In this article, I offer a critical interpretation of Hegel’s claims regarding the presuppositionless status of the Logic. Commentators have been divided as to whether the Logic actually achieves the status of presuppositionless science, disagreeing as to whether the Logic succeeds in making an unmediated beginning. I argue, however, that this understanding of presuppositionless science is misguided, as it reflects a spurious conception of immediacy that Hegel criticizes as false. Contextualizing Hegel’s remarks in light of his broader (...) approach to the problem of beginning, I contend that Hegel’s Logic is presuppositionless not in the sense that it satisfies a formal epistemological demand to begin free from all mediation, but in that its self-mediating structure facilitates an immanent deduction of the categories. (shrink)

want to question this idea of a pure presuppositionless self-developing sequence of logical categories. This is part of a larger investigation of the inherence of Hegel's thought in historical language. Concerning the necessary self-development of thought, I have three objections to propose. The first concerns the difficulty of recognizing a uniquely correct sequence of categories, when the various versions all express positive insights. The second concerns the very idea of a unified sequence. The third concerns the goal of pure (...) self-development. (shrink)

Rather than approaching the question of the constructive or therapeutic character of Hegel’s Logic through a global consideration of its argument and its relation to the rest of Hegel’s system, I want to come at the question by considering a specific thread that runs through the argument of the Logic, namely the question of the proper understanding of power or control. What I want to try to show is that there is a close connection between therapeutic and constructive (...) elements in Hegel’s treatment of power. To do so I will make use of two deep criticisms of Hegel’s treatment from Michael Theunissen. First comes Theunissen’s claim that in Hegel’s logical scheme, reality is necessarily dominated by the concept rather than truly reciprocally related to it. Then I will consider Theunissen’s structurally analogous claim that for Hegel, the power of the concept is the management of the suppression of the other. Both of these claims are essentially claims about the way in which elements of the logic of reflection are modified and yet continue to play a role in the logic of the concept. (shrink)

The history of philosophy risks a self-opacity whereby we overestimate or underestimate our proximity to prior modes of thinking. This risk is relevant to assessing Hegel’s appropriation by McDowell and Priest. McDowell enlists Hegel for a quietist answer to the problem with assuming that concepts and reality belong to different orders, viz., how concepts are answerable to the world. If we accept Hegel’s absolute idealist view that the conceptual is boundless, this problem allegedly dissolves. Priest enlists Hegel for a dialetheist (...) answer to the problem with assuming that truth and falsity are mutually exclusive, viz., how certain sentences are both true and false. If we accept Hegel’s dialectical view that certain contradictions are necessary, this problem allegedly dissolves. For both McDowell and Priest, we find a true friend in Hegel. I argue that McDowell’s and Priest’s appropriations of Hegel overestimate Hegel’s affinity with quietism and dialetheism. McDowell reads Hegel as a quietist who silences metaphysical claims and the skeptical questions they raise against commonsense, but neglects Hegel’s adaptation of ancient skepticism against commonsense. Priest reads Hegel as a dialetheist who subordinates formal logic to dialectical logic by affirming the truth of certain contradictions, but neglects Hegel’s commitment to resolving contradictions for the sake of truth qua whole. I diagnose their misreadings in terms of what Hegel regards as the three moments of logic and argue that while McDowell jumps to its third moment, Priest stalls at its second moment. According to Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, logic has three “moments”: the abstractive moment of the understanding, which “stops short” at fixed categories; the negative moment of dialectic, which discovers the “genuine nature” of the categories, viz., that each “passes over, of itself, into its opposite”; and the positive moment of speculation, which grasps the “unity” of categories through the “dissolution” of their inner opposition. Hegel warns that if these moments are “kept separate from each other […] they are not considered in their truth”. I suggest that quietist and dialetheist readings of Hegel fail to consider truthfully the unified moments of his logic. In his quietist critique of metaphysics, McDowell enlists Hegel to dissolve the problem with assuming the duality of concept and reality. But McDowell helps himself directly to the third moment of logic, where the unity of the categories, and hence the boundlessness of the conceptual, would be fully articulated. Since he arrives at the third moment prematurely, ignoring its prior moments, he obscures its truth (§1). In his dialetheist critique of formal logic, Priest enlists Hegel to dissolve the problem with assuming the duality of truth and falsity. But Priest restricts himself gratuitously to the second moment of logic, where contradictions within the categories are not yet resolved. Since he stalls at the second moment, severed from its final moment, he obscures its truth (§2). I argue we can extricate Hegel from quietist and dialetheist misreadings only if we grasp the truth of the three moments of logic. (shrink)

What corresponds to the present-day ‘transcendental-pragmatic’ concept of ultimate grounding in Hegel is his claim to absoluteness of the logic. Hegel’s fundamental intuition is that of a ‘backward going grounding’ obtaining the initially unproved presuppositions, thereby ‘wrapping itself into a circle’ – the project of the self-grounding of logic, understood as the self-explication of logic by logical means. Yet this is not about one of the multiple ‘logics’ which as formal constructs cannot claim absoluteness. It is rather (...) a fundamental logic that only makes logical textures possible at all and so owns transcendental character. The non-contradiction-principle is an example for this. Es- sential is that it is ‘under-cover-effcient’ as soon as meaningful concepts are used. Self-explication of the fundamental logic then means explicating its implicit under-cover validity, in fact by means of the fundamental logic itself. As is shown this is the affair of dialectic which thereby is to be understood as ultimate grounding of the fundamental logic. This is analyzed in detail using the example of the being/non-being-dialectic. As is demonstrated each explication step generates a new implicit issue and therewith a new explication-discrepancy inducing an antinomical structure that anew forwards the explication procedure. So this is entirely determined by itself. Decisive for the ultimate grounding argumentation is that thereby an objectively verifyable procedure is found, which is apparently possible only in a Hegelian framework. In contrast the immediate evidence of a speech act claimed by the transcendental-pragmatic position has only private character, which is grounding-theoretically irrelevant. (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)

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.

Reading Hegel‘s Science of Logic - Irfan Ajvazi.

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, 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)

Understanding Hegel's account of particularity has proven to be anything but straightforward. Two main accounts of particularity have been advanced: the particular as an example or instance and the particular as a subjective perspective on a universal concept. The problem with these accounts is that they reduce particularity either to singularity or to universality. As Derrida's analyses make apparent, the ‘structure of exemplarity’ in Hegel is quite intricate. Hegel uses ‘example’ in three senses: it means (1) ‘instance’, ‘illustration’, or (...) (2) ‘model’, ‘exemplary individual’, ‘paradigm’, or (3) a by-play (a meaning derived from Hegel's neologismbeiherspielen, in whichBeispielis understood quasi-etymologically as a ‘by-play’ of accidental moments). ABeispielin the first sense can be replaced by another instance in a free play (by-play). This play of accidental moments, however, is not entirely free; it generates a series (of replacements) that ultimately leads to an example in the second sense, to an exemplary individual. I argue that particularity can be taken as exemplarity of this kind, oscillating between a singular example and a universal paradigm. Within this by-play, the universal concept, its law, is supposed to be mediated and determined. However, out of the differences between the examples the by-play induces another law, the law of non-mediation, which may, in Derrida's view, actually negate the dialectical movement towards universality. I argue, utilizing Malabou's concept of plasticity, that this disruption may be recovered. This implies that each individual example within a series is a particular determination of the universal. Hence, we can take literally Hegel's claim that the movement of the concept is play. (shrink)

I propose a new reading of Hegel’s discussion of modality in the ‘Actuality’ chapter of the Science of Logic. On this reading, the main purpose of the chapter is a critical engagement with Spinoza’s modal metaphysics. Hegel first reconstructs a rationalist line of thought — corresponding to the cosmological argument for the existence of God — that ultimately leads to Spinozist necessitarianism. He then presents a reductio argument against necessitarianism, contending that as a consequence of necessitarianism, no adequate explanatory (...) accounts of facts about finite reality can be given. (shrink)

I take advantage of two recent results: 1) the recognition of an alternative theoretical organization to the deductive-axiomatic one; it is characterized by a sequence of four logical steps belonging to intuitionist logic; 2) the recognition of the logical content of Cusanus’ philosophical works; also this content pertains to intuitionist logic, which Cusanus anticipated by even identifying some its logical laws. Many Cusanus’ books present the alternative theoretical organization; whose yet he did not apply in a clear way (...) its last two steps, the ad absurdum arguing and the application of the principle of sufficient reason. For this reason in the last books his thinking transcended to a metaphysical level. Hegel’s philosophy of logic shares Cusanus’ philosophical effort for exiting out classical logic. He seems to have assumed Cusanus’ anticipation of the new theoretical organization; all goes as if Hegel wanted to improve Cusanus’ poor method, by introducing a process of additions of two negations which however does not agree with the intuitionist logic. Moreover, Hegel presupposes, like Cusanus in his last years, the free application of the principle of sufficient reason to the entire subject of his philosophy of logic without awareness of the logical constraints to which is subject a correct application of this principle; hence, he introduced a metaphysical arguing which according to modern mathematical logic has no consistent content. Also Hegel’s supposed prolongation of Cusanus’ logical discoveries was an essentially metaphysical view. (shrink)

The concept of the subject, of what Hegel calls absolute negativity, already appears early in the logic of being.1 Absolute negativity, negation of the negation, occurs throughout the logic as identity in difference understood as self-identification under different descriptions. First, the subject refers to itself merely under an incomplete description. Secondly, it refers to something other than itself under a second description which is logically required by the first. (For example, the description of being in general requires some (...) determinate description of being in particular). But this second description is dialectically excluded by the assumption that the first description is complete. Thirdly, the subject negates its negation of the other. It discovers itself in the other, under the other description, and thus comes to refer to itself less incompletely. This is Hegel in the analytic mode. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch some arguments that underlie Hegel's chapter on judgment, and I attempt to place them within a broad tradition in the history of logic. Focusing on his analysis of simple predicative assertions or ‘positive judgments’, I first argue that Hegel supplies an instructive alternative to the classical technique of existential quantification. The main advantage of his theory lies in his treatment of the ontological implications of judgments, implications that are inadequately captured by quantification. The (...) second concern of this paper is the manner in which Hegel makes logic not only dependent on ontology generally, but also variant in regard to domains of objects. In other words, he offers a domain-specific logical theory, according to which the form of judgment or inference is specific to the subject of judgment. My third concern lies with the metaphilosophical consequences of this theory, and this includes some more familiar Hegelian themes. It is well known that Hegel frequently questioned the adequacy of the sentential form for expressing higher order truths. My reading of his theory of predication explains and contextualizes this tendency by demystifying notions like the so-called speculative proposition. (shrink)

Axel Honneth reconstructs Hegel’s social and political philosophy on the basis of the concept of recognition. For Honneth, recognition is a constitutive relation between individuals that is in principle symmetrical. By conceiving recognition through symmetry, Honneth effectively bans the inclusion of power within recognitive relation. He thus regards the relations of power as cases of non-recognition or misrecognition. In this paper, I develop an alternative theory of the constitutive relation between individuals for Hegel, one that is based on the asymmetrical (...) relation of power. To this aim, I focus on the chapter of “determinations of reflection” in the Science of Logic. Through a close analysis of Hegel’s Logic, I argue that the most fundamental form of relation between individuals is the relation of opposition, that individuals are solely constituted in and through the relation of opposition, and that the relation of opposition is essentially asymmetrical. Together, these claims establish... (shrink)

Volume 27, Issue 6, December 2019, Page 1256-1260.

ABSTRACTHegel's Phenomenology of Spirit provides a fascinating picture of individual minds caught up in “recognitive” relations so as to constitute a realm—“spirit”—which, while necessarily embedded in nature, is not reducible to it. In this essay I suggest a contemporary path for developing Hegel's suggestive ideas in a way that broadly conforms to the demands of his own system, such that one moves from logic to a philosophy of mind. Hence I draw on Hegel's “subjective logic”, understood (...) in the light of modern modal logic, in an attempt to model the way minds might be thought as connected by way of shared intentional contents. Here, we should not be surprised at some of the parallels that emerge between the approaches of Hegel and the modal logician Arthur Prior, as Prior had testified to the influence of his teacher, John N. Findlay, who himself had strong Hegelian leanings. In the final section, Robert Stalnaker's version of possible-world semantics is suggested as a framework within which Hegel's recognitive account of the mind might be understood. (shrink)

In his Encyclopaedia Logic, Hegel affirms that truth is ‘usually’ understood as the agreement of thought with the object, but that in the ‘deeper, i.e. philosophical sense’, truth is the agreement of a content with itself or of an object with its concept. Hegel then provides illustrations of this second sort of truth: a ‘true friend’, a ‘true state’, a ‘true work of art’. Robert Stern has argued that Hegel's ‘deeper’ or ‘philosophical’ truth is close to what Heidegger (...) labelled ‘material’ truth, namely a property attributed to a thing on the basis of the accordance of that thing with its essence. It has since been common to think of Hegel's concept of ‘philosophical’ truth as ‘ontological’, ‘objective’ or ‘material’ in contrast to ‘epistemological’ or ‘propositional’ definitions. In this paper, I wish to add an important nuance to the existing literature on this subject: even though things have a truth-value for Hegel, the latter is always negative. I argue that Hegel's criterion of ‘philosophical’ truth, which is best formulated as ‘agreement with self’, is first and foremost intended to examine the truth-value of thought-determinations. I then argue that even though this criterion may also be applied to examine the truth-value of things (namely, even though things have a truth-value), things never fall under this definition. After reviewing several of Hegel's explicit remarks on the matter, I provide an alternative explanation to those features of Hegel's ‘philosophical’ truth which have led scholars to view it as a truth in things. Especially, I argue that what are generally seen as Hegel's examples (‘true friend’, ‘true state’, ‘true work of art’) are not intended as examples but only as imperfect illustrations of ‘philosophical’ truth. (shrink)

Hegel endorsed proofs of the existence of God, and also believed God to be a person. Some of his interpreters ignore these apparently retrograde tendencies, shunning them in favor of the philosopher's more forward-looking contributions. Others embrace Hegel's religious thought, but attempt to recast his views as less reactionary than they appear to be. Robert Williams's latest monograph belongs to a third category: he argues that Hegel's positions in philosophical theology are central to his philosophy writ large. The (...) book is diligently researched, and marshals an impressive amount of textual evidence concerning Hegel's view of the proofs, his theory of personhood, and his views on religious community.Many of... (shrink)

Interpretations of Hegel’s social and political thought tend to present Hegel as critic of modern individualism and defender of institutionalism or proto-communitarianism. Yet Hegel has praise for the historically emancipatory role of individualism and gives a positive role to individuals in his discussion of ethics and the state. Drawing on Hegel’s analysis of the category of ‘individual’ in his Logic, this chapter shows that Hegel criticizes the conception of ‘individual’ as a simple and argues instead that it is a (...) term in need of specification or completion. Hegel’s revisionary logic of the category of ‘individual’ is both interesting in itself and useful as an interpretative tool, because it shows the consistency of his various statements about individuals in his practical philosophy. (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 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)

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)

Filozofia analityczna po logicyzmie Fregego i atomizmie logicznym Russella odziedziczyła szereg założeń związanych z istnieniem rodzajowej dziedziny bytów indywidualnych, których tożsamość i elementarne określenia już mamy zdefiniowane. Te „indywidua” istnieją tylko w idealnych „światach możliwych” i nie są niczym innym jak zbiorami posiadającymi strukturę bądź czystymi zbiorami matematycznymi. W przeciwieństwie do takich czysto abstrakcyjnych modeli, Hegel analizuje rolę pojęciowych rozróżnień i odpowiednich brakujących inferencji w rzeczywistym świecie. Tutaj wszystkie obiekty są przestrzennie i czasowo skończone. Nawet jeśli rzeczywiste rzeczy poruszają się (...) zgodnie z pewnymi formami, są tylko momentami w całościowym procesie. Wszelako, formy te nie są przedmiotami bezpośredniej, empirycznej obserwacji, lecz zakładają udane i powtarzalne działania i akty mowy. W rezultacie żadna semantyka odnoszącej się do świata referencji nie może obyć się bez kategorii Heglowskich, które wykraczają daleko poza narzędzia opartej wyłącznie na relacjach logiki matematycznej. (shrink)

African philosophy remains bedeviled by relics of Hegel’s racist chants against the rationality of Africans, and this situation deserves revisitation and reevaluation for reconstructive purposes. In this paper, I implicate Hegel’s concatenations as necessitating the reactive fervour within which a significant portion of the themes, thesis, and content of African philosophy is locked. This influence, which partially eclipses African philosophy, I term historical denialism. In an attempt to repudiate Hegel’s constructs, some philosophers in Africa seem ideologically contrived into developing or (...) discovering an authentic philosophy for Africans, and in the process, advocate cultural essentialism as determinants of philosophy—at least logically. Averring that philosophy is not the sole representation of thought, I proceed by exploring other trajectories which could have informed a non-reactive African philosophy, while logically linking Hegel’s denialism to subtle silencing of his idealism within philosophical discourses in Africa. This subtle silencing, which shortchanges pedagogy of philosophy on the continent, forms the other half of the eclipse in philosophy in Africa. I conclude the discussion by asserting that while it may be imperative to exorcise Hegelian ghost in African philosophy, to use Olufemi Taiwo’s coinage, essentialising African philosophy would either further enmesh the field in a reactive predisposition, or limit its reflective and multifarious possibilities. (shrink)

Hegel often says that his "logic" is meant to replace metaphysics. Since Hegel's Science of Logic is so different from a standard logic, most commentators have not treated the portion of that work devoted to logical forms as relevant to this claim. This paper argues that Hegel's discussion of logical forms of judgment and syllogism is meant to be the foundation of his reformation of metaphysics. Implicit in Hegel's discussion of the logical forms is (...) the view that the metaphysical concepts discussed in Books I and II of the Science of Logic supervene on the role of subject and predicate terms in the logical forms discussed in Book III. Hegel thus has an explanation for the nature and significance of metaphysical concepts that resembles Kant's "metaphysical deduction," according to which the categories can be derived from the table of judgments. Though Hegel's metaphysics is often supposed to be influenced by Kant, prevailing interpretations do not show how Hegel's fine-grained treatment of logical forms is relevant to his critical view of metaphysics. The present interpretation provides a model for Hegel's explanation of metaphysical concepts, as well as a new picture of the structure of his Science of Logic that emphasizes the priority of its Doctrine of the Concept. (shrink)

I provide a distinctively Wittgensteinian interpretation of Hegel’s Subjective Logic, including the parts on the concept, the judgement and the syllogism. I argue that Wittgenstein implicitly recognised the moments of universality, particularity and individuality; moreover, he was sensitive to Hegel’s crucial distinction between abstract and concrete universals. More specifically, for Wittgenstein the moment of particularity has the status of a paradigmatic sample which mediates between a universal concept and its individual instances. Thus, a concrete universal is a universal that (...) includes every individual via its paradigmatic sample. Next, I provide a generic account of the emergence of concrete universals through a series of negations that follows the basic structure of Hegel’s judgement—“the individual is the universal”—and the syllogism—“the individual is the universal mediated by the particular”. This development is illustrated with examples from Hegel (a plant, Socrates, Caesar, a Stoic sage, Jesus) as well as from Wittgenstein (colour samples, the standard metre, works of art). I take Wittgenstein’s argument against private language as implying that we cannot do without paradigms in our epistemic practices. If the conclusion of the section “Subjectivity” in Hegel’s Science of Logic is that the moment of particularity cannot be ignored or dispensed with, then it would mean that we cannot do without paradigms in our epistemic practices: that is, that private rules are impossible. (shrink)

This paper walks through four different approaches to Hegel's notion of Consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Through taking four different approaches our aim is to explore the multifaceted nature of the phenomenological movement of consciousness. The first part provides an overview of the three chapters of the section on Consciousness, namely Sense-Certainty, Perception and Force and the Understanding, attempting to unearth the implicit logic that undergirds Consciousness’ experience. The second part focuses specifically on the shape of Sense-Certainty, (...) providing an analysis of the movement from Sense-Certainty to Perception from a neuroscientific view. Thirdly, we consider an inferentialist reading of the chapters on Consciousness which has been made popular by Robert Brandom. We think that while this view elucidates the connection that Hegel draws between meaning and use, it fails to account for the vital place of immediacy in each of the shapes. Finally, the fourth part suggests that Hegel’s notion of Consciousness improves the reading of tragedy he develops in chapters 5 and 7 of the Phenomenology. While many critics have noted that Hegel fails to do justice to tragic experience, Consciousness contains an epistemology that develops analogously to the heroes of ancient tragedy. Each approach in this paper comes at Hegel’s description of the journey of Consciousness from a different angle, and together they paint a multi-layered picture of a highly important part of Hegel’s corpus. (shrink)

Following Freud’s analysis of the fragile line between the uncanny double and its comic redoubling, I identify the doubling of the double found in critical moments of Hegelian dialectic as producing a kind of comic effect. It almost goes without saying that two provides greater pleasure than one, the loneliest number. Many also find two to be preferable to three, the tired trope of dialectic as a teleological waltz. Two seems to offer lightness, relieving one from her loneliness and lacking (...) the complications of a third who comes in between. And yet, we learn through Marx and Freud that the double (even the double of tragedy and farce) borders on something closer to horror than comedy. -/- In the following, I would like to explore why four is funnier than two in my staging of dialectic as the doubling of the double or, to borrow a movie title from Laurel and Hardy, “Twice Two” (Roach et al. 1933a). I will begin by exploring the formulations of the double in the form of a pair of opposites and in the form of a pair of twins. The literary tropes of the double as the odd couple, on one side, and the twins, on the other, appear to serve very different narrative functions, which incite different kinds of affective responses from the audience. However, the form of the opposed double sometimes conceals the realization that the empty or fragmented content of the first is only reduplicated in the second. The “straight man” of the odd couple cannot see himself in his counterpart “the comic.” The redoubling of the double, however, forces not only the audience, but the original double on stage to confront what was already present, but unrealized, from the beginning. To illustrate this redoubling of the double within the opening of Hegel’s Science of Logic, I consider two short films by Laurel and Hardy in which the comic duo redoubles itself. The formula (2 x 2) produces a comic excess through the dialectical redoubling of there uncanny double. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the topic of skepticism is central to Hegel’s philosophical work. However, I contend that in returning to the subject of skepticism throughout his career, Hegel does not treat skepticism simply as an epistemological challenge to be overcome on the way to truth, as some commentators suggest, but as part of the very truth which it is philosophy’s task to explain. I make this case by considering three texts through which Hegel develops the connection between (...) skepticism and the ‘negative’ or ‘dialectical’ dimension of reality: “Relationship of Skepticism to Philosophy” (1802), the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), and the Encyclopedia Logic (1817). In this, I also demonstrate how the topic of skepticism informs the development of Hegel’s speculative metaphysics throughout his career and, thus, present a problematic that sheds light on the important continuity between these different phases of Hegel’s project. (shrink)

Hegel attacks Kantian morality most often without stating an opposing moral theory, tending to subsequently take up discussion of religion or the state. Commentators have variously suggested the logical consequence of Hegel's position is "the dissolution of ethics in sociology" without "room for personal morality of any kind" or that Hegel's argument is against Kantian <i>Moralitat</i>, which allows the private individual to appeal beyond social mores to universal moral standards, with Hegel insisting that concrete values come instead from (...) <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, the social order. If thinking of morality as a purely private matter of the individual's conscience seems too abstract, the Hegelian criticisms should show that moral reflections are vacuous unless they take account of the social world in which they will be realized as concrete actions. From the Hegelian's perspective on morality as seen from the more inclusive context of <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, social action that is also moral will not need to be analyzed in terms of Kant's metaphysical dualisms between reason and inclination, intentions and consequences, or the sensible and the intelligible realms. Whereas Kant thinks moral theory leads directly to religious and metaphysical postulates, Hegel deliberately leads it in another direction. He can be understood historically as going beyond Kant's effort to secularize moral philosophy. Kant begins this process by grounding moral philosophy in reason alone, not in religion. Religious postulates may follow from moral beliefs, says Kant, but morality is not derived from religious premisses. In going from private moral conscience not to religious beliefs but to social, political, and historical considerations (which could include religion seen as a social institution), Hegel extends the process of secularizing moral philosophy." Marcuse and Knox could thus both be right, since Hegel's goal is not to replace Kant's moral philosophy with another, competing moral philosophy, but to accept it, while recognizing its limitations, as a special case of a larger theory of social action. In the Hegelian jargon, from a standpoint recognizing Sittlichkeit, Moralitdt is thus <i>aufgehoben</i>, that is, Kant's formal procedures will be both "negated" (criticized for their limitations) and "preserved" (embedded in a more inclusive philosophy). (shrink)

In the Phenomenology Hegel insists there are no presupposed standards of truth: standards are internal. "Consciousness provides its own criterion from within itself, so that the investigation becomes a comparison of consciousness with itself"(PhdG 84). We need only contemplate "the matter in hand as it is in and for itself"(PhdG 84). The Phenomenology is a characterisation of consciousness taking on increasingly adequate forms, testing its own internal standards against experience. The Philosophy of Right is a search for right, not, as (...) in the Phenomenology, for the reality of cognition; but one of the methods Hegel adopts and which helps make sense of the structure of Philosophy of Right is the method he uses in the Phenomenology. This paper offers an alternative, though not necessarily conflicting, interpretation to that given in recent accounts of Philosophy of Right that emphasize its "logical spirit." While the phenomenological account is not necessarily incompatible with these others, it will point to a nonfoundational interpretation of Hegel's phenomenological method that is. (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)

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

Hegel believed the Antigone tragedy not only revealed the national spirit of ancient Greece but was indeed the greatest artwork of all time. displaying the “Logic of History”, was the critical role Antigone tragedy played in the phenomenology of spirit from the standpoint of Hegel. This article will attempt to answer how Hegel reads Antigone's tragedy and how he observes the “Logic of History” in it. Ancient Greek society, In Hegel’s point of view, has constantly been the symbol (...) of “unity of life”. however, Hegel believes that at certain times in history, this unity of ethical life and its state of joy in Greece has been destroyed. Since Hegel believes literary works have historical-cultural implications and considers art and literature as the first medium by which the spirit becomes self-conscious, in the section “True Spirit, ethical Life” from the book Phenomenology of Spirit, he describes the fall of the ethical life of Greek society by reading of the Antigone tragedy. What Hegel understood from the Antigone tragedy was a series of painful conflicts that ensued as a consequence of a contradiction between ethical powers within Greek society. powers that had heretofore been in unreflected unity, but now that their contradictions revealed, the ethical life of society collapsed and the spirit moved to a more rational and liberated stage. These stages are in fact very much the irreversible final course of history toward achieving freedom. (shrink)

Following the publication of Jonathan O. Chimakonam’s astounding book, Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies, a monumental piece in the history of African philosophy and logic, which also undergirds the backbone of conversational thinking, various uncharitable misconceptions and misrepresentations have greeted the work. Of the several misrepresentations and misconceptions, the tendency to treat the logic as an African variant of Friedrich Hegel’s dialectics is common. Being a three-valued logic, the tendency to perceive (...) thethird value ‘e’ in conversational thinking as a synthesis is replete in several commentaries and criticisms. This has almost become the norm since Hegel’s third value, following thesis and anti-thesis signifies a synthesis. Through the method of philosophical analysis, I argue that: the logic of conversational thinking is not similar to Hegel’s dialectics hence, all commentaries and criticisms in this guise exhibit the Strawman fallacy; for the logic that underlies conversational thinking, synthesis is an anathema; and conversational thinking places emphasis on complementarity over contradiction. Following these points, I submit that when the veil of Hegel is cast aside, a deeper appreciation for an Africa-inspired logic, which has the capacity to mediate thinking for Africa and beyond, may be discerned almost effortlessly. (shrink)

In this study, the aim is to view on the ‘Being, Nothing and Becoming’ that takes place at the beginning of ‘The Doctrine of Being’ which is the first book of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Even if the main issue is the ‘Being, Nothing and Becoming’, it is considered within a holistic view. İt is the important to carry out the aim of this study that some questions are need to be asked and answered in order to make real (...) having a holistic view considered. These questions: (1) Why does The Science of Logic start with ‘Being’?, (2) What is ‘being’?, (3) What does to happen the ‘nothing’ from ‘being’ mean? How does it happen?, (4) What is ‘nothing’?, (5) What does to happen the ‘becoming’ from ‘being’ and ‘nothing’ mean? How does it happen?, (6) What is becoming? In the study, it is aimed that to proceed with the answers of these questions. The other part of the study is to view on a deep comprehension which provides to answer the questions mentioned above. At this point, it benefits from explanations on understanding, dialectic and speculation taken place at 79.-82. paragraphs of Logic which is the first book of Hegel’s Encyclopedia. At this context, an aim occurs to ask and answer some questions like: (a) What is ‘understanding’?, (b) What is ‘dialectic’?, (c) What is ‘speculation’? In conclusion, the final aim is to explain why Hegel’s proceeds with these like this way –not like another way– and how is to proceed with these like this way. (shrink)

Rāmānuja is known as a theistic ācārya who interpreted Brahmasūtras in Viśiṣṭādvaita point of view. He propounded his philosophy by refuting Kevāldvaita system of Śaṅkara. He criticized the existence and knowledge of indeterminate objects and refuted the concept of Nirviśeṣa Brahman. Therefore, Brahman for him is Saviśeṣa. The name Viśiṣṭādvaita itself signifies that it is Qualified Monism. Brahman is qualified by matter and soul. Matter and soul though real are completely dependent on Brahman for their existence. Hegel is a German (...) Philosopher who propounded Absolute Idealism. Hegel solved the problem of reality from a synthetic and positive point of view. Predecessors of Hegel were reflecting on Reality with one sided abstractions. Absolute is ultimately real for him. Hegel’s Absolute is not devoid of all objects and qualities. Absolute is inclusive of all the categories and all things of the world. Absolute is not abstract like Śaṅkara’s Brahman but it goes very much closer to Ramanuja’s Saviśeṣa Brahman. Thus, both these philosopher though differ in some principles which are very peculiar to them, they definitely meet at on one point of ‘Concrete Monism’. Logical method adopted by them to reach towards their goal is also strikingly similar. The aim of this paper is to analyse the concept of monism according to Rāmānuja and Hegel with philosophical point of view. Comparative study of both will throw light on some striking similarities as well as some differences of these great philosophers. (shrink)

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is typically read as a work that either rehabilitates the metaphysical tradition or argues for a new form of idealism centred on social normativity. In the following, I show that neither approach suffices. Not only does the metaphysical reading ignore how the Phenomenology demonstrates that human rationality can never adequately capture ultimate reality because ultimate reality itself has a moment of brute facticity that resists explanation, which prevents us from taking it as a logically self-contained, self-justifying (...) metaphysical zone traditionally known as ‘substance,’ but it also ignores how the Phenomenology equally demonstrates that human rationality creates a historically self-unfolding universe of meaning that is, because it displays a rational systematicity and consistency unlike anything else in the world, the closest thing we have to substance, but which, given its freedom, is more correctly called ‘subject.’ Consequently, while the non-metaphysical reading rightly recognizes that the Phenomenology develops a radically innovative account of intersubjectivity, it neglects how the social theory that it develops comes fully equipped with various metaphysical commitments concerning nature, spirit, and the relationship between them without which this theory would be unintelligible. (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)

James Kreines's Reason in the World (2015) offers an engaging and thought-provoking examination of Hegel's ambitions in the Science of Logic. However, it has gone unnoticed that there are two fundamental misinterpretations in his account of ‘Mechanism’ from the Logic. First, Kreines interprets the chapter as beginning with a ‘pure mechanism’ hypothesis that investigates the coherence of a purely mechanistic explanation of the world that makes no appeal to the immanent concept of things. Thus, according to Kreines, (...) the Concept is absent from the beginning of ‘Mechanism’ and only appears in the final section of the chapter, in ‘C. Absolute Mechanism’ in the subsection on the law, what Kreines conceptualizes as ‘reasonable mechanism’. Second, within his overall interpretation of ‘Mechanism’ as the development from the ‘pure mechanism’ hypothesis to ‘reasonable mechanism’ Kreines claims that there are logical moments that are explanatorily relevant and some that are not. Thus, Kreines will want to claim that Hegel's analysis of ‘pure mechanism’ reveals that ‘pure mechanism’ fails to be explanatorily relevant because, a) the logical moments do not have a concept immanent to them, and b) have ‘indifference’. It is only in the law that mechanistic explanations become explanatorily relevant because of the appearance of the Concept and the disappearance of ‘indifference’. I argue against both these positions. First, I think that there is no textual support for the idea that ‘Mechanism’ begins without the Concept immanent to it. Second, I think that Kreines is mistaken to equate ‘indifference’ with explanatory irrelevance and the absence of the Concept. My approach in this paper is to give my own analysis of the relevant passages from ‘Mechanism’ and, in doing so, to both show the misgivings of Kreines's interpretation and to offer an alternative way of reading the chapter. (shrink)

In the Remark to the final paragraph of the Chapter on “existence” (Dasein) in the Logic of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline (1830) Hegel states that the “ideality of the finite is the chief proposition of philosophy” and that “every true philosophy is for that reason idealism” (Enz § 95A). In turn, at the end of the Chapter on “existence” in the Science of Logic (1832) Hegel claims, further, that “every philosophy is essentially idealism (...) or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out” (GW 21.142). Along this line, Hegel conceives of absolute idealism not only as the result of the history of philosophy, but also as the philosophical system that reveals the essence of the philosophical systems before idealism, that is to say, as the philosophy that reveals, by developing it and formulating it adequately, what the precedent philosophies, mostly unknowingly, tried to develop and formulate, namely a general theory about reality based on the principle of the unity of being and thought. According to Hegel, every particular philosophy throughout history exposed in a successive, partial and complementary way the process of identification of being and thought; inasmuch as the system of absolute idealism assumes the latently idealist theses present in former philosophies, it makes those theses explicit and exposes the process of the identification of being and thought as its own internal development. Thus, absolute idealism is for Hegel the philosophy that exposes and shows what philosophy is actually about. The purpose of this essay is to render explicit the metaphilosophical implications of Hegel´s conception of absolute idealism as the “true philosophy” (wahre Philosophie, wahrhafte Philosophie). (shrink)

Thom Brooks'sHegel's Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Rightpresents a very clear and methodologically self-conscious series of discussions of key topics within Hegel's classic text. As one might expect for a ‘systematic’ reading, the main body of Brooks's text commences with an opening chapter on Hegel's system. Then follow seven chapters, the topics of which are encountered sequentially as one reads through thePhilosophy of Right. Brooks's central claim is that too often Hegel's theories or (...) views on any of these topics are misunderstood because of a tendency to isolate the relevant passages from the encompassing structure of thePhilosophy of Rightitself, and, in turn, from Hegel's system of philosophy as a whole, with its logical underpinnings. Brooks is clearly right in holding that Hegel hadintendedthePhilosophy of Rightto be read against the background of ‘the system’ and the ‘logic’ articulating it —nobody doubts that— but there is a further substantive issue here.Shouldcontemporary readers heed Hegel's advice? Brooks's answer is emphatically in the affirmative, and what results is a series of illuminating discussions in which he makes a case for his own interpretations on the basis of systematic considerations, presented against a range of alternatives taken from the contemporary secondary literature, which is amply covered, often in the extensive endnotes to the book. (shrink)

This paper looks at dialectical inferences as they relate to Hegel’s modal metaphysics, closely examining the Actuality section of Hegel’s Science of Logic and positing a reading of Hegel’s modal actualism that engages with two strains of secondary commentary. Responding to commentators, we make the case that Hegel’s ‘das Logische’ avoids presupposing possibility’s being prior to actuality insofar as actuality and the derivation of possibility is considered as the in-itselfness of actuality, an implicit inner moment whereby actuality further determines (...) itself. Actuality is immediate yet derived as an identity from the logic of inner and outer. If actuality as immediacy is explicit/outer, then its opposition, its implicitness/innerness, has to be possibility in the logic of modality. In order to conceive of actuality as existence, and particularly as an emerging process, we must already conceive the problem of presupposing an alien form within the logic of actuality. (shrink)