Rickert’s foundation of transcendental idealism: history and system

Andrea Staiti (University of Parma, Boston College)

Andrea Staiti (University of Parma)

“Rickert’s foundation of transcendental idealism: history and system”

University of Lille, January 31, 2025

Salle Froissart, 10 am - 12 pm

We are pleased to announce that Andrea Staiti (University of Parma) will deliver a public lecture titled “Rickert’s foundation of transcendental idealism: history and system” (see abstract below). The lecture will take place on Friday, January 31, 2025, from 1o am to 12 pm in Salle Froissart at the University of Lille.

The event will be held in a hybrid format, allowing for both in-person and online participation. To register for online attendance, please send an email to [email protected], including your first name, last name, and the email address you will use to connect to the lecture.

The lecture is part of the international collaboration project between the Philosophy departments of the University of Rome La Sapienza and the University of Lille (UMR-CNRS 8163 STL), History, Prehistory, and Counter-history of Idealism: Ancient and Contemporary Perspectives. The project investigates, both historically and systematically, the question of the presence, meaning, and forms of Idealism in Antiquity.  Although its main focus is philosophical, the project also addresses key issues in the history of antiquity and literary studies, and its team includes philologists as well as specialists in ancient literature. The project is funded by the Laboratoire Associé International (LAI).

Abstract: In this paper I present Rickert’s foundation of transcendental idealism in his major work Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis (1892-1929). First, I introduce the premises of Rickert’s argument for transcendental idealism: (1) knowledge requires a transcendent criterion of truth; (2) the theory of knowledge must aim at presuppositionlessness; (3) the theory of knowledge must start with the standpoint of immanence. Second, I introduce the meaning of transcendental idealism for Rickert and the arguments that are meant to establish its validity. Rickert draws on the history of philosophy and blends together idealism in the Platonic sense (the existence of an ideal domain beyond the sensible world) and idealism in the modern Cartesian sense (the primacy of ideés as occurrent episodes of thinking in consciousness). He shows that arguments that are meant to establish the existence of a transcendent reality and that in order to salvage the idea of transcendence, which is required by the phenomenon of knowledge, we need to focus on the phenomenon of judgment. When we judge, we acknowledge a transcendent ought that breaks the circle of consciousness and points toward a domain of value. In the third section of the paper, I address a few lines of criticism that have been leveled at Rickert and discuss his replies.