Free Issue of EJP

DuckRabbit pointed out the European Journal of Philosophy has made available online the April 2008 issue, which includes what looks to be an interesting article by Beatrice Longuenesse titled "Self-Consciousness and Self-Reference: Sartre and Wittgenstein." In addition to articles on Hume and McDowell, there is an article by Wayne Martin titled "Transcendetal Philosophy and Atheism" which discusses Fichte's work surrounding his atheism controversy.

Fichte and the Not-I

In celebration of Fichte's birthday (May 19, 1762), I thought it might be nice to try to reconstruct some of Fichte's arguments from his Foundations of Natural Right (FNR). In his attempts to develop a theory of self-consciousness by showing what conditions are necessary for its possibility in general and its actualization in finite subjects, Fichte sets down the not-I as a necessary condition of self-consciousness. Below is a reconstruction of two arguments for the not-I. I have developed them from the "First Theorem" of the FNR, and I've attempted to formulate them as transcendental arguments that begin from an accepted premise and argue for conditions necessary for that premise.

(Part 1)
Argument for I/not-I distinction:
AP: I am a self-conscious individual.
NC1: A necessary condition of self-consciousness is that the I is self-active.
NC2: A necessary condition of being a self-conscious individual is finite activity.
NC3: A necessary condition of being a finite being is that one can only know, reflect upon, and be aware of something limited.
NC4: A necessary condition of being finite is that there is something opposed to you.
NC5: A necessary condition of being finite is that what is intuited is something beyond one’s own self-activity.
C1: What is beyond self-activity is not-I.
C2: A necessary condition of self-consciousness is an I (self-activity)/not-I distinction

The pure I is the self-positing I that we assert as involved in all acts of judging or thinking. The pure I is the form of I that Kant does not deduce, but which the Wissenschaftslehre deduces, though it is assumed by Kant. As I see it, the pure I is a description of self-consciousness as an ideal structure. An abstract not-I must oppose the pure I in order doe the pure I to be determined as an I. The I/not-I relation specifies a feature that pertains to the structure of the pure I.

I think it is fair to compare how Fichte conceives of the pure I to how Husserl thinks of the ideal structure of intentionality as an act/object structure. When describing the necessary role of the object in intentionality, we do not need to specify any determinate object. We can say the same thing about the I/not-I structure. When describing the role of the not-I when we are reflecting on the structural components of the pure I, we do not need to specify the not-I as a determinate not-I. That means we are not required to say the not-I is a general object, a determinate object like a table, or a rational being.

If the pure I is a description of self-consciousness then what is it conscious of? As a self-conscious I, the pure I is conscious of its own activity. We might say that its consciousness of its own activity is an empty form of consciousness, since the activity is not instantiated in any particular I. The self-activity is not a determinate self-activity that belongs to an actual subject. Instead, the self-activity at the level of the pure I is merely a necessary structural feature designated in our descriptions. As I understand it, the pure I is an ideal description of the structural features of the I of the individual. We as philosophers gain access to the pure I through reflecting on the necessary actions of the I. Each necessary action of the I (e.g. making the I/not-I distinction and self-reverting) becomes designated, or even posited, in our descriptions. When we show that these features are necessary conditions of the I, we have deduced them. What we are interested in doing in the FNR is deducing the necessary conditions of the finite individual I. In doing so, we are now operating at a different level of analysis. We might say that we are in some way filling in the content of the I. Where at the level of the pure I we need not specify the content of the not-I, at the level of the individual I, the content of the not-I becomes determinate; that is, the not-I is both the sensible world and other self-conscious individual Is or, more simply, rational beings. We are now, as I understand it, licensed to posit a concrete I/not-I distinction as necessary for individual self-consciousness.

(Part 2)
Argument for the concrete I/not-I distinction:

AP: I am a self-conscious individual.
NC1: A necessary condition of self-consciousness is that the I is self-active.
NC2: A necessary condition of self-activity is the I/not-I distinction (C1 of Part 1).
P1: The I/not-I distinction can be either abstract or concrete.
P2: An abstract I/not-I distinction is formal and empty.
P3: One cannot determine individuality with an empty opposition.
C1: The I/not-I distinction must be concrete.
NC3: A necessary condition of the I/not-I distinction being concrete is that the not-I is sensible/material world.
C2: We must posit a sensible and material world.

The argument for the concrete I/not-I distinction does not distinguish between the sensible world qua nature and the sensible world qua rational human subjects. The next step in the argument is to show why the concrete I/not-I distinction involves designating or positing a rational being as a necessary condition of self-consciousness, if what is individuated and determined is individual self-consciousness. I'll try to do that in the next few days.

New McDowell Books!!!

Ok. Calm down. They're not out yet. I just came across them at the Harvard University Press website. In January 2009, McDowell's Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Esays and Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars hit the streets. The first book is a collection of essays on assorted topics like Davidson, Wittgenstein, and Ancient Philosophy. Having the World in View extends McDowell's "Woodbridge Lectures" to include a number of essays on Hegel. Many of these essays are available already in various journals, but it will be nice to have them in book form. The table of contents are here and here respectively.

Hobbes blog

I just came across this new Hobbes blog. I don't myself work much on Hobbes, but I will be teaching some Hobbes in the Fall, which I'm really looking forward to. This week I plan to start posting more than I have in the recent weeks, and I plan to put up some of Fichte's arguments on individuality and self-consciousness (as found in his Foundations of Natural Right) as well as a version of his argument for other minds. I figure if I mention this "publicly", then I will be more likely to follow through.

First Edition of Hegel's Phenomenology

This is a steal! Only $15,000 for a first edition of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. I wonder if they will let me put it on layaway. Apparently there were only 750 copies originally published, so these are hard to come by. Act now!

Novalis Reviews

Here at the Times Literary Supplement is a nice review of some recent Novalis translations. Reviewed are David Wood's translation of Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia: Das Allgemeine Bruillon and Bruce Donehower's translation of Novalis's letters and journal in The Birth of Novalis.

Philosophers' Carnival

A new and interesting Philosophers' Carnival on Idealism is here.

Commentary on Kant's Groundwork (Book Review)

Here at NDPR.

Heinrich Heine (book review)

At NDPR there is a review of an edited volume of Heinrich Heine's writings, On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany and Other Writings, published by Cambridge and edited by Terry Pinkard. This book should be of interest to those of us interested in the reception of Early German Romanticism and German Idealism (esp. Hegel).

What the Fi@#te? (Part 1)

Inspired by Grundlegung's Kantian Gloom-Watch and Hegelian Glee-Watch, I thought I would start a "What the Fi@#te?" series tracking some of the more absurd, baffling, and often amusing things Fichte says. Here is Fichte on the effect attacks have on him and his drive for truth:

Whatever my views may be, whether true philosophy or enthusiasim and nonsense, it affects me personally not at all, if I have honestly sought the truth. I should no more think my personal merits enhanced by the luck of having discovered the true philosophy than I should consider them diminished by the misfortune of having piled new errors on the errors of the past. For my personal position I have no regard whatever: but I am hot for truth [für die Wahrheit bin ich entflammt], and whatever I think true, I shall continue to proclaim with all the force and decision at my command (emphasis mine, Science of Knowledge [Cambridge, 1982] p. 90).

I am hot for Fichte.

Self-Knowing Agents (Book Review)

Lucy O'Brien's Self-Knowing Agents (Oxford, 2007) was just reviewed at NDPR. This book should be of interest to people working on self-consciousness and self-reference in general, and might be of interest to people working on these issues in Kant and Fichte.

UK Kant Society Graduate Conference (CFP)

THE FIFTH UK KANT SOCIETY GRADUATE CONFERENCE
10-11 July 2008
University of Manchester
Call for papers
Deadline for submission of papers: May 10th 2008.
The 5th UK Kant Society Graduate Conference will take place on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th July 2008 at The University of Manchester.

We are pleased to announce that our guest speakers this year are Professor Robert Pippin (University of Chicago) and Dr Jens Timmermann (University of St. Andrews).

We invite papers from postgraduate students and from those who have recently completed their PhD to be considered for presentation at the 2008 UK Kant Society Graduate Conference. The conference will consider papers related to any aspect of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy from 1781 onwards.

Please submit papers of no more than 5000 words that are suitable for a presentation of around 35 minutes, allowing 20 minutes for discussion. All papers should be suitable for blind review. Please include a cover page consisting of the paper’s title and abstract, as well as personal contact details including an email address.

Submissions should be sent by email no later than 10th May 2008 to ukksgradconf@aol.co.uk marking the subject line ‘2008 UKKS Graduate Conference Submission’. Further details will be publicised nearer the date of the conference.

More information about the UK Kant Society can be found at:
http://www.keele.ac.uk/research/lpj/kant/

Paula Satne Jones (conference organiser)
Philosophy
Arthur Lewis Building
The University of Manchester
M13 9PL
Email: satnejones@AOL.COM

On Reason

In his new book Kantian Ethics (Cambridge, 2008), Allen Wood points out that Vernunft, the word Kant uses for 'reason', derives from the German word 'to hear' (vernehmen). Wood writes, "A rational (or reasonable) person is above all someone who 'listens to reason,' who is capable of hearing and understanding others when they offer reasons" (p. 18). Wood thinks that on etymological grounds we see that (this is not a philosophical argument), "Reasons..are essentially to be shared between people--they are never only the private possession of those for whom they are reasons" (19). On this view, when one acts according to reasons, one acts on reasons that are intersubjectively grounded. I think this is a view worked out in some detail in Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right and also in Darwall's The Second-Person Standpoint, a book I hope to start posting on soon.

I found the etymological point interesting, especially since I don't remember coming across it before. After a quick glance at Caygill's entry on 'reason' in the Kant Dictionary I found no mention of this point. I thought I would check the OED for any similar connections in English. Granted, the phrases we use like 'He just doesn't listen to reason' make a similar point. This phrase appears to go as far back as 1225, "I heard nu reisuns" and in 1440 we have "new resones speke." Reasons are also seen: 1740 J. Clarke, "I never yet saw reason...to believe."

Embodiment in Fichte’s Theory of Self-Consciousness

Here is an abstract for a paper I want to write. I just sent it off to a conference on intersubjectivity and the body.

Subtle Bodies: Embodiment in Fichte’s Theory of Self-Consciousness

The work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte is widely recognized as attempting to develop a theory of self-consciousness that grounds in a first principle Kant’s theory of knowledge and cognition. Fichte’s work is often taken to focus on issues in practical philosophy and issues in epistemology. In my work on Fichte I have been developing a mind reading that shows that Fichte has an intersubjective theory of the mind that is conditional for his moral and epistemological principles. In this paper I will argue that Fichte’s theory of the mind articulates a view of the mind as embodied.

In his Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte develops a transcendental argument or deduction that shows how we must conceive of the body as a necessary condition of self-conscious agency. The body, insofar as it is a necessary condition of self-consciousness, must be more than just a material body. For Fichte, while the body is a material body [Körper], it is also a human body [Lieb]. What is the difference between a material body and a human body? The first important difference is that the human body is the embodiment of the will or the ability to form concepts of an end and bring to fruition the end according to a particular conceptualization. However, this kind of concept formation and action is not reflective, but a conceptual pre-reflective activity. A second difference, which follows from the first, is that the human body is subtle or non-objective in that it is saturated with social commitments and is that locus of intentional expressions. In other words, the body as a human body is expressive of rational contents and plays an essential role in the education of the subject into the stance rational self-conscious agents must take.

My reading of Fichte on the body attempts to show that the body is a minded body that is intersubjectively constituted. I also argue that the body is expressive. Its expressivity plays a necessary role in the education of self-consciousness and the constitution of a rational social order.

Fichte and the Mind

Lately, I've been working to reduce the first chapter of my dissertation to the size of a journal article. One thing I'm doing in the article is attempting to make a distinction between two kinds of readings of Fichte, one which is primarily epistemological in nature and one that considers Fichte as concerned with the mind and mental action. I'm attempting to show the merits of the mind reading.

One idea I have is that on the mind reading what Fichte has to say about intersubjectivity bears not only on how we should think of self-knowledge, but also on how we should think about the mind and its conditions of possibility. I think, and this is where Fichte scholars will most likely get upset, commentators have mostly advanced epistemological readings that elaborate on Fichte's Kantian influences, his epistemic "foundationalism" (I put that in quotes since it's not clear, at least not to me, whether he is a foundationalist of some sort), the role self-positing plays in terms of establishing a theory of knowledge. Beisier's work, Wayne Martin's and even Paul Frank's challenging work seem to take such a line of thinking for granted. How to characterize Neuhouser's book in terms of this epistemology/mind distinction is more difficult.

I think scholars have failed to adequately understand the role of intersubjectivity in Fichte’s theory of self-consciousness because they have predominantly approached Fichte as concerned with how knowledge is possible. When these scholars move from a concern with how knowledge is possible to a concern with the role of intersubjective relations in Fichte’s thought, they analyze intersubjectivity at the level of knowledge. The result is that intersubjective relations become conditional for how one conceives oneself in terms of personal identity, political identity, or social identity. In other words, intersubjective relations are necessary for self-knowledge or forming a self-conception. But, any self-conception already presupposes that a subject is a self-conscious agent that references itself as an I.

If we can make a distinction between self-conceiving agents and self-conscious agents, I think we can understand the role of intersubjectivity differently. This distinction is important because it demarcates two levels of self-consciousness, one level in which self-conscious agents are conscious of themselves as an I, and one level in which agents are conscious of their unique social identities and commitments. I think this distinction maps on to a distinction between self-consciousness and self-knowledge respectively. With such a distinction operative, I think it is possible to locate the level at which intersubjectivity enters (e.g., Is it at the level of self-knowledge or self-consciousness?), and what implications this has for a theory of the mind and self-consciousness. The upshot is obvious for a theory of mind. If intersubjectivity enters at the level in which we are specifying the conditions necessary for having mental life, the the mind is intersubjectively constituted. I think there might be other implications too that have to do with externalism about the mind or mental content as well. I also think such a reading, call it the mind reading of Fichte, involves showing that the mind is mental activity, but not merely a kind of mental activity internal to the skull, but an embodied activity.

On the Very Idea of an Internet Meme

Well, not really, but in the spirit of procrastinating, I'll play along with this so-called meme, which has been evolving across some blogs here, here, and here (where I was tagged):

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages)
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence on that page
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people

And here is what we get. Donald Davidson's Essays on Actions and Events, and at page 123 we find:

I dream of a theory that makes the transition from the ordinary idiom to canonical notation purely mechanical, and a canonical notation rich enough to capture, in its dull and explicit way, every difference and connection legitimately considered the business of a theory of meaning. The point of canonical notation so conceived is not to improve on something left vague and defective in natural language, but to help elicit in a perspicuous and general form the understanding of logical grammar we all have that constitutes (part of) our grasp of our native tongue.

In exploring the logical form of sentences about actions and events, I concentrated on certain features of such sentences and neglected others.

I guess my dreams are are a bit more exciting than Davidson's. This is from some of his comments about his essay, "The Logical Form of Action Sentences." Davidson's book was not the first one I grabbed. Strawon's Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties was the obvious choice, but it only has 98 pages.

I hereby tag: Selbsttatigkeit, Carubou, Spontaneity&Receptivity, The Brooks Blog, and The Ends of Thought. Let's see what happens.

Von Kant Bis Hegel (Conference)

Concordia University is hosting the Von Kant Bis Hegel conference October 11-12, 2008. The theme of the conference is Nature, Naturalism and Naturphilosophie. The list of invited speakers is quite impressive.

NY German Idealism Workshop

We are excited to announce that the New York German Idealism Workshop Series is planning two events for the Spring.

Here is the info for the first meeting:

Dietmar Heidemann (Hofstra)
Paper: "Is Kant a Skeptic?"
Date: March 7, 4pm
Place: The New School at 65 5th Ave (corner of 14th St.)
Room: Machinist Conference Room (The room number is 106. The Machinist Conference room is on the Mezzanine level between floors 1 and 2).

The workshop series focuses on Kant and German Idealism, but is not at all limited to Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. At each workshop a paper will be presented (approx. 45 minutes), and after a 10-15 minute response paper, we will have a discussion period. Two weeks before the workshop the paper will be circulated by email. This will give us time to consider the work more thoroughly than if we were to only listen to a presentation, as is customary in department workshop series and conferences. Our hope is that such a format will bring about a deeper engagement with the each paper. To receive the paper, contact me by email.

Hegel and Feminism Panel

Angelica Nuzzo is organizing a panel on "Hegel and Feminism" for the New York Society for Women in Philosophy. Here are the details:

"Hegel and Feminism"
Friday, March 14th 4-630 at the Graduate Center CUNY (34th and 5th Ave) - Room (TBA)

"What if Hegel's Master and Slave were Women?", Michell Aboulafia (The Juilliard School)

"Hegel, Lacan, Property and the Feminine", Jeanne L. Schroeder (Cardozo Law School)

"Panel Chair and Discussant", Angelica Nuzzo (Graduate Center/Brooklyn College, CUNY)

Cosmos and History Double Issue on Hegel

Thanks to Tom from Grundlegung for pointing out that Cosmos and History has a double issue online dedicated to "Thinking the Spirit of the Age: Hegel and the Fate of Thinking." There are some interesting articles there, some by Angelica Nuzzo, H. S. Harris, Karin de Boer, Andrew Haas and many others. Also, Yovel's translation and commentary on Hegel's "Preface" to the Phenomenology of Spirit and Robert Sterns book on the Phenomenology are reviewed. Enjoy!