German Idealism as Constructivism is the culmination of many years of research by distinguished philosopher Tom Rockmore—it is his definitive statement on the debate about German idealism between proponents of representationalism and those of constructivism that still plagues our grasp of the history of German idealism and the whole epistemological project today. Rockmore argues that German idealism—which includes iconic thinkers such as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel—can best be understood as a constructivist project, one that asserts (...) that we cannot know the mind-independent world as it is but only our own mental construction of it. Since ancient Greece philosophers have tried to know the world in itself, an effort that Kant believed had failed. His alternative strategy—which came to be known as the Copernican revolution—was that the world as we experience and know it depends on the mind. Rockmore shows that this project was central to Kant’s critical philosophy and the later German idealists who would follow him. He traces the different ways philosophers like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel formulated their own versions of constructivism. Offering a sweeping but deeply attuned analysis of a crucial part of the legacy of German idealism, Rockmore reinvigorates this school of philosophy and opens up promising new avenues for its study. (shrink)

Hegel's absolute idealism has proven to be one of the most controversial philosophical positions to characterize. The most abstract categories of essence are what Hegel calls the determinations of reflection, i.e. identity, difference and ground. Continuing his analysis of the determinations of essence, Hegel then discusses the notions of subsistence, relation and the whole and its parts and arrives at essence's determinations of “inner” and outer: the “inner” functions as ground of appearance and opposes the externality of reflection‐into‐other. In (...) actuality, there is no difference between ground and existence, between existence and essence: actuality is what it is, its existence is its essence, its essence its existence. Hegel sets out to show that the ultimate description of truth ‐ i.e. the concept ‐ creates, undermines, incorporates, and improves on any other relevant definition of truth. To achieve this, Hegel divides the Logic's description of metaphysical truth into three parts: Being, Essence, and the Concept. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Definition of Idealism Main Idealist Thinkers Absolute Idealism Vindicated (1) Phenomenalism (2) The Physical World as Imaginative Construction (3) The Purely Structural View of the Physical World (4) Panpsychism.

Vesey argues in his introduction that the history of idealism would be worth studying even if it turned out that there is no single sense of "idealism." Just to discover how the term "idea" has evolved in philosophical usage can elucidate the history of philosophy. The majority of the essays in this book focus on a single philosopher or school of philosophy, and so do not raise the problem of defining idealism in general. However, as each author (...) develops a working definition for his own historical purposes, several senses of "idealism" emerge. Most of these writers define idealism as the doctrine that all we can know are our ideas and the meaning of words and sentences, that truth consists of the coherence of our ideas, and that we cannot directly observe external reality as it is in itself Some writers adopt variations on this, either to the effect that objects exist for a subject or to the effect that objects are structured by a subject. Some authors interpret idealism as the view that truth is created by human activity and thought, one identifies idealism with mental monism, and two suggest that any use at all of the word "idea" as a philosophical first principle is enough to constitute an "idealism". There is an implicit attempt to cover most if not all major periods of idealist or allegedly idealist philosophy in this collection, including Greek skepticism, Descartes and Berkeley, Kant and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Marx, Bradley, linguistic relativism, and Wittgenstein. Some articles consider idealism in so far as it raises questions of epistemology and consciousness, others in so far as it raises questions of freedom, action, and will. However, there is no treatment of the role of idealism in mediaeval or modern religious philosophy, and there is no mention of the phenomenology of the lived body, which constitutes so much of the response of twentieth century philosophers to problems of idealism. (shrink)

A short definitive account of Keith Ward's theology, based on the philosophy of Personal Idealism. It records Ward's views about God, revelation, the kingdom of God, life after death, the incarnation, atonement, and Trinity. In summary, it is a concise and clear account of most central Christian doctrines, formed in the light of modern science and Idealist philosophy.

We argue that prevailing definitions of Berkeley’s idealism fail to rule out a nearby Spinozist rival view that we call ‘mind-body identity panpsychism.’ Since Berkeley certainly does not agree with Spinoza on this issue, we call for more care in defining Berkeley’s view. After we propose our own definition of Berkeley’s idealism, we survey two Berkeleyan strategies to block the mind-body identity panpsychist and establish his idealism. We argue that Berkeley should follow Leibniz and further develop (...) his account of the mind’s unity. Unity—not activity—is the best way for Berkeley to establish his view at the expense of his panpsychist competitors. (shrink)

In this chapter, I show that there is at least one crucial, non-short, argument, which does not involve arguments about spatiotemporality, why Kant’s subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge, argued in the Transcendental Deduction, must lead to idealism. This has to do with the fact that given the implications of the discursivity thesis, namely, that the domain of possible determination of objects is characterised by limitation, judgements of experience can never reach the completely determined individual, i.e. the thing in (...) itself or the unlimited real, but only objects as objects of possible experience. As such, it can be shown by reference to a key argument from Kant, that Hegel’s famous criticism that Kant is not licensed, on the basis of his core arguments concerning the original-synthetic unity of apperception, to restrict our knowledge to appearances, is mistaken on purely systematic grounds. More specifically, I argue that idealism follows already from the constraints that the use of the categories, in particular the categories of quality, places on the very conceivability of things in themselves. My claim is that, although it is not only possible but also necessary to think things in themselves, it does not follow that by merely thinking them we have a full grasp of the nature of things in themselves, as some important commentators claim we have. We must therefore distinguish between two kinds of conceiving of things in themselves: conceiving in the standard sense of ‘forming the notion of’, and conceiving in the narrow sense of ‘having a determinate intellectual grasp’. So although we must be able notionally to think things in themselves, as the grounds of their appearances, we cannot even conceive, through pure concepts, of how they are in themselves in any determinate, even if merely intellectual, sense. To put it differently, we cannot have a positive conception of things in themselves (this is in line with Kant’s distinction between noumena in the negative and positive senses; cf. B307–9). For support, I resort to a much overlooked chapter in the Critique, concerning the transcendental Ideal, where Kant discusses what it is for a thing to be a thing in itself proper, namely, something that is thoroughly determined. This concerns the real ontological conditions of things, which are not satisfied by the modal categories alone, namely, their existence conditions. I claim that the chief reason why, given Kant’s view of determinative judgement, we cannot determine a thing in itself is because of two connected reasons: (1) a thing in itself is already fully determined and therefore not further determinable and (2) we cannot possibly determine all of the thing’s possible determinations. In this context, I also discuss the notion of material (not: empirical) synthesis—of which Kant speaks in the chapter on the transcendental Ideal—which must be presupposed as the ground of the formal a priori synthesis that grounds possible experience. This material synthesis, which is an idea of reason that defines a thing as thoroughly determined with regard to all of its possible predicates and has mere regulative status, can by implication not be determined by the forms of the understanding, which synthesise only a limited set of predicates. As a result, given this definition of ‘thing in itself’, any object (appearance) as at best44 a limited set of determinations of the thing can never be numerically identical to the thing in itself as thoroughly determined individual. This undercuts a standard assumption about the identity relation between appearances and things in themselves in many contemporary interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

We are concerned with two modes of describing the dynamics of natural systems. Global descriptions require simultaneous global coordination of all dynamical operations. Global dynamics, including mechanics, remain invariant in the absence of external perturbation. But, failing impossible global coordination, dynamical operations could actually become coordinated only locally. In local records, as in global ones, the law of the excluded middle would be strictly observed, but without global coordination it could only be fullfilled sequentially by passing causative factors forward onto (...) subsequent contiguous operations.The local dynamics of sequential operations would be indefinite with regard to how commitments will be made which will avoid violating the law of the excluded middle, but any resulting record will be as definite as if there had been global coordination. While maintaining an agential capacity for making contingent choices internally, local dynamics could be cumulated into a global record of seemingly simultaneous operations. Natural selection within a framework of local dynamics would have a capacity for making opportunistic commitments, but its effects in a posterior record can be reduced to the mechanistic neodarwinian version as if there had been a global dynamics. However, the resulting global description falsifies the actual material nature of the dynamics. (shrink)

In this paper I shall suggest that philosophy which bases itself firmly inlife is incompatible with idealism. The example of such a philosophy to be discussed is the later work of Wittgenstein, and I shall define in what sense this is ‘based in life’, with particular reference to his concept of ‘Lebensform’, or ‘life-form’. I shall understand idealism to be, in general terms, the doctrine that idea is the primary, or the only, category of being. Various kinds of (...) idealism may then be distinguished according to the precise definition each gives of ‘idea’, and of the category, if any, which is held to be less fundamental. Thus, in brief, in Platonic idealism, absolute immaterial being is ontologically prior to the changing world given to sense-experience; in the idealistic systems of more modern thought, mind is more fundamental than matter; or again, subject, or spirit, is more fundamental than object. While the various systems of idealism are properly classed together so far as they assign priority to the concept idea , it is clear that they differ in their interpretations of the concept. When one has in mind these differences, it is of course misconceived to speak of idealism as a single doctrine; nevertheless, it is plausible to suppose that philosophers have been led to apply the term ‘idealism’ to various systems despite their differences, because there is indeed a common tendency of thought to be found in them. The present paper takes this supposition as a working hypothesis, with the particular aim of establishing that philosophy based in life is incompatible with philosophy based in idea, whatever be reasonably meant by ‘idea’. In brief my argument will be this: that life is no idea. (shrink)

Utilitarian ethics and metaphysical idealism, especially of a Bradleyan sort, are not usually thought of as natural allies. Yet when one considers that it is a crucial part of utilitarian doctrine that the only genuine value is experienced value and almost the definition of idealism that for it the only genuine reality is experienced reality one should surely suspect that the two views have a certain affinity. The essential impulse behind utilitarianism is the sense that the only (...) criterion of something really being intrinsically good is that it feels good. To the ordinary man to say that something feels good is much the same as saying that it is a pleasure, so that for him it is a small step from identifying good with what feels good to identifying it with pleasure. It suggests itself, then, that the utilitarian is essentially one who thinks that, so far as the good goes, esse ispercipi. In that case the utilitarian is an idealist about value. It does not follow that he should be an idealist about things in general, but it does suggest the converse, that the idealist about things in general might be expected to be a utilitarian in his ethics. (shrink)

There is an apparent tension between the open-ended aspect of the ordinal sequence and the assumption that the set-theoretical universe is fully determinate. This tension is already present in Cantor, who stressed the incompletable character of the transfinite number sequence in Grundlagen and avowed the definiteness of the totality of sets and numbers in subsequent philosophical publications and in correspondence. The tension is particularly discernible in his late distinction between sets and inconsistent multiplicities. I discuss Cantor’s contrasting views, and I (...) conclude that his account of that distinction is only tenable if the definiteness of the set-theoretical universe is rejected. (shrink)

In my paper I argue, relying on Kantian definitions and conceptual distinctions, the thesis that Kantian transcen-dental philosophy, which he characterizes as a second-order system of transcendental idealism, is not [empirical] idealism, but a form of realism (resp. compatible with empirical realism [A370-1]). As arguments in favor of this “realistic” thesis, I consistently develop a realistic interpretation of the Kant’s concept of appearance (the theory of “two aspects”), as well as of Kantian Copernican revolution, of his theory of (...) intuition as cognitive ability which 'giving' ‘us objects, of the concept of double affection and noumenal causality. (shrink)

Despite the significant amount of debate that Merleau-Ponty’s work has seen over the years, it remains an unresolved issue whether his phenomenology offers what he announces as a ‘new definition of the a priori’. In this paper, I make a case in favor of his claim by clarifying his commitments to the a priori against two dominant lines of interpretation, naturalist and Kantian. I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s view that the sciences themselves rely on the a priori method of Wesensschau (...) establishes his basic commitment to apriority. At the same time, Merleau-Ponty’s treatment of the a priori differs in important respects from the Kantian a priori and its transcendental idealist ramifications because, on his view, the subject is not the unique ground of constitution. Having tackled these obstacles to understanding Merleau-Ponty’s commitments to the a priori, I argue in light of his conception of ‘radical reflection’ that rather than being a static element of experience, the a priori stands in a dynamic relation with the a posteriori as a distinctive way of articulating structures of lived experience. (shrink)

One of the least intelligible things about German Idealism is what is meant by calling it “idealism.” The temptation is to suppose that it means that only minds and their states are real, or, more narrowly, that all direct knowledge is of mind or its states. Unfortunately, any such interpretation of German Idealism is ruled out. Each of the major classical German philosophers explicitly rejects both metaphysical and epistemological subjectivism. Worse, they reject it on the grounds that (...) it is incompatible with their self-proclaimed idealism. Such traces of subjectivism as can be found must be regarded as peripheral rather than definitive of German Idealism. (shrink)

Rāmānuja is known as a theistic ācārya who interpreted Brahmasūtras in Viśiṣṭādvaita point of view. He propounded his philosophy by refuting Kevāldvaita system of Śaṅkara. He criticized the existence and knowledge of indeterminate objects and refuted the concept of Nirviśeṣa Brahman. Therefore, Brahman for him is Saviśeṣa. The name Viśiṣṭādvaita itself signifies that it is Qualified Monism. Brahman is qualified by matter and soul. Matter and soul though real are completely dependent on Brahman for their existence. Hegel is a German (...) Philosopher who propounded Absolute Idealism. Hegel solved the problem of reality from a synthetic and positive point of view. Predecessors of Hegel were reflecting on Reality with one sided abstractions. Absolute is ultimately real for him. Hegel’s Absolute is not devoid of all objects and qualities. Absolute is inclusive of all the categories and all things of the world. Absolute is not abstract like Śaṅkara’s Brahman but it goes very much closer to Ramanuja’s Saviśeṣa Brahman. Thus, both these philosopher though differ in some principles which are very peculiar to them, they definitely meet at on one point of ‘Concrete Monism’. Logical method adopted by them to reach towards their goal is also strikingly similar. The aim of this paper is to analyse the concept of monism according to Rāmānuja and Hegel with philosophical point of view. Comparative study of both will throw light on some striking similarities as well as some differences of these great philosophers. (shrink)

From the pragmatic point of view, cognition is an instrument for the cultivation of our interests, among which, interestingly enough, knowledge itself also figures. The cultivation of objective knowledge involves a complex trade-off between generality and security, between definiteness and reliability. Perfection with respect to these desiderata is in general unrealizable, and a compromise between achievability and ideal aspiration is as unavoidable here in cognition as it is elsewhere.

Collingwood’s ‘art-proper’ definition has been controversial. Wollheim argues that his Theory of Imagination assumes that the nature of the artwork exists solely in the mind, committing him to the Ideal Theory. Consequently, when Collingwood states that the audience is essential for the artist and the artwork, he is being inconsistent. In contrast, Ridley claims that Collingwood’s Expression Theory saves him from Wollheim’s accusations; hence he is consistent and does not support the Ideal Theory. I demonstrate that Collingwood both adheres (...) to the Ideal Theory and is consistent in his art theory. I show that imagination is the sufficient condition of art and expression is the process of art’s coming into existence. I argue that Collingwood is consistent in his theory because the audience and the externalization of the work are needed for an appreciation and understanding of the artwork as either good or bad, as either a work of a corrupt consciousness or not. Hence, an account of the role of externalization is a contribution to the epistemology, not the ontology, of art. (shrink)

Hempel’s Dilemma remains at the center of the problem of defining physicalism. In brief, the dilemma asks whether physicalism should be defined by appeal to current or future physics. If defined by current physics, physicalism is almost certainly false. If defined by an ideal future physics, then physicalism has little determinable content. Montero and Papineau have innovatively suggested that the dilemma may be avoided by defining physicalism structurally. While their definition is one among many definitions, it is significant in (...) that—if successful—it would break the impasse for defining physicalism. I argue, however, that the structural definition fails because it counts metaphysical frameworks (crucially, versions of divine idealism) as “physicalist”—an unwelcome result for physicalists. This paper thus furthers the debate on the definition of physicalism and sheds light on the relationship between physicalism and idealism. (shrink)

Critique of idealistic naturalism: methodological pollution in the main stream of American philosophy, by D. Riepe.--Ex nihilo nihil fit: philosophy's "starting point," by D. H. DeGrood.--An historical critique of empiricism, by J. E. Hansen.--Epilogue on Berkeley, by R. W. Sellars.--Mandala thinking, by A. Mackay.--An empirical conception of freedom, by E. D'Angelo.--Heidegger on the essence of truth, by M. Farber.--Minding as a material force, by H. L. Parsons.--The crisis of the 1890's and the shaping of twentieth century America, by R. B. (...) Carson.--Ideology, scientific philosophy, and Marxism, by J. Somerville.--Marx and critical scientific thought, by M. Marković.--Experimentalism extended to politics, by E. Guevara.--The unity of opposites: a dialectical principle, by V. J. McGill and W. T. Parry.--A need definition of "value," by R. Handy.--Alienation and social action, by A. Schaff.--Naturalism in the Tao of Confucius and Lao Tzu, by D. H.-F. Poe.--Bibliography (p. 260-269). (shrink)

Lucy Allais presents an original interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism. She argues that his distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear to us has both epistemological and metaphysical components. Kant is committed to a genuine idealism about things as they appear to us, but this is not a phenomenalist idealism. He is committed to the claim that there is an aspect of reality that grounds mind-dependent spatio-temporal objects, and which we cannot cognize, but he (...) does not assert the existence of distinct non-spatio-temporal objects. On Allais's account, we cannot understand Kant's idealism without a clear account of his notion of intuition and of the role of intuition in cognition: she understands Kantian intuitions as representations that give us acquaintance with the objects of thought. This enables us to make sense of Kant's central argument for his idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and to see why he takes the complete idealist position to be established there. (shrink)

It is characteristic of realists to separate ontology from epistemology and of idealists to mix the two things up. By ‘idealists’ here I am mainly referring to the British neo-Hegelians but the charge of mixing up ontology and epistemology can be made against at least one ‘subjective idealist’, namely Bishop Berkeley, as his wellknown dictum ‘esse ispercipi’ testifies. The objective idealists rejected the correspondence theory of truth and on the whole accepted a coherence theory. The qualification is needed here because (...) H. H. Joachim, in The Nature of Truth, found the coherence theory unable to deal with the problem of error. (shrink)

Henry Allison is one of the foremost interpreters of the philosophy of Kant. This new volume collects all his recent essays on Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. All the essays postdate Allison's two major books on Kant, and together they constitute an attempt to respond to critics and to clarify, develop and apply some of the central theses of those books. Two are published here for the first time. Special features of the collection are: a detailed defence of the author's (...) interpretation of transcendental idealism; a consideration of the Transcendental Deduction and some other recent interpretations thereof; further elaborations of the tensions between various aspects of Kant's conception of freedom and of the complex role of this conception within Kant's moral philosophy. (shrink)

blurb from publisher: "In Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism, Dennis Schulting examines the themes of reflexivity, self-consciousness, representation and apperception in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism more widely. Central to Schulting’s argument is the claim that all of human experience is inherently self-referential and that this is part of a self-reflexivity of thought, or what is called transcendental apperception, a Kantian insight that was first apparent in the work of Christian Wolff and (...) came to inform all of German Idealism. In a rigorous text suitable for students of German philosophy and upper-level students of metaphysics, epistemology, moral and political philosophy, and aesthetics courses, the author establishes the historical roots of Kant’s thought and traces it through to his immediate successors Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He specifically examines the cognitive role of self-consciousness and its relation to idealism and places it in a clear and coherent history of rationalist philosophy." . (shrink)

This landmark book is now reissued in a new edition that has been vastly rewritten and updated to respond to recent Kantian literature. It includes a new discussion of the Third Analogy, a greatly expanded discussion of Kant’s _Paralogisms, _and entirely new chapters dealing with Kant’s theory of reason, his treatment of theology, and the important Appendix to the Dialectic. _Praise for the earlier edition: _ “Probably the most comprehensive and substantial study of the Critique of Pure Reason written by (...) any American philosopher.... This is a splendid book.”—Lewis White Beck “This masterful study... will most certainly join the canon of required reading for future interpreters of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Superbly organized and lucidly written.”—Garrett Green, _Journal of Religion_. (shrink)

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, there emerged two controversies related to the responsibility of philosophical ideas for the rise of German militarism. The first, mainly journalistic, controversy concerned the influence that Nietzsche’s ideas may have had on what British propagandists portrayed as the ruthlessly amoral German foreign policy. This soon gave way to a second controversy, waged primarily among academics, concerning the purportedly vicious political outcomes of German Idealism, from Kant through to Fichte, Schelling, (...) and Hegel. During the autumn of 1914, and at the cusp between the two controversies, Moritz Schlick was to deliver a lecture series on Nietzsche’s life and work at the University of Rostock. Responding to both debates, Schlick penned an introduction in which he sought to defend philosophy against all those who would embroil it in warfare. Schlick offers a series of arguments defending Nietzsche against his accusers. He also argues that, though their contributions to the History of Philosophy often amounted to no more than ‘beautiful nonsense’, the German Idealists’ philosophical views cannot be held responsible for the rise of German nationalism. Finally, Schlick mounts a general defense of the search for truth, both in philosophy and in Wissenschaft, as a type of activity which presupposes peace. Though Schlick’s metaphilosophical views change, as this paper shows, he remains constant both in his favourable appraisal of Nietzsche, as well as his separation between politics on the one hand, and both philosophy and Wissenschaft on the other hand. (shrink)

Recently, a number of neuroscientists and philosophers have taken the so-called predictive coding approach to support a form of radical neuro-representationalism, according to which the content of our conscious experiences is a neural construct, a brain-generated simulation. There is remarkable similarity between this account and ideas found in and developed by German neo-Kantians in the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the neo-Kantians eventually came to have doubts about the cogency and internal consistency of the representationalist framework they were operating within. In (...) this paper, I will first argue that some of these concerns ought to be taken seriously by contemporary proponents of predictive coding. After having done so, I will turn to phenomenology. As we shall see, Husserl’s endorsement of transcendental idealism was partially motivated by his rejection of representationalism and phenomenalism and by his attempt to safeguard the objectivity of the world of experience. This confronts us with an intriguing question. Which position is best able to accommodate our natural inclination for realism: Contemporary neuro-representationalism or Husserl’s transcendental idealism? (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is currently one of the most influential scientific theories of consciousness. Here, we focus specifically on a metaphysical aspect of the theory’s most recent version (IIT 4.0), what we may call its idealistic ontology, and its tension with a kind of realism about the external world that IIT also endorses. IIT 4.0 openly rejects the mainstream view that consciousness is generated by the brain, positing instead that consciousness is ontologically primary while the physical domain is just (...) “operational”. However, this philosophical position is presently underdeveloped and is not rigorously formulated in IIT, potentially leading to many misinterpretations and undermining its overall explanatory power. In the present paper we aim to address this issue. We argue that IIT’s idealistic ontology should be understood as a specific combination of phenomenal primitivism, reductionism regarding Φ-structures and complexes, and eliminativism about non-conscious physical entities. Having clarified this, we then focus on the problematic tension between IIT’s idealistic ontology and its simultaneous endorsement of realism, according to which there is some kind of external reality independent of our minds. After refuting three potential solutions to this theoretical tension, we propose the most plausible alternative: understanding IIT’s realism as an assertion of the existence of other experiences beyond one’s own, what we call a non-solipsistic idealist realism. We end with concluding remarks and future research avenues. (shrink)

This book suggests that to know how Wittgenstein’s post-Tractarian philosophy could have developed from the work of Kant is to know how they relate to each other. The development from the latter to the former is invoked heuristically as a means of interpretation, rather than a historical process or direct influence of Kant on Wittgenstein. Ritter provides a detailed treatment of transcendentalism, idealism, and the concept of illusion in Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s criticism of metaphysics. Notably, it is through the (...) conceptions of transcendentalism and idealism that Wittgenstein’s philosophy can be viewed as a transformation of Kantianism. This transformation involves a deflationary conception of transcendental idealism along with the abandonment of both the idea that there can be a priori 'conditions of possibility' logically detachable from what they condition, and the appeal to an original ‘constitution’ of experience. -/- The closeness of Kant and post-Tractarian Wittgenstein does not exist between their arguments or the views they upheld, but rather in their affiliation against forms of transcendental realism and empirical idealism. Ritter skilfully challenges several dominant views on the relationship of Kant and Wittgenstein, especially concerning the cogency of Wittgenstein-inspired criticism focusing on the role of language in the first Critique, and Kant's alleged commitment to a representationalist conception of empirical intuition. (shrink)

I show that unlike her rationalist predecessor Leibniz, Du Châtelet is committed to epistemic causal idealism about natural causes. According to this view, it is constitutive of natural causes that they are in principle knowable by us (i.e., finite intelligent beings). Du Châtelet’s causal idealism stems at least in part from the distinctive theoretical role played by the Principle of Sufficient Reason in her system (as presented in her _Institutions de physique_), as well as her argument for the (...) Principle of Sufficient Reason. I show that far from merely explicating Leibniz’s metaphysics, Du Châtelet develops a radical and novel rationalism that is in keeping with her core commitment to science. (shrink)

This paper addresses debates in German idealism that arise in response to the modal shift in logic, proposed by Kant, from a logic of thinking to a logic of experience. With the Kantian logic of experience arises a problem of radical contingency or 'rhapsodic determination' for logic. While Fichte and Hegel attempt to resolve the problem of contingency by constructing rational systems aimed at established the grounds for logic, I show how Schelling brings into view, in a proto-existentialist movement, (...) the way in which the indeterminacy of the will undergirds rational system construction and, thereby, presents a limiting problem for the question of the value of system-building itself. (shrink)

A World for Us aims to refute physical realism and establish in its place a form of idealism. Physical realism, in the sense in which John Foster understands it, takes the physical world to be something whose existence is both logically independent of the human mind and metaphysically fundamental. Foster identifies a number of problems for this realist view, but his main objection is that it does not accord the world the requisite empirical immanence. The form of idealism (...) that he tries to establish in its place rejects the realist view in both its aspects. It takes the world to be something whose existence is ultimately constituted by facts about human sensory experience, or by some richer complex of non-physical facts in which such experiential facts centrally feature. Foster calls this phenomenalistic idealism. He tries to establish a specific version of such phenomenalistic idealism, in which the experiential facts that centrally feature in the constitutive creation of the world are ones that concern the organization of human sensory experience. The basic idea of this version is that, in the context of certain other constitutively relevant factors, this sensory organization creates the physical world by disposing things to appear systematically world-wise at the human empirical viewpoint. Chief among these other relevant factors is the role of God as the one who is responsible for the sensory organization and ordains the system of appearance it yields. It is this that gives the idealistically created world its objectivity and allows it to qualify as a real world. (shrink)

Recently some philosophers have proposed that the later philosophy of Wittgenstein tends towards idealism, or even solipsism. The solipsism is said to be of a peculiar kind. It is characterized as a ‘collective’ or ‘aggregative’ solipsism. The solipsism or idealism is also said to be ‘transcendental’. In the first part of this paper I will be examining a recent essay by Professor Bernard Williams, in which he presents what he takes to be the grounds for such an interpretation (...) of Wittgenstein. After that I will try to offer convincing evidence that no tendency towards any form of idealism is to be found in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. (shrink)

This article initially presents Ernst Mach's anti-realist or instrumentalist stance that underpin his opposition to atomism and reveal his idea that science should be based totally on objectively observable facts. Then, the details of Mach's phenomenalist arguments which recognize only sensations as real are revealed. Phenomenalist thought is not compatible with the idea of realism, which evaluates unobservable entities such as atom, molecule and quark as mind-independent things. In this context, Mach considers the atom as a thought symbol or a (...) metaphysical fiction. This results in the idea that the existence of matter or entity is not independent of the perceiving minds, which is considered Mach’s subjective idealism. As a result of these arguments, the article argues that it would not be wrong to associate Mach's thoughts with solipsism, a radical form of subjective idealism. -/- Bu makalede ilk olarak Ernst Mach’ın atomun varlığına ilişkin itirazının temelini oluşturan ve bilimin sadece gözlemlenebilir olgulara dayandırılması gerektiği yönündeki düşüncelerini ortaya koyan anti-realist ya da enstrümantalist görüşlerine yer verilmektedir. Ardından Mach’ın enstrümantalist tavrının alt metninde bulunan ve yalnızca duyumları gerçek olarak kabul eden fenomenalist argümanlarının ayrıntıları serimlenecektir. Fenomenalist düşünce atom, molekül ve kuark gibi gözlemlenemeyen varlıkları zihinden bağımsız şeyler olarak değerlendiren realizm düşüncesi ile uyuşmamaktadır. Bu bağlamda yapılan incelemeler, Mach’ın atomu bir düşünce sembolü ya da metafiziksel bir kurgu olarak değerlendirmesine ve dış dünyadaki varlıkların var olmasını, onların bir zihin tarafından duyumsanması koşuluna bağlaması ile sonuçlanmaktadır. Makalede Mach’ın öznel idealizmi olarak ele alabileceğimiz bu argümanlarının radikal bir sonucu olarak onun düşüncelerini solipsizm ile ilişkilendirmenin yanlış olmayacağı sonucuna varılmaktadır. (shrink)

Introduction: This paper has two, interrelated aims. The first is to clarify Sartre's theory of intersubjectivity. Sartre's discussion of the Other has a puzzling way of going in and out of focus, seeming at one moment to provide a remarkably original solution to the problem of other minds and at the next to wholly miss the point of the skeptical challenge. The nature of his argument is equally uncertain: at some points it looks like an attempt to mount a transcendental (...) argument, a kind of Refutation of Idealism regarding the existence of others, at others, to be a defence of direct realism; yet again, it can seem to propose a dissolution of the problem closely analogous to Wittgenstein. I will argue (Section 1) that none of these provides quite the right model for understanding Sartre, which requires one to take seriously his method of resolving epistemological issues into matters of ontology. I argue further (Section 2) that Sartre's theory becomes fully coherent only if we make explicit its implicit presupposition of a conception of intersubjectivity articulated by Fichte. My second aim is to pursue the connection opened up of Sartre with German idealism. To the extent that commentators attempt to relate Sartre systematically to German idealism, it is almost always Hegel who provides the other term of comparison.1 What I try to show (Section 3) is that the usual comparison of Sartre with Hegel, which is largely negative, is distracting, and that Sartre's closer philosophical [End Page 325] relations are to Fichte and Schelling.2 This supplies, I argue, an important correction to the tendency of anglophone discussion of Sartre to isolate his claims from historical considerations, or to restrict Sartre's historical frame of reference to Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger: Sartre's philosophy, I suggest, is viewed fruitfully in the context of philosophical debates pursued in early German idealism. Sartre's ethics, I argue (Section 4), provide supporting evidence for this view. I propose tentatively in conclusion (Section 5) a corresponding view of existential phenomenology as a whole. (shrink)

This anthology consists of 20 chapters, many of which feature engagements between Kant and various Asian philosophers. Key themes include the nature of human intuition (not only as theoretical—pure, sensible, and possibly intellectual—but also as relevant to Kant’s practical philosophy, aesthetics, the sublime, and even mysticism), the status of Kant’s idealism/realism, and Kant’s notion of an object. Roughly half of the chapters take a stance on the recent conceptualism/non-conceptualism debate. The chapters are organized into four parts, each with five (...) chapters. Part I explores themes relating primarily to the early sections of Kant’s first Critique: three chapters focus mainly on Kant’s theory of the "forms of intuition" and/or "formal intuition", especially as illustrated by geometry, while two examine the broader role of intuition in transcendental idealism. Part II continues to examine themes from the Aesthetic but shifts the main focus to the Transcendental Analytic, where the key question challenging interpreters is to determine whether intuition (via sensibility) is ever capable of operating independently from conception (via understanding); each contributor offers a defense of either the conceptualist or the non-conceptualist readings of Kant’s text. Part III includes three chapters that explore the relevance of intuition to Kant’s theory of the sublime, followed by two that examine challenges that Asian philosophers have raised against Kant’s theory of intuition, particularly as it relates to our experience of the supersensible. Finally, Part IV concludes the book with five chapters that explore a range of resonances between Kant and various Asian philosophers and philosophical ideas. (shrink)