Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition

Paolo Diego Bubbio

Description

In this book, Paolo Diego Bubbio offers an alternative to standard philosophical accounts of the notion of sacrifice, which generally begin with the hermeneutic and postmodern traditions of the twentieth century, starting instead with the post-Kantian tradition of the nineteenth century. He restructures the historical development of the concept of sacrifice through a study of Kant, Solger, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and shows how each is indebted to Kant and has more in common with him than is generally acknowledged. Bubbio argues that although Kant sought to free philosophical thought from religious foundations, he did not thereby render the role of religious claims philosophically useless. This makes it possible to consider sacrifice as a regulative and symbolic notion, and leads to an unorthodox idea of sacrifice: not the destruction of something for the sake of something else, but rather a kenotic emptying, conceived as a withdrawal or a "making room" for others.
Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: The Notion of Sacrifice

1. Kant: Sacrifice and the Transcendental Turn

Kant’s Kenotic Turn in Epistemology
Kant’s Practical Philosophy: “A Sacrifice Before the Moloch of Abstraction”?
Symbolic and Regulative Value of Sacrifice

2. Solger’s Sacrificial Dialectic

Sacrifice as Double Negation
Negation and Privation

3. Hegel: Sacrifice and Recognition

Sacrifice in the Phenomenology of Spirit
Sacrifice and Incarnation in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion

4. Kierkegaard: Sacrifice and the Regulativity of Love

Sacrifice in Fear and Trembling
Kierkegaard’s Kenotic Sacrifice

5. Nietzsche: The Sacrifice of the Overman

Three Meanings of Sacrifice
Political Implications of Sacrifice

6. Conclusion: The Long Way of Sacrifice

Sacrifice from Kant to Nietzsche…
…And Beyond
What Theory of Sacrifice?

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophy
• History of philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 07 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438452531
• Langue: English

Extrait

Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition
SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Dennis J. Schmidt, editor
Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition
Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition
Paolo Diego Bubbio
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2014 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production by Eileen Nizer
Marketing by Kate Seburyamo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bubbio, Paolo Diego, 1974–
Sacrifice in the post-Kantian tradition : perspectivism, intersubjectivity, and recognition / Paolo Diego Bubbio.
pages cm. — (SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5251-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Sacrifice. 2. Philosophy, Modern—19th century. I. Title. BL570.B828 2014 203'.4—dc23 2013032629
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Sofia and Alessandro
May they always be willing to make room for other points of view.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: The Notion of Sacrifice
1 Kant: Sacrifice and the Transcendental Turn
Kant’s Kenotic Turn in Epistemology
Kant’s Practical Philosophy: “A Sacrifice Before the Moloch of Abstraction”?
Symbolic and Regulative Value of Sacrifice
2 Solger’s Sacrificial Dialectic
Sacrifice as Double Negation
Negation and Privation
3 Hegel: Sacrifice and Recognition
Sacrifice in the Phenomenology of Spirit
Sacrifice and Incarnation in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion
4 Kierkegaard: Sacrifice and the Regulativity of Love
Sacrifice in Fear and Trembling
Kierkegaard’s Kenotic Sacrifice
5 Nietzsche: The Sacrifice of the Overman
Three Meanings of Sacrifice
Political Implications of Sacrifice
6 Conclusion: The Long Way of Sacrifice
Sacrifice from Kant to Nietzsche …
… And Beyond
What Theory of Sacrifice?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
A book is always, to some extent, an intersubjective effort. I therefore thank a number of people for help and encouragement along the way.
I was encouraged to pursue postgraduate research on the notion of sacrifice in contemporary philosophy by my teacher Marco Ravera in 1998 at the University of Turin. In 2004, when my PhD dissertation was published (in Italian), I was already convinced of the need to consider the Kantian and post-Kantian tradition of the nineteenth century to really understand the notion of sacrifice and its implications. I am grateful to Marco who, since then, has shown all his hermeneutic generosity in discussing various philosophical issues concerning my research, even when my approach was somehow diverging from his own. I would also like to thank Maurizio Pagano for introducing me to the work of Hegel and for several years of conversation about different interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy.
Proper research for this book commenced by way of a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Sydney (2006–2009). Originally the research was limited to the notion of sacrifice in Hegel and Nietzsche, and was extended to Kant, Solger, and Kierkegaard in the following years up to 2012. Across all these years, Paul Redding has been a great scholarly mentor. His intellectual openness, philosophical rigor, and patience have been key factors in pursuing this research. Without him, this book would not have been possible. I am also grateful to the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney for its financial support for conference travel during those years.
Thanks are also due to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick for accepting me as a visiting research fellow into that stimulating environment in the first half of 2008. During that short visit, I enjoyed profitable discussions on Solger and Hegel with Stephen Houlgate.
In May 2009, Douglas Hedley kindly invited me to present my work on sacrifice in Hegel’s philosophy at Clare College, University of Cambridge. It was great to discuss my preliminary outcomes with him and his postgraduate students. I regret that, due to geographical reasons, I did not have many opportunities to discuss with Douglas our respective views on sacrifice.
During this book’s long gestation, I have been helped by a number of other individuals who offered valuable suggestions about sections of the manuscript or my general interpretation of sacrifice. Although I cannot thank them all individually, let me mention Damion Buterin, Ingo Farin, Christopher Fynsk, Sebastian Gardner, Wayne Hudson, Heikki Ikaheimo, Jeff Malpas, Justine McGill, Dalia Nassar, Annette Pierdziwol, Philip Quadrio, and Herman Siemens. A special word of thanks is due to Talia Morag, who graciously provided invaluable insights and shared her critical eye in checking my arguments in the chapter on Nietzsche. More recently, I have also gained much from conversations with my colleagues in the Philosophy Research Initiative at the University of Western Sydney, where the final work on this book was made. In their capacity as readers for the press, David Kolb and Douglas Moggach were helpful in pointing out problems, opacities, and hazards in the original manuscript. I am grateful for all of this help. For the book’s shortcomings, I claim credit myself. I am also very grateful to Dennis Schmidt, Book Series Editor, and Andrew Kenyon, Editor of Philosophy at SUNY. Thanks are also due to Charles Barbour for his insights on a variety of particular style matters; to Rory Dufficy for his meticulous preparation of the index, and to the Dean of the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at UWS, Professor Peter Hutchings, for the financial support of the same.
During my long engagement with this project, a number of friends in both the Northern and the Southern hemispheres of the globe have been sympathetically and emotionally supportive: Stephen Buckle, Damian Byers, Luigi Dentis, Fabrizio Gallino, Andrea Lasagna, Daniele Limerutti, Emanuele Miroglio, Luca Moretti, Sebastiana Nervegna, Alessandro Rodani, and Dimitris Vardoulakis. Their humor, encouragement, and friendship continue to be a genuine blessing.
To my family, I owe more than I can acknowledge. My children, Sofia and Alex, gave me lots of pleasure and taught me the importance of a fresh point of view. And, first of all, I thank my wife, Silvia, for her help, support, and understanding throughout the long period of this book’s composition.
Most of the chapters that follow recast material that has appeared earlier, often in altered form, in other settings. I thank the following journals and publishers for allowing me to draw on that material:
Chapter 1 is an extended version of “Kant’s Sacrificial Turns,” in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 73:2 (2013): 97–115 (with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media).
Chapter 2 draws from “Solger’s Notion of Sacrifice as Double Negation.” in Heythrop Journal 50:2 (2009): 206–214, and “Solger and Hegel: Negation and Privation,” in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17:2 (2009): 173–187.
A version of section 1 of Chapter 3 appeared as “Sacrifice in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit ,” in British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20:4 (2012): 797–815.
Section 2 of Chapter 3 draws from the first half of “God, Incarnation, and Metaphysics in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion,” in Sophia. International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions DOI: 10.1007/s11841-013-0391-z (with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media).
Chapter 4 , section 1 draws from “Kierkegaard’s Regulative Sacrifice: A Post-Kantian Reading of Fear and Trembling ,” in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20:4 (2012): 691–723.
A version of Chapter 4 , section 2 appeared as “Kierkegaard is Standing by Himself—Through Hegel’s Help,” in P. D. Bubbio and P. Redding (eds.), Religion After Kant. God and Culture in the Idealist Era (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2012), 173–196.
A shorter version of Chapter 5 appeared as “The Sacrifice of the Overman as an Expression of the Will to Power. Anti-Political Consequences and Contributions to Democracy,” in H. W. Siemens and V. Roodt (eds.), Nietzsche, Power and Politics: Rethinking Nietzsche’s Legacy for Political Thought (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 269–296.
Sydney, 2013
Abbreviations KpV Immanuel Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788). Critique of Practical Reason , translated by Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2002). MS Immanuel Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten (1797). The Metaphysics of Morals , translated by Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). RGV Immanuel Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (1793). Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason , in Religion and Natural Theology , translated and edited by A. W. Wood and G. Di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). NS Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger, Nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel (1826), Herausgegeben von Ludwig Tieck und Friedrich von Raumer (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Scheider, Reprint 1973). PG G.W.F. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807). Phenomenology of Spirit , translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). Rel G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (1827). Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The Lectures of 1827 , edited by P. C. Hodgson, translated by R. F. Brown et al. (Berkeley: University of California Pres