Wayne Martin

It is customary to identify transcendental philosophy as the distinctive and original invention of Immanuel Kant. Certainly this was a view that Kant himself did much to encourage. But this chapter argues that traces of the transcendental strategy can be found already among the ancients. One such ancient precedent is associated with the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis. It is argued that oikeiosis is best understood as a form of normative orientation associated with ‘being at home (oikos)’ in one’s body and environment, and that it involves a distinctive form of ontological self-consciousness. This chapter assesses the merits of Stoic claims that oikeiosis figures as a condition on the possibility of desire (Cicero), pleasure (Diogenes), and even perception (Hierocles), and the chapter considers the case for describing these arguments as examples of transcendental investigation.

This chapter explores one of the most problematic theoretical commitments of Edmund Husserl's phenomenological projects: the idea of a logic of consciousness or phenomenologic. It shows why Husserl is committed to this idea and why it is so out of step with contemporary approaches in the philosophy of mind. It then tries to render the idea intelligible along two paths. First, to take the idea of a logic of consciousness seriously, we must challenge our entrenched atomistic assumptions about conscious states. Second, to recognize the sense in which a science of consciousness might be logical, we must come to terms with Husserl's conception of an ideal science. For on a Husserlian conception, apophantic logic and phenomenology must be seen as two varieties of ideal science: systematic articulations of the content and structure of an ideal that is constitutive for conscious experience of a world.

It is customary to identify transcendental philosophy as the distinctive and original invention of Immanuel Kant. Certainly this was a view that Kant himself did much to encourage. But this chapter argues that traces of the transcendental strategy can be found already among the ancients. One such ancient precedent is associated with the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis. It is argued that oikeiosis is best understood as a form of normative orientation associated with 'being at home (oikos)' in one's body and environment, and that it involves a distinctive form of ontological self-consciousness. This chapter assesses the merits of Stoic claims that oikeiosis figures as a condition on the possibility of desire (Cicero), pleasure (Diogenes), and even perception (Hierocles), and the chapter considers the case for describing these arguments as examples of transcendental investigation.

The Cambridge series of companions already includes a volume on Kant, another on Hegel, and yet a third promised on Fichte. So it may come as a surprise to find this further volume devoted to German idealism as a whole. The decision to add to the bookshelf of companions obviously makes financial sense for Cambridge, but in this case it is also amply justified by the interesting and provocative set of essays gathered together here by Karl Ameriks. The broader scope of this volume allows for more penetrating comparative studies, as well as the inclusion of figures who were important within the idealist tradition but who tend to get overlooked in collections that focus on one or another of “The Greats.” Since much of the best recent scholarship has focused on comparative questions and on the contributions of various figures outside the standard canon, the volume also serves to illustrate the state of the art in German idealism studies.

Es fällt auf, daß in Fichtes Einleitung in die Sittenlehre von Sitten oder von Sittlichkeit ebensowenig die Rede ist wie von Moral; auch über Ethik wird so gut wie nichts gesagt. Abgesehen von einer vielversprechenden Ankündigung, die jedoch keinen unmittelbaren Bezug auf ethische Fragen hat, gibt sie keinerlei Auskunft über die spezifischen Aufgaben und die Argumentationsstrategie des Buches, dessen Einleitung sie ist. Was sie statt dessen bietet, ist eine konzise Darlegung der fundamentalen philosophischen Prämissen Fichtes und eine wirkungsvolle Illustration der für Fichte typischen Kombination von transzendentalen und phänomenologischen Herangehensweisen an die Philosophie im allgemeinen und an die Probleme des Handelns im besonderen. Wenn wir uns Fichtes Text nähern, dann tun wir gut daran, uns auf drei Punkte zu konzentrieren: auf den systematischen Ort des Textes im Korpus seiner Schriften und in seinem System, auf Fichtes Skizze sowohl der Phänomenologie als auch der transzendentalen Bedingungen der Tätigkeit und schließlich auf das Problem, wie die spezifische Normativität von Fichtes transzendentalphänomenologischen Gesetzen zu verstehen ist.

I investigate Stoic accounts of the structure and function of self-consciousness, specifically in connection with the Stoic notion of Oikeiosis. After reviewing the tortured history of attempts to translate this ancient notion into modern terms, I set out to determine its content by identifying its inferential role in Stoic moral psychology. I then provide a reconstruction of the Stoic claim that Oikeiosis is or involves a form of self-consciousness (Chrysippus), self-sentiment (Seneca), or synæsthesia (Hierocles). I show how the Stoic conception of self-consciousness differs fundamentally from modern accounts of selfconsciousness as a form of psychic self-presence or epistemic self-certainty, and I exhibit the limitations of Long’s treatment of Stoic self-consciousness as proprioception. Finally, I offer a reconstruction of the Stoic claim that self-consciousness figures as a condition on the possibility of perception and desire, providing a form of normative orientation essential for intentional determinacy.

I set out to trace the history of a distinctive conception of self-consciousness -- from its first formulation in the 3rd century BC, through its reception among Roman philosophers around the 1st century AD, and finally to its fate in Enlightenment thought of the 18th century. I use this history to clarify and defend an idea that figured centrally in the history of philosophy, but which has recently come under sustained attack: the idea that human beings are in some very fundamental way self- conscious beings, and that our self-consciousness serves as a kind of foundation or transcendental condition for our other cognitive capacities. Obviously, given the scale of these ambitions, the presentation here should be considered at best a sketch. It is intended not to settle any matters, but at least to bring back into view a line of argument that has been covered over by more recent developments

Few periods in the history of philosophy manifest the degree of dynamism and historical complexity that characterize early post-Kantian philosophy. The reasons for this special character of so-called “classical German philosophy” are no doubt themselves quite complex. Institutional and political circumstances certainly played an important role. The end of the eighteenth century marks a point at which philosophy was seen as being deeply implicated in the political developments of the day (in particular: the upheavals in France). What’s more, this intense political context for philosophy coincided with the reemergence of “academic” philosophy: the first point in the modern period when the leading figures on the philosophical scene were members of a common (and flourishing) academic community.2 But more narrowly philosophical factors are also important. Kant’s philosophical accomplishment was widely seen as marking a watershed in philosophy’s development, but it was an accomplishment whose lessons and viability were highly..

Suppose that three patients each independently confront the same high-stakes treatment decision. Perhaps it is an option to terminate a high-risk pregnancy, or to accept a blood transfusion after a catastrophic hemorrhage. Suppose further that the three patients approach their choice in radically different ways. The divergence lies not in the choice made, but in the pathway followed in arriving at it. P1 is a classic analytical reasoner. She enumerates the potential costs and benefits of each option, reviews the probabilities, and makes a decision on the basis of her analysis. P2 does none of that analytical work. She has a settled and robust prior...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 693 between the world of our sense perception and the world of objects "in and for themselves," had suggested that the failure to appreciate this distinction was a "Grundvorurteil" common to all controversies, and, finally, had argued for the need to distinguish between the self revealed in "inner sense" and the self as it is in itself, unknowable to us. In his extremely valuable article, "Funzioni logiche e categorie in Kant," Silvestro Marcucci retlects on a complex of issues surrounding Kant's claim to have discovered some sort of correspondence between the components and structure of a "table" of logical functions and those of a set of"pure concepts" or "categories" for the objective determination of objects through the contents of human sensibility. Of central concern to Marcucci is the error of supposing that what is in question is either a mere parallel between functions of judgment and categories or some sort of real identity between them. What is in question, according to Marcucci, are three "uses" but only two "levels" (piani): the foundational level is that of an operative.judgmental "functionality" by which the categories and the pure forms of general logic are produced. He argues that Kant is appealing here neither to pure logical form nor to logical "functions" that are in some way identical with the categories of understanding, but rather to functions of judgment more fundamental than either. The final two essays deal with two of Kant's immediate heirs, Reinhold and Fichte. In "The Sun of Enlightenment" Nathan Rotenstreich argues that Reinhold's notion of Enlightenment had an important social aspect, which is concerned with the distribution of enlightenment and is distinguished from his systematic view. Claudio Cesa, in "Die Vieldeutigkeit des Begriffes 'Trieb' von J. G. Fichte" traces the development of this important concept from Reinhold's concept "Kraft," which was itself neither sensible nor intellectual but changed depending upon its objects: sensibility, understanding, or reason. Cesa goes on to outline how Fichte developed a more positive notion including the conception of inner purposiveness expressing itself in humans as a form for realizing the I. JANE KNELI.ER Colorado State University RICHARD AQUILA University of Tennessee George J. Seidel. Fichte's "Wissenschaftslehre" of z 794: A Commentary on Part I. Purdue University Series in the History of Philosophy. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993. Pp. ix + 126. Cloth, $25.00. Paper, $12.95. The recent revival of interest in Fichte is now well entrenched in North America and has begun to yield a fairly diverse harvest: new translations, articles, monographs, and, predictably, conferences and a scholarly society. With this volume, however, we have the first entry in the "commentary" category. Given its notorious obscurity and disarray, Fichte's corpus--particularly his Jena corpus, which has remained the main focus of attention--would seem to be an apt subject for the genre. The work to which Seidel has 694 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 devoted his attention--the Foundations of the Entire "Wissenschaft~lehre"--particularly invites this sort of undertaking; it is a text which, by Fichte's own account, was intended to be accompanied by elaborations, illustrations and explanations. Seidel focuses on what is certainly the most interesting and important part of the text, the first three sections (about 3~ pages in all) which together make up "Part I" of this version of the Wissenschaftslehre. It is here that Fichte tries to articulate the basic principles that will govern his entire philosophical investigation. He uses as the lever for his enquiry two fundamental logical dicta--the principles of identity and contradiction--claiming to uncover three fundamental principles which underlie them: the principles of selfpositing, counter-positing and limitation. The body of the Wissenschaflslehreitself is an elaborate dialectical attempt to work out the implications of these basic features of human subjectivity--in particular to use them to give a deduction of the fundamental categories of human experience. There are a number of different approaches that a commentary might take to this dense piece of text. At one extreme stands the example provided by Findlay, whose commentary on Hegel's Phenomenology takes the form of a detailed paraphrase...

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action.

Russon proposes an intriguing project: a phenomenology of embodiment that uses Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit as its text and structure—a Phänomenologie des Körpers from Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes. What we are given is not commentary or secondary literature on Hegel's text; rather, Russon is making philosophical use of Hegel's dialectical narrative and conceptual framework in an independent theoretical enterprise. Nonetheless, this remains a recognizably Hegelian undertaking. Accordingly, we should not be surprised to find that Russon's phenomenology of the body is intended, in its way, as a rationalization of the body—"the rational comprehension of human embodiment". Indeed, Russon claims that the culmination of embodiment lies in a logical moment: the body is to become mind, to be comprehended in what Russon calls the logos, the topic of Hegelian logic. We are even told, at a late stage in the dialectic, that "to be is to be a sign".