Abstract
It is characteristic of those philosophers, who derived their own idealistic systems from Kant, that they did not study Plato directly, let alone adopt his doctrines, but that they were led by stimuli received from Plato to independent philosophical thought and conclusions. Their idealism is subjective in opposition to Plato’s objective and realistic idealism. Some of them did not even attempt to understand fully the founder of all idealistic schools. At other times they unconsciously developed or carried to their conclusion thoughts which Plato only hinted at.
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References
This part of Fichte’s and Plato’s doctrine is compared — from the Nazi point of view — by Walter Becker in the book Platon und Fichte: die königliche Erziehungskunst. Eine vergleichende Darstellung auf philosophischer und soziologischer Grundlage (Jena 1937).
Ernest Barker, Greek Political Theory. Plato and his Predecessors (London 1918), p. 390 seq.
At the same time he charges Tennemann with lack of understanding of the most important part of Plato’s philosophy, and with adopting from him only dry ontologic definitions, that is of whatever he found useful for himself: “but it shows the greatest lack of intellect in a historian of philosophy only to see in a great philosophic form whether there is anything capable of yielding profit to himself”. (Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II, 199 = Werke, vol. XIII–XV, Berlin 1840–1844). (Translator’s note: Translation Haldane and Simpson, London 1894.) Paul Janet compared Hegel’s and Plato’s dialectics in his book Études sur la dialectique dans Platon et dans Hegel (Paris 1861); the result is more favourable for the Greek philosopher.
Hegel’s account of Plato’s pantheism gao ve rise to a literary controversy between those who defended this interpretation and its opponents. Hegel was attacked particularly by O. Ackermann, Das Christliche in Plato und in der Platonischen Philosophie (Hamburg 1835); on the contrary, Hegel’s adherent F. Ch. Bauer held in the book Das Christliche des Platonismus oder Sokrates und Christus (Tübingen 1837) that both creeds, Platonism and Christianity, have a pantheistic character.
Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II, p. 196–199.
H. Stein, Sieben Bücher III,pp. 301–317, 377–394, deals at length with Schelling’s relation to Plato.
Émile Bréhier, Histoire de la philosophie II, p. 810.
J. F. Herbart’s kleinere philosophische Schriften und Abhandlungen (herausgegeben von Gustav Hartenstein, I. Band Leipzig, 1842), p. 67–90: supplement added (in German) p. 91–98.
Monographs: Heinrich Wirtz, Schopenhauers Ideenlehre im Vergleich zu der Platos und Kants (dissert. Aachen 1910). Stanislaw Siedlecki, Schopenhauer o ideach Platona (Almae matri lagellonicae... graf., Leopoli 1900). Hans Zint, Schopenhauer und Platon Wiener Blätter für die Freunde der Antike 8,2, 1931).
Deussen’s critic Ernst Hoffmann (Sokrates I, 1913, p. 188–193) rightly criticises Deussen for the one-sidedness of his concept of ideas, which causes him to treat all references to ideas which cannot be reconciled with his theory of the formative power of the natural will, as mistakes on Plato’s part.
VI. Hoppe, Ûvod do intuitivní a kontemplativní filosofie (= An Introduction to Intuitive and Contemplative Philosophy), Brno 1928), p. 134, maintains that Palacký’s idea of godhead is based on Plato’s doctrine of ideas, but that he was no doubt also influenced by Schiller’s notions “Göttliches”, “Göttlichkeit”. Jaroslav Ludvíkovský treats this idea with much learning and understanding in the study Platonsko-stoický prvek v Palackého idei božnosti (= Platonic and Stoic elements in Palacký’s idea of godhead), (Listy fdol. 68, 1941, 232–241). He is not satisfied with attempts to derive it from modern philosophy and maintains that the notion divinitas, of which Palacký had read in a quotation from Bacon, awakened in his mind old notions of the Stoics, of which he had learned from Cicero. Oldřlích Králík’s study Palackého božné doby (Palacký’s Divine Times), (Kutnar-Králík-Bělič, Tři studie o Františku Palackém = Three Studies on František Palacký, Olomouc 1949, p. 43–165), is a more recent and comprehensive treatment of the problem of Palacký’s “godhead” and of all the attempts to solve it. He maintains that Palacký’s “godhead” is neither the automatic product of some kind of Kantianism or Ciceronianism, nor the accidental result of close spiritual affinity, nor even an unconscious borrowing from Scholasticism or from the religious thought of the Czech Brethren” (p. 66). He emphasises, however, that Palacký lived for a certain time in his own experience in his philosophy of “godhead”. Dagmar Votrubová, K pramenüm Palaekého božnosti (On the Sources of Palacký’s godhead), (Slovesná věda 2,1949/50, p. 214 až 218) claims that for Palacký “godhead” consists in likeness to the image of God and searches for sources of this concept — partly as F. M. Bartoš had done previously — in the Bible and the Czech Reformation, particularly in Comenius.
Cf. p. 594–595.
Korespondence a zápisky Jana Helceleta (= The Correspondence and Notes of Jan Helcelet), publ. Jan Kabelík, p. 119 seq.
In Paris in the Rue Payenne (near the Des Vosges square). Those depicted there are on the left Moses, Homer, Aristotle, Archimedes, Caesar, Paul and Charlemagne, and on the right Dante, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Descartes, Frederik the Great, Bichat, Héloise.
Translator’s note: R. W. Emerson, Representative Men, London 1883, p. 41–46.
Quoted from Paul Shorey, Platonism etc., p. 108.
Paul Shorey, Platonism Ancient and Modern, p. 231.
Translator’s note: ibid., p. 232.
H. Lotze, System der Philosophie I (herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Georg Misch, Leipzig 1910), p. 513.
F. Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, Moscow 1947, p. 19
Engels, ibidem, p. 341.
K. Marx, Capital, I, chapter XIV, ed. Great Books of the Western World, vol. 50, p. 179.
K. Marx, ibidem.
K. Marx, ibid.
K. Marx, ibid. p. 178.
K. Marx, ibid. p. 179.
K. Marx, ibid., p. 179.
E. Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, p. 394.
Jaroslav Vozka, Saint-Simonovy filosoficko-dějinné prvotiny (= Saint-Simon’s philosophical and historical firstlings), (Česká mysl 25, 1929, p. 28).
Bernard Bolzano, Von dem besten Staate ed. Arnold Kowalewski (Prague 1932).
F. Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, p. 139.
Ibidem, p. 396.
See below pp. 572–573.
A concise and well-documented survey of this relation is furnished by Wilhelm Nestle in his article Friedrich Nietzsche und die griechische Philosophie (Neue Jahrb. f. d. klass. Altert. 15, 1912, 554–584). This relation is described as a contest between personalities by Kurt Hildebrandt, Nietzsches Wettkampf mit Sokrates und Plato (Dresden 1922). Jaromir Červenka writes of one aspect of this relation in his book Friedrich Nietzsche, studie o jeho imoralismu a jeho předzvěstech v řecé filosofii (Friedrich Nietzsche, a study on his immoralism and the anticipation of him in Greek philosophy), (Prague s. a.). Nietzsche’s contest with Plato is described in the form of a fictious Zarathustrian discourse by Karl Zimmermann in the book Die Gemeinschaft der Einsamen (Jena 1919). The discourse bears the name Die Conversion des Anti-Christ.
Alfred v. Martin, Nietzsche und Burckhardt (München, 2nd ed. 1942).
Translator’s note: Authorised English trans, ed. Levy. 2nd ed. Foulis 1909, London and Edinburgh.
Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht (Werke, II, Abt. Bd. XVI, Leipzig 1912), p. 70.
It is appropriate to quote here the forceful words written in the Götzendämmerung (Werke, I. Abt. Bd. VIII, Leipzig 1896), p. 167 seq.: “I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong impressions... Do not let anyone suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough skeptic, and have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the artist, which is traditional among scholars... In reality, my distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral prejudices. so pre-existently Christian — the concept “good” is alreay the highest value with him — that rather than use any other expression I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard word “superior swindle”, or, if you would like it better, “idealism”.
Kurt Hildebrandt, Platon, deT Kampf des Geistes um die Macht (Berlin 1933), p. 9.
K. L. Schemann, Die Rasse in den Geisteswissenschaften, 2nd ed. I, p. 466.
H. F. K. Günther, Platon als Hüter des Lebens (München 1928).
Monographs: Evgeni Trubeckoi, Mirosozertsaniye VI. S. Solovieva, 2 vol. (Moskva 1913). T. G. Masaryk repeatedly refers to Soloviev’s relation to Plato in the 2nd vol. of his book Rusko a Europa (= Russia and Europe), (2nd ed. Prague 1931) in chapter XVIII: “Vladimír Soloviev. Religion as Mysticism (p. 307–377). There is a short survey of Soloviev’s philosophy by Boris Jakovenko in his History of Russian Philosophy, translated by Ferd. Pelikán (Prague 1939). p. 235–252; in this book we find also Masaryk’s opinions on Soloviev (p. 270–272).
Vyacheslav Ivanov, Rodnoe i vselenskoe (Moskva 1917). p. 49.
Trubeckoi, ibid. I, p. 285.
It is published in the 2nd volume of his collected works (Sobraniye sochineniy V1adimira Sergeyeicha Solovieva, St. Petersburg, Izdanie Tovarishchestva Obshchestvennaya Polza), p. 375 seq., under the title Istoricheskiya dela filosofii.
Soloviev asserts similarly in the lecture,given as part of the Higher Courses for women in 1881, the substance of which is printed in the 3rd volume of the Collected works,(po 383), that Plato’s philosophy — and anti. que philosophy as a whole — went no further than accepting the theoretical antithesis of the true and untrue worlds. It was only Christianity which attached to this contradiction an ethical, vital and practical significance. This remained one of Soloviev’s basic opinions on the history of philosophical and religious thought.
Collected works, vol. VIII, p. 246–290.
In the book mentioned on p. 375.
The distinction is drawn in these terms in the collection Vekhi of 1909. Attention is drawn to this by T. G. Masaryk in the quoted book II. p. 551.
In the Czech translation Výprava (= Expedition), (Cossacks and other tales), Prague, Melantrich; earlier Vpád (= Invasion), (Collected works of Tolstoi, Prague, Otto, IInd vol.).
In the dialogue Laches.
V. I. Lenin, Materialism i empiriokrititisizm (Sochineniya vol, 14, 4th ed. 1947), p. 134.
Ibidem, p. 117.
V. I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, from the Czech translation (Prague 1953), p. 254.
Warner Fite, The Platonic Legend (New York-London 1934), p. 218.
I use here the classification done by Harald K. Schjelderup in the book Geschichte der philosophischen Ideen von der Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin-Leipzig 1929).
É. Bréhier, Histoire de la philosophie II, 2, p. 1111.
C. Ritter, Platon II (München 1923), p. 312–317, believes there are some other, less clear agreements between Husserland Plato. He holds that Husserl probably did not knowPlato profoundly enough to be aware of them.
Cf. p. 527.
Ernest Barker, Greek Political Theory. Plato and his Predecessors (London 1918) p. 392.
I extract his thoughts from his books Pravda nad skutečnost (=Truth above Reality), (Prague 1918).
Karel Vorovka deals with Santayana in concection with other American philosophers in the book Americká filosofie (= American Philosophy), (Prague 1929), p. 295–302. A selection of Santayana’s writings was published in Czech translation by Karel Vorovka in the book G. Santayana, Essaye o filosofii náboženství a umění (Prague 1932).
G. Santayana, Platonism and Spiritual Life, p. 92.
G. Santayana, Essays, p. 304.
G. Santayana, Essays, p. 463.
Monographs: Louis J. A. Mercier, Le mouvement humaniste aux États-Unis: W. C. Brownell, Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More (Paris 1928). Christian Richard, Le mouvement Humaniste en Amérique et les courants de Pensée similaires en France (Paris 1934)_
Mercier in the aforesaid book p. 153.
B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, London 1925, p. 143.
Translator’s note: B. Russell, ibid, p. 156/7.
Quoted by John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy (London-New York 1931), p. 15.
H. Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (translated into Czech by Václav Černý), (Prague 1936), p. 235; translated into English by Audra, Brereton and Carter, London 1935, p. 207.
H. Bergson, ibid., p. 71–2.
H. Bergson, ibid., p. 226.
H. Bergson, ibid., p. 237.
Cf. about him B. Yakovenko, The History of Russian Philosophy (translated into Czech by F. Pelikán, Prague 1938, p. 427 to 431).
Predmet znania, ob osnovakh i predelakh otvlechennogo znania (Petro grad 1915), p. VI seq.
I quote evidence in my article Masaryk a Platon (= Masaryk and Plato), (Naše věda 19,1938); I repeat here its main content.
I know it only from the review of Simon Moser in the Anzeiger für die ALtertumswissenschaft 3, 1950, 111–117.
J. P. Sartre, Mise au point (translated into Czech under the title Vysvětiení (= Explanation) in the revue Dnešek 2, 1948, p. 660 seq.).
K. Svoboda reports, as far as the congress dealt with antique philosophy, in the Listy filol. 74, 1950, 57.
Matila Ghyka, La pensée scientifique anglaise et l’évolution philosophique (La Franca libre 7, 1944, 380–385).
M. Pachtler, Ratio studiorum IV, p. 563.
Cyril Jež, Osobní büh a náboženství (= Personal God and Religion), (Prague 1923), p. 142.
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Novotný, F. (1977). Plato in Modern Philosophy. In: Svoboda, L., Barton, J.L. (eds) The Posthumous Life of Plato. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9704-2_26
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