Anna Szyrwińska-Hörig

The article addresses the question of the origins of optimism in the perception of the future and the role that the sense of being in control of reality plays in its formation. This article analyses two models of optimism present in modern and Enlightenment thought: those of Ph.J. Spener and I. Kant. It considers the factors that contribute to optimism, including a sense of control over one’s fate as a result of independence from sub-natural factors (such as God) in shaping the future and a sense of belief that reality is developing in an optimal way.

The paper investigates the systematic connection between Kantian concept of radical evil and radical indeterministic idea of freedom. According to the presented thesis the systematically relevant interpretation of the radical evil concept requires considering not only philosophical ideas Kant`s but also the historic background in which they were formulated. Particularly the specific situation of German philosophic terminology in the 17th and early 18th Century will be acknowledged as one of the most significant factors influencing the development of the radical evil concept. For the sake of methodological precision of the presented analysis, the differentiation between thick and thin concept of evil will be introduced.

Eines der interessantesten Ereignisse aus dem Leben Christian Wolffs war die sog. Causa Wolffiana – der Konflikt zwischen dem Philosophen mit den Vertretern des Halleschen Pietismus. Die unmittelbare Konsequenz dieser Streitigkeit war die amtliche Vertreibung Wolffs aus Halle, die als eine Strafe für den vermeintlichen Atheismus des Philosophen erfolgte. Im Fokus des Textes steht der historische Hintergrund, sowie der systematische Verlauf dieses Konfliktes. Die folgende Untersuchung beginnt mit einer Analyse der Vorgeschichte der Causa Wolffiana an: Es werden die Ursachen der stets anwachsenden Spannung zwischen Wolff und den Pietisten unter Berücksichtigung der subjektiven Perspektiven der beteiligten Parteien erklärt. Weiterhin wird die systematische Dimension des Konfliktes thematisiert: Den inhaltlichen Kern der Streitigkeit bildet der Konflikt zwischen dem deterministischen Charakter der Philosophie Wolffs auf der einen, und der auf der biblischen Konzeption der Wiedergeburt fundierten pietistischen Behauptung der Willensfreiheit auf der anderen Seite. Dies lässt sich insbesondere in der Polemik zwischen Wolff und seinem Hauptgegner Joachim Lange beobachten.

The paper investigates the systematic connection between Kantian concept of radical evil and radical indeterministic idea of freedom. According to the presented thesis the systematically relevant interpretation of the radical evil concept requires considering not only philosophical ideas Kant`s but also the historic background in which they were formulated. Particularly the specific situation of German philosophic terminology in the 17th and early 18th Century will be acknowledged as one of the most significant factors influencing the development of the radical evil concept. For the sake of methodological precision of the presented analysis, the differentiation between thick and thin concept of evil will be introduced.

Anna Szyrwińska geht in ihrem Buch der Frage nach, ob und inwieweit die pietistische Theologie Einfluss auf die Philosophie Immanuel Kants hatte. Ihre historische und systematisch-philosophische Analyse zeigt, dass Kants praktische Philosophie an mehreren Punkten an die pietistische Lehre und vor allem an die Theologie Philipp Jakob Speners anschließt. Weiter ergeben ihre Untersuchungen, dass dies insbesondere für die internalistische Motivationstheorie und die radikal inkompatibilistische Freiheitsvorstellung bei pietistischen Denkern gilt, die sich dann auch bei Kant wiederfinden.

The article examines the coherence of Leibnizian conception of the weakness of will in context of early modern radical indeterminist theories of freedom. In the first step Leibniz’ position to the late scholastic molinistic paradigm of freedom (L. Molina) is explained. After that, the seventeenth-century argumentation strategies for indeterminism concerning the possibility of voluntarily performing morally bad actions against all the reasons (J. Bramhall and P.J. Spener) are presented. Finally, in reference to the presented theories the plausibility of Leibniz’ theory of weakness of will and its connection to freedom understood as ability of performing morally bad actions is examined.

The article investigates the relationship between Leibniz’s and Huygens’ theory of possibility and the principle of conservation of energy. It assumes that their criticisms of Cartesian views concerning those questions as well as their own achievements contributed to the formation of a new metaphysical basis for modern discussions on the freedom of the will. There are especially two problems whose role is crucial in this context, namely the question of God’s knowledge of future conditionals (contingentia futura) and the mind-body distinction.

Hersz Bad (1869–1942) was Kazimierz Twardowski’s student and belonged to the first generation of the Lvov-Warsaw School members. He specialized in the history of philosophy and led a number of remarkable analyses concerning Kant’s philosophy. At the example of his work one may see, how the methodological postulates of the Lvov Warsaw School were fulfilled at the field of historical philosophical investigations. The goal of the paper is to present Bad’s main achievements and to evaluate their meaning from the point of view of the current state of research of Kant’s philosophy. To be reviewed in detail are Bad’s remarks concerning the scientific status of the so called Kant-Laplace Theory as well as the validity of its name.

English title: The Fundations of Normativity by Kant and Spener. In one of the chapters in Conflict of Faculties, Kant presents so-called “Spener’s problem”. Kant refers to the conception of the 17th century theologian Philipp Jakob Spener, concerning the problem of radical moral transformation of individuals. Spener became famous as one of the founders and main exponents of pietistic theology, which in the 18th century became one of the most significant intellectual trends at the University of Königsberg and about which one may assume, that it could influence the evolution of Kantian philosophy. The goal of the article is to compare the main assumptions of Spener’s theology with Kantian theory of moral motivation. The analysis focuses on the possibility of describing the phenomenon of normativity in both conceptions.