A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism

Topics in Historical Philosophy

by Lee Braver

At a time when the analytic/continental split dominates contemporary philosophy, this ambitious work offers a careful and clear-minded way to bridge that divide.  Combining conceptual rigor and clarity of prose with historical erudition, A Thing of This World shows how one of the standard issues of analytic philosophy--realism and anti-realism--has also been at the heart of continental philosophy. 
 
Using a framework derived from prominent analytic thinkers, Lee Braver traces the roots of anti-realism to Kant's idea that the mind actively organizes experience.  He then shows in depth and in detail how this idea evolves through the works of Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida.  This narrative presents an illuminating account of the
history of continental philosophy by explaining how these thinkers build on each other's attempts to develop new concepts of reality and truth in the wake of the rejection of realism.  Braver demonstrates that the analytic and continental traditions have been discussing the same issues, albeit with different vocabularies, interests, and approaches.
By developing a commensurate vocabulary, his book promotes a dialogue between the two branches of philosophy in which each can begin to learn from the other.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

516 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2007

About the author

Lee Braver is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida and the author of Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger (MIT Press) and A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism.

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first real philosophy book I read was Being and Time by Heidegger. It turned out to be my all time favorite book, but it took multiple readings and hundreds of side trips into other philosophers before I could understand what it was really saying. It led me to many other primary philosophy books since I was committed to understanding beyond the superficial because I had realized that there was something big that was being revealed, but initially I was not able to understand it. I accidentally ended up reading all of the philosophers this author mentions in detail such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida, and most of the other ones he mentions in passing in order to understand that book.

There was a connecting thread that was tying all my philosophical readings together which I had not been aware of until after having read this book. As with any undisciplined reader who wanted to learn about the world, I would read one book and that often would led me to another book and so on, while I was never reading with an eye toward tying the thought together coherently, I was just letting my readings take me where they took me. This book tied the thought together in a coherent whole for me in ways for which I previously only had a vague feeling.

It’s easy for me to say something along the lines that this is my favorite book which talks about all of my favorite philosophers (Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger) in excruciatingly pleasant detail. I had actually been reading many of their works on my own and I knew they were connected because I kept seeing echoes between them but did not understand how they were connected. After having read this book, I know exactly how they all connect.

A way to describe Heidegger’s Being and Time and this author does is by saying it is a reworking of Kant’s anti-realism, Hegel’s being as contrasted with nothing, Kierkegaard’s being authentic within the world and Nietzsche realization that being is illusive. After B&T, Foucault and Derrida will rework Heidegger's take through Nietzsche or Nietzsche’s take as seen by Heidegger, but all within a framework started by Kant’s anti-realism as this book will layout.

All philosophy up to Kant had a variation of ‘the truth is out there’ and would state we are able to know truth independently from ourselves as if we were Plato’s Ideal, Aristotle’s ordered world, Avicenna’s Floating Man with a soul or assumed that we had the luxury of assuming the world outside of us away since God is not a trickster and just stating ‘cogito ergo sum’ in the manner of Descartes. Kant changes the perspective with a Copernicus Revolution of the mind and says that ‘the truth is within us’ and embraces a mixture of the empirical (Hume) with some idealism (Leibnitz) while siding on the side of an existential reality. Kant’s followers as detailed in this book will refine his take and not allow for knowledge that is universal, necessary and certain as Kant does and will take away any pretense for a God’s eye view for truth and replace it with a groundless ground that gets at the real world we are thrown into and how we must determine for ourselves our own meaning since there is no authoritative narrative about the narrative (i.e. there is no meta-narrative).

This book will say that Bertrand Russell was embarrassingly wrong when it came to Hegel since he did not understand what Hegel was getting at. Hegel’s ‘absolute knowledge’ is not a linear end point but more of a circle the exact opposite from what Russell said and Hegel’s individual is part of a whole unlike what Russell would have imagined. Nietzsche’s nihilism is not a passive nihilism but an active version as the author will point out in the Nietzsche section. All these kind of things will pop up in this book from time to time and play into the author’s major theme that Nietzsche and Hegel can be thought of as anti-realist reacting to what Kant had laid out.

The theme of this book will stay with me for a long time. I once read a derogatory statement about Kant in an article that mentioned that Kant was the most Western of all Western philosophers. I wish I had read this book before having read that misleading statement because now I know that Kant broke a mold with what he started and it took Heidegger to synthesize the thought of Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel, and Nietzsche through his deconstruction and Foucault and Derrida built on that by amplifying the ‘groundless ground’ that helps us with getting meaning since science without metaphysics is empty, and in the end it is up to us to find our most appropriate ground for our own meaning.

[N Perrin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This metanarrative of continental philosophy deserves to become the standard text in philosophy classrooms. Intricately organized with precise articulation and a slough of juicy primary quotes, this is how you will learn the facets of Western continental thought.

As Braver admits, he leaves out significant movements like the Frankfurt School, Deleuze, and Gadamer, but the book is already 500 pages, so I can't blame him. Even if you already know this subject well, it's still worth just grabbing this book for the bibliography.

[blank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly, a thing of this world. I will be wresting with this account of philosophy post-Kant for, hmm, the rest of my life?

Interrogating the analytic-continental split is important in answering the god forsaken question: how to philosophy? While there may be many similarities, and thinkers seemingly ambiguous in location, contempt for the oppugnant position is commonplace.

In any case, Kant paved the way with his Critiques for the emergence of an eclectic range of thought. Braver begins with a Kantian Transcendental Idealist paradigm that persists as a referent in the elucidation of Hegelian Objective Idealism, Nietzschean (meta)Physics, Heideggerean Historical Phenomenogical Ontology (HPO), Foucauldian HPO, and Derridean deconstruction. A Thing of This World will be invaluable to my study of philosophy, as I have always had a deeply continental bent, but is sure to be useful to any who are interested in dissecting the history of philosophy with intent and depth.

Braver’s analysis knows not haste; concepts are introduced appropriately and tangibly and dissected with rigor and felicitous pace.

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing study of continental (anti-realist) philosophy since Kant. I don't think this topic could be covered more clearly and compellingly than what Braver accomplishes in A Thing of this World.

[TL · Rating 5 out of 5]

The [Later] Heideggerian Paradigm

Historical Phenomenological Ontology (HPO): 'There is Being only in this or that particular historical character: physis, logos, en, idea, energeia, Substantiality, Objectivity, Subjectivity, the Will, the Will to Power, the Will to Will... The manner in which it, Being, gives itself, is itself determined by the way in which it clears itself. This way, however, is a historic, always epochal character' (Identity and Difference 66-7).

Mutual Interdependence (MI): 'The fundamental idea of my thinking is exactly that Being, relative to the manifestation of Being, needs man and, conversely, man is only man in so far as he stands within the manifestation of Being... One cannot pose a question about Being without posing a question about the essence of man' (Martin Heidegger in Conversation 40).

Impersonal Conceptual Scheme (ICS): 'The thinking that proceeds from Being and Time, in that it gives up the word "meaning of being" in favor of "truth of being," henceforth emphasizes the openness of being itself, rather than the openness of Dasein in regard to this openness of being. This signifies "the turn," in which thinking always more decisively turns to being as being' (Four Seminars 47).

Unmooring: 'For Hegel, there rules in history necessity... For Heidegger, on the other hand, one cannot speak of a "why." Only the "that"—that the history of Being is in such a way—can be said' (On Time and Being 52).



'That which shows up is simply true reality, and he considers it very important to release all pretensions to control or comprehend this process... Reality is what shows up within particular epochal clearings without remainder, so there is nothing even in principle that could serve as a basis for comparing the correctness of different epochal understandings' (268).

'...in principle, the objectness in which at any given time nature, man, history, language exhibit themselves always itself remains only one kind of presencing, in which indeed that which presences can appear, but never absolutely must appear' (The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays 176).

Unlike Kantian phenomena, the various manifestations 'are not signposts for something else. They are the manifold shining of presencing itself' (Early Greek Thinking 98).

'The modern period's understanding of Being—here called "reality"—lays claim to R3 Uniqueness, that it is the only way that beings can be. This is why the "destruction" of tradition by surveying other periods is required to undermine its self-evidence' (270).

'Unconcealment Truth... removes all vestiges of correspondence (R2) with a unique (R3) and independent (R1) reality which sorts out correct and false, and instead encourages us to take Being as we find it. This allows us to openly and honestly confront the flux we experience without trying to explain it away in favor of Forms or substances or to capture it in any kind of conceptual closure.

This conception of truth takes the momentous step of making truth itself historical: "Truth is defined as this very unconcealment in its essence, in disclosure, in terms of the beings it sanctions; it shapes each configuration of its own essence on the basis of Being thus defined. In its own being, therefore, truth is historical"' (271).

'Being, which isn't a being, simply isn't the kind of thing that could exist apart from its appearing to people throughout history; it is its appearings, which occur historically. The fact that it cannot be independently of us is why we cannot distinguish between "its own" properties and what we project onto it: if we experience it historically, then it is historical' (271).

'Different, even incompatible understandings can all be true insofar as they appear at different times. They only become misunderstandings when they insist on being recognized as the "uniquely possible truth" or simply "what is to be understood" rather than one among many truths... Although this can happen to any period, the modern mode of revealing called "enframing" is especially prone to R3 Uniqueness: "It drives out every other possibility of revealing."

Heidegger frequently criticizes this understanding of Being, which is tied to modern science, for refusing to acknowledge any other kind of Being. Enframing only admits as real what is "countable" or causally related: "What effects and is effected... is, in our eyes, the whole of what is real", so that in general "only that which becomes object in this way is—is considered to be in being."

In these ways "the domain of producedness that is projectable within the horizon of techne... becomes normative for the later interpretation of all beingness of beings." It is scientism that is Heidegger's enemy, not science: "In no way is science as such rejected. Merely its claim to absoluteness—that is, as the standard measure for all true propositions—is warded off as an arrogant presumption."' (273).

'Following Historical Phenomenological Ontology and Unconcealment Truth all the way, man is whatever he appears as, which means that he changes throughout history like everything else... man has fully entered into history and alters along with everything else at the epochal shifts... Heidegger is particularly interested in the modern epochal changeover of man into subject, which is as important an event as there has ever been, in his view' (280).

'Man has foundations, but now they're multiple, transient, and can yield no ultimate or final arche. Each era gives us new ones which do not come together into a logical progression toward a totality' (282).

'Explanations are shaped by the particular way of thinking that we have, by the way thoughts occur to us, by what reasons strike us as plausible, and by what answers appear acceptable. None of this is under our control, but conforms to the way of thinking we are thrown into, which has changed significantly throughout history. We cannot use any of these particular epochal ways of reasoning to judge reason itself, not the sequence of epochs... once Heidegger has unmoored the epochs from the founding self, he does not turn to an internal or objective logic of the epochs themselves for closure or necessary order, but simply accepts raw, ultimate contingency... Heidegger often calls these epochal understandings of Being "destinings" or "fate"' (288-9).

'Plato's focus on the idea or "look" of beings rather than on the being's occurrence as the locus of truth and knowledge begins the fundamental transformation in the history of truth. He does not behold and wonder at the entity's presence—its "that-it-is"—but rather wants to understand its essence, that is, how it is or its whatness.

...Once this separation has occurred, truth becomes a matter of... correctly capturing the idea, which has little to do with the being and its emergence from concealment. Indeed, the idea is easier to capture the more stable it is, thus turning against the emergence of physis itself. The emergent being is relegated to the status of an impure approximation of or a confusing distraction from the unchanging forms.

...The idea is now separate from beings which come and go, emerging into unhiddenness from time to time, so that the idea can instantiate the new sense of Being—constant presence—to the fullest extent. Ideas are permanent and unchanging, having nothing to do with concealment or emergence; indeed, their status as true beings is due to their status of their having nothing to do with change. This then relegates the empirical realm to a lesser truth and appearance becomes mere seeming, a new concept which will wreak havoc for some twenty-five centuries until Heidegger's Unconcealment Truth can overcome it.

Ideas do not emerge or submerge the way physis does; they are always there. As Heidegger reads Plato's allegory of the cave, the purpose of education is to redirect our gaze away from mere seeming to true being in order to achieve correct knowledge of the constantly present ideas... Changing the object of truth from emerging beings to unchanging Forms leads to a transformation of truth from dynamic un-concealment to static correspondence.

Accompanying this transformation is a change in the primary locus of truth from beings to assertions. This is particularly important, since assertions are the mind or soul's attempts to capture a state of affairs. Not only does this reinforce the static nature of correspondence, but it marks the beginning of the long development of the subject's activity in knowing (A5)' (295-6).

'If we are the ones who create the access to the world and are responsible for the way the world is (A5), then we can do with it what we like (technology). This attitude underlies his frequent equating of the forgetfulness of Being with nihilism. Forgetting Being or the clearing means taking credit for our access to being ourselves, which then eliminates any external constraint on what we do. "Beings are, yet they remain abandoned by Being and left to themselves, so as to be mere objects for our contrivance. All goals beyond men and peoples are gone"... This is where transcendental constitution merges with technology.

...All that matters in technology is the satisfaction of our desires; eventually even getting what we want submerges into greater efficiency and power for their own sake. Nothing that resists efficiency is recognized or allowed to exist... "The determination of truth as correctness is not the indifferent and innocuous theory of a scholastic 'logic' which has been obsolete for ages. Correctness is the calculable adjustment and adaptation of all human behavior to the end of contrivances. Whatever resists these contrivances will be crushed"' (309).

'We decide how things will be, and we are on an inevitable slide into making them more and more bestandlich—that is, into empty energy reserves ready to take on whatever form our present desires require. Reality loses its inherent richness to melt into a featureless pool of energy or, as he colorfully puts it, "nature becomes a gigantic gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry."

If phenomenology contains an ethics, it is a call to a heightened sensitivity to the richness and beauty of the world, a vital gratitude for being open to experience rather than taking our openness for granted, and a commitment to "attentive dwelling"' (310).

'Nietzsche neither made nor chose his way himself, no more than any other thinker ever did. He is sent on his way' (What is Called Thinking? 46).

'Being itself is the source (though not the cause, which would make it a being) of all the epochs, the "sender" of the sendings. As usual, language gets in the way, requiring many caveats and qualifications: "One can name it an origin, assuming that all ontic-causal overtones are excluded: it is the event [Ereignis] of being as condition for the arrival of beings: being lets things presence."

This tripartite structure made up of (1) beings, (2) beingness or the understanding of Being, and (3) Being itself is, I believe, the central organizing point of all Heidegger's later thought, yet it has given rise to a great deal of confusion, much of which could have been averted has he employed a clarified terminology. He himself admits to having created some confusion due to the ambiguity of the word "Being," which can easily apply to both (2) beingness and (3) Being itself (see On the Way to Language 20, 26-7; Martin Heidegger in Conversation 44)' (326-7).

'There are times, though, when he speaks of the tripartite structure fairly clearly[:] "We can say, in summary, that three meanings can be emphasized in 'letting-be.' The first refers to [1] that which is (to the being). Over against this first sense, there stands another sense for which the attention is drawn less toward what is given (towards what is), than towards [2] the presencing itself. It then concerns an interpretation of being of the sort given by metaphysics. Within this second emphasis, however, a third has its place, where the stress is now decisively placed upon [3] the letting itself, that which allows the presencing... In this third meaning, one stands before [3] being as being, and no longer before [A3] one of the [2] forms of its destiny. If the emphasis is: to let presencing, there is no longer room for the very name of being. Letting is then the pure giving, which itself refers to the it [das Es] that gives, which is understood as Ereignis" (Four Seminars 59-60).'

'What alone is singularly decisive is the experience of that which is not a being and cannot be a being and yet above all raises beings as beings into the openness of its sway' (Mindfulness 333).

'...instead of simply being abandoned, we are now thrown by Being. This gives a greater sense of guidance or inheritance now: "History is the transporting of a people into its appointed task as entry into that people's endowment". Furthermore, we are thrown into a way of being that is appropriate for us, that is our own. Since being in the clearing is the ubiquitous condition that underlies all actions and choices, it is not simply an optional role we can choose to take up or not. This is our essence that we are thrown into, a particular "for-the-sake-of-which" set out for us—to be "custodian of the unconcealedness of beings"

...There is a specific role or activity that is singled out for us by our nature: since we are the revealer or the being that stands out in the open, we are charged with the "duty" of revealing in the most careful and attentive way possible. Consciously taking up our ability to let beings appear, celebrating it gratefully, and giving beings the kind of careful attention that lets them appear most fully is how I understand "projecting the openness that we are throw into"... "Man is the shepherd of Being." Ethics as phenomenology.' (330-1).

'Being thrown into a way of thinking within a community and epoch is not a curse that prevents us from having genuine thought or truth, but is in fact the only way finite beings are capable of thought. Each epochal understanding sent by Being really does "give a measure" to which "thinking... must conform." These measures or laws of thinking are what enable us to put ideas together, evaluate, make decisions, and reach conclusions, and in principle they cannot be gauged by any measure themselves.

This groundlessness only seems unsatisfying compared to the "super-justifications" or "hyper-original" self-determination promised by philosophers and prophets for so long. Although the measures are not capable of ultimate justification, they do give us the guidelines for justifying ontic beings and actions. Seen from the impossible vantage point disengaged from all traditions, clearings, and standards, each looks arbitrary, but of course this "view from nowhere" is not our position. Part of our finitude is that our "situatedness" goes all the way down to the core of our thinking and choosing, so that the epochal understanding we are thrown into orients us in all matters... This move overcomes relativism by going through it all the way to the other end' (333).

'The strategy for giving our lives worth that naturally presents itself to the Kantian/technological mind is Nietzsche's active nihilism: invent new goals, inject value into the world, inflate our little lives with significance ourselves now that God is dead... For Heidegger, "this supposed overcoming is above all the consummation of nihilism."

"It is important to finally realize that precisely through the characterization of something as 'a value' what is so valued is robbed of its worth. That is to say, by the assessment of something as a value what is valued is admitted only as an object for man's estimation. But what a thing is in its Being is not exhausted by its being an object, particularly when objectivity takes the form of value. Every valuing, even where it values positively, is a subjectivizing. It does not let beings: be. Rather, valuing lets beings: be valid—solely as the objects of its doing... Thinking in values is the greatest blasphemy imaginable against Being" (Basic Writings 251).

Besides the logical incoherence of this model—beings need to appear desirable in order for us to choose to value them, they must present themselves as manipulable and worth manipulating for us to decide to use them—Heidegger believes that his model of personal fulfillment and desire satisfaction actually culminates in the emptiness of modern life, rather than its meaningfulness. "If we merely attempt, on our own authority, to set or seize upon the measure, then it becomes measureless and disintegrates into nothingness"' (335).

'The solution to nihilism is Gelassenheit, both the ontic care-ful attention to things and the ontological respect for the incomprehensibility of Being's sendings. "Releasement toward things and openness to the mystery... grant us the possibility of dwelling in the world in a totally different way"' (338).


'I have described Heidegger's later work as making a profound break with the Kantian Paradigm and, in important ways, with virtually all of philosophy up to this point' (340).

[Mr T · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal distillation of ~300 years of thinking, through the lens of anti-realism.