Tom Rockmore

The recent concern with hermeneutics, which stems above all from Truth and Method, should not be allowed to obscure the fact, to which Gadamer certainly is sensitive, that this topic has a long philosophical lineage, extending back into the tradition at least to Aristotle. In particular, it seems rarely to have been noticed that although their thought is notoriously difficult, the major members of the German idealist tradition provided not only the positions themselves, but a theory of their interpretation. The latter point is important since, if evaluation is to be fair, positions must be measured against standards which are their own and not against extrinsic criteria. Yet for idealism this has rarely been done, in part because little attention has so far been directed to the idealist view of how theory is to be interpreted. Accordingly, my task in this paper will be twofold: to discuss the idealist theory of hermeneutics, and to test that theory in the interpretation of one of the major idealist positions. In consequence, the paper will come full circle, since the idealist theory of hermeneutics will be both expounded and put to the test provided by the hermeneutics of idealism.

It makes sense to ask from time to time where we are in the philosophical discussion. This article reviews the debate in the twentieth century. Michael Friedman has recently argued that the split between Continental and analytic philosophy is due to the inability, because of war, to carry forward a genuine debate begun by Heidegger and Carnap around the time of Heidegger's public controversy with Cassirer at Davos in 1929. I, however, argue that there was not even the beginning of a genuine debate between Heidegger and Carnap. I argue further that the split between analytic and Continental philosophy originated earlier, in the analytic attack on idealism at the beginning of the century. And finally, I argue that the differences among analytic philosophy, Continental philosophy, and pragmatism, the third main current of twentieth-century philosophy, can be traced to differing reactions to Kant

This collection of 13 essays on the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte is the first volume in English to focus upon Fichte's most celebrated and influential philosophical text, his Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre ("Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge"). Fichte's Grundlage is an audaciously original effort to recast the Kantian philosophy into a full-blown system of "transcendental idealism." Rejecting all reference to "things in themselves," Fichte described his work as "the first philosophy of human freedom" and as a faithful expression of the true "spirit" of Kant's critical philosophy. For all of its deficiencies, the Grundlage occupied an absolutely pivotal role in the development of German idealism after Kant. Both Schelling and Hegel, for example, were profoundly influenced by the Grundlage. Most of the essays in this collection address specific themes and problems in the context of the Grundlage, such as imagination, time, representation, reflection, deduction, and transcendental methodology. Others examine the relationship of Fichte's philosophy to Kant's and the influence of the Grundlage upon such philosophers as Jacobi, Schelling, and Hegel. Collectively, these essays constitute an ideal introduction to the reading of Fichte's notoriously difficult but deeply rewarding work.

Aimed at specialists, as well as graduate students and select undergraduates, this study centers on Hegel's important, but neglected, theory of knowledge. Professor Rockmore interprets Hegel as reacting to the Kantian effort to reformulate epistemology in the wake of what Kant contends is the failure of earlier, dogmatic theories. Recent work has shown that Hegel's epistemology is a good deal more respectable than has usually been thought. Rockmore's aim is to continue that work in order to bring Hegel into the main discussion of knowledge. Rockmore's main argument for the relevance of Hegel's theory to the problem of knowledge is that in the absence of foundationalism, Hegel's antifoundationalist theory of knowledge as perspectival and historical supplies two items helpful to advance the epitemological discussion.

Fichte is one of the small handful of philosophers on the highest level. But he is still relatively unknown, even in Germany, for a variety of reasons. These include the difficulty of his thought and its expression, which impedes even native Germans; the relatively greater attention paid to Kant and Hegel, and perhaps even to Schelling; and the lack of a critical edition of his writings. In English-language philosophical circles, beyond these handicaps, knowledge of Fichte is further impeded by the persistent paucity of good, or even any, translations of important items in his bibliography.

It is a fact that Hegel’s immense presence, and above all his own self-serving reading of the history of philosophy as leading up to his own position, has tended to detract attention from other views. Hegel’s position consciously builds upon its predecessors. If philosophy culminates in Hegel’s thought, then other theories are mainly valuable in that they survive as lower moments of the Hegelian synthesis. Hegel insists that he takes up what is positive in prior views. Hence, the mere fact that an earlier idea does not reappear in Hegelian guise is an indication that it is unworthy of further attention.

This is not an ordinary study of Hegel’s thought; it is rather an unusual effort to apply that thought to contemporary issues, in particular to that complex problem known as liberation theology. Lakeland’s approach can be loosely characterized as both right wing Hegelian, in that stress is placed on Christian elements, and as progressive Catholic as concerns the interest in liberation theology. The thesis he advances is that Hegel’s political theology is appropriate to illuminate the connection between the Christian expectation of salvation and the struggle for political liberation, two topics which are linked through the Christian concept of incarnation. Lakeland suggests that this concept is central to Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie; and he further suggests that the concept of incarnation provides the satisfactory basis for a theological view which is both a Christian anthropology and a political theology.

The aim of this informal paper is to direct (or redirect) attention to the importance of Croce’s historicism. Though he is sometimes described as the best known Italian intellectual since Galileo, and though his influence remains strong in Italy, his impact outside Italy is not as important as it should be. Other than through Collingwood, his only well known English-language disciple, Croce has had very little influence on those writing in English. His theories, including his historicism, on which I will be focusing here, are only infrequently discussed in English, especially by philosophers.Historicism is a doctrine which receives almost no attention in English-speaking lands but looms very large in Italian thought.For purposes of this paper, I will treat Croce’s historicism as arising out of his readings of three very different thinkers, different from himself and from each other, who are committed to varying forms of epistemological historicism, and who are important for the development of his own position, Vico, Hegel and Marx. Croce studies these thinkers early in his very long career in inverse chronological order, beginning with Marx (1900), turning next to Hegel (1907), and then concerning himself later with Vico (1911). In considering Croce’s interpretation of three other historicists, it will be useful to keep in mind that, as an original thinker, he is never only an interpreter of other theories, always in the process of thinking for himself with and against whatever ideas he is interpreting. In each case, he made important contributions to our understanding of these thinkers while continuing to work out his own view.