This is the first full-length biography in more than fifty years of Immanuel Kant, one of the giants amongst the pantheon of Western philosophers as well as the one with the most powerful and broad influence on contemporary philosophy. It is well known that Kant spent his entire life in an isolated part of Prussia living the life of a typical university professor. This has given rise to the view that Kant was a pure thinker with no life of his (...) own, or at least none worth considering seriously. In this biography, Manfred Kuehn debunks that myth once and for all. Taking account of the most recent scholarship Professor Kuehn allows the reader to follow the same journey that Kant himself took in emerging as a central figure in modern philosophy. (shrink)

The critique of capitalism is the bedrock on which rests the reputation of Frankfurt School critical theory. Though critical theory has often been heralded – or criticized and rejected – as a reformulation of Marxian theory for our times, its relation with the critique of political economy, and in particular the economic treatises, has barely been studied. Friedrich Pollock, who was Max Horkheimer’s lifelong friend and close associate at the Institute for Social Research, was responsible for all administrative and financial (...) questions, but he wrote few theoretical essays and Wiggershaus calls him ‘the last unknown member of the Frankfurt School’. Nevertheless this article asks whether not only has his influence on early critical theory been sorely underestimated, but also his impact on the late philosophies of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. (shrink)

One needs specific initiation into the classics of transcendental philosophy because all say farewell to the common sense view of things. The three types of transcendental thinking converge in conceiving rational autonomy as the ultimate ground for justification. Correspondingly, the philosophical pedagogy of all three thinkers is focused on how to seize and make that very autonomy intellectually and existentially available. In the concrete way of proceeding, however, the three models diverge. Descartes expects one to become master of oneself and (...) "the world" by methodologically suspending his judgement on what cannot qualify itself to be undoubtable. Kant leads us to the point where we can triangulate universal conditions of the possibility of knowledge through individually acquiring the competence to judge the legitimacy of encountered propositional claims. Finally, Fichte confronts us with the idea of the identity of self-consciousness and objectivity. (shrink)

Verläßt man einmal den Ring Fichte-immanenten Philosophierens und orientiert sich allgemeiner an dem Angebot, womit soziale Phänomene erklärt werden, stößt man rasch - und zunehmend häufig - auf den Begriff »Verhalten«. Hier besteht die Tendenz, selbst rechts- und moralspezifische Entscheidungen als Unterformen von Verhalten zu bagatellisieren bzw. sie als solche für sozial steuerbar zu erklären, also einem Normzwang zu unterwerfen, der ohne allen Rückgriff auf »Freiheit« oder »Vernunftautonomie« auskommt. Typisches Beispiel : Bei Abgeordneten sprechen Journalisten wie sog. »Funktionsträger« von »Abstimmungsverhalten«. (...) Doch nicht allein von der einen, sagen wir: empirischen Seite zeichnet sich hier ein fundamentales Problem ab; auch die andere Seite, Ansätze einer Philosophie frei-vernünftiger Selbstbesinnung, bringt sich in Mißkredit. Spiegelbildlich dazu, wie mit »Verhalten« operiert wird, redet man dort etwa vom »Streben des Selbst«, von der »Kreativität der Einbildungskraft«, vom »Handeln des Ich« u. dgl. mehr. Nicht die konkrete Person, das je einzelne - empirische! - Urteilssubjekt steht danach in der Entscheidung, sondern die philosophischen Begriffsbildungen agieren gleich selber - »verhalten sich«, darf man ergänzen. (shrink)

There is presently a real boom in ethics. Never, it seems, has there been more published on fundamental moral claims to validity and on the ethical foundations of philosophical statements than today. One can note a sort of moral low, a tendential decline in human values accompanied by a real boom in publications with a bewildering array of moral philosophical arguments and theories. Ethics has paradoxically succumbed to ever greater confusion, ever since it has become subjected to the more rigorous (...) criteria of validation and foundation of “modern” philosophical reflection. Hardly anyone knows his or her way. Yet most people seem to have good reasons for their ultimate moral foundations. They see themselves as moralists in a crisis and actively participate in the game. (shrink)

The interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In his The Revolutionary Kant, Graham Bird engages in a systematic and thorough (...) evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag behandelt das analytische und hermeneutische Problem, das der europäische Wissenschaftsbegriff, seine Freilegung in der Antike und seine Geschichte in Mittelalter und Neuzeit, für das gegenwärtige Konzept der "wissenschaftlichen Revolution" des 17. Jahrhunderts darstellt. Es wird zu zeigen versucht, daß sie im Kern eine Begriffsrevolution impliziert. Der Beitrag untersucht die für den Aufbau der Wissenschaft konstitutive Funktion der Begriffe "Theorie", "Lehre" und "System", denen ein je verschiedener Typus von Wissenschaftseinheiten entspricht, der geschichtlich dem klassisch-griechischen , christlich-mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichem Wissenschaftsbegriff (...) zugeordnet wird. Die Topik dieser Begriffe und ihre Verschiebungen in der Neuzeit sind der Schlüssel zu einem neuen Verständnis der Wissenschaftsgeschichte, das über die Grenzen bisheriger, an den Naturwissenschaften orientierter, Konzeptualisierungen hinausweist. (shrink)