This article features the contributions of Fichte and Schopenhauer to a philosophical account of action against the background of Kant's earlier and influential treatment of the topic. The article first presents Kant's pertinent contributions in the areas of general epistemology and metaphysics, general practical philosophy, the philosophy of law and ethic. Then the focus is on Fichte's further original work on the issue of action in those same areas. Finally, the article turns to Schopenhauer's radical revision of the Kantian and (...) Fichtean affirmative accounts of acting and willing through the correlated introduction of the irrational will, the self-negated will and ethical inaction. (shrink)

Volume 30, Issue 6, December 2022, Page 1033-1054.

The aim of the present paper is to show Novalis’ complete belonging to the history of transcendental philosophy by bringing out the connection between his conception of poetry and the issue of transcendental imagination in Kant and Fichte. Given that solving this problem is the main issue around which Novalisian thought is structured, an attempt is made to consider the writing style adopted by the author as necessary to fulfill this task, and not as an arbitrary rhetorical choice. The connection (...) between poetry and philosophy is then explored in the practical role it has to play among human beings, namely, that of revealing the meaning of the whole reality as a manifestation of the absolute. Thus, life itself is properly displayed by the singular existences as absolute creativity, such as that of poetical creations. (shrink)

The paper argues that Kant’s distinction between pure and empirical apperception cannot be interpreted as distinguishing two self-standing types of self-knowledge. For Kant, empirical and pure apperception need to co-operate to yield substantive self-knowledge. What makes Kant’s account interesting is his acknowledgment that there is a deep tension between the way I become conscious of myself as subject through pure apperception and the way I am given to myself as an object of inner sense. This tension remains problematic in the (...) realm of theoretical cognition but can be put to work and made productive in terms of practical self-knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation, one important issue is which of the concepts works as a foundation for the others. People, nation, language, state, or education are all possible candidates to take a central place. First, this paper analyzes the problems presented by the notions of “people” and “nation,” such as their ambiguous and even contradictory aspects. Second, we focus on how the concept of education needs a solid ground from which an educational plan can develop. Finally, (...) we show that the fundamental concept of Fichte’s Addresses is the same one as in his Natural Right: the State. According to Fichte, only the rational State can guarantee the realization of education, people, and nation. (shrink)

Two essential Kantian insights are the significance for rationality of the capacity for criticism and the limits of cognition, discovered when criticism is pursued methodically, that are due to the perspectival character of the human standpoint. After a period of disparagement, these Kantian insights have been sympathetically construed and are now discussed within contemporary analytic philosophy. However, if Kant’s assumption of a single, immutable, human framework is jettisoned, then the rationality of historical succession is called into question. Moreover, if the (...) revolutionary character of framework transitions is acknowledged, then reason is historicized and even its character as reason is threatened. I argue that Menachem Fisch’s approach to criticism and rationality offers an escape from this post-Kantian predicament that acknowledges revolutionary framework transitions and that draws upon the dialogical traditions of Jewish thought, and I also argue that Fisch’s approach should be seen as thematizing, to use the terms of Kant’s aesthetics and of Fichte’s account of natural right, the reflecting rather than determining status of critical judgement, which involves second-personal address. (shrink)

This article argues against scientistic arguments of the redundancy of religious belief structures due to the explicability of the physical world, as exemplified here by a discussion of the “popular science” of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. It is claimed that the root of belief in “sense” is in animation, rather than in cosmological creation myths. The paper displays that the ideal of the absolute is linguistically signified by the termini “survival” and “freedom” in human understanding. However, it does not (...) appear through human understanding as an illusion stemming from the illegitimate inference of a pantheistic spirit or prime mover. Instead, human reason builds an analytical understanding upon a fundamental instinct, which long predates human-level consciousness. Approaching the subject’s role in the physical world, the article displays that animation itself, as the primal form of awareness and agency, is the urge to overcome an inherent antagonism in the structure of being. It is argued that the cosmological argument is mirrored by an argument that has no strict theoretical cogency, but is likewise irreducible and irrefutable by science. Science investigates the object empirically but has limited explanatory capabilities when it comes to subjective being. (shrink)

German idealism stems in large part from Fichte’s response to a dilemma involving the concepts of pantheism, freedom and time: either time is the form of the determination of modes of substance, as held by a pantheistic or ‘dogmatic’ person, or the form of acts generated by human freedom, as held by an idealistic person. Fichte solves the dilemma by refuting dogmatism and deducing time from idealism’s first principle. But his diagnosis is more portentous: by casting the lemmas in terms (...) of person-types, he unintentionally invites Schelling’s philosophical rethinking of personality. In his middle period, Schelling argues for the consistency of the concepts of pantheism, freedom and time, claiming that it depends on a ‘good’ as opposed to ‘evil’ personality. However, since on his view personality is an absolute or originally undecided capacity for good and evil, the trio’s consistency is entirely contingent. In §1, I trace Fichte’s resolution of the dilemma. In §§2-3, I reconstruct Schelling’s arguments for consistency from the Freiheitsschrift and Weltalter, texts written just a few years apart. In §4, I allay a Kantian worry that this consistency relies problematically on the liberty of indifference or Willkür. (shrink)

If a problem is the collision between a system and a fact, Spinozism and German idealism’s greatest problem is the corpse. Life’s end is problematic for the denial of death’s qualitative difference from life and the affirmation of nature’s infinite purposiveness. In particular, German idealism exemplifies immortalism – the view that life is the unconditioned condition of all experience, including death. If idealism cannot explain the corpse, death is not grounded on life, which invites mortalism – the view that death (...) is the unconditioned condition of experience. In “Philosophical Letters,” Schelling critiques idealism, arguing that death symbolizes the regulative ideal of a philosophical system’s derivation, our striving for which unifies our rational activity. I interpret Schelling’s critique as explaining how death puts philosophy into question, an idea he develops in the Freedom essay and Berlin lectures. Death is not a problem to be solved by a system, but represents philosophy’s highest yet unrealizable end. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThroughout his published work, Michel Henry expresses a deep appreciation for the writings of Kierkegaard, using them as an inspirational foundation for much of his own thought. However, Henry claims to be far more Kierkegaardian than he really is. Henry’s peers have identified several philosophical and theological deficiencies in Henry’s thought. These places of weakness also happen to be his most obvious points of departure from Kierkegaard. A Kierkegaardian confrontation with Henry demands a retrieval of the Infinite Qualitative Difference between (...) God and man as key to exploring the structure of the self. Kierkegaard’s texts correct Henry’s assumption that the ontological difference established in the act of creation would separate the self from God. They suggest instead that the IQD provides the necessary conditions for the truly theological self to emerge. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉDans ses écrits de Jena, Fichte tente de résoudre l’apparent conflit entre la nécessité de faire reposer la philosophie sur des principes scientifiques et celle de respecter sa nature de vocation autonome. Ce faisant, il a prétendu accomplir d’autres tâches, sur les plans métaphilosophique, pédagogique et polémique : justifier les questions qui l’occupaient, communiquer sa pensée correctement et répondre aux incompréhensions de ses adversaires. Cet article montre qu’à travers ces considérations, Fichte s’essaie aussi au problème plus vaste qui consiste à (...) préciser la relation entre la «lettre» de la philosophie comme doctrine et son «esprit» intersubjectif. (shrink)