In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Refuting Fichte with "Common Sense":Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer's Reception of the Wissenschaftslehre 1794/5Richard Fincham, Assistant Professor of philosophyEven a cursory comparison of Fichte's first published version of the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794/5 with Kant's critical works reveals a striking methodological difference.1 For, whereas Kant begins with the conditioned and ascends to the subjective foundations of its conditioning, Fichte immediately begins—in Hegel's words, "like a shot from a pistol"2 —from an (...) unconditioned subjective foundation. It may thus be said that Kant's method is "analytic," whereas Fichte's is "synthetic." For, in the Wolffian terminology of the time, the analytic method names a movement "from... consequences to their grounds," whereas the synthetic method names a movement "from grounds to their consequences."3 Kant himself employs these terms to describe the same distinction. However, he clearly believes that the analytic method is the correct procedure of all philosophy, whereas the synthetic method describes the correct procedure of mathematics.4 Therefore, it appears that Fichte's method is not only different from Kant's, but is also one that [End Page 301] Kant would not sanction. It therefore seems fruitful to consider both why Fichte has made this methodological "shift," as well as whether it is justifiable. Whereas there are no shortages of responses to this first consideration, responses to the second consideration are—at least within English-language scholarship—almost entirely lacking.5The aim of this study is to address this second consideration. In this context, the writings of an almost entirely overlooked contemporary of Fichte, Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, will be discussed. Niethammer was professor of theology and philosophy at the University of Jena at the same time as Fichte and whilst he was initially highly supportive of Fichte and his Kritik aller Offenbarung,6 he did not share the same enthusiasm for the Wissenschaftslehre 1794/5. As early as October 1794, Niethammer thus writes that Fichte's "system of the I and not-I... appears to me to be invalid [nichtig] in every respect."7 The following year, he established the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten, the initial aim of which has been interpreted as being to promote an alternative program of transcendental philosophy to that of Fichte.8 As his own writings within the first issue of the journal make clear, what is at issue for Niethammer is precisely the Wissenschaftslehre's procedure of beginning with the unconditioned.9 Niethammer instead argues that philosophy should begin with what he calls "common sense" (gemeinen Verstand). His appeal to common sense should however not be understood as identical to the kind of uncritical "appeal to common sense" (gemeinen Menschenverstand) of the British philosophers, Reid and Priestly, which Kant castigates in the Prolegomena.10 For "common sense," for Niethammer, can in no way act as the sole criterion for philosophical truth. Rather, "common sense" denotes a body of synthetic propositions that we pre-reflectively "feel" to be necessarily and universally valid, but which require "scientific" philosophy to prove their objective validity. Niethammer thus interprets Kant's critical philosophy as an endeavour to prove the objective validity of these "demands of common sense." Niethammer's point is that in constructing such a proof, philosophy must begin [End Page 302] with these common sense convictions, in order then—like Kant—to ascend analytically to conditions providing proof of their objective validity. For, as far as Niethammer is concerned, a philosophical system that utilises a synthetic method, and thus effectively "suspends" these convictions until their validity can be rigorously deduced from an unconditioned foundation, produces results that can never be acceptable to common sense and can thus never be valid. The case for rehabilitating this somewhat forgotten figure rests, however, not only upon the fact that his writings provide a fertile source of reflections concerning the legitimacy of the shift towards a synthetic method, but also upon the fact that it has been plausibly suggested that his writings influenced the thought of the Early-Romantics, Hölderlin and Novalis.11However, a further question arises in the course of reflecting upon the history of Niethammer's Philosophisches Journal. For although it ran for several... (shrink)

War Tubingen in der Tat eine Trutzburg der Orthodoxie, in der den Studenten nichts ubrig blieb, als einen Jakobinerclub zu bilden und revolutionare Literatur einschliesslich der grundsturzenden Philosophie Kants zu lesen? Dieser Frage geht der Verfasser zuerst nach und prasentiert dann Quellen, die das skizzierte Klischee aufheben. Es handelt sich um Archivalien, die Aufschluss uber die akademische Lehre geben. Die Autoren sind u.a. Holderlins Freunde Magenau und Neuffer, der kantische Enrage Diez und der spatere Begrunder des Philosophischen Journals Niethammer.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:494 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in the Haller Zeitung; it will probably not appear at all--it has, among other short, comings, the fault to be too long." In a letter to Schtitz, Niethammer writes from Bamberg on 23 March 1807: "I repeat my urgent demand... to send the review of Salat's book submitted by Prof. Hegel as soon as possible to Jena to hand it in to Hofrat Voigt.... (...) " The volume contains almost 1,000 valuable notes which explain the philosophical and historical background of the newly edited material. HENRY WALTERBRANN Takoma Park, Maryland Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev: Philosophical Letters and Apology of a Madman. Trans. with Intro. by Mary-Barbara Zeldin. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969. Pp. 203. $7.50) Mary-Barbara Zeldin's translation into English of the Philosophical Letters and the Apology of a Madman, by the enigmatic Russian intellectual leader of the early nineteenth century, Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev makes available in English for the first time the thought of this figure whose small corpus of writings circulated mostly in manuscript during his own lifetime and waited over a hundred years after his death for their complete translation in their original French. Historically Chaadayev is important as a mediator between Westernizers and Slavophiles in this initial period of the nineteenth-century Russian intellectual awakening. Chaadayev himself remained aloof from either of these parties, was appealed to by both of them and became himself a kind of martyr to intellectual freedom. His own view of Russian-Western relationships incorporates this problem most remarkably into a theological vision of the "education of the human race." Philosophically Chaadayev stands as a unique and somewhat eccentric synthesizer of German idealism with the Christian concept of salvation history. Perhaps the most remarkable insight to be gained by reading these long-buried essays is the ease with which an Eastern Orthodox Christian versed in Patristic hellenism could fuse the ideas of a paedagogy of the human race in Lessing, Herder and Schiller and read this as an expression of an Irenaean doctrine of the progressive development of a mankind through the mediation of the primordial Logos; an Alexandrian idea of the paedagogy of Christ in history and a Eusebian doctrine of Christian universal empire. In so doing this Russian thinker also reveals to what an extent the German idealist movement itself was grounded on much older syntheses of Christian thought. In the process, however, Chaadayev also shows that nineteenth-century men could only appropriate this heritage anew by taking the great credal themes of revelation, Christi, the church and the Kingdom of God and reissuing them in a secularized, humanistic dress, as a philosophy of history. Chaadayev's basic thesis is that knowledge is a divinely-given deposit of certain fundamental primordial ideas, which man would not have arrived at through his own unaided powers, but rather possesses as an imprint upon the mind of the first man implanted by the Creator. Chaadayev weds the western philosophical concept of a fundamental a priori with a doctrine of primordial revelation, revealing the foundation of man himself in the divine Logos. This primordial deposit of ideas existed in BOOK REVIEWS 495 the first man only as a rudimentary 'image' of God. It is only through historical development that man grows to full stature in these truths whereby he attains to the completed 'likeness' of God. These truths, together with their historical development, are passed down by a historical succession, which is not an ecclesiastical succession, but a succession of the human family. These truths are periodically renewed by the advent of certain extraordinary individuals who exemplify them to a high degree, and by certain elect nations who are divinely designated as their culture-bearers. The Jews of the Old Testament were that culture-bearer in antiquity, and, since the time of Jesus Christ, it is Christendom which stands for and bears the development of this primordial truth as it has been renewed and set forth in archetypal perfection by Christ. Chaadayev sharply down grades the role of the Greeks in this development, but does so in a manner remarkably similar to the ancient Christian apologists who stole Greek fire in order to bathe the... (shrink)

The article examines the transformation of the understanding of humanism from the Renaissance to the modern era, focusing on the mechanism of exclusion that defines the key framework of social action, including in the present day. This social mechanism pushes declared values beyond observable reality, generates cognitive paralysis, and ultimately points to the existence of an alternate reality that dominates a morally depleted society. The replacement of reality with constructs fabricated by various doctrinal groups is identified as a major delusion (...) of our times, luring people into self-deception, seducing them with illusory values, and confusing the noble with the ignoble. The mechanisms of exclusion serve as the essential foundation for excluding thought, values, and ideals from everyday social life. This exclusion is evident in ancient democracy, which despised slaves; in Russian literature, which flirted with serfdom; and most notably in modern autocracy and liberalism, which focus solely on their own kind. The article takes as its starting point the transitional state of society where, under the conditions of the Reformation, Renaissance values understood as humanism are reduced to post-Renaissance “humanism.” From this perspective, the treatise of F.I. Niethammer is analyzed for its contribution to the modern understanding of humanism in contrast to the educational philanthropinism of J.B. Basedow. The article reveals the connection between the term “humanism” and German anti-Semitism, showing that humanism, as conceived in the German context, was intended for ethnic insiders and educationally stood as an antithesis to the Frankfurt Philanthropin, the largest German educational institution opened in a Jewish ghetto for children from poor families. The author concludes with historical parallels and findings that identify the characteristics of modern societies shaped by the discussed mechanism of exclusion. (shrink)

My research takes as its guiding thread the statement from Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of spirit of 1805-06, that «cognition is recognition[Erkennen ist Anerkennen]». In this perspective I delineate, first, the consequences of this position for Hegel's epistemology, in particular with reference to the question of skepticism. Then, I show in what sense the recognitive conception of knowledge makes it possible for Hegel to comprehend unitarily, on one hand, cognition as exercise of natural capacities and cognition as exercise of (...) normative capacities socially articulated, and,on the other hand, theoretical self-consciousness and practical self-consciousness. The gnoseological importance of this solution can be comprehended only if we reconstruct the evolution of Hegel's thought in that span of time in which he most directly tackles the issue of skepsis: that is, from 1797 - the beginning of his Frankfurt period - when he began to occupy himself with gnoseological questions, until the end of his stay in Jena,which begins in 1801 and concludes in 1807 with the writing of the Phenomenology. The analysis of the development of the Hegelian theory of knowledge - worked out in the first part of my study - is dealt with in the context of a reconstruction of the historico-argumentative constellation within which it matured. The constellation of importance for our analysis is represented by the skeptical crisis - triggered by authors such as Schulze, Maimonand Platner - that invested the post-Kantian galaxy, within which the idealist solutions to the problem of cognition matured. Through the analysis of journals and authors with whom Hegel came directly or indirectly into contact - from Platner to Reinhold, Jacobi, Fichte and Schelling, to Hölderlin and Sinclair, concluding with Zeender, Krug, Bouterwek and Werneburg, and among the journals Fülleborn's Beiträge and Niethammer's Journal in particular - it is possible to map the various solutions proposed for the skeptical problem andsee how it is in relation to this problem that the conceptions of self-consciousness evolve and the very concept of "interpersonality" - "intersubjectivity" - emerges for the first time. At the same time, pursuing my objective of broadening the investigation of the phenomenon of recognition, which in my view is not reducible to the field of practical philosophy, I proposea fresh reconstruction of the lexical and conceptual evolution of the various terms -Erkennen, Wiedererkennen, Recognition, Anerkennen - through which the various modalities of the phenomenon of recognition were indicated in the philosophical tradition to which Hegel refers: recognition of objects as perceptive reidentification; reminiscence on the level of theory of memory; recognition of subjects as self-recognition (apperception) and attribution to others of intentionality; logical recognition as recognition of the validity of a proposition; moral recognition, where "recognizing" generally means approving, accepting(more specifically, someone may be "recognized" as an autonomous subject and as a unique,genuine individuality). I focus in particular on the theory of memory as «recognitio» in Wolff and in his school, on the conception of «reconnaissance» in Bonnet, on Kantian«Recognition» and on the theory of «Anerkennen» in Ernst Platner. This investigation serves, on the one hand, to show how the phenomenon of recognition is central for a comprehension of the structure both of the lower and of the higher cognitive faculties. This ought to allow us to understand in what sense Hegel, taking intersubjective recognition as hisleading phenomenon, attempts to reunite the various meanings of recognition within a theory of knowledge on the basis of which «cognition is recognition». On the other hand, my conceptual and lexicographic investigation also serves to bring to light - in a new way with respect to the studies on Anerkennung - a hitherto unknown problematic constellation and the input of certain authors, such as Werneburg and Platner, whose conceptions may haveinfluenced Hegel's approach.The second part and the third of my study - a reconstruction of the pre- phenomenological Jena writings dealing with «Anerkennung» - dwells on the theme of the notion of natural recognition, whose centrality for the Hegelian conception of recognition has not yet been adequately grasped. This reconstruction of the theory of natural recognition gives due weight to the influence of Schelling on Hegel's understanding of «Anerkennung» -while the critical literature has generally concentrated on Fichte. Analyzing the conception of the animal organism developed in particular in the lectures on the philosophy of nature of 1803-04 brings to light how Hegel already individuates the recognitive phenomenon at the level of sexual reproduction: it is from here that he posits the natural prerequisites for the development of consciousness of self. The category of natural recognition will present itself anew in Hegel's analysis of the social ontology of the human world in the philosophy of spirit, where it concerns sexual love, reproduction and child raising: natural recognition is, then, that on the basis of which Hegel develops his theory that cognition is recognition.Recognition, as a «middle» of spirit, is a cognitive phenomenon that is primitive with respectto linguistically structured human intersubjectivity; it is, properly, that cognitive structure which is necessarily presupposed by a self-conscious subjectivity that expresses itself linguistically: linguistic intersubjectivity expresses various modes of recognition, but notevery form of recognition is linguistic. The evolutional theory of cognition as recognition is in fact designed to show how increasingly complex recognitive relations emerge from a basic level of natural interactions to take on a linguistically mediated and universal structure. Withthe notion of spiritual recognition Hegel indicates just that ensemble of normative relations that constitute the infrastructure of action and thus mediate the formation of socially articulated self-conscious knowing of self. In the lectures on the philosophy of spirit of 1803-04 and of 1805-06 Hegel thus reconstructs the recognitive structure of the social institutions of right, of labor, and of exchange, showing that, within a politically structured community,dyadic (I-you) interactions are mediated by the universal viewpoint of the "we" incarnated in institutions that can be recognized by citizens as their own and by which citizens can be recognized. (shrink)

The recent Italian translation of the writings on language of J.G. Fichte draws attention to a chapter in German classical philosophy which so far has not aroused great interest. The volume brings together four texts: 1) Von der Sprachfähigkeit und dem Ursprung der Sprache, 2) Über den Ursprung der Sprache, 3) Von der Sprachfähigkeit, 4) Über den Ursprung der Sprache überhaupt. The first of these four texts is the most important: it is the only work by Fichte thematically devoted to (...) the problem of language. It is a 1795 essay published in the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten edited by F.I. Niethammer partly in the third and partly in the fourth fascicle of that year. The other writings are linked to Fichte’s work in that period as a lecturer at the University of Jena. They are notes by the author and transcriptions of his university courses. Fichte’s lectures were based on the Philosophische Aphorismen by Ernst Platner and it was precisely in commenting on the chapter on language in Platner’s text that Fichte worked out his own reflections on language. In Fichte’s corpus there is not much else on language: some pages in Reden an die deutsche Nation and a few other observations in the other works. (shrink)

Edmund Burke characterizes the state as consecrated, or sacred. There is a sense in which Hegel, too, consecrates the state: Hegel says the state is based on religion and that to preserve the state, religion “must be carried into it, in buckets and bushels.” This paper discusses the sense in which Hegel’s state is consecrated by juxtaposing his views with Burke’s. Both Burke and Hegel reject the theory of the divine right of kings, while recognizing religion’s ability to connect people (...) to a totality transcending their particular lives. But the similarities nearly end there. Burke sees religion as a tie that binds people and helps create an ethical community, at least in England; for Hegel religion does not have that function in a modern state. Where Burke thinks commitment to religion is a stabilizing influence, Hegel worries that religion can lead to fanaticism and destroy a state. Consequently, where Burke supports an establishment of religion, Hegel thinks church and state must remain separate. Both Burke and Hegel think the state must tolerate the free exercise of different religions, but Burke is unwilling for the state to tolerate atheists, who he regards as outlaws of the human race. But as Hegel sees the function of religion in a modern state as providing an answer to the existential question of how one’s existence has meaning given that it is inevitably extinguished, and if philosophy can also provide an answer to that question, Hegel’s consecrated state could be a home for atheists. The paper draws on, among other works, Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of History, early theological writings, and for Hegel’s views on state-sponsored religious education, the Nürnberg School Addresses and letters to Niethammer. (shrink)

The recent Italian translation of the writings on language of J.G. Fichte draws attention to a chapter in German classical philosophy which so far has not aroused great interest. The volume brings together four texts: 1) Von der Sprachfähigkeit und dem Ursprung der Sprache, 2) Über den Ursprung der Sprache, 3) Von der Sprachfähigkeit, 4) Über den Ursprung der Sprache überhaupt. The first of these four texts is the most important: it is the only work by Fichte thematically devoted to (...) the problem of language. It is a 1795 essay published in the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten edited by F.I. Niethammer partly in the third and partly in the fourth fascicle of that year. The other writings are linked to Fichte’s work in that period as a lecturer at the University of Jena. They are notes by the author and transcriptions of his university courses. Fichte’s lectures were based on the Philosophische Aphorismen by Ernst Platner and it was precisely in commenting on the chapter on language in Platner’s text that Fichte worked out his own reflections on language. In Fichte’s corpus there is not much else on language: some pages in Reden an die deutsche Nation and a few other observations in the other works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:494 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in the Haller Zeitung; it will probably not appear at all--it has, among other short, comings, the fault to be too long." In a letter to Schtitz, Niethammer writes from Bamberg on 23 March 1807: "I repeat my urgent demand... to send the review of Salat's book submitted by Prof. Hegel as soon as possible to Jena to hand it in to Hofrat Voigt.... (...) " The volume contains almost 1,000 valuable notes which explain the philosophical and historical background of the newly edited material. HENRY WALTERBRANN Takoma Park, Maryland Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev: Philosophical Letters and Apology of a Madman. Trans. with Intro. by Mary-Barbara Zeldin. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969. Pp. 203. $7.50) Mary-Barbara Zeldin's translation into English of the Philosophical Letters and the Apology of a Madman, by the enigmatic Russian intellectual leader of the early nineteenth century, Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev makes available in English for the first time the thought of this figure whose small corpus of writings circulated mostly in manuscript during his own lifetime and waited over a hundred years after his death for their complete translation in their original French. Historically Chaadayev is important as a mediator between Westernizers and Slavophiles in this initial period of the nineteenth-century Russian intellectual awakening. Chaadayev himself remained aloof from either of these parties, was appealed to by both of them and became himself a kind of martyr to intellectual freedom. His own view of Russian-Western relationships incorporates this problem most remarkably into a theological vision of the "education of the human race." Philosophically Chaadayev stands as a unique and somewhat eccentric synthesizer of German idealism with the Christian concept of salvation history. Perhaps the most remarkable insight to be gained by reading these long-buried essays is the ease with which an Eastern Orthodox Christian versed in Patristic hellenism could fuse the ideas of a paedagogy of the human race in Lessing, Herder and Schiller and read this as an expression of an Irenaean doctrine of the progressive development of a mankind through the mediation of the primordial Logos; an Alexandrian idea of the paedagogy of Christ in history and a Eusebian doctrine of Christian universal empire. In so doing this Russian thinker also reveals to what an extent the German idealist movement itself was grounded on much older syntheses of Christian thought. In the process, however, Chaadayev also shows that nineteenth-century men could only appropriate this heritage anew by taking the great credal themes of revelation, Christi, the church and the Kingdom of God and reissuing them in a secularized, humanistic dress, as a philosophy of history. Chaadayev's basic thesis is that knowledge is a divinely-given deposit of certain fundamental primordial ideas, which man would not have arrived at through his own unaided powers, but rather possesses as an imprint upon the mind of the first man implanted by the Creator. Chaadayev weds the western philosophical concept of a fundamental a priori with a doctrine of primordial revelation, revealing the foundation of man himself in the divine Logos. This primordial deposit of ideas existed in BOOK REVIEWS 495 the first man only as a rudimentary 'image' of God. It is only through historical development that man grows to full stature in these truths whereby he attains to the completed 'likeness' of God. These truths, together with their historical development, are passed down by a historical succession, which is not an ecclesiastical succession, but a succession of the human family. These truths are periodically renewed by the advent of certain extraordinary individuals who exemplify them to a high degree, and by certain elect nations who are divinely designated as their culture-bearers. The Jews of the Old Testament were that culture-bearer in antiquity, and, since the time of Jesus Christ, it is Christendom which stands for and bears the development of this primordial truth as it has been renewed and set forth in archetypal perfection by Christ. Chaadayev sharply down grades the role of the Greeks in this development, but does so in a manner remarkably similar to the ancient Christian apologists who stole Greek fire in order to bathe the... (shrink)

Edmund Burke characterizes the state as consecrated, or sacred. There is a sense in which Hegel, too, consecrates the state: Hegel says the state is based on religion and that to preserve the state, religion “must be carried into it, in buckets and bushels.” This paper discusses the sense in which Hegel’s state is consecrated by juxtaposing his views with Burke’s. Both Burke and Hegel reject the theory of the divine right of kings, while recognizing religion’s ability to connect people (...) to a totality transcending their particular lives. But the similarities nearly end there. Burke sees religion as a tie that binds people and helps create an ethical community, at least in England; for Hegel religion does not have that function in a modern state. Where Burke thinks commitment to religion is a stabilizing influence, Hegel worries that religion can lead to fanaticism and destroy a state. Consequently, where Burke supports an establishment of religion, Hegel thinks church and state must remain separate. Both Burke and Hegel think the state must tolerate the free exercise of different religions, but Burke is unwilling for the state to tolerate atheists, who he regards as outlaws of the human race. But as Hegel sees the function of religion in a modern state as providing an answer to the existential question of how one’s existence has meaning given that it is inevitably extinguished, and if philosophy can also provide an answer to that question, Hegel’s consecrated state could be a home for atheists. The paper draws on, among other works, Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of History, early theological writings, and for Hegel’s views on state-sponsored religious education, the Nürnberg School Addresses and letters to Niethammer. (shrink)

During the nineteenth century, German philosophy developed from a type of general knowledge to an academic discipline at the university. Changes across disciplines to the philosophy of science and psychological surveys created new challenges for the place and purpose of philosophy in the educational system. The content of logic courses for secondary schools (Gymnasiums) was centred on the dissociation of nature and the scale of logic. In this paper, I will examine a number of projects for teaching philosophy at the (...) secondary school level from new humanism to reduce philosophical to philological concerns about different projects offered by Niethammer, Hegel and Herbart. Then, I will focus on the most successful – Adolf Trendelenburg’s Elements of Aristotle’s Logic (1st edition of 1836). This work is a compilation of the logical texts of Aristotle, and for as long as sixty years, it was an official textbook in Prussian secondary schools. The aim of the paper is to show how the rethinking of Aristotle’s heritage affected the theoretical and ideological expectations of propaedeutic courses and transformed the image of logic as a philosophical discipline. (shrink)

This paper draws upon my research into the posthumously published fragmentary remains of Hölderlin and Novalis's philosophical reflections to describe how their explanations of the possibility of self-consciousness are far more convincing than those provided by their philosophical contemporaries, and still have much to contribute to contemporary debates concerning the nature of 'consciousness' and 'selfhood.' The paper begins by sketching the background to their accounts of self-consciousness, that is, Fichte's critique of Kant's 'reflection model' of self-consciousness and the subsequent critique (...) of Fichte's 'solution' to this problem by more orthodox Kantians (such as F. I . Niethammer). I shall then present an account of how Hölderlin and Novalis may be said to enact a 'synthesis' of the opposed Kantian and Fichtean positions, to formulate an account of self-consciousness that on one hand acknowledges the power of—in Henrich's words—Fichtes ursprüngliche Einsicht into the inadequacy of the Kantian 'reflection model,' whilst, on the other hand, re-appropriating such a 'reflection model.' They thus argue that I am only aware of myself as T by means of a reflective act (in which I in some sense become my own intentional object), whilst at the same time arguing that such awareness nevertheless involves a non-reflective 'dimension.' For Hölderlin and Novalis, therefore, consciousness is always intentionally directed, and yet in being intentionally directed, it is also non-reflectively related to itself or "self-luminous" sea conception of consciousness which has similarities with Sartre's conception of the 'pre-reflective cogito.'. (shrink)

Fichtes Entlassung: Der Atheismusstreit vor 200 Jahren addresses the Atheismusstreit, or the Atheism Dispute. In 1798, the co-editors of the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft teutscher Gelehrten, Friedrich Niethammer and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, published two essays, by Karl Friedrich Forberg and Fichte. Forberg’s essay, “The Development of the Concept of Religion,” denied the legitimacy of any theoretical discussion of religious issues. Fichte’s essay, “On the Ground of our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” identified belief in a moral (...) world order with religion. Frederick August, prince-elector of Saxony, condemned the errant issue of the Philosophisches Journal in the winter of 1798. During the next spring, Duke Carl-August of Weimar censured the content of the Philosophisches Journal and “accepted” Fichte’s “resignation” from the University of Jena. By 1800, the conflict died down. It remains an example of the theological, religious, and philosophical controversies that characterized intellectual life in the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, few works provide a comprehensive account of the Atheismusstreit. Fichtes Entlassung fills this lacuna. (shrink)

Fichtes Entlassung: Der Atheismusstreit vor 200 Jahren addresses the Atheismusstreit, or the Atheism Dispute. In 1798, the co-editors of the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft teutscher Gelehrten, Friedrich Niethammer and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, published two essays, by Karl Friedrich Forberg and Fichte. Forberg’s essay, “The Development of the Concept of Religion,” denied the legitimacy of any theoretical discussion of religious issues. Fichte’s essay, “On the Ground of our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” identified belief in a moral (...) world order with religion. Frederick August, prince-elector of Saxony, condemned the errant issue of the Philosophisches Journal in the winter of 1798. During the next spring, Duke Carl-August of Weimar censured the content of the Philosophisches Journal and “accepted” Fichte’s “resignation” from the University of Jena. By 1800, the conflict died down. It remains an example of the theological, religious, and philosophical controversies that characterized intellectual life in the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, few works provide a comprehensive account of the Atheismusstreit. Fichtes Entlassung fills this lacuna. (shrink)

Fichtes Entlassung: Der Atheismusstreit vor 200 Jahren addresses the Atheismusstreit, or the Atheism Dispute. In 1798, the co-editors of the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft teutscher Gelehrten, Friedrich Niethammer and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, published two essays, by Karl Friedrich Forberg and Fichte. Forberg’s essay, “The Development of the Concept of Religion,” denied the legitimacy of any theoretical discussion of religious issues. Fichte’s essay, “On the Ground of our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” identified belief in a moral (...) world order with religion. Frederick August, prince-elector of Saxony, condemned the errant issue of the Philosophisches Journal in the winter of 1798. During the next spring, Duke Carl-August of Weimar censured the content of the Philosophisches Journal and “accepted” Fichte’s “resignation” from the University of Jena. By 1800, the conflict died down. It remains an example of the theological, religious, and philosophical controversies that characterized intellectual life in the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, few works provide a comprehensive account of the Atheismusstreit. Fichtes Entlassung fills this lacuna. (shrink)

In this article, a paediatrician responsible for the paediatric hospital ofthe University ofTübingen, discusses the importance of ethical consultations in daily clinical practice. Unlike in the USA, where there are two kinds of institutional ethical advice, Germany's hospitals have only established Ethikkommissionen which deal with research involving human cell material, but no discussion boards for ethical issues relating to normal medical treatment. The author describes the ad hoc consultations in bis hospital in which doctors and nursing staff can discuss those (...) problems, from their own point of view, without either diminishing the physicians 's responsibility or patronizing the patient. (shrink)

In this article, a paediatrician responsible for the paediatric hospital ofthe University ofTübingen, discusses the importance of ethical consultations in daily clinical practice. Unlike in the USA, where there are two kinds of institutional ethical advice (Ethical Review Boards take care of fundamental questions concerning medical research and Ethical Commitees handle problems which occur in medical practice), Germany's hospitals have only established Ethikkommissionen which deal with research involving human cell material, but no discussion boards for ethical issues relating to normal (...) medical treatment. The author describes the ad hoc consultations in bis hospital in which doctors and nursing staff can discuss those problems, from their own point of view, without either diminishing the physicians 's responsibility or patronizing the patient. (shrink)

Der Verfasser liefert nicht nur eine immanente Interpretation von Kants Padagogik, sondern er geht auch in hermeneutischer Absicht der Frage nach, inwieweit die Anthropologie Luthers und Rousseaus Einfluss auf die Ausbildung des padagogischen Systems bei Kant hatten, und ob auf der anderen Seite die Kant-Kritik Herbarts zu Recht besteht.".

This was the address given on the occasion of the award of the Goethe Institute’s Goethe Medal to the Hungarian philosopher Ágnes Heller in 2010. Other recipients of the Medal have included Bruno Bettelheim, György Ligeti, Ernst Gombrich, Karl Popper, and Lars Gustafsson.

This work studies the Great Council of Malines as an institution. It analyzes the Council's internal organization and staff policy, its position within the broader society of the Austrian Netherlands, the volume and nature of litigation at the Council, and its final years and ultimate demise in the late 18th and early 19th century. By means of this institutional study, this volume provides insight into the role played by the Great Council in the process of state-building in the 18th century (...) Austrian Netherlands. While superior courts were once considered to be the prime agencies of change in the Early Modern Period, tools par excellence for the sovereigns' striving towards centralization and superiority, their position in the 18th century has so far been barely touched upon. This work focuses specifically on the 18th century supreme court of the Austrian Netherlands, and provides a broad overview with attention to other aspects of the tribunal's functioning and to its role in 18th century attempts at state formation. (shrink)

The Author and the Editor invite us to Discern (viveka) between Real and non-real, between atman (Self) and non-atman (non-Self), between Infinite and finite, between Life and death. In Svami Nikhilananda's words: -This work, which contains only forty-six sloka (verses) is an excellent vade mecum (handbook) for students of advanced courses in Advaita philosophy-. Both Readers and Scholars will welcome the truly Monumental Bibliography. SHANKARA, the Author, has been one of the greatest philosophers of India, and has profoundly influenced not (...) only India's philosophical development, but that of the entire world. RAPHAEL, the Editor, is an author and a Master in the Western Metaphysical Tradition as well as in Vedanta. (shrink)

Classical commentary on Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, with Malayalam translation.

Contributed articles on Nimbarka Sect and the contribution of Swami Dhanañjayadāsa, Hindu philosopher and scholar belonging to the sect; papers presented at the seminar, held in Uttara Cabbiśa Paragaṇā, India in 2001 and organized by Sukhchar Kathiababa Ashram; centenary commemorative volume in honor of Swami Dhanañjayadāsa.

The study explores communication strategies of ethno-nationalist terrorists with respect to their framing and identity building. Strategies of eight ethno-nationalist terrorist groups were analyzed using 70 articles published on the groups’ websites. Three cluster-analytic procedures and a correlational analysis were applied to strategies of problem definition, cause and responsibility attribution, treatment recommendations, and identity building. The analysis revealed various dimensions on which terrorists frame their content. No group-specific strategies of framing and identity building have been found yet, suggesting that the (...) strategies were universal across terrorist groups, and they were applied on a case-by-case basis. Knowledge about these strategies should advance counter-terrorism efforts, and assist in development of alternative identities among ethnic groups at risk of conflict. (shrink)

On the life and teachings of Śaṅkarācārya; includes history of Daivadnya Brahmans, Hindu caste in coastal region of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala.

Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson have argued that to evaluate the funniness of a joke based on the consideration of whether it is morally appropriate to feel amused commits the “moralistic fallacy.” We offer a new and empirically informed reply. We argue that there is a way to take morality into consideration without committing this fallacy, that is, it is legitimate to say that for some people, witty but immoral jokes can fail to be funny because they are immoral. In (...) our account, one has an intramural moral reason not to feel amused if one focuses on the moral feature itself of a joke rather than the moral consequence implied in one’s reaction to the joke. When one judges a joke as not funny because of the intramural moral reason, one is in a negative emotional state with high arousal, for example, moral disgust or anger. This state is psychologically incompatible with amusement. That one has an intramural reason not to feel amused thus implies that one does not have a reason to feel amused. Moral consideration thus plays an indirect and appropriate role in the evaluation of the funniness of a joke. (shrink)

What does Wittgenstein say about the learning child? In the Philosophical Investigations, he writes, ‘An important part … will consist in the teacher’s pointing to the objects, directing the child’s attention to them, and at the same time uttering a word.’ Here Wittgenstein is describing what is called ‘joint attention’ which is agreed to be a rich resource for learning in children. In this essay, I explore the developmental significance of this passage particularly with regards the learning that occurs in (...) the pre-linguistic child during joint attention. I refer to critical remarks elsewhere in the PI which can help further convey what Wittgenstein means when he talks about attentional capacities and how they develop, including the relevant ability for responsiveness required for the learning to proceed. These considerations should motivate a defence of the social initiation model of learning contra Luntley’s mentalist-individualist account, this despite conceding that certain prior capacities do play a role, though not a central one since these do not pick out the relevant ability (responsiveness) required for learning to take place in the child. (shrink)

This inclusive, cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering, development, and culture. It offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary perspectives on how the philosophies of today’s cultural triumvirate—American, European and Chinese—are shaped and given nuance by the cross-fertilization of engineering and development. Scholars from the humanities and social sciences as well as engineers themselves reflect on key questions that arise in this relational context, such as how international development work affects the professional views, identities, practice and ethics of (...) engineers. The first volume to offer a systematic and collaborative study that cuts across continental boundaries, the book delineates the kinds of skills and competences that tomorrow’s engineering success stories will require, and analyzes fascinating aspects of the interplay between engineering and philosophy, such as how traditionally Chinese ways of thinking can influence modern engineering practice in the world’s most populous country. China’s problematic mix of engineering woes and wonders, from the high-profile crash on its high-profile rail network to its ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic stadium, adds to the urgency for reform, while Europe’s Enlightenment-informed legal frameworks are contrasted with Chinese mechanisms in their governance of the field of nanotechnology, a crucial element of future technical evolution. Fascinating and compelling in equal measure, this volume addresses one of the topics at the leading edge of humanity’s quest to survive, and to thrive.​. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an account of appreciation. I argue that appreciation is an epistemic emotion in which the subject grasps the object in an affective way. The “grasping” and “feeling” components implies that in appreciation, we make sense of the object by having cognitive control over it, are motivated to maintain the valuable epistemic state of understanding, and experience the “aha” or “eureka” moment. This account offers a unified account of the many types of appreciation, including the aesthetic, (...) the moral, and the epistemic. In all these cases, appreciation requires some other first-order emotions as prerequisite. (shrink)

Digital transformation of traditional enterprises can better develop new customer relationships and help mitigate the business risk of their over-reliance on single-customer relationships. However, little research has been conducted on the internal mechanisms of how enterprise digitalization reshapes corporate customer relationships. In this manuscript, from the perspective of dynamic capability theory, we construct conceptual models of enterprise digital transformation, innovation capability, operational cost, and customer satisfaction, and explore the internal mechanisms of enterprise digital transformation to reduce the dependence of enterprises (...) on large customers. The model is empirically studied by obtaining data on the degree of digital transformation of enterprises through “search statistics” of keywords in the annual reports of Chinese listed companies during 2011–2019. This manuscript finds that digital transformation significantly reduces the concentration of large customers and has become a powerful driver of business model innovation in the digital economy, and this finding remains robust to the use of PSM and instrumental variable methods to address endogeneity. Digital transformation reduces firms’ dependence on large customers through three mechanisms: improving firms’ innovation capabilities, reducing firms’ operating costs, and increasing customer satisfaction. The impact of digital transformation on reducing the dependence of non-state enterprises on large customers is greater than that of state-owned enterprises; the implementation of digital transformation strategies is more helpful for enterprises that have active interactions with customers to reduce their customer concentration; and the reduction of customer concentration is greater for enterprises in regions with higher levels of digital development compared to those in regions with lower levels of digital development. The economic consequence test finds that digital transformation diversifies customer structure and reduces business risks. The analysis of the innovation effect and customer satisfaction effect on reducing the concentration of large customers of enterprisesby implementing digital transformation enriches and expands the dynamic capability theory and provides important insights for enterprises to diversify their customer structure. (shrink)

Śaṅkarācārya's commentary with supercommentary on Catuḥsūtra of Brahmasūtra.

This study investigated Chinese university students’ technology-assisted self-regulated learning strategies and whether the technology-based SRL strategies mediated the associations between English language self-efficacy, English enjoyment, and learning outcomes. Data were collected from 525 undergraduate students in mainland China through three self-report questionnaires and the performance on an English language proficiency test. While students reported an overall moderate level of SRL strategies, they reported a high level of technology-based vocabulary learning strategies. A statistically significant positive relationship was noted between the use (...) of technology-based SRL strategies and students’ English learning outcomes. English language self-efficacy and English language enjoyment were both related to technology-based SRL strategies. Furthermore, SRL strategies fully mediated the relationship between English enjoyment and English learning outcomes, but the association between English enjoyment and SRL strategies was only partially mediated by English language self-efficacy. Pedagogically, findings of this study suggest that training and instruction aimed at promotion of modern educational technology among students need to give attention to developing their strategic awareness of motivation regulation in optimizing effectiveness of their technology use in learning the target language. (shrink)