Grundlegung aus dem Ich. Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte des Idealismus: Tübingen—Jena 1790 –1794

Abstract

Reviewed by: Grundlegung aus dem Ich. Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte des Idealismus: Tübingen—Jena 1790-1794 Peter Gilgen Grundlegung aus dem Ich. Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte des Idealismus: Tübingen—Jena 1790–1794. Von Dieter Henrich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004. 2 Bde. 1740 Seiten. €56,00. Among the more important contributions of the past forty years of scholarship on German philosophy at the end of the eighteenth century are the numerous accounts that have helped us reconceive the transition from Kant's critical philosophy to German Idealism as articulated by Fichte, Schelling, and of course Hegel. No other scholar has contributed more to this change of perspective than Dieter Henrich. He has published on Kant's late works; on Fichte's original insight; and on the early development of the Tübingen roommates Hegel, Hölderlin, and Schelling. Furthermore, he has brought to our attention numerous forgotten figures who had a major impact on the philosophical developments of the day, such as Isaac von Sinclair, Jacob Zwilling, and—most importantly—the young Hölderlin, whom Henrich single-handedly established as a significant philosopher in his own right. At the outset of Grundlegung aus dem Ich, Henrich notes that even in 1790, when Kant's "Copernican turn" had become all but irreversible, it would have been impossible to foresee the enormous burst of philosophical creativity and the changes to which it led during the following decade. This entire development took place in two small cities, Tübingen and Jena, and many of the dramatis personae spent longer periods in both of them. The center of Henrich's study is Immanuel Carl Diez who was an influential graduate and teaching fellow or Repetent at the Stift in Tübingen. Already in an essay [End Page 230] of 1970, "Historische Voraussetzungen von Hegels System," Henrich had indicated that Hegel's adaptation and further development of Kant's philosophy had to be seen in connection with his years at the Stift. There, he befriended, and learned from, Hölderlin, Schelling, and Niethammer. For all of them, Diez exemplified the struggle over the question concerning the consequences of Kant's critical philosophy for religion and theology. Henrich announced future works that would make available hitherto unprinted sources, among them "manuscripts and letters by the Repetent Immanuel Diez." Having fulfilled this promise with the publication of Immanuel Carl Diez: Briefwechsel und Kantische Schriften in 1997, Henrich saw the necessity of bringing his unmatched erudition in the history of German Idealism to bear on these texts, which to non-specialists might have looked rather disjointed and impenetrable, and to reconstruct systematically Diez's highly original and rigorous defense of Kant against the attempt by the Tübingen theologians to subordinate reason to revelation. Henrich's book contains several monographs. The parts on Diez make up its first half. Niethammer, Süßkind, and Erhard are each dealt with in book-length chapters, as is Schelling's first fundamental philosophy. But Henrich's magnum opus is more than its parts. Here, Henrich's Konstellationsforschung reaches a new level. The intricate communicative network between different thinkers and the implications of their various philosophical statements are brought out with the utmost conceptual precision and in such rich detail that the reader can follow every move and, in the process, becomes deeply immersed in an entire life-world. The result is a book of outstanding historical merit and even greater philosophical insight. No future account of the emergence of German Idealism will be complete without engaging the early post-Kantian positions—Diez's foremost among them—that Henrich has reconstructed with such care. Naturally, a work of such proportions does not always make for easy reading. Henrich, however, is a patient interpreter who methodically lays out the evidence before drawing his stringent conclusions. In order to get the full benefit of the present work, it is advisable to consult Henrich's edition of Diez's original documents. Both works combined have put Immanuel Carl Diez on the philosophical map, thanks to Henrich's ingenious interpretation. Relying on his constellation approach, in which a simple separation between text and context can no longer be maintained, Henrich manages to open the reader's eyes...