Hegel dedicates ‘Teleology’ in his Logic to resolve Kant’s antinomies about causality: the third antinomy of reason and the antinomy of judgement. This chapter first connects these distinct Kantian antinomies. I argue that Hegel is right that the opposition of the causal concepts involved in them is substantially the same. I also advocate that Hegel is right too in supposing that for Kant the conflicting concepts remain opposed after the ‘solution’ to the different logical conflicts in the various Critiques is reached. I argue that, in contrast, Hegel’s own resolution tries to deliver a proper unification of these concepts.

Hegel intends to prove two different claims about purposive connections in his Logic: (1) that teleology is the truth of mechanism and (2) that inner purposiveness is the truth of the external reference-to-an-end. I devote this chapter to the analysis of the first of these arguments. To this end, I introduce Hegel’s concept of ‘mechanism’, whose main ingredient is the idea that mechanisms are determined as causes merely from without. This feature disqualifies mechanisms as self-sufficient explainers. I compare Hegel’s understanding of this shortcoming with Hume’s and Kant’s misgivings about the cognition of causal relations. For Hegel, mechanical causes are in themselves apparent and the relations they maintain with other causes are in themselves contingent. It is this essential contingency of the ‘necessary’ that makes Hegel judge mechanical relations to be untrue. Mechanical objects with indeterminate causal powers appear essentially as means and, hence, hypothetically subordinated to self-determining causes.

This chapter introduces the most important terms of Hegel’s account of teleology, viz. ‘external purposiveness’ and ‘inner purposiveness’, which Hegel inherits from Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement. Kant claims that our inclination to judge nature as analogous to the products of human art, and therefore as having ends as our actions have ends, is not properly justified from an objective standpoint. Consequently, the concept of a ‘natural end’ seems irremediably problematic for him. For Hegel, in contrast, the concept of an ‘objective end’ is an entirely appropriate concept, and, indeed, the concept of a true purpose, which we can apply similarly to both nature and spirit. Hegel sees himself as recasting and reviving Kant’s undertaking with the notion of ‘inner purposiveness’.

This chapter develops a novel reading of ‘Teleology’. The chapter shows why there is application for the concept of purpose if an objective process can be conceived of as realising an end. ‘Teleology’ examines what the relevant objective process must consist of. Hegel advocates that where there are causal processes that produce themselves by their peculiar configuration and dynamism, there are purposes that are carried out, provided that such self-production occurs at the expense of objectivity. The implication is that only where there is self-production and because of it, there is purposiveness – inner purposiveness, to be exact. As a consequence, the concept of inner purpose (or end in and for itself) captures the only paradigmatic meaning that the concept of purpose has. In light of Hegel’s argument, the claim that what is made of mechanical processes can truly be an end in and for itself becomes intelligible.

“What now? Enough is enough. Now we have to begin. Into our hands, life has been given.” With these exasperated words, Ernst Bloch’s The Spirit of Utopia begins like no other work of philosophy. In anger and aspiration, it does not begin with a pedantic preface or scholarly introduction. It begins in situ with a catastrophe that has thrown human existence back upon itself, from which no deliverance seems to be at hand. What is to be done? How can one survive? Caught in the condition of pitching “senselessly back and forth,” something nonetheless endures, we know not what, we know not how, but with nothing in our hands save our own obscurity, life still darkly speaks, for which, in this end of days, we want to be its initiative as well as its end.

At the outbreak of the war, Ernst Cassirer enjoyed an international reputation as a leading figure in the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. Still a Privatdozent after years at the University of Berlin and repeatedly thwarted from obtaining a chair of philosophy in Germany due to entrenched anti-Semitism, Cassirer’s erudite publications had garnered widespread recognition. Rudolf Eucken, recipient of the Nobel Prize and “a famous man,” as Cassirer writes to this wife, Toni, in 1911 even asked him out to lunch when invited to speak at the University of Jena. Numerous professors and “a huge crowd of other people” were in attendance. His works were on display in bookshop windows along with the announcement of his lecture in the spiritual capital of Weimar Classicism.

On many fronts, 1916 marked a point of no return. After the collapse of optimism for swift victory following the outbreak of hostilities, the inconclusive bloodlettings at Verdun and the Somme, and mounting economic hardships on the home front, the prospects for German triumph seemed increasingly dim. Attitudes became more resigned to a war like no other, a war without end. Dampened expectations gave way to creeping pessimism matched by defiant fatalism. A number of prominent intellectuals and academics who in 1914 eagerly supported the war now came to express their doubts or else fell conspicuously silent regarding the fate of the nation. Once the most vocal of advocates for the war, Ernst Troeltsch began to see things differently and came to accept the political deficiencies of the Wilhelmine Empire with its deleterious militarism.

This chapter revisits Herder’s debate with Kant in his Ideas for the Philosophy of History of Mankind, paying particular attention to Herder’s ideas on individual self-determination and his history of modern liberty and enlightenment. In this work, Herder reinterpreted human self-determination as a distinctive capacity and moral duty, whilst also viewing it as the highest form of self-preservation and sociability exhibited across the spectrum of natural beings. Kant, by contrast, invoked human ‘unsocial sociability’, presenting morality as a late development in human history as well as underlining the role of the modern state in facilitating this development. Herder rejected all the constitutive elements of Kant’s idea for a universal history, whilst also seeking to refine his account of the history of ‘state-machines’ and political government in Europe. He accordingly proposed an alternative vision of the prospects for greater peace in Europe and the world, drawing attention to a moral learning process in human history and the role of commercial cities in the rise of modern liberty. He set up the ‘Hanseatic league’ as an example for a future European union as well as predicted the empowerment of the subjugated peoples of Europe thanks to growing international trade and improved government.

Herder was deeply committed to finding ways to achieve moral and political reform in Livland, Russia, Germany and Europe in general. Herder’s reform ideas were embedded in Enlightenment discussions about the moral psychological foundations of ‘modern liberty’ and international peace. In responding to Rousseau’s challenge in The Second Discourse, Herder engaged with the new mid-eighteenth century work on human psychology, sensibility, physiology, whilst also delving into literary and cultural history. In the 1770s, Herder developed a theologically framed understanding of the history of mankind as a gradual ethical formation of humanity, which was still largely compatible with his earlier naturalistic approach. In the 1780s, Herder came to view human history as part of a more encompassing ‘natural process’, whilst continuing to take an interest in distinct national histories. In contrast to Kant, Herder interpreted individual human self-determination as a voluntary ‘life according to nature’, emphasising the cultivation of ‘purified patriotism’ and ‘dispositions of peace’ as essential for modern liberty and international peace. He welcomed the French Revolution and, as a ‘German patriot’, encouraged Germans to ‘self-constitute’ themselves by pursuing cultural, moral and constitutional change.

In the last decades, scholars have carved out Herder’s original and interconnected ideas about epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, language, and aesthetics, situating his thinking in various strands of Enlightenment philosophy, natural history and hermeneutics. Several recent studies have also dissected Herder’s moral and political ideas. However, Herder’s views on modern European politics and the evolution of his political thought have remained largely unexplored. In particular, his self-avowed ‘German patriotism has not been studied at any depth. At the same time, a debate on Herder’s relationship to nationalism still lingers on. This study proposes that reconstructing Herder’s serial contributions to eighteenth-century discussions on the moral psychological foundations of, and the possible reforms in, modern societies provides a key to understanding the evolution of his political thought, including his relationship to nationalism. In engaging with thinkers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, Möser, Ferguson, and Kant, Herder addressed questions on how to close the gap between moral principles and action, as well as law and ethics, in contemporary societies.

This chapter discusses Herder’s engagement with the French Revolution and his continuing debate with Kant, specifying the ways in which Herder sought to balance humanitarian and patriotic concerns in his political vision in the 1790s and early 1800s. Herder celebrated the French Revolution as an attempt to restore a ‘living constitution’ based on natural order in France. He initially also welcomed Kant’s ideas on human dignity, but soon came to reject his more specific conception of self-determination. His worries about the outbreak of the Revolutionary wars were reflected in his concern that Kant’s philosophy of history might unwittingly exacerbate republican moral absolutism and imperialism. In his view, Kant could not adequately resolve the gap between professed principles and action, law and ethics. Herder’s own understanding of a truly humanitarian philosophy of history was grounded in his Stoic-vitalist account of human self-determination. He further elaborated on the ways in which humans could cultivate their ‘sensus humanitatis’ through reflective engagement with history, criticising various instances of European colonial imperialism. His primary concern, however, was to guide European nations—above all, the German—in cultivating a new ethic to enable the simultaneous pursuit of domestic reforms and international cooperation.

Chapter 1 explores the concept of nihilism in two works by the German writer Jean Paul. In “The Dead Christ Proclaims That There Is No God,” Jean Paul tries to follow the scientifically based denial of God to its logical conclusion to show that this leads to a horrifying view that no one can accept. In the work, Christ descends down to earth and declares that there is no God. A terrible scene of death and destruction follows, which provides a powerful image of nihilism. The rest of the chapter analyzes the novella The Valley of Campan. While “The Dead Christ” was concerned with refuting the denial of God, this work tries to refute the denial of the doctrine of immortality. A small group takes an excursion in the Valley of Campan in the Pyrenees, and they discuss the issue of immortality as they go. Each member of the group tries to convince the scientist Karlson of the truth of immortality, but he stubbornly refutes all their arguments. However, in the end he capitulates to the idea since he cannot bear the thought of the complete and final destruction of his beloved Gione. The argument is that it is impossible to live a happy life without belief in immortality.

Chapter 9 gives a reading of Nietzsche’s account of nihilism based on his unfinished work known as The Will to Power. Given the death of God and the collapse of traditional values, people are debilitated by a sense of hopelessness and meaninglessness. Traditional values no longer seem meaningful. Nietzsche outlines three key cosmological values that one is obliged to abandon once one has reached the stage of nihilism: (1) the idea that there is any purpose or goal in the universe or in human existence; (2) the notion that the universe constitutes some kind of unity or coherent system; and (3) the very notion of truth itself. Nietzsche includes, among the group of metaphysical prejudices or false beliefs, the law of contradiction itself, which is often considered to be the very foundation of any kind of rational thought. These metaphysical prejudices constitute the preconditions for science itself. Nietzsche raises the question of the possibility of creating a new set of values on the strength of one’s own authority. But he believes that people in his age have not yet emancipated themselves from nihilism to the extent that they can do this.

This chapter distinguishes between and discusses the validity of different kinds of demand for recognition, which are often conflated in the literature on populism. While “equal respect” is central to democracy, not all demands for recognition are demands for equal respect. In particular, the type of respect that citizens and government must display should not be confused with esteem for people’s merits, identity, or way of life, but must consist in respect for citizen status. Demanding and granting esteem for particular traits or ways of life, as populists do, is incompatible with a pluralistic society. Further, demands for respect among populists tend to be bound up with a hierarchical idea of honor, which should be confronted with the democratic idea of respect for dignity. Although democracy is a society of equality of respect and cannot supply equal esteem for everyone, inequality of esteem can still pose a moral and democratic problem. This is because inequality of esteem under some conditions can convert into inequality of respect. Therefore, the second part of the chapter argues that democratic respect depends on a form of solidarity that counteracts the ever-present danger of inequality of esteem turning into inequality of respect.

This chapter considers the possibility that even if populism is in tension with our best conceptions of democracy and respect, it could nevertheless correct the deficiencies of actually existing democracy. It asks whether it is permissible to promote populism, if this can correct some of the flaws that contemporary democracies truly have. Thus, the posed question is not whether populist parties can correct democracy, as this question might be understood by an external observer. Instead, the analysis proceeds from the participant attitude and asks whether we, or anyone, as fellow participants in democracy can endorse and promote populism because it has positive effects on a non-populist understanding of democracy. Applying the publicity condition first suggested by Kant and later expounded by Rawls, the contention is that we cannot. We cannot publicly both endorse populism and say we do so because it improves democracy understood in non-populist terms. The publicity condition rules out the possibility of promoting one set of ideas (populism) for the sake of another set of ideas (non-populist democracy). The argument for promoting populism for the sake of non-populist ends cannot be publicly communicated without frustrating those very ends.

Global domination – including imperial oppression and commercial exploitation across borders and, especially, across continents – was a key concern for many modern thinkers, and among its roots and its remedies were often thought to be the various forms of antagonism and resistance that fundamentally characterize humans’ social practices and interactions. Unsocially sociable individuals, in this view, are characterized by a seemingly contradictory array of impulses that both draw them together in a spirit of humane association and yet pull them apart, as they seek to resist others either to forestall being dominated themselves or to indulge their prideful and hierarchical sense of superiority. Among the many treatments of what one could call "cosmopolitan unsocial sociability" are the incisive – and complementary – theoretical writings of the 1780s and 1790s respectively by the Afro-British political thinker Quobna Ottobah Cugoano and the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant and Cugoano together exemplify an intriguing and complex strand of Enlightenment thought that viewed global connections as both corrosive to our shared humanity and yet essential for resisting the domination that afflicted both European and non-European peoples.