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The Philosophy of Melchior Palágyi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

W. R. Boyce Gibson
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Extract

Readers of the Journal may know little of Melchior Palágyi (pronounced Pallargee) (1860–1924). Even on the Continent his work has been very inadequately recognized. It is not that he has written little: he published some books and many articles during his lifetime, in German as well as in Magyar, and since his death, Barth of Leipzig has issued an edition of his selected works, including his most important contribution, Naturphilosophische Vorlesungen, also the Wahrnehmungslehre and Zur Weltmechanik. He has many enthusiastic admirers, and those who care to look up the Preussische Jahrbücher, March 1926, will find there a most informative and highly appreciative article on his general philosophy by Werner Deubel, who in the same journal, some two years previously (October 1924), discussed the work of a kindred spirit, Ludwig Klages. It was Deubel's article that first roused my interest in Palágyi and led me to study his more important writings.

Type
Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 3 , Issue 9 , January 1928 , pp. 15 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1928

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References

page 15 note 1 The following abbreviations will be adopted in this article for purposes of reference:— N.V. for Naturphilosophische Vorlesungen. W. for Wahrnehmungslehre. M. for Zur Weltmechanik.L. for Logik auf dem Scheidewege.

page 15 note 2 I am much indebted to my friend and colleague, Professor Lodewyckx, for having first drawn my attention to this article.

page 20 note 1 For a similarly intrinsically unverifiable hypothesis cf. the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction in Relativity doctrine.

page 20 note 2 On “ Verdeckung “ see L., pp. 312–313; M., pp. 12, 17–20.

page 23 note 1 Palágyi represents the Time-movement as symbolic. This “ symbolic “ movement in the time-dimension takes the place of Newton's “ absolute “ movement. Thus Palágyi adopts the Newtonian conception of absolute movement, but limits it to the uniform time-flux.

page 25 note 2 If ether is always needed to mediate between matter and matter, we must give up the idea that matter can affect other matter immediately.

page 28 note 1 As a fascinating instance of Palágyi's trend towards unification, see the Fragment “ Weltsystem,” the last of the collected Essays in Zur Weltmechanik.