19th Century Philosophy

This dissertation argues for a particular interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, namely that Mill is best read as a sanction utilitarian. In general, scholars commonly interpret Mill as some type of act or rule utilitarian. In making their case for these interpretations, it is also common for scholars to use large portions of Mill’s Utilitarianism as the chief source of insight into his moral theory. By contrast, I argue that Utilitarianism is best read as an ecumenical text where Mill (...) explains and defends the general tenets of utilitarianism rather than setting out his own preferred theory. The exception to this ecumenical approach to the text comes in the fifth chapter on justice which, I argue on textual and historical grounds, outlines the central features of Mill’s utilitarianism. -/- With this understanding of Utilitarianism in place, many of the passages commonly cited in favor of the previous interpretations are rendered less plausible, and interpretations emphasizing Mill’s other writings are strengthened. Using this methodology, I critique four of the most prominent act or rule utilitarian interpretations of Mill’s moral theory. I then provide an interpretation of Mill’s theory of moral obligation and utilitarianism. On Mill’s account of moral obligation (which purportedly holds for moral theories generally, not just utilitarianism) there is a tight relation between an action being wrong and it being subject to punishment by an agent’s conscience. The utilitarian aspect of Mill’s theory concerns the role of rules in an agent’s conscience. According to Mill’s sanction utilitarian view, the actions that are punished are those actions that violate the moral rules which, if widely internalized across society, would promote general utility. On this account, an action is wrong when an agent violates a justified moral rule and is properly punished, at least by one’s conscience. An action is right when conditions are such that if the action were not performed, then the action would be properly punished by at least the agent’s conscience. I apply this interpretation to other notable components of Mill’s approach such as his account of practical action (the Art of Life) and his theory of liberty. (shrink)

During the last few decades, the historical turn within the tradition of the analytic tradition has experienced growing enthusiasm concerning the procedure of rational reconstruction, whose validity or importance, despite its paradigmatic examples in Frege and Russell, has not always enjoyed a consensus. Among the analytic philosophers who are the frontrunners of this movement, Robert Brandom is one of a kind: his work on Hegel as well as on German Idealism has been increasing interest in, as well as awareness of, (...) Hegel´s possible contributions to some current problems in that tradition, and connecting Hegel scholars to current questions. Thus, this work aims to explore Brandom´s methodology of rational reconstruction, as well as his dialogue with history of Philosophy, mainly exposed in his Tales of the mighty dead (2002). As we will see, Brandom´s distinction between a de dicto and a de re approach intends to present a way of identifying and analyzing a given philosopher´s theoretical (hidden) commitments that can be useful to improve the quality of the dialogue with past philosophers. From such methodological exposition, I to turn to Kierkegaard in order to make explicit some of his ontological commitments and presenting Brandom’s approach as a valuable tool for doing history of philosophy. (shrink)

The cultural consumption research landscape of the 21st century is marked by an increasing cross-disciplinary fermentation. At the same time, cultural theory and analysis have been marked by successive ‘inter-’ turns, most notably with regard to the Big Four: multimodality (or intermodality), interdiscursivity, transmediality (or intermediality), and intertextuality. This book offers an outline of interdiscursivity as an integrative platform for accommodating these notions. To this end, a call for a return to Foucault is issued via a critical engagement with the (...) so-called practice-turn. This re-turn does not seek to reconstitute venerably Foucauldianism, but to theorize ‘inters-’ as vanishing points that challenge the integrity of discrete cultural orders in non-convergent manners. The propounded interdiscursivity approach is offered as a reading strategy that permeates the contemporary cultural consumption phenomena that are scrutinized in this book, against a pan-consumptivist framework. By drawing on qualitative and mixed methods research designs, facilitated by CAQDAS software, the empirical studies that are hosted here span a vivid array of topics that are directly relevant to both traditional and new media researchers, such as the consumption of ideologies in Web 2.0 social movements, the ability of micro-celebrities to act as cultural game-changers, the post-loyalty abjective consumption ethos. The theoretically novel approaches on offer are coupled with methodological innovations in areas such as user-generated content, artists’ branding, and experiential consumption. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on an internal tension within James’s Principles and suggest that its formal structure provides useful insight into James’s subsequent evolution. Specifically, through a close reading of James’s account of ‘conceptions’ in the Principles, I examine the tension between these ‘conceptions’ construed as discrete and self-identical and James’s famous phenomenological description of consciousness as a continuous stream. Such a tension primarily involves the intersection of an epistemic need (or condition of possibility) with a quasi-metaphysical intuition or (...) postulate (continuity). Importantly, this tension is intensified by the methodological constraints of bracketing metaphysical questions which James sets for himself in the Principles. James’s decision to deny the cogency of this methodological bracketing can therefore be read as his response to the tension I examine and his speculative turn to “radical empiricism” as an attempt to resolve epistemological difficulties by going more radical ontologically. Doing so raises questions about the status of speculative metaphysics in intersection with empirical inquiry. (shrink)

This article deploys Whitehead's systematic metaphysics as the basis for a philosophical hermeneutics. Whiteheadian hermeneutics are then compare and contrasted with Schleiermacher's own hermeneutics.

The paper aims to investigate some aspects of Ernst Mach’s epistemology in the light of the problem of human orientation in relation to the world (Weltorientierung), which is a main topic of Western philosophy since Kant. As will be argued, Mach has been concerned with that problem, insofar as he developed an original pragmatist epistemology. In order to support my argument, I firstly investigate whether Mach defended a nominalist or a realist account of knowledge and compare his view to those (...) elaborated by other pragmatist thinkers, such as W. James, H. Vaihinger and H. Poincaré. Secondly, the question of what does it mean, for Mach, to orient ourselves in science is addressed. Finally, it will be argued that, although Mach tried to keep his epistemology restricted to a mere operational and economical account of science, that question involves the wider plane of practical philosophy. (shrink)

he estrangemented (Entfremdung) work In Marx, can be perceived as an alienation. Alienation is, the result of the separation of two entities, a material or non-material split, even if involuntary. Therefore, when identifying two entities, it is possible to verify the existence or not of these alienations perceived by human rationality. Some translations instead of quoting “estrangemented work” already call it alienated work. In Merleau-Ponty, we can see a phenomenology of the body, and he makes an apology about the perception (...) of the body by its rational, including that which is lost by this body. So if for Marx the work is part of the body, can we analyze this alienation through phenomenology? Could we have other alienations beyond the body in Marx’s theory? (shrink)

James Mylne (1757-1839) taught moral philosophy and political economy in Glasgow from 1797 to the mid-1830s. Rational Piety and Social Reform in Glasgow offers readers Mylne's biography, a summary of his lectures on moral philosophy and political economy, several interpretative essays, and a collation of his introductory lecture.

In this article, I argue that species are mutable in Hegel’s philosophy of biology. While scholars have argued for the compatibility of Hegel’s philosophy and Darwin’s theory of evolution, none have dealt with the ontological status of species in their respective accounts. In order to make the case that for Hegel species are mutable, I first deal with a textual problem that in the 1827 edition of the Encyclopedia, the species concept appears after the sexual relationship, whereas in the 1830 (...) edition it appears prior. I argue that these different sequences entail different models for the species concept. By examining the conceptual development leading up to the account of species, on the one hand, and contemporary biological accounts of the status of species on the other, I argue that the 1827 model is more consistent both with Hegel’s method and with the species concept of contemporary biology. (shrink)

In this essay, I advance a reading of Philosophical Crumbs or a Crumb of Philosophy, published by Søren Kierkegaard under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. I argue that this book is animated by a poetics of self-incrimination. Climacus keeps accusing himself of having stolen his words from someone else. In this way, he deliberately adopts the identity of a thief as an incognito. To understand this poetics of self-incrimination, I analyze the hypothetical thought-project that Climacus develops in an attempt to show (...) what it means to go further than Socrates. In my reading, I distinguish between a Socratic and a non-Socratic conception of education, both of which rely on an incognito. Socrates takes on the maieutic incognito of an ignorant bystander in order to force his interlocutors to turn inward so that the truth that is already within them can be born. In contrast, the non-Socratic education that Climacus advances as a hypothesis relies on what I call ‘the incognito as a true form’. It is an incognito insofar as it confronts the pupils with a paradox on which the understanding runs aground. It is a true form insofar as its immediate appearance is not a disguise, but a true form. This indirect mode of communication is necessary, without it pupils will not be able to encounter a truth that is not inherent within them. Climacus’ poetics of self-incrimination, I argue, tries to repeat this indirect mode of communication by adopting the incognito of a thief as a true form. (shrink)

The present paper argues that the Venezuelan-Chilean philosopher Andrés Bello constitutes an important but heretofore neglected prefiguration of Richard Rorty. I argue for this thesis by articulating first an Inter-American philosophical narrative (based on previous work by Alex Stehn and Carlos Sanchez) that enables me to highlight certain common characteristics in philosophical projects that flourished across the Americas. Having done this, I show that Rorty’s anti-representationalism and anti-foundationalism are prefigured in Bello’s most important philosophical treatise, Filosofía del Entendimiento, to the (...) extent that Bello recognizes the problems posed by the ocular metaphors that are systematically used by Early modern philosophers such as Descartes or Locke, and suggests their elimination and replacement by other metaphors. Finally, I conclude that, if my arguments are correct, the intellectual geography of neo-pragmatism needs to be expanded beyond traditional geographies such as Europe and the US. (shrink)

As a young Victoria Scholar from South Africa studying at Oxford from 1931–33, Errol Harris encountered most of the prominent representatives of “Oxford Idealism” there. He discovered that, predominantly under the influence of Bradley, they were uniformly convinced that Hegel’s Naturphilosophie was a superfluous “addition” to his system, accomplishing nothing not already provided by the Science of Logic, and that, moreover, to treat Nature as a reality would introduce a fundamental contradiction into Hegel’s thought. In this general attitude they were (...) strongly supported by the Italian “neo-Idealists” with whom they were closely engaged. In work accomplished during those two years, Harris laid the foundations for a thorough reversal of this attitude, arguing that in the absence of a philosophy of nature Hegel’s system could be neither coherent nor complete. On this basis Harris would eventually succeed in constructing the outlines of a complete cosmology grounded in twentieth-century physical theory. (shrink)

In his different analyses of ancient Egypt, Hegel underscores the marked absence of writings by the Egyptians. Unlike the Chinese with the I Ching or the Shoo king, the Indians with the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Persians with the Avesta, the Jews with the Old Testament, and the Greeks with the poems of Homer and Hesiod, the Egyptians, despite their developed system of hieroglyphic writing, left behind no great canonical text. Instead, he claims, they left their mark by means (...) of the architecture and art. This paper explores Hegel’s analysis of the Egyptians’ obelisks, pyramids, sphinxes, etc. in order to understand why he believes that these are so important for understanding the Egyptian spirit. This analysis illustrates Hegel’s use of history and culture in the service of philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Mary Shelley (1797–1851) developed a ‘Romantic Spinozism’ from 1817 to 1848. This was a deterministic worldview that adopted an ethical attitude of love toward the world as it is, must be, and will be. Resisting the psychological despair and political inertia of fatalism, her ‘Romantic Spinozism’ affirmed the forward-looking responsibility of people to love their neighbors and sustain the world, including future generations, even in the face of seeming apocalypse. This history of Shelley’s reception of Spinoza begins with the (...) fragment of the otherwise lost translation of the Theologico-Political Treatise (1670) on which she collaborated. It extends through her journals, letters, poetry, and her second great work of speculative fiction after Frankenstein (1818): a post-apocalyptic novel set in the year 2100, The Last Man (1826). Through a creative synthesis of Spinoza with Plato, Cicero, Wollstonecraft, and Glasite Christianity, Shelley developed an anti- apocalyptic conception of love as apocatastasis: a cyclical restoration of an ethical attitude of stewardship toward the whole world and its necessity. Through this recovery of a vital chapter in the history of European ideas, Shelley emerges as a central figure in Spinozan philosophy, especially the ethics and political philosophy of love. (shrink)

En el pensamiento de Nietzsche habría una manera de concebir la memoria distinta a la que convencionalmente estamos habituados. Ciertos trabajos nietzscheanos se atarean en la concepción de una memoria tocante a los conceptos de la historia y de lo humano. Tal concepción implica una cierta política. Allí, la memoria es transformada en el aprendizaje de una respuesta humana ante lo que acontece que queda remitida a lo por venir. Este concepto nos incumbe decididamente a nosotros, hombres de este presente, (...) que hemos vivido en el pasado reciente tantas barbaries y contra las que aún luchamos. (shrink)

This paper examines the underdetermined relation between the absolute and absolute knowledge. Fichte not only claimed that he provided the correct reading of Kant’s critical philosophy but also that his Wissenschaftslehre constructively addressed and resolved its systematic problems. By discussing Kant’s notion of a “transcendental substrate” and its relation to the “thing-in-itself” it will be shown that this claim has to be taken seriously even from a Kantian standpoint. Moreover, it will be shown that Fichte's critical assessment of Kant's philosophy (...) at the beginning of his second private lecture on the Wissenschaftslehre given in Berlin in 1804 and his philosophical reflection of the highest principle of all knowing and its relation to the absolute can be understood as a solution to problems that historically originated with Kant and were left unsettled by him. (shrink)

In my contribution i would like to consider a thesis of Reinhard Lauth, according to which Fichte’s Doctrine of Science must be properly characterized as theory of the Bilden, as “Bildenslehre”. In his late Berlin lectures Fichte understands Wissen, in its actuality, as “Bild”. Knowledge is image and identifies itself as an image. The image as such shows a reflective and relational structure. The image presents an essential self-reflexivity and does not exist in isolation, but is a relationship to something (...) else which Fichte designates as being, life, light, one, God. The basic idea of Fichte is that we have access to reality only through the image and in it, within a transcendental unity of being and thinking that must be conceived not as a fact, but as an act. The term and concept Bilden expresses well the dynamic and active nature characteristic of the image. i try to explain this on the basis of certain passages of the Doctrine of Science of 1804. (shrink)

The Wissenschaftslehre 1804-ii does not end with absolute knowledge in the 25th lecture, because this absolute knowledge is as sealed off from the common knowledge as the Absolute itself in the 15th lecture was. As matters stand in the 25th lecture the Wissenschaftslehre can neither meet its own claim to unify all knowledge in one system nor can the genesis of the absolute knowledge, which had to begin with common knowledge, be understood by means of the Wissenschaftslehre itself. The problem (...) in linking absolute knowledge and common knowledge is that, on the one hand, absolute knowledge is hermetically closed. Therefore, nothing and especially not common knowledge can derive or result from it. On the other hand, absolute knowledge is not supposed to depend on anything but the Absolute itself. Therefore, it cannot be understood adequately as a condition for common knowledge. Fichte’s solution to this problem is to differentiate between the genesis of absolute knowledge and absolute knowledge itself. Common knowledge is necessary only for the genesis of absolute knowledge. However, the validity of the common knowledge depends on the pursuit of the absolute knowledge. (shrink)

Four points are discussed in this paper. 1: A long lasting issue in the WL. This point tries to show that the WL in its different versions contains a demonstration of incompleteness as a necessary condition of human consciousness and forms of knowledge. The necessary form of the system of human experience is conditioned by the impossibility of a purely conceptual explanation of human knowing. 2.1: From the Grundlage to the Nova methodo. This point explains the main errors in the (...) exposition of the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, which led to the conception of the WL Nova methodo. 2.2: From the Nova methodo to the Exposition of 1801/1802. The main changes in the exposition of the WL 1801/1802 are discussed in the light of the new philosophical challenges from 1799 onwards. 2.3: The emergence of the Image theory in the first WL of 1804 is addressed in the last point. In accordance with the point 1 above, it is finally shown that Fichte’s Theory of image is both a transformed critical and transcendental philosophy, and an answer to questions raised in the preceding development of the WL. (shrink)

Also in the latest versions of the Science of Knowledge Fichte considers explanation of the structure of consciousness a central task of philosophy. In his late explanation of consciousness, the concepts of life and image play a central role – two concepts that in Fichte’s account are inseparable and mutually elucidate each other. By interpreting the 1810 Science of Knowledge and Fichte’s introductory lecture The facts of Consciousness from 1810/11, this article aims to show that the pair of concepts “life” (...) and ‘image’ occur on two different theoretical levels in Fichte’s late philosophy: first, in the formulation of a view of consciousness that Fichte characterizes as ‘idealist’ and that he considers to be in continuity with Kant’s transcendental philosophy; and, second, in the exposition of the conception of consciousness as an image of a non-constructible absolute that goes beyond the idealist explanation without, however, denying its validity within its own sphere. The second step, which occupies the major part of the 1810 Science of Knowledge, can be understood as Fichte’s late reply to Jacobi’s critique of the Science of Knowledge as a ‘nihilism’. Its final step is the introduction of the concept of ‘sober- mindedness’, in the sense of a self-interpretation of moral consciousness which goes beyond any constructible content. The concluding part of the article interprets and discusses the conception of sober-mindedness as involving Fichte’s final reply to Jacobi’s criticism. (shrink)

بحث تجربۀ دینی در میان اندیشمندان مدرن ابتدائاً با طرح احساس وابستگی مطلق از سوی شلایرماخر آغاز شد. چنان که هدف از بحث تجربۀ دینی در فلسفۀ دین تحلیلی معاصر ارائۀ برهانی تجربی برای اثبات وجود خداوند است، بسیاری از پژوهشگران انتظار داشته‌اند احساس وابستگی مطلق شلایرماخر نیز در خدمت همین هدف متافیزیکی یا هستی‌ـ‌خداشناختی بوده باشد. آیا این انتظار و تفاسیر حاصل از آن با آنچه خود شلایرماخر گفته است همخوانی دارد؟ برای روشن‌سازی این مطلب از روشی تاریخی و (...) هرمنوتیکی در این مطالعه استفاده کرده‌ایم. کاربرد روش تاریخی ما را به تأثیرپذیری شلایرماخر از کانت رهنمون می‌شود، به طوری که خواهیم دید اکثر مفاهیم مورد استفادۀ او عملاً مفاهیم کانتی هستند. کاربست روش هرمنوتیکی نیز به ما امکان می‌دهد تا احساس وابستگی مطلق را در پرتو الهیات شلایرماخر به مثابۀ یک کل و همچنین مفهوم دین نزد کانت را در نظام فلسفی کانت به مثابۀ یک کل مورد توجه قرار دهیم. در پرتو به‌کارگیری این روش‌ها، معلوم می شود که تفسیر هستی‌ـ‌خداشناختی از تجربۀ دینی نزد شلایرماخر یا همان احساس وابستگی مطلق تفسیر قابل قبولی از متن گفته‌های شلایرماخر نیست. او صرفاً توصیفی از خود‌ـ‌آگاهی ارائه کرده که به مثابۀ توصیف امکان تبدیل شدن به برهانی برای اثبات وجود خدا را ندارد. (shrink)

In the Doctrine of Science nova methodo Fichte explains the difference between the mirror and the eye. While the former only mirrors without seeing itself by doing it, the eye is in its essential connotation „image for itself“. The capacity of becoming aware of the image as such and of conceiving it as image for itself plays an essential role also in the perception of the other and in the originating process of the intersubjective relationship. The paper first focuses on (...) reconstructing the meaning of the image for the intersubjective relationship and on evaluating whether and how far Fichte’s later elaboration of the theory of the image can be significant for the relationship to the other. Consideration of the different dimensions disclosed by the concept of image can also be helpful in illuminating the potential applications of the image of the other, especially in relation to the world of the media. The hypothesis is that Fichte’s conception of the image has a heuristic value also with respect to the image of the other in the present world and opens the way to further developments in the practical-ethical realm. (shrink)

Images are usually understood as something perceived: as something presented to us and different from us. But since Antiquity the concept has also been given a different meaning: it has been used to describe our own being, and indeed so much so that it also stands for our essential nature: we are ourselves an image ; and being an image is what is what really defines us. The experience of being oneself an image – or, as one might also say, (...) this basic understanding of oneself as being just an image – plays an important role inter alia in Pre-Platonic thought, in the corpus platonicum, in the Christian idea of the imago Dei and, not least, in Fichte’s late philosophy.This paper focuses on two ancient Greek forerunners of some aspects of Fichte’s understanding of image, namely pre-platonic and platonic views on our own being-just-an-image. (shrink)

Scattered skeptical remarks and a general austerity that infused his writings have given Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes a reputation as some type of nihilist. Noted commentators such as Richard Posner and Albert Alschuler have claimed as much. This article seeks to correct this misunderstanding. Holmes was not a nihilist in the sense of being melancholy due to a belief that the world has no absolute moral values or gods. Instead, Holmes was a pragmatist in the spirit of William James and (...) John Dewey. While Holmes had doubts about moral truth and deities, he ultimately thought that their existence (or non-existence) should have no bearing on our behavior or the law. We must, through our collective efforts, find values that work for us. (shrink)

The late Fichte transforms transcendental philosophy into ontology, without transcendental philosophy ceasing to be transcendental philosophy. The center of his philosophy is no longer the transcendental self, but rather concepts like existence, light, image, from which the transcendental self can be derived. Against dogmatism, for which being is to be considered as an absolute fact, Fichte tries to show that being can be deduced and explained from the light, and that means: from transcendental freedom. Whatever exists is made from the (...) substance of appearance, from the substance of visibility and light, from the material of the image. But the appearance, the image, the light, can only derive their creative power from the fact that they are the existence of the Absolute. And precisely at this point, under the idea that only the Absolute is, Fichte has repeatedly to cope with the question of the relation between the being-character of this substance and the being-character of the Absolute. Against his reiterated attempts to proceed this way, the difference between being and existence can not so easily be traced back to the concept of an absolute Being, in whose inner essence lies the fact that nothingness becomes itself an ‘apparent something’, against the background of which, and by which, the Absolute cannot be, and cannot be understood, except as absolute. (shrink)

The accusation of Nihilism, which Jacobi expressed in his Letter to Fichte, marks a caesura in Fichte’s production. Reputed to be the paradigmatical representantive of a philosophical tradition letting any reality dissolve in a simple game of shadows, Fichte sees himself constrained to clarify the status of the image in his system. This paper aims to examine the strategy to which he has recourse in the Destination of Man, in order to find an answer to the attack.

In Fichte research, there is no consensus on the interpretation of a topic of fundamental importance for Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre: the relationship of the absolute ‘in itself’ to its appearance. In addition to the difficulty of the matter in itself, the problems of understanding might also be related to the linguistic and terminological form of its presentation.My paper starts with the hypothesis, that an adequate understanding is actually decisively dependent on the dissolution of the ambiguity of the terminus “being”, which also (...) occupies a prominent position in Fichte’s prima philosophia. Taking a distinction from Rudolf Hermann Lotze, I consider in a type of thought experiment whether and how Fichte‘s concept of the absolute qua absolute being can be explained or replaced by the term validity. It is also necessary to consider to what extent the idea of validity is already contained in Fichte’s “Theory of Truth”. (shrink)

In the present paper, i propose, first, to present some aspects of what we may call a type of "phenomenology" of the image contained in the Berlin lectures on transcendental logic – notably, in the second of these courses in Berlin. Second, i would like to return to the problem of the relationship between logic and philosophy, starting from these indications with regard to the "image", and, if possible, outline some parallel with certain theses on the same subject from the (...) Jena years. Finally, in what i consider a novelty concerning these lessons, i would like to conclude my exposition by raising the question of the foundational character of Fichte’s project. (shrink)

The inquiry into the nature of truth plays an important role in Fichte's thought, especially following his departure from Jena, and indeed in the WL-1804-ii the doctrine of truth emerges as the centerpiece of the WL. The following paper argues that the conception of truth evolves significantly after the WL-1804-ii, and that, in such texts as the Erlanger Metaphysik, the Spekulation zu Koppenhagen, and the 1812 WL, Fichte, building on the account of the hiatus in the WL-1804-ii while moving away (...) from its notion of absolute truth, seeks to understand truth in terms of freedom, or indeed, as what »yields to freedom«, wherein freedom, through the negativity of the concept, produces an emptiness, a clearing, that is »fulfilled« with truth. Anticipating the phenomenological account of truth yet without abandoning a strong sense of normativity, Fichte’s alethology remains a compelling alternative to contemporary positions. (shrink)

The paper has two aims: firstly, to present Fichte’s transcendental ontology as a theory of the analogia entis. This allows to comprehend in which sense his Doctrine of science is different from Kant’s or Hegel’s thought. Secondly, i aim to outline the twofold nature of Fichte’s analogical ontology, depending on whether the intellectual concept or the concept of love is in the foreground. i distinguish these two approaches and evaluate them both with regard to the relation between the Absolute and (...) his manifestations and to the immanent connections among the creatures. (shrink)

The aim of the „Grundriss des Eigentümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre“ is to analyse the theoretical faculty. The starting point of this analysis is the proposition that the I posits itself as determinated by the Non-I. My thesis, which can be proven in Fichte´s text, is that it is the notion of the picture which serves as a point of orientation in the analysis of the cognitive faculty, as Kant calls it. The cognition of an object comes about as a dialectical relationship (...) between the picturing i, the picture and the pictured object, which Fichte calls the real thing. I would like to investigate how much Fichte follows the Kantian analysis of the cognitive faculty on the one hand and how much he differs from it on the other hand. This investigation will take into account a question which is very important for every epistemology taking its starting point in subjectivity, namely the question of how the i can recognize that the objects of its cognition are real things and not the products of his phantasy. Fichte explicitly raises this very question. At the end of this paper, I attempt to show what kind of answer Fichte gives to this questionee. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to interpret Fichte’s terminology of ‚light‘ and ‚imaging‘ in the WL-1804-ii as a rendition of transcendental principles. This analysis is intended as a contribution to the discussion concerning the theoretical status and methodology of the later doctrines of science. i begin with an exposition of four criteria for transcendentally constitutive principles: 1. presuppositional character, 2. constitutivity, 3. categorial difference between conditions and conditioned, 4. immanent justification. The systematic function of ‘light’ is exemplarily reconstructed according (...) to these criteria. The focus of analysis lies on the fourth criterion, which is framed as the philosophical problem which Fichte’s conception of a ‘law of imaging’ in the 24th and 25th lectures answers to. The ‘law of imaging’ is reconstructed as a special form of performative self-validation which is intended to satisfy the criterion of immanent justification. A further upshot of this reading is a reappraisal of Fichte’s treatment of light’s perpetual ‘objectivization’. (shrink)

The interpretation of the philosophical thought of Karl Marx given in the second half of the twentieth century canonically distinguishes between the works of the youth period and those of the maturity. Even if only a few interpreters have supported the thesis of the existence of “two Marx”, one opposed to the other, the attention given to some posthumous writings inevitably led to neglect the writings of the younger Marx. However, the years spent in Berlin are decisive, both for the (...) experience gained alongside the young Hegelians and for the discovery of philosophy and philology. It is precisely from the preparatory work of the doctoral dissertation that Marx's great interest in classical philosophy and philology emerges. The concept of Selbstbewußtsein, inspired by Epicurus and his philosophy of the nature, allows us to recover the centrality of the human being in all phases of Marx's production and in his approachs to philosophy, sociology, political economy. (shrink)

This essay examines a particular rhetorical strategy Nietzsche uses to supply prima facie epistemic justification: appeals to intuition. I first investigate what Nietzsche thinks intuitions are, given that he never uses the term ‘intuition’ as we do in contemporary philosophy. I then examine how Nietzsche can simultaneously endorse naturalism and intuitive appeals. I finish by looking at why and how Nietzsche uses appeals to intuition to further his philosophical agenda. Answering these questions should provide a deeper understanding of how Nietzsche (...) does philosophy. (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)

The main goal of my master thesis is to present a way of grounding of being, alternative to the methods of traditional metaphysics. In this picture the ground for being is a process of constituting of what there is by a specifically understood subject, namely center of force (Kraftzentrum). Human being who is a center of force not only imposes form onto beings but in addition to that he creates them in all dimensions. This way of grounding is untypical, yet (...) it has significant advantages. First of all, the exaltation of human being in the metaphysical structure, next the established close link between human being and being in general, and finally, the rejection of absolute character of the ground. Such the type of grounding is representative to Friedrich Nietzsche’s metaphysic. Therefore in first part of my thesis I will show the main concepts of Nietzsche’s metaphysics which refer to the schema of constitution of beings. Will of power, subject, becoming, valuations and being are eminent examples of it. In the second part I will stress upon some specific consequences of Nietzsche’s metaphysics. I will highlight its ontological relativism and some issues that could follow it. (shrink)

In his Fear and Trembling Søren Kierkegaard (alias Johannes de Silentio) wrote that Abraham wanted to sacrifice Isaac for God’s sake as well as for his own sake. Drawing mainly on what Kierkegaard wrote (alias Anti-Climacus) in his Sickness unto Death I disclose that Kierkegaard construes Abraham as someone who becomes a true self, that is, as someone who becomes transparent before God. What this means and how our relationship to God is supposed to be involved in the process of (...) becoming a self is the focus of my paper. While various papers have been written on that topic, my aim here is to give the most charitable interpretation of Kierkegaard’s theses and the theological concepts involved. (shrink)

This article argues that Friedrich Schleiermacher proposes a religion that is irrational.

I discuss the third of Anscombe’s theses from “Modern Moral Philosophy”, namely that post-Sidgwickian consequentialism makes the worst action acceptable. I scrutinize her comprehension of “consequentialism”, her reconstruction of Sidgwick’s view of intention, her defence of casuistry, her reformulation of the double-effect doctrine, and her view of morality as based on Divine commands. I argue that her characterization of consequentialism suffers from lack of understanding of the history of utilitarianism and its self-transformation through the Intuitionism-Utilitarianism controversy; that she uncritically accepted (...) an impoverished image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism, which was, ironically, an unaware bequest from her consequentialist opponents; that her action theory, yet, is a decisive contribution that may prove useful in formulating answers to questions that have been left open in both utilitarian and Kantian or intuitionist theories; that, to make the best of her actions theory, it is as well to drop her divine law view of ethics, which is incompatible with the former; and that the rather obscure traditional theological doctrine of absolute prohibitions is unnecessary to her project that could fare well with the more sober distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to present Kafka not as a writer, or not only as a writer, but as a philosopher. However, even after narrowing the scope of our interest down, there will still be several Kafka’s left on the table. Themes treated in the volume include: the so-called Brentano School in Prague, Kafka’s affiliation to the Louvre Circle, Kafka and existentialist philosophy, Kafka’s Jewish heritage, his love of Nietzsche and Meister Eckhart and—last but not least, since he (...) was such an exceptional writer—his aesthetics. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider the relation of the three major spheres of ethical life that Hegel distinguishes – family, civil society, and the state – and analyse their contribution to the constitution of the "second nature" of objective spirit. Family and civil society are both analyzed by Hegel as ways of taking up and transforming our given nature such that a second ethical nature can be produced. Where the family helps bring forth such a second nature by means of (...) “education” (Erziehung), civil society does so by means of “cultural formation” (Bildung). As I show in sections (I) and (II), these processes are characterised by Hegel as steps of an actualization of freedom insofar they liberate us from our given nature without suppressing it and bring forth a second nature that gives freedom the consistency of living reality. However, while these processes constitute forms of liberation, they are at the same time forms of social subjection, involving discipline and normalization, the subjection to the will of another, and the adaption to the given necessities of the social world. Therefore, the completion of the process of liberation seems to require a third sphere that allows individuals to relate, collectively and politically, to the second nature thus produced. In order for the second nature of spirit to be a self-constitutive actualization of freedom, ethical life thus requires a specific political dimension that I turn to in section (III). While this political process is only possible on the basis of the republican infrastructures of family and civil society, it at the same time calls these infrastructures into question. Although Hegel himself does not develop this dimension properly, his conception of second nature points towards the desideratum of a politics of second nature. I will close the discussion of this political dimension in section (IV) by pointing out the general and diagnostic dimensions that such a politics of second nature can help us elaborate. (shrink)

This paper provides an interpretation of two paragraphs from Heidegger’s 1925-26 lectures on the question of “truth”. First, I will consider Heidegger's criticism of Lotze’s notion of “ideality”; then, I will focus on Heidegger's claim that Husserl was “fascinated” by such a Lotzean notion. In the first section I will describe Heidegger's ontological approach to the distinction between reality and ideality. In the second section I will explain why, in Heidegger's view, Lotze’s understanding of the notions of “reality” and “ideality”, (...) construed as different forms of Wirklichkeit, depends on some uncritical presumptions. In the third section, I will evaluate the consequences of Lotze's perspective on the notions of ideality and truth, so as to turn my attention to Husserl’s Prolegomenaand his allegedly adoption of Lotze’s notion of “ideality” as universality. Accordingly, I will suggest that Heidegger’s criticism is limited not only to Husserl's Prolegomena but to his phenomenology as a whole. Finally, I will discuss the problem of universality from the point of view of Heidegger’s existential analytic. By referring to a 1925 lecture, I will suggest that Heidegger’s rejection of Husserl’s “reduction” is to be read in light of his criticism of the notion of “ideality”. (shrink)

I examine and resolve an exegetical dichotomy between two main interpretations of Peirce’s theory of abduction, namely, the Generative Interpretation and the Pursuitworthiness Interpretation. According to the former, abduction is the instinctive process of generating explanatory hypotheses through a mental faculty called insight. According to the latter, abduction is a rule-governed procedure for determining the relative pursuitworthiness of available hypotheses and adopting the worthiest one for further investigation—such as empirical tests—based on economic considerations. It is shown that the Generative Interpretation (...) is inconsistent with a fundamental fact of logic for Peirce—i.e., abduction is a kind of inference—and the Pursuitworthiness Interpretation is flawed and inconsistent with Peirce’s naturalistic explanation for the possibility of science and his view about the limitations of classical scientific method. Changing the exegetical locus classicus from the logical form of abduction to insight and economy of research, I argue for the Unified Interpretation according to which abduction includes both instinctive hypotheses-generation and rule-governed hypotheses-ranking. I show that the Unified Interpretation is immune to the objections raised successfully against the Generative and the Pursuitworthiness interpretations. (shrink)