The Retreat of Representation is the first book-length study to examine the radical new notion of Darstellung in its own discursive context. Martha Helfer traces the term's genealogy from its inception in Kant's Critiques through Fichte's definition of the subject as Darstellung to the poetic theory and praxis of the Jena Romantics. She argues that the conceptually powerful yet tremendously problematic figure of the negative Darstellung of the Kantian sublime opens up the possibility of a poetization of the philosophical discourse of transcendental idealism, and ultimately demonstrates that Kleist's oeuvre constitutes a critique of transcendental theories of Darstellung. Helfer provides remarkably clear, concise readings of major texts of Idealism and Romanticism in light of the Darstellung problematic, advancing compelling interpretations of Novalis's Hymns to the Night as a theory of the Romantic lyric, Kleist's essay On the Marionette Theater as a redaction and revision of the Kantian sublime, The Foundling as a critique of Fichtean ego philosophy, and The Broken Jug as a prototype of Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian critiques of representation

One of the main original aims of philosophy was to give us guidance about how to live our lives. The ancient Greeks typically assumed that a life led in accordance with reason, a rational life, would also be the happiest or most fulfilling. Ingmar Persson's book resumes this project, which has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy. But his conclusions are very different; by exploring the irrationality of our attitudes to time, our identity, and our responsibility,Persson shows that the aim of living rationally conflicts not only with the aim of leading the most fulfilling life, but also with the moral aim of promoting the maximization and just distribution of fulfilment for all. Persson also argues that neither the aim of living rationally nor any of the fulfilmentaims can be rejected as less rational than any other. We thus face a dilemma of either having to enter a retreat of reason, insulated from everyday attitudes, or making reason retreat from its aspiration to be the sole controller of our attitudes.The Retreat of Reason explores three areas in which there is a conflict between the rational life and a life dedicated to maximization of fulfilment. Persson contends that living rationally requires us to give up, first, our temporal biases; secondly, our bias towards ourselves; and, thirdly, our responsibility to the extent that it involves the notion of desert and desert-entailing notions. But giving up these attitudes is so overwhelmingly hard that the effort to do so not only makesour own lives less fulfilling, but also obstructs our efficient pursuit of the moral aim of promoting a maximum of justly distributed fulfilment.Ingmar Persson brings back to philosophy the ambition of offering a broad vision of the human condition. The Retreat of Reason challenges and disturbs some of our most fundamental ideas about ourselves.

Marthanne's whole community is excited about the moon landing, and Marthanne is especially proud because her father helped create the fabric for the astronauts' spacesuits.

The reception history of the French Revolution in France and England is well documented among Anglophone scholars; however, the debate over the Revolution in Germany is much less well known. Fichte's Contribution played an important role in this debate. Presented here for the first time in English, Fichte's work provides a distinctive synthesis of Locke's "possessive individualism," Rousseau's general will, and Kant's moral philosophy. This eclectic blend results in an unusual rights theory that at times veers close to a form of anarchism. Written in 1792–93, just before Fichte moved to Jena to develop his philosophical system in a series of works—above all the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794—the Contribution provides invaluable insight into Fichte's early development. In addition, Fichte's work predates much of Kant's political philosophy, and can shed light on the rich dialogue in German political thought in the 1790s.

It’s a platitude – which only a philosopher would dream of denying – that whereas words are connected to what they represent merely by arbitrary conventions, pictures are connected to what they represent by resemblance. The most important difference between my portrait and my name, for example, is that whereas my portrait and I are connected by my portrait’s resemblance to me, my name and I are connected merely by an arbitrary convention. The first aim of this book is to defend this platitude from the apparently compelling objections raised against it, by analysing depiction in a way which reveals how it is mediated by resemblance. It’s natural to contrast the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance, which emphasises the differences between depictive and descriptive representation, with an extremely close analogy between depiction and description, which emphasises the similarities between depictive and descriptive representation. Whereas the platitude emphasises that the connection between my portrait and me is natural in a way the connection between my name and me is not, the analogy emphasises the contingency of the connection between my portrait and me. Nevertheless, the second aim of this book is to defend an extremely close analogy between depiction and description. The strategy of the book is to argue that the apparently compelling objections raised against the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance are manifestations of more general problems, which are familiar from the philosophy of language. These problems, it argues, can be resolved by answers analogous to their counterparts in the philosophy of language, without rejecting the platitude. So the combination of the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance with a close analogy between depiction and description turns out to be a compelling theory of depiction, which combines the virtues of common sense with the insights of its detractors.

Beyond Representation surveys Chinese painting and calligraphy from the eighth to the fourteenth century, a period during which Chinese society and artistic expression underwent profound changes. A fourteenth-century Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368) literati landscape painting presents a world that is totally different from that portrayed in the monumental landscape images of the early Sung dynasty (960 - 1279). To chronicle and explain the evolution from formal representation to self-expression is the purpose of this book. Wen C. Fong, one of the world's most eminent scholars of Chinese art, takes the reader through this evolution, drawing on the outstanding collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Focusing on 118 works, each illustrated in full color, the book significantly augments the standard canon of images used to describe the period, enhancing our sense of the richness and complexity of artistic expression during this six-hundred-year era.

Imagination and Postmodernity addresses the role of the imagination in philosophy today. By focusing on philosophy at the boundary of reason with constant reference to Kant’s view of the boundary-limit, it is possible to advance a viable alternative to deconstructing the imagination. Patrick L. Bourgeois puts forth the claim that by refocusing the imagination in the postmodern conversation, a far-reaching contemporary position can be reached that reestablishes the position of the humanities as central against the anti-humanism of deconstruction. This work addresses some of the challenges and problems that emerge in conflicting positions within contemporary philosophy, including a concentration on the role of the imagination in the work of Paul Ricoeur in contrast and in opposition to its role in such postmodern thinkers as Derrida and Lyotard. This treatment requires going back to the role of the imagination in the period of Kant and his immediate followers in order to clarify the various ways of seeing the imagination then and now, for the role today is anticipated in the nineteenth century. Finally, this work, as a creative appropriation of the position of Paul Ricoeur, presents a role for the imagination today that is more encompassing than most thinkers allow for.