This article discusses three topics that have been the subject of debate in recent scholarship on Hegel's social and political philosophy: first, the relevance of Hegel's systematic metaphysics for interpreting Hegel's social and political writings; second, the relation between recognition, social institutions, and rational agency; and third, the connection between the constellation of institutions and norms that Hegel calls “ethical life” and Hegel's theory of freedom. This article provides a critical overview of the positions in these three debates. In the (...) case of the first debate, I clarify the conceptual terrain by distinguishing between several kinds of systematicity that are at issue. In the case of the second debate, I argue that the views of two of the major participants, Axel Honneth and Robert Pippin, are in fact compatible. In the case of the third debate, I seek to clarify the connection in Hegel between two different ideas of freedom in ethical life, each of which has been emphasized by different interpreters of Hegel: the idea of freedom as non-alienation and the idea of freedom as social freedom. I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which ethical life, for Hegel, enables the freedom of individuals. (shrink)

This paper examines recent forms of post-identity thought within contemporary gender theory, specifically the works of Rosi Braidotti, Elizabeth Grosz and Bobby Noble. Despite the many insights that these theories offer, I argue that they suffer from what Lois McNay has labelled ‘social weightlessness’ insofar as their models of subjectivity and agency are disconnected from the everyday realities of social subjects. I identify two ways in which this social weightlessness is manifested in radical gender theories that endorse a post-identity politics: (...) they overlook the social and political importance to many individuals of establishing stable, coherent identities; they are unable to offer a satisfactory account of agency. I suggest that these issues arise, at least in part, from the anti-recognition stance adopted by such radical gender theorists. I argue that by incorporating a properly nuanced model of recognition back into their theories they can imbue their accounts with a properly grounded model of the subject that is responsive to the inequalities and oppressions that infuse the particular concrete contexts in which we experience and live out our identities. (shrink)

This paper explores the ambivalent effects of recognition through a critical examination of Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition. I argue that his underlying perfectionist account and his focus on the psychic effects of recognition lead him to overlook important connections between recognition and power. These claims are substantiated through Butler’s theory of gender performativity and recognition; and issues connected to the socio-institutional recognition of transgender identities. I conclude by suggesting that certain problems with Butler’s own position can corrected by drawing (...) more from the Foucauldian aspects of her work. I argue that this is the most promising way to conceptualise recognition and its complex, ambivalent effects. (shrink)

the article explores the putatively non-metaphysical – non-voluntarist, and even non-causal – concept of freedom outlined in Hegel’s work and discusses its influential interpretation by robert Pippin as an ‘essentially practical’ concept. I argue that Hegel’s affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim ‘from a practical point of view’.

Fichte’s early review of C. A. L. Creuzer’s neglected and idiosyncratic skeptical book on free will posed a serious challenge to what at the time was emerging as a consensus Kantian position on the role of free choice in the generation of imputable action. Fichte’s review was directed as much against Reinhold’s important letter on freedom of the will as it was against Creuzer himself. In the course of his brief review, Fichte suggests an important recasting of the strategy of (...) the Kantian postulates of rational faith; he poses a dilemma for the Reinholdian understanding of the relationship among an autonomous practical will, a free power of choice, and the actions of natural human organisms; and he hints at a radical reappropriation of the rationalist doctrine of pre-established harmony in re-orienting the search for a defensible reconstruction of a broadly Kantian position on the problem of free will. (shrink)

In his Responsibility and the moral sentiments , Wallace develops the idea that we should think of what it is to be morally responsible for an act in terms of norms for holding someone responsible for that act. Smith has recently claimed that Wallace's approach and those like it are 'fundamentally misguided'. She says that such approaches make the mistake of incorporating conditions for 'actively blaming' others into the basic conditions for being responsible, when in fact the conditions for active (...) blame 'go beyond' the basic conditions. In this essay, I argue that Smith's otherwise illuminating discussion of these 'Normativist' approaches does not undermine them. Specifically, I maintain that being actively blamable by certain persons with the relevant standing is actually constitutive of being responsible for at least some acts. By distinguishing between persons with different sorts of standing, a Normativist approach can avoid Smith's challenge. My larger aim is thus to clarify and defend the Normativist approach. (shrink)

Discussions of habit in Hegel’s thought usually focus on his subjective spirit since this is where the most extended discussion of this issue takes place. This paper argues that habit is also important for understanding Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The discussion of habit and second nature occur at a critical juncture in the text. This discussion is important for understanding his notion of ethical life and his account of freedom.

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 paper presents a critical appraisal of the recent turn in comparative religious ethics to virtue theory; it argues that the specific aspirations of virtue ethicists to make ethics more contextual, interdisciplinary, and practice-centered has in large measure failed to match the rhetoric. I suggest that the focus on the category of the human and practices associated with self-formation along with a methodology grounded in “analogical imagination” has actually poeticized the subject matter into highly abstract textual studies on normative voices (...) within traditions, largely in isolation from considerations of socio-historical context, political and institutional pressures, and the lived ethics of non-elite moral actors. I conclude with some programmatic suggestions for how the field of comparative religious ethics can move forward. (shrink)

This paper presents a critical appraisal of the recent turn in comparative religious ethics to virtue theory; it argues that the specific aspirations of virtue ethicists to make ethics more contextual, interdisciplinary, and practice-centered has in large measure failed to match the rhetoric. I suggest that the focus on the category of the human and practices associated with self-formation along with a methodology grounded in “analogical imagination” has actually poeticized the subject matter into highly abstract textual studies on normative voices (...) within traditions, largely in isolation from considerations of socio-historical context, political and institutional pressures, and the lived ethics of non-elite moral actors. I conclude with some programmatic suggestions for how the field of comparative religious ethics can move forward. (shrink)

To make ‘philosophy worldly’ often requires an act of translation. In This Life, Martin Hägglund argues for the relevance of Marx to our contemporary lives. By way of a lively and sophisticated dialogue between philosophical interlocutors – including Hegel and Marx – Hägglund offers a compelling account of the relation between time, value and freedom. This Life translates current issues in academic philosophy into a popular register that does not reduce the complexity of the issues but shows what is at (...) stake for our own lives. Hägglund provides a synthesis of Robert B. Pippin’s normative reading of Hegel and the value-form critical theory of Moishe Postone’s Marxism. Further, Hägglund’s vision of freedom outflanks the political limitations of Pippin’s Hegel and Postone’s Marx while retaining the power of their analyses. I assess his interpretation of Hegel and critically examine the concept of value operative in This Life, and frame this question in terms of value-form theory. (shrink)

This essay examines Paul Ricœur’s views on recognition in his book The Course of Recognition . It highlights those aspects that are in some sense surprising, in relation to his previous publications and the general debates on Hegelian Anerkennung and the politics of recognition. After an overview of Ricœur’s book, the paper examines the meaning of “recognition” in Ricœur’s own proposal, in the dictionaries Ricœur uses, and in the contemporary debates. Then it takes a closer look at the ideas of (...) recognition as identification and as “taking as true.” Then it turns to recognition (attestation) of oneself, in light of the distinction between human constants (and the question “What am I?”), and human variables (and the question “Who Am I?”). The last section concerns the dialectics of struggles for recognition and states of peace, and the internal relationship between the contents of a normative demand and what counts as satisfying the demand. . (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)

In which sense can human beings be conceived as social animals? To elucidate this question, the present paper distinguishes the logical sociality of all living beings from the material sociality of social animals and the political sociality of self-conscious social animals. The self-conscious political sociality that characterises the human genus-being requires a complex interplay of first and second person through which alone we can participate in our form of life and determine its content. The human form of life thus constituted (...) is characterised by a particularly open, and at the same time precarious, membership which involves specific forms of vulnerability and power. Against this background, forms of objective spirit are necessary which grant us a generalized recognition and relieve us from the contingency of each particular second-personal recognition, without abandoning the openness of the sociality of the human form of life. This double requirement has led to paradoxical institutions in modern society which strive to protect and ensure the sociality of the human form of life precisely by naturalising and individualising our access to it. (shrink)

This article discusses Hans Jonas’ argument for teleology in living organisms, in light of recently raised concerns over enactivism’s “Jonasian turn.” Drawing on textual resources rarely discussed in contemporary enactivist literature on Jonas’ philosophy, we reconstruct five core ideas of his thinking: 1) That natural science’s rejection of teleology is methodological rather than ontological, and thus not a proof of its non-existence; 2) that denial of the reality of teleology amounts to a performative self-contradiction; 3) that the fact of evolution (...) makes it implausible that only humans actualize purpose; 4) that the concept of metabolism delimits and gestures towards beings performing purposive activity; and 5) that concrete encounters with living organisms are indispensable for the judgment that they are purposive. Lastly, we draw attention to how Jonas’ understanding of teleology and inwardness in nonhuman life in terms of degrees of identity with human life poses a problem for his view. In this way, we hope to clarify what Jonas, as an important source of inspiration for the enactivist project, is proposing. (shrink)

Scholars who write about Fanon's engagement with Hegel in Black Skin, White Masks divide into roughly two groups. One group takes it that Fanon engages with Hegel to critique his philosophical views. This group takes it that Fanon views Hegel as irrelevant to the Black struggle against modern, anti‐Black racism. It is easy to see why this reading is natural and tempting, given the widely held belief that Hegel's philosophy is essentially racist. The second group believes that Fanon relies on (...) Hegel to explain the predicament of Black people who face racial discrimination. Indeed, some in this group believe that Fanon relies on Hegel to justify his call to violence in The Wretched of the Earth. I side with the second group. Fanon's engagement with Hegel is not a critique, but a thoughtful application of Hegel's thought that illustrates the connection between self‐consciousness, autonomy, and interpersonal recognition. In this article, I'll explain the positions of both camps and provide reasons to think the second camp has a better take on Fanon's reading of Hegel. (shrink)

Several conflict theorists have appropriated Hegel’s ‘struggle for recognition’ to highlight the healthy dimensions of conflict and to explore ways of reaching reconciliation through mutual recognition. In so doing, some scholars attend to the interpersonal dimension of reconciliation, while others focus on the interstate dimension of reconciliation. This paper argues that both approaches miss important Hegelian insights into the modern state. Hegel understands that freedom must be situated and bounded in order to take a concrete form. He believes that concrete (...) freedom and domestic reconciliation create an atmosphere that can pressure the state to be more confrontational with other states by attaining a stronger individuality. Thus, the common concern about freedom among Hegelian states remains a ‘thin’ version of communication, vulnerable to such factors as national honor or recognition status. Hegel’s challenge urges peace-inspired scholars to explore ways of achieving concrete freedom and domestic reconciliation while simultaneously relieving interstate conflict. (shrink)

This paper lays out two recent accounts of Hegel’s practical philosophy in order to present a challenge. According to Robert Stern and Mark Alznauer, Hegel attempts to ground our ethical practices in ontological norms. I argue that we cannot ground our ethical practices in this way. However, I also contend that Stern’s and Alznauer’s conception of reality as both conceptual and normative can still play a useful role in practical philosophy, namely, to help defuse a sceptical worry about a threat (...) to ethics. (shrink)

En este trabajo se presenta un aspecto de las posibles relaciones entre “historia” y “acción” en la obra de Kant. Contra lo que usualmente es sostenido en la literatura, la obra de Kant parece mostrar, a partir del aspecto que se analiza aquí, una conexión íntima con algunos de los presupuestos básicos de la concepción hegeliana de la acción, que fundan la sensible concepción social que éste tiene de ella.

Collective intentionality is one of the most fundamental notions in social ontology. However, it is often thought to refer to a capacity which does not presuppose the existence of any other social facts. This chapter critically examines this view from the perspective of one specific theory of collective intentionality, the theory of Margaret Gilbert. On the basis of Gilbert’s arguments, the chapter claims that collective intentionality is a highly contingent achievement of complex social practices and, thus, not a basic social (...) phenomenon. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, Gilbert’s thesis that certain kinds of collective intentionality presuppose joint normative commitments is introduced. Second, it is argued that, on this view, individual commitments can only constitute the relevant kinds of collective intentional states if there are socially shared “principles of membership” that connect the force of individual commitments to a shared content. Third, it is shown that strong collective intentionality depends on the practical acceptance of shared norms and on the establishment of authority relations through mutual recognition. (shrink)

This dissertation engages the question of the relation between nature and rationality, and the conditions of our freedom, through the lens of the concept of Life. It begins by analyzing biological life in Kants Critique of Judgment as a form of judgment bridging theoretical and practical reason. Kants argument is limited, however, because it returns us to ourselves with new insight only about our judgment, but not about natural life. Hegel, by contrast, begins his treatment of self-consciousness in the Phenomenology (...) of Spirit in Life, showing how rationality develops out of a mutually constitutive relation with objects in their independence. Hegels dialectical relation of subject and object develops into a world increasingly worked over as social structures, norms and institutions that provide the conditions for our situated freedom. Contra the reading that positive liberty entails that we are fully determined by our social conditions, my contention is that Hegel provides a robust theory of our freedom as socially and historically situated. Through a dialectical process of alienation from and interaction with norms and institutions, both we and these external conditions are changed, giving meaning to our agency as the ability to interact with, rather than merely react to, our lifeworld. In the Phenomenology, this interaction first appears as work, through which we create the social structures that come to stand against us in culture. By recognizing the role that work plays in the creation and reinforcement of these institutions, we also realize our own activity as a tool for reforming these social conditions towards an increasingly free and just society. (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)