Topic / Program

The idea of reflection stands out especially among the panorama of key concepts in the history of philosophy that seek to explain the nature of the mind. According to the generic line of thought in which this idea plays a central role, what it is to have a mind is essentially connected with the fact that a minded creature can reflect upon its own attitudes and thereby distance itself from itself as well as from the world. Hegel in this sense can designate reflection as "the differentiating activity in general" (die trennende Thätigkeit überhaupt). As such, reflection marks the end of natural immediacy. Rousseau contrasts thus the state of reflection (état de reflexion) in this sense with the state of nature. Two seemingly disparate understandings - at the very least - have developed, however, concerning reflection as the central aspect of the mind, understandings that can be characterized with the key words 'self-consciousness' and 'critique'.

If we want to understand reflection as constitutive for self-consciousness, we aim to explain what it is to have thoughts and intentions at all, i.e., what it is to be a self-determining being in general. For example, according to Locke's influential view, a being possesses mental states just in case it not only perceives something ("perception"), but at the same time perceives, through its "inner sense", that it perceives ("reflection"). This introspective understanding of reflection has been subjected to forceful critique in its initial wake, in very different ways, by Hume and then Kant. According to Kant, self-consciousness does not consist in having particular representations, but in actualizing a determinate structure called "transcendental apperception", which he argues must underlie and make possible all representations. Kant's contemporary critics have sought to emphasize, however, the significance of the social dimension of reflection as self-consciousness (Hegel) as well as its boundedness to symbolic media (Herder, Humboldt). In the twentieth century, both the introspective and transcendental models of self-consciousness have been subjected in quite different ways to fundamental criticisms by the phenomenological (Merleau-Ponty), hermeneutical (Heidegger, Gadamer, Taylor), neo-idealist (Nagel, Henrich), but also the pragmatist (Ryle, Habermas) and analytic (Sellars, Davidson, Tugendhat, Frankfurt) traditions in philosophy. Indeed, the concept of self-consciousness, as an instance or aspect of reflection, has itself been problematized (Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Forcault, Lyotard).

The second understanding of reflection, which has been prominent above all in the philosophy of modernity, revolves around the concept of critique. Those who wish to understand reflection as critique seek to make intelligible what it means to claim that thoughts as such can always be evaluated in terms of being "right" or "wrong". In Kant's words, this understanding of reflection turns on the issue of maturity (Mündigkeit). Maturity in this sense cannot be achieved except as something brought about through critique, which Kant envisages as the self-critique of reason, that is, as "transcendental reflection". But as it is the case with Kant's conception of self-consciousness, the Kantian conception of reflection as critique has itself been criticized by his successors as overly abstract. Marx and the tradition of Critical Theory of the twentieth century have argued that the practice of critique cannot be abstracted from its historical and material situatedness. According to this school of thought, the idea of "pure" transcendental reflection is the expression of a "false consciousness" that misunderstands itself. Authors such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Foucault, as well as feminist thinkers, have in turn, in their own ways, cast doubt upon the self-legitimating potential of critical reflection. At the same time, the question arises concerning the relation between reflection as self-consciousness and reflection as critique: According to philosophers working in the wake of the early Hegel and Marx, the structure of reflection that is constitutive for mindedness as such cannot be understood without already taking account of its critical potential; reflection in any serious sense at all can only be achieved at the critical level.

What, then, is the relationship between self-consciousness and critique as understandings of reflection? Are we dealing here with an (exhaustive) alternative? The 12th International Philosophy Colloquium Evian seeks to examine systematically the concept of reflection: How should we understand precisely the structure of reflection, either as self-consciousness and/or as critique? How do these two dimensions of reflection relate to one another? Under what conditions is reflection as self-consciousness or as critique possible and how does it come about in each case? We especially invite systematic contributions originating from all traditions and schools of thought that address these questions. In the spirit of the principal aim of this Colloquium past and present, we seek to garner (post)structuralist, hermeneutical, and analytic positions in both their differences and convergences with regard to the topic of reflection and to bring them systematically into a fruitful dialogue.


Program

Program as PDF-Download


Lundi, 17 juillet 2006

Reflexivität des Selbst
Henning Tegtmeyer (Leipzig): Denken als Selbstbewusstsein
Marta Nunes da Costa (New York): From Kant's Freedom to Foucaults Self-consciousness - Redefining the Power of Critique
Valérie Aucouturier (Paris): Réfléxivité, conscience de soi et connaissance de soi

Reflexivität des Denkens
Kathrin Hönig (Zürich/Basel): Autoritativer Selbstbezug und Kritik bei Davidson
Tim Henning (Münster): Wissen, was man denkt


Mardi, 18 juillet 2006

Reflexivität des Diskurses und der Zeichen
Georg W. Bertram (Hildesheim): Kritik und Reflexivität nach Nietzsche
William Franke (Nashville): Habermas's Critical Reflexive Philosophy versus Premodern Poetic and Theological Reflexivity
Karin de Boer (Amsterdam): Derrida's Critique of Reason

Reflexivität des Wissens
Vincent Citot (Paris): La réflexion, le préréflexif et la question du scepticisme
Heidi Salaverria (Hamburg): Partikulare Reflexivität: Pragmatismus zwischen kritischem Common Sence, Zweifel und Gewohnheit


Mercredi, 19 juillet 2006

Reflexivität der Wahrnehmung und des Leibes
Martina Roesner (Mainz): Le miroir interpellé. Sur l'origine motivationnelle de la réflexion dans les approches monadologiques der Leibniz et Husserl
Nicolas Monseu (Louvain/Wuppertal): Entre phénoménologie et herméneutique : conscience de soi et critique de la perception immanente
Annette Hilt (Freiburg): Leibliche Reflexivität - Strukturen sinnlicher Selbsterfahrung

Après-midi libre


Jeudi, 20 juillet 2006

Reflexivität des Sozialen
David Schweikard (Köln): Selbstbewusstsein, soziales Bewusstsein und Natur
Beatrice Kobow (Berkeley/Leipzig): Eye through the Other - Ways of Defining Self-Consciousness through Collective Intentionality
Hans Bernhard Schmid (Wien): "Soziales Selbstbewußtsein" - Reflexion und Kritik

Reflexivität der Zeit
Soraya Nour (Nanterre/Berlin): Réflexion historique sur soi-même et sur la société : l'héritage freudien
Felix Koch (New York): Kritische Historie: reflektierende Selbsterkenntnis oder experimentelles Ethos?


Vendredi, 21 juillet 2006

Reflexivität der Kritik
Ejvind Hansen (Aarhus): Critique as Reflection? Exclusion and the Need for Receptivity
Robin Celikates (Gießen): Kritik, Metakritik und Kritische Theorie ­ Vorschläge zum Abbau des Reflexivitätsdefizits
Claudie Gagné (Québec): Expérience esthétique et autoréflexivité de l'énonciation littéraire

Reflexivität des Subjekts
Roberto Farneti (Bologna): Authenticity and Compliance

Abschlussdiskussion