New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann

There is clear evidence that international interest in the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann is growing. Numbered among these pieces of evidence are recent essay collections devoted to Hartmann’s philosophy in German and English (Har- tung/Wunsch/Strube 2012; Poli/Scognamiglio/Tremblay 2011), international con- ferences on his work, reissued editions and translations of Hartmann’s works into English (Hartmann 2002; 2004; 2012; 2013; 2014), and papers and books published in numerous languages over the past decade, including English, Ger- man, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish.1 This volume is a further contribution to the new research in the growing English-language literature on Hartmann. It is not our intention here to introduce Hartmann to readers not al- ready familiar with his philosophy and approach, since introductory essays are readily available (e. g., Poli 2012; Peterson 2012). This volume of essays has been selected from the papers presented at the Second International Conference of the Nicolai Hartmann Society held in Trento, Italy, 25 – 27 August 2014. The order in which the papers appear here is somewhat arbitrary, but we have made the at- tempt to organize them thematically, partially in accordance with Hartmann’s own conception of philosophy. Here we will say a few words about the individual contributions in relation to these major thematic areas. While he wrote on virtually every major philosophical topic, Hartmann was primarily an ontologist, and he was a central figure in the renaissance of ontol- ogy in the early twentieth century. His distinctive realist ontology cut somewhat against the grain of the philosophical mainstream at the time, but the philosoph- ical atmosphere is now more hospitable to realist investigations into the philos- ophy of nature and ontology. In the first section on “Philosophy of Nature and Ontology” are included chapters on Hartmann’s conceptions of time, causality and determination, and stratification or levels of reality. His extensive analysis of time and space in his massive tome Philosophie der Natur takes up more than two-hundred pages of the book, and has been seldom treated. The first two papers deal with this analysis. With reference to the discussions of time in Hartmann’s philosophy of nature, R. Poli draws a distinction between pure time (as ontological category or principle) and qualified time or temporality (as categorial determination). He argues that without such a distinction, current theories of time suffer from several categorial confusions, especially concerning social time. S. Pinna places Hartmann’s discussions of the fundamental categories of physics into the context of contemporary debates in modern quantum and relativity theory over the epistemic and ontological status of spacetime. He claims that Hartmann would agree with those physicists who uphold the ontological primacy of geometrical categories. Hartmann’s pluralistic ontology also articulates no less than fifteen forms of determination, including the causal nexus, the organic nexus, and the finalistic nexus. K. Väyrynen remarks on the innovative nature of Hartmann’s conception of causality, and points out both its consonance and its dissonance with con- temporary discussions of causality. In light of it, he challenges contemporary theorists to incorporate ontological discussions of causality as extensive as Hart- mann’s own. C. Brentari examines Hartmann’s special categories for characteriz- ing organic life, and carefully situates his views beyond the sterile debate be- tween mechanists and teleological vitalists. He claims that the autonomous mode of determination proper to living things is relevant for contemporary dis- cussions of biosemiotics as well. Finally, perhaps the most distinctive feature of Hartmann’s categorial ontol- ogy is his conception of ontological strata. The last two contributions in this section address his conception of stratification from two different directions. M. Klei- neberg considers the concept of ontological levels of reality, and contests Hartmann’s linear ordering of levels in light of other models, including Poli’s triangular scheme and Wilber’s quadrant model. He argues that a “co-evolution- ary” model is more fitting for describing the structure of the real world. K. Peter- son also addresses the notion of ontological levels, marking some differences between ancient hierarchical, contemporary flat, and Hartmann’s stratified on- tologies. He argues that the originality of Hartmann’s stratified view should not be underestimated, that it should not readily be assimilated with other hier- archical schemes, and that it is in fact more appropriate than others for charac- terizing the dependent position of human beings in the world. The second section, “Hartmann and Others,” shows that Hartmann was al- most always in implicit or explicit dialogue with his predecessors and contempo- raries, and that his work can also be profitably used to illuminate them. His early work on the Greeks, especially Plato, under the influence of Natorp and Cohen at Marburg, remained significant for him throughout his career. C. Luchetti exam- ines Hartmann’s interpretation of Plato’s theory of recollection with reference to the concept of the a priori, and how his interpretation differs from his teacher Natorp’s. She argues that Hartmann avoids the pitfall of interpreting apriorism through the anachronistic lens of Kantianism, which results in a superior inter- pretation of Plato and the a priori. T. Röck discusses Hartmann’s ontology with reference to the concept of physis in early Greek philosophy, and argues that by avoiding the post-Parmenidean “division” of being and becoming, Hartmann’s ontology conforms in its fundamental ontological perspective with the early Greek conception of the “being of becoming.” While Hartmann’s categorial, stratified ontology is unique in the twentieth century, it does share some similar- ities with the ontology of at least one of his contemporaries, Roman Ingarden. S. Bertolini compares the ontologies of Ingarden and Hartmann, marking some similarities and significant differences, while contrasting their “eidetic” and concrete methodologies. She concludes that although they come at the phe- nomena of the world from different sides—Ingarden through beings and Hart- mann through the whole—the terms of their frameworks may still be profitably compared. Finally, though Hartmann’s work was not often directly influential on other philosophers, it did exercise a great deal of influence on some of his scientific contemporaries, including Ludwig Bertalanffy and Konrad Lorenz. S. Vasta shows how ethologist and theoretician Konrad Lorenz appropriated Hart- mann’s philosophy for his own purposes, particularly in his organological inter- pretation of the Kantian a priori and evolutionary ontological realism. He argues that Lorenz uses Hartmann’s philosophy to overcome difficulties with his earlier biologization of the Kantian a priori. Hartmann’s work in ethics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of histo- ry, social theory, and aesthetics embrace what he considers both “Individual and Objective Spirit.” The first two papers in this section concern the border lines be- tween psychological, anthropological and spiritual individuality. R. Zaborowski uses Hartmann’s categorial laws of stratification to reconsider the nature of the emotions in contemporary philosophical debates. He argues that Hartmann’s stratified scheme provides a promising scaffolding for a multi-leveled conception of affectivity that would move the study of emotions beyond its current impasse. N. Danilkina illuminates the different concepts of the human being at work in the juncture between Hartmann’s ethical theory and his anthropology. Hart- mann’s value ethics and social theory are explicitly addressed in the next two contributions. A. Kinneging considers Hartmann’s ethical and social theory in the context of the tradition of natural law, broadly construed, and makes a case for including Hartmann in this tradition. Although Hartmann never made any claims to be part of this tradition, his professed moral realism places him on the side of the natural law thinkers. K. Lörch assesses a few aspects of the contemporary debates over human enhancement technologies with reference to Hartmann’s ethical theory, which provides a fruitful resource for reconsidering the conception of autonomy in these debates. His stratified conception of the human being serves as critical ballast preventing one-sided conceptions of the self and of the values to be achieved through enhancement, whether bioconser- vative or bioliberal. The last three papers address Hartmann’s thoughts on education, his con- cepts of modality applied to aesthetics, and his definition of philosophy. J. Claramonte adopts Hartmann’s modal vocabulary to introduce the notion of a modal aesthetics, contributing some valuable heuristic categories to the consideration of art history and aesthetic culture. The necessary-repertorial is contrasted with the possible-dispositional mode, which are taken to always co-exist as live options in aesthetic culture, checked at every stage by often-conflicting ac- tual practices. C. Scognamiglio considers Hartmann’s contribution to the philos- ophy of education with reference to his entire systematic approach, which bears chiefly on the concept of spirit and the transmission of spiritual tradition. He urges a rehabilitation of the concept of Geist for educational theory, which ena- bles us to overcome debilitating tensions between concepts of the individual and the collective, and between self-disciplined motivation and embrace of tradition. Finally, P. Cicovacki meditates on Hartmann’s conception of philosophy and the place of “wonder” in it. He reconsiders Hartmann’s definition of philosophy in the context of the contemporary contrast between analytic and continental styles of philosophy, as well as in the context of the historical reception of Greek philosophy, and finds Hartmann to be closer to a particular Greek conception of the “pathos of wonder” than to either contemporary camp. With the exception of Hartmann passages used in the chapters which come from existing English translations, all Hartmann translations have been checked and revised for consistency by K. Peterson. We would like to thank Anna Thin and especially Shelby O’Neill for their valuable editing assistance. We should also express our gratitude to Walter de Gruyter publishers for their continuing enthusiasm and support for this renewed interest in Hartmann’s work. Keith Peterson Roberto Poli