Hegel’s Apprentice: from Speculative Idealism to Speculative Materialism

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-122
Author(s):  
Nathan Brown
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Difference ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic

Chapter 4 identifies the epistemological limits of Hegel’s idealism, showing that the concept of the whole is incompatible with Hegel’s methodological alternation between reason and experience. Since this method relies upon the movement of becoming, it is incompatible with the “annulment of time” at the end of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic. I argue that Quentin Meillassoux’s development of a “speculative materialist” philosophy responds directly to this methodological contradiction in Hegel’s work and, in particular, to its consequences for the theory of time. Mediating between my reading of Hegel and my reading of Meillassoux is Heidegger’s theory of the ontological difference. I argue that Meillassoux’s effort to sustain the philosophical consequences of the ontological difference is the key to understanding and appreciating the stakes of his theory of absolute contingency.

Absolute Knowledge and the Ethical Conclusion of the Phenomenology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Moyar
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Absolute Knowledge

Hegel wrote in The Science of Logic that the deduction of the concept of science was accomplished at the end of the Phenomenology of Spirit in ‘Absolute Knowledge.’ This chapter links the deduction claim to the metaphor of a ladder to science that Hegel discusses in the Phenomenology Preface, and to the sublation of the form of objectivity that is the focus of ‘Absolute Knowledge.’ It argues that this reconciliation of self-consciousness with objectivity coincides with the task of unifying the theoretical and practical domains. Once one appreciates that Hegel’s goal is such a unification, one can see why he holds that the agent of conscience is already quite close to possessing absolute knowledge. The agent’s knowledge in deliberation, together with the agent’s relation to other agents in the process of recognizing action on conscience, has the same conceptual form as the complete theoretical object, the expanded version of the Concept, or inferential objectivity.

Hegel’s Speculative Identity Thesis

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-122
Author(s):  
Karen Ng
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The Self ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Early Presentation ◽  
Identity Thesis ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism ◽  
Dimensional Argument

This chapter explores Hegel’s speculative identity thesis, defending the importance of Schelling for Hegel’s appropriation of Kant’s purposiveness theme. It provides an interpretation of Hegel’s first published text, the Differenzschrift, and analyzes the relation between “subjective subject-objects” and “objective subject-objects” as an early presentation of Hegel’s philosophical method. In addition to defending the contribution of Schelling, this chapter provides an interpretation of Fichte’s contribution via his notion of the self-positing activity of the I. It then turns to a reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, demonstrating that the notion of “negativity” can be understood along the lines of speculative identity. The chapter argues that Hegel presents life as constitutive for self-consciousness by way of a three-dimensional argument: the employment of an analogy; a transcendental argument; and a refutation of idealism argument. It concludes by briefly outlining how the speculative identity thesis is carried forward in the Science of Logic.

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.

Hegel: Force and Understanding

1971 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 163-173
Author(s):  
David Murray
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
The Third

‘Force and Understanding’ is the title, or part of the title, of the third section of Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes, his ‘phenomenology of spirit’. That was his first book; it was published in 1807 as Volume One of his System of Science. A second volume, he announced, would contain ‘the system of Logic as speculative philosophy, and of the other two parts of philosophy, the sciences of Nature and Spirit’. But no such volume appeared: although in 1812 his Science of Logic was published as ‘the first sequel to the Phenomenology of Spirit in an expanded arrangement of the system’, Hegel added to the 1831 edition a note explaining that since then he had brought out his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences ‘in place of the projected second part’.

Commentary on a Passage from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Wahl
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
The Third ◽  
French Study

In this, the third chapter from the work that began the twentieth-century Hegel renaissance in France, Wahl’s 1929 Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel, he relates the chapter on “the Unhappy Consciousness” to earlier and later chapters of the Phenomenology (“Master and Slave,” “Stoicism and Scepticism,” “Culture,” “Revealed Religion,” “Absolute Knowing”) as well as Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of history. Wahl’s was the first major French study of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), marking a turn away from Hegel’s Science of Logic to the affective and experiential basis of Hegel’s dialectical method.

Is there a Deduction in Hegel's Science of Logic?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Charlie Cooper-Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
The Absolute

Abstract Robert Pippin's recent study of Hegel's Logic, Hegel's Realm of Shadows, argues that we should read Hegel as rejecting the need for a Transcendental Deduction in logic because he takes Hegel, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, to have ruled out the scepticism that motivates Kant's Deduction. By contrast, I argue, we cannot understand what Pippin calls the ‘identity’ of logic and metaphysics in the Science of Logic unless we see how Hegel does provide a kind of Deduction argument in the Logic, albeit one stripped of the psychologism present in the Kantian version. Accordingly, I provide a sketch of what such an ‘absolute’ Deduction must look like, and argue that Hegel's presentation of the ‘absolute idea’ functions as the conclusion of such an argument.

scholarly journals “Appearance and the Supersensible World”: Emptiness of the Biopolitical Critique of Power

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-158
Author(s):  
Rok Svetlič
Keyword(s):  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Central State ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Democratic Culture ◽  
Regulative Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism

This paper takes up for its subject the specific explanatory mechanism of biopolitical discourse. By drawing on two concepts from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s philosophy, it argues that this type of discourse creates no hermeneutical surplus. The first concept can be found in Phenomenology of Spirit, in the chapter “Force and Understanding: Appearance and the Supersensible World”, and the second in The Science of Logic in the chapter “Formal Ground”. It will be demonstrated that the biopolitical critique of power does not distinguish between explicandum and explicans – at its core, it enacts a tautology. It takes merely one moment out of a complex phenomenon under interpretation (this being a moment of negativity), which is in fact common to all phenomena. Then it takes this moment to be the regulative principle guiding the dynamics of the interpreted phenomenon. The problem of this method of explaining is not that it is wrong, but that it is always true. Tautology is an empty always-truth. From beginning to end of this paper, biopolitical discourse is understood from the perspective of trust in the State organism as a central State-building virtue of the democratic culture. Ultimately, the paper shows that biopolitics is just one way of taking oneself out of the thought of the world, which inevitably inhibits the ability of the State to provide for the basic needs of the population.

scholarly journals Narratiivsuse roll Hegeli filosoofilises süsteemis: üks täiendus "dialektilise" meetodi mittemetafüüsilise tõlgendamise juurde

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Tõnu Viik
Keyword(s):  
Deductive System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Singular Proposition ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
End Points ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Absolute Knowledge

Artikkel lähtub Hegeli filosoofilise süsteemi mittemetafüüsilisest tõlgendusest ja keskendub ühele aspektile Hegeli dialektilise meetodi juures, mille iseloomustamiseks oleks autori arvates kõige adekvaatsem kasutada narratiivi mõistet. Artikli tees on kokkuvõtlikult järgmine: Hegeli arvates ei ole filosoofiline tõde väljendatav ühe lause või propositsiooniga, vaid (1) see nõuab tervet väidete jada, kusjuures (2) mõistete määratlused selles väidete jadas peavad suutma teiseneda --- nii nagu kirjandusliku jutustuse käigus võivad teiseneda tegelaste iseloom ja arusaamine asjadest (eriti ilmne on see Bildungsroman'ile omase narratiivi puhul). Lisaks neile kahele omadusele on narratiivile iseloomulik talle omaste struktuurielementide (algus, keskpaik ja lõpp) abil loodud (3) terviklikkus, mis võimaldab tal anda edasi sellist mõtet, mis ei sisaldu üheski narratiivi moodustavas lauses üksikult võetuna.  Need kolm omadust võimaldavad Hegeli "dialektilisele" meetodile narratiiviteooria vahenditega uut valgust heita ja spekulatiivse tõe loomust paremini mõista.The paper discusses the nature of Hegel's dialectical method and criticizes its wide-spread interpretation according to the thesis-antithesis-synthesis formula.  It is argued that there is no evidence of triadic structures in Hegel's works.  Rather, the elements (usually defined as "moments", "formations" (Gestalten) or "determinations" (Bestimmungen)) that make up the body of Hegel's texts, are organized as "series" (Reihen) that form circles, in which, as Hegel maintains, the last element leads us back to the first.  If synthesis means creating something new by using the initial elements then it is problematic whether anything becomes synthesized in Hegel texts.  The paper argues against interpreting the every third element of the series (the moment of Becoming being the most obvious candidate in the Science of Logic) or the end-points of the series (such as the final moment of absolute knowledge in the Phenomenology of Spirit) as synthetic unities.  Instead, the paper proposes that Hegel's speculative method uses the form of narrative for creating a vessel that is able to express the "speculative truth" which is "fluid" (flüssig) and which requires a "plastic" (plastische) form of presentation.  Narrative can accomplish what a singular proposition and a deductive system cannot, because (1) it consists of a series of claims (2) that is able to express the movement of what is said in each claim, and (3) because its ending creates a point at which the story as a whole obtains a meaning that is not expressed in any particular sentence constituting the story.

Sergey Rubinstein on Hegel’s Method of Thinking: a Neo-Kantian Criticism

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-102
Author(s):  
Nina A. Dmitrieva ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Open System ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
Methodological Rule ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Absolute Knowledge

In this research I focuse on Sergey L. Rubinstein’s German dissertation “A Study on the Problem of Method” (1913–1914), which aimed at solving the problem of method in transcendental philosophy as distinguished from Hegel’s philosophy and dualistic philosophical systems. After a brief description of the context in which this problem emerged in the 1910s, I reconstruct its general original in­tent from the archive copy of the dissertation. Further I show that the published part of Rubinstein’s study was the first serious attempt to explain the difference between the transcendental logic of Cohen and Natorp and what the Neo-Kan­tians called Hegel’s “absolute rationalism”. This issue has become one of the most difficult questions in the philosophical self-reflection of Marburg Neo-Kantianism. I reveal that in his critique of Hegel Rubinstein is based on the Co­hen’s thesis on the immanence of thinking and being, which means that all being in sense of its substantive determination is a function of thinking. In Hegel’s “Science of Logic” Rubinstein finds a violation of this principle, namely dualis­tic features expressed in the independence of being and thinking. From Rubin­stein’s further reflections it becomes clear that his critical thesis against Hegel about the transcendence of being in relation to all other logical definitions is ori­ented on Cohen’s conception of the last ground and his own project of an open system of categories. However, Rubinstein has overlooked that the epistemologi­cal differences between the concept and the object of the concept, thinking and being, are overcome on the last pages of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” by the concept of absolute knowledge, and “The Science of Logic” is a theory of pure thinking which seeks to justify the substantivity of thinking on the basis of a methodological rule, by means of which both the difference of being and think­ing, and their unity with the concept of pure thinking are revealed simultaneously.

Hegel's Concept of Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Ng
Keyword(s):  
Critique Of Judgment ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Original Activity ◽  
Subjective Logic ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Key Innovation ◽  
Logical Concept ◽  
System P ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Objective Context

This book defends a new interpretation of Hegel’s idealism as oriented by a philosophical and logical concept of life, focusing on Hegel’s Science of Logic. Beginning with the influence of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, Karen Ng argues that Hegel’s key philosophical contributions concerning self-consciousness, freedom, and logic all develop around the idea of internal purposiveness, which Hegel views as “Kant’s great service to philosophy.” Ng charts the development of the purposiveness theme in Kant and argues that its key innovation is the claim that the purposiveness of nature enables the operation of the power of judgment. Situating Hegel among contemporaries such as Fichte and Schelling, she further argues that this innovation is key for understanding Hegel’s philosophical method in the Differenzschrift (1801) and Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), in which the theory of self-consciousness plays a central role. In her new interpretation of Hegel’s Logic, Ng argues that the Subjective Logic can be understood as Hegel’s critique of judgment, where he defends the view that life opens up the possibility of intelligibility as such. She argues that Hegel’s theory of judgment is modeled on reflective, teleological judgments, in which something’s species or kind provides the objective context for predication. The Subjective Logic culminates in the argument that life is a primitive or original activity of judgment, the necessary presupposition for the actualization of self-conscious cognition. Ng demonstrates that absolute method is best interpreted as the ongoing dialectic between life and self-conscious cognition, providing a new way for understanding Hegel’s philosophical system.

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