Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
We have to seek for sources of another kind in this than in political
history. There historians are the fountainheads, which again have
as sources the deeds and sayings of individuals; and the historians
who are not original have over and above performed their work at
secondhand. But historians always have the deeds already present
in history, that is to say, here brought into the form of ordinary
conception; for the name of history has two meanings: it signifies
on the one hand the deeds and events themselves, and on the other,
it denotes them in so far as they are formed through conception for
conception. In the history of Philosophy there are, on the contrary,
not any sources which can be derived from historians, but the deeds
themselves lie before us, and these—the philosophic operations
themselves—are the true sources. If we wish to study the history of
Philosophy in earnest, we must go to such springs as these. Yet these
operations form too wide a field to permit of our keeping to it alone
in this history. In the case of many philosophers it is absolutely
necessary to confine oneself to the original authors, but in many
periods, in which we cannot obtain original sources, seeing that they
have not been preserved to us, (as, for instance, in that of the older
Greek philosophy) we must certainly confine our attention simply to
historians and other writers. There are other periods, too, where it is
desirable that others should have read the works of the philosophers
and that we should receive abstracts therefrom. Several schoolmen
have left behind them works of sixteen, twenty-four and twenty-six
folios, and hence we must in their case confine ourselves to the
researches of others. Many philosophic works are also rare and hence
difficult to obtain. Many philosophers are for the most part important
from an historic or literary point of view only, and hence we may
limit ourselves to the compilations in which they are dealt with. The
most noteworthy works on the history of Philosophy are, however, the
following, regarding which I refer for particulars to the summary of
Tennemann’s History of Philosophy, by A. Wendt, since I do not wish to
give any complete list.
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