This chapter contains sections titled: Hegel on Love: The Early Theological Writings Recognition and Spirit: Hegel's Appropriation and Critique of Fichte Hegel's Philosophical Theology: Love, Reconciliation, True Infinity.

In this significant contribution to Hegel scholarship, Robert Williams develops the most comprehensive account to date of Hegel's concept of recognition. Fichte introduced the concept of recognition as a presupposition of both Rousseau's social contract and Kant's ethics. Williams shows that Hegel appropriated the concept of recognition as the general pattern of his concept of ethical life, breaking with natural law theory yet incorporating the Aristotelian view that rights and virtues are possible only within a certain kind (...) of community. He explores Hegel's intersubjective concept of spirit as the product of affirmative mutual recognition and his conception of recognition as the right to have rights. Examining Hegel's Jena manuscripts, his _Philosophy of Right_, the _Phenomenology of Spirit_, and other works, Williams shows how the concept of recognition shapes and illumines Hegel's understandings of crime and punishment, morality, the family, the state, sovereignty, international relations, and war. A concluding chapter on the reception and reworking of the concept of recognition by contemporary thinkers including Derrida, Levinas, and Deleuze demonstrates Hegel's continuing centrality to the philosophical concerns of our age. (shrink)

Robert R. Williams offers a bold new account of divergences and convergences in the work of Hegel and Nietzsche. He explores four themes - the philosophy of tragedy; recognition and community; critique of Kant; and the death of God - and explicates both thinkers' critiques of traditional theology and metaphysics.

Investigates the concept of recognition (anerkennen) under which term the German idealists discussed the Other, intersubjectivity, the interhuman.

This work considers the question of the personhood of God in Hegel. The first part examines Hegel's critique of Kant, focusing on and replying to Kant's attack on the theological proofs. The second part then explores the issue of divine personhood.

According to Hegel, the true infinite is the fundamental concept of philosophy. Yet despite this fact, there is absence of consensus concerning its meaning and significance. The true infinite challenges the currently dominant non-metaphysical interpretations of Hegel, as it challenged the dominance of the Kantian framework in its own day, specifically Kant’s attack on theology and his treatment of theology as a postulate of moralit y. Kant admits that the God-postulate has only subjective necessity and validity, and is an expression (...) of moral faith. Hegel both accepts Kant’s approach to the God-question through freedom and practical reason, but he rejects Kant’s philosophy of the postulates as incoherent, burdened with finitude and antithesis. The ought is only the beginning of the transcendence of finitude, but also essentially clings to finitude. This is the spurious infinite. In contrast to the traditional view of abstract transcendence, Hegel shows that the very attempt to separate the infinite from the finite only renders the infinite finite and levels it. The consciousness of limit (finitude) implies a transcendence of limit. The true infinite is an onto-theological principle, a social infinite that overcomes the limits imposed by abstract transcendence and the dualisms imposed by the Kantian frame. It is of vital importance for Hegel’s philosophy of religion, as both a doctrine of divine presence and absolute spirit in its community. (shrink)

According to Hegel, the true infinite is the fundamental concept of philosophy. Yet despite this fact, there is absence of consensus concerning its meaning and significance. The true infinite challenges the currently dominant non-metaphysical interpretations of Hegel, as it challenged the dominance of the Kantian framework in its own day, specifically Kant’s attack on theology and his treatment of theology as a postulate of moralit y. Kant admits that the God-postulate has only subjective necessity and validity, and is an expression (...) of moral faith. Hegel both accepts Kant’s approach to the God-question through freedom and practical reason, but he rejects Kant’s philosophy of the postulates as incoherent, burdened with finitude and antithesis. The ought is only the beginning of the transcendence of finitude, but also essentially clings to finitude. This is the spurious infinite. In contrast to the traditional view of abstract transcendence, Hegel shows that the very attempt to separate the infinite from the finite only renders the infinite finite and levels it. The consciousness of limit (finitude) implies a transcendence of limit. The true infinite is an onto-theological principle, a social infinite that overcomes the limits imposed by abstract transcendence and the dualisms imposed by the Kantian frame. It is of vital importance for Hegel’s philosophy of religion, as both a doctrine of divine presence and absolute spirit in its community. (shrink)

This edition of a recently discovered manuscript provides the first full look at Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit. The lectures of 1827 go far beyond Hegel's previously published Encyclopedia outline, and provide a new introduction to the Philosophy of Spirit. Robert Williams's translation will stimulate interest in a neglected area in Hegel scholarship, but one to which Hegel himself attached special importance and significance.

_Reflects new advances in Hegel scholarship and demonstrates the contemporary relevance of the Philosophy of Right._.

Although Hegel has been rediscovered frequently, few have focused on Hegel’s speculative theology. Since Hegel criticizes traditional theology, it is widely assumed that he must be an atheist. But Hegel rejects the alternatives of a fossilized orthodoxy and a post-religious secularity. Hegel’s speculative philosophy has profound significance for Christian theological reconstruction. This essay focuses on Hegel’s philosophy of religion as a philosophical theology in the post-Kantian, post-Enlightenment context. Hegel rejects philosophies of finitude as nihilistic. Second, it examines how Hegel’s attempt (...) to provide a logical map of world religions demonstrates the impossibility of such a logical mapping. Third, it concludes with an examination of eschatology: Hegel criticizes the dualist eschatology of religious representation because it undermines the actuality of reconciliation. The eschatology of the concept can only be taken up in the context of Hegel’s views concerning tragedy and the death of God. The suffering God excludes any triumphalist realized eschatology or end of history culmination. (shrink)

Although Hegel has been rediscovered frequently, few have focused on Hegel’s speculative theology. Since Hegel criticizes traditional theology, it is widely assumed that he must be an atheist. But Hegel rejects the alternatives of a fossilized orthodoxy and a post-religious secularity. Hegel’s speculative philosophy has profound significance for Christian theological reconstruction. This essay focuses on Hegel’s philosophy of religion as a philosophical theology in the post-Kantian, post-Enlightenment context. Hegel rejects philosophies of finitude as nihilistic. Second, it examines how Hegel’s attempt (...) to provide a logical map of world religions demonstrates the impossibility of such a logical mapping. Third, it concludes with an examination of eschatology: Hegel criticizes the dualist eschatology of religious representation because it undermines the actuality of reconciliation. The eschatology of the concept can only be taken up in the context of Hegel’s views concerning tragedy and the death of God. The suffering God excludes any triumphalist realized eschatology or end of history culmination. (shrink)

I wish to thank Prof. Houlgate for his thoughtful article, especially in view of his agreement with so much of the argument of Recognition. I welcome his concurrence with many of my theses: that there is an account of intersubjectivity in German idealism, that reason is social, that love is the most important form of reciprocal recognition, and that Hegel does not reduce the other to the same. His analysis of both Fichte and Hegel is sophisticated and perceptive. Before responding (...) directly to his criticisms, which focus chiefly on the topic of absolute knowledge, I should like to indicate briefly my objectives in writing Recognition, how and at what levels the question of the other comes to be posed, and its significance for basic issues in Hegel interpretation. (shrink)

The pairing of Hegel with skepticism may seem at first to be an “odd couple.” But such a mistaken first impression dissipates upon a closer examination of Hegel’s early essay, “Relationship of Skepticism to Philosophy: Exposition of its Different Modifications and Comparison of the Latest Form with the Ancient One.” Far from the standard picture of someone oblivious to critical epistemological issues, this essay reveals a Hegel who is not only a student, but also a defender of ancient skepticism against (...) its modern Humean counterpart. Authentic skepticism, he tells us, has no positive side. By this measure, modern skepticism is not authentic, for while it attacks rationalist metaphysics, it is itself dogmatic in taking sense impressions, facts of consciousness, and immediacy as truth. In contrast, ancient skepticism attacked sense perception and immediacy first of all, and knew how to demonstrate that immediate certainty is nothing. (shrink)

Forster’s study is welcome and important, not least because it corrects the widespread but mistaken impression that Hegel and skepticism are mutually exclusive opposites. Forster is one of the few who have taken seriously Hegel’s early Critical Journal essay, “The Relationship of Skepticism to Philosophy.” This essay shows that, contrary to received opinion, Hegel was not only familiar with skepticism, but also that he regarded ancient skepticism as more important than its modern Humean counterpart. But the point is not simply (...) that Hegel knew the history of philosophy better than most others; Forster’s thesis is that Hegel’s interpretation of the skeptical tradition is fundamental to Hegel’s own philosophical position, such that large regions of Hegel’s thought remain obscure if Hegel’s interpretation of and relation to skepticism are not understood. Moreover, Hegel’s construction of a system of philosophy, far from ignoring skepticism, is a response to those skeptical problems that Hegel regarded as genuinely important, which any philosophy worthy of the name must meet. To view Hegel from this perspective is not only to gain understanding of his thought, it shows the standard picture of Hegel as the culmination of metaphysics based on naively optimistic epistemological assumptions, to be an irresponsible caricature. (shrink)

A superficial glance at the philosophies of Hegel and Whitehead reveals some not insignificant thematic parallels and/or convergences: Both take process rather than static substance to be central, and both conceive it as a social, organic whole; both share a critique of the philosophical tradition of substance metaphysics, and both reject the substance-accident scheme. The question arises whether such thematic parallels are merely fortuitious, or grounded in yet more fundamental convergence. A formidable obstacle in making such a determination is created (...) by the vastly different philosophical terminology. Both Hegel and Whitehead generate new terminology partly as a result of their critique of the tradition and partly as a result of their construals of the philosophical task. Hegel’s terminology resists successful translation into English. And Whitehead’s terminology is anti-idealistic. Yet Whitehead himself acknowledges Hegel’s influence and characterizes his own argument in Process and Reality as an “Hegelian development of an idea.” Hence it is not surprising or difficult to find thematic and topical parallels between Whitehead and Hegel. The real problem is to determine what such parallels mean. Much work remains to sort this problem out, and the sorting out requires that fundamental questions concerning the possibility of speculative philosophy, as well as philosophical method, be addressed. (shrink)

This essay examines Hegel’s critique of Kant’s concept of critical philosophy, set forth principally in his Phenomenology of Spirit and Encyclopedia. In the former Hegel presents a hermeneutical critique of Kant, to wit, the concept of critique presupposes a concept of knowledge construed as an instrument. On this assumption the “instrument” of knowledge is supposed to be examined apart from and in advance of its application. But Hegel objects that the underlying conception of knowledge as an instrument undermines the cognitive (...) project because it separates the knower from the known; it is self-defeating because it cuts us off from what we seek to know. Further, Hegel asks, what is the status of the critique? Is it knowledge? In order to determine the boundaries of cognition, Kant is forced repeatedly to transgress those very boundaries. Hegel’s objection does not signal a repudiation of critique. Rather Hegel demands that critique not be separated from actual cognition, and that it constitute an integral moment of speculative philosophy. The exploration of this requirement takes us into an examination of Hegel’s account of phenomenological critique, his account of Kant’s paralogisms, his analysis of the spurious infinite and its overcoming in the genuine infinite. (shrink)

This essay examines Hegel’s critique of Kant’s concept of critical philosophy, set forth principally in his Phenomenology of Spirit and Encyclopedia. In the former Hegel presents a hermeneutical critique of Kant, to wit, the concept of critique presupposes a concept of knowledge construed as an instrument. On this assumption the “instrument” of knowledge is supposed to be examined apart from and in advance of its application. But Hegel objects that the underlying conception of knowledge as an instrument undermines the cognitive (...) project because it separates the knower from the known; it is self-defeating because it cuts us off from what we seek to know. Further, Hegel asks, what is the status of the critique? Is it knowledge? In order to determine the boundaries of cognition, Kant is forced repeatedly to transgress those very boundaries. Hegel’s objection does not signal a repudiation of critique. Rather Hegel demands that critique not be separated from actual cognition, and that it constitute an integral moment of speculative philosophy. The exploration of this requirement takes us into an examination of Hegel’s account of phenomenological critique, his account of Kant’s paralogisms, his analysis of the spurious infinite and its overcoming in the genuine infinite. (shrink)

When one thinks of Hegel in relation to the theme of education, the first book that comes to mind is his Phenomenology of Spirit, which he characterizes as the education of ordinary consciousness to the standpoint of science. This book is a selfcompleting skepticism that, considered from the standpoint of immediate, natural consciousness is a highway of despair, but, considered from the standpoint of the phenomenological observers, is the education of ordinary consciousness to the standpoint of absolute knowing and system. (...) Hegel's concept of experience is a process whereby every shape of consciousness goes through the stages of immediate certainty, the collapse of that immediate certainty, and the correction of that initial certainty where its truth is revealed to be the opposite of what it was originally taken to be. Education is a process of dialectical reversals that does not end in skeptical equipollence and suspension, but rather culminates in a vision of truth as the whole. Truth emerges as a whole or totality because, in Hegel's view, each position is not a simple error that must be totally negated, but rather a partial grasp of truth. Central to Hegel's vision of education is the idea of truth as a result of overcoming conflict, and of error as an essential, but subordinate and correctable, aspect of truth. (shrink)

Although Elliot L. Jurist’s review of Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other was not unfavorable and indeed very helpful in showing the importance of the topic of recognition for contemporary philosophy, he nevertheless so fundamentally misrepresents my position that I am obliged to reply. For those who may have missed the review, the central issues are the following: Jurist asserts.

Alfred Schutz identified two different approaches to the problem of intersubjectivity. The first is the transcendental, which maintains the primacy of subjectivity, and identifies the problem of the other as a transcendental problem. For example, in Husserl’s phenomenological idealism, all meaning is relative to a transcendental constituting subject. Hence the “problem of intersubjectivity” is to show how the other comes to be constituted, comes to be meant as a sense. The difficulty with such an approach is that if the other (...) is a meaning relative to and analogous to the constituting subject, the transcendence and irreducibility of the other to consciousness seem to be undermined. Transcendental idealism never reaches the “other” because the other is precisely what I do not constitute, but can only encounter. The recognition of the inadequacy of the transcendental approach leads to a second, namely, the other is encountered on the basis and background of the natural attitude and/or life-world. When the transcendental approach is abandoned, the “problem of the other” turns into a series of descriptions of either encounters or social situations. Ontology is replaced by critical theory of society. In either case, an ontology of intersubjectivity seems to be excluded. (shrink)

The general thesis is that schleiermacher anticipated husserlian phenomenological method, Specifically: (1) the redirecting of attention away from second order constructions to the things themselves; (2) the uncovering of the thesis of the natural attitude and its suspension; (3) the phenomenological reduction as an alteration of consciousness which overcomes its naive mundane immersions; and (4) the historical reduction of transcendental philosophy. Such husserlian concepts are concretely explored in reference to schleiermacher's reconstruction of theology and theological method: (1) his "glaubenslehre" as (...) a project of existential-Phenomenological theology; (2) his distinction of the three forms of theological propositions and (3) his thematizing of the historical essence of christianity. Special attention is given to schleiermacher's employment of the phenomenological reduction in the task of discerning the essence of christianity, A distinctive theological "wesenschau". (shrink)

This paper examines a topic already much discussed in Royce’s time, namely the debate between Royce and James over the absolute. However, the occasion for taking up this topic again is John E. Smith’s article in which it is claimed that Royce’s own intellectual development moves away from his earlier conception of the absolute and toward the concept of community. This is not so much a conceptual development on Royce’s part, but rather a gradual clarification of Royce’s basic concepts and (...) position. Nevertheless, the ultimate import of Smith’s article is ambiguous in that the impression is created that Royce abandons not only the term “absolute” but the very concept as well, in favor of the concept of community. This seems to mean that Royce abandons the position he defended against James’s criticism and ends in a Feuerbach-style substitution of the concept of human community for the traditional concept of the absolute. However, Smith has vigorously denied that such is the case. Hence a perplexity: Does Royce abandon the concept of the absolute in favor of the concept of community? If, as Smith contends, Royce merely modifies rather than abandons his early position altogether, is the modified position a consistent one? Are the concepts of the absolute and community compatible or antithetical? (shrink)

Robert R. Williams - Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 408-409 Book Review Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency Elliot L. Jurist. Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 355. Cloth, $37.95. Challenging the contemporary consensus that one must choose either Hegel or Nietzsche, Elliot Jurist joins the "rapprochement thesis" (...) originated by Walter Kaufmann. He explores Hegel and Nietzsche on the themes of agency, intersubjectivity, and society and culture. Jurist approaches these themes through the psychology of knowledge. Nietzsche's psychological method is well known; Jurist believes Hegel's contributions to psychology are no less significant: Hegel's "superb insight," found in his concept of recognition, is that others co-constitute self-identity . Jurist regards Hegel and Nietzsche as advancing important, somewhat divergent, but by.. (shrink)