9 Quotes by Sebastian Rödl

Yet, the notion that the self-comprehension that is episteme (Wissenschaft) could result from amalgamating a form of episteme from which the first person is expelled with a form of spiritual activity that is incapable of rigorous conceptual articulation is bizarre.

What is philosophy? Albrecht Wellmer, I say, or John McDowell. This is how I know what philosophy is.

It has been held that, since its essential normativity cannot be accommodated within the natural sciences, we might be forced to throw the concept of action and with it action concepts on the trash heap of outdated theories. With action concepts a logical basis of first person thought disappears. Renouncing action concepts is a form of self-annihilation: logical self-annihilation. It annihilates a source of the power to think and say 'I'.

The literature on Hegel is fond of representing him as someone who had very particular ideas and opinions. That is not only false; Hegel would have found it embarassing.

Consciousness of a manifold of subjects lies deeper than any empirical content judged. It is inside the logical concept of judgment, inside the concept of being and truth. As you contradict me, you figure in my consciousness not as an object with determinations. You figure in my consciousness as judgment. Anything I think of you is subordinated to and informed by this conception.

God is not simply other than our knowledge of Him. It is through God and God alone that we know God. Descartes elaborates this in this way: We know God because he left a mark of Himself in us; this mark is nothing other than our self-consciousness. Knowing God through this mark of His, we know God in every act of reason.

No Aristotelian ever thought that what strikes me as self-evident cannot fail to be true. If I am enough of an idiot, the most errant nonsense may strike me as self-evident.

Die Hegelliteratur stellt Hegel gern als jemanden dar, der ganz eigene Ideen und Meinungen hat. Das ist nicht nur falsch; Hegel hätte es peinlich gefunden.

Not only powers of intentional action, the power of intentional action is self-predicated. She who acts intentionally knows herself to have this power. The self-predication I am an intentional agent underlies and is contained in any dynamic self-predication I am doing A. Indeed, this self- predication is none other than the consciousness expressed by the word I in I am doing A. Once one recognizes this, it becomes much easier to read German Idealism.