This Is Penn State: An Insider's Guide to the University Park Campus

by Penn State Press

Overview

This book offers a radically new interpretation of the entire philosophy of J. G. Fichte by showing the impact of nineteenth-century psychological techniques and technologies on the formation of his theory of the imagination—the very centerpiece of his philosophical system. By situating Fichte’s philosophy within the context of nineteenth-century German science and culture, the book establishes a new genealogy, one that shows the extent to which German idealism’s transcendental account of the social remains dependent upon the scientific origins of psychoanalysis in the material techniques of Mesmerism. The book makes it clear that the rational, transcendental account of spirit, imagination, and the social has its source in the psychological phenomena of affective rapport. Specifically, the imagination undergoes a double displacement in which it is ultimately subject to external influence, the influence of a material technique, or, in short, a technology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271034751
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2005
Series:	Keystone Books
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

F. Scott Scribner is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Hillyer College, at the University of Hartford.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. An Introduction to the Crisis of Spirit: Technology and the Fichtean Imagination

2. Technology and Truth: Representation and the Problem of the Third Term

3. Spirit and the Technology of the Letter

4. The Spatial Imagination: Affect, Image, and the Critique of Representational Consciousness

5. Subtle Matter and the Ground of Intersubjectivity

6. The Aesthetic of Influence

7. The First Displacement: From Subjectivity to Being

8. The Second Displacement: From a Metaphysical to a Technological Imagination

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Justifiably described as a city onto itself, Penn State's University Park Campus covers 5,448 acres and contains hundreds of buildings. Its crowded sprawl serves as the epicenter for 40,000 students, 3,000 faculty, and 13,000 other employees. This Is Penn State serves as both a insider's walking tour guide to this bustling hub and as a unique pass to the university's rich and storied history.