Empirical Kant Realism (Abela)

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Kants Empirical Realism, by Paul Abela. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002, viii1303 pp.ISBN 0-19-924274-7 40.00

Paul Abelas distinctive approach to the first Critique is to examine it primarily through itsempirical realism rather than its transcendental idealism. The two doctrines are of courseinextricably linked, but Abelas approach brings considerable advantages. One is that itenables him to set aside certain interpretative postures which have become familiar among

contemporary analytic commentators on Kant. He associates that rejected approach withBuchdahls description of the Kant constantly contradicts himself club, evident also inBennetts notorious aim of fighting Kant tooth and nail. However they are expressed suchattitudes underline every apparent tension in the text at the expense of trying seriously tounderstand what Kant is saying. Abelas approach allows him to identify a central themein the Critique and to compare Kants expression of, and arguments for, it with those ofDavidson, Evans, McDowell and others. That theme, located in what Abela calls thepriority of judgement thesis seems by contemporary standards to be evidently correct,

but also worth further exploration.That positive thesis combines in his account with a rejection of some traditional views

about the nature of transcendental idealism. He rejects accounts of that doctrine which

represent it as a Berkeleian subjective idealism coupled with a commitment to the existenceof things in themselves or noumena. The former is well expressed in his denial that Kant isa Berkeley buttressed with formal a priori scaffolding. The latter is denied in such claimsas that The receptivity characteristic of our form of discursive cognition has no need for theinvolvement of a noumenal input, and that Kants project involvesydenying anyepistemological role for noumenal reality (p. 290). His view is that with Kants judgement-oriented approach to representation (p. vii) and a related account of objectivity a noumenalinput is neither required nor desired (p. 291). Such a view effectively sets aside Strawsonsaccount in The Bounds of Sense of what is called the metaphysics of transcendental idealism,and enables him to focus on the more fruitful empirical realism and its priority of

judgement thesis. Abela, surely rightly, takes empirical realism to be about empirical

objects, objects of experience, phenomena and not noumena. He denies that empiricalrealism either is a misleading and disguised form of traditional, empirical, idealism, orneeds to be justified within that traditional idealist framework. He consequently representsKant as rejecting not only Berkeleys position but any associated with what he calls theCartesian epistemological model (CEM), that is, a traditional empirical idealism.

The judgement-oriented approach to representation and the priority of judgementthesis identify objectivity with a genuine truth valuation for synthetic judgements. Theymove Kant away from a traditional idealism which understands it as a representingrelation between subjective mental states, such as sense data, and a real external world ofphysical objects. Abela notes that such an appeal to judgement and objectivity in judge-ment shares that background with contemporary debates about realism and anti-realism

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(or idealism). He consequently spends some time comparing Kants position with that ofthe more recent anti-realists (or idealists) and argues that Kants approach is different.

The two basic views to be compared with Kant are those of the Ultimate Realist (UR)and Epistemic Humanist (EH). The former is characterised as an appeal to what is givenin experience as transcendental matter (pp. 7-9, 21) and reintroduces that Kantiancommitment to things in themselves which Abela rejects. The latter is identified as reject-ing realist truth conditions and replacing them with an assertion condition (anti-realist,idealist) account of the semantics of synthetic judgements. Behind both of these opposed acc-ounts of Kant is a conflict between a semantics of ultimate but inaccessible, or recognitiontranscendent, truth conditions (UR), and a semantics of assertion conditions and warrantedassertibility (EH). The assumption in the comparison is that Kants idealism (anti-realism)engages the contemporary discussion among such philosophers as Dummett and Putnam oftruth-conditional or assertion-conditional semantics, and of underlying views abouteffective decidability, bivalence, intuitionist logic and the law of excluded middle. Accordingto Abela Kants position cannot be simply identified with either of these, UR or EH,accounts. Kant accepts an unreflective, even realist, notion of immanent or phenomenaltruth but has no commitment either to a transcendent reality of things in themselves or to adeflationary substitute for truth such as assertion conditions or warranted assertibility.

However natural it may be to regard these contemporary issues as the up-dated inheri-tor of the seventeenth- to nineteenth-century debates under the same realist and idealisttitles, there is a serious danger of anachronism in such assumptions. There is a temptationeven to regard these up-dated versions of the historical discussions as the only issues worthdiscussing, or as alone providing the substance of the older tradition. If it is asked whetherKants admittedly anthropocentric empirical realism should be understood in terms of anti-realist assertion conditions (EH) or of recognition-transcendent truth conditions (UR),Abelas discussion answers it correctly by rejecting both such accounts of Kant. Such a reje-ction might have been based simply on the charge of evident anachronism, admitted bysome contributors to these issues such as Carl Posy, but Abelas discussion takes the issuesmore seriously and provides useful discussions of those contemporary doctrines inde-pendently of Kant. He is also rightly motivated in this by recognising that even though Kantcannot be designated a realist or anti-realist in these terms, he does accept the under-lying priority of judgement thesis on which those conflicting contemporary views depend.

What is certainly true, and importantly acknowledged in the book, is that the twoalternatives, EH and UR, do not exhaust Kants options, and it is that alternative regionwhich Abela seeks to explore within the background thesis about judgement. That goal isdriven by two primary considerations which in turn reflect the structure of the argumentin the book. First is that his exploration is undertaken with the idea of actually justifyingKants empirical realism. Abela takes Kant not merely to be accepting the (phenomenal,

immanent) reality of the realm or realms endorsed in common sense or scientific belief, butactually providing a philosophical justification, or support, for that acceptance. Thesuccess of his attempt turns on the extensive discussion of the Analytic of Principles,especially the Analogies and Refutation of Idealism. Each of these sections in the Critiquealong with the mathematical principles, which involve reference also to the Aesthetic,receives a serious and valuable discussion. Inevitably there are two related questions:whether Abelas version of these passages correctly represents Kant, and whether thearguments so represented are successful in justifying our beliefs about empirical reality.

The second point concerns the implications of such an empirical realism for Kantsconception of transcendence among the dialectical Ideas (Ideen). Abela focusses on thecentral dialectical Idea of systematic unity in order to resolve the familiar disagreements

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over Kants treatment of that notion. The discussion is again placed in the context ofcurrent realist/anti-realist debate by representing the alternative interpretations as,respectively, of an objective unity of nature or only of a methodological prescriptionin enquiring into nature. Kants own terminology is, of course, even more complex. Theissue might be put by asking whether Kant accepts a genuine (transcendental) necessity insystematic unity or only a natural injunction to enquire in certain open-ended ways. Iwont comment further on that issue, partly because I think the association of thealternative positions here with realism and anti-realism is no more compelling or helpfulthan it is in the discussion of the Analytic. But there is a genuine puzzle in understandingKants apparently unstable views about dialectical Ideas, and Abelas discussion is avaluable contribution to that issue. I think that he is right to stress, against othercommentators such as Guyer, the similarity between Kants account of these issues in thefirst and third Critiques.

The major (that is, non-Dialectical) part of Paul Abelas account rests on the appeal tojudgement and the priority of judgement thesis. The approach is elaborated in acomparison with those views of Sellars, Davidson, and latterly McDowell, in which anyepistemological role for bare sensations, or inner experiences, is either played down, re-located, or dismissed altogether. The central claim, variously expressed in thesephilosophers, is that sensations, or inner experiences, can have no role in what is calledthe space of reasons, or that if we are to speak of such a role then it must be only withinthe framework of concepts or language. It involves a rejection of Cartesian self-authenticating inner experiences which act as supposed intermediaries between beliefand world. Such views have become very familiar but are ambiguous and controversial

both in relation to, and independently of, Kant. Abela takes this judgement-orientedview, with its priority of judgement thesis to be the fundamental guiding threadthroughout the Critique, explaining how objectivity is achieved through the categories andtheir principles, and eventually proving in the Refutation of Idealism that our belief in anobjective world is justified against scepticism. There is much that is plausible and correct,and even more that is stimulating and instructive, in such a view; but it is open to somequeries about the central theses, whether canvassed by Kant or more recent philosophers,and about their success in achieving what Abela wants to claim for them.

Kant for example has at least three theses which express some priority of judgementsover other aspects of our experience. In the Metaphysical Deduction he gives a priority to

judgements and their forms over their constituent concepts. In the TranscendentalDeduction judgements have a priority in defining that agreement and determinacy whichprovide Kants criteria for objectivity. And in the Refutation of Idealism a priority isattached to outer experience and its judgements over those of inner experience. Abela ismore interested in the second and third priorities, although the first plainly has some

underlying importance for the others and for the judgement-oriented approach torepresentation. But the other two contexts, and their arguments about objectivity in theDeduction and the Refutation, are not the same. For one thing, if we make objective

judgements about inner experience, then the Deductions priority will hold for both innerand outer experience. If objectivity has to do with genuine truth valuation for judgements,then as far as that argument is concerned no priority between those types of judgement isat issue. The Refutation of Idealism by contrast plainly does canvass a particular priority

between outer and inner judgements, even though the formal argument is not explicitlyabout judgements but about the experience they designate.

Something similar holds of the more recent discussions of a priority of judgementthesis. It might signify nothing more than a policy of approaching all philosophical issues

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through the language in which we express our experience. It might, more particularly,signify a rejection of a myth of the given, that is of Sellarss critical views about theexistence of, and role for, self-authenticating inner experiences. Even that view isambiguous. The myth might be rejected on the ground that inner experiences are not self-authenticating, or that they dont exist, or that they do exist but, whatever their nature,they cannot provide the foundation required in the tradition for our knowledge andexperience. All of these claims are present in Sellars, along with the additional idea that

judgements of the form yisy have a priority over judgements of the form yseemsy.That latter claim is about certain forms of linguistic expression and says nothing about ageneral priority of outer experience over inner. The same seems/is distinction can bedrawn just as well for inner as for outer experience. Again even if that priority holds it iscompatible with the claim that yseemsy judgements also have some priority overyisy judgements. McDowells contribution to these theses is his idea that becauseexperience properly requires both sense and understanding, as Kant insists, there cannot

be an even notionally separable contribution from the senses alone.In all this variety of positions held by Kant and the more modern theorists, which of the

latter views can be ascribed to Kant? Kant thinks that philosophy deals in concepts but isnot analytic, and needs also to make reference to other fundamental cognitive powers suchas intuition. He accepts that inner experiences are not self-authenticating, both because innerexperience depends on outer, and also because the objective validity and reality of experi-ence rest on a priori concepts, intuitions, and principles. He disagrees with McDowellsclaim that sensibility cannot be even notionally separated from understanding. AlthoughMcDowells thesis may have its origin in Kants requirement that only through the unionof the two faculties can knowledge arise, Kant reserves a notional place for the distinctivecontribution of the senses. Many of those Kantian positions reflect Abelas priority of

judgement thesis, but others, such as the insistence on cognitive powers such as sensibility,do not. Abelas development of his thesis in the principles gives some indication of therange of his argument, but the disparities indicate something of its limitations.

There are two particular points where those disparities seem to limit his discussion. Thefirst is the position of the mathematical principles, and the second is the scope and successof the formal Refutation of Idealism. The first is important because if, with Abela, you takethe view that there can be no, even notional, reference to the senses or intuitions apart fromour concepts or understanding, then the mathematical principles become problematic.This is because they, unlike the Analogies, are supposed to be about a pure intuitionnotionally separate from the understanding. The second is important because if, withAbela, Kant is held to aim there for a refutation of a general scepticism about truth,objectivity, and experience, then the argument is likely to be over-ambitious.

Abela recognises the difficulty in fitting the mathematical principles into his scheme.

He asks (p. 116): How do we accommodate something that embodies judgement butwhich without the Analogies is nothing to us? Another way of putting it arises from thecharacterisation of intuition as indeterminate. If Kants aim is to show how themathematical categories match an indeterminate sensibility what could be meant by theunderstandings determining something that is simply indeterminate? His response tothese problems is captured in passages from pp. 116-117. He says: Empirical intuition isnot bereft of cognitive significance and structure, and: We should not be barred frominvestigating the pre-objective role of the Axioms and Anticipations merely on thegrounds that the content and temporal structure they yield is made fully determinate onlywithythe Analogies. Finally, while we cannot objectively represent the indeterminatelevel on its ownywe can make intelligible why low-level judgement must still be at work

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at this level of cognition, and we can explore how the structures of empirical intuitionreveal the underlying activity of judgement without accepting that theseyon their ownrender cognitive content to the mind. These problems are just as much Kants as Abelas,

but it remains unclear how intuition can be both indeterminate and structured, both lackjudgement and also reveal its underlying activity.

The claim about the Refutation of Idealism is that it offers a rebuttal of a globalscepticism about our knowledge and experience. It does so by appealing to a Kantianholism which entails that the collective force of our beliefs about the empirical worldcannot be false. Such an account echoes a view of Davidsons, but it is difficult to see thatview in the Refutation of Idealism, which seems to be more narrowly focussed and doesnot make explicit that Davidsonian appeal to the collective force of our beliefs. Theargument is more narrowly focussed since it is explicitly directed at a weak Cartesian orstrong Berkeleian scepticism about external objects. Since it is designed to turn thearguments of such idealists against themselves it seems to concern just that kind oftraditional idealist scepticism rather than a wider, global, scepticism about knowledge orexperience in general. Kants position throughout the Critique is undeniably holistic but itis difficult to see that character emerging in the Refutation of Idealism exactly inDavidsons form. Paul Abela takes it that Kants judgement-oriented approach showshow global scepticism fails, so that to envisage the falsity of our total governing structureof representation is (variously) vacuous (p. 206), or of dubious merit (p. 207), orinherently unintelligible (p. 208). The Refutation argument seems both less ambitious andmore carefully targeted than that. But it might also be observed that Kant himselfundoubtedly thinks that we can envisage something like the failure of our structure ofrepresentation in other possible worlds with subjects whose cognitive faculties aredifferent from ours. Kant does not so much canvass Davidsons argument against theglobal sceptic as, apparently, concede the sceptical possibility, but very sensibly decline todraw the sceptics conclusion.

It would be easy to adjust Abelas conclusions to take these problems into account, andthey are, to repeat, problems with Kant as much as with Abela himself. The generalstructure and thesis in his book are both thoroughly convincing and well developed. As arepresentative of an anti-traditional approach to Kant the book will be valuable forstudents at all levels, and can be recommended to anyone with an interest in Kant.

Graham Bird University of Walesgrabird@supanet

Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition, by Michael Steven Green. Urbana andChicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002, 200 pp.ISBN 0-252-02735-3 $29.95

In this book Green offers a substantial and thorough examination of Nietzsches treatmentof epistemological issues. His analysis covers such topics as the contentious error theory,naturalism, the nature of judgment, the status of logic, consciousness, causality, space,time, antirealism and the self-reference problem. Green contends that Nietzschestreatment of such issues must be understood in the context of a fundamental tension inhis writings between naturalism and antinaturalism. The central and guiding argument ofthe book is that Nietzsches approach to epistemology is paradoxical (p. 7). According to

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Green, Nietzsche adopts a naturalistic approach to epistemology while retaining acommitment to a transcendental antinaturalist conception of an objectively valid

judgment. Green contends that Nietzsche naturalizes all our judgments but that in sodoing he casts doubt upon the possibility of any truth, including the truth of the verynaturalism that motivates his philosophy (p. 7). Thus Nietzsche, Green argues, ultimatelydenies that objectively valid judgments are possible. As a consequence Green contendsthat Nietzsche is forced to adopt a noncognitivist position that is tantamount to the claimthat we are unable to think at all and that our judgments can neither be true nor false.

One of the principal strengths of Greens analysis is the manner in which he success-fully combines sensitivity to historical context with a broader issue-led investigation ofNietzsches views on truth and knowledge. He argues that in order to fully understandthese views we must appreciate the historical context in which Nietzsche wrote. Byemphasizing the historical dimension to Nietzsches thought Green follows in thefootsteps of writers like Peter Poellner (Nietzsche and Metaphysics, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1995) and Robin Small (Nietzsche in Context, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001) who seek tounderstand Nietzsche in the context of his contemporaries. In so doing, he seeks to temperthe trend in Nietzsche studies that attempts to make sense of Nietzsches writings solely inthe context of our own contemporaries such as Derrida, Foucault, Tarski and Quine (p.3).

Greens historical analysis involves an in-depth investigation of the Kantian back-ground to Nietzsches thought. Kants influence on Nietzsche, he argues, is mediated bythe writings of Afrikan Spir and centers round the issue of objectively valid judgment.Green outlines how for Kant, an objectively valid judgment must entail a necessary andatemporal connection of our representations in contrast to Humean psychological laws ofassociation. Objectively valid judgment, for Kant, requires that intuitions be brought underconcepts. However, Green demonstrates that Kants attempt to show how the categoriesapply to sensations results in an oscillation between emphasizing either the formal/spontaneous aspect of cognition or the sensory/passive component. Green argues thatKants failure to show how the timeless preconditions of thought can be married to thetemporal flow of sensations gives rise to Spirs view that the gap between the two cannot

be bridged. Thus Spir argues that the manifold of sensation cannot be thought. Confrontedwith what he sees as the unbridgeable gap between experience and thought, Spir contendsthat the only objectively valid judgment that is possible is about an atemporal and absoluteunity that stands above the temporal flow of sensations (p. 48). As such, absolute

becoming (the occurrence of events in time) is said to be incompatible with either the truthor the falsity of a judgment. It is this view of cognition that, Green claims, Nietzscheinherits from Spir. However, unlike Spir, who argues that reality is essentially unitary andsimple, Nietzsche stresses the reality of absolute becoming as it is revealed through thesenses and the temporal succession of our mental contents. What is especially interesting

about Greens analysis is the manner in which he appeals to the Spirean background toNietzsches thought to reappraise the cognitivist reading of Nietzsches epistemology putforward by the analytic strand of Nietzsche scholarship, particularly by MaudemarieClark and Brian Leiter. Green contends that these writers have underestimated Nietzschesclaim that the world is becoming. They, according to Green, see Nietzsches doctrine of

becoming as a means to deny the possibility of a priori metaphysics. However, Greencontends that Nietzsches claim regarding the reality of becoming is in fact part of asophisticated argument against the possibility of objectively valid judgment (p. 51). In sodoing, Green points out that, rather than supporting the cognitive interpretation ofNietzsches naturalism, the doctrine of becoming actually gives us full license to takeNietzsches statements of the error theory and noncognitivism seriously. Greens claim is

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that, although Nietzsche is a naturalist, he still holds to a Kantian/Spirean transcendentaland antinaturalist account of objectively valid judgment. Such judgments presuppose,according to Nietzsche, timeless categories that cannot be reconciled with the reality ofabsolute becoming. The consequence of this failure of reconciliation is, Green argues, thatNietzsches approach to epistemological questions is fundamentally noncognitivist incharacter.

However, although he argues that Nietzsche is a noncognitivist, Green is concerned todeny the postmodern view that Nietzsche replaces truth with mere aesthetics by way of

judgment. In so doing, Green is concerned to counteract the anything goes (p. 12) view ofbelief interpretation of Nietzsches writings. He argues that Nietzsche retains the view thatour judgments are non-trivial and that we can adjudicate between correct and incorrect

judgments. In this way, the actual substantive claims that Green attributes to Nietzsche areclose to those attributed to him by Clarks cognitivist reading. For example, Green agreesthat Nietzsche thinks that his own claims such as his criticisms of Christianity, asceticismand Platonism are correct. Thus Green denies Clarks charge that a noncognitivistreading renders judgments arbitrary and trivial. However, he argues in contrast to thecognitivist that our feeling of cognitive constraint is not to be attributed to concepts butrather to the self-disciplined goal directedness of our drives. Green compares Nietzschesnaturalist account of constraint to the emotivists appeal to unconditional desires overconditional desires. In so doing, he argues that our judgments are rooted in our currentaffective make-up but that, contrary to Clarks objection, our values are not right just

because I value them (conditional desire) but rather that they are valuable unconditionally.Such desires are said to be unconditional because they aim at states of affairs other thanthe satisfaction of our desires themselves (p. 139). It is through this comparison withethical emotivism that Green counteracts the charge that Nietzsche is either an ethical/epistemic hedonist who claims that my values/judgments are correct only if I desire themor a nihilist who claims that we cannot prefer one value/judgment over another.

It would be incorrect, however, to conclude on the basis of this that Greens Nietzsche isa relatively uncontroversial one. He has not simply given us the cognitivist Nietzscheunder a new name; rather he employs the Spirean background to Nietzsches thought toshow how Nietzsches statement of the error theory might be plausible. Contrary toClark, and in an argument that closely mirrors one previously put forward by R. LanierAnderson (Overcoming Charity: The Case of Maudemarie Clarks Nietzsche on Truth andPhilosophy , in Nietzsche-Studien, 25, 1996, 30741), Green claims that the error theory ispresent throughout the entire corpus of Nietzsches writings. Green contends that the errortheory arises not in the context of comparisons between our judgments and reality, butrather from the Spirean thesis that our concept of an empirical object harbours anantinomy and is fundamentally contradictory. The antinomy ensues from the demand for

a union of being with becoming that cannot be realized. It is in this specific sense thatGreen argues that Nietzsches noncognitivism (which denies the possibility of objectivelyvalid judgments) is compatible with the error theory (which claims that our judgmentsabout the world are false). Nietzsches acceptance of the error theory bears seriousphilosophical consequences that Green contends have not been given sufficient attention

by commentators. He outlines how Spirs argument that true knowledge is of a timelessrealm of being endorses the thetic side of Kants antinomy. Nietzsche, according to Green,accepts Spirs view regarding the falsity of empirical knowledge. However, he denies thatwe have some alternative knowledge of being. Rather, Nietzsche contends, according toGreen, that To the extent that we think at all, what we think must be false (p. 60). Thuswhereas Spir emphasizes the thetic position of the antinomy, Nietzsche endorses the

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antithetic position. Green argues that his adoption of the antithetic position leadsNietzsche to reject both synchronic and diachronic self-identity and to adopt antithetictheories of substance, space, time and causality. Nietzsches world of becoming is thus aworld without substances and causal relations, within which things happen at noparticular rate of time and things exist in no particular place (p. 7). However, Green alsoargues that Nietzsches error theory is prone to certain inconsistencies. He claims that theerror theory is plausible independently of any claim about what reality is like. To theextent that Nietzsche attempts to articulate absolute becoming (through the will to powerthesis), Green claims that Nietzsche brings his ontology to the brink of incoherence (p.92). For Green contends that Nietzsches attempt to articulate absolute becoming is anattempt to express the inexpressible (p. 160). Moreover, Green argues that if absolute

becoming exists then it is not clear how error is possible because it is a mystery how wethink in the first place.

Consequently, Greens argument in chapter five that Nietzsches noncognitivism isultimately subject to the problem of self-reference and that he is unable to overcome thisdifficulty is particularly significant. However, Green contends that self-referentialinconsistency is not a reason to dismiss Nietzsches epistemology. According to Green,the most significant aspect of Nietzsches naturalism is not its referential capacity butrather its ability to induce an affirmation of the drives that inform our judgments throughthe cultivation of self-discipline. In this vein Greens analysis is similar to that put forward

by Ken Gemes (Nietzsches Critique of Truth in John Richardson and Brian Leiter (eds.)Nietzsche, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and others who argue that, for Nietzsche,the ultimate significance of our values resides not in their truth or falsity but rather in thepractical effect that such values have on human life. However, Green doubts thatNietzsches project is ultimately successful in this regard, due to the fact that Nietzsche hasoften been perceived as encouraging a lack of discipline rather than a focused and resoluteinvestigation of the world (p. 162).

In his introduction Green claims that his aim is to present what Nietzsche actually saysrather than what his readers think he ought to have said. The cognitivist reading ofNietzsche put forward by Clark and others, Green contends, is motivated not by anappreciation of what Nietzsche actually says but by a desire to vindicate reason andrigorous argumentation in academic discourse in general (p. 3). Green here points to whathe sees as a deficiency amongst the Nietzsche commentaries written in the English langu-age. Indeed he argues that noncognitivist readings such as the one that he puts forward inthis book have met with more sympathy amongst German language interpreters ofNietzsches writings. However, if Green is correct in his claim that he presents an accuratepicture of Nietzsche, then it is difficult to see how Nietzsches writings can be a serioussource of inspiration for philosophers outside the Nietzsche canon. Ultimately, in Greens

analysis, Nietzsches naturalism collapses into incoherence. His ontological theses such asthe will to power are unsuccessful attempts to articulate that which cannot be articulated,and his epistemological views make sense only to the extent that they show that thought isimpossible. Greens rather literal interpretation of Nietzsches notebook entries will be acause of concern for some readers. For Greens Spirean interpretation of Nietzsche asadopting an antithetic account of reality but a thetic standard of objectively valid judgmentcommits him to a metaphysics of opposites that Nietzsche himself claims to reject (Human

All Too Human, 1; Beyond Good and Evil, 2). Moreover, Greens argument that Nietzscheremains committed to the Kantian standard of objectively valid judgment sits uncom-fortably with Nietzsches warning in Schopenhauer as Educator, 3, that Kants philo-sophy represents a despair of truth that results in relativism and scepticism. Nietzsches

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alleged commitment to Kants antinaturalist understanding of cognition is further calledinto question when we consider those many passages in Nietzsches writings that suggestthat he thinks that Kants epistemology is ultimately sceptical due to the reference to thething-in-itself (Twilight of the Idols, IV). In such passages Nietzsche claims that Kantunderstands the thing-in-itself as the unknowable but ultimate standard of reality.Moreover, it is questionable whether Nietzsche fully appreciated Kants transcendentalidealism and its distinctness from empirical idealism. In The Philosopher, 106, Nietzschedescribes Kants theory of knowledge as the view that the world has its reality only inman. It is tossed back and forth like a ball in the heads of men. Here Nietzsche arguablyaccepts Schopenhauers thesis that Kant is an inconsistent Berkeleian who divorces thehumanly made (empirical idealism) world from reality as it is in itself. All of the abovesuggest that Nietzsche thinks that atemporal and invariable concepts such as Kantscategories are unable to forge a necessary connection between our judgments and theultimate object of knowledge. If Nietzsche had accepted Kants transcendental idealism,then the object of knowledge would be the empirically real world. However, if Nietzschewas not fully cognizant of Kants transcendental idealism then it seems that the Kantianobject of knowledge is, for Nietzsche, the thing-in-itself from which our humanknowledge must always be divorced. Since the claim that Nietzsche is a noncognitivistultimately relies on his commitment to Kantian antinaturalist standards of objectivelyvalid judgment it may be more appropriate, in light of the above, to describe Nietzschesproject as a redefinition of what constitutes knowledge rather than as a rejection of itspossibility altogether. Such a redefinition is suggested, for example, by Nietzsches appealto perspectival objectivity in Genealogy of Morality, III, 12. However, despite thesequestions, Greens book is an extremely thought provoking and challenging study thatopens up a rich historical examination of Nietzsches writings. To the extent that he arguesthat such historical analyses have not yet been completed (p. 16), this study opens up thefield of Nietzsche studies for further investigation. In particular, it shows the importanceof addressing Nietzsches notebook entries in their entirety rather than just those that have

been translated into English. There is, it seems, more work to be done in the area ofNietzsche studies.

Tsarina Doyle Milltown Institute of Theology and PhilosophyMilltown Park, Dublin 6

[email protected]

The Minds Affective Life: A Psychoanalytic and Philosophical Inquiry, by GemmaCorradi Fiumara. Hove; Brunner-Routledge, 2001, 174 pp.ISBN 1-58391-153-7 hb 40.00 1-58391-154-5 pb 17.99

Over the last couple of decades there has occurred a discernible renewal of interest acrossa variety of disciplines in the topic of emotion. Various widely read works such asDescartes Error, by neurologist Antonio Damasio, and Emotional Intelligence, by psycholo-gist Daniel Goleman, have, in their own ways, challenged conventional assumptions aboutemotion and, in particular, its relation to cognition. The classically modern view theerror that Damasio imputes to Descartes construed cognitive states and processes asessentially affectless and, conversely, treated emotions as brute and unintelligent feelings.

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That is, cognition and affect had been dichotomised in terms of the conventional mind-body distinction, and the idea of cool-headed affectless thought had shaded into theexalted, often exclusive, epistemic value that modern Western culture had attributed to thenatural sciences conceived as models of dispassionate objectivity. Thought of as locatedoutside of cognition in this way, emotions could only be regarded as having the negativecognitive status of being disrupters to cool-headed thinking. Against this, however,Damasio and Goleman have contributed to a broad coalition of revisionist views whichFiumara describes as extending from the domain of psychoanalysis to the neurosciences[which] seems to converge in the belief that affects and intelligence may function as asynergy (p. 80).

In studying individuals with brain injuries that had resulted in affective but,apparently, not cognitive malfunction, Damasio found that the ability to performnormally on clinical tests of cognitive functioning could coexist with the hopelessperformance of everyday life. The lives of these people suggested to him the idea of animpairment of a type of practical intelligence in which affective states were crucial for thecapacity to judge or evaluate situations in ways that reflected their pertinence for thoseagents lives. Fiumaras interpretation on the synergy between affects and cognition

builds on these sorts of revisionist approaches but takes them to more radical conclusions.For Fiumara, these sorts of studies of the relation of emotions to cognition must ultimatelyrebound on the deep underlying epistemological assumptions presupposed by modernculture and, indeed, presupposed by many of these revisionary studies of the emotionsthemselves. Drawing on a combination of psychoanalysis and the types of anti-representationalist epistemological approaches found especially in contemporary feministphilosophy, Fiumara is suspicious of the traditional paradigm of a cool-headed affectlessreason, not just in terms of its narrowness, but in terms of the repressed affective states shediscerns within it. Instead she suggests turning a psychoanalytically attuned ear toWestern epistemic culture, listening within its expressions for the possible affectiveorientations and processes implicit, and yet repressed, within them. Thus, as she says inthe introduction, the book is an attempt to explore the affective components of apparentlynon-affective human enterprises (p. 2).

This aspect of her project leads her to counter traditional epistemologically centredphilosophy with a stance she calls epistemophilic. If affects are the ways of feeling ourown modes of being alive (p. 56) and are implicated in our cognitive processes, we mayask what they reveal about those particular modes of being alive that constitute inquiry.Traditional epistemology has taken an abstract conception of reason which, sheacknowledges, has particular legitimate uses, but has decontextualised it and generalisedit into a conception of reason per se and, furthermore, into a type of ideal of humanexistence. But the cost of this type of reason is that it functions on the basis of a repression

of the sorts of affective states originally motivating it, resulting in an alienation of reasonfrom its affective resources which ultimately constitutes a mutilation of our potential forthinking and relating (p. 22). In contrast with such epistemology, from the epistemophilicstance we can increasingly strive to think of the minds life in terms of caring interactionsand projects of self-creation (p. 22).

With the idea that cool-headed reason might actually be based on a desire to shape andcontrol, predict and utilise whatever objects of inquiry (p. 41), Fiumaras approach joinswith relatively familiar critical positions within modern philosophy, from Heidegger, say,to the type of critique of instrumental reason of the Frankfurt school. But Fiumaraspsychoanalytic orientation allows her to get considerably more nuanced than this: we areasked, for example, to consider what passes for distance and objectivity as the possible

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effects of the operation of a primitive psychic defence mechanism brought to bear toprotect the organism against various negative affects. The cool-headed reason aspired tomight thus really be the manifestation of a type of pathological indifference, a state ofmind prevalent in contemporary life that is more dangerous than any other psychicmenace, in that it functions as an almost irresistible seduction it is painless, costless,invisible, and increasingly effective against any suffering (p. 141). From this perspectivethe agent of the idealised rationality might be seen to be impaired in ways analogous toDamasios brain-impaired patients, unable to mobilise and respond appropriately toaffects and hence unable to articulate an evaluative orientation to the world.

Fiumaras type of critical orientation towards the enlightenments rationalisthypostatisation of disembodied and affectless reason, together with its focus on theaffective dimension of human life and the idea of individual self-constitution recallscertain types of early nineteenth-century romantic forms of cultural criticism. As withFichtes pre-figuration of romanticism, Fiumara has extended the Kantian approach ofcharting the necessary conditions of human knowledge and thought into the realm of theimmediacy of embodied feeling. Knowledge, then, is regarded as the end-point of aprocess of the symbolic articulation of such initial affective states, rather than primarily therepresentation of some objectively existing state of affairs. As within much romanticthought, Fiumara focuses on the threat to particularity and self-awareness by the levellingnature of the enlightenment goals of objective and universal representation. As with manyof the romantics too, Fiumaras intellectual interest in affects is tied to a critical reflection(in her case, a psychoanalytically shaped one) on modern culture and society. It seems thatfor her there is something about the deteriorating nature of our affective lives that gives anurgency to this type of inquiry. As affective orientation underlies our evaluative capacity,our loss of affective literacy renders our lives centreless and prey to politicalmanipulation. Fiumara always has an eye on the fact that there are organisations, parties,or groups that relieve us from the risky management of genuine affects: they coach us intothe proper and satisfying allocation of our emotional forces in such a way that wegrossly misrepresent and falsify core affects (p. 141).

Hans-Georg Gadamer famously commented on the paradox facing the inquiries ofthose nineteenth-century romantic historians who, faced with what they thought to be thedevastating effects of modern societys dislocation from earlier organic traditions,attempted to reconstitute the link by scientific history: regarding history as a scientificobject of knowledge, Gadamer contended, presupposed the sort of dislocation from it thatit sought to overcome. Fiumara has analogous concerns about how to conduct an inquiryinto the nature of affect. She points to the self-defeating nature of simply extending ourtraditional objective modes of inquiry into the realm of our affective lives which will not

be saved, or enhanced, by the power of theories (p. 66). Rather, the salvation of our

affective life will occur through a transformed insight into our deeper self, and throughtransformed vocabularies with which to approach the predicament (p. 66). However, asrich and suggestive as Fiumaras approach here is, it is unclear to me how the invention ofthe new vocabularies she advocates for discussing our affective lives is meant to be keptseparate from the construction of new theories of the affects. Moreover, even if they could

be kept separate, it seems unclear why new and sophisticated ways of talking about theaffects should be free from the type of reification that Fiumara seems concerned about withrespect to theories of affect. Finally, while appreciative of Fiumaras basic point, in readingthe book I often found myself looking for some more sustained and explicit theorising ofthis subject domain. The down-side of her admirable ability to range across a broaddomain of contemporary approaches to the subject is that quite a bit of the process of

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mounting her case has been done by a type of lateral linking of diverse approaches atthe expense of a sustained and conceptually unified, that is, more theoretical develop-ment of it.

Paul Redding Department of PhilosophyThe University of Sydney

NSW, 2006Australia

[email protected]

Kant und die Berliner Aufklarung. Akten des IX. Internationalen Kantkongresses, 5 vols.,edited by Volker Gerhardt, Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Ralph Schumacher. Berlin andNew York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001, 3264 pp.ISBN 3-11-016979-7 hb h168.00

Kant and the Berlin Enlightenment is a subject that might be described as a large area, yetit makes up only a small, and by no means overrepresented, part of what is found in thisedition of that title. For the Akten des IX. Internationalen Kantkongresses, which took place atthe Humboldt University of Berlin in 2000, comprises no less than five volumes and 352articles in German, English and French, representing to a very large extent, in bothsystematic and historical respects, the current state of Kant scholarship as a whole. This isdue to the editors decision to document almost all the papers given at the congress, so thatalong with established big names of Kant scholarship such as Henry Allison, KonradCramer, Eckart Forster, Michael Friedman, Paul Guyer, Dieter Henrich, Beatrice Lon-guenesse, Onora ONeill and Allen Wood the list of authors includes numerous youngeracademics and graduate students of varying intellectual and geographical background.

An undertaking such as this is obviously beyond simple characterization in terms ofdominant approaches, as it is any representative selection of papers on the reviewers part.In the following I will concentrate on a few of the contributions to the congress. However,if one nonetheless starts by looking briefly at the contributions as a whole, it isconspicuous that they are mostly characterized not so much by the attempt to use analyticmeans to bring out a systematically tenable core of Kants philosophy as by attention to a

broad canon of individual problems posed by Kants various texts. In terms of content,interest in the justificatory arguments that Kant called Deductions has waned noticeably.Instead, individual questions in the foundation of the sciences have come to the fore, with and this is a new feature convincing papers often being those that focus on following ahistorical development through the individual periods of Kants thought. The paper byBeatrice Longuenesse, which follows Kants attempts to determine and justify theprinciple of sufficient reason from the Nova Dilucidatio through to the various texts of hiscritical philosophy, can be regarded as an example of this. On the whole there is onlyseldom a break with established problems of Kant scholarship, but from time to time theauthors deliberations, where successful, do achieve considerable increases in precisionand deeper understanding of Kants complex and multifaceted work. In keeping with thislatter observation, the vast majority of contributions deal only with Kants own positionand do not discuss his work in the context of other approaches. So, for example, therelationship between Kant and German Idealism has lost all its interest, at least amongKantians.

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One of the central themes in Kants own work at the intersection just referred tobetween theoretical philosophy and the sciences is surely the relationship between Kantstheory of space and geometry. This is not merely a matter of what stance one should takeon Kants thesis that the propositions of geometry are synthetic and a priori. The brevityalone of the expositions found in the first Critique and the Prolegomena makes it difficult tounderstand how exactly Kant imagined the assumptions of his theory of space and proce-dures in Euclidean geometry dovetailing. The paper by Michael Wolff, who is at homewith both Kant scholarship and the history of geometry, provides important insights onthis subject. Wolff emphasizes first that according to Kant geometrical knowledge is basednot only on intuition, and hence space as its form, but equally on the operative use ofconcepts, above all the concept of extensive magnitude. This insight is familiar to theschooled Kantian, but it gains its keenness only when one sees how Wolff pursues it usingthe example of the Euclidean straight line and parallel axioms. The straight line axiominitially states that the straight line is the space between two points. For Kant, according toWolff, we attain insight into the correctness of the alternative Archimedean formulationthe straight line is the shortest connection between two points only when the intuition ofstraight lines is subsumed under the concept of magnitude. The fact that we can build upparticular lines and sections of space, using imagination, only by successive steps in ourintuition, means that magnitude is simultaneously presupposed as extensive magnitude.But, assuming divisibility, not only can the straight line connecting two points bedistinguished as that line of which all parts are similar. If one part is taken as a unit ofmeasurement and it is assumed that this is to be placed either on the line itself or on itschord, it also becomes clear that this has to occur least often for the straight line, which istherefore the shortest connection.

In the attempt to relate the Kantian principle of understanding all intuitions are exten-sive magnitudes to the Euclidean parallel axiom too, Wolff has to rely more heavilyon speculative considerations, since there is no mention of the parallel axiom in therelevant sections of the Critique and the Prolegomena. Wolff inserts two steps to close thegap: First he assumes that if space is an extensive magnitude, so that further segments can

be added to any line, it must then also be possible for any given geometrical figure to finda similar figure, differing in size (i.e. magnitude) but of the same proportions. Wolff thenlooks to the history of geometry and finds that the proof of the parallel axiom developed

by the English mathematician Wallis (1616 1703) relies on a proposition which is to beunderstood as a special case of the conclusion Wolff had drawn in his first step. On thisassumption the proof of the parallel axiom (If two straight lines form interior angles witha third, the sum of which is smaller than two right angles, then with sufficient lengtheningthey will intersect) can be summarized roughly as follows: First one of the straight lines isshifted so that it intersects the second and hence, together with the third, forms a triangle;

from the principle of proportional variability it then follows that there is a similar, largertriangle which can be proven to have a corner lying on the two straight lines in theiroriginal position. The question as to whether Kant had in mind the above consequence ofhis principle of extensive magnitude and its relation to the proof ultimately remainsfounded on considerations of plausibility (Might Kant have known about Walliss proofthrough Kastner?). Nonetheless, one merit of Wolffs account is that it allows one to movefrom the universal statement that we attain insight based on the intuitive case ofindividual geometrical figures to a determination of this insight which matches the waymathematicians in fact proceed and this at least on Kantian foundations.

It is less clear what Wolffs considerations on the possible status of a Kantian theory ofspace in view of Einsteins relativity theory, which he himself understands as preliminary,

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might amount to. Although Wolff points out that relativity theory brings a change in theobject with space as a medium of extensive magnitudes being replaced by kinematics,the basic concepts of which are defined only for events he does not want to assume thatgeometry, independently of experience as a pure science of space, has a residual subjectmatter of its own that in itself provides its concepts with meaning, since, also according toKant, concepts would be meaningless if they had no possible application to empiricalintuition. But Wolff disputes the conclusion that we can acquire the empirical meaning ofgeometrical concepts only by means of corporeal measures, which are antecedently subjectto the laws of physics. Rather, he claims, for Kant a more or less exact drawing of a circleor observation of a spreading wave is sufficient evidence that the geometrical concept ofthe circle is not meaningless (I, 231). Note the negative formulation. The background tothis is that (1) as a consequence of strongly emphasizing the conceptual side of geometricalknowledge, Wolff restricts the role of intuition to the provision of meaning; and (2) inintuition the empirical side must also be considered, where exact equivalents of puregeometrical objects are never found. One must ask of this attempted positioning of Kanthow inexact empirical objects, which are supposed to constitute meaning, are to be relatedto the exact meaning of mathematical objects without being exposed to reservations likethose pressed by Frege in his theory of numbers. This question emerges all the moreclearly as Wolff avoids assuming an ideal and itself pure access, based on intuitionalconditions, just as he avoids the precision of mathematical physics since this would lead

back to the tension with relativity theory.The question as to what role can be ascribed to Kants theses following the turbulent

development of geometry in the 19th century is considered by K. N. Ihmigs paper. Hechooses a point of departure similar to Wolffs: If, as the above principle of proportionalvariability already shows, geometrical properties do not depend on the size and positionof certain figures, then these cannot be drawn on to answer the new question that arose atthe end of the century namely, how one geometry can be distinguished over another.This can, however, be done by relying on properties that remain invariant under a class oftransformations such as rotations and reflections. Following on from Felix Klein, whoshowed that the set of such transformations forms a group in the mathematical sense,Ihmig outlines a modified Kantian programme seeking to replace the idea of an infinite

given magnitude and for Kant (B 39) this means the idea of space as a form of intuitionitself with the concept of a group and its deduction. But against this it must be urged thatthis would then leave quite open what role intuition still has to play and on what basis ageometry, the transformations of which are to fall under the group concept, is selected.Because of the successive intellectualization of geometry in the 19th century, Ihmig issubsequently only able to attribute to intuition and the use of the individual intuitiveobject in universal geometrical apprehension a role within a non-psychological heuristics.

In so doing he departs from discussion of the quid juris? question, and thus, on the onehand, distances himself further from Kant. On the other hand, even his reflections onheuristics seem to be guided by the paradigm case of Euclidean geometry. But, if this is thestarting point, the question arises whether one might not arrive at a further-reachingdefence of intuition by investigating how geometrical theorems acquire their meaning.Such a position would be Kantian in a broader sense, if a connection could be establi-shed between the intuitively grounded criterion of meaning and the validity of geo-metrical axioms. This would represent an alternative to the intellectualist procedure ofHilberts implicit definitions on which Ihmigs description of the situation is based.However, such an approach would also have to deal with the difficulties that we havealready met with Wolff.

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Eckart Forsters paper Kants Philosophical Construction traces a long line ofdevelopment through Kants theoretical philosophy. In doing this Forster too is notwithout reference to geometry since the application of the Kantian concept ofconstruction is most clearly appreciated in this domain. The Critique of Pure Reasondefines the concept of construction as the procedure of a priori exhibition of the intuitioncorresponding to a concept. It is this procedure that serves as the basis of the, previouslymentioned, description of the geometrical mode of knowledge, according to which in theintuitive demonstration of a Euclidean proof (e.g. that the sum of the angles in a triangle is1801) one sees the validity of the general thesis in the one presented case of a particulartriangle. Kant distinguished this, both in his 1762 essay on the clarity of principles and in1781, from philosophical knowledge, which is abstract conceptual knowledge not based onintuitive exhibition. If one considers this distinction, the pressing question is what, in aKantian sense, a philosophical construction might be and what task it assumes within thearchitecture of the critical philosophy. Although this question is most pertinent to the

Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, in which a metaphysical and hencephilosophical construction is involved, this is largely eclipsed in Forsters account by asecond issue which he reconstructs from the development of the first Critique. This is thequestion as to whether the proof of the categorial concepts meaning and their relation toreality the well-known aim of the first Critique is already achieved in the so-calledSchematism chapter by relating the categorial concepts solely to determinations of time, asthe framework within which everything sensible is given, but not to the other form ofintuition (space). For Forster defends the bold thesis that philosophical construction,which he attempts to bring out from the Metaphysical Foundations, has precisely the task ofcompleting the unfinished proof of the categories reality. In this way, according to Forster,a successively shifting problem opens up a line of development that can be followed fromthe key topic of the first Critique through to Kants theory of the human body as a naturalmachine in the Opus postumum.

Considered more closely Forsters argument proceeds in three steps. In the first step heclaims that the necessity of a spatial schematism is justified by the increased value acquired

by space, in the transition from the first to the second editions of the Critique of Pure Reason,as a result of Kants attempt to distinguish himself from Berkeley. Kant argues thatexperience presupposes change, which is possible only when at the same time there issomething permanent. This in turn implies simultaneity, which we attain not by time alone,in which everything is subject to sequential progression, but only in connection with space.If this is correct, a schematism that considers temporal determinations alone would establishthe possibility of categories referring to intuitions only on an account of this possibilitywhich, because it does not lead to the full sense of experience, remains one-sided.

In his second step Forster urges that we must now look to the Metaphysical Foundations

and identifies the deliberations found there on the concept of matter as (1) a genuine caseof the philosophical construction sought, and (2) as an attempt to catch up on the missingschematism of outer sense. In this way the question of outer senses possible relation toreality becomes the question as to the conditions in which matter concentrates into bodiesthat can affect our senses. According to Kant, the formation of bodies is possible onlywhen this is underlain by a construction of distinct forces that can be shown to be workingin different ways, since it would not otherwise be possible to explain differences in densitythat first lead to bodies and hence to different intuitions. Of the many difficulties with thisconception, which Forster knowledgeably and precisely brings out, there is one above allthat in his eyes leads beyond the Metaphysical Foundations to the development of the Opuspostumum. This is the fact that the attractive force deployed by Kant suggests its

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identification with the attractive force in the law of gravitation, which, however, alreadypresupposes differences in density.

In the third step Forster then characterizes the new point of departure for the Opuspostumum: On the one hand, aether theory can explain the formation of bodies, but doesnot do so by means of a philosophical construction; on the other hand, the problem ofestablishing categories relation to reality via outer sense has still not been resolved.Forster identifies Kants theory of the body as a natural machine as an attempt to solve thisproblem. In this theory the outer senses relation to reality remains bound to the capacityof forces to exert influence; but I can experience these only when I myself exert force,which is made possible by the mechanical character of my body. This means thatultimately ones own body becomes the mediating authority that makes available theprocedures which furnish concepts with intuitions and as which construction and theschematism were defined.

The broad historical and thematic span, with its simultaneous concentration on aspecific problem, makes Forsters paper outstanding, but not everything that enters intohis deliberations is equally convincing. Thus Kants obscure thesis in the Schematismchapter that it is only time itself to which what is permanent in appearance corresponds (A143, B 183) can point to difficulties in accounting for the plurality of stable substances onthe basis of the temporal schematism alone, a move underpinning Forsters first step. Lessobvious is the issue of whether Forsters new determination of the task of the Metaphysical

Foundations and its conception of matter can be carried out in the way he sketches. Inparticular a question arises here concerning the fact, emphasized by Forster himself, thatthe construction of matter is based on an empirical datum and must proceed from anempirical concept of matter. The question is whether this is actually compatible with thedescription of the schemata of categorial concepts in the first Critique, which characterizesthese as formal and pure condition[s] of sensibility (A 140, B 179). Yet if this connectioncannot be established, it would be fatal for the whole set up of Forsters interpretation. Forsince the individual problems that Forster seeks to bring out in the conception ofconstruction of matter have little to do with the task of establishing the reality of thecategories, the Opus postumum can only be linked with the first Critique via the Metaphysical

Foundations if it is settled that the overall function of the construction of mattercorresponds to that of the schematism. But it is not only Forsters thesis that we cannotsettle for the first Critique and must turn to the Opus postumum that depends on thecontinuity of the question; so too does the question of which problems the theorems of theOpus postumum should be considered as contributing to. The authors great strength can beseen, however, in that one gains a multitude of insights into Kants work notwith-standing these concerns.

If the Metaphysical Foundations represent one central point of reference for exploring the

Opus postumum and its thesis of the human body as a natural machine, then the thirdCritique, and particularly its theory of the living, is the other. On this matter the paper byDina Emundts provides a circumspect inventory of the problem and the conceptualdistinctions in both works. The paper restrains from any strongly accented thesesconcerning historical development, with the difference lying, according to the author, innuance. Thus for Emundts there is no reason to assume that in the Opus postumum Kantretracted the thesis that the explanation of the origin of organisms cannot be objectivelyvalid, since it presupposes a concept of causality as an effect of the whole on its parts which deviates from the category of causality and which we cannot render intelligible.What has changed, however, are the definitions of the analogies developed by Kantaround the concept of purposiveness which he attributes to the efficient relationship of the

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whole to its parts. Thus, although the analogy with action is already set up in the talk ofpurpose in the Critique of Judgement, it is only with the faculty of desire, as a force withinour own body, that the immaterial cause already implicit in the concept of action is alsoexplicitly emphasized, and hence assumed to be obligatory in other cases too. And prior tothis recourse to the concept of the machine, which serves a purpose to which the parts aresubordinated while simultaneously belonging to physics, had already had the task ofhinting at possible compatibility between the forms of causality. However, talk of onesown body as a natural machine extends the concept of the machine in a way that no longeridentifies the machine with mere apparatus. Immediate experience of the purposiveness ofones own body and of the faculty of desire becomes the decisive court of appeal. At thesame time, according to Emundts, it is not clear how problems in the explanation oforganisms as natural machines, rather than artefacts, might be overcome by these means.Hence of course and this shows the limit of the authors approach the question as towhich motives guided Kant in rebuilding his conception remains largely unanswered.

The number of contributions worth reading on the domain of Kants theoreticalphilosophy is far from exhausted by the above themes and I would like at least to point outseveral contributions grouped around another topic. Marcus Willaschek seeks to defusethe problem of the thing-in-itself with a subtle analysis of the concepts equivocality.Patricia Kitcher takes a new look at Trendelenburgs objection and aims to show thatconstruing this as an objection rests on a misunderstanding of the Kantian programme.Peter Rohs discusses the question of whether, for Kant, intuitions refer immediately toobjects in the light of a more precise version of the Kantian theory of judgement. Finally,Tobias Rosefeldt looks into the Kantian distinction between logical and real in order tounderstand what Kant means by the abiding and permanent I.

Among the papers on practical philosophy the essay by Robert B. Pippin deservesparticular attention. He begins by examining several recent strategies that react to the well-known charge of rigorism directed against Kants thesis that only such actions deservemoral praise as are motivated by duty alone. But his essay then centres on a much morecomplex discussion of an interpretation suggested by Barbara Herman which takes Kantsstance in the Groundwork to be not deontological, but value-theoretical and henceteleological (see Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgement, Cambridge, 1993,pp. 20840). To be able to assess Pippins critique, one should recall which assumptionsof Hermans are concealed behind these headings. She begins by pointing out that, ifthe moral principle features only as the external touchstone of the action and its purpose, itwill not be clear to the agent why one should submit to this touchstone and what is wrongwith the action. Both clarifications are, however, possible if at the same time the principlehas the status of a value set by reason which, as its aim, can be part of orienting the actionitself. Kant takes this step, according to Herman, when, among the many formulations of

the moral principle, he makes the transition from the universal law formula to the de-finition of humanity as an end in itself and its underpinning in the idea of autonomy. Butrational self-determination can be an ultimate value only if it is not dependent on otherfactors in its role as a source of orientation. This means, however, that as rational beings wehave to be rational all the way down and ourselves be guided in this self-understanding

by reasons that are also intelligible to others. This does not imply that reason alone canlead to particular actions, but merely that we are able to distance ourselves from theimmediate execution of our actions so as to view its orientation from the standpoint of itsrational implications. Although content-wise nothing changes in the balance betweenrational and empirical components in the orientation of the action, there is change in theintelligibility provided to the agent by the arrangement of the principles.

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Against this line of thought Pippin emphasizes the limitedness and context-dependency of humans. Using the example of care for our children, he clarifies thatalthough this cannot be interpreted as an expression of our own pleasure, as Kants theoryof nonmoral actions is often caricatured, nor can it be understood in terms of final ends set

by reason alone, nor yet by being true to my own self-understanding as a rational being.It also does not help here, according to Pippin, if one attempts to distinguish an objectivegood already characterized as an final end as being good for me.

Pippins critique seems to waver. If one understands it as an immanent critique ofHerman, one readily gains the impression that he attributes her with too forced aninterpretation of Kant. For assuming the role of an final end might also mean the weakassumption that it cannot be relativized by other purposes possibly involved in the action.And why should the aspect of autonomy, with its implications of independence, not play akey role on the morally relevant side of our relationship with our children? Pippinsreservation gains in force if it is read more generally as questioning whether the picture ofthe autonomous subject as an end in itself and the resultant link with impartial reasons infact allows all morally relevant aspects of actions to be picked out. According to Herman,however, the end-in-itself formula is to distinguish nothing more than the universal lawformula already has; the ordering is merely to become more comprehensible. Because ofthis, Pippins critique seems at this point to shift from engagement with Herman to afundamental difference with Kant himself, such that the morally constitutive role ofindividual conditions, our biographical experience of value and so on, is set up in acommunitarian manner against the Kantian outset in the obligatory viewpoint of a formal which for Herman means: guided by autonomous subjectivity itself practical rationality.

The paper by Pippin leads to the heart of Kantian ethics, allowing the reader to pursuerelated themes further in other essays. Particularly worth mentioning are Onora ONeillsanalysis of what it means for reasons to be public and Konrad Cramers very succinctcritique of Kants use of the deposit example in attempting to make sense of the universallaw formulation of the imperative. Although this is followed by further contributions thatare worth reading, for example on Kants treatment of moral dilemmas, the overallimpression is nonetheless that the papers on both Kants practical philosophy and theCritique of Judgement are not represented with the same weight as those on the theoreticalphilosophy. The great degree of completeness there leads the reader to perceive theabsence of a number of authors who have given impulses to discussion of Kant, amongwhom Barbara Herman and Christine Korsgaard in the area of practical philosophy, andHannah Ginsborg on the Critique of Judgement should be mentioned.

If one finally looks at the multitude of further sections, stretching from the philosophies ofreligion, history and politics through at last! to Kants relation to German Enlightenmentliterature, one notices a clear increase in interest in Kants anthropology, resulting not

infrequently from problems of practical philosophy similar to that just discussed. This is thecase, for example, in Allen Woods paper, which approaches anthropology from the startingpoint of the definition of the concept of practical anthropology found in the Groundwork.This, as all the other papers mentioned, is distinguished by a degree of precision, combinedwith a subtlety of knowledge, that makes Kant scholarship an enjoyable undertaking evenwhen it is not turning our image of Kant upside down. In this respect, the Akten des IX.

Internationalen Kantkongresses constitutes a treasure trove for the interested reader, beforewhose eyes both Kants multifaceted work and complex scholarly discussions open up. Ifreservations are sought, one might say that at times a stronger systematically foundedchallenge to Kantian positions might have broadened the perspective. Further, one cannotentirely conceal the fact that this comprehensive documentation provided the pleasure of

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seeing their work in print to a fair number of authors whose papers either contribute little tothe state of scholarly debate, pursue obscure issues, or rest on easily identifiable falseassumptions. This, however, belongs to the nature of the project and does not diminish thedegree of expertise gathered in these volumes.

Ulrich Schlosser Institut fur PhilosophieHumboldt-Universitat Berlin

Unter den Linden 610099 Berlin

[email protected]

Translated by Andrew Inkpin and Kristina Mussgnug Barrett

Vom Zweifel zur Verzweiflung: Grundbegriffe der Existenzphilosophie Soren Kierkegaards,by Kristin Kaufmann. Wurzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann, 2002, 151 pp.ISBN 3-826-02162-2 hb h25.00

Sren Kierkegaard, by Annemarie Pieper. Munchen: Beck, 2000, 157 pp.ISBN 3-406-41956-9 pb h12.50

The scope of both these works is ambitious: to make sense of the point of Kierkegaardsexistential dialectic in the pseudonymous authorship. While Piepers book presents ageneral introduction to Kierkegaards thought, Kaufmanns intention is to trace out thepaths that Kierkegaards characters take when attempting to overcome doubt and despair

by various existential means. Inevitably, perhaps, while both authors succeed on thebroad brush front, neither leaves the reader entirely satisfied when it comes to the detail.

Kaufmanns point of departure is the young Kierkegaards conception of Faustian doubt.The figure of Faust as an archetype exemplifies, for Kierkegaard, the romantic intellectual ona quest for absolute truth who ends up finding himself mired in an all-consuming scepticism.Kaufmann shows convincingly how Faust first starts off as a methodological doubter whofinds that objective truth is unattainable and who then gradually becomes an existentialdoubter in the sense that the doubt attacks not only his thought, but his very person and life.For Faust, therefore, doubt becomes despair over the contingency of everything.

Kaufmann argues that at first it seems as if only two responses to this predicament arepossible: quitting the quest by withdrawing from everything the solution that theaesthete offers in Either or suicide. Kaufmann then goes on to show, however, that all thepseudonymous authors engage in different ways with this perennial issue and try topresent strategies with which this stark dilemma could be headed off. In this way, she

believes, each subsequent pseudonymous production can be read as offering a critique ofits predecessors attempt at finding an existential solution to the despair engendered byout-and-out doubt. The remainder of the book thus consists of a scholarly run-through, inchronological order, of all the relevant works, showing that they all revolve around the twokey problems, doubt and despair, that she has identified.

There isnt much to object to in this project. I doubt that any Kierkegaard scholar woulddisagree with Kaufmanns assessment that finding a viable, liveable solution to the problem

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posed by a disenchantment of the world and the consequent lived scepticism (which, ofcourse, in the case of aesthete A coincides with a sophisticated hedonism) is a major part ofKierkegaards overall concern. I also agree with her verdict that contra somecommentators (she cites Lowrie) this was not just a phase in Kierkegaards thinking laterovercome by his religious conversion. She rightly emphasises that although all the ethicaland religious pseudonyms believe that there is only one way of stopping the doubt,namely by choosing not to doubt anymore and by recanting a commitment to the Gods eyeview in favour of subjectivity, the pseudonymous production is nevertheless populated

by characters incapable of making this leap themselves (Johannes Climacus being aparadigmatic example).

Interestingly, Pieper comes to a very different conclusion in the case of Climacus.She believes that in order for Climacus (in Concluding Unscientific Postscript) to be ableto depict plausibly the transition from the ethical to the Christian existence sphere,he already must have chosen the Christian form of life for himself. His insistence on not

being a Christian, Pieper thinks, merely has to do with his role as a teacher, which hasforced him to choose humour as his incognito, so that he wouldnt appear to bean authority to be emulated by his prospective student (p. 104). I dont think that anaccurate appraisal of the text supports such a reading and therefore side with Kaufmannin this debate, in the sense that I dont believe that Climacus can contrary to hisown avowals be taken to be a confident Christian (permitting the further interpretativeleap that Kierkegaard was one too). The very fact that Climacus is so remarkably adeptat illustrating the utter despair that an individual can face when trying to live thisabsolute commitment to subjectivity, which, for Climacus, is faith, shows, I think,that if Climacus really is a Christian, he is a very tormented one. And this, it seemsto me, provides evidence for Kaufmanns view that regarding the religious existencesphere as an antidote to doubt and despair is a very double-edged sword indeed.For, although the Christian form of life may provide a potential way out of Faustiandoubt, it brings with it its own peculiar kind of despair, so that the Kierkegaardianreader would be forgiven for wondering whether the price we have to pay forChristianity (at least according to Climacus conception of it) might not, in the end, betoo high.

I therefore also disagree with Piepers final verdict that the result of Kierkegaardsentire production (pseudonymous and non-pseudonymous) is the view that theexistential traveller is lost without the religious compass (p. 135). She says, To showhow one can, through Christian self-construction, become such a compass is Kierkegaardspurpose. From the depiction of existential failures there emerges a form of life which can

be experienced as a successful and a happy one. Although the path to this goal [theChristian form of life] is riddled with offence and humiliation, once one has arrived there,

everything becomes easy, because from then on all striving can be structured towards thisgoal (p. 136, translation mine).

I think this reading does no justice to the complexity and open-endedness ofKierkegaards work. It is true that Kierkegaard himself often claims (for example in ThePoint of View) that he is first and foremost a religious writer, but I believe, as do manycommentators nowadays (see, for instance, Harvie Fergusons excellent book, Melancholyand the Critique of Modernity, Routledge 1995), that these self-professions must be viewedwith a certain amount of scepticism. Indeed, it has even become quite fashionable tosuppose that the name Sren Kierkegaard is just another pseudonym. Whether onewould want to go that far is of course another matter, but Pieper gives no more supportfor her reading than the aforementioned point that Climacus could not have such an

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inside view of Christianity, if he, or at least Kierkegaard, were not a Christian. This, astextual evidence, is a bit thin.

In defence of her interpretation it can be said, however, that Pieper does manage inwhat is after all only a short work to present an account of Kierkegaards oeuvrethat is very homogeneous. (But then, again, perhaps exactly that is its fault.) Ratherthan orientate her interpretative strategy around doubt and despair, as does Kaufmann,Pieper takes her cue from the different notions of selfhood that pervade all three existencespheres. She argues quite persuasively that the three existence spheres (or forms oflife, as she prefers to call them) present three different kinds of self-relations whichall pose different kinds of problems. The aesthetic individual, for example, seekshappiness through pleasure and the erotic by simply accepting contingency, enjoying themoment, shunning all commitments and ultimately re-creating the world in his ownimage through recollection. However, as Pieper rightly emphasises, the aesthete, in theend, is not happy, for it is an illusion to suppose that the moment can be made absoluteand is sufficient for grounding a self. It is therefore the task of the ethicist to show thatcontrary to appearances, the aesthete is really no more than a slave of his nature and that

by aspiring to be the poet of chance, he forgoes the possibility of making genuine choicesfor himself. So paradoxically, its really the ethical that provides the genuine freedom theaesthete vainly believes himself to possess, and this precisely because of its normativeconstraints.

Pieper argues that the ethical form of life is the highest an individual can attainby himself (p. 82). Within the ethical sphere the individual decides to will absolutely, thatis to say, the individual wills to be a self whose actions can be cashed out in normativeterms (in contrast to the aesthete who is amoral). In this way the individual transforms acontingent, historical event (a particular action) into something eternal or absolute bygiving it a normative dimension. By imposing a set of self-postulated theoretical andpractical criteria of judgment upon himself, the individual can be said to be properlycreating his self.

The problems with this conception are of course notorious, as the aesthete wouldprobably be the first to point out. Isnt the ethicist ultimately doing exactly what hereproached the aesthete for doing generating an absolute by pure fiat? Has theKierkegaardian ethicist really moved beyond the Kantian problem of how practical reasonis supposed to be possible without God? In this respect it is significant that Judge William(the ethicist from Or) finishes his attempt at persuading the aesthete by appending asermon, his ultimatum to the aesthete. So is William, wittingly or unwittingly, reallythrowing the ethical a religious life-line? These are issues that Pieper does not addressdirectly. She seems to think that the ethical is really a kind of Climacean religiousness A an immanent or Socratic religiousness with the utmost confidence in the eternal within

every human being. She says, As far as a human being is capable of abstracting from allthat is conditional about his desires and wants and is able to will unconditionally namelyfreedom as the aspiration to the Good for its own sake the individual realises himself inthis self-relation as God (p. 83, translation mine).

If this is what Pieper takes the ethical sphere to consist in, one might legitimatelywonder how this is supposed to be different from the religious existence sphere. Heranswer is that the properly religious sphere must be equated with the Christian form oflife, that is, with what Climacus in the Postscript calls religiousness B. She suggests thatthe individual falls out of the ethical sphere, once he is no longer able to locate the Godwithin himself once he has lost access to the eternal within him. What exactly this issupposed to mean, however, remains obscure.

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The only way the disappointed ethical individual can find a way of re-grounding hislost self, according to Pieper, who seems to derive most of the support for her interpretationfrom Climacus Philosophical Fragments, is by accepting Jesus Christ as God. This is onlypossible, though, if the individual is prepared to accept that he has lost the eternal throughhis own fault, that it was sin that has made him kill the God within himself. Naturally, sinis already a religious category, so it seems that one already has to think in Christian terms, inorder to become a Christian, which would make the whole thing circular. Pieper agrees thatthis is indeed the case that the awareness of sin and the belief in Jesus Christ as a saviour,the personified eternal who alone is able to restore the lost contact with God, have to occursimultaneously (p. 86). Of course this is paradoxical and even absurd from reasons point ofview, as Climacus himself keeps emphasising. According to Piepers interpretation,however, the paradox (the Incarnation) simply has to be accepted as such namely asabsolutely incomprehensible (das schlechthin Unbegreifliche, p. 94).

I must confess I have a certain kind of admiration for this blithe, literal-minded reading,which is not to say, of course, that it doesnt also strike me as completely untenable. Giventhat Pieper makes no attempt at offering any sort of elucidation of what Climacus means

by the above, I suppose that she has no qualms about saddling Climacus (and indeedKierkegaard) with a view that is philosophically dubious, to say the least. It is also acomplete mystery to me how talk of something absolutely incomprehensible can sitcomfortably with the distinction that Climacus very clearly draws between objective andsubjective attempts at grasping Christianity. For, surely, something can only beabsolutely incomprehensible (were that even to make sense) from the perspective ofobjective reasoning that is, from a speculative vantage point. Given that Climacusmakes it very clear that this point of view is simply misconceived when it comes toreligious matters, I dont see how talk of absolute incomprehensibility (something thatthought can never think) can be so much as relevant to the question at hand.

Overall, then, I not only disagree with Pieper on the detail, but also as regards hergeneral conception of Kierkegaards authorship. I dont think, as Pieper seems to, thatKierkegaards production constitutes a kind of scala paradisi with three main rungs theaesthetic, the ethical and the religious, the latter constituting its culmination. In thisrespect, Kaufmanns reading is much truer to the multifacettedness of and constant self-criticism implicit in Kierkegaards work. She, too, however, rather leaves the reader in thelurch when it comes to explaining what moral we are to draw philoso

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