The âdeathâ of German Idealism has been decried innumerable times since its revolutionary inception, whether by the nineteenth-century critique of Western metaphysics, phenomenology, the various strands of contemporary French philosophy, or the founding figures of analytic philosophy. Even more recently, some strands of speculative realism and new materialism have sought to leave its so-called âexcessesâ behind. The figures that here strike an accord are as diverse as the movements themselves: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida, Maldiney, Harman, and Meillassoux, to name just a few.
Yet in the face of 200 years of sustained, extremely rigorous attempts to leave behind its legacy, German Idealism has resisted its philosophical death sentence: no attempt to situate it in the abyssal forgetfulness of a forever lost past, to render it into a mere artifact for the historically curious, has been able to succeed. The very fact that it continues to be an inescapable point of referenceâa negative point of reference is, after all, a point of reference all the sameâsuggests, to put the matter provocatively by risking a bold claim, that the specter haunting the Western philosophical scene is not capitalism,1 nor that of the Cartesian subject,2 as has been claimed, but that of German Idealism. It persists in our thinking like a symptom we cannot get rid of, since every time we distance ourselves from it, it comes back with forceâor we are forced to go back to it. For this exact reason it is timely to ask in a reflective tone: âWhat remains of German Idealism?â In what ways do its fundamental concepts and texts still speak to us in a philosophically relevant sense such that this perpetual resurgence of, or return to, its major representatives could be judged as something positive rather than a mere setback in the advance of philosophical knowledge? Are there as yet unexcavated resources present in this tradition that could be used, resources that we may have previously overlooked when its death bell was so prematurely tolled? It is precisely this set of questions that this volume seeks to explore by presenting new, challenging rethinkings of its now canonical thinkers, rethinkings that have been, in many ways, only made possible by the myriad of recently developed conceptual tools now at our disposal.
For despite the fact that the tradition of German Idealism is undoubtedly a historical event whose heyday is a thing of the irretrievable pastâa heyday that could never reoccur with the might it once had (if it ever will at all)âthere has been an extraordinary, unpredictable increase in groundbreaking secondary literature over the course of the past decades that, criticizing and in some cases building upon the literature of the earlier twentieth and nineteenth century, radically puts into question our established notions of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling. Thanks to this ever-growing body of work, it no longer goes without saying, for instance, that transcendental idealism inconsistently presupposes, and hence founders because of, a âPlatonicâ two-world hypothesis. Nor can we outright assume that the Fichtean subject falls succumb to a rampant subjectivism in which all reality is a mere posit of an absolutely free ego. In terms of absolute idealism, the idea that Hegel conceives of all features of reality as manifestations of a completely and utterly self-mediating Notionâthat logic and its universal and necessary dialectical moves are responsible for even the most minute details of everything that did, does, or will existâhas been contested. As for Schelling, scholars have accumulated enough textual evidence to make highly implausible the claim that he is a Protean thinker who simply changed his mind each time he put himself to the task of transposing his thoughts to paper (a trait that, supposedly, made him a bad philosopher who never had the patience to develop a philosophy really worthy of our admiration insofar as philosophy ought to strive after a system, the system). Even the picture of Hegel in which he created a strictly a priori system in his maturity post-Jena and then just worked out its various parts based on this initial deduced plan can no longer be defended. We have now taken full cognizance, among other things, of the various shifts in conceptual emphases and the reworking of material in light of new scientific findings throughout the three versions of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, which prove that his system was, up until his death, in a state a dynamic becoming with respect to both exposition and our knowledge of the real. All of this to just highlight how there is now more and more need to rethink German Idealism outside of inherited wisdom, as this new body of secondary literature has shown us and passionately has done in its own way. In many cases, this wisdom just can no longer to be trusted.
Consequently, this not only opens up, but also requires us to cultivate a space for creativity in interpretation in order to do justice to these philosophers. And such creativity has found an outlet not just in academic experts. It has also found it in living philosophers. Indeed, an ever-increasing number of contemporary philosophers from both the continental and analytic traditionsâranging in diversity from Brandom and McDowell to Butler and Malabou, but also including individuals such as Habermas, Priest and Gabrielâhave published on it and have explicitly, in some instances, returned to its milieu in order to find inspiration or analogues for their own thought. This is to say nothing of even older philosophers who evidently learned much from what it had to offer, such as Heidegger and Tillich. If the tradition still speaks to us, the sheer multitude of these philosophers with such diverging interests attests to the fact it doesnât do so in a one-sided manner, that is, from the formal standpoint of a certain, limited domain of enquiry. From philosophy of language to theories of recognition, politics to metaphysics and religion, its concepts have much to offer usâand in each case we encounter a new rethinking of German Idealism, a rethinking that cashes it out in terms that make it resonate with us in a profound fashion.
And last but certainly not least, these two efforts have also been immensely aided by the ongoing work of the new historical-critical German editions of the oeuvre of these philosophers. These have not only helped us gain invaluable precision concerning the internal genesis of individual philosophersâ positions,3 but have also made publicly available texts that were, in many cases, previously unpublished,4 lost,5 and even unknown.6 In light of this new evidence and texts, we have no option but to rethink German Idealism.
Given these three above-mentioned conceptual tools, we can say without doubt that we are still discovering, in both a hermeneutical and literal sense, new aspects of the tradition, new resources to make use of. The tradition itself is, as it were, still in a state of development, constantly requiring to be rethought as a variety of recently uncovered texts, innovative interpretative camps, and contemporary philosophical commitments and methodologies force us to approach the German Idealist heritage in a different light than we once did. In short, it is an exciting time to be a German Idealist scholar or student. But what does this volume hope to add to this ever-growing body of secondary literature, philosophical re-appropriation, and historical-critical editions? Both the secondary literature of recent decades on German Idealism and the philosophical re-appropriations of this tradition raise, in their own manner, the question of what remains of German Idealism. They demand of us that we rethink, often radically, its fundamental concepts and texts. This is something we wish to underline. The former powerfully shows that we have not yet fully understood its major representatives such that, if we want to better understand our own philosophical history, even our own historical origins (for philosophy and history are indubitably woven from one and the same fabric), much interpretative work remains to be done. The latter demonstrates that there are many ways in which we can use current theoretical frameworks to breathe new life into certain fundamental concepts and texts, thereby allowing them to enter into our own debates in an often-unexpected way. The German Idealists remain our contemporaries, as if they were never our ancestors, as if they were never a thing of the past. In another vein, the historical-critical editions are, quite literally, excavating the previously unknown remains of the tradition. From all corners, German Idealism is therefore being rethought.
While these are all irreducibly important senses of the word âremainâ (taken in both its verbal and substantive form), each of which entails their own unique form of ârethinkingâ, this volume attempts to take a different approach.7 It gives ârethinkingâ a technical meaning of its own in the context it creates. It does not limit itself to presenting new interpretations of iconic figures in order to challenge our established notions of them, although this is indeed one of its primary goals. Nor does it treat the tradition like a dead object of a past now alien to us, the subject matter of a historiography in which we coldly and with disinterest investigate what was, a tendency that some of the otherwise exciting secondary literature sometimes exhibits. Although it does look back to offer a picture of the historical âfactsâ that is as objectively sound as possible, it does so with an eye toward the ways in which these âfactsâ, once accurately reconstructed with the conceptual tools now at our disposal, may still have potential to offer us something of profound relevance to our contemporary philosophical needs. Consequently, one may say that its approach sketches a history serviceable to life that is an alternative to the âmonumental historyâ that the young Nietzsche espouses in opposition to âantiquarian historyâ.8 In practicing history, even history for its own sake, this volume looks for great lessons we can still learn from the fundamental concepts and texts of German Idealism, looks for what âremainsâ alive for us in the past in order to open up new, game-changing theoretical possibilities, and thereby endeavors to rethink the tradition by opening up a space of dialogue with the aid of the ever-increasing resources on hand that force us to drastically reconsider what German Idealism is on its own self-understanding.
But in so doing, it also tries to avoid the problem faced by monumental history. For while the latter similarly looks in the past for âgreat stimuliâ for the present, âit of course incurs the danger of becoming somewhat distorted, beautified and coming close to free poetic invention [âŚ. T]he past itself suffers harm: whole segments of it are forgotten, despised, and flow away in an uninterrupted colourless flood, and only individual embellished facts rise out of it like islandsâ.9 In this way, the volume also distinguishes itself from the above-mentioned contemporary âretrospectionsâ upon German Idealism because it does not, strictly speaking, try to âreactualizeâ10 or âtranslateâ11 Kant, Fichte, Hegel or Schelling. While many of these now popular re-appropriations of German Idealism have a propensity to use the present as the criteria through which we can pick out what in the past is to be saved, or at least interesting enough to deserve conceptual re-rendering, which makes them very close to the âmonumental historyâ described by Nietzsche, this volume prefers to let our philosophers speak directly to us and then decide, on the basis of the historical reconstruction of their discourseâa historical reconstruction that is indeed inflected by problems that are our own because it is with passion and interest that our gaze is directed at themâin what ways their philosophies remain contemporary to our own in an untimely manner, in face of the passage of time. The emphasis is decisively different: its method is one of an interpretation informed by a general knowledge of the philosophers analayzed that, looking toward the past from the vantage point of the present, tries to discern certain truly immanent possibilities they may contain, waiting to be discovered thanks to the conceptual tools now at our disposal, for our present.
Assembling preeminent scholars and exciting, emerging voices in Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel studies from both sides of the world whose work is innovative, bold and at times daring, this volume therefore seeks to raise the question of âWhat remains of German Idealism?â, to rethink its tradition, heritage, and legacy, in a very specific manner. It intends to offer readers a fresh look on this time-honored tradition that draws upon the groundbreaking findings of recent scholarship, newly developed methodologies and historical-critical editionsâand in some cases career-long engagements with its thinkers at the philological level required by translationâwith the purpose of both giving German Idealism new life and highlighting some of the many possible ways in which it still can be useful for our contemporary philosophical needs. Because these needs and the ways to address them are many, the contributors that have been selected embody a large variety of philosophical interests (transcendental philosophy, philosophy of nature, social theory, philosophy of religion), make use of quite different methodologies (phenomenology, metaphysics, aesthetics, semantics), and often have concerns that are definitively âoff the beatenâ tracks of German Idealist scholarship convention (the mechanisms of psychological projection, anthropocentrism, globalization and technology, decolonialism). Many of the positions advocated risk being atypical, going against the grain of hermeneutical wisdom and recent proposals for new interpretations, in order to do justice to the thinkers that they discuss. Others have the courage to risk theses that many would never dare. In each case, however, there is provocation. Yet it is this kind of audacity that the body of secondary literature, the philosophical re-appropriations, and the historical-critical editions have made possible, if not demand. We hope that by bringing together such a multitude of different rethinkings we will add something stimulating to German Idealism studies that will inspire a series of further enquiries concerning how German Idealism is still alive, how it offers as yet unrealized potentials for thinking, or ways in which it fails to do so, by using the conceptual tools we now have at our disposal. The inclusion of both established and upcoming scholars from different areas of the globe, who come from different linguistic and academic backgrounds, plays a crucial role in this. It is meant as much as possible: one, to give room to those who normallyâlargely because untranslated into Englishâoften fall out of the purview of typical âAnglo-Saxonâ scholarship and to a new generation that all too often risks being forgotten because of the âbig namesâ whose work, albeit important and praiseworthy, can be found everywhere; and, two, to help make more vivid the various ways in which we can rethink German Idealism by drawing attention, as much as we were able to, to the great plurality of different scholars that find something important in it.12
So far we have only spoken in abstract terms of rethinking German Idealism in the context of the aims of this volume. In what ways, then, do we intend to do so concretely? Letâs speak first in broad strokes of the organizational principle behind the ordering of the individual essays before looking at them one by one to help orient the reading to the innovative, bold and at times daring philosophical terrain it opens up.
The series of rethinkings that follow are arranged in a loose historical trajectory that covers many, though obviously by no means all, of the major developments in German Idealism. Starting with Kant, next passing over into Schellingâs early philosophy, it then covers Fichteâs late Wissenschaftslehre or Science of Knowledge before discussing the three components of Hegelâs mature system (logic, nature, spirit) and moving unto Schellingâs late philosophy of mythology and revelation. A final piece reflects on German Idealism as a whole, thus serving as a conclusion. While these pieces make no claim to chart the complex causes that incite the historical development from thinker to thinkerâa task that surely could not be done in a single book, or even multiple volumesâour wager is that placing these thinkers side by side in accordance with the chronological dates of the main texts that are therein discussed has direct consequences for any understanding of that historical development. Few among us today may believe that German Idealism âbeginsâ with Kantâs transcendental philosophy, only to be âfurther developedâ by Fichte into a subjective idealism, which is then, at its turn, âcorrectedâ by the objective idealism of Schelling, after which the only theoretically consistent option left is that of Hegelâs absolute idealism in light of which Schellingâs late philosophy of mythology and revelation must be seen regression into the worst kind of pre-critical dogmatic philosophizing, namely Christian apologetics. This âhistoryââdeveloped by Hegelâs Lectures on the History of Philosophy, with the last step being added by the reception the old Schelling met at Berlin when he came to take over Hegelâs former Chairâis too simple. Nonetheless, even if such a traditional narra...