This paper analyzes debates on animal language in eighteenth-century German philosophy and science. Adopting a history of ideas approach, I explain how the study of animal language became tied to the investigation into the origin and development of language towards the end of the eighteenth century. I argue that for large parts of the eighteenth century, the question of the existence of animal languages was studied within the context of the philosophical question of whether animals possess reason. In Germany, the (...) debate concerning animal reason was influenced by Christian Wolff and was taken up by diverse thinkers such as Winkler, Meier, and Reimarus. I argue that in the second half of the eighteenth century the study of animal language became more loosely related to the question of whether animals possess reason: animal language was studied not only in light of the debate on animal reason but also because it sheds light on the nature of animals, on the differences and similarities between animals and humans, and on the origin and development of language. This systematic study of animal language coincided with the rise of linguistics, anthropology, and biology as independent sciences. (shrink)

While almost all of Kant's contemporaries agreed that the Critique of Pure Reason effected a philosophically epochal change, there was far less consensus about what precisely Kant's new critical philosophy had brought about. In large part, this uncertainty was a result of a methodological crisis that Kant's work had sparked: the Critique had shown that traditional dogmatic metaphysics was suspect at best, but what new methods needed to be adopted in the wake of Kant's 'Copernican Revolution'? The Critique stood as (...) the lighting rod at the center of a complicated and especially lively set of debates and disputes that erupted in Germany in the late 1780s and early 1790s: empiricists and rationalists, threatened by the 'all-destroying Kant', leapt to challenge the new critical system; skeptics attacked Kant's claims to have secured a sure footing for empirical knowledge; a few ambitious thinkers sought to complete the critical system by revealing a foundational first principle on which Kant's system could rest. All of these elements conspired to make the early stages in post-Kantian thought one of the richest, most vibrant – and most fascinating – periods in the history of philosophy. The present essay looks at the various figures of the move from Kant to Fichte, and presents some of the excellent new research on the era that has appeared in the last decade or so. The sequel takes up the period from Fichte to Hegel, with an eye toward understanding how Kantian critical philosophy gave way to Hegelian Absolute Idealism. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s theoretical apparatus and ideas of the immediate precursors of the Jena Romantik school of German Romanticism: Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). In doing so, it examines the themes and treatments that are common to these two thinkers and Bakhtin, tracing the tradition of anti-systematic thought through Hamann, Nietzsche and Bakhtin, and the transmission of Herder’s philosophy of Bildung through the Russian cultural milieu and Goethe. Initially, (...) the paper briefly outlines the early German Romantic ‘school’ of philosophy as a prelude to a more detailed examination of the ways in which Bakhtin assimilated German philosophy in general. The paper’s section on Hamann commences with a review of his background, using this as a basis for establishing connections between Hamann’s approach to communication and that of Bakhtin, based on a common epistemology focused on the self. The section on Herder is centred on his concept of Bildung and his historicist approach to literature, both of which interests Bakhtin shared. The paper then examines a number of conduits for Herder’s thought to Bakhtin, including Kant and Goethe. The paper concludes by examining Isaiah Berlin’s notion of the ‘Counter-Enlightenment’—in which movement he includes both Hamann and Herder—and the extent to which Bakhtin could be said to form part of this tradition. (shrink)

Tarkastelen tässä tekstissä sitä, pitikö Kant kieltä ja kommunikaatiota olennaisina tekijöinä ajattelulle ja objekteja koskevien arvostelmien tekemiselle. Lähestyn Kantin käsitystä kielen ja kommunikaation suhteesta ajatteluun ja objektiiviseen arvostelemiseen sijoittamalla Kantin kahteen teoreettiseen viitekehykseen. Nämä ovat Charles Taylorin kielifilosofinen erottelu HLC-teorioihin ja HHH-teorioihin sekä Michael N. Forsterin vastakkainasettelu perinteisen valistuksen kielifilosofian ja Herderin ja Hamannin kielifilosofian välillä. Esitän, että ainakin loppupuolella uraansa Kant tuntuu kallistuvan sille kannalle, että kieli ja ajattelu ovat vahvasti, jopa elimellisesti, toisistaan riippuvaisia. Yhtäältä arvostelmien tai kognitioiden objektiivisuus (...) perustaa kielen ja kommunikaation objektiivisuuden mahdollisuuden, ja vasta tämän a priori perustuksen varassa kieli ja kommunikaatio ovat mahdollisia. Toisaalta kieli ja kommunikaatio ovat kuitenkin edellytyksiä ymmärryksen objektiiviselle käytölle ja sille, että subjektit ymmärtävät omia kognitioitaan. Vaikka Kant esitti toistuvasti, että kieli on ymmärtämisen edellytys, hänen näkemyksensä mukaan peruskäsitteet eli kategoriat ovat kuitenkin kielestä riippumattomia; kieli ei determinoi kategorioita, vaan päinvastoin. Luonnollisten kielten eroista huolimatta niiden universaali kielioppi on sama ja heijastaa intuition muotoja ja kategorioita. (shrink)