Lara Scaglia

One way to address the question concerning the nature of reason consists in inquiring rational anxieties such as the tension between changeable and unchangeable. The yearning of the particular towards the universal, the iterative, interminable quest of the thinking is namely something which seems to be proper of many systems of classical German philosophy. In this paper I want to consider this problematic focusing on the figure of the unhappy consciousness which is perhaps the clearest expression of this tension and use it to approach Hegel’s account on speculative reason. After recalling – in the first section – the figures which precede the unhappy consciousness, I will address the question concerning the historicity and universality of the development of the consciousness, asking if it is the case that the unhappy consciousness belongs only to a particular historical age or if it expresses a general feature of reason or of human experience. In the second and the third sections, namely, I will try to defend this second interpretation by showing that the unhappy consciousness not only is central in Hegel’s system and is re-echoed in several figures of the Phenomenology of the Spirit but it is also central in other philosophical systems. For instance, as I will show in the fourth section, Kant’s ethical thinking could be read under the light of the unhappy consciousness, whose unsatisfied yearning towards the universal is the expression and source of the speculative or metaphysical thinking.

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.

In this paper I will focus on education as the core function of reason in Kant and Fichte. The notion of reason carries an intrinsic tendency to universality, which is difficult to be reconciled with its local background and actualisation. I believe that the stress on the importance of learning, which can be seen in the works of both Kant and Fichte, might provide useful clues to approaching the relation between universality and particularity. I will start by focusing on Kant’s narration on the genealogy of human reason in the Conjectural Beginning of Human History, and then move on to the critical writings and selected lectures in order to focus on the role of human dignity and ethical education for the moral appraisal and the practice of virtue. Later, I will consider Fichte’s lectures on the Vocation of the Scholar, the Vocation of Man and The Characteristics of the Present Age, which are crucial to understanding the social, ethical and political role of the scholar. For Fichte, education is the best instrument to eradicate selfishness, regarded as a historical phenomenon which can lead a nation to ruin. I will then provide some conclusions concerning the two accounts and their implications.

Kant’s chapter “On the Typic of the Pure Practical Power of Judgement” is one of the most obscure passages of the Critique of Practical Reason and it has often been regarded as a mere appendix. However, it deals with a fundamental question, namely, how can the pure practical law be applied to particular cases. In this paper, I would like to make an original contribution towards a better understanding of this chapter by comparing it to the Schematism chapter on the basis of their analogical relation and suggesting how the reference to a sensus communis could help in solving the aim of the Typic chapter.