Kant on Wheels and the Problem of Nihilism

(Editor’s Note: This is part one of a three part series on the problem of nihilism from Jason DeWitt. The next parts will be available soon!)

I. Introduction

The Rortyan post-Philosopher, in attempting to “see how things, in the broadest possible sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest possible sense of the term” (Sellars 1962, 37), must be “a name-dropper, who uses names such as these [Proust, Marx, Foucault, Mary Douglas, Gandhi…] to refer to sets of descriptions, symbol-systems, ways of seeing. His specialty is seeing similarities and differences between big pictures, between attempts to see how things hang together’’ (Rorty 1982, xl). To attempt to synthesize and draw on so many streams of thought at once, the Rortyan philosopher cannot focus on the intricacies of slow, cautious, and rigorous academic history. As this essay is, in many ways, a Rortyan exercise, I hope I can be forgiven for any carelessness and/or any accidental misinformation in my remarks on various historical thinkers. I’ve tried to keep my historical remarks accurate, but I am far from an expert on the figures I employ and mention here. A treatment of the same issues meeting the standards of trained historians would be book-length, if achievable at all.

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