Winding Life Path of ‘Concept’ in the History of Western Philosophy: From the Post-Socratic Era to German Idealism
Keywords:
concept, idea, western philosophy, metaphysics, epistemologyAbstract
Objectives: The answer to the question “What is concept?” is still controversial in related sciences that study concept. For philosophy, concept is the crucial element of conceiving and philosophizing. Philosophy is therefore a discipline that is involved in this controversy. This article does not get involved in such, but aims to investigate the background of “something” that has become the concept as we have come to understood and discussed in the present time.
Methods: The study investigates writings of metaphysical and epistemological issues as the center of concept since the post-Socratic Greek era in the writings of Plato and Aristotle through to the 17th and 19th centuries in the works of continental philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. It then investigates the works of British philosophers, namely Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, and finally the works of German idealism philosophers, namely Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The study also investigates metaphysical and epistemological issues which influence the changing comprehension of “concept.” Moreover, the article investigates semantic alteration of words relating to “concept” and the word “concept” itself in the languages of the above-mentioned philosophers.
Results: The study reveals comprehension of the question “What is concept?” which has been altered by the changing comprehension to metaphysics and epistemology due to the exchanges, arguments within philosophy and other disciplines, and debates on the cooperation between the mind and the language.
Application of this study: The understanding of the question “what is concept? which is based on the understanding of the changes of ideas between metaphysics and epistemology, and the root of the word’s meaning can help us understand other debates in western philosophies which have emerged from such understanding.
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