Kantstudien

1904-26 (includes lists of members)

Frederick C. Beiser tells the story of the emergence of neo-Kantianism from the late 1790s until the 1880s. He focuses on neo-Kantianism before official or familiar neo-Kantianism, i.e., before the formation of the various schools of neo-Kantianism in the 1880s and 1890s (which included the Marburg school, the Southwestern school, and the Göttingen school). Beiser argues that the source of neo-Kantianism lies in three crucial but neglected figures: Jakob Friedrich Fries,

One of the very few accounts in English of German idealism, this ambitious work advances and revises our understanding of both the history and the thought of the classical period of German philosophy. As he traces the structure and evolution of idealism as a doctrine, Frederick Beiser exposes a strong objective, or realist, strain running from Kant to Hegel and identifies the crucial role of the early romantics--Hölderlin, Schlegel, and Novalis--as the founders of absolute idealism. Traditionally, German idealism is understood as a radical form of subjectivism that expands the powers of the self to encompass the entire world. But Beiser reveals a different--in fact, opposite--impulse: an attempt to limit the powers of the subject. Between Kant and Hegel he finds a movement away from cosmic subjectivity and toward greater realism and naturalism, with one form of idealism succeeding another as each proved an inadequate basis for explaining the reality of the external world and the place of the self in nature. Thus German idealism emerges here not as a radical development of the Cartesian tradition of philosophy, but as the first important break with that tradition. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Realism in German Idealism 2. Exorcising the Spirit 3. The Critique of Foundationalism 4. The Troublesome Hegelian Legacy 5. The Taxonomy of German Idealism I. KANT'S CRITIQUE OF IDEALISM Introduction: Kant and the Problem of Subjectivism 1. The Clash of Interpretations 2. Method and Results 3. Contemporary Kant Scholarship 1. Idealism in the Precritical Years 1. The Idealist Challenge 2. The First Refutation of Idealism 3. Idealist Dreams and Visions 4. The Critique of Idealism in the Inaugural Dissertation 5. Skeptical Ambivalence 6. David Hume, Transcendental Realist 2. Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism 1. The Case for Subjectivism 2. The First Edition Definitions of Transcendental Idealism 3. Transcendental versus Empirical Idealism 4. Empirical Realism in the Aesthetic 5. Empirical Realism and Empirical Dualism 3. The First Edition Refutation of Skeptical Idealism 1. The Priority of Skeptical Idealism 2. The Critique of the Fourth Paralogism 3. The Proof of the External World 4. A Cartesian Reply 5. Appearances and Spatiality 6. The Ambiguity of Transcendental Idealism 7. The Coherence of Transcendental Idealism 4. The First Edition Refutation of Dogmatic Idealism 1. The Missing Refutation 2. Kant's Interpretation of Leibniz 3. The Dispute in the Aesthetic 4. Dogmatic Idealism in the Antinomies 5. Kant and Berkeley 1. The Göttingen Review 2. Kant's Reaction 3. Berkeleyianism in the First Edition of the Kritik 4. The Argument of the Prolegomena 5. Kant's Interpretation of Berkeley 6. The Small but Real Differences? 6. The Second Edition Refutation of Problematic Idealism 1. The Problem of Interpretation 2. Kant's Motives 3. The Question of Kant's Realism 4. Realism in the Refutation 5. The New Strategy 6. The Argument of the Refutation 7. Outer vis-à -vis Inner Sense 8. Kant's Refutations in the Reflexionen, 1788-93 7. Kant and the Way of Ideas 1. The Theory of Ideas 2. Loyalty and Apostasy 3. The Transcendental versus the Subjective 4. The Question of Consistency 5. The Doctrine of Inner Sense 6. Kantian Self-Knowledge and the Cartesian Tradition 8. The Transcendental Subject 1. Persistent Subjectivism 2. Eliminating the Transcendental Subject 3. The Criteria of Subjectivity 4. The Subjectivity of the Transcendental 5. Restoring the Transcendental Subject 9. The Status of the Transcendental 1. The Problematic Status of the Categories 2. The Metaphysial Interpretation 3. The Psychological Interpretation 4. The Logical Interpretation 5. The Ineliminable Psychological Dimension 6. Problems of Transcendental Psychology 7. Transcendental Psychology and Transcendental Idealism 10. Kant's Idealism in the Opus postumum 1. Kant's Peruke 2. The Gap in the Critical System 3. The Transition Program and Its Implications 4. The Transition and Refutation 5. The Selbstsetzungslehre 6. Appearance of Appearance: Continuity with Critical Doctrines 7. Appearance of Appearance: Its Novelty 8. The Thing-in-Itself II. FICHTE'S CRITIQUE OF SUBJECTIVISM Introduction: The Interpretation of Fichte's Idealism 1. Fichte and the Subjectivist Tradition 1. The Challenge of Subjectivism 2. Early Critique of Reinhold 3. The Discovery of Desire 4. The Primacy of Practical Reason 5. Fichte's Foundationalism? 2. The Battle against Skepticism 1. First Doubts 2. The Aenesidemus Review 3. Maimon's Skepticism 4. The Official Response 5. The Final Line of Defense 3. Criticism versus Dogmatism 1. The Transformation of the Kantian Problematic 2. The Two Systems 3. The Refutation of Dogmatism 4. Fichte and the Thing-in-Itself 4. Freedom and Subjectivity 1. The Meaning of Freedom 2. The Theory of Subjectivity 3. Woes of the Absolute Ego 4. The Two Egos 5. Knowledge of Freedom 1. The Break with Kant 2. A Philosophy of Striving 3. The Origins of Intellectual Intuition 4. The Meaning of Intellectual Intuition 5. Fichte versus Kant on Intellectual Intuition 6. Self-Knowledge and Freedom 7. Faith in Freedom 6. Critical Idealism 1. Problems of Idealism 2. The Role of Striving 3. The Synthesis of Idealism and Realism 4. Reintroducing and Reinterpreting the Thing-in-Itself 7. The Refutation of Idealism 1. Later Arguments against Idealism 2. The Fichtean versus Kantian Refutation 3. Problems of Exposition 4. The Deduction of the External World 8. The Structure of Intersubjectivity 1. Kant versus Fichte on the Problem of Other Minds 2. First Reflections 3. The Argument for Intersubjectivity 4. The Normative Structure of Intersubjectivity III. ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 1. Absolute Idealism: General Introduction 1. The Dramatis Personae 2. The Meaning of Absolute Idealism 3. Absolute versus Critical Idealism 4. The Break with Critical Idealism 5. Intellectual Sources 6. The Rehabilitation of Metaphysics 7. The Aesthetics of Absolute Idealism 2. Hölderlin and Absolute Idealism 1. Philosophy versus Poetry 2. Sources of Absolute Idealism 3. The Critique of Fichte 4. Aesthetic Sense 5. The Concept of Nature 6. Philosophy in Literature 3. Novalis' Magical Idealism 1. Novalis and the Idealist Tradition 2. Fichte Studies 3. Fichte in Novalis' Idealism 4. The Elements of Magical Idealism 5. Syncriticism 6. Models of Knowledge 4. Friedrich Schlegel's Absolute Idealism 1. Philosophy, History, and Poetry 2. The Break with Fichte 3. An Antifoundationalist Epistemology 4. Romanticism and Absolute Idealism 5. The Mystical 6. Lectures on Transcendental Idealism IV. SCHELLING AND ABSOLUTE IDEALISM Introduction: The Troublesome Schellingian Legacy 1. The Path toward Absolute Idealism 1. The Fichte-Schelling Alliance 2. Early Fault Lines 3. An Independent Standpoint 4. The First Quarrel 2. The Development of Naturphilosophie 1. The Claims of Naturphilosophie 2. The Early Fichtean Phase 3. The First Decisive Step 4. The Priority of Naturphilosophie 3. Schelling's Break with Fichte 1. Background 2. The Dispute Begins 3. Schelling States His Case 4. A Botched Reconciliation 5. Persistent Hopes 6. The Irresolvable Differences 4. Problems, Methods, and Concepts of Naturphilosophie 1. Absolute Idealism and Naturphilosophie 2. The Problematic of Naturphilosophie 3. Rethinking Matter 4. Nature as Organism 5. Regulative or Constitutive? 6. The Methodology of Naturphilosophie 5. Theory of Life and Matter 1. The Spinozism of Physics 2. The Dynamic Construction of Matter 3. The Theory of Life 4. Irritability, Sensibility, and World Soul 5. The Mental and Physical as Potencies 6. Schelling's Absolute Idealism 1. The Blinding Light of 1801 2. Objective Idealism 3. The Kantian-Fichtean Interpretation 4. The Interpretation of Subject-Object Identity 7. The Dark Night of the Absolute 1. The Dark Parmenidian Vision 2. The Dilemma of Absolute Knowledge 3. Rethinking the Absolute 4. The Fall 8. Absolute Knowledge 1. In Defense of Speculation 2. The Strategy for the Defense 3. Intellectual Intuition 4. Fichte versus Schelling on Intellectual Intuition 5. Art versus Philosophy 6. The Method of Construction 7. Head over Heels into the Absolute? 8. The Paradox of Absolute Knowledge Notes Bibliography Index Reviews of this book: [A] magnificent new book...That Beiser manages to keep the reader afloat as he steers through such deep and turbulent waters deserves the highest praise. Expository writing of unfailing lucidity is supported by reference to an unrivalled range of sources...I learned something from this book on almost every page...For anyone at all seriously interested in the topic this is now the place to start. --Michael Rosen, Times Literary Supplement

First published in 1995. When did psychology become a distinct discipline? What links the continental and analytic traditions in philosophy? Answers to both questions are found in this extraordinary account of the debate surrounding psychologism in Germany at the turn of the century. The trajectory of twentieth century philosophy has been largely determined by this anti-naturalist view which holds that empirical research is in principle different from philosophical inquiry, and can never make significant contributions to the latter's central issues. Martin Kusch explores the origins of psychologism through the work of two major figures in the history of twentieth century philosophy, Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl. His sociological and historical reconstruction shows how the power struggle between the experimental psychologists and pure philosophers influenced the thought of these two philosophers, shaping their agendas and determining the success of their arguments for a sharp separation of logic from psychology. A move that was crucial in the creation of the distinct discipline of psychology and was responsible for the anti-naturalism found in both the analytic and the phenomenological traditions in philosophy. Students and lecturers in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and history will find this study invaluable for understanding a key moment in the intellectual history of the twentieth century.

Immanuel Kant is widely considered to be the most important and influential thinker of modern Europe and the late Enlightenment. His philosophy is extraordinarily wide-ranging and his influence has been pervasive throughout eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth-century thought, in particular in the work of the German Idealists, and also in both Analytic and Continental philosophy today. Now available as a new and expanded edition in paperback, this accessible companion to Kant features more than 100 specially commissioned entries, written by a team of experts in the field, covering every aspect of his philosophy. The Bloomsbury Companion to Kant presents a comprehensive overview of the historical and philosophical context in which Kant wrote and the various features, themes and topics apparent in his thought. It also includes extensive synopses of all his major published works and a survey of the key lines of reception and influence including a new addition on Schopenhauer's reception of Kant. It concludes with a thorough bibliography of English language secondary literature, now expanded for this edition to include all cutting-edge publications in the area. This is an essential and practical research tool for those working in the field of eighteenth-century German philosophy and Kant.

Vols. 1-23 (1888-1910) include "Jahresberichte über sämtliche Erscheinungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte der Philosophie"; v.24-41 include section "Die neuesten Erscheinungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte der Philosophie" (varies slightly)

This work argues that teleological motives lie at the heart of Kant’s critical philosophy and that a precise analysis of teleological structures can both illuminate the basic strategy of its fundamental arguments and provide a key to understanding its unity. It thus aims, through an examination of each of Kant’s major writings, to provide a detailed interpretation of his claim that philosophy in the true sense must consist of a teleologia rationis humanae. The author argues that Kant’s critical philosophy forged a new link between traditional teleological concepts and the basic structure of rationality, one that would later inform the dynamic conception of reason at the heart of German Idealism. The process by which this was accomplished began with Kant’s development of a uniquely teleological conception of systematic unity already in the precritical period. The individual chapters of this work attempt to show how Kant adapted and refined this conception of systematic unity so that it came to form the structural basis for the critical philosophy.

This book reconstructs, from both historical and theoretical points of view, Leibniz’s geometrical studies, focusing in particular on the research Leibniz carried out in his final years. The work’s main purpose is to offer a better understanding of the philosophy of space and in general of the mature Leibnizean metaphysics. This is the first ever, comprehensive historical reconstruction of Leibniz’s geometry.

This intellectual biography of Immanuel Kant's early years-- from 1746 when he wrote his first book, to 1766 when he lost his faith in metaphysics --makes an outstanding contribution to Kant scholarship. Schönfeld meticulously examines most of Kant's early works, summarizes their content, and exhibits their shortcomings and strengths. He places the early theories in their historical context and describes the scientific discoveries and philosophical innovations that distinguish Kant's pre-critical works. Schönfeld argues that these works were all aspects of a single project carried out by Kant to reconcile metaphysical and scientific perspectives and combine them into a coherent model of nature.

"Ronald Bruzina's superb translation... makes available in English a text of singular historical and systematic importance for phenomenology." -- Husserl Studies "... a pivotal document in the development of phenomenology... essential reading for students of phenomenology twentieth-century thought." -- Word Trade "... an invaluable addition to the corpus of Husserl scholarship. More than simply a scholarly treatise, however, it is the result of Fink's collaboration with Husserl during the last ten years of Husserl's life.... This truly essential work in phenomenology should find a prominent place alongside Husserl's own works. For readers interested in phenomenology -- and in Husserl in particular -- it cannot be recommended highly enough." -- Choice "... a thorough critique of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology... raises many new questions.... a classic." -- J. N. Mohanty A foundational text in Husserlian phenomenology, written in 1932 and now available in English for the first time.

This book explores in detail the role that symbolic representation plays in the architecture of Kant's philosophy. Symbolic representation fulfills a crucial function in Kant's practical philosophy because it serves to mediate between the unconditionality of the categorical imperative and the inescapable finiteness of the human being. By showing how the nature of symbolic representation plays out across all areas of the practical philosophy--moral philosophy, legal philosophy, philosophy of history and philosophy of religion--Heiner Bielefeldt offers a unique perspective on how these various facets of Kant's philosophy cohere.

Originally published in 1985. This book is about a single famous line of argument, pioneered by Descartes and deployed to full effect by Kant. That argument was meant to refute scepticism once and for all, and make the world safe for science. 'I think, so I exist’ is valid reasoning, but circular as proof. In similar vein, Kant argues from our having a science of geometry to Space being our contribution to experience: a different conclusion, arrived at by a similar fallacy. Yet these arguments do show something: that certain sets of opinions, if professed, show an inbuilt inconsistency. It is this second-strike capacity that has kept transcendental arguments going for so long. Attempts to re-build metaphysics by means of such transcendental reasoning have been debated. This book offers an introduction to the field, and ventures its own assessment, in non-technical language, without assuming previous training in logic or philosophy.

This book explores the work of Thomas Seebohm (1934-2014), a leading phenomenologist and hermeneuticist. It features papers that offer a critical and constructive dialogue about Seebohm’s analyses and their implications for the sciences. The net result is an in-depth study and a helpful overview of Seebohm’s general approach and his specific views on various areas of modern science. The contributors focus especially upon his final text, History as a Science and the System of the Sciences. They view this as the culmination and summary of his historical and phenomenological investigations into the foundations, nature, and limits of modern sciences. This includes not just history but the Geisteswissenschaften more generally, along with the social and natural sciences as well. The essays in this volume reflect that range. This volume presents insightful discussions about the nature and legitimacy of the human sciences as sciences and the unique character of the social sciences. It will be of interest not just as a matter of historical scholarship, but also and above all as an important contribution to phenomenology and to the philosophy of science and the sciences as such. It deserves attention by scholars from any philosophical tradition interested in thinking about the foundations of their disciplines and a philosophy of science that includes, but is not limited to, the natural sciences.

Die Idee eines selbständigen Bandes von "Pfander-Studien" entstand nach dem Internationalen Kongreß "Die Münchener Phänomenologie", der an läßlich des hundertsten Geburtstags von Alexander Pfander in München stattfand. Ursprünglich war geplant, die im zweiten Teil des Kongresses im Rahmen einer Arbeitstagung über "Das Werk und die Bedeutung Alexander pfänders" gehaltenen Referate, die bereits vervielfältigt waren, nebst Diskussionsberichten in den vorgesehenen Gesamtband über die Konferenz für die Serie Phaenomenologica einzuschlie­ ßen. Als sich herausstellte, daß der dort verfügbare Raum -für die meisten Beiträge zu knapp bemessen war und nur die abgekürz­ ten Texte ohne Diskussion hätten aufgenommen werden' können, tauchte die Idee eines gesonderten Bandes auf. Sie führte alsbald zur Erwägung neuer Beiträge und sonstiger Hilfen für das Ver­ ständnis des alten und neuen Werkes Pfänders. Von den Kon­ greßbeiträgen war ohnehin der von Karl Schuhmann ftir ein gesondertes selbständiges Buch" Husserl über Pfänder" vorgese­ hen, das inzwischen in der Reihe Phaenomenologica erschienen ist. 1 Der Beitrag von Peter Schwankl "Alexander pfänders Nachlaßtexte über das virtuell Psychische" erschien im Journal 0/ Phenomenological Psychology. 2 Die beiden einleitenden Refe­ rate von Schwankl und Spiegel berg über die damals noch unge­ druckten Nachlaßwerke Philosophie auf phänomenologischer Grundlage und Ethik in kurzer Darstellung konnten nach deren Erscheinen fortbleiben.