Neo‐Kantianism, a movement with roots deep in the nineteenth century, dominated German academic philosophy between 1890 and 1920. Though it carried the impulse of German Idealism into the culture of the twentieth century and set the agenda for philosophies which displaced it, the movement is little studied now. One encounters it primarily in liberation narratives constructed by those whose own thinking took shape in the clash between neo‐Kantianism and the “rebellious” interwar generation spearheaded by jaspers (see Article 17) (...) and heidegger (see Article 18). Thus, before Heidegger – so Hannah Arendt (Arendt 1978, p. 294) – “philosophy was not so much communicated as drowned in a sea of boredom.” And with Heidegger – so Hans‐Georg Gadamer (Gadamer 1977, p. 214) – “the complacent system‐building of neo‐Kantian methodologism” gave way; its “calm and confident aloofness … suddenly seemed to be mere child's play” (Gadamer 1977, p. 230). Here neo‐Kantianism is the terminus ad quem of a “liberation from the unbreakable circle of reflection” toward recovery of the “evocative power of conceptual thinking and philosophical language” (Gadamer 1977, p. 202). It thus enters the lore of Continental philosophy as the father who had to be slain in order that philosophy might live. (shrink)

The article attempts to define the concept of “post-neo-Kantianism” based on the nature of its relationship to the concept of “neo-Kantianism”. Concerning this matter, the author poses the following tasks: to characterize the phenomenon of neo-Kantianism, to point out the problems of its definition, to identify the relevance of the term “post-neo-Kantianism” and its relation to the philosophy of I. Kant in particular. The author emphasizes the need to introduce this term in the classification of philosophy (...) of the XX century with the appropriateness of building the model of “Kantianism - Neo-Kantianism - Neo-Neo-Kantianism - Post-Neo-Kantianism”, where each new stage is determined by the nature of the reflection of thinkers of a certain period over the fundamental philosophical problems articulated in Kant's “Critics”. Among the post-Neo-Kantians, A. Noras names thinkers traditionally considered to be german phenomenologists, such as E. Husserl and M. Heidegger: it is from the philosophical concept of Husserl that one can speak of the emergence of post-Neo-Kantianism, and the semantically correct interpretation of Heidegger, according to author, is most clearly understood in the framework of Baden Neo-Kantianism. Investigating the phenomenon of post-Neo-Kantianism, the need is established for answering a question regarding the preceding Neo-Kantian tradition, within which there is still a number of contradictions unresolved in the history of philosophy regarding the classification of Neo-Kantian schools and the distinction between the two periods of Neo-Kantianism: early and late. Neo-Kantianism shows the relevance of Kantian philosophy, highlighting the ongoing debate about understanding the Kantian “Critique of Pure Reason”. Post-Neo-Kantianism plays an important role in terms of the perspectives of modern Kant studies, which include Gottfried Martin, Manfred Brelage, or Hans-Michael Baumgartner. (shrink)

This chapter offers a reassessment of the relationship between Kant, the Kantian tradition, and phenomenology, here focusing mainly on Husserl and Heidegger. Part of this reassessment concerns those philosophers who, during the lives of Husserl and Heidegger, sought to defend an updated version of Kant’s philosophy, the neo-Kantians. The chapter shows where the phenomenologists were able to benefit from some of the insights on the part of Kant and the neo-Kantians, but also clearly points to the differences. The (...) aim of this chapter is to offer a fair evaluation of the relation of the main phenomenologists to Kant and to what was at the time the most powerful philosophical movement in Europe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Neo-Kantianism in Contemporary PhilosophyFrederick BeiserRudolf A. Makkreel and Sebastian Luft, editors. Neo-Kantianism in Contemporary Philosophy. Studies in Continental Thought. Bloomington-Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010. Pp. ix. + 331. Paper, $27.95.This collection of essays testifies to the growing interest in neo-Kantianism in the Anglophone world. The editors boast that “it is the first of its kind published in English,” though they have been beat to the (...) post by an issue of the The Philosophical Forum (Vol. XXXIX, no. 2, Summer 2008), Back to Kant: Neo-Kantianism and its Relevance Today, edited by Andrew Chignell, Terence Irwin, and Thomas Teufel. Still, claims to priority are of small moment where quality is concerned, and the many valuable essays in this volume more than compensate for second place. In their introductory essay, Makkreel and Luft make a convincing case for the continuing relevance of neo-Kantianism in contemporary philosophy. Basically, nearly every philosophical movement of the twentieth century—phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, positivism, Frankfurt school—was influenced by, or grew out of a reaction to, neo-Kantianism, so that we cannot understand and assess these movements unless we have a handle on neo-Kantianism itself. The editors missed a trick, however, when they failed to mention the concept of normativity, which plays such a big role in contemporary philosophy, and whose roots lie in neo-Kantianism.Despite the high quality of many of its essays, this volume suffers from a lack of balance and perspective. Contemporary scholars on neo-Kantianism tend to focus on the Marburg school, especially the work of Cohen, Cassirer, and Natorp. This volume reflects this bias: almost all the articles are centered on these figures. Only two essays focus on the Southwestern or Baden school: one on Emil Lask by Steven Crowell, another on Dilthey and the neo-Kantians by Makkreel. The latter article, however, is more a defense of Dilthey than a study of the neo-Kantians. The important contributions of the Southwestern school to value-theory, and the logic of history and the social sciences, receive scant treatment.The lack of balance is especially evident in the case of the neo-Friesian school, which is never mentioned. This school of neo-Kantianism prospered in Göttingen in the early twentieth century under the leadership of Leonard Nelson. Its members—the theologian Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), the psychiatrist Arthur Kronfeld (1886–1941), the Nobel Prize winner Otto Meyerhoff (1884–1951), and the mathematician Gerhard Hessenberg (1874–1925)—were eminent in their own right and advocated noble social and political causes. Their circle is of great cultural interest, and it deserves a place in history no less than the Marburg and Southwestern schools. Following Fries, Nelson developed an anthropological interpretation of Kant competing with the logicist interpretation of the Marburg and Southwestern schools. Nowadays Heidegger is given credit for the anthropological interpretation, though its origins ultimately go back to Fries.The bias in perspective becomes explicit in the essay by Manfred Kühn, “Interpreting Kant Correctly: On the Kant of the Neo-Kantians.” Kühn attempts to find the common [End Page 145] interpretation of Kant in the Marburg and Southwestern schools, and locates it in the Platonized version of Kant of the later Cohen, an interpretation that eliminates sensibility and stresses the autonomy of pure thought. Kühn’s generalization is problematic for three reasons: (1) It ignores the anthropological interpretation of the Friesian school; (2) it scarcely works for the Southwestern school, which never eliminated Kant’s sensibility (Kühn bases his interpretation on a single later essay by Rickert, as if it held for all his earlier work and for Windelband and Lask); and (3) it applies only to the later Cohen, who took the plunge toward an objective idealist interpretation only in his 1896 Einleitung mit kritischen Nachtrag zur neunten Auflage der Geschichte des Materialismus. Although there are indeed Platonic tendencies to Cohen’s thinking even in the late 1860s, they do not erase the Kantian dualism between understanding and sensibility, which remains well in place even in the second edition of Kant’s Theorie der Erfahrung (1885). On the whole, Kühn’s interpretation is very anachronistic... (shrink)

The study offers an overview of philosophical currents formed under the influence of Kant’s critical philosophy. Such directions of Kantianism as German Idealism represented by F. Jacobi, Neo-Kantianism represented by E. Cassirer and A. Riehl, ontological interpretation of Kant’s theory by M. Heidegger and analytical tradition of Neo-Kantianism represented by J. McDowell are considered in detail. These examples demonstrate different approaches to understanding Kant which have been developed throughout history. Among them, one can identify the epistemological (...) approach that views Kant’s theoretical philosophy as a theory of knowledge and, above all, as a theory of experience. It can be contrasted with various metaphysical approaches developed against the background of an idealistic reading of the Critique of Pure Reason. From time to time, realistic interpretations of Kant’s theory of experience that try to avoid ontological dualism concerning the relation between “appearance” and “thing in itself” have arisen, which seem adequate to its spirit and letter. Within the analytic Kantian paradigm, a whole spectrum of interpretations of Kant’s concept of experience has emerged, for which the stumbling blocks are, above all, Kant’s theory on the cognitive faculties - sensibility and understanding, the deduction of categories and the transcendental unity of apperception. In the first case, the main issue is the question of the cooperation of cognitive faculties in the process of experience formation, which still causes difficulties for researchers; in the second case, the question of the role of non-discursive and discursive concepts in this process; in the third case, the question of the relationship of apperception, consciousness and self-consciousness and their functions in cognition. The study shows that all these questions still await their final resolution. The study is in fact an introduction to the block devoted to the reception of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in connection with the approaching anniversary of the philosopher. (shrink)

Franz Rosenzweig is widely regarded today as one of the most original and intellectually challenging figures within the so-called renaissance of German-Jewish thought in the Weimar period. The architect of a unique kind of existential theology, and an important influence upon such philosophers as Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, Leo Strauss, and Emmanuel Levinas, Rosenzweig is remembered chiefly as a "Jewish thinker," often to the neglect of his broader philosophical concerns. Cutting across the artificial divide that the traumatic memory of National (...) Socialism has drawn between German and Jewish philosophy, this book seeks to restore Rosenzweig's thought to the German philosophical horizon in which it first took shape. It is the first English-language study to explore Rosenzweig's enduring debt to Hegel's political theory, neo-Kantianism, and life-philosophy; the book also provides a new, systematic reading of Rosenzweig's major work, _The Star of Redemption._ Most of all, the book sets out to explore a surprising but deep affinity between Rosenzweig’s thought and that of his contemporary, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Resisting both apologetics and condemnation, Gordon suggests that Heidegger’s engagement with Nazism should not obscure the profound and intellectually compelling bond in the once-shared tradition of modern German and Jewish thought. A remarkably lucid discussion of two notably difficult thinkers, this book represents an eloquent attempt to bridge the forced distinction between modern Jewish thought and the history of modern German philosophy—and to show that such a distinction cannot be sustained without doing violence to both. (shrink)

The latter half of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in Kant’s philosophy in Continental Europe, the effects of which are still being felt today. _The Neo-Kantian Reader_ is the first anthology to collect the most important primary sources in Neo-Kantian philosophy, with many being published here in English for the first time. It includes extracts on a rich and diverse number of subjects, including logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, (...) and transcendental idealism. Sebastian Luft, together with other scholars, provides clear introductions to each of the following sections, placing them in historical and philosophical context: the beginnings of Neo-Kantianism: including the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, Otto Liebman, Friedrich Lange, and Hermann Lotze the Marburg School: including Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer the Southwest School: including Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, Emil Lask, and Hans Vaihinger responses and critiques: including Moritz Schlick, Edmund Husserl; Rudolf Carnap, and the 'Davos dispute' between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer. The Neo-Kantian Reader is essential reading for all students of Kant, nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and phenomenology, as well as to those studying important philosophical movements such as logical positivism and analytic philosophy and its history. (shrink)

Heidegger’s reading of Kant is deciphered to have illuminated his own project concerning the basic question of Ontology, Time, Space and History [Temporality, Spatiality and Historicity] embodying the novel description of Human reality in terms of Mit-Dasein and Mit-welt [Subjectivity with the public face]. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason led Heidegger develop his own project of Existential Phenomenology contrary to Husserilian Phenomenology. We will discuss the Kantian Heidegger following the two main issues: one, Heidegger appreciates Kant (...) on his identifying and exploring the difference of ontic/ontological. Two, Kant prioritizes time over space. Heidegger would explore the subject of ontic/ontological difference in the sense that ontic knowledge is the knowledge of particular beings, whereas ontological knowledge is described as the a priori condition inferring the ontic knowledge. In this sense ontological knowledge pertains to question of being rather than beings. This is how Heidegger’s Kant interpretation would differ from the Neo-Kantianism of Marburg School which argued that Critique of Pure Reason is a work of epistemology. In contrast to this position, Heidegger held that Critique is a unique work of transcendental philosophy; it is theory of ontological knowledge but not ontic knowledge. Ontic knowledge of beings must conform to Being of beings [ontological foundation]. Heidegger holds that this should be Kant’s “Copernican Revolution”. However, Heidegger would appropriate the Kantian notion of time in the form of temporality of Dasein. Being manifests itself on beings through Being-there [Human reality] who purely understands Being. For Heidegger, temporality of Dasein is the foundation of ontological knowledge indeed. (shrink)

The paper gives an analysis of the Neo-Kantian philosophy of the 1920s and 1930s, which for Hartmann and Heidegger was a shared philosophical platform. Both philosophers are to be conceived of mainly in the context of Neo-Kantianism, which ends, when the conception of epistemology as prima philosophia is replaced by ontology. While Hartmann conceived of metaphysics through the optics of what remains unknowable in grasping the problems logically, Heidegger saw the metaphysics of that time on the background (...) of the forgetfulness of being. (shrink)

Heidegger's central concern is the question of being (Seinsfrage). The paper reconstructs this question at least for the young (pre- Kehre) Heidegger in the light of two interconnected hypotheses: (1) the substantial content of the question of being can be identified by seeing it as a response to (Marburg) neo-Kantianism; and (2) this content centres around the claim that, pace the neo-Kantians, 'epistemological' concerns are grounded in 'ontological' ones, for which reason 'ontology' must precede 'epistemology' as a (...) form of philosophical inquiry. In section I the general position of (Marburg) neo-Kantianism is sketched. In section II the implications of the neo-Kantian position for the concepts of truth and reality, reason, and experience, are outlined; significant similarities to Sellars, Davidson, and Brandom are revealed. Finally, in section III Heidegger's analysis of everydayness is shown to yield a distinct critique of the neo-Kantian relativization of the concept of the real to the theoretically knowable. From this critique it emerges why Heidegger thinks that 'ontology' precedes 'epistemology'. The project of fundamental ontology marked by the question of being thus shows itself to be at least in part a response to the aporia of Marburg neo-Kantianism. (shrink)

This study constitutes the first systematic consideration of the connection between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. The central event in this relationship is a debate between the two held in Davos, Switzerland in 1929. The protocol of the debate has yet to be fully translated into English and no extended study of the confrontation between these two major thinkers presently exists. In short, though acknowledged as a unique and important event in the history of philosophy, the debate has received (...) little in the way of sustained historical and critical treatment. ;This study first presents the historical context of the debate and surveys the range of interaction between Cassirer and Heidegger. It next focuses on the text of the debate and its themes--Neo-Kantianism, "life philosophy," philosophy as ontology, and freedom and fate--the question of the human being's relationship to and in the world. ;Subsequent chapters trace the line of reasoning found in the Davos debate into and through other exchanges between Cassirer and Heidegger. Heidegger's criticisms of Cassirer's Mythical Thought are examined and an interpretation of Heidegger's concept of primordial understanding in terms of Cassirer's conception of mythical thought is ventured. This is followed by a comparison and contrast of key concepts from Heidegger's Being and Time and Cassirer's The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms--e.g., for Cassirer: "symbolic pregnance," "symbolic form," "expressive understanding," and for Heidegger: "discourse," "thrownness," "Dasein," "understanding," "the 'they'." ;The study closes by addressing Cassirer's final "ethical" objections to Heidegger's philosophy, examining Cassirer's unpublished critique of Being and Time as well as scattered shorter passages critical of Heidegger in published works. Cassirer's concern is seen to be with a conception of Dasein that focuses on the thrownness and anxiety of human being. Cassirer's objection to a philosophy with the idea of fate and destiny at its center is presented, as is his conception of philosophy and philosophy's task, and his idea of "humanitas" and human self-liberation. Heidegger's statement on "humanitas," "philosophy," and "thinking" in the "Letter on Humanism" is considered for its potential to serve as a "response" to Cassirer's express concerns. (shrink)

El artículo pretende contribuir a la discusión actual en torno al «caso Heidegger». En concreto, se intentarán mostrar tres gestos políticos correspondientes a tres momentos distintos de la evolución de su pensamiento: el neokantismo, la fenomenología hermenéutica y la ontohistoria. Se planteará hasta qué punto son distintos estos gestos, qué tienen en común y, sobre todo, qué lugar político se le concede a la filosofía en ellos. This paper aims to contribute to the current discussion around the «case (...) class='Hi'>Heidegger». It shows three political gestures corresponding to three different moments in the evolution of his thought: neo-kantianism, hermeneutic phenomenology and history of Being. We will consider if this gestures are actually different, what do they have in common, and, especially, which political place is granted to philosophy in them. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between Heidegger’s philosophy and poetry in his habilitation and his first lectures in Freiburg. Although poetry as a particular phenomenon was not yet thematized by Heidegger, philosophy and language developed in its proximity since the habilitation text. Subsequently, a tragic quotation exemplifies the characterization of language as a premundane generality in his first lessons. The article elaborates an interpretation of the implicit relationship between philosophy and poetry based on the pre-mundane language [Vorweltliche] and (...) its critique of neo- Kantianism. This relationship is the phenomenological possibility of letting see through language, especially the phenomena of world and meaning. Therefore, phenomenology and poetry came together in Heidegger’s thought around those two central phenomena of his later ontology. (shrink)

Emad's announced purpose in this study is "to determine the implications which Heidegger's value-criticism has for Scheler's phenomenology of values." The results of this investigation can then be extended to the general problem of values and value theories as it is manifested in our time. This aim leads Emad to consider the concept of value both in Nietzsche's thought and in Neo-Kantianism, especially as presented by Lotze, Rickert, and Windelband.

The dissertation treats of Paul Natorp's and Martin Heidegger's interpretations of Plato. My goal is twofold: sympathetically to expound each of these interpretations in its own right, and to contrast them against each other as emblematic of the conflict between neo-Kantianism and Phenomenology . The philosophical controversy centers on the relation of thinking and being, a controversy which in this specific context may ultimately be traced back to Kant. Natorp and Heidegger both, for different reasons, return to (...) the Platonic "theory of forms" in order to ground their respective conceptions of thinking and being. Accordingly, I discuss in Chapter One the role of the Platonic forms in Kant's own philosophy. In Chapter Two, I examine the central doctrine of neo-Kantianism and its roots in post-Kantian German philosophy. In Chapter Three, I show how this doctrine is embodied in Natorp's analysis of several of Plato's dialogues. In Chapter Four, I lay out the principal points of Phenomenology's dispute with neo-Kantianism, as well as Heidegger's understanding of that dispute. Finally, in Chapter Five, I show how Heidegger's fundamental ontology is expressed in his interpretations of several key passages of Plato. (shrink)

This is a philosophical and historical study of the German Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. It is argued that Rosenzweig's thought is best understood within the horizon of German interwar philosophy alongside the thought of his contemporary, Martin Heidegger. The two philosophers are presented as offering divergent articulations of a larger, shared project; and they are understood as participants within a philosophical movement that the author calls "philosophical expressionism" after the various other expressionist movements of the 1920s. The affinity between (...) Rosenzweig and Heidegger is traced from Rosenzweig's earliest study of Hegel's statist theory through his engagement with Hermann Cohen's neo-Kantianism as well as the Bible-translation. The dissertation culminates in a detailed reconstruction of the famous Davos disputation between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger, which Rosenzweig interpreted as a symbolic encounter between the older, idealist mode of philosophy and his own "new thinking" . It is argued that the affinities between Heidegger and Rosenzweig are far deeper than has been formerly acknowledged. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to identify in Heidegger’s work a determination of the history of metaphysics parallel to the famous onto-theological one, and which I will label onto-agathological. Based upon a text from the course of 1935, “Einführung in die Metaphysik,” I argue that for Heidegger the history of metaphysics is not only the Aristotelian onto-theology, but is also characterized by the Platonic pre-eminence of the good over being. In short, it is (...) an onto-agathological history. Second, and as a consequence of the first point, I will flesh out the hypothesis of another history metaphysics, and emphasize its strong phenomenological content which stands in opposition to the Neo-Kantianism of Windelband and Rickert. (shrink)

Heidegger’s Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929) turns on a reading of the productive imagination in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). In siding with the imagination, Heidegger declares his dissent from the neo-Kantianism of his contemporaries. Yet, when Heidegger subsequently elaborates his philosophy of art in the 1930s, he is dismissive of the imagination altogether. His earlier partisanship was qualified. In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger treats the (...) productive imagination of Kant’s critical period as still a step short of Heidegger’s own problem of the time of finite human beings. German Idealism’s step past Kant is, for Heidegger, a step beyond, but in the wrong direction. The aesthetics of German Idealism builds on the unification of experience and conceptuality wrought by the productive imagination in its transcendental use, thereby inscribing in the work of art a neglect of finitude that Heidegger will dispute. If what Heidegger holds against the imagination is its transcendental use, the fully empirical concept of the imagination in Kant’s precritical writings invites reassessment in light of an engagement with finitude. I will show it has particular promise for rehabilitating the imagination in a Heideggerian philosophy of art. (shrink)

Mi ensayo ha querido explicar genealógicamente y de forma contextualizada el desencuentro entre Ernst Cassirer y Martin Heidegger en Davos, y la deriva de éste hacia el nazismo desde los presupuestos de su filosofía existencial. ¿Qué papel juega el antisemitismo espiritual en la crítica heideggeriana al neokantismo y la fenomenología trascendental? ¿Por qué la fenomenología de Edmund Husserl es "una monstruosidad"? ¿Por qué Kant se convierte en batalla y campo de batalla de la Kulturkampf? ¿Por qué se lee a (...) Heidegger como se lee? ¿Qué sentido tiene la práctica de la historia de la filosofía en el “final” de la filosofía?My essay wanted to explain genealogically and in a contextualized way the disagreement between Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos, and its drift towards Nazism from the budgets of their existential philosophy. What role does spiritual anti-Semitism play in the Heideggerian critique of neo-Kantianism and transcendental phenomenology? Why is Husserl's phenomenology "a monstrosity"? Why does Kant become the battle and battlefield of the Kulturkampf? Why do you read Heidegger as you read? What is the meaning of the practice of the history of philosophy in the “final” of philosophy? (shrink)

This article will show how Natorp’s criticism of Husserlian phenomenology was one of the most important triggers of the hermeneutical transformation of Heideggerian phenomenology. Concepts like hermeneutical intuition, or tools like formal indication, are the means that Heidegger worked out in order to preserve the phenomenological access to pre-theoretical life as it gives itself. The first part of this article is devoted to presenting Natorp’s criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology and Husserl’s attempts to answer them. The second part will illustrate (...) how Heidegger, criticizing Natorp, retrieves the validity of the phenomenological intuition and expression by opening up their original, pre-theoretical meanings. It will conclude with a few critical remarks concerning Heidegger’s attempt to describe the motivation of philosophical activity in transcendental terms. (shrink)

Terry Nardin’s book on Oakeshott is an attempt to compare him to other 20th-century philosophers and to track the development of his philosophical thought. The project of comparison is made relevant by the fact that Oakeshott’s philosophy, like that of Heidegger and others, was the product of the dissolution of neo-Kantianism. Nardin stresses the idea of “modal confusion,” meaning responding to a question of one kind with an answer appropriate to another kind of inquiry, as a key to (...) Oakeshott’s thought from Experience and Its Modes through to On Human Conduct itself, where Oakeshott changes his terminology. But why does Oakeshott change? One reason might be the critique of Oakeshott by Peter Winch, as Oakeshott appears to have reformulated his views in response to it in On Human Conduct, in the course of constructing an alternative to ‘conceptual analysis’ as practiced in contemporary Oxbridge. (shrink)

Terry Nardin’s book on Oakeshott is an attempt to compare him to other 20th-century philosophers and to track the development of his philosophical thought. The project of comparison is made relevant by the fact that Oakeshott’s philosophy, like that of Heidegger and others, was the product of the dissolution of neo-Kantianism. Nardin stresses the idea of “modal confusion,” meaning responding to a question of one kind with an answer appropriate to another kind of inquiry, as a key to (...) Oakeshott’s thought from Experience and Its Modes through to On Human Conduct itself, where Oakeshott changes his terminology. But why does Oakeshott change? One reason might be the critique of Oakeshott by Peter Winch, as Oakeshott appears to have reformulated his views in response to it in On Human Conduct, in the course of constructing an alternative to ‘conceptual analysis’ as practiced in contemporary Oxbridge. (shrink)

In my paper, I give an analytical commentary on Vasily Sesemann’s review of Martin Heidegger's treatise Being and Time (1927) published in the journal entitled The Way in 1928. The aim of this commentary is to evaluate the adequacy of Sesemann’s perception of Heidegger’s thought and the acceptability of his review for today’s reception of the Heideggerian ontological project. In my text, I state that Sesemann accurately fixes the transcendent essence of Heidegger’s ontological investigation, its basic theme (...) and the main stages of its explication. In this regard, the Sesemann’s evaluation of the project of fundamental ontology in Heidegger is much closer to the very idea of this project in comparison to the evaluations of it given by both Edmund Husserl and Nicolai Hartmann. Sesemann also offered several successful or - at least - original translations of Heideggerian terms into Russian. Since he understands the incompleteness of the project, the results of which were presented in the initial divisions of Being and Time, Sesemann remains very far from being able to provide a final judgement about it. And yet, he points out the key achievements of Heidegger: the special significance of the differentiation of the ways of being of Dasein and the inner-worldly entities, emphasis of care-structure, which allows to grasp Dasein in its integrity and systemic essence of Heidegger’s work. I also acknowledge that although the interpretation proposed by Sesemann contains some weaknesses, f.i., the interpretation of Dasein as being-awareness and the neo-Kantian understanding of the systematic essence of the ontology of Heidegger, the review written by Vasily Sesemann is highly keen and may be valid for reception of Heideggerian philosophy up to nowadays. (shrink)

At first sight, “theory” does not seem to be a major issue in Heidegger's thought. Yet, as his early Freiburg lectures from 1919 demonstrate, Heidegger's development of a phenomenological method of his own required a systematic debate with the neo-Kantians and the philosophical privilege they accorded to theoretization. While laying the foundation for a phenomenological method whose prime object is the lived experience of the surrounding world, Heidegger sketches out a double concept of theorization, one which, through (...) a process of successive stages of unliving, culminates in the objectified conception of an empty “something,” and another concept of theoretization for which the “something” is “the experienceable in general,” and which guides the a-theoretical encounter of phenomenology as an “archontic form of life” with the world, the other, and the “not yet.”. (shrink)

Scholarship in Heideggerian philosophy can be broadly differentiated into three groups, which evolved in the European and Anglo-American discourses after WWII, namely, first a transcendental (idealist Kantian) approach; second, an Aristotelian approach; and third, a Christian approach to Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein and his fundamental ontology. All of these basic positions are a result of Heidegger’s philosophy on his way to Being and Time (1927) which he developed both in his broad ranging and fascinating lecture courses in Freiburg, (...) where he taught as Husserl’s assistant between 1917 and 1923, and in Marburg, where he taught between 1923 and 1927 (before he returned to Freiburg in 1928 as Husserl’s successor). Interestingly, the analytic reception of Heidegger focuses on Heidegger’s main work Being and Time, whereas the European and “Continental” discourse is oriented towards larger issues, which include philosophical anthropology, theology, hermeneutics, and the history of philosophy. McGrath’s study belongs to the theologically motivated studies on Heidegger’s phenomenology and ontology and thereby contributes to the recent renewed interest in Heidegger’s early philosophy, which arose after his early lecture courses were published in his Collected Works and after it became clear that Heidegger’s way to Being and Time (and his later thinking) not only was heavily influenced by Scholasticism, especially by Duns Scotus, but also by Augustine, Eckhart, and Luther, all of which took effect before Heidegger encountered Husserl’s phenomenology, Neo-Kantianism or Aristotle’s philosophy. The greatness of Being and Time is indeed a result of the ingenious transformation of all these sources into something new. (shrink)

Johannes Daubert he was an acknowledged leader, and in some respects the founder, of the early phenomenological movement, and was considered – as much by its members as by Husserl himself – the most brilliant member of the group. In Daubert’s unpublished writings we find a series of reflections on Lask, and on Neo-Kantianism, which form the subject-matter of this paper. They range over topics such as the ontology of the ‘Sachverhalt’ or state of affairs, truthvalues (Wahrheitswerte) and the (...) value of truth, negative judgments and the copula, and the relation between perception and judgment. (shrink)

Neo-Kantianism was an important movement in German philosophy of the late 19th century: Frederick Beiser traces its development back to the late 18th century, and explains its rise as a response to three major developments in German culture: the collapse of speculative idealism; the materialism controversy; and the identity crisis of philosophy.

Part 1. Husserl: the outlines of the transcendental-phenomenological system -- 1. Husserl's phenomenological discovery of the natural attitude -- 2. Husserl's theory of the phenomenological reduction: between lifeworld and Cartesianism -- 3. Some methodological problems arising in Husserl's late reflections on the phenomenological reduction -- 4. Facticity and historicity as constituents of the lifeworld in Husserl's late philosophy -- 5. Husserl's concept of the "transcendental person": another look at the Husserl-Heidegger relationship -- 6. Dialectics of the absolute: the systematics (...) of the phenomenological system in Husserl's last period -- Part 2. Husserl, Kant, and neo-Kantianism: from subjectivity to lifeworld as a world of culture -- 7. From being to givenness and back: some remarks on the meaning of transcendental idealism in Kant and Husserl -- 8. Reconstruction and reduction: Natorp and Husserl on method and the question of subjectivity -- 9. A hermeneutic phenomenology of subjective and objective spirit: Husserl, Natorp, and Cassirer -- 10. Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms: between reason and relativism: a critical appraisal -- Part 3. Toward a Husserlian hermeneutics -- 11. The subjectivity of effective history and the suppressed husserlian elements in Gadamer's hermeneutics -- 12. Husserl's "hermeneutical phenomenology" as a philosophy of culture. (shrink)

In his paper, Vardoulakis traces a genealogy of the concept of the ‘ineffectual’ that dominates many discussions in continental political philosophy back to Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle in the early 1920s. Although I sympathize with Vardoulakis’s suspicions concerning the ‘ineffectual’, I think his genealogy misses the main aspects of Heidegger’s analysis of praxis. In particular, Vardoulakis’s reading relies on two fundamentally ill-conceived assumptions: (a) that Heidegger’s thought can be read as a continuous endorsement of a series of (...) fundamental claims, in particular, the rejection of instrumentality, the critique of modern technical thinking, and a praise of a certain form of ineffectual meditative thought as an alternative; and (b) that Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle in general and of the Nichomachean Ethics in particular has, as its main aim, to ground in Greek thinking such form of ineffectual meditative thought. In this comment, I will challenge both these assumptions. I will claim that Heidegger’s project in the 1920s is oriented to provide an answer to the question that shaped the debate between Marburg Neo-Kantians, on the one hand, and Husserl, on the other: namely, how is it possible to account for lived experience and its categorial articulation. For Neo-Kantians such as Natorp (e.g. [1912: 28]), all conceptual understanding is an understanding of objects. Subjectivity as the pure form of activity—the Kantian I think—could not be understood but merely postulated. Hence, it is in principle impossible to account for subjectivity without objectifying it. This was a serious and potentially devastating objection to phenomenology’s fundamental project. It is in this context that Heidegger turns his attention to Aristotle’s ethics, precisely as a way of accounting for the kind of relationship between my understanding of experience and experience itself. Aristotelian praxis (and phronesis as the kind of ‘knowledge’ associated with praxis) provides a model for such understanding. Therefore, Heidegger has no interest in ethics or in developing a theory of action in the 1920s in general or when reading Aristotle in particular. Vardoulakis’s understanding of Heidegger’s mistranslation—even if there is one—can only make sense in hindsight, when reading those texts in the light of the later Heidegger’s interest in avoiding technical calculation and promoting a meditative thinking. If we abandon Vardoulakis’s assumptions, Heidegger’s analysis of praxis and, in particular, his reading of Aristotle’s hou heneka can be understood under a different light. Understanding the meaningful structure of the world as existing for the sake (hou heneka, umwillen) of Dasein is not so much a reflection on the role of ends in action—technical or otherwise—but an analysis of the way in which any understanding of the world and of our actions within it is an understanding of who we are and of the structures that constitute the very being of our subjectivity. This may suggest that there is in the early Heidegger a way out of the dilemma between ineffectuality and instrumentalism, a path that, perhaps, provides an alternative for contemporary ethics and political thinking. (shrink)

This interview with Professor Dr Jürgen Stolzenberg, board member of the Kant-Gesellschaft and co-editor of the Kant-Lexikon (2015), explores a wide range of topics — from Leibniz and Wolff to Heidegger and Husserl. The leading idea of Stolzenberg’s philosophical research is the justification of the principle of modern subjectivity in Kant’s philosophy and its transformations until our days. He discusses the meaning and development of the concept of self-consciousness and the understanding of subjectivity in Kant’s ethics as well as (...) in Fichte’s philosophy. Stolzenberg shows the significance of Heidegger’s philosophical relations with Kant, Fichte, and the Neo-Kantians. He outlines the reasons which explain the different structures of the philosophical theories after Kant in comparison with the structure of Kant’s philosophy itself. Answering the question of Kant’s role in affirming the value of human dignity, he emphasises the non-empirical essence of this concept as it is presented in Kant’s ethics and as it should be defended against recent critics. According to Stolzenberg, the principle of modern subjectivity proves to be fruitful in understanding the development of the history of modern music, too. (shrink)

Russian neo-Kantianismʼs status in the history of the development of Russian philosophy is an important, but poorly presented in scientific publications, issue is revealed in the article. With some exceptions, which are represented by a number of few, but informative and informative articles and a monograph, the problem remains without proper reception in the scientific discourse of our time. Russian neo-Kantianism, however, leaving aside the question of what is the phenomenon of Russian neo-Kantianism, it is impossible to productively (...) and consistently actualize the content of Russian neo-Kantians and, moreover, to show their significance in the history of Russian philosophical and socio-humanitarian thought in general. Three key difficulties stand out: 1) the question of originality and the related theme of the independence of the philosophical direction (originality, independence and originality – differ from each other, but are united in their immanent orientation); 2) Russian neo-Kantianism, which in many ways seems to be the most difficult task for researchers engaged in historical and philosophical reconstruction; 3) the question remains ambiguous as to whether Russian neo-Kantianism is a continuation of the German tradition or whether it is a direction of Russian philosophy of thought. Russian neo-Kantianism, the three difficulties identified in the reception of the phenomenon of Russian neo-Kantianism taken as a whole, are consistently revealed in the content of the proposed article, supplemented by a brief overview of the most systemic positions of Russian philosophers, ranked among Russian neo-Kantianism. Overcoming the indicated difficulties, which undoubtedly affect the objective disclosure of the creativity of each representative of Russian neo-Kantianism or thinkers related to them, seems appropriate not only from the standpoint of the history of philosophy, but also for actualizing the heritage of philosophers in the conditions of modern socio-humanitarian pragmatics. Russian neo-Kantianism The author of the article suggests that one of the ways to overcome the ambiguity of the definition of Russian neo-Kantianism in the history of Russian thought may be, firstly, a more detailed consecration of the activities of Russian neo-Kantians in the historical and philosophical literature, and secondly, a comprehensive representation of this direction, including studies of individual personalities and their works. Despite the controversial and polemical nature of the task, its formulation is necessary for the objectivity of the meaning of Russian thought in the global context. (shrink)

The paper examines the influence of Kant's theoretical philosophy on formation of phenomenological interpretation of temporal issues in Heidegger's thinking, both in terms of his positive perception of Kant's recent approaches, as well as in terms of negative repulsion. The paper emphasizes specificity and even "arbitrariness" of Heidegger's interpretation of Kantian theoretical philosophizing. This interpretation fits into the strategy of destruction of Western metaphysics, but significantly differs the Neo-Kantianism interpretations in focusing not so much on limited cognitive (...) capacity, but rather on the limitations of human existence as such. Finally, it is shown that Heidegger attempted to demonstrate the structuring of the sense of being via schematism of ecstatic-horizontal temporariness inspired by Kant's influence. (shrink)

This comprehensive treatment of Neo-Kantianism discusses the main topics and key figures of the movement and their intersection with other 20th-century philosophers. With the advent of phenomenology, existentialism, and the Frankfurt School, Neo-Kantianism was deemed too narrowly academic and science-oriented to compete with new directions in philosophy. These essays bring Neo-Kantianism back into contemporary philosophical discourse. They expand current views of the Neo-Kantians and reassess the movement and the philosophical traditions emerging from it. This groundbreaking volume provides (...) new and important insights into the history of philosophy, the scope of transcendental thought, and Neo-Kantian influence on the sciences and intellectual culture. (shrink)

This paper explores a pair of puzzling and controversial topics in the history of late nineteenth-century philosophy: the psychologism debates, and the nature of neo-Kantianism. Each is sufficientl...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Martin Heidegger and OntologyEmmanuel Levinas (bio)The prestige of Martin Heidegger 1 and the influence of his thought on German philosophy marks both a new phase and one of the high points of the phenomenological movement. Caught unawares, the traditional establishment is obliged to clarify its position on this new teaching which casts a spell over youth and which, overstepping the bounds of permissibility, is already in vogue. (...) For once, Fame has picked one who deserves it and, for that matter, one who is still living. Anyone who has studied philosophy cannot, when confronted by Heidegger’s work, fail to recognize how the originality and force of his achievements, stemming from genius, are combined with an attentive, painstaking, and close working-out of the argument—with that craftsmanship of the patient artisan in which phenomenologists take such pride. In this study, it is important for us to understand, above all, the true intentions of our author, to illuminate what he thinks really needs to be said, and to surmise what is most critical for him.To get to the heart of Heidegger’s system, it seems fitting to begin with a problem that is generally familiar. We choose the problem of knowledge, a deeper understanding of which takes us to the very threshold of Heidegger’s thought. For this problem, central to modern philosophy, is one of the main obstacles of modern philosophy that Heidegger wishes to surmount. Neo-Kantianism, which takes knowledge as the philosophical problem of the first rank, is the movement against which Heidegger rebels with all his strength. We have, thus, every chance of gaining access to his thought by the main door, so to speak. Once inside the system we will try to trace its outlines, 2 reserving, for a second part of our work, the determination of Heidegger’s place in the history of ideas, especially in the phenomenological movement, as well as of his relations with the philosopher to whom he owes so much—Edmund Husserl. 31In its most general form, the problem of the theory of knowledge has a critical significance. It consists in delineating a domain where knowledge can be certain and in determining the criteria for the legitimate scope of knowledge. But this problem, as normal and as simple as it may appear, has deeper roots. That knowledge should need a criterion at all presupposes that truth is not identical to all that is known and that the course [End Page 11] of things can fail to correspond with the course of thought. “How does knowledge correspond to being?” is a more profound formulation of the problem of knowledge.But we are not going to touch anymore on the primordial phenomenon that generates the problem. The problem of correspondence between thing and thought presupposes a free activity of thought and its isolation in relation to the object. It is precisely this presupposition which renders their harmony and even their contact problematic. “How does the subject take leave of itself to attain the object?” is what the problem of knowledge, in the last analysis, boils down to. Its true source is thus the concept of “subject” as elaborated by modern philosophy. The cogito presided over the subject’s birth. The cogito was the affirmation of the privileged nature of the subject’s immanent sphere, of its unique place in existence; hence, the cogito was the specificity of the subject’s connection to the rest of reality, the sui generis nature which opens up the passage from immanence to transcendence, the passage from ideas contained in the thinking substance to 4 their “formal existence.”The concept of the subject, understood as a substance having a specific position in the entire domain of being, presents us with difficulties of two kinds. First, how do we understand this leave-taking from the self which the thinking substance brings about and which displays an entirely original aspect? Indeed, we could say that thought, in reaching out toward objects, does not actually take leave of itself, since its objects—considered as ideas and contents of thought—are, in a certain sense, already within it. In order to make sense of this paradox, Descartes... (shrink)

These essays bring Neo-Kantianism back into contemporary philosophical discourse.

The aim of the paper is an analysis of the theory of knowledge as a reflection (Abbildtheorie), which was presented by Martin Heidegger in the earliest phase his philosophy, when he was under great influence of Neo-Kantian thought. The papers compare Heideggers position with the arguments of the neo-Kantians such as Heinrich Rickert and Ernst Cassirer. These early beliefs are referenced to the subsequent position, when was shown by Heidegger in the work Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (...) in 1929, where he undertakes the polemics with the Neo-Kantianism. (shrink)

This chapter presents an overview of the Neo‐Kantian movement in philosophy that spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that was concentrated geographically in Germany. Following a summary of the institutional and intellectual context surrounding Neo‐Kantianism, the chapter explores the core philosophical principles associated with the movement, attending in particular to the ways in which Neo‐ Kantian philosophers appropriate and depart from the core tenets of Kant's critical philosophy. After briefly surveying the context in which Neo‐Kantianism (...) took shape, the chapter surveys the two major “schools” into which the movement crystallized around 1880: the Marburg School, comprised primarily of Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer, and the Baden, or Southwest School, comprised principally of Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, and Emil Lask. Both schools of Neo‐ Kantianism are marked by a rich and fascinating process of internal conceptual development. (shrink)

Editorial Board: Karl P. Ameriks, Margaret Atherton, Frederick Beiser, Fabien Capeillères, Faustino Fabbianelli, Daniel Garber, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Steven Nadler, Alan Nelson, Christof Rapp, Ursula Renz, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Denis Thouard, Paul Ziche, Günter Zöller The series publishes monographs and essay collections devoted to the history of philosophy as well as studies in the theory of writing the history of philosophy. A special emphasis is placed on the contextualization of philosophical historiography into the areas of the history of science, culture, and (...) the wider scope of intellectual history. (shrink)

This paper explores a pair of puzzling and controversial topics in the history of late nineteenth-century philosophy: the psychologism debates, and the nature of neo-Kantianism. Each is sufficientl...