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Biographies
The School at Athens, Raphael
From the History of Philosophy
Galileo, Galilei
1564 - 1642, [P] Italian astronomer and physicist, worked out principles of
relativity of motion, concepts of essential in observation and experiment.
Defended the Copernican System and was forced to recant;
Work: Galileo's Considerations on the Copernican System, 1615
Source: The Galileo Affair, edited by Maurice Finocchiaro
Extent: complete letter.
Bacon, Francis
1561 - 1626, [P] English philosopher, founder of materialism and
experimental science in modern times; (1609).
Work: Natural History for the Building Up of Philosophy
Source: 19th Century English edition; scanned
Extent: first 5 pages from the Preface.
Descartes, Rene
1596 - 1650, [P]French mathematician, physiologist, physicist and
philosopher; in philosophy a "dualist" - asserted that knowledge must be
based on certainty, founder of Rationalist school.
Work: Discourse on Method (1637).
Source:Cambridge Univesity Press, edited Haldane and Ross; scanned
Extent: first five parts.
Hobbes, Thomas
1588 - 1679; [P] Hobbes took as his starting point Bacon's principle that
all knowledge comes from the senses: "There is no conception in a man's
mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the
organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original"
Hobbes attempted to build a materialist theory of knowledge and how
material relations are expressed in language, based on the necessarily
limited, mechanical conception of matter which existed at the time.
Work: Leviathan (1651).
Source: Cambridge Revised Student Edition, Editted by Richard Tuck, 1996;
scanned.
Extent: first five chapters.
Spinoza, Benedicto
1632 - 1677, [P] Dutch materialist philosopher. Showed how human freedom is
possible within bounds of necessity, and in solving this problem built his
theory on proposition that only "nature" exists, being the "cause of
itself" (causa sui). This "creative nature" he called
"Substance";
substance had the properties of both extension (i.e. spatial existence) and
thought and many modes, including "thought" as one of these "modes".
This
contrasted with the dualism of both Descartes especially, and the
Empiricists who were left with the seemingly insoluble problem of
explaining how it was that thought reflected matter. For fear of repression
Spinoza did not publish his main work.
Work: Ethics (1677).
Source: Everyman Classics, translation by G H R Parkinson, 1989; scanned.
Extent: opening few pages from each of first four parts.
Locke, John
1632 - 1704; [P] English materialist philosophy of the period of the
Restoration; developed a materialist theory of knowledge which opposed
Descartes' "innate ideas" and declared experience to be the sole source of
all ideas, - but via the influence of external objects on the sense organs
(ideas of sensation) or alternatively through attention being directed to
the activity of the soul; developed theory of the State, including the
proposition that people should change the social system if it does not
provide people with the proper opportunity for education and development.
Work: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689).
Source: 38th Edition from William Tegg, London; scanned
Extent: three separate excerpts from early in the work.
Newton, Isaac
1642 - 1727; [P] English physicist and mathematician; founder of classical
mechanics, theory of universal gravitation and calculus; provided the
foundation of the scientific explanation of a vast number of phenomena of
nature in mechanical terms and provided the basis for an integral picture
of the world; while Newton's theory provided the seeming basis for the
eventual explanation of all the phenomena of Nature in terms of the effect
of objects one upon another, a "prime impulse", attributable to God was
required to "set the mechanism in motion". .
Work: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1729)
Source: Newton's Principles of Natural Philosophy, Dawsons of Pall Mall,
1968; scanned.
Extent: Opening pages of the Principia up to the three laws of motion;
opening pages of Book III, The System of the World, with rules for
Philosophy, plus the closing comments with his view of God, etc.
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm
1646 - 1716; [P] German mathematician (co-inventor of Calculus, modern
mathematical logic), physicist (law of conservaion of energy), geologist,
etc., etc. Initially a mechanical materialist in philosophy, but in
opposition to Locke's empiricism, moved to a position of rationalism and
objective idealism with his theory of Monads - the indivisible, spiritual
substances of which the Universe is composed; the monads were endowed with
self-activity, but had no physical influence on one another; held that the
criterion of truth is clarity of knowledge, tested by the application of
Formal Logic.
Work: Monadology (1714).
Source: Etext at
http://www.uh.edu/~gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/leibniz.html and Duncan's
Philosophical Works of Leibnitz version, both used.
Extent: complete.
Berkeley, Bishop George
1685 - 1753; [P] Bishop Berkeley came to the defence of religion against
Locke'sempiricism, but did so by turning the empiricist theory "against
itself"!
Work: Of the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710).
Source: scanned from very old edition.
Extent: first 20 or so pages.
Hume, David
1711 - 1776; [P] English philosopher (scepticism), psychologist and
historian; held that task of knowledge is not to comprehend being, but to
provide a guide to practical life (utilitarianism); the only objects of
authentic knowledge could be mathematics since no other relations can be
deduced by logic, but only from experience, which was after all only a
"stream of impressions" whose causes are essentially unknowable. He held
that the repeated occurrence of one event prior to another can form the
basis for the formation of conceptual knowledge, but cannot constitute
proof of cause-and-effect - "how do we know that the Sun will rise in the
East tomorrow?" - but nevertheless knowledge can provide sufficient
certainty to constitute the basis of practical life. Thus Hume attempted to
rescue the positive content of Locke's philosophy from the subjectivist
critique of Berkeley.
Work: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1772).
Source: Hackett Publ Co. 1993; scanned.
Extent: Chapter on Cause and Effect.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
1712-1778, [P] on "Left Wing" of French Enlightenment, Deist, Dualist (in
relation to thought and matter), Sensationalist (sensations only source of
knowledge), most renowned for his social theories, including the "social
contract" and the source of inequality in private property.
Work: Emile, (1755).
Source: Everyman Edition, 1911; scanned
Extent: excerpt: Creed of a Savoyard Priest.
Diderot, Denis
1713-1784, [P] philosopher of the French Enlightenment; publisher of
Encyclopedie; materialist in teaching on Nature, psychology and theory of
knowledge; promoted some elements of dialectics (inter-connection of all
processes of Nature, eternal change of form) and pointed to role of growth
of technology in the development of thought and cognition.
Work: Conversation between D'Alembert and Diderot (1769).
Source: from Diderot, Interpreter of Nature, translated by Jean Stewart and
Jonathan Kemp, International Publishers,1943; scanned
Extent: complete dialogue.
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri
1760-1825, [P] great French Utopian socialist
Work: Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries, (1803).
Source: The Political Thought of Saint-Simon, Oxford University Press, 1976
Extent: 'Letters', omiting hypothetical 'Reply'.
Kant, Immanuel
1724 - 1804; [P] German philosopher and scientist; as a scientist developed
ideas of the evolution of solar system from a gaseous nebular, retardation
of Earth's rotation by the tides, the concept of a Universe composed of
Galaxies, thus playing important role in shaping the view of Nature as
developing according to its own processes. In philosophy he was the founder
of the "Critical Philosophy"; immediate precursor of Hegel. Kant confronted
the problem posed by Hume showing that if knowledge could only be derived
from experience, then in fact there could be no knowledge of a world
"beyond sensation" - and yet positive knowledge clearly did exist. In
studying the forms of cognition and its limits, Kant developed a philosophy
which was riddled with contradictions which provided the material upon
which Hegel was able to build. Kant held that "things-in-themselves"
(beyond sensation) were in principle unknowable - only "phenomena" are
knowable. Showing that opposite propositions about the nature of reality
can be proved, Kant held that these contradictions are only "seeming" and
knowledge of "things-in-themselves" is accessible only by Faith. The
influence of Kant is still extensive.
Work: Critique of Pure Reason (1787).
Source: Norman Kemp Smith version from
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr copied, and text of Kant's
second edition extracted.
Extent: All of Kant's introduction plus another excerpt from early on in
the work.
Fichte, Johann
1762 - 1814; [P] second to Kant in classical German philosophy, supporter
of French Revolution, professor of philosophy at Jena. Fichte emphasised
the importance of "practical" philosophy, concerned with the state, law,
morality, for which the "science of science", i.e. philosophy proper, was a
pre-requisite. Fichte opposed Kant's notion of "thing-in-itself" beyond
Reason, and placing the Ego at the centre of his philosophy, sought instead
to deduce all forms of knowledge by direct, subjective contemplation of
things with the mind. Fichte's method had a kind of dialectics which sought
to synthesise antithetical concepts.
Work: Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge (1810).
Source: The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, translated by William
Smith, Pub: Trubner and Co., 1889
Extent: whole of this essay.
Schelling, Friedrich
1775 - 1854; [P] German philosopher, third of the "classical German
idealists" after Kant and Fichte and a close friend of Hegel. Schelling
sought to answer the question of how consciousness arises out of
unconscious Nature and how "the subject" (objective knowledge as opposed to
individual consciousness) could itself become an object of knowledge.
Schelling offered a "philosophy of nature" and "transcendental
idealism" in
which Schelling was explicitly led to the conclusion that only faith
provides the necessary unity of subject and object for knowledge of truth.
Work: System of Transcendental Idealism (1800).
Source:
Extent: Introduction and Part I; Work: 1841 speech on the new "positive
philosophy of existence"
Source: Engels' notes in Volume 1 of MECW.
Extent: ?
Hegel, G. W. F.
1770-1831; [P] The Science of Logic (1810).
Source: link to the Hegel-by-HyperText site, which includes almost all of
the Shorter Logic and much of the Science of Logic, and is acknowledged at
that site.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
1749 - 1832; [P]
Work: The Experiment as Mediator between Object and Subject (1792).
Source: Goethe: Scientific Studies, Suhrkamp Publishers, , 1988; scanned.
Extent: postponed
Feuerbach, Ludwig
1804 - 1872; [P] As a member of the "Young Hegelians", Feuerbach criticised
what he called Hegel's reduction of Man's Essence to Self-consciousness,
and went on to prove the connection of philosophical idealism with
religion.
Work: Principles for a Philosophy of the Future (1843) .
Source: Hackett Publishing Co., Edition, Translated by Manfred Vogel, 1986,
scanned;
Extent: Sections 1 to 18 here, remaining section via link to the
Hegel-by-HyperText site.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Irrationalism
Schopenhauer, Arthur
1788 - 1860; [P] German idealist philosopher, volunarist, became popular in
Germany among reactionaries after the 1848 Revolution;
Work: The World as Will and Representation (1819, republished 1851).
Source: Dover Edition, 1969, translated by E F J Payne
Extent: sections 17 - 20, The Objectification of Will.
Kierkegaard, Soren.
1813 - 1855; [P] Soren Kierkegaard's rearguard action for Christianity.
Purported to be the foundation of Existentialism, this is really low-level
stuff!. Will use bit from Concept of Dread instead.
Work: He Who Prays Aright (1843)
Source:Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Princeton University Press,
translated Hong & Hong, 1990
Extent: omit introductory words, and rest of "upbuilding discourse"!! in
full
Nietzsche, Friedrich.
(1844 - 1900) [P] Voluntarism.
Work: Beyond Good and Evil
Source:Complete Works, Gordon Press, translated by Helen Zimmern (1974)
Extent: First chapter: Prejudices of Philosophers;
Work: Schopenhauer as Teacher
Source:Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre edited by Walter Kaufman
Extent: short excerpt;
Jung, Carl.
(1875 - 1961) [P] collective unconscious and archtypes of personality,
pychoanalaysis sans pansexualism;
Work: Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 1933
Source:Routledge & Kegan Paul, translated by Cary Baynes
Extent: Chapter IX, The Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology ;
Jaspers, Karl
(1883 - 1969) [P] German existentialist
Work: My Philosophy
Source:Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre edited by Walter Kaufman
Extent: half of article;
Heidegger, Martin
(1889 - 1976) [P] German Existentialist, but also follows on from Husserl;
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology sheds light on Schelling's promise that
"Hegel concentrated on Essence, but the question is Being". This is
nonsense. Heidegger msut also be misled by Husserl's incorrect
epistemological position; again. I think this must go into "irrationalism"
stream;
Work: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1954)
Source:Indiana University Press, 1975
Extent:Introduction, p 1 - 23;
Work: Existence and Being
Source:Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre edited by Walter Kaufman
Extent: complete article;
Sartre, Jean-Paul
(1905 - 1980) [P] French existentialist, eclectically drawing on Nietzsche,
Freud, Husserl - very important to understand Sartre's place. In late 1950s
Sartre concerts to Marxism - one of very few who cross from one "stream" to
another. He is certainly the best of the Irrationalists, and the only one
who is politically progressive.
Work: Existentialism is a Humanism
Source:Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre edited by Walter Kaufman
Extent: complete article;
Koj�ve, Alexandre
Work: Introduction to the Reading of Hegel
Source:Basic Books, 1969
Extent: one chapter;
Hyppolite, Jean
Work: Logic & Existence
Source:State University of New York Press, 1997
Extent: Final Chapter before Conclusion;
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
(1908 - 1961), [P] excerpts from his Phenomenologist period and from his
'marxist' period.
Work: The Structure of Behaviour
Source:Beacon Press, 1967
Extent: just introduction and conclusion;
Irrationalism: Schelling, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer begin with a
passionate hatred of Hegel (let alone Marx!!), Nietzsche perfects them, and
lays the basis for 20th century irrationalism in the form of
Existentialism; Sartre is the first Existentialist to wear the tag and also
the first who is progressive. He does us the service of a critique
irrationalism from an "insider", en route to "change Marxism from
within",
but Marxism to him is its degenerate form of Stalinism, so even within
irrationalism, there is a struggle of opposites;
* Jacques Lacan, more on psychoanalysis;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marx & Engels
Marx, Karl
1818 - 1883; [P] The German Ideology and Theses on Feuerbach (1845).
Source:link to the Hegel-by-HyperText site, which includes also other
material by Marx, and is acknowledged at that site.
Engels, Frederick
1820 - 1895; [P] Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German
Philosophy (1877).
Source: link to the Hegel-by-HyperText site, which includes also other
works by Engels, and is acknowledged at that site.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After Marx
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
1870 - 1924; [P] include excerpts from his work on philosophy and natural
science, much critised for his supposed over-simplification of materialism,
and refer to his Philosophical Notebooks on Hegel.
Work: The Recent Revolution in Natural Science (1908)
Source: Lenin's Collected Works, Volume 14, Lawrence and Wishart; scanned.
Extent: whole of this one chapter, plus a short excerpt from earlier in the
book.
Joseph Stalin
[P] Butcher of the Russian Revolution. I believe that it is the spin that
stalin put on Marxism that many of his contemporaries and those who came
after, are reacting against. Though it is clearly not just Stalin's
invention.
Work: Stalin:Selected Works, 1942
Source: Greenwood Press
Extent: first 3/4 of article "dialectical and Historical Materialism.
Mao Tse Tung
(1893 - 1975) [P] Stalinist, leader of Chinese National liberation
Work: On Practice, 1937 (??)
Source: Chinese Foreign Languages Press
Extent: whole work.
Lysenko, Trofim.
excerpt deleted from collection
[P] Stalinist pseudo-scientist, "agronomist". This is probably not the best
excerpt, but it will do for the moment. The Chinese expositions of his
position are much more blatant.
Work: The Science of Biology Today, 1948
Source: International Publishers
Extent: last two chapters of speech.
Pavlov, Ivan.
[P]
Work: Experimental Psychology and other essays, 1957
Source: Philosophical Library, NY
Extent: one lecture complete.
Vygostsky, Lev S
1896 - 1934; [P] although he mismisses "Marxist psychology", he heere
dismisses that kind of science typified by Lysenko. For his own part, he
develops the science of psychology by its own methods, but informed by the
gains of Marx, Hegel, etc.
Work: Thought and Language (1934)
Source: Cambridge University Press, 1962, translated Eugenia Haufmann and
Gertrude Vakar.
Extent: Chapter 7, Thought and Word.
Work: Crisis of Psychology (1927)
Source: Collected Works of Vygotsky, Plenum Press, 1987, translated Rene
Van Der Veer.
Extent: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 12, 13.
Also, need bit on "Consciousness is a problem for Behaviourism". I suspect
Vygotsky has strayed into one-sdedness in his rejection of Husserl et al.,
and if he had lived longer, may have broken from this behaiousism more
clearly. The Progress Publishers Dictionary calls him a "structuralist"
along with Piaget.
Gyorgy Lukacs
[P] The Destruction of Reason very interesting in relation to thesis about
1841 and all that. Apparently started out as existentialist, close to
Heidegger. Swept up by 1917 Revolution and "converted" to Marxism, and
lashes out at his old pals who accomodated to Fascism.
History and Class Consciousness - very influential. In 1923, Lukacs went
back to Marx and his relation to Hegel. Fantastic critique of 2nd
International and also incipient "Stalinist orthodoxy". Denounced in
similar terms from both sides. Forced to "recant". In meantime his critique
of Engels' dialectics of nature provides point of origin for the Frankfurt
School, also reacting to Stalinist thuggery. His 1967 Preface is a
fantastic document, showing how the best Marxist work of the time provided
the opening for academic degeneration of "Western Marxism". He
"corrects"
himself and exposes the dilemma posed by Stalinist control of the workers'
movement - but his critique is still inadequate.
Work: History & Class Consciousness, 1967 Edition
Source: Merlin Press
Extent: Introduction, 1967.
Korsch, Karl
Marxist, leader of German CP in 1920s.
Work: Marxism and Philosophy
Source: Monthly Review Press, 1970.
Extent: Whole article.
Fromm, Erich
Marxist-humanist. [P]
Work: Character and the Social Process (1942)
Source: Appendix to Fear of Freedom, Routledge, 1942; scanned.
Extent: Whole article.
Sartre, Jean-Paul
(1905 - 1980) [P] Sartre introduces this idea of dialectic of huamn affairs
but not of Nature, the "Marxism" he criticises is of course Stalinism.
Work: Search for a Method
Source:trans. Hazel Barnes, Vintage Books
Extent: first two chapters;
Work: Critique of Dialectical Reason
Source:trans. Allen Sheridan-Smith
Extent: Chapter Dogmatic & Critical Dialectic;
Kautsky, Karl .
Marx's young secretary, foremost authority on Marx's work after death of
Engels; one of the founders of reformist current in opposition to Russian
Revolution [P] ;
Work: The Materialist Conception of History
Source: Yale University Press, 188, abridged version
Extent: One short chapter.
Plekhanov, Georgy.
(c. 1940 - 1997) founder of Russian Marxism [P]
Work: Essays in Historical Materialism
Source: International Publishers
Extent: Approx. first half of the essay.
Trotsky, Leon.
[P]
Work: Literature & Revolution, 1925
Source: Leon Trotsky on Literature & Art, Pathfinder Press
Extent: Approx. whole article, 31 pp.
Bukharin, Nikholai & Preobrazhensky.
Work: The ABC of Communism
Source: Pelican
Extent: Two short sections only.
Habermas, Jurgen. [P]
Work: Knowledge & Human Interest, 1968
Source: Polity Press, 1987
Extent: Chapter Three: The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social
Theory.
Ilyenkov, Evald Vassilyevich
1924 - 1979; [P] worst example of reactionary and obscurantisst character
of the degenerated form of Marx's legacy. This piece is not probably the
best from the philosophical point of view, but it will do.
Work: Dialectical Logic (1974)
Source: Progress Publishers Edition, 1977; scanned.
Extent: Essay 8 of 11 on this site, 1 to 7 on Hegel-by-HyperText site.
Work: Metaphysics of Positivism (1979)
Source: New Park Publications, 1980; scanned.
Extent: Part III (of 3) and Conclusion.
Pilling, Geoff.
(c. 1940 - 1997) British Trotskyist
Work: Marx's Capital, Philosophy and Political Economy
Source: Routledge Kegan Paul
Extent: Chapter Two.
Slaughter, Cliff.
(c. 1930 - ) British Trotskyist
Work: Marxism & the Class Struggle
Source: New Park Publications
Extent: last chapter.
Novack, George.
US Trotskyist
Work: Empiricism and its Evolution, A Marxist View
Source: Pathfinder Press, 1963
Extent: One Chapter
Marcuse, Herbert .
(1898 - 1979): (Frankfurt School) [P] ;
Work: One Dimensional Man,
Source: Ark Paperbacks, 1964
Extent: 5: Negative Thinking: The Defeated Logic of Protest, pp123-143.
Jameson, Fredric.
Work: Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Source: Verso, 1991
Extent: Just two sections from Chapter 1.
Rorty, Richard.
Work: Consequences of Pragmatism
Source: University of Minnesota Press, 1982
Extent: Introduction.
Smith, Cyril.
(c. 1930 - ) British Trotskyist
Work: Marx at the Millenium
Source: Pluto Press
Extent: Appendix to Chapter 4, and Chapter 2.
Dunayevskaya, Raya
Work: Philosophy & Revolution (1974)
Source: Morningside Press.
Extent: Chapters on Lenin, Sartre and Liberation movements.
After Marx:
Note that in this section I include both those who can rightly claim the
tag of "Marxist", and those who have been responsible for the massacre and
revision of Marxism. This stream is a "struggle" like all the others, a
struggle of those who wish to live Marx's doctrine and those who either
debase or misunderstand it, or cynically misrepresent it for ends which ar
utterly alien to Marx.
* (?) Eduard Bernstein,
* (?) August Bebel;
* Rosa Luxemburg;
* Ernst Bloch (socialist-humanist);
* J D Bernal, representative of that generation of scientists and
intellectuals won to Comintern in 1930s;
* Max Horkheimer, (Frankfurt School);
* Theodor Adorno (1903 - 1969), philosophy of art (Frankfurt School)
[P];
* Antonio Gramsci [P] ;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Positivism & Natural Science
Sociology
Comte, Auguste
1798 - 1857; [P] founder of positivism. One time collaborator with John
Stuart Mill
Work: General View of Positivism (1830-42).
Source: from A General View of Positivism, translated by J H Bridges,
Robert Speller and Sons, 1957; scanned.
Extent: about 15 pages from the middle of the first chapter.
Mill, John Stuart
1806 - 1873, [P] English philosopher, logician and economist; exponent of
positivism and a follower of Hume. Mill claimed to seek a "compromise"
between idealism and materialism; but asserted that things do not exist
outside of perception; Mill proposed induction as the only valid form of
acquiring knowledge of these perceptions, belittling the role of deduction.
Work: On Nature (c. 1843), A System of Logic (1843), On Liberty.
Source: (1) Lancaster E-text, prepared by the Philosophy Department at
Lancaster University, from Nature, The Utility of Religion and Theism,
Rationalist Press, 1904
(2) Longman's 1884 edition of the System of Logic.
Extent: whole of speech on Nature and Introduction from System of Logic.
Spencer, Herbert
1820 - 1903; one of the founders of positivism. Influenced by Kant, Hume
and John Stuart Mill. "Evolutionary" conception of Nature and society.
Work: Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte (c. 1862-96).
Source: scanned.
Extent: about 15 pages from the first chapter, concentrating more on his
criticism of Comte, rather than his own views.
Dilthey, Wilhelm
1831 - 1911.
Work: Introduction to the Human Scinces.
Source: Princetoin University Press.
Extent: From the beginning a few dozen pages.
Weber, Max
1864 - 1920, [P] founder of bourgeois sociology.
Work: Max Weber, Sociological Writings.
Source: Edited by Wolf Heydebrand, published in 1994 by Continuum.
Extent: sections on foundations.
Durkheim, Emile
(1858 - 1917) [P]
Work: Pragmatism & Sociology
Source:Cambridge University Press, 1983
Extent: latter 8 of the twenty lectures plus one of two appendices;
Pareto, Vilfredo
(1848 -, 1923), Italian economist and sociologist. [P]
Work: Mind & Society
Source:Dover, 1935
Extent: First dozen pages;
Jakobson, Roman
Work: Lectures on Sound & Meaning
Source: MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1937, Preface by Clause L�vi-Strauss
Extent: Most of first and all of last lectures;
L�vi-Strauss, Claude
Work: Structural Anthropology, 1958
Source:Allen Lane, The Penguin Press., 1968
Extent: various excerpts;
Barthes, Roland
Work: Elements of Semiology, 1964
Source:Hill and Wang, 1968
Extent: first half of book;
Parsons, Talcott
[P]
Work: Structure of Social Action
Source:McGraw Hill, 1937
Extent: Introduction;
Althusser, Louis
Shows Althusser's break from both materialism and dialectics in his
rejection of the materialist critique of Hegel and of the "dialectics of
nature". I think this may be patr of a new input to "Irrationalism and
Positivism coming from Stalinist revision of Marxism, accomodating it to
"modern" irrational and positivistic trends, thereby allowing idealism to
reach a new high level.
Work: Contradiction & Overdeterminism (1965)
Source: Part Three of For Marx, translated by Ben Brewster, Penguin Press;
Extent: Whole article: pp 89 - 128.
Fukuyama, Francis
[P]
Work: The End of History and the Last Man (1992)
Source:Penguin.
Extent: Introduction.
Foucault, Michel
(1926 - 1984), [P]
French structuralist noted for examination of the concepts and codes by
which societies operate, "principles of exclusion" (such as the
distinctions between the sane and the insane); studied under Althusser;
Work: The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969)
Source:Routledge, 1972.
Extent: First 3 Chapters of main body of work.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois
(1926 - 1984), [P]
Work: The Postmodern Condition (1979)
Source: Manchester University Press, 1984.
Extent: First 5 Chapters of main body of work.
Psychology
Brentano, Franz
d. 1917 [P]
Work: Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, (1874)
Source: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Extent: first two chapters, "Concept and Purpose of Psychology" and
"Psychological Method with Special Reference to its Experiential Basis";
Wundt, Wilhelm
(1832 - 1920) [P]
Work: Outlines of Psychology, (1897)
Source: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1897
Extent: first two chapters;
Husserl, Edmund.
(1849 - 1938) [P] Husserl started with psychology and was led to problem of
epistemology and specifically aims to rid epistemology of psychologism and
other positive findings of natural science. Vygotsky makes good criticism
of Husserl. Husserl accepts introspection for direct observation of Mind,
thus confusing the ontological and epistemological problems; ultimately
subjective idealist, though certainly not explicitly, part of "Natural
science & Positivism" stream or "Irrationalism" ? Could be argued
either
way.
Work: The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
(1954)
Source:Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1970
Extent: s. 22 -25, 57 - 68, 53 pages in all?
Piaget, Jean
1896 - 1980; [P]
Piaget's "cognitive psychology", in focusing the attention of psychology on
the problem of truth, rather than on that of psychosis or personality,
places it in the mainstream of classical philosophy, even though he is
defective in under-estimation of the social-formation of knowledge and the
imposition of psychological schemas on history and society.
1. Genetic Epistemology, a series of lectures delivered by Piaget at
Columbia University, Published byColumbia Univesity Press, translated
by Eleanor Duckworth;
Extent: First lecture;
2. The Construction of Reality in the Child, 1955, Routledge and Kegan
Paul
Extent: Last Chapter;
Laing, R. D.
b. 1927. [P]
Work: The Politics of Experience (1967) Sanity, Madness and the Family (1964)
Source: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Extent: First Chapter.
Freud, Sigmund
(1856 - 1939). [P]
Work: New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis (1933)
Source: Hogarth Press.
Extent: Last lecture.
Dewey, John
American pragmatist (1859-1952), educational psychologist, influenced by
William James, and early on drew from Hegel;
[P]
Work: The Quest for Certainty (1933)
Source: Capricorn Books, 1960.
Extent: One Chapter.
Adler, Alfred
inferiority complex etc.
[P]
Work: What Life Should mean to You (1933)
Source: Unwin Books, 1932.
Extent: Chapter 2.
Koffka, Kurt
(1887 - 1941) for Gestalt psychology;
"What these eclectics do, is to reply to a question from raised by Marxist
philosophy with an answer prompted by Freudian psychology" [Vygotsky];
Work: Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935)
Source: Lund Humphries, London.
Extent: Chapter 1.
* Charles Morris (1901 - ) combines pragmatism and logical empiricism,
behaviourism;
Linguistics
Saussure, Ferdinand de
(1857 - 1913), Swiss linguist
Work: Saussure's Third Course of Lectures on General Linghuistics
(1910-1911)
Source: Pergamon Press, 1993
Extent: first few and last few pages of notes taken by a student of
Saussure's lectures;
Derrida, Jacques
b. 1930; [P], linguistics after Barthes, deconstruction;
Work: Of Grammatology
Source: Jhn Hopkins University Press., 1974
Extent: Chapter Two, with one section deleted;
Chomsky, Noam
b. 1928; [P], Kantian, theory of language and of knowledge;
Work: Language and Mind
Source: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1968
Extent: One six lectures;
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
(1889 - 1951) [P] Wittgenstein attempts to reduce knowledge and language to
mathematical logic. He falls in part along with Russell & Co. in
positivism, but more with psychology and irrationalism
Work: Wittgenstein's Lectures, 1932 - 35, Edited by Alice Ambrose
Source:Blackwell, 1979
Extent: 1932-33 Lecture notes, pp2 - 40;
Biology
Helmholtz, Hermann
(1821 - 1894);
Work: The Facts of Perception (1878)
Source: Selected Writings of Hermann Helmholtz, Wesleyan University Press
Extent: Whole speech, barring inrtoductory paragraphs and appendices.
Haeckel, Ernst
1834 - 1919; excerpt deleted from collection
Work: The Riddle of the Universe (1897)
Source: Thinkers Library No. 3, Watts and Co., 1929; scanned.
Extent: First Chapter.
Lorenz, Konrad
Work: On Aggression (1963)
Source:University Paperback.
Extent: Chapter 12.
Monod, Jacques T>
Work: Chance and Necessity
Source:Collins, 1970
Extent: Part of final Chapter.
Skinner, B F
Work: Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior (1989)
Source:Merrill Publishing Company
Extent: One Chapter.
* Charles Darwin, (1809 - 1882) [P];
More representatives of the "social-biologists":
* Robert Ardrey, Territorial Imperative,
1961, reactionary implications
of this tendency very explicit here amidst the charming animals
stories;
* Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape, more
of the same reactionary stuff, may
not be worthwhile;
Physics
Poincare, Henri
(1854 - 1912), [P] French mathematician and physicist, independently
anticipated special relativity. Conventionalism;
Work: The Relativity of Space
Source: Science & Method (1897)
Extent: Complete article.
Mach, Ernst
1838 - 1916; [P]
Work: The Analysis of Sensations (1897)
Source: Dover Edition, 1959, translation by C M Williams and Sydney
Waterlow; scanned.
Extent: First Chapter.
Peirce, Charles Sanders
1839 - 1914; [P]
Work: How to make our Ideas Clear (1878)
Source: Writings of Charles S Peirce, Volume 3, Indiana University Press
Extent: 3 of 4 parts, excluding Part I.
James, William
1842 - 1910; [P]
Work: What is Pragmatism (1904), from series of eight lectures dedicated to
the memory of John Stuart Mill, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking,
in December 1904
Source: William James, Writings 1902 - 1920, The Library of America;
scanned.
Extent: Lecture II.
Bridgman, Percy
1882 - 1961;
Work: The Logic of Modern Physics (1927)
Source: MacMillan (New York) Edition, 1927; scanned.
Extent: ?
Heisenberg, Werner
1901 - 1976; [P]
Work: Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Source: George Allen and Unwin Edition, 1959; scanned.
Extent: Chapters 2 (history), 3 (Copenhagen interpretation) and 5 (HPS).
Einstein, Albert
[P]
Bohr, Niels
[P] .
Work: Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949)
Source: Cambridge University Press, 1949; scanned.
Extent: Neils Bohr's report of conversations with Einstein and Einstein's
reply.
Brouwer, L E J
[P]
Work: Brouwer's Cambrudge Lectures on Intuitionism (1951)
Source: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Extent: Most of first lecture plus the appendix of fragments.
G�del, Kurt
[P]
Work: Kurt G�del, Collected Works, Volume III (1961)
Source: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Extent: Complete lecture.
Carnap, Rudolph
Work: Philosophical Foundations of Physics (1966)
Source: Basic Books Inc.
Extent: Chapters 23 to 26.
Quine, Willard
(empiricism)[P] ;
Work: The Emergence of Logical Empiricism (1996)
Source: Garland Publishing Inc..
Extent: second half of Qunie's contribution to series.
Hilbert, David
(formalism)[P] ;
Work: The Emergence of Logical Empiricism (1996)
Source: Garland Publishing Inc..
Extent: whole of Hilbert selection for series, minus some inessential
mathematical formalism.
Turing, Alan
(Mechanical Intelligence)[P] ;
Work: Collected Works of A M Turing, Mechanical Intelligence (1996)
Source: Noth Holland, 1992
Extent: whole of article published in quarterly review Mind.
Schlick, Moritz
.founder of Vienaa Circle; [P]
Work: The Emergence of Logical Empiricism (1996)
Source: Garland Publishing Inc..
Extent: whole of Schlick selection for series.
Kuhn, Thomas
. [P]
Work: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
Source: University of Chicago Press, 1962; scanned.
Extent: One chapter plus one postscript.
Popper, Karl
(empiricism)[P] ;
Work: Objective Knowledge (1972)
Source: Clarendon Press
Extent: second last chapter.
Russell, Bertrand
[P] ;
Work: Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (1972)
Source: Routledge
Extent: two articles.
Keynes, John Maynard
(1883 - 1946), English economist, journalist, and financier, best known for
his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935-36),
advocating a remedy for economic recession based on a government-sponsored
policy of full employment.;
Work: A Treatise on Probability (1920)
Source: MacMillan, 1948
Extent: short excerpt.
Friedman, Milton
(b. 1912, U.S.), American laissez-faire economist, and one of the leading
conservative economists in the second half of the 20th-century. Nobel Prize
1976;
Work: Essays in Positive Economics (1953)
Source: University of Chicago Press
Extent: part of one essay.
Feyerabend, Paul
.
Work: Against Method (1975)
Source: Humanities Press.
Extent: Analytical Table of Contents and Conclusing Chapter.
Physicists & Mathematicians
* Max Born, Bohm and V A Fock,
physicists, who contributed towards a
materialist interpretation of quantum theory;
* Richard Feynman ?[P] not much of a
really philosophical kind which is
orginal; and
* Georg Cantor (Platonism) [P] ,
Foundations of a General Theory of
Aggregates, little readable philosophy though;
* Gottlob Frege (logicism) lots
written about him, but not much readable
by Frege. [P];
Positivism & Natural Science:
Genuine natural science, which is inherently and instinctively materialist,
is in a continual struggle against its alienated ghost in the form of
positivism. Gradually materialism gains the upper hand, but to this day
Hegel is unknown to them - they are thoroughly imbued with the Logic of
Aristotle, just as they were with the Geometry of Euclid.
Ludwig Boltzmann: great physicist and warrior against positivism and
inventor of S=klog W! Committed suicide in despair of march of positivism.
There is only collected letters and records of debates with Mach, etc.; I
can't find anything clear and comprehensive enough to convey Boltzmann's
epistemology or his distress over the philosophical confusion reigning in
his day, so I will have to skip him. His letters to Brentano are
interesting;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberation Philosophy
Fanon, Franz
Work: Wretched of the Earth (1959)
Source: Pelican.
Extent: Speech to Congress of Black African Writers.
de Beauvoir, Simone
[P]
Work: The Second Sex (1949)
Source: Pelican.
Extent: Introduction.
Millett, Kate
Work: Sexual Politics (1969)
Source: Granada Publishing.
Extent: Second Chapter, Theory of Sexual Politics.
Firestone, Shulasmith
Work: The Dialectic of Sex (1949)
Source: The Women's Press, 1979.
Extent: First Chapter.
Spender, Dale
Work: Man Made Language (1980)
Source: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Extent: Introduction.
Cornell, Drucilla
Work: Transformations (1991)
Source: Routledge, 1993.
Extent: First Chapter and half second.
Nicholson, Linda
Work: Gender & History (1986)
Source: Columbia University Press.
Extent: First Chapter, Contemporary Women's Movement and Chapter on Karl
Marx.
Also, "Liberation Epistemology" - input from Black liberation and women's
liberation movments which are not always easy to hang on a particular
"famous philosopher". Here we have a struggle as well. Not "everything
goes" in the fight against the ideology of the oppressor, and there is more
than one kind of oppression and consciousness. Thus, within women's
liberation and national liberation, there is a struggle between the classes
in ideological form taking place (4).
* US Black Civil Rights movement
(?) - Malcolm X, Stokeley Carmichael
(Black Power), Hughie Newton;
* Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History, socialist feminist ?;
Sociology & Linguistics Biographies - Mathematics
& Physics Biographies -
Psychology Biographies - Socialist-humanist Biographies - Liberation
Biographies - Socialist Biographies - Philosophy Biographies - Stalinist
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Materialism - My Home Page - Hegel by Hypertext - Stalinism, Its Origin &
Future - Marxist Classics - 1841: Historic Split in Western Philosophy