The Philosophy of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: On the Contradiction between System and Freedom

Description

The contemporaries of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) openly acknowledged his towering importance. Both Fichte and Hegel praised him in the same breath with Kant as having launched the philosophical revolution they sought to complete. Yet for more than a century, misrepresentations of Jacobi's thought have stood in the way of a proper appreciation of his insights. In her study of this long-neglected German philosopher, Birgit Sandkaulen interprets his philosophical writings in their intellectual context. Originally published in German and translated into English for the first time, this is a major contribution to reading the life, work, and legacy of Jacobi. Offering new perspectives on Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, Sandkaulen focuses on Jacobi's specific conception of practical realism. This conception, the source of Jacobi's famous defense of faith and human freedom, matches his critique of the German Idealists: the post -Kantian systems of German Idealism were bound to fail. Sandkaulen shows us that long before 20th-century philosophers took up this line of thought, indeed at the very origin of the epoch-making developments of classical German philosophy, Jacobi articulated a practical, ethical, personal realism that is as philosophically appealing and relevant today as it was in its time.

Birgit Sandkaulen is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Research Center for Classical German Philosophy / Hegel-Archive at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. Her research focuses especially on Hegel and Jacobi. She is the editor of Jacobi's Correspondence and co-editor of a new "Digital Jacobi Lexicon" at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig. She has published several books on Jacobi, including Grund und Ursache. Die Vernunftkritik Jacobis (2000).

Written in a lively and elegant style, this is the best book on Jacobi I know of. It will quickly become the standard place for English speakers to begin exploring Jacobi's thought; its treatment of his relation to Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling will transform the Anglo-American reception of classical German philosophy. * Frederick Neuhouser, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA * Jacobi's importance for modern German philosophy has long been downplayed in the Anglo-American tradition, and no one is more qualified than Birgit Sandkaulen to remedy this situation. Sandkaulen gives us an insightful, sympathetic discussion of Jacobi's "practical realism", thereby establishing not just his influence on figures such as Fichte and Hegel, but his impact on existentialism and post-modernism as well. * Sally Sedgwick, Professor of Philosophy, Boston University, USA * Sandkaulen's unapologetic advocacy of Jacobi's philosophy sets her book apart from previous monographs on the subject. Readers would be hard-pressed to find a study of Jacobi's thought that is similarly authoritative, original, and substantively illuminating. Those seeking clarity regarding his central ideas and their significance in the context of classical German philosophy will find it in this book. * Brady Bowman, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University, USA * This is both a first-rate work in the history of philosophy, and the needed remedy for insufficient recognition of Jacobi and his influence on German Idealism. Sandkaulen argues powerfully for the importance of Jacobi's complex double philosophy, and his grounding of philosophy in the experience of human action. * Jim Kreines, Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College, USA * Birgit Sandkaulen's collection of essays presents a masterful, engaging, and most welcome introduction to the thought of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, the eminence grise of the age of German Idealism, who, today too often neglected, initiated and shaped many of its key philosophical debates. * Charles Larmore, W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities, Brown University, USA *