Inaug.-diss.--Bonn. / Lebenslauf. "Literatur": p. i-iv.

Inaug.-Diss.--Tübingen. / Lebenslauf.

Thèse--University de Paris. / Includes bibliographical references.

Diss.--Universität Osnabrück, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 347-357. Index.

Diss.--Freiburg (Breisgau)--Universitt, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 313-319. Index.

This work rethinks current interpretations of American exceptionalism, emphasizing dynamic relations, especially those we could call "ironic." I am reading Reinhold Niebuhr's The Irony of American History alongside Eric Voegelin's and Woodrow Wilson's philosophical and political treatment of freedom, expressed through the ideal of American personhood. American entertainment continues to spread globally, and the spreading creates a wider nexus of efficacious relations, allowing for the interplay of hidden relations and symbolic complexes. "Ironic American exceptionalism," as I call it, highlights the positive aspects, usually overlooked, provided by "virtual integration" and the spawning of novel cultural hybrids. By "virtual integration," I mean to include the forms of entertainment that Americans export to the world, including sports, movies, music, etc. I will try to show that popular culture, specifically "entertainment," in a certain sense of the word, serves to facilitate a mythic consciousness of open selfhood to the world. It is also my contention that open selves are not scientific, religious, political, economic, or otherwise, at least in any limiting sense. When freedom is concentrated under any of these movements or cultural interests solely, then the openness and inclusiveness associated with being "American" (in the sense I will explain) is jeopardized. I want to suggest that popular theories of exceptionalism, those revolving around these limited interests, misconstrue what "Americans," as exemplary open selves, aspire to be. Assembling symbolic icons, images, and artifacts, consumed widely, generates the pluralization associated with American identity and liberty. The spreading and exporting of these complexes produces novel hybrids between elitist and low cultural trends, bringing them together in subtle ways. Inquiring into exceptionalism through a philosophy of culture shows that American open selfhood is not peculiarly democratic, Christian, or capitalist. By resisting exemplarist or expansionist exceptionalisms, the "American" service to humanity is exceptional without serving some higher moral cause or false sense of superiority.

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This dissertation critically reconsiders the dichotomy drawn in modern philosophy between faith and reason, especially as formalized by the German Idealists. The latter, I suggest, continue to influence how the philosophy of religion is conceived and what it is considered to be capable of accomplishing. Though originally used to reconcile religious faith with the philosophical reason that had animated forceful skepticism, this dichotomy also underscores a tension between the conceptualization of a rational public good and private religious values within pluralistic societies. I focus on the efforts of Kant, Hegel, and F.W.J. Schelling to develop a philosophy of religion that distinguished philosophical reason and religious faith as distinct sources of theory while nevertheless establishing meaningful dialogue between each. The first chapter surveys Kant's and Hegel's philosophy of religion and argues that they struggled to maintain the otherness of religious faith relative to philosophical interpretation. The subsequent chapters each focus on a period of Schelling's intellectual development — his early criticisms of Kant, his mature rejection of German Idealism's subjective metaphysics, and his late philosophy of religion — as he developed an alternative philosophical approach to religion. This provides a means of exploring the challenges that a philosophy of religion must navigate to move beyond the problematic opposition of faith and reason. I conclude by considering the university as a promising context for reformulating this problematic dichotomy central to the philosophy of religion. The professional division of faculties embodies the abstract delineation of faith and reason and indicates the social and political dimension of such academic efforts. I argue that Schelling's contributions to the philosophy of religion point to the idea of the university as a vital framework for both reconsidering the opposition of faith and reason and moving beyond this schema in order to conceptualize effectively the contemporary conflicts between rational and religious authority within pluralistic societies.

Ce travail se propose d’analyser la philosophie de Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling à travers le prisme de la notion d’identité. Il s’agit de mesurer l’originalité de notre auteur, qui consiste, à notre sens, dans la volonté de penser l’identité autrement que comme une simple identité logique ou mathématique, sans pour autant inclure d’emblée la différence dans l’identité, ni dépasser la sphère de l’identité vers un autre domaine de problématicité. Une telle ambition semble commander de prendre en considération les œuvres de Schelling s’échelonnant entre 1801 et 1806 et constituant ce que les commentateurs ont caractérisé comme sa « philosophie de l’Identité ». Or c’est sur la période immédiatement antérieure, celle allant de 1794 à 1800, que nous avons décidé de porter notre attention. En effet, il apparaît que la préoccupation de Schelling pour une pensée de l’unité et de l’identité trouve son origine dans une réflexion portant sur le statut du sujet, tel qu’il se dégage de la pensée critique inaugurée par Kant et poursuivie par Fichte. C’est à la compréhension de cette articulation entre réflexion sur la subjectivité et ambition ontologique de type moniste qu’est consacrée notre thèse. La confrontation précise entre la pensée du jeune Schelling et celle de Kant nous est apparue comme cruciale pour comprendre comment une pensée de l’unité de la totalité pouvait se fonder sur la philosophie critique. En adoptant une méthode génétique, nous avons dégagé deux modèles de l’identité : l’identité-ipséité (première partie) et l’identité-harmonie (deuxième partie). Notre propos s’achève alors sur la possibilité d’une articulation systématique de ces deux modèles, afin de saisir l’originalité du monisme schellingien, et, ce faisant, la possibilité d’une pensée moniste intégrant en son sein la subjectivité. / The purpose of this work is to analyse Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's philosophy through the prism of the notion of identity. The issue at stake is to gauge the originality of the author. It is our contention that such originality lies in his determination to perceive the notion of identity as something that cannot be reduced merely to logical and mathematical identity, without including the concept of difference right from the start in that of identity, and without going beyond the sphere of identity so as to reach another field of problematicity. With this purpose in mind, it appears clearly that it is compulsory to take into account those of Schelling's works published between 1801 and 1806, which form what commentators have called his « philosophy of Identity ». Now we have deliberately chosen to survey instead the period immediately prior to that one, that is to say the years from 1794 to 1800, for it seems to us that Schelling's focus on how to ponder unity and identity stems from his study of the status of the subject, as this status had already been analysed in Kant's critical theory, first, and afterwards in Fichte's works. Our doctoral dissertation is devoted to the analysis of the connection between subjectivity, on the one hand, and an ontological framework of the monist kind, on the other hand. Confronting young Schelling's thought to Kant's has seemed to us crucial in our quest to understand how a philosophical system based on unity could take Kant's criticist philosophy as its stepping stone. We have adopted a genetic approach so as to uncover two patterns of identity: identity as ipseity (first part of our dissertation) and identity as harmony (second part). As our dissertation comes to its close, it appears possible to see these two patterns as systematically interconnected. This allows us to fully grasp the originality of Schellingian monism and thereby, the possibility of a monist type of thought welcoming the idea of subjectivity.

La « philosophie de l’histoire » de l’idéalisme allemand, si l’on entend par là un ensemble de thèses permettant de découvrir un sens de l’histoire, a fait l’objet de nombreux travaux, en particulier celle de Hegel. Mais la réflexion des penseurs idéalistes sur l’histoire ne s’est pas limitée à l’interprétation des événements historiques passés. Une large part a consisté au contraire à élaborer un concept d’histoire dont l’extension ne se limite pas aux transformations sociales et politiques des groupes humains (mais qui concerne l’ensemble des productions humaines, voire la nature elle-même), et dont la compréhension ne recoupe pas l’usage de cette notion dans la conscience commune. Il nous a semblé que l’originalité de Hegel et de Schelling résidait notamment dans la richesse qu’ils attribuent à ce sens ontologique de l’histoire (conçue comme Geschichte et non comme Historie). Notre travail a consisté à interroger précisément la manière dont Hegel et Schelling ont élaboré un tel concept, qu’il vaudrait mieux qualifier d’événementialité ou d’historicité, pour le distinguer de la connaissance ou du récit de ces événements. Nous avons proposé ainsi de clarifier le sens du concept d’histoire par une comparaison des différentes formes de temporalité (temps naturel, temps de la conscience, histoire, durée, éternité) et de leur rôle respectif dans les systèmes de Hegel et de Schelling, de façon à souligner le caractère central du problème de l’historicité au sein de ce corpus, et à suggérer de quelle façon sa compréhension a déterminé le positionnement ultérieur des philosophes « post-idéalistes » (de Marx et Kierkegaard à l’idéalisme britannique ou à l’École de Francfort). / Many scholars have treated the “philosophy of history” developed by German idealists as a set of arguments designed to find a purpose in history. Yet the idealist thinkers did not limit their investigation to the interpretation of past historical events. On the contrary, a significant part of their work is dedicated to outlining a concept of history that is not limited to social and political transformations affecting human groups, but instead includes the totality of humanity’s creations, and even nature itself. This concept of history differs, sometimes radically, from how the term “history” is, and has been commonly understood. The source of the difference is Hegel and Schelling’s focus on such a rich ontological meaning of the notion of history (taken as Geschichte, as opposed to Historie). This thesis traces how Hegel and Schelling developed this concept, which might be more aptly characterised as historicity, to distinguish it from the knowledge or the chain narration of past events. It thus clarifies the meaning of the concept of history by comparing different forms of time (natural time, psychological time, history, duration, eternity) and their respective roles in Hegel’s and Schelling’s systems. This comparison is intended to underline the centrality of the problem of historicity in German idealism, and to suggest how its understanding has shaped the development of “post-idealist” European philosophy (from Marx and Kierkegaard to British idealism or to the Frankfurt School).