Husserl's transcendental phenomenology is not a mere egology, but gets its concrete accomplishment only as a phenomenology of 'transcendental intersubjectivity'. However, the subjective centers of any transcendentality and thus of every constitution — even of intersubjectivity itself — have to be such unities as Leibniz' 'monads', that is, individually concrete subjects producing all their representations of one another completely out of themselves, respectively. Thus the problem arises, how the genuine transcendental status of each monadic subject in all its constitutive achievements (...) could be maintained so that they develop their own intentional lives in a universal mutual accordance, without presupposing again a supra-monadic ground for their 'harmony', i.e. a higher-levelled ordering unity. I shall argue that th peculiar Husserlian 'transcendental monadology' is inevitably bound to this intrinsic paradox which can at best be reduced to a mere postulate but never be resolved. (shrink)

In as far as every philosophy appears at a certain point in time it later inevitably becomes a historical fact. If its content is then to be recognizable, if it is to be reclaimed as philosophy in the present, then we ourselves must have a philosophical conception of history and, furthermore, a conception of philosophy's own historicity. Only since Kant has modern metaphysics expressly and methodically developed such a conception within its systematic claim to truth. Moreover, for the presentday philosophy (...) and its relationship to a completed metaphysics such a conception is indispensable - under the presupposition that the history of philosophy is to be taken seriously as philosophy. (shrink)

The intention of my comments is mainly to draw attention to a necessary distinction between that prereflective cogito of post‐metaphysical subjectivity that is analysed in Westphal's paper and the subject of the cogito that can be identified and verified as the very principle of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel, namely, as the subject of reason. This means first of all to step back from the conviction, taken as self‐evident, that the subject of reason — and thereby the truth claims (...) of that entire philosophical epoch — are illusionary, that is, without any right of their own. Instead we should be ready to ask how it is brought about philosophically that the subject is “shattered,” “humiliated,” “declared forfeit,” etc. My thesis is that post‐metaphysical subjectivity with its contaminated opacity can be made understandable in principle out of the endogenous crisis of the fully developed “absolute” subject of reason, if this crisis is carried out and decided as the transformation of the subject from its absolute to its decentered status. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to analyze the basic tension in Kant's philosophy of right, i.e. within the conceptual framework of his Transcendental Idealism. Right as the embodiment of laws of freedom applicable to mortal-rational agents bridges the gap between their noumenal character and empirical-natural existence. How can this gap be bridged? A priori juridical laws are not sufficient to provide a complete classification for the empirical realm, exhausting all possible positive rights. Furthermore, according to Kant, Right must be basically (...) justifiable by reason. Yet this justification is merely a necessary condition for obligation. In order to develop any real obligation, it must be complemented by a non-deducible, empirical-positive aspect . Hence only as a result of actually exercising individual freedom does the mutual necessitation to recognize individual freedom for all arise. The historical-factual formation of civil social orders, though subject to a priori foundation, is thus unavoidably marked by contingency. Nonetheless, because of its a priori character, the idea of a society of free individuals becomes the standard of critique for every empirical instantiation of a civil social order. Recht als Inbegriff der Gesetze der Freiheit endlich-vernünftiger Subjekte leistet eine Vermittlung zwischen dem noumenalen Wesen und der emprisch-naturalen Existenz dieser Subjekte. Wie ist diese Vermittlung möglich? Eine vollständige Einteilung des Empirischen unter Rechtsgesetzen a priori ist unmöglich. Was Recht ist, ist nach Kant zwar nur in der Vernunft begründbar, aber dieser Grund bleibt nur notwendige Bedingung, zu der stets eine nicht deduzierbare, empirisch-positive Seite hinzukommen muß, um tatsächliche Verbindlichkeit zu erhalten : Erst aufgrund einer faktischen Ausübung der Freiheit entsteht die wechselseitige Nötigung, die individuelle Freiheit als Freiheit aller anzuerkennen. Die historisch-faktische Gestaltung von Rechtsgemeinschaften bleibt somit auch unter der Bedingung apriorischer Begründung mit unaufhebbarer Kontingenz behaftet; doch zugleich gewinnt die Idee einer Gemeinschaft freier Individuen kraft ihrer Apriorität eine kritische Funktion gegenüber jeglicher empirischer Instanz. (shrink)

On November 21, 1994, Werner Marx passed away peacefully in the place he loved so well, his apartment in the Schloß in Bollschweil. Professor Marx was born in 1910 in Mulheim, Germany. He studied law and philosophy in Berlin, Freiburg, and Bonn before completing his state examination and doctorate in law in 1933. In the same year, he was removed from civil service and from an apprentice judgeship by the Nazis. After this, he emigrated first to Palestine and then in (...) 1938 to New York, where he took up academic studies again. After receiving an M.A. in economics, he completed the Ph.D. in philosophy, working with Kurt Reizler and Karl Löwith at the German University in Exile, later to become the New School for Social Research, and writing a dissertation on Aristotle’s ontology. During this period, he renewed his interest in Hegel and German Idealism, and also in Heidegger’s critique of the tradition and attempts to make “another beginning” in philosophy. Marx began teaching at the New School in 1949. After the appearance of his classic study, Heidegger and the Tradition, he was named successor to the Husserl-Heidegger chair in philosophy and director of Philosophical Seminar I in Freiburg, which he held from 1964 until his retirement in 1979. He also served as Director of the Husserl-Archives in Freiburg until his death. (shrink)