The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy: A Systematic Reconstruction

by Eckart Förster, Brady Bowman (Translator)

Kant declared that philosophy began in 1781 with his Critique of Pure Reason. In 1806 Hegel announced that it had been completed. Förster assesses the steps that led from Kant’s “beginning” to Hegel’s “end” and concludes that both Kant and Hegel were indeed right. His study reveals Goethe’s significant contribution to post-Kantian thinking.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Theory, Research, Romanticism

425 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Jeff Samuelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book, but you need more solid grasp of German philosophy from Kant to Hegel than I currently have to get the most out of it. The chapters on Fichte were especially challenging. I definitely plan to read this again in a few years.

[Nathan Spicer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forster's book is a great history of "German Idealism" but it is not what one usually expects from a work in the history of philosophy. That it is called a "systematic reconstruction" ought to be taken seriously--much of the book is Forster rehearsing and condensing a line of thought from Kant through to Hegel. If you want a profile of every major and minor figure in German philosophy in the late 18th Century, you will not get that here. Instead, you get a thematic overview of what Forster takes to be the central question that starts with Kant and "ends" with Hegel: can philosophy be a science?
The attempts to respond to this question lead us through an interesting rabbit hole of Spinozism (less Spinoza) and dilettante biology and physics. Goethe really shines through as a figure worthy of study, though I am not sure if Forster's work inspired English-language philosophical interest in Goethe like it should have.
What the book excels at philosophically (the history serves as the hand-maiden to the philosophy here, though I admit I always looked forward to the Arial-font "historical excurses") is the way in which it makes German Idealism "relevant" to the ongoing discussions of the very possibility of settling philosophical disputes--what that would look like and what it would mean. Authors who seem obscure are crystal clear so long as one pays attention.
I still for the life of me have no idea what Fichte means by the 'I', though.

[Joey Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Förster gives a bona fide dialectical reconstruction of German Idealism as if it were a singular project of an individual. This is an impressive offering. It expects you to have a relative mastery over the authors in discussion, as well as some of the broader context they found themselves in. Provided one has the requisite background, it reads like a gripping spy thriller of sorts. Granted, if one already has the background, one can pretty much expect to know the conclusion from the beginning in true German Idealist fashion. That does not mean that it is any less gripping, for the manner in which he reconstructs this project demonstrates his mastery over the subject.

That does not mean that Förster does not provide any objectionable moments of interpretation of the authors under consideration. They are ultimately trivial in consideration to the fact that he does offer this systematic reconstruction in a coherent and a dazzlingly consistent fashion. As such, he does not so much as try to offer a rehabilitative account of each author as if he is divining the most charitable reading of each author by intuiting their true intent—rather Förster is presenting German Idealism as if it were the high water mark of an intellectual tradition that is still worth taking seriously. And it is.

Ultimately, his conclusion from entertaining Kant’s 1881 announcement of the beginning of philosophy and Hegel’s announcement of its completion in 1806 is that going beyond our discursive understanding’s grasp on our account of knowledge must itself be mastered before we overcome it. He really thinks that a scientia intuitiva, the very kind of thing that could overcome such a discursive understanding, is possible, and he has painstakingly reconstructed an avenue of pursuing its possibility. Whether or not we can is another story.

[Joshua Centanni]

On idealism. Recommended by JPE.

[Bryce Furlong · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Alex Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love a historical excursus