The Riddles of the World: Popular Studies in Monistic Philosophy

Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
637K words
Chapters
64

Tags

Foreign Language Books Western Philosophy History of PhilosophyScience EnlightenmentPhilosophy of ScienceNature ObservationMonismIntellectual EnlightenmentWestern ThoughtAcademic MonographIntellectual CommentaryPopular Explanation

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Die Welträtsel: Gemeinverständliche Studien über Monistische Philosophie by HaeckelAuthor: Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919,Language: German, Class: B: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Release Date: May 19, 2019

Editor's review

Die Welträtsel is Ernst Haeckel's study of monistic philosophy written for general readers, in the original German, and a classic public-domain text at the intersection of philosophy and natural science. Haeckel, as a biologist, discusses the "world riddles" of the universe, life, and human consciousness; his prose carries the scientific optimism and polemical tone of the late nineteenth century, with pronounced and often controversial views. Its value lies not in offering conclusions that appear unassailable today but in showing how one era used a scientific framework to respond to fundamental philosophical questions, making it suitable as cross-disciplinary material for the history of science, the history of philosophy, and German reading. It should be read with critical distance: observe how Haeckel constructs his arguments while also noting the limitations of his era and his conceptual slippages. As a Project Gutenberg e-book, it is convenient for searching key terms and comparing different editions, and is suitable for research-oriented browsing rather than light reading.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and preface first to clarify the list of "world riddles" Haeckel discusses and the order of his arguments.
  2. Keep a notebook and record his core claims and dubious arguments by theme for critical review.
  3. Read alongside introductions to the history of science or philosophy, understanding the text in its late-nineteenth-century context.
  4. When encountering key terms, first check the original German meaning, then compare common English or Chinese translations to avoid conceptual misreading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no philosophical background? It is not very suitable for complete beginners. The text deals with philosophical issues such as monism, cosmology, life, and consciousness; the arguments are dense, and it carries the polemical tone of the nineteenth century. Without a basic background in the history of philosophy and science, it is easy to mistake Haeckel's personal claims for universal conclusions; reading an introductory guide first is recommended.
Do Haeckel's views still hold today? This needs to be considered separately. Haeckel was influential in popularizing biology and communicating science, but the monistic system and some inferences in Die Welträtsel bear clear limitations of their era, and later philosophy of science has criticized them extensively. Its value for reading lies more in understanding how an era used science to respond to philosophical questions than in treating it as a contemporary scientific conclusion.
How difficult is the original German? It is academic German with long sentences, dense terminology, and nineteenth-century expressive habits. It is more suitable for learners with intermediate or higher German reading ability who are familiar with philosophical terminology. It is advisable to use a dictionary and an English translation for comparison, grasping the main idea of each chapter first and then working through the detailed arguments.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919 Author

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German naturalist and an important popularizer of evolutionary theory. The collection holds 17 of his works, including the two-volume The History of Creation and the second volume of The Evolution of Man, which systematically set out the evolution of life and the descent of humans, as well as The Riddle of the Universe and its English version The Riddle of the Universe at the close of the nineteenth century, the French Les énigmes de l'Univers, and Natur und Mensch, works addressed to a general readership on philosophy and nature. The Last Link: Our Present Knowledge of the Descent of Man likewise extends evolutionary thought to the question of human origins. Public information is limited, but these works show that he was skilled at integrating morphology, embryology and evolutionary theory in broad, sweeping narratives, combining scholarly substance with accessible language. Some of his writings provoked wide discussion and controversy and have had a lasting influence on modern biology and naturalistic worldviews.