This paper attempts to marshall some of the evidence of the transcendental character of Heidegger's later thinking, despite his repudiation of any form of transcendental thinking, including that of his own earlier project of fundamental ontology. The transcendental significance of that early project is first outlined through comparison and contrast with the diverse transcendental turns in the philosophies of Kant and Husserl. The paper then turns to Heidegger's account of the historical source of the notion of transcendence in Plato's thinking, (...) its legacy in various forms of transcendental philosophy, and his reasons for attempting to think in a post-transcendental way. The paper concludes by identifying four vestiges of the transcendental turn in Heidegger's later thinking. (shrink)

IN THE SPRING OF 1928, approximately one year after the publication of Sein und Zeit, Heidegger concludes a seminar on Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft with the following remark.

Morning Hours is the first English translation of Morgenstunden by Moses Mendelssohn, the foremost Jewish thinker of the German Enlightenment. Published six months before Mendelssohn's death on January 4, 1786, Morning Hours is the most sustained presentation of his mature epistemological and metaphysical views, all elaborated in the service of presenting his son with proofs for the existence of God. But Morning Hours is much more than a theoretical treatise. It also plays a central role in the drama of the (...) Pantheismusstreit, Mendelssohn's "dispute" with F. H. Jacobi over the nature and scope of Lessing's attitude toward Spinoza and "pantheism". In Morning Hours Mendelssohn attempts to set the record straight regarding his beloved Lessing in this connection, not least by demonstrating the absence of any practical difference between theism and a "purified pantheism". (shrink)

LECTURE NOTES MAY BE "MURKY SOURCES," yet during the past decade "murky" manuscripts have been instrumental in the publication of many of Heidegger's own legendary lectures during the years between the world wars. To be sure, the Heidegger of these lectures is very much, as he puts it, "under way." His motto for the complete edition of his works reads: "Ways--not works." Nevertheless, as might be expected from lectures, the wording is simpler, the style more casual, and the chain of (...) thoughts more suited to an introduction than is the thick prose of Holzwege, Wegmarken, or Unterwegs zur Sprache. In this respect at least, a certain similarity to Hegel's lectures within the Hegelian corpus is indisputable. (shrink)

This essay takes a critical look at a specific altruistic interpretation of the moral nature, legitimacy, and value of unselfish actions. The aim of the essay is to raise questions about this altruistic attitude toward the morality of unselfish actions by focussing on certain assumptions that inform that attitude. It is argued that, among those assumptions, the most counterintuitive and deleterious is the notion that the morality of an unselfish action can and should be established by appeal to the possibility (...) of resentment springing from the performance or non-performance of the action. After a short presentation and explanation of these assumptions and their questionableness , the essay investigates the extent to which an altruistic attitude animates contemporary discussion of the moral character of unselfish actions. This investigation is limited to a sketch of a particular development of contemporary ethical theory, from Thomas Nagel's initial attempt to explain the possibility of pure altruism to his revisions of his early theory into a concept of a revised altruism, and culminating in the intersubjective altruism, elaborated by Christine Korsgaard as a consequence of her critique of Nagel's moral theory. In conclusion , after iterating the fundamental inadequacy of appeals to possibilities of resentment, an explanation for the altruistic attitude is ventured. This explanation tries to secure the measure of validity of the assumptions of the altruistic attitude as well as its limitations by suggesting its grounding in an ethics of honor, delimited by an ethics of love and friendship. (shrink)

“Experiencing others” in this paper stands for apprehending fellow human beings insofar as they express themselves and thus are or have been—on some level—alive and conscious. Contemporary scholars have increasingly paid attention to phenomenological approaches to explaining this phenomenon, whether under the rubric of knowing other minds, intersubjectivity, or empathy. In this connection, Max Scheler’s studies of sympathy and Edith Stein’s dissertation on empathy have stood out. Yet scholars often treat their views in tandem, paying little attention to their differences. (...) This neglect is unfortunate since their disagreement harbors—at least prima facie—two radically different points of departure for understanding how we experience one another. The main objective of this paper is to identify their disagreement and to probe the possibility and necessity of resolving it. (shrink)

The first part of this essay contests traditional objections to Kant's derivation of the law of right from the moral law, objections based upon the formalism and subjectivism that are inherent in Kant's formulation of the latter. Through a reconstruction of that derivation in syllogistic form, the nature and extent of the empirical presupposition underlying Kant's doctrine of right - furnishing it with a kind of content and natural objectivity - are made perspicuous. After noting the multiple uses of the (...) term 'right' in Kant's doctrine, the second part of the essay sharply criticizes his dismissal of what he calls a "right in a broad sense", namely, equity. (shrink)

This paper suggests that Hegel's legacy is precisely the questionability of any attempt to put it in question. Derrida's acknowledgment of différance's "absolute proximity" to Hegel's notion of Aufhebung is an admission of this difficulty and an insistence, nevertheless, on disestablishing Hegel's thinking. Part one reviews four Hegelian legacies, summed up in the notion of Aufhebung: a suspicion of immediacy, a presumption of the fully mediated character of reality, a decentering of subjectivity by way of recovering nature and society, and (...) finally, an endorsement of the absolute power of negation. Part two briefly recounts how Derrida manages, nevertheless, to deconstruct Hegel's legacy. However, the paper concludes that, since deconstruction and différance also call for the humility of deferring to a non-deferral of meaning, the questionability of putting Hegelian legacy in question remains its legacy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to revisit Heidegger’s phenomenological reading of Rilke with a view to eliciting its implications for our future and that of phenomenology. The paper focuses on how Heidegger, despite regarding Rilke as a much-needed poet in these destitute times, criticises the metaphysical and Nietzschean underpinnings of his poetic account of the open and animal existence within it. In addition to shedding considerable light on Heidegger’s own conception of the open and human existence within it, focusing (...) on this criticism unde rscores how the sort of phenomenological thinking exemplified in Heidegger’s reading of Rilke essentially and uniquely provides an opening of the future. (shrink)

In Heidegger's 1921 lectures, he presents an extensive interpretation of Book Ten of Augustine's Confessions . The present paper elaborates parallels between that interpretation of Augustine's Confessions and Heidegger's interpretation of existence in Being and Time , with special reference to the themes of self-possession and resoluteness as respective anchors of the two interpretations. The study also highlights ways the two interpretations diverge, i.e., the aspects of the interpretation of the Confessions ' themes of the good and desirable, the joyful (...) and endearing, the delectatio that Augustine deems the end of our care that do not find their way into the existential analysis. By way of conclusion, questions are raised about the significance and plausibility of Heidegger's prima facie omissions of these themes from his existential analysis. (shrink)

In the late 1930s Heidegger makes allusions to ?the wild? and ?the mild? in connection with a human liberation that he understands as a steadfast response to the claim that historical being (Seyn) makes upon us. The following paper elucidates these allusions in terms of the overturning of metaphysics that they entail.

Commentaries on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit are hardly novel. Several attempts exist to supply readers with sometimes critical, sometimes historical explanations of difficult passages and transitions and occasionally with an interpretation of the work as a whole. Curiously German scholars, unlike their French and English speaking counterparts, had not produced an extensive commentary before the appearance of Scheier's impressive undertaking. Rightly convinced that neither its architectonic nor the need to which it responded had been adequately treated in previous studies of (...) the Phenomenology, Scheier's commentary single-mindedly attempts to pursue Hegel's employment of "die einfachen Bestimmungen, z. B. des Ansichseins, des Fürsichseins, der Sichselbstgleichheit usf.," described by Hegel in the Vorrede. The result is quite aptly labelled an "analytic commentary," one that refrains from the temptation either to pass over passages or to "explain" them in terms of extraneous considerations or possibly relevant historical detail. Such reflections are useful, perhaps even necessary to comprehending Hegel's most baffling work, but interpretation must begin with the sort of careful textual analysis Scheier has undertaken. Scheier's approach makes for rather dry reading and it is certainly flawed by being too uncritical, even slavish. He often takes positions on controversial matters of interpretation without entering into the reasons elaborated for and against that position by other commentators. Yet Analytische [[sic]] Kommentar remains a valuable contribution to study of the Phenomenology of Spirit, as a clearly written and tenacious pursuit of its logic, both in detail and in general outline. (shrink)

This well-written, ambitious, and admirably condensed reconstruction of Kant's concept of God in relation to his theoretical and moral philosophy, from the precritical writings to the Opus Postumum, is by its very nature an uneven survey of the works and problems treated. The author strives for a new interpretation of Kant's moral theology by interpreting Kant's practical postulate of God as "eine qualitätive neue Metaphysik," making possible "subjektiven moralischen Glauben an einen wirklichen transzendenten Gott." The author faithfully exposits how Kant (...) conceived divinity and man's relation to God. But beyond the exposition there is a paucity of elaboration or critical consideration. The author is more intent on articulating the consistency of Kant's conception than in entertaining the rationale, if any, of its critics. (shrink)

From a phenomenological point of view, others present themselves as unities within my intentional life as a whole, constituted ‘for’ me even while maintaining a certain reserve. This ‘reserve’ is meant to indicate that the consciousness of alter egos involves the consciousness of a breach that does not obtain between consciousness and its other ‘objects’. Indeed, there is an obvious sense in which this very consciousness requires a considerable modification of the phenomenological understanding of the ego itself and the way (...) in which intentional life is constituted. As a means of accounting for intersubjectivity without reducing it to the ego or vice versa, the author of this short, but densely written volume focuses on the body as the place in which the above mentioned breach is constituted and countenanced in tandem with a transformed conception of the ego. The rationale for this strategy is outlined in chapter one, “Alterity and Otherness: The Problem of the Body in the Cartesian Meditations,” where the author observes, to begin with, that “the reduced ownness” cannot be defined as ‘nonalien’ since it is embodied and, as such, includes its “own inescapable otherness... thus indicating that the ‘inside’ of the ‘I’ is ordered in such a way that the experience of alterity is possible.” While providing some important clues, this observation does not explain how alterity in fact is experienced. The beginning of an explanation, Dodd suggests, is to be found in the passive synthesis of my body and another’s and, on the basis of that pairing, the interpretation of the other’s body in analogy with the way the ego mundanely expresses itself in its body. Thus, the most basic answer to the question of how another ego-life can be constituted in its alterity yet in my consciousness is provided by “expression” as a mundane and mutual modification of my life and others, in short, by their encounter, not as transcendental subjects, but as living bodies. The remainder of the book accordingly focuses on the body as “the basic element of the encounter between two lives”, based upon Husserl’s account of the three essential features of a “physical thing”: extendedness, materiality, and temporality. (shrink)

Somewhat rambling and loosely structured in the manner of an essay about a subject matter with no fixed parameters, Modern German Philosophy succeeds in presenting a lively picture of the contemporary German philosophical scene, and not least because of the author's critical participation in it. The book's origin in a native German speaker is fairly evident despite the curiosity that the book was apparently intended, not for German publication, but solely for its English translation. The expositions of Germany's major thinkers (...) in the past few decades are clear, succinct, and fairly accurate, given the author's avowed proclivities and presuppositions. Bubner has the good sense to intersperse his expositions with critical reflections, often open-ended, and even occasionally with a précis of his own systematic thinking. The result is a never dull, very engaging introduction to contemporary German philosophy that may surprise its English-speaking readers with the level of criticism and argumentation animating the latter. An additional boon to the reader is the fairly extensive and up-to-date references in the footnotes, especially to English translations when available. (shrink)

Challenging art historians' scientific pretensions as well as their neglect of theoretical questions, the author traces art history's development from the turn of the century by critically reviewing the early and lesser known writings of Erwin Panofsky, "the most influential art historian in the twentieth century." In a brief sketch of art history's nineteenth century roots, the first chapter reviews what is retained and what is discarded in Hegel's, Burckhardt's, and Dilthey's successive conceptions of historiography. The march of the Hegelian (...) absolute through history may have been decried a fiction, but not the effort to construe history culturally and contextually. (shrink)

In her fine monograph, Kunst als Erkenntnis, Ursula Franke remarked that "Baumgarten ist sich der Schwerfälligkeit seines Stils offenbar bewußt gewesen." Not the least because of difficulties with his Latin style, Baumgarten's work has been little researched, despite the commonplace that he "founded" the science of aesthetics. These precise, but nonetheless quite readable, translations by Heinz Paetzold and Rudolf Schweizer should remedy this situation.