Tom Rockmore

The volume brings together contributions in the spirit embodied by Marek J. Siemek and Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz, two Warsaw philosophers truly devoted to Classical German Philosophy. They were simultaneously in a relationship between thinker and adept, and thinker and thinker. They both taught philosophy, with a strong emphasis on classic German philosophy, at Warsaw University. Under the theme “Ethical Theory in Classic German Philosophy Then and Now,” students and companions continue their discussions with both of them.

Philosophy is often thought to deal with problems, enigmas or conundra it seeks to answer, for instance through a theory.Wittgenstein and Hegel both challenge this view in different ways.Wittgenstein can be understood as passing through two main phases. In an initial phase, he proposes a view that presupposes a conception of language he later rejects. In a later phase, he rejects his earlier theory and philosophy in all its forms. In other words, after the effective refutation of what he earlier thought was the only approach, he drew the conclusion that there was no longer any possibly valid approach. This suggests the only possible result is skepticism, not about knowledge but rather about philosophy as a source of knowledge. In this sense, Wittgenstein suggests that in his later thought he brings philosophy to a skeptical end. In comparison to Wittgenstein, Hegel has a less extreme view. He neither claims to formulate the only possible approach to knowledge, hence to bring the tradition to an end, nor that philosophy ends in skepticism. He rather vindicates the Parmenidean approach that we are justified in claiming to know that knowledge is possible within the limits of the identity of thought and being.

Marx est un grand penseur et, selon divers critères, un des plus importants des temps modernes. L’enjeu ici est de cerner ce que Marx peut nous apporter aujourd’hui sur le plan philosophique. Le déclin soudain du marxisme officiel présente une occasion de faire ressortir le côté philosophique de Marx. Or voici quatre conditions afin de cerner la philosophie marxienne. Ces conditions relèvent (1) du marxisme, (2) de Hegel, (3) de l’économie politique, et (4) du modèle marxien de la société industrialisée moderne.

Martin Heidegger's impact on contemporary thought is important and controversial. However in France, the influence of this German philosopher is such that contemporary French thought cannot be properly understood without reference to Heidegger and his extraordinary influence. Tom Rockmore examines the reception of Heidegger's thought in France. He argues that in the period after the Second World War, due to the peculiar nature of the humanist French Philosophical tradition, Heidegger became the master thinker of French philosophy. Perhaps most importantly, he contends that this reception - first as philosophical anthropology and later as postmetaphysical humanism - is systematically mistaken.

This chapter briefly considers the relationship between Lukács, the outstanding Marxist philosopher, and Lenin, the outstanding Marxist political figure. Classical Marxism, which was invented by Engels, is anti-Hegelian. Not surprisingly, views of the relationship between Lukács and Lenin differ. There is a basic difference between Marxist philosophy and Marxist politics. I will be suggesting there is a deep tension between Lukács’ philosophical Hegelian Marx interpretation and Lenin’s political version of Marxist orthodoxy. This tension is later partially covered up by Lenin’s philosophical turn to Hegel, hence to a Hegelian view of Marx he never worked out, as well as by Lukács’ turn, after the invention of Hegelian Marxism, to Marxist political orthodoxy. Classical Marxism is based philosophically on an anti-Hegelian reading of Marx invented by Engels and defended by a long series of later Marxists. Lukács made his breakthrough to an anti-Marxist Hegelian reading of Marx in ‘HCC.’ Lukács’ Hegelian interpretation of Marx led him to criticize Engels in that book and throughout his later writings. After ‘HCC,’ he remained faithful to his most important philosophical insights in continuing to defend and to develop Marxian Hegelianism. Yet beginning in his little book on Lenin, he accepted the political hegemony of Leninism suggested in the Leninist political concept of partyness. From a political angle of vision, in virtue of his acceptance of Marxist political hegemony, Lukács is a political but not a philosophical Leninist. But he is certainly not a Leninist in an unqualified sense. Under the influence of Engels and Plekhanov, Lenin initially adopted an anti-Hegelian approach before his later conversion to Hegelianism in the Philosophical Notebooks. Suffice it to say that as a philosopher, Lukács is neither a Leninist nor an anti-Leninist. He is rather the single most important Marxist philosopher, who, in formulating Hegelian Marxism, simultaneously refutes classical anti-Hegelian Marxism while inventing Western Marxism.

This paper will consider John McDowell’s reading of Kant and Hegel through his reaction to Allison’s reading of Kant. Kant is obviously one of the very few key modern figures. In a sense, with respect to Kant there is a before and after. Many later thinkers, including Hegel and McDowell, react indirectly or even directly to Kant. McDowell’s claim that the real shows itself commits him, as it committed Heidegger and others, to an anti- or at least non-constructivist reading of the critical philosophy. Left unclear is whether he has in mind empirical realism, which is defended by all the German idealists including Kant, or metaphysical realism that, in my view, all of them reject. Since McDowell’s reading of Hegel depends on his reading of Kant, it will be useful to concentrate on the latter. And since his reading of Kant apparently depends on his reaction to Allison’s interpretation of Kant, I will focus on that particular approach in his writings. I should indicate at the outset that my interest is less to describe the views of McDowell, Kant, and Hegel, though it includes that task as well, than to determine what they contribute to our views of knowledge, or, following Kantian terminology, cognition (Erkennen). I will be arguing that Kant, whose position is ambiguous, advances two incompatible views of cognition, and that McDowell defends the one that Kant later wisely rejects, but that Hegel defends the one Kant later put forward and that we should now also be defending.

Essays on one of Fichte's best known and most controversial works. One of J. G. Fichte’s best-known works, Addresses to the German Nation is based on a series of speeches he gave in Berlin when the city was under French occupation. They feature Fichte’s diagnosis of his own era in European history as well as his call for a new sense of German national identity, based upon a common language and culture rather than “blood and soil.” These speeches, often interpreted as key documents in the rise of modern nationalism, also contain Fichte’s most sustained reflections on pedagogical issues, including his ideas for a new egalitarian system of Prussian national education. The contributors’ reconsideration of the speeches deal not only with technical philosophical issues such as the relationship between language and identity, and the tensions between universal and particular motifs in the text, but also with issues of broader concern, including education, nationalism, and the connection between morality and politics. Daniel Breazeale is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Tom Rockmore is Humanities Chair Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Peking University, China. Both have authored, edited, and translated many books. Together, they are the coeditors of Fichte’s Vocation of Man: New Interpretive and Critical Essays, also published by SUNY Press.