The author defends the thesis that with the neo-Kantian concept of the concept determinacy is conceived of as mediation but not also as self-mediation. In terms of Hegel, neo-Kantianism conceives of the concept as an essence, not as a concept. Consequently, neo-Kantianism does insufficient justice to its own claim of transcendental idealism to be the self-knowledge of reason. This thesis is substantiated by scrutinizing, first, the functional account of the concept as developed by the Marburg neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirer and the (...) Southwest neo-Kantian Bruno Bauch. Subsequently, the transcendental idealist conception of the concept as a function-concept is problematized by taking Hegel’s speculative-idealist doctrine of concepts into account. It becomes clear that concept progresses from itself as a concept of substance to the function-concept, and finally to the concept. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of recognition represents probably the most prominent direction that presently claims to introduce an updated version of classical German idealism into ongoing debates, including the debate on the nature of sociality. In particular, studies of Axel Honneth offer triggering contributions in Frankfurt School fashion while at the same time rejuvenating Hegel’s philosophy in terms of a philosophy of recognition. According to Honneth, this attempt at a rejuvenation also involves substantial modification of Hegelian doctrines. It is shown that Honneth (...) underestimates the implications of Hegel’s thoughts about the theme, method and systematic form of philosophy. As a consequence, Honneth’s social philosophy is, on the one hand, in need of a plausible foundation. This leads, on the other hand, to a different construction of the social within philosophy than Honneth offers. (shrink)

_Metaphysics of Freedom? Kant’s Concept of Cosmological Freedom in Historical and Systematic Perspective_ scrutinizes the mostly neglected cosmological foundation of Kant’s concept of freedom.

Die Ontologie des Sozialen fragt nach der irreduziblen Verfassung der gesellschaftlichen Dimension menschlichen Daseins. Vor das Problem ihrer begrifflichen Bestimmung sahen sich im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert naturgemäß schon die theoretischen Grundlegungsversuche zur Soziologie als einer eigenständigen wissenschaftlichen Disziplin gestellt. Die gegenwärtige Debatte kommt jedoch über weite Strecken hinweg ohne jede historische Bezugnahme aus. Die mangelnde Berücksichtigung geschichtlicher Zusammenhänge allerdings bedroht die Reflexion hier wie sonst mit sachlichen Einseitigkeiten; muss sich doch jedes ernsthafte Nachdenken mit einschlägigen Meinungen der Vergangenheit (...) gleichzeitig und durch sie ebenso herausgefordert wie belehrbar wissen. Der vorliegende Band erweitert darum die Quellenlage. Er versammelt Beiträge von einschlägig ausgewiesenen Experten und Nachwuchswissenschaftlern, welche die verschiedenen Konzeptualisierungsstrategien, die bereits im Umfeld der klassischen deutschen Philosophie entwickelt worden sind, aufgreifen und systematisch nutzbar machen. Insbesondere Kant, Fichte und Hegel werden als gewinnbringende Anlaufstellen für sozialontologische Überlegungen erschlossen. (shrink)

The meaning and validity of Kant’s Kant’s doctrine of schematism remains contested until today. In neo-Kantianism and post-War transcendental philosophy, Kant’s schematism of the pure concepts of understanding is transformed drastically. Kant’s thesis of heterogeneity is overcome by taking it back into the internal relationships of the structure of cognition. The spontaneity of thought, performing schematizations, is retained, but Kant’s project of conceiving of the foundations of knowledge in the fashion of a theory of apperception of the I as well (...) as the externality of the given and the determination of the given that goes along with it is sublated by an objective order of validity-noematic constitution and regulation. Kant’s doctrine of schematism, then, shows to be methodology. (shrink)

Hans Wagner (1917-2000) hat Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts eine systematische Erneuerung der Transzendentalphilosophie in Angriff genommen: eine an Kants subjektheoretischem Geltungsbegriff orientierte und Problementwicklungen des deutschen Idealismus, des Neukantianismus und der Phanomenologie integrierende Transzendentalphilosophie. Diese Gedenkschrift zu seinem hundertsten Geburtstag enthalt Beitrage von Reinhold Aschenberg, Reinhold Breil, Martin Bunte, Werner Flach, Klaus Ganglbauer, Bernward Grunewald, Reinhard Hiltscher, Christian Krijnen, Peter Michael Lippitz, Steinar Mathisen, Gerhard Seel, Manfred Wetzel und Kurt Walter Zeidler, welche die Philosophie Wagners in ihrem historischen und (...) systematischen Gehalt erkunden. (shrink)

In _The Very Idea of Organization_ Krijnen develops a new philosophical methodology for a social ontology in general and an organizational ontology in particular by rejuvenating the Kantian and Hegelian tradition of philosophy.

Both Kant’s and Hegel’s conceptions of normativity have shown to be extremely thorough and influential until today. Against the background of the much-disputed issue of ‘formalism’, _Concepts of Normativity: Kant or Hegel?_ explores limits and perspectives of their deliberations.

Le néokantisme – souvent critiqué de façon polémique par Heidegger et ses disciples –, en particulier le néokantisme de son maître, Heinrich Rickert, présente une théorie de la compréhension humaine plus approfondie que celle de Heidegger. D’une part, Heidegger est replacé dans son temps, puis les principes de la théorie de Rickert sur le sens et les valeurs sont esquissés. D’autre part, un problème de base de la phénoménologie est analysé ; il apparaît en fin de compte que la validité (...) – notion fondamentale du néokantisme – fonctionne implicitement aussi comme le fondement du projet ontologique de Heidegger, bien que celui-ci, pour des raisons méthodologiques, ne parvient pas suffisamment à justifier l’usage de cette notion. (shrink)

What is commonly known as neo-Kantianism is in fact a philosophical movement comprising many philosophers and different approaches. This movement established itself in the 1870s and dominated the philosophical developments and debates until the 1930s. The label ‘neo-Kantianism’ or ‘critical philosophy’ is unanimously and unquestionably applied to the Marburg School—whose main representatives are Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp and Ernst Cassirer—and the Southwest German School, also called the Baden School or Heidelberg School—whose protagonists are Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, Emil Lask, Jonas (...) Cohn and Bruno Bauch. Although these two schools represent what may be called the main theories of neo-Kantian philosophy, there has always been discussion about the main features of neo-Kantianism and the philosophers fitting this label. Even the view that the Marburg and the Southwest German Schools are the essential r .. (shrink)

Recognition -- German Idealism as an Ongoing Challenge seeks to answer the question: does the present philosophical debate about recognition incorporate sufficiently the systematical requirements of the philosophy it pretends to inherit and rejuvenate, i.e. German idealism?

The founding fathers of modern philosophy of culture, the neo-Kantians, and especially the Southwest school, brought the concept of culture into play as a counter concept to that of nature. Taking Heinrich Rickert?s conception of culture as a starting point, the article shows how culture is conceived of as a self-formation of the subject. It leads to transcendental idealism of freedom, typical of a Kantian type of transcendental philosophy. However, in this self and world formation of the subject it is (...) presupposed that nature is to any extent formable by values and thus by freedom. This presupposition cannot be accounted for properly within transcendental idealism. Hegel, by contrast, conceives of culture as a manifestation of the idea, leading to speculative idealism of freedom. The origin of culture, i.e., its original determinacy, should not be conceived of in terms of an opposition to nature, and consequently in the fashion of a subject of thought and action that forms itself by forming its world, culture. Rather, it should be conceived of in terms of a manifestation of the idea as the truly transcendental subject qua absolute ground of validity and thus the ground of being too. Nature and culture are both primarily determined by their ideal character and the relationships emerging therefrom. (shrink)

Résumé — Bien que le « social » ne soit pas un thème central du néokantisme de Bade, il est néanmoins l’occasion de développer, dans le contexte de ce courant philosophique, ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui une ontologie sociale, qui peut être élaborée de manière exemplaire dans la perspective de Rickert. La conception fondamentale de la philosophie de l’histoire, que j’analyse, offre chez Rickert la clef d’une détermination formelle de l’ontologie sociale. En outre, Rickert offre une base systématique qui permet de (...) définir le « social ». Les tenants de l’école de Bade, tels Windelband, Bauch, Cohn, voient, comme Rickert, dans le « social » la condition de la réalisation de la culture ; mais à la différence de ce dernier, cette sphère revêt chez eux une coloration éthique.— Although the « social » is not a core concept of the Southwest school of Neo-Kantianism, this philosophy offers beginnings for the development of what is nowadays called social ontology. I develop this point by presenting an analysis of Rickert’s concept of the philosophy of history. He turns out to be the key for a formal determination of a social ontology. Moreover, Rickert also offers a systematic beginning as far as the content of the social is concerned. Like Rickert also other thinkers of the Southwest school conceive the social as a condition for realizing values, but unlike Rickert in their model the sphere of realization has an « ethical » flavour. (shrink)

The contemporary debate on the social ontological foundations of organization does not, for methodological reasons, sufficiently get a grip on the phenomenon of organization. The original determinacy of organization remains presupposed. To render this implicit meaning of organization explicit, another, more embracing and in-depth methodology is needed. German idealist types of philosophy provide an extremely powerful methodology. In the philosophy of German idealism from Kant to Hegel, along with neo-Kantianism and up to contemporary transcendental philosophy, however, the idea of organization (...) is not addressed. Indeed, it is a challenge to construct the idea of organization from the perspective of German idealism: the perspective of reason, and with that, of freedom. It results in a new framework for dealing with organization in theory and practice. The article constructs the idea of organization within the framework of G.W.F. Hegel. It shows where the issue of organization should be addressed topologically in Hegel?s system of philosophy and what, then, organization shows to be here speculatively. nema. (shrink)

Flach bringt Kants geltungs- und prinzipientheoretische Freiheitslehre zur Darstellung und sucht zu zeigen, welches Erklärungspotential diese Lehre in puncto Humanität hat. Krijnen bringt Hegels logische und geistphilosophische Freiheitslehre zur Darstellung und sucht zu zeigen, daß und wie in ihr ein fundamentaler Aspekt der Freiheit thematisch wird, der in Kants Lehre unterbeleuchtet bleibt. Die Diskussionsbeiträge zeigen, welchen Stellenwert dem einen und dem anderen Paradigma im aktuellen Urteil zuerkannt wird. Flach presents Kant’s conception of freedom as well as its potential for (...) understanding what it means to be human. Krijnen presents Hegel’s conception of freedom and shows that Kant’s conception underestimates an essential feature of freedom. The contributions of other authors assess the results. (shrink)

Freiheit ist ein Grundbegriff der modernen Philosophie und die Freiheitskonzeptionen Kants und Hegels bilden wichtige Quellen, um Freiheit zu begreifen. Allerdings sind nicht nur Sinn und Gehalt ihrer Konzeptionen bis heute umstritten, sondern auch eine adäquate Bewertung erweist sich als ein Desiderat der Forschung. In der vorliegenden Studie bringt Werner Flach Kants geltungs- und prinzipientheoretische Freiheitslehre zur Darstellung und sucht zu zeigen, welches Erklärungspotential diese Lehre in puncto Humanität hat. Christian Krijnen bringt hingegen Hegels logische und geistphilosophische Freiheitslehre zur (...) Darstellung und sucht zu zeigen, dass und wie in Kants Lehre der fundamentale Aspekt der Wirklichkeit der Freiheit unterbeleuchtet bleibt. Die Diskussionsbeiträge von Martin Bunte, Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz, Hernán Pringe, Jacco Verburgt, Kenneth R. Westphal und Manfred Wetzel machen deutlich, welchen Stellenwert dem einen und dem anderen Paradigma im aktuellen Urteil zuerkannt wird. (shrink)

Public debates on reality television often address the display of emotion and immoral conduct. Television scholars have recently proposed that while reality television offers its audience an opportunity to learn valuable lessons, they rarely address the issue of the morality of the genre. In this contribution, we analyze the display of emotion and immoral conduct in the Dutch reality show The Golden Cage. Reality television is viewed as constituting a ‘moral laboratory’. The question guiding our research revolved around the kind (...) of exercise this moral laboratory provides for. A dramaturgical study of the display of actions and emotions as part of participant “projects” was used to answer this question. Results indicate that moral issues and emotions were continuously at stake, and immoral conduct appeared to be coupled with pleasurable emotions. It is concluded that the laboratory of The Golden Cage is at least equally suited for exercising autonomy and identity performance under competitive pressure as it is for the simulation of moral conflicts. (shrink)

In the history of Chinese and European philosophy, metaphysics has played an outstanding role: it is a theoretical framework which provides the basis for a philosophical understanding of the world and the self. A theory of the self is well integrated in a metaphysical understanding of the totality of nature as a dynamic process of continuous changes. According to this view, the purpose of existence can be conceived of as the development and realization of the full potential given to the (...) individual by its nature. In regard to human nature specifically, this idea of self-realization includes the development of all cognitive faculties as well as of the moral character. Metaphysics has, however, suffered a loss of importance in current debates, especially in ethics. As a result, we observe the emergence of such philosophical views as moral skepticism and even nihilism. The consequence of this tendency has been the renunciation of a claim to understanding and to providing a solid ground for ethics. Yet an intercultural dialogue can provide us with some hope as the consolidation of debates on crucial topics of our traditions might indeed serve as the basis for a more powerful philosophy in the future. (shrink)