The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy

State University of New York

ISBN 10: 0791427544 / ISBN 13: 9780791427545

Published by State University of New York Press, 1995

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791427544
• ISBN 13: 9780791427545
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Weight: 0.8 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

Contemporary thought often claims the "death of the subject," and postmodernists typically contend that the standpoint of human subjectivity has been surpassed as a foundation for philosophy. A proper appreciation of these influential claims requires an understanding of the main tradition in which the standpoint of subjectivity was articulated, namely the classical philosophy of German Idealism. This book provides such an understanding.

The authors assess what is dead and what is alive today in the philosophy of subjectivity, and offer the most thorough study available on the background of the postmodern assault on the primacy of the subject. Tracing this assault back to reactions to Kant, they elucidate the historical and systematic details of the development of the concept of the self in Classical philosophy from Kant to Fichte and Hegel. Manfred Frank, one of Europe's most prominent and prolific writers on neo-structuralism, provides two major contributions--an account of the philosophical foundations of the reaction to Kant in early romanticism (especially Novalis), and a defense of the ineliminability of self-consciousness against its critics in current analytic philosophy. Essays by other contributors-including Henry Allison, Robert Pippin, Daniel Breazeale, Guenter Zoeller, Ludwig Siep, Veronique Zanetti, and Georg Mohr--relate the concept of the self to topics such as freedom, teleology, modernity, and intersubjectivity.

About the Author

Karl Ameriks is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Author of Kant's Theory of Mind, he is a past president of the North American Kant Society. Dieter Sturma teaches at Luneburg University in Germany, and is author of Kant uber Selbstbewusstsein.