The Key Role of Selbstgefühl in Philosophy's Aesthetic and Historical Turns

Abstract

In Selbstgefühl, Manfred Frank provides a detailed study of the eighteenth century origins and contemporary philosophical implications of a unique kind of direct self-awareness. The growing significance of this phenomenon is closely related to three interconnected developments in modern philosophy, which I describe as the ‘subjective turn’, the ‘aesthetic turn’, and the ‘historical turn’. While following Frank in emphasising key concepts in the first of these two turns, I add a stress on the historical turn in post-Kantian philosophical writing.