Phil 201 An Introduction to German Idealism

Kant’s most fundamental strategy in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) was to attempt to save the authority of reason — and thus the entire Enlightenment project based on it — by criticizing reason, i.e., by restricting what it can claim to know to its legitimate domain. Reactions to Kant’s attempt in the 1780s and 1790s were both extremely varied and extraordinarily rich. While some thinkers attempted to attack Kant from more or less already well-established positions (Pistorius, Schulze, Selle, and Tittel) or else to defend him against such attacks (Schmid), others (Jacobi) took the radical line that the very attempt to save reason is a colossal failure, since reason (as Spinoza had already shown) necessarily leads to determinism, atheism, skepticism, and nihilism. As a result, Jacobi inferred that the only recourse is to reject reason altogether and accept feeling instead. Others (Reinhold and Fichte) held that Kant’s basic strategy was correct, but that he had not identified precisely the proper systematic foundation for his system. For he accepted a plurality of principles, whereas they thought that everything ought to be derived from a single principle. Once the proper foundational principle had been formulated (Reinhold’s “Principle of Consciousness” or Fichte’s “Tathandlung”) reason and with it the legitimacy of philosophy could be maintained. Others (early German Romantics) emphasized the fundamental importance of aesthetic experience, as what remains after attempts at finding systematic rational foundations have been abandoned. Yet others (Schleiermacher) attempted to emphasize a theological dimension by advancing immediate intuition of the infinite (i.e., God) as an independent principle. Of course, the figures most often associated with the mature period of German Idealism — Schelling and Hegel — reacted both to Kant and to these reactions to Kant in even more complicated ways.

In this introductory seminar, we shall attempt to gain an appreciation of the main lines of each of the immediate reactions to Kant’s philosophy in the late 1780s and 1790s in Germany. It will not attempt to survey in a comprehensive way what all German Idealists thought — though it ought to put one in a position to undertake such a task. Instead, our focus will be on these figures’ basic conceptions of philosophy and of the role of reason, feeling, and aesthetics in those conceptions. As a result, some of the most fundamental philosophical questions one can pose will be our primary subject matter. This seminar is introductory in the sense that no special prior knowledge in the history of philosophy is required and all readings will be in translation.

Reading Schedule

Week 1 Introduction

The Goals, Presuppositions, and Method of Kant’s Critical Philosophy

Ameriks, Introduction to Cambridge Companion to German Idealism (hereafter, CC to GI)

Beiser, Ch. 1 to CCI to GI

Week 2 The Immediate Empiricist Reaction to Kant

Sassen, Kant’s Early Critics (esp. pp. 233-269, 215-230, 93-105, 176-182, 1-49).

Beiser, The Fate of Reason, Ch. 6

Week 3 The Critique of Reason and the Primacy of Feeling

Jacobi, Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza (pp. 174-251) and David Hume on Belief or Idealism and Realism (pp. 255-338)

Beiser, The Fate of Reason, Ch. 2 (Ch. 3 also recommended)

O’Neill, Constructions of Reason, Ch. 1

Week 4 Systematic Philosophy from a First Principle of Representation

Reinhold, Foundation of Philosophical Knowledge (pp. 53-96)

Franks, Ch. 5 in CC to GI.

Ameriks, Kant and the Fate of Autonomy, Ch. 2

Week 5 Skepticism

Schulze, Aenesidemus (pp. 104-33) & Fichte, Review of Aenesid. (pp. 136-53)

Breazeale, "Fichte's Aenesidemus Review and The Transformation of German Idealism." Review of Metaphysics 34 (1981): 545-68.

Martin, “From Kant to Fichte,” in CC to Fichte (forthcoming)

Week 6 Fichte: Systematic Philosophy from a First Principle of Action

Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre (1794), 1^st and 2^nd Introductions & Part I (pp. 3-119)

Horstmann, Ch. 6 in CC to GI

Neuhouser, Fichte’s Theory of Subjectivity, Chs. 1 & 2

Week 7 Fichte, cont.

Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre, Part II (pp. 120-217)

Neuhouser, Fichte’s Theory of Subjectivity, Chs. 3 & 4

Week 8 The Philosophy of the Early German Romantics: Antifoundationalism

Selections from Novalis, Philosophical Writings (SUNY 1997), Fichte Studies (CUP 2003) & Hölderlin, Hyperion.

Larmore, Ch. 7 in CC to GI, “Hölderlin and Novalis”

Frank, The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism, Ch. 1-6

Week 9 The Philosophy of the Early German Romantics, cont.

Frank, The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism, Ch. 7-9

Kneller, “Romantic Conceptions of the Self in Hölderlin and Novalis”

Week 10 Intuition of the Infinite as a Distinct First Principle

Schleiermacher, On Religion (1799), First, Second and Third Speeches (pp. 3-71)

Frankfurt, “On God’s Creation” in Necessity, Volition, and Love

Requirements

Two presentations: The presentations should i) state as concisely as possible the main features of the assigned reading and ii) raise specific questions for discussion. In preparing your presentations, you will need to do additional reading (both primary and secondary) in order to provide a fuller context for the required reading.

One term paper (15 –20 pages): Your term paper will most likely emerge naturally out of one of the two presentations you do. Approval of term paper topics is required, since I may be able to point out relevant secondary literature and/or help in formulating the issue best. The term paper is due Friday, December 9.

Class participation: Active class participation is also required, as this is a seminar, not a series of lectures.

Bibliography

Required Books:

Ameriks, Karl. Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

DiGiovanni, George, and Harris, James. Between Kant and Hegel. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994.

Fichte, J.G.. Science of Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Frank, Manfred, The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism, Albany: SUNY Press, 2004.

Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1994.

Neuhouser, Fred. Fichte’s Theory of Subjectivity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Sassen, Brigitte, Kant’s Early Critics, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Schleiermacher, Friedrich, On Religion, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Highly Recommended Secondary Sources:

Ameriks, Karl, Kant and the Fate of Autonomy, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Beiser, Frederick, The Fate of Reason, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Henrich, Dieter, Between Kant and Hegel, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Other Recommendations:

Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Henrich, Dieter. The Course of Remebrance and other Essays on Hölderlin. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

Sedgwick, Sally, The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

The selections from Novalis and Hölderlin as well as the articles by O’Neill, Breazeale, Martin, Kneller, and Frankfurt will be made available in a basket in the departmental library.