Daniel Whistler

In this essay I contend that, whatever one might say about F.W.J. Schelling's historical and conceptual influence on Paul Tillich's doctrines, the overall style of Tillich's project can helpfully be dubbed Schellingian to the extent it mixes together discourses, genres, and vocabularies into an ever‐expanding whole. To the extent that anything can be labelled Schellingian in Tillich, it is, I suggest, his will to speculate symbolically—or, more precisely, his desire to accumulate concepts, stories, and styles (including, in fact, the very myths he tells about his Schellingian origins). Tillich, following Schelling, continually adds one way of speaking to another, and such an additive procedure is to be dubbed ‘symbolics’, i.e., Tillichian symbols are constructed by overdetermining sense through the proliferation of discourses. Tillich's texts take the form of an ‘and… and… and…’—they practise a paratactics. I argue this by attending to various Schelling‐like genres in Tillich's works, such as criticism, mystery, and speculation, before focusing more concertedly—via detours on Quentin Meillassoux's very different practice of speculation and Søren Kierkegaard's anxieties over the mixing of genres—on the ways in which these different ‘dimensions’ of Tillichian discourse are assembled into a stylistic whole à la Schelling.

In this essay, I reflect on the idea of reading the historiography of post-Kantian philosophy after the spatial turn, and, in particular, I look to the “strong spatial imagery” deployed by Dieter Henrich and others as part of his Konstellationsforschung project. I describe, in turn, the concrete constellation-space of historical figures and documents and the Denkraum (conceptual space) constructed within Konstellationsforschung, and then examine them in isolation and in their interrelationship through various encounters with the spatial imagery of other historiographical methodologies. In the second half of the essay, I pursue two transnational conversations in the historiography of post-Kantian philosophy, considering the historical site of the constellation in dialogue with Christian Jacob’s lieux de savoir project and then the genesis of Denkräume in dialogue with a French tradition of “impure” or “hybrid” histories of philosophy. I conclude with some specifications for redescribing the genesis of philosophical events as hybrid.

In the wake of post-hermeneutic refusals of interpretation in recent continental philosophy, this essay returns to Schelling as a means of understanding what such a renewed reading practice of philosophical fundamentalism might look like. I argue that recent impetus for a Schellingian conception of literalism can be found in Grant’s attack on the metaphorizing tendencies of previous Schelling scholarship, and the ground for such literalism is to be located in the concept of tautegory that Schelling proposes in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Mythology. Schelling is a philosopher of form, and the form of the word remains as inviolable as any other natural form.

The aim of this chapter is to describe a set of post-Kantian accounts of meaning, according to which: (i) meaningful properties are formal ones; (ii) these properties should be described in terms of the natural processes out of which they emerge; (iii) meanings should therefore be considered natural forms and be explained in the same way as any other natural fact. This is a set of naturalist positions that typically construes meaning as a ‘living form’, but equally—at its most radical—exceeds this organicist framework to think inorganic meanings. I consider this tradition through a detailed interrogation of Lectures Eight and Nine of F. W. J. Schelling’s Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, arguing that this is one exemplary instance of the confusion of forms and grounds in such a post-Kantian tradition of accounting for meaning. Ultimately, I suggest it is a position that puts into question the traditional category of meaning itself.

This short note summarises the intent of the following chapters in the volume: to help readers gain an introductory overview of how Hegel’s and Schelling’s philosophies were circulated, transformed and subjected to critique in France from 1801 to 1848, with a focus on enumerating the various figures, publications and mechanisms of transmission at stake. It further records and justifies the major translation decisions made in the volume, especially in the context of the various translation-strategies for German Idealism already being developed in early nineteenth-century France.

This chapter is intended to provide some introductory orientation concerning what the Hegelian and Schellingian reception in France looked like. It tells a chronological story of its development with a focus on some of its key moments or landmarks, including Germaine de StäelStäel, Germaine de’s De l’Allemagne, Victor CousinCousin, Victor’s journeys to Germany, Pierre LerouxLeroux, Pierre’s radical appropriation of Schelling, the pantheistPantheism critique of Hegel and Hyppolite TaineTaine, Hyppolite’s early flirtation with HegelianismHegelianism. It is, therefore, meant to resume some of the standard reference points for any understanding of this topic.

This introduction familiarises the reader with the project undertaken in Hegel and Schelling in Early Nineteenth-Century France by focusing on the various methodological requirements for its transnational reception-history. Such a methodology should trace the mutations, contestations and hybridisations that constitute the dissemination of Hegel’s and Schelling’s philosophies into France. We argue, in particular, for a renewed method in the history of post-KantianKantianism philosophy which is, firstly, more sensitive to the work of intellectual history and the history of ideas; secondly, as interested in the material processes by which an argument circulates as the validity of that argument itself; and, thirdly, which does away with the canon, as far as possible, in favour of a history of philosophy done in a minoritarian key.

This chapter lists the translations of Hegel’s and Schelling’s writings published in French before 1848. It contrasts the flurries of translation-activity to which Schelling’s philosophy was subject (nine works published during the 1830s and 1840s) to translations of Hegel which were few and far between. This was, we conjecture, partly due to the impact of the Left Hegelians (whose works were quickly translated), rather than Hegel’s texts themselves, on French philosophical consciousness. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of the German-language texts and editions studied by French philosophers in the early nineteenth century.

Any account of the conditions for making possible the dissemination of German philosophy in France in the nineteenth century must include the various publications, institutions and mechanisms that supported, promoted and encouraged it. To this end, this chapter is interested in the structures that made the reception of Hegel’s and Schelling’s philosophy possible in France. It includes sections on the journals that discussed their work, the obituaries of Hegel that appeared in the early 1830s, the role of the prize-essay competitions set by the Académie des sciences morales et politiquesAcadémie des sciences morales et politiques, the research visits undertaken to Germany and the epistolary networks that all supported their reception.

Deleuze remains indifferent to the ambient pathos related to the end of metaphysics and compares the undertakings of destruction, overcoming and deconstruction of metaphysics with the gestures of murderers. He considers himself “a pure metaphysician,” which is rather unique in the contemporary philosophical landscape. What are we to make of this and similar claims? What do they mean in light of the effort made during the last several centuries to overcome, overturn, destroy, or deconstruct metaphysics? If we consider Deleuze’s work more closely, might find him engaging in the kind of thinking that is commonly referred to as metaphysical? And if Deleuze is indeed a metaphysician, does this undercut the many insightful contributions of the twentieth century philosophers who dedicate their thought to bringing down Western metaphysical tradition? Or does it suggest that there is a sense of metaphysics that should nevertheless be preserved? These and similar questions are addressed in this volume by a series of international scholars. The goal of the book is to critically engage an aspect of Deleuze’s thought that, for the most part, has been neglected, and to understand better his “immanent metaphysics.” It also seeks to explore the consequences of such an engagement.

French philosophy is an internationally celebrated national philosophical tradition, and this Oxford Handbook offers a comprehensive approach to its history since 1800. The Handbook features essays written by renowned international specialists, illuminating key movements and positions, themes and thinkers in nineteenth-, twentieth- and even twenty-first-century French philosophy. The volume takes into account developments in recent historical scholarship by broadening the notion of Modern French Philosophy in two ways. Whereas recent approaches in the field have often ignored early nineteenth-century developments, this volume offers comprehensive treatment of French thought of this period in order to grasp better later developments. Moreover, the volume extends the canon at the other end of the period of Modern French Philosophy by including work on philosophers who have come to prominence only in the last ten or twenty years. The volume takes 'French philosophy' in a broad sense to include all philosophy carried out in France over the last 200 years, and it illuminates the institutional and cultural background of this national philosophical tradition in such a way as to provide a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of its unity and of its more famous moments in the twentieth century.

This study takes as its starting point CousinCousin, Victor’s HegelianHegelianism-sounding claim in his 1828 lectures that the history of philosophy is identical to philosophy itself—and it does so in order to interrogate the various resemblances and divergences between CousinCousin, Victor and Hegel when it comes to determining the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy. In particular, the study investigates the difference between the “official” position CousinCousin, Victor takes up in 1833 in which spiritualistSpiritualism philosophy grounds eclectic history of philosophy and his earlier more experimental and provisional positions, which map roughly onto Hegel’s own various ways of articulating the philosophy-history of philosophy relationship.

_Hegel and Schelling in Early Nineteenth-Century France_ is a two-volume work that documents the French reception of G. W. F. Hegel and F. W. J. Schelling from 1801 to 1848. It shows that the story of the "French Hegel" didn't begin with Wahl and Kojève by giving readers a solid understanding of the various ways in which German Idealism impacted nineteenth-century French philosophy, as well as providing the first ever English-language translations of excerpts from the most important philosophical texts of the era. Inside volume one, readers will find a number of interpretative frameworks to help them get to grips with this neglected field in the history of ideas. In addition to excerpted translations and a narrative of Hegel’s and Schelling’s fate in France during the early nineteenth century, this volume includes an introduction on transnational reception history, as well as an analytical catalogue of the translations of their work produced in French at this time, of the publications which appropriated or interrogated their philosophical legacy, and of the journals, institutional structures and other mechanisms of dissemination that brought Hegel’s and Schelling’s philosophy into France. The book thus details the ways in which French philosophers of the period took up the debates and concepts of German Idealism, transformed them or rejected them. In this way, it aims to contribute to a reversal of the serious neglect of early nineteenth-century French thought in English-language scholarship and, in so doing, goes beyond a nation-based narrative of the history of philosophy.

_Hegel and Schelling in Early Nineteenth-Century France_ is a two-volume work that documents the French reception of G. W. F. Hegel and F. W. J. Schelling from 1801 to 1848. It shows that the story of the "French Hegel" didn't begin with Wahl and Kojève by giving readers a solid understanding of the various ways in which German Idealism impacted nineteenth-century French philosophy, as well as providing the first ever English-language translations of excerpts from the most important philosophical texts of the era. Inside volume two, readers will find a series of scholarly studies to help them get to grips with this neglected field in the history of ideas. The contributors are world-leading and emerging experts from Europe, UK, and North America. They highlight the stakes and trace the pathways of this reception for French and German thought during the period, including the ways in which French philosophers of the period took up the debates and concepts of German Idealism, transformed them or rejected them. In this way, the volume aims to redress the serious neglect of early nineteenth-century French thought in English-language scholarship and, in so doing, goes beyond a nation-based narrative of the history of philosophy.

The argument of this paper is threefold: (a) Charles Bonnet’s naturalization of the principle of perfectibility (in the wake of Rousseau) is one example of a more general philosophical operation to be found in his writings: to naturalize the metaphysical while insisting upon its minimal difference from the material and so to generate an immaterialism that looks like a materialism; (b) this operation structures Bonnet’s entire palingenetic project which can be defined as an ‘anomalous naturalism’; (c) variants of this anomalous naturalism were available to German philosophers during the last decades of the eighteenth century – philosophers such as G. E. Lessing, F. H. Jacobi and J. G. Herder – and, to this extent, their writings also display traits of this ‘anomalous naturalism’.

Issue number 4 of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" is devoted to the Dutch philosopher François Hemsterhuis and 250th anniversary of the birth of the German romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. This fourth issue of the journal contains nearly 600 pages of new research articles, translations, review-essays, and book reviews. The main section on Hemsterhuis among the German Romantics was guest edited by Daniel Whistler (Royal Holloway, University of London).

This concluding chapter to the handbook contains the editors’ reflections on the state of the relationship between theory and German Idealism by way of a narrative from the founding of “French theory” in the 1960s, through recent post-poststructuralisms, to conjectures about the future of the relationship. In particular, the editors describe the role of Nietzsche and the various returns to Kant in constituting the traditional image of German Idealism in theory and the recent splintering within theory among competing post-poststructuralisms, including the “speculative realist” movement and the “new materialisms.” The chapter ends with the idea that the relationship between theory and German Idealism will endure, first, because of the constitutive role of reading in any study of idealist philosophies and, second, because of the significance of German Idealism to the constitution of a “new humanities.”

The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Poststructuralism offers a wide-ranging dialogue between theory and German Idealism, joining up the various lines of influence connecting German Idealist and Romantic philosophies in all their variety to post-'68 European philosophies, from Derrida and Deleuze to Žižek and Malabou. Key features: Provides in-depth reflections on the various conversations between German Idealism and theory, including an expanded canon of Idealist philosophers and a wide range of contemporary anti-foundationalist thinkers. Includes marginalized voices and concepts that reflect both contemporary concerns as well as the sheer abundance of readings of German Idealism undertaken by European theorists over the last fifty years. Expands the existing scholarship by focusing on new, future directions emerging out of the idealism-theory relationship. The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Poststructuralism is essential reading for researchers and students of all levels — from senior scholars to advanced undergraduates — working on the legacy of German Idealist philosophers within philosophy departments, as well as all those interested in theory from across the humanities.

Over three decades, Gillian Howie wrote at the forefront of philosophy and critical theory, before her untimely death in 2013. This interdisciplinary collection uses her writings to explore the productive, yet often resistant, interrelationship between feminism and critical theory, examining the potential of Howie's particular form of materialism. The contributors also bring to this debate a serious engagement with Howie's late turn towards philosophies of mortality, therapy and 'living with dying'. The volume considers how differently embodied subjects are positioned within public institutions, discourses and spaces, and the role of philosophy, art, film, photography, and literature, in facing situations such as sexual oppression and life-limiting illness.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kierkegaard on Faith and LoveDaniel WhistlerSharon Krishek. Kierkegaard on Faith and Love. Modern European Philosophy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xiii + 201. Cloth, $90.00.Contemporary scholarship on Kierkegaard is frequently confronted by two problems. First, there is the question of Kierkegaard’s worldliness: does Kierkegaard have anything substantial to say about politics, society, and the ethical dilemmas of intersubjective existence? Second, there remains the perennial problem of the rhetorical singularity of Kierkegaard’s writings: can anything conceptually coherent be salvaged from the panoply of pseudonyms, indirections, and ironies? And, if so, to what extent do such abstractions falsify the richness of a particular text? The virtue of Krishek’s Kierkegaard on Faith and Love is that it answers both these questions in a radical and challenging manner. To the problem of worldliness, Krishek responds by insisting on the presence of a disposition to “full concreteness” or “a full return to the world” in Kierkegaard’s account of love (128). In answer to the problem of rhetorical singularity, Krishek embraces Kierkegaard’s incoherence, so as to affirm Fear and Trembling against Works of Love (or “Kierkegaard versus Kierkegaard,” as she puts it on p. 138).Kierkegaard on Faith and Love is a sustained investigation into the status and structure of love in Kierkegaard’s corpus. It thus takes its place alongside Evans’s Kierkegaard’s Ethics of Love (Oxford, 2004), Ferreira’s Love’s Grateful Striving (Oxford, 2001), Amy Laura Hall’s Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love (Cambridge, 2002), Ronald L. Hall’s The Human Embrace (Penn State, 2000), and Mooney’s Love and Faith in Kierkegaard (Indiana, 2008) as one more contribution to the recent explosion of literature on the subject. However, Krishek is distinctive in limiting her scope to romantic love alone; she steadfastly reconstructs [End Page 302] a Kierkegaardian phenomenology of romantic attitudes toward the beloved—the proper and improper modes of comportment when in love.The first half of the book is split into three chapters, which together present a hierarchy of these different comportments. The reader passes by inadequate attempts to hold onto the beloved through recollection (chapter 2) and resignation (chapter 3) to arrive at the Kierkegaardian ideal of faithful or “faith-full” love. Modelled on the knight of faith of Fear and Trembling, the faith-full lover accomplishes a double movement in which he resigns himself to the loss of the beloved while simultaneously trusting in her return. Unfortunately, on the way to this ideal, some of the great lovers of Kierkegaard’s writings (Don Juan, the Seducer) are brushed aside in an overly schematic way. This is a shame because they surely have much to teach us about his views on romantic love. Nevertheless, the effect of Krishek’s whistle-stop tour through the aesthetic works is to quickly bring us face to face with Fear and Trembling, in which, she contends, we find a positive model of romantic love. Making the early, pseudonymous Fear and Trembling determinative of Kierkegaard’s conception of love is a bold move, especially in light of the tendency in recent Kierkegaard scholarship to valorize the “rediscovered” religious works. Yet it pays off: Krishek’s choice not only allows a rich and affirmative description of romantic love to emerge; it also sheds light on Fear and Trembling itself, especially the Merman episode.The final three chapters of Kierkegaard on Faith and Love take up the task of justifying this ideal of faith-full love. First, Krishek attempts to show its conceptual plausibility by appealing to non-Kierkegaardian examples: the novel On the Way Home, Kubrik’s Eyes Wide Shut, and Almodóvar’s All About My Mother. Second, she engages at length with existing scholarship, employing the double movement of love abstracted from Fear and Trembling to great effect to overturn the orthodox emphasis on resignation, failure, and asceticism in Kierkegaard’s account of love. Finally, Krishek turns to Works of Love, which is usually regarded as Kierkegaard’s mature and definitive statement of a philosophy of love. She challenges the derogatory attitude Kierkegaard takes therein to romantic or “preferential” love with her more affirmative model drawn from Fear...