Hegel’s account of the unconscious and his broader philosophy of mind offer us a well worked out form of non-dualist, non-reductionist, non-eliminativist, non-representationalist naturalism. Hegel describes the development of discursively structured thought (and responsiveness to norms) in ethological terms as emerging from initial somatic-sensory states, from states and processes of bodily activity on the part of a feeling soul, and from structured habituation in relation to other subjects. Importantly, earlier, less organized states of sensory awareness and feeling persist as residues underneath cognitive development in “the pit of imagination.” Imagistic and sensory-somatic materials from this pit can burst out, among other things, in dreams, madness, somnambulism, witty conversation, and puns. In the face of the permanent possibility of regressions from cognitive development, a continual activity of self-formation (Bildung) through art and participation in second nature is essential to maturity.

The author argues for the significance of the critique of Rousseau found in Fichte’s early series of lectures on the vocation of the scholar by showing how his presentation of his foundational philosophical science, the Wissenschaftslehre, was in large part shaped by the wish to meet certain challenges posed by Rousseau’s Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. These challenges concern Rousseau’s claim that the sciences have their source in pride and his claim that they are incompatible with virtue. Fichte’s portrayal of the dispute between idealism and dogmatism and his claim that the Wissenschaftslehre presupposes the existence of a kind of virtue represent responses to these particular challenges. The author also explores the implications of Fichte’s attempt to meet these challenges for his account of the “republic of scholars.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling is arguably the most important figure of German idealism. Through a close reading of his much neglected Lectures on the Grounding of Positive Philosophy, this article draws out Schelling’s crucial moves of thought by which he demonstrates that reason is not self-grounding, but grounded in and/or by the absolute. This understanding of reason and its ground brings Hegel into the fray who argues that reason is self-grounding.

Martin Heidegger has made uncovering the truth of being his life’s work. He ultimately came to locate this truth at the site of the clearing (lichtung), which allowed him to sweep away the traditional formulation of the question of being and begin anew with being. This second beginning, as Heidegger called it, stood apart from the original in that he saw fit to cloak being in nothingness. This paper explores Heidegger’s use of nothingness and his claim that in order to overcome the divide between the two beginnings, we must leap into the abyss of the clearing. Given Heidegger’s interest in East Asian philosophy, his use of nothingness appears to resemble that of Daoism. Despite this outward similarity, however, this paper argues that Heidegger’s doctrine of nothingness failed to grasp the cosmological significance of the clearing for he saw it only in terms of symbolizing the existential play of being. Thus while Heidegger argues that the clearing marks the unconcealement of being, Daoism uses the clearing to point us to the root of being in nothingness. The leap into the clearing is, for Heidegger, but a single transformational moment whereas Daoism holds that returning to Dao, the truth of all beings, ensures that the clearing always remains at hand. In this way, nothingness grounds us while serving as the cosmogonist milieu through which the creative processes of the universe unfold.

The first part of this essay presents Patrick Masterson’s exposition of the phenomenology of religion developed by Jean-Luc Marion, and his exposition of the Thomistic philosophy of religion. Masterson argues that phenomenology can be helpful as an analysis of faith and religious experience, but it remains within subjective immanence. It needs to be complemented by a metaphysical analysis that deals with causation and explanation, as Thomism does. The essay then makes three points: first, that phenomenology need not be limited to the merely subjective domain nor need it fail to speak about being; second, that Thomistic “cognitional existence,” as developed by Joseph Owens, can be fruitfully compared with the domain studied by phenomenology as the analysis of being as truth; third, that the “saturated phenomena” introduced by Marion and used by Masterson involve categorial articulation and hence some initiative on the part of the knower, even in matters of religious faith. The essay discusses issues such as the nature of philosophical discourse, the differences between the modern and the premodern understandings of appearance; and the nature of cognitional existence in words and images.