THE INFLUENCE OF KANTIAN CRITIQUE OF THE POWER OF JUDGMENT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BADEN SCHOOL OF NEO-KANTIANISM

В работе выявляется связь, объединяющая кантианскую теорию суждения с эпистемологической доктриной Баденской школы неокантианства. Различение определяющей и рефлектирующей способности суждения сопоставляется с генерализирующим и индивидуализирующим способами образования понятий. Особенности исторического метода возводятся к отличительным чертам телеологического и эстетического вариантов применения рефлектирующего суждения. Выстроенная на этой платформе концепция самостоятельного метода исторического познания задает особое видение исторического познания как опыта восприятия и понимания единичных, однократных и уникальных культурных процессов. The article reveals the connection that unites the Kantian theory of judgment with the epistemological doctrine of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism. The distinction between the determining and reflective ability of judgment is compared with the generalizing and individualizing methods of forming concepts. The features of the historical method are raised to the distinctive features of the teleological and aesthetic variants of the application of reflective judgment. The concept of an independent method of historical cognition, built on this platform, sets a special vision of historical cognition as an experience of perception and understanding of single and unique cultural processes.

Begriff (Concept)

The lexeme Begriff marks Goethe’s ongoing reconstruction of the traditional philosophical concept across a variety of disciplinary practices. In its most developed articulations, it also works transcendentally to establish the conditions of possibility for thought and intelligibility on a dynamic plane of verbal experimentation and reinvention that cuts immanently through the world. Unlike the clear and distinct concepts of rationalist metaphysics, which function as fixed universals beyond the reach of the senses, Goethe’s extensive usages and ongoing conceptualizations of Begriff draw on an expressive power within language to generate sequences of cognitive moves and moments of transitional understanding that stand in close relation to each other and can be gathered in graded series to be saved for further observation, description, reflection, and reconfiguration. Through its successive linguistic manifestations, moreover, and in line with Goethe’s heterodox approach to systematic philosophy, Begriff lays out force fields of verbal and philosophical activity and discovery with fluid and permeable borders. In ways comparable to the power of reflective judgment in Kant’s third critique, which dispenses with the categories of the understanding and their determining judgments to work intuitively within the world of living forms (Gestalten), Goethe’s lebendiger Begriff (living concept) proves to be a more encompassing structure of thought and its processes than the conceptual machinery of orthodox metaphysical systems with their regulatory regimes of limit-setting terms. Redeployed as an experimental object of experience, Begriff is, therefore, also anschaulich (visual, accessible to intuition). By offering a dynamic perspective onto the fugitive things of the world—including its thought things—it continually reveals the hidden secrets of its own perpetual becomings.

Promoting Reflective Thinking in Adult Learners

Case studies delivered in the online discussion environment offer many benefits for adult learners, including development as a reflective practitioner. The online case-based discussion helps learners develop into reflective practitioners and understand the finer points as to why things are done rather than simply how they are done. This approach is an effective tool for adult learners to enhance their ability to address ill-structured problems, those that are complex and controversial in nature. They become adept at engaging in salient dialogue, which, in turn, expands their reflective thinking skills. This chapter, grounded in a heutagogical approach, explores the use of the case studies in an online discussion format to promote reflective judgment capabilities. Focus is placed on the function and structure of online case-based discussions and methods for assessing learning outcomes.

Spontaneities and Singularities: Kant’s Hypothetical Approach to the Supersensible and the Re-Foundation of Metaphysics

The hypothetical approach to the supersensible developed by Kant in his three Critiques, exemplified by his analysis of the aesthetic and reflective judgment in his third Critique, with their principle fortuitous purposiveness, can be considered as the basis for a new foundation of metaphysics. According to Kant’s limitation of cognition to the realm of sense intuition, theoretical knowledge of God, the subject, things-in-themselves, transcendental ideas is impossible. This leads to a kind of “negative theology” of the highest principle and the supersensible as a whole. The reasons are rooted in the character of propositional thought, which can only circumscribe a singular, supersensible reality by means of predicative sentences and discursive thought. Taking Kant’s lead, but in contrast to his terminology, I call really existent singularities, including the thinking, knowing, desiring, feeling unique individuals we know as human beings, spontaneities, in order to distinguish them from descriptive characteristics attributed to them by predicative thought. Kant’s “practico-dogmatic” account of the postulates of God and immortality of the soul, based on the “fact of freedom” and its connection to the moral imperative, ensure the possibility of the “highest good” as final aim of moral behaviour — but cannot satisfy our need for knowledge of the supersensible. To “lay the groundwork” for experience of our own self-conscious reality, the reality of others like ourselves, of things which transcend the boundaries of sense intuition, and of true reciprocity, a different method is needed, one which leads us “beyond being and thought” to the unconditional beginning of conditional reality.

“Thinking Politically, Seeing Historically”. Hannah Arendt on the Method of Political Thinking

"In my paper, I try to summarize Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the method of political thinking, following them through their genesis. My fundamental assumption is that although she had been preoccupied with the issue before (at least from 1957), she became more seriously interested in it after the controversy following the publication of the Eichmann volume. It is generally known that Arendt believed to have found the pattern for the method of political thinking in Kant’s third critique, the one about judgment; more precisely in the Kantian description of the reflective judgment. This served as a pattern for Arendt for what she sometimes called representative thinking or opinion. If, on the other hand, we examine Arendt’s referring thoughts in their genesis we also come to realize why that was the case. In my opinion, Arendt looked in Kant’s work for a form of political thinking that remained impartial, in other words, it was not committed to one political cause or another, yet did not break its relations to politics, remaining entirely political. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, Immanuel Kant, impartiality, political thinking, ideology, reflective judgment, representative thinking."