In this paper, the thematic context for Fichte’s early concern with the character of the forms of intuition, and specifically inner intuition, is adumbrated. This context is provided by means of a brief exposition of Kant’s doctrine of time as the form of inner sense, and its dual role; its positive role in the “order of (synthetic) cognition” or ordo cognoscendi, and its negative role in the critique of Seelenlehre or “doctrine of the soul.” It is then argued, on this (...) basis, that Fichte’s critique of Kant’s doctrine can serve as a principle for our understanding both of the context for, and the content of, Fichte’s early, propaedeutic writings, and thus of the character of the development of post-Kantian theoretical philosophy and doctrine of knowledge. The paper develops in three parts; through (1) an introduction, in which the importance of the theme to the development of German idealism is intimated, to (2) an exposition of the basic theses of Kant’s Sinnenlehre in the Critique of Pure Reason, and to (3) a summary of Fichte’s critique thereof, as this is set out in the Grundriss. (shrink)

The title already announces Henrich’s methodological reorientation, from the trajectory von Kant bis Hegel, to a constellation of post-Kantian theoretical philosophies comprehended as “three comparable and competing positions [those of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel] that cannot be reduced to each other”. Chapters 1 through 3 provide the context for the later content of the work by introducing the theme of the formal interdependence of mind and world, of “internal experience” and our experience of a law-governed world external to us. This (...) co-relation Henrich understands as fundamental to both Kant’s own and post-Kantian philosophy, theoretical and practical. Henrich takes as basic “the insight that mental activity always implies a world within which such activity occurs.” This yields the claim that “the concept of mind as the subject of knowledge is not possible without the idea of a world that laws govern”. Henrich then adumbrates the ways in which Kant’s account of the structure and dynamics of this relation were taken to be either problematic or insufficient in theoretical philosophy between Kant and Hegel. (shrink)

In the following essay, I consider the character, and implications, of the idea of God in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. I first consider the idea of God in the Critique of Pure Reason, in which it is first established within the systematic structure of Kant’s critical philosophy. In this context, I show that Kant recognized, depicted, and subjected to critique not one, but two such ideas or concepts of God: to evince this point, I examine the more thorough treatment of the (...) concept of God contained in the Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion. I then suggest that the full significance of this critique can be comprehended by tracing its effects across the series of texts that constitutes Kant’s philosophy of religion as a unified whole. Herein, I cannot accomplish such a synoptic view: the positive position of the “postulates” of God and the soul in the Critique of Practical Reason, and the “definition of the concept of religion” in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, for example, will not be considered. Herein, I focus on the Conflict of the Faculties, through which late text I hope to advance a more ample critical context for this, Kant’s redefinition and reposition of the idea of God, in both an intellectual and an institutional acceptation. While in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant attacks rational theology as such, in the Conflict of the Faculties he attacks the rational and biblical theologian, and the place thereof both in an intra- and an extrauniversity economy. This application, then, evinces the significance of Kant’s idea of God as an element not only of his philosophy of religion narrowly construed, but also as an element of his philosophy of culture more broadly construed. In conclusion, I reflect on the importance of this second, broad acceptation of Kant’s philosophy of religion for contemporary work in the field. (shrink)

This work identifies Kant’s doctrine of inner sense as a central element within the ‘architectonic of pure reason’ of the first Critique, exposes its variant construals, and considers the implications of its problematicity for Kant’s theoretical philosophy most generally.

Michel Henry’s “Destruction ontologique” does not interpret itself. In the following interpretive essay, I will attempt to articulate its basic structure, to address its principal engagements, and, on this basis, to interpret its defining themes and positions. In the course of this attempt, I will comment also on the importance of this work in the context of Henry’s œuvre, and contemporary scholarship thereupon. One need not accept every assertion, or agree with every position, in this article to recognize its importance. (...) This importance is both greater, and different, than the reader may expect. (shrink)