tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post1373841147461754342..comments2023-04-13T02:45:50.515-07:00Comments on The Ends of Thought: Critchley and Leiter on Continental OriginsRoman Altshulerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-67173420893841383812010-05-20T07:54:44.952-07:002010-05-20T07:54:44.952-07:00I'm a bit baffled how members of a tradition c...I'm a bit baffled how members of a tradition could all happen to be concerned with emancipation if they don't agree (and surely they don't) on neither what we need emancipated from nor on the means by which we may be emancipated. Is it just passed down that there is something or other out there from which we need emancipated in some sense or other?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-2569520886581037962008-04-28T13:52:00.000-07:002008-04-28T13:52:00.000-07:00Hi Robert,I am, of course, not claiming that Nietz...Hi Robert,<BR/><BR/>I am, of course, not claiming that Nietzsche is a German Idealist; my last comment, in fact, pretty clearly implies otherwise. This should not be taken to mean, however, that there can be no points of commonality between Nietzsche and German Idealism. I would even suggest that criticism of a position necessarily presupposes some shared assumptions. We spend a lot of time today classifying thinkers as belonging to this or that philosophical school; this should not blind us into thinking those categories represent absolute divisions, rather than merely interpretatively convenient categories.<BR/><BR/>I also wonder whether it makes sense, in light of, say, "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense", to speak of Nietzsche as being a critic of idealism in <B>all</B> its forms.Roman Altshulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-70867691084853744972008-04-28T12:50:00.000-07:002008-04-28T12:50:00.000-07:00I wouldn't think of Nietzsche as a German Idealist...I wouldn't think of Nietzsche as a German Idealist - rather, he is a critic of idealism in all its forms. It's worth noting that Hegel is often considered to be the last of the German Idealists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-25860996074707194982007-08-13T17:53:00.000-07:002007-08-13T17:53:00.000-07:00Dear Professor Leiter,I agree that "overcoming the...Dear Professor Leiter,<BR/><BR/>I agree that "overcoming the dualisms" and "finding a unifying principle" may both need to be taken in a rather broad sense if we are to give a description that includes most of the thinkers in the continental traditions yet excludes most in the anglo-american tradition. Here is one very incomplete suggestion: we might attempt to think of the project as involving both aspects: overcoming the dualisms by finding a unifying principle. This would include recognizing the dualisms as involving separate principles and attempting to find an underlying source that can account for the richness of both. This would exclude reductionism, but also the sort of naturalism that seeks to reduce all truths (theoretical and moral) to the findings of science. (There are plenty in the anglo-american tradition to whom neither of these descriptions would apply especially well, so more tweaking would be needed, and there will be exceptions to any general description.)<BR/><BR/>But let me here take up Nietzsche, with the disclaimer that I am certainly not a Nietzsche scholar and my knowledge of his work is rusty. First, I agree that the will to power does not seem a likely candidate for a unifying principle, nor does it strike me as the central notion of Nietzsche’s work, though it is connected to usefulness. Truths, whether theoretical (“On Truth and Lie”) or moral (“Genealogy”), are made true by their usefulness to a group. There is thus a principle, of a sort, through which theoretical and practical principles are united. The highest values, furthermore, are aimed at the flourishing, specifically the creative flourishing, of higher men. So here we find a sort of appeal to aesthetics as the highest criterion of usefulness (echoing, in some ways, the role played by beauty as a philosophical keystone from Kant to Heidegger and beyond).<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, it is significant that Nietzsche does not simply reduce moral truths to truths of another kind. In fact, he explicitly criticizes utilitarianism for doing so. Instead, he offers a genealogy, which on the one hand gives the ground of moral principles in usefulness (to some group) while, on the other, refuses to simplify those principles by reducing them directly. He offers also a genealogy of responsibility. In this way, moral content is separated from responsibility through their alternative genealogies, though the richness of both is maintained. What is incompatible with usefulness, of course, is freedom, and so this principle has to go, but that is possible precisely because Nietzsche has already made the argument that neither morality nor responsibility require freedom. The connections between morality, responsibility, and freedom are of course found in many forms of moral philosophy, but they are at the forefront of Kant's approach; specifically, responsibility and the moral law serve Kant as a priori evidence for the existence of freedom. Nietzsche's strategy, then, can be read as a very direct attack on the Kantian system, in showing that a principle of freedom is not necessary: it is not necessary because we can account for both morality and responsibility in terms of nature without reducing either notion to a mere caricature.<BR/><BR/>In other words, I wonder whether it is not fairly simple to see Nietzsche as attempting to overcome the Kantian dualisms without, at the same time, thinking of him as simply continuing the project of German Idealism.Roman Altshulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-58077177021949850652007-08-02T11:34:00.000-07:002007-08-02T11:34:00.000-07:00This is certainly a charitable and not uninteresti...This is certainly a charitable and not uninteresting attempt to make sense of Critchley's remarks. I very much doubt the charity is warranted, even if we were to look to the rest of Critchley's text on the subject. For reasons of time, I'll just comment on one point you make above. The reason Nietzsche's relative ignorance of German Idealism is pertinent in this context is precisely because it was the Idealists who treated "overcoming the dualisms" of the Third Critique as the central problematic, and much of Idealism can be, it seems to me, intelligibly reconstructed around that issue. But with post-Kantian Idealism moribund by mid-century, it would be quite surprising (and require some actual evidence, for which Critchley has none) to find someone like Nietzsche thinking of his philosophical work in these terms. To be sure, if one is willing to treat "overcoming the dualisms" quite loosely and metaphorically, and to abstract away entirely from the actual philosophical problem German Idealism took itself to confront, then one can probably force lots of philosophers (not only so-called Ccontinental ones) into that Procrustean bed. But the intellectual and philosophical point of such an exercise is hard to see.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-1256758023208214082007-07-26T06:56:00.000-07:002007-07-26T06:56:00.000-07:00Seems that way. It would just be difficult, I thin...Seems that way. It would just be difficult, I think, to say that emancipation is really the central concern of Husserl's phenomenology, so I'll grant Leiter that much. But it is definitely a concern.Roman Altshulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-42201742439024773062007-07-26T01:26:00.000-07:002007-07-26T01:26:00.000-07:00Husserl's Crisis text seems to be very much concer...Husserl's Crisis text seems to be very much concerned with emancipation. No?Anthony Paul Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15487403084439264140noreply@blogger.com