The great German idealists from Kant to Hegel saw this idealism or nihilism as a reductio ad absurdum … - Frederick C. Beiser

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Twenty-eight years in business and you understand the importance of problem solving and the importance of efficiency, because if you don't become efficient, you don't run a business well, and you are out of business. And I think some of those principles could be applied to leadership in Washington.

Frederick C. Beiser

The great German idealists from Kant to Hegel saw this idealism or nihilism as a reductio ad absurdum of any philosophy, and so they struggled by all conceptual means to avoid it.

Mean, Nihilism, Philosophy, Struggled

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The struggle against subjectivism was the attempt to avoid the charge of what was then called "idealism" or "nihilism", i. e. , that we know nothing more than our own representations.

Attempt, Idealism, Nihilism, Nothing, Struggle, Subjectivism

The years 1781 to 1793 are crucial for many reasons, but chiefly because they pose in an especially clear way the main problem of German philosophy for the next century. This is the old conflict between reason and faith which recurred during the pantheism controversy between Jacobi and Mendelssohn.

German, Mendelssohn, Philosophy, Problem, Way, Years

That Hegel is a metaphysician, and that he thinks metaphysics is fundamental to philosophy, is plain enough from his definition of philosophy.

Fundamental, Fundamentals, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Plain, Thinking

Since substance is infinite, the universe as a whole, i. e. , god, Hegel is telling us that philosophy is knowledge of the infinite, of the universe as a whole, i. e, god. You cannot get more metaphysical than that. I think that Hegel scholars have to admit this basic fact rather than burying their heads in the sand and trying to pretend that Hegel is concerned with conceptual analysis, category theory, normativity or some such contemporary fad.

Admit, Fact, Philosophy, Telling, Thinking, Trying

All the spookiness comes from giving a contemporary anachronistic sense to terms whose historical meaning is lost to us.

Giving, Historical, Lost, Meaning, Terms