Bubbio - Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition: Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition

SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Dennis J. Schmidt, editor

Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition

Paolo Diego Bubbio

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2014 State University of New York

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bubbio, Paolo Diego, 1974

Sacrifice in the post-Kantian tradition : perspectivism, intersubjectivity, and recognition / Paolo Diego Bubbio.

pages cm. (SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4384-5251-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Sacrifice. 2. Philosophy, Modern19th century. I. Title.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Sofia and Alessandro

May they always be willing to make room
for other points of view.

A book is always, to some extent, an intersubjective effort. I therefore thank a number of people for help and encouragement along the way.

I was encouraged to pursue postgraduate research on the notion of sacrifice in contemporary philosophy by my teacher Marco Ravera in 1998 at the University of Turin. In 2004, when my PhD dissertation was published (in Italian), I was already convinced of the need to consider the Kantian and post-Kantian tradition of the nineteenth century to really understand the notion of sacrifice and its implications. I am grateful to Marco who, since then, has shown all his hermeneutic generosity in discussing various philosophical issues concerning my research, even when my approach was somehow diverging from his own. I would also like to thank Maurizio Pagano for introducing me to the work of Hegel and for several years of conversation about different interpretations of Hegels philosophy.

Proper research for this book commenced by way of a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Sydney (20062009). Originally the research was limited to the notion of sacrifice in Hegel and Nietzsche, and was extended to Kant, Solger, and Kierkegaard in the following years up to 2012. Across all these years, Paul Redding has been a great scholarly mentor. His intellectual openness, philosophical rigor, and patience have been key factors in pursuing this research. Without him, this book would not have been possible. I am also grateful to the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney for its financial support for conference travel during those years.

Thanks are also due to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick for accepting me as a visiting research fellow into that stimulating environment in the first half of 2008. During that short visit, I enjoyed profitable discussions on Solger and Hegel with Stephen Houlgate.

In May 2009, Douglas Hedley kindly invited me to present my work on sacrifice in Hegels philosophy at Clare College, University of Cambridge. It was great to discuss my preliminary outcomes with him and his postgraduate students. I regret that, due to geographical reasons, I did not have many opportunities to discuss with Douglas our respective views on sacrifice.

During this books long gestation, I have been helped by a number of other individuals who offered valuable suggestions about sections of the manuscript or my general interpretation of sacrifice. Although I cannot thank them all individually, let me mention Damion Buterin, Ingo Farin, Christopher Fynsk, Sebastian Gardner, Wayne Hudson, Heikki Ikaheimo, Jeff Malpas, Justine McGill, Dalia Nassar, Annette Pierdziwol, Philip Quadrio, and Herman Siemens. A special word of thanks is due to Talia Morag, who graciously provided invaluable insights and shared her critical eye in checking my arguments in the chapter on Nietzsche. More recently, I have also gained much from conversations with my colleagues in the Philosophy Research Initiative at the University of Western Sydney, where the final work on this book was made. In their capacity as readers for the press, David Kolb and Douglas Moggach were helpful in pointing out problems, opacities, and hazards in the original manuscript. I am grateful for all of this help. For the books shortcomings, I claim credit myself. I am also very grateful to Dennis Schmidt, Book Series Editor, and Andrew Kenyon, Editor of Philosophy at SUNY. Thanks are also due to Charles Barbour for his insights on a variety of particular style matters; to Rory Dufficy for his meticulous preparation of the index, and to the Dean of the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at UWS, Professor Peter Hutchings, for the financial support of the same.

During my long engagement with this project, a number of friends in both the Northern and the Southern hemispheres of the globe have been sympathetically and emotionally supportive: Stephen Buckle, Damian Byers, Luigi Dentis, Fabrizio Gallino, Andrea Lasagna, Daniele Limerutti, Emanuele Miroglio, Luca Moretti, Sebastiana Nervegna, Alessandro Rodani, and Dimitris Vardoulakis. Their humor, encouragement, and friendship continue to be a genuine blessing.

To my family, I owe more than I can acknowledge. My children, Sofia and Alex, gave me lots of pleasure and taught me the importance of a fresh point of view. And, first of all, I thank my wife, Silvia, for her help, support, and understanding throughout the long period of this books composition.

Most of the chapters that follow recast material that has appeared earlier, often in altered form, in other settings. I thank the following journals and publishers for allowing me to draw on that material:

is an extended version of Kants Sacrificial Turns, in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 73:2 (2013): 97115 (with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media).

draws from Solgers Notion of Sacrifice as Double Negation. in Heythrop Journal 50:2 (2009): 206214, and Solger and Hegel: Negation and Privation, in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17:2 (2009): 173187.

A version of section 1 of appeared as Sacrifice in Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit , in British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20:4 (2012): 797815.

Section 2 of draws from the first half of God, Incarnation, and Metaphysics in Hegels Philosophy of Religion, in Sophia. International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions DOI: 10.1007/s11841-013-0391-z (with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media).

, section 1 draws from Kierkegaards Regulative Sacrifice: A Post-Kantian Reading of Fear and Trembling , in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20:4 (2012): 691723.

A version of , section 2 appeared as Kierkegaard is Standing by HimselfThrough Hegels Help, in P. D. Bubbio and P. Redding (eds.), Religion After Kant. God and Culture in the Idealist Era (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2012), 173196.