Hamann Conference (CFP)

Below is a call for papers for what looks to be an exciting conference on Hamann. The conference is being organized by Lisa Marie Anderson who, I should point out, recently published Hegel on Hamann, a translation of Hegel's review of Hamman's writings and life.

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Hamann and the Tradition”

An International Conference

to be held at Hunter College (CUNY)

New York, NY

March 20-21, 2009

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of scholarly interest in the work of Johann Georg Hamann, an interest which is spreading among scholars of world literature, European history, philosophy, theology, and religious studies. New translations of work by and about Hamann are appearing, as are a number of books and articles on Hamann’s aesthetics, theories of language and sexuality, and unique place in Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment thought. As such, the time has come to reexamine, in light of recent work, the legacy of Hamann’s writings, which have influenced such diverse thinkers as J.G. von Herder, F.H. Jacobi, J.W. von Goethe, G.W.F. Hegel, Søren Kierkegaard, and Walter Benjamin, to name only an obvious few.

We invite papers which investigate or problematize in new ways any underappreciated aspect of Hamann’s impact across the centuries, be it upon a thinker or work, a historical tradition, or even an entire branch of knowledge. Especially welcome are papers which promote dialogue among the diverse disciplines to which Hamann’s work speaks. All conference papers should be delivered in English.

Please send a one-page abstract by October 1, 2008 to the conference organizer:

Lisa Marie Anderson, Assistant Professor

Department of German, Hunter College

lisa.anderson@hunter.cuny.edu

Keynote Speaker

Oswald Bayer, Systematic Theology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Author of Vernunft ist Sprache: Hamanns Metakritik Kants; Johann Georg Hamann: Der hellste Kopf seiner Zeit; Zeitgenosse im Widerspruch: Johann Georg Hamann als Radikaler Aufklärer

Confirmed Speakers

John Betz, After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J.G. Hamann

Gwen Griffith-Dickson, Johann Georg Hamann’s Relational Metacriticism

Kenneth Haynes, Hamann: Writings on Philosophy and Language

Manfred Kuehn, Immanuel Kant: A Biography; Scottish Common Sense in Germany 1768-1800

Johannes von Lüpke, Director, Internationales Hamann-Kolloquium

Katie Terezakis, The Immanent Word: The Turn to Language in German Philosophy 1759-1801

We gratefully acknowledge the support of:

The Office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences, Hunter College (CUNY)

The Max Kade Foundation

New Hegel Books

In addition to the Hamann review I posted about a few days ago, NDPR has published two interesting reviews of some new books on Hegel. One review, by Paul Franks, is a very positive review of William F. Bristow, Hegel and the Transformation of Philosophical Critique. The second review is of Allen Speight's The Philosophy of Hegel. Both reviews are positive, and though I have not had a chance to look at these works, from the reviews, they appear to be nice contributions to the ever growing Hegel literature.

Hamann's Writings Online (in German)

Following up on yesterday's post, I thought I would point interested readers to this online resource where one can find Hamann's writings in German, and a number of other important texts relating to Hamann's work. For example, there are important excerpts on Hamann from the writings of Goethe, Schlegel, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Dilthey. Enjoy!

Hamann review

So, it has been too long since my last post. I'm still in Berlin, but soon I will return to New York where I plan to begin posting regularly again. For now I want to draw your attention to a review of Kenneth Haynes translation of Hamann. As the reviewer Ted Kinnaman points out, Haynes translates the two "dedications" that appear at the beginning of Hamann's most famous work, Socratic Memorabilia, but not the book itself. This short work is in need of either a new translation or a new printing of James O'Flaherty's translation.

For those of you not familiar with Hamann and his reputation should check out this SEP article by Gwen Griffith-Dickson, who also has written an excellent commentary on the Socratic Memorabilia called Johann Georg Hamann's Relational Metacriticism (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995). I'm not sure what the best general introduction is to Hamman's work, but Isaiah Berlin's The Magus of the North. J. G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism (London: John Murray) is probably the most famous, although I think considering Hamann an irrationalist is quite contentious. Frederick Beiser's essay in his well know book The Fate of Reason is a very good and fair introduction to Hamann's thought and life.

Hamann I think played an important role in the emergence of German Idealism. Here are some reason that come immediately to mind: 1) he had a significant influence on Jacobi; 2) Hamann continually stressed the importance of Hume's skepticism; 3) he also stressed the importance of language in understanding the nature of reason and culture; 4) Hamann developed what is perhaps the first critique of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which circled amongst his friends, and was carefully studied by Herder. As the story goes, Hamann was friends with the publisher of the Critique and he had access to it as the pages were rolling of the press. 5) Hegel was familiar with Hamann, and even wrote a lengthy review on his thought. The extent to which Schelling and Fichte were interested in Hamann is not clear to me, though I suspect Fichte had read or was at least familar with Hamann's thoughts on language when he worte his essay "On the Linguistic Capacity and the Origin of Language" in 1795.

Update

It's been too long since I last posted. I've been traveling some. A few days in Madison, Wisconsin, and a few with the family in Houston. I'm now in Berlin where I will actually be for the next two months. I'm here on a DAAD stipend which allows me to work on my German. Currently, I'm working on a paper on Fichte, pre-reflective awareness, and the body. The paper is called "Fichte and the Possibility of Mindedness." It takes up some issues developed in the Dreyfus/McDowell debate and Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right. I will be presenting a version of it on July 17 at the Philosophisches Kolloquium at the University of Cologne. Besides that, I will be in Berlin working on the dissertation and my German. I do plan to keep up with the blog while in Germany, so keep an eye out. For those of you looking for some idealism related posts, check out SOH-Dan here and here on Hegel.

Novalis and Lanugage

Here you will find an essay on Novalis and language by Katie Terezakis (Rochester Institute of Technology) published in the new edition of Janus Head. Janus Head is an online interdisciplinary journal that publishes philosophical essays, art and poetry. This issue has some essays on technology, Goethe, and poetry by Paul Celan.

Kant, Hume, Causality

Over at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a new entry on "Kant and Hume on Causality" was just posted. It is written by Graciela De Pierris and Michael Friedman, who is well known for his work on Kant and the sciences.

Embodied Cognition in Boston Globe

I came across this article in The Boston Globe from January on embodied cognition. I have a broad interest in this topic in part because I want to get clear about how Fichte held an embodied view of the mind, something I mention here. Granted he was doing a kind of speculative philosophy of mind, but I do think he hit upon some ideas that are detailed in the work of some contemporary figures.

Philosophers' Carnival!!

It's been a while since I've linked to the Philosophers' Carnival, so here it is.

What the Fi@#te? (Part 2)

From his Foundations of Natural Right:

The character of rationality consists in the fact that that which act and that which is acted upon are one and the same; and with this description, the sphere of reason as such is exhausted. -For those who are capable of grasping it (i.e. for those who are capable of abstracting from their own I), linguistic usage has come to denote this exalted concept by the word: I; thus reason has been characterized as "I-hood" [p. 3].

I keep trying to abstract from my I, but Memorial Day sun and fun is holding me back. When reading and writing about Fichte sometimes I feel like his students who are described by Henrik Steffens, an actual student of Fichte:

[Fichte] made every effort to provide proofs for everything he said; but his speech still seemed commanding, as if he wanted to dispel any possible doubts by means of an unconditional order. 'Gentlemen,' he would say, 'collect your thoughts and enter into yourselves. We are not at all concerned now with anything external, but only with ourselves.' And, just as he requested, his listeners really seemed to be concentrating upon themselves. Some of them shifted their position and sat up straight, while others slumped with downcast eyes. But it was obvious that they were all waiting with great suspense for what was supposed to come next. Then Fichte would continue: 'Gentlemen, think about the wall.' And as I saw, they really did think about the wall, and everyone seemed able to do so with success. 'Have you thought about the wall?' Fichte would ask. 'Now, gentlemen, think about whoever it was that thought about the wall.' The obvious confusion and embarrassment provoked by this request was extraordinary. [Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, trans. Daniel Breazeale, Ithaca: Cornell, 1992, p. 111, n. 11.]

Such is life.

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.