• Veel intellectuelen hebben gezocht naar maatschappelijke rechtvaardiging voor hun vermeende recht op een gepriviligieerde plaats in de samenleving. De tegenstelling tussen hun zelfbewustzijn en hun politieke onmacht was nooit duidelijker dan in de tijd van de Duitse romantiek. Deze paradox komt duidelijk tot uiting in de werken van Hölderlin, Schlegel, Novalis en Schelling.
  • Boenke, Michaela, Transformation des Realitätsbegriff (review)
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 53 (3): 554. 1991.
  • Brito, E., La création selon Schelling. Universum (review)
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 52 (n/a): 340. 1990.
  •  13
    Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft/N. Luhmann (Frankfurt am Main, 1997)
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 61 388-389. 1999.
  •  21
    Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft/N. Luhmann (Frankfurt a. M., 2002)
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 65 (4): 760-762. 2003.
  •  5
    Alexis de Tocqueville: vroegtijdige diagnose van de massademocratie
    de Uil van Minerva: Tijdschrift Voor Geschiedenis En Wijsbegeerte van de Cultuur 18 (3): 135-149. 2002.
  •  10
    The transition from Schelling's System des Transzendentalen Idealismus (1800) to the Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801) marks the difference between romantic and idealistic aesthetics. Romantic aesthetics maintains that the Absolute cannot be recaptured. This idea is kept alive by the concept of irony. This irony is discernable in the position of the work of art within Schilling's System des transzendentalen Idealismus. The subject, who intends to recapture the whole domain of obj…Read more
  •  23
    Kosmos und System (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 57 (4): 839-840. 2004.
    It can hardly be denied that since Schelling’s early comment on Plato’s Timaeus was published. Schellingiana, Vol. 4, Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1994, 177 pp.) the research on Schelling’s philosophical beginnings has been thoroughly renewed. This text documented for the first time Schelling’s in-depth acquaintance with Plato while he studied in Tübingen and exhibited at the same time his characteristically Kantian reading and understanding of Plato’s theory of creation. Two years later, in 19…Read more
  •  45
    From the Work of Art to Absolute Reason
    Review of Metaphysics 57 (3): 551-569. 2004.
    ONE OF THE MOST INTRIGUING EPISODES in Schelling’s philosophical development is the transition from the System des transzendentalen Idealismus to the Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie, the starting point of the identity system. Looking back on that latter text, Schelling in 1805 declares that “then to me the light went on in philosophy.” This sounds as if the preceding years of philosophical investigation, including the System des transzendentalen Idealismus that was written one year ea…Read more
  •  52
    Kant’s essay An answer to the question: What is Enlightenment? has developed into the representative text of philosophical Enlightenment in the course of the past two hundred years. Yet most interpretations tend to assign to it a univocal meaning that is incompatible with its apparent polysemy. While taking the latter into account, the author closely investigates Kant’s essay and offers a balanced interpretation of its meaning. On the basis of this reading, it becomes apparent that we should und…Read more
  •  34
    RÉSUMÉ : Dans sa lecture du rôle de la religion dans l’espace public, Habermas fait abstraction du pouvoir de la religion d’instituer symboliquement les communautés. Gauchet part d’une vision de la religion dans laquelle cette dimension est centrale. Je considère toutefois que Gauchet sous-estime également la mesure dans laquelle la religion a conservé ce pouvoir au sein de la société post-séculière. ABSTRACT: This article seeks to demonstrate that in his reading of the role of religion in the p…Read more
  •  26
    The theory of reflexive modernization plausibly advocates postnational cosmopolitanism. As the nation state is eroding today, we are becoming citizens of a ‘global risk society’ whose unity and cohesion is generated by the risk that is threatening us world-wide. By the same token, this world risk society is no longer unified in any political sense. There is no world state; its very idea is even rejected. In this sense, the cosmopolitanism argued for in the theory of reflexive modernization prove…Read more
  •  92
    Habermas and gauchet on religion in postsecular society. A critical assessment
    Continental Philosophy Review 42 (3): 279-296. 2009.
    This article seeks to demonstrate that in his recent reading of the role of religion in the postsecular public realm, Habermas overlooks a most fundamental dimension of religion: its power to symbolically institute communities. For his part, Gauchet starts from a vision of religion in which this fundamental dimension is central. In his evaluation of the role of religion in postsecular society, he therefore arrives at results which are very different from those of Habermas. However, I believe tha…Read more
  •  82
    Niklas Luhmann's systems theoretical redescription of the inclusion/exclusion debate
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 32 (1): 65-88. 2006.
    Relying on Niklas Luhmann's systems theoretical redescription of modern society, this article aims at questioning the basic theoretical notions of the ongoing inclusion/exclusion debate. The most remarkable aspect of Luhmann's reassessment of the inclusion/exclusion relationship within functionally differentiated societies is that individuals are basically situated within the exclusion domain of society, and thus cannot but partially be included within society's function systems and organization…Read more
  •  39
    This essay sets up a dialogue between Lefort’s view on the relationship between the state and modern society and Foucault’s thesis of a governmental turn in the modern power regime, whereby the relations between state and society are thoroughly redrawn. What are the main results? 1) Whereas Lefort’s political ontology leaves room for divergent agencies from which the symbolic institution of the social may unfold, his preoccupation with democracy leans him to inseparably link the symbolic institu…Read more
  •  7
    Ten geleide
    Wijsgerig Perspectief 50 (2). 2011.
    Populisme. Sinds extreem rechts recent een bepaald soort salonfähigkeit heeft weten te verwerven in het democratische bestel wordt de term door zelfverklaarde democraten te pas en te onpas gehanteerd om bijvoorkeur ‘rechtse’, maar bij uitbreiding ook alle andere tegenstanders te desavoueren die uit zijn op al te gemakkelijk politiek succes. Vanuit dat perspectief veroorzaakt de term ‘populisme’ geen enkel probleem: het is een dankbare politieke diskwalificatie die iedereen graag gebruikt, maar d…Read more