Hegel: Metaphysics, Misc

La doctrina del choque (Anstoß), que Fichte desarrolla ante todo en el Fundamento de toda la Doctrina de la Ciencia, pero también en otros escritos de la época de Jena, ha sido desde antaño objeto de crítica tanto por los admiradores como por los detractores de la filosofía fichteana. Existen al menos dos modos específicamente diferentes y aparentemente contrapuestos de comprender su sentido: según una lectura, el choque sería una autoafección del propio Yo; según otra, un residuo realista, en última (...) instancia incompatible con los compromisos idealistas del pensamiento de Fichte. La tensión entre ambos modos de comprender la tesis del choque pueden reeconcontrarse en la confrontación entre las interpretaciones así llamadas epistemológica y ontológica de la tesis de la “cosa en sí” en la filosofía de Kant –tesis con la que de hecho suele asociarse la tesis fichteana del choque. En este contexto, Hegel parecería a primera vista presentarse –por ejemplo, si se considera el escrito de la Diferencia entre los sistemas de filosofía de Fichte y Schelling– como partidario de una interpretación robusta, ontológica, de la tesis del choque; sin embargo, si se analiza el corpus hegeliano en su conjunto la posición de Hegel resulta ser más matizada y próxima a una interpretación por así llamarla epistemológica de dicha tesis. Con todo, aun así la postura de Hegel sobre el sentido de la tesis fichteana del choque en el contexto de una filosofía idealista continúa siendo crítica. (shrink)

This essay criticizes some strategies of Hegel scholarship, especially the non-metaphysical school and its recent metaphysical successor. My main claim is that these approaches are rhetorically opaque, and thus vulnerable to a certain anticolonial argument. In place of these strategies, I recommend and illustrate a more historically perspicuous approach that is sensitive to concerns about the role of European philosophy in the Americas.

Es ist bekannt, dass Jacques Derrida Hegel als einen der radikalsten Vertreter jener Metaphysik der Präsenz beschrieben hat, die es zu dekonstruieren gilt, und zugleich zugestanden hat, dass Hegel wie kein anderer eben jene Irreduzibilität der Differenz gedacht hat, die Derrida durch die Dekonstruktion der metaphysischen Tradition zur Geltung bringen will. Derridas Verhältnis zu Hegel kann also gar nicht anders als kompliziert sein. Es ist voller innerer Spannungen, die dringend nach näherer Klärung verlangen, die die Literatur zu Derrida bisher aber (...) meist nur punktuell geliefert hat. Auf eine grundlegende und umfassende Klärung zielt nun Johannes-Georg Schüleins Studie zu Metaphysik und ihrer Kritik bei Hegel und Derrida. (shrink)

For many recent readers of Hegel, Wilfrid Sellars’s 1956 London lectures on the “Myth of the Given” have signaled an important rapprochement between Hegelian and analytic traditions in philosophy. Here I want to explore the ideas of another philosopher, also active in London in the 1950s, who consciously pursued such a goal: John N. Findlay. The ideas that Findlay brought to Hegel—sometimes converging with, sometimes diverging from those of Sellars—had been informed by his earlier study of the Austrian philosopher Alexius (...) Meinong, and transformations of Meinong’s ideas by his student, the logician Ernst Mally. These ideas that Findlay found Hegel-friendly are ones that have had a particular bearing on more recent analytic modal metaphysics, especially via the work of Findlay’s own former student, Arthur Prior. Given this, we might not be surprised at the similarities between the type of actualist interpretation of modal logic that Prior offered in opposition to David Lewis’s variant on Leibnizian possibilism, and Hegel’s approach to the category of “Actuality” [Wirklichkeit] at the end of the Objective Logic of The Science of Logic. But the similarities, I suggest, do not end there, as elements of Hegel treatment of predication in the Subjective Logic parallel similar elements found in the work of Mally and, more recently, “modal actualists” such as Prior and Stalnaker. In this paper I explore some puzzling features of Hegel’s treatment of predication in the Subjective Logic from the point of view of the need for a logic for thought about the modally complex actual world, as Hegel conceived it. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the role of perspective in Hegel’s metaphysics, and in particular the role that multiple perspectives play within the ultimate structure in Hegel’s metaphysics, which Hegel calls ‘the idea [die Idee].’ My (somewhat anachronistic) way into this topic will be to inquire about Hegel’s stance on what Adrian Moore has called ‘absolute representations.’ I argue for the claim that perspective is maintained, even in the absolute idea, which generates the task of understanding the nature of that (...) perspective and its compatibility with absoluteness. I attempt to accomplish this task by asking what a logical perspective could be, and how it might be related to visual perspective. Then I inquire into the relation that perspectives have to each other, i.e., to the system of perspectives. I construe those relations in reciprocal and dynamic terms, so that absoluteness takes the form of a structured round of perspectives rather than a relation to reality “once and for all”. (shrink)

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

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)

What is arguably the central criticism of Hegel’s philosophical system by the Continental tradition, a criticism which represents a unifying thread in the diverse work of Schelling, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Adorno, is that Hegel fails to adequately do justice to the notion of individuality. My aim in this paper is to counter the claim that Hegel’s idea of the concrete universal fails to properly explain the real uniqueness of individuals. In what follows, I argue that whilst the Continental critique (...) (as it is particularly expressed by Adorno) is prima facie attractive, it is ultimately misguided. This is because the critics of Hegel fail to correctly understand (i) his principal argument in Sense-Certainty; (ii) crucial features of his logico-metaphysics; and (iii) his notion of wholeness. I contend that carefully explicating these important parts of the Hegelian system not only shows that Hegel’s metaphysical commitments are not those which do not leave meaningful room for or make adequate sense of individuality, but that they also reveal a sophisticated treatment of the interdependency between the categories of individuality, particularity and universality in a way which conceives of individuality robustly. (shrink)

Author: Thomas Sören Hoffmann. Translated by Pedro Sepúlveda Zambrano.

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

Die Vernunft ist für Hegel die Einheit des Subjekts und des Objekts ? anders ausgedrückt: Subjekt zu sein impliziert, die Welt zu erkennen. Die Inhalte, die die Erkenntnistätigkeit spontan findet, »setzen« ihre eigene Erkenntnis nicht, weil die der Erkenntnis gegebenen Inhalte keine »unverursachten Ursachen« oder »unbewegten Beweger« des Erkennens sind. Die Erkenntnisobjekte sind für Hegel sowohl ruhend als auch in Bewegung: Unmittelbarkeit und Vermittlung sind bloße Standpunkte über die Erkenntnistätigkeit. Sich ein absolutes Nichtsein des Erkennens vorzustellen (z.B. durch die Zustimmung (...) zum cartesischen Gedankenexperiment, durch eine philosophische Deutung des psychologischen Phänomens des Unbewusstseins oder durch eine naturalistische Interpretation der Theorie der transzendentalen Subjektivität), verändert grundsätzlich unser Verständnis des Erkenntnisphänomens, weil es das Bedürfnis nach speziellen Gründungsakten erzeugt, die als absolute Ursachen der Erkenntnis fungieren sollen. Anhand von Spinozas Substanzbegriff hält Hegel dagegen das Erkennen für streng genommen unverursacht und insofern die Erkenntnisakte für innere Momente des unendlichen absoluten Elements des Erkennens, d.h. der ununterbrochenen und ununterbrechbaren Geist-Welt-Einheit. Vom Standpunkt des künstlich vorgestellten Nichtseins der Geist-Welt-Einheit muss aber der Kreislauf der Erkenntnisakte irgendwann angefangen haben; das menschliche Erkennen bzw. Denken wird dadurch zum bloß formalen Denken - in Hegels Terminologie: zum »Bewusstsein«. Damit die Tatsache begreiflich wird, dass das Erkennen schon immer einen Inhalt hat, müssen die Bestimmungen einiger Denkakte als Dinge interpretiert werden, die von außen her das Erkennen in Gang setzen und erfüllen. Erst diese hypostasierten Denkakte können die Tatsache erklären, dass der menschliche Geist die Wirklichkeit erkennt; im Gegensatz zu diesen Denkakten, denen das epistemische Privileg verliehen wird, den Geist mit der Welt in Kontakt zu bringen, werden die restlichen Denkakte zu bloß subjektiven Vorstellungen reduziert. In diesem Zusammenhang soll die sinnliche Wahrnehmung oder Empfindung den absoluten Anfang des Erkennens bilden, obwohl sie selber ein Akt und Moment des Denkens ist. Die empirische Erkenntnis soll hier ein in sich leer gewordenes Denken in Kontakt mit der Welt setzen, damit dieses erst dann zum Erkennen dessen wird, was es wirklich gibt. Für Hegel bilden dagegen die empirischen Gegenstände keinen absoluten Anfang der Erkenntnis, sondern sind bereits da im Denken als unendlicher Totalität des erkennenden Geistes und der erkannten Welt. In diesem theoretischen Rahmen gibt es - selbstverständlich! - Raum für sinnliches Erkennen, aber keinen für Empirismus. Aristoteles? Aussage, dass »die Seele in gewisser Weise alle Dinge« ist, und das scholastische Diktum, dass »ens et verum convertuntur«, paraphrasierend, behauptet Hegel: »das Absolute ist der Geist«. (shrink)

Según una historia estándar, devenida habitual especialmente por influencia del pensamiento heideggeriano, la filosofía occidental se encuentra atrapada en la trampa de la metafísica. La trampa de la metafísica centra la crítica a la metafísica en torno a la tesis según la cual el esencialismo y una concepción de la verdad condicionada por él determinan qué significa “ser” o “existencia”. Detrás de la realidad se supone un fundamento que bajo la forma de un “trasmundo” (Hinterwelt) produce una manifestación cuasi-causal, a (...) saber: el “mundo” (Welt), el cual se deja con ello concebir como la aparición del ser que se ha retraído en sí mismo. La diferencia entre ser y apariencia mantiene al pensamiento metafísico atrapado, en la medida en que éste no es capaz de reconocer esa diferencia misma como una apariencia. En Siete ensayos sobre la muerte de la metafísica, Héctor Ferreiro ofrece frente a esta historia estándar una convincente contrahistoria. Esta contrahistoria tiene su punto de partida en Hegel, quien intenta, de modo opuesto a la lectura propuesta por Heidegger, superar a la metafísica con sus propios medios y sepultarla a partir de su propia dinámica interna. Precisamente a esta superación está dedicado el debate y discusión de Hegel con el argumento ontológico. Como Kant, Hegel ve en el argumento ontológico uno de los centros operacionales de la metafísica clásica. La cuestión es, pues, cómo abordar el argumento ontológico del modo correcto desde un punto de vista crítico a la metafísica. La estrategia que ofrece Hegel consiste, como lo expone Ferreiro, en desenmascarar la distinción misma entre el ser y la apariencia producida por él como una operación de tipo conceptual. Según Hegel, la metafísica ha sido desde siempre el intento por desarrollar una teoría de la totalidad. Pero una teoría de la totalidad que coloca al ser de un lado y a su aparición del otro lado de un límite no advierte su propia operación, dado que el trazado de un límite pertenece él mismo a la teoría de la totalidad. De lo que se trata, pues, es de examinar los trazados de límite constitutivos de la metafísica para reconocerlos como productos de la reflexión y no como hechos dados que el pensamiento tan sólo debe reflejar. El movimiento de autosuperación de la metafísica que culmina en la discusión de Kant y Hegel con el argumento ontológico pertenece ya, sin embargo, a la tradición de la metafísica. Como lo muestra Ferreiro, la metafísica está a más tardar a partir de la distinción medieval entre esencia y existencia en proceso de superarse a sí misma, pues ya Tomás de Aquino logra reconocer en dicha distinción la verdadera fuente de la producción del mundo. Tomás persiste aún, sin embargo, en una concepción sustancialista, en la medida en que considera a la distinción entre esencia y existencia como un hecho in-dependiente de la teoría y del sujeto. Sin embargo, esa distinción es una operación conceptual y no un objeto que se encuentra en el mundo. En esta medida, la tesis de la distinción de razón entre ambas categorías se presenta como un indicador de la reflexión de la metafísica sobre sí misma. Ferreiro demuestra que el célebre comienzo de la Cien-cia de la Lógica de Hegel significa precisamente una profundización y radicalización de esa autorreflexión. Ahora bien, a ojos de Hegel el ser del comienzo de la Lógica es en sí mismo como tal el resultado del argumento ontológico; en su formulación clásica, sin embargo, el argumento ontológico sólo aspira a probar que hay algo (Dios), pero el argumento mismo no es como tal capaz de determinar ulteriormente ese algo –esto constituye justamente la tarea de la ontología en el sentido de Hegel, es decir, la tarea de la Lógica. Así, lo que podría denominarse en Hegel una “metafísica” es expresamente una crítica a la metafísica tradicional. En efecto, la ontología que Hegel propone en modo alguno significa una recaída en la metafísica anterior a Kant; por el contrario, en la filosofía de Hegel metafísica y crítica a la metafísica se vinculan íntimamente y con ello se cierra un círculo que se había abierto en la metafísica teológica de la Edad Media: precisamente que este movimiento estaba contenido ya programáticamente en la ontología de la distinción entre esencia y existencia es algo que Ferreiro analiza en forma clara y meticulosa. En cuanto disciplina, la ontología está hoy nuevamente en el centro de la atención de la reflexión filosófica a nivel mundial. Siete ensayos sobre la muerte de la metafísica no sólo ofrece en este respecto un análisis de índole histórica; es también una importante contribución teórica al actual retorno a la ontología. (shrink)

Kant claims that existence is not a real predicate that can be added to the concept of a thing, but that it is the mere positing of the thing. Kant considers this thesis to be evident for itself and therefore thinks that its rejection is the result of an " over-subtle argumentation ". In this paper I will show that the claim that existence is the positing of the content of mental concepts, far from being evident, rests on numerous philosophical (...) presuppositions. In this regard, I will defend the claim that the thought experiment of the nothingness of the existing world is what leads Kant to conceive existence as absolute positing. Furthermore, I will try to show that it is possible to accept the claim that existence is not a real predicate, without having to accept at the same time that it is the positing of the concept. With this purpose in view, I will focus specifically on Hegel´s claim that, in the general frame of a radically antiempiricist and coherentist epistemology, being resolves and dissolves into the determinate concept of the objects of knowledge. (shrink)

Book Review of "The Purposes of God: Providence as Process-Historical Liberation" by G. Michael Zbaraschuk.

James Kreines’s Reason in the World offers readers—including those not already steeped in Hegelian terminology and argument—a compelling interpretation of key elements in Hegel’s Logic. It reconstructs Hegel’s arguments clearly and straightforwardly; it treats a tightly coherent group of topics; and it engages thoroughly with the most important secondary literature in German and English. But while these are all excellent qualities, its truly distinguishing contribution to recent debates in the history of philosophy is the case it makes for Kant, rather (...) than Spinoza, as the major source of Hegel’s own metaphysics. Kant’s pervasive influence on Hegel is of course obvious in a general sense. But in... (shrink)

Hegel famously criticizes Kant’s resolution of the antinomies. According to Sedgwick, Hegel primarily chastises Kant’s resolution for presupposing that concepts are ‘one-sided’, rather than identical to their opposites. If Kant had accepted the dialectical nature of concepts, then (according to Sedgwick) Kant would not have needed to resolve the antinomies. However, as Ameriks has noted, any such interpretation faces a serious challenge. Namely, Kant’s first antinomy concerns the universe’s physical dimensions. Even if we grant that the concept of the finite (...) is necessarily related to that of the infinite, the physical universe cannot both have and lack a temporal beginning. I argue that Hegel neither adopts Sedgwick’s view that Kant’s antinomies require no resolution nor absurdly accepts that the physical universe both has and lacks a temporal beginning. Instead, Hegel proposes a sophisticated resolution of Kant’s first antinomy (including its physical aspect) that depends on Hegel’s theory of the Absolute. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to respond to the discussions by John McCumber and Joshua Ramey of my monograph, Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation. In the first part of this paper, I analyse McCumber’s claim that Deleuze’s concept of difference is already present within Hegel’s thought in the form of diversity. I make the claim that Deleuze formulates his concept of difference as the transcendental ground for Hegelian diversity, arguing that as such it differs in kind from (...) it. I show how Deleuze’s concept of difference leads him to develop an alternative solution to the one and the many to that of Hegel, and trace some of the systematic implications of this for both philosophers. In the second part of the paper, I engage with Ramey’s analysis of chance within Deleuze’s philosophy, arguing that Ramey wrongly looks for a model of chance in Deleuze in the category of the virtual, rather than in a transition between virtual and actual. I then show how a proper understanding of chance in Deleuze’s thought allows us to develop a non-teleological account of Deleuze’s ethics. (shrink)

Não é raro quando se trata da Lógica pensar na lógica aristotélica e toda a tradição que se efetivou posteriormente, sendo esta considerada como uma ciência finalizada e que, qualquer acréscimo lhe parece desnecessário. O que este trabalho busca mostrar é um modo diferente e possível para se pensar a lógica, sem que essa fique presa a uma construção puramente formal e fechada. Para tal tarefa, será definida a perspectiva que Hegel dá a essa ciência. A Lógica hegeliana possui desdobramentos (...) que a distingue do que se vinha concebendo, desde Aristóteles, por “Lógica", por não se tratar de uma lógica puramente subjetiva, mas cuja verdade efetiva foi assentada na união autodeterminadora ao mesmo tempo do sujeito e do objeto, o que pode ser compreendido como dar vida aos processos lógicos. Constitui o norte dessa pesquisa e percorrer os seus desdobramentos, contrapondo e analisando em paralelo algumas abordagens anteriores da Lógica (como em Aristóteles, Kant e Fichte). Trataremos de expor o desenvolvimento da Lógica Objetiva, explicitada nos livros primeiro e segundo da Ciência da Lógica de Hegel. Trata-se de mostrar que a realidade é pensada como desenvolvida no pensar do Conceito enquanto unificação dos opostos. Para isso o Lógico tem de ser concebido como um movimento do pensar, como junção do ser e do pensar, do objeto e do sujeito, da forma e do conteúdo, sendo que se apresenta nessa união o elemento que dá vida ao Lógico, pois este é o movimento no qual se realiza a verdade do Conceito. E é neste contexto que o Silogismo é inserido como elemento mediatizante, cuja função por vezes passa despercebida, mas que tem um papel significativo no conjunto. O silogismo dá o elo que vinha faltando quando se pensava na conciliação de elementos opostos, o que acabava os transformando em opostos inconciliáveis. (shrink)

Deleuze said that he detested Hegelianism and dialectics: this paper claims that Deleuze is contra Hegel because he has and proposes a different philosophical system. Thus, I suggest that if we want to understand the reason of such a “disgust,” we need to focus the philosophical question that moves the entire Deleuzian system (§ 1). Then, I explain that if the ground-question of Hegel’s philosophy is “how is it possible that things are surpassed, that they go on?”, the Deleuzian one (...) is “how is it that there is always something new, that things come out?” (§ 2). Finally, I discuss how desire can be considered as a key-example for seeing how the perspectives of the two thinkers diverge (§ 3). (shrink)

El concepto de libertad suele identificarse con el de la capacidad de elección, es decir, con el libre albedrío. La doctrina de la libertad queda con esto básicamente reducida a la discusión de la cuestión de si en un mundo que se presenta como un entramado de procesos causales al infinito el hombre es capaz de causar algo por sí mismo, esto es, en otros términos, de si el acto de elección puede ser un acontecimiento independiente de aquel entramado, en (...) el que de todos modos está cuando más no fuera a través de sus efectos integrado de hecho. Precisamente en la época en que se consolidaba la visión mecanicista del mundo, Kant explicitó las dificultades que plantea de suyo la noción de una causa que no sea a su vez efecto de otra causa y, sobre esta base, el problema que plantea el acto de elección entendido como una causa espontánea, es decir, como una causa capaz de iniciar absolutamente a partir de sí misma una serie de efectos sin ser en ese acto fundacional efecto de otra causa. El modo como Kant busca resolver la aparente incompatibilidad entre libertad y necesidad es remitiendo a una y a otra s a esferas diferentes de validez, de modo que no entren realmente en contacto y se invaliden con ello mutuamente. Por el contrario, para Hegel, si acaso hay una verdadera solución al conflicto que plantea la libertad humana en un mundo dominado por la necesidad, ella no podría consistir sino en mostrar que como tales libertad y necesidad no son propiamente determinaciones contradictorias. (shrink)

Sally Sedgwick’s most recent book is not, as its title might suggest, an exhaustive compendium of Hegel’s criticisms of Kant. Instead, it is something that is in many respects far more valuable: it is a detailed and thorough investigation of one particular criticism, which Sedgwick claims we must understand if we are to see any of Hegel’s other criticisms in their proper light. As a scholar who has published extensively on these other criticisms, her claim should be taken seriously.

Tout au long de sa carrière philosophique, Heidegger s’est livré à une constante explication avec Hegel, qu’il considérait comme son plus vif antagoniste. Dans le cadre de cet article, nous entendons nous rapporter aux origines de leur différend et prendre la mesure des griefs du jeune Heidegger à l’endroit de la dialectique hégélienne. Nous tenterons en un second lieu de démontrer que son opposition frontale camoufle en fait une secrète appropriation, puisque Heidegger aurait préalablement fait sienne l’idée d’un usage productif (...) de la négation en philosophie. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of normativity in Hegel by examining the role of ‘undialectical’ resistance to dialectical development. Beginning with a general overview of dialectical normativity and what it might mean to be ‘undialectical,’ the focus then shifts to a privileged example in Hegel’s writings: Sophocles’ Antigone. The central claim of the paper is the following: The very contradictions that fuel dialectical normativity can also trap individuals within an obsolete actuality, without immediate hope of escape. Indeed, the irreducible dependence (...) of dialectical thinking upon the actions and decisions of individual consciousness expose it to the threat of continual stasis or regression. This ineliminable possibility of failure is what is here called the ‘undialectical’ moment of the dialectic, which Hegel understands rather as a negative condition of possibility of freedom and rationality. (shrink)

Il pensiero contemporaneo ha subito la seduzione del negativo, sulla scia anche della riflessione hegeliana che, come riconosce Nietzsche, è stata la prima a portare la contraddizione nel cuore stesso della filosofia e della storia, facendone il nerbo logico e dialettico della realtà tutta. Hegel, infatti, ha portato la filosofia verso un confronto radicale e necessario con il negativo, senza prospettare alcuna possibilità di fuga davanti a esso. Il libro indaga il tema della negatività hegeliana nell’interpretazione fornita da Heidegger, partendo (...) dalla ricostruzione della Auseinandersetzung che Heidegger ha intessuto con Hegel nel corso di un quarantennio, ed evidenziando come questo sia stato un interlocutore privilegiato nella sua riflessione per la formulazione della tematica del nulla. (shrink)

We may call this the problem of thought and being, where thought represents the subjective and being the objective component in this interactive event. In order to resolve this problem we have to look more carefully at the situation to make sure we understand what is going on more clearly. Let us take the example of "seeing" as something that may be easier to understand. Between (1) "seeing" and the (2) "thing seen" we may at first think we have two (...) independent things. I have my subjective seeing capacity and there are objects in the world which are subject to my seeing capacity. Are these two really independent? Does it make any sense to speak of "things seen" unless the "seeing" capacity is already operating on them? Can we talk of an experience in such a way that what was experienced is different from the experience of it? We mean them to be different, their difference is not being denied. But are they independent or separable from one another? Whether we consider knowing, thinking, or whatever subjective activity we may come up with, it cannot be separated from the objective element that it is operating on. This interdependence of subjective and objective elements is crucial. Basically it is a situation where we have distinct elements inseparably connected to one another. This is not an extraordinary situation. It is rather most commonplace when we think about it. The sunshine is different from the Sun. No one would argue that when the Sun is shining in your room that the Sun is in your room. Distinct they are, but it would not be possible to separate the sunshine from the Sun and still have it be what we call the Sun. The point we are making is that Reality is not simply a matter of sensuous experience. Thought or conception is intimately tied up with our perception of Reality. As Kant explained, intuitions (perceptions) without conceptions are blind (indeterminate) and conceptions without intuitions are empty. Reality is a composite unity of both. (shrink)

El cambio suele ser, según una larga tradición filosófica, concebido como incompatible con la noción de ser en cuanto tal. Dicho de otro modo: si acaso existe un ser que sea en un sentido más propio y auténtico que las cosas de este mundo, el mismo deberá necesariamente excluir de sí toda forma de cambio y movimiento. Ser y devenir serían en cuanto tales nociones contradictorias y mutuamente excluyentes. Así, por ejemplo, Parménides elimina del Ser el movimiento y el cambio, (...) Platón concibe a las Ideas como inmutables, Aristóteles a su Primer Motor como inmóvil, la Escolástica concibe a Dios como Acto Puro, exento de potencia, y Kant, finalmente, opone lo incausado a lo causado y lo necesario a lo contingente como términos antinómicos. Hegel, en cambio, se remite a Heráclito y considera con él que el devenir constituye la sustancia misma del ser. Según Hegel, las nociones de ser y devenir no se excluyen mutuamente; por el contrario, el concepto de lo que es en sentido auténtico no sólo no excluye de sí el devenir, sino que en la medida en que deba ser algo real y no una mera abstracción mental, será por eso mismo algo concreto y determinado que como tal deberá contener el movimiento y el cambio como una de sus características esenciales. La crítica de Hegel a la clásica contraposición de ser y devenir se inscribe, en último análisis, en su proyecto general de crítica a las categorías del entendimiento abstractivo como categorías inadecuadas para pensar y comprender correctamente lo real. (shrink)

This work shows that being must originally be understood as implication. We begin with what Heidegger calls Hegelrsquo;s lsquo;new concept of beingrsquo; in the emPhenomenology of Spirit/em: time as history is the essence of being. This concept however, is not univocalmdash;for supersession means destroying-preserving. Hegel shows himself to be the thinker of truth as essentially ambiguous; and the emPhenomenology/em is onto-heno-chrono-phenomenology, the history of the being and unity, time and aspect, of the conceptrsquo;s ambiguity. For Heidegger however, conceptual ambiguity confirms (...) that Hegelrsquo;s history of being is stuck in a vulgar interpretation of time; and the emPhenomenology/em can explain neither the origin of this time, nor the necessity of negation for the historical determination of beingmdash;for Hegel cannot think the ground of the concept of being, that is, the grounding of the ground. If Heidegger argues however, that the emPhenomenology/em is pre-determined by its ancient point of departure, we must go back to the Greeks, back to Aristotlersquo;s original insight : being and unity emimply/em one anothermdash;for they are essentially implications. Thus the question of the meaning of being becomes the question of the meaning of implication. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In the place of the traditional sequence ascendingfrom culture to philosophy, and then to wisdom —where the progressive internalisation of exteriority is valued—Hegel substitutes a different path. This path leads from wisdom, in which the spirit originally gathers itself into its solitary emptiness, on through culture, which gives itform as determined through the exchange of diverse collective modalities of world mastery, tophilosophy, in its germanic completion. The differentiated identity of philosophy in its Germanic conclusion accomplishes the interiority of wisdom (...) found within cultural alienation, by going beyond both, as does real life. (shrink)

Die Ausführungen zum Begriff der Liebe in Hegels Ästhetik lassen sich als Spuren der Auseinandersetzung Hegels mit der Vereinigungsphilosophie lesen. Nach der These dieses Aufsatzes enthält die Ästhetik diese Spuren also noch, obgleich Hegels Abschied von der Vereinigungsphilosophie längst vollzogen war, als die Vorlesungen zur Ästhetik entstanden sind. Die Begriffe Philosophie der Vereinigung und Vereinigungsphilosophie bezeichnen Positionen in der Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts, die sich mit der Selbstwerdung des Subjekts oder des Bewußtseins befassen und mit der für die Selbstwerdung erforderlichen (...) Hingabe an ein Äußeres, Anderes. Infolge der Hingabe an ein Äußeres, Anderes werden dem Selbst die Grenzen und der Grund seines Selbst bewußt. Das Selbst benötigt demnach das Andere, um zu sich selbst zu kommen. Die Hingabe an das Endliche außer uns, die erforderlich ist, um in Abgrenzung zum Anderen zu einem Selbst zu werden, wird als Liebe im Sinne des Eros bestimmt. Diese Liebe ist der Antrieb, die Vereinigung mit dem Erstrebten zu suchen und die Erkenntnis des Wahren zu fin Für die Selbstwerdung oder Selbsterkenntnis werden dabei, je nach philosophischer Konzeption, unterschiedliche Bereiche als Ort der Vereinigung angenommen: Der Bereich der Religion, der auf die Erkenntnis Gottes und der Seele abhebt, die nur in der Wiedervereinigung der Seele mit Gott im Jenseits zu erlangen ist. Oder der Bereich des Schönen, der für Hölderlins Philosophie der Vereinigung zentral ist. Die allen Formen der Vereinigungsphilosophie zugrundeliegende Frage ist die nach dem Verhältnis zwischen dem Selbst (oder der Seele) und dem Begehrten, das zur Selbstwerdung gebraucht wird. Das Projekt der Selbstwerdung stellt aber nicht nur das erklärte Anliegen der Vereinigungsphilosophie dar, sondern auch das der romantischen Kunst, die, so Hegel, zur reinen unendlichen Identität mit sich selbst führt und nur noch einen Gott, einen Geist, eine absolute Selbstständigkeit kennt. Es ist für diese Periode nach Hegel geradezu die Aufgabe der Kunst, den Prozeß hin zur Subjektivität darzustellen. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) is considered a philosopher of the Tradition, both in the sense that his work is rooted in the political, artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of European culture and in the sense that he takes up the notion of tradition as an object of philosophical investigation. This collection examines Hegel's philosophy as it bears on the meaning and relevance of tradition - historical, legal, aesthetic, religious, and philosophical. The thirteen original essays draw upon and celebrate the (...) work of H.S. Harris, who is considered by many to be the most influential interpreter of Hegel in the English-speaking world. The collection as a whole examines Hegel's rich and nuanced relation to his own traditions, including his creative reworking of the legacies of Greece, Rome, Christianity, the Middle Ages, early modernity, and his immediate predecessors. It also shows how Hegel's thought has direct relevance for us today as we seek to understand ourselves in relation to our inherited traditions. The volume concludes with an afterword by H.S. Harris and a comprehensive bibliography of Harris's published works. This important anthology represents the first rigorous and systematic effort to apply Harris's seminal and innovative style of Hegel scholarship to a wide variety of philosophical and historical issues. It functions both as a study of Hegel's philosophy and as a commentary on Harris's vast contribution to Hegel scholarship. (shrink)

This article puts forward a revisionary reading of Hegel's reception in Britain at the turn of the nineteenth century, in suggesting that the stance of the British Hegelians is very close to the sort of non-metaphysical or category theory interpretations that have been in vogue amongst contemporary commentators. It is shown that the British Hegelians arrived at this position as a way of responding to the hostile existentialist reaction to Hegel begun by Schelling in the 1840s, which led them to (...) abandon the standard Neoplatonic reading of his idealism, and arrive at the sort of non- metaphysical account which is most fully developed by J M E McTaggart in his interpretation of Hegel's Logic. (shrink)