Philosophy 114

Seminar: 19th Century Philosophy

Fall 2014
Tuesdays 1:15, Papazian 319

R. Eldridge
Papazian 215
x8428; 328-4967
reldrid1

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, problems emerged in Kant's account of the
natures of knowledge and moral obligation. Direct inquiries into various human faculties taken
on their own in individuals --cognitive faculties such as sensibility and understanding and
practical faculties such as the will-- had seemingly reached a dead end. Dogmatisms and
skepticisms of various kinds abounded. Kant was generally thought to have failed to refute
either epistemological or moral skepticism. In as much as Kant's epistemology and moral theory
themselves summarize and complete the development of modern philosophy, with its dualistic
conception of self-moving individual mind and passive, law-regulated nature, the impasse
reached in Kantian inquiries may be taken as requiring a general transformation of the modern
concepts of mind and nature and hence of philosophy itself as a medium of inquiry.
As a result, 19th century philosophers began to push their investigations beyond inquiries
into the human cognitive and practical faculties seemingly simply possessed by individuals.
They began to investigate as well the fundamental substances and deep structures of Being that
underlie and shape ordinary consciousness and action. Forms of social life, ethoi, or
Sittlichkeiten in particular became objects of philosophical inquiry, as understanding and willing
were taken to be events within social and historical struggles to achieve g oodness and
knowledge, rather than as primitive human faculties. Social historical reality (together with
whatever substances and forces underlie it) came to be seen as the vehicle for the development of
human self-consciousness, justice, and goodness, as the arena in which tele or aims, human
(Marx, Feuerbach) or even quasi-divine (Hegel) might be achieved.
Against the background of the reaction to Kant and modern philosophy, we will examine
Fichte's metaphysics of the Absolute Ego, Hegel's historical phenomenology of Spirit, and
Marx's historical account of the development of human species-being and class struggle as
efforts to characterize what there most fundamentally is and how it matters to knowledge,
morality, and human historical development. Nietzsche's critical reaction to these efforts will be
investigated, in particular both as an anticipation of certain post-modern themes such as the
disappearance of the substantial self or agent and the relativity of value and as an expression of
anti-philosophical naturalism.
We will consider to what extent Hegelian historical phenomenology and Marxist material
history accurately locate problems in Kantian philosophy and in modernity, and to what extent
they remain explanatorily powerful and plausible, against Nietzsche's criticisms. In this way, we
will consider the importance of Hegel and Marx for the contemporary philosophical problems of
modernity and post-modernity. Are Hegel and Marx irrational historicists who have betrayed the
genuine individualist Kantian values of the Enlightenment? Are they deluded anti-scientific
apologists for some impossible non-naturalist philosophy? Or do they mark out genuine
possibilities for self-understanding and the achievement of knowledge and justice through
historical action? What ought we to make of the Kantian critical-transcendental legacy in
philosophy?

Requirements: 4 seminar presentation papers

12-15 pp. final paper (1 credit)
active participation in seminar discussion
Required texts
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Guyer and Wood (Cambridge)
Kant, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge)
Fichte, The Science of Knowledge (Cambridge)
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Miller (Oxford)
Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge)
Marx, The Portable Karl Marx, ed. Kamenka (Viking)
Marx, Capital, trans. Fowkes (Random House)
Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (Viking)
Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History (Bobbs-Merrill)
Gardiner (ed.), Nineteenth Century Philosophy (Free Press)
Recommended
*G. A. Cohen, Karl Marxs Theory of History (Princeton)
F. C. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. VII, Pts. 1, 2 (Doubleday)
Jon Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx (Cambridge)
Frederick Neuhouser, Fichtes Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge)
*Terry Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology (Cambridge)
*Robert Pippin, Hegels Idealism (Cambridge)
Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge)
Robert Paul Wolff, Understanding Marx (Princeton)
* = indispensable
On Moodle
Guyer, "Introduction: The Starry Heavens and the Moral Law"
Guyer, The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories
ONeill, Vindicating Reason
ONeill, Reason and Autonomy in Grundlegung III
Kant, Open Letter on Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre
Kant, from The Critique of Judgment: Introduction--Section IX on
Understanding, Reason, the Supersensible, and the Finality of
Nature; Sections 46-49 on Genius
Breazale, "Fichte's Aenesidemus Review and the Transformation of
German Idealism"
Breazale, Why Fichte Now?
di Giovanni, The First Twenty Years of Critique: The Spinoza Connection

Eldridge, Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, Poesis

R. Bernstein, "Why Hegel Now?"
Taylor, "The Opening Arguments of the Phenomenology
Beiser, Introduction: Hegel and the Problem of Metaphysics
Pippin, You Cant Get There from Here: Transition Problems in
Hegels Phenomenology
Eldridge, "Continental and Analytic Philosophy"
Kelly, "Notes on Hegel on Lordship and Bondage"
Eldridge, Intentionality and Idealism: Hegel, Kant, and Freedom
Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, Ch. 2
MacIntyre, Hegel on Faces and Skulls
Eldridge, The Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness: Kant and Hegel"
J. M. Bernstein, Evil and Forgiveness: Hegels Poetics of Spirit
Dickey, Epilogue to Hegel: Religion, Economics, and Politics of Spirit, 1770-1807
Wood, Recognition
Wood, Persons, Property, Law
David Kolb, The Critique of Pure Modernity
Ch. 3, Hegel's Logic and Its Movements
Ch. 4, Categories for Modernity
Ch. 5, Applying Hegel's Logic
Ch. 2, Hegel's Criticisms of Civil Society
Ch. 6, Civil Society and State
Marcuse, The Political Philosophy = Ch. VI of Reason and Revolution
Carol C. Gould, The Woman Question: Philosophy of Liberation and the Liberation of
Philosophy
Dickey, Hegel on Religion and Philosophy
Lwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche, pp. 63-80
Wolff, "Reflections on Literary Style and Social Theory: The Case of Karl Marx's Capital"
Wartofsky, "Is Marx's Labor Theory of Value Excess Metaphysical Baggage?"
Walzer, "What's Left of Marx?"
J. Cohen, "Review of G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History"
J. Cohen & Kymlicka, "Human Nature and Social Change in the Marxist Conception of History"
Satz, "Marxism, Materialism, and Historical Progress"
Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"
Breazale, "Aground on the Ground of Values: Friedrich Nietzsche"
Desmond, "Dialectic, Deconstruction and Art's Wholeness," Ch. 5 of Art and the Absolute
Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Ch. 7
Deleuze, Nomad Thought
Shapiro, How One Becomes What One is Not
Lorraine, Nietzsche = pp. 134-50 of Gender, Identity and the Production of Meaning
Taylor, Sources of the Self, Chs. 23, 25

Schedule of Readings
wk.# Tues. Reading
1

9/2

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

A-Preface = pp. 99-105
B-Preface = pp. 106-124
A-Introduction = pp. 127-135
B-Introduction = pp. 136-52
A-Transcendental Deduction = pp. 219-44
Section 2 = Subjective Deduction
Section 3 = Objective Deduction
Third Antinomy = pp 484-89
Solution to the Third Antinomy = pp. 532-46
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason
Preface 139-47
Introduction 148-49
Part I, Book I (Analytic), Ch. 1, I, II (pp. 153-86)
Part I, Book II (Dialectic), Ch. I, I-VII (pp. 226-54)
Guyer, "Introduction: The Starry Heavens and the Moral Law"
Guyer, The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories
Pippin, Hegels Idealism, Chs. 1, 2
ONeill, Vindicating Reason
ONeill, Reason and Autonomy in Grundlegung III
Recommended:
Beiser, The Fate of Reason, Introduction
Taylor, Hegel, Ch. 1: Aims of a New Epoch

9/9

Kant, Open Letter on Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre

Kant, from The Critique of Judgment
Intro.--Section IX
Sections 46-49, on Genius [Geist]
Fichte, The Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre)
First and Second Introductions
Part I: Fundamental Principles of the Entire
Science of Knowledge
Fichte, "Our Belief in a Divine Government of the Universe (Gardiner)
from The Vocation of Man (in Gardiner)
Breazale, "Fichte's Aenesidemus Review and the
Transformation of German Idealism"
Breazale, Why Fichte Now?
di Giovanni, The First Twenty Years of Critique: the Spinoza Connection

Pippin, Hegels Idealism, Ch. 3

Recommended: Copleston 7, I Chs. 1-3;
Eldridge, Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, Poesis
Beiser, The Fate of Reason, Chs. 4,5,8,9
Neuhouser, Fichtes Theory of Subjectivity, esp. Intro,
Chs. 1, 2, = pp. 1-65
3

9/16

Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

Preface
Introduction
A: Consciousness [Chs. 1-3]
Taylor, "The Opening Arguments of the Phenomenology, in
Hegel, ed. MacIntyre
Bernstein, "Why Hegel Now?"
Pippin, Hegels Idealism, Chs. 5, 6
Beiser, Introduction: Hegel and the Problem of Metaphysics
Taylor, Hegel, Chs. 2, 3, 4
Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology, Chs. 1, 2

9/23

Hegel, Phenomenology, B: Self-Consciousness [Ch. 4]

Pippin, Hegels Idealism, Ch. 7
Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology, Ch. 3
Taylor, Hegel, Ch. 5, Sections 1, 2
Pippin, You Cant Get There from Here: Transition Problems
in Hegels Phenomenology
Eldridge, "Continental and Analytic Philosophy"
Recommended: Kelly, "Notes on Hegel on Lordship and Bondage"
in Hegel, ed. MacIntyre
Eldridge, Intentionality and Idealism:
Hegel, Kant, and Freedom
Eldridge, Hegels Account of the Unconscious and Why it Matters
David Morris, Hegel on the Life of the Understanding

9/30

Hegel, Phenomenology C, AA-Reason [Ch. 5]

Taylor, Hegel, Ch. 5, Section 3
Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology, Ch. 4
MacIntyre, Hegel on Faces and Skulls
Recommended: Eldridge, The Phenomenology of Moral
Consciousness: Principle and Context, Kant and Hegel

10/7

Hegel, Phenomenology C, BB-Spirit [Ch. 6]

Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology, Ch. 5
Taylor, Hegel, Ch. 6
Recommended:
J. M. Bernstein, Evil and Forgiveness: Hegels
Poetics of Spirit

10/14

OCTOBER BREAK

10/21 Hegel, Phenomenology

C, CC Religion [Ch. 7]
C, DD Absolute Knowing [Ch. 8]
Pinkard, Hegels Phenomenology, Chs. 6, 7
Richard Bernstein, Why Hegel Now? (HR)
Taylor, Hegel, Ch. 8, pp. 214-221: The Phenomenology as
Interpretive Dialectic
Pippin, Hegels Idealism, pp. 163-171; pp. 257-60
Laurence Dickey, Hegel: Religion, Economics, and
Politics of Spirit, 1770-1807, Epilogue

10/28 Hegel, Philosophy of Right

Preface, Introduction, Parts I and II
Wood, Editors Introduction to Philosophy of Right
Wood, Recognition
Wood, Persons, Property, Law
David Kolb, The Critique of Pure Modernity
Ch. 3, Hegel's Logic and Its Movements
Ch. 4, Categories for Modernity
Ch. 5, Applying Hegel's Logic
Recommended: Taylor, Chs. XIV-XVI (very impt.)

11/4

Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Part III

Carol C. Gould, The Woman Question: Philosophy of
Liberation and the Liberation of Philosophy
David Kolb, The Critique of Pure Modernity
Ch. 2, Hegel's Criticisms of Civil Society
Ch. 6, Civil Society and State
Herbert Marcuse, The Political Philosophy = Ch. VI of
Reason and Revolution

10

11/11 Feuerbach, "The Essence of Religion Considered

Generally," and "The Contradiction in the
Speculative Doctrine of God," both from
The Essence of Christianity (in Gardiner)
Dickey, Hegel on Religion and Philosophy
Recommended:
Copleston 7, II, Chs. 15-16
Lwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche, pp. 63-80
Marx: The Criticism of Hegel
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy
of Right: Introduction
Theses on Feuerbach
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
The German Ideology, Part I
1859 Preface to Critique of Political Economy
G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History,
Ch. 1: "Images of History in Hegel and Marx"
Jon Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx,
Ch. 3, Alienation
Ch. 9, The Marxist Critique of Ideology
(Both Cohen and Elster are on Honors Reserve for Political Theory)
Recommended: McLellan, Karl Marx or Berlin,
Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, or Elster,
An Introduction to Karl Marx, Ch 1: "Overview,"
for good, brief, general introductions

11 11/18

Marx's Economics I
Marx, Capital
Part I, Chs. 1-3
Part II, Chs. 4-6
Wolff, "Reflections on Literary Style and Social
Theory: The Case of Karl Marx's Capital"
Wolff, Understanding Marx, Intro., Chs. 1, 4
Wartofsky, "Is Marx's Labor Theory of Value Excess
Metaphysical Baggage?"
Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx,
Ch. 4, Marxian Economics

12 11/25 Marx's Economics II

Marx, Capital
Part III, Chs. 7-10
Part IV, Chs. 14-15
Part V, Ch. 16
Part VI, Ch. 25
Wolff, Understanding Marx, Ch. 5, 6, Envoi
Mandel, "Introduction to Capital" (Random House ed., trans. Fowkes)
Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx
Ch. 5, Exploitation
Ch. 7, Class Consciousness and Class Struggle
Allen Wood, Karl Marx, Ch. XV
13 12/2

Marx's Theory of History, or Why is There Capitalism?

Marx, Capital, Part VIII, Chs. 26, 31-33
The Communist Manifesto
G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History,
Chs. I, VI, VII, XI
J. Cohen, "Review of G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History"
G. A. Cohen and W. Kymlicka, "Human Nature and Social
Change in the Marxist Conception of History"
D. Satz, "Marxism, Materialism, and Historical Progress
M. Walzer, "What's Left of Marx?" (HR)
Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx
Ch. 2, Marxist Methodology
Ch. 6, Historical Materialism
Ch. 8, Marx's Theory of Politics
Ch. 10, What is Living and What is Dead in the
Philosophy of Marx?

14 12/9

Nietzsche
Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
"The Prejudices of the Philosophers," from
Beyond Good and Evil (in Gardiner)
The Use and Abuse of History
Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"
Breazale, "Aground on the Ground of Values: Friedrich Nietzsche"
Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Ch. 7
Deleuze, Nomad Thought
Shapiro, How One Becomes What One is Not
Lorraine, Nietzsche = pp. 134-150 of Gender, Identity and
the Production of Meaning

Taylor, Sources of the Self, Chs. 23, 25