‘Facticity’ is a concept that classical phenomenologists like Heidegger use to denote the radically contingent or underivably brute conditions of intelligibility. Yet Fichte coins the term, to which he gives the opposing use of denoting unacceptably brute conditions of intelligibility. For him, radical contingency is a problem to be solved by deriving such conditions from reason. Heidegger rejects Fichte's recoil from facticity with his hermeneutics of facticity, supplanting Fichte's metaphor of our always being in reason's hand with the metaphor of (...) our always having been thrown. How does Heidegger inherit and diametrically repurpose Fichte's neologism? Whence the reversed meaning of ‘facticity’ in post-Kantian thought? The answer is Lask's doctoral thesis, which exerts an acknowledged impact on Heidegger's habilitation thesis. Lask interprets ‘facticity’ as Fichte's term for the individuality problem, that is, the resistance of the material particularity of individuals to explanation by the categories genetically deduced from reason. On his interpretation, ‘facticity’ denotes radical contingency in the guise of haecceity, that is, the brute uniqueness of individuals. Lask credits Fichte with registering the problem of individuality, which highlights the world's irreducibly precategorial character. But how is ‘facticity’ transmitted from Lask to Heidegger, given their opposing interpretations of how Fichte understands its meaning? I argue that (1) Lask misreads Fichte as a proponent of facticity, that is, one whose accommodation of radical contingency deflates the Wissenschaftslehre's systematic ambitions, and (2) Lask's misreading, without deceiving Heidegger regarding the sincerity of Fichte's ambitions, encourages Heidegger's own hermeneutics of facticity. (shrink)

Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński.

This paper argues that Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical philosophy attempts to reopen the question of human transcendence in contemporary terms. While his conception of language as self-transcending is deeply Husserlian, Ricoeur also responds to the analytical challenge when he deploys a basic distinction in Fregean logic in order to clarify Heidegger’s phenomenology of world. Ricoeur’s commitment to a transcendental view is evident in his conception of narrative, which enables him to emphasize the role of the performative in literary reading. The meaning (...) of the self in time provides Ricoeur with a discursive basis for distinguishing his own position from that of Kant and other philosophers in the transcendental tradition. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo trata da relação entre individualidade e valor, na filosofia transcendental, a partir de uma análise da interpretação da filosofia de J. G. Fichte dada por Emil Lask, no livro publicado em 1903, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte. O artigo visa a mostrar como a radicalização do transcendentalismo o orienta a um realismo não empírico, o qual impede ao transcendentalismo de realizar-se exclusivamente na forma da investigação autorreflexiva das estruturas da consciência e o traduz em uma valorização da (...) práxis. Depois de uma descrição geral das perspectivas abertas pela filosofia laskiana e das razões para valorizar o Fichte-Buch de Lask, serão esclarecidos os conteúdos e o contexto de amadurecimento da tese laskiana em relação a três interlocutores específicos: Windelband, Rickert e Liebmann. Por fim, serão avaliadas a solidez e a fecundidade de duas questões decisivas para o desenvolvimento do pensamento fichtiano: a relação entre filosofia e vida e aquela entre individualidade e sacrifício.: This paper deals with the relationship between individuality and value in transcendental philosophy based on the analysis of J. G. Fichte’s philosophy by Emil Lask in his 1903 book, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte. The paper aims to demonstrate how the radicalization of transcendentalism guides it toward a non-empirical realism. It also aims to show how this non-empirical realism prevents transcendentalism from realizing itself exclusively in the form of self-reflexive investigation of the structures of consciousness, and translates it into an appreciation of praxis. After a discussion of Lask’s philosophy in general and of Lask’s Fichte-Buch, I explain the content and development of Lask’s thesis in relation to three specific authors: Windelband, Rickert, and Liebmann. Finally, I analyze two questions that are crucial to the development of Fichtean thought: the relationship between philosophy and life and between individuality and sacrifice. (shrink)

Terry Nardin’s book on Oakeshott is an attempt to compare him to other 20th-century philosophers and to track the development of his philosophical thought. The project of comparison is made relevant by the fact that Oakeshott’s philosophy, like that of Heidegger and others, was the product of the dissolution of neo-Kantianism. Nardin stresses the idea of “modal confusion,” meaning responding to a question of one kind with an answer appropriate to another kind of inquiry, as a key to Oakeshott’s thought (...) from Experience and Its Modes through to On Human Conduct itself, where Oakeshott changes his terminology. But why does Oakeshott change? One reason might be the critique of Oakeshott by Peter Winch, as Oakeshott appears to have reformulated his views in response to it in On Human Conduct, in the course of constructing an alternative to ‘conceptual analysis’ as practiced in contemporary Oxbridge. (shrink)

Terry Nardin’s book on Oakeshott is an attempt to compare him to other 20th-century philosophers and to track the development of his philosophical thought. The project of comparison is made relevant by the fact that Oakeshott’s philosophy, like that of Heidegger and others, was the product of the dissolution of neo-Kantianism. Nardin stresses the idea of “modal confusion,” meaning responding to a question of one kind with an answer appropriate to another kind of inquiry, as a key to Oakeshott’s thought (...) from Experience and Its Modes through to On Human Conduct itself, where Oakeshott changes his terminology. But why does Oakeshott change? One reason might be the critique of Oakeshott by Peter Winch, as Oakeshott appears to have reformulated his views in response to it in On Human Conduct, in the course of constructing an alternative to ‘conceptual analysis’ as practiced in contemporary Oxbridge. (shrink)