The aim of this paper is to offer a general survey of the latest development of metaphysical idealism in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. It consists of five main parts. The first part is a short introduction, it states the position of idealism and its current status in the Anglophone world. The second part focuses on the negative programme of idealism, which challenges physicalism on the problem of matter (2.1) and the problem of consciousness (2.2). The third part illustrates the positive programme (...) of idealism, whose varieties can be grouped into two principal types: constitutive and elementary. Constitutive idealism (3.1) is subdivided into the theocentric (3.1.1), the anthropocentric (3.1.2), and the acentric (3.1.3). Elementary idealism (3.2), on the other hand, can be unity-based (3.2.1), language-based (3.2.2), or knowledge-based (3.2.3). The six categories form a general framework of metaphysical idealism, and various accounts in the existing literature are discussed under each category. The fourth part addresses the relation between idealism and panpsychism. The paper is concluded with some caveats and future prospects. (shrink)

Blackburn has outlined a formal account for moral expressivism, and we argued that the moral Frege-Geach problem can be solved formally by appending two rules for the boo-operator which are missing from his account. We then extended Blackburn’s formal account to generate a similar solution to the problem in modal context and showed that the validity of the modal argument can be preserved too in modal expressivism. However, the higher-order element endorsed by Blackburn does not seem necessary for solving the (...) Frege-Geach problem. Nor is his extension from moral expressivism to modal expressivism tenable, since the latter violates its own ontological constraint. A general moral is drawn on the basis on three observations made in evaluating Blackburn’s expressivism. (shrink)

The relation between transcendental idealism and philosophical naturalism awaits more careful determination, i. e. whether the issue of their compatibility hinges on their ontological view on the relation between physical and mental phenomena (i. e. whether it is supervenience or emergence) or on their epistemological view on our access to mental content. The aim of this paper is to identify a tension between transcendental idealism and philosophical naturalism, which lies not in their ontological view on the nature of substances, but (...) in their epistemological view on the relation between self-awareness and the first-personal access to mental content. I will first trace the (mis)understanding of transcendental idealism as Berkeleyan idealism to a misinterpretation of the self-knowledge premise in transcendental arguments. I will argue that transcendental idealism is not so much concerned with grounding reality of the external world as with establishing the agential nature of the first-personal perspective of experience, and it has an important implication on the meaning and function of self-awareness in transcendental idealism. (shrink)

This short piece is collected in the complete edition of Fichte's works published by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1964-2012), IV/1, pp. 153-167. According to the editors' foreword, it first appeared anonymously as part of a pamphlet titled "Something from Professor Fichte and for him. Published by a veracious schoolmaster" in 1799 in Bayreuth as a response to the so-called atheism dispute, which eventually cost Fichte his chair in Jena. This translation concerns a part appended to the pamphlet which is (...) titled "Professor Fichte's Ideas on God and Immortality. Published from lecture notes". The schoolmaster who published the pamphlet was Christian Wilhelm Friedrich Penzenkuffer, who had studied theology and was at that time teaching biblical exegesis at high school. It was found that among the students who attended Fichte's lectures in the winter semester 1794 there was a Johann Friedrich Penzenkuffer, probably a brother of the pamphlet author. It seems most plausible that the content of the pamphlet came from a student transcript of Fichte's lectures on logic and metaphysics in Jena and the anonymous publication was intended as a defence for Fichte that what he taught was not atheism but rather theism. This pamphlet has importance not only as part of its immediate context - the atheism dispute - but also for Fichte's philosophy of religion more generally. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the binary notions of reality and negation play an important role in the philosophical agenda of Kant, Maimon and Fichte. The paper has three sections. The first section illustrates the metaphysical significance of Kant’s introduction of the quantitative opposition between reality and negation, which informs the phenomena-noumena distinction and the attribution of intensive magnitude. The second section argues that Maimon’s speculative appropriation of differentials took up Kant’s conception of real opposition between (...) reality and negation but fundamentally revised the theory of space and time to dissolve the problem of applicability in Kant, leading to the consequence of obliterating the pure categories. The third section shows how Fichte inherited the Kantian-Maimonian quantitative opposition of reality and negation in his characterization of the interdetermination between the I and the Not-I and how he developed an immanent account of the relational categories such as causality and substantiality on that basis. (shrink)

Die Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre 1794/95 (GWL) ist die erste und einzige von Fichte selbst veröffentlichte Fassung der Wissenschaftslehre und übte großen Einfluss auf ihre philosophiegeschichtliche Rezeption aus. Der Text ist schwer verständlich, denn er war nicht als ein für sich stehendes Werk, sondern als Handschrift für die Zuhörer an der Universität in Jena vorgesehen. Fichte hat ihn neben anderen Texten in einem Semester so schnell redigiert, dass man diese Fassung kaum als eine deutliche Gestaltung der Kerngedanken der Wissenschaftslehre und (...) noch viel weniger als ein vollständiges System derselben betrachten kann. Die neuere Fichte-Forschung hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten größere Aufmerksamkeit auf die neue Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (die sogenannte Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo), die Sittenlehre, die Rechtslehre sowie ihre jeweiligen späteren Fassungen gerichtet, weil die Zeitgenossen Fichtes die weitgehende Tragweite der Wissenschaftslehre nicht genügend hätten wahrnehmen können. Es mag also beim gegenwärtigen Forschungsstand als altmodisch erscheinen, noch auf die Fassung von 1794/95 zurückzugehen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung tut jedoch eben dies und mit gutem Grund. Denn trotz der vielfältigen wissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen über die GWL bleibt es immer noch dunkel, wie man z. B. den unverhältnismäßig langen und verwirrenden „Abschnitt E“ im zweiten Teil der GWL über die Grundlage des theoretischen Wissens interpretieren und verstehen soll. In der Sekundärliteratur findet man verschiedene Einstellungen, von treuer Wiedergabe über interpretatorische Abschwächung bis hin zur Ermahnung, aber keine hat sich meiner Meinung nach auf den Abschnitt E einen passenden Reim gemacht. (shrink)

Die Arbeit behandelt Fichtes frühe Wissenschaftslehre in einer kombinierten historischen und systematischen Perspektive. Zum einen wird Fichtes Vorhaben der Wissenschaftslehre in den historischen Kontext der kantischen und nachkantischen Philosophie gestellt. Dabei spielt neben dem Werk Kants, insbesondere der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, dessen (meta-)kritische Rezeption durch K. L. Reinhold und S. Maimon eine wichtige Rolle. Zum anderen behandelt die Arbeit Fichtes frühe Wissenschaftslehre als Beitrag zu einer nicht-empirischen, „transzendentalen“ Theorie gültigen Gegenstandsbezugs. Dabei kommen grundsätzliche Überlegungen zum methodischen und doktrinalen Charakter (...) der Wissenschaftslehre als Urteilstheorie ins Spiel. In der Durchführung ihres historisch fundierten und systematisch orientierten Projekts zur urteilstheoretischen Objektkonzeption beim frühen Fichte verfährt die Arbeit im Wesentlichen interpretatorisch und rekonstruktiv. Nachdem zunächst die historischen Bezüge im einleitenden Kapitel dargelegt wurden widmen sich die drei mittleren Kapitel der Arbeit den drei Teilen von Fichtes Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, bevor dann im abschließenden Kapitel die bisher erzielten Resultate in den aktuelleren analytischen Horizont gestellt werden. Damit leistet die Arbeit einen konstruktiven und eigenständigen Beitrag zum wünschenswerten, ja fälligen und auch bereits vielfach unternommenen rapprochement zwischen der klassischen deutschen Philosophie und der inzwischen selbst historisch gewordenen analytischen Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts. (shrink)

It is the aim of this article to establish the conceptual continuity between Fichte's early manuscript Personal Meditations on Elementary Philosophy/ Practical Philosophy (1793/94) and his Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (1794/95) and thereby draw implications for understanding the proper foundation of the Wissenschaftslehre. The second section will begin with a remark on Fichte’s term “setzen” (to posit), a term that Fichte appropriated from his predecessors to designate a fundamental activity which is central to rational agency and prior to the (...) Kantian distinction of sensibility and understanding. I suggest that the positing act underlies the act of judging as well as representing. The third section points out that there is a common task in Personal Meditations and the Foundation. On that score, their continuity is prominent, and it justifies taking them together as one project in which the third element takes up the unique synthetic role in the system. The fourth section acknowledges some significant nuances that differentiate the two phases. In the fifth section, I attempt to give a modern reading of the fundamental principles of the Foundation under the assumption that Fichte’s account of the positing acts gives us an idealist account of the transcendental conditions of judgments. The final section traces the foundational conception of limitation in Personal Meditations, where representation was given greater prominence, and draws out the theoretical implications that were largely preserved in the Jena phase. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the binary notions of reality and negation play an important role in the philosophical agenda of Kant, Maimon and Fichte. The paper has three sections. The first section illustrates the metaphysical significance of Kant’s introduction of the quantitative opposition between reality and negation, which informs the phenomena-noumena distinction and the attribution of intensive magnitude. The second section argues that Maimon’s speculative appropriation of differentials took up Kant’s conception of real opposition between (...) reality and negation but fundamentally revised the theory of space and time to dissolve the problem of applicability in Kant, leading to the consequence of obliterating the pure categories. The third section shows how Fichte inherited the Kantian-Maimonian quantitative opposition of reality and negation in his characterization of the interdetermination between the I and the Not-I and how he developed an immanent account of the relational categories such as causality and substantiality on that basis. (shrink)

The task to write a short history of German philosophy is daunting. Hösle approaches this task with erudition, precision and admirable polemical style. Readers should note that Hösle’s account is not meant to be a neutral encyclopaedic one which narrates the entire history of philosophical ideas in the German-speaking world. While his selection and evaluation of certain figures might appear questionable, it would be unfair if one judges it with an expectation of encyclopaedic comprehensiveness. Indeed, it is a specific account (...) representing the German Spirit in a specific way. He gives four criteria for his selection of German philosophers: 1. quality of the philosophical work, 2. influence on subsequent developments in the history of philosophy, 3. whether the work paradigmatically expresses the basic ideas of the time and of German culture and 4. whether the philosopher helps us make sense of the developmental logic of the process of development. Along with the use of the German language, these make up the formal necessary requirements of Hösle’s historiography of German philosophy. On this basis of selection, he identifies a set of material features that characterize the German Spirit, and they are: 1. rationalist theology; 2. a commitment to synthetic a priori knowledge (trust that God created the world in a rational way); 3. a penchant for system-building; 4. grounding ethics in reason not in sentiment and 5. a combination of philosophy and philology. This review consists of two main parts. I will first sum up the line of ideological development given by Hösle, and then I will critique Hösle’s account of the withering of German philosophy and its Spirit. (shrink)