Both Hegel and the later Wittgenstein were concerned with the problem of how to begin speculation, or the problem of beginning. I argue that despite many differences, there are surprising similarities between their thinking about the beginning. They both consider different kinds of beginnings and combine them into complex analogies. The beginning has a subjective and an objective moment. The philosophizing subject has to begin with something, with an object. For Hegel, the objective moment is pure being. For Wittgenstein, the (...) objective moment is something that cannot be doubted. As regards the subjective moment, the philosophizing subject has to decide, without any reason, to conclude her quest for the presuppositionless beginning and finally begin at the beginning. The arational moment of this decision is echoed throughout any rational thought. Any application of a (rational) rule is, ultimately, a blind decision to apply this rule. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la interpretación del comienzo de la filosofía en términos de una correlación entre sujeto y objeto, desarrollada por el filósofo neokantiano Heinrich Rickert. En primer lugar, se reconstruyen el contexto problemático que conduce a Rickert al problema del comienzo de la filosofía y su distinción entre tres acepciones diferentes del concepto de ‘comienzo’. En segundo lugar, se ofrece una interpretación del comienzo correlacional de la filosofía como una respuesta a la paradoja formulada por Hegel en las primeras (...) páginas de la _Ciencia de la Lógica_. Finalmente, se evalúa la propuesta de un comienzo correlacional en función del proyecto general de una filosofía transcendental. (shrink)

This article discusses two topics, both commonly referred to using the label “the beginning of Hegel's Logic”: (1) Hegel's justification for the claim that a science of logic must begin by considering the concept of “pure being”. (2) Hegel's account of the concepts “being”, “nothing”, and “becoming” in the first chapter of his Logic. Discussing recent work on both of these topics, two primary claims are defended: Regarding (1): the strongest interpretations of Hegel's case for beginning a science of logic (...) with the concept of pure being are those which take him to argue that this concept must be necessarily both “immediate” and “mediated” at the same time. Regarding (2): The widespread tendency to take Hegel's treatment of the concepts of being, nothing, and becoming as an example with which to illustrate his “dialectical method” should be replaced with an interpretation of that chapter which understands it to rather make possible the kind of dialectical transitions which make up the rest of Hegel's Science of Logic. (shrink)

I provide a metaphysically realist interpretation of Hegel’sPhilosophy of Nature—one that allows us to make sense of one of the more puzzling references to nature in hisScience of Logic. I do so by affording William Maker’s under-appreciated account of Hegel’s realism more of the attention and scrutiny it deserves—not least because it involves a distinctively simple and elegant account of the famously obscure move from logic to nature in Hegel’s system. Though I point out its limitations, I claim that Maker’s (...) arguments can be revised in order to recover more of the rigour and complexity of Hegel’s metaphysics. (shrink)