The question of Russia’s relationship to Western European culture has been discussed by historians of Russian civilization for several centuries. This study aims to broaden the understanding of that relationship by investigating some of the conditions of eighteenth century Russia and Europe which led the Western Europeans to formulate an image of Russia, of Russian civilization, and of the role that Russia should play in Western European affairs. This study attempts to provide the views of a cross-section of eighteenth century Western Europeans and Americans toward the Russia of Empress Catherine II, 1762-1796.

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Déjà en son temps, les contemporains de Fichte ne s’entendaient pas sur l’esprit de sa philosophie et encore aujourd’hui la plupart de ses interprètes ont produit à son sujet des explications éloignées les unes des autres. Dans ce mémoire, notre recherche se donnera pour point de départ cette diversité des interprétations de la philosophie de Fichte dans la Doctrine de la science de 1794 (Grundlage). Nous proposerons de montrer que les divergences d’interprétations de cette doctrine sont dues en partie au fait que le mode de réfutation de Fichte n’a pas été suffisamment pris en compte. Si ses écrits paraissent sans cesse adopter différents camps, ce n’est pas parce qu’il les adopte, mais bien parce qu’il les problématise et les évalue à l’aune de sa propre méthode. Le chapitre 1 aura pour but d’identifier les notions les plus essentielles de la Grundlage. Pour ce faire, nous contextualiserons le développement de la pensée de Fichte depuis le début de l’Aufklärung jusqu’au post-kantisme, car nous pensons qu’en cette période se profile une méthode d’héritage sceptique, qui permet non seulement d’expliquer la nature du transcendantal, mais aussi les sources de la spécificité méthodologique de Fichte. La généalogie de ces notions nous permettra de comprendre dans le chapitre 2 comment Fichte les unifie dans un système et, dans le chapitre 3, comment il les intègre sous la méthode de réfutation que nous nommerons rétorsion apagogique, et qui consiste à s’approprier le discours de ses adversaires tout en prouvant leur contradiction. Enfin, le chapitre 4 illustrera cette méthode par le dépassement du criticisme où il s’agit pour Fichte de penser avec et contre Kant. / Already in his time, Fichte’s contemporaries disagreed about the spirit of his philosophy, and even today most of his interpreters have produced explanations of it that are far from each other. In this thesis, my research will take as its starting point this large range of interpretations of Fichte’s philosophy in the Science of Knowledge of 1794 (Grundlage). I will propose to demonstrate that the divergent interpretations of this doctrine are partly due to the fact that Fichte’s mode of refutation shows lack of sufficient consideration. If his writings seem to adopt different sides, it is not because he embraces them, but because he calls them into question and evaluates them according to his own method. Chapter 1 will identify the most essential notions of the Grundlage. To do so, I will contextualize the development of Fichte’s thought from the beginning of the Aufklärung to PostKantianism, for I believe that in these times a method of skeptical inheritance emerges, which allows to explain not only the nature of the transcendental, but also the sources of Fichte’s methodological specificity. The genealogy of these notions will allow understanding in Chapter 2 how Fichte unifies them in a system and, in Chapter 3, how he integrates them under the method of refutation that we will call apagogic retorsion, which consists in appropriating the discourse of his opponents while proving their contradiction. Finally, Chapter 4 will illustrate this method through the overcoming of criticalism where Fichte has to think with and against Kant.

Déjà en son temps, les contemporains de Fichte ne s'entendaient pas sur l'esprit de sa philosophie et encore aujourd'hui la plupart de ses interprètes ont produit à son sujet des explications éloignées les unes des autres. Dans ce mémoire, notre recherche se donnera pour point de départ cette diversité des interprétations de la philosophie de Fichte dans la Doctrine de la science de 1794 (Grundlage). Nous proposerons de montrer que les divergences d'interprétations de cette doctrine sont dues en partie au fait que le mode de réfutation de Fichte n'a pas été suffisamment pris en compte. Si ses écrits paraissent sans cesse adopter différents camps, ce n'est pas parce qu'il les adopte, mais bien parce qu'il les problématise et les évalue à l'aune de sa propre méthode. Le chapitre 1 aura pour but d'identifier les notions les plus essentielles de la Grundlage. Pour ce faire, nous contextualiserons le développement de la pensée de Fichte depuis le début de l'Aufklärung jusqu'au post-kantisme, car nous pensons qu'en cette période se profile une méthode d'héritage sceptique, qui permet non seulement d'expliquer la nature du transcendantal, mais aussi les sources de la spécificité méthodologique de Fichte. La généalogie de ces notions nous permettra de comprendre dans le chapitre 2 comment Fichte les unifie dans un système et, dans le chapitre 3, comment il les intègre sous la méthode de réfutation que nous nommerons rétorsion apagogique, et qui consiste à s'approprier le discours de ses adversaires tout en prouvant leur contradiction. Enfin, le chapitre 4 illustrera cette méthode par le dépassement du criticisme où il s'agit pour Fichte de penser avec et contre Kant. / Already in his time, Fichte's contemporaries disagreed about the spirit of his philosophy, and even today most of his interpreters have produced explanations of it that are far from each other. In this thesis, my research will take as its starting point this large range of interpretations of Fichte's philosophy in the Science of Knowledge of 1794 (Grundlage). I will propose to demonstrate that the divergent interpretations of this doctrine are partly due to the fact that Fichte's mode of refutation shows lack of sufficient consideration. If his writings seem to adopt different sides, it is not because he embraces them, but because he calls them into question and evaluates them according to his own method. Chapter 1 will identify the most essential notions of the Grundlage. To do so, I will contextualize the development of Fichte's thought from the beginning of the Aufklärung to Post-Kantianism, for I believe that in these times a method of skeptical inheritance emerges, which allows to explain not only the nature of the transcendental, but also the sources of Fichte's methodological specificity. The genealogy of these notions will allow understanding in Chapter 2 how Fichte unifies them in a system and, in Chapter 3, how he integrates them under the method of refutation that we will call apagogic retorsion, which consists in appropriating the discourse of his opponents while proving their contradiction. Finally, Chapter 4 will illustrate this method through the overcoming of criticalism where Fichte has to think with and against Kant.

In Western scholarship, eighteenth century Chinese paintings have consistently been seen as playful, eccentric, and odd. This characterization has been based on the formal qualities of some of the paintings. At the same time, Chinese scholars have written of the scholarly virtues and ambitions of the painters producing the works. The contradiction between these two interpretations is in part consistent with the Western and Chinese approaches generally. But it also stems from the mixed signals and information generated in the eighteenth century. The nature of painting, not just formally, but socially has yet to be explained in a way which takes into account some actual historical contradictions of the eighteenth century. In order to explain these historical tensions, I combine a biographical (Chinese) approach with a contextual approach (Western) in a study of two different scholar painters, Zheng Xie and Li Shan. I juxtapose biographical sources with artworks, and less official writings relating Zheng Xie and Li Shan, in order to describe the tensions involved in painting for the literatus within the merchant culture of Yangzhou. These tensions existed between the literatus' expected status and that granted him, between his ideal of the role of painting in the scholar's life and the implications of commercial painting, and between his emphasis upon poetry and his popularity as a painter. In all cases, the tensions in eighteenth century literati painting arise from the difficult relationship between the painter and patron, and between the painter and the ideas of a broader public. The lack of a clear definition of "scholar" and "scholar painting" amongst literati illustrates the literatus' loss of control over the definition of his lifestyle. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

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Book Summary: Poetry Criticism assembles critical responses to the writings of the world's most renowned poets and provides supplementary biographical context and bibliographic material to guide the reader to a greater understanding of the genre and its creators. Each entry includes a set of previously published reviews, essays and other critical responses from sources that include scholarly books and journals, literary magazines, interviews, letters and diaries, carefully selected to create a representative history and cross-section of critical responses. Although poets and poetry are also covered in other titles from the Gale Literature Criticism series, Poetry Criticism offers a greater focus on understanding poetry than is possible in the broader, survey-oriented entries in those series. Clear, accessible introductory essays followed by carefully selected critical responses allow end-users to engage with a variety of scholarly views and conversations about poets and their works. Student's writing papers or class presentations, instructors preparing their syllabi, or anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the genre will find this a highly useful resource.

Le présent mémoire cherche à exposer la solution (qui est ici désignée comme idéalisme pratique ou transcendantal) que le philosophe allemand Johann Gottlieb Fichte proposa, dans le contexte de sa Doctrine de la science de 1794 et 1795 et de sa Doctrine de la science nova methodo de 1796 à 1799, au problème, traditionnel dans l'histoire de la philosophie, du dépassement de la dichotomie de l'objet et du sujet et, par voie de conséquence, à celui du dépassement du dualisme du réalisme et de l'idéalisme. Ce n'est qu'après avoir bien pris soin de développer (à l'intérieur d'un premier chapitre) les trois principes fondamentaux de cette doctrine, ainsi que leur articulation au sein d'une philosophie théorique (à l'intérieur d'un deuxième chapitre) et d'une philosophie pratique (à l'intérieur d'un troisième chapitre) que la solution fichtéenne à cette question est éclairée. Une telle réponse, qui s'exprime en termes d'identité de l'objet et du sujet, fait intervenir un Sujet absolu (Moi absolu), puisque cette identité sujet-objet n'est chez Fichte rien d'autre que ce Sujet absolu. Tandis qu'on montre (dans le deuxième chapitre) que la doctrine théorique de Fichte permet de rendre compte de la mise en finitude de l'infinitude du Sujet absolu (à travers l'entrée du sujet fini (Moi fini) dans une opposition dichotomique avec l'objet (Non-Moi) suite à un choc), on montre ensuite (dans le troisième et dernier chapitre) que la doctrine pratique de Fichte permet aussi, à l'inverse, de rendre compte de la mise en infinitude de la finitude du sujet fini à travers la sortie de son opposition dichotomique avec l'objet grâce à un effort vers une identification de l'objet (qui lui est bien sûr opposé) avec lui-même et, à plus forte raison, grâce à un effort vers une mise en identité de lui (en tant que sujet fini) avec lui-même (en tant que Sujet absolu). ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Sujet/Objet, Idéalisme/Réalisme, Métaphysique, Philosophie allemande.

In this thesis I investigate the relationship between 'I' as principle of transcendental philosophy and its ordinary use as first-personal pronoun. This relationship is a central issue in the philosophy of J. G. Fichte. Fichte was concerned to secure the gains made by Kant's Critique against what he called the 'dogmatism of the so-called Kantians' as well as against the attack of the skeptics, by grounding philosophy in a first principle which he called 'I'. To say what Fichte means by 'I' is to give an account of his philosophy, for, according to him, nothing is to be assumed outside of this 'I'. For Fichte the dogmatism of the 'so-called Kantians' consists in the idea that even when the formal conditions of experience have been established, a non-conceptualized content needs to be given to the mind from outside in order to produce empirical knowledge. This way of conceiving empirical constraints of thought, according to Fichte, threatens the results of Kant's critical philosophy, because it is inconsistent with the theoretical spontaneity and the practical autonomy that are crucial to Kant's conception of reason. Fichte argues that adequate empirical constraints can only be deduced from within the 'I'. To do this we must radically rethink our received concept of an 'I', a rethinking which in essence has already been effectuated by Kant, and which Fichte merely wants to make explicit and bring to fruition. Adequate constraints can be seen to be generated internally, once we realize that the standpoint of the 'theoretical I' is derivative from the standpoint of the 'practical I'. A result of Fichte's emphasis on the practical aspect of reason is a heightened awareness of the concept of the individual person and its status vis-a-vis the 'I' as philosophical principle. To be consistent with his principle, and indeed to prove his point, Fichte must 'deduce' the 'I' as individual. / Fichte's repudiation of dogmatism bears striking resemblances to a contemporary reading of Kant associated with the works of P. F. Strawson and John McDowell. The crucial difference is that for these philosophers the concept of a person is taken as primitive, and hence as the starting point of philosophy. At Fichte's time this position was defended by Fichte's critic, F. H. Jacobi. In the thesis I develop a position in contrast with Fichte's idealism which I call a 'naturalism of second nature' and which I use as a conceptual foil to explicate Fichte's thinking. I argue that ultimately Fichte's project fails by his own standards, in that it fails to save what we normally mean by a moral individual. I argue that in order to conceive of adequate constraints on freedom, we need to make the concept of a person as a natural individual our point of departure.