Robert Pippin

Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books and articles on German idealism and later German philosophy, including Kant's Theory of Form; Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness; Modernism as a Philosophical Problem; and Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations.  In addition he has published on issues in political philosophy, theories of self-consciousness, the nature of conceptual change, and the problem of freedom. He also wrote a book about literature and philosophy: Henry James and Modern Moral Life. A collection of  his recent essays in German, Die Verwirklichung der Freiheit appeared in 2005, as did The Peristence of Subjectivity: On the Kantian Aftermath, and his book on Nietzsche, Nietzsche, moraliste français: La conception nietzschéenne d'une psychologie philosophique appeared in 2006. He was twice an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, is a winner of the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities, and was recently a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

CV (PDF)


Contact

office: Foster 307
office phone: 773/702-5453
email: r-pippin@uchicago.edu
web: http://home.uchicago.edu/~rbp1/
The Committee on Social Thought

Selected Publications

  • "Hegel on Historical Meaning: For Example, the Enlightenment," Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, no 35 (Spring/Summer 1997). (PDF Part 1 | Part 2)
  • "Naturalness and Mindedness: Hegel's Compatibilism,"European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 7. no. 2 (1999) (PDF)
  • What is the Question for which Hegel's Theory of Recognition is the Answer? (PDF)
    The European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 2 (August 2000).
  • A Mandatory Reading of Kant's Ethics? (Critical Study of Paul Guyer's Kant on Freedom, Love and Happiness).
    The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 51, no.204 (July 2001). Link
  • What Was Abstract Art? (From the Point of View of Hegel)
    Critical Inquiry, vol. 29, no.1 (Fall 2002). Link
  • Authenticity in Painting: Remarks on Michael Fried's Art History
    Critical Inquiry, Volume 31, Issue 3, (Mar 2005). PDF
  • Kant's Theory of Value: On Allen Wood's Kant's Ethical Thought (PDF)
    Inquiry, Vol. 43 (Summer 2000)
  • The Unavailability of the Ordinary: Strauss on the Philosophical Fate of Modernity
    Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jun., 2003), pp. 335-358 (Link)
  • Hegel's Political Argument and the Problem of Verwirklichung
    Political Theory, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Nov., 1981), pp. 509-532 (Link)
  • The Modern World of Leo Strauss
    Political Theory, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Aug., 1992), pp. 448-472 (Link)
  • Idealism and Agency in Kant and Hegel
    The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 88, No. 10, Eighty-Eighth Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division (Oct., 1991), pp. 532-541 (Link)
  • Nietzsche and the Melancholy of Modernity
    Social Research, Vol. 66, 1999 (Link)
  • Heideggerean Postmodernism and Metaphysical Politics
    European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 4 Issue 1 Page 17-37, April 1996 (Link)
  • Hegel's Phenomenological criticism
    Man and World, Volume 8, Number 3 / August, 1975 (Link)
  • Recognition and Reconciliation. Actualized Agency in Hegel’s Jena Phenomenology
  • Agent and Deed in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
    in A Companion to Neitszche Ed. K. Ansell-Pearson (Link)
  • Author's Précis of Henry James and Modern Moral Life
    Inquiry, Volume 45, Number 3, 1 September 2002 , pp. 313-317(5) (Link)
  • McDowell‘s Germans: Response to "On Pippin‘s Postscript"
    European Journal of Philosophy, 2007 (Link)
  • ‘Philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought’
    Topoi Volume 25, Numbers 1-2 / September, 2006 (Link)
  • Hegel's Metaphysics and the Problem of Contradiction
    in The Hegel Myths and Legends, Ed. J. B. Stewart (Link)
  • Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed (GM 1: 6-1 7)
    in Nietzsche's on the Genealogy of Morals: Critical Essay. Ed. C. D. Acampora (Link)
  • Horstmann, Siep, and German Idealism
    European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 2 Issue 1 Page 85-96, April 1994 (Link)
  • Being, Time, and Politics: The Strauss-Kojeve Debate
    History and Theory, Vol. 32, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 138-161 (Link)
  • Can There Be ‘Unprincipled Virtue’? Comments on Nomy Arpaly
    Philosophical Explorations, Volume 10, Issue 3 September 2007 , pages 291 - 301 (Link)
  • Modern mythic meaning: Blumenberg contra Nietzsche
    History of the Human Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 4, 37-56 (1993) (Link)
  • Responses to Conway, Mooney, and Rorty
    Inquiry, Volume 45, Issue 3 September 2002 , pages 359 - 372 (Link)
  • Fichte's Alleged Subjective, Psychological, One-Sided Idealism
    in The Reception of Kant's Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel Ed. S.S. Sedgwick (Link)
  • Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness
  • Modernism as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture
  • Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations
  • Hegel on Ethics and Politics (with O. Höffe)

Please see my CV (PDF) for a complete list of publications.

Selected Reviews by Robert Pippin

  • Author(s) of Review: Robert Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Encyclopedia of Aesthetics by Michael Kelly
    The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Feb., 2000), pp. 99-106 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Between Frankfurt and Freiburg: Toward a Critical Ontology by Fred Dallmayr
    Political Theory, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 322-325 (Link)
  • Review: A Mandatory Reading of Kant's Ethics?
    Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness by Paul Guyer
    The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 204 (Jul., 2001), pp. 386-393 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Hegel's Dialectic: The Explanation of Possibility by Terry Pinkard
    The Philosophical Review, Vol. 100, No. 4 (Oct., 1991), pp. 710-713 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Kant et le pouvoir de juger: Sensibilité et discursivité dans l'Analytique transcendentale de la Critique de la raison pure by Béatrice Longuenesse
    The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 94, No. 6 (Jun., 1997), pp. 318-324 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice by William A. Galston
    Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Dec., 2003), pp. 891-896 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): The Rise of Neo-Kantianism: German Academic Philosophy between Idealism and Positivism by Klaus Christian Kohnke; R. J. Hollingdale
    The Philosophical Review, Vol. 102, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 594-596 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): The Philosophy of F. J. Schelling: History, System, and Freedom by Werner Marx; Thomas Nenon
    The Philosophical Review, Vol. 96, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 620-623 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth Century France by Judith P. Butler
    The Philosophical Review, Vol. 99, No. 1 (Jan., 1990), pp. 129-131 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert B. Pippin
    Review: A Postmodern Sensibility
    Reviewed Work(s): Political Theory and Postmodernism by Stephen K. White
    The Review of Politics, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 180-182 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Robert Pippin
    Reviewed Work(s): Encyclopedia of Aesthetics by Michael Kelly
    The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Feb., 2000), pp. 99-106 (Link)

Selected Reviews of Robert Pippin's Work

  • Author(s) of Review: Elizabeth Brake
    Reviewed Work(s): Henry James and Modern Moral Life by Robert Pippin
    The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 208 (Jul., 2002), pp. 397-398 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Alice Crary
    Reviewed Work(s): Henry James and Modern Moral Life by Robert Pippin
    Ethics, Vol. 112, No. 2 (Jan., 2002), pp. 403-406 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Richard Rorty
    Reviewed Work(s): Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations by Robert Pippin
    Ethics, Vol. 111, No. 2 (Jan., 2001), pp. 438-441 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: Ralf Meerbote
    Reviewed Work(s): Kant's Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason by Robert B. Pippin
    The Philosophical Review, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Jul., 1983), pp. 419-422 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: T. K. Seung
    Reviewed Work(s): Kant's Theory of Form, An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason by Robert B. Pippin
    Noûs, Vol. 18, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp. 382-385 (Link)
  • Review: What Is Living and What Is Dead in the Interpretation of Hegel?
    Author(s) of Review: Joshua Foa Dienstag
    Reviewed Work(s): Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit by Michael N. Forster
    Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations by Robert B. Pippin
    Hegel and the State by Eric Weil; Mark A. Cohen
    Hegel's Ethics of Recognition by Robert R. Williams
    Political Theory, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 262-275 (Link)
  • Author(s) of Review: William J. FitzPatrick
    Reviewed Work(s): The Practice of Value by Joseph Raz; Christine Korsgaard; Robert Pippin; Bernard Williams; R. Jay Wallace
    Ethics, Vol. 116, No. 4 (Jul., 2006), pp. 805-809 (Link)
    • Author(s) of Review:  Richard Rorty
    Reviewed Work(s): The Persistence of Subjectivity: On the Kantian Aftermath by Robert Pippin
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2005) Link

Recent Courses

31400. Modern Theories of State

Open to grad students and college students with consent of instructor. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. This seminar concentrates on voluntarist or contractarian theories of the state in Rousseau and Kant, and the revisions and criticisms of that understanding by Fichte and Hegel. Autumn 2002.

51300. Adorno

Open to grad students. The aim of this seminar will be to achieve a comprehensive perspective on the most important elements of Adorno's version of critical theory. Special attention will be paid to the relation between Adorno's position and Kantian and Hegelian alternatives, to Adorno's theory of modernity, and to Adorno's ethical theory. Readings will include Dialectic of Enlightenment; Negative Dialectics; Hegel: Three Studies; Minima Moralia; Problems of Moral Philosophy, and selected essays on art, modernism, and aesthetics. Winter 2003.

51704. The Philosophy of Visual Moderism

Open to grad students. Much of the reading for this course will be work by Michael Fried. Other material to be discussed will be by Denis Diderot, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Stanley Cavell. Persons expecting to take Fried's spring seminar are stongly encouraged to enroll in this seminar as well. See the announcement below. The Committee on Social Thought announces a Spring Quarter 2005 Graduate Seminar Thursdays, 3-5:50 Modern Photography and Other Themes Instructor: Michael Fried The guest professor for this seminar will be Michael Fried from Johns Hopkins University. The topics will be Fried's aesthetic theory, art criticism and art history, especially but not exclusively his views on photography. Co-taught with James Conant Winter 2005.