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1. The term “historicism,” now used mostly in a critical sense, still had positive significance in the mid-19th century. Thus it could denote a philosophy that, following G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831; Hegelianism), viewed world history as a realization of the absolute (C. J. Braniss). It then soon became a polemical title for Hegel’s own philosophy of history (R. Haym), for the historical school of law (I. H. Fichte), and finally for a concept of human life oriented primarily to historical facts and contexts. Critics of historicism did not dispute the historicity of this life but …

[English Version] (kaum vor 510 – nach 450 v.Chr.). Vom Leben dieses neben Heraklit wichtigsten Denkers vor Sokrates und Plato ist nur seine Heimat, das in Süditalien gelegene Elea, bekannt. Hingegen ist seine Philos. gut überliefert; das in Hexametern vf. Gedicht, in dem er sie darstellt, ist v.a. durch Zitate bei Simplikios in großen Teilen erhalten. P. ist der Entdecker der Einheit des Seienden. Damit ist keine Einheit gemeint, die dem Seienden von außen zukommt; vielmehr ist sie unmittelbar mit dem Sinn von »seiend« (ε᾿ο´n̆/eo´n) gegeben: Alles muß als seiend gedacht und a…

[English Version] Nietzsche, Friedrich (15.10.1844 Röcken bei Leipzig – 25.8.1900 Weimar). N. ist die philos. Schlüsselfigur für das Verständnis der Moderne. Wie kein anderer vor ihm hat er den Traditionsbruch seiner Zeit diagnostiziert und dessen Konsequenzen bedacht. Das Ge…

[English Version] als substantivierter Infinitiv bez. in der Philos. die Bedeutung des Ausdrucks »sein«, und zwar auch in seinen flektierten Formen. Wer nach dem S. fragt…

[English Version] (470 oder 469 Athen – 399 ebd.) ist die maßgebliche Gestalt des Philosophen. In S. verkörpert sich der Gesprächscharakter des Denkens, die Möglichkeit also, Gedanken so zu artikulieren, daß sie nicht mehr – wie bei den »vo…

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[English Version] (ca.427 Athen – 347 v.Chr. ebd.) Erst seit P. existiert eine philos. Tradition im eigentlichen Sinne. P. hat die verschiedenen Ansätze philos. Denkens vor ihm aufgenommen und zu einem einheitlichen Gedankenzusammenhang gefügt. Dabei wurden Mythos und Dichtung einbezogen, dichterische Motive und Ausdrucksformen übernommen und zur Artikulation von etwas ganz Neuem fruchtbar gemacht. P.s Werk ist, mit F. Nietzsche gesagt, »der Kahn, auf dem sich die schiffbrüchige ältere Poesie samt al…

[English Version] Substanz, von lat. substantia, ist allg. das Gleichbleibende im Kontrast zum Wechsel seiner Zustände und Eigenschaften, die im Hinblick auf die S. als Akzidentien bez. werden. Es ist das, was als Gleichbleibendes seine Eigenschaften trägt. Das kommt auch in der Bedeutung des Wortes zum Ausdruck: Substantia (gebildet vom Verb substare) ist wörtl. das Standhaltende und Darunterseiende; accidens (Partizip Präsens des Verbs accidere) ist das Anfallende oder Eintretende. Im philos. Sprachgebrauch stehen substantia und accidens i. allg. für die Ausdrücke …

[German Version] is a term, analogous to “fundamental philosophy” and “fundamental theology,” coined by M. Heidegger in order to characterize the philosophical program of his main work Sein und Zeit (1927; ET: Being and Time). Heidegger was concerned with clarifying the possibility of ontology; only when this has been worked out can the question of Being, which Heidegger understood as the basic question of Western philosophy, be asked explicitly and without unexplained assumptions. In this spirit, Heidegger points out that all o…

[German Version] (c. 125 – c. 182), rhetorician with philosophical aspirations who was imbued with the ¶ ideas of late Platonism, of the Stoics, and of Cynicism (Cynics). A written work containing lectures (δια…

[German Version] The German Sein, which can be either the infinitive of the verb “to be” or a noun (“being”), is translated by English-language philosophers as “Being” (often capitalized). One who inquires into Being seeks to know what it means for something to exist – whether specifically or in general. In Greek philosophy, which set the terms of this debate, Being in this sense is expressed not only by means of a definite article plus infinitive, το εἶναι/ tóeînai, but also by means of the article plus participle τὸ ὄν/ tò ón (“that which is/exists”). From Plato onwards, the noun οὐσία/ ousía…

[German Version] (design, draft, plan), is a term first used in a philosophically significant way by I. Kant, to designate the productive role of reason with respect to the realm ¶ of what is understandable. In this sense Kant says “that reason only understands that which it produces according to its own design [ Entwurf].” Reason needs to force nature “to answer its questions” instead of allowing itself to “be led, as it were, by the nose,” otherwise there will be no progress beyond …

[German Version] (c. 480, Rome [?] – c. 524, Pavia [?]) is considered the most significant Latin author of Late Antiquity ¶ and one of the most important figures in the mediation of classical philosophy to medieval civilization. His most famous work is De consolatione philosophiae (or Philosophiae c…

[German Version] (Sep 26, 1889, Meßkirch – May 26, 1976, Freiburg im Breisgau). The history of 20th-century philosophy is unthinkable without Heidegger. J.-P. Sartre, E. Lévinas, M. Foucault, and J. Derrida were all strongly influenced by him; his students included, among others, H. Arendt, K. Löwith, H. Jonas, L. Strauss, and H.-G. Gadamer, who played a decisive role in the further development of Heidegger's philosophy. Heidegger is the only philosopher of his century who reflected upon Western p…

[German Version] are terms first attested in F.W.J.Schelling ( Philosophy of Revelation, posthum. 1858) for the nature of the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. The comparison of the two gods and the arts ascribed to them plays a role already in Plato ( Polit. 398c–400c; Nomoi 652a–674c) and is taken up in a manner suited to modern times in F. Nietzsche. According to the explanations in his book on the Geburt der Tragödie (1872; ET: The Birth of Tragedy, 1927), apollonian stands for the limiting, individuating principle of graphic art, while dionysian designat…

[German Version] a Greek philosophical school, believed to have been founded by a student of Socrates named Antisthenes (c. 455–360 bce), but whose truest representative was Diogenes of Sinope (died c. 320 bce). The name derives from Gk kýon, “dog,” an association explained by a comment of Philodem (after 110–40/35 bce) to the effect that the Cynics wanted to imitate a dog's way of life ( Stoicorum Index Herculanensis, ed. D. Comparetti, 1875, 339, 8), by which they meant living without sha…

[German Version] (c. 427 bce, Athens – 347 bce, Athens), marks the beginning of a philosophical tradition in the strict sense. He took the various approaches to philosophical thought of his predecessors and brought them together in a unified intellectual context. Myth and poetry were included; poetic motifs and forms of expression were borrowed and used productively to articulate something ¶ totally new. As F. Nietzsche said, “the Platonic dialogue was the raft . . . on which the earlier poetry rescued itself and all its children from shipwreck” (“Die Geburt der Tragödie,” in: Kriti…

[German Version] (342/341, on Samos – 371/370, Athens) was a Greek philosopher, the founder of a school of philosophy that he understood to be a competitor to the Platonic Academy and the Aristotelian Peripatos. Of his numerous writings – according to Diogenes Laertes 10.28 he left nearly 300 scrolls – only three didactic letters, a collection of 40 Sentences, and a few fragmentary works are preserved. Epicurus's teaching can be reconstructed, however, from the didactic poem of Lucretius, a philosopher in Epicurus's tradition, from the dialogues of Cicero, and from the anti-Epicurean writings of Plutarch. Epicurus took up Democritus's atomism, which he combined with an empirical epistemology and developed into a materialism that left room for human freedom. Epicurus understood his philosophy as an enlightenment concerning natural events intended to liberate people from fear of the gods and of death. According to his ethics, later often misunderstood as an unrestricted plea for a radical hedonism, a life as undisturbed as possible, that is, as remote as possible from the alternation between desire and listlessness, is worthy of pursuit. In contrast to classical Greek philosophy, Epicurus's ethics is individualisti…

[German Version] is derived from Lat. discursus, “running to and fro,” and came to be used as a philosophical term in English and French (and thence also in German, as Diskurs), while “discursive” has been commonly employed as an antonym of “intuitive” since I. Kant. The English “discourse” and the French …

[German Version] (᾿Εποχή/ epochḗ) derives from the Gk verb ἐπέχειν/ epéchein, “to stay,” “to hold back.” The noun epochḗ was originally a term from astrology and there indicated either the position a heavenly body occupied …