/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15838593]

Why are there so many good philosophy books from Germany? Sure, they have the highest population in Euope, but even per capita they're dominating every other country in the world. And it's not just a period like e.g. Russian 19th century literature. It's a never-ending tradition starting with Leibniz in the 17th century and it's very diverse as well. Sure, France has a bunch of philosophers too but they're relatively weak when you compare them.

leibniz, wolff, kant, fichte, schelling, hegel, schopenhauer, herbart, marx, nietzche, stirner, frege, heidegger, arendt...
Also if you count austria: wittgenstein, popper, vienna circle, hayek, husserl, godel, von mises

So what's the deal?

[Anonymous No.15838601]

[Anonymous No.15838611]

>>15838601

[Anonymous No.15838615]

Germany wasn’t a unified state until very recently. This created a diverse landscape of various ways of behaving and thinking, which leads to more ideas, out of which more brilliant ones naturally rise to the surface

[Anonymous No.15838636]

>>15838593
Germany differs from France in that its philosophers were always systematic. They used to call it being 'scientific'. It might be weird to think of German Idealists that way but they themselves thought of it that way, hence 'Science of Knowledge,' 'Science of Logic,' etc. Kant thought of his work as trying to save science. Marx and Engels thought of their work as 'scientific.' Even people as opposite as Heidegger or Carnap engaged in system-building philosophy.

[Anonymous No.15838658]

>>15838615
How do we know that's the cause and not just a random correlated property of the lands? China kept breaking up but they only had noteworhty philosophers few millennia ago. Northern Italy kept breaking up (Milan, Venice, Naples, Florence, Papal States) but they only had Machiavelli. By your thesis, should you then say Germany should slow down in terms of philosophical output after the German Empire formed in 1871?

[Anonymous No.15838679]

>>15838636
>Kant thought of his work as trying to save science.
What? By Kant's time, science was already down the empirical path with Galileo, Bacon, Newton, etc. Kant was defending rationalism and philosophy and the idea that you may be able to acquire synthetic knowledge by reason. Why would he think he's saving science unless you mean he was equating science with philosophy but the divide was already well underway?

[Anonymous No.15838684]

>>15838593
Europe has several racial types, some are better at philosophy then others, I suspect its primarily the broad headed southern with the occasional back and front bulging northern Germans who created the most philosophy.

France is constraint by it being primarily Celtoromanic with a North Germanic upperclass, which doesnt automatically create the ideal type for philosophy.

[Anonymous No.15838690]

>>15838636
Well why are German philosophers systematic or scientific? Science doesn't come from there

[Anonymous No.15838703]

>>15838684
Anglos created a lot of philosophy too, Roman Empire produced almost no worthwhile philosophy, Greece produced probably the most valuable, Nordics not much, what's the pattern?

[Anonymous No.15838705]

Germany is ancient Greece.

[Anonymous No.15838864]

>>15838705
The style of philosophy is very different

[jesus No.15838881]

>>15838593
deal is in freedom of thought. and it is not only philosophy, music as well. at that time. today germany is cuckistan, like all the west.

[Anonymous No.15838947]

>>15838679
You know it's super basic knowledge that Kant was trying to prove that the synthetic a priori was possible in order to make the Newtonian science of the time 'knowable,' given Hume's attacks on causation and induction? Haven't you wondered what purpose 'community' or 'reciprocity' as one of the 12 categories has? It's there to explain universal gravitation.

[Anonymous No.15839036]

>>15838947
That's very silly to summarize Kant's intentions to those of proving Newtonian science. Hume's attack was very wide-reaching and especially so for philosophy

[Anonymous No.15839063]

>>15839036
It's not silly when Kant says it in his prefaces and introduction dude.

[Anonymous No.15839087]

>>15838703
>Anglos created a lot of philosophy too, Roman Empire produced almost no worthwhile philosophy, Greece produced probably the most valuable, Nordics not much, what's the pattern?
Anglos are basically North Germans, not Scandinavians, so that would make sense, Scadinavians are inferior compared to Danes, North Germans, Dutch and Anglos.

[Anonymous No.15839152]

>>15839087
Franks were originally Germanics from the Low Countries region. Worth noting.

[Anonymous No.15839264]

>>15839063
Post quote from preface. Newton thought time and space were real existences which is exactly what Kant argues against

[Anonymous No.15839277]

>>15839087
Where do Ancient Greeks fit in your theory?

[Anonymous No.15839329]

>>15839264
Any time anons do this you can tell they are lazy pseuds.
B ix
>If reason is to be a factor in these sciences, something in them must be known a priori
B 14
>IN ALL THEORETICAL SCIENCES OF REASON SYNTHETIC A PRIORI JUDGMENTS ARE CONTAINED AS PRINCIPLES
B 17
> Natural science (physics) contains a priori synthetic judgments as principles
B 19
>Now the proper problem of pure reason is contained in the question: How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?
B 20
>How is pure mathematics possible?
>How is pure science of nature possible?
>Since these sciences actually exist, it is quite proper to ask how they are possible; for that they must be possible is proved by the fact they exist.
Kant begins by assuming the sciences are indeed sciences: secure disciplines of knowledge. Then he proceeds to say they must have an a priori element in order to be so certain. He identifies this as synthetic a priori. The question then is: How is the synthetic a priori possible? And that is taken care of in the Critique.
>Newton thought time and space were real existences which is exactly what Kant argues against
Of course dude, and yet Kant accepts Newtonian science all the same. He just renders it phenomenal rather than noumenal, and turns its causation and reciprocity and so forth into transcendental categories obtaining phenomenally rather than between things in themselves.

[Anonymous No.15839520]

>>15839329
Maybe I misunderstood your point; you said:
>Kant was trying to prove that the synthetic a priori was possible in order to make the Newtonian science of the time 'knowable,'
Which I took it to mean that you believe that was Kant's motivation: to save science. Your quotes only show that "saving science" was also thought to be a consequence of his study, not the goal. The goal, which he also states in the preface, is that of clarifying the boundaries metaphysics, previously thought to be "the queen of all sciences." Not a helping hand to Newton or whatever

[Anonymous No.15839596]

>>15838636
Wissenschaft is also used in a broader manner than is "science" in English.

[Anonymous No.15840422]

>>15839152
>Franks were originally Germanics from the Low Countries region. Worth noting.
Thats why French culture declined when those elements became more rare, so you end up with a francoromanoceltic hotchpotch more concerned with fine eating and fashion then art and culture.

>>15839277
>Where do Ancient Greeks fit in your theory?
They dont, but again, we see the same kind of mixture in France with a more North European elite ruling over a more muddy underclass, when the elite mixed, Greek culture fell.

[Anonymous No.15840449]

>>15838593
Lutherian revolution led to an intertwinement of philology and philosophy which was present at every duchery and court in Germany and which then finally came to fruition with the German enlightenement which developed hand in hand with the Humboldt education system, elevating lots of bourgeois citizens into universitary education and access. Everything fell apart during the 20th century though and with the Americanization of university post-WW2 Germany has lost its spirit.

[Anonymous No.15840557]

>>15838864
It's the same.

[Anonymous No.15840633]

>>15840557
How?

[Anonymous No.15841347]

krautism

(unironically)

[Anonymous No.15841378]

>>15840633
Greeks = Germans.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle = Kant, Hegel, Heidegger(Hitler).

[Anonymous No.15841407]

>>15841378
Retarded

[Anonymous No.15841416]

>>15838593
Bad writers need to compensate somehow
On the other hand Nietszche, who is objectively a brainlet, compensated with beautiful prose, which only further proves that bad writers compensate with intelligent ideas

[Anonymous No.15841444]

>>15838593
It was about two centuries instead of 1. It's dead tradition now everywhere

[Anonymous No.15842052]

>>15841444
This

[Anonymous No.15842141]

>>15840422

We can't all have the transcendent heroic life of the Germans.

[Anonymous No.15842320]

>>15838703
>Anglos created a lot of philosophy too
They created bugman political "philosophy" and science.

[detached No.15842419]

It might be also connected to their accurate language structure with strict rules and perfect system. This type of language might influence its speakers by developing their logic and conceptual thinking. Such skills are vital for philosophy, which is quite close to maths.
This lack of linguistic freedom might also lead to the small amount of really good writers as was mentioned previously. Fiction needs flexibility.

[Anonymous No.15842510]

>>15842320
Sorry Hume destroyed "non-bugman" philosophy

[Anonymous No.15842518]

>>15842419
Their language is the product of their autism just like their philosophy

[Anonymous No.15842566]

>>15842510
Hume enabled the philosophy of Kant which gave birth to the greatest philosophical tradition since the ancient Greeks.
Also, Hume wasn't A*glo

[Anonymous No.15842579]

>>15841416
>Bad writers need to compensate somehow
Where are they lacking compared to other major European countries?

[Anonymous No.15842611]

>>15838593
Germans have objectively highest iq in Europe, or had until 1945

[Anonymous No.15842616]

>>15842566
Gave birth to the greatest cope. Also scots are anglos

[Anonymous No.15842719]

>>15842616
>Also scots are anglos
Literally they aren't. Otherwise they'd be called english instead of scots.
>Gave birth to the greatest cope
Still mad that Nietzsche tore a*glos a new asshole?

[Anonymous No.15842801]

>>15840449
Germany still makes cars and knives.

[Anonymous No.15842812]

>>15842419
You've never read German fiction or poetry, have you?

[Anonymous No.15842831]

>>15838593
It's what happens when your culture is too based. Unsurpassed in literature and philosophy and science and engineering.

[Anonymous No.15842839]

>>15842518
English used to have case declensions, several grammatical genders, and a writing system with a high level of phonetic-orthographic correspondece until the N*rmans came around and littered this language with their bastard Latin-derived pidgin influence

[Anonymous No.15842842]

>>15842831
Anglos surpass them in science with newton and industrial revolution.

[Anonymous No.15842857]

>>15842839

IE languages naturally drift from sythetic to analytic. The Scandis have been on the same path as well. So did romance languages as compared to latin.

[Anonymous No.15842874]

>>15840449
>the Americanization of university post-WW2 Germany has lost its spirit.
This. The cultural colonization of American subhumans destroyed intellectual culture in Europe. The philosophy of today is bugmen economics and cancer

[Anonymous No.15842933]

>>15842842
Leibniz>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Newton

[Anonymous No.15842961]

>>15842933
Deluded

[Anonymous No.15843037]

>>15842842
>A*glos
>Surpassing anyone
Your race will disappear within a couple centuries.

[Anonymous No.15843146]

>>15843037
Anglos are eteral. Stay mad

[Anonymous No.15844290]

>>15842961
Coping

[Anonymous No.15844384]

>>15842510
>>15842566
I always find it weird how /lit/ loves Hume but hates someone like Carnap just because logical positivism gets character assassinated by people who haven't read the Aufbau. Carnap in the Aufbau is very influenced by Kant and also anticipating later themes that people credit Quine and the late Wittgenstein for. Even if Carnap wasn't any of those things and was the 'empiricist' he's thought to be, he isn't worse than Hume in any sense. Hume is in certain ways a phenomenalist constructionalist verificationist, there's a point where he says that if there are external objects at all, as a separate existence from the impressions we experience, they must be secondary unseen impressions, because his theory's domain doesn't allow for anything that isn't a perception. And at another point he says you can't separate the (abstract) 'idea' of existence from that of being-a-perception. So Carnap, even when wrongly understood, would be no worse than Hume.

[Anonymous No.15844461]

>>15838593
It could be that the German language is particularly well-suited for describing philosophical concepts.

[Anonymous No.15844756]

Germans have higher IQs than other Europeans