Günter Gawlick Livres

Die Bände konzentrieren sich auf die europäische Tradition und lassen den konzisen Einleitungen jeweils umfangreiche Auszüge aus Originaltexten folgen, die nicht nur für die verschiedenen Epochen, sondern auch für die verschiedenen systematischen Teilgebiete der Philosophie repräsentativ sind. Nur wer sich auf Quellenlektüre einlässt, wird die komprimierten Sekundärtexte der verschiedenen Darstellungen der Geschichte der Philosophie mit Gewinn zur Hand nehmen. Das deutlich zu machen, ist nicht das kleinste Verdienst dieser Reihe. Rheinischer Merkur

The index is based on the Latin text of the historical-critical bilingual edition of the ›Metaphysica‹ (FMDA I,2). Baumgarten’s language has been dealt with in accordance with the standards provided in section III of the FMDA. Since Kant used Baumgarten’s ›Metaphysica‹ as a basis for his lectures on this subject for more than four decades, the index also provides the first philologically reliable basis for the study of the origins of Kant’s philosophical language development in this field. Baumgarten’s own Germanizations of key Latin terms, which he included in his work starting with the fourth edition in 1757, have been compiled in a separate index.

In addition to the analysis of Wolff‹s language in this work, there are separate indexes in which the philosophical disciplines mentioned by Wolff, among other things, have been compiled. These also list his self-references which pervade the text and give it extraordinarily great depth of argumentation. Based on the material made available in the index, the introduction makes some deductions in regard to Wolff‹s mainly philosophical intentions, thus showing how the studies of language statistics can be of use for the consolidation of the interpretation as well as for the interpretation of new aspects of a philosophical work.

In the 18th century there was a surprisingly large amount of interest in the thinker, author and human being David Hume (1711–1776), and this interest reflected the entire range of requirements and goals of the German Enlightenment. To begin with, the focus was on Hume‹s theories of the philosophy of religion, theories which were rejected without exception and often only polemically repudiated. Just when there was a chance of having an objective assessment of Hume‹s work, Kant revolutionized philosophy, and Hume was seen merely as the factor which triggered Kant‹s metaphysics. The controversial question of when and in which of his works Hume interrupted Kant's dogmatic slumber is brought to a head, and thus at the same time a new theory pertaining to Kant's philosophical development is presented.