The aim of this course is to introduce participants/students to the history of modern European philosophy by tracing the idea of the metaphysical system in Kant, Heidegger, Derrida and Nancy. An experimental course in nature, we will start in an unorthodox way by reading the much under-studied last part of Critique of Pure Reason called the Architectonic of Pure Reason. The course focuses on how Kant’s thinking of the distribution of a metaphysical system is received as an invitation to “destroy” the history of metaphysics in Heidegger and to “de(con)struct” it in Derrida and Nancy. The course will engage this topic under a number of different rubrics: Kant’s reception of previous metaphysical systems (such as Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s); the role of the idea in Kant (how the idea at the root of the system is regulative or asymptotic); Heidegger’s reception of Kant’s engagement with metaphysica specialis and metaphysica generalis; Heidegger’s equation of metaphysics and ontology deriving from his reading of Critique of Pure Reason; Derrida’s reception of Kant and the parergon, the supplement and annexation of a future system; Nancy’s reading of Kant’s problem with the metaphysical system as a problem of presentation (Darstellung).
Week 1
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. A Preface (Avii-xxii); B Preface (Bvii-xliv); Architectonic of Pure Reason (A832-851/B860-879).
[I’ll be using the Guyer and Wood—Cambridge University Press—translation, but the Norman Kemp Smith translation will be fine as well]
We will explore and unpack Kant’s overarching question, “how is metaphysics possible as a science?” This will lead us into a discussion of the system of metaphysics by way of a close-reading of the Architectonic of Pure Reason.
Supplemental reading:
+ Kant, “What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?”
+ Morgan, Kant Trouble. Chapter 2 (pp.106-139).
Week 2
Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Introduction; §1; §2 (pp.7-27).
We will read Heidegger’s unpacking of traditional metaphysics (metaphysica specialis, metaphysica generalis). This leads into his centralization of the act of Grundlegung or “ground-laying” of metaphysics as a science, which leads into his distinction between a system of regional ontology (study of ontic beings at the level of presence) and fundamental ontology (an ontology of the ontic [the Being of beings] at the level of possibility).
Supplemental reading:
+ Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, Part A, Section 2 and 3 (pp.22-42).
Week 3
Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. §3; §4 (pp.27-52).
We’ll discuss Heidegger’s thematization the problem of ontology, which is connected to the role of synthetic a priori knowledge in the Grundlegung. This plays into what Heidegger refers to as the transcendence of Dasein (ekstasis). We will explore the question, “why is laying the ground for metaphysics called ‘critique of pure reason’”?, which takes us back to the problem of naming (and/or housing) found in the architectonic. Ultimately, we end by discussing the quote, “The time of systems is over” (Contributions to Philosophy, p.4) and how Kant marks the point at which the system can only ever be hoped for, never delivered. This further propels us forward into the de(con)structions undertaken by Derrida and Nancy.
Supplemental reading:
+ Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Part One (pp.3-12).
Week 4
Derrida, The Truth in Painting. The Parergon, Part II. The Parergon (pp.37-82).
We’ll explore the frame in Kant’s third Critique and the framing of nothing. By reading Derrida closely we can draw out the relationship between the work (ergon) and the supplement (parergon) with regards to our previous discussions on Kant and the system. Kant’s system is supposed to be a work, a book (a beautiful book) but instead frames nothing; it is caught up always in the Architectonic – the nothing as an absent text called Metaphysics of Nature. This calls upon us to make a somewhat immanent move from critique (or what critique names) to de(con)struction.
Supplemental reading:
+Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgement, Introduction (5:171-198).
+ Harvey, “Derrida, Kant, and the Performance of Parergonality” in Kant and
Deconstruction (pp.57-74).
Week 5
Nancy, The Discourse of the Syncope, §3 (pp.22-45)
In this final week we’ll read Nancy on Kant. Specifically, we’ll unpack the idea that the problem is presentation (Darstellung) which is identical to the problem of philosophy. The properly “philosophical” system cannot be presented and is therefore absent. We are left with some stubborn decisions: transcendental philosophy and literature? System or rhapsody?
Supplemental Reading
+ Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, The Literary Absolute. Overture: The System-Subject (pp.27-37).