Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- I 1870–1914
- 1 Positivism, Idealism, and Pragmatism
- 2 Psychology and Philosophy
- 3 Logic, mathematics, and judgement
- 4 Philosophy and the new physics
- 5 The idea of social science
- 6 Ethics, politics, and legal theory
- 7 Philosophy of religion and art
- 24 Sceptical challenges to faith
- 25 The defence of faith
- 26 Art and morality: aesthetics at 1870
- 27 Form and feeling: aesthetics at the turn of the century
- Interlude
- II 1914–1945
- Biobibliographical appendix
- Bibliography
- INDEX
- References
25 - The defence of faith
from 7 - Philosophy of religion and art
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- I 1870–1914
- 1 Positivism, Idealism, and Pragmatism
- 2 Psychology and Philosophy
- 3 Logic, mathematics, and judgement
- 4 Philosophy and the new physics
- 5 The idea of social science
- 6 Ethics, politics, and legal theory
- 7 Philosophy of religion and art
- 24 Sceptical challenges to faith
- 25 The defence of faith
- 26 Art and morality: aesthetics at 1870
- 27 Form and feeling: aesthetics at the turn of the century
- Interlude
- II 1914–1945
- Biobibliographical appendix
- Bibliography
- INDEX
- References
Summary
In the period 1870 to 1914 there emerged new philosophical defences of religious experience and belief and new philosophies of faith. These programmes undertake a critique of the then dominant scientific positivism and its materialist and behaviourist doctrines. They can best be set out in the work of representative thinkers in four different contexts: in France, in Britain and the United States, and in Germany.
THE DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS FAITH IN FRANCE
In France these new spiritualist philosophies trace their beginnings to a number of influential philosophers earlier in the century, such as François-Pierre Maine de Biran (1766–1824). He had argued that the study of human consciousness must begin with the distinctive experience of the human will and its efforts, without which perception, memory, habit, and judgement remain inexplicable. A true philosophy insists on free will and deliberative action, and points to an exigency or need for faith and religion. These interests are later pursued in the work of Emile Boutroux (1845–1921) and Henri Bergson (1859–1941). In his De la contingence des lois de la nature (1874), Boutroux attacks all forms of monistic materialism and determinism. He argues that natural laws alone are, finally, inadequate explanations, as is shown when one moves from the laws of one science to another, for example, from physics to biology to sociology and history. In Ideé de la loi naturelle (1895), Boutroux further argues that the activity of the human mind is holistic, necessarily engaging the entire person, and this activity portends certain spiritual needs that issue in such creative activities as art, morality, and religion.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Philosophy 1870–1945 , pp. 329 - 336Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
References
(1962). ‘The Principles of Dogmatics according to Wilhelm Herrmann’ in Theology and Church, London: SCM Press.Google Scholar
(1976). Die Gottesfrage in der Theologie Wilhelm Herrmann (The Question of God in Wilhelm Herrmann’s Theology), Berlin: Evangelische Verlaganstalt.Google Scholar
(1889). Essai sur les données immédiates de la perception, Paris: Alcan. Trans. 1910 , Time and Free Will, London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
(1896). Matière et mémoire, Paris: Alcan. Trans. 1911 and , Matter and Memory, London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
(1907). L'évolution créatrice, Paris: Alcan. Trans. 1911 , Creative Evolution, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
(1932). Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la réligion, Paris: Alcan. Trans. 1935 and , The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
(1959). Oeuvres (Works), ed. and introduced by . Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
(1893). L'Action. Essai d'une critique de la vie et d'une science de la pratique (Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice), Paris: Alcan. Repr. 1950 in Les Premiers écrits de Maurice Blondel, vol. I, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Trans. 1984 , Action, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
(1896). ‘Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matière d'apologétique et sur la methode de la philosophie dans l'étude du problème religieux’, Annales de philosophie chrétienne 131 and 132. Repr. 1956, Premiers écrits, vol. II. Trans. 1964 and , The Letter on Apologetics and History and Dogma, London: Harvill Press.Google Scholar
(1904). ‘Histoire et dogma: Les lacunes philosophiques de l'exégesé moderne’, La Quinzaine 56. Reprinted 1956, Premiers écrits, vol. II ff. Trans. 1964 and , The Letter on Apologetics and History and Dogma, London: Harvill Press.Google Scholar
(1934). La Pensée (Thought), 2 vols., Paris: Alcan. Reprinted 1948 and 1954, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
(1944–6). La philosophie et l'esprit chrétien (Philosophy and the Christian Spirit), 2 vols., Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
and . (1961). The Argument from Conscience to the Existence of God, Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts.Google Scholar
(1879). De la contingence des lois de la nature, Paris: Alcan. Trans. 1916, The Contingency of the Laws of Nature, Chicago, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
(1980). Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
and Derek (eds.) (1976). The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
(1948). La Philosophie de l'action: Essai sur l'intellectualisme blondélien (The Philosophy of Action: An Essay on Blondelian Intellectualism), Paris: Aubier.Google Scholar
(1990). Doubt and Religious Commitment: The Role of the Will in Newman’s Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
(1965). Metaphysik im Horizont der Theologie Wilhelm Herrmann (Metaphysics in the Horizon of Wilhelm Herrmann’s Theology), Munich: Kaiser Verlag.Google Scholar
(1988). Revelatory Positivism? Barth’s Earliest Theology and the Marburg School, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1965). The Moral Philosophy of Josiah Royce, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1992). Nature Lost? Natural Science and the German Theological Traditions in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
(1879). Die Religion im Verhältnis zum Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit (Religion and Its Relation to Science and Morality), Halle: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
(1886). Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott, Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta. Trans. 1906 , The Communion of the Christian with God, London: Williams and Norgate. From the 4th German edn 1903. Repr. with introduction by . Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971; London, 1972.Google Scholar
(1925). Dogmatik, ed. , Stuttgart: F. A. Perthes. Trans. 1927 and , Systematic Theology, London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
(1966–7). Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie (Writings on Laying the Foundations of Theology), 2 vols., Munich: Kaiser Verlag.Google Scholar
(1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study of Human Behaviour, New York and London: Longmans, Green.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, New York and London: Longmans, Green.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1909). The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to Pragmatism, New York and London: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
(1975–90). The Works of William James, 21 vols., ed. , and , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
(1790). Kritik der Urteilskraft, Berlin: Lagarde und Friederich. Trans. 1952 , The Critique of Judgment, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
(1988). John Henry Newman: A Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press. The fullest account of his life and writings.Google Scholar
(1968). Maurice Blondel: An Introduction to the Man and His Philosophy. Trans. , New York: Sheed and Ward.Google Scholar
(1999). William James and the Metaphysics of Experience, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1995). Das Wesen der Religion und ihr Verhältnis zu Wissenschaft und Sittlichkeit bei Wilhelm Herrmann (The Essence of Religion and Its Relationship to Science and Morality in Wilhelm Herrmann), Frankfurt-on-Main and New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
(1962). ‘Das Axiom des Erlebnisses bei Wilhelm Herrmann’ (The Principle of Experiences in Wilhelm Herrmann), Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 6.Google Scholar
(1845). An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, London: James Toovey. New edn 1989, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
(1852). Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education: Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin, Dublin. New edn 1976, (ed.), The Idea of a University, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
(1864). Apologia Pro Vita Sua, London: Longmans. New edn 1967, (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
(1870). An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, London: Burns, Oates, and Co. New edn 1985, (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1980). Royce’s Voyage Down Under: A Journey of the Mind, Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar
(1935). The Thought and Character of William James, 2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown. Both a biography and a study of James’s thought.Google Scholar
(1975). Liberalism and Tradition: Aspects of Catholic Thought in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1885). The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Repr. New York: Dover, 1983.Google Scholar
(1899–1900). The World and the Individual, 2 vols., New York: Macmillan. Repr. Magnolia, MA: Peter Smith, 1983.Google Scholar
(1913). The Problem of Christianity, New York: Macmillan. Reprinted, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.Google Scholar
(ed.) (1969). The Philosophical Notebook of John Henry Newman, 2 vols., Louvain: Nauwelaerts Publishing House.Google Scholar
, et al. (eds.) (1985). Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, vol. II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chs. 7 and 8.Google Scholar
(1985). ‘William James and Josiah Royce’ in et al. (eds.), Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, vol. II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1996). Heaven’s Champion: William James’s Philosophy of Religion, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
(1963). La métaphysique de Maurice Blondel (The Metaphysics of Maurice Blondel), Paris: Editions du Seuil.Google Scholar
(1974). Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific Naturalism in Late Victorian England, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
(1985). Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, vol. II: 1870–1914, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar