Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Fool's avatar
  2. Santa Monica's avatar
  3. Charles Bakker's avatar
  4. Matty Silverstein's avatar
  5. Jason's avatar
  6. Nathan Meyvis's avatar
  7. Stefan Sciaraffa's avatar

    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

“We are witnessing a Fichte renaissance”

There are, indeed, reasons to fear this is true, although it's worth remembering that professionalization breeds specialization (vide Weber), and Kant having been over-written to death, it's unsurprising people are turning to Fichte, the Kant on steroids.  But there are lots of "renaissances" going on, given that each generation of PhD students needs to make a "contribution to knowledge," which means dredging up what might best be forgotten. In philosophy, think only of the renaissances for Malebranche, NeoKantians, "early modern women" philosophers, Schopenhauer, among others.  Some of these folks probably deserve the attention.  But is Fichte such a case? It no doubt depends, again, on one's views about Kant:  it is unsurprising that leading contemporary Kantians have found Fichte attractive, but for those allergic to Kant's deranged psyche (the "catastrophic spider" as Nietzsche called him), Fichte can only seem even stranger.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Designed with WordPress