Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
  •  139
    Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics: Some Problems and Solutions
    The Harvard Review of Philosophy 13 (1): 100-122. 2005.
    The purpose of this paper is to explore some central aspects of Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics and to suggest how they should be interpreted and assessed. My general strategy will involve pointing up rather than playing down certain inconsistencies and other problems in his position, in part simply because I believe that they are there and that exegesis therefore ought to recognize them, but also in part because reflecting on them seems to me philosophically fruitful. The interpretive and philoso…Read more
  •  136
    Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2015.
    This volume constitutes the first collective critical study of German philosophy in the nineteenth century. A team of leading experts explore the influential figures associated with the period--including Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Frege--and provide fresh accounts of the philosophical movements and key debates with which they engaged
  •  129
    On the very idea of denying the existence of radically different conceptual schemes
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 41 (2). 1998.
    It has become very popular among philosophers to attempt to discredit, or at least set severe limits to, the thesis that there exist conceptual schemes radically different from ours. This fashion is misconceived. Philosophers have attempted to justify it in two main ways: by means of arguments which are a priorist relative to the relevant linguistic and textual evidence (and either independent of or based upon positive theories of meaning, understanding, and interpretation); and by means of argu…Read more
  •  112
    Kant and Skepticism (edited book)
    Princeton University Press. 2009.
    This book puts forward a much-needed reappraisal of Immanuel Kant's conception of and response to skepticism, as set forth principally in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is widely recognized that Kant's theoretical philosophy aims to answer skepticism and reform metaphysics--Michael Forster makes the controversial argument that those aims are closely linked. He distinguishes among three types of skepticism: "veil of perception" skepticism, which concerns the external world; Humean skepticism, wh…Read more
  •  96
    Genealogy
    American Dialectic 1 (2): 230-250. 2011.
    Nietzsche and Foucault famously employ a philosophical method of “genealogy” and apply it to the realm of morality in particular. In this article I would like to do two main things: I will begin by offering a contribution toward a sort of “genealogy of genealogy,” that is, toward an account of how the method emerged historically. I will then give an explanation of how the method is supposed to work. In a subsequent, companion article in this journal, “Genealogy and Morality,” I will discuss the …Read more
  •  89
    Herder has been sufficiently neglected in recent times, especially among philosophers, to need a few words of introduction. He lived 1744-1803; he was a favorite student of Kant's, and a student and friend of Hamann's; he became a mentor to the young Goethe, on whose development he exercised a profound influence; and he worked, among other things, as a philosopher, literary critic, Bible scholar, and translator. As I mentioned, Herder has been especially neglected by philosophers. This.
  •  88
    A GOOD CASE COULD BE MADE that Herder is the founder not only of the modern philosophy of language but also of the modern philosophy of interpretation and translation and that he has many things to say on these subjects from which we may still learn today. This essay will not attempt to make such a case, but it will be concerned with some aspects of Herder’s position that would be central to it: three fundamental principles in his philosophy of language which also play fundamental roles in his t…Read more
  •  86
    Genealogy and Morality
    American Dialectic 1 (3): 346-369. 2011.
    In a previous article in this journal, “Genealogy,” I offered a sort of “genealogy of genealogy,” an account of the method’s development, according to which it mainly grew, not from English or French antecedents, but out of a German tradition that began with Herder and then continued with Hegel before eventually culminating in Nietzsche himself. [...] Presupposing this account of the method of genealogy, the present article will consider the method in relation to one of its most important areas …Read more
  •  80
    This paper concerns a surprisingly sharp disagreement about the nature of ancient Pyrrhonism which first emerges clearly in Kant and Hegel, but which continues in contemporary interpretations. The paper begins by explaining the character of this disagreement, then attempts to adjudicate it in the light of the ancient texts.
  •  67
    This book not only sets the historical record straight but also champions the Herderian tradition for its philosophical depth and breadth.
  •  63
    What was the source of this great flowering? Much of the credit for it has tended to go to Jacobi and Mendelssohn, who in 1785 began a famous public dispute concerning the question whether or not Lessing had been a Spinozist, as Jacobi alleged Lessing had admitted to him shortly before his death in 1781. But Jacobi and Mendelssohn were both negatively disposed towards Spinoza. In On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Mr
  •  61
    A Wittgensteian Anti-Platonism
    The Harvard Review of Philosophy 16 (1): 58-85. 2009.
  •  57
    Socrates' demand for definitions
    Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 31 1-47. 2006.
  •  55
    In the course of developing these historical points, this book also shows that Herder and his tradition are in many ways superior to dominant trends in more ...
  •  52
    Nietzsche on morality as a “sign language of the affects”
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (1-2): 165-188. 2017.
    This article argues that Nietzsche’s meta-ethics is basically a form of sentimentalism, but a form of sentimentalism that includes cognitive components in the sentiments that are involved. The article also ascribes to Nietzsche the more original position that the moral sentiments in question vary dramatically between historical periods, cultures, and even individuals, sometimes indeed to the point of becoming inverted between one case and another. Finally, the article also attributes to Nietzsch…Read more
  •  51
    Hegel and skepticism
    Harvard University Press. 1989.
    This book should cause a re-evaluation of Hegel, and German Idealism generally, and contribute to a re-evaluation of the skeptical tradition in philosophy.
  •  50
    Gods, animals, and artists: Some problem cases in Herder's philosophy of language
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 46 (1). 2003.
    Herder already very early in his career, in the 1760s, established two vitally important and epoch-making principles in the philosophy of language: that thought is essentially dependent on and bounded by language; and that meanings or concepts should be identified - not with such items as the referents involved, Platonic forms, or empiricist 'ideas' - but with word-usages. What did Herder do for an encore? His Treatise on the Origin of Language from 1772 might seem the natural place to look for …Read more
  •  49
    Menschen und andere Tiere. Über das Verhältnis von Mensch und Tier bei Tomasello
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 55 (5): 761-767. 2007.
    Der Beitrag handelt von Michael Tomasellos Theorie des Verhältnisses von Mensch und Tier. Tomasellos Theorie wird als ein Beispiel für eine Reihe von Theorien gedeutet, die das betreffende Verhältnis als durch eine Kluft und Überlegenheit gekennzeichnet auffassen. Der Beitrag kritisiert die empirisch-theoretische Begründung dieser Theorie und verdächtigt sie einer bestimmten ideologischen und zwar tierfeindlichen Funktion
  •  48
    Hegel’s Idea of a ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’
    University of Chicago Press. 1998.
    In Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit, Michael N. Forster advances an original reading of the work.
  •  47
    Kant's Philosophy of Language?
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 74 (3): 485. 2012.
  •  44
    Forms of Reasoning in Western and Chinese Philosophy
    Journal of Chinese Philosophy 44 (1-2): 10-32. 2017.
    I would like in this article to make some tentative comparative observations about several sorts of reasoning in Western and Chinese philosophy. I try to say something about three important forms of reasoning: logic, skepticism, and practical reason. In each of these cases one can find strands of Chinese philosophy that are strikingly similar to counterparts in Western philosophy. And while in two of the cases in question the strands involved are less common and less fully developed than their W…Read more
  •  34
    Wittgenstein on the Arbitrariness of Grammar
    Princeton University Press. 2004.
    What is the nature of a conceptual scheme? Are there alternative conceptual schemes? If so, are some more justifiable or correct than others? The later Wittgenstein already addresses these fundamental philosophical questions under the general rubric of "grammar" and the question of its "arbitrariness"--and does so with great subtlety. This book explores Wittgenstein's views on these questions. Part I interprets his conception of grammar as a generalized version of Kant's transcendental idealist …Read more
  •  30
    Johann Gottfried Von Herder
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
  •  25
  •  23
    Philosophy of language
    In Glock, Hans Johann (2015). Philosophy of language. In: Forster, Michael N; Gjesdal, Kristin. The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 371-397, . pp. 371-397. 2015.
  •  22
    Hegel and Skepticism
    Philosophical Review 101 (2): 401. 1992.
    This is a review of Forster's book.
  •  18
    Private and Shared Taste in Art and Face Appreciation
    with Helmut Leder, Juergen Goller, and Tanya Rigotti
    Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 10. 2016.
  •  17
    Critical Notices
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 476-492. 2002.