Postdoctoral Fellow 2003-04
Falk Wunderlich (Philosophy)
Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
The Doctrine of the Soul in the Eighteenth-Century
Philosophy of Mind
On the assumption of a substantial, simple, and immaterial soul,
early modern rationalist theories of mind were able to explain quite
easily phenomena such as personal identity, self-consciousness,
immortality, or the unity of consciousness. Although such an understanding
of the soul is not at all self-evident, it dominated early modern
conceptions since Descartes. Locke and Hume criticized these conceptions
fundamentally, but they remained part of the philosophy of mind
at least until the nineteenth century when Ernst Mach and others
coined the slogan of the “irrecoverable I.” This process
of replacing the substantial center of consciousness did not proceed
all at once and remained controversial. In my project, I am going
to investigate some of its important aspects and intermediary stages,
pursuing two main lines of research:
First, I intend to provide a representative survey of what motivated
the eighteenth-century debates about the functions of the soul in
Germany, covering a broad range of contemporary positions. Rationalist
philosophers like Wolff, Meier, Knutzen, and Hennings discussed
functions of the soul in detail but even empiricists like Tetens,
Lossius, Platner, and Irwing assumed a substantial soul, which is
a striking though broadly neglected fact. I will compare the theories
of these and other contemporaneous philosophers regarding their
assumptions about the soul, the arguments in support of their views,
and the soul's function within their theories.
Second, it has been argued that Kant is not consistent in his denial
of a substantial soul in his first Critique. This inconsistency
exemplifies the difficulties he had in explaining the functions
of consciousness without relying on a substantial soul. My main
question focuses on how Kant's "pure I" can take on the
functions of the soul. I am going to investigate this in comparison
with Fichte and Hegel. On the one hand, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel
relativize or deny the existence of a substantial soul, but on the
other hand, they do not hold a bundle theory of mind, i. e., Hume's
view that consciousness is merely based on bundles of perceptions.
Therefore, something must take on the uniting functions of the soul
in their theories, and my question is how that can be understood
in detail.
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