Some German influences in American philosophical thought from 1800-1850

• Main Author: Haag, Alvin Samuel
• Language: en_US
• Published: Boston University 2016
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2144/19634

Thesis (Ph.D)--Boston University === For more than one hundred and fifty years, German cultural influences have been at work in American thought. One of the more significant German factors in American intellectual development was the philosophy founded by Immanuel Kant, and brought to universal influence by Hegel, and other Post-Kantians. It was the purpose of this dissertation to investigate and evaluate the German philosophical influences as they are traceable in our native speculation during the first half of the nineteenth century. The approach was by way of the literary remains of the period, with an interest in general evidences of German philosophy at work, as well as in the definite case studies of American philosophers, most under the sway of the ideas of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, or their adherents and critics. The plan of research divided the nation into three cultural areas, in which Philadelphia, New York, and Boston served as centers of philosophical development and expression. The sources of the study were chiefly philosophical themes, all written during, or with reference to, the period under consideration. Philosophy was taken to be a search for total truth about experience. The conception is distinguished by its interest in logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, axiology, religion, and politics. [TRUNCATED]