‘A Perfect Contradiction is Mysterious for the Clever and for Fools Alike’: Did Hegel Contradict Aristotle?

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Michael Inwood
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Logical Contradiction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Logical Sense

AbstractAristotle argued that there are no true statements of the form <Fx and not-Fx>. In his lectures on history of philosophy Hegel does not challenge this view and in his Science of Logic expresses admiration for Aristotle's rebuttal of Zeno of Elea's attempt to find such contradictions in his paradoxes of motion. Yet more than once in his logics Hegel insists that everything is contradictory. I approach this problem from two directions. First, Widerspruch often means, and is understood by Hegel to mean, ‘opposition’ rather than ‘contradiction’ in the strict logical sense. Thus Catullus's simultaneous love and hatred of Clodia is a contradiction, but not an Aristotelian, or formal logical, contradiction. I defuse Hegel's occasional suggestions of Aristotelian contradictions in motion and time. Second, I exploit Hegel's tacit rejection of Aristotle's official bivalence account of truth and falsity, in favour of the view that truth is approached by successive improvements in our inevitably imperfect attempts to attain it. In this respect Hegel's procedure is similar to that of Aristotle himself, who characteristically constructs his own view of metaphysics, physics, ethics, etc., from the imperfect, but not flatly false, opinions of his predecessors. ‘The truth is the whole’, that is, the whole sequence of our attempts to reach it.

Kant and the Science of Logic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaping Lu-Adler
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Logical Pluralism ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
If Logic ◽  
General Logic ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Debates

This book is both a history of philosophy of logic told from the Kantian viewpoint and a reconstruction of Kant’s theory of logic from a historical perspective. Kant’s theory represents a turning point in a history of philosophical debates over the following questions: (1) Is logic a science, instrument, standard of assessment, or mixture of these? (2) If logic is a science, what is the subject matter that differentiates it from other sciences, particularly metaphysics? (3) If logic is a necessary instrument to all philosophical inquiries, how is it so entitled? (4) If logic is both a science and an instrument, how are these two roles related? Kant’s answer to these questions centers on three distinctions: general versus particular logic, pure versus applied logic, pure general logic versus transcendental logic. The true meaning and significance of each distinction becomes clear, this book argues, only if we consider two factors. First, Kant was mindful of various historical views on how logic relates to other branches of philosophy (viz. metaphysics and physics) and to the workings of common human understanding. Second, he first coined “transcendental logic” while struggling to secure metaphysics as a proper “science,” and this conceptual innovation would in turn have profound implications for his mature theory of logic. Against this backdrop, the book reassesses the place of Kant’s theory in the history of philosophy of logic and highlights certain issues that are still debated today, such as normativity of logic and the challenges posed by logical pluralism.

The Oxford Handbook of Hegel

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
The Past ◽  
Philosophical Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Systematic Importance

The Oxford Handbook of Hegel is a comprehensive guide to the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel, the last major thinker in the philosophical movement known as German Idealism. Beginning with chapters on his first published writings, the authors draw out Hegel’s debts to his predecessors and highlight the themes and arguments that have proven the most influential over the past two centuries. There are six chapters each on the Phenomenology of Spirit and The Science of Logic, and in-depth analyses of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. Five chapters cover Hegel’s philosophy of law, action, and the ethical and political philosophy presented in his Philosophy of Right. Several chapters cover the many recently edited lecture series from the 1820s, bringing new clarity to Hegel’s conception of aesthetics, the philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy. The concluding part focuses on Hegel’s legacy, from his role in the formation of Marx’s philosophy to his importance for contemporary liberal political philosophy. The Handbook includes many essays from younger scholars who have brought new perspectives and rigor to the study of Hegel’s thought. The essays are marked by close engagement with Hegel’s difficult texts and by a concern with highlighting the ongoing systematic importance of Hegel’s philosophy.

Epicurus in Nineteenth-Century Germany

2020 ◽  
pp. 760-790
Author(s):  
James I. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Unique Point ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

Epicurus marks a unique point of convergence for three unlikely bedfellows in the nineteenth century: Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Each sees a different “Epicurus” in this fourth-century successor to Democritus, the fifth-century co-founder of atomism. Each renders Epicurus and his materialism into a symptom of modernity’s engagement with antiquity, a role that atomism increasingly played from the Enlightenment onwards. Fresh readings of each of these philosophers contribute to a better understanding of their ways of construing the history of ideas, and in particular their bold reinterpretations of Epicurus himself, in addition to correcting a number of misconceptions surrounding their individual readings of Epicurus, be this in Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy and his Science of Logic, Marx’s dissertation, or Nietzsche’s sprawling corpus of published and unpublished writings.

scholarly journals In Defense of Bad Infinity: A Fichtean Response to Hegel's Differenzschrift

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 168-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne M. Martin
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Subsequent Stage ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
History Of ◽  
Missed Opportunity ◽  
As If ◽  
Minor Works

Hegel's very first acknowledged publication was, among other things, an attack on Fichte. In 1801, Hegel was still laboring in almost complete obscurity, while Fichte was an international sensation, though already somewhat past the peak of his meteoric career. In the 1801 Differenzschrift, Hegel cut his teeth by criticizing Fichte's already widelycriticised Wissenschaftslehre, and by demonstrating that Schelling's philosophical system was not simply to be equated with it. Fichte himself never bothered to respond to Hegel's criticisms; indeed he never publicly acknowledged their existence. This was not because he was unconcerned with criticisms of his views; quite the contrary. But at the time he had bigger fish to fry. He responded to Jacobi's criticisms, and to Schelling's; he replied in great detail to critical questions raised by Reinhold, and with vituperative intensity to objections raised by skeptics and purportedly loyal Kantians. But Hegel's Differenzschrift was left without a Fichtean rebuttal. This is a pity, both because of the missed opportunity to illuminate by controversy central issues at stake in the post-Kantian period, but also because it made it easier for Hegel simply to reiterate his youthful criticism as if it were the last word. And reiterate it he did: in one form or another Hegel's early criticisms of Fichte reappear at every subsequent stage of his career: in the Phenomenology, in the Science of Logic, in the Encyclopaedia, as the final chapter in Hegel's History of Philosophy, and in countless other minor works and documents from the Nachlass and correspondence.

scholarly journals «Ein Spielen der Liebe mit sich selbst». Hegel e la teoria spinoziana dell’amor Dei intellectualis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Carannante
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Philosophical Account ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Different Levels

Resumen: Nella parte quinta dell’Etica, Spinoza descrive l’«amore intellettuale verso Dio» - che nasce nella mente che ha raggiunto la scientia intuitiva - come una «parte dell’amore infinito con il quale Dio ama se stesso». Scopo del saggio è gettare luce sui rilevanti, ma scarsamente considerati, riferimenti di Hegel alla teoria dell’amor dei intellectualis, tentando di ricostruirne il significato a due livelli differenti: anzitutto, esaminando le Lezioni sulla storia della filosofia, dove la descrizione dell’amore intellettuale è inserito in una disamina storico-filosofica del pensiero spinoziano; in secondo luogo, analizzando alcuni passaggi della Fenomenologia dello spirito e della Scienza della logica, opere in cui Hegel richiama l’amor dei intellectualis per esprimere metaforicamente la convinzione che l’Assoluto va concepito in termini dialettici, come soggetto e spirito.  Palabras clave: Hegel - Spinoza - Amor dei intellectualisAbstract: In the fifth part of the Ethica Spinoza describes the «intellectual love toward God» – arising in the mind that has achieved the scientia intuitiva – as a «part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself». The aim of the essay is to cast light, at two different levels, on the interesting but rarely studied Hegel’s references to the theory of amor dei intellectualis: firstly, focusing on the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, where the description of intellectual love is included in an historico-philosophical account of Spinoza’s thought; secondly, dealing with the Phenomenology of Spirit and in the Science of Logic, works in which Hegel mentions the amor dei intellectualis in order to express the idea that the Absolute has to be conceived in dialectical terms, as subject and spirit.Key words: Hegel - Spinoza - Amor dei intellectualis

scholarly journals On the 250 th anniversary of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 608-620
Author(s):  
Klaus Vieweg ◽  
◽  
Anton A. Ivanenko ◽  
Andrei N. Muravev ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spiritual Phenomena ◽  
Difficult Part

Two and a half centuries since the birth of Hegel give reason to try to understand why he, like other great philosophers irrelevant of how many centuries ago they were born, should not be forgotten. The first part of the article deals with the content of the central and most difficult part of Hegel’s Science of logic — the doctrine of essence. This particular work illustrates that its creator successfully passed between the Scylla of realism, which insists on the immediacy of knowledge, and the Charybdis of constructivism, which advocates its mediation. Hegel curbs the claims of mediation and immediacy to exclusivity revealing their concrete identity. The second part of the article explores the perspective of the theoretical and scientific knowledge of the spirit, discovered by Hegel, which makes it possible to avoid the extremes of historicism and essentialism that prevailed after Hegel in the sciences of the spirit. Historicism dissolves the unified essence of various spiritual phenomena in the flow of history, which it considers a purposeless element of change. Essentialism asserts the existence of this essence, but leaves it undefined. Hegel logically determines what is historical in the existence of the spirit, an what transcends history as its absolute goal. The last part of the article indicates the reason for the obvious underestimation of Hegel’s achievements by figures of modern philosophical culture. The place of the Hegelian system in the historical development of philosophy and its actual significance for modernity as a model of philosophical knowledge of truth, nature and spirit, without which the history of philosophy is not complete and cannot be understood as a whole, is determined.

Theory by Analogy

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 750-758
Author(s):  
C. D. Blanton
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Identity And Difference

A is—A.—G. W. F. Hegel (Science of Logic 415)The thing stated and the restatement have constituted an analogy.—Wallace Stevens (129)M-C-M'.—Karl Marx (257)There is a hint of Minerva's owl in medieval philosophy's relation to the apparently mundane formal question of analogy. The problem is everywhere in scholastic thought, inherited from Aristotle and Averroës, then adapted as one of the basic formal mechanisms through which Thomistic logic both transposes its own theological categories onto an older classical framework and apprehends metaphysical relations of being, of identity and difference. Classically, it is by analogy that one conceives the likeness of the unlike, extracting a concept from the individual instances and scattered genera in which it otherwise resides: the quality of wisdom that characterizes God, say, but might differently characterize humans; the property of animation that attaches to humans but differently qualifies beasts. Hegel notes this problem of scholastic analogy in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, when he comments of Aquinas that the category of “substance (forma substantialis) is, for instance, analogous to” Aristotle's notion of entelechy (3: 71) or when he dismisses medieval Latin more generally as “a quite unsuitable instrument” for the consideration of older philosophical forms—in effect, an imprecise exercise in analogy (38).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document