The opposition between transcendentalism and naturalism plays a key role in discussions about consciousness at the confluence of phenomenology and analytical philosophy. Associated with it is a whole range of research programs. However, the opposition between transcendentalism and naturalism in these programs is, as a rule, operational and not thematic in nature and presupposes that 1) Transcendentalism and naturalism as traditions are initially alien to each other; 2) The domain of their opposition is ontology. The article attempts (...) to problematize these premises based on one historical circumstance. Turning to the texts of Kant, the founder of transcendental philosophy, I intend to show that transcendentalism, which was first substantiated in them, is a version of naturalistic ontology, that is, a peculiarly interpreted naturalism that identifies nature with its natural scientific model and excludes constituting subjectivity from ontology. It is built not on the naturalization of phenomenology, but on the transcendentalization of natural science. Reinterpreting the experimental method in the spirit of the Copernican turn, Kant substantiates the apodictic nature and lack of alternative to the ontology of nature by turning nature into a correlate of consciousness and strictly limiting the principles of mathematical natural science to the boundaries of the phenomenal world. As a result, the true theme of philosophy—the thing in itself and transcendental subjectivity itself—is taken beyond the boundaries of ontology. The thematization of the naturalistic origins of transcendentalism and the removal of transcendental consciousness beyond the boundaries of ontology, carried out within its framework, thus reveals the problematic nature of these premises. The article also demonstrates that, despite significant differences in the understanding of transcendental philosophy and ontology between Kant and Husserl, the identified motives—the naturalistic nature of the ontological foundation and the meta-ontological character of transcendental subjectivity—remain of fundamental importance for the founder of phenomenology. This allows us to conclude that ontology is not the original domain of confrontation between transcendentalism and naturalism and to substantiate the compatibilist thesis according to which transcendentalism is compatible with ontological naturalism. (shrink)

Kant’s manuscripts of 1796–1803, which the Academic German edition of his works combined in 21–22 volumes of under the invented by H. Vaihinger name ‘Opus postumum’, still attract the attention of researchers. Was there really a significant theoretical “gap” in the system of Kant's “critical”, transcendental philosophy, which built by 1790, needed to be filled, namely, to undertake a conceptual "transition" from the already constructed a priori metaphysics of corporeal nature (metaphysical principles of natural science) to experimental mathematical physics, to (...) the entire scientific empirical investigation of nature? In the last years of his life Kant tried to solve a problem that was really decisive for the fate of transcendentalism, which he had already realized in ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ and concretized in ‘Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’, however he found himself in a hopeless situation, which doomed him to the “Tantalus’ torments”. The problem that he was constantly thinking about necessarily arises in the system of transcendental philosophy, but has no solution in it. ‘Opus postumum’ is an important piece of evidence on the insurmountable difficulties faced by the attempt to “save” philosophy as a perfect and complete system of absolutely reliable, "apodictic" science, based on the idea of universal and necessary conditions for the experience possibility. (shrink)

A discussion of the various European sources of New England Transcendentalism.

B a c k g r o u n d. This article reveals the understanding of the concept of nature in the works of the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau is an American philosopher, poet, essayist, naturalist and political activist. Together with Ralph Waldo Emerson, his friend and mentor, he is considered one of the founders of the transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism was a powerful movement of American philosophy of the 19th century. It was characterized by focusing (...) on the problem of human self-knowledge, human's returning to own essence, living in harmony with nature, as well as criticism of modern society and active abolitionism. M e t h o d s. The article uses both general scientific methods and special methods, such as – the method of historical-philosophical reconstruction, which made it possible to reproduce the ideas of the American thinker, the hermeneutic method – for explaining individual positions of the philosopher. In addition, literary-critical methods were used, for the possibility of using various primary sources, and systematic method – to identify a systematized structure in the philosophical work of H. D. Thoreau. R e s u l t s. One of the main features of transcendentalism is a special interest in reflection on nature and a special approach to it. Thus, the concept of nature is present in most of H. D. Thoreau's works, and it is the central topic of his philosophical searches. The concept of nature in his works appears in different contexts, acquires different meanings. Thus, H. D. Thoreau talks about nature in the context of nature, in the context of poetic creativity, in his philosophical searches, in his vision of man and in his argumentation of his own political position. However, the different meanings that H. D. Thoreau attaches to the concept of nature do not contradict each other, but, on the contrary, complement and clarify his understanding of nature. C o n c l u s i o n s. This article proposes to consider the use of the concept of nature by H. D. Thoreau in the following aspects: Nature and Peculiarities of nature as a subject of scientific knowledge. Nature and The relationship between nature and culture through the relationship between "the wild" and society. Nature and From naturalism to humanism. Nature as an inner essence of man and solitude with nature as a return to this essence. (shrink)

THE FIRST EXHAUSTIVELY SCIENTIFIC, speculative inquiry into the notion and nature of essence in the Western philosophical tradition is found in Aristotle's Metaphysics. In contrast to the earlier Greek philosophers and Plato, after considering the problem of being and change Aristotle reached the conclusion that the essential identity of material phenomena, or ousia, is an immanent and inseparable quality that forms the identity of each particular phenomenon. In Aristotle's concept, however, which constitutes the original form of phenomenal realism, ousia (...) is not "it"-self some-thing or some it. For though its presence may certainly be speculatively implied, "it" is not. Following Aristotle, though, and for reasons extraneous to the theme of this present article, the speculative inquiry into the nature of essence and phenomenality deviated from the orientation that Aristotle initially imputed to that study, evolving in a philosophical milieu whose theoretical propensity was predominantly transcendental. This article, then, focuses on the problematic of essential identity in the Western transcendental tradition, and, more particularly, seeks to contrast and compare the essence of the transcendental philosophers against the ousia of Aristotle's metaphysic. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper aims at contributing to the ongoing efforts to get a firmer grasp of the systematic significance of the entanglement of idealism and empiricism in Helmholtz's work. Contrary to existing analyses, however, the focal point of the present exposition is Helmholtz's attempt to articulate a psychological account of objectification. Helmholtz's motive, as well as his solution to the problem of the object are outlined, and interpreted against the background of his scientific practice on the one hand, and that (...) of empiricist and (transcendental) idealist analyses of experience on the other. The specifically psychological angle taken, not only prompts us to consider figures who have hitherto been treated as having only minor import for Helmholtz interpretation (most importantly J.S. Mill and J.G. Fichte), it furthermore sheds new light on some central tenets of the latter's psychological stance that have hitherto remained underappreciated. For one thing, this analysis reveals an explicit voluntarist tendency in Helmholtz's psychological theory. In conclusion, it is argued that the systematic significance of Helmholtz's empirico-transcendentalism with respect to questions of the mind is best understood as an attempt to found his empirical theory of perception in a second order, normative account of epistemic subjectivity. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. The article examines the interconnection between the philosophy of nature and the political philosophy of the transcendentalists R. W. Emerson and H. D. Thoreau. For these thinkers, political philosophy was intrinsically linked to their understanding of nature, which they considered the foundation for comprehending social and political processes. Both transcendentalists emphasized the importance of unity with nature as a key factor in personal development. They regarded individual growth as the cornerstone (...) for positive societal changes, with particular attention given to individualism. Their support for the actions of J. Brown exemplified the practical realization of the ideas of political idealism and transcendentalism. In their view, the primary aim of government should be to promote individuality and improve the conditions of human existence, which led them to actively oppose the system of slavery. M e t h o d s. A comprehensive methodological approach was employed to analyze the political philosophy of R. W. Emerson and H. D. Thoreau in the context of their philosophy of nature. This included general scientific methods, historical-philosophical methods, and specific techniques, such as the hermeneutic approach. Additionally, the method of historical reconstruction was used to highlight the socio-political context of their ideas. R e s u l t s. The study revealed the deep integration of Emerson's and Thoreau's political philosophy into their concept of nature, as well as its connection to the socio-political conditions of their era. American transcendentalism occupies a unique place not only in the history of early American philosophy but also within the broader scope of English-speaking philosophy. It blended German idealism, Neoplatonism, and Eastern mysticism, forming a distinctive eclectic doctrine that offered a unique perspective on nature, human nature, rights and freedoms, education, physical labor, individualism, and collectivism. American transcendentalism directly and indirectly influenced the development of American pragmatism, as evidenced in the works of pragmatists such as J. Dewey, C. S. Peirce, and W. James. Its influence is also evident in the literary heritage of H. Melville, N. Hawthorne, W. Irving, and others. C o n c l u s i o n s. The political philosophy of R. W. Emerson and H. D. Thoreau was grounded in their understanding of natural laws, the importance of civic education and education in general, unity with nature, and respect for the individual. They regarded slavery as an unnatural social order, opposition to which they considered a moral duty for citizens aspiring to build a harmonious society. (shrink)

This research examines the ethical dimensions of ethical thought aimed at reflecting fundamentals or leading principles of the production and reproduction of knowledge in science and tertiary education. To achieve research goals, the author of this article evaluates the key assumption that statements in the ethics of science and education are transcendental but do not require a reference to a transcendental or metaphysical subject. The author adheres to the stances by Wittgenstein and Moore and defines ethics in terms of the (...) general inquiry into what is good. The ways of forming ethical statements are compared with the main provisions of Merton’s theory of scientific ethos and its effects on the understanding patterns of the production and reproduction of knowledge. A comparison of general types of ethical inquiry and the theory of scientific ethos helps to present the theory of scientific ethos in terms of middle-range ethical theory. The comparison of transcendental statements in ethics and the points of the theory of scientific ethos is related to the issues of the philosophy of education. The relation is due to the exploring the forms and bases of reproduction of scientific society through tertiary education. The production of knowledge in science generates forms of judgments while education reproduces their ethically acceptable patterns of obtaining and applying. As a result, ethical transcendentalism without reference to a transcendental subject inevitably emphasizes the dialogical design of teaching. This design includes diversification of norms and values in science. Diversity as such ensures collective methods of decision-making and opposes any authoritarianism in education. (shrink)

In spite of the fact that the term ‘sexology’ was popularized in the United States by Elizabeth Osgood Goodrich Willard and that the term ‘sexual science’—which is usually attributed to Iwan Bloch as ‘Sexualwissenschaft’—was actually coined by the American phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler in 1852, the archives of American sexology have received scant attention in the period prior to Alfred Kinsey. In my article, I explore the role of Transcendentalism and phrenology in the production and development of American sexology (...) and sexual science. In particular, I argue that shifting the origins of sexology and sexual science away from Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Karl-Maria Kertbeny and the more familiar narratives of the German invention of sexuality furnishes a radically different account of early sexology and sexual science. Rather than the unevenly homophilic sympathies of early German activists, their American counterparts promote marital, reproductive, loving sex and vilify prostitution, polygamy, masturbation, contraception, sex for pleasure, and, if they think to mention it, sodomy. In addition to this less progressive story, however, I argue that early American sexologists provide the first theories of gender and help to provide a fuller description of the politics of sexology and sexual science. (shrink)

Part I is concerned with the tenet of modern Emperical Realism that while the theoretical concepts employed in science obtain their meanings entirely from the connections their usage establishes with the data language, the referents of such terms may be "unobservables," that is, entities which cannot be discussed within the data language alone. Such a view avoids both the restrictive excesses of logical positivism and the epistemic laxity of transcendentalism; however, it also necessitates a break with classical semantics, for (...) it follows from the empirical realistic position that a theoretical term must in principle be capable of simultaneously designating not just one entity, but indefinitely many. Drawing upon the Carnapian explication of "analytic truth," Part II examines a possible axiomatic basis for the empiricist theory of scientific meaningfulness to demonstrate that even if theoretical terms are able to designate entities inaccessible to the observation language, as held by Empirical Realism, so long as the meanings of theoretical terms derive from their connections with the observation language, the meaning content of a theory is exhausted by its observational consequences. (shrink)

Norbert Wiener’s idea of “cybernetics” is linked to temporality as in a physical as in a philosophical sense. “Time orders” can be the slogan of that natural cybernetics of time: time orders by itself in its “screen” in virtue of being a well-ordering valid until the present moment and dividing any totality into two parts: the well-ordered of the past and the yet unordered of the future therefore sharing the common boundary of the present between them when the ordering is (...) taking place by choices. Thus, the quantity of information defined by units of choices, whether bits or qubits, describes that process of ordering happening in the present moment. The totality (which can be considered also as a particular or “regional” totality) turns out to be divided into two parts: the internality of the past and the externality of the future by the course of time, but identifiable to each other in virtue of scientific transcendentalism (e.g. mathematical, physical, and historical transcendentalism). A properly mathematical approach to the “totality and time” is introduced by the abstract concept of “evolutionary tree” (i.e. regardless of the specific nature of that to which refers: such as biological evolution, Feynman trajectories, social and historical development, etc.), Then, the other half of the future can be represented as a deformed mirror image of the evolutionary tree taken place already in the past: therefore the past and future part are seen to be unifiable as a mirrorly doubled evolutionary tree and thus representable as generalized Feynman trajectories. The formalism of the separable complex Hilbert space (respectively, the qubit Hilbert space) applied and further elaborated in quantum mechanics in order to uniform temporal and reversible, discrete and continuous processes is relevant. Then, the past and future parts of evolutionary tree would constitute a wave function (or even only a single qubit once the concept of actual infinity be involved to real processes). Each of both parts of it, i.e. either the future evolutionary tree or its deformed mirror image, would represented a “half of the whole”. The two halves can be considered as the two disjunctive states of any bit as two fundamentally inseparable (in virtue of quantum correlation) “halves” of any qubit. A few important corollaries exemplify that natural cybernetics of time. (shrink)

The paper considers a generalization of Peano arithmetic, Hilbert arithmetic as the basis of the world in a Pythagorean manner. Hilbert arithmetic unifies the foundations of mathematics (Peano arithmetic and set theory), foundations of physics (quantum mechanics and information), and philosophical transcendentalism (Husserl’s phenomenology) into a formal theory and mathematical structure literally following Husserl’s tracе of “philosophy as a rigorous science”. In the pathway to that objective, Hilbert arithmetic identifies by itself information related to finite sets and series and (...) quantum information referring to infinite one as both appearing in three “hypostases”: correspondingly, mathematical, physical and ontological, each of which is able to generate a relevant science and area of cognition. Scientific transcendentalism is a falsifiable counterpart of philosophical transcendentalism. The underlying concept of the totality can be interpreted accordingly also mathematically, as consistent completeness, and physically, as the universe defined not empirically or experimentally, but as that ultimate wholeness containing its externality into itself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Cheryl Misak has offered a pragmatic argument against a position she calls Scientific transcendentalists hold that truth is something different from what would be believed at the end of inquiry; more specifically, they adhere to a correspondence theory of truth. Misak thinks scientific transcendentalists thereby undermine the connection between truth and inquiry, for (a) pragmatically speaking, it adds nothing to truth and inquiry to ask whether what would be the results of sufficiently rigorous inquiry are really true (...) and (b) they can only accept it as an article of faith that inquiry leads us to truth. I defend against Misak’s objections. (shrink)

Kant’s transcendental philosophy of Kant is the metaphysics of possible experience related to the solution of the [semantic] problem set in his famous letter to M. Hertz (02.21.1772): “What is the ground of the relation of that in us which we call 'representation' to the object?” There are two possible ways to solve it: empiricism and apriorism, – and Kant chooses the second of them, thus making his “Copernican Revolution”. In the Preface to the 2nd ed. Critique Kant correlates his (...) Copernican turn/revolution with "altered method of our way of thinking [in metaphysics]" [BXVIII] and considers it as an analogue of the hypothetico-deductive scientific method of Copernicus – Galileo – Newton. The analysis of structure of the Copernican Revolution shows that it is possible to pick out two vectors: the empirical (from the thing-in-itself to representations) and the noumenal ones (from the transcendental unity of apperception [or transcendental object] to objects of experience). The introduction of an a priori vector (resp. a priori forms) means that Kant's conception is not empirical, but Kant’s keeping empirical vector says that it is compatible with empirical realism [A370–1]. Thus, Kantian transcendentalism is a synthesis of realism (basic level) and transcendental idealism (as a meta-level superstructure above it), whose task is to find out and analyze the transcendental conditions [possibility] of our knowledge of objects. (shrink)

The paper discusses the origin of dark matter and dark energy from the concepts of time and the totality in the final analysis. Though both seem to be rather philosophical, nonetheless they are postulated axiomatically and interpreted physically, and the corresponding philosophical transcendentalism serves heuristically. The exposition of the article means to outline the “forest for the trees”, however, in an absolutely rigorous mathematical way, which to be explicated in detail in a future paper. The “two deductions” are two (...) successive stage of a single conclusion mentioned above. The concept of “transcendental invariance” meaning ontologically and physically interpreting the mathematical equivalence of the axiom of choice and the well-ordering “theorem” is utilized again. Then, time arrow is a corollary from that transcendental invariance, and in turn, it implies quantum information conservation as the Noether correlate of the linear “increase of time” after time arrow. Quantum information conservation implies a few fundamental corollaries such as the “conservation of energy conservation” in quantum mechanics from reasons quite different from those in classical mechanics and physics as well as the “absence of hidden variables” (versus Einstein’s conjecture) in it. However, the paper is concentrated only into the inference of another corollary from quantum information conservation, namely, dark matter and dark energy being due to entanglement, and thus and in the final analysis, to the conservation of quantum information, however observed experimentally only on the “cognitive screen” of “Mach’s principle” in Einstein’s general relativity. therefore excluding any other source of gravitational field than mass and gravity. Then, if quantum information by itself would generate a certain nonzero gravitational field, it will be depicted on the same screen as certain masses and energies distributed in space-time, and most presumably, observable as those dark energy and dark matter predominating in the universe as about 96% of its energy and matter quite unexpectedly for physics and the scientific worldview nowadays. Besides on the cognitive screen of general relativity, entanglement is available necessarily on still one “cognitive screen” (namely, that of quantum mechanics), being furthermore “flat”. Most probably, that projection is confinement, a mysterious and ad hoc added interaction along with the fundamental tree ones of the Standard model being even inconsistent to them conceptually, as far as it need differ the local space from the global space being definable only as a relation between them (similar to entanglement). So, entanglement is able to link the gravity of general relativity to the confinement of the Standard model as its projections of the “cognitive screens” of those two fundamental physical theories. (shrink)

Although the name of Immanuel Kant has survived in the history of culture as the name of one of the greatest philosophers of modern times, Kant's role as a scientist is also very important. His work in the field of cosmology and physics is directly related to philosophy. Kant's development of the transcendental method was a direct result of thinking about the relationship between mathematics and experiment. Transcendentalism and Kant's theory of subjectivity continue the development of physics from Galileo (...) to Newton and Leibniz. This is especially true of his theory of space and time. All this should have turned transcendental aesthetics into a turning point in the development of mathematical natural science. However, in practice, the alienation of the natural sciences from philosophy has only intensified. An analysis of the scientific revolution at the beginning of the 20th century shows the enormous role of Kant's ideas in it in repulsing scientists from Kantianism. Weinert, a researcher of the relationship of 20th century physics to Kant's philosophy, shows that Einstein, being a Kantian as a philosopher, opposed Kantianism as a physicist. He enthusiastically accepted the Kantian idea of the autonomy of theoretical knowledge, but did not accept the concept a priori. An approach in which experience and theory do not precede each other, but are in constant interaction, is defined in the article as experimental transcendentalism. With the methodological difference between physics and philosophy, the concept of space and time in modern physics has a deep similarity with the transcendental doctrine. The definition of the qualitative structure of space (Analysis Situs), including the theoretical substantiation of its three dimensions, was the subject of reflections of scientists from Galileo, Leibniz and Kant to Einstein and Poincaré. (shrink)

E. O. Wilson's fundamental challenge is to bring knowledge and sensibility into an effective working relationship. Both ambivalence and opaqueness characterize his analysis of religion. Ambivalence refers to his conviction on the one hand that religion is essential for societal well‐being and genetically resourced and his prediction, on the other hand, that religion will be superseded by scientific reason; the opaqueness refers to his strange insistence that religion be subjected to tests of literal facticity, whereas, in contrast, the arts (...) are exempted from this test, because they constitute a delivery system that impacts the sensibilities directly, with no particular concern for literalness. Wilson's analysis of religion should be brought into consonance with his view of the arts, thereby recognizing the importance of myth, symbol, metaphor, and analogy in religious formulations and their status as direct delivery systems to the sensibilities. Wilson's distinction between empiricist/materialist and transcendentaliist worldviews is reshaped by distinguishing between metaphysical and methodological transcendentalism. This reshaping enables us to recognize how the action required by human existence depends both on scientific knowledge and symbolic formulations that extend to human action, even though certain knowledge is lacking. (shrink)

From April 21 to April 23, 2022, the 7th annual International Scientific Conference “The Transcendental Turn in Contemporary Philosophy: Epistemology, Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence” was held in Moscow. Traditionally, transcendental workshops present three main lines of transcendentalism, which go back to I. Kant's own transcendental idealism, neo-Kantianism, and phenomenology. In 2022, the Kantian and neo-Kantian days of the seminar were associated with the development of the ideas of cognitive science, transcendental epistemology, artificial intelligence and transcendental philosophy of (...) science, and as part of the phenomenological day, the issue of the role of reflection in the structure of cognitive activity was discussed in detail. (shrink)

Throughout his career, William James defended personal consciousness. In his Principles of Psychology (1890), he declared that psychology is the scientific study of states of consciousness as such and that he intended to presume from the outset that the thinker was the thought. But while writing it, he had been investigating a dynamic psychology of the subconscious, which found a major place in his Gifford Lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience in 1902. This was the clearest statement (...) James was able to make before he died with regard to his developing tripartite metaphysics of pragmatism, pluralism and radical empiricism, which essentially asked ‘Is a science of consciousness actually possible?’ James’s lineage in this regard, was inherited from an intuitive psychology of character formation that had been cast within a context of spiritual self-realization by the Swedenborgians and Transcendentalists of New England. Chief among these was his father, Henry James, Sr, and his godfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson. However, James was forced to square these ideas with the more rigorous scientific dictates of his day, which have endured to the present. As such, his ideas remain alive and vibrant, particularly among those arguing for the fusion of phenomenology, embodiment and cognitive neuroscience in the renewed search for a science of consciousness. (shrink)

We establish a connection between T. Kuhn’s philosophy of science and a Wittgensteinian contextual realism, as we understand it, and interpret the basic concepts of the former in terms of the latter. In particular, we interpret the notion of a scientific paradigm in terms of the notion of a form of life. For instance, we speak of Newtonian and quantum mechanics as grammars of the corresponding forms of life. The incommensurability of paradigms is due to the adoption of different (...) norms (grammars). It is not absolute, as grammatical statements can change their status and become factual, and vice versa. Norms themselves evolve. We support Kuhn’s argument against Popper’s falsification principle with our interpretation of an established scientific theory as a Wittgensteinian norm (rule) for measuring reality. The norm is neither true nor false; its falsification makes no sense. We interpret Wittgenstein’s notion of a family resemblance, used by Kuhn, as the presence of a shared explicit or implicit Wittgensteinian rule (norm). We interpret Kuhn’s historical examples, in particular those with the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus, relativity theory and quantum mechanics, and Kuhn’s view that participants in different paradigms see the world differently and that observation depends on theory, in terms of our thesis that ontology is sensitive to context. We thus resist the relativistic and constructivist interpretations of Kuhn’s position and show why it does not contradict the idea of scientific progress and the principle of correspondence between scientific theories. We also briefly compare Kuhn’s position with those of I. Lakatos, H. Chang (pragmatic realism) and J. MacFarlane (evaluative relativism), and compare our interpretation of Kuhn with his interpretation in terms of a naturalized transcendentalism proposed by M. Massimi. (shrink)

In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's The American Scholar , this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of (...) American philosophy over the past few decades. Giovanna Borradori, in her substantial introduction, explains the history of the analytic movement in America and the home-grown reaction against it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American philosophy was a socially engaged interdisciplinary enterprise. In transcendentalism and pragmatism, then the dominant currents in American thought, philosophy was connected to history, psychology, and public issues. But in the 1930s, the imported European movement of logical positivism redefined philosophical discourse in terms of mathematical logic and theory of language. Under the influence of this analytic view, American philosophy became a professionalized discipline, divorced from public debate and intellectual history and antagonistic to the other, more humanistic tradition of continental thought. The American Philosopher explores the opposition between analytic and continental thought and shows how recent American work has begun to bridge the gap between the two traditions. Through a reexamination of pragmatism, and through an attempt to understand philosophy in a more hermeneutical way, the participants narrow the distance between America's distinctly scientific philosophy and Europe's more literary approach. Moving beyond classical analytic philosophy, the participants confront each other on a number of topics. The logico-linguistic orientations of Quine and Davidson come up against the more discursive, interdisciplinary agendas of Rorty, Putnam, and Cavell. Nozick's theory of pluralist anarchism goes face-to-face with the aesthetic neo-foundationalism of Danto. And Kuhn's hypothesis of paradigm shifts is measured against MacIntyre's ethics of "virtues." Borradori's conversations offer an unconventional portrait of the way philosophers think about their work scholars and students will not be its only beneficiaries, so will everyone who wonders about the current state of American philosophy. (shrink)

TGiulio Preti, born in Pavia (Italy) in 1911 and dead in Djerba (Tunisia) in 1972, represents one of the most subtle Italian thinkers of the latter half of the twentieth century. After graduating in 1933 discussing a thesis about The Husserl’s historical significance, he connected more and more to the Antonio Banfi’s lesson of critical rationalism and he elected him as his master. Starting from Banfi’s The principles of a reason theory (1927), Preti studied in depth the program of historization (...) of the Kantian transcendental both in books such as Idealism and positivism (1942), and in Praxis and empiricism (1957), in Rhetoric and logic (1968), and then in his numerous essay studies, later collected in fundamental posthumous volumes, Philosophical essays (1976, 2 vol.). Preti’s decisive problem is the following question: how is it possible to historicize human knowledge without a relativization? According to Preti, in order to answer this question, it is necessary to acknowledge the objectivity of scientific knowledge. The objective knowledge mustn’t be confused with an absolute knowledge or, least of all, with a subjective, or toutcourt relative, knowledge. Therefore it is necessary to avoid either opposite poles, but specular, in which the different epistemologicaltraditions of the last century are, on the contrary, stopped. In Preti’s opinion, the objectivity of knowledge arises from the eidetic, linguistic and operative structures, within the limits of which develops a determinate form of human scientific knowledge. In other words: every scientific knowledge, structured into a particularscientific theory and relating to a particular technological heritage, consists of a precise theoretical-practical horizon, that determines, with Husserl’s words, a specific “ontological region”, or, with Bachelard’s words, a specific “ontogenesis”. So Preti recovers the heuristic rule of the Kant’s transcendental reason. Nevertheless, unlike Kant, Preti believes the aprioristic structures of our ideas always have a conventional and historical foundation. In this way, the Kantian a priori changes into an historical and relativistic a priori. Certainly in Kant’s opinion an historical and relativistic a priori would have looked like a “round-square”, an authentic contradiction, a pure logical impossibility. According to Preti, on the contrary, this paradoxical aspect is the true distinctive feature of scientificknowledge objectivity, which has no more any eternal or absolute value, but is always built by men born to die and is always bound to determinate historical forms of civilization. Starting from these assumptions, Preti builds, in this way, a research programme on the possibility to individualize a form of “critic ontologism”, which hasn’t any more connection with the claims and the traditional metaphysical structures of the “Being qua Being”. On the contrary, Preti thinks the only “being” we can rationally talk about is the one constituted within the different cognitive ambits. Philosophy then must be able to develop a “meta-reflection” on different knowledge elaborated by single sciences. According to Preti, in fact, philosophy is the formality of human culture, it is, in other words, a form of self-reflection by the human culture about itself. Therefore philosophy has no more any privileged subject, but it must be always able to reflect, with great theoretical humility, on the different cognitive forms, in order to study languages, structures, methods, extension and limits of the human knowledge. In this way Preti’s “critic ontologism” is a kind of historical-objective transcendentalism, able to study the different configurations of the technical-scientific heritage produced by mankind during his history. (shrink)

A precise and poetic argument for the renewal of transcendental philosophy. The great poets and thinkers of modernity described a situation we still inhabit today: the catastrophic undermining of all foundations, the disorienting relativization of all reference points, the prospect of abandonment to chance and contingency alone--the shipwreck of Mallarmé's Coup de dés. In this precise and poetic work of philosophy, Gabriel Catren sketches out a new "phenoumenodelic" solution to this momentous ungrounding, defiantly refusing both unrestrained contingency and arbitrary refoundation. (...) Mobilizing a formidable knowledge of the major currents of modern thought, deftly articulating Kantian transcendentalism and Spinozan immanentism, phenomenological reduction and scientific realism, Catren argues that the projects oriented by the infinite ideas of reason (Truth, Beauty, Justice, Love) need not be abandoned in the face of the "exquisite crisis" of modernity. Instead, the "shipwreck" is to be understood as a suspension of finite subjectivity in the fullness of a "phenoumenodelic pleroma," an atonal milieu ringing with unheard-of possibilities. Announcing an ambitious program for the renewal of transcendental philosophy, in Pleromatica Catren recomposes the primary elements of modern thought into a startling new configuration, introducing a vivid constellation of new concepts with which to map out and navigate the vast space of this "worldless daydream. (shrink)

Many people think that the capacity for criticism and reflection, as well as the attitude of welcoming contingency, the other, and debate, is some internal and well-intentioned energy of open-minded people, as advocated by liberals, whether from the right or the left. What they don’t realize is how much the capacity for reflection and dialogue is an external phenomenon, present in the world itself, produced only thanks to a space of resistances, encounters, and even frustrations, as in the academic and (...) scientific sphere. It prevents my cogito and my precious epistemic schemes from getting out of control, in a dangerous transcendentalist delirium, and taking over the world and the circumstances themselves. The aim of this essay is precisely to understand this aesthetic dimension of science, this ontological feature that crosses its contours, taking as a starting point the concepts of “importance” in Whitehead and “matters of concern” in Bruno Latour. (shrink)

Realism is multiply ambiguous. The central concern of Part 1 of this paper is to distinguish several of its many senses — four (Theoretical Realism, Cumulative Realism, Progressive Realism and Optimistic Realism) in which it refers to theses about the status of scientific theories, and five (Minimal Realism, Ambitious Absolutism, Transcendentalism, Nidealism, Scholastic Realism) in which it refers to theses about the nature of truth or truth-bearers. Because Realism has these several, largely independent, senses, the conventional wisdom that (...) Tarski's theory of truth supports realism, and that the Meaning-Variance thesis undermines it, needs re-evaluation. The concern of the rest of the paper is to sort out in which senses the conventional wisdom, with respect to Tarski's theory (Part 2) and the Meaning-Variance thesis (Part 3), is correct. (shrink)

In this article I take on the “Transcendentalist Challenge” to naturalized phenomenology, highlighting how the ontological and methodological commitments of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy point in the direction of an integration of the transcendental and the scientific, thus making room for a productive exchange between philosophy and psychological science when it comes to understanding consciousness and its place in nature. Discussing various conceptions of naturalized phenomenology, I argue that what I call an “Integrationist View” is required if we are to make (...) sense of the possibility of productive exchange between phenomenology and the sciences. My main argument is that if we conceive of consciousness as a structure of behavior ontologically prior to the distinctions between objectivity and subjectivity and third- and first-person perspectives, we arrive at a view of the transcendental as not essentially separate from the domain of science, but rather as contingent organizational norms of empirical nature that are best illuminated through a dialectical exchange between phenomenological and scientific approaches. I end by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the “Schneider case” in an example of such an integration. (shrink)

: This paper discusses the origins of two key notions in Foucault's work up to and including The Archaeology of Knowledge. The first of these notions is the notion of "archaeology" itself, a form of historical investigation of knowledge that is distinguished from the mere history of ideas in part by its unearthing what Foucault calls "historical a prioris". Both notions, I argue, are derived from Husserlian phenomenology. But both are modified by Foucault in the light of Jean Cavaillès's critique (...) of Husserl's theory of science. On Husserl's view, we demand that propositions holding of scientific objects be intersubjective and invariant, but this demand conflicts with our immediate experience, which is essentially bound to a subject's perspective. Thus the mathematical and physical sciences must utilise formal languages to fix these truths independently of the thoughts of a particular subject. This necessary procedure leads to the sedimentation of these formal systems: we forget their source in the concrete experiences of individuals, and use them as purely technical means. The technique of reactivating the intentional acts in which sedimented formal systems originated is thus, in Fink's terminology, an archaeological method. Foucault and Cavaillès retain the general outlines of this archaeology of the sciences, but they reject its appeal to conscious acts of meaning, to what Cavaillès calls "the philosophy of consciousness". I conclude by discussing the implicit difficulties in the "linguistic transcendentalism" proposed as an alternative by these French critics of Husserl. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore where and why religious naturalism differs from its rivals, and also to consider some of the challenges religious naturalism faces. I argue that religious naturalism is best conceived as a reaction against both theists who are religious and naturalists who are atheists: the best option is taken to be a naturalist who is religious. Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to say more exactly what claims the view contains. In fact, it is argued, (...) three forms of religious naturalism must be distinguished and contrasted with their rivals, which are taken to be non-religious naturalism, scientific naturalism, theism (including panentheism), divine transcendentalism, religious agnosticism, and religious relativism. (shrink)

A brief historical comment on scientific knowledge as Socratic ignorance -- Some critical comments on the text of this book, particularly on the theory of truth Exposition [1933] -- Problem of Induction (Experience and Hypothesis) -- Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge -- Formulation of the Problem -- The problem of induction and the problem of demarcation -- Deductivtsm and Inductivism -- Comments on how the solutions are reached and preliminary presentation of the solutions -- Rationalism and (...) empiricism-deductivism and inductivism -- The possibility of a deductivist psychology of knowledge -- The Problem of Induction -- The infinite regression (Hume's argument) --The inductivist positions -- The Normal-Statement Positions -- The normal-statement positions: naive inductivism, strict positivism and apriorism -- Critique of strict positivism - twofold transcendence of natural laws -- The transcendental method - presentation of apriorism -- Critique of apriorism -- Kant and Fries -- Supplement to the critique of apriorism. (Psychologism and transcendentalism in Kant and Fries.-On the question of the empirical basis.) -- Probability Positions -- The probability positions - subjective belief in probability -- Statements about the objective probability of events -- Probability as an objective degree of validity of universal empirical statements -- One way of more closely defining the concept of the probability of a hypothesis (primary and secondary probability of hypotheses). The concept of simplicity -- The concept of the corroboration of a hypothesis - positivist, pragmatist and probabilistic interpretations of the concept of corroboration -- The infinite regression of probability statements -- Pseudo-Statement Positions -- The pseudo-statement positions: new formulation of the problem -- Natural laws as "instructions for the formation of statements" -- "True - false" or "useful - useless"? Consistent pragmatism --Difficulties of consistent pragmatism -- Tool and schema as purely pragmatic constructs -- Natural laws as propositional functions -- Conventionalism -- The pseudo-statement positions will temporarily be put away: conventionalism -- The three interpretations of axiomatic systems. (The circle of problems surrounding conventionalism) -- Conventionalist implicit and explicit definitions Propositional function and propositional equation -- Conventionalist propositional equations as tautological general implications -- Can axiomatic-deductive systems also be understood as consequence classes of pure propositional functions (of pseudo-statements)? -- The coordinative definitions of empiricism: synthetic general implications -- Conventionalist and empiricist interpretations, illustrated by the example of applied geometry -- Strictly Universal Statements and Singular Statements -- Implication and general implication -- General implication and the distinction between strictly universal and singular statements -- Universal concept and individual concept-class and element -- Strictly universal statements-the problem of induction and the problem of universals -- Comments on the problem of universals -- Back to the Pseudo-Statement Positions -- Return to the discussion of the pseudo-statement positions -- Symmetry or asymmetry in the evaluation of natural laws? -- The negative evaluation of universal statements. Critique of the strictly symmetrical interpretation of pseudo-statements -- An infinite regression of pseudo-statements -- An apriorist pseudo-statement position -- Interpretation of the critique up to this point; comments on the unity of theory and practice -- A last chance for the pseudo-statement positions -- Pseudo-Statement Positions and the Concept of Meaning -- The concept of meaning and logical positivism -- The concept of meaning and the demarcation problem-the fundamental thesis of inductivism -- Critique of the inductivist dogma of meaning -- Fully decidable and partially decidable empirical statements-the antinomy of the knowability of the world. (Conclusion of the critique of the pseudo-statement positions.) -- The dialectical and the transcendental corroboration of the solution -- Is the problem of induction solved? (shrink)

The relationship between phenomenology and the sciences is of complex nature. In particular, the transcendental phenomenological position seems to promote skeptical reservations about the scientific attitude. Phenomenological anthropology and psychology, however, are an exception. The work of the Spanish philosopher Javier San Martin addresses the relationship of Husserlian phenomenology to these two particular sciences. In this paper, the work of Navarrese will be revisited as an occasion to reflect on the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In the first (...) part, San Martin’s philosophical approach is presented and put in relation to its counterpart, namely ratiovitalism, which has dominated phenomenological research in the Spanish-speaking world throughout the last decades. The second part is devoted to the question of whether phenomenological transcendentalism is compatible with anthropological research. It also describes San Martin’s contribution to cultural philosophy. The relationship between phenomenology and psychology is discussed in the third part. San Martin develops a critical account of empiricist psychology which he confronts with his proposal for a ’posttranscendental’ psychology that is based on the critique of psychologism and representationalism. The last section compares San Martin’s idea of anthropological and psychological science with other forms of scientific theory which contribute to phenomenological methodology in empirical research. (shrink)

In his graceful philosophical account, Alfred I. Tauber shows why Thoreau still seems so relevant today—more relevant in many respects than he seemed to his contemporaries. Although Thoreau has been skillfully and thoroughly examined as a writer, naturalist, mystic, historian, social thinker, Transcendentalist, and lifelong student, we may find in Tauber's portrait of Thoreau the moralist a characterization that binds all these aspects of his career together. Thoreau was caught at a critical turn in the history of science, between the (...) ebb of Romanticism and the rising tide of positivism. He responded to the challenges posed by the new ideal of objectivity not by rejecting the scientific worldview, but by humanizing it for himself. Tauber portrays Thoreau as a man whose moral vision guided his life's work. Each of Thoreau's projects reflected a self-proclaimed "metaphysical ethics," an articulated program of self-discovery and self-knowing. By writing, by combining precision with poetry in his naturalist pursuits and simplicity with mystical fervor in his daily activity, Thoreau sought to live a life of virtue—one he would characterize as marked by deliberate choice. This unique vision of human agency and responsibility will still seem fresh and contemporary to readers at the start of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This paper considers the question whether the notion of the relative apriori, central to Michael Friedman’s transcendentalist programme for philosophy of science, is available also to philosophers who reject appeals to a synthetic a priori. After tracing the rediscovery of the relative a priori and delineating its potential, the question is considered whether Friedman’s arguments against Quinean naturalism and Carnap’s attenuated logicism tell against a conception of philosophy as scientific metatheory that combines logical and empirical inquiries. Finding an opening (...) here it is argued that this conception can also help itself to the notion of a relative a priori which, it is agreed, is central to historically informed theorising about science. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the relation between Kantian transcendental reflection and 20th century philosophy of science. As has been pointed out by Michael Friedman and others, the notion of a "relativized a priori" played a central role in Rudolf Carnap's, Hans Reichenbach's and other logical empiricists' thought. Thus, even though the logical empiricists dispensed with Kantian synthetic a priori judgments, they did maintain a crucial Kantian doctrine, viz., a distinction between the level of establishing norms for empirical inquiry and the level (...) of norm-governed inquiry itself. Even though Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions is often taken to be diametrically opposed to the received view of science inherited from logical empiricism, a version of this basically Kantian distinction is preserved in Kuhn's thought. In this respect, as Friedman has argued, Kuhn is closer to Carnap's theory of linguistic frameworks than, say, W.V. Quine's holistic naturalism. Kuhn, indeed, might be described as a "new Kant" in post-empiricist philosophy of science. This article examines, first, the relativization of the Kantian a priori in Reichenbach's work, arguing that while Reichenbach criticized "transcendentalism", he nevertheless retained, in a reinterpreted form, a Kantian-like transcendental method, claiming that the task of philosophy is to discover and analyze the presuppositions underlying the applicability of conceptual systems. Then, some reflections on Kuhn's views on realism are offered, and it is suggested that Kuhn can be reinterpreted as a Kantian transcendental idealist. Given the central importance of Kuhnian themes in contemporary philosophy of science, it is no exaggeration to claim that Kantian transcendental inquiry into the constitutive principles of empirical knowledge, and even transcendental idealism, still have a crucial role to play in this field and deserve further scrutiny. (shrink)

In the texts that presented the theoretical assumptions of the Parc de La Villette, Bernard Tschumi used a large number of terms that contradicted not only the traditional principles of composing architecture, but also negated the rules of social order and the foundations of Western metaphysics. Tschumi’s statements, which are a continuation of his leftist political fascinations from the May 1968 revolution, as well as his interest in the philosophy of French poststructuralism and his collaboration with Jacques Derrida, prove that (...) terms such as disruption, dissociation, disfunction, disjunctions and dispersion not only referred to architectural problems but also applied to political criticism and the deepest foundations of thinking itself. His collaboration with Derrida manifested itself primarily in the publication La Case Vide: La Villette, 1985, in which the architect’s design drawings and texts explaining his concepts related to the Park de La Villette were accompanied by an extensive essay by Derrida, which included theoretical problems taken up by Tschumi in a philosophical context. Architectural and philosophical issues were also combined during seven discussion meetings organised by Peter Eisenman, invited by Tschumi to collaborate on the design of the Parc de La Villette. Eisenman, who, like Tschumi, invited Derrida to participate in the design of the park and also led to the publication of Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, in which his ideas were confronted with Derrida’s philosophical text. In this case, Derrida’s essay was not a direct commentary on the architect’s concepts, but rather a reflection on the question of the chôra presented by Plato in Timaeus. During the discussion and in his essay, Derrida pointed out that the chôra is a component of the created world, yet it does not belong to it, but precedes it. The originality of the chôra is so radical that she also precedes all the factors of creating the world, including ideas and the Demiurge. Thus a thesis appeared in the metaphysics of the West that the chôra is a form of active abyss, in relation to which all beings are secondary, both those perfect (as ideas or God) and those created, such as the world, things, people or language. This leads to the conclusion that the chôra does not exist, because all existence is a derivative of the chôra. Nor could the chôra be described, since it is a form of developing a space that is preceded by a lack of space characteristic of the chôra. Derrida intended the chôra to be an instance with an exceptional degree of transcendentalism, an anti-metaphysical instance, but also an a-theological one. However, this attempt failed, both in the field of secular philosophy and in the field of theology. Derrida’s characteristics of the chôra to strengthen its transcendentalism and negation of metaphysics had to be expressed in a language that immediately produces new concepts and a new metaphysics that reproduces the categories of the beginning, the origin or the foundation known from earlier philosophical traditions. All forms of criticism of metaphysics are also inspired by negative, apophatic and mystical theology. The undermining of many concepts of permanent meaning and the introduction of new concepts of unstable meaning, characteristic of the philosophy of deconstruction, had many features of originality, but it was directed towards problems whose solutions repeat, with the use of new vocabulary, the findings known in culture since Democritus. Thus, if apophatic philosophy can be regarded as deconstruction avant la lettre, then deconstruction itself in its late versions began to take on the features of a new religion. The exchange of inspiration between theology and deconstruction was manifested in a series of scientific conferences and publications in which Derrida’s philosophical concepts were interpreted within the scope of religious thought. Theological threads began to be found in such concepts of deconstruction as différance or the chôra, while at the same time Derrida himself undertook in his philosophy to study problems such as the Other (L’Autre) or Impossible (Impossible), which belonged to newer theological traditions. As a consequence of the new problems, the deconstruction became closer to the features of a new religion. Philosophy, at least from Kant’s time, has tried to create a system that would take over from religion the tasks of setting moral and political goals. Similarly, Derrida has directed his interest towards the problems of democracy and ethics, which would enable their renewal. Attempts to create a new religion (cleared of old metaphors), a new community or a new democracy bring problems and threats which may be no less troublesome than the previous systems. All promises of freedom carry with them threats, the greater the more they strive for perfection. The renewal of existential orders, sometimes carried out by means of violent changes, is a certain repetitive feature of human cultures. Deep changes, however, do not protect against the return of both old gods and old demons. Tschumi and Derrida were shaped in their youth by the atmosphere of leftist rebellion against the moral and political limitations of ossified communities and the imperfections of democracy. The ethical theme distinguishes many of their works, including the Parc de La Villette. The opposition to the metaphysical traditions of philosophy and architecture contained in this park was prompted by specific political situations and resulted from bringing political issues to the level of philosophical considerations. Achievements made at the level of pure concepts were then subject to elevation, to a kind of sacralization, which made them religious concepts. The deconstruction reached for the stratus of the new religion especially when it found its followers and began to generate moral obligations. In the new situation, terms such as the chôra, l’autre or the Impossible were absolutized and in relation to them a cult and attitude of adoration emerged. The Parc de La Villtette then gained new post-secular meanings, which allow it to be assigned the function of a Temple of Otherness (L’Autre) and Impossible. (shrink)

The article examines the concept of utopia in its post-Marxist context. Since the 1970s—against the backdrop of the failures of May 68, the self-exposures of the USSR, and the decline of the workers’ movement, as well as in accordance with the immanent history of the logic of the history of philosophy itself—the concept of utopia has been running through new areas of meaning and is extremely dialectical in two modes: temporal and ontological. The first transforms utopia from never-being into “past”, (...) the second provides two inversions, considering it as 1) a dystopia, the other of utopia, which is declared to be the hidden truth of utopia; and — when it is fundamentally possible according to its own concept — 2) as impossible, in connection with which utopia and its concept return to the discourse as a kind of empty place around which modern pessimism circles, correctly believing that the future is unimaginable. The time of ends, from the end of the grand narratives of disappointed radicals (Lyotard) to the end of politics (see Rancière’s analysis), is, however, picked up by Marcuse, who suggests considering utopia as ahistorical. The author introduces this strange ahistorical or even anti-historicalism as historical, relying on the conceptualized phenomenon of the desynchronization of the “base” (the development of productive forces to the degree necessary for social revolution) and the “superstructure”, which runs into a limit, since it cannot represent the restrained base, which has broken out of the formational “scientific” logic. When Marcuse writes that a utopia in the strict sense can now be called a project that violates the laws of nature, he means the “impossible” into which utopia turns after the catastrophes of the 20th century, betraying the truth of its concept contained in the simple possibility of another world. More than 50 years after “The End of Utopia” and almost 30 years after the ontological turn in philosophy, we can say that utopia is still unimaginable — in the strict sense is what violates the laws of logic. This thesis opens up the possibilities of a new dialectic and its alliance with transcendentalism, which the author considers as a critique of plastic reason in the spirit of Malabou, constructing time and time again the assumptions-concepts that it needs and which are “practically necessary” according to Kant. (shrink)

: The concepts of intention and intentionality were particularly significant notions within the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic medieval philosophical traditions, and they regained philosophical importance in the twentieth century. The theories of intention and intentionality of the medieval Islamic philosopher and physician Ibn Sina and the phenomenological philosopher and mathematician Edmund Husserl are examined, compared, and contrasted here, showing that Ibn Sina's conception of intention is naturalistic and, in its naturalism, is influenced by the medical professional culture to which Ibn (...) Sina belonged. As well, Husserl's anti-naturalistic conception of intentionality is influenced by his background as a mathematician and by his desire to ground mathematics and the empirical sciences in a truly scientific philosophy. In conclusion, an argument is presented for the superiority of the Husserlian transcendentalist account of intentionality over the Avicennian naturalistic account, on the grounds that the latter falls prey to psychologism and reductionism, the two specters that according to Husserl must haunt all naturalistic accounts of consciousness. (shrink)

Together with other influential psychologists of the time, Wundt considers internal data as absolute evidence, grounding psychology on this assumption. In opposition to his former mentor, Külpe aims at rehabilitating Kant’s transcendental aesthetics. Yet, he is far from embracing transcendentalism and rejects Kant’s skepticism as to the possibility of a scientific psychology. Nevertheless, Külpe believes that Kant is right in considering internal data as unreliable for scientific purposes: accordingly, psychology should share the same scientific methodology of (...) any other science. (shrink)

One of the major themes of discussion in the art and especially the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries was the body rather than the soul. In the beginning this seemed to be the case mostly because of the natural processes related to the transforming events of maturation and death of the human body and mind. However, towards the end of the 18th century and well into the 19th century, a certain shift took place from the common perspective on (...) the body to a rather scientific literary approach. Our attempt is to notice and make the necessary connections between the concepts of nature (both human and external/physical nature) and the innovative technologies implemented in the then society, with a later reference to the new accidental and commercial facets of death felt as destruction of nature especially in the work of the American Romantic writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Being aware that they are highly spoken of in view of their transcendentalism as a particular philosophy dealing with the bond between man and nature, we will slowly come to terms with this type of concerns and connect them to the conflicting reality of industrialization as a sudden and repressive phenomenon within the society of men. Finally our point is that this very phenomenon caused the two writers to make a historical detour and use their formation as naturalist thinkers in order to make sense of their century’s deaths and diseases. This is to say that even from a Romantic perspective, the concern for the body is surprisingly concrete, while these writers’ transcendentalist concerns for the soul are prolix though without substance. (shrink)

The selections in this anthology provide original sources for an understanding of the development of American thought and society. The central theme of the book deals with the impact of modern science and scientific method upon thinkers from the time of Edwards to that of Dewey. Some philosophers responded by trying to limit the scope of science in order to protect their threatened moral and religious beliefs. Others tried to use science and scientific method to restructure common sense, (...) theology, metaphysics, morals, and even society itself. This volume presents the many diverse reactions, including the transcendentalism of Emerson, the pragmatism of Charles Peirce and William James, and the naturalism of Santayana and Dewey. Because the philosophers of this period felt that contemporary cultural issues were as much the province of philosophy as abstract theoretical questions, several selections reflect the impact of science on other areas of civilization, including religion, morals, law, education, and politics.Although the anthology focuses on leading American philosophers from the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, selections from Locke, Coleridge, and Spencer are also included because American thinkers have been profoundly influenced by their European masters and contemporaries. Professor White has provided a general preface and concise introductions on each of the philosophers represented. The anthology may be read independently or in conjunction with the editor’s SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT IN AMERICA: Philosophical Thought from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey – Publisher. (shrink)

In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's _The American Scholar_, this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of American (...) philosophy over the past few decades. Giovanna Borradori, in her substantial introduction, explains the history of the analytic movement in America and the home-grown reaction against it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American philosophy was a socially engaged interdisciplinary enterprise. In transcendentalism and pragmatism, then the dominant currents in American thought, philosophy was connected to history, psychology, and public issues. But in the 1930s, the imported European movement of logical positivism redefined philosophical discourse in terms of mathematical logic and theory of language. Under the influence of this analytic view, American philosophy became a professionalized discipline, divorced from public debate and intellectual history and antagonistic to the other, more humanistic tradition of continental thought. _The American Philosopher_ explores the opposition between analytic and continental thought and shows how recent American work has begun to bridge the gap between the two traditions. Through a reexamination of pragmatism, and through an attempt to understand philosophy in a more hermeneutical way, the participants narrow the distance between America's distinctly scientific philosophy and Europe's more literary approach. Moving beyond classical analytic philosophy, the participants confront each other on a number of topics. The logico-linguistic orientations of Quine and Davidson come up against the more discursive, interdisciplinary agendas of Rorty, Putnam, and Cavell. Nozick's theory of pluralist anarchism goes face-to-face with the aesthetic neo-foundationalism of Danto. And Kuhn's hypothesis of paradigm shifts is measured against MacIntyre's ethics of "virtues." Borradori's conversations offer an unconventional portrait of the way philosophers think about their work; scholars and students will not be its only beneficiaries, so will everyone who wonders about the current state of American philosophy. (shrink)

The central feature of the narrative structure of Collingwood’s The Idea of History is the pivotal role accorded to Bradley, evident in the table of contents and in the two discussions of him. Few readers have noticed that, confusingly, the book’s first discussion of Bradley is a revision of the Inaugural Lecture “The Historical Imagination,” which constitutes the book’s second discussion of Bradley . The differences between these two presentations of Bradley are significant. The 1935 account seeks to portray the (...) Bradley of the Presuppositions of Critical History as a Copernican revolutionary in historical thought, even though the neo-Kantian transcendentalism promoted in the Lecture had been the core of Collingwood’s approach to philosophy of history from the mid-1920s, many years before he encountered Bradley’s essay. By 1935 this transcendentalism was in the process of self-destructing because of inner contradictions. By 1936, once Collingwood’s narrative and his criticisms of Bradley left the 1935 claims unsustainable, Collingwood shifted attention to Bradley’s later works, in an unsuccessful attempt to sustain the notion of his originality . Hitherto neglected Collingwood manuscripts held in the Bodleian prove that by 1940 Collingwood recognized this, so that the prominence Knox gave to Bradley in his editing of the IH is demonstrably not in accord with Collingwood’s views and plans for The Idea of History. Knox’s much-disputed claim that there was a radical shift to historicism in the later Collingwood is, however, confirmed, clear proof being adduced that in the later 1930s the attempt transcendentally to deduce universal and necessary presuppositions of historical knowledge is abandoned for a radically historicist account, paralleled by a demotion of “critical history” as the final form of “history proper” in favor of “scientific history.”. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungAus der Sicht der offenen Transzendentalphilosophie kommt es weniger auf eine physikali‐stische Gesamttheorie der Welt an als auf eine Analyse der normativen Tätigkeiten, die wir in die‐ser ausüben. Es wird gezeigt, wie wir – vor allem auch in der Wissenschaft – selbst die Voraus‐setzungen schaffen, die es uns erlauben, aufgrund von Wertungen ausgewählte Ziele zu erreichen. Pragmatische Erwägungen bedingen in einer gegebenen Situation den Entschluss, einen bestimm‐ten Kontext abzugrenzen, indem wir die dazu erforderlichen Regeln annehmen. Dadurch erzeugen wir ein relatives (...) Apriori, das uns die Mittel liefert, um zwischen analytisch und synthetisch, zwischen Sprache und Theorie etc. zu unterscheiden.Die Methode führt zu einem pluralistischen Weltbild: Nach der Wahl der linguistischen und ontologischen Bestandteile kann die Wahrheitsfrage im Sinne Tarskis nur mehr intern geregelt werden, während sich rivalisierende Systeme als ganze allein aufgrund von pragmatischen Krite‐rien vergleichen lassen.Es werden die deskriptiven und normativen Aspekte der Begriffe des Wertes, der Norm und der Regel erörtert, um schliesslich auf die zentrale Rotle zu verweisen, die Konventionen als nicht der Willkür ausgesetzte, sondern rational begrundete Festlegungen in sämtlichen unseren Aktivitäten spielen.SummaryFollowing my conception of open transcendentalism philosophy is less concerned with a naturalistically conceived theory of the world than with the normative activities we display in this world. By our own cultural and intellectual presuppositions we create the means – scientific or others – required for the achievement of certain goals which have previously been accepted as valuable. Pragmatic considerations induce us to establish, in given situations, what 1 call contexts by adopting particular rules. We thus produce a pragmatically relativized apriori providing us with a clearcut distinction between the analytic and the synthetic, between language and theory etc.The method issues in a pluralistic world view: Once the matter concerning the choice of a linguistic system and an ontology is settled the question of truth in Tarski's sense can only be raised internally while theories as a whole are compared on purely pragmatic grounds.I discuss some descriptive and normative aspects regarding the notions of value, norm and rule in order to ascertain the primary role played by conventions in all our activities. I rid the word of the connotation of arbitrairiness often attached to it in Anglo‐Saxon philosophy by restricting its use to deliberate acts concerned with rationally justified decisions.ResumeSelon ma conception du transcendentalisme ouvert, la philosophic est moins concernée par la recherche?on;une théorie globale du monde, telle que la préconise le naturalisme, que par ľanalyse des activités normatives que nous exerçons dans celuici. Nous créons nous‐mêmes les présuppositions qui nous permettent?on;atteindre un but – scientifique ou autre – dont la valeur a été préalablement admise. Ce sont des délibérations de type pragmatique qui nous incitent, dans une situation donnée, àétablir – en acceptant des règies idoines – ce que j ‘appellerai un contexte. Nous produisons ainsi un a priori relatif dont les préceptes, admettant une distinction stride entre ľanalytique et le synthétique, la langue et la théorie etc., resteront en vigueur tant que le cadre conceptuel en question prévaudra.La méthode mène à une vision pluraliste du monde: Le choix des éléments linguistiques et ontologiques une fois accompli, la question de la vérité, conformément à la définition de Tarski, ne peut être posée que de manière interne, tandis que la comparaison de systèmes rivaux s'opérera àľaide de critères purement pragmatiques.Dans la dernière partie, j'évoque quelques aspects descriptifs et normatifs des concepts de valeur, de norme et de règie afin de dégager le rôle central des conventions dans nos activités culturelles. Je libère la notion de convention de toute connotation ayant trait àľarbitraire en lui conférant le sens?on;un decision rationnellement justifyée. (shrink)

Naturalism is the view that only the so-called Natural World that surrounds us exists and that it is knowable by means of general cognitive tools. This has consequences for epistemology, because it determines what is an object of knowledge and how it comes to be known. Epistemological naturalism can be either radical or moderate, granting a certain autonomy to the theory of knowledge with respect to science. The article defends the second position and shows that it justifies the existence of (...) certain problems whose discussion requires going beyond purely scientific data. Nevertheless, naturalized epistemology in any of its forms is incompatible with transcendentalism. (shrink)

Beginning with Emerson and the Transcendentalists, Americans have tended to view the unconscious as the psychological faculty through which individuals might come to experience a higher spiritual realm. On the whole, American psychologists see the unconscious as a symbol of harmony, restoration and revitalization, imbuing it with the capacity to restore peace between the individual and an immanent spiritual power. Americans and the Unconscious studies the symbolic dimensions of American psychology, tracing the historical development of the concept of the unconscious (...) from its early formulations in nineteenth-century theology through its elaboration by the major schools of contemporary academic psychology. In the process, it provides portraits of William James, early American "Freudians" and the "Neo-Freudians," New Psychology, and humanistic psychologies. Fuller draws attention to the ways in which the concept of the unconscious--while originating in the world of scientific discourse--symbolizes philosophical and religious interpretations of human nature, and shows how the "American unconscious" helps locate the development of psychological ideas within the broader contexts of American religious and intellectual history. (shrink)

The decline of Naturphilosophie deeply polarized the philosophical and scientific debate. Naturalistic–materialistic positions gained powerful influence, but the latent role of the Kantian critical position also re-emerged in the context of an “ideal-realism”. I will first consider in detail two opposing treatments of Kant’s perspective. After Lotze had criticized his earlier materialistic position, advising him to read Kant, Czolbe finally addressed Kant, thereby progressing to a non-materialistic form of naturalism. However, whether to defend or to dismiss naturalism, neither philosopher (...) addresses Kant as a transcendentalist thinker, and I go on to examine this common feature in their writings. This invites us to reconsider what exactly in Kant’s system conflicts with naturalism. Is transcendentalism too broad a requisite for that task? Within “ideal-realism”, the realist part actually implies a denial of transcendental idealism; still, it shows how a realism which refuses to be naturalism could well learn from Kant. (shrink)