ABSTRACT
At the time of their publication, programmatic works announce new philosophical tendencies with the intention of providing the uninitiated public general access to alien and often difficult material. They do not contain detailed arguments or analyses, but concentrate instead on outlining in broad strokes the motivation, aims, and method of the philosophy being announced, as well as the scope of its application. In this context, one recalls Kant’s Prolegomena or Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy. Long after a tendency itself has appeared to recede, programmatic works continue to play a central role in organizing and understanding the mass of details into which all philosophies mature. They can serve this function both for students bewildered by the density of that mass, as well as for scholars concerned with its smaller corners. Occasionally, and just because of this role, such works may also yield new insight into a philosophical program, in which case a tendency that is said to have receded can suddenly become quite actual.
