Rossi, Philip J.

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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteTheology Faculty Research and Publications Theology, Department of1-1-2004Review of "German Idealism: The Struggle AgainstSubjectivism, 1781-1801" by Frederick C. BeiserPhilip J. RossiMarquette University, philip.rossi@marquette.eduPublished version. Theological Studies, Vol. 65, No. 1 (2004): 217-218. Permalinkf. © 2004Theological Studies, Inc. Used with permission.Catholic leaders to give us the married as well as the celibate diocesanpriests we need.Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles JOHN A. COLEMAN, S.J.GERMAN IDEALISM: THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SUBJECTIVISM, 1781–1801. ByFrederick C. Beiser. Cambridge: Harvard University, 2002. Pp. xvi + 726.$61.50.Beiser’s important earlier studies—The Fate of Reason (1987) and En-lightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism (1992)—placed the trajectory ofideas, issues, and arguments of late 18th- and early 19th-century Germanphilosophy and political thought within an illuminating account of theircultural and political contexts. In this work, B. shifts attention from thatlarger background and presents, in contrast, a closely focused analysis ofthe texts of six thinkers—Kant, Fichte, Ho¨lderlin, Novalis, Schlegel, andSchelling—that bear upon “one specific theme: the meaning of idealismitself, and more specifically the reaction against subjectivism” (viii). Theanalysis is in service of a larger thesis that goes counter to a commonlyaccepted interpretation of German idealism as “essentially the culminationof the Cartesian tradition,” which is usually accompanied by “a seductivelysimple narrative” that makes it “the gradual and inevitable completion ofKant’s ‘Copernican Revolution’ ” (1–2). B. argues instead that it is “moreaccurate to say the exact opposite: that the development of German ide-alism is not the culmination but the nemesis of the Cartesian tradition” (3).He sees Kant marshaling against the truly subjectivist Cartesian “way ofideas” arguments that have within them the structural and normative ele-ments that later provide the framework upon which his successors con-structed their objective idealisms. On B.’s reading the trajectory of idealismthus moves from “the ‘subjective’ or ‘formal’ idealism of Kant and Fichte,according to which the transcendental subject is the source of the form butnot the matter of experience” to an “ ‘objective’ or ‘absolute’ ideal-ism . . . according to which the forms of experience are self-subsistent andtranscend both the subject and object” (11).For B., a variety of factors contribute to the subjectivist interpretation heseeks to counter. Among the most important has been “a failure [on thepart of the subjectivist interpretation] to distinguish between two verydifferent versions or forms of idealism” (6). In the first version, the ideal isindeed the subjective and stands as the mental or spiritual over against thephysical or the material; in the second, it is objective and stands as thearchetypal or normative over against the ectypical or the substantive. Henotes that the idealists are not entirely blameless for such a misreadingsince they often did not themselves carefully distinguish these two forms. Inconsequence, an important part of B.’s corrective strategy is to untanglethe interplay of these two forms within the texts he examines; this done, heargues that, when properly read, the line of development is “a progressive217BOOK REVIEWSdesubjectivization of the Kantian legacy” (6) culminating in the objectiveidealism most notably articulated in Schelling’s writings from 1799 to 1801.B. also considers Hegel’s history of philosophy—in which all is preludeto Hegel’s own system of absolute idealism—to be an important source ofthe subjectivist interpretation of idealism. In addition, a key emendationthat B. sees Hegel’s account needing is the retrieval of the roles thatHo¨lderlin, Novalis, and Schlegel each played in the development of ideal-ism, summed up in the claim that “there is not a single Hegelian theme thatcannot be traced back to his predecessors in Jena” and “the fathers ofabsolute idealism were Ho¨lderlin, Schlegel and Schelling” (10). His treat-ment of these figures in the last 250 pages does not, however, attempt toconfirm that claim by a systematic comparison of their texts with Hegel’s.B.’s method throughout is to analyze issues so as to recover how theypresented themselves to each of these thinkers and to reconstruct argu-ments so as to recapture the intelligibility they had for their authors—evenin those cases where B. finds the arguments unsuccessful.This work of philosophical and historical scholarship will be an especiallyvaluable resource for those who need to understand and assess the impactof German idealism on theology. Though such concerns are beyond thecareful philosophical focus of B.’s study, his analyses are very useful forgaining a much better sense of the positions and arguments that Kant andthese five successors set forth in their texts. B. provides a useful baselinefor measuring the extent to which subsequent theological engagement withthese thinkers—whether by appropriation or opposition—has itself ad-equately grasped the philosophical point of their positions. The introduc-tions that B. provides to each of the four main sections of the book providea concise overview of the main theses he will advance in consequence of hisdetailed analyses; they offer a useful road map for readers who may notneed to journey along every argumentative track that B. traces.Marquette University, Milwaukee PHILIP J. ROSSI, S.J.IL DINAMISMO INTELLETTUALE DAVANTI AL MISTERO: LA QUESTIONE DELSOPRANNATURALE NEL PERCORSO SPECULATIVO DI J. MARÉCHAL. ByDaniele Moretto. Dissertatio Series Romana, vol. 33. Pontificio SeminarioLombardo in Roma. Milan: Edizioni Glossa, 2001. Pp. xx + 399. €23.24.In his highly significant 1951 study probing the essence of Karl Barth’stheology, Hans Urs von Balthasar wielded a double-edged sword, hopingto present a systematic alternative to the conceptualist rationalism of neo-Scholasticism and to the overweening supernaturalism of Barth’s occasion-alism. To this end, Balthasar adduces throughout his book the philosophyof Joseph Mare´chal, who had speculatively adumbrated what Henri deLubac had historically demonstrated, namely, that the natural order existsonly as inscribed within the unicus ordo supernaturalis. At least at thispoint in his career, Balthasar, along with the other nouveaux the´ologiensrecently clustered at Lyon-Fourvie`re, found Mare´chal to be a breath of218 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Review of  German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801  by Frederick C. Beiser

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Review of German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 by Frederick C. Beiser

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