What Are the Prerequisites for Understanding 20th century Philosophy?

[Hobbes' Choice]

You'd've thanked me. Phil is a cigar not a ciggarette.

WHo's Phil?
According to Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I prefer a pipe.

[Obvious Leo]

Philosophy is not a footnote to Plato in any meaningful sense. Plato is mostly moribund and ossified.

Since you ordinarily express your views far more stridently this is an uncharacteristically restrained comment from you, Hobbes, so I'll take the liberty of translating it into the modern parlance for you. Platonist philosophy is a crock of mystical horseshit which has polluted over two millennia of philosophical thought with disastrous consequences.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Philosophy is not a footnote to Plato in any meaningful sense. Plato is mostly moribund and ossified.

Since you ordinarily express your views far more stridently this is an uncharacteristically restrained comment from you, Hobbes, so I'll take the liberty of translating it into the modern parlance for you. Platonist philosophy is a crock of mystical horseshit which has polluted over two millennia of philosophical thought with disastrous consequences.

I agree. What little is of worth in Plato is only hinted at by his record of his own mentor Socrates who sadly wrote nothing down.

[Obvious Leo]

The Allegory of the Cave is a useful little parable but it only makes sense when understood from a Kantian perspective, which of course is the antithesis of Platonism.

[Hobbes' Choice]

The Allegory of the Cave is a useful little parable but it only makes sense when understood from a Kantian perspective, which of course is the antithesis of Platonism.

It is interesting that Kant used Platonic terminology here. My view and the view of most people was that he was deliberately challenging Plato.
But an article in this very magazine earlier this year had an article that claimed we had been reading Plato all wrong and that he was making the same argument as Kant. I think not.

The key problem with Plato is that he makes a massive assumption that the world is a creation and so all logos is a phenomenon devised by the mind of god. Us mere mortals struggle to unpack the "REAL" meaning of words; perfect chairs are created in the mind of god and our attempts to make them are approximations.

Kant comes from the opposite direction; a Copernican turn. The noumenal world is only partially seen by our limited perception, never realised. But you can see how the realm of Forms could be seen as another way of looking at the idea of the Noumenon.

[Obvious Leo]

My view and the view of most people was that he was deliberately challenging Plato.

I agree. There's no way that Kant's Noumenon could be mistaken for Plato's Forms but Platonism was still very much the prevailing philosophical stance in Kant's era so it's unsurprising that many would detect an analogy when no real analogy exists.

But you can see how the realm of Forms could be seen as another way of looking at the idea of the Noumenon.

Very much so, which is why I referred to the Cave story as a useful insight into the Kantian metaphysic. However Plato's Forms are explicitly defined as being of transcendent origin whereas Kant's Noumenon is formally based on the Leibnizian and Spinozan traditions of immanent cause. There is an interesting parallel to be found here with modern physics, where David Bohm, perhaps the most insightful quantum theorist of them all, spoke of implicate and explicate order.

[Dubious]

Addressing the question directly, it's not only philosophers but also the science and events which preceded the 20th century, namely the 19th which more than any preceding period caused a re-calibration of thought in the 20th. Much of 20th century philosophy can be traced back to the 19th. This includes the likes of Darwin, Nietzsche, Marx, etc. You won't really understand any philosophy if you only study philosophers.

Not least, considerable influence on the 20th century - especially its first half - extends both historically and philosophically to those seldom mentioned nowadays like Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Understanding to some extent, the historical tableaux is fundamental to understanding any derived philosophies.

[Ansiktsburk]

:
I did read somewhere that because S.Kierkergaard examined "existentially" MH decided to examine "existentielly" - Maybe this encapsulates the difference but then what does EXISTENTIELL mean?

I can read your question in two ways.
The scandinavian(Danish is the uncouth variant) word means would mean maybe something less centered on the dasein himself, but existence in general.
Secondly, I would say that both brat Sörens and the old nazis versions are quite centered on the individual human. Which is a little funny, since they both depended so much on other people. Never understood why the guy who wrote Sein und Zeit flung himself into the Nazi party right from the beginning when Hitler came to power.

By the way, nazis, communists and WW's are extremely important to keep in mind when you read any 20 century phil. To understand the philosophy you have to know 19 and 20 centuty history.

But to really answer the question, there must be some map of who inspired who?

[Hobbes' Choice]

:
I did read somewhere that because S.Kierkergaard examined "existentially" MH decided to examine "existentielly" - Maybe this encapsulates the difference but then what does EXISTENTIELL mean?

I can read your question in two ways.
The scandinavian(Danish is the uncouth variant) word means would mean maybe something less centered on the dasein himself, but existence in general.
Secondly, I would say that both brat Sörens and the old nazis versions are quite centered on the individual human. Which is a little funny, since they both depended so much on other people. Never understood why the guy who wrote Sein und Zeit flung himself into the Nazi party right from the beginning when Hitler came to power.

By the way, nazis, communists and WW's are extremely important to keep in mind when you read any 20 century phil. To understand the philosophy you have to know 19 and 20 centuty history.

But to really answer the question, there must be some map of who inspired who?

Inspiration is not linear, and Keirkergaard is not in any sense that matter Scandinavian. National boundaries are not relevant.

M H was a survivor, and a social climber. Attachment to the Nazi party was necessary to keep his social standing. Being an individualist is not incompatible with being part of an authoritarian group, because guile, cunning, and self deception are some of the useful traits of the self possessed; so flinging yourself into the Nazi party is an act of self preservation and self promotion at the same time. It demonstrated an utter disregard for the fortunes of his fellow country men, and the neighbouring countries that Germany was crushing: perfect self regard.

[Ansiktsburk]

:
I did read somewhere that because S.Kierkergaard examined "existentially" MH decided to examine "existentielly" - Maybe this encapsulates the difference but then what does EXISTENTIELL mean?

I can read your question in two ways.
The scandinavian(Danish is the uncouth variant) word means would mean maybe something less centered on the dasein himself, but existence in general.
Secondly, I would say that both brat Sörens and the old nazis versions are quite centered on the individual human. Which is a little funny, since they both depended so much on other people. Never understood why the guy who wrote Sein und Zeit flung himself into the Nazi party right from the beginning when Hitler came to power.

By the way, nazis, communists and WW's are extremely important to keep in mind when you read any 20 century phil. To understand the philosophy you have to know 19 and 20 centuty history.

But to really answer the question, there must be some map of who inspired who?

Inspiration is not linear, and Keirkergaard is not in any sense that matter Scandinavian. National boundaries are not relevant.

M H was a survivor, and a social climber. Attachment to the Nazi party was necessary to keep his social standing. Being an individualist is not incompatible with being part of an authoritarian group, because guile, cunning, and self deception are some of the useful traits of the self possessed; so flinging yourself into the Nazi party is an act of self preservation and self promotion at the same time. It demonstrated an utter disregard for the fortunes of his fellow country men, and the neighbouring countries that Germany was crushing: perfect self regard.

For the scandinavian part, I just wanted to make sure...
Regarding the Nazi motives for MH - well, we will never know for sure, of course. One takes ones motives along into the grave. Another version might be that he wasn't that selfish after all, that he was dragged into the feeling of german comeback, Germany returning to glory. I guess he didn't see much SA troops in the academical quarters of Freiburg in '33.
Well, nobody had to twist his arm. The jewish comments in the black books didn't say too much, though. I have heard the same things being said by people who was born in kibbutzes and who took part in the Yom Kippur war. On the winning side. Wittgenstein didn't give much for jewish elitism either btw.

What happends in the world around you affects you. If you read Russell's history of philosophy, not too long after, you will not find too many superlatives regarding german philosophers, and Nietzsche was the lowest of them all...

[Jaded Sage]

Also, I caution looking for shortcuts. You end up reducing philosophy to a bunch of opinions. That's foolish.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Also, I caution looking for shortcuts. You end up reducing philosophy to a bunch of opinions. That's foolish.

You'd know!!! LOL

[Arising_uk]

Being able to read.

[Obvious Leo]

If you read Russell's history of philosophy, not too long after, you will not find too many superlatives regarding german philosophers,

I agree with Russell. In my view Leibniz and Kant were outstanding exceptions but after that they were just a gang of long-winded political sycophants who were uniformly unreadable and excruciatingly boring.

[Jaded Sage]

If you wanted to you could just skip the rest of ancient and read Euthyphro and Apology.

http://youtu.be/FJt7gNi3Nr4