The aim of this paper is to establish a substantial positive philosophical connection between Bas van Fraassen and Hegel, by focusing on their respective notions of ‘stance’ and ‘form of consciousness’. In Section I, I run through five ways of understanding van Fraassen’s idea of a stance. I argue that a ‘stance’ is best understood as an intellectual disposition. This, in turn, means that the criteria for assessing a stance are ones which ask whether or not a stance adequately makes (...) sense of things. In Section II, the discussion turns to Hegel’s notion of a ‘form of consciousness’. I argue that Hegel’s notion of a ‘form of consciousness’ is best understood as comprising a worldview. The principal advantage of articulating stances in a Hegelian way is that such an interpretation improves on the previous five ways of understanding stances. This is because a form of consciousness explicitly details both the theoretical and affective attitudes that van Fraassen is after. Therefore, why Hegel is potentially a better source of understanding stances than the other accounts is that forms of consciousness most clearly illustrate the pragmatist elements of a stance. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against Terry Pinkard's account of the relation between Deweyian pragmatism and Hegelian idealism. Instead of thinking that their affinity concerns the issue of normative authority, as Pinkard does, I argue that we should trace their affinity to Dewey's appropriation of Hegel's naturalism, especially his theory of habits. Pinkard is not in a position to appreciate this affinity because he misreads Dewey as an instrumentalist, and his social-constructivist account of Hegel – which he shares with Pippin (...) and Brandom, is not able to correctly take the measure of Hegel's naturalism. On my reading, Dewey's philosophy is concerned above all with understanding and making objective the proper relation between reason and habit, with our achieving an equipoise in which thought is informed by intelligent habits and where habits are instituted by past thought and inquiry. In achieving this equipoise, one's bodily nature becomes a form in which subjects can realize their freedom. I claim.. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile Hegel’s concept of second nature has now received substantial attention from commentators, relatively little has been said about the place of this concept in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This neglect is understandable, since Hegel does not explicitly use the phrase ‘second nature’ in this text. Nonetheless, several closely related phrases reveal the centrality of this concept to the Phenomenology’s structure. In this paper, I develop new interpretations of the figures ‘natural consciousness’, ‘natural notion’, and ‘inorganic nature’, in order to (...) elucidate the distinctive concept of second nature at work in the Phenomenology. I will argue that this concept of second nature supplements the ‘official’ version, developed in the Encyclopedia, with an ‘unofficial’ version that prefigures its use in critical theory. At the same time, this reconstruction will allow us to see how the Phenomenology essentially documents spirit’s acquisition of a ‘second nature’. (shrink)

I am much indebted to Jacob McNulty, Allegra de Laurentiis and Tony Smith for their generous attention to my book and their insightful remarks. Since I could not possibly do justice to all their concerns, I have unfortunately had to be selective. The issues discussed in this response are organized thematically. In the first section, I discuss why Hegel's logic of essence has to be understood historically; which is to say that the logic of essence provides an ontology that is (...) specific to capitalism. Then, in the second section, I discuss the nature of holism in the logic of essence, and correspondingly, the nature of social holism specific to capitalism. Finally, in the third section, I answer the question: if both Marx's critique of political economy and Hegel's own economic theory in the Philosophy of Right are based on the same logic of essence, why they are so divergent from, and indeed incompatible with, each other. (shrink)

There has been a tendency in some of the most influential recent interpretations of Hegel to downplay the theological characterizations that Hegel gives to the subject-matter of logic, and to emphasize, instead, certain continuities taken to exist between Hegel’s conception of logic and that of Kant. In the work of Robert Pippin and others, this has led to an ‘apperception’-oriented interpretation of Hegel’s logic, according to which Hegel follows Kant in taking logic to be primarily concerned with the nature of (...) human self-conscious subjectivity. Here I put pressure on this interpretation—first, by foregrounding textual and systematic evidence for taking the theological characterizations to accurately convey Hegel’s considered position on logic, as the science of the ‘absolute idea’, and then, secondly, by showing how Hegel’s arguments for the absolute formality and universality of logic point instead to a more fully-fledged rejection of Kant’s conception as too specifically psychological. (shrink)

Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2018, Page 355-364.

Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2018, Page 440-457.

In recent years, philosophers have become increasingly interested in a Hegelian approach to Aristotelian non-reductive naturalism. This paper points out a challenge faced by naturalist readings of Hegel's conception of spirit. For Hegel, spirit and nature are essentially distinct and even related in an antagonistic way. It is difficult to do full justice to this thought while at the same time reading Hegel as a naturalist. The paper also seeks to suggest a response to this challenge. Drawing on Hegel's account (...) of mechanism in his philosophy of spirit, it shows that processes which can count as natural – such as mechanical processes – constitute for Hegel an integral and indispensable part of spiritual activity. Against this background, it is possible to develop a form of Hegelian naturalism which does not lose sight of the essential distinction, even opposition of spirit and nature. (shrink)

The notion of being-at-home-in-otherness is the distinctive way of thinking of freedom that Hegel develops in his social and political thought. When I am at one with myself in social and political structures they are not external powers to which I am subjected but are rather constitutive of my self-relation, that is my self-conception is mediated andexpandedthrough those objective structures. How successfully Hegel may achieve being-at-home-in-otherness with regard to these objective structures of right in thePhilosophy of Rightis arguable. What is (...) at issue in this paper is however to argue that there is a blind spot in the text with regard to nature. In Ethical Life the rational subject's passions and inclinations are brought into the subject such that she is ‘with herself’ in them; with regard to external nature no such reconciliation is achieved or even attempted. In Abstract Right external nature is effectively dominated by and subsumed into the will and it is never something in which one is with oneself. It remains outside the model of freedom that Hegel develops in thePhilosophy of Right. There is something troubling about this formulation, since it excludes nature from freedom, but also something accurate, as it reflects the unresolved attitude of moderns to the natural world. (shrink)

Hegel’s philosophy of history is fundamentally concerned with how shapes of life collapse and transition into new shapes of life. One of the distinguishing features of Hegel’s concern with how a shape of life falls apart and becomes inadequate is the role that habit plays in the transition. A shape of life is an embodied form of existence for Hegel. The animating concepts of a shape of life are affectively inscribed on subjects through complex cultural processes. This paper examines the (...) argument Hegel puts forward in his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History for why civilizations come to atrophy and examines the decisive role habit plays in this process. The paper concludes with a discussion of the way in which the central role of second nature in historical transitions and norm formation conflicts with Brandom’s account of norm formation in Hegel’s thought. (shrink)

In thePhilosophy of RightHegel argues that modern life has produced an individualized freedom that conflicts with the communal forms of life constitutive of Greek ethical life. This individualized freedom is fundamentally unsatisfactory, but it is in modernity seemingly resolved into a more adequate form of social freedom in the family, aspects of civil society, and ultimately the state. This article examines whether Hegel’s state can function as a community and by so doing satisfy the need for a substantial ethical life (...) that runs through Hegel’s social thought. The article also examines why Hegel does not provide a detailed analysis of community, as a distinct sphere between the private and the public political sphere in thePhilosophy of Right, and why it is not a key platform of his social freedom. (shrink)

Este artículo indaga en el método hegeliano de la Wissenschaft der Logik, porque este método, ya para la filosofía ya para las ciencias ya para la teoría política, nos permite dar cuenta de lo real tanto de la naturaleza como del hombre. El método es expresión de lo lógico. Y vemos en esto la posibilidad de repensar el presente en sus producciones culturales y naturales como momentos expresivos del diseño lógico. Un diseño que acontece en la misma realidad y que (...) la posibilita como tal. Un diseño que se expresa como un cierto algoritmo constructor de la realidad. (shrink)

This essay discusses how, for Hegel, freedom can be realized in nature in a rudimentary fashion in solar systems. This solves a problem in Kant’s account of freedom, namely, the problem that Kant only gives a negative argument for why freedom is not impossible but does not give a positive account of how freedom is real. I give a novel account of Kant’s negative argument. Then, I show how, according to Hegel, solar systems can be considered as exhibiting freedom in (...) a rudimentary fashion. Finally, I lay out how Hegel systematically develops this point about the freedom of solar systems in the ‘Mechanism’-chapter of the Science of Logic. In doing so, he uses Kant’s negative argument in a ‘purified’ form to arrive at an account of an ‘intimate token-type relation’ between the planets in a solar system and the law that governs their motion. The essay as a whole provides a concrete example of how Hegel is an inheritor and radicalizer of Kant, both with respect to freedom’s reality and with respect to philosophical method. (shrink)

We characterize Hegel’s stance on biological purposiveness as consisting in a twofold move, which conceives organisms as intrinsically purposive natural systems and focuses on their behavioral and cognitive abilities. We submit that a Hegelian stance is at play in enactivism, the branch of the contemporary theory of biological autonomy devoted to the study of cognition and the mind. What is at stake in the Hegelian stance is the elaboration of a naturalized, although non-reductive, understanding of natural purposiveness.

Más allá de sus diferencias y tensiones conceptuales, Hegel y Deleuze comparten el esfuerzo por concebir una filosofía de la naturaleza que no se confunda con el conocimiento científico de sus épocas respectivas – con el cual sin embargo se relacionan. En este artículo, se toma como base el orden de exposición de la “física orgánica” en la Enciclopedia de las ciencias filosóficas de Hegel para ponerla en relación con tres capítulos de Mil Mesetas, de Deleuze y Guattari. Así la (...) naturaleza geológica, la vegetal y la animal se confrontan respectivamente con “La geología de la moral”, el rizoma y los devenires-animales. El resultado, desde el estudio de Deleuze, es la posibilidad de encontrar, dentro de la caótica exposición de Mil mesetas, una determinación ontológica progresiva y una valorización de las formas existentes. Desde la interpretación de Hegel se podrá encontrar, dentro de la rígida estructura de la escala de la naturaleza, la estimación de lo anómalo y singular. (shrink)

This paper investigates Hegel’s account of the animal organism as it is presented in the Philosophy of Nature, with a special focus on its normative implications. I argue that the notion of “organisation” is fundamental to Hegel’s theory of animal normativity. The paper starts by showing how a Hegelian approach takes up the scientific image of organism and assigns a basic explanatory role to the notion of “organisation” in its understanding living beings. Moving from this premise, the paper turns to (...) the group of accounts in contemporary theoretical biology known as “organisational accounts”, which offer a widely debated strategy for naturalizing teleology and normativity in organisms. As recent scholarship recognizes, these accounts explicitly rely on insights from Kant and Post-Kantianism. I make the historical and conceptual argument that Hegel’s view of the organism shares several basic commitments with OAs, especially regarding the notion of “organisational closure”. I assess the account of normativity that such accounts advance and its implications for how we approach Hegel. Finally, I argue that the notion of “organisation” is more fundamental to Hegel’s theory of animal normativity than the Aristotelian notion of “Gattung” or “species”, which by contrast appears derivative – at least in the Philosophy of Nature and the Lectures – and does not play the central role in his account maintained by some scholars. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to argue the relevance of Hegel’s notion of the Trinity with respect to two aspects of Hegel’s idealism: the overcoming of subjectivism and his conception of the ‘I’. I contend that these two aspects are interconnected and that the Trinity is important to Hegel’s strategy for addressing these questions. I first address the problem of subjectivism by considering Hegel’s thought against the background of modern philosophy. I argue that the recognitive structure of Hegel’s (...) idealism led him to give the Trinity a decisive role in his philosophical account. Next, I discuss the Trinity by analysing the three divine persons. This analysis paves the way for the conclusion, where I argue that the Trinity represents a model for re-thinking the ‘I’ in a way that overcomes a ‘naïve realist’ and a ‘subjective’ account of the self. I suggest that Hegel’s absolute idealism can be conceived as an approach to the ‘I’ that considers the role of acts of mutual recognition for the genesis of self-conscious thought, and that the Trinity is the Darstellung of the relational and recognitive structure of the ‘I’. (shrink)

What is recognition and why is it so important? This book develops a synoptic conception of the significance of recognition in its many forms for human persons by means of a rational reconstruction and internal critique of classical and contemporary accounts. The book begins with a clarification of several fundamental questions concerning recognition. It then reconstructs the core ideas of Fichte, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth and utilizes the insights and conceptual tools developed across these chapters for (...) developing a case for the universal importance of recognition for humans. It argues in favour of a universalist anthropological position, unusual in the literature on recognition, that aims to construe a philosophically sound basis for a discourse of common humanity, or of a shared human life-form for which moral relations of recognition are essential. This synthetic conception of the importance of recognition provides tools for articulating deep intuitions shared across cultures about what makes human life and forms of human co-existence better or worse, and thus tools for mutual understanding about the deepest shared concerns of humanity, or of what makes us all human persons despite our differences. -/- Recognition and the Human Life-Form will appeal to readers interested in philosophical anthropology, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and the history of philosophy. It also provides ideas and conceptual tools for fields such as anthropology, education, disability studies, international relations, law, politics, religious studies, sociology, and social research. (shrink)

Kirjoituksessa argumentoin, että metafysiikka on ollut valistusta, vaikka se edelleen kaipaa lisää valistumista, kun valistus ymmärretään avoimena prosessina, joka ei ole ajasta ja paikasta riippuvaista. Käsittelen ensin sitä, mitä metafysiikka ja valistus ovat. Sitten lausun länsimaisen metafysiikan historiasta hyvin lyhyesti. Päätän esseen argumentoimalla, että metafysiikka on valistunutta siinä mielessä, että klassisen substanssi-ominaisuus-skeeman sokeasta seuraamisesta on pitkälti päästy eroon. Metafysiikka kaipaa kuitenkin lisää valistusta ja kriittistä tarkastelua, jotta vapaudumme täysin kyseisen skeeman ja modernin predikaatti-logiikan johdatuksen aiheuttamasta kolmesta ongelmallisesta suositusta (tausta)oletuksesta: (1) (...) perustavat partikulaariset yksilöoliot ovat (periaatteessa) laskettavia, (2) ne eivät ole relationaalisia ja (3) ominaisuudet ovat ontologisesti riippuvaisia kantajistaan. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I seek to explain G.W.F. Hegel’s view that human accessible conceptual content can provide knowledge about the nature or essence of things. I call this view “Conceptual Transparency.” It finds its historical antecedent in the views of eighteenth century German rationalists, which were strongly criticized by Immanuel Kant. I argue that Hegel explains Conceptual Transparency in such a way that preserves many implications of German rationalism, but in a form that is largely compatible with Kant’s criticisms of (...) the original rationalist version. After providing background on Hegel’s relationship to the traditional rationalist theory of concepts and Kant’s challenge to it, I claim that Hegel’s central task is to provide a theory of conceptual content that allows a relationship to the objective world without being dependent on the specifically sensory aspect of the world, which Kant’s theory of concepts required. Since many interpreters deny that Hegel’s use of the term “concept” is comparable to other historical philosophers (or our own), I first show that Hegel’s critique of standard conceptions of concepts presupposes an agreement of subject matter. I then show how Hegel’s account of the “formal concept” provides the skeleton for a view of conceptual content that relies on negative relations between terms, rather than a relation to sensibility, to provide content. Hegel’s account of conceptual content is completed when he shows how a universal term is further specified so that it can determine singular objects. This occurs in its adequate form in a teleological process. I argue that Hegel’s account of teleology in the Science of Logic is an attempt to explain how and where Conceptual Transparency obtains. A teleological process is one in which a concept constitutes an object, and this means that a concept is perfectly adequate to express that thing’s nature and not merely to represent it. However, in the final chapter, I show that Hegel’s concept of teleology is meant paradigmatically to illuminate how human purposive processes have constituted a social world that is conceptually accessible to us. In this way, the primary “province” of Hegel’s rationalism is the human constructed world. (shrink)

The philosophy of nature operates as one complete and systematic aspect of Schelling’s philosophy in the years 1797-1801 and as complement to Schelling’s transcendental philosophy at this time. The philosophy of nature comes with its own, naturalistic epistemology, according to which human natural productivity provides the basis for human access to nature’s own productive laws. On the basis of one’s natural productivity, one can consciously formulate principles which match nature’s own lawful principles. One refines these principles through a process of (...) experimentation, which relies on the human being’s naturalness in productivity. By making natural activity central to knowledge, Schelling takes seriously the naturalness of humans, without denying the dramatic shift that occurs when consciousness and rationality factor into experience. This epistemology can thus be fruitfully put in conversation with current philosophical discussions of mind and nature, in that it offers a naturalized account of mind which does not suffer from the typical weaknesses of a contemporary Kantian or Hegelian account. The paper thus concludes with a discussion of John McDowell’s Mind and World, and shows how Schelling’s philosophy can resolve some tensions in that work. (shrink)

The thesis adapts Bourdieu’s theory of hexis as a method for approaching the Baillie (Hegel/Baillie, 1910/1931) and Pinkard (Hegel/Pinkard, 2008) translations of Hegel’s Die Phänomenologie des Geistes (Hegel, 1807/1970) as embodiments of a translatorial practice informed by social and philosophical contextual factors. The theoretical concept of a translatorial hexis is analogous to Bourdieu’s habitus but differs in that the translatorial hexis embodies a specifically dominant, honour-seeking stance of the translator with regard to the micro-dynamics of the surrounding sub-fields; the translatorial (...) hexis is also embodied primarily in the detail of the text and in the peritexts to the translations. Chapters 3 and 4, which focus on the Baillie and Pinkard translations, are each divided into three sections: an analysis of the historical background to the translation in terms of interrelated Bourdieusian fields defined by rival positions vying for academic reputation; an analysis of lexical patterning identified in TT corpora with reference to the translations of two ‘dialectically ambiguous’ terms Geist [mind/spirit] and aufheben [cancel/preserve/sublate]; an analysis of peritexts to the two translations. Starting with a discussion of Hegel’s ‘dialectical ambiguity’ in chapter 1 and an elaboration of the Bourdieusian theoretical framework in chapter 2, the thesis attempts to explain the lexical findings with reference to the concept of translatorial hexis in a manner which takes philosophical and sociological factors into consideration as determinants of the translators’ strategies. The analysis focuses on the positioning of Sir James Black Baillie with regard to Absolutist and Personalist versions of British Idealism and Terry Pinkard with regard to the non-metaphysical readings of Hegel and the development of communitarian ideologies.The publication of new translations of Hegel’s works and new critical works on German Idealism suggest that a Hegel revival is in full progress. Given the centrality of translation to this phenomenon, it is appropriate that translation studies should contribute to the discussion, especially to demonstrate the value of a self-reflexive, multi-disciplinary approach which brings linguistic analysis and sociological contextualisation to bear on some of the philosophical issues at stake. (shrink)

This study argues that the exploration of Hegel and Spinoza’s philosophies of material Nature yields a more compelling critique of Spinoza’s thought than either Hegel himself or commentators have recognised. Rather than attempting a full comparison of Hegel and Spinoza’s accounts of material Nature, this study focuses on elaborating a critique of the deficiencies found, from a Hegelian standpoint, in Spinoza’s account of extended Nature. This study argues that the Hegelian critique of Spinoza’s theory of extended Nature takes at least (...) two major interrelated forms. Firstly, this critique suggests that Spinoza does not adequately derive the necessity of Substance’s existence as Extension, as motion and rest, and as finite bodies. This is demonstrated in this study through an account of Hegel’s immanent development of Nature as such and its mechanical forms from the conclusion of the Science of Logic. Secondly, this critique suggests that Spinoza’s mechanical and quantitative conception of the broader picture of material Nature is inadequate. This is demonstrated through an account of Hegel’s critique of any purely mechanical conception of the natural world, arguing instead that Nature is necessarily driven through a series of qualitatively different stages including the chemical and organic. This study makes an original scholarly contribution through its investigation of the Hegel-Spinoza relationship in the specific context of their philosophies of material Nature, an aspect of this relationship previously unexplored. This study thereby makes the first step in the expansion of the scholarship of the Hegel-Spinoza relationship into this new area, opening a promising new avenue for future work on these great philosophers. (shrink)

While the Hegelian struggle for recognition is often taken to be the systematic point at which rational humanity differentiates itself from mere animality, Hegel more thoroughly expounds on the relationship between rational and nonrational animals in his Encyclopedia: humans diverge from nonrational animals through a process of habituation. While one might assume that Hegel takes this power of habituation to be sufficient for rationality, this assumption is complicated by Hegel’s attribution of habituation to non-human animals as well. Against readings of (...) the Encyclopedia that separate human and non-human animal habituation, I argue that a coherent interpretation must treat habituation as the same power in human and non-human animal life. My interpretation demonstrates Hegel’s proximity to Matthew Boyle’s transformative conception of rationality, which portrays rationality as a unique realization of animality. Hegel takes the realization of rational animal life to be thoroughly habitual, contra the instinctual basis of nonrational animal life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper I will provide a reading of the relation between nature and spirit starting from an analysis of the movement of positing and presupposing, discussed by Hegel in the "Science of Logic" in his discussion of the transition between Being and Essence. 1) I will offer an analysis of the logical context within which this dialectical movement emerges. 2) I will show the role played by this dialectical movement in determining the relation between the spheres of nature (...) and spirit in Hegelʼs "Encyclopedia". 3) I will then claim that a difficulty related to this movement arises in the "Logic", and that this difficulty reverberates in the relation between nature and spirit in Hegel's system. In particular, 4) an ambiguity arising at a logical level generates two different configurations of this movement, depending on whether the latter is meant to describe the relation of 4.1) the finite or of 4.2) the infinite spirit to nature. 5) I will finally focus on some problems deriving from my reconstruction and I will try to suggest - in very general and programmatic terms - in what sense the internal analysis of the relation between nature and spirit in Hegelʼs system can be fruitfully discussed against the dominant framework of the contemporary debate, i.e. naturalism. However, this suggestion does not necessarily imply an endorsement of Hegel's position. RESUMO Neste artigo, proponho-me a fornecer uma leitura da relação entre natureza e espírito a partir de uma análise do movimento de pôr e pressupor descrito por Hegel na "Ciência da Lógica", na passagem do Ser à Essência. 1) Analisarei o contexto lógico dentro do qual surge o movimento de pôr e pressupor. 2) Mostrarei o papel deste movimento dialético na determinação da relação entre as esferas da natureza e do espírito na "Enciclopédia" de Hegel. 3) Destacarei uma dificuldade que emerge na "Lógica" e mostrarei como esta dificuldade tem repercussões sobre a relação entre natureza e espírito no sistema de Hegel. Em particular, 4) uma ambiguidade que emerge no nível lógico gera duas diferentes configurações deste movimento, dependendo de se ele descreve 4.1) a relação do espírito finito ou 4.2) a relação do espírito infinito com a natureza. 5) Na última parte, mostrarei alguns problemas que derivam de minha reconstrução e tentarei sugerir - em termos gerais e programáticos - em que sentido uma análise interna da relação entre natureza e espírito em Hegel pode ser proficuamente discutida com respeito ao paradigma dominante do debate contemporâneo, isto é, o naturalismo. (shrink)