Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognize certain entities. I should protest of course that he is wrong in his formulation of our disagreement, for I maintain that there are no entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to recognize; but (...) my finding him wrong in his formulation of our disagreement is unimportant, for I am committed to considering him wrong in his ontology anyway. When I try to formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a predicament. I cannot admit that there are some things which McX countenances and I do not, for in admitting that there are such things I should be contradicting my own rejection of them. (shrink)

Part Two contains the text-in German and English-of the first two chapters of Hegel's Logic, which cover such categories as being, becoming, something, limit, ...

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)

A major and comprehensive study of the philosophy of Hegel, his place in the history of ideas, and his continuing relevance and importance. Professor Taylor relates Hegel to the earlier history of philosophy and, more particularly, to the central intellectual and spiritual issues of his own time. He sees these in terms of a pervasive tension between the evolving ideals of individuality and self-realization on the one hand, and on the other a deeply-felt need to find significance in a wider (...) community. Charles Taylor engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the the subject demands, in detail. We are made to grasp the interconnections of the system without being overwhelmed or overawed by its technicality. We are shown its importance and its limitations, and are enabled to stand back from it. (shrink)

This is a major and comprehensive study of the philosophy of Hegel, his place in the history of ideas, and his continuing relevance and importance. Professor Taylor relates Hegel to the earlier history of philosophy and, more particularly, to the central intellectual and spiritual issues of his own time. He engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the subject demands, in detail. This important book is now reissued with a fresh new cover.

This is the most important book on Hegel to have appeared in the past ten years. The author offers a completely new interpretation of Hegel's idealism that focuses on Hegel's appropriation and development of Kant's theoretical project. Hegel is presented neither as a pre-critical metaphysician nor as a social theorist, but as a critical philosopher whose disagreements with Kant, especially on the issue of intuitions, enrich the idealist arguments against empiricism, realism, and naturalism. In the face of the dismissal of (...) absolute idealism as either unintelligible or implausible, Pippin explains and defends an original account of the philosophical basis for Hegel's claims about the historical and social nature of self-consciousness and of knowledge itself. (shrink)

The project defended in this article is a forty-plus year attempt to argue for the continuing philosophical importance of the positions in theoretical and practical and aesthetic philosophy defended in what has come to be known as ‘German Idealism’ (or ‘post-Kantian German philosophy.’) For the most part this has concerned Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and the relations among them, with most of the attention focused on Hegel. The Hegel interpretation has been criticized for its claim about the influence of Kant (...) on Hegel’s account of apperceptive judgment, for the nature of the idealism ascribed to Hegel, and for the Kantian-Hegelian insistence on the autonomy and self-grounding authority of pure reason. The interpretation of Hegel’s practical philosophy has been criticized for defending an excessively social theory of agency, and the theory of modernization ascribed to Hegel has been criticized for claiming that philosophy could and should have a historically diagnostic task. The interpretation of Hegel’s theory of art argues that elements of Hegel’s basic philosophical position puts one in the best position to understand the meaning and importance of post-Hegelian pictorial modernism, that his general approach can be of great value in understanding his claim that great art had become ‘a thing of the past.’ A clarification of these positions, and a brief case for their philosophical importance comprises the substance of this recapitulation. (shrink)