The Enlightened Subject: Sameness and Self from Condillac to Reinhold

This project investigates the philosophy of mind of the Enlightenment. In particular, it deals with the development of theories of personal identity and conceptions of consciousness and self-consciousness during the second half of the 18th century. The aim is to produce a range of publications (including a monograph) that both outline the history of the debates surrounding these concepts from Condillac via Kant to Reinhold, and analyze and critically evaluate the arguments of the relevant thinkers. The project is a sequel to a recently completed project that studied theories of personal identity in the first half of the 18th century. The results have been published in the form of a monograph titled The Early Modern Subject: Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume by Oxford University Press in 2011. This new project proposed here is also under contract with Oxford University Press. The debates about the nature of personal identity and whether or not it depends on (self-) consciousness are characteristic and central for the philosophy of the 18th century. In addition, they still strongly determine the contemporary debates on these issues. A detailed analysis would thus be valuable for our understanding not only of 18th century philosophy, but also of our own present-day debates. Given that nothing comparable has been written to this date, the project would hereby fill an important gap in the literature. During the preliminary research for this project, four particularly noteworthy and interrelated strands of development could be identified in the period of interest: the emergence of the concept of Sentiment Intime (feeling of self), of Materialism (influenced by the new discipline of empirical psychology), of Common Sense philosophy and, finally, of Kantian Transcendentalism. Work on the project will be oriented and structured around these four developments, studying each in detail. Apart from this, the team will organize a workshop on Kant`s philosophy of mind and a conference on the development of the concept of `soul` from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. To undertake the proposed research, the project leader is applying for funds for the position of a post-doctoral researcher and a student assistant. The post-doctoral researcher will assist with viewing and evaluating the primary and secondary sources (a pre-selection of which has already been made) as well as prepare her or his own publications on issues related to the project. Since this research requires extensive previous knowledge of 18th century philosophy, the position will be filled by a post-doctoral rather than a doctoral researcher. The student assistant will assist with editorial and bibliographical work and with organizing the conferences mentioned above.

This FWF-funded research project has been concerned with the philosophy of mind in eighteenth-century enlightenment thought. In particular, it has dealt with the development of theories of personal identity and conceptions of consciousness and self-consciousness in the second half of the 18th century. Four particularly noteworthy and interrelated strands of development have been identified in the period of interest: the emergence of the concept of sentiment intime (feeling of self), of materialism (influenced by the new discipline of empirical psychology), of the philosophy of common sense and, finally, of Kantian transcendentalism. Work on the project has been structured around these four strands. In line with this structure the project leader, Prof. Udo Thiel, has examined a large amount of material and provided a detailed historical and analytical account relating to all four parts of the project. He also re-worked draft chapters, dealing with the accounts of self- consciousness and personal identity in the Scottish Common Sense School, in eighteenth- century French philosophy (Condillac, Rousseau, Diderot) and German philosophy (Irwing, Tetens, Kant). Several talks and publications directly relevant to the project resulted from this. As far as transcendental conceptions are concerned, Kant and Reinhold have been the focus of our work. Dr. Motta has been working on a detailed analysis of central Kantian notions such as Bewusstsein, Apperzeption, Ich Denke, Selbstbewusstsein in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781/1787). In June 2014 the project leader co-organized a symposium on the philosophy of Diderot, and preparation was begun to organize a larger international conference on Immanuel Kant: Die Einheit des Bewusstseins (Graz 19.-20. September 2014), a topic crucial to this project. Leading international Kant scholars participated in this conference. Since 2015 a series of guest-lectures on Kants philosophy has been organized under the title: Kant in Graz. In June 2016 we hosted a symposium on the philosophy of on Leibniz. Work on this project has been extremely rewarding and productive. The team, with Prof. Thiel as project leader, Dr. Motta as postdoctoral researcher and Hannes Fraissler as assistant, has worked together extremely well. This is obvious also from the conferences organized, the papers given and the publications that have appeared in this period.