Status Updates From الفلسفة المعاصرة في أوروبا

‘...there are no other systems so balanced, sober, and rational as those of the metaphysicians.’

‘God’s existence must be acknowledged. Since no irrational thing could possibly exist (because ens et verum convertuntur , one cannot admit the existence of empirically known being without acknowledging a creator.’

‘Induction is not rational inference or the derivation of invariable laws but is a sort of divination.’

‘Metaphysics is born of the wonder at the fact of life, which cannot be explained either mechanically or teleologically.’

‘Nicolai Hartmann is undoubtedly one of the most significant figures in contemporary philosophy and, along with Whitehead and Maritain, a pioneer of twentieth-century metaphysics.’

‘...the nonexistence of God is for Haeckel a demonstrable thesis, for Nietzsche it is a drama. If European philosophy were to follow the lead of thinkers of Haeckel’s type, it would collapse utterly along with European culture itself. [really??] In restoring the tychic element to a place of eminence existentialism has without doubt contributed to the recuperation of our life and thought.’ [hmm, I am rather dubious..]

On Jaspers:

‘Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Max Weber provide Jaspers with inspiration but special note should be made of four thinkers he is in the habit of citing- Plotinus, Bruno, Spinoza and Schelling. These names show beyond doubt that Jaspers is not only an existentialist strongly influenced by Kant; he is also, and perhaps principally, a Neoplatonist.’

‘The position of Gabriel Marcel is so expressly antisystematic that his views are more difficult to put together than those of any other existentialist. In fact no one has as yet succeeded in doing so.’

And still on Sartre:

‘It may be safely said that there has never been a more extreme form of realism in the history of philosophical thought.’

‘Sartre professes a radical phenomenonalism. There is nothing but phenomena, and these only, in fact, in Husserl’s sense.’

‘“Freedom is the ground of the ground”, seems to be the last word in Heidegger’s philosophy.’

‘Existential analysis is fundamental ontology; it forms the basis of every ontology and of all the sciences. It’s only possible method is the phenomenological one...’

‘There is much to be said for treating Heidegger’s philosophy as secularized Scotism, and the reader may find it valuable to compare Heidegger’s vision with the the Scotist vision of Gerald Manley Hopkins. Hopkins “in-stress”, “pitch”, “in-scape”, “heaven-handling”, etc., and the urgency of his “terrible” poems, all have their echoes in Heidegger.’ [translator]

And...

‘Scheler’s far-reaching analysis proves that altruism and similar forms of modern sentimentality are based upon resentment, upon hatred of the higher values, and, in the last resort, God.’

Huh? Say what?

And from Scheler:

‘The person is eminently individual; every man, in the degree to which he is a person, is a unique being and a unique value...To talk of a general person, or “consciousness in general” (Kant) is nonsense.’

‘Among the philosophers under Husserl’s influence, one has to take special account of Max Scheler both because of his originality and of his speculative ability...Endowed with an unusual personality, Scheler was also beyond doubt the most brilliant German thinker of his day.’

On Husserl:

‘Thus reality, in its essence, is relieved of its independent and absolute character and becomes merely something intentional, something that appears, a content of consciousness.
And so Husserl’s philosophy finally comes round to a transcendental idealism in many ways similar to that of the NeoKantians.’

And...

‘...mysticism is only found in unusual men; there is no sign of it among the ancient Greeks [really??]; and in India it failed to achieve a fully developed form through remaining purely speculative, but it certainly comes to life in the great Christian mystics who were endowed with almost perfect spiritual health.’ [of course! :/ ]

...more Bergson...:

‘The role of the myth-making function in human societies corresponds to the role of instinct in animal societies.’

‘Spencer is notorious for affirming the cinematographic nature of our thought; he tries to visualize and expound evolution as though it were a succession of states in the evolutionary process, thus utterly misunderstanding true duration.’