Gustav Theodor Richter (1886 - ?) Spinozas philosophische terminologie
Daar bij meerdere lemma’s in The Continuum Compendium to Spinoza verwezen wordt naar het boek van Gustav Theodor Richter, waardoor redactie en auteurs zich kennelijk hebben laten inspireren, ging ik op zoek naar wat meer gegevens over dit werk:
G.T. Richter, Spinozas philosophische Terminologie historisch und immanent kritisch untersucht. Abt. I Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Leipzig, J.A. Barth, 1913, 170 pp.
Het was de handelsuitgave van het boek waarop Richter een jaar eerder in Berlijn promoveerde, zodat er bij Hathi Trust ook een exemplaar met “Berlin, 1912” vermeld staat. [cf Hathi Trust en Hathi Trust]
Dr. K.H.E. de Jong schreef in Spinoza en de Stoa [Mededeelingen van wege het Spinozahuis, Brill, 1939, p. 9] “dat hoe veel er ook over Spinoza is geschreven, toch het meest onmisbare, zij het dan tevens het nuchterste nog ontbreekt, nl. een goed Spinoza-lexikon waarin voornamelijk de philosophische uitdrukkingen behoorlijk worden toegelicht. G.Th Richter heeft in "Spinoza's philosophische Terminologie" (1913) hiermee op een niet onverdienstelijke wijze een begin gemaakt; dit werk is echter, zoover ons bekend, onvoltooid gebleven." Ik had deze opmerking eerder in een blog van 24 maart 2011.
Robert Schnepf noteert in Metaphysik im ersten Teil der Ethik Spinozas [Volume 4 van Schriften der Spinoza-Gesellschaft. Königshausen & Neumann, 1996, in: Anm. 4, S. 13]: „Der Arbeit von Richter, Spinozas philosophische Terminologie, Leipzig 1913, verdanke ich zahllose wertvolle Hinweise, wenn ich ihm auch nicht immer zustimmen kann - vgl. unten, S. 17. Anm. 11.“ [books.google]
In The Philosophical review van 1914 die bij archive.org wordt aangeboden, is de volgende recensie te vinden die enige indruk over het boek kan bieden (ik heb het OCR wat gefatsoeneerd):
Spinozas Philosophische Terminologie. Von GUSTAV THEODOR RICHTER. Leipzig, Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1913. pp. 170.
This work is based upon the assumption that a determination of the meaning of Spinoza's terms in their historical setting is an indispensable preliminary to the understanding of his philosophy. Because of the lack of such linguistic investigation, commentators have disagreed and Spinoza has been misrepresented. It is true that Spinoza himself is to a certain extent accountable for this vague and erroneous interpretation, in that he gives new meanings to traditional terms, modifies the meaning of his own terms in the course of his literary activity, adapts his language to his varying audiences, and softens it to prevent offense. Nevertheless much confusion could have been avoided if the method of this volume had been earlier pursued. The terms here treated are those of the ontology: attributum, attributa infinita, in se, per se, a se, esse, concipi, substantia, modus, modificatio, accidens, affectio, modi infiniti, res fixes et aeternae. The author carefully distinguishes the senses in which these words have been used from the time of Aristotle on, with particular reference to their signification in the period of Scholasticism. The investigation is minute, and yet sane, controversial, and yet constructive. At times the discussion seems unjustifiably subtle; e. g., regarding the synthetic or analytic relation of attribute to Substance and the bearing upon this problem of the three verbs, exprimere, explicare, constituere, or again, the differentiation of the logical and ontological relations of attribute to Substance. All this seems more suited to such an involved material as Scholasticism, of which the author is a profound student, than to the broader and more practical propositions of Spinoza. Yet the author anticipates just such criticism in the final paragraph of Chapter I where he admits that his results are often not conclusive because of Spinoza's own unresolvable ambiguity, that many of the problems he has considered doubtless never occurred to Spinoza, and reminds us that Spinoza's purpose was primarily ethical, and not logical. (Again the analysis of in se, per se, and a se, is pushed to a bewildering minuteness, yet the term per se concipi is asserted to be used quite generally, without any nuance. Apparently, detail is not offered gratuitously.) Again, if the parallelism of simul, postia, and statim in a passage in Geulincx with the same words in a passage on the same subject in Spinoza seems an absurdly slight argument for a connection between the two, one must recall the prefatory remark that the case has been already established by substantial arguments and that these points are but small additions. Taken as a whole, this interesting argument for the influence of Geulincx upon Spinoza is convincing. The criticism is natural that if the author is conscious of his own occasional over-subtlety and has at his command enough really significant arguments, he might have spared himself and the reader some of the detail. But the answer would seem to be that only by such painstaking elaborateness is he able to settle long-standing disputes and to make solid an accurate interpretation. The frequency of controversial digression is defensible on similar grounds. The interpretation of attribute as the realization of the formal essence of Substance in some concrete material could scarcely be established without reference to various disputed questions. Similarly, it is evident that no one definite conception of Substance, of the relation of mode to Substance, of the ' fixed and eternal things ' mentioned in the Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding, could be maintained without disposing of various dissenting opinions. Many of the views given are unconventional, and even in a measure original, but it would be difficult to refute a position which rests upon an exceptionally thorough knowledge of Spinoza, his historical back-ground, and the important commentaries, and which adduces as proofs seven hundred and sixty four exact references for one hundred and twenty one pages of matter. The book is a highly special, but in its field, an eminently valuable, piece of research.
KATHERINE EVERETT GILBERT.
In: The Philosophical review, [LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. NEW YORK AND LANCASTER] VOLUME XXIII 1914 [van hier]
En wie is de recensente ‘dan wel helemaal’? Over haar is het volgende te vinden:
Katherine Everett Gilbert (1886 - 1952) studeerde history of philosophy. Ze werd gerenormeerd op het terrein van de esthetica. Zij publiceerde:
Ÿ Maurice Blondel's Philosophy of Action, 1924 Ÿ Studies in Recent Aesthetics, 1927 Ÿ A History of Esthetics, 1939 [Kuhn, Helmut] Ÿ Aesthetic Studies, 1952
