The Philosopher's Voice: Philosophy, Politics, and Language in the Nineteenth Century

Product Description Explores the relationship between philosophy and politics in the work of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. Review “Fiala’s engaging style is itself a useful aid to the reader as he revisits and restates the positions of these philosophers to bring out both differences and similarities among them.” ― Journal of Speculative Philosophy“Fiala has an imaginative and creative thesis: that a philosopher writes out of a concrete political perspective, and that the philosophers he studies are therefore aware of the role they play in the political arena, even if they may also claim to be speaking sub speci aeternitatis.” ― John W. Burbidge, author of Hegel on Logic and Religion: The Reasonableness of Christianity“This topic is significant and important, since the relation of philosophy and politics has been raised anew recently in a number of ways―through the adventures of Martin Heidegger with Nazism, through Habermas’s social theory, and through the emergence of a number of important political thinkers in the continental side of the discussion here and abroad.” ― Tom Rockmore, editor of New Essays on the Precritical Kant From the Back Cover This analysis of the relationship between philosophy and politics recognizes that political philosophers must continually struggle to distinguish their voices from others that clamor within political life. Author Andrew Fiala asks whether it is possible to maintain a distinction between philosophical speech and other political and poetic language. His answer is that philosophy distinguishes itself from politics by its methodological self-consciousness of the nature of its voice. By focusing on the different ways in which this methodological norm was enacted in the lives and work of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx, the author puts the problem in a larger context and considers the roles that these thinkers played in the political history of the nineteenth century. About the Author Andrew Fiala is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.