Brady Bowman - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Books by Brady Bowman
Ihre an die Elemente des Euklid angelehnte ‚geometrische' Darstellungsform der Ethik des Spinoza ... more Ihre an die Elemente des Euklid angelehnte ‚geometrische' Darstellungsform der Ethik des Spinoza ist eines ihrer auffälligsten Charakteristika. Über die Angemessenheit des mos geometricus als methodologisches Leitbild für die Philosophie ist viel gestritten worden. Christian Wolff und seine Schüler beherzigten ihn als die einzig mögliche Form, um ‚vernünftige Gedanken' als solche kenntlich zu machen. Mit Kant setzte ein Umdenken ein: Die philosophische Erkenntnisweise sei von der mathematischen grundverschieden; folglich könnten mathematische Verfahren zur Definition, Konstruktion, Entdeckung und zum Beweis in der Philosophie nicht angewendet werden und die ‚geometrische' Einkleidung philosophischer Gedanken würde diese bestenfalls verunstalten und verunklären.¹ In der modernen Spinoza-Forschung hat ein analoger Streit stattgefunden.² Auf der einen Seite stehen diejenigen, die mit Wolfson die geometrische Ordnung der Ethik als eine äußere Einkleidung betrachten, die in keiner wesentlichen Beziehung zum Inhalt steht. Auf der anderen Seite stehen Forscher wie Gueroult, die die Einheit von geometrischer Form und metaphysischem Inhalt behaupten und es sogar als notwendig für die Metaphysik erachten, sich die geometrische Methode als das "unhinterfragbare Leitbild aller Wesenserkenntnis" (Gueroult 1968, 425) anzueignen.
Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity
Sinnliche Gewissheit: zur systematischen Vorgeschichte eines Problems des deutschen Idealismus
Papers by Brady Bowman
Force, Existence, and the Transcendence of the Good in Schelling’s Weltalter (1815)
De Gruyter eBooks, Mar 4, 2019
2. Der sich wissende Begriff und seine sinnliche Erscheinung. Interpretation des Anfangs der Phänomenologie des Geistes
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Appendix: Excerpts from letters by Hegel, Jacobi, and Jean Paul concerning Hegel's review of Jacobi's works
Darstellung und Erkenntnis : Beiträge zur Rolle nichtpropositionaler Erkenntnisformen in der deutschen Philosophie und Literatur nach Kant
Mentis eBooks, 2007
6. Wahrheit und Gegenwart bei Aristoteles und Hegel
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Jacobi on the Nature of Mind and Intuitive Certainty
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Feb 28, 2023
Einleitung Der Anfang der Phänomenologie des Geistes und der Anfang des Philosophierens
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Unendliche Bestimmtheit und wahrhafte Individualität in Hegels Logik-Entwurf von 1804/05
Lectures on Logic: Berlin, 1831 (review)
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2009
dependent upon the moral law as a law of autonomy. Kneller must oppose this view because she take... more dependent upon the moral law as a law of autonomy. Kneller must oppose this view because she takes the third Critique to imply that there is no account of the unity of theoretical and practical reason. There is only, instead, a mediated connection in the exercise of the power of judgment, through its free play of the imagination and associated feelings. O’Neill and Korsgaard have produced “powerful and influential” theories, as Kneller herself notes (15). She also admits that the readings of Kant behind these theories pose the “largest challenge” to her own reading (ibid.). It would have been good to see, then, more purely philosophical engagement of these theories, and more vigor in blocking the possibility of the alternative readings behind them. For example, Kneller accuses O’Neill of tending “to neglect Kant’s own characterization of the third . . . Critique as ‘mediating the connection of the two parts of philosophy to [form] a whole’, i.e. that of finding a mediating principle to negotiate and harmonize, not under which to subsume, the two capacities of reason” (76). Though it may suggest it, I do not see that the embedded quote from Kant (or even Kneller’s own gloss on it) implies that the one capacity cannot be ultimately subsumed by the other. O’Neill, Korsgaard, and others opposed by Kneller can of course take care of themselves; I only mean to indicate some topics likely to stir up critical engagement of this bold and stimulating book. D a n i e l G u e v a r a University of California, Santa Cruz
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2018
Hegel's Science of Logic weds a deduction of (broadly Kantian) categories with a vindication of u... more Hegel's Science of Logic weds a deduction of (broadly Kantian) categories with a vindication of unconditional self-determination. Motivating his project is the challenge of nihilism implicit in Spinoza's rationalism-cum-naturalism. Section one of this paper examines Spinozist 'substance' and Hegel's revision of the principle omnis determinatio est negatio. Section two analyzes the concept 'being-for-self' in relation to Kantian apperception and the Hegelian idea of sublation. Section three presents a novel view of Hegel's infamous identification of being and nothing at the opening of the Logic. The notions of unconditional self-determination, original synthetic unity, and absolute negativity are shown to govern Hegel's dual reception of Spinoza and Kant.
Goethean Morphology, Hegelian Science: Affinities and Transformations
Goethe Yearbook, 2011
Goethe's conception of morphology had a major impact on Hegel's philosophical methodolo... more Goethe's conception of morphology had a major impact on Hegel's philosophical methodology at a point in time when Hegel was beginning to distance himself from Schelling and to confront dead-ends in his own previous conception. In 1803, Schelling left Jena to ...
The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy, 1795–1804, by Dalia Nassar
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Oct 20, 2014
erally minimize error. His account of delusion (exaggerated expectation of noisy prediction error... more erally minimize error. His account of delusion (exaggerated expectation of noisy prediction error, with consequent under-sampling) and of social cognition deficits in autism (exaggerated expectation of precise prediction error, with consequent oversampling and failure to generalize) is novel and one of the most interesting parts of the book. It would be fascinating to fill out this approach. It would be especially interesting to apply it to religious experience, a project Hohwy does not undertake (he briefly discusses out-of-body and other autoscopic experience but not the less exotic sorts of religious experience). This might provide a physical model to complement widely held explanations of religious experience and belief in terms of hyperactive agency-detection or of specific cognitive quirks. Could ‘perceiving God’ be the experiences of a brain structured (by genetics or environment) so as to over-weight expectations and to under-test reality? A surprising omission from the book is the literature showing that neuro-typical humans make systematic errors in explicit Bayesian reasoning. Hohwy mentions Daniel Kahneman’s work only in a brief aside, yet it provides a line of objection to Hohwy’s entire project.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Jul 1, 2011
Recent decades have seen a gradual resurgence of what has, by its critics, traditionally been cal... more Recent decades have seen a gradual resurgence of what has, by its critics, traditionally been called naïve realism, and in the last few years it has become a serious contender in the philosophy of perception. 1 The position may be characterized as the view that the objects of perception are just what they appear to be to our untutored, pre-philosophical (hence 'naïve') way of encountering the world, namely mind-independent, macroscopic individuals (both things and events) that have at least the manifest properties and relations we perceive them to have. Hume declares in a well-known passage on the assumed mind-independence of the objects of perception (or as he tellingly phrases it, "sensible objects or [sive] perceptions") that "a very little 1 Among recent book-length treatments of the topic see for example Moltke S. Gram, Direct Realism: A Study of
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2008
Nature, Freedom, History
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
Post-Kantian philosophers historicize the world soul, reconceiving it as an implicitly rational, ... more Post-Kantian philosophers historicize the world soul, reconceiving it as an implicitly rational, progressive, yet impersonal agency, at work throughout nature as a formative principle, more especially, however, in the progressive liberation and self-determination of spirit in human history. This chapter outlines the concept’s career in the thought of Kant, Maimon, Schelling, and Hegel, focusing especially on the overlapping functions they accord to the world soul. On the one side, it serves to mediate within nature between the opposing spheres of mechanism and organic life; on the other, between those of unconscious currents of historical development and self-consciously free human action. In thus tasking the world soul with mediating between nature and the history of human freedom, German idealists are faithful to their Platonic source of inspiration, even as they refashion the concept in a distinctively modern, post-Enlightenment spirit.
Self-Determination and Ideality in Hegel’s Logic of Being
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 6, 2017
Hegel’s project in the Science of Logic is to generate a demonstrably complete list of categories... more Hegel’s project in the Science of Logic is to generate a demonstrably complete list of categories and forms of thought while arguing that these are products of thought’s own self-determining (autonomous) activity. The chapter offers a compact introduction to the work’s first section, ‘Quality (Determinateness),’ without assuming prior knowledge. Key background sources in Kant (the table of categories, the table of nothing, the transcendental ideal) and Spinoza (monism, nihilism, and the principle omnis determinatio est negatio) are discussed in order to cast light on the specifics of Hegel’s approach. Analysis focuses on the main stations of Hegel’s exposition: the opening dialectic of being–nothing–becoming, the relation of the finite to ‘bad infinity’ and the ‘true infinite’, the concept of being-for-self in its relation to self-consciousness (apperception), and the transition from quality to quantity. The final section draws conclusions about the nature of Hegelian ‘idealism’ and its essentially practical character.
Ihre an die Elemente des Euklid angelehnte ‚geometrische' Darstellungsform der Ethik des Spinoza ... more Ihre an die Elemente des Euklid angelehnte ‚geometrische' Darstellungsform der Ethik des Spinoza ist eines ihrer auffälligsten Charakteristika. Über die Angemessenheit des mos geometricus als methodologisches Leitbild für die Philosophie ist viel gestritten worden. Christian Wolff und seine Schüler beherzigten ihn als die einzig mögliche Form, um ‚vernünftige Gedanken' als solche kenntlich zu machen. Mit Kant setzte ein Umdenken ein: Die philosophische Erkenntnisweise sei von der mathematischen grundverschieden; folglich könnten mathematische Verfahren zur Definition, Konstruktion, Entdeckung und zum Beweis in der Philosophie nicht angewendet werden und die ‚geometrische' Einkleidung philosophischer Gedanken würde diese bestenfalls verunstalten und verunklären.¹ In der modernen Spinoza-Forschung hat ein analoger Streit stattgefunden.² Auf der einen Seite stehen diejenigen, die mit Wolfson die geometrische Ordnung der Ethik als eine äußere Einkleidung betrachten, die in keiner wesentlichen Beziehung zum Inhalt steht. Auf der anderen Seite stehen Forscher wie Gueroult, die die Einheit von geometrischer Form und metaphysischem Inhalt behaupten und es sogar als notwendig für die Metaphysik erachten, sich die geometrische Methode als das "unhinterfragbare Leitbild aller Wesenserkenntnis" (Gueroult 1968, 425) anzueignen.
Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity
Sinnliche Gewissheit: zur systematischen Vorgeschichte eines Problems des deutschen Idealismus
Force, Existence, and the Transcendence of the Good in Schelling’s Weltalter (1815)
De Gruyter eBooks, Mar 4, 2019
2. Der sich wissende Begriff und seine sinnliche Erscheinung. Interpretation des Anfangs der Phänomenologie des Geistes
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Appendix: Excerpts from letters by Hegel, Jacobi, and Jean Paul concerning Hegel's review of Jacobi's works
Darstellung und Erkenntnis : Beiträge zur Rolle nichtpropositionaler Erkenntnisformen in der deutschen Philosophie und Literatur nach Kant
Mentis eBooks, 2007
6. Wahrheit und Gegenwart bei Aristoteles und Hegel
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Jacobi on the Nature of Mind and Intuitive Certainty
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Feb 28, 2023
Einleitung Der Anfang der Phänomenologie des Geistes und der Anfang des Philosophierens
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Unendliche Bestimmtheit und wahrhafte Individualität in Hegels Logik-Entwurf von 1804/05
Lectures on Logic: Berlin, 1831 (review)
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2009
dependent upon the moral law as a law of autonomy. Kneller must oppose this view because she take... more dependent upon the moral law as a law of autonomy. Kneller must oppose this view because she takes the third Critique to imply that there is no account of the unity of theoretical and practical reason. There is only, instead, a mediated connection in the exercise of the power of judgment, through its free play of the imagination and associated feelings. O’Neill and Korsgaard have produced “powerful and influential” theories, as Kneller herself notes (15). She also admits that the readings of Kant behind these theories pose the “largest challenge” to her own reading (ibid.). It would have been good to see, then, more purely philosophical engagement of these theories, and more vigor in blocking the possibility of the alternative readings behind them. For example, Kneller accuses O’Neill of tending “to neglect Kant’s own characterization of the third . . . Critique as ‘mediating the connection of the two parts of philosophy to [form] a whole’, i.e. that of finding a mediating principle to negotiate and harmonize, not under which to subsume, the two capacities of reason” (76). Though it may suggest it, I do not see that the embedded quote from Kant (or even Kneller’s own gloss on it) implies that the one capacity cannot be ultimately subsumed by the other. O’Neill, Korsgaard, and others opposed by Kneller can of course take care of themselves; I only mean to indicate some topics likely to stir up critical engagement of this bold and stimulating book. D a n i e l G u e v a r a University of California, Santa Cruz
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2018
Hegel's Science of Logic weds a deduction of (broadly Kantian) categories with a vindication of u... more Hegel's Science of Logic weds a deduction of (broadly Kantian) categories with a vindication of unconditional self-determination. Motivating his project is the challenge of nihilism implicit in Spinoza's rationalism-cum-naturalism. Section one of this paper examines Spinozist 'substance' and Hegel's revision of the principle omnis determinatio est negatio. Section two analyzes the concept 'being-for-self' in relation to Kantian apperception and the Hegelian idea of sublation. Section three presents a novel view of Hegel's infamous identification of being and nothing at the opening of the Logic. The notions of unconditional self-determination, original synthetic unity, and absolute negativity are shown to govern Hegel's dual reception of Spinoza and Kant.
Goethean Morphology, Hegelian Science: Affinities and Transformations
Goethe Yearbook, 2011
Goethe's conception of morphology had a major impact on Hegel's philosophical methodolo... more Goethe's conception of morphology had a major impact on Hegel's philosophical methodology at a point in time when Hegel was beginning to distance himself from Schelling and to confront dead-ends in his own previous conception. In 1803, Schelling left Jena to ...
The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy, 1795–1804, by Dalia Nassar
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Oct 20, 2014
erally minimize error. His account of delusion (exaggerated expectation of noisy prediction error... more erally minimize error. His account of delusion (exaggerated expectation of noisy prediction error, with consequent under-sampling) and of social cognition deficits in autism (exaggerated expectation of precise prediction error, with consequent oversampling and failure to generalize) is novel and one of the most interesting parts of the book. It would be fascinating to fill out this approach. It would be especially interesting to apply it to religious experience, a project Hohwy does not undertake (he briefly discusses out-of-body and other autoscopic experience but not the less exotic sorts of religious experience). This might provide a physical model to complement widely held explanations of religious experience and belief in terms of hyperactive agency-detection or of specific cognitive quirks. Could ‘perceiving God’ be the experiences of a brain structured (by genetics or environment) so as to over-weight expectations and to under-test reality? A surprising omission from the book is the literature showing that neuro-typical humans make systematic errors in explicit Bayesian reasoning. Hohwy mentions Daniel Kahneman’s work only in a brief aside, yet it provides a line of objection to Hohwy’s entire project.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Jul 1, 2011
Recent decades have seen a gradual resurgence of what has, by its critics, traditionally been cal... more Recent decades have seen a gradual resurgence of what has, by its critics, traditionally been called naïve realism, and in the last few years it has become a serious contender in the philosophy of perception. 1 The position may be characterized as the view that the objects of perception are just what they appear to be to our untutored, pre-philosophical (hence 'naïve') way of encountering the world, namely mind-independent, macroscopic individuals (both things and events) that have at least the manifest properties and relations we perceive them to have. Hume declares in a well-known passage on the assumed mind-independence of the objects of perception (or as he tellingly phrases it, "sensible objects or [sive] perceptions") that "a very little 1 Among recent book-length treatments of the topic see for example Moltke S. Gram, Direct Realism: A Study of
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2008
Nature, Freedom, History
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 22, 2021
Post-Kantian philosophers historicize the world soul, reconceiving it as an implicitly rational, ... more Post-Kantian philosophers historicize the world soul, reconceiving it as an implicitly rational, progressive, yet impersonal agency, at work throughout nature as a formative principle, more especially, however, in the progressive liberation and self-determination of spirit in human history. This chapter outlines the concept’s career in the thought of Kant, Maimon, Schelling, and Hegel, focusing especially on the overlapping functions they accord to the world soul. On the one side, it serves to mediate within nature between the opposing spheres of mechanism and organic life; on the other, between those of unconscious currents of historical development and self-consciously free human action. In thus tasking the world soul with mediating between nature and the history of human freedom, German idealists are faithful to their Platonic source of inspiration, even as they refashion the concept in a distinctively modern, post-Enlightenment spirit.
Self-Determination and Ideality in Hegel’s Logic of Being
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 6, 2017
Hegel’s project in the Science of Logic is to generate a demonstrably complete list of categories... more Hegel’s project in the Science of Logic is to generate a demonstrably complete list of categories and forms of thought while arguing that these are products of thought’s own self-determining (autonomous) activity. The chapter offers a compact introduction to the work’s first section, ‘Quality (Determinateness),’ without assuming prior knowledge. Key background sources in Kant (the table of categories, the table of nothing, the transcendental ideal) and Spinoza (monism, nihilism, and the principle omnis determinatio est negatio) are discussed in order to cast light on the specifics of Hegel’s approach. Analysis focuses on the main stations of Hegel’s exposition: the opening dialectic of being–nothing–becoming, the relation of the finite to ‘bad infinity’ and the ‘true infinite’, the concept of being-for-self in its relation to self-consciousness (apperception), and the transition from quality to quantity. The final section draws conclusions about the nature of Hegelian ‘idealism’ and its essentially practical character.
Hegelian skepticism and the idealism of the finite
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 6, 2013
Skeptical implications for the foundations of natural science
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 6, 2013
4. Sinnliche Gewißheit des Absoluten. Zur Einheit von natürlichem Bewußtsein und Spekulation
Akademie Verlag eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Darstellung und Erkenntnis: Beiträge zur Rolle nichtpropositionaler Erkenntnisformen in der deutschen Philosophie und Literatur nach Kant
Wissen und Begründung: die Skeptizismus-Debatte um 1800 im Kontext neuzeitlicher Wissenkonzeptionen
Lloyd Gerson's latest book issues a challenge to contemporary philosophers to rethink the nature ... more Lloyd Gerson's latest book issues a challenge to contemporary philosophers to rethink the nature of their vocation, its problems, presuppositions, and ends. Gerson
Identity and Difference. Studies in Hegel’s Logic, Philosophy of Spirit, and Politics (review)
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2008
Publikationsansicht. 41895885. Identity and Difference. Studies in Hegel's Logic, Philosophy... more Publikationsansicht. 41895885. Identity and Difference. Studies in Hegel's Logic, Philosophy of Spirit, and Politics (review) (2009). Brady Bowman. Abstract. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy - Volume 22, Number 3, 2008 (New Series). Details der Publikation. ...
Lectures on Logic: Berlin, 1831 (review)
Journal of The History of Philosophy, 2009
Eckart Förster: The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy. A Systematic Reconstruction (translated by Brady Bowman)
In The Ages of the World Schelling elaborates an alternative to Spinoza's philosophical theology ... more In The Ages of the World Schelling elaborates an alternative to Spinoza's philosophical theology that is free of the ambiguity that marked his earlier efforts in this direction. His advance rests on the superior rigor of his revised ontology of " potencies, " detailed in the paper's first half. Comparison with Goethe's derivation of three primary colors reveals how Schelling deploys a polarity of " affirmative " and " negative " powers to derive his third basic potency, rather than merely " postulating " it as he had previously done. As the paper's second half explains, Schelling thereby gains room to distinguish God's actual, dynamically constituted essence from its non-causal, axiological condition of possibility. On this basis he elaborates a conception linking natural vitality, value realism, moral freedom, and (divine) creativity – elements lacking in Spinoza. The result is a persuasive reinterpretation of two key Spinozist notions: divine self-creation (causa sui) and the identification of God's power with his essence. Mit dem Weltalter-Projekt stellt Schelling zur philosophischen Theologie Spinozas eine Alternative vor, die nicht mehr von der Zweideutigkeit seiner früheren diesbezüglichen Ansätze beeinträchtigt wird. Der Fortschritt beruht auf der erhöhten deduktiven Stringenz seiner inzwischen revidierten Potenzenlehre. Diese rekonstruiert der vorliegende Aufsatz im ersten Schritt. Aus dem Vergleich mit Goethes Vorgehen bei der Ableitung von drei Primärfarben wird deutlich, wie es Schelling im Gegensatz zu seinen vorangegangenen Entwürfen nunmehr gelingt, eine dritte " Urmacht " auf der Grundlage zweier polar entgegengesetzter Kräfte (Bejahung und Verneinung) vollgültig abzuleiten, anstatt sie bloß zu postulieren. In einem zweiten Schritt wird argumentiert, dass sich Schelling eben dadurch in die Lage versetzt, das wirkliche, dynamisch konstituierte Wesen Gottes von dessen nicht-kausal verfasster, axiologischer Bedingung der
