In Democracy and the Claims of Nature, the leading thinkers in the fields of environmental, political, and social theory come together to discuss the tensions and sympathies of democratic ideals and environmental values. The prominent contributors reflect upon where we stand in our understanding of the relationship between democracy and the claims of nature. Democracy and the Claims of Nature bridges the gap between the often competing ideals of the two fields, leading to a greater understanding of each for the (...) other. (shrink)

Die Wissenschaftslehre von 1812 - die letzte, die Fichte vollstandig vorgetragen hat - wird der Forschung erstmals in zuverlassiger Form vorgelegt. In ihr deduziert Fichte vom hochsten bestimmten 'Blick' aus, dem des sittlichen Wollens als einem der hoheren 'Schemata' der Erscheinung des Absoluten, die weiteren Momente des Wissens. Die Rechtslehre von 1812 wird ausschliesslich nach der Handschrift wiedergegeben. Drei nicht exakt zu datierende Texte zeigen Fichtes Reaktion auf die Zeitereignisse (u.a. Napoleons Kontributionsforderungen an den preussischen Staat). Ausserdem stellt der Philosoph (...) grundsatzliche Uberlegungen auch auf volkswirtschaftlichem Gebiet an (Bewertung landwirtschaftlicher Guter, Geldwerttheorie). The Wissenschaftslehre of 1812. This is the last complete version of Fichte's lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre, and it is here published for the first time in a reliable edition. This version begins with the most determinate "point of view," that of ethical willing, understood as one of the higher "schemata" of the absolute's appearance, from which Fichte deduces the additional moments of knowing. The texts of the 1812 Doctrine of Right [Rechtslehre] and the 1812 Doctrine of Ethics [Sittenlehre] published here are based entirely on the lecture manuscripts and incorporate nothing from previously published texts based upon other sources. -- Three additional texts, none of which can be precisely dated, illustrate Fichte's reaction to events of the day, such as Napoleon's demand for reparations from Prussia. Here the philosopher engages in fundamental reflections concerning the economic realm (the valuation of agricultural wealth, monetary theory). The introductory lecture of the Summer Semester of 1812 documents Fichte's efforts, at the start of the semester, to attract and to introduce as many interested students as possible to the study of philosophy. (shrink)

From the editor: On behalf of the editors of FPQ, I thank our colleagues for providing us their public addresses at the Celebration of Life of Professor Claudia Falconer Card of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who died on Saturday, September 12, 2015. Claudia Card was the author of over one hundred articles and books, key works of moral and feminist philosophy including Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil, and The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral (...) Luck. She was the president of the Central division of the APA 2010-2011, which she often described as her favorite division of the APA. She earned her BA from UW-Madison, and her PhD in 1969 from Harvard University, as the advisee of John Rawls, whom she spoke of with affection as one of the most sensitive and generous of philosophers. I remain grateful to Claudia for being the sort of philosopher who helped her students, colleagues, and readers to confront our responsibilities, and the responsibilities of others, as she lived her own philosophy of taking responsibility for one’s own identity. K.J. Norlock. (shrink)

A modern translation of J. G. Fichte's best known philosophical work (including his two explanatory Introductions), which contributed to the development of 19th Century German Idealism from Kant's critical philosophy.

In this brief note, we respond to Gottlieb and Lasser's critical commentary on our work on narrative research ethics. We argue that their concern for privileging voices needs to be balanced against the risk of exploiting some research participants, that conflicts of interest are best resolved through appropriately prioritizing ethical principles and in consultation with others, and that the researcher's ability to protect participants from harm can be enhanced through appropriate clinical training and access to clinical expertise. We welcome (...) Gottlieb and Lasser's specific recommendations for ethical practice in narrative research and encourage further ethical reflection by other researchers in this area. (shrink)

Josiah Royce relates the following story concerning the writing and publication of Johann Gottlieb Fichte's first major work, the Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation.Fichte … called upon Kant at Königsberg, in July, 1791. The aged, prudent, and … highly economical philosopher regarded this reverent, fiery, but obviously impecunious young disciple with a certain suspicion, and received his confidences coolly. The rebuff only heated Fichte the more. He tarried in Königsberg two months, in order … to write, for (...) presentation to Kant, a work on religious philosophy, which, once finished, proved to be so thoroughly in Kant's spirit that, when in the spring of the next year the book was published anonymously, it was very generally hailed by Kant's admirers as a new production of the master's own genius. Kant himself had to correct this misapprehension, and in doing so named, and now with warm praise, the real author. (shrink)

Anglophone philosophers have shown a surprising interest in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s aesthetics in recent years. At the same time, new approaches to aesthetics have been proposed that come very close to the original conception of aesthetics that Baumgarten introduced in the middle of the eighteenth century. In light of these developments, this article undertakes a critical examination of a central concept in Baumgarten’s poetics and aesthetics—extensive clarity. It argues that historians of philosophy and contemporary aestheticians should be wary of (...) this concept for two reasons. First, in Baumgarten’s poetics, the extensive clarity of sensible representations constitutes a dubious standard with which to determine whether those representations are “poetic.” Second, in aesthetics, using extensive clarity as an alternative standard with which to determine the perfection of sensible cognition undermines the “marriage of reason and experience” that characterized the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy and raises the specter of dualism that Kant tried, with questionable success, to address in the ‘Schematism’ chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. The article concludes that historians of philosophy should acknowledge the philosophical shortcomings of Baumgarten’s conception of extensive clarity and contemporary aesthetics should not reproduce them. (shrink)

Über das Wesen des Gelehrten, und seine Erscheinungen im Gebiete der Freiheit (1805) von Johann Gottlieb Fichte -- Vorrede -- Erste Vorlesgun: Plan des Ganzen -- Zweite Vorlesung: Nähere Bestimmung des Begriffs der göttlichen Idee -- Dritte Vorlesung: Vom angehenden Gelehrten überhaupt; insbesondere vom Talente und Fleisse -- Vierte Vorlesung: Von der Rechtschaffenheit im Studiren -- Fünfte Vorlesung: Wie die Rechtschaffenheit des Studirenden sich äussere -- Sechste Vorlesung: Ueber die akademische Freiheit -- Siebente Vorlesung: Vom vollendeten Gelehrten im Allgemeinen (...) -- Achte Vorlesung: Vom Regenten -- Neunte Vorlesung: Vom mündlichen Gelehrte=Lehrer -- Zehnte Vorlesung: Vom Schriftsteller -- Menschliche Bildung und göttliche Idee. Über Struktur und Gedankengang von Fichtes Erlanger Vorlesungen Über das Wesen des Gelehrten / Annette Sell -- Über das Wesen des Gelehrten im Kontext der Wissenschaftslehre / C. Jeffery Kinlaw -- Fichte on Bestimmung and Wesen des Gelehrten / Angelica Nuzzo -- Fichte's Über das Wesen des Gelehrten, or the educated man as the salt of the Earth / Tom Rockmore -- Werkzeuge? Zur Herrschaft der Gelehrten im Kontext des Fichteschen Spätwerks / Franziskus von Heereman -- J.G. Fichtes Über das Wesen des Gelehrten und die Bestimmung des magister bei Thomas von Aquin / Wilhelm Metz -- Wie sich der Philosoph bei Descartes und Fichte zu sich selbst verhält / Elisabeth Kessler -- The ghosts of Kantian philosophy in Fichte's Über das Wesen des Gelehrten / Richard Velkley -- Reinhold über die Bildung eines neuen Menschen / Ernst-Otto Onnasch -- Die innerliche Verknüpfung von "objektiver Wissenschaft" und "subjektiver Bildung". Wilhelm von Humboldts Universitätsidee - mit einem Ausblick auf sein Kritik an Fichtes Überlegungen zum Gelehrten und zur Universität / Holger Zaborowski -- Die Todesangst als die Vermittlung zur absoluten Idee / Paul Cobben -- Fichte and Schelling / Michael Vater -- Fichtes Über das Wesen des Gelehrten und Heidegger / Alfred Denker. (shrink)

Supercommentary, with commentaries on Praśastapādabhāṣya, a work on Kaṇāda's Vaiśeṣikasūtra, treatise on the Vaiśeṣika school in Hindu philosophy.

ALTHOUGH the content of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's Aesthetica seems to be familiar in German philosophical circles, it is relatively unknown outside Germany. Most of us are aware that it was Baumgarten who coined the name "aesthetics" for the new philosophical discipline his Aesthetica was intended to establish; but as for the content of that work, our acquaintance is likely to be indirect, through two remarks of Kant. Explaining his own use of "Transcendental Aesthetic" in the Critique of Pure Reason, (...) Kant criticizes Baumgarten's "abortive attempt... to bring the critical treatment of the beautiful under rational principles and so to raise its rules to the rank of a science". In the Critique of Judgment, it is generally assumed to be Baumgarten Kant has in mind when, arguing that judgments of beauty are not cognitive or "logical" judgments, he criticizes the view that beauty is perfection known confusedly or indistinctly. Combining Kant's remark with Leibniz's view that beauty is--or, more precisely, flows from--perfection, we might conclude that Baumgarten simply lowered beauty from the level of distinct to that of confused concepts and tried to deduce its rules from the concept of perfection. If this was indeed Baumgarten's project, we might well ask to be excused from pursuing the subject further. (shrink)

As a historical figure, Lamarck proves a rather difficult subject. His writings give us few explicit leads to his intellectual debts; nor do they present his theories as the outcome of any sustained course of observations or experimental research; and, what is equally frustrating, it is hard to see how his personal development as a scientific theorist was affected by the dramatic political and social upheavals of the period, in which he took an active and lively interest. And so, with (...) his importance for later writers much clearer than his relationship to those of his own and earlier ages, historians have repeatedly interpreted his works as prophetic of doctrines developed more fully by subsequent generations. No less surprisingly, this facile tactic has provoked a reaction; we have been offered Lamarck as a Stoic, a romantic, harking back to Heraclitus. (shrink)

English summary: Edition of Johann Gottlieb Fichte's (1762-1814) The Way Towards the Blessed Life. French text. French description: L'initiation a la vie bienheureuse presente la doctrine de la religion de J.G. Fichte. S'adressant a un grand public, ce cycle de conferences tenues a Berlin en 1806 et publiees la meme annee, n'est pas un traite theologique, mais il expose les principes d'une doctrine de la vie et de la beatitude qui constitue l'application pratique et religieuse de la doctrine de (...) la science. Chef d'oeuvre edifiant, ce texte qui eclaire remarquablement (autant qu'il les suppose) les ecrits theoriques de Fichte est livre ici dans une nouvelle traduction tenant compte des recherches recentes sur le philosophe, lesquelles connaissent un nouvel essor depuis quelques annees grace a l'edition, desormais achevee, de ses oeuvres Completes a l'Academie Bavaroise des Sciences. (shrink)

George Greenough was one of the influential group of early nineteenth-century English geologists who rejected both Hutton's and Werner's attempts to propound all-embracing geological theories, and followed a deliberately empirical approach. He travelled through Scotland in 1805, studying geological phenomena in the light of both the Plutonist and the Neptunist theories, and generally concluded that neither was entirely satisfactory as an explanation of the observable facts. He was also the first to suggest that the ‘Parallel Roads’ of Glen Roy were (...) the successive beach-levels of a former lake: this theory was later attacked by Darwin but ultimately vindicated by Agassiz's glacial theory. The more important geological passages from Greenough's MS. journal of the tour are reproduced and discussed in this paper. They illustrate some of the scientific problems that were involved in accepting either Hutton's or Werner's theory entire. (shrink)

InhaltVorwortSiglenverzeichnisDaniel BREAZEALE: »Der Blitz der Einsicht« and »der Akt der Evidenz«. A Theme from Fichte’s Berlin Introductions to PhilosophyJürgen STAHL: Von der Form der Anschauung zur Anschauung der Form. Zu Fichtes Verständnis des Formbegriffs Albert MUES: Die Position der Anschauung im Wissen oder Die Position der Anschauung in der Welt. Der Unsinn der SubjektphilosophieChristoph ASMUTH: Transzendentalphilosophie oder absolute Metaphysik? Grundsätzliche Fragen an Fichtes SpätphilosophieMarek J. SIEMEK: Unendlichkeit und Schranke. Zum Fichteschen Entwurf einer transzendentalen Ontologie des WissensTom ROCKMORE: On Fichte and (...) IdealismSabine AMMON: Realismus oder Idealismus? – Irrealismus!Akira OMINE: Der Begriff des Übersinnlichen in der Philosophie FichtesRoderich BARTH: Wahrheit als Sein von Einheit. Die gewißheitstheoretische Reformulierung des absoluten Wahrheitsbegriffs in Fichtes Phänomenologie von 1804-IIArkadij LUKJANOW: Auf der Suche nach einer neuen Theorie des Absoluten. Die Idee der Synthesis in den späteren Systemen von Fichte und Schelling«Lu De VOS: Der Gedanke des Lebens in den späten Schriften FichtesMichael GERTEN: Geistige Blindheit und der Sinn für Philosophie. Das systematische Problem einer Einleitung in Fichtes WissenschaftslehreKai GREGOR: »Revolution der Gesinnung« und »Vollendung der Freiheit« – Wesen und Möglichkeit höherer Lebensformen bei Kant und FichteVioletta L. WAIBEL: Die bildende Kraft des Wissens vom Wissen in der Spätphilosophie Johann Gottlieb Fichtes Elvira GAREEWA: Wissen als ein freies und selbständiges Leben in den »Thatsachen des Bewußtseyns« Franco GILLI: Die Präsenz der ›Populärphilosophie‹ im Spätwerk FichtesHans Georg von MANZ: Die Funktion der »Tatsachen des Bewußtseins« im Blick auf die Wissenschaftslehre George di GIOVANNI: Sacramentalizing the World: On Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre of 1810Stamatios D. GEROGIORGAKIS: Der Begriff Schema in Fichtes Spätwerk. Seine Unterschiede zum Schemabegriff in Fichtes Frühwerk und seine Einbettung in der philosophischen Tradition vor KantJacinto Rivera de ROSALES: Die transzendentale Logik . Ihr systematischer Ort und ihre BedeutungAlessandro BERTINETTO: Die transzendentale Argumentation in der Transzendentalen Logik FichtesMarc MAESSCHALCK: Attention et réflexivité dans la Logique de 1812 et la dernière philosophie de Fichte. (shrink)

This book, first published in 2001, is a biography of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte from birth to his resignation from his university position at Jena in 1799 due to the Atheism Conflict, this work explains how Fichte contributed to modern conceptions of selfhood; how he sought to make the moral agency of the self efficacious in a modern public culture; and the critical role he assigned philosophy in the construal and assertion of selfhood and in the creation (...) of a new public sphere. Using the writings and private papers now available in the Gesamtausgabe, the study historicises these themes by tracing their development within several contexts, including the German Lutheran tradition, the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility, the Kantian philosophical revolution, the politics of the revolutionary era, and the emergence of modern German universities. It includes a reinterpretation of Fichte's political theory and philosophy of law, his anti-Semitism, and his controversial views on gender and marriage. (shrink)