Papers by Christoph Schuringa
Life, Organism and Cognition in Classical German Philosophy, 2023
The concept Gattungswesen, while evidently central to Marx's early thought, has received surprisi... more The concept Gattungswesen, while evidently central to Marx's early thought, has received surprisingly little detailed philosophical examination. An obstacle to progress when it comes to understanding the concept is a tendency to miss the import of the dimension of universality that Marx says is crucial to the concept. It has often been assumed that Marx must have in mind membership of the human species, where this is considered as one species among others. But an examination of the concept Gattung as it figures in Hegel (in particular in his Philosophy of Nature) and in particular as it passes to Marx through Feuerbach helps to reveal that a generality of a different order is involved. I trace this trajectory, giving special attention to early writings by Feuerbach (characterized by an unorthodox Hegelianism) that have been largely ignored, and show how a full appreciation of the generality of the Gattung can help with seeming puzzles that present themselves in the interpretation of the Marx of the early 1840s.
Philosophy, 2022
Hegel conceives of human beings as both natural and spirited. On Robert Pippin's influential read... more Hegel conceives of human beings as both natural and spirited. On Robert Pippin's influential reading, we are natural by being 'ontologically' like other animals, but spirited through a 'social-historical achievement'. I contest both the coherence of this reading and its fidelity to Hegel's texts. For Hegel the human being is the truth of the animal. This means that spirit's self-production is not, as Pippin claims, an achievement that an animal confers on itself, but the realization of what the human being is. I end by specifying Aristotelian features of Hegel's account whose neglect by Pippin can help explain what goes wrong in his reading, and provide the outlines of a reading that is both coherent and faithful to Hegel's texts.
European Journal of Philosophy, 2022
There is little agreement about Marx's aims, or even his
basic claims, in his Notebooks on Epicur... more There is little agreement about Marx's aims, or even his
basic claims, in his Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy and
Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy
of Nature. Marx has been read as an idealist, or as a
materialist; as praising Epicurus, or as criticizing him. Some
have read Marx as using ancient philosophers as proxies in
a contemporary debate, without demonstrating how he
does so in detail. I show that Marx's dialectical reading of
Epicurus's atomism aims at transcending the dichotomy
between idealism and materialism; that on Marx's reading
Epicurus deserves praise for thinking through atomism to
its “highest” conclusion, but criticism for not embracing this
conclusion; and that Marx's intervention in contemporary
debates takes the form of revealing a dialectical relationship
between “liberal” and “positive” philosophers. I conclude
that the importance of these texts is to be located in their
original stance on the problematic of the relation of thought
to reality, common to what Marx finds in ancient philosophy
and in his contemporary environment.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2022
The expression 'second nature' can be used in two different ways. The first allows phronēsis (pra... more The expression 'second nature' can be used in two different ways. The first allows phronēsis (practical wisdom) to count as the sort of thing a second nature is. The second speaks of second natures as distinct ethical outlooks. I argue that a failure to distinguish these ways of speaking of 'second nature' is philosophically significant, in that we are thereby prevented from seeing that phronēsis stands on a different logical footing from ethical outlooks. Recognizing their distinctness allows the important question of the relation between them to be posed. Phronēsis, I argue, should be understood as the unity of the ethical virtues. It remains invariant as ethical outlooks vary. Seeing this allows us to pose the important question, otherwise obscured, how phronēsis is mediated through specific cultural contexts. I end with a concrete example of radical ethical upheaval to illustrate phronēsis as operative across ethical outlooks.
Crisis and Critique, 2021
Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, though often mentioned, has received surprisingly... more Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, though often mentioned, has received surprisingly little sustained scrutiny. As a result, the text has often been associated with catchphrases and slogans (in particular those involving the image of an 'inversion' of Hegel's dialectic). These in turn have served to hide from view the complex argument that Marx mounts. Although the argument can seem tangled, largely because it simultaneously seeks to operate at a high level of generality and to engage in the fine detail of Hegel's exposition, it is both ambitious and consistent-if fragmentary. I focus on two fragments that Marx provides us with. First, by means of a critique of Hegel's defence of monarchy, Marx offers a fragment of political theory that amounts to an argument for radical democracy. Second, and connectedly, Marx offers a fragment of a more fundamental theoretical critique of Hegel's procedure in Philosophy of Right, which seeks to overturn Hegel's Platonizing dialectic. Throughout, the complex argument that is revealed is one that gives the lie to the slogans. Once we start to spell out this argument, we see that Marx's critique of Hegel is far more radical and farreaching than the images of 'inversion' suggest.
Nietzsche on Memory and History, 2021
A number of commentators have supposed that what Nietzsche understands by ‘critical history’ and ... more A number of commentators have supposed that what Nietzsche understands by ‘critical history’ and what he understands by ‘genealogy’ are significantly analogous. I question the supposed analogy. Critical history involves condemning the past, and sometimes supplanting the actual past withan invented fictive alternative; genealogy draws on the past for insight into the knotted history of the present. Instead I draw attention to a continuity that underlies the transition from the earlier project in which critical history is em-bedded to the later project in which genealogy figures. This is a concern on Nietzsche’s part, all too often given insufficient attention by commentators, with what ‘serves life’. Examining precisely what Nietzsche means by this in each case (the earlier and the later) shows up a different discontinuity. Each of the two projects is dependent on a particular conception of life. Each project is problematic: the earlier project because of its aspiration to have ‘life’, conceived as a ‘dark’ ineffable force, sit in judgement of the past; the later project because it both hinges on a detailed articulation of what life is, and fails to supply such an articulation.
Revista Eletrônica Estudos Hegelianos, 2018
Both Hegel and McDowell make use of the expression ‘second nature’. Furthermore, each
philosopher... more Both Hegel and McDowell make use of the expression ‘second nature’. Furthermore, each
philosopher is concerned to connect talk of ‘second nature’ with a larger issue: that of the relation between nature
and spirit. According to McDowell, being ‘reminded’ of the perfectly familiar phenomenon of second nature is to do
the work of ‘deconstricting’ the conception of nature that bald naturalists operate with. Hegel, by contrast, works in
the opposite direction. For Hegel, the phenomenon of second nature is to be understood in light of a prior
characterization of the relation between nature and spirit, according to which spirit is the ‘truth of’ nature. This essay
attempts to get into focus the difficulties (beginning from the surface grammar of the expressions ‘nature’, ‘second
nature’, and ‘first nature’) that must be sorted out before we can properly understand how each philosopher connects
the topic of second nature with the wider issue of how nature and spirit are related, and to provide a sketch of the
philosophical issues that must be faced once we have the difficulties clearly in view. The philosophical difficulties
faced by Hegel differ from those faced by McDowell, as reflects their difference in approach. Those faced by Hegel
concern how precisely to spell out the conception of nature – such that ‘spirit is the truth of nature’ – in which his
conception of second nature is embedded; those faced by McDowell concern how his ‘reminder’ about second nature
is to be understood in the absence of something analogous to Hegel’s attempts to spell out a conception of nature.
International Yearbook of Hermeneutics, 2018
History of Philosophy Quarterly, Jul 2014
The introduction of an approach called “genealogy” is widely seen as one of Nietzsche’s chief con... more The introduction of an approach called “genealogy” is widely seen as one of Nietzsche’s chief contributions to philosophy. However, the status and aims of his genealogies remain the subject of controversy. They are read as variously (a) true histories, or alternatively (b) fictional accounts, that somehow provide a critique of morality. Both readings encounter difficulties: (a) implicates Nietzsche in the genetic fallacy, whereas (b) fails to account for the level of historical detail in Nietzsche’s genealogies. I demonstrate that Nietzsche intended his genealogies as true histories, in part by documenting his reliance on historical sources. I argue, further, that if we interpret Nietzsche’s project of critique correctly, the genetic fallacy charge falls away. Rather than doing the work of directly debunking values, genealogies ask (i) whether these values have contributed to human flourishing and (ii) what authority they possess. With this reading in place, we can now additionally make sense of the role Nietzsche’s genealogies play in his overarching project of a “revaluation of all values.” Presenting a given set of agents with a true historical account of the emergence of their values enables those agents to see how a set of values has been invented by human beings in the past. This demonstrates to these agents that such an act of value invention is, in principle, possible once again—and this is precisely what the revaluation demands.
Book Reviews by Christoph Schuringa
New Left Review, 2023
The work of Hegel has undergone a remarkable process of domestication by Anglo-Saxon philosophers... more The work of Hegel has undergone a remarkable process of domestication by Anglo-Saxon philosophers over the past thirty years. Hegel is no longer the ambitious metaphysician he had always seemed to be-and as he was still portrayed by the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his monumental Hegel (1975). With an initial impetus from Robert Pippin's Hegel's Idealism (1989), analytic philosophers laboured to make the German thinker safe for the academic establishment of the English-speaking world by essentially presenting him as a radicalizer of Kant. Just as Kant's critical project was not itself a metaphysical theory, but an enquiry into the conditions of possibility of metaphysics, so Hegel was now seen as a thinker who merely tightened the screws on Kant's project of delineating the general thoughtstructures that render metaphysics possible. In this view, Hegel was no longer the cautious political philosopher who, as he puts it in the Preface to his Philosophy of Right, restricts himself to painting philosophy's retrospective 'grey on grey', once a shape of life has 'grown old'. Instead he emerged as a radical social critic, advocating a programme for the overthrow of capitalism that strongly anticipates that of Marx. In a startling twist, this approach has recently found its way back to Germany, and is manifested in the work of what remains of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. This recasting of Hegel makes him only a little more ambitious than Kant in the realm of metaphysics and, equally remarkably, only a little less so than Marx in the realm of social thought-in spite of Marx's own understanding of himself as a radical critic of Hegel. One serious consequence of this reinterpretation is that Hegel's relationship to his contemporary
Other by Christoph Schuringa
The Philosophers' Magazine, Jan 1, 2014
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Papers by Christoph Schuringa
basic claims, in his Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy and
Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy
of Nature. Marx has been read as an idealist, or as a
materialist; as praising Epicurus, or as criticizing him. Some
have read Marx as using ancient philosophers as proxies in
a contemporary debate, without demonstrating how he
does so in detail. I show that Marx's dialectical reading of
Epicurus's atomism aims at transcending the dichotomy
between idealism and materialism; that on Marx's reading
Epicurus deserves praise for thinking through atomism to
its “highest” conclusion, but criticism for not embracing this
conclusion; and that Marx's intervention in contemporary
debates takes the form of revealing a dialectical relationship
between “liberal” and “positive” philosophers. I conclude
that the importance of these texts is to be located in their
original stance on the problematic of the relation of thought
to reality, common to what Marx finds in ancient philosophy
and in his contemporary environment.
philosopher is concerned to connect talk of ‘second nature’ with a larger issue: that of the relation between nature
and spirit. According to McDowell, being ‘reminded’ of the perfectly familiar phenomenon of second nature is to do
the work of ‘deconstricting’ the conception of nature that bald naturalists operate with. Hegel, by contrast, works in
the opposite direction. For Hegel, the phenomenon of second nature is to be understood in light of a prior
characterization of the relation between nature and spirit, according to which spirit is the ‘truth of’ nature. This essay
attempts to get into focus the difficulties (beginning from the surface grammar of the expressions ‘nature’, ‘second
nature’, and ‘first nature’) that must be sorted out before we can properly understand how each philosopher connects
the topic of second nature with the wider issue of how nature and spirit are related, and to provide a sketch of the
philosophical issues that must be faced once we have the difficulties clearly in view. The philosophical difficulties
faced by Hegel differ from those faced by McDowell, as reflects their difference in approach. Those faced by Hegel
concern how precisely to spell out the conception of nature – such that ‘spirit is the truth of nature’ – in which his
conception of second nature is embedded; those faced by McDowell concern how his ‘reminder’ about second nature
is to be understood in the absence of something analogous to Hegel’s attempts to spell out a conception of nature.
Book Reviews by Christoph Schuringa
Other by Christoph Schuringa
basic claims, in his Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy and
Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy
of Nature. Marx has been read as an idealist, or as a
materialist; as praising Epicurus, or as criticizing him. Some
have read Marx as using ancient philosophers as proxies in
a contemporary debate, without demonstrating how he
does so in detail. I show that Marx's dialectical reading of
Epicurus's atomism aims at transcending the dichotomy
between idealism and materialism; that on Marx's reading
Epicurus deserves praise for thinking through atomism to
its “highest” conclusion, but criticism for not embracing this
conclusion; and that Marx's intervention in contemporary
debates takes the form of revealing a dialectical relationship
between “liberal” and “positive” philosophers. I conclude
that the importance of these texts is to be located in their
original stance on the problematic of the relation of thought
to reality, common to what Marx finds in ancient philosophy
and in his contemporary environment.
philosopher is concerned to connect talk of ‘second nature’ with a larger issue: that of the relation between nature
and spirit. According to McDowell, being ‘reminded’ of the perfectly familiar phenomenon of second nature is to do
the work of ‘deconstricting’ the conception of nature that bald naturalists operate with. Hegel, by contrast, works in
the opposite direction. For Hegel, the phenomenon of second nature is to be understood in light of a prior
characterization of the relation between nature and spirit, according to which spirit is the ‘truth of’ nature. This essay
attempts to get into focus the difficulties (beginning from the surface grammar of the expressions ‘nature’, ‘second
nature’, and ‘first nature’) that must be sorted out before we can properly understand how each philosopher connects
the topic of second nature with the wider issue of how nature and spirit are related, and to provide a sketch of the
philosophical issues that must be faced once we have the difficulties clearly in view. The philosophical difficulties
faced by Hegel differ from those faced by McDowell, as reflects their difference in approach. Those faced by Hegel
concern how precisely to spell out the conception of nature – such that ‘spirit is the truth of nature’ – in which his
conception of second nature is embedded; those faced by McDowell concern how his ‘reminder’ about second nature
is to be understood in the absence of something analogous to Hegel’s attempts to spell out a conception of nature.