being able to point out any other connexion between them than their coexistence in one and the same time. The Philosopher who should propose to himself the task of such a description would, independently of all experience, seek out an Idea of the Age (which indeed in its own form, — as Idea, — cannot be apparent in experience), and exhibit the mode in which this Idea would reveal itself under the forms of the necessary phenomena of the Age; and in so doing he would distinctly exhaust the circle of these phenomena, and bring them forth in necessary connexion with each other... Digital Content>E-books>Philosophy>Philosophy>Philosophy, OGB Digital >16<
