Dr. Steven Hoeltzel

B.A. Michigan State University
Ph.D. University of Iowa

Office: Cleveland 216
Fax: (540) 568-8072
E-mail: hoeltzsh@jmu.edu

 

 

 

Research:

Professor Hoeltzel’s research specializes in Kant and post-Kantian philosophy, with particular focus on the early post-Kantian idealists Fichte and Schelling.  More generally, his philosophical work centers on questions concerning the basic nature and vocation of the human self, and the metaphysics of thinking and willing and such.  Thus his research interests extend into present-day debates in philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind. His recent publications include   “Critical Epistemology and Idealist Metaphysics in Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre (1794-1800),” (forthcoming in *Fichte-Studien*), “Finite and Absolute Reason in (and beyond) Fichte’s System of Ethics,” (in *Philosophy Today,* 2008), and “Toward or Away from Schelling? On the Thematic Shift in Fichte’s Later Philosophy,” (in *After Jena: New Essays on Fichte’s Later Philosophy*, ed. Tom Rockmore, 2007).

Professor Hoeltzel regularly teaches upper-level courses on Kant, Nineteenth Century Philosophy and Theology, and Existentialism, and occasionally offers more specialized courses on related authors and topics (including, for example, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault).

Selected Publications

• "Critical Epistemology and Idealist Metaphysics in Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre (1794-1800)," forthcoming in Fichte-Studien.

  "Finite and Absolute Reason in (and beyond) Fichte’s System of Ethics," in Philosophy Today 52:3-4 (Fall-Winter 2008), 257-67.

  “Toward or Away from Schelling? On the Thematic Shift in Fichte’s Later Philosophy,” in After Jena: New Essays on Fichte’s Later Philosophy, ed. Tom Rockmore (Northwestern University Press, 2007).

  “Transcendental Conditions and the Transcendence of Conditions: Fichte and Schelling on the Foundations of Natural Right,” in Rights, Bodies, and Recognition: New Essays on Fichte’s Foundation of Natural Right, ed. Daniel Breazeale (Ashgate, 2006), 198-213.

  “Idealism and the Ground of Explanation: Fichte and Schelling, 1794-1797,” in New Essays on Fichte’s Later Jena Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore (Northwestern University Press, 2002), 261-278.