19th Century German Philosophy

The investigation that I am going to pursue here is part of a larger effort on my part to understand the relationship between Kant’s so-called “philosophical anthropology” and the development of early German anthropology since it is my sense that Kant had a determinate, if indirect, effect on the history of that separate field. For now this larger project has three main foci: an account of Kant’s philosophical anthropology in all its parts, an inquiry into Kant’s relationship to the theories (...) engaged by German anthropologists between roughly the 1750s-1790s, and finally, an effort to track the subsequent routes taken by German anthropology in the first half of the 19th-c. In this discussion I am going look at one particular trajectory in anthropological research where we can see Kant’s effect. (shrink)

The term “existentialism” was coined in the 1940s. Whereas other books regarding existentialism merely repeat the platitudes that “There is no such thing as existentialism” or that “The term ‘existentialism’ has no coherent meaning,” this two-volume set actually answers the question “What is existentialism?” ------- Volume I identifies the seven (7) principles of existentialism and the necessary and sufficient conditions for a philosophy to be existential, and introduces readers to the depth of the problem by showing how the question “What (...) is existentialism?” can be answered in multiple ways, all of which are provided in this two-volume set. ------- Vol. I, then, provides the “archaeological” answer to the question by showing the philosophical framework existentialism inherited from transcendental philosophy. Vol. I also provides the “genealogical” answer by tracing the history of the thematization of this framework through German Romanticism, concluding with an illustration of how the major existential philosophers: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and Marcel, expressed and developed the principles of existentialism. ------- Volume II provides a discussion of essential distinctions with which to correctly understand, and formulate thoughts about, existentialism, for example, discussions of existentialism as a kind of character ethics, existentialism as a critique of Descartes’ philosophy, the difference between existential individuality and modern subjectivity, and a discussion of the “moment of vision.” ------- Vol. II concludes, then, with a discussion of how existential philosophy takes be-ing, as an end-in-itself, as its point of origin. Vol. II also provides a number of helpful appendices. These appendices address some miscellaneous, though important, concerns regarding existentialism, and provide charts illustrating the interrelations between the key concepts of existentialism. (shrink)

Freud introduces his dualistic theory of the life and death drives in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Much of that essay is devoted to the justification of the death drive, while little is said in defense of the introduction of “life drives” and “Eros,” which he claims are simply an extension of his libido theory from the psychological into the biological realm. In this essay, I argue that Eros is, on the contrary, fundamentally incompatible with Freud’s metapsychology. I first show that (...) Freud’s theory of society permits the production and preservation of social bonds only through the restraint of sexual aims rather than, as the theory of Eros would require, through the satisfaction of sexual drives. I then demonstrate that Eros is incompatible with three key elements of Freud’s metapsychology: the theories of the drives, the pleasure principle, and the principle of constancy. Finally, I argue that the death drive is indistinguishable from the early and late theories of the principle of constancy. Consequently, it is the death drive, and not Eros, that is merely an extension of the original libido theory. Because Eros is incompatible with the very foundations of Freud’s metapsychology, his drive theory can only consistently be interpreted as a monism of the death drive. (shrink)

Throughout Herman Hesse’s Demian, the use of verbal irony illuminates Sinclair’s struggle to deal appropriately with his callow behavior and thereby evolve. As he tentatively begins to experiment with his sense of self through interactions with friends and family, Sinclair often speaks in indirect ways and skirts direct encounters with the implications of his callowness. As Sinclair comes of age, he awkwardly straddles the dichotomy between the protective world of his family and the threatening outside world. If he says what (...) he really thinks and faces direct implications, he fears he risks losing the comfort of his closest relationships which guide him along his path; yet while he knows the world beyond those relationships is full of existential alienation and solitude, he nevertheless desires to mature, even if that maturity means isolation and pain. The use of verbal irony functions to illuminate the gradual development he undergoes from callousness to a budding acceptance of his existentialism thereby coming to terms with himself. This is evidenced when Demian reprimands him for offering money to Kromer, when he resents having hurt Pistorius, and when his father confronts him in the boarding school. (shrink)

This is a draft translation of the first letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.

In this chapter I explore, in some cases for the first time, the significance of the ethical, liberatory dimension of Spinoza’s thought among a number of women philosophers across the long nineteenth century’s German tradition. I begin with brief discussions of Elise Reimarus and Charlotte von Stein. I then proceed to more in-depth treatments of Caroline Michaelis- Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Karoline von Günderrode, stressing not only that we may learn about both in drawing out a link to Spinoza or Spinozism, but (...) likewise that we can deepen our understanding of Spinoza in bringing him into dialogue with each (in particular regarding, respectively, the importance of others for self-expression, as well as the metaphysical and ethical status of death, especially suicide). I conclude with a discussion of the turn-of-the-century thinkers Lou Salomé as well as Resa von Schirnhofer, Anna Tumarkin, and especially Elisabeth Schmitt—some of the first academic women philosophers in the German-language context, all closely engaged with Spinoza’s writings—before presenting final remarks concerning the status of Spinoza’s thought in the present context. (shrink)

This book sheds new light on the fascinating – at times dark and at times hopeful – reception of classical Yoga philosophies in Germany during the nineteenth century. -/- When debates over God, religion, and morality were at a boiling point in Europe, Sanskrit translations of classical Indian thought became available for the first time. Almost overnight India became the centre of a major controversy concerning the origins of western religious and intellectual culture. Working forward from this controversy, this book (...) examines how early translations of works such as the Bhagavad-gītā, the Sāṃkhya-Kārikās, and the Yoga Sūtras were caught in the crossfire of another debate concerning the rise of pantheism, as a doctrine that identifies God and nature. It shows how these theological concerns shaped the image of Indian thought in the work of Schlegel, Günderrode, Humboldt, Hegel, Schelling, and others, lasting well into the nineteenth century and beyond. Furthermore, this book explores how worries about the perceived nihilism of Yoga were addressed by key voices in the early twentieth century Indian Renaissance – notably Dasgupta, Radhakrishnan, and Bhattacharyya – who defended sophisticated counter-readings of their intellectual heritage during the colonial era. -/- Written for non-specialists, _Indian Philosophy and Yoga in Germany_ will be of interest to students and scholars working on 19th-century philosophy, Indian philosophy, comparative philosophy, Hindu studies, intellectual history, and religious history. (shrink)

In this chapter I compare the concept of hope as affect in the psychology of Kant and Hoffbauer, pointing out continuities and discontinuities between their discussions of this concept. I sketch the negative aspects of hope in Kant’s work, and his responses to questions of how hope can impair the objectivity of judgments about the future and what the negative effects of this impairment are. Although Kant does not consider hope as essentially an affect, he maintains that, in some kind (...) of (pre-rational) natural state of human existence, it does function as an affect, and, as a result, impairs our cognitive faculties. In order to prevent such an impairment, he claims, we need to use reason to govern all our faculties. Hoffbauer takes up this idea in the newly developed context of clinical psychology. The first part of the chapter presents a short sketch of Kant’s psychological concept of hope as affect, focusing on the possible negative effects of hope on the function of human understanding. The second part examines the reception of this Kantian theory in Hoffbauer’s psychology. The analysis in this section focuses on Hoffbauer’s analysis of how the affective impact of hope may cause the inappropriate use of our cognitive faculties, even potentially leading to a serious impairment of our sanity. This psychological perspective sheds new light on Kant’s claim that reason has an essential interest in hope. (shrink)

Sowohl Friedrich Schlegel als auch Joseph Görres reagieren mit ihren Einlassungen auf die Idee des "Ewigen Friedens", wie sie vor allem durch Kant vorgetragen und um 1800 durch eine Vielzahl von Autoren im Angesicht einer stürmischen und kriegerischen Zeitenwende diskutiert wurden -/- With their statements, both Friedrich Schlegel and Joseph Görres react to the idea of "eternal peace", as it was primarily put forward by Kant and discussed by a large number of authors around 1800 in the face of a (...) stormy and warlike turning point in time -/- Своими высказываниями и Фридрих Шлегель, и Йозеф Гёррес реагируют на идею «вечного мира», как она была в первую очередь выдвинута Кантом и обсуждалась большим числом авторов около 1800 года перед лицом бурного и воинственного перелома во время -/- Con sus declaraciones, tanto Friedrich Schlegel como Joseph Görres reaccionan a la idea de “paz eterna”, tal y como fue planteada principalmente por Kant y discutida por un gran número de autores hacia 1800 ante un tormentoso y bélico punto de inflexión. a tiempo. (shrink)

The paper addresses Thiodolf Rein’s (1838–1919) view of empiricist philosophies, which arrived in Finland in the second half of the nineteenth century. Rein was the key figure of Finnish philosophy towards the end of the nineteenth century. His philosophy was strongly influenced by Hermann Lotze (1817–1881), probably the most distinguished German philosopher of the time. In his main work, "Försök till en framställning af psykologin eller vetenskapen om själen" (Attempt at a presentation of psychology, or the science of the soul, (...) 1876–1891), Rein attempts to reconcile modern natural science and its empirical methodology with idealist metaphysics. His chief concern is to refute the claim that the results of natural science corroborate materialism. Whereas Lotze had only shortly commented on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, Rein attempts to integrate Darwin’s theory into his idealist metaphysics. Besides philosophy, Rein’s arguments had also implications for broader political and cultural issues of the time. (shrink)

Max Stirner’s The Unique and Its Property (1844) is the first ruthless critique of modern society. In All Things are Nothing to Me, Jacob Blumenfeld reconstructs the unique philosophy of Max Stirner (1806–1856), a figure that strongly influenced—for better or worse—Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emma Goldman as well as numerous anarchists, feminists, surrealists, illegalists, existentialists, fascists, libertarians, dadaists, situationists, insurrectionists and nihilists of the last two centuries. -/- Misunderstood, dismissed, and defamed, Stirner’s work is considered by some to be the (...) worst book ever written. It combines the worst elements of philosophy, politics, history, psychology, and morality, and ties it all together with simple tautologies, fancy rhetoric, and militant declarations. That is the glory of Max Stirner’s unique footprint in the history of philosophy. -/- Jacob Blumenfeld wanted to exhume this dead tome along with its dead philosopher, but discovered instead that, rather than deceased, their spirits are alive and quite well, floating in our presence. All Things are Nothing to Me is a forensic investigation into how Stirner has stayed alive throughout time. (shrink)

In the last forty years Dummett, Hanks, Künne, and Bobzien have claimed that when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question [Satzfrage] was not a thought [Gedanke] ((Dummett 1981: 307–308); (Hanks 2007: 142–143); (Künne 2010: 427–429); (Bobzien 2021: 163–164)). Recently, Textor has claimed that when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was not a question [Frage] (Textor 2021: 227 fn.2). I think it is possible that (...) when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was a question and a thought. To show that this possibility should not be overlooked, I have written a dialogue in which Frege responds to Dummett, Hanks, Künne, Bobzien, and Textor. -/- Bobzien seems to think that when Frege wrote ‘Die Verneinung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was not a question (Bobzien 2021: 163–165). I think it is possible that when Frege wrote ‘Die Verneinung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was a question and a thought. Hence, I have also written the dialogue to show that this possibility should not be overlooked either. (shrink)

Even though Frege is a major figure in the history of analytic philosophy, it is not surprising that there are still issues surrounding his views, interpreting them, and labeling them. Frege’s view on numbers is typically termed as ‘Platonistic’ or at least a type of Platonism (Reck 2005). Still, the term ‘Platonism’ has views and assumptions ascribed to it that may be misleading and leads to mischaracterizations of Frege’s outlook on numbers and ideas. So, clarification of the term ‘Platonism’ is (...) required to portray Frege’s views more accurately (Reck 2005). This clarification gives us a better picture of what Frege is interested in and what he does not emphasize. Moreover, in such a clarifying process, we find that Frege draws significant influence from Rudolf Hermann Lotze, who is frequently called a Neo-Kantian (Vagnetti 2018). In Lotze’s major work, Logik, Lotze has a central focus on validity, in its most general form as he used it, that investigates various related topics, i.e., concepts, language, etc. (Vagnetti 2018; Lotze 1888). Furthermore, we observe that Frege’s work is so similar to Lotze, that it seems questionable to call his outlook ‘Platonism’. Therefore, attributing ‘Platonism’ to Frege may be a slight misnomer. This paper’s entirety is mostly a synthesis of a variety of articles related to Frege, Lotze, and their respective outlooks and the original works of Frege and Lotze that I use to support the view that the term ‘Platonism’ is a slight issue when predicated to Frege. As such, I include an overview of Frege’s treatment in other work that highlights the usage of the term ‘Platonism’ and how broad its uses tend to be utilized (Balaguer 2006; Burge 1992). In sum, it is observed that the general label ‘Platonism’ becomes less appropriate when we consider Lotze in the picture and contrast Lotze alongside Mr. Frege. Overall, this paper is just an explanatory one of Mr. Frege, the Platonist, and the issues of applying the term ‘Platonism’ onto him as his views are seemingly more of a segue from Lotze. Keywords: Frege, Lotze, number, objectification, Platonism, validity. (shrink)

Der Relativismus gehört zu den wichtigsten Themen von Simmels Philosophie. Die Bedeutung des Relativismus wird anhand dreier Aspekte skizziert: Erstens betont Simmel selbst die zentrale Stellung des Relativismus für seine philosophische Entwicklung. Zweitens hat Simmel aufgrund seines Bekenntnisses zum Relativismus einen besonderen Platz in der Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Philosophie. Simmel war vermutlich der erste deutschsprachige Philosoph, der seine Position als eine relativistische charakterisierte und diese gegenüber der antirelativistischen Grundhaltung seiner Zeitgenossen verteidigte. Drittens besteht in Simmels Versuchen den positiven Gehalt des (...) Relativismus zu bestimmen die Aktualität seiner Philosophie. (shrink)

Discursive cognition of the sort that accompanies the grasp of a natural language involves an ability to self-govern by framing and following rules concerning what reason prescribes. In this essay I argue that the formal features of a planning semantics for the deontic and intentional modalities suggest a picture on which shared intentional mental states are a more primitive kind of cognition than that which accompanies the ability to frame and follow a rule, so that deontic cognition—and the autonomous rationality (...) attending the ability to speak a natural language—might be understood as an evolutionary development out of the capacity to share intentions. In the course of defending this picture, I argue that it is supported by work in social psychology, evolutionary anthropology, and primatology concerning the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of norm psychology and shared intentionality in human beings. (shrink)

Beginning from Hegel's notion of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) as a mode of consciousness governed by the norms of a historical community, this essay examines the role of education in shaping contemporary communities of autonomous people. It does so by defending a version of the idea that an educator has, among her other tasks, the role of helping her students appreciate the values that are shared across her community. In the course of the examination I relate this idea to trends in (...) the European Enlightenment, and I draw on research concerning political polarization in Europe and North America today and its impact on the academy. In the process I argue that the modern university educator has the task of cultivating in her students an attitude of critical inquiry whose results are not coerced by the social conditions under which that inquiry takes place, and I offer some pedagogical proposals for the university educator facing the situation we are today. (shrink)

Reflecting on the months leading up to and following the 2016 United States presidential election, in an essay published in January of 2017 I argued that the left/right dichotomy of the Democrats and the Republicans was no longer carving at a joint of American politics (Stovall, 2017). Instead, it seemed a more salient political division in the U.S. was that between what I called the urban globalists and the non-urban nationalists. This essay situates the apparent conflict between urban globalism and (...) non-urban nationalism in the context of a development in European self-understanding owed to German idealism. I will articulate this self-understanding by relating it to the period of the European Enlightenment, and in the process I will argue that a theory of collective intentions may point the way toward a more thorough understanding of the phenomena that lie behind the growing opposition between nationalist and globalist tendencies in Europe and the United States today. (shrink)

I provide an analysis of Hegel's interpretation of the faith exemplified in Abraham's journey to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice his son. I do so by looking at changes in Hegel's discussion of this episode in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion that were given over the last decade of his career. In the process of tracing the contours of the development of Hegel's thinking on this issue I argue that his social philosophy, on which persons are first and foremost (...) creatures of rational self-determination, is informed by his understanding of logic and metaphysics, and I suggest some of the rationalist and romantic elements animating Hegel's thought remain viable today. (shrink)

The essays collected here have been written in honor of Francesca Menegoni, professor of moral philosophy at the University of Padua and internationally renowned scholar of German classical philosophy. Beyond the plurality of the themes they deal with, what they have in common is the conviction that the systematic analysis of the problematic nodes that go through German classical philosophy allows us to take up the fundamental challenges of our contemporaneity.

This paper explores the Baden Neo-Kantian attempt to integrate hermeneutic ‘understanding’ into the formal philosophy of the historical sciences. It focuses primarily on Heinrich Ricker...

Selon le romantisme allemand, l'être humain entre de plein droit parmi les processus naturels, mais en même temps, les particularités de l'humain demeurent. Le romantisme allemand offre une alternative à l'opposition homme / nature, de même qu'il prend ses distances à l'égard de l'idée selon laquelle les sciences humaines pourraient reléguer l'homme au rang de simple phénomène naturel. Mais comment se décline concrètement une telle position dans les différents domaines du savoir ? Telle est la question à laquelle cet ouvrage (...) cherche à répondre. -/- Der deutschen Romantik zufolge ist der Mensch ein Teil der Natur, zugleich aber bleiben die Besonderheiten des Menschen bestehen. Die deutsche Romantik bietet eine Alternative zum Gegensatz Mensch - Natur, ebenso distanziert sie sich von der Vorstellung, die Geisteswissenschaften könnten den Menschen als bloßes Naturphänomen behandeln. Wie aber konkretisiert sich eine solche Position in den verschiedenen Wissensbereichen? Dies ist die Frage, die das vorliegende Buch zu beantworten versucht. (shrink)

Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) is commonly thought to have attempted to develop a theory of size for infinite collections that follows the so-called part–whole principle, according to which the whole is always greater than any of its proper parts. In this paper, we develop a novel interpretation of Bolzano’s mature theory of the infinite and show that, contrary to mainstream interpretations, it is best understood as a theory of infinite sums. Our formal results show that Bolzano’s infinite sums can be equipped (...) with the rich and original structure of a non-commutative ordered ring, and that Bolzano’s views on the mathematical infinite are, after all, consistent. (shrink)

The paper aims at outlining the conceptual frame in which nineteenth-century German philosophy inherits and pursues the British debate on induction. It investigates this debate as a case study for a broader inquiry about the German reception of late British empiricism. The Mill-Whewell controversy on induction is central to the late British empiricism´s project of a logic of natural sciences. It becomes significant in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century, as a means of defining a theory of (...) science that supports the rising anti-idealist endeavor. The paper first defines what is at stake in the Mill-Whewell controversy, then considers how the same issue is handled in Apelt´s Die Theorie der Induction (1854) and in Sigwart´s Logik (1873-1878). It concludes that, within the German context, the understanding of this issue cannot be disconnected from a Kantian focus on the transcendental foundation of scientific knowledge, and that this characteristic perspective on induction also implies some innovative developments for induction as a scientific method, mainly concerning the relevance and use of probability and statistics in inductive methods. (shrink)

What is the logical form of judgments, if they have one? This question remains an enigma for any transcendental approach to logical thought. The paper addresses the matter by following the debate between Edmund Husserl and Christoph Sigwart from 1890 to 1904. It shows the pivotal role that the problem of judgment played in this discussion. Since judgments were thought to be both refined mental acts and fundamental logical elements, the related issue was a thumbnail version of the broader conflict (...) between psychology and logic. The paper argues that Husserl, far from overcoming Sigwart’s “Kantian-psychologistic” approach, ends up integrating it into the later stages of his phenomenological work; and that this approach does in fact pose an unavoidable transcendental-genetic problem for Husserl’s phenomenology of logic. The argument intends to contribute to a possible integration of the study of the factual “nature” of men within the horizon of the philosophical logic of knowledge. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer's The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms fails to account properly for personalized experiences; it cannot provide a basis for understanding how some experiences become personal while others do not. Our account of personalized experience will remain lacking as long as we follow Cassirer in viewing personalized experience as a non-necessary feature of other symbolic forms such as myth, language, religion, or art; instead it must be understood that personalized experience is grounded in an independent symbolic activity as basic to (...) human cultural life as language, myth, or objectivating knowledge. This basic personalizing symbolic function is best understood as that same activity articulated in Gabriel Marcel's phenomenological descriptions of the act of "creative fidelity." Once this relationship has been grasped, it becomes possible to articulate a symbolic form of personalized experience by describing the unique way in which creative fidelity (as the personalizing symbolic function) spatializes, temporalizes, numeralizes (and as a result subjectifies/objectifies) its own distinct horizon of meaning (or: cultural world). The result will be a symbolic form, as Cassirer understands it, that is as far-reaching and fundamental to human cultural life as the three symbolic forms elaborated in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. By articulating this fourth symbolic form, we will have taken a significant step toward Cassirer's ultimate goal of a robust philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

In Bertrand Russell's 1903 Principles of Mathematics, he offers an apparently devastating criticism of the neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen's Principle of the Infinitesimal Method and its History (PIM). Russell's criticism is motivated by his concern that Cohen's account of the foundations of calculus saddles mathematics with the paradoxes of the infinitesimal and continuum, and thus threatens the very idea of mathematical truth. This paper defends Cohen against that objection of Russell's, and argues that properly understood, Cohen's views of limits and infinitesimals (...) do not entail the paradoxes of the infinitesimal and continuum. Essential to that defense is an interpretation, developed in the paper, of Cohen's positions in the PIM as deeply rationalist. The interest in developing this interpretation is not just that it reveals how Cohen's views in the PIM avoid the paradoxes of the infinitesimal and continuum. It also reveals some of what is at stake, both historically and philosophically, in Russell's criticism of Cohen. (shrink)

This paper examines Georg Simmel’s philosophy of culture in relation to anthropological debates, developing a historical and a systematic argument: First, I show that Simmel’s approach can be read as a response to the anthropological challenge of modernity. Second, I demonstrate that Simmel’s theory of culture can be brought to bear on current anthropological debates. Focusing on his concept of cultivation, I argue that Simmel advances a transformative concept of humanity that considers both the biological nature of humans and the (...) distinct character of human culture. (shrink)

Das Thema des vorliegenden Aufsatzes ist Georg Simmels »relativistische[s] Weltbild« , anhand dessen die Prinzipien seiner Kulturphilosophie dargelegt werden. Im ersten Teil wird die systematische Fragestellung der Philosophie des Geldes im historischen Kontext rekonstruiert. Dabei steht der philosophiegeschichtliche Zusammenhang zwischen dem Wertproblem und der Debatte um den Relativismus im Zentrum. Im zweiten Teil wird Simmels kulturphilosophische Lösung des Wertproblems, durch die das Geld zum Paradigma seines Relativismus wird, systematisch analysiert. Der dritte Teil setzt sich mit dem Prinzip der kulturellen Formung (...) auseinander. Am Beispiel der Formwelt Erkenntnis wird die Grundlage von Simmels Kulturtheorie in toto dargelegt. Der vierte Teil wendet sich der Weiterentwicklung von Simmels Kulturtheorie in seiner späten Lebensphilosophie zu. Dabei wird einerseits seine Theorie der kulturellen Formwelten analysiert, und andererseits deren Integration in eine umfassende Dialektik des Lebens nachvollzogen. Im fünften Teil wird die Frage gestellt, ob Simmel aus heutiger Sicht als ein Relativist zu bezeichnen ist. Dabei wird argumentiert, dass Simmels kulturphilosophische Position große Ähnlichkeiten mit dem konzeptuellen Relativismus hat, der gegenwärtig von Carol Rovane vertreten wird. Deshalb plädiere ich dafür Simmel in der gegenwärtigen Debatte um den Relativismus ernster zu nehmen. (shrink)

It is well known that Husserl’s turn to a form of “transcendental” phenomenology troubled many of his followers in Munich and Göttingen. It was just as perplexing, though, for his contemporaries in the tradition of post-Kantian transcendental philosophy. Cohen had identified the living core of Kant’s philosophy as the “transcendental method,” and Natorp, in particular, had worked extensively to distinguish the principles of the Marburg recovery of Kant from his wayward appropriation by Fichte and others. In this chapter, I consider (...) what the stakes of Husserl’s transcendental turn looked like from the Marburg perspective. Natorp warmly welcomed Husserl’s attempt to steer the nascent phenomenological movement in a “transcendental” direction, but he continued to wonder whether Husserl’s turn towards this tradition was aligned with the true spirit of Kant, or whether, on the contrary, phenomenology would settle into a broadly Fichtean appropriation of Kant’s legacy. Though Natorp’s public position is markedly conciliatory, he barely conceals his suspicion that it was the Kant of Fichte’s Jena, not the Kant of Cohen’s Marburg, to whom Husserl was (perhaps unwittingly) turning. This, I argue, is the background against which the Natorp-Husserl encounter on the eve of World War I must be understood. (shrink)

.As editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard in the early 1840s, Lydia Maria Child was responsible for keeping the abolitionist movement in the United States informed of relevant news. She also used her editorial position to philosophize. Her column entitled “Letters from New York” is particularly philosophical, including considerations of infinity, free will, time, nature, art, and history. She especially turned to German philosophers and intellectuals such as Kant, Schiller, Bettina von Arnim, Karoline von Günderrode, Jean Paul, Herder, and Hegel (...) in an attempt to guide her readers to a rejection of slavery for the right philosophical reasons. I consider the influence of German philosophy on three particular themes in her writings: a Romantic-Spinozistic view of humans and nature; a Kantian conception of conscience; and a Hegelian description of the philosophy of history. (shrink)

Some commentators on Hermann Cohen have remarked on what they take to be a puzzle about the origins of his mature anti-psychologism. When Cohen was young, he studied a kind of psychology, the Völkerpsychologie of Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal, and wrote apparently psycholgistic accounts of knowledge almost up until the moment he first articulated his anti-psychologistic neo-Kantianism. To be sure, Cohen's mature anti psycholgism does constitute a rejection of certain central commitments of Völkerpsychologie. However, the relation between Völkerpsychologie and (...) Cohen's mature anti-psychologism is not one of straightforward opposition. This paper argues that Cohen had significantly less distance to travel than it appears to get from his early Völkerpsychologie to his mature anti-psychologism. In particular, this paper argues that Cohen always had an anti-psychologistic account of knowledge, even during the period when he was studying Völkerpsychologie, and further, that key features of his Völkerpsychologie partly shaped his mature account of knowledge. Finally, the paper identifies how Cohen’s views did change over the transition from his völkerpsychological period to his later anti-psychologism. It thus identifies what changes in Cohen’s views do need to be explained. (shrink)

This article is a review of Erik Olin Wright’s 2010 book Envisioning Real Utopias. The review focuses on certain topics such as his understanding of ‘capitalism,’ his conception of worker cooperatives, and the general issues surrounding markets, the Left, and Marxism.

Itsenäisen Suomen filosofian historia tunnetaan sen läheisistä suhteista anglosaksiseen akateemiseen maailmaan. Autonomian aikana suomalainen akateeminen filosofia suuntautui sitä vastoin saksankieliseen Eurooppaan. Esittelen tässä tekstissä joitain esimerkkejä saksalaisen filosofian vaikutuksesta suomalaiseen filosofiaan autonomian aikana.

In this paper I revisit nineteenth-century debates over historical objectivity and the political functions of historiography. I focus on two central contributors to these debates: Leopold von Ranke and Johann Gustav Droysen. In their takes on objectivity and subjectivity, impartiality and political engagement I reveal diametrically opposed solutions to shared concerns: how can historians reveal history to be meaningful without taking recourse to speculative philosophy? And how can they produce a knowledge that is relevant to the present when the project (...) of “exemplary” history has been abandoned? I put a special focus on the relativist themes in Ranke’s and Droysen’s answers to these questions. Ranke’s demand for impartiality leads him to think of all historical epochs as equally valid, while Droysen’s emphasis on the historian’s subjectivity relativizes historical truth. In order to explain why Ranke and Droysen nevertheless remained unfazed by the problem of historical relativism, I analyze their normative conceptions of the historian’s disciplinary ethos. I show that Ranke and Droysen think of objective impartiality and subjective partiality not only in methodological terms, but also in terms of justice and ethic duty. This normative element secures the professional study of history an ethical-political relevance for the present. (shrink)

Michel Surya revient, dans l’entretien qu’il a accordé aux Cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg, sur sa lecture de Kafka : sur les différentes étapes qu’elle a traversées au fil des œuvres, sur les différentes hypothèses auxquelles elle a donné naissance. À partir de plusieurs thématiques (pourquoi la honte semble-t-elle revenir sans cesse chez Kafka? En quoi peut-on dire qu’il y a dans ses textes une pensée de l’histoire qui est à l’œuvre, et comment celle-ci s’inscrit-elle dans une histoire de la taupe (...) et du souterrain en littérature? Que donne à penser la métamorphose, comme texte et comme processus, de ce que devient l’homme au xxe siècle?, etc.), Michel Surya continue de lire Kafka – si c’est en philosophe ou non, cela fait problème, et c’est précisément l’un de ceux qu’aborde cet entretien. 291-303. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze what neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert designates by the term ‘chaos’. I argue that using this term Rickert means infinite manifolds of human life experiences, that philosophers have to convert into ‘cosmos’ of theories by using concept formation. Rickert thinks that cognition orders chaos. I show that Rickert’s version of ‘chaos’ is different from the ones that were expressed by I. Kant, J. G. Herder, F. W. von Schelling, F. von Schlegel, and F. Nietzsche. (...) I also argue that ideas of I. Kant influenced the formation of Rickert’s ideas on chaos. (shrink)

This article was originally published in January 2007 on the online version of the journal “Rivista della scuola superiore dell'economia e delle finanze”. Since the journal’s webpage does not exist anymore, I have uploaded a PDF of the article as it was published in January 2007. In questo articolo esamino l'idea humboldtiana di progresso. Più precisamente, ricostruisco come Wilhelm von Humboldt teorizzi il progresso del singolo individuo, del cittadino e del genere umano. Secondo la mia ricostruzione, l’idea humboldtiana di progresso (...) presenta un intreccio di motivi illuministi, storicisti e antirazionalisti, ed esige una riforma dello stato in senso liberale. La mia tesi è che, tuttavia, il pensiero politico di Humboldt sfoci in un conservatorismo non liberale che in quanto tale spalanca uno iato tra il sistema istituzionale auspicato e la possibilità di progresso. (shrink)

Im politischen Denken des Wilhelm von Humboldt findet eine konservative Wende statt: Von den radikalen Freiheitsansprüchen der Frühschriften bleibt in den Denkschriften des späten Staatsmannes kaum noch etwas erhalten. In diesem Band wird Humboldts konservative Wende textimmanent freigelegt, historisch situiert und systematisch ergründet. Insbesondere wird Humboldts Konservatismus auf seine zunehmende Angst vor der Demokratie zurückgeführt, was nach seinem Verständnis das schädliche Ergebnis der neuzeitlichen Vernunftrechts- und Vertragslehre darstellt. Aus diesem Grund wird Humboldts konservative Wende letzthin durch seine bereits in der (...) Frühproduktion anzutreffende zweifache Kritik an Rationalismus und Kontraktualismus beleuchtet. (shrink)

The following key ideas of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977) can already be found in the nineteenth century German philosopher, Franz von Baader (1765–1841): religious antithesis, the law idea (Wetsidee) contrasted with autonomy of thought, Ground Motives in history, the method of antinomy, the use of Kant’s ideas to criticize Kant’s own Critique, cosmic time, the supratemporal heart, the prism analogy, modalities, sphere sovereignty, sphere universality, analogies of time, anticipation and retrocipation, Christ as the Second Root, pre-theoretical experience, the (...) Subject-Object relation, the Gegenstand relation, theoretical synthesis, and cultural unfolding. A comparison with Baader helps to interpret Dooyeweerd. (shrink)

This chapter traces the development of relativist ideas in nineteenth-century debates about history and historical knowledge. It distinguishes between two contexts in which these ideas first emerged. First, the early-to-mid nineteenth-century encounter between speculative German idealism and professional historiography. Second, the late nineteenth-century debate between hermeneutic philosophy and orthodox Neo-Kantianism. The paper summarizes key differences between these two contexts: in the former, historical ontology and historical methodology formed a unity, in the latter, they came apart. As a result, the idea (...) of universal history became increasingly problematic. In light of these differences, the paper seeks to (partially) explain why it was only towards the late-nineteenth century that historical relativism became an explicit concern. (shrink)