In this dissertation I examine the ontological and systematic basis of Hegel’s social and political philosophy. I argue that the structures of the will, discussed in paragraphs five through seven of the Philosophy of Right, present the key for understanding the goal and the argumentative structure of that work. Hegel characterizes the will in terms of the oppositions between the universal and the particular, the infinite and the finite, and the indeterminate and the determinate. Ultimately, he argues that we must (...) grasp the will as the unity of these oppositional moments. The Philosophy of Right presents an extended attempt to grasp this unity. -/- In order to central problem presented by the structure of the will, I argue that we must first recognize the will as the highest instantiation of the more general structures that constitute the notion. On my interpretation, the term ‘notion’ designates Hegel’s doctrine of substance. More specifically, this term presents his conception of substance in terms of categories normally associated with human subjectivity, in terms of representation and purposive action. -/- The will presents the highest or truest instantiation of the notion. Various notions can be ranked along a spectrum in accordance with their degree of success at resolving the basic problem facing all objects – namely the problem of integrating or essentially relating identity and difference through self-constituting activity. The unification of identity and difference presents the central problem or paradox of Hegel’s philosophy. It is a paradox that takes many forms. In this dissertation, I show how change, the structure of judgment, and the nature of the object all exhibit this paradox. I also show how Hegel’s doctrine of the notion develops as a direct response to this paradox. Additionally, I argue that Hegel’s account of the structure of the will – as the unity of the universal and the particular, the unity of the infinite and the finite, and the unity of the indeterminate and the determinate – presents the highest manifestation of the paradox that arises when we seek to explain the unity of identity and difference. (shrink)

In this journal, Robert Smithson argues that considerations stemming from Kantian and post-Kantian idealism undermine naturalistic arguments that seek to debunk elements of the ‘manifest image’ in favour of the ‘scientific image’. The idealist tradition, on this view, holds that philosophy’s task is to uncover and clarify the principles and norms which underlie different forms of inquiry, and is thus well placed to dispel the apparent ‘placement’ problems that stem from the collision of our ordinary worldview with contemporary philosophical naturalism. (...) Smithson also argues that this idealist critique of naturalism is preferable to the Liberal Naturalist critique of naturalism. In this response, I argue that Smithson’s view contains a gap which the naturalist can exploit to evade idealist critique, but that a Hegelian idealism contains no such gap, making it the better idealist choice. Further, I argue that that Hegelian idealism is itself plausibly a version of liberal naturalism. (shrink)

Recent debates about Hegel's theoretical philosophy are marked by a surprising lack of agreement, extending all the way down to the most basic question:what is Hegel talking about?On the one hand, proponents of ‘metaphysical’ interpretations generally read Hegel as aiming to articulate the overall structure or organisation of reality itself, and the nature of a highest or most fundamental being. Particularly influential is the idea that Hegel is reviving and modifying a form of Spinoza's metaphysical monism, according to which the (...) organised whole of everything is the highest being, providing a ground or reason for everything real. On the other hand, proponents of ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretations argue Hegel's topic is something else entirely. The idea is that Hegel agrees with Kant in finding pre-critical forms of metaphysics to be uncritical or dogmatic. And the topic of Hegel's positive project is supposed to be not the nature of reality itself, nor any most fundamental being, but rather ‘forms of thought’ akin to Kant's categories and the objectivity, legitimacy, or normative authority of those forms of thought.This is of course only a rough sketch of the most basic recent debate, about which there is more to say than can fit in this paper. My focus here is on what Hegel has to say about nature and natural kinds, in ‘Observing Reason’ from thePhenomenology, and also in similar material from theLogicandEncyclopedia. I intend to argue that this material suggests a surprising way of stepping beyond the fundamental debate sketched above. There can of course be no question of elaborating and defending here a complete interpretation of Hegel's entire theoretical philosophy. I will have to restrict myself to arguing for the unlikely conclusion that there is an approach that can combine and integrate the strongest points made by both sides in the most basic debate shaping recent Hegel interpretation. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in Hegel’s mature Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences contains the outlines of a philosophically rich notion of the constitutive temporality of subjectivity. The temporality of the being of Hegel’s concrete subject is intimately connected with embodiment and sociality, and is thus an essential element of its fully detranscendentalized inner-worldly nature.

In this paper I rely on recent literature that emphasises the importance of recognition in Hegel's philosophy in order to apply the recognition-theoretic approach to the notion of sacrifice in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Firstly, I conduct a preliminary analysis by examining the general meaning of sacrifice as a form of determinate negation. Secondly, I focus on two phenomenological moments (the struggle between ?faith? and ?pure insight?, and the cult) in order to answer the question, ?Is a real (effective and (...) unselfish) sacrifice possible?? Finally, I argue that sacrifice should be considered as a Darstellung, and I explain the twofold connection between sacrifice and recognition. I conclude that there is no sacrifice without recognition, and the process of recognition is intrinsically sacrificial. (shrink)

In this article, I draw upon the ‘post-Kantian’ reading of Hegel to examine the consequences Hegel’s idea of God has on his metaphysics. In particular, I apply Hegel’s ‘recognition-theoretic’ approach to his theology. Within the context of this analysis, I focus especially on the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ. First, I argue that Hegel’s philosophy of religion employs a distinctive notion of sacrifice (kenotic sacrifice). Here, sacrifice is conceived as a giving up something of oneself to ‘make room’ for the (...) other. Second, I argue that the idea of kenotic sacrifice plays a fundamental role in Hegel’s account of Christ. Third, I conclude by sketching some of the consequences of Hegel’s idea of a God who renounces his own divinity for an idealistically conceived metaphysics. My main thesis is that the notion of incarnation is conceived by Hegel as the expression of a spirit that advances only insofar as it is willing to withdraw and make room for the other. A kenotic reading of the Hegelian notion of the incarnation is also useful in terms of a clarification of the dispute between ‘left Hegelians’ and ‘right Hegelians’ concerning the status of the idea of God in Hegel’s philosophy. (shrink)

There are two general approaches to Hegel’s theoretical philosophy which are broadly popular in recent work. Debate between them is often characterized, by both sides, as a dispute between those favoring a more traditional “metaphysical” approach and those favoring a newer “nonmetaphysical” approach. But I argue that the most important and compelling points made by both sides are actually independent of the idea of a “nonmetaphysical” interpretation of Hegel, which is itself simply unconvincing. The most promising directions for future research, (...) for those on both sides of recent debates, will require recognizing that Hegel’s theoretical philosophy includes a metaphysics, and engaging new debates about the specific character of that metaphysics. (shrink)

Para qualquer um interessado no lugar da espacialidade no pensamento de Heidegger, um dos principais problemas apresentados por Ser e tempo é a tentativa, feita no § 70, "de derivar o existencial espacialidade a partir da temporalidade". Esta tentativa, que foi considerada "insustentável" pelo próprio Heidegger, mostra-se não ser meramente periférica na análise global. Pelo contrário, ela se liga a certos aspectos centrais e problemáticos no argumento de Ser e tempo, no qual está incluído o tratamento de conceitos espaciais e (...) topográficos em geral, aspectos estes que podem ser vistos como associados ao fracasso do projeto aí ensaiado. Contudo, o argumento do § 70 não suscita apenas questões a cerca do tratamento da espacialidade feito por Heidegger, mas também no que respeita à própria noção de "derivação": se e como é efetivamente possível tal derivação, e de que modo poderia ser entendida a dependência que ela implica. Uma das características centrais da análise desenvolvida em Ser e tempo é o movimento que parte das estruturas da cotidianidade para fundá-las no cuidado, transitando a seguir para a estrutura da temporalidade, e chegando finalmente na estrutura ekstática da temporalidade originária. O que é exibido nesse movimento não é uma relação de dependência, mas uma série de relações que estão supostas. É no interior desse movimento global que estão embutidas dependências mais específicas, inclusive a relação de dependência entre espacialidade e temporalidade. A questão geral da dependência conceitual ou estrutural que aparece aqui, entendida especificamente em termos de "derivação" ou nos termos das noções correlatas de "fundação" ou "fundamentação" , também possui uma relevância que se estende muito além das análises de Ser e tempo, sendo central para a investigação fenomenológica e, de fato, para a investigação filosófica como tal. O que está em jogo nessa questão é a natureza e a base para o ordenamento de conceitos e estruturas, que é uma preocupação central da análise fenomenológica e filosófica. Minha intenção aqui é a de explorar da derivação tal como surge no âmbito de Ser e tempo, mas também prestando atenção para o contexto mais amplo no qual pode-se dizer que a questão também emerge - uma exploração que também nos levará para certas questões sobre espaço e topologia.For anyone interested in the place of spatiality in Heidegger's thinking, one of the key problems presented by Being and Time is Heidegger's attempt, in §70, "to derive existential spatiality from temporality" [i] - an attempt he himself referred to as "untenable" [ii]. This attempt turns out to not to be merely peripheral to Heidegger's overall analysis, but is instead tied to certain central and problematic features in the argument of Being and Time, including its treatment of spatial and topographic concepts in general, that can themselves be seen as associated with the failure of the project attempted there. The argument of §70 does not raise questions only about Heidegger's treatment of spatiality, however, but also regarding the notion of "derivation" itself - about how and whether such derivation is indeed possible in general, and how the dependence that it entails might be understood. One of the central features of the analysis developed in Being and Time is its movement from the structures of everydayness to the grounding of that structure in care, thence to the structure of temporality, and finally, of course, to the ecstatic structure of originary temporality. What is exhibited in this movement is not one, but a series of supposed dependence relations, and it is within that overall movement that more specific dependencies, including that between spatiality and temporality, are themselves embedded. [The general question of conceptual or structural dependence that appears here, whether understood specifically in terms of "derivation" or in terms of related notions of "grounding" or "foundation" , also has a relevance that extends far beyond the analyses of Being and Time, and is central to phenomenological, and indeed, philosophical, inquiry as such. What is at issue in this question is the nature and basis for the ordering of concepts and structures that is a central concern of phenomenological and philosophical analysis. My intention here is to explore this question of derivation as it emerges within the framework of Being and Time, but also with an eye to the larger context in which the question can also be said to emerge - an exploration that will also, as it happens, returns us to certain questions of space and topology. (shrink)

There has been a resurgence of interest in Hegel's thought by Anglo‐American philosophers in the last 25 years. That expansion of interest was initiated with the publication of Charles Taylor's Hegel (1975). That work stills stands as one of7 the important branches of Hegel interpretation. However the dominance of the strongly metaphysical interpretation of Hegel, which dominated the understanding of Hegel until the 1980s, and of which Taylor's work represents the culmination, has now, at least among the major interpreters of (...) Hegel, given way to what has come to be known as the non‐metaphysical reading of Hegel. This article charts the emergence and development of the non‐metaphysical Hegel, which takes his thought to be a continuation of the Kantian project of critically examining the presuppositions of any normative claim. This article provides an overview of the latest developments in Hegel research, primarily focusing on the English‐language literature. Recent research has placed Hegel's concerns at the centre of contemporary debates in analytic philosophy, particularly concerning the status of norms, the ‘space of reasons’ and the ‘myth of the given’. This research has in turn been influential on the two most important figures in English‐language Hegel scholarship (Robert Pippin and Terry Pinkard). The article will position this new wave of Hegel scholarship and its influence in relation to the metaphysical interpretation of Hegel and will also provide a brief overview of Hegel's reception in French post‐structuralism, which has largely accepted and promoted a view of Hegel as a metaphysician. (shrink)

Hegel had taken the Kantian categories of thought to be merely formal, without content, since, he argued, Kant abstracted the conditions of thought from the world. The Kantian categories can, as such, only be understood subjectively and so are unable to secure a content for themselves. Hegel, following Fichte, tried to provide a content for the logical categories. In order to reinstate an objective status for logic and conceptuality he tries to affirm the unity of thought and being. The idea (...) that this unity is established by reinstating a pre-Kantian metaphysics has in most of the recent Hegel literature been discredited. In the wake of this non-metaphysical Hegel there is a concern that the architectonic of concepts which is taken as the organizing principle of consciousness offers an account of experience which is too schematic. While Hegel disputes the intuition/concept distinction as it is played out in Kant and Fichte, he does nevertheless retain some residue of a notion of intuition in his theory of the Concept. This is central to understanding his notion of experience as it can't simply be equated with rule governed conceptuality. Satisfying the demands of reason for Hegel requires more than conceiving our experience solely as judgments. (shrink)

In Totality and Infinity Levinas presents the 'face to face' as an account of intersubjectivity, but one which maintains the absolute difference of the Other. This essay explores the genesis of the 'face to face' through a discussion of Levinas in relation to Buber. It is argued that Levinas' account of subjectivity shares much in common with Fichte's theory of subjectivity. It is further argued that while the 'face to face' clarifies and opposes traditional problems in social ontology, the 'face (...) to face' is unable to avoid the traditional problems of social ontology that it seeks to avoid. (shrink)

My focus here is on what Hegel has to say about nature and natural kinds, in ‘Observing Reason’ from the Phenomenology, and also in similar material from the Logic and Encyclopedia. I intend to argue that this material suggests a surprising way of stepping beyond the fundamental debate. There can of course be no question of elaborating and defending here a complete interpretation of Hegel’s entire theoretical philosophy. I will have to restrict myself to arguing for the unlikely conclusion that (...) there is an approach that can combine and integrate the strongest points made by both sides in the most basic debate shaping recent Hegel interpretation. What needs explaining is how there could be any single coherent position that in any philosophical sense both cancels and preserves metaphysics. (shrink)

In this essay, I take on the problem of how to explain the socio-historical dimension of practical reason in Hegel. In contrast to many contemporary socio-historical readings of Hegel, I claim that a logical concept of spirit frames Hegel’s account of the historical process through which human beings have come to know their practical agency as actualized in institutional relations of mutual recognition. On my reading, Hegel conceptualizes each shape in the ‘Spirit’ chapter of his Phenomenology of Spirit as syllogistically (...) working out, practically and institutionally, how to mediate the demands of individual self-determination with the universal laws and customs of the community. At the same time, logical form doesn’t determine historical development, because the content of individuality, universality, and their mediation is earned only through historical experience. (shrink)

This article makes several conceptual proposals for a closer analysis of recognition more or less in line with Axel Honneth's account of recognition: (1) a proposal as to the genus of recognitional attitude and recognition, (2) a sketch of an analytical scheme intended to be heuristically useful for analysing the different species of recognitional attitude and recognition, (3) some proposals as to the precise contents of self-conceptions involved in each species and subspecies of recognition, and (4) suggestions as to the (...) relation of the species of recognitional attitude to social settings and concrete personal relationships as well as to the totalities of attitudes instantiated in these settings and relationships. A guiding idea is that the somewhat mechanistic Meadian vocabulary of 'urges' and 'internalizations' of Honneth's original formulations should be replaced with formulations where recognition is consistently conceptualized as consisting of attitudes with propositional or judgmental content. (shrink)

A recently widely accepted view has it that the nature-spirit distinction in Hegel is to be understood as a distinction between a space or realm that is not normative or does not involve norms, and one that is or does. Notwithstanding the merits of this view, it has tended to create a separation between nature and spirit which is both philosophically troubling and difficult to reconcile with the picture of Hegel as the arch enemy of abstract or unreconciled dualisms. In (...) this paper I aim to show that the defining phenomenon for this view—collective self-government by norms—is on Hegel’s account both dependent on living nature that involves normativity broadly conceived all the way down and also subject to the normative or evaluative super-principle of Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit—concrete freedom—the essence of spirit according to him. This is to say that for Hegel the normativity of collectively administered norms is neither the most basic nor the highest form of normativity. -/- Published online first 27 January 2021. (shrink)

Indigenous cultural possessions constitute a diverse global issue. This issue includes some culturally important, intangible tribal objects. This is evident in the Australian copyright cases viewed in this study, which provide examples of disputes over traditional Indigenous visual art. A proposal for the legal recognition of Indigenous cultural possessions in Australia is also reviewed, in terms of a new category of law. When such cultural objects are in an artistic form they constitute the tribe's self-presentation and its mechanism of cultural (...) continuity. Philosophical arguments for the legal recognition of Indigenous intellectual `property' tend to assume that the value of Indigenous intellectual property is determinable on external criteria. (shrink)

This paper gives a brief sketch of György Márkus’s philosophical style as manifest in the context of his role within the revival of Hegelian philosophy in Sydney in the last decades of the 20th century. Written from the perspective of one of his students, this style is sharpened by the contrast with that of another philosopher who was influential in the Hegel revival around that time, Richard Rorty. It is suggested that the stark antithesis between Márkusian and Rortarian philosophical and (...) interpretative styles reflects tensions within Hegel’s own attitude to what it might mean to reanimate a philosophy from the past within a radically changed cultural context. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel's discussion of the Antigone in the Phenomenology of Spirit has provoked ongoing debate about his views on gender. This essay offers an interpretation of Hegel as condemning social arrangements that take the authoritativeness of identities and obligations to be natural or merely given. Hegel criticizes the ancient Greeks' understanding of both the human law and the divine law; in so doing, he provides resources for a critique of essentialist approaches to sex and gender. On this interpretation, (...) Hegel views the conflict between Antigone and Creon as tragic because the gendered identities and obligations inherent to Greek Sittlichkeit are naturalized and withheld from scrutiny and revision. In the conclusion, I suggest how Hegel's criticisms pose a challenge to certain approaches to religious ethics. (shrink)

In his program of analytic pragmatism, Robert Brandom has presented a thoroughgoing reinterpretation of the place of analytic philosophy in the history of philosophy by linking his own non-representational ‘inferentialist’ approach to semantics to the rationalist – idealist tradition, and in particular, to Hegel. Brandom, however, has not been without his critics in regard to both his approach to semantics and his interpretation of Hegel. Here I single out four interlinked problematic areas facing Brandom's inferentialist semantics – his approach of (...) perceptual content, to de re attitudes, to perceptual experience and to modality, and then go on to contrast the different approach to these issues that is found in Hegel. While Hegel can helpfully be understood as anticipating an inferentialist semantics as Brandom claims, his is a weak inferentialism in contrast to Brandom's strong version. With his weakly inferentialist approach Hegel can, I suggest, be seen as providing a solution to the tangle of problems.. (shrink)

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)

The goal of my essay is to clarify the status of the a priori in Hegel's Science of Logic. My claim is that in order to make possible an appreciation of the originality of Hegel's position we need to map a context of discussion and to dissolve a set of preconceptions about Hegel's idea of philosophy. My argument will be articulated in two parts. In the first part, I will analyse four possible positions regarding the issue of the aprioricity of (...) the Logic, I will defend a fifth position, and I will draw a distinction between apriorism and a priori. In the second part, I will examine three distinct charges of apriorism against Hegel's Logic: the charge of assuming God's point of view of the universe, the charge of vicious circularity between the beginning and the end of the Logic, the charge of self-sufficiency of the Logic. As a result, I hope to show that these charges are unfounded, and to clear the ground for an adequate evaluation of Hegel's own sublation of the a priori/a posteriori divide. (shrink)

Several commentators have argued that Hegel's account of ‘self-consciousness’ in Chapter IV of the Phenomenology of Spirit can be read as an ‘immanent critique’ of Fichte's idealism. If this is correct, it raises the question of whether Hegel's account of ‘recognition’ in Chapter IV can be interpreted as a critique of Fichte's conception of recognition as expounded in the Foundations of Natural Right. A satisfactory answer to this question will have to provide a plausible interpretation of the ‘life and death (...) struggle’ as an immanent critique of Fichte's account of recognition. This paper aims to provide such an interpretation. The first part of the paper provides a discussion of Fichte's account of recognition that emphasizes its ‘epistemic’ concerns. The second part argues that Hegel's account of the ‘life and death struggle’ can be read plausibly as an immanent critique of Fichte's account of recognition. (shrink)

This paper argues that Hegel's depiction of knowledge, as presented in the Encyclopaedia philosophy of subjective Spirit, is founded on what he deems to be the practical interests of self-consciousness. More specifically, it highlights the significance of the will in Hegel's understanding of the cognitive process. I begin with a survey of the relation between category-formation and the notion of self-determining freedom in the Logic , and therewith draw attention to the unity of thinking and willing in the Concept. I (...) then indicate how Hegel's philosophy of subjective Spirit should be read as the applied logic of the Concept, according to which the socially constituted self-conscious I seeks to realise its claims to freedom through its theoretical cognitions of objects. As part of what could be called Hegel's integrative theory of the faculties, I finally argue that the will underscores both the determinate character of our theoretical cognitions and the reflexivity of knowledge in general. On this score, I maintain that Hegel, whose relation to Kant and Fichte I also consider, is of the view that it is with reference to willing that we can account for the self-referential nature of reason in toto as the actualised unity of theoretical-practical subjectivity. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that in the Jena period (1801–1803) Schelling and Hegel both rejected the conception of God as coinciding with the moral order, which they attribute to Fichte; such coincidence, in their view, turned God into a transcendent and merely moral Being. In an effort to demonstrate their distance from Fichte's view, we contend, Schelling and Hegel advocated for a metaphysical (rather than merely moral) and immanent (rather than transcendent) understanding of God, conceived in its inextricable relation (...) with nature and self-consciousness. We conclude by demonstrating that the cooperation between Schelling and Hegel in the Jena period led them to develop an analogous conception of immanence—which already foreshadows, however, the different directions that Schelling and Hegel take in their mature works. (shrink)

In the 1930s, C. I. Lewis, who was responsible for the revival of modal logic in the era of modern symbolic logic, characterized ‘intensional’ approaches to logic as typical of post-Leibnizian ‘continental philosophy’, in contrast to the ‘extensionalist’ approaches dominant in the British tradition. Indeed Lewis’s own work in this area had been inspired by the logic of his teacher, the American ‘Absolute Idealist’, Josiah Royce. Hegel’s ‘Subjective Logic’ in Book III of hisScience of Logic, can, I suggest, be considered (...) as an intensional modal logic, and this paper explores parallels between it and a later variety of modal logic—tenselogic, as developed by Arthur Prior in the 1950s and 60s. Like Lewis, Prior too had been influenced in this area by a teacher with strong Hegelian leanings—John N. Findlay. Treated as anintensional(with an ‘s’) logic, Hegel’s subjective logic can be used as a framework for addressing issues ofintentionality(with a ‘t’)—the mind’s capacity to be intentionally directed to objects. In this way, I suggest that the structures of his subjective logic can clarify what is at issue in the ‘Psychology’ section of theEncyclopaediaPhilosophy of Subjective Spirit. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with organic conceptions of socio-political life and is concerned with the rehabilitation of organicism as a positive social ontology. It demonstrates that: organicism does not necessarily imply the negation of individuality by a monolithic society, and; that G. W. F. Hegel’s references to the state as organic do not imply social holism. With Hegel’s organicism, as with Idealist organicism generally, what is found is a relational rather than a holistic social ontology. This relational ontology is one (...) that addresses the tension between individualism and holism by theorizing the reciprocal or recursive nature of social relations; thus neither society nor the individuals within it can be seen as either purely determined or purely determining, each contributes to the constitution of the other. In making this case the paper provides both: a conceptual articulation of relational organicism which shows that it is an instructive and coherent positive social ontology, and; a historical account of its emergence into Idealist thought in the work of Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. Through developing this account of the organic relation this paper seeks to offer a conception of socio-political life that provides resources for thinking through both the tension between holism and atomism in social theory and the tension between liberal individualism and communitarian collectivism in political theory. (shrink)

In his recent book James Kreines argues that for Hegel reason is “in the world”, but how we are to understand the idea of reason's being so located? One answer, suggested by more traditional theocentric readings of Hegel, would be to appeal to the idea of a divine thought, coursing through the world. Another answer, more congenial to modern sensibilities, might locate reason within the rational activities of inter-subjectively connected human beings, as suggested by Terry Pinkard's idea of the “sociality (...) of reason”. Kreines seems to want to avoid suggestions of the former, but in distancing himself from approaches like the latter, he also seems to refuse the more metaphysically modest alternative. In retracing the contours of Kreines's nuanced attempt to reinflate Hegel's metaphysics as a “metaphysics of reason”, I pose the question as to whether he can avoid reintroducing a more extravagantly metaphysical Hegel than he wishes. (shrink)