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Márton Dornbach

Eötvös Loránd University, Philosophy, Adjunct

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2024– Adjunct Lecturer, Eötvös Loránd University /Budapest/
2022–2023 Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Research Center for the Humanities /Budapest/
2016–2020 Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Johns Hopkins University
2007–2016 Assistant Professor, Stanford University
2005–2007 Acting Assistant Professor, Stanford University
2004 PhD, Princeton University
1999–2000 Visiting DAAD Researcher, Freie Universität Berlin
1995 BA summa cum laude, Washington University in St. Louis
1993–1994 Visiting Student, Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen

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Books by Márton Dornbach

The Saving Line: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Caesuras of Hope (Exposé)

The Saving Line: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Caesuras of Hope, 2020

Receptive Spirit: German Idealism and the Dynamics of Cultural Transmission (Synopsis)

Receptive Spirit: German Idealism and the Dynamics of Cultural Transmission, 2016

Receptive Spirit develops the thesis that the notion of self-induced mental activity at the heart... more Receptive Spirit develops the thesis that the notion of self-induced mental activity at the heart of German idealism necessitated a radical rethinking of humans' dependence on culturally transmitted models of thought, evaluation, and creativity. The chapters of the book examine paradigmatic attempts undertaken by German idealist thinkers to reconcile spontaneous mental activity with receptivity to culturally transmitted models. The book maps the ramifications of this problematic in Kant's theory of aesthetic experience, Fichte's and Hegel's views on the historical character of philosophy, the Fichtean model of philosophical communication, and Friedrich Schlegel's theory and practice of literary communication and criticism. Drawing on Gadamer and McDowell, I argue that the conceptual framework established by the Idealists remains indispensable for orientation in the contemporary intellectual landscape. (See below for chapter outline)

Papers by Márton Dornbach

The Saving Line: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Caesuras of Hope

In attempting to determine why the Enlightenment project had derailed and how this failure might ... more In attempting to determine why the Enlightenment project had derailed and how this failure might be remedied, both Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno turned to canonical works of narrative fiction. The resultant texts, Walter Benjamin's major essay Goethe's Elective Affinities (1924-25) and Theodor W. Adorno's excursus on Odysseus in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), have played a foundational role for the Franfurt School and count among the most original philosophical reflections on literature. Although the theoretical claims advanced in these works have attracted a good deal of attention, no sustained attempt has been made at clarifying the philosophical implications of Benjamin's and Adorno's interpretive practices in them. Perhaps for this reason it also appears to have gone unnoticed that the two texts are in dialogue with one another. The Saving Line reconstructs this wide-ranging dialogue with close attention paid to the conditions of approaching literature philosophically. Taking seriously the claim implicit in these works of critical theory to be "about" their respective literary objects, I show that Benjamin's

Helmuth Plessner's Schellingian Reconciliation of Idealism and Realism About the Psyche

Human Studies, 2024

While Schelling's anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far go... more While Schelling's anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far gone unnoticed that Schelling's ideas also proved fruitful in the context of a distinctively philosophical theory of the psyche developed by a younger contemporary of Freud. During the 1920s Helmuth Plessner, a key figure of philosophical anthropology, outlined a complex conception of the psyche as an individualized, inner region of reality. Although Plessner did not present his philosophical psychology in a systematic form, its building blocks can be found in The Unity of the Senses, The Limits of Community, and Levels of Organic Life and the Human, among other writings. Moreover, Plessner left a clue as to how these building blocks fit together, which suggests that Plessner viewed his philosophical psychology as structurally analogous to the model of personality outlined in Schelling's 1809 treatise on human freedom. I propose that Plessner sought to formulate an alternative to both idealism and realism about the psyche that might reconcile the insights motivating these rival positions. Schelling provided Plessner with a workable model for such a reconciliation. After reviewing textual evidence for my hypothesis, I sketch Schelling's predecessor theory. Based on the Schellingian template, I then reconstruct Plessner's non-reductively naturalistic theory of the psyche, which aligns the real bodily ground of the psyche with its ideal existence. Highlighting the strengths of Plessner's philosophical psychology against the foil of Paul Ricoeur's and John McDowell's relevant arguments, I argue that the theory reconstructed here deserves contemporary consideration as a plausible contender. –––– NOTE: It was only after publication of this article that I came across an important piece of biographical evidence in support of my claim about the significance of Schelling's Freiheitsschrift for Plessner's philosophical psychology. In 1923, Max Scheler claimed to be powerfully impressed by two of his recent readings, namely, Adolf von Harnack’s major study on the second-century Christian heretic Marcion and Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift (Peter Wust, “Schelers Lehre vom Menschen,” Das Neue Reich 9 [1928–29], 138, quoted in Guido Cusinato, “Schelling come precursore dell’antropologia filosofica del Novecento,” Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 9/2 [2010], 64.) Given that Scheler and Plessner were in constant exchange during the relevant period, it seems likely that Plessner’s invocation of Marcion in the concluding sentence of Levels of Organic Life and the Human reflects a familiarity with that author that was mediated by Scheler’s reading of Harnack (the phrase "die selige Fremde" used by Plesner in that context is in fact a verbatim borrowing from Harnack's Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, Leipzig 1921, p. 225). By the same token, Scheler’s praise for Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift in 1923, along with the textual indications noted in this paper, suggests that the Freiheitsschrift was very much present on Plessner's intellectual horizon when he referred to “the ur-ground character, or better said un-ground character of the psyche” in The Limits of Community, which was published a year later. (Whether it was Scheler who alerted Plessner to the Freiheitsschrift or the other way around is a moot question.)
----
For the version of record (open access) see https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09708-7

Animal Selfhood and Affectivity in Helmuth Plessner's Philosophical Biology

The Philosophical Forum, 2023

Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology is framed by a comprehensive theory of living natur... more Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology is framed by a comprehensive theory of living nature. Central to this philosophical biology is the claim that animals lack self-consciousness but their awareness of their surroundings is nevertheless anchored in a self. Since Plessner does not explain how this unselfconscious self is manifest to the animal, the warrant for his claim remains unclear. Following Plessner’s construal of human existence as a radically transformed variant of animal life, I argue that he leaves animals’ selfhood unaccounted for because he overlooks the animal precursor of the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, which affords a pre-reflective self-awareness. I fill this lacuna by drawing on Kant’s and Plessner’s theories of human feelings, Hans Jonas’s conception of animal emotion,and recent arguments that make evaluative affects fundamental to animal consciousness. Revised along these lines, Plessner’s framework allows us to specify how animal affectivity is transformed in self-conscious human life. Read-only version here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/XFPIEMB8EBE2MCPZP24K?target=10.1111/phil.12340

The Point Well Missed: Kant's Punctual I and Schopenhauer's Optics of Philosophical Writing

Modern Language Notes, 2009

Kant on the Formation of Taste

Hölderlin's Local Abstraction: The Natural-Historical Sublime in 'Voice of the People'

Hölderlin's Philosophy of Nature, Edited by Rochelle Tobias, 2020

Hölderlin’s river poems are characterized by a tension between, on the one hand, the symbolic inv... more Hölderlin’s river poems are characterized by a tension between, on the one hand, the symbolic investment of rivers with a sublimity that transcends every particularity and, on the other hand, the geographical and historical specificity of Hölderlin’s reflections on particular rivers. I approach this topic by examining the ode “Stimme des Volks,” whose formal structure and composition history are determined by the tension between abstraction and particularity. My reading clarifies the poetic logic that governs the transition from the opening generic image of rivers to the river Xanthos that shaped the destiny of the eponymous city remembered in the narrative extension of the final version. In view of the linkage suggested by Hölderlin between the determining force of nature and the hazards of cultural transmission, I argue that the poem stages a meditation upon the relation of succession that connects modernity via Rome to a Greek antiquity defined by exposure to an elemental nature whose affinity with the absolute threatens the separateness and artifice of human life. Against the backdrop of contemporary appropriations of Plutarch, Hölderlin’s recourse to Parallel Lives in the narrative extension invites an allegorical reading that grasps the vexing relation between post-revolutionary France and Hölderlin’s Germany as an identity-in-difference articulated in terms of the difference-in-identity between antiquity and modernity. I conclude by considering the political implications of Hölderlin’s sublation of ancient tragedy in the name of a reflective modernity.

Meter and Time in Mörike's "Um Mitternacht"

MLN, 2021

Öntudat és affektív értékelés: Egy biofilozófiai felismerés kanti előzményei

Elpis Filozófiatudományi Folyóirat, 2022

Kant egyes okfejtéseiben körvonalazódik először az a gondolat, hogy úgy megismerő-, mint cselekvő... more Kant egyes okfejtéseiben körvonalazódik először az a gondolat, hogy úgy megismerő-, mint cselekvőképességünk egy olyan prereflexív öntudaton alapul, amely a testesült életműkődésünket értékelő affektusokban konstituálódik. E felismerés kidolgozása és okadatolása csak az empirikus és a transzcendentális szint kanti elválasztásán túllépő későbbi elméletek összefüggésében válik lehetségessé: az állati életforma Hans Jonas által vázolt fenomenológiai értelmezésében, illetve az állati affektivitás evolúcióját és szerepét megvilágító hipotézisekben a kortárs elméleti biológiában. Ezek az elméletek magyarázattal szolgálnak arra, hogy a sajátlagosan emberi reflexív öntudat összefüggésében miként tudhatjuk magunkat önmagunkkal azonosnak. Ugyanakkor a reflexív öntudat másik mozzanata, vagyis az önmagunktól mint tárgytól való megkülönböztetettségé, csak az emberi életforma sajátlagos társas jellegével magyarázható. Életformánk reflexivitása és társas jellege pedig az öntudatunk prereflexív alapját képező értékelő affektusokra is rányomja a bélyegét.

The Saving Line: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Caesuras of Hope (Exposé)

The Saving Line: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Caesuras of Hope, 2020

Receptive Spirit: German Idealism and the Dynamics of Cultural Transmission (Synopsis)

Receptive Spirit: German Idealism and the Dynamics of Cultural Transmission, 2016

Receptive Spirit develops the thesis that the notion of self-induced mental activity at the heart... more Receptive Spirit develops the thesis that the notion of self-induced mental activity at the heart of German idealism necessitated a radical rethinking of humans' dependence on culturally transmitted models of thought, evaluation, and creativity. The chapters of the book examine paradigmatic attempts undertaken by German idealist thinkers to reconcile spontaneous mental activity with receptivity to culturally transmitted models. The book maps the ramifications of this problematic in Kant's theory of aesthetic experience, Fichte's and Hegel's views on the historical character of philosophy, the Fichtean model of philosophical communication, and Friedrich Schlegel's theory and practice of literary communication and criticism. Drawing on Gadamer and McDowell, I argue that the conceptual framework established by the Idealists remains indispensable for orientation in the contemporary intellectual landscape. (See below for chapter outline)

The Saving Line: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Caesuras of Hope

In attempting to determine why the Enlightenment project had derailed and how this failure might ... more In attempting to determine why the Enlightenment project had derailed and how this failure might be remedied, both Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno turned to canonical works of narrative fiction. The resultant texts, Walter Benjamin's major essay Goethe's Elective Affinities (1924-25) and Theodor W. Adorno's excursus on Odysseus in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), have played a foundational role for the Franfurt School and count among the most original philosophical reflections on literature. Although the theoretical claims advanced in these works have attracted a good deal of attention, no sustained attempt has been made at clarifying the philosophical implications of Benjamin's and Adorno's interpretive practices in them. Perhaps for this reason it also appears to have gone unnoticed that the two texts are in dialogue with one another. The Saving Line reconstructs this wide-ranging dialogue with close attention paid to the conditions of approaching literature philosophically. Taking seriously the claim implicit in these works of critical theory to be "about" their respective literary objects, I show that Benjamin's

Helmuth Plessner's Schellingian Reconciliation of Idealism and Realism About the Psyche

Human Studies, 2024

While Schelling's anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far go... more While Schelling's anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far gone unnoticed that Schelling's ideas also proved fruitful in the context of a distinctively philosophical theory of the psyche developed by a younger contemporary of Freud. During the 1920s Helmuth Plessner, a key figure of philosophical anthropology, outlined a complex conception of the psyche as an individualized, inner region of reality. Although Plessner did not present his philosophical psychology in a systematic form, its building blocks can be found in The Unity of the Senses, The Limits of Community, and Levels of Organic Life and the Human, among other writings. Moreover, Plessner left a clue as to how these building blocks fit together, which suggests that Plessner viewed his philosophical psychology as structurally analogous to the model of personality outlined in Schelling's 1809 treatise on human freedom. I propose that Plessner sought to formulate an alternative to both idealism and realism about the psyche that might reconcile the insights motivating these rival positions. Schelling provided Plessner with a workable model for such a reconciliation. After reviewing textual evidence for my hypothesis, I sketch Schelling's predecessor theory. Based on the Schellingian template, I then reconstruct Plessner's non-reductively naturalistic theory of the psyche, which aligns the real bodily ground of the psyche with its ideal existence. Highlighting the strengths of Plessner's philosophical psychology against the foil of Paul Ricoeur's and John McDowell's relevant arguments, I argue that the theory reconstructed here deserves contemporary consideration as a plausible contender. –––– NOTE: It was only after publication of this article that I came across an important piece of biographical evidence in support of my claim about the significance of Schelling's Freiheitsschrift for Plessner's philosophical psychology. In 1923, Max Scheler claimed to be powerfully impressed by two of his recent readings, namely, Adolf von Harnack’s major study on the second-century Christian heretic Marcion and Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift (Peter Wust, “Schelers Lehre vom Menschen,” Das Neue Reich 9 [1928–29], 138, quoted in Guido Cusinato, “Schelling come precursore dell’antropologia filosofica del Novecento,” Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 9/2 [2010], 64.) Given that Scheler and Plessner were in constant exchange during the relevant period, it seems likely that Plessner’s invocation of Marcion in the concluding sentence of Levels of Organic Life and the Human reflects a familiarity with that author that was mediated by Scheler’s reading of Harnack (the phrase "die selige Fremde" used by Plesner in that context is in fact a verbatim borrowing from Harnack's Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, Leipzig 1921, p. 225). By the same token, Scheler’s praise for Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift in 1923, along with the textual indications noted in this paper, suggests that the Freiheitsschrift was very much present on Plessner's intellectual horizon when he referred to “the ur-ground character, or better said un-ground character of the psyche” in The Limits of Community, which was published a year later. (Whether it was Scheler who alerted Plessner to the Freiheitsschrift or the other way around is a moot question.)
----
For the version of record (open access) see https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09708-7

Animal Selfhood and Affectivity in Helmuth Plessner's Philosophical Biology

The Philosophical Forum, 2023

Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology is framed by a comprehensive theory of living natur... more Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology is framed by a comprehensive theory of living nature. Central to this philosophical biology is the claim that animals lack self-consciousness but their awareness of their surroundings is nevertheless anchored in a self. Since Plessner does not explain how this unselfconscious self is manifest to the animal, the warrant for his claim remains unclear. Following Plessner’s construal of human existence as a radically transformed variant of animal life, I argue that he leaves animals’ selfhood unaccounted for because he overlooks the animal precursor of the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, which affords a pre-reflective self-awareness. I fill this lacuna by drawing on Kant’s and Plessner’s theories of human feelings, Hans Jonas’s conception of animal emotion,and recent arguments that make evaluative affects fundamental to animal consciousness. Revised along these lines, Plessner’s framework allows us to specify how animal affectivity is transformed in self-conscious human life. Read-only version here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/XFPIEMB8EBE2MCPZP24K?target=10.1111/phil.12340

The Point Well Missed: Kant's Punctual I and Schopenhauer's Optics of Philosophical Writing

Modern Language Notes, 2009

Kant on the Formation of Taste

Hölderlin's Local Abstraction: The Natural-Historical Sublime in 'Voice of the People'

Hölderlin's Philosophy of Nature, Edited by Rochelle Tobias, 2020

Hölderlin’s river poems are characterized by a tension between, on the one hand, the symbolic inv... more Hölderlin’s river poems are characterized by a tension between, on the one hand, the symbolic investment of rivers with a sublimity that transcends every particularity and, on the other hand, the geographical and historical specificity of Hölderlin’s reflections on particular rivers. I approach this topic by examining the ode “Stimme des Volks,” whose formal structure and composition history are determined by the tension between abstraction and particularity. My reading clarifies the poetic logic that governs the transition from the opening generic image of rivers to the river Xanthos that shaped the destiny of the eponymous city remembered in the narrative extension of the final version. In view of the linkage suggested by Hölderlin between the determining force of nature and the hazards of cultural transmission, I argue that the poem stages a meditation upon the relation of succession that connects modernity via Rome to a Greek antiquity defined by exposure to an elemental nature whose affinity with the absolute threatens the separateness and artifice of human life. Against the backdrop of contemporary appropriations of Plutarch, Hölderlin’s recourse to Parallel Lives in the narrative extension invites an allegorical reading that grasps the vexing relation between post-revolutionary France and Hölderlin’s Germany as an identity-in-difference articulated in terms of the difference-in-identity between antiquity and modernity. I conclude by considering the political implications of Hölderlin’s sublation of ancient tragedy in the name of a reflective modernity.

Meter and Time in Mörike's "Um Mitternacht"

MLN, 2021

Öntudat és affektív értékelés: Egy biofilozófiai felismerés kanti előzményei

Elpis Filozófiatudományi Folyóirat, 2022

Kant egyes okfejtéseiben körvonalazódik először az a gondolat, hogy úgy megismerő-, mint cselekvő... more Kant egyes okfejtéseiben körvonalazódik először az a gondolat, hogy úgy megismerő-, mint cselekvőképességünk egy olyan prereflexív öntudaton alapul, amely a testesült életműkődésünket értékelő affektusokban konstituálódik. E felismerés kidolgozása és okadatolása csak az empirikus és a transzcendentális szint kanti elválasztásán túllépő későbbi elméletek összefüggésében válik lehetségessé: az állati életforma Hans Jonas által vázolt fenomenológiai értelmezésében, illetve az állati affektivitás evolúcióját és szerepét megvilágító hipotézisekben a kortárs elméleti biológiában. Ezek az elméletek magyarázattal szolgálnak arra, hogy a sajátlagosan emberi reflexív öntudat összefüggésében miként tudhatjuk magunkat önmagunkkal azonosnak. Ugyanakkor a reflexív öntudat másik mozzanata, vagyis az önmagunktól mint tárgytól való megkülönböztetettségé, csak az emberi életforma sajátlagos társas jellegével magyarázható. Életformánk reflexivitása és társas jellege pedig az öntudatunk prereflexív alapját képező értékelő affektusokra is rányomja a bélyegét.