What did the Romantics find missing in Enlightenment reason, and what did they put in its place?
20 claims from this lecture, in the order Marci Shore makes them, with the 11 terms it leans on and its 11 links to other lectures.
You see, gentlemen, reason is unquestionably a fine thing, but reason is no more than reason, and it gives fulfillment only to man's reasoning capacity, while desires are a manifestation of the whole of life...
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground. The epigraph Shore gives this lecture.
By number of claims in this lecture.
Shore’s own judgments and connections
The 5 claims the lecture spends most time on.
Shore suggests Enlightenment and Romanticism can also be understood as moods (Stimmung), not only philosophical currents: two forces in constant tension, yet intermingling, across the whole course.
Put simply Shore: Enlightenment and Romanticism are not only schools of thought but also moods ("Stimmung" in German). Throughout the course the two pull against each other, yet keep mixing.
Two things distinguish humans from other creatures, on Rousseau's account: free agency, and an openness to becoming. We are underdetermined, self-creating beings rather than finished ones.
Put simply Rousseau: two things set humans apart from other creatures. We act freely, and we are open to becoming something new. Nothing fully fixes what we will be; we make ourselves.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, on Shestov's reading, really defends reason rather than critiquing it. The genuine critique of pure reason, he holds, is by Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground.
Put simply Shestov: Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" really defends reason rather than criticizing it. The true critique of reason, he holds, is Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground.
Fichte: "to be free is nothing, to become free is heaven." Freedom is not a state you have but a becoming you live, driven by desire.
Suppose the Enlightenment program succeeds and every question gets its calculated answer. The Underground Man cannot guarantee such a perfectly reasonable life would not turn out "dreadfully boring."
Put simply Dostoevsky's Underground Man: suppose reason wins and every question gets a calculated answer. He cannot promise that such a perfectly reasonable life would not turn out "dreadfully boring."
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Shore suggests Enlightenment and Romanticism can also be understood as moods (Stimmung), not only philosophical currents: two forces in constant tension, yet intermingling, across the whole course.
Put simply Shore: Enlightenment and Romanticism are not only schools of thought but also moods ("Stimmung" in German). Throughout the course the two pull against each other, yet keep mixing.
Cioran, late in life, as Shore recalls an interview: French civilization and its courtesy amount to a boundary accepted for reason's sake, whereas the Balkans have no such criterion; there one is simply excessive.
Put simply Cioran, in a late interview Shore recalls: French civilization and its politeness are a limit people accept for reason's sake. The Balkans have no such standard; there, one is simply excessive.
Rousseau straddles the divide: which Rousseau one reads decides whether he looks Enlightenment or Romantic. In the Social Contract he is a crucial Enlightenment thinker; the Confessions, in tone and self-description, have a Romantic flavor.
Two things distinguish humans from other creatures, on Rousseau's account: free agency, and an openness to becoming. We are underdetermined, self-creating beings rather than finished ones.
Put simply Rousseau: two things set humans apart from other creatures. We act freely, and we are open to becoming something new. Nothing fully fixes what we will be; we make ourselves.
A distinction Shore calls key and expects to keep returning: the Enlightenment asks how things are, what it is to be; the Romantics care about becoming, what we can become.
Put simply Shore calls this a key distinction she will keep returning to: the Enlightenment asks how things are; the Romantics ask what we can become. Being versus becoming.
Amour propre, vanity about how we appear, is artificial, not natural: it grows from others' gaze in society, and it is the real source of our discontent.
Put simply Rousseau: our vanity about how we look to others ("amour propre") is not natural. Society breeds it, because we live under one another's gaze, and it is the real reason we are dissatisfied.
Virtue needs authenticity, and society, which forces us into pretending we are someone else, rules authenticity out. Being virtuous therefore means withdrawing from society.
Put simply Rousseau: you cannot be good without being true to yourself. Society makes us pretend to be someone else, so it makes that impossible. To be virtuous, you have to withdraw from society.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, on Shestov's reading, really defends reason rather than critiquing it. The genuine critique of pure reason, he holds, is by Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground.
Put simply Shestov: Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" really defends reason rather than criticizing it. The true critique of reason, he holds, is Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground.
Free will cannot be proven, yet without it there is no ethics at all. Kant therefore simply posits it, and, almost in passing, posits God too.
Put simply Kant: no one can prove we have free will, yet without it there could be no ethics at all. So he simply assumes it, and, almost in passing, assumes God exists too.
In the text In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant calls consciousness of the moral law "a fact of reason" (Remark to §7), and treats God and immortality as postulates of pure practical reason (Dialectic, Book II, ch. II).
Humans possess dignity, which is "above all price," because they are free moral agents. Hence Kant's basic rule: treat every person as an end, never merely as a means.
Put simply Kant: people have dignity, a worth beyond any price, because they are free moral beings. So never treat a person merely as a tool for your purposes; always treat them as valuable in themselves.
Where to read it Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Ak. 4:429 and 4:434–435.
For Kant, acting morally means acting from duty, not from whatever one feels like doing; acts are judged by their intentions, never by consequences nobody can control.
Kant's test when unsure whether an act is moral: imagine everyone acting on your principle. Should disaster follow, the act fails.
In the text In the Groundwork (1785; Gregor translation), Kant's test is whether I "could also will that my maxim should become a universal law"; a maxim fails when it cannot be universalized without contradiction.
Fichte: "to be free is nothing, to become free is heaven." Freedom is not a state you have but a becoming you live, driven by desire.
For Fichte, sincerity and motive outweigh consequences. Whatever it costs, you must not betray your own ideals.
Byron's Manfred casts humans as "half dust, half deity," creatures of mixed essence "unfit to sink or soar," at war with their own elements.
Put simply Byron's "Manfred": humans are half dust, half god. With this mixed nature we can neither sink nor rise, and the parts we are made of are at war with each other.
Just as each individual has an irreducible soul, so does each nation. What binds a nation, for Herder, is soil and above all language, not blood or race.
Put simply Herder: each nation, like each person, has a soul all its own. What holds a nation together is its land and, above all, its language, not blood or race.
Humans are social beings with a deep longing for home. Belonging to a unique, rooted community answers it and overcomes alienation. Herder hated cosmopolitanism.
Put simply Herder: people are social and long deeply for a home. Belonging to a distinct, rooted community overcomes the feeling of homelessness ("alienation"). He hated cosmopolitanism, the ideal of being a citizen of the world.
Mickiewicz: the Polish nation "did not die." Its body lies buried, its soul in purgatory, but on the third day it will rise and free Europe's enslaved peoples.
The Underground Man grants reason is fine but says it feeds only our reasoning faculty; desire is "a manifestation of the whole of life," and people sometimes love suffering passionately.
Put simply Dostoevsky's Underground Man: reason is fine, but it satisfies only our thinking side. Desire expresses the whole of life, and people sometimes love suffering, passionately.
Suppose the Enlightenment program succeeds and every question gets its calculated answer. The Underground Man cannot guarantee such a perfectly reasonable life would not turn out "dreadfully boring."
Put simply Dostoevsky's Underground Man: suppose reason wins and every question gets a calculated answer. He cannot promise that such a perfectly reasonable life would not turn out "dreadfully boring."
8 of these 11 first come up in this lecture. Definitions are our paraphrase.
Where a claim here answers an earlier lecture, and where a later lecture answers a claim here. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
KantThe Copernican turn in Kant's epistemology reverses the direction of fit: not the mind conforming to things as they are, but knowable things conforming to the mind's capacities. L2 · 38:03
ShestovKant's Critique of Pure Reason, on Shestov's reading, really defends reason rather than critiquing it. The genuine critique of pure reason, he holds, is by Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground. L3 · 30:18
Argues Kant's first Critique defends reason rather than truly interrogating its limits; only Dostoevsky supplies the real critique.
RousseauRousseau's natural human was virtuous and compassionate; property and society made people vain, selfish and competitive, and there is no road back to that lost condition. L2 · 32:02
RousseauAmour propre, vanity about how we appear, is artificial, not natural: it grows from others' gaze in society, and it is the real source of our discontent. L3 · 20:03
Explains how the corruption of the idealized natural state specifically produces amour propre.
FichteFichte: "to be free is nothing, to become free is heaven." Freedom is not a state you have but a becoming you live, driven by desire. L3 · 37:08
HegelLike the Romantics, Hegel cares less about what is than about what is becoming: nothing holds still, and everything is always on its way to being something else. L4 · 14:38
Shore says Hegel takes the being-versus-becoming distinction central to Romanticism, which she recalls through Fichte's line on becoming free, and makes it central.
RousseauTwo things distinguish humans from other creatures, on Rousseau's account: free agency, and an openness to becoming. We are underdetermined, self-creating beings rather than finished ones. L3 · 17:39
HegelLike the Romantics, Hegel cares less about what is than about what is becoming: nothing holds still, and everything is always on its way to being something else. L4 · 14:38
Humans defined by becoming, not fixed nature, now generalized to all of realityOur inference
KantFor Kant, acting morally means acting from duty, not from whatever one feels like doing; acts are judged by their intentions, never by consequences nobody can control. L3 · 31:51
HegelHegel rejects Kant's intention-centered morality as inadequate: acts usually have consequences far beyond what anyone meant, so their meaning can be judged only in hindsight. L4 · 29:14
Intentions are not enough; actions are judged by consequences that exceed them
KantHumans possess dignity, which is "above all price," because they are free moral agents. Hence Kant's basic rule: treat every person as an end, never merely as a means. L3 · 31:51
MarxIn the Manifesto's picture, capitalism's profit motive converts what ought to be relations between persons into relations between things, and human beings themselves into commodities. L5 · 42:38
Shore sees Kantian influence in the Manifesto's objection to people being turned into things: a person is an end, not a means.
KantKant's test when unsure whether an act is moral: imagine everyone acting on your principle. Should disaster follow, the act fails. L3 · 32:07
NietzscheWhat eternal recurrence means is disputed. On one Kantian reading, you should live every moment as though it would return forever, acting only as you would wish to see repeated. L6 · 40:45
Shore reports one interpretation of eternal recurrence as Kantian, going back to the categorical imperative; she does not say Nietzsche took it from Kant.
KantFree will cannot be proven, yet without it there is no ethics at all. Kant therefore simply posits it, and, almost in passing, posits God too. L3 · 31:04
BergsonFree will is inseparable from qualitative time: because we live time as an undivided flow, we can act spontaneously, in ways no one could have fixed beforehand. L7 · 23:13
Where Kant merely postulates free will, Bergson tries to ground it in the nature of time.
RousseauVirtue needs authenticity, and society, which forces us into pretending we are someone else, rules authenticity out. Being virtuous therefore means withdrawing from society. L3 · 20:51
HeideggerInauthenticity is conformity: handing the burden of deciding to convention and doing what one does. The agent there is das Man, the impersonal one, which is everyone and no one. L12 · 32:39
Inauthenticity as conformity to the social gaze, now das ManOur inference
KantKant's test when unsure whether an act is moral: imagine everyone acting on your principle. Should disaster follow, the act fails. L3 · 32:07
SartreAnguish is the price of responsibility: whoever commits to anything settles not only who they will be but, in effect, legislates for all humanity. Absolute freedom means absolute responsibility. L13 · 44:48
Choosing for oneself is choosing for everyone: a Kantian universalizing moment inside existentialism
HerderHumans are social beings with a deep longing for home. Belonging to a unique, rooted community answers it and overcomes alienation. Herder hated cosmopolitanism. L3 · 42:35
HeideggerFor the Rectoral Address, a Volk's spiritual world is a power, one drawn from guarding at the deepest level the forces rooted in its "soil and blood." L24 · 23:04
Heidegger redeploys Romantic rooted belonging as a Nazi Volk spirit of soil and blood.Our inference
Throughlines that pass through this lecture.
As they come up in the lecture.
Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts ("The First Discourse") Discours sur les sciences et les arts
Rousseau breaks with Voltaire in a hostile letter of June 17, 1760 ("I do not like you, Sir ... I hate you, in fact").
The Social Contract Du contrat social
Critique of Pure Reason Kritik der reinen Vernunft
Confessions Les Confessions
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik
What Is Enlightenment? Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?
Mendelssohn (September) and Kant (December) each answer "What is Enlightenment?" in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, a question the pastor Johann Friedrich Zöllner had raised in the journal the year before.
Foundations (Groundwork) of the Metaphysics of Morals Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten
The Terror: the revolutionary government's period of mass political violence.
Manfred
Notes from Underground
The Philosophers of the Enlightenment
The Essence of European Romanticism