Presents the first English translation of Herder's foundational essay along with critical responses to it by today's leading Herder scholars. In recent years, Johann Gottfried Herder has been the focus of much interest in the English-speaking world. While he was long disregarded, current scholarship in both German and English is revisiting his importance as an early theorist of the limits of Enlightenment. Increasingly, scholarship is remembering that in the closing decades of the eighteenth century Herder was one of the most important alternative voices to Kant. Herder's Versuch uber das Sein (Essay on Being, ca. 1764) was likely composed in reaction to Kant's lectures on metaphysics. In it, Herder unfolds his philosophical project, setting the terms that remained the foundation of his work throughout his life and influenced Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and others. Given the central importance of the essay and Herder's increasing recognition in the English-speaking world, it is striking that it has not been translated into English until now. This volume presents a facsimile of the manuscript along with a German transcription, an annotated translation, and critical essays by the most important Herder scholars writing in German and English today. Contributors: Manfred Baum, Arnd Bohm, Nigel DeSouza, Ulrich Gaier, Alexander J. B. Hampton, Marion Heinz, John K. Noyes, Wolfgang Pross, Sonia Sikka. John K. Noyes is Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at theUniversity of Toronto and Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is the author of Herder: Aesthetics against Imperialism.

In 1792, with the aim of defending Kant s doctrine of freedom, Reinhold redefined freedom of will as the ability to decide for or against the moral law. Thus freedom of will represents a foundation of moral philosophy, if not of philosophy as a whole. The present volume seeks to reinterpret and to discuss this chapter of the post-Kantian discourse on freedom from various perspectives."

Die Krisenerfahrungen der Moderne fuhren zum Ruckgriff auf vormoderne Ordnungsvorstellungen, die jene Legitimationsdefizite kompensieren sollen, die im Zuge einer Dialektik der Aufklarung entstanden sind: die emanzipatorische Kraft der Vernunft scheint sich in eine Instanz neuer Herrschaft zu verkehren, als deren Organ die als repressiv erfahrenen Ordnungsleistungen des Staates begriffen werden. Diese Situation begunstigt die Suche nach Kraften, die menschlichem Eingriff entzogen sind, und kommt der Rehabilitierung von Naturvorstellungen entgegen, die sich der Welt des Menschen als normative Ordnungsquelle anbieten. Inwieweit sich gerade die Geschlechterbeziehungen als Ausdruck solch naturlicher Ordnung verstehen lassen, ist eine der zentralen Fragen einer kritischen feministischen Philosophie. Die Untersuchungen, die die AutorInnen dieses Bandes vorlegen, bewegen sich im thematischen Umkreis dieser Fragestellung: in der Art eines Kompendiums werden in Interpretationen von Texten der politischen Philosophie, die in der Epoche von 1600-1850 entstanden sind, paradigmatische Legitimationsfiguren herausgearbeitet und der feministischen Ideologiekritik zuganglich gemacht."

"Metaphysics therefore, both of nature and of morals, principally the critique of reason daring to fly on its own wings [...] alone define what we can call philosophy in its true understanding." Immanuel Kant Manfred Baum has particularly dedicated himself to exploring Kant's philosophy in its systematic significance. Metaphysics and critique are fundamental functions for Kant's concept of philosophy. The volume contains papers (in English and German language) by internationally acknowledged experts dealing with Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy.

One of the most eminent Heidegger scholars of our time, Theodore Kisiel has found worldwide critical acclaim, his particular strength being to set Heidegger's thinking in the context of his life, time and the history of ideas.This volume brings together Kisiel's most important critical and interpretative essays, which can be regarded as a succession of signposts enabling the reader to follow Heidegger in his often difficult path of thinking. At the same time, it is a companion to the author's key work, The Genesis of Heidegger's "Being and Time" (1993).

Die Interpretationen in diesem Band verfolgen das Ziel, aus "Feministischer" Perspektive einen nicht-ausschliessenden Begriff der Identitat zu entwickeln. Dies kann nur gelingen, wenn das Konzept der Anerkennung berucksichtigt wird. Durch umfassende Analysen Feministischer PhilosophInnen wird das Problemfeld von Identitat und Anerkennung im Sinne einer solchen Zielsetzung bearbeitet.