This major study of Heidegger is the first to examine in detail the concept of existential truth that he developed in the 1920s. Daniel O. Dahlstrom critically examines the genesis, nature and validity of Heidegger's radical attempt to rethink truth as the disclosure of time, a disclosure allegedly more basic than truths formulated in scientific judgements. The book has several distinctive and innovative features. First, it is the only study that attempts to understand the logical dimension of Heidegger's thought in (...) its historical context. Second, no other book-length treatment explores the breadth and depth of Heidegger's confrontation with Husserl, his erstwhile mentor. Third, the book demonstrates that Heidegger's deconstruction of Western thinking occurs on three interconnected fronts: truth, being and time. Dealing with a crucial aspect of the philosophy of one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, this book will be important to all scholars and students of Heidegger, whether in philosophy, theology or literary studies. (shrink)

In 1929, after rejecting the suggestion that contemporary Christians may be expected to feel "threatened" by Kierkegaard's criticisms, the Protestant theologian Gerhardt Kuhlmann remarks.

This volume identifies and develops how philosophy of mind and phenomenology interact in both conceptual and empirically-informed ways. The objective is to demonstrate that phenomenology, as the first-personal study of the contents and structures of our mentality, can provide us with insights into the understanding of the mind and can complement strictly analytical or empirically informed approaches to the study of the mind. Insofar as phenomenology, as the study or science of phenomena, allows the mind to appear, this collection shows (...) how the mind can reappear through a constructive dialogue between different ways—phenomenological, analytical, and empirical—of understanding mentality. (shrink)

Heidegger's Being and Time: Critical Essays provides a variety of recent studies of Heidegger's most important work. Twelve prominent scholars, representing diverse nationalities, generations, and interpretive approaches deal with general methodological and ontological questions, particular issues in Heidegger's text, and the relation between Being and Time and Heidegger's later thought. All of the essays presented in this volume were never before available in an English-language anthology. Two of the essays have never before been published in any language ; three of (...) the essays have never been published in English before , and two of the essays provide previews of works in progress by major scholars. (shrink)

Another possible source of this neglect in the United States is the work of Mark Okrent. In Heidegger's Pragmatism Okrent does, indeed, take seriously the importance of the account of temporality for the project of Sein und Zeit, as originally conceived by Heidegger. However, like Dreyfus, Okrent is so taken by the pragmatic character of the analyses in Division I that he ignores Heidegger's analysis of authentic existence and thereby any bearing that this analysis might have on the account of (...) temporality; in addition, he eschews Heidegger's extensive talk of "'ecstases' of temporality and their 'horizonal schemata'" as inappropriate, picture-thinking holdovers from Husserl. Perhaps even more significant for contemporary assessments of Heidegger's account of temporality as the meaning of 'to be' is Okrent's contention that the account is basically aporetic. Okrent fails to find in Sein und Zeit "the conceptual resources" for distinguishing between "'presence' in the sense of presentability and presence as the ground of presentability." As a result, he concludes, Heidegger's argument is transcendental and thus verificationist, implying a kind of metaphysical pragmatism, ultimately distasteful to Heidegger and a prime source of the Kehre. (shrink)

Hegel’s account of conscience at the conclusion to the chapter on morality in the Philosophy of Right has had more than its share of detractors. Theunissen tries to explain why the account is “so meager,” Findlay deems it “thoroughly scandalous,” and Tugendhat goes so far as to label it the pinnacle of a “no longer merely conceptual, but rather moral perversion.” Even commentators committed to rescuing Hegel’s discussion of conscience from such extreme reproaches agree that it is “one-sided” and “problematic.” (...) The source of this widespread conclusion about Hegel’s political incorrectness is not difficult to discern. In the wake of the nationalistic excesses and horrors of the last two centuries, there is an understandable suspicion about the motivations underlying claims that “the state cannot recognize conscience in its distinctive. form, that is, as subjective knowing”. When Hegel declares that the “formal subjectivity” of conscience, as the final achievement of morality, is “on the verge of turning into something evil”, he seems clearly out of step with the reigning liberal political traditions, traditions that regard the individual’s freedom to abide by his or her conscience as both an unassailable right and an inherent good. (shrink)

To criticize a philosopher’s views properly a primary requirement is an accurate understanding of the questions he raises, the problems he acknowledges, and the procedures he follows. In the following study I attempt to identify the specific question of truth which Hegel addresses, the basis of the sort of skepticism posing a serious threat to its resolution, and finally a strategy he adopts. The specific question of truth for Hegel is a question of metaphysical truth or, in the Cartesian terms (...) which Hegel willingly employed, the question of the objectivity of thoughts. The sort of skepticism he has in mind is one which, based on certain purported conditions of human knowing, rejects the possibility of metaphysical truth. While Hegel’s strategy is to analyze those various conditions in an encyclopedic fashion, my concern in this paper is his analysis of the logical conditions of human knowing. (shrink)

This meeting of the Hegel-Gesellschaft featured forty-six papers, including those presented during the two plenary sessions, covering a wide range of topics within the theme of the congress. The congress was ably administered and hosted by Dr. Wolfgang Sünkel at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Nürnberg. As usual, the congress was heavily represented by scholars from Eastern Europe and by scholars working at the Hegel-Archiv in Bochum. The contingent from the United States included Howard Kainz, Thomas Rockmore, Lawrence Stepelevich and (...) myself. (shrink)

This paper elaborates four asymmetrical, developmental stages of the phenomenon of human freedom, starting with a rudimentary sort of freedom, thebasic experience of a relatively unencumbered power to act in alternative ways. The paper argues that structural elements of this rudimentary form of freedomare demonstrable in three distinct, supervening forms of freedom: instrumental freedom, the experience of the self-reflective ability to pursue certain aims, perfectionist freedom, the experience of the capacity to master oneself according to some ideal, and, finally, interpersonal (...) freedom, the experience of empowerment and alternatives only available through commitments to others. (shrink)

This paper concerns Hegel’s much-neglected discussion of the rational observation of nature in the first part of the chapter on reason in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The paper focuses, in particular, on the themes of nature’s inexhaustibilit y, animal life’s holistic character, and the earth’s individual distinctiveness insofar as Hegel appeals to them to challenge a certain kind of self-understanding of what it means to observe nature rationally. In addition to examining the significance and trenchancy of this challenge, the paper (...) inquires whether these same themes have implications for Hegel’s own philosophical understanding of reason as spirit. (shrink)

Over a hundred scholars from as far away as Tokyo, New York, and Buenos Aires, participated in the twentieth congress of the Internationale Hegel-Gesellschaft held in Debrecen and Budapest, Hungary, from August 24 to August 28, 1994, on the theme: Vernunft in der Geschichte? Among those addressing the Debrecen portion of the congress were Agnes Heller, Manfred Riedel, Shlomo Avineri, Walter Jaeschke, and Ludwig Siep. Howard Kainz of Marquette University also gave a well received paper in Debrecen on “Hegel’s Philosophy (...) of History and Providence.”. (shrink)

The jumble of themes contained in Feuerbach’s Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit testify to the youthfulness of a work published when its author was a mere 26. These “thoughts” contain a scathing polemic against the veiled egoism of pietism and rationalism, an off-beat blend of Jacob Boehme’s theosophical mysticism with Lucretius’ arguments against personal immortality, and unique renditions of Hegel’s conceptions of nature, history, and God. There is even a somewhat tedious attempt to disprove the possibility of extraterrestial living beings! (...) Yet these Todesgedanken were enormously significant in Feuerbach’s own life and intellectual development and in the development of Hegel’s philosophy after the latter’s death. The easy discovery of their authorship cost Feuerbach his academic career but they also helped him crystallize an idea of human beings’ true destiny which prompted his decision to become a writer. That destiny is death or, better, the genuine courage and love and earthly immortality that death alone makes possible. “True religion, true humility, true and complete surrender to and submersion in God is possible only when the human being recognizes death as true, real, and entire”. The appeal and importance of Feuerbach’s Todesgedanken lie in its impassioned, non-theist testimony to this speculative significance of death. (shrink)

In the section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled "Clue to the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding," Kant criticizes Aristotle for having "thrown together" his list of categories. On the basis of what Kant says in that same section, however, it has seemed to many readers that Kant's presentation of the categories on the basis of the table of the logical forms of judgment is no less "rhapsodic." In this and other related respects the so-called metaphysical (...) deduction of the categories has long been a major stumbling block for students of Kant's theoretical philosophy. What precisely is the "principle" on the basis of which, according to Kant, the basic concepts of transcendental philosophy are to be sought? Why and how are the categories derived from forms of judgment? If something like this derivation can be shown to be legitimate, how is it possible to demonstrate that the logical forms of judgment have been adequately and completely identified? (shrink)

This engaging work presents a persuasive argument for placing a morally populist and somatic pragmatism at the center, not only of aesthetics and art, but also of what the author calls "the aesthetic life." In the opening chapter the author begins by situating pragmatist aesthetics in its philosophical context, chiefly through a contrast with analytic aesthetics. Casting the contrast as a renewal of the quarrel between Kantians and Hegelians, the author elaborates the fundamental opposition of analytic aesthetics to Dewey's naturalistic, (...) instrumental, and self-consciously evaluational view of aesthetics, his emphasis on the centrality of art and its profound continuity with science and life in all the historico-political and socio-economic richness of the latter, his refusal to countenance an undemocratic distinction between high and low art, and finally, his insistence on privileging the aesthetic experience over the material object identified as the work of art. The contrast is deepened in the second chapter as the author argues that the currently regnant and supposedly neutral definition of art as a distinct historical practice collapses into art history, naively leaving the question of value to the inner arbitration of the art world and thereby iterating the forced separation of practice and aesthetic experience. Though the author contends that pragmatist aesthetics overcomes these shortcomings, he acknowledges that the reconstructive definition of art as experience, at least as Dewey formulates it, seems "obscurely elusive" and its revisionary aims "too quixotically ambitious". The author attempts to counter these objections by stressing that the definition is meant, not to provide criteria for judgment and not to effect a sweeping reclassification of art, but to enhance and expedite experience. In this respect, however, the author emphasizes how his project "differs from its Deweyan source". Instead of trying to effect a change through a global redefinition of art, his aim is "to make a more specific case for widening art's borders to forms of popular culture and to the ethical art of fashioning one's life". The second chapter concludes with an effective rebuttal of the challenge that theory in general, including that of a nonfoundationalist pragmatist aesthetics, is impotent and impossible. (shrink)

This paper addresses puzzling issues concerning the ontological status of dispositions. Following review of debates about a traditional conditional analysis as well as Lewis’s “reformed conditional analysis” of dispositions, the paper analyzes attempts to solve the problem of what makes the relevant conditional true. Reasons are presented for rejecting attempts to locate the relevant truth-maker in a causal basis that allegedly dispenses with dispositions or in properties that are universally dispositional. In this way the paper argues that neither “eliminativism” nor (...) “pandispositionalism” provides a successful account of dispositions’ ontological status, and that ontology must find a way to countenance the reality of both dispositional and non-dispositional properties. (shrink)

For much of contemporary ethical theory, the universalizability of the motive of a contemplated action forms a necessary part of the basis of the action’s moral character, legitimacy, or worth. Considering the possibility of resentment springing from the performance of an action also serves as a means of determining the morality of an action. However, considerations of universalizability and resentment are plainly inconsistent with the performance of some unselfish moral actions. I argue that the sphere of the moral adequacy of (...) considerations of universalizability and resentment is limited. I profile key elements of “conformist” or “consensus-driven” ethical thinking modelled on Nagel’s ethical theory. Then, I elaborate the measure of validity of the profiled ethical thinking as well as its limitation, suggesting that its proper domain is located in an ethics of honor, delimited by an ethics of love and friendship. (shrink)

: Whereas research on Moses Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours has largely focused on the proofs for the existence of God and the elaboration of a purified pantheism in the Second Part of the text, scholars have paid far less attention to the First Part where Mendelssohn details his mature epistemology and conceptions of truth. In an attempt to contribute to remedying this situation, the present article critically examines his account, in the First Part, of different types of truth, different types of (...) knowledge, and the case against idealism. The examination stresses potential but overlooked strengths of his account, questions of ambiguity if not inconsistency in his concepts of existence and substance, and the potential import of these questions for the role he assigns to common sense. (shrink)

This engaging work explores how Hegel's philosophy both entails and is entailed by a certain conception of Christianity. What distinguishes Burbidge's exploration is the emphasis that he places on an interpretation of Hegel's logic, in which a central role is assigned to the understanding. The first set of essays elaborates the operation of the understanding in relation to the operations of dialectic and speculative reason in Hegel's logic. The first essay concentrates on Hegel's attempt to display the universal movement of (...) pure thought in terms of all three operations. Complementing his earlier work, On Hegel's Logic, Burbidge argues that, given the appropriate interpretation of these operations, the absolute difference between "being" and "nothing" can be said to be sustained, even as these concepts are held together in "becoming," which in turn disappears into "a being". Burbidge's second essay presents an interpretive sketch of Hegel's logic as a whole, based upon a consistent, thorough, and self-referential application of the understanding. The essay's title "Transition or Reflection" refers to the distinction, characteristic of dialectical development, between inherent and posited concepts. The movement of thought between members of the first set of concepts is immediate and hence a "transition," while that between members of the second set is mediated by "reflection." Burbidge argues that the logic of concepts in Part 3 of Hegel's logic, construed as the understanding applied to itself, specifies within itself these two contradictory moments. The same theme informs Burbidge's third essay as he identifies the understanding, not as the beginning, but as the culmination of Hegel's logic, holding together in the disjunctive judgment of the logic of concepts both the dialectic emphasized by the left wing of Hegel scholars and the speculation championed by the right wing. Burbidge argues for what might be called the ironic interpretation of Hegel's claim to an absolute method, namely, the understanding that "no immediate transition, no comprehensive vision, and no philosophical wisdom will ever be the last word". The final essay of this first part discussed the necessity of contingency in the context of Hegel's logic. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science was conceived by Kant as an application of the positive conclusions or "general metaphysics" demonstrated in the Analytic of Principles of the Critique of Pure Reason to the specialized objects of knowledge that fall under the concept of matter. The application was meant to provide a metaphysical foundation for natural science, capable of explaining, among other things, how mathematics as an a priori discipline is necessarily applicable to the empirical objects encountered in nature. How (...) to understand the precise meaning of this application has, however, been a recurring problem for students of Kant's thought. First published in 1965 as "an interpretation of the Preface of MF," Peter Plaass' Kants Theorie der Naturwissenschaft attempts to resolve this problem by clarifying the meaning of "metaphysical construction," Kant's term for the method introduced and employed in the MF alone. As Plaass construes it, the method consists in constructing the specific, pure concepts required to entertain the existence of a special kind of objects. More precisely, the metaphysical construction specifies the system of pure concepts of the understanding in terms of the content of the empirical concept of matter, namely, "the movable in space." That empirical character applies only to the objective reality of the concept, leaving the way open for the determination of the content of the concept insofar as it is thought in terms of the categories, a determination purportedly conducted in the MF and resulting in the a priori foundations of natural science. (shrink)

Challenging twentieth-century skepticism regarding the notion of subjectivity, the author sets for himself the task of elaborating several models of self-consciousness, each differentiated by an advancing degree of complexity. Düsing’s book is accordingly both critical and constructive; its aim is to construct a viable theory of subjectivity and a clear foundation for scientific research, thereby forestalling the naive practice, common among researchers of neural processes, of assuming an arbitrary conception of consciousness and self-consciousness. At the same time, Düsing creatively appropriates (...) theories of subjectivity produced in the period from Kant to Hegel and distinguished by a sophisticated differentiation and combination of concepts of pure self-consciousness and a concrete self. (shrink)

To criticize a philosopher’s views properly a primary requirement is an accurate understanding of the questions he raises, the problems he acknowledges, and the procedures he follows. In the following study I attempt to identify the specific question of truth which Hegel addresses, the basis of the sort of skepticism posing a serious threat to its resolution, and finally a strategy he adopts. The specific question of truth for Hegel is a question of metaphysical truth or, in the Cartesian terms (...) which Hegel willingly employed, the question of the objectivity of thoughts. The sort of skepticism he has in mind is one which, based on certain purported conditions of human knowing, rejects the possibility of metaphysical truth. While Hegel’s strategy is to analyze those various conditions in an encyclopedic fashion, my concern in this paper is his analysis of the logical conditions of human knowing. (shrink)

This well-informed and perceptive study of Kant's theoretical philosophy aims at presenting "how Kant thought that transcendental philosophy can be established, and how he in fact tried to accomplish his task". After indicating the metaphilosophical motivations underlying the study, the author focuses primarily on the transcendental deduction as presented in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. The study itself is divided into three parts. In the first part Kant's philosophical motives, assumptions, and method are unpacked. The author (...) properly takes issue with the tendency to read the transcendental deduction as an answer to the sort of skepticism engendered by attributing primacy to mental states. As the author points out, Kant disavows any such attribution and his concern is rather with specifying what the necessary conditions of empirical cognition are and what follows from them.. Another anachronistic tendency to which the author rightly objects is that of construing Kant's assumptions about the analytic-synthetic distinction in terms of modern notions of analyticity and syntheticity. Relying heavily on the distinction Kant makes in the Methodology between mathematical and philosophical methods, the author also argues quite trenchantly that "deduction" does not signify any kind of deductive proof but rather a kind of nontechnical justification, and that the transcendental deduction is to not be equated with a transcendental proof but is, instead, only a preliminary step in accomplishing such a proof. (shrink)

The aim of this crisply written study is to elaborate and criticize the basic direction of the third section of the first part of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, the unfinished but, as it were, systematic center of the entire project. Köhler undertakes this ambitious project with the help of lectures held right after the completion of Sein und Zeit as well as the lectures of the winter semester of 1925/26. In these lectures the works of Scheler and Kant figure significantly (...) and Köhler, accordingly, devotes the first four chapters of the book to the way in which the use of schemata by these two thinkers is reworked by Heidegger in an attempt to schematize the sense of 'to be'. The first and second chapters of the book lucidly detail affinities and disaffinities [[sic]] between Scheler's analysis of the environment and Heidegger's analysis of Dasein. Scheler's more dynamic, but also more restricted, use of the concept of schema is indicated as are several crucial differences between the two thinkers. (shrink)

After reviewing basic features of language, this paper reviews a central debate among twentieth-century philosophers over the proper analysis of linguisticmeaning. While some center the analysis of meaning in language’s capacity to be true, others locate meaning in the communicative intentions of the users of thelanguage. As a means of addressing this impasse and suggesting its unfounded character, the paper draws on recent studies of language acquisition and relates them to existential dimensions of language.