Within Hegel's system of science, judgement(Urteil)is thought's original dividing from identity into difference. In the same context, judgement is also an act of predication where “subject” must be understood in both a grammatical and psychical sense. Thus, judgement expresses a language act that is a self-positing into the difference of being. This article looks at two examples where Hegel's ontological notion of judgement obtains, then finds, the roots of this notion in Hölderlin and Fichte.

ABSTRACT: I relate the aesthetic mediation of reason and the identity of religion and mythology found in the Earliest System-Programme of German Idealism to Hegel’s account of the transition from the ancient Greek religion of art to the revealed religion (Christianity) in his theory ofabsolute spirit. While this transition turns on the idea that the revealed religion mediates reason more adequately in virtue of its form (i. e., representational thought), I argue that Hegel’s account of the limitations of religious representational (...) thought, when taken in conjunction with some of his ideas concerning Romantic art, suggests that he fails to demonstrate the necessity of the transition in question, thus undermining the triadic structure (i. e., art, religion, philosophy) of his theory of absolute spirit.RÉSUMÉ: Dans cet article, jelais un lien entre, d’une part, la médiation esthétique de la raison et l’identite de la religion et de la mythologie formulées dans le premier programme systématique de l’idéalisme allemand et, d’autre part, le récit que fait Hegel de la transition menant de la religion grecque antique de l’art à la religion révélée (la chrétienté) dans sa théorie de l’Esprit absolu. Bien que cette transition repose sur l’idée que la religion révélée médiatise la raison plus adéquatement grâce à sa forme (la pensée représentationnelle), je soutiens que, si on considère parallèlement à ses idées sur l’art romantique les explications que donne Hegel au sujet des limitations de la pensée représentationnelle religieuse, ces explications laissent apercevoir qu’il échoue à démontrer la nécessité de la transition en question, ce qui a pour effet de faire s’effondrer la structure ternaire art, religion, philosophie de sa théorie de l’Esprit absolu. (shrink)

The primary focus of my dissertation is to defend the notion of recognition, found in the work of such thinkers as G.W.F. Hegel and Axel Honneth, as a primary concept in contemporary political discourse by emphasizing its ontological foundations. At its most basic, the notion of recognition states that the way one understands her or him-self to be a conscious subject and a full political agent is only through being acknowledged as such by another. Likewise, one must simultaneously reciprocate this (...) acknowledgement in order for both to be elevated to the position of full subject. The general problem is that the concept of recognition has come under heavy attack from several different theoretical angles. These criticisms state that the recognitive project reifies the notion of identity in much too strong a way; that recognition alone cannot account for power differences because it focuses so heavily on identity; and that recognitive theory believes that all experiences and ways of being in the world can be recognized and therefore understood in some way, which is simply not the case. These criticisms are primarily directed at Honneth’s idea of recognition. I argue that if we follow Honneth with no modification, the criticisms that have been articulated above become substantial threats to the project as a whole. I believe that this is the case due to his heavily empirical leanings. It is for this reason that I shift the focus away from Honneth’s empirical leanings, which are indispensable but represent only a single side of the coin, in order to ground recognition in a Hegelian-inspired ontology. Ontology is the study of the basic structures that constitute reality, which in this case means structures that must be in place in order to have conscious human beings. I thus show that recognition is that which makes it possible to have a notion of subjectivity as such – we can only have human subjects in and through the process of mutual recognition. Understanding recognition in this manner allows us to avoid the above-mentioned criticisms. (shrink)