The paper examines Husserl’s notion of teleology through the lens of necessity and argues that there are two senses of teleology—historical and transcendental—at work in the task of phenomenology, especially as Husserl comes to conceive it in theCrisis. To understand not only how these two senses are related but also how their relationship shapes Husserl’s notions of normativity, reason, and progress, I argue that we must look closely at phenomenology as a distinctive form of critique, namely critique ‘from within’. What (...) emerges is a philosophical stance that is fundamentally ambiguous: at once historical and transcendental-eidetic. This productive notion of ambiguity, I contend, differentiates Husserl’s conceptions of normativity, reason and progress from their Enlightenment guises. (shrink)

¿Cómo hay que entender la tesis de Hegel en la Lógica de que "la teleología es la verdad del mecanismo"? La afirmó contra Kant, desde luego; a saber, contra la posibilidad de que lo que parece teleológico sea sólo mecánico; pero no en el sentido de un compromiso dogmático con la realidad de fines naturales y tampoco en el de una refutación del mecanicismo como la que Fichte busca con su radicalización de la filosofía trascendental. Aquí se examina qué posibilidades (...) quedan abiertas cuando se cierran aquéllas. How should one understand the claim that "Teleology is the truth of Mechanism" advanced by Hegel in the Logic? It certainly opposes Kant's position in denying the possibility that what seems to be teleological is only mechanical, but not in the sense of a dogmatic commitment to the reality of natural ends or in the sense of a refutation of mechanicism as in Fichte's radicalization of transcendental philosophy. I examine in this paper which alternatives remain open once these are discarded. (shrink)

In this paper I raise three questions regarding the status and function of Absolute Knowing in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. First, can Hegel’s Absolute Knowing be understood as an epiphany? Secondly, how does epiphany make sense of the teleological elements that activate and mobilise the movement towards Absolute Knowing? And thirdly, how does such an interpretation shift the focus from a closed reading of Hegel’s text – that views Absolute Knowing as consummately realised – to an open reading that keeps (...) the Absolute within its purview, but also seeks to foreground its aporias? I pursue these questions through an examination of the key constituents of knowledge: the subject of knowledge, its object, and the process through which knowledge is attained. (shrink)

This article offers a constructive reading of the ‘Teleology’ chapter in Hegel's Science of Logic. I argue that it contains an apparently conclusive case for the abstract concepts of means and end (in the sense of ‘purpose’), which has remained unrecognized in the literature. I then show some implications of the fact that the argument is entirely abstract in Hegel's system.