Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie is metaphysical, to be sure; but it is also political. To help show this I will make sense, and show the plausibility and relevance, of what appears to be one of the most metaphysical (and bizarre) claims to be found in Hegel's political philosophy: his justification of hereditary monarchy. While among Hegel scholars Hegel's theory of constitutional monarchy has been a focus of heated debate over whether Hegel is a liberal or a (...) conservative; and has recently become a focus in the debate over whether Hegel accommodated himself to the Prussian government out of fear of censorship by publishing an exoteric view endorsing hereditary monarchy that belies his �genuine�, more democratic view, to the nonspecialist Hegel's argument will seem to be of little relevance -- hereditary monarchy is not a live option for us in the 1990s. My intention in giving it serious consideration is not to have us entertain hereditary monarchy as an undeservedly neglected possibility, but rather to put the brakes on a tendency to dismiss Hegel as too much the idealist to dirty his hands with politics. (shrink)

Nach Reinhart Koselleck nennen Historiker die Periode der deutschen Geschichte zwischen 1770 und 1830 ‚die Sattelzeit‘. So wird diese Periode mit einem Bergsattel verglichen, der zwei Gipfel miteinander verbindet, die hier für die frühe Neuzeit und die Moderne stehen. Überall in Deutschland ist diese Periode von tiefgreifenden Reformen der Gesetze und der Verwaltung geprägt. Im Folgenden beschränke ich mich in meiner Darlegung auf Preußen, weil das Preußische Allgemeine Landrecht von 1794 wahrscheinlich das wichtigste Dokument war, durch das diese Reformen in (...) historischer Perspektive begriffen werden können. (shrink)

In 1931, Evgeny Pashukanis, the distinguished Soviet jurist, author of “The General Theory of Law and Marxism”, following an invitation to celebrate the centenary of Hegel’s death, published an assay entitled “Hegel, the State and Law” (Гегель. Государство и право) aimed to demistify, through a brief retrospective of Hegelian’s philosophy, its specific use, something achieved through the bourgeois ideology which, at some point in history, abandoned Kantism and its followers to embrace Neo-Hegelianism as a philosophy of domination and (...) social control. In this unpublished text, Pashukanis reflects, from a Marxist and Leninist point of view, on the ability to use Hegel as a bourgeois defense tool, when a particular society, specifically the one from the 1920s to the 1930s, began to be affected by the fear of communism and by the crises that endanger its very survival. From this angle, the capitalist interest - following Pashukanisian interpretation of Hegel - will only develop in the terms of a scientific elimination of all those subversive potentials that the economic crisis is destined to produce, thus reformulating the notions of State and Law which, in between obedience, discipline and defense of the homeland, come to assert the official recognition of the inexorably crushed proletariat in a condition in which all relations of production and social reproduction are transferred to the realm of exploitation, as its definitive subsumption to capital. (shrink)

740 page life in letters, including all Hegel's available letters at time of publication by Indiana University Press in 1984 tied together by a running commentary by Clark Butler. The volume is in a searchable PDF format. Publication was supported by a Major Grant by the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH).

This book’s goal is to give an intellectual context for the following manuscript. -/- Includes bibliographical references and an index. Pages 1-123. 1). Philosophy. 2). Metaphysics. 3). Philosophy, German. 4). Philosophy, German -- 18th century. 5). Philosophy, German and Greek Influences Metaphysics. I. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich -- 1770-1831 -- Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus. II. Rosenzweig, Franz, -- 1886-1929. III. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, -- 1775-1854. IV. Hölderlin, Friedrich, -- 1770-1843. V. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. [Translation (...) from German into English of the-- Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus.]. -/- Note: the manuscript is in the handwriting of G.W.F. Hegel, but the actual authorship is disputed. No date is given. Franz Rosenzweig made up the title as it is known today. He published the text in 1917. At that time, F. Rosenzweig thought F.W.J. Schelling was the author. No one has read this book for errors. As always, any errors, mistakes or oversights etc. are mine alone. Given a couple more years, I could improve this book. This is a philosophical translation and not a philological translation. Martin Luther who did the famous early translation of the Bible into German wrote in a letter, “If anyone does not like my translation, they can ignore it… (September 15, 1530)”. There are no ‘correct’ translations. Some are just better than other translations. -/- The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism. The German title is: Das Älteste Systemprogramm Des Deutschen Idealismus. This title was made up by Franz Rosenzweig in 1917, when he first published the manuscript. He found the manuscript in the Royal Library in Berlin in 1913. The manuscript suggested date is around 1796 and was done by handwriting research. However, the manuscript is not dated. The Prussian State Library auctioned in March 1913 from the auction of the house Liepmannssohn in Berlin a single sheet on the front and back with Hegel's cursive handwriting. The manuscript was lost during WWII. But Dieter Henrich found it again in 1979 in the “Biblioteka Jagiellonska” in Krakow (Poland), where it is today. Address: Jagiellonian Library, Jagiellonian University, al. Mickiewicza 22, 30-059 Cracow, Poland. Later research suggests that manuscript had come from the estate of Hegel’s student Friedrich Christoph Förster (1791-1868). He was one of the editors of Hegel’s posthumous works and most likely had access to a number of Hegel’s manuscripts. This text actually being one of them. Hegel traveled around Bohemia with Marie and Friedrich Christoph Förster around the year 1820-21 (see Klaus Vieweg). -/- Philosophical mystery -- who is the author or authors of this text? -/- Take a plunge into the deep and cold waters. Maybe a quagmire or quandary, but decidedly interesting. This project is to contextualize an old handwritten manuscript which is about 225 years old. The actual author is a mystery. I offer my own assessment. You can make your own assessments. The mystery has continued to unfold since 1917. There is plenty to read. Otherwise, think about the authorship and read more of the German philosophers and authors from this period and enjoy the depth of thinking and philosophizing. On one hand, there is just the sheer fun in the puzzle of the authorship questions; and on the other hand, these are the alluring thoughts that lead to the nascent stage of German Idealism and our intellectual heritage. There is no end to the accolades for this group of philosophers. A heritage that we still hear in in our attempts to move forward into our future. -/- Do your own astute exegesis (ἐξήγησις) as all paths are still open. Let your thought take to the wings of what is called thinking with this text. Critical encounters (Auseinandersetzung, or a Gegenüberstellung) with at least: Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854), and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) --- starts here! German Idealism. We are not going to study this situation endlessly, instead we make some broad strokes and provide you a general context. You are allowed to read between the lines too. Goal: to understand the overall affinity and differences between the intellectuals of this period in German history; and to come to grips with this demanding text within its large scholarly context in the last 100 years. There are no final answers. (shrink)

With Hegel’s metaphysics attracting renewed attention, it is time to address a long-standing criticism: Scholars from Marx to Popper and Habermas have worried that Hegel’s metaphysics has anti-individualist and authoritarian implications, which are particularly pronounced in his Philosophy of History, since Hegel identifies historical progress with reason imposing itself on individuals. Rather than proposing an alternative non-metaphysical conception of reason, as Pippin or Brandom have done, this article argues that critics are broadly right in their metaphysical reading (...) of Hegel’s central concepts. However, they are mistaken about what Hegel’s approach entails, when one examines the specific types of states discussed by the philosopher in his Philosophy of History. Even on a traditional metaphysical reading, Hegel is not only non-authoritarian; he also makes a powerful argument concerning freedom, whereupon the freest society involves collective oversight and the shaping of social structures so as to ensure that they benefit everybody. (shrink)

Picking up on Marx’s and Hegel’s analyses of human beings as social and individual, the article shows that what is at stake is not merely the possibility of individuality, but also the correct conception of the universal good. Both Marx and Hegel suppose that individuals must be social or political as individuals, which means, at least in Hegel’s case, that particular interests must form part of the universal good. The good and the rational is not something that (...) requires sacrificing one’s interests for the community or denying one’s particular character so as to become an equal rational agent. Very much to the contrary, the rational or the common good is nothing but the harmonious structuring of particular interests. While Section I introduces Marx’s and Hegel’s conceptions of individual and social beings, Sections II and III discuss their respective views of individuality, and Sections IV and V discuss the notion of a universal good containing individual interests. (shrink)

While Hegel's metaphysics was long reviled, it has garnered more interest in recent years, with even the so-called non-metaphysical Hegelians starting to explicitly discuss Hegel’s metaphysical commitments. This brings up the old question: what are the social-philosophical implications of Hegel’s metaphysics? This chapter provides a unique answer to this question by contrasting the former non-metaphysical reading (as developed by Robert Pippin) with a traditional way of interpreting Hegel’s metaphysics and social philosophy, whose lineage includes not Wittgenstein, (...) Sellars, or Brandom, but rather Schelling, Marx, and Adorno. After discussing the two varieties of metaphysics (Sections 1–3), I will argue that a traditional metaphysical Hegel is more realist when it comes to assessing the power of social structures (Section 4), focused on structural freedom rather than agency (Sections 5 and 6), and more empowering for and lenient towards individuals who can make their interests count and are free to be irrational and egoist (Section 7). (shrink)

The purpose of the present essay is to explicate the basic movement which the Understanding exercises upon itself at the end of the chapter on “Force and the Understanding” in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Unlike many other commentators on the Phenomenology, I hope to show how Hegel’s argumentation in this chapter applies not merely to the Newtonian paradigm (to which Hegel makes explicit reference), but to any paradigm which involves the objectivistic presuppositions of the Understanding.

Both Hegel and the later Wittgenstein were concerned with the problem of how to begin speculation, or the problem of beginning. I argue that despite many differences, there are surprising similarities between their thinking about the beginning. They both consider different kinds of beginnings and combine them into complex analogies. The beginning has a subjective and an objective moment. The philosophizing subject has to begin with something, with an object. For Hegel, the objective moment is pure being. For (...) Wittgenstein, the objective moment is something that cannot be doubted. As regards the subjective moment, the philosophizing subject has to decide, without any reason, to conclude her quest for the presuppositionless beginning and finally begin at the beginning. The arational moment of this decision is echoed throughout any rational thought. Any application of a (rational) rule is, ultimately, a blind decision to apply this rule. (shrink)

The core argument of this article is that Adorno adopts the distinction between an abstract and a concrete universal from Hegel and criticizes Hegel, on that basis, as abstract. The first two parts of the article outline that both thinkers take the abstract universal to be the form of a false type of knowledge and society, and the concrete universal to be a positive aim. However, as the third part argues, Adorno rejects how the concrete universal is understood (...) in Hegel’s philosophy and formulates a different conception of it. The fourth part questions if Adorno manages to overcome the problems he identifies in Hegel or whether they are inherent to the programme of dialectics both endorse. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) has commonly been seen as Europe’s leading philosopher since Kant. His influence extended across the globe down to the Second World War – not least through his dissident disciple, Karl Marx. Since then, despite intermittent revivals, his importance has tended to be eclipsed by a rising tide of anti-modernist polemic, extending from Heidegger to postmodernism. Central to Hegel’s political thought was his view of the French Revolution. But notwithstanding its pivotal role in the (...) development of his ideas, his reaction to that event has been systematically misconstrued. In presenting a more faithful account of Hegel’s interpretation of his own era, the argument presented here places his response to contemporary developments in the context of a series of World Revolutions which framed the meaning of his age. This approach serves to illustrate the unique combination of historical and philosophical reasoning on which Hegel’s thought depended. In the process, reconstructing his arguments raises challenging questions about the applicability of bygone political ideas to later historical periods. (shrink)

Against those who argue that Hegel despaired of providing a solution to the problem of poverty, I argue, on the basis of key dialectical transitions in Hegel's Philosophy of Right, that he held at least the following: (1) that the chronic poverty endemic to industrial capitalism can be overcome only through changes that must include a transformation in practices of consumption, (2) that this transformation must lead to more *sittlich* and self-conscious practices of consumption, and (3) that the (...) institution best-suited to enable the development of these more *sittlich* and self-conscious practices of consumption is the *Korporation*. (shrink)

Can Hegel, a philosopher who claims that philosophy lsquo;has no other object but God and so is essentially rational theologyrsquo;, ever be taken as anything emother than/em a religious philosopher with little to say to any philosophical project that identifies itself as emsecular/em?nbsp; If the valuable substantive insights found in the detail of Hegelrsquo;s philosophy are to be rescued for a secular philosophy, then, it is commonly presupposed, some type of global reinterpretation of the enframing idealistic framework is required. (...) In this essay, this assumption is challenged. br /br /Kantrsquo;s interpretation of space and time as a response to Newtonrsquo;s theologically based spatio-temporal emrealism/em is taken as a model of what it is to be a Kantian emidealist/em about God and the self. In turn, Hegelrsquo;s philosophy is taken as a development of this approach that overcomes the limitations of Kantrsquo;s formal approach. Hegelrsquo;s major contribution to Kantrsquo;s revolutionary transformation of the task of philosophy is, it is argued, his recognitive conception of lsquo;spiritrsquo;. While this has been widely appreciated with regard to the relations between lsquo;subjectiversquo; and lsquo;objectiversquo; spirit, it is suggested that a fuller understanding of the nature of Hegelrsquo;s emabsolute/em idealism requires a proper understanding of how this approach also applies to the domain of lsquo;absolute spiritrsquo;. br /br /. (shrink)

In the debate about Heidegger’s commitment to National Socialism is often referred to his membership in the „Committee for the Philosophy of Right“ of the „Academy for German Law“ that was founded by then „Reichsminister“ Hans Frank in 1934. Since the protocols of the Committee were destroyed and there is no relevant information in other writings, nothing can be said about the frequency and content of the meetings. It is only documented that the committee was dissolved in 1938. However, in (...) the past year the philosopher Sidonie Kellerer and the semiotician François Rastier referred to a document that, they say, proves that Heidegger was in the committee until 1941/42 and that the latter participated „in practice“ (Rastier) in the Holocaust. The said document was depicted for the first time in the above mentioned FAZ publication and will be analysed in the present essay. It is exluded in it that the document proves the continuity of the „Committee for the Philosophy of Right“ until 1941/42 or even the participation mentioned. It is rather possible to conclude in the frame of high probability that in the document were listed only the names and addresses of possible experts for the conversion of the Civil Code into a „Volksgesetzbuch“. The allegation of the committee’s participation in the Holocaust is rejected as being untenable. The publication of the article in the FAZ triggered the „Debate about Heidegger and Fake News“. In der Debatte um das Engagement des Philosophen Martin Heidegger für den Nationalsozialismus wird oft auf seine Mitgliedschaft in dem vom damaligen Reichsminister Hans Frank gegründeten „Ausschuss für Rechtsphilosophie“ innerhalb der „Akademie für Deutsches Recht“ verwiesen, der 1934 gegründet wurde. Da die Protokolle des Ausschusses zerstört wurden und auch in anderen Schriften keine diesbezüglichen Angaben zu finden sind, lässt sich nichts über die Häufigkeit und den Inhalt der Tagungen sagen. Es ist nur belegt, dass der Ausschuss 1938 offiziell aufgelöst wurde. Im vergangenen Jahr, im September 2017, referierten die Philosophin Sidonie Kellerer und der Linguist François Rastier jedoch auf ein Schriftstück, das belege, dass Heidegger bis 1941/42 in dem Ausschuss war und dieser auch „in der Praxis“ (Rastier) am Holocaust teilgenommen habe. Das Schriftstück wurde in der obigen Publikation der FAZ erstmals abgebildet und wird hier im Detail analysiert. Dabei kann begründetermaßen ausgeschlossen werden, dass das besagte Dokument den Fortbestand des „Ausschusses für Rechtsphilosophie“ oder die genannte Teilhabe belege. Nach hinreichender Analyse muss vielmehr in dem Rahmen hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit geschlossen werden, dass dort nur Namen und Adressen von potentiellen Gutachtern für die Umwandlung des BGB in ein „Volksgesetzbuch“ aufgelistet wurden. Der Vorhalt einer Teilhabe des Ausschusses am Holocaust wird als ganz unhaltbar zurückgewiesen. Die Publikation des Artikels in der FAZ löste die „Debatte über Heidegger und Fake News“ aus. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 25 This is a pre-print. Please cite only the revised published version. This paper presents an original, ambitious, truth-directed transcendental argument for the existence of an ‘external world’. It begins with a double-headed starting-point: Stroud’s own remarks on the necessary conditions of language in general, and Hegel’s critique of the “fear of error.” The paper argues that the sceptical challenge requires a particular critical concept of thought as that which may diverge from reality, and that (...) this concept is possible only through reflection on situations of error, in which how things are thought to be diverges from how things really are with independent items in an objective world. The existence of such a world is therefore a necessary condition of the possibility of scepticism: such scepticism is therefore false. I defend the argument against objections from Stroud’s sceptic and others. Drawing on Heidegger, the paper concludes by indicating that the chain of necessary conditions includes practical engagement with the world. (shrink)

This chapter examines Hegel’s conception of philosophical critique in order to shed light on the force and limits of the method that has become known as immanent critique. At least in modern philosophy, it was Kant who first conceived of critique as a form of reflection that draws its criterion from reason itself. As I argue, Hegel is deeply indebted to Kant in this respect. The chapter begins with an analysis of Hegel's seminal essay ‘On the Essence (...) of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and its Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy in Particular’, published in 1802. After a brief discussion of the Phenomenology, I turn to his Philosophy of Right. These texts make clear, I argue, that the criterion from which immanent critique takes its bearings is necessarily tainted with a particularity that it cannot affirm without losing its force. According to this account, immanent critique comes to refer to a form of reflection that is more complicated and more precarious than Kant and Hegel seem to have assumed. (shrink)

Hegel's interpretation of Sophocles' play Antigone is central to an understanding of woman's role in the Hegelian system. Hegel is fascinated by this play and uses it in both the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right to demonstrate that familial ethical life is woman's unique responsibility. Antigone is revealed as the paradigmatic figure of womanhood and family life in both the ancient and modern worlds, although there are fundamental differences between these two worlds for Hegel. Through an (...) immanent critique of both the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right which focuses on the role of woman as presented by Hegel in the figure of Antigone, my analysis reveals the limitations of Hegel’s dialectical theory. (shrink)

Michael Baur, "Situating Hegel: From Transcendental Philosophy to a Phenomenology of Spirit," in the Palgrave Hegel Handbook, edited by Marian Bykova and Kenneth Westphal (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

When Hegel first addresses moral responsibility in the Philosophy of Right, he presupposes that agents are only responsible for what they intended to do, but appears to offer little, if any, justification for this assumption. In this essay, I claim that the first part of the Philosophy of Right, “Abstract Right”, contains an implicit argument that legal or external responsibility (blame for what we have done) is conceptually dependent on moral responsibility proper (blame for what we have intended). This (...) overlooked argument satisfies the first half of a thesis Hegel applies to action in the Encyclopaedia Logic, namely, that the outer must be inner, and thus provides a necessary complement for his more explicit treatment of the second half of that thesis, that the inner must be outer. The claim that agents are only responsible for what they intended to do might appear, at first, to risk conflating legal and moral responsibility and to lack the necessary means to deal with the phenomenon of moral luck, but I argue that if it is properly situated within the whole of Hegel's philosophy of action it can be saved from both of these consequences and so take its place as an essential component of Hegel's full theory of moral responsibility. (shrink)

This article challenges the prevailing interpretations of Hegel's account of the concept "contradiction" in the Science of Logic by arguing that it is concerned with the principle of Hegel's method rather than with the classical law of non-contradiction. I first consider Hegel's Doctrine of Essence in view of Kant's discussion of the concepts of reflection in the first Critique. On this basis, I examine Hegel's account of the logical principles based on the concepts "identity," "opposition," and (...) "contradiction." Finally, I point out how the principle Hegel derives from the concept of contradiction actually informs his own method. (shrink)

Many interpreters argue that irrational acts of exchange can count as rational and civic-minded for Hegel—even though, admittedly, the persons who are exchanging their property are usually unaware of this fact. While I do not want to deny that property exchange can count as rational in terms of ‘mutual recognition’ as interpreters claim, this proposition raises an important question: What about the irrationality and arbitrariness that individuals as property owners and persons consciously enjoy? Are they mere vestiges of nature (...) in Hegel’s system, or do they constitute a simple yet valid form of freedom that is not only a part of Hegel’s rational system of right, but its necessary starting point? I will argue the latter: The arbitrary, purely egoist self-definition of property owners is the simplest possible type of freedom for Hegel, which he dissects in order to show how the very arbitrary self-definition implicitly relies on an identity between persons, and hence foreshadows the more social forms of freedom Hegel will discuss later in his book. I make this argument by highlighting Hegel’s references to his discussion of atoms and freedom in his Logic of Being. (shrink)

Our reception of Hegel’s theory of action faces a fundamental difficulty: on the one hand, that theory is quite clearly embedded in a social theory of modern life, but on the other hand most of the features of the society that gave that embedding its specific content have become almost inscrutably strange to us (e.g., the estates and the monarchy). Thus we find ourselves in the awkward position of stressing the theory’s sociality even as we scramble backwards to distance (...) ourselves from the particular social institutions that gave conceptualized form to such sociality in Hegel’s own opinion. My attempt in this article is to make our position less awkward by giving us at least one social-ontological leg to stand on. Specifically, I want to defend a principled and conceptual pluralism as forming the heart of Hegel’s theory of action. If this view can be made out, then we will have a social-ontological structure that might be filled out in different ways in Hegel’s time and our own while simultaneously giving real teeth to the notion that Hegel’s theory of action is essentially social. (shrink)

Hegel for the most part insists we support existing practices: they have endured, have socialized us, are our home. At times Hegel seems to demand conformity, to leave no room for dissent or disobedience. Hegel gives great weight to the authority of the state and of custom. But Hegel does not leave the individual confronted with an unjust state powerless. To Hegel, we are obligated to obey the law if we are at home in the (...) state, if its practices, institutions and laws are rational, if the free will "comes into existence" in it. But on Hegel's view, if the practices, institutions and laws of the state are not rational, we are not obligated to comply with their demands. Few recognize that Hegel even allows for justified disobedience, let alone that he can tell us anything about the conditions under which disobedience is justified. This is partly attributable to the fact that important texts concerning Hegel's views have only recently been discovered and published. For example, in a passage from one of these texts, a set of notes of Hegel's lectures on political philosophy, Hegel declares that if my free will does not come into existence in the state, I have no corresponding duty to the state. My purpose is to articulate a distinctive Hegelian theory of justified disobedience, show how it differs both from the traditional understandings of Hegel's views and from contemporary approaches to the problem of justified disobedience, and briefly to point to some difficulties with Hegel's position that need to be worked out if it is to be a satisfactory alternative. (shrink)

Understood in its widest sense, the term “hermeneutics” can be taken to refer to the theory and/or practice of any interpretation aimed at uncovering the meaning of any expression, regardless of whether such expression was produced by a human or non-human source. Understood in a narrower sense, the term “hermeneutics” can be taken to refer to a particular stream of thought regarding the theory and/or practice of interpretation, developed mainly by German-speaking theorists from the late eighteenth through to the late (...) twentieth century. “Hermeneutics” in its broadest sense dates at least as far back as the ancient Greeks and is linked etymologically to the ancient Greeks’ mythological deity Hermes, who was said to deliver and interpret messages from the gods to mortals. “Hermeneutics” in its narrower sense emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, initially for the purpose of addressing problems in the interpretation of classical and biblical tests and then later for the purpose of articulating a more “universalized” theory of interpretation of general. This chapter traces the development of hermeneutics in its narrow sense through the work of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), and then concludes with some observations about what Hegel’s own hermeneutical thought might mean against the backdrop of this development. (shrink)

Para Hegel, Asia señala el comienzo de la historia universal, mientras que Europa señala su consumación y final. La América precolombina, al igual que la África negra, están para Hegel fuera de la historia universal; en cuanto a la historia de América tras su descubrimiento por los europeos, Hegel sostiene que lo que ha sucedido desde entonces en el continente americano proviene, en rigor, del “principio de Europa”. Hegel contrapone a su vez la historia de América (...) Latina a la de los actuales Estados Unidos en términos del respectivo desarrollo económico y social. Hegel atribuye la brecha de desarrollo entre las dos Américas, por un lado, a que América Latina es católica y Estados Unidos es mayoritariamente protestante, y, por el otro, a que América Latina fue “conquistada”, mientras que Estados Unidos fue “colonizado”. Sobre la base del análisis de los textos pertinentes de la obra de Hegel, se reconstruirá su teoría sobre el desigual nivel de desarrollo socio-económico de América Latina y Estados Unidos y se evaluará la plausibilidad, actualidad y eventual deficiencia de la misma. (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)

Early in the Logic of Essence, the second main part of Hegelian Logic, Hegel identifies a logical structure, seeming (Schein), with “the phenomenon of scepticism.” The present paper has two aims: first, to flesh this identification out by describing the argument that leads up to it; and, second, to argue that it is mistaken. I will proceed as follows. Section 1 deciphers the opening statement of the Logic of Essence, “the truth of being is essence,” by specifying the meaning (...) of each of its composing terms. The discussion opens the way for deliberation on the meaning of the notion of seeming, since seeming proves to be what remains of being in the structure of essence. This is done in section 2. It is also shown therein that seeming takes two logical forms, dualistic seeming and monistic seeming. Section 3 argues that Hegel identifies scepticism only with dualistic seeming, and that the scepticism he has in mind is what one may call “subjective scepticism,” namely a scepticism grounded in the subject of cognition. The section concludes that Hegel, judged by his own standards, is mistaken in this identification. Finally, section 4 considers Robert Pippin’s objection to the above conclusion and offers a rejoinder. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Hegel's end-of-art thesis is arguably the most notorious assertion in aesthetics. I outline traditional interpretive strategies before offering an original alternative to these. I develop a conception of art that facilitates a reading of Hegel on which he is able to embrace three seemingly contradictory theses about art, namely, (i) the end-of-art thesis, (ii) the continued significance of art for its own sake (autonomy thesis), and (iii) the necessity of art for robust knowledge (epistemicnecessity thesis). I argue that (...) Hegel is able to embrace all three theses at once through a conception of the work of art as an internally purposive whole (what I call the "IP View" of art). On the IP View, because of the kind of wholes that artworks are, they (i.a) are valuable for their own sake as ends-in-themselves, (i.b) yield valuable experiences because they are valuable for their own sake, and thereby (i.c) are necessary for robust knowledge. Finally, I suggest that not only does Hegel appear to hold the IP View of art, but also that on such a view, there is a very sensible reason for affirming (one reading of) Hegel's end-of-art thesis as an important means to establishing art's actual significance for robust knowledge against soaring, but unsubstantiable, claims about art's potency with respect to robust knowledge. (shrink)

Why I thought it useful to offer an explanation of Hegel’s doctrine on the Incarnation was so that the reader may be empowered to identify Hegel’s influence in modern accounts of this mystery. Even if, in my view, Hegel’s interpretation of revealed religion differs greatly from Catholic Doctrine, it is not surprising to find the presence of some of his concepts in modern theology. In truth, what matters is not the theologian’s self-identification as Hegelian or as non-Hegelian, (...) but whether or not the theologian adopts Hegel’s concepts. This paper offers an explanation of the internal dynamism of Hegelian concepts and their relation to Christian doctrine in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. This research may help to show in what way it is possible to explain Christian religious doctrine with a philosophy other than the Thomistic one and how, at least in Hegel’s case, religious doctrine is changed and reduced to an erroneous philosophical content. Also, an attempt is made to show the internal “coherence” of this Hegelian re-reading of Christianity so that theologians may become more cautious about accepting an explanation of Christian doctrine simply because the Christian language is preserved in that explanation. (shrink)

I argue that Hegel’s Phenomenology is an attempt to prove that human experience displays a sui generis logical structure. This is because, as rational animals who instinctively create a universe of meaning to navigate our environment, the perceptual content of our conscious experience of objects, the desires that motivate our self-conscious experience of action, and the beliefs and values that make up our sociohistorical experience all testify to the presence of rationality as their condition of possibility. As such, (...) class='Hi'>Hegel’s Phenomenology not only requires of us that we transform the mission of logic into a description of the immanent logic at the basis of human experience, thereby making the task of logic “anthropological.” It also presents us with a novel model of human experience—one that: demonstrates the rationality already instinctively at work in our bodily sensations, perceptions, and desires; gives an account of the origins of human society and history; and also makes human experience irreducible to cognitive processes in the brain, psychological mechanisms, and the biological imperatives of survival and reproduction. (shrink)

A primary fault line in the analytic philosophy of action is the debate between causal/Davidsonian and interpretivist/Anscombian theories of action. The fundamental problem of the former is producing a criterion for distinguishing intentional from non-intentional causal chains; the fundamental problem of the latter is producing an account of the relation between reasons and actions that is represented by the ‘because’ in the claim that the agent acted because she had the reason. It is argued that Hegel’s conception of teleology (...) can be used to develop the interpretivist position by solving both its and the causal theory’s fundamental problems. (shrink)

As Richard Bernstein has suggested, there is a very rich and interesting story to be told about how the classical pragmatists (Dewey, Peirce, and James) understood G. W. R Hegel, made use of Hegel, and ultimately distanced themselves from Hegel. That story cannot be told here. Indeed, the story is so rich and complicated that even its beginnings cannot be told here. But what can be provided, perhaps, is a limited, though hopefully illuminating, perspective on a few (...) salient aspects of the relationship between the classical pragmatists and Hegel. While the following reflections offer no definitive answers about this relationship, they might at least suggest some fruitful lines of enquiry for future discussion. (shrink)

Philosophy of history is the conceptual and technical study of the relation which exists between philosophy and history. This paper tries to analyze and examine the nature of philosophy of history, its methodology and ideal development. In this I have tried to set the limits of knowledge to know the special account of Hegel’s idealistic view about philosophy of history. In this paper I have also used the philosophical methodology and philosophy inquiry, quest and hypothesis to discuss the (...) class='Hi'>Hegel’s idealistic concept of philosophy of history. It also examines and demonstrates the views of other idealist philosophers like, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It also shows the how history of mathematics is a complementary of idealism as most of philosophers who were idealists are also great mathematicians. In this paper we are investigation the epistemological approach, logical and metaphysical approach to study the nature of history, meaning of history and structure of history. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers are right to criticize Hegel’s prejudices against women. In many of his works, Hegel reduces women to their physiology as means of explaining why they occupy a subordinate role in nature and in society. Such treatment seems arbitrary at best, for the gendering of roles disrupts Hegel’s dialectical approach to spirit without any meaningful gain. Despite this defect in Hegel’s work, what is positive in Hegelian social and political philosophy remains intact. In this paper (...) I argue that the sexist claims that Hegel makes about women are irrelevant to his theory of the family in the Philosophy of Right. Therein, Hegel outlines three components that are necessary for the completion of the family: marriage, property and assets, and the raising of children. Hegel also includes a description of the different roles occupied by family members and divides these roles along gender lines. Given the three components that are essential to the family, I argue that there is no necessary basis for familial roles to be divided by gender. (shrink)

Parmenides plays an important role in the first section of Hegel’s Science of Logic due to his definition of being as a pure thought-determination. This article investigates, first, how Hegel conceives the Parmenidean being. Secondly, by discussing Hegel's logical analysis of pure being and pure nothing, it aims to show why and how such conception of being, according to Hegel, provides a crucial insight into the function of the understanding.

Although typical arguments for knitting are that it is useful, therapeutic or the latest trend, I argue that knitting can play a life-changing part in the creation of a person’s self. Knitting can be a genuinely powerful activity, one worthy of respect and admiration.

Nietzsche’s views regarding suicide are usually interpreted as a response to Christian, Kantian, and Schopenhauerian ethics. Here, they are defended on the basis of his notion of life as an aesthetic phenomenon in order to provide extramoral responses to such challenges as the following: a) whether the self can deliver the right kind of judgment regarding her life, b) how suicide can be considered an empowerment of the will, and c) whether suicide can be considered an exercise of freedom by (...) the subject who thereby cancels the very grounds and means for will and action. Reconstructed as a response to Hegel’s argument against suicide on the grounds that one is not the master of oneself and that one therefore lacks the proper means to judge one’s life, Nietzsche’s position provides the epistemic footing to ground an alternate notion of self-mastery as well as the necessary insight regarding one’s life. It is shown that this reading of Nietzsche’s argument is in alignment with his non-dualism and expressivist views regarding agency. Finally, a response is formulated to the socially-grounded arguments prohibiting suicide on the basis of this reading of Nietzsche’s position. (shrink)

It is fair to say that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy of mathematics and his interpretation of the calculus in particular have not been popular topics of conversation since the early part of the twentieth century. Changes in mathematics in the late nineteenth century, the new set-theoretical approach to understanding its foundations, and the rise of a sympathetic philosophical logic have all conspired to give prior philosophies of mathematics (including Hegel's) the untimely appearance of naïveté. The common view (...) was expressed by Bertrand Russell: -/- The great [mathematicians] of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so much impressed by the results of their new methods that they did not trouble to examine their foundations. Although their arguments were fallacious, a special Providence saw to it that their conclusions were more or less true. Hegel fastened upon the obscurities in the foundations of mathematics, turned them into dialectical contradictions, and resolved them by nonsensical syntheses. . . .The resulting puzzles [of mathematics] were all cleared up during the nineteenth century, not by heroic philosophical doctrines such as that of Kant or that of Hegel, but by patient attention to detail (1956, 368–69). (shrink)

In this paper, I contest increasingly common "realist" interpretations of Hegel's theory of "the concept" (der Begriff), offering instead a "isomorphic" conception of the relation of concepts and the world. The isomorphism recommended, however, is metaphysically deflationary, for I show how Hegel's conception of conceptual form creates a conceptually internal standard for the adequacy of concepts. No "sideways-on" theory of the concept-world relationship is envisioned. This standard of conceptual adequacy is also "graduated" in that it allows for a (...) lack of fit between concept and world. The possibility for a "maximally isomorphic" fit between concept and world obtains through the teleological realization of concepts, which marks especially the "artificial" world of human culture (law, art, religion, etc.). Some of the most seemingly exaggerated claims Hegel makes about the concept, I contend, can be understood when we consider the significance Hegel ascribes to human making, which is provided for in his conceptual theory. But my framework provides an interpretive key for the way Hegel sees concepts imperfectly realized in the natural world as well. (shrink)

This essay discusses Hegel’s theory of “abstract” respect for “abstract” personhood and its relation to the fuller, concrete account of human personhood. Hegel defines (abstract) personhood as an abstract, formal category with the help of his account of free will. For Hegel, personhood is defined in terms of powers, relations to self and to others. After analyzing what according to the first part of Philosophy of Right it is to (abstractly) respect someone as a person, the essay (...) discusses the implications for private property and market. Then the paper turns to discuss pathologies of ideologies that stress these aspects only. Finally, the essay discusses the way inwhich Hegel’s full social theory aims to overcome such pathological tendencies; most notably in his theory of Family and the State. (shrink)

Reading Hegel‘s Phenomenology of Spirit - Irfan Ajvazi.

Hegel's critique of Schleiermacher as the embodiment of two currents of romantic irony: empiricist skepticism (Schlegel) and feeling (Novalis), are explicitly presented as "absolute presupposition of our time". The article associates these "presuppositions" with features of postmodernity, as presented by Lyotard. Thus, the Hegelian critique of Schleiermacher might be read as a critique of postmodernity.

The aim of this paper is to show how certain distinctive elements of Hegel's theory of action can provide a fresh philosophical perspective on the phenomenon of addiction. What motivates the turn to Hegel is a set of puzzles that arise out of contemporary medical and philosophical discussions of addiction. Starting with questions concerning ongoing attempts to define addiction, the paper examines the resources needed for addiction to be classed as a disorder, as it commonly is. Provisionally settling (...) with the notion of akrasia, the paper turns to Hegel for a theory of agency that fills in the gaps of the account of akrasia used in the contemporary literature on addiction and helps resolve the puzzles that occasioned the paper. (shrink)

I argue that Hegel and Wittgenstein, each in their own specific way, used the idea of God at the beginning of creation as a complex analogy for other kinds of beginning, most notably the beginning of philosophical thought. Hegel’s Logic describes God’s mind before the creation of the world, i.e. God’s pure thinking. For a philosopher, beginning afresh means resolving to consider this kind of abstraction from the existence of the world. Wittgenstein, by contrast, says that the idea (...) of a creator of the world does not explain anything. It marks the terminus ad quem of asking for explanations; we must not ask further who created the creator of the world. Wittgenstein generalizes this for any kind of reasoning: “Explanations come to an end somewhere.” (Philosophical Investigations: §1) Any sort of explanation must eventually arrive at its terminus ad quem, which means only that any kind of reasoning must have its logical beginning. (shrink)

Paper given at the 20th Biennial Meeting of the Hegel Society of America, University of South Carolina, October 24-26, 2008 -/- The local problem of the soul-body relation can be grasped only against the global background of the relation between Nature and Spirit. This relates to Hegel's naturalism: the idea that there is one single reality - living reality - and different levels of description of it. This implies, moreover, that it is possible to ascribe some form of (...) naturality also to the social body of institutionalized ethical life. Hegel’s position can thus be characterised as a kind of aristotelian social naturalism: this, at bottom, is the combined meaning of the Hegelian theses that soul is the substance of Spirit, and habit its universal form. (shrink)

According to some critics, the putative superficiality of Winckelmann's appropriation of the Greek legacy is just one instance of the emptiness that characterizes the appropriation of the Greeks by the Germans in general. Thus Eliza Maria Butler has spoken of the 'tyranny of Greece over Germany': 'If the Greeks are tyrants, the Germans are predestined slaves ... The Germans have imitated the Greeks more slavishly; they have been obsessed by them more utterly, and they have assimilated them less than any (...) other race.” Not coincidentally, the putative freedom or unfreedom of one's appropriation of the Greek ideal is one of the basic problems at issue in this chapter. In the following pages, I argue that Winckelmann not only understood this basic problem but also touched on its actual solution, albeit in an inadequate, aesthetic manner. I go on to suggest that Hegel articulated this solution in an adequate and properly philosophical manner. (shrink)