19th Century Philosophy

A história humana possui seus processos e especificidades no e do tempo e espaço, com certas rupturas e continuidades de certos processos e elementos. Podemos citar como exemplo: Os tipos e modos de desigualdades, sistemas escravistas e sistemas coloniais etc. Mas, não sendo igual ou da mesma forma. Há especificidades e características ligadas ao tempo e ao espaço contextual. Porém, sem dúvidas, há acontecimentos e fatos históricos que ocorrem com certas semelhanças e características entre passado e presente, ainda que dentro (...) dos seus respectivos contextos. Logo, a cada época e contexto social, político, econômico, cultural, religioso e histórico, podemos observar certas semelhanças, entre ‘o ontem e o hoje. ’ A exemplo, o Sistema Feudal que ocorreu em muitos continentes e países, e em tempos específicos e com suas especificidades contextuais. Desse modo, como já mencionado, parecem que certos elementos ou resquícios de fatos históricos anteriores ou passados se evidenciam em outras épocas e contextos. Não que sejam os mesmos sistemas, nem tampouco a continuidade deles, mas apenas semelhanças e características que parecem ‘ir e vir. ’ Diante de tais fatos, seus problemas e consequências; debruçamo-nos em fontes sobre o Sistema Feudal Europeu dos séc. X ao XIV d. C. para compreendermos elementos, eventos e episódios que vêm ocorrendo na contemporaneidade brasileira, com algumas semelhanças com o Sistema Feudal. Fundamentalmente, no que diz respeito às terras, grandes latifundiários, religião, política, economia e rituais. Assim, identificamos que: a) Religião, Política e ‘poder’, tanto no feudalismo quanto nas relações políticas atuais no Brasil, continuam na perspectiva de defender a propriedade privada de grandes extensões de terras nas mãos de poucos; b) manter e reproduzir as ideias conservadoras e ‘moralistas’ dos grupos que detém o ‘poder político e econômico’; e c) naturalizar a pobreza e a miséria da população como destino ou normal-natural, bem como atribuir às conquistas econômicas e materiais dos grandes latifundiários a algo divino ou determinado. (shrink)

This paper explores the deep philosophical affinities between Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche, focusing on their shared understanding of the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy and its implications for the essence of human existence. The analysis begins by examining Nietzsche's concept of the unity of the Apollonian and Dionysian as a fundamental aspect of human identity, despite Nietzsche's own unawareness of its metaphysical significance. Heidegger, in turn, recognizes this insight as an epochal breakthrough in Nietzsche's thought, surpassing the boundaries of traditional (...) meta-physics. The discussion further explores the role of Hölderlin as a crucial figure in both Nietzsche's and Heidegger's philosophical trajectories. It argues that in the co-appropriation of the Apollonian and Dionysian and the concept of Ereignis (the Event), both philosophers reveal a profound engagement with the interplay of foundation and abyss. This interplay, according to Heidegger, constitutes the historical-epochal opening of being and provides a perspective for understanding the essence of Dasein as the Ek-sistence (existential being). The paper challenges Heidegger's reductionist interpretation of Nietzsche as merely the completion of metaphysics and suggests a closer affinity between Nietzsche and Hölderlin. It concludes by emphasizing the transformative potential of embracing the interplay of the Apollonian and Dionysian and the reevaluation of human essence based on existence, which enables a new understanding of the world and its inherent mysteries. (shrink)

Chronology of the Manuscripts 1885–89. Appendix to KGW IX. After the completion of the topological manuscript edition in section IX of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke (KGW IX), the additional chronological indexing of the late Nachlass remained a desideratum. The current manuscript closes this editorial gap. As an appendix to KGW IX, the chronology of the manuscripts 1885–89 provides the date for each distinguishable layer of inscription for every manuscript and note edited in KGW IX. In the first part of (...) the following chronology, the dated inscription layers for all late manuscripts from notebook N VII 1 to the scattered notes are recorded topologically. In the second part, the inscription layers are indexed chronologically from spring 1885 to the beginning of January 1889. (shrink)

For Schopenhauer, death, understood as the annihilation of an individual's existence, cannot be successfully accommodated by theories endorsing an optimistic assessment of both human life and the world at large. I argue that Schopenhauer also has reasons to think that optimism cannot adopt personal immortality as a solution to that problem, although he does not present them systematically. Thus, he argues, prolonging one's life would necessarily lead at some point to an unbearable state of exhaustion due to one's unchanging character. (...) Changing one's character infinitely many times in the future would not do either, as Schopenhauer regards that idea as internally inconsistent. Finally, the immortality gained through one's work, one's descendants, or the survival of a part of oneself, while consistent with optimism, could not amount to personal immortality, on Schopenhauer's criteria. I end by discussing the implications of Schopenhauer's criticism for his own view, and a possible reply to it. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) est probablement l’un des plus importants penseurs et philosophes de notre époque. On peut dire que les sciences humaines en général et la philosophie en particulier doivent prendre une position positive ou négative concernant la philosophie hégélienne avant de procéder à d’autres développements qui leur seraient propres. Plus précisément, ce collectif trouve sa racine dans une double urgence : les menaces des crises environnementale, politique et économique, les nouveaux enjeux qu’elles entraînent, d’une part, et l’absence (...) jusqu’à présent de réponses prometteuses, de l’autre. Il est temps de faire le point et de contribuer à fournir de nouvelles pistes de réflexion. Le présent ouvrage, bilingue, est le fruit de la collaboration d’éminents spécialistes internationaux qui ont répondu avec enthousiasme à notre invitation. Les 14 textes qui y sont réunis sont distribués selon trois thématiques et, tout en respectant la nature de la pensée hégélienne, leurs thèmes se chevauchent inévitablement. La première partie, « Aspects de la pensée de Hegel / Aspects of Hegel’s Thought », regroupe les textes qui discutent en profondeur d’un aspect de la pensée de Hegel, tout en analysant un enjeu qui se trouve dans ses propres œuvres. Les contributions de la deuxième partie, « Marx et Hegel / Marx and Hegel », examinent la relation entre ces deux philosophes. Comment faut-il comprendre les passages dans lesquels Marx accuse Hegel d’idéalisme, dont celui, largement cité, dans la préface du premier tome du Capital, n’est qu’un exemple? Dans la troisième partie, « Hegel à l’époque contemporaine / Hegel in Modern Times », les auteurs se penchent sur l’influence de la pensée de Hegel sur plusieurs penseurs. (shrink)

The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to expose Friedrich Nietzsche’s critically neglected account of empathic concern. In what follows, I will briefly present the main ideas and purpose of the project, and include necessary background. -/- Since a significant portion of Nietzsche’s work on moral psychology and ethics is directed toward naturalizing and conceptually redefining the metaphysical implications of Arthur Schopenhauer’s account of compassion, I begin by critically examining Schopenhauer’s metaphysics. At its simplest, Schopenhauer’s narrative goes as follows: the (...) phenomenal world is determined and driven by a metaphysical striving and yearning (more clearly, a will-to-live) that can never be satisfied. We have access to this underlying reality of existence, i.e., the thing-in-itself, subjectively, in the inner awareness which we have of our own experience of willing. -/- Unfortunately, the subtleties and nuances of Schopenhauer’s understanding of inner awareness and its centrality within his overall oeuvre have generally been overlooked or underappreciated by scholars. I suspect that the main reason for this problem is that there does not seem to be an adequate account of the relation between representation and willing in Schopenhauer’s system. I offer an in-depth analysis of Schopenhauer’s understanding of inner awareness, as well as demonstrate its significance as the essential precursor to self-knowledge and world-understanding. -/- The thing-in-itself, a term Schopenhauer borrows from Immanuel Kant, signifies a fundamental reality that underlies the apparent diversity and change in the world, a reality that is distinct from what is merely temporal or changeable. Schopenhauer’s identification of the thing-in-itself with the will has been deeply problematic and puzzling to commentators, because willing and striving is temporal, and no temporal phenomenon can be identical to the thing-in-itself. I distinguish between three distinct views that Schopenhauer formulates about the thing-in-itself, and suggest to understand these three accounts as contrasting but not contradictory views, in other words as different perspectives on the same reality. -/- Next, I examine the theory of empathy that Nietzsche presents in his book, Daybreak, as an alternative to Schopenhauer’s account of compassion, which is solely based on his metaphysics of the will. For Schopenhauer, compassion is associated with an instinctual recognition that beneath our apparent separateness as individuals, we are in fact the expression of the same metaphysical will. Nietzsche moves away from this metaphysical conception and calls, instead, for a naturalistic account in which empathy relies on a sense of psychological closeness and perceived similarity to others, which then results in a feeling of oneness between individuals. Yet, for Nietzsche, this feeling of oneness manifests itself as a sense of being in solidarity with others who share similar experiences, while still recognizing one another’s numerical distinctiveness. -/- Finally, I examine Nietzsche’s assessment of the value of compassion. Nietzsche seems to be critical of all compassion but at times also seems to praise a different form of compassion, which he refers to as ‘our compassion’ and contrasts it with ‘your compassion’. Some commentators have interpreted this to mean that Nietzsche’s criticism is not as unconditional as it may seem–that he does not condemn compassion entirely. I disagree and contend that even though Nietzsche appears to speak favorably of some forms of compassion, he regards all compassion as fundamentally bad. I argue that, for Nietzsche, ‘our compassion’, however regrettable qua compassion it is, may give occasion for a rare and peculiar insight into ‘co-suffering’ with others, which in turn results in overcoming compassion entirely. (shrink)

This paper uses Gerald Postema’s _Law’s Rule_ to take up one of the most controversial questions in rule of law scholarship: whether the ideal can provide the basis for criticizing the state alone, or private individuals and entities exercising power over others as well. An account of the characteristics of states in virtue of which the rule of law licenses control over their power is developed, followed by an examination of some cases in which non-state holders of power over others (...) might take on some of those characteristics. Under such circumstances, there are rule of law reasons to demand state control of private power. (shrink)

Este trabajo persigue reflexionar sobre el estatuto ontológico de la comunidad en base a la figura de Nietzsche como arcano de la apuesta teórica tiqquniana. Así, a partir de las consideraciones que Nietzsche realiza sobre la vida, junto con los diagnósticos que Tiqqun despliega a partir de su _metafísica crítica_, se explorarán algunos de los pliegues del pensamiento de ambos autores tratando de iluminar una cartografía de la no pertenencia que sustituya la lógica identitaria de la comunidad moderna fundamentada en (...) el principio de humanismo. Dicha cartografía no solo persigue agotar el lenguaje político contemporáneo, sino que piensa en una forma política y comunitaria desarrollada desde el _pathos_ de la distancia, el éxtasis y la filosofía política an-árquica. El esfuerzo teórico aquí recogido ilumina y teje la presencia de Nietzsche en el pensamiento de Tiqqun manifestando el anhelo compartido entre ambos autores por desatar prácticas de libertad en la tarea de traer al mundo las vidas que aún están por venir. (shrink)

Straipsnyje atskleidžiu tam tikrą pragmatizmo ir egzistencializmo suderinamumą tiesos sampratos aspektu. Siekdamas pagrįsti šį suartėjimą, tyrinėju Jameso pragmatinį metodą ir Nietzschės kritinį požiūrį į „valią tiesai“. Abu mąstytojai stoja prieš absoliučios, fiksuotos ir praktinių individo poreikių nepaisančios tiesos idėją. Atitinkamai, abu jie teigia, kad tiesa, suprantama ikiteoriškai, yra procesas, imanentiškas konkrečiai subjektų gyvenimo patirčiai. Pasitelkdamas pragmatinius ir egzistencialistinius svarstymus, aš kritiškai tyrinėju, kaip šie filosofai kvestionavo tiesą individo kaip veikėjo egzistencijos kontekste.

Essays on one of Fichte's best known and most controversial works. One of J. G. Fichte’s best-known works, Addresses to the German Nation is based on a series of speeches he gave in Berlin when the city was under French occupation. They feature Fichte’s diagnosis of his own era in European history as well as his call for a new sense of German national identity, based upon a common language and culture rather than “blood and soil.” These speeches, often interpreted (...) as key documents in the rise of modern nationalism, also contain Fichte’s most sustained reflections on pedagogical issues, including his ideas for a new egalitarian system of Prussian national education. The contributors’ reconsideration of the speeches deal not only with technical philosophical issues such as the relationship between language and identity, and the tensions between universal and particular motifs in the text, but also with issues of broader concern, including education, nationalism, and the connection between morality and politics. Daniel Breazeale is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Tom Rockmore is Humanities Chair Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Peking University, China. Both have authored, edited, and translated many books. Together, they are the coeditors of Fichte’s Vocation of Man: New Interpretive and Critical Essays, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

The paper offers an interpretation of the thesis developed by Fichte in the Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre following “the philosophy one chooses depends on the man one is” as a deepening of symbolic practices and dispositions that philosophy shares with ordinary consciousness. To support this interpretation, the paper describes how Fichte defines individual character formation and how it relates to a historical determinate is presented through a quick excursion in the Nicolaischrift of 1801 (§2). Through a critical and synthetic (...) view of the process of initiation into philosophy, the paper shows how the choice of philosophy is a choice for philosophy (§ 3) and invests a certain “skill” that is produced in the pre-philosophical dimension (§ 4). Through discussion of the Fichtian concepts of “instinct of reason” and “new sensory,” how the choice for philosophy, interpretable as the production of a new habitus, the fichtean doctrine of Science realizes itself fully as ‘critique’ (§ 5). (shrink)

Nietzsche put Jesus’ historical crucifixion at the center of philosophy to exile the notion of a transcendent God from philosophy. Discarding theology as metaphysics and replacing it with an anthropology of how human persons become divinized, Nietzsche contributed to unearthing the scapegoating mechanism as a god-making device at the center of human culture. Nietzsche’s focus on the murder of God, rather than Their death, suggested Girard’s martyrdom’s crucial role in the foundation and the preservation of culture. Following Girard, I read (...) the madman’s parable of God’s death in The Joyous Science alongside paragraph 1052 of The Will to Power, where Nietzsche recognized that the difference between Dionysos and the Crucified can only be seen clearly from the perspective of Calvary. (shrink)