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Philosophical Review Die Ethischen Grundfragen by Theodor Lipps Review by: F. C. French The Philosophical Review, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jul., 1900), pp. 450-451 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2176338 . Accessed: 16/05/2014 12:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 194.29.185.135 on Fri, 16 May 2014 12:58:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Die Ethischen Grundfragenby Theodor Lipps

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Page 1: Die Ethischen Grundfragenby Theodor Lipps

Philosophical Review

Die Ethischen Grundfragen by Theodor LippsReview by: F. C. FrenchThe Philosophical Review, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jul., 1900), pp. 450-451Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2176338 .

Accessed: 16/05/2014 12:58

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Philosophical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.135 on Fri, 16 May 2014 12:58:22 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Die Ethischen Grundfragenby Theodor Lipps

450 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [VOL. IX.

paradigm of 'perceptual' experience a 'conceptual abstract.' To leave it quite undescribed is to expose it to the chief objections that are urged against a thing-in-itself. When the author says, " I can receive a sense- impression without recognizing it, or a sense-impression does not involve consciousness " (p. 45, cf. p. I02), the reader may feel that the choice between a ' thing' that exists apart from experience, and an ' impression' that exists apart from consciousness, is a choice between the wolf and the wolf in sheep's clothing. Only a failure to grasp the historical motives for a ' metaphysical fetish' could make it possible for one to laugh the ' thing' out of countenance and invite the I in-itselfness' to join in the chorus.

EDGAR A. SINGER, JR.

Die ethischen Grundfragen. Zehn Vortrdge von THEODOR Lipps. Theil- weise gehalten im Volkshochschulverein zu MUnchen. Hamburg, und Leipzig, Verlag von Leopold Voss, i899.-pp. 308.

This course of lectures contains in outline a system of ethics worked out from the perfectionist point of view, and largely dominated by the spirit of Kant. Regard for what we have, and what we are; and, by sympathy, re- gard for what others have, and what they are, give us the four essentially independent and basal motives of conduct-egoism, self-respect, altruism, and respect for others. As psychological factors all motives are good. The object of our moral judgment is, however, not a motive as such, but the relation of motives, or the relative energy of their effect in us. Thus, the pleasure in cruelty is, like the feeling for tragedy, dependent on a defi- nite relation of the effect of the pleasure and displeasure elements. " I Cru- elty arises and can arise only when the displeasure at the pain of the victim ( i. e., sympathy), is small in comparison with the pleasure in the conscious- ness of power" ( p. 53 ). All that is positive in man is good. " Not the willing of man is evil, but his not willing." Just as in the intellectual realm, the single experience always contains an element of truth, and it is only the judgment which is a relation between experiences that can be false, so the single motive in itself is good, and it is only in relation to others that evil can arise. Such parallels as this between the intellectual and the prac- tical are a favorite devise with the author, and sometimes give him support for his argument which is more apparent than real. Thus the question as to the existence of an absolute morality is answered by pointing to our con- viction in a universally valid truth in physics, despite the errors of the past and the unsettled problems of the present.

Utilitarianism and eudemonism, or the ethics of happiness, are criticized for placing the higher value upon what we have, rather than upon what we are. A moral disposition is what gives a man moral worth. Moral worth is nothing else than worth of personality. "IAll values which we know are either values for man or values of man. And the latter are the moral values" (p. 132).

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Page 3: Die Ethischen Grundfragenby Theodor Lipps

No. 4.] NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 451

Perhaps the most valuable feature of the book is the keen psychological analysis that is displayed throughout. Especially interesting is the use made of the element of sympathy in aesthetics to show that the altruistic sentiments are radically distinct from the egoistic. When practical ques- tions are touched upon it is always in an elevated and inspiring spirit-e. g., the discussion of educational ideals, of the family, and of the woman-ques- tion. On the last topic it is urged that just because woman is different from man, she has different interests, and is thus entitled to political repre- sentation by her own sex.

The style is clear and compact, and the sentences short. While the reas- oning is clear, and the analyses perhaps at times over-refined, the presen- tation is always so straightforward and free from all encumbering tehnicalities and pedantries as to adapt the work to the general reader who is inter- ested in ethical reflections.

F. C. FRENCH.

L'kducation des sentiments. Par FELIX THOMAS, Professeur de philo- sophie au lycee de Versailles. Paris, Alcan, I899.-pp. 287. The general standpoint of this work is essentially the same as that of

Ribot's Psychologie des sentiments. Will is the fundamental fact to which the life of feeling must be referred. To a perfectly passive being every- thing would be indifferent, nothing would be agreeable or disagreeable. Activity is thus the condition without which pleasure and pain would not exist. The instincts, appetites, and emotions are still more closely related to will, for they simply represent the definite tendencies to action which are determined by the constitution of the individual's particular nature. As such, they may be called ' inclinations.' They can best be classified ac- cording to the end to which they are directed, and may, therefore, be di- vided into ' personal, ' ' social,' and ' ideal ' inclinations. The personal in- clinations have their source in self-love, or the desire for self-preservation. They include the bodily appetites, fear, anger, the desire for independ- ence, the property instinct, and amour jhrojhre, which implies the sense of, personal dignity. Under the head of 'social inclinations,' come love friendship, love of country, pity, emulation. The selfish and social ten- dencies are both subordinate to the ideal inclinations. "The true, the beautiful, and the good, is the triple ideal towards which all the forces of our being are inevitably attracted." In the case of the ideal inclinations, too, the element of subordination enters. The good is superior to truth and beauty; it completes and dominates them. The particular tendencies to activity, therefore, constitute a species of hierarchy. The particular ends of the special faculties are all subordinate to the end of the organized being as such, which is expressed in the ethical tendency.

Since feeling in all its phases is so closely connected with conduct, it is evident that the education of the feelings is at least as important as the training of the intellect. To indicate the rules which should be observed in

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