Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/642

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620 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. Monistic Theory of Knozvledgc, 1882), and R. von Schubert- ^Qt<c {Foundations of a Theory of Knoivledge, 1884; On the Transcendence of Object and Subject, 1882; Foundations for an Ethics, 1887). J. Bergmann * in Marburg (born 1840) occupies a kindred position. It is the same scientific spirit of the time, which in the fifties led many who were weary of the idealistic specula- tions over to materialism, that now secures such wide dis- semination and so widespread favor for the endeavors of the neo-Kantians and the positivists or neo-Baconians, who desire to see metaphysics stricken from the list of the sciences and replaced by noetics, and the theory of the world relegated to faith. The philosophy of the present, like the pre-Socratic philosophy and the philosophy of the early modern period, wears the badge of physics. The world is conceived from the standpoint of nature, psychical phenomena are in part neglected, in part see their incon- venient claims reduced to a minimum, while it is but rarely that we find an appreciation of their independence and co-ordinate value, not to speak of their superior position. The power which natural science has gained over philosophy dates essentially from a series of famous discoveries and theories, by which science has opened up entirely new and wide outlooks, and whose title to be considered in the formation of a general view of reality is incontestable. To mention only the most prominent, the following have all posited important and far-reaching problems for phil- osophy as well as for science : Johannes Miiller's (Miiller died 1858) theory of the specific energies of the senses, which Helmholtz made use of as an empirical con- firmation of the Kantian apriorism; the law of the conser- vation of energy discovered by Robert Mayer (1842, 1850 " Helmholtz, 1847, 1862), and, in particular, the law of the transformation of heat into motion, which invited an examination of all the forces active in the world to test their mutual convertibility; the extension of mechanism

  • Bergmann : Outlines of a Theory of Consciousness, 1870 ; Pure Logic, 1879 ;

Being and Knowing, 1880; The Fundamental Problems of Logic, 1882 ; On the Right, 1883 ; Lectures on Metaphysics, 1886 ; On the Beautiful, 1887 • His' tory of Philosophy, yo. '., Pre-Kantian Philosophy, 1892.