The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy

“A provocative reassessment of Heidegger’s critique of German Idealism from one of the tradition’s foremost interpreters. Heidegger claimed that Western philosophy ended — failed, even — in the German Idealist tradition. In The Culmination, Robert B. Pippin (University of Chicago) explores the ramifications of this charge through a masterful survey of Western philosophy, especially Heidegger’s critiques of Hegel and Kant. Pippin argues that Heidegger’s basic concern was to determine sources of meaning for human life, particularly those that had been obscured by Western philosophy’s attention to reason. The Culmination offers a new interpretation of Heidegger, German Idealism, and the fate of Western rationalism...”

Welcome everyone to the next meetup series that David and Philip are offering, resuming May 2025. This time we will be reading the book:

• The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy (2024, University of Chicago Press) by Robert Pippin

The format will be our usual "accelerated live read". What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 15-25 pages of text before each session. Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading.

Unlike the meetups Philip does on Sundays with another co-host, this meetup will be two hours. There is no "Final Hour Free For All" on Monday like there is on Sunday. Everyone is welcome to attend, even people who have not done the reading. But we need to make sure that only the people who have done the reading are the people who are guiding the direction of the conversation. So please do the reading if you intend to speak and shape the conversation that will happen in this meetup. You may not think that this applies to you... but yes! It applies to you!

Here is the reading schedule (which may change slightly as the meetup progresses). This series meets every 2 weeks on Monday. A pdf is available here.

• For May 5, please read pages 42-55.
• For May 19: TBA
• .....

Please note that in this meetup we will be actually doing philosophy and not merely passively absorbing the ideas of Pippin, Kant, Hegel and Heidegger. What this means is that we will be trying to find flaws in the reasoning that Pippin, Kant et al present. We will also be trying to improve the ideas in question and perhaps proposing better alternatives. That is what philosophers do after all!

It is strongly advised that participants read the writings of Kant, Hegel and Heidegger which Pippin references throughout his book "The Culmination".

Check out Philip's other series on Sundays (hosted with Jen):

1. Anxiety: A Philosophical History (with a side order of Kant, Schelling, and others)
2. Ocularcentrism: Theoria as a Cultural Practice (and some Heidegger too)
3. Phenomenology: A Contemporary Introduction by Walter Hopp