Transcendental Inquiry: Its History, Methods and Critiques

This book provides a close examination of Kant’s and Fichte’s idealisms, as well as the positions of their predecessors and successors, in order to isolate and evaluate various essential elements of transcendental inquiry. The authors examine Kant’s and Fichte’s contributions to transcendental idealism, transcendental arguments as a distinctive form of reasoning, and the metaphysically more ambitious forms of idealism developed by philosophers such as Schelling, Hegel, and Cohen. The book also addresses some of the most acute criticisms levelled against transcendental philosophy and explores more recent developments of the transcendental approach in the form of contemporary discourse ethics, especially as represented by Habermas and Apel. The authors also explore the contributions of a number of other important philosophers, including Husserl, Heidegger, Løgstrup, Peirce, and Putnam.

Steven Hoeltzel is Professor of Philosophy at James Madison University, USA. A specialist in Kant and post-Kantian idealism, his recent publications include “Transcendental Idealism and Theistic Commitment in Fichte,” in The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism, ed. Matthew C. Altman (2014) and “Non-Epistemic Justification and Practical Postulation in Fichte” in Fichte and Transcendental Philosophy, ed. Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore (2014). He is the editor (with Halla Kim) of Kant, Fichte, and the Legacy of Transcendental Idealism (2014).

Halla Kim is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, USA. He specializes in Kant/German Idealism, modern Jewish thoughts and Korean philosophy. His recent publications include “Immanuel Kant” in The Nineteenth Century Philosophy Reader, ed. Benjamin Crowe (2015) and “Nothingness in Korean Buddhism: A Struggle against Nihilism” in Nothingness in Asian Philosophy, ed. JeeLooLiu and Douglas Berger (2014).  His monograph, Kant and the Foundations of Morality was published in 2015.