Daniel Breazeale

Seit vielen Jahren schon behaupte ich gelegentlich vor Freunden, Kollegen und Studenten, daß die frühe Wissenschaftslehre und Sartres Existentialismus, ungeachtet ihrer offensichtlichen Unterschiede, viele Gemeinsamkeiten aufweisen und daß es möglich sei, von der ersteren zur letzteren auf mehr oder weniger direktem Wege zu gelangen: »Direttissima« sozusagen. Die folgenden Bemerkungen stellen nun den Versuch meinerseits dar, die Gründe für diese eher oberflächlichen Behauptung nachzugehen. Mit diesem Ziel im Sinn werde ich so viele Punkte etwaiger Übereinstimmung untersuchen, wie es die Zeit erlaubt. Dies bedeutet, daß es mir unmöglich sein wird, eine vollständige Übersicht aller Vergleichspunkte zu bieten und daß ich jene, die ich herausgreife, nicht mit der Sorgfalt behandeln kann, die sie verdienen. Keinesfalls aber werde ich Indizien unterschlagen, die meine These widerlegen mögen; vielmehr werde ich versuchen, zu einem ausgewogenen Schluß zu kommen, zumindest was die fraglichen Punkte anbelangt.

The summer of 1989 was an especially eventful one for Poland, but in the midst of all the political ferment some two dozen scholars from 10 countries —including the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, China, Bulgaria, Italy, Israel, and the USA—spent five days together in a guest house owned by the Polish Academy of Sciences in the tiny village of Mogilany, a half-hour’s drive from Krakow. They were assembled for a conference organized by Prof. Marek Siemek, Director of the Philosophical Institute of the University of Warsaw. Though the conference bore the general title, “Transcendental Philosophy and Dialectic,” almost all of the contributions were specifically concerned with aspects of the philosophy of J. G. Fichte. This was only fitting, since the ostensible occasion for the conference was to celebrate the 70th birthday of the world’s best-known Fichtean, Prof. Reinhard Lauth of the University of Munich. Since the majority of the participants had also participated in the two International Fichte Conferences held in Austria in 1977 and 1987 there was something of an air of a class reunion about the gathering, which made for an especially congenial conference.

Karl Ameriks has recently devoted an entire volume to defending what he calls "orthodox" Kantianism against what he judges to be the "errors" of such post-Kantian idealists as K. L. Reinhold and J. G. Fichte and to exposing what he claims is the frequently unnoticed but always deleterious influence of post-Kantianism upon certain prominent strands of contemporary philosophy. In response, this paper challenges Ameriks' interpretation of Kantianism itself and of the "post-Kantian project", as well as his construal of transcendental idealism. This is followed by some remarks concerning Reinhold's and Fichte's actual "arguments" for transcendental idealism and a rejection of Ameriks' characterizations of the same. Ameriks' interpretation of "the primacy of the practical" within Fichte's philosophy is also analyzed and criticized, as are his unsubstantiated claims concerning the powerful "indirect" influence of the writings of Reinhold and Fichte upon contemporary philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will by Günter ZöllerDaniel BreazealeGünter Zöller. Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xvii + 169. Cloth, $49.95.The subtitle says it all: “Original Duplicity,” which is to say, interdependent duality, or perhaps “equiprimordiality.” The thesis defended by Günter Zöller in this meticulously documented and elegantly written new book is that the traditional emphasis upon the “primacy of the practical” in Fichte’s thought is seriously misleading and obscures one of the most striking aspects of his highly original transcendental analysis of consciousness and experience.Limiting his exegesis to the period of the “early” or “Jena” Wissenschaftslehre, Zöller carefully explains how “practical” and “theoretical” elements are inextricably linked at every stage of Fichte’s analysis. While it is certainly true that Fichte made a brilliant effort to demonstrate the dependence of “thinking” upon “willing,” of “knowing” upon “doing,” and hence of “theory” upon “practice,” it is no less true that, in doing so, he also established that there can be no “willing” without some prior awareness, and hence some “knowledge,” both of one’s present condition (“what is”) and of some particular goal to be accomplished by free activity (“what ought to be”). The Kantian distinction between “theoretical” and “practical” reason is, therefore, on Fichte’s analysis, simply a reflection of a more fundamental distinction between the “theoretical” and “practical” activities or powers of the I, neither of which can function in the absence of the other. [End Page 374]What Fichte proposes is, in Zöller’s phrase, a truly “integrated theory of reason,” one that begins by positing a pure and original unity of intellect and will in the mere concept of selfhood, that proceeds to a discursive, transcendental analysis of the dynamic and dialectical interplay between “theoretical” and “practical” moments in the constitution of experience (or of empirical self-consciousness), and that concludes by positing, albeit only as a regulative ideal, or as a necessary but unobtainable goal of infinite striving, the final, empirically achieved unity of theory and practice: an ideal of a self that is no longer divided against itself or others and of a world that has been wholly transformed by intellectually guided human activity. As Fichte’s account proceeds, it becomes increasingly clear not only that we must distinguish the will from the intellect—even as we continue to insist upon their systematic interdependence—but that we must also modify our original understanding of both. This conclusion is most unambiguously presented in those works of 1796–99 that collectively constitute the “second” or “revised” version of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre, including the lectures on Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) nova methodo and the System of Ethics, and it is upon an analysis of these texts that Zöller’s interpretation is chiefly based. According to the latter, an adequate theory of willing must not merely contrast and relate “the will” to “the intellect,” but must recognize that even pure volition contains a certain cognitive core and presupposes some guiding law that is simply integral to the will itself. Similarly, “mere cognition” will always be found to contain within itself, in the form of “feeling,” a certain “practical” dimension of its own.Zöller’s careful account of Fichte’s genetic deduction of the necessary interplay between theoretical and practical elements in the constitution of selfhood and experience is by far the most detailed and accurate one available in English, and forms the core of his book. It is by no means, however, the only topic he discusses. The first two chapters, for example, constitute an excellent general introduction to Fichte’s entire Jena project and include a fine discussion of the relationship between Kantian and Fichtean idealism. Chapter 3, which explicates the key notions of “positing” and “determining,” will be of immense help to anyone trying to understand German idealism in general and Fichte’s philosophy in particular. Like Kant’s ethical theory, Fichte’s is often treated in isolation from his larger system, but Zöller’s Chapter 4 clearly explicates the...

The four short works in Untimely Meditations were published by Nietzsche between 1873 and 1876.They deal with such broad topics as the relationship between popular and genuine culture, strategies for cultural reform, the task of philosophy, the nature of education, and the relationship between art, science and life. They also include Nietzsche's earliest statement of his own understanding of human selfhood as a process of endlessly 'becoming who one is'. As Daniel Breazeale shows in his introduction to this new edition of R. J. Hollingdale's translation of the essays, these four early texts are key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought and clearly anticipate many of the themes of his later writings. Nietzsche himself always cherished his Untimely Meditations and believed that they provide valuable evidence of his 'becoming and self-overcoming' and constitute a 'public pledge' concerning his own distinctive task as a philosopher.

This volume is a collection of previously unpublished papers dealing with the neglected "phenomenological" dimension of the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which it compares and contrasts to the phenomenology of his contemporary Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and to that of Edmund Husserl and his 20th century followers. Issues discussed include: phenomenological method, self-consciousness, intersubjectivity, temporality, intentionality, mind and body, and the drives. In addition to Fichte, authors discussed include: Hegel, Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, and Ricur.

THE QUESTION TO BE CONSIDERED is the relation of Hume's celebrated scepticism to his own constructive philosophical projects and analyses. Since Thomas Reid there have been those who detect an unresolved tension between, on the one hand, Hume's Enlightenment devotion to science with its attendent opposition to dogmatism and superstition and, on the other, his explicitly sceptical manner and principles. Some (e.g., Green and Kolakowski) find this tension unresolvable in principle and utterly subversive of Hume's positive ambitions; others (e.g., Flew and Passmore) propose revisionary interpretations of Hume that will mitigate the tension. Still others adopt the view made popular by Kemp Smith and Hendel, according to which the special virtue of Hume's philosophy is precisely his employment of the principle of "natural interpretation" to overcome the apparent conflict between science and scepticism. The reading of Hume proposed here fits comfortably into none of the traditions, largely because of the emphasis placed upon the changes, both in the character of Hume's scepticism and, more fundamentally, in his own conception of his philosophical project. I shall argue: that Hume began his study of human nature with reformist aspirations toward an accurate and serf-evident "science of man"; that the critical method adopted in pursuit of this goal occasioned corrosive doubts concerning the very possibility of science; that reflection upon the failure of his initial effort led Hume to replace his earlier scientific ideal with a less rigorous program of "natural, unforced interpretation"; that this new "academical philosophy" succeeded neither in providing workable criteria for distinguishing justifiable belief from superstition nor in avoiding the excesses of unmitigated scepticism; and, finally, that there is evidence that Hume was aware of and tacitly conceded these difficulties.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic: Critical AssessmentsDaniel BreazealeGideon Freudenthal, editor. Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic: Critical Assessments. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003. pp vii + 304. Cloth, $135.00.This collection of previously unpublished essays on one of the more idiosyncratic and complex figures in the history of philosophy begins with a splendid introductory essay by the editor, "A Philosopher between Two Cultures," emphasizing the "inter-cultural" character of Maimon's achievement and his position as an outsider with respect to both the traditional Jewish community and that of modern German philosophy, a position reflected in Maimon's strategy of advancing his systematic philosophy by means of eccentric "commentaries" on such authors as Maimonides, Newton, and Kant.Maimon's "dual cultural project" is also the theme of a fine essay by Yossif Schwartz, "Causa materialis: Solomon Maimon, Moses ben Maimon and the Possibility of Philosophical Transmission," which compares Maimon's effort to introduce his Hebrew readers to Kantian philosophy (in his commentary on The Guide of the Perplexed) and his German-language readers to Maimonides (in his Autobiography), in an effort to legitimize modern philosophy to his fellow Jews and Maimonides and the tradition of Jewish thought to his fellow philosophers. Schwartz illustrates this point with reference to the specific issue of God as "material cause" of the world.Several of the essays deal with the difficult but important theme of predication and with Maimon's central notion of the "principle of determinability," understood as the highest principle of all (real) synthetic judgments. Oded Schechter's "The Logic of Speculative Philosophy and Skepticism in Maimon's Philosophy: Satz der Bestimmbarkeit and the Role of Synthesis" analyzes this theme in considerable technical detail and relates it to Maimon's philosophy as a whole, and indeed to the "speculative logic" of Hegel and others. This is certainly one of the richest (as well as one of the more challenging) essays in the collection, containing illuminating discussions not only of the principle of determinability, but also of Maimon's highly original notions of "synthesis" and "construction." More accessible is Elhanan Yakira's "From Kant to Leibniz? Salomon Maimon and the Question of Predication," which not only clearly explains the principle in question but convincingly disputes the widespread view that this represents a return to Leibnizian rationalism on the part of Maimon.Maimon's poorly understood theory of "the differential" is the theme of the contribution by Michael Roubach, "Salomon Maimon's Philosophy and its Place in the Enlightenment: Wandering in the Land of Difference," which interprets this notion in the context of the difference between the finite and the infinite intellect and stresses the difference between Maimon's position and that of pre-Kantian rationalism. Unfortunately, Roubach's effort to clarify Maimon's position by comparing it to that of Giles Deleuze is too brief and obscure to be helpful.Though Maimon's relationship to Kant is at least touched on in almost every essay in this collection, it is the explicit theme of four of them, three of which dwell on Maimon's [End Page 119] so-called "quid facti" challenge to Kant's deduction of the categories. Peter Thielke's "Intuition and Diversity: Kant and Maimon on Space and Time" is a very long and philosophically sophisticated examination of Maimon's direct challenge to Kant's "discursivity thesis" regarding the heterogeneity of the faculties of sensibility and understanding. Thielke focuses on Kant's account of space and time as pure forms of intuition and contrasts this with what he calls Maimon's "neglected alternative," viz.: that space and time are not forms of intuition at all, but rather "forms of diversity" and hence features of the function of thinking. In order to explicate this difficult theory, Thielke offers an impressive reconstruction of Maimon's fiendishly obscure idea of the "differentials of pereption" and hence of the fundamentally productive character of the understanding. This provides the theoretical foundation for Maimon's non-dualistic account of the cognitive faculties and his non-causal account of the mind's passivity. Thielke concludes that Maimon's objections, if not sufficient to overturn the discursivity thesis, still undermine the evidence for the same...