Several democratic theorists have recently sought to vindicate the ideal of equal political power (“political equality”) by tying it to the non-derivative value of egalitarian relationships. This chapter critically discusses such arguments. It clarifies what it takes to vindicate the ideal of political equality, and distinguishes different versions of the relational egalitarian argument for it. Some such arguments appeal to the example of a society without social status inequality (such as caste or class structures); others to personal relationships among equals, (...) like friendship. Each strategy faces problems. After discussing what social status consists in, the chapter argues that social status equality does not require an equal distribution of power, but only that unequal distributions are not justified on grounds incompatible with the citizens’ fundamental equal moral standing. By contrast, personal relationships among equals do require equal power; but establishing that their norms apply to our political community is challenging. (shrink)

This essay proposes that legitimacy (on at least one understanding of the protean term) is centrally a right to err: a right to make mistakes that harm interests of others that are ordinarily protected by rights (Section 1). Legitimacy so understood is importantly distinct from authority, the normative power to impose binding (or enforceable) rules at will (Section 2). Specifically, legitimate institutions have a distinctive liberty right to harm others’ interests that other agents normally lack. Their subjects in turn lack (...) certain permissions to avoid, or redirect, the costs of the institutions’ mistakes in ways that would otherwise be permissible (Section 3). Legitimate institutions have this liberty right because, and insofar as, they act for their subjects (in a specific sense), and do so only for the subjects’ sake. As a matter of fairness, (some of) the costs of the institutions’ actions are borne by the subjects for whom they are undertaken (Section 4). In turn, where an institution fails to act for its subjects in the relevant way, it (and its officials) may have to bear the costs of its errors, which the subject is morally permitted to redirect by acts of resistance (Section 5). (shrink)

This article applies the tools of experimental philosophy to the ongoing debate about both the theoretical viability and the practical import of partially aggregative moral theories in distributive ethics. We conduct a series of three experiments (N=383): First, we document the widespread occurrence of the intuitions that motivate this position. Our study then moves beyond establishing the existence of partially aggregative intuitions in two dimensions: First, we extend experimental work in such a way as to ascertain which amongst existing versions (...) of partial aggregation (localised vs. global) chimes more fully with moral common sense. Specifically, we document how, in tie-breaking cases, ‘irrelevant goods’ judgments (Kamm) are just as robust as the original aggregative/non-aggregative pair of judgments that constitute partial aggregation. Second, by pairing laypeople’s moral judgments in standard cases with their intuitions about the limits of permissible self-prioritisation, we investigate whether one prominent explanation of why irrelevant claims may not be aggregated (Voorhoeve’s ‘personal prerogative’ argument) can be said to underpin people’s intuitions about the (ir)relevance relation of claims in conflict cases. We close with a discussion of our findings’ practical and theoretical import and highlight avenues for future research. (shrink)

Law and Morality at War offers a broadly instrumentalist defense of the authority of the laws of war: these laws serve combatants by helping them come closer to doing what they have independent moral reason to do. We argue that this form of justification sets too low a bar. An authority’s directives are not binding, on instrumental grounds, if the subject could, within certain limits, adopt an alternative, and superior, means of conforming to morality’s demands. It emerges that Haque’s argument (...) fails to vindicate the law’s authority over all combatants. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz stelle ich eine neue Interpretation der Reinhold’schen Sprachphilosophie vor. Mein Ziel ist es zu erklären, wie Reinhold der Meinung sein konnte, seine Sprachphilosophie stelle, ebenso wie seine Elementarphilosophie, den Versuch dar, Kants Kritische Philosophie zu fundieren. Außerdem möchte ich zeigen, worin die philosophische Bedeutung von Reinholds Ansatz gegenüber den Sprachphilosophien seiner Zeitgenossen besteht.

The paper examines Hegel's views on Reinhold, from his earliest appreciation to his final remarks in the Encyclopedia. Ultimately, Reinhold's theory of representation helps Hegel see that the Late Enlightenment opposition between faith and reasoning is anchored in the language of representation. The speculative language of Hegelian Science is necessary in order to overcome the modern dilemma.

This paper explains and defends Reinhold’s epistemology of disagreement. The concept of agreement is of central importance for Reinhold’s philosophy. He attempts to settle the most basic disputes among post-Kantian philosophers by offering intermediate positions that reconcile the seemingly incompatible views. Moreover, Reinhold argues for epistemic objectivism, that is, the thesis that a group of philosophers sharing the same information and respecting each other’s opinion may not reasonably disagree. If the members of such a group search for (...) truth then they must converge toward consensus. Disagreement is irrational. (shrink)

Review of new edition of K. L. Reinhold's Versuch (1789), ed. E.-O. Onnasch.

This paper aims at showing that Karl Leonhard Reinhold’s theory of representation and consciousness constitutes a link between Kantianism and the further developments of idealism. By retracing the presence of Reinhold in the young Hegel’s work, the author suggest that Reinhold may have influenced Hegel’s reading of Kant.

A review of 'The aesthetics and ethics of copying'. Hick, Darren Hudson and Reinhold Schmücker, eds.

Reinholds Kritik an Kants Ausführungen über Willkürfreiheit aus der Einleitung zur "Metaphysik der Sitten". Zur Aktualität dieser Kritik.

Ernst Mayr argued that the emergence of biology as a special science in the early nineteenth century was possible due to the demise of the mathematical model of science and its insistence on demonstrative knowledge. More recently, John Zammito has claimed that the rise of biology as a special science was due to a distinctive experimental, anti-metaphysical, anti-mathematical, and anti-rationalist strand of thought coming from outside of Germany. In this paper we argue that this narrative neglects the important role played (...) by the mathematical and axiomatic model of science in the emergence of biology as a special science. We show that several major actors involved in the emergence of biology as a science in Germany were working with an axiomatic conception of science that goes back at least to Aristotle and was popular in mid-eighteenth-century German academic circles due to its endorsement by Christian Wolff. More specifically, we show that at least two major contributors to the emergence of biology in Germany—Caspar Friedrich Wolff and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus—sought to provide a conception of the new science of life that satisfies the criteria of a traditional axiomatic ideal of science. Both C.F. Wolff and Treviranus took over strong commitments to the axiomatic model of science from major philosophers of their time, Christian Wolff and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, respectively. The ideal of biology as an axiomatic science with specific biological fundamental concepts and principles thus played a role in the emergence of biology as a special science. (shrink)

While Kant’s claim that the moral law discloses our freedom to us has been extensively discussed in recent decades, the reactions to this claim among Kant’s immediate successors have gone largely overlooked by scholars. Reinhold, Creuzer, and Maimon were among three prominent thinkers of the era unwilling to follow Kant in making the moral law the condition for knowing our freedom. Maimon went so far as to reject Kant’s method of appealing to our everyday awareness of duty on the (...) grounds that common human understanding is susceptible to error and illusion. In this paper I shall examine how these skeptical reactions to Kant’s position shaped the background for Fichte’s method of moral justification, leading up to his own deduction of the moral law in the System of Ethics. By way of conclusion, I shall propose a new interpretation of how consciousness of the moral law serves as an entry-point to Fichte’s form of idealism. (shrink)

This chapter explores Kant’s, Reinhold’s, Fichte’s, and Hegel’s stances toward transcendental philosophy and transcendental arguments. Having explained the new meaning that Kant assigned to the term ‘transcendental’, the chapter surveys his attempt to develop a transcendental philosophy by employing transcendental arguments. Since these arguments presuppose unproven matters of fact, authors who were deeply concerned by scepticism deemed them unsuitable for the task. The chapter explains how Reinhold and Fichte sought to establish solid foundations for transcendental philosophy without relying (...) on transcendental arguments. The final section of the chapter discusses whether Hegel, who rejected transcendental philosophy, employed transcendental arguments. (shrink)

In this introduction, I briefly summarize Sophia Moreau's Faces of Inequality. I situate her monograph within two highly contemporary bodies of literature — relational egalitarianism and discrimination theory — to show how it provides important insights for understanding both what it means to treat others as equals in society and how to define wrongful discrimination. Moreau's work on discrimination is of great relevance for philosophers and socio-legal theorists alike as the commentaries from the symposium contributors demonstrate, including Dale Smith, Pablo (...) Gilabert, Andrea Sangiovanni, Daniel Viehoff, Jessica Eisen, Alysia Blackham, and Iyiola Solanke. (shrink)

This paper traces the ancestry of a familiar historiographical narrative, according to which early modern philosophy was marked by the development of empiricism, rationalism, and their synthesis by Immanuel Kant. It is often claimed that this narrative became standard in the nineteenth century, due to the influence of Thomas Reid, Kant and his disciples, or German Hegelians and British Idealists. The paper argues that the narrative became standard only at the turn of the twentieth century. This was not due to (...) the influence of Reid, German Hegelians, or British Idealists as they did not endorse the narrative, although Thomas Hill Green may have facilitated its uptake. The narrative is based on Kant’s historiographical sketches, as corrected and integrated by Karl Leonhard Reinhold. It was first fleshed out into full-fledged histories by two Kantians, Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Johann Gottlieb Buhle. Numerous historians, several of whom were not Kantians, spread it in the English-speaking world. They include Kuno Fischer, Friedrich Ueberweg, Richard Falckenberg, and Wilhelm Windelband. However, the wide availability of their works did not suffice to make the narrative standard because, until the 1890s, the Hegelian account was at least as popular as theirs. Among the factors that allowed the narrative to become standard are its aptness to be adopted by philosophers of the most diverse persuasions, its simplicity and suitability for teaching. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Beitrag ist als ein Versuch zu verstehen, dem polnischen Leser eine recht seltsame Position aus der Reihe der deutschsprachigen Lodzaica, nämlich die 1913 im Verlag August Grüning in Pabianice herausgegebene Sammlung von Witzen und Anekdoten mit dem Titel 'Ne Mütze voll Witze aus Lodz und Pabianice’, näherzubringen. Der Verfasser des schmalen Bändchens, der sich hinter dem Pseudonym Wilfried Spectator verbirgt, ist Reinhold Piel, ein Deutscher aus Pabianice. Als Satelitenstadt von Łódź, der sich damals sehr rasch entwickelnden Textilmetropole, (...) bildete auch Pabianice in jenen Jahren zweifelsohne ein Teil des in ganz Europa einmaligen und eigenartigen multikulturellen und multiethnischen Tigcls. Reinhold Piel stellte sich mit seinem Büchlein die Aufgabe, ein Sammelporträt der Mentalität des typischen Vertreters jenes Tigels von Kulturen und Sprachen zu zeichnen. In der mehrere disparate Elemente integrierenden Gemeinschaft funktionierte der Humor sicherlich als eine Art Sicherheitsventil, mit dessen Hilfe man bestrebt war, Fremdes zu „zähmen“ und Konflikte zu entschärfen. Scheinbar abstrakte, „auslachende“ Beispiele haben sich wahrscheinlich ebenfalls vortrefflich als Methode bewährt, andere diplomatisch zu sensibilisieren, aber auch eigene Nachteile und Unzulänglichkeiten mit Abstand zu sehen. Der universale Charakter der Anekdote als literarisches Genre beruht u.a. auf ihrer Ahistorizität und Konkretheit zugleich, ihr narratives Werkzeug hingegen - die individualisierte Sprache des multiethnischen Milieus - liefert hervorragenden StolT für sprachwissenschaftliche Forschung. Ein besonders interessanter Aspekt ist dabei vor allem die Frage nach der Übersetzbarkeit bzw. Unübersetzbarkeit von Kulturidiomatik. Um dem Leser entgegenzukommen und ihm den historischen und informativen Wert der besprochenen Sammlung bewusst zu machen, wird im Anhang - zum ersten Mal in der polnischen Sprache - eine Auswahl von besonders charakteristischen Witzen der genannten Sammlung von R. Piel präsentiert. (shrink)

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is now regarded by many readers and scholars not simply as a poet, historian, or playwright, but as a genuine philosopher in his own right. -/- The following research articles in French and English are devoted to understanding the relationship between Schiller’s philosophy and German idealism, especially some of the chief figures associated with the inception and extended development of this movement: Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Lotze. -/- In the last twenty years in particular, (...) ground-breaking edited collections have appeared on the content and legacy of Schiller’s thought. The present volume of articles, however, is one of the first to attempt a broader investigation of Schiller’s connection to German idealism, in which the contributions have above all been written by scholars of German idealism itself. -/- The aim of this volume is to furnish foundational material for better answering the question: To what extent should Friedrich Schiller be considered a German idealist? Naturally, the response to this question depends on one’s conception of German idealism, a point discussed below. This introduction provides a brief overview of earlier scholarship on this topic and summarizes the findings of our contributors. (shrink)

Fichte-Studien, volume 49 (Leiden: Brill/Rodopi Publishers, 8 April 2021), edited by David W. Wood, 471pp. -/- Presenting new critical perspectives on J.G. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, this volume of articles in English by an international group of scholars addresses the topic of first principles in Fichte’s writings. Especially discussed are the central text of his Jena period, the 1794/95 Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, as well as later versions like the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-99) and the presentations of 1804 and 1805. Also included (...) are new studies on the first principles of the particular sub-disciplines of Fichte’s system, such as the doctrines of aesthetics, nature, right, ethics, and history. The volume also contains a number of miscellaneous essays on Fichte research, as well as several book reviews. (shrink)

This is a draft translation of the fourth letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.