Form and Reflection

• Applicant: Dr. Fabian Börchers
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy ; History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 430901065

The aim of the research-project is to show how to avoid the problem of the self-reflection of thought. That is the problem of how to reflect on what characterizes thought as such without having to choose between the unsatisfying positions of (a) dogmatism, (b) relativism, or (c) the metaphysical grounding of thought from the outside. For this purpose the results of two current discussions within the philosophical debate shall be brought into dialogue: In a first step Neo-Aristotelian considerations concerning both the logical nature of the form-content-distinction (following M. Thompson) and the idea of reason as the form of human beings (McDowell) shall be used to give a precise meaning to the problem of the self-reflection of thought. The problem shall be interpreted as the problem of how the form of thought can figure as the content of thoughts of philosophical reflection. In a second step, the debate about the so-called “resolute reading” of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus shall be used to interpret Wittgenstein as a thinker who has precisely sought to carry out such a reflection on the form of thought – albeit in fundamentally different ways during the different phases of his philosophical development. From this dialogue two results shall be gained: First, it shall be shown that the reflection on the form of thought cannot be carried out in the manner of a philosophical theory. Second, it shall be shown that the idea of one single unifying form of thought which can in principle be elucidated once and for all must be abandoned in favor of the more modest idea of a never ending series of elucidations of single aspects of what can be called the form of life of human beings. Both results shall be used to highlight difficulties within the Neo-Aristotelian project and to clear it of the wrong ambition of striving for completeness in its determination of the rational life-form.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants