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By Alphabetical Order:
By Historical Subject Area
Empiricists
and PositivistsRobert Malthus
David Ricardo
James Mill
Auguste Comte
John Stuart Mill
C.S. Peirce
William James
RomanticismJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Friedrich von Schiller
Vicomte François René de Chateaubriande
Aleksandr Pushkin
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Leo Tolstoy
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
George Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thomas Carlyle
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning
Charles Dickens
John Ruskin
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
IdealismJohann Gottlieb Fichte
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Friedrich Schelling
Heinrich von Treitschke
Wilhelm Dilthey
Thomas Hill Green
Josiah Royce
EvolutionismJean-Baptiste de Lamarck
Charles Lyell
Charles Darwin
Herbert Spencer
T. H. Huxley
Biology/PhysiologyGregor Mendel
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Socialism/MarxismCount Henri de Saint-Simon
Charles Fourier
Ludwig Feuerbach
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Sidney Webb
Archeology,
Cultural History, Anthropology and SociologyJean François Champollion
Jakob Christoph Burckhart
Heinrich Schliemann
E. B. Taylor
William Robertson Smith
Arthur Evans
Flinders Petrie
Emile Durkheim
Max Weber
Theosophy
and Religious SyncretismHelena Petrova Blavatsky
ElitismArthur Schopenhauer
Friedrich Nietzsche
ExistentialismSøren Kierkegaard
Christianity
on the Defensive1. CATHOLIC/ANGLICAN CONSERVATISM
Joseph de Maistre
John Henry Newman
Edward Bouverie Pusey
Henry Edward Manning
Pope Pius IX
Pope Leo XIII2. PROTESTANT LIBERALISM AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM
Friedrich Schleiermacher
Ferdinand Christian Bauer
David Friedrich Strauss
Albrecht B. Ritschl
Ernst Renan
Julius Wellhausen
Adolph von Harnack
Charles A. Briggs
Hermann Gunkel
Wilhelm Bousset
Wilhelm Wrede
Alfred Loisy3. PROTESTANT CONSERVATISM
Archibald Alexander
Charles Hodge
A. A. Hodge
Benjamin B. Warfield
Johannes Weiss4. EVANGELICALISM
William Wilberforce
William Carey
Charles Finney
William and Catherine Booth
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Dwight L. Moody
Peter Forsyth
R.A. Torrey
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday5. THE SOCIAL GOSPEL
Washington Gladden
Walter Rauschenbusch6. MILLENIALISM AND THE "NEW REVELATION" RELIGIONS
William Miller
Ellen White
Joseph Smith
Brigham Young
Mary Baker Eddy
Charles Taze Russell
Science
Looks Further Outward into SpaceFriedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Joseph von Fraunhofer
Gustav Robert Kirchoff
Annie J. Cannon
Science
Investigates the Substance of Matter and LightJohn Dalton
Thomas Young
Hans Christian Ørsted
André-Marie Ampère
Michael Faraday
Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev
James Clerk Maxwell
Albert Michelson and Edward Morley
George Fitzgerald
Hendrik Lorentz
Heinrich Hertz
Henri Poincaré
Antoine Henri Becquerel
The
Science of Human PerceptionErnst Mach
Gottlob Frege
Edmund Husserl
Henri Bergson
Cultivators
of the New TechnologyAlexander Graham Bell
Thomas Alva Edison
General
Sources on History of the 19th Century
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English economist and demographer. Took the pessimistic view that all industrial growth would be more than offset by an even faster rate of growth in the number of the poor.
Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
Malthus' major works or writings:
Essay on Population(1797)Links to other information on Malthus:
Thomas Robert Malthus (Victoria Web: Yousuf Dhamee)
David Ricardo (1772-1823)
Principles of Political Economy (1817)David Ricardo (Victoria Web: Yousuf Dhamee)James Mill (1773-1836)
Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829)
Essay on GovernmentComte reacted to the sometimes wild speculation of French rationalists, who during the previous century had built their philosophical theories on "reasonable" propositions--rather than on the observation of actual phenomenon. In short, he introduced British empiricism to French or continental philosophy, terming his approach "positivism."
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
He was particularly interested in seeing social philosophy built on very careful observation of actual social behavior rather than mere rationalist speculation (such as Rousseau's social theories a half-century earlier). Thus he laid the groundwork for the field of modern sociology with its demand for "factual" foundations for all assertions of truth.
But interestingly, in laying out his arguments, he himself employed a very rationalistic or speculative theoretical foundation for his assertions. In his major six-volume work, Course of Positive Philosophy, he posits an evolutionary development of human knowledge over the aeons--a developmental picture that was entirely speculative--and related more to a simplistic reading of the events surrounding Revolutionary France over the course of the past century.
He stated that human knowledge began in its primitive stages as theology, or laying all events at the feet of divine forces or God (related to the Divine rights claims of monarchical authority). The next stage, the rationalist or philosophical stage was once characterized by broad abstract principles as the foundation of truth or knowledge (he had in mind the rhetoric of Revolutionary France). But the evolved state of knowledge (a pragmatic, bureaucratic post-Revolutionary France) would be built on the works of scientific scholars who would direct society through their knowledge of science.
None of this was itself based on the empirical methods he called for in his study--but was itself a continuation of the French rationalist approach to knowledge.
Nonetheless his ideas would catch the imagination of 19th century Europe and help move it toward the notion that all truth is built on fact and fact alone.
Systeme de politique positive (1823) and (1851-1854)
Cours de philosophie positive (Course of Positive Philosophy)(1830-1842)
A General View of Positivism (Chapter I: Its Intellectual Character) (1856)Auguste Comte in a Nutshell (Emmanuel Lazinier)
Auguste Comte and Positivism
The Philosophy of Positivism (Radical Academy)J.S. Mill was carefully pruned and protected in his infancy and youth by his father, James Mill, in order that the son would grow into such a bright light of Utilitarian philosophy that might light the world. In part the father succeeded, though at a deeply heavy emotional and spiritual cost to the son.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
System of Logic (1843)
Principles of Political Economy (1848)
On Liberty (1859) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: html) On Liberty (Wiretap: gopher)
Representative Government (1861) (VaTech)
Utilitarianism (1863) (VaTech)
Subjection of Women (1869) (Wiretap)
Three Essays on Religion (1874) Religion is the highly laudable ability of human thought to rise above the merely physical or natural condition of life to contemplate and be moved by ideals of excellence. But whether there is a supreme Deity or consciousness to which human thought draws itself or which energizes the forces of life as Creator--was a most uncertain proposition for Mill.John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) --excellent!
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) (UToronto: Centre for Instructional Technology Development)
John Stuart Mill 1806-1873 (Island of Freedom)coiner of the term "pragmatist"
C.S. Peirce (1839-1914)
American pragmatist
William James (1842-1910)
Radical Empiricism (Wiretap)
The Will To Believe (1897) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Goethe was an individual of wide tastes and talents, being a poet, dramatist and scientist all in one. He was early influenced by Herder, who inspired in him a deep appreciation of German folk culture and consequently a spirit of German nationalism.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
But Goethe was also a profound individualist, intrigued by the power and depth of personal experience and emotion. In his first play, Götz von Berlichingen (1773), Goethe explored the depths of individual human sentiments--and laid the foundation for the Sturm und Drang movement--which advocated personal freedom in the face of oppressive, medieval attitudes in Germany concerning the role of the individual in society. This movement would later blossom into German Romanticism.
In the 1780s Goethe went to Rome to study classic art, architecture and literature and for a while came under the more formalistic style of the neo-classicist movement. But on his return to Germany he found little appreciation for his new views. He then turned to science for a while. But his longer-standing romantic inclinations reasserted themselves and his independent individualist style returned to the fore. This culminated in his all-time great work, Faust which was an epic tale of the search of the individual for that which is of a lasting or transcending value in the face of freedom's great opportunities--and uncertainties.
Götz von Berlichingen (1773)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1796)
Faust (1808) (VaTech)
Wilhelm Meister's Travels (1821)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Brown: U. Wash)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Katharena Eiermann)Schiller was a German dramatist and poet who contributed heavily to the Sturm und Drang movement. His own arrest in 1782 by the Duke of Württemberg for leaving Württemberg without ducal permission to attend the performance of his first play, Robbers, in another German state no doubt played an important role in shaping his views on this matter. His close friendship with Goethe was also an important source of inspiration for his politically charged dramatic works, which dignified the instincts of the sensitive, heroic individual over the heavy-handedness of traditional authority and social tradition.
Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)
The Robbers (1781)
Don Carlos (1787)
Wallenstein (1799)
The Maid of Orleans (1801)
William Tell (1804).
Vicomte François René de Chateaubriande (1768-1848)
The Genius of Christianity (1802)
Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb (1849-1850)Considered the father of modern Russian literature--for it was he who dared to write in Russian, the language of the commoner, rather than, say in French, which was considered the language of the upper classes or aristocracy. His thinking was considered very revolutionary and he was dismissed from governmental service and banished to his family's rural estate (he was rehabilitated two years later).
Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837)
Eugene Onegin (1823)
Boris Godunov (1825)
Eugene Onegin (1823-1831)
Poltava (1828)
The Bronze Horseman (1833)
The Captain's Daughter (1836).
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Crime and Punishment (1866)
The Brothers Karamazov(1879-1880)The World of Dostoevsky
Long live Dostoevsky!
Dostoyevsky and Existentialism SitesRussian Christian
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
War and Peace (1869) (VaTech)
Anna Karenina (Bibliomania)
The Death of Ivan Ilych (1886)Tolstoy on Christianity (Letters Magazine)
William Blake (1757-1827)
The William Blake Archive (poetry and paintings)
The William Blake Page (poetry and paintings)
Collected Works (Bibliomania)
Selected Poems (UToronto)As with many English intellectuals, Wordsworth as a young man was enthusiastic about the French Revolution (1789) at least in its early stages. In 1791 he journeyed to France to witness this grand event. But as time passed, and as the Revolution turned bloodier and more vindictive and aggressive, he became distrustful of the Revolution.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
As a Romantic, he became more enamored with the pathos of individual human life, especially the nobility of the deeper human emotions--and less sure about the utility of the rationally ordered society.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
Written in cooperation with Coleridge--and considered the beginning of the Romanticist movement in England.
The Excursion (1814)
The White Doe of Rylstone (1815)
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822)
The Prelude (1850)
An autobiography started a half-century earlier--though not published as a completed work until after his death.
Complete Poetical Works by William Wordsworth (Project Bartleby: Columbia U)
Selected Poetry and Prose of William Wordsworth (U. Toronto)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Biographia Literaria (1817)
Selected Poetry and Prose of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (U. Toronto)A profoundly moody English Romantic writer, he was considered by many of his English contemporaries to be almost insane. He finally left England in 1816 to live on the European continent as an English expatriate (he never returned). He wrote of individuals who suffered deeply from the cruelties of society, heroizing the individual who dared to stand on his own.
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812)
The Prisoner of Chillon(1816)
Don Juan (1821) (VaTech)
Selected Poetry and Prose of George Gordon, Lord Byron (UToronto)
Selected Poems of Lord Byron (D.R. Gabriel)A Romantic "non-conformist" with a disdain for the conventional social mores of his times (he was expelled from Oxford University for publishing a work, "The Necessity of Atheism"). A very productive poet who authored numerous odes from the time he was 26 until just before his 30th birthday when he drowned in sailing accident during a storm.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
"The Necessity Of Atheism" (1811/1813) (Secular Web)
Prometheus Unbound(1820)
In Defence of Poetry (1822)
Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Bartleby Archive)
Selected Writings (gopher)Biographical Sketch (Bartleby Archive)
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
An Essay on Mind (1826)
Prometheus Bound (1833)
The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838)
The Cry of the Children (1842)
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1845-1850)
Aurora Leigh (1857)
Poems Before Congress (1860)The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)English Poet Laureate, 1850-1892.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Poems, by Two Brothers (1827)
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830)
Poems (1833)
Poems (2 vols 1842)
The Princess, a Medley (1847)
In Memoriam (1850)
Maud (1855)
The Idylls of the King (a continually expanding collection: 1859-1885)
Tithonus (1860)
Enoch Arden (1864)
Lucretius (1868)
Queen Mary (1875)
Harold (1876)
The Falcon (1879)
Ballads and Other Poems (1880)
The Cup (1881)
The Promise of May (1882)
Becket (1884)
Tiresias, and Other Poems (1885)
Locksley Hall, sixty years after (1886)
Demeter, and other poems (1889)
The Death of Înone, and other Poems (1892)
The Foresters (1892)Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Brief Biography (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)
Alfred Lord Tennyson Chronology (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)
Alfred, "Eccentric" Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) (Incompetech: Laura MacLeod)
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Paracelsus (1835)
Sordello (1840)
Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)
A Soul's Tragedy (1846)
Christmas Eve and Easter Day (1850)
Men and Women (2 vol. collection of poems, 1855)
Dramatis Personae (1864)
The Ring and the Book (1868)
Dramatic Idyls
Asolando (1889)Robert Browning - Biography (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)
Robert Browning Chronology (Victorian Web)English novelist.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Sketches by Boz (1836)
The Pickwick Papers (1837)
Oliver Twist (1837-1839)
Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839)
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
American Notes (1842)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
A Christmas Carol (1844)
The Chimes (1844)
The Cricket and the Hearth (1845)
Pictures From Italy (1846)
Dombey and Son (1847-1848)
Battle of Life (1848)
The Haunted Man (1848)
David Copperfield (1849-1850)
Bleak House (1852-1853)
Hard Times (1854)
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)
The Frozen Deep (with Wilkie Collins, 1856)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Great Expectations (1860-1861)
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1869-1870)Charles Dickens
Dickens on the Web
Charles Dickens -- Biographical InformationAn English philosopher in search of an uncerstanding and definition of beauty (aesthetics).
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
The Seven Lamps of ArchitectureJohn Ruskin: A Chronology (Victorian Web: George Landow)Emerson is best known as leader of the "transcendentalist" movement in America.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
He was born into a prominent Boston family, one characterized by generations of service to the church (his father, William, was the minister of the venerable First Church of Boston). He attended Harvard College and Divinity School and eventually became pastor of the 2nd church of Boston--where he soon achieved recognition as an excellent preacher.
But like his father before him, he found himself being drawn into new realms of thought that challenged his orthodox Christian beliefs. The writings of the English romantics, Carlyle and Coleridge, the philosophy of Swedenborg, the new biblical text-criticism coming out of Germany, plus his own cool intellectual rather than warm pastoral nature began to distance him emotionally from his work.
Soon after his wife died in 1831, he stepped down from the ministry (1832)--to freely pursue the question of the nature and purpose of human life--and its relation to the larger natural world around man. He traveled to Europe, visiting Coleridge, Wordsworth and Carlyle in the process. When he returned to the States in 1833, he began work on his small, but revolutionary book, Nature--which he published anonymously three years later. In this book he outlined the basic ideas that underpinned his Transcendalist philosophy.
Basically he took the ancient Idealist position of Plato--in strict opposition to the mechanistic-materialist philosophy of Newton and Locke which he saw as undergirding modern life (including the Unitarian theology that was so prevalent around him). He was in part a mystic (in keeping somewhat with the older Puritan tradition!)--seeking direct knowledge of God through divine revelation, rather than through systematic theology or rational philosophy.
He felt that Newton had imprisoned the human spirit within his model of life as a machine made up of bits of matter in motion in accordance to a fixed system of natural laws. Further, he felt that Locke had only added to this error by depicting the human mind as a similar machine, linked only to the outside world through the the bombardment of external sensations upon the receptors of the mind. This mechanistic-materialistic philosophy was all lacking the force of spirit, a transcending spirit--which was to Emerson the substance that gives rise to all life, human and otherwise. To Emerson, this transcending spirit unites all life into a single harmony which flows from God--and at the same time is God.
The moral implications of Emerson's philosophy were in the vast freedoms this spirit seemed to give man--freedoms to make choices about his own life. To Emerson man was not a machine, but part of the great flow of the power of God--and capable of fulfilling the most noble visions endowed by God to the active human mind/spirit. Indeed, the human spirit was potentially so powerful that it had a proper place in the on-going unfolding of all creation. The human mind was thus not the victim of a supposedly machine-like environment around it--but was instead its natural master, inasmuch as man acted in harmony with that environment.
The Unitarians responded with denunciations--especially when he brought his ideas before the Harvard Divinty School in an address to that body in 1838.
Emerson had built up such a faith in the natural attraction of the human mind to high-minded ideas that he was a bit taken aback when his ideas failed to persuade--but only stirred animosity. He learned the hard lesson that reform of human life was not going to take place just in the presenting of ideas. There was going to have to be concerted action that accompanied these ideas. Though Emerson himself would not become an activist-reformer, many of his close associates in the Transcendalist movement would--especially those closely involved in the Abolitionist movement (to end slavery in the United States).
He spent the rest of his life serving as a lecturer, philosopher and poet--in wide demand on the lecture circuit, even being called to Harvard to present his ideas. He was definitely a man of the times, philosopher of the young, optimistic American Republic which felt that it had a mandate to show the rest of the world the higher, more humane way to live.
Nature (1836) (gopher: VaTech)
Essays: First Series (1841) (gopher: VaTech)
["History," "Self-Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "Love," "Friendship,"
"Prudence," "Heroism," "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," and "Art."]
"The Transcendentalist" (gopher: VaTech)
Essays: Second Series (1844) (gopher: VaTech)
["The Poet," "Manners," and "Character."] (gopher: VaTech)
Poems (1846)
Representative Men (1850) [lectures] (gopher: VaTech)
The Conduct of Life (1860) ["Power," "Wealth," "Fate," "Culture"]
May Day and Other Pieces (1867).Ralph Waldo Emerson (Jone Johnson)
Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Guide to Resources
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Civil Disobedience (1849) (IndianaU)
Walden: Life in the Woods (1854) (VaTech)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Leaves of Grass (Bibliomania)
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (1702)
Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794 )
Die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794)
Grundlage des Alaturrechts (The Science of Ethics) (1796)
Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1800)
Grundzuege des gegenweirtigen Zeitalters (1806)
Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten (1806)
Reden an die deutsche Nation (Advice to the German Nation) (1808)
Die Wissenschaftslehre in ihrem allgemeinen Umrisse (The Science of Knowledge) (1810)Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
A General Overview While the English were pushing ahead an empirical doctrine of evolution through accidental natural causes, the Germans were developing, through the primary inspiration of Hegel, an "idealist" doctrine of evolution through the will of some great transcendent will (the world Spirit). Hegel was clearly a Platonist--seeing all history, all human events as "guided" by this powerful spirit. This task of learning or of science was to Hegel (and the Hegelians after him) therefore not just to collect facts, but to discern the particular movement of this guiding hand in the midst of such facts.
His Life and Works
Hegel was born and educated in Stuttgart in the classics and attended the University of Tübingen in preparation for the ministry. During the course of his university studies he befriended Schelling--and decided against the ministry. He found work tutoring, first in Switzerland then in Frankfurt. In 1801 he returned to his studies, this time at the University of Jena--where he eventually became a lecturer, then department head. Here he completed his first work, Phenomenology of the Mind--just in time to flee Jena from the approaching French armies (1806).
He briefly turned to journalism and then became director of a gymnasium in Nuremberg. During his Nuremberg years (1808-1816) he compiled his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, incorporating his earlier Science of Logic (1812), and Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Spirit.
In 1816 he became a professor at the University of Heidelberg; moving two years later to become a professor at the University of Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1831. In Berlin he published his Philosophy of Right (1821). After his death his lecture notes were compiled into a number of publications: Philosophy of Fine Art (1835-38), History of Philosophy (1833-36), Philosophy of Religion (1832), and Philosophy of History (1837).
Hegel's Great Influence on European Philosophy
German scholarship (indeed much of all European scholarship) after Hegel was fairly single-minded in this quest of an all-determining transcendent world Spirit. Things were studied in order to draw out the hidden pattern of this Spirit--so as to enable man to work in cooperation with such divine destiny. This was a powerful idea, affecting the new sciences of anthropology (F.M. Müller, E.B. Taylor) and sociology (E. Durkheim, M. Weber).
But it also touched on group pride, as nations or classes came to see themselves as being under the special anointing of the world Spirit to take the lead to direct history into the next era. This fed powerfully into German nationalism, with its sense of special German historical destiny. This also fed powerfully into the working class movement which came to view the workers of the world as the true moral underpinning of the world to come.
The Phenomenology of Mind (or Spirit) (1807)
The Objective Logic (1812-13)
The Subjective Logic (1816)
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciencies (1817, republished and expanded many times thereafter)
Science of Logic
Philosophy of Spirit
Philosophy of Nature
Philosophy of Right(1821)
Philosophy of Religion (1832)
History of Philosophy (1833-36)
Philosophy of Fine Art (1835-38)
Philosophy of History (1837).Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Introduction to Hegel (UCDavis)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Encarta 1993)
Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854)
System of Transcendental Idealism (1800)Von Treitschke was a professor of history and politics in a number of German universities: Leipzig, Freiburg, Kiel, Heidelberg and Berlin. He was an ardent German nationalist who glorified war as the process by which the spirit of a people works itself forward in unity and strength. He looked to the German State, headed by the autocratic Prussian King, as the leading instrument for the outworking of the German national will.
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896)
He was a member of the German Reichstag (the popular Assembly) 1871-1884.
History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century (7 vols)Nationalism, Racism, and Militarism (Sara Watts)German neo-Hegelian philosopher
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)
Introduction to the Human SciencesOxford Idealist Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882)
Lectures on the Principles of Political ObligationThomas Hill Green: PhilosophyAmer. idealist Josiah Royce (1855-1916)
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Lamarck took the logic of selective breeding of animals and hybridization of plants practiced by "enlightened" European farmers--and surmised that in the long-term this process of passing on a species' particular strengths to new generations would produce evolutionary development within the species--and ultimately the creation of new species themselves.
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829)
Zoological Philosophy (1809)Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)He believed that natural (not divine) forces and processes went into shaping the various features of the earth (mountains, valleys, islands, deserts, etc.). He studied these features directly, climbing, digging, exploring--to observe such things as the impact of erosion, the action of volcanos. From these observations he deduced various processes by which mountains were built up by convulsions in the earth's surface, valleys were cut through the land, and plains were fashioned from eroded hills and mountains.
Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
He viewed the earth as a living organism, in a constant state of growth and decay, birth and death. He extended this vision to the inhabitants of the earth--plants and animals--and saw such dynamics (growth and decline, birth and death) typical not just of individuals but of whole species of biological life--of whole families of plants and animals.
He also estimated that the earth was possibly millions of years old.
Principles of Geology (1830-33)
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)There is no question that the greatest impact on 19th century thought came from Charles Darwin. Darwin was a naturalist, a "fact" gatherer, who not only contributed to our understanding many new details about natural life--but also developed a hypothesis about why nature seemed to take the shape she did. His facts seemed to point to the evolution of all living species through a process of competition for survival which led, by accidental causes, to "natural selection" or "survival of the fittest." The impact of his hypothesis on the Western intellect cannot be overestimated--for his theory still underpins most modern thinking about life today!
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
But note: Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution--for it had been a very big element of Western thought since the on-set of the Enlightenment. The French Revolution for instance was quite certain that it was about not only social justice, but also progressive development--growth of human society and the human intellect.
The Origin of the Species (1859)
The Descent of Man (1871) (Freethought)
The Voyage of the Beagle (Wiretap)A popularizer of Darwinian thinking, in particular with sociological applications in the concept of social evolution. He was the originator of the term "survival of the fittest."
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Social Statics (1850)
Principles of Biology (1864)T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley was a major developer of the the "agnostic" position with respect to the existence of God, seeing only "natural" processes in the evolution of biological life.
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895)
Man's Place In Nature (1863)
Practical Biology (1875)
Agnosticism (A Reply to Henry Wace) (1889) (Secular Web)
Ethics and Evolution (Romanes Lecture) (1893) Huxley distances himself from the position that human morality must mirror the doctrine of "survival of the fittest," claiming that there is no serious connection between the violence of biological or physical evolution over the aeons and the universality of moral principle.Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) (Lefalophodon)
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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An Augustinian monk/teacher in Austria. Mendel studied plants, in particular the ordinary pea, in order to detect the ways in which traits of parents are passed on to their offspring through principles of heredity. In 1865 he presented his findings--only to discover that his biological theories ran counter to the environmental theories of natural selection of the rising group of Darwinists. It was not until after his death that his theories came to light again--and eventually he became recognized as the founder of the science of genetics.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Treatises on Plant Hybrids (1865)Reflections on Gregor Mendel (Austrian Press Service)Pavlov is famous for his explanation of the "conditioned response," worked out in his experiements (late 1800s) with dogs--but extended in theory also to human behavior. By associating the ringing of a bell with the presenting of food to a dog, the dog came eventually to salivate not just in the presenting of food but eventually, as a result of "conditioning" even to the sound of the bell in itself--even without food being present. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)
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Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)
Lettres d'un habitant de Genève à ses contemporains (Letters of an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries) (1803)
De la réorganisation de la société européenne (On the Reorganization of European Society) (1814)
L'industrie (Industry) (1816-1818, with Auguste Comte)
Nouveau Christianisme (The New Christianity) (1825)
Charles François-Marie Fourier (1772-1837)
Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinées générales (The Social Destiny of Man; or, Theory of the Four Movements) (1808)
Traité de l'association agricole domestique (Treatise on Domestic Agricultural Association) (1822)
Le Nouveau Monde industriel (The New Industrial World) (1829-1830)German materialist; claimed that religion was merely a projection of the human ego to give hope to human dreams.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
The Essence of Christianity (1841)
The Philosophy of the Future (1843)
The Essence of Religion (1853)
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)
In typical German fashion, the sociologist Karl Marx picked up on Hegelian Idealism to project a special destiny for the European working classes.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
But Marx moved more to the middle ground between Hegel and Darwin in projecting how the working classes would come to power. Not by accident (as per Darwin) nor by some unseen spirit (as per Hegel) but through the necessary logic of the forces of production: the world belonged to those who owned the material forces of production (factories, mines, etc.). The industrial workers would inevitably wield the power of their vastly greater numbers, to seize the forces of production from the liberal entrepreneurs and institute a new society based on worker values--where all would live voluntarily and communally (owning no property but sharing everything in common) according to a high spirit of brotherly love. Thus communism or Marxism was born.
Communist Manifesto (1848) (VaTech)
Capital
Vol. 1 (1867) (Colorado)
Vol. 2 (Colorado: forthcoming)
Vol. 3 (1894) (Colorado)Marx/Engels Internet Archive
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Principles of Communism (Colorado)
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Colorado)
Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (Colorado)
On the History of Early Christianity (Colorado)
Anti-Dühring (Colorado)Marx/Engels Internet Archive (Colorado)Sidney Webb (1859-1947)
Fabian Essays (1889)
ARCHEOLOGY, CULTURAL HISTORY,
ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
The French archeologist who translated the Rosetta stone found in Rashid (Rosetta) Egypt (publishing his work in 1822)--and was thus able to provide a system for translating ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, which since ancient times had remained largely a mystery. Jean François Champollion (1790-1832)
On the stone itself was a priestly decree written around 196 BC--in three parallel scripts: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic, Egyptian demotic (language of the common Egyptian around 196 BC) and Greek (language of the Ptolemaic dynasty ruling Egypt at that time). By first detecting royal names he was able to identify a dozen of the hieroglypic symbols--and then slowly begin to work from there in identifying yet other ancient Egyptian names and titles. Eventually this opened up understanding to even more of the hieroglypics until the full hieroglyphic text could be read.
A Swiss historian who, in his study of Renaissance Italy, established many of the cannons of modern cultural history.
Jakob Christoph Burckhart (1818-1897)
Though he was the son of a Protestant pastor and was sent off to school to become a pastor himself (though receiving much education in the classics along the way) he eventually abandoned these plans--and took up the pantheistic vision of life characteristic of many of the members of the romantic movement.
A love for classic art and architecture eventually translated itself into a fascination for the Italian Renaissance, which he studied up close through regular travels to Italy. Over time he withdrew himself from the political romanticism of his colleagues, becoming less and less confident that modernism was going to produce a civilization as high as that of the classic and renaissance past. His life as a teacher at the University of Basle was quiet and unexceptional. It was, instead, the publication in 1860 of his study of Renaissance Italy that brought his name to public notice. This study of Renaissance art and culture was unparalleled--and long remained (even well into the 20th century) the standard study on the subject.
Die Zeit Konstantins des Grossen (The Age of Constantine the Great) (1853)
Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy) (1860)
Griechische Kulturgeschichte (History of Greek Culture) (edited posthumously: 1898-1902)German archeologist who discovered the locations of ancient Troy and Mycenae, the main settings for the a
Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890)
