ABSTRACT This paper reconstructs and evaluates Hegel’s reply to Kant’s critique of Mendelssohn’s argument for the immortality of the soul. In the Phädon, Mendelssohn argues that the soul cannot be destroyed, since it cannot be instantaneously annihilated, nor can it be gradually diminished into nothing. Against Mendelssohn, in the first Critique, Kant argues that it is possible that the soul could be destroyed by the gradual remission of the intensive magnitude of its powers to zero. In the Science of Logic, Hegel objects that both Mendelssohn and Kant’s arguments fail, since they each conceive the soul under inappropriate categories. Yet Hegel endorses a revised conception of immortality, while accepting Kant’s general critique of the pre-Kantian account of the soul. I argue that Hegel’s intervention into the Mendelssohn-Kant debate reflects his philosophical goal of formulating a higher synthesis of pre-Kantian rationalist metaphysics and Kantian transcendental philosophy.

ABSTRACT This paper critically discusses Edmund Husserl’s conception of ‘Europe’ and the limitation it poses on the methodology of phenomenology. Husserl’s invention of the idea of Europe from Ancient Greek heritage as an ideal and spirit leads him to privilege a particular kind of rationality in the name of universal-scientific phenomenology. For him, non-European ‘philosophies’ are not philosophy in a genuine sense; rather he speaks of them as ‘practical’ or ‘world-knowledge’. The methodological basis for this claim and its Eurocentric supremacy is rooted in Husserl’s attribution of a fundamental role to epochē and transcendental reduction in phenomenology. I address the implications of Husserl’s problematic concept of Europe as a part of his transcendental phenomenology. First, I present how this idea of Europe is based on asserting superiority over others who remained outside of this spirit. Furthermore, I demonstrate how Husserl’s idea of Europe is linked to transcendentalism in phenomenology. This brings us closer to discussing Husserl’s conceptualization of epochē and reduction, and above all, what counts as ‘genuine philosophy’ for Husserl. My inquiry shows that epochē and reduction imply an unachievable characterization of phenomenology, and questioning them can be instrumental in contemplating a ‘provincialized’ Europe in the phenomenological movement.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I attempt to show that Joseph Butler's conception of forgiveness presents a viable, even attractive alternative to contemporary views about forgiveness. I first describe the recent change in the interpretation of Butler's view of forgiveness and then spell out the consequences of Butler's understanding of forgiveness. Among them is that forgiveness requires self-criticism on the part of the forgiver and that it is compatible with ‘settled’, i.e. impartial resentment. Moreover, forgiveness, according to Butler, is a requirement of rationality rather than of morality. While it paves the way to exercising moral virtues, it cannot be seen as a moral virtue itself. Butler's account implies that there is no victim prerogative for forgiving but also provides an explanation for why such a victim prerogative is often taken for granted. I argue that, although some of these consequences may appear counterintuitive at first sight, they turn out to be plausible upon closer inspection and can be supported by good arguments.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the concepts of generative cause (shengyin 生因) and revealing cause (liaoyin 了因) in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra (MPNMS), particularly in fascicles 21–40, to reveal the text’s stratification. Through comparative analysis with Indian Buddhist texts such as the Laṅkāvatārasūtra and Piṅgala’s commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, as well as examination of historical translation records, the research identifies two distinct patterns in the usage of these terms: Pattern A, which aligns with traditional Indian causal frameworks connecting conditioned and unconditioned phenomena, and Pattern B, which introduces novel interpretations by equating generative and revealing causes with primary and conditional causes, and emphasizing Buddha-nature as a fundamental cause. These patterns suggest that the MPNMS underwent multiple stages of compilation, reflecting Dharmakṣema’s intermittent translation work and the integration of different doctrinal perspectives. The findings provide insights into the text’s formation and the development of Chinese Buddhist theories of causation, while also demonstrating a new method of textual criticism through doctrinal analysis.

ABSTRACT This paper has two primary aims. First, it seeks to bring philosophical attention to the understudied and overlooked work of Clara Zetkin. Second, it endeavours to demonstrate Zetkin’s unique philosophical contribution to the joint issues of women and socialism. I argue that Zetkin’s socialist feminism developed in response to two intersecting social movements of the late nineteenth century: the women’s movement and the labour movement. Zetkin contends that for either movement to be successful, they must work together. Yet, she meets resistance from both sides. Despite her commitment to Marxist philosophy and the socialist cause, Zetkin opposes members of the labour party who seek to prevent women from working outside the home and exclude women from their political organizing. Zetkin joins the larger women’s movement in her advocacy for the economic, political, and legal rights of women. Yet, she differentiates her socialist feminism from that of the bourgeois feminists, who, she argues, overlook the needs and interests of working women.

ABSTRACT German idealism is defined partly as a response to Jacobi's master argument that, given its commitment to the principle of sufficient reason, philosophy is committed to nihilism – to the annihilation of individuals as sources of freedom and purposiveness. Jacobi's master argument provokes sustained engagement from Fichte, who deduces logical laws, including the PSR, from reason or the I as philosophy's first principle. It is well known that Fichte's defense of freedom and purposiveness against annihilation does not satisfy Jacobi, whose 1799 open letter to him coins ‘nihilism' to name Spinozism and its inversion, the Wissenschaftslehre. It is less well known that Fichte's defense provokes a satirical critique from Jacobi's most devoted acolyte, the German romantic author Jean Paul. This neglect is significant not only because Jean Paul's critique is recognizably Jacobian, but also because it incorporates his two neologisms: ‘doppelgänger' and ‘God is dead'. In this paper, I rehearse Jacobi's master argument and Fichte's response to it. I then provide an account of Jean Paul's neologisms and show how they figure in his charge of nihilism against Fichte. Finally, I reconstruct and defend Fichte's rebuttal of Jean Paul’s Jacobian critique.

ABSTRACT Locke endorsed Descartes’ claim that the mind is conscious of its own ideas. According to Locke, an idea can be said to be in the mind only if either the mind is currently aware of it, or it has been aware of it in the past. Curiously, Locke uses this Cartesian claim as the main theoretical tool to criticize a central tenet of Descartes’ philosophy: the doctrine of innate ideas. The reasons why Descartes and Locke are equally committed to the claim that the mind is conscious of its own ideas but hold two opposite positions on the origin of ideas have not been the focus of discussion in the literature on this topic. This paper intends to fill this gap. After presenting Descartes’ and Locke’s views on consciousness, I argue that Locke shares with Descartes an understanding of consciousness that would allow Locke to admit of innate ideas and, so, shift the burden of proof on him to explain why he still denies innate ideas. I conclude that to understand Locke’s denial of innate ideas we should focus on his conception of the nature of ideas and that these findings leave Locke’s response to nativism inconclusive at best

ABSTRACT The emphasis Socrates puts on caring and other conative psychological conditions in Plato’s Apology is striking insofar as Plato’s Socrates is generally represented as an intellectualist about motivation and virtue. One might expect, accordingly, the representations of good and bad behaviour in his speeches would be characterized more in cognitive than in conative terms. The argument of this paper is that we can better understand Socrates’ conception of moral psychology – and also his views about moral culpability – by attending carefully to the way he explains his side of the case in the Apology. Our argument shows that the attribution of motivational intellectualism to Socrates can be sustained, but not in the way scholars have historically understood it. We show that a different conception of how Socrates understood the relationship between conation and cognition is necessary.

ABSTRACT A growing consensus holds that the history of philosophy must move beyond its traditional parochialism, yet there has been less clarity about what non-Eurocentric histories that do not reproduce inherited exclusions might look like. One influential alternative is ‘comparative philosophy’, which David Wong characterises as ‘bringing together’ traditions that developed in ‘relative isolation’ and are defined along “regional and cultural lines”. I argue that this framework faces three persistent difficulties – speculation, incommensurability, and geopolitical categorisation – illustrating these problems through the frequently-invoked comparison between René Descartes and Zera Yacob. I argue that these difficulties not only obscure what is philosophically distinctive about each thinker but also hinder our ability to place both within a unified, global narrative of seventeenth-century philosophy. I propose instead a ‘connected history of philosophy’: an approach that centres on tracing concrete material and linguistic connections between thinkers and intellectual milieux. This approach, I suggest, provides a more historically grounded basis for comparison, illuminates the philosophical parallels between Descartes and Zera Yacob, and enables both to be located within the emerging global networks of seventeenth-century intellectual exchange. I conclude by outlining how connected histories can lay foundations for a genuinely global account of early modern philosophy.

ABSTRACT As part of his system of political economy, Fichte has a worked-out theory of the social division of labour in which public recognition of different forms of productive activity is part of a rightful society's basic constitution. Indeed, for Fichte, to be a citizen of the Rechtstaat is in large part to have a recognized occupation (FNR III: 211). Fichte even acknowledges that part of the duty of citizens is to contribute to the reproduction of their society (FNR III: 360). Yet despite all this, it is not at all clear how or where the labour of social reproduction figures into Fichte's division of labour; indeed, it seems to be missing altogether. I call this the ‘problem of missing reproductive labour’ in Fichte. The main contribution of my paper is to address this problem by critically reconstructing Fichte's complex views regarding the family, socially reproductive labour, and the social division of labour.