C.H. Krijnen

Values and the Limits of Economic Rationality: Critical Remarks on ‘Economic Imperialism’

Perhaps there have been at least as many attempts to answer philosophical questions by means of an approach belonging to one or another special science as there have been attempts by philosophy to defend her right to an authentically philosophical approach. Questions about the nature of man and his world, culture, are especially at stake. However, the matter of reductionism does not just play a role in the relation between the special sciences and philosophy: within the special sciences themselves too there has been much resistance to the urge for expansion of certain approaches to the detriment of others (this holds outside science too: one can think of the resistance the anti-globalization movement offers to ‘neo-liberalism’).

Kants Subjektstheorie und die Grundlegung einer philosophischen Anthropologie

Der Titel der Abhandlung weist darauf hin, dass die philosophische An thropologie sich mit einem Grundlegungsproblem konfrontiert sieht, was in einem ersten Abschnitt herauszuarbeiten ist (I). Daran anschlief3end gilt es klarzumachen, dass und weshalb Kant hinsichtlich der Losung des skizzier ten Problems eine besondere Bedeutung zukommt (2). Zum Schluss wird das erreichte Ergebnis im Rahmen einer problemgeschichtlichen Betrachtung er wogen (3).

Der „Kulturimperativ“ als Geltungsverwirklichungsforderung

Der heute weitverbreitete Fokus auf ‚interdisziplinare Zugange‘ zu den Problemen, so wichtig er fur ein adaquates Sachverstandnis auch sein mag, sollte sich, gerade wenn die Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften im Spiel sind, vor der Suggestion einer allzu grosen disziplinaren Homogenitat huten. Die augenfalligen Grabenkampfe der ‚Paradigmen‘ sind geradezu kulturelle Mahnmale, die uns dessen immer wieder eingedenk werden lassen. Solche Grabenkampfe zeichnen in besonderem Mase die Philosophie aus.

Kants Konzeption kosmologischer Freiheit – ein metaphysischer Rest?

The German idealists were of the opinion that Kant’s transcendental turn has unfettered a revolution in philosophical thought that needs to be completed by addressing critically the presuppositions or ‘foundations’ of Kant’s philosophy itself. To these presuppositions belong Kant’s architectonic of reason in general and the role the concept of freedom has within it in particular. It is shown that Kant’s cosmological or transcendental freedom does not so much establishes a secure starting point for further elaborations within the realm of practical philosophy but should primarily be taken as a problem in itself. By doing so, it becomes clear that the profile of Kant’s critical conception of freedom as well as that of the third antinomy heavily draw upon the German metaphysical tradition of the 18th century. By considering Kant’s conception of cosmological freedom in the context of the discussions of his age, several preliminaries and non justified constellations come into view. From Hegel’s perspective, they cannot be justified; rather, getting to the bottom of them transcendentally leads to a more general concept of freedom than Kant’s. The consequences of all this are illustrated by revisiting the transcendental philosophy of Bruno Bauch, probably the best neo-Kantian Kant specialist.

The Very Idea of Organization: Towards a Hegelian Exposition

The contemporary debate on the social ontological foundations of organization does not, for methodological reasons, sufficiently get a grip on the phenomenon of organization. The original determinacy of organization remains presupposed. To render this implicit meaning of organization explicit, another, more embracing and in-depth methodology is needed. German idealist types of philosophy provide an extremely powerful methodology. In the philosophy of German idealism from Kant to Hegel, along with neo-Kantianism and up to contemporary transcendental philosophy, however, the idea of organization is not addressed. Indeed, it is a challenge to construct the idea of organization from the perspective of German idealism: the perspective of reason, and with that, of freedom. It results in a new framework for dealing with organization in theory and practice. The article constructs the idea of organization (and claims that it still makes sense to do so) within the framework of G.W.F. Hegel. It shows where the issue of organization should be addressed topologically in Hegel’s system of philosophy and what, then, organization shows to be here speculatively.

Gegenstandskonstitution bei Husserl und in der klassischen deutschen Philosophie: eine problemgeschichtliche Deutungslinie

Naturalismus uberall! Zu keinem anderen Schluss fuhrt ein Blick auf die gegenwartige Philosophie und deren einflussreichste Stromung, die ‚analytische Philosophie‘. Dass der naturalistische Ansatz nicht den Anspruch erfullen kann, Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft zu sein, hat Husserl uberzeugend u. a. in seiner gleichnamigen Schrift dargelegt (Hua XXV, S. 8–41). Husserls kritische Analyse hat allerdings, um nur einige wirkungsmachtige Beispiele zu nennen, Quine (1969) ebenso wenig vom Programm einer naturalized epistemology abhalten konnen, wie Searle (1995) von einem naturalistischen Ansatz in der Sozialphilosophie; geschweige denn, dass sie den unzahlbaren Bemuhungen, die Ethik evolutionstheoretisch zu naturalisieren, einen Riegel vorgeschoben hat (vgl. Krijnen, 1999).