During the first meeting of the History of Philosophy section at the first annual conference of the Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW), I proposed to create a study group on “Philosophy around 1900”. This period is not to be understood in a too restrictive sense: at the broadest in would include anything from post-idealism to WW2 (1830s to 1930s), more narrowly the last decades of the 19th century up to WW1. Within reason and depending on the interests and expertise of the members, there would be no further restriction on authors or topics to be discussed.

This broad scope of the study group “Philosophy around 1900” is explicitly meant to maximize the potential for collaboration with colleagues from the other sections (i.e. practical philosophy and theoretical philosophy) and to not exclude anyone, neither analytics nor continentals. Indeed, this broad scope allows us to include thinkers that can be considered to operate before any such split (e.g. Mach, Brentano), as well as fundamental authors for both analytic (e.g. Frege, Russell) as well as continental philosophy (e.g. Husserl, Bergson). Thematically, there are several important debates within philosophy at the time, such as the historical dialogue with and reception of Idealism (e.g. empirical scientific philosophy vs speculative German Idealism, the early analytics vs British Idealism), as well as between philosophy and emerging fields (psychology, sociology). Moreover, there were developments in specific disciplines that influenced philosophy (e.g. darwinism, the crisis in the foundations of mathematics) as well as philosophical influences in other disciplines (e.g. Gestalt psychology, Prague linguistics, psychoanalysis).

All members of the Dutch OZSW are welcome to join, from any section, orientation, or level: research master students, PhD students, and senior researchers, as well as international members. We are still starting up the group and at this stage much is still open for discussion. We are already planning some activities and will hopefully be able to make an announcement soon.