TY  - CHAP
A1  - Khurana, Thomas
T1  - Self-knowledge and knowledge of nature
T2  - Reading Rödl : On Self-Consciousness and Objectivity
N2  - In this chapter, I consider the unity of self-consciousness and objectivity. Starting from the notion that the objective character and the self-conscious character of thought seem in tension, I discuss Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and his thesis that this tension is merely apparent. This resolution suggests an immediate route to absolute idealism. I recall two Hegelian objections against such an immediate route. Against this background, it transpires that the dissolution of the apparent opposition of objectivity and self-consciousness can only be a preliminary step, opening our eyes to an actual opposition animating the pursuit of knowledge: the opposition of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge. This actual opposition cannot be removed as merely apparent and instead has to be sublated through articulation of its speculative unity. I consider two paradigms for the exposition of such a speculative unity: Kant’s account of judgments of beauty, and Hegel’s account of the speculative unity of life and self-consciousness. I close by contrasting these two approaches with Rödl’s characterization, which strikes me as one-sided. Absolute idealism, properly understood, requires us to develop the speculative unity of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge from both sides, showing us that knowledge of nature is self-knowledge, but equally: that self-knowledge requires knowledge of ourselves as nature.
Y1  - 2023
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/61155
SN  - 978-1-03-234951-0
SN  - 978-1-00-095669-6
SP  - 195
EP  - 223
PB  - Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Milton
ER  -