The subtitle of Scheier’s book tells its intent: to display the “architecture” of the structure of the Phenomenology. The book specifically intends to be more than merely an analytical commentary on Hegel’s first and probably most famous book. However, Scheier’s work may actually be used primarily as a commentary because the author hopes to illustrate throughout the whole Phenomenology a strict parallelism of all forms of appearing consciousness, even though the beginning of the chapter on consciousness suggests some doubt that (...) such a parallelism can be maintained. The main title of Scheier’s book, not the subtitle, may therefore be a more adequate description of its content. The book is long but probably an indispensable tool for future study of the Phenomenology. The table of contents shows that the book adheres strictly to the Phenomenology; Scheier complements his work with footnotes at the end of the book, an outstanding bibliography and also a superb combined index of names and concepts. (shrink)

"This book assembles twenty-one essays by some of the best known scholars in Europe and North America on many of the ""constellations of thought"" discussed at the time of the ""cruption"" of the early German romantic and early German idealistic intellectual ""supernova"" (D. Henrich) from ca 1785 to 1807.".

In the United States the relationship between Hegel and Schelling divides into two camps: The first sees Hegel’s critical remarks in the Phenomenology not directed against Schelling himself but against Schelling’s adherents. I provide here detailed arguments for the minority view: Although Hegel did collaborate with Schelling in the early Jena years even opposing Reinhold, he nonetheless worked with Reinhold’s arguments on the origins and systematicity of philosophy differently than did Schelling: The rift between the two giants really goes back (...) to the very early Jena period. (shrink)

This book deals with the epicenter of modern philosophy, Kant's transcendental thinking self. It lives and breathes not only in the unity of reason in Kant himself, but also spells out how the problems that emerge in that conception were dealt with in the intellectual world of early German idealism. Bondeli shows how Kant's unity of reason is variously conceived by Kant as the "I think," the "highest point" of the "unity of apperception," as well as the more traditional concept (...) of "soul," which is freighted with heavy metaphysical baggage. According to Bondeli, Kant had the greatest difficulty providing adequate reasons for that unity of apperception. Those difficulties are laid bare in part A of the first part of the book, "Kant's Problem of an Adequate Founding of the Original-Synthetic Unity of Apperception." The problem Bondeli lays bare provided ample fodder for Kant's critics, first and foremost the very early pre-Kantian Carl Leonhard Reinhold, soon, however, to emerge as the "Kantian of the first hour" in his Kantian Letters, but then also for Maimon, Schulze, Beck, and Fichte. Bondeli deals with the criticisms of those important thinkers in part B, "Reactions to Kant's Problem.". (shrink)

This book is top rate in several respects. First of all, it is an outstanding philosophical work. But the time at which it appears is not irrelevant to the topic it addresses. It is essentially a work on Hegel, but more than that, a work that ties Hegel’s triadic-triplicistic thought into the tradition of western speculation. It considerably deepens the current debate on “trinitarian” or “triplicistic” thought.

Toward the end of the millennium our world culture concerns itself centrally with the problematic of history. That was often the case in previous similar epochs of great change, for example two hundred years ago. It was an important "characteristic of German Idealism that the concept and the problem of history did not occupy one, but the central position.".

This essay deals with the function of Kant’s category of the Apperzeption in what we today call the “new metaphysics” of German Idealism. It is an important question because Kant’s thought is well known for his critique of metaphysics. But the category was essentially problematical and triggered answers provided in the emerging “new metaphysics.” The essay will follow the guidance to that Kantian category in Martin Bondeli’s book of 2006, Apperzeption und Erfahrung. Kants transzendentale Deduktion im Spannungsfeld der frühen Rezeption (...) und Kritik. In my discussion it will become apparent at what critical points various new departures, e.g., those taken by Jacobi, Schlegel, Schelling, and Hegel, have led to well-profiled positions in the movement which is today known as “German Idealism,” and anyone familiar with its influence should also be able to discern how those positions influenced the future of Continental thought. (shrink)

In this volume, Dieter Henrich provides an invaluable guide to the better understanding of the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. That well-known book was published in 1821, but the manuscript was finished on June 25, 1820, in other words, in immediate proximity to the Berlin lectures on the same topic, published here with Henrich’s extensive editorial introduction and comment. Furthermore, the Grundlinien of 1821 were intended to be an aid to the listeners of his lectures: in these published lectures on (...) the same topic of 1819/20 such a printed aid was not available to students. Hence the lectures have a directness, freshness, and attention to systematic detail that is missing both in the later lecture notes by Hotho and by D. F. Strauss, as also in the Grundlinien. This difficult publication of 1821 was to be interpreted by the later lectures, whereas in those of 1819/20 Hegel had to develop the theoretical foundation in the lectures themselves. They show an admirable cohesiveness in the flow of argumentation, and have some similarity to the popular editions of the lectures on the philosophy of history, aesthetics, and religion. (shrink)

This paper thematizes the crucial agreement and point of departure between Jacobi and Fichte at the height of the “atheism controversy.” The argument on the proper relationship between philosophy and existence or speculation and life had far-reaching consequences in the history of thought after Jacobi and Fichte in German Idealism on the one hand, primarly advocated by Schelling and Hegel, and on the other hand by existentialism and vitalism. The essay focuses first on Jacobi’s philosophy of life, which centrally influenced (...) and attracted Fichte to Jacobi. Jacobi’s dualism between speculation, of which he was skeptical, and life, became Fichte’s dualism. Fichte’s transcendentalism, however, prioritized, contrary to Jacobi, both speculation and systematicity. Both of these elements became central for later forms of German Idealism. In the last part of the essay Hegel’s absolute idealism becomes the platform affording a critical perspective on Fichte’s transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

Für Fichte gab es 1799 keine Lebensunmittelbarkeit ohne die Abstraktionsarbeit philosophischer Spekulation. Es gab keinen gemeinsamen Boden, den sowohl Spekulation als auch Leben einnehmen könnten. Reinhold strebte einen solchen gemeinsamen Boden an. Für Fichte stand aber dieser gemeinsame »Vereinigungspunkt« einer dialektischen Verhältnisbestimmung beider im Wege. Denn beide negieren einander, und sind in dieser Negation von einander abhängig. Leben gibt es nicht ohne spekulative Thematisierung. Philosophisches Denken muss andererseits aber auch in der Unmittelbarkeit des Lebens verwurzelt sein, um seine abstrahierende Gedankenarbeit (...) ausüben zu können. Fichte hat dies ganz deutlich gemacht 1799, zur Zeit des Höhepunktes des Atheismusstreits, in seinem Brief an Jacobi vom 22. April dieses Jahres. Er sagt. (shrink)

This book is top rate in several respects. First of all, it is an outstanding philosophical work. But the time at which it appears is not irrelevant to the topic it addresses. It is essentially a work on Hegel, but more than that, a work that ties Hegel’s triadic-triplicistic thought into the tradition of western speculation. It considerably deepens the current debate on “trinitarian” or “triplicistic” thought.

Für Fichte gab es 1799 keine Lebensunmittelbarkeit ohne die Abstraktionsarbeit philosophischer Spekulation. Es gab keinen gemeinsamen Boden, den sowohl Spekulation als auch Leben einnehmen könnten. Reinhold strebte einen solchen gemeinsamen Boden an. Für Fichte stand aber dieser gemeinsame »Vereinigungspunkt« einer dialektischen Verhältnisbestimmung beider im Wege. Denn beide negieren einander, und sind in dieser Negation von einander abhängig. Leben gibt es nicht ohne spekulative Thematisierung. Philosophisches Denken muss andererseits aber auch in der Unmittelbarkeit des Lebens verwurzelt sein, um seine abstrahierende Gedankenarbeit (...) ausüben zu können. Fichte hat dies ganz deutlich gemacht 1799, zur Zeit des Höhepunktes des Atheismusstreits, in seinem Brief an Jacobi vom 22. April dieses Jahres. Er sagt. (shrink)