Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library - Böcker

One of the guiding thoughts throughout this work is that G. W. F. Hegel is the philosopher of the modern age, that subsequent phil­ osophers, whether or not they have read his works, must take their stand in relation to Hegel. My purpose is not only to present Hegel, but to show that his influence has been felt for some time, even though his presence has not been explicitly acknowledged. In spite of a recent revival in Heglian scholarship, the history of philosophy in the English-speaking world is generally obscured by a period of darkness between Kant and the early inquiries of Russell and Frege. A place is assigned to Mill and Bentham, but even today very few Anglo-Saxon philosophers would be prepared to recognise Marx as a philosopher, although it is widely held that Marx was in some way influenced by Hegel, which is probably a good reason for not paying too much attention to the latter. At best, an understand­ ing of Hegel is relevant to an understanding of Marx, but it is not considered that Hegel made a significant contribution to the main­ stream of Western philosophy from Descartes onwards, and it is assumed that he is of little relevance to the 'linguistic revolution' pioneered by Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Austin.

Philosophy originates in man's amazement over the richness and complexity of reality. It attempts to articulate in words and con­ cepts what reality is. Starting from the recognition that this reality is experienced by all humans but experienced in many different ways, the philosopher tries to find reality's heart, its center, its hidden treasure - the tree in the middle connecting heaven and earth, the central point from which the stupendous intricacy of experience begins to make sense and from which order can become visible. To ask "what is reality?" is, indeed, to recognize that we have entered a maze. The hermeneutic philosophy of Wilhelm DiIthey (1833-1911) is the fruit of his own wanderings in this maze. Like many intellectuals of his age, he had lost faith in the Christian religion in which he was raised. In his college years, he turned from theology to philosophy, in particular, the history of philosophy and of human thought in general - wondering about the origin and value of the astounding variety of past belief systems. At the center of reality's maze he found the insight that reality as faced by man is comparable to a literary text: it "means" something to us. Reality is not a mute object, but an autonomous source of meaning, an act of self-disclosure; knowledge of reality is therefore not the product of actions per­ formed by an active subject upon a passive object, but a com­ municative interaction between two SUbjects.

Die Sprachen sind nicht nach dem logischen Lineal gemacht. (Briefwechsel, p. 102) If success in solving problems is the hallmark of philosophical great- ness, then Frege was not a great philosopher. But by that same token, very few if any other figure in the history of philosophy will qualify. On the other hand, if the hallmark of philosophical great- ness is the opening up of new conceptual territory and the raising of hitherto unsuspected crucial questions, the shifting of philosophical perspectiv~ and the determination of subsequent lines of enquiry, then Frege must rank among the greatest philosophers of all times. He was the first to develop a completely formalized language and a logical system sufficiently powerful to generate arithmetic; he opened up the fields of philosophy of logic and arithmetic; his theses on sense reference and definition were seminal to almost all subse- quent work done in the philosophy oflanguage; and his ontological speculations constituted the foundation of one of the most profound metaphysics ever developed: that of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Tractatus.

This work resulted from my interests in several flDldam ental issues of contemporary phenomenology. Originally, their focal point was 1) the role and importance of the subject in philosophical activity and 2) the subject's finitude. To gain a perspective on these issues, a possible approach seemed to lie in the direction of the transcendental imagination and its relation to tim e. This focus on the imagination, of course, led to Fichte's egological philosophy that explicitly centers on the imagination. Here both issues are raised together. The reader of the Fichtean texts cannot for long hesitate to pose the question of intersubjectivity. These three issues-imagination, reflection, and inter­ subjectivity-formed the basis of the present work. Since such a work could never be completed if it were not for those num erot5 discussions and friendly conversation with friends and colleagues with whom philosophy is always alive, I wish to acknowledge my gratitude specifically to the following people: Professor Andre Schuwer, of Duquesne University, for his encouragement, critical reading of the work, and his comments that have greatly aided me in the writing of the present work; Professor John Sallis, Chairman of the Philosophy Department of Duquesne University, whose interest in Fichte provided invaluable insights and approaches to the issues; Professor Paul Ricoeur, University of Paris and University of Chicago, whose reading and encouragement greatly helped in the work's publication; Professor Samuel Ijsseling, University of Leuven, who introduced me to Martinus Nijhoff Publishers; Professor G. A.

The book is divided into chapters, but several themes run across them. This is, in fact, the reason for writing a book rather than a number of independent articles; for it appears that several moments of Kant's work are characterized by similar problems, and consequently we might be unable to see the impact of these on a more 1 i mi ted canvas. But further, and perhaps no less importantly, the shared problems are likely to be indicative of the nature of the whole area under discussion. Given this, to concentrate our attention on them should provide clarification not accessible in any other way. It is one of the objects of the present book to obtai n thi s clarification, and to apply it to the area itself, rather than merely to utilize the results in Kantian exegesis and elucidation. Thus the aim is not predominantly historical. Of the various themes, the theme of Space and Time turns out to be of prime importance to the whole picture presented, and within it, the theme of space. This is not perhaps surprising, for Kant's central task is to provide for objectivity; i. e. , to explain how a "subjective" stream of perceptions can amount to a perception of the world in which there are both subjective and objective moments.

The present work is an attempt to analyse critically Plato's views on mind and body and more particularly on the mind-body relationship within the wider setting of Plato's metaphysics. We seek to achieve this by a philosophical examination"-of the dialogues on the basis of a generally accepted order (some revision of this order is a by-product of our examination). Strictly speaking "soul" ought perhaps to be substituted for "mind" in the above. But it seems to be in terms of "mind" that modern philosophers deal with and refer to the problem that Plato tackled (mainly) in terms of psyche, and as it is part of the motivation for dealing with Plato's treatment that it is of importance for the modern debate, it has been felt necessary to stress the rough identity* of the problem in the title of the book (and in the Introduction, in the title of Part Three and a few other places). Below this superordinate level we try to keep "mind" as a translation typically of nous and "soul" as a translation of psyche.

The idea of the present sixth volume in the Boston Col­ lege Studies in Philosophy entitled "Contemporary Chinese Philosophy" was conceived by the editor several years ago, before the current resumption of Chinese­ American political and economic amity occurred offi­ cially. Several preceding volumes in this series had studied various aspects of Marxism especially Soviet Marxism. Possibilities for dialogue between Christians and Marxists were discussed not only in the series but elsewhere too in various philosophical journals and books through the sixties and seventies. It was only a natural outcome then to wonder about the same possi­ bilities in regard to Chinese Marxism. Hence I sent off to many potential contributors - scholars in the field - the following proposal seeking papers for a volume on Contemporary Chinese Philosophy. The themes that should constitute the content of the articles were as follows: 1. How rigidly do contemporary Chinese adhere to Marxism-Leninism? Naturally this means principally the educated persons, but it might include the non-academic segment of the peop. le. By Marxism-Leninism here, J mean the contemporary Soviet brand. Hence, I do not. mean Marx's early writings or the developments of people like Kolakowski. 2 . Are they constrained to think in a kind of hori­ zontal materialism or are they open to a species of transcendence that might include the God problem or a belief in another life after this one on earth? 3.

The methodology of the study of the history of political thought is an area of study which has occupied my interests for nearly a decade. I was introduced to the subject in University College, Swansea. My teachers there provided me with an excellent grounding in political studies. I am particularly indebted to Bruce Haddock, Peter Nicholson and W. H. Greenleaf. Professor Greenleaf was kind enough to supply me with a copy of his bibliography and copies of two of his unpublished papers. I continued to pursue my interest in methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I am indebted to Ken Minogue and Robert Orr who taught me there. My greatest debt is to Dr. Joseph Femia ofthe University of Liverpool who devoted a great deal of time to considering the arguments presented here. His criticisms and suggestions for improvement proved to be invaluable. I would also like to thank Alan Ryan for his general comments and encouraging advice. It would be remiss of me if I neglected to express my gratitude to Dewi Beynon who was my first teacher of politics. The research for this project was carried out in the following places; The British Library of Political Science, London; The Sidney Jones Library, University of Liverpool; The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; The Main Library, University of Edinburgh; The Arts and Social Science Library, University College, Cardiff; and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

This third volume of American University Publications in Philos­ ophy continues the tradition of presenting books in the series shaping current frontiers and new directions in phi. osophical reflection. In a period emerging from the neglect of creativity by positivism, Professors Dutton and Krausz and their eminent colleagues included in the collection challenge modern philosophy to explore the concept of creativity in both scientific inquiry and artistic production. In view of the fact that Professor Krausz served at one time as Visiting Professor of Philosophy at The American University we are especially pleased to include this volume in the series. HAROLD A. DURFEE, for the editors of American University Publications in Philosophy EDITORS' PREFACE While the literature on the psychology of creativity is substantial, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the subject by philos­ ophers in recent years. This fact is no doubt owed in 'part to the legacy of positivism, whose tenets have included a sharp distinction between what Hans Reichenbach called the context of discovery and the context of justification. Philosophy in this view must address itself to the logic of justifying hypotheses; little of philo­ sophical importance can be said about the more creative business of discovering them. That, positivism has held, is no more than a merely psychological question: since there is no logic of discovery or creation, there can be no philosophical reconstruction of it.

The full century that has elapsed since Nietzsche was at the height of his work did not obliterate his impact. In many ways he is still a contemporary philosopher, even in that sense of 'contemporary' which points to the future. We may have outgrown his style (always, however, admirable and exciting to read), his sense of drama, his creative exaggeration, his sometimes flamboy­ ant posture of a rebel wavering between the heroic and the puerile. Yet Nietzsche's critique of transcendental values and, especially, his attack on the inherited conceptions of rationality remain pertinent and continue to pro­ voke anew cultural critique or dissent. Today Nietzsche is no longer discussed apologetically, nor is his radicalism shunned or suppressed. That his work remains the object of extremely diverse readings is befitting a philosopher who replaced the concept of truth with that of interpretation. It is, indeed, around the concept of interpretation that much of the rem:wed interest in Nietzsche seems to center today. Special emphasis is being laid on his manner of doing philosophy, and his views on interpretation and the genealogical method are often re-read in the context of contemporary hermeneutics and "deconstructionist" positions.

The majority of aestheticians have focused their attention during the past three decades on the identity, or essential nature, of art: can 'art' be defined? What makes an object a work of art? Under what conditions can we characterize in a classificatory sense an object as an art work? The debate, and at times controversy, over these questions proved to be constructive, intellectually stimulating, and in many cases suggestive of new ideas. I hope this debate continues in its momentum and creative outcome. The time is, however, ripe to direct our attention to another important, yet neglected, concept - viz. , 'aesthetic experience' - which occupies a prominent place in the philosohpy of art. We do not only create art; we also enjoy, i. e. , experience, and evaluate it. How can we theorize about the nature of art in general and the art work in particular, and about what makes an object a good work of art, if we do not experience it? For example, how can we identify an object as an art work and distinguish it from other types of objects unless we first perceive it, that is in a critical, educated manner? Again, how can we judge a work as good, elegant, melodramatic, or beautiful unless we first perceive it and recognize its artistic aspect? It seems to me that experiencing art works is a necessary condition for any reasonable theory on the nature of art and artistic criticism.

The object of this study is to find a coherent theoretical approach to three problems which appear to interrelate in complex ways: (1) What is the ontological status of consciousness? (2) How can there be 'un­ conscious,' 'prereflective' or 'self-alienated' consciousness? And (3) Is there a 'self' or 'ego' formed by means of the interrelation of more elementary states of consciousness? The motivation for combining such a diversity of difficult questions is that we often learn more by looking at interrelations of problems than we could by viewing them only in isola­ tion. The three questions posed here have emerged as especially prob­ lematic in the context of twentieth century philosophy. 1. The question of the ontological status of consciousness The question 'What is consciousness?' is one of the most perplexing in philosophy-so perplexing that many have been motivated to proceed as though consciousness did not exist. If William James was speaking rhetorically when he said "Consciousness does not exist," 1 many behaviorists of the recent past were not. 2 James meant only to imply that consciousness is not an independently existing soul-substance, along­ side physical substances. He did not mean that we do not really 'have' consciousness, and he did not provide final resolution for the problem of the causal interrelations between consciousness and the physical realm (e. g. , our bodies). Many recent philosophers and psychologists, however, try to proceed as though these problems did not exist.

General Argument My aim is to survey some of the most influential philosophical writers on human nature from the time that Augustine codified Christian belief to the present. During this period philosophical opinions about human nature underwent a transformation from the God-centered views of Augustine and the scholastics to the human-centered ideas of Nietzsche, Freud and Sartre. While one aim has simply been to provide a handy survey, I do have three polemical purposes. One is to oppose the notion that the modernism of more recent writers was produced by methodological innovations. According to both Freud and Sartre, as well as other key figures like Lacan and Heidegger, their views were the product of new methods of investigating human nature, namely those of psychoanalysis and the phenomenological reduction. Psych,oanalysis claimed to use the interpretation of both dreams and the relationship between analyst and patient to penetrate the unconscious. Phenomenology has claimed that trained philosophers are able to obtain a privilege;d view of consciousness by a special act of thought called the phenomenological reduction which enables them to view consciousness without preconceptions. On many issues my sympathies are with Nietzsche rather than with Freud or phenomenology. This is also the case regarding methodology. Nietzsche saw quite clearly that the possibility of popularising the views he himself held came from the decline of ChristianitY. My rejection of exclusive reliance upon the methodologies of psychoanalysis and phenomenology is based on two lines of argument.

The primary contributions of this work are in three overlapping categories: (i) the history of ideas (and in particular the history of the idea of value) and moral philosophy in both continental and Anglo-American traditions, (ii) the identification and interpretation of ethical emotivism as one of the major twentieth-century ethical theories, and (iii) the evolution of a philosophically viable form of ethical emotivism as an alternative to utilitarianism and Kantianism. In addition, along the way, many particular points are touched upon, e. g. , the relation of Hume to Stevenson and emotivism, the facti value distinction, and human emotional and social nature. The work begins by challenging the received account of the development of twentieth-century moral philosophy, i. e. , the account that occurs in all the recognized historical books (such as G. c. Kerner, The Revolution in Ethical Theory, Oxford, 1966; G. 1. Warnock, Contemporary Moral Philosophy, London, 1967; W. D. Hudson, Modern Moral Philosophy, London, 1967; Mary Warnock, Ethics Since 1900, 3rd ed. , Oxford, 1978; and W. D. Hudson, A Century of Moral Philosophy, New York, 1980). This received account is not only the property of scholars of the history of recent moral philosophy but is also generally assumed by philosophers themselves, and is repeated quite uncritically in the literature at large.

Building upon the "preliminary conception of Phenomenology" introduced by Heidegger in section II of the Introduction to Sein und zeit,l one may say that a phenomenology of death would mean: "to let death, as that which shows itself, be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself. " Does this mean then, that a properly phenomenological d- cription of death may reveal to us what death as a factical event is like "in the very way in which it shows itself from itself"? Although I cannot experience my death in order to describe it, may some kind of phenomenologica'l inference or "extrapolation"2 be the condition for a unique and privileged revelation of what it is like to be dead? There is an important element of phenomenological descr- tion which renders such an extrapolation implausible, and it involves what Husserl originally called the reduction to signi- cance or meaning. It can never be true for the phenomenologist, 1 Heidegger, Martin, Sein und zeit, p. 34. e. t. page 58. 2 Henry W. Johnstone Jr. thinks that while one cannot extrapo­ late from the experience of sleep to the experience of death, it may be possible to extrapolate from the phenomeno­ lQgy of sleep to the phenomenology of death. Cf. H. W. John­ stone Jr. , "Toward a Phenomenology of Death", in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. XXXV, No. 3, 1975, pages 396-7. Cf.

Beginning is the hardest ITPment, not because openers are all that scarce but because you're blowing into, cracking a universe. l Maurice Natanson q;>enings are already directed toward closings. The first question in presenting a body of work is where to cut in. This is an especially difficult question since the cut-in provides a perspecti ve on what follows. A cut is an angle of entry. Wherever I enter, from there, a realm unfolds itself. In that sense, my angle of entry is my point of view. A realm cut into has an orientation. It evidences a hierarchy of importance, relevance, accessability, value, or logic. Its content is no longer neutral and equivalent. From my perspective, the realm is not only differentiated in sUbstance but differential in significance. There is a relation between angles and attitudes. Where I look from is tied up with how I see. The first cut opens out into a frame of reference. What count as lines of evidence in that realm materialize along with its background expectancies, its assumptions, concentrations, and confusions, its coslTPlogy, quirks, and enchantments. Hence, once I am corrunitted to a perspective, I am implicated in a methodology, one possessed of puzzles of a certain shape, ITPving toward solutions wi thin its orthodoxy. Openings are directed toward closings. Another cut would open onto another realm. The realm of events I cut into is a Taleworld, inhabited by characters acting in their own space and time.

Beginning is the hardest ITPment, not because openers are all that scarce but because you're blowing into, cracking a universe. l Maurice Natanson q;>enings are already directed toward closings. The first question in presenting a body of work is where to cut in. This is an especially difficult question since the cut-in provides a perspecti ve on what follows. A cut is an angle of entry. Wherever I enter, from there, a realm unfolds itself. In that sense, my angle of entry is my point of view. A realm cut into has an orientation. It evidences a hierarchy of importance, relevance, accessability, value, or logic. Its content is no longer neutral and equivalent. From my perspective, the realm is not only differentiated in sUbstance but differential in significance. There is a relation between angles and attitudes. Where I look from is tied up with how I see. The first cut opens out into a frame of reference. What count as lines of evidence in that realm materialize along with its background expectancies, its assumptions, concentrations, and confusions, its coslTPlogy, quirks, and enchantments. Hence, once I am corrunitted to a perspective, I am implicated in a methodology, one possessed of puzzles of a certain shape, ITPving toward solutions wi thin its orthodoxy. Openings are directed toward closings. Another cut would open onto another realm. The realm of events I cut into is a Taleworld, inhabited by characters acting in their own space and time.

Self-reference, although a topic studied by some philosophers and known to a number of other disciplines, has received comparatively little explicit attention. For the most part the focus of studies of self-reference has been on its logical and linguistic aspects, with perhaps disproportionate emphasis placed on the reflexive paradoxes. The eight-volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example, does not contain a single entry in its index under "self-reference", and in connection with "reflexivity" mentions only "relations", "classes", and "sets". Yet, in this volume, the introductory essay identifies some 75 varieties and occurrences of self-reference in a wide range of disciplines, and the bibliography contains more than 1,200 citations to English language works about reflexivity. The contributed papers investigate a number of forms and applications of self-reference, and examine some of the challenges posed by its difficult temperament. The editors hope that readers of this volume will gain a richer sense of the sti11largely unexplored frontiers of reflexivity, and of the indispensability of reflexive concepts and methods to foundational inquiries in philosophy, logic, language, and into the freedom, personality and intelligence of persons.

The title of our collection is owed to Hannah Arendt herself. Writing to Karl Jaspers on August 6, 1955, she spoke of how she had only just begun to really love the world and expressed her desire to testify to that love in the title of what came to be published as The Human Condition: "Out of gratitude, I want to call my book about political theories Arnor Mundi. "t In retrospect, it was fitting that amor mundi, love of the world, never became the title of only one of Arendt's studies, for it is the theme which permeates all of her thought. The purpose of this volume's a- ticles is to pay a critical tribute to this theme by exploring its meaning, the cultural and intellectual sources from which it derives, as well as its resources for conte- porary thought and action. We are privileged to include as part of the collection two previously unpu- lished lectures by Arendt as well as a rarely noticed essay which she wrote in 1964. Taken together, they engrave the central features of her vision of amor mundi. Arendt presented "Labor, Work, Action" on November 10, 1964, at a conference "Christianity and Economic Man:Moral Decisions in an Affluent Society," which 2 was held at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

The title of our collection is owed to Hannah Arendt herself. Writing to Karl Jaspers on August 6, 1955, she spoke of how she had only just begun to really love the world and expressed her desire to testify to that love in the title of what came to be published as The Human Condition: "Out of gratitude, I want to call my book about political theories Arnor Mundi. "t In retrospect, it was fitting that amor mundi, love of the world, never became the title of only one of Arendt's studies, for it is the theme which permeates all of her thought. The purpose of this volume's a- ticles is to pay a critical tribute to this theme by exploring its meaning, the cultural and intellectual sources from which it derives, as well as its resources for conte- porary thought and action. We are privileged to include as part of the collection two previously unpu- lished lectures by Arendt as well as a rarely noticed essay which she wrote in 1964. Taken together, they engrave the central features of her vision of amor mundi. Arendt presented "Labor, Work, Action" on November 10, 1964, at a conference "Christianity and Economic Man:Moral Decisions in an Affluent Society," which 2 was held at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

The American University Publications In From its inception Philosophy has continued the direction stated in the sub-title of the initial volume that of probing new directions in philosophy. As the series has developed these probings of new directions have taken the two­ fold direction of exploring the relationships between the disparate traditions of twentieth century philosophy and with developing new insights into the foundations of some enduring philosophic problems. This present volume continues both of these directions. The interaction between twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy which was an implicit theme of our first and third volumes and the explicit subject of our second volume is here continued in a series of studies on major figures and topics in each tradition. In the context of these interpretative studies, Professor Durfee returns again and again to the question of the relationships between the will and the reason, and explores the conflicting goals of creativity and objectivity in formulating a philosophic position. In so doing he raises the issue as his title suggests - of the foundations of philosophy itself. He seriously challenges the belief common to both pheomenology and analytic philosophy that philosophizing can be a presuppositionless activity, objectively persued independent of the personal (and, perhaps, arbitrary) commitments of the philosopher. This issue, critical as it is to all forms of philosophy, is surely a worthy one for a series such as ours.

There is little more than a decade left before the bells allover the world will be ringing in the first hour of the twenty-first century, which will surely be an era of highly advanced technology. Looking back on the century that we live in, one can realize that generations of people who have already lived in it for the better parts of their lives have begun to ask the same question that also every individual person thinks about when he is faced with the first signs of the end of his life. It is the question: "Why did everything in my life happen the way it did?" Or, "It would have been so easy to have channelled events into directions other than the way they went. " Or, "Why, in all the world, is my life coming to an end as it does, or, why must all of us face this kind of end of our century?" Whenever human beings take retrospective views of their lives and times - when they are faced with their own personal "fin du siecle" - there appears to be an increasing anxiety throughout the masses asso­ ciated with a somber feeling of pessimism, which may even be mixed with a slight degree of fatalism. There is quite another feeling with those persons who were born late in this century and who did not share all the events the older generation experi­ enced.

In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in Meinong's work; but since the bulk of it is still encased in his quite forbidding German, most students are limited to the few available translations and to secondary sources. Unfortunately Meinong has been much maligned - only in a few instances with good reason - and has consequently been dealt with lightly. Meinong stood at a very important junction of European philosophical and scien­ tific thought. In all fields - physics, chemistry, mathematics, psychology, philolo- revolutionary strides were being made. Philosophy, on the other hand, had run its post-Kantian course. New philosophical thinkers came from different disciplines. For example, Frege and later Russell were mathematicians, Boltzmann and Mach were physicists. Earlier Bolzano and then Brentano were originally theologians, and Meinong was a historian. 1 The sciences with their new insights and theories offered an enormous wealth of information which needed to be absorbed philosophically; but traditional philosophy could not deal with it. Physics presented a picture of reality which did not fit into the traditional schemes of empiricism or idealism. Ontological and epistemological questions became once again wide open issues. For example, atoms at first were still considered to be theoretical entities.

Charles Sanders Peirce is quickly becoming the dominant figure in the history of American philosophy. The breadth and depth of his work has begun to obscure even the brightest of his contemporaries. Concerning the interpretation of his work, however, there are two distinct schools. The first holds that Peirce's work is an aggregate of important but disconnected insights. The second school argues that his work is a systematic philosophy with many pieces of the overall picture still obscure or missing. It is this second view which seems to me the most reasonable, in part because it has been convincingly defended by other scholars, but most importantly because Peirce himself described his philosophy as systematic: What I would recommend is that every person who wishes to form an opinion concerning fundamental problems should first of all make a complete survey of human knowledge, should take note of all the valuable ideas in each branch of science, should observe in just what respect each has been successful and where it has failed, in order that, in the light of the thorough acquaintance so attained of the available materials for a philosophical theory and of the nature and strength of each, he may proceed to the study of what the problem of philosophy consists in, and of the proper way of solving it (6. 9) [1].

lacan. Barthes. Jakobson. Horkheimer. Adorno. Gadamer. Ricoeur. Foucault. Deleuze. Derrida. lyotard. Vattimo. Kofman. and Irigaray are also part of that outer horizon of continental philosophy. The purpose of this volume however is to establish that space within the core of continental philosophy -­ specifically in relation to the work of Husserl. Heidegger. and Merleau-Ponty -- and to move out to some of its various horizons. In some cases. these horizons are set by the history of philosophy. in others by newer directions in contemporary philosophy. and in others by alternative modes of philosophizing. The horizons also appear in areas as diverse as epistemology and the philosophy of science. metaphysics. philosophical psychology. and aesthetics. Furthermore. these limits are set by the relationships between philosophy and other disciplines such as psychology. communication theory. and the arts. Nevertheless the volume is organized around each of the three major figures in the phenomenological core of continental philosophy. The twelve essays provide important investigations into current research -- they represent the range and skills of contemporary work in relation to Husserl. Heidegger. and Merleau-Ponty. In themselves however they indicate advances in philosophical research and are hardly simple commentaries on these three figures. Husserl. Heidegger. and Merleau-Ponty constitute texts on the basis of which phenomenology is taken to its limits -- and even beyond.

Die Sprachen sind nicht nach dem logischen Lineal gemacht. (Briefwechsel, p. 102) If success in solving problems is the hallmark of philosophical great- ness, then Frege was not a great philosopher. But by that same token, very few if any other figure in the history of philosophy will qualify. On the other hand, if the hallmark of philosophical great- ness is the opening up of new conceptual territory and the raising of hitherto unsuspected crucial questions, the shifting of philosophical perspectiv~ and the determination of subsequent lines of enquiry, then Frege must rank among the greatest philosophers of all times. He was the first to develop a completely formalized language and a logical system sufficiently powerful to generate arithmetic; he opened up the fields of philosophy of logic and arithmetic; his theses on sense reference and definition were seminal to almost all subse- quent work done in the philosophy oflanguage; and his ontological speculations constituted the foundation of one of the most profound metaphysics ever developed: that of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Tractatus.

This work resulted from my interests in several flDldam ental issues of contemporary phenomenology. Originally, their focal point was 1) the role and importance of the subject in philosophical activity and 2) the subject's finitude. To gain a perspective on these issues, a possible approach seemed to lie in the direction of the transcendental imagination and its relation to tim e. This focus on the imagination, of course, led to Fichte's egological philosophy that explicitly centers on the imagination. Here both issues are raised together. The reader of the Fichtean texts cannot for long hesitate to pose the question of intersubjectivity. These three issues-imagination, reflection, and inter­ subjectivity-formed the basis of the present work. Since such a work could never be completed if it were not for those num erot5 discussions and friendly conversation with friends and colleagues with whom philosophy is always alive, I wish to acknowledge my gratitude specifically to the following people: Professor Andre Schuwer, of Duquesne University, for his encouragement, critical reading of the work, and his comments that have greatly aided me in the writing of the present work; Professor John Sallis, Chairman of the Philosophy Department of Duquesne University, whose interest in Fichte provided invaluable insights and approaches to the issues; Professor Paul Ricoeur, University of Paris and University of Chicago, whose reading and encouragement greatly helped in the work's publication; Professor Samuel Ijsseling, University of Leuven, who introduced me to Martinus Nijhoff Publishers; Professor G. A.