Skepticism, Modernity and Critical Theory

190 Pages·2005·0.609 MB·English

by  Philip Walsh (auth.)

Skepticism, Modernity
and Critical Theory
Philip Walsh
Renewing Philosophy
General Editor: Gary Banham
Titles include:
Kyriaki Goudeli
CHALLENGES TO GERMAN IDEALISM
Schelling, Fichte and Kant
Keekok Lee
PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTIONS IN GENETICS
Deep Science and Deep Technology
Jill Marsden
AFTER NIETZSCHE
Celine Surprenant
FREUD’S MASS PSYCHOLOGY
Jim Urpeth
FROM KANT TO DELEUZE
Philip Walsh
SKEPTICISM, MODERNITY AND CRITICAL THEORY
Martin Weatherston
HEIDEGGER’S INTERPRETATION OF KANT
Categories, Imagination and Temporality
Renewing Philosophy
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-91928-6
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a
standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at
theaddress below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN
quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Also by Philip Walsh
(Co-ed. with Davis Schneiderman) RETAKING THE UNIVERSE: WILLIAM S.
BURROUGHS IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
Skepticism, Modernity
and Critical Theory
Philip Walsh
© Philip Walsh 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-1814-7
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90
Tottenham Court Road,London W1T 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2005 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-51397-0 ISBN 978-0-230-50595-7 (eBook)
DOI10.1057/9780230505957
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walsh,Philip,1965–
Skepticism,modernity,and critical theory / by Philip Walsh.
p.cm.—(Renewing philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Skepticism – History.2.Criticism (Philosophy) – History.3.Frankfurt
school of sociology – History.I.Title.II.Series.
B837.W35 2005
149(cid:2).73—dc22 2004059129
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
To my parents, Nigel and Ann Walsh
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
Part I Skepticism and Modern Philosophy 11
1 Idealism, Metacritique and Ancient Skepticism 13
1.1. Hegel’s 1801 essay on skepticism: The
philosophical context 15
1.2. Ancient versus modern skepticism 17
1.3. Ancient skepticism and Hellenistic
philosophy: The historical context 21
1.4. Hegel and the evolution of ancient skepticism 28
1.5. Arch[andtelos 31
2 On the Origins of Modern Skepticism: Descartes,
Doubt and Certainty 35
2.1. Cartesianism as a modern problematic 36
2.2. Doubt and subjectivity 38
2.3. The Cartesian conception of worldhood 41
2.4. The stages of doubt and the Cogito 45
Part II Skepticism and Idealism 53
3 The Question of Legitimacy: Skepticism, Law and
Transcendental Idealism 55
3.1. The need for legitimacy 55
3.2. The demand for a deduction 58
3.3. Re-enter empiricism: The questions of fact and right 60
3.4. Critique and metacritique in the two deductions 64
3.5. Metacritique and reflection 66
3.6. Reflection, antinomy and the legitimation of
experience 72
vii
viii Contents
4 Hegel and Self-Completing Skepticism 76
4.1. Skepticism and the idea of a system 77
4.2. Completion and the absolute standpoint 82
4.3. Phenomenology against Science 88
4.4. Evading the Absolute 97
Part III Skepticism and the Critique of Modernity 101
5 Skepticism, Nihilism and the Crisis of Rationality 103
5.1. The critique of philosophy 104
5.2. Nietzsche, Weber and the antinomies of reason 107
5.3. Enlightenment as self-completing nihilism 116
5.4. Dialectic of Enlightenment as critical prelude
toNegative Dialectics 119
6 Negative Dialecticsand the Fate of Critical Theory 127
6.1. Hegel and critical theory 127
6.2. Reading Lukács 128
6.3. Critical theory as negative dialectics: Methodological
reflections 134
6.4. Metacritique of systems 136
6.5. Against identity 141
6.6. Block and the mourning of metaphysics 143
Notes 146
Select Bibliography 170
Index 176
Series Editor’s Preface
For some time now the question of the philosophical understanding of
modernity has been a problem of pressing concern. From the inquiries
of Max Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche to the work of Theodor Adorno,
the nature and conception of modernity has been thought to pose
serious questions to understanding the place and role of philosophy in
relation to the experiences that come to occupy a central place within
this modernity. Once put in this form we see the ineluctable emergence
of reflexivity as a question that thought places before itself in its endeav-
our to comprehend its expression of an experience it appears both to
capture and to fail to render comprehensible.
The comprehension of a particular temporality as that which captures
a set of problems that philosophers can and do recognize as having a
long history poses for us the difficult problem of how to unite the
understanding of something specific within historical experience with
the linkage we can see it to have with the philosophies of previous ages.
This is another aspect of the problem of modernity.
In this work, Philip Walsh addresses the second question I have posed
by thinking modernity in relation to skepticism. By placing the ques-
tion of modernity as part of an account of the role of skepticism in the
history of thought’s attempt to grapple with its own conditions, Walsh
suggests one way of managing the first question above: that is, by show-
ing the linkage between the modern and its predecessors in terms of
how there is a unifying sceptical endeavour that nonetheless dirempts
in terms of its particular ostensible focus. This is an ambitious and
important approach to the questions thrown up in thinking modernity
as a philosophical category that enables the placement of this philo-
sophical category within the register of experience, a register central to
the notion of this category, since without it there would be no connec-
tion of the philosophical trajectory traced with the historical/temporal
form it alleges to be both formative of and formed by.
A central task of the series Renewing Philosophy is to demonstrate the
importance of specifically philosophical investigations for comprehen-
sion of the conditions of modernity, and hence this book squarely fits
within the remit of this series. In articulating an account of the tradi-
tions of skeptical thought from the ancient world to the post-Cartesian
realm of modernity, this work decisively outlines one of the important
ix