Kant and the Historical Turn: Philosophy As Critical Interpretation

344 Pages·2006·2.13 MB·English

by  Karl Ameriks

KANT AND THE HISTORICAL TURN
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Kant and the Historical Turn
Philosophy as Critical Interpretation
KARL AMERIKS
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Acknowledgements
IthanktheeditorsofOxfordUniversityPress,andespeciallyPeterMomtchiloff,
for invaluable assistance with this volume. For helpful last-minute assistance I
am indebted to Thomas Mulherin and Megan Halteman. For stimulation on
countless philosophical points I am deeply indebted to the audiences at which
versionsofthechaptersweredelivered,andespeciallytomycolleaguesatNotre
DameandatanNEHSummerInstituteonNature,Art,andPoliticsafterKant:
Re-EvaluatingGermanRomanticism,heldatColoradoStateUniversity.Helpful
financialassistancewasprovidedbyagrantfromtheEarhartFoundationanda
timelyleavefromtheUniversityofNotreDame.Exceptforselectionsthathave
appeared before only in a German version, materials from the chapters below
have been changed only to a slight extent, primarily to update references and
standardizeformat.Iacknowledgepermissiontoreprintmaterialsfromthefol-
lowingpublications:
Chapter 1. ‘Text and Context: Hermeneutical Prolegomena to Interpreting a
KantText’,inDieterScho¨neckerandThomasZwenger(eds.),Kantverstehen/
Understanding Kant (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001),
11–31.
Chapter 2. ‘Apperzeption und Subjekt. Kants Lehre vom Ich’, in Dieter
H. Heidemann and Kristina Engelhard (eds.), Warum Kant heute? Systemat-
ische Bedeutung und Rezeption seiner Philosophie in der Gegenwart (Berlin: de
Gruyter,2004),76–99.
Chapter 3. ‘Idealism from Kant to Berkeley’, in Stephen Gersh and Dermot
Moran(eds.),Eriugena,BerkeleyandtheIdealistTradition,(NotreDame,IN:
UniversityofNotreDamePress,2006),pp.244–68.
Chapter4.‘KantunddasProblemdermoralischenMotivation’,inKarlAmeriks
and Dieter Sturma (eds.), Kants Ethik, (Paderborn: Mentis, 2004), 97–116;
‘Kant and Motivational Externalism’, in Heiner Klemme, Manfred
Ku¨hn, and Dieter Scho¨necker (eds.), Moralische Motivation. Kant und die
Alternativen(Hamburg:Meiner,2005),forthcoming.
Chapter 5. ‘A Commonsense Kant?’ Proceedings and Addresses of the American
PhilosophicalAssociation,79(2005),19–45.
Chapter6.‘TheCritiqueofMetaphysics:TheStructureandFateofKant’sDia-
lectic’, in Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern
Philosophy(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2006),269–302.
vi Acknowledgements
Chapter 7. ‘Reinhold’s First Letters on Kant’, (Archivo di Filosofia (2005),
pp. 1–21; and ‘Introduction’, in Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Letters on the
KantianPhilosophy,ed.KarlAmeriks(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,
2005),pp.ix–xxxv.
Chapter8.‘ReinholdonSystematicity,Popularityand‘‘TheHistoricalTurn’’’,
in Rolf Ahlers (ed.), System and Context. Early Romantic and Early Idealistic
Constellations/Systemund Kontext.Fru¨hromantische und Fru¨hidealistische Kon-
stellationen,TheNewAthenaeum,7(2004),109–38;‘Reinholdu¨berSystem-
atik,Popula¨rita¨tunddie‘‘HistorischeWende’’’,inMartinBondeliandAless-
androLazzari(eds.),PhilosophieohneBeynamen.System,FreiheitundGeschichte
imDenkenKarlLeonhardReinholds(Basle:Schwabe,2004),303–33.
Chapter 9. ‘Hegel’s Aesthetics: New Perspectives on its Response to Kant and
Romanticism’, Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, 45/46 (2002),
72–92.
Chapter10.‘TheLegacyofIdealisminthePhilosophyofFeuerbach,Marx,and
Kierkegaard’, in Karl Ameriks (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to German
Idealism(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2000),258–81.
Chapter11.‘OnBeiser’sGermanIdealism’,Inquiry,47(2004),86–98.
Chapter12.‘TheKeyRoleofSelbstgefu¨hl inPhilosophy’sAestheticandHistor-
ical Turns’, Critical Horizons, 5 (2004), 27–52; ‘Die Schlu¨sselrolle des Selb-
stgefu¨hls in der a¨sthetischen und historischen Wende der Philosophie’, in
Thomas Grundmann et al. (eds.), Anatomie der Subjektivita¨t (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp,2005),389–416.
Chapter13.‘KonstellationsforschungunddiekopernikanischeWende’,inMar-
tin Mulsow and Marcelo Stamm (eds.), Konstellationsforschung (Munich:
Suhrkamp,2005),101–24;‘ResponsetoUlrichJohannesSchneider’,inJ.B.
Schneewind(ed.),TeachingNewHistoriesofPhilosophy(Princeton:Princeton
CenterfortheStudyofHumanValues,2004),295–305,383–5.
Contents
Introduction:OntheVeryNotionofaHistoricalTurnin
Philosophy 1
I. KANT AND AFTER
1. TextandContext:HermeneuticalProlegomenatoInterpretinga
KantText 33
2. KantianApperceptionandtheNon-CartesianSubject 51
3. IdealismfromKanttoBerkeley 67
4. Kant,Hume,andtheProblemofMoralMotivation 89
5. ACommon-SenseKant? 108
6. TheCritiqueofMetaphysics:TheStructureandFateofKant’s
Dialectic 134
II. REINHOLD AND AFTER
7. Reinhold’sFirstLettersonKant 163
8. ReinholdonSystematicity,Popularity,
andtheHistoricalTurn 185
III. HEGEL AND AFTER
9. Hegel’sAesthetics:NewPerspectivesonitsResponsetoKantand
Romanticism 209
10. TheLegacyofIdealisminthePhilosophyofFeuerbach,Marx,and
Kierkegaard 231
IV. CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATIONS
11. OnBeiser’sGermanIdealism 257
12. TheKeyRoleofSelbstgefu¨hlinPhilosophy’sAestheticand
HistoricalTurns 269
13. HistoricalConstellationsandCopernicanContexts 289
Bibliographyof WorksCited 307
Index 329
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Introduction: On the Very Notion
of a Historical Turn
in Philosophy
Plainly put: the idea of science is research; that of philosophy is inter-
pretation[Deutung].Inthisremainsthegreat,perhapstheeternalparadox:
philosophy, ever and always and with the claim of truth, must proceed
interpretively without ever possessing a key to interpretation: nothing
more is given to it than fleeting, disappearing traces within the ciphers
[Ra¨tselfiguren] of what is and their wondrous entwinings. The history of
philosophy is nothing other than the history of such entwinings. That is
whyitreachessofew‘results’,whyitmustalwaysbeginanew,andwhyit
cannotdowithout the slightest thread whichearlier times havespun,and
which perhaps completes the literature that might transform the ciphers
¹
intoatext.
I. BACKGROUND
1. An Old Dichotomy on History
The steady growth of interest in historical development, and in the historical
dimension of philosophy in particular, is a phenomenon that calls for explana-
tion. Even more than the exact sciences, philosophy has generally striven to be
a discipline that escapes the contingenciesof time, or at least the limitations of
particular historicalframeworks and empirical disciplines. This is true not only
ofancientandmedievalphilosophybutalsoofthemodernphilosophicalsystems
thatcamewiththeriseofthe‘newphysics’intheeraofGalileo,Descartes,and
Newton.Verymuchthesamekindofcommitmenttoahistoricalproceduresand
indubitablefirsttruthscanbefoundatthebeginningofeachofthemainphases
ofmodernphilosophy:intheprogramsoftherationalistsandempiricists,ofthe
¹ TheodorAdorno,GesammelteSchriften,ed.RolfTiedemann(Frankfurt:Suhrkamp,1970),i.
334.CitedinFredRush,‘ConceptualFoundationsofEarlyCriticalTheory’,inFredRush(ed.),
TheCambridgeCompaniontoCriticalTheory(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2004),33.