Tom Rockmore

Metaphysical realism, though not under that name, runs throughout the entire Western tradition at least since Parmenides. His basic ontological claim, that is, that what is is and cannot not be, hence cannot change, influentially creates a central philosophical task. Cognitive foundationalism, whose exemplar is Descartes, is a cognitive strategy intended to respond to metaphysical realism. Plato rejects any form of a representational approach to knowledge in rejecting the backward causal inference from ideas in the mind to the world. The Cartesian strategy is based on a justified inference from the idea in the mind to the world, which reverses the Platonic criticism. Criticism of the Cartesian inference from the idea in the mind to the world supports Plato’s rejection of representationalism in all its forms.

This paper concerns two themes: my personal experience of Russian philosophy and Russian philosophers on the one hand, and historicism on the other. My account of my limited experience of Russian philosophers and philosophy will be mainly autobiographical. My remarks about historicism will concern a single aspect of the philosophical consequences of the Soviet experience for Russian philosophy. When I come to Russia, I am always surprised by the degree of interest in a historical approach to knowledge, an interest that, so far as I know, is unique to Russian philosophy. This difference in perspective as concerns the historical character of cognitive claims needs to be explained. It needs to be explained why contemporary Russian philosophers and contemporary Russian philosophy are so hospitable to a historical approach to knowledge, an approach which has always been rare, even unusual, elsewhere. My hypothesis, which I examine the paper, is that there is a deep link between contemporary Russian interest in a historical approach to knowledge and Soviet philosophy. In particular, there is a link to Marx, who is a historical thinker, and to pre-Soviet Russian philosophy, as distinguished from Marxism, which is basically a-historical

It has sometimes erroneously been thought that theory of knowledge worthy of the name, or even epistemology as such comes to an end with Kant. This view is an error, since there are profound views of knowledge in the post-Kantian philosophical tradition, including that in Hegel’s thought. Now epistemology is a wide topic that includes a variety of themes. One of the main themes in the theory of knowledge in modern philosophy, especially in recent years, has been the issue of foundationalism. The idea of foundationalism has been understood in different ways. But for purposes of this discussion, I will understand “foundationalism” to mean “some form of the Cartesian approach to philosophy through a self-justifying first principle.” In this paper, I will provide a brief, critical study of the theme of foundationalism in the Science of Logic. The aim of my discussion is to point to an unresolved tension between Hegel’s general commitment to epistemological circularity as the appropriate strategy for knowledge and the linear form of argument in this book.

The Pittsburgh School, aka the Pittsburgh Hegelians or as the Pittsburgh neo-Hegelians, is often associated with Sellars, McDowell and Brandom. The views of the Pittsburgh School arise on the heels of Sellars’ rejection of the given, but differ in important ways. The difficulty, if one turns away from the given, lies in justifying objective claims to know. I argue that neither Sellars, nor Brandom, nor McDowell successfully justifies claims to know. I further question their supposed Hegelianism. Hegel is a constructivist in that he follows Kant’s claim, which is central to the Copernican revolution, that we know only what we in some sense “construct.” Unlike Hegel, the Pittsburgh “Hegelians” are not constructivists in terms of the letter or even the spirit of their views.

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

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.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading Hegel’s PhenomenologyTom RockmoreJohn Russon. Reading Hegel’s Phenomenology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. xi + 299. Cloth, $50.00. Paper, $27.95.Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit has been increasingly studied in ever-greater detail in recent years. In John Russon's interpretive study of Hegel's theories in this book, explanation is tightly constrained by the core argument of its various sections. The text is divided into an introduction and fifteen chapters concerning different aspects of Hegel's great treatise.Russon describes and justifies his strategy in a detailed introduction. Unlike other commentators, Russon focuses on the methods, premises, evidence, reasons and conclusions of Hegel's argument without consideration of the language, allusions and cultural context in which the book was composed. Russon further proceeds through separate studies of the separate sections of Hegel's treatise, which he treats as independent arguments about various aspects of human experience, as opposed to a continuous commentary on the work as a whole.These methodological innovations give Russon's discussion a distinctive character. Hegel stresses the intrinsically historical character of all thought. According to Hegel, all philosophical positions, including his own, belong to the history of philosophy. Treating Hegel's argument without reference to the specific context in which it was formulated makes it more difficult to grasp Hegel's claims. It further creates the illusion that Hegel's theories do not belong to their time and place, or historical moment. Russon's strategy of discussing each section of the Phenomenology as if it stood alone suggests that each is independent of the other and that the overall argument, which other commentators often strive to bring out, is non-existent. Russon emphasizes precisely this point in suggesting that a good reader of the Phenomenology must learn to treat each chapter autonomously. That is a useful hint if it means that Hegel's readers need to take each part of the book seriously and on its own terms. But if it also means that his readers should not be attempting to discern a deep but often elusive structure in the work as a whole, then for many this suggestion would appear to be seriously misleading.Since Hegel is one of most difficult authors in the Western tradition, it is hardly surprising that there is little agreement and much controversy about even basic moves in his arguments in the Phenomenology. Yet one of the more surprising traits of Russon's discussion [End Page 493] is that he simply does not mention well-known accounts of the Phenomenology by such authors as Q. Lauer, H. S. Harris, T. Pinkard, A. Kojève and J. Hyppolite. Russon insists that his intention in writing this book is pedagogical. He suggests that his study is intended to serve as a companion volume in a one-semester course on Hegel's Phenomenology. Each chapter intends to provide a lesson for someone concerned to grasp the argument of the book. Yet the lack of any reference to other such studies makes it not easier but more difficult for the student to evaluate the specific utility of Russon's approach with respect to available alternatives.Russon says that the basic themes of his approach are stated in chapter 11, and his distinctive approach is best brought out in chapter 5. Chapter 11 considers the existential drama of the "Struggle to the Death" as the foundation of self-consciousness and intersubjectivity. Self-consciousness and intersubjectivity are rooted in the lived body, which Russon regards as central to the development of spirit. According to Russon, unlike many later thinkers, for Hegel, the fact that the themes of language and embodiment are paired, not separable, is central to his position. Russon goes on to argue that the famous discussion of master and slave turns on the problem of communication. He extends this approach to Hegel's treatment of Antigone, which he interprets as depicting the way a social system takes the place of the individual ego in pointing to what he calls an absolute, or dialectical, reading.Chapters 9–11 analyse the argument of Hegel's chapter on spirit. Chapter 9 focuses on "Spirit and Skepticism"; chapter 10...

This anthology is a significant contribution to the debate over the relevance of Martin Heidegger's Nazi ties to the interpretation and evaluation of his philosophical work. Included are a selection of basic documents by Heidegger, essays and letters by Heidegger's colleagues that offer contemporary context and testimony, and interpretive evaluations by Heidegger's heirs and critics in France and Germany.In his new introduction, "Note on a Missing Text," Richard Wolin uses the absence from this edition of an interview with Jacques Derrida as a springboard for examining questions about the nature of authorship and personal responsibility that are at the heart of the book.Richard Wolin is Professor of Modern European Intellectual History and Humanities at Rice University. He is the author of Walter Benjamin, The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger, and The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism and Poststructuralism