Ernst Tugendhat Research Articles

Heidegger's Concept of Truth Revisited

In his recently published treatise Heidegger's Concept of Truth Daniel O. Dahlstrom provides an insightful, detailed account of most aspects of Heidegger's thinking during the Marburg years, in particular Heidegger's reflections on the phenomenon of truth. Central in this undertaking is Dahlstrom's attempt to defend Heidegger against Ernst Tugendhat's almost classic critique of the Heideggerian account of truth. As I shall argue in the present article, Dahlstrom's defense of Heidegger does not bear critical scrutiny, because it simply fails to address the real issue. In his attempt to demonstrate that Heidegger's notion of disclosedness as “original truth” meets the demands, Tugendhat claims any meaningful concept of truth must meet, Dahlstrom confuses two essentially different phenomenological levels. What is really an issue pertaining to the level of the studied phenomenon is by Dahlstrom tacitly construed as an issue pertaining to the level of phenomenological description itself. This will be demonstrated in three steps. First, I present Heidegger's conception of truth as it appears in the magnum opus Being and Time ; then I introduce what I take to be the core of Tugendhat's critique; and finally, Dahlstrom's defense will be presented and criticized.

Ethical Life and the Demands of Conscience

My aim in this paper is to investigate Hegel's claim that ethical life (Sittlichkeit) does not simply negate but rather incorporates, or preserves, crucial elements of the Enlightenment conception of moral subjectivity that Hegel associates with the standpoint of Morality (Moralität). More specifically, the part of Hegel's view I want to examine here is his claim that individual moral conscience (Gewissen) has its place within the rational social order as depicted in Part III of The Philosophy of Right, “Ethical Life”. There is a widespread perception among Hegel's liberal critics that his vision of the rational social order allows no place for the genuine expression of moral conscience. This is the view expressed, for example, in Ernst Tugendhat's recent charge that Hegel's view excludes the possibility of “adopting a rational perspective” on a society's prevailing norms and practices’: “Hegel does not allow for the possibility of a responsible, critical relation to the … state. Instead he tells us that existing laws have an absolute authority. The independent conscience of the individual must disappear, and trust takes the place of reflection. This is what Hegel means by the Aufhebung of morality into ethical life”.

The Moral Self.

This follow-up to The Moral Domain carries forward the exploration of new ways of modeling moral behavior. Whereas the first volume emphasized the work of Lawrence Kohlberg and the tradition of cognitive development, The Moral Self presents a paradigm that also incorporates noncognitive structures of selfhood. The concerns of the sixteen essays include the diversity of moral outlooks, the dynamics of creating a moral self, cognitive and noncognitive prerequisites of the psychological-development of autonomy and moral competence, and motivation and moral personality. Gil G. Noam is Director of the Hall-Mercer Laboratory of Developmental Psychology and Developmental Psychopathology at Harvard Medical School. Thomas Wren is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago.Contributors: Part I. Conceptual Foundations. Harry Frankfurt. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty. Ernst Tugendhat. Ernest S. Wolf. Thomas Wren. Part II. Building a New Paradigm. Augusto Blasi. Anne Colby and William Damon. Helen Haste. Mordecai Nisan. Gil G. Noam. Larry Nucci and John Lee. Part III. Empirical Investigation. Monika. Keller and Wolfgang Edelstein. Lothar Krappmann. Leo Montada. Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. Ervin Staub.

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Punishment — A Philosophy & Public Affairs Reader. Edited by A. John Simmons, Marshall Cohen, Joshua Cohen, and Charles Beitz. Aristotle's Rhetoric: Philosophical Essays. Edited by David J. Furley and Alexander Nehamas. Past, Space and Self. By John Campbell. Vorlesungen über Ethik. By Ernst Tugendhat.

Ernst Tugendhat über Menschenrechte- Kontroverse Bemerkungen

Abstract In this critical comment on Ernst Tugendhat's paper I dispute his view in two respects: the first refers to the concept, the second to the justification of human rights. As far as the concept of human rights is concerned, I argue that Tugendhat fails to notice that there are different kinds of human rights which are to be distinguished carefully. This conceptual failure prevents him from seeing that different human rights are justified by different reasons. While universal human rights can be justified by the principle of universalization, community rights are based on the demands of social justice.

Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination.

This book seeks to clarify the precise structure of self-consciousness and self-determination and elucidates their significance for our philosophical understanding of self-knowledge and human agency. The analysis challenges traditional models of theoretical self-knowledge and practical self-relation and elaborates an account of rationally grounded responsibility that jointly fulfills the demands of autonomy and authenticity.Tugendhat's study is a unique synthesis of the contemporary Anglo-American philosophical approach with an abiding concern for classical philosophical problems. It brings the methods of linguistic analysis to bear on such epistemological, moral, and metaphysical issues as the meaning and interconnections of self-knowledge, ego identity, rational self-understanding, and freedom of the will.In this context, the views of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Mead, and Hegel are searchingly examined. The philosophical testimony of Kierkegaard, Freud, Habermas, and others is also presented and weighed.Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination is based on a series of lectures given at Heidelberg. Ernst Tugendhat is currently Professor of Philosophy at the Freie Universitat in Berlin. The book is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Wittgenstein and the Intricate Evasions of "Is"

N REMARK 109 of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein says the following about the kind of investigation that he is involved in: may not advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. We must do away with explanation, and alone must take its place.' This is an astonishing proposal. I think there is nothing else like it in the history of Western thought. Husserl said things that sound similar, and it's even conceivable that his project of influenced Wittgenstein, but Husserl's way of conceiving description turns out to be fairly traditional compared to Wittgenstein's. In fact, a good way of seeing just how radical Wittgenstein's project is, is to contrast it with Husserl's, as Anthony Manser has done in an illuminating exchange with Ernst Tugendhat.2 Radical or not, however, isn't Wittgenstein naive to think that he can banish theory and purely describe? If there is one thing we know today, isn't it that perception is interpretive, Is it really clear, though, what it means to say all is theory-laden? It's one of those heady formulas that give us an impression of mastery over a large field of phenomena, a sense of postKantian sophistication. But the word description is not used only one way-it has many different uses, and the formula all is theory-laden would have to be applied differently in different cases, and would be irrelevant in others. In order to remind yourself of the grammar of the concept of description, think of the differences in what counts as a in these cases:

Traditional and Analytical Philosophy: Lectures on the Philosophy of Language.

Ernst Tugendhat's major work, Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die sprachanalytische Philosophie (1976), was translated into English in 1982. Although trained in Heideggerian phenomenological and hermeneutical thinking, Tugendhat increasingly came to believe that the most appropriate approach to philosophy was an analytical one. This influential work grew from that conviction and brought new perspectives to some of the central and abiding questions of metaphysics and the philosophy of language. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Hans-Johann Glock, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this impressive work has been revived for a new generation of readers.

Traditional and Analytical Philosophy: Lectures on the Philosophy of Language by Ernst Tugendhat

Traditional and Analytical Philosophy: Lectures on the Philosophy of Language by Ernst Tugendhat

'Bedeutung' in Frege: a reply

IN 'The Meaning of in Frege' [ANALYSIS 30.6 (June, 1970), pp. 177-189] Professor Ernst Tugendhat takes exception to the Geach-and-Black rendering of 'Bedeutung' as 'reference', claiming that it misleadingly suggests that 'what Frege meant by the Bedeutung of an expression is the object which the expression names' [p. 177]. It turns out, however, that Tugendhat's quarrel is not so much with Frege's translators as with Frege himself; he is bent less upon amending our English version of ' Uber Sinn undBedeutung' than upon revising the original article.' Among other things he seeks to revoke Frege's doctrine that sentences are names of objects. Tugendhat's proposed modifications of Frege I find initially obscure, particularly as regards their ontological