Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

Review of George di Giovanni's Hegel and the Challenge of Spinoza.

Issue number 4 of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" is devoted to the Dutch philosopher François Hemsterhuis and 250th anniversary of the birth of the German romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. This fourth issue of the journal contains nearly 600 pages of new research articles, translations, review-essays, and book reviews. The main section on Hemsterhuis among the German Romantics was guest edited by Daniel Whistler (Royal Holloway, University of London).

While it is now accepted in the secondary literature to treat Frühromantik - early German Romanticism - as a philosophical movement in its own right, the exact determination of the philosophical nature of this movement still remains one of the central stumbling blocks faced by interpreters. At the heart of this debate is the question of the relationship between the early romantics and Fichtean idealism. One point of rupture with Fichte and his theory of nature seems particularly obvious at first (...) glance: Novalis's substitution of the pronoun "you" for the Fichtean "Not-I". This occurs in one of Novalis’s most famous expressions: "(You). Instead of the Not-I – You.” ((Du). Statt Nicht-Ich – Du). For most commentators, when analyzing the romantic relationship between the human being and nature, this substitution becomes the clearest expression that Novalis rejects the supposed subjectivism of Fichte's philosophy. Here the Nicht-Ich, the Not-I, - i.e. nature – is often read in Fichte as something negative, as an abstract antithesis of the I - as everything that is not human or the subject. - Whereas Novalis, on the other hand, reinjects the human element, the "you", back into nature. It is furthermore argued by these commentators that this radical substitution is motivated by the romantic call to realize not only the inseparability of the human being and nature, but to recognize their equal value. It indicates a necessary departure from transcendental idealism in favor of a rapprochement with Schelling's philosophy of nature. However, could such an interpretation be based on a preconception, or even on a prejudice? I argue that it is; and that it is based on the assumption that Novalis breaks with Fichte’s philosophy. In contrast, I defend the view that the idea of Nature as a “You” is already to be found implicitly in Fichte and that Novalis’s above well-known expression should be read as in continuity with Fichte’s transcendental epistemology and as an original dialogical extension of it. To see this, one needs to retrace the context and the philosophical chain of events from Novalis back to Fichte, and from Fichte back to Jacobi. (shrink)

Обращение к «первой волне» реакции на «Критику чистого разума» в Германии со второй половины 1780-х гг. до начала XIX в. дает возможность выявить парадоксальный статус кантовского трансцендентального субъекта. Неоспоримость существования трансцендентального субъекта, связанная с самой сущностью критической философии вне зависимости от того, что под ним понимать, сталкивается с нередкими утверждениями о неустойчивости этого субъекта. Кажущаяся очевидность значения понятия трансцендентального субъекта (как субъекта познания, носителя трансцендентальных условий опыта) распадается на различные его трактовки. Для реализации поставленной цели производится текстологический анализ сочинений самых (...) ранних оппонентов и последователей кантовского критицизма и реконструируется их концептуальное поле, в которое было помещено понятие трансцендентального субъекта. В частности, привлекаются работы таких авторов, как Я. С. Бек, А. Вайсхаупт, И. Г. Гаман, С. Маймон, К. Л. Рейнгольд, Г. Э. Шульце, И. А. Эберхард и Ф. Г. Якоби. Авторы рассматриваемого периода сгруппированы на основе общих тем и вопросов, исходя из которых они обращались к понятию трансцендентального субъекта, хотя результаты их размышлений могли при этом даже противоречить друг другу. Трансцендентальный субъект у этих авторов тематизируется в соотношении с трансцендентальным объектом, или «нечто = х», а также в рамках отношения представления к объекту и характеризуется то как нечто принципиально пустое, то как полнота истинной реальности. Трансцендентальному субъекту приписывается статус то вещи самой по себе, то «простой» идеи. Наконец, наряду с тем, что кантовский трансцендентальный субъект мог расцениваться как нечто, что должно быть преодолено, его могли полагать и как бесконечную задачу для рассудка. (shrink)

The study of the “first wave” of reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason in Germany from the second half of the 1780s until the beginning of the nineteenth century reveals the paradoxical status of the Kantian transcendental subject. While the existence of the transcendental subject, whatever the term means, is not open to question since it arises from the very essence of critical philosophy, the fundamental status of the subject is sometimes questioned in this period. Although the meaning of (...) the concept of transcendental subject seems obvious today (the subject of cognition, bearer of transcendental conditions of experience) it lends itself to various interpretations in the late eighteenth century. To achieve my goal I have undertaken a textological analysis of the works of the earliest opponents and followers of the Kantian critique and a reconstruction of the conceptual field in the midst of which the transcendental subject has been planted. Among others I draw on the works of J. S. Beck, J. A. Eberhard, J. G. Hamann, F. H. Jacobi, S. Maimon, K. L. Reinhold, G. E. Schulze and A. Weishaupt. The authors of the period are grouped depending on the common themes and questions that prompted them to turn to the concept of the transcendental subject, even though the results of their reflections did not always coincide. These authors think of the transcendental subject in its relationship to the transcendental object, or as “something = х”, and in terms of the relationship of representation to the object. It is characterised sometimes as something absolutely hollow, and sometimes as the fullness of true reality. The status ascribed to the transcendental subject is sometimes that of a thing-in-itself and sometimes that of a “mere” idea. Finally, Kant’s transcendental subject was sometimes seen as something to be overcome and sometimes as an infinite challenge to understanding. (shrink)

In the paragraphs of the Encyclopedia (1830) dedicated to the «Third position of thought towards objectivity» Hegel critically examines Jacobi’s ‘immediate knowing’. My aim is to reconstruct the main arguments of these paragraphs, still little studied today, while trying to shed light on three issues: (a) the relevance given here to Jacobi’s philosophy; (b) the problems that arise within the epistemological models of immediacy; (c) the passage from the analysis of immediate knowing to the speculative thinking of the Logic.

In this chapter we explore the importance of the Pantheism Controversy for the evolution of Kant’s so-called “Moral Argument” for the Highest Good and its postulates. After an initial discussion of the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, we move on to the relationship between faith and reason in the Pantheism Controversy, Kant’s response to the Controversy in his 1786 “Orientation” Essay, Thomas Wizenmann’s criticisms of that essay, and finally to the Critique of Practical Reason. We argue that while (...) Kant used the Pantheism Controversy to reset his account of the Highest Good, its treatment in the Orientation Essay was susceptible to the objections raised by Thomas Wizenmann, and thus in need of the further advances found in the Critique of Practical Reason. (shrink)

In this paper, I study one aspect of the philosophical encounter between Spinoza and Hegel: the question of the reality of time. The precise reconstruction of the debate will require a close examination of Spinoza's concept of tempus (time) and duratio (duration), and Hegel's understanding of these notions. Following a presentation of Hegel's perception of Spinoza as a modern Eleatic, who denies the reality of time, change and plurality, I turn, in the second part, to look closely at Spinoza's text (...) and show that Hegel was wrong in reading Spinoza as denying the reality of duration and change. Ironically, Hegel's misreading of Spinoza as denying the reality of duration and change has been compensated for by a reading of Hegel as denying the reality of time by one of Hegel's most prominent followers, John Ellis McTaggart. I discuss McTaggart's reading of Hegel's Logic in the final part of the paper. (shrink)

There can be little doubt that without Spinoza, German Idealism would have been just as impossible as it would have been without Kant. Yet the precise nature of Spinoza's influence on the German Idealists has hardly been studied in detail. This volume of essays by leading scholars sheds light on how the appropriation of Spinoza by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel grew out of the reception of his philosophy by, among others, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Jacobi, Herder, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Maimon and, of course, (...) Kant. The volume thus not only illuminates the history of Spinoza's thought, but also initiates a genuine philosophical dialogue between the ideas of Spinoza and those of the German Idealists. The issues at stake - the value of humanity; the possibility and importance of self-negation; the nature and value of reason and imagination; human freedom; teleology; intuitive knowledge; the nature of God - remain of the highest philosophical importance today. (shrink)

M. Merleau-Ponty and F. H. Jacobi’s Revelation against Kantian IntellectualismThe goal of this article is to shed light on the neglected connection between Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). It will be shown through certain themes –I) being in the world, II) description, III) reflexion, IV) revelation and the V) primacy of perception – how Merleau-Ponty echoes Jacobi’s criticism of German Idealism during the Pantheist Quarrel, particularly towards Immanuel Kant’s intellectualist stance, two centuries prior to the Phénoménologie de (...) la perception. Through a historical and philological lens, this article aims to specifically demonstrate how Merleau-Ponty and Jacobi share a common ontology against Kantian intellectualism.La rivelazione di M. Merleau-Ponty e F. H. Jacobi contro l’intellettualismo kantianoL’obiettivo di questo articolo è chiarire la trascurata relazione tra Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) e Maurice Merlau-Ponty (1908-1961). Attraverso l’analisi di alcune tematiche – l’essere nel mondo, la descrizione, la riflessione, la rivelazione –, mostreremo come nella filosofia di Merleau-Ponty riecheggi la critica all’idealismo tedesco formulata da Jacobi all’epoca della disputa sul panteismo e diretta, in particolar modo e con due secoli di anticipo rispetto alla Fenomenologia della Percezione, alle posizioni intellettualiste di Kant. Grazie ad una lettura storica e filologica, questo articolo tenta di dimostrare come Merleau-Ponty e Jacobi condividano un’ontologia comune in opposizione all’intellettualismo kantiano. (shrink)

This paper considers whether Hegel's master/slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Spirit should be considered as a refutation of solipsism. It focuses on a recent and detailed attempt to argue for this sort of reading that has been proposed by Frederick Beiser ? but it argues that this reading is unconvincing, both in the historical motivations given for it in the work of Jacobi and Fichte, and as an interpretation of the text itself. An alternative reading of the dialectic is (...) proposed, where it is argued that the central problem Hegel is concerned with is not solipsism, but the sociality of freedom. (shrink)

An interpretation of Jacobi's philosophical realism.

Jahrhunderts. Der Sammelband bietet ausgewählte Beispiele ihrer Rezeption. Näher in Betracht kommen F.H. Jacobi, C. Daub, A. Schopenhauer, J. Müller, S. Kierkegaard, P. Tillich und M. Heidegger."--Publisher's website.

This is the third chapter of my book Transformation of the self, which covers Schleiermacher's reception of Kant on the problem of personal identity.

This is the second chapter of my book Transformation of the Self. It concerns Schleiermacher's understanding of the principle of individuation, in dialogue with Kant, Jacobi, Leibniz and Spinoza.

This study shows that despite the fact that Leo Strauss published little about Jacobi, the misunderstood thinker about whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation exercised a crucial influence on what is often thought to be Strauss's most enduring achievement: his rediscovery of exotericism. A consideration of several of Strauss's writings that do mention Jacobi but remained unpublished at the time of his death—in particular his studies on Moses Mendelssohn, who was Jacobi's principal target in the Pantheismusstreit —reveal that Strauss considered (...) Jacobi to be an exoteric writer. Appropriately enough, it is only a Straussian-style reading of Strauss's claims that exotericism lapsed after Lessing's death that reveals Jacobi's influence between the lines. Some consideration is given to the question of why Strauss wrote about Jacobi in this secretive way. (shrink)

Die gegenwärtige Auseinandersetzung dokumentieren zwei von den Herausgebern in Jena (2002) und Düsseldorf (2003) veranstaltete Tagungen, die unter dem Titel "Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi und die Klassische Deutsche Philosophie" erstmals die ...

Auch wenn Prof. Hammachers Interesse an einer inhaltlichen Auseinandersetzung über Jacobis problematische antijudaistische Polemik gegen Fichte und den Rationalismus nur begrenzt ist - sein Hauptanliegen besteht, wie er sagt, darin, Dokumente, die in der Jacobi-Ausgabe nicht untergebracht werden konnten, an dieser Stelle zu publizieren –, so können doch einige seiner sachlichen Einlassung und Missverständnisse nicht unwidersprochen bleiben. Anderes dagegen möchte ich als Bestätigung, ja sogar als Verstärkung meiner These zu den antijüdischen Tendenzen in Jacobis Kritik an Fichte und dem Rationalismus (...) ausdrücklich unterstreichen. Und schließlich möchte ich Hammachers Hinweis auf Jacobis »religiöse Haltung« aufgreifen und ihr religionsgeschichtlich ein wenig genauer nachgehen. Dabei wird sich zeigen, dass hier ein wichtiges Forschungsdesiderat liegt, das verdient - gerade was die Kontroverse Fichte-Jacobi betrifft –, gründlich aufgearbeitet zu werden. Ich meine, den je spezifisch protestantischen »Sozialisationshintergrund« von Fichte und Jacobi und dessen Einfluss auf ihr Denken. (shrink)

In presenting the key theoretical notions in Jacobi’s philosophical work, this paper shows how these notions are operative in Schellings late philosophy and in Kierkegaard. It is argued that Jacobi’s criticism of Spinozist rationalism is echoed in Schelling’s and Kierkegaard’s criticism of Hegelian speculation as it is shown that Jacobi’s distinction between two different kinds of knowledge, i.e. demonstration and illumination, is also at the very heart of Schelling’s and Kierkegaard’s philosophy. On this background the article finally discusses some important (...) similarities between Schelling and Kierkegaard, stressing the importance of the concept of the will as well as the relation between negativity and positivity. (shrink)

Toujours, dans toute proposition affirmative veritable, necessaire ou contingente, universelle ou singuliere, la notion du predicat est comprise en quelque facon dans celle du sujet, praedicatum inest subjecto, ou bien je ne sais ce que c'est que la vetite. Parce qu'elles mettaient principalement l'accent sur les liaisons conceptuelles, les precisions de ce genre ont ete interpretees comme autant d'indices permettant de reconstituer le contenu du predicat de verite a partir de presupposes coherentistes. Dans le concensus qui s'est etabli sur ce (...) point, le role hermeneutique tres excessif accorde a la notion de systeme a eu une portee aussi considerable que le contenu des quelques textes generalement allegues. Si on admet, au contraire, qu'il y a bien une doctrine leibnizienne de la verite, alors on est amene a inscrire la position de Leibniz dans le contexte du debat relatif a l'adaequatio rei et a souligner davantage ce qui l'apparente a une theorie de la verite-correspondance. Cet argument principal est soutenu par des analyses de detail dans la logique. Un attention particuliere est apportee aux valeurs des variables du nouveau calcul, a la fonction du predicat de possibilite, au probleme relatif a la constantia subjecti et au statut des entites intensionnelles. L'image de l'ontologie leibnizienne s'en trouve modifiee et precisee: a la fois possibiliste et factualiste, elle est traversee de tensions importantes et occupe une place tout a fait singuliere dans cette partie de la philosophie qui connait aujourd'hui un si profond renouveau. (shrink)

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit has attracted much attention recently from philosophers, but none of the existing English-language books on the text addresses one of the most difficult questions the book raises: Why does the Phenomenology make such rich and provocative use of literary works and genres? Allen Speight's bold contribution to the debate on the work of Hegel argues that behind Hegel's extraordinary appeal to literature in the Phenomenology lies a philosophical project concerned with understanding human agency in the modern (...) world. It shows that Hegel looked to three literary genres - tragedy, comedy, and the Romantic novel - as offering privileged access to three moments of human agency: retrospectivity, theatricality, and forgiveness. Taking full account of the authors whom Hegel himself refers to, Allen Speight has written a book with a broad appeal to both philosophers and literary theorists. (shrink)

"monumental work" - The North American Spinoza Society Newsletter , February 1999 "The sheer volume of this anthology makes it an indispensable asset to any serious scholar of Spinozism. Certainly no academic library can do without it. The quality of the material gathered here is extremely impressive. To the professional scholar of early modern philosophy many of the criticisms it contains may well look superficial and outworn, but even the best-informed experts will find much in it that will surprise and (...) delight." - Wipe van Bunge Benedict Spinoza (1632-77), Dutch metaphysician, psychologist, moral philosopher and philosopher of religion, is one of the most important figures of seventeenth-century rationalism. He is among the illustrious group of hugely influential thinkers of that time who were mathematicians and scientists as well as philosophers, a group that included Descartes, Leibniz and Hobbes. His thought has been continually reinterpreted and he influenced such people as Goethe, Lessing, Nietzsche, Shelley, George Eliot, Wordsworth, Bertrand Russell, Freud and Einstein. This unprecedented collection brings together some 150 historically and philosophically important discussions of Spinoza published in English in the two centuries following his death. The authoritative bibliography - Boucher's Spinoza in English: A Bibliography from the Seventeenth Century to the Present - cites a total of only about 300 publications from this period. Thus this collection gathers half of all materials so far identified and represents by far the most significant and interesting contributions. Internally cross-referenced, with an introduction, notes and full subject and name index, this essential collection also features an index of citations to the Ethics, by the editor. This will be an extremely useful resource for Spinoza specialists, research libraries, intellectual historians, and graduate students in philosophy. --a compilation of c.150 important pamphlets, papers and book chapters discussing Spinoza --the first collection of its kind - none of this material has previously been collected --6 reset volumes in royal size --extremely comprehensive, including many rare items --internally cross-referenced and fully indexed for easy use. (shrink)

Lessing's Spinozism looms up out of the numerous intellectual riddles of the past. Almost everything has been tried in an effort to sound and weigh the exact amount of Spinozism Lessing betrayed in his conversations with Jacobi.

This is a complicated and ingenious study of one of the famous friendships of German intellectual history. Miss Knoll's aim is not so much to analyze philosophical ideas as to find the major structural elements of this highly emotional literary friendship between Hamann and Jacobi. The book begins with a short review of Hegel's and Dilthey's treatment of the "subject," Hamann-Jacobi. The author objects to these treatments which, like practically all other students of the question viewed the letters from an (...) exclusively philosophical and speculative viewpoint, and never tackled the deeply personal structure of this metaphysical-religious correspondence. This is exactly what the present author attempts to do. The analysis of Hamann's highly complex reactions to Jacobi's famous book on Lessing's Spinozism reveals to us how strongly and on how many levels the "magician of the North" criticized Jacobi—and through him any attempt to combat the Enlightenment which does not reject it in integro. On the other hand Hamann continuously sent his manuscripts to Jacobi to be read and criticized, and, in this way, he sought to help the latter to grow by making him contribute to works of a dimension and depth completely alien to his own thought But the destiny of Hamann was to be misunderstood by Jacobi, and this misunderstanding was recognized and corrected only by Schelling. Though H. Fuhrmans has already forcefully pointed out what Schelling owed to Hamann, the present book is the first to do justice to Schelling's Hamann-interpretation, until now entirely overshadowed by that of Hegel.—M. J. V. (shrink)

What was the source of this great flowering? Much of the credit for it has tended to go to Jacobi and Mendelssohn, who in 1785 began a famous public dispute concerning the question whether or not Lessing had been a Spinozist, as Jacobi alleged Lessing had admitted to him shortly before his death in 1781. But Jacobi and Mendelssohn were both negatively disposed towards Spinoza. In On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Mr.