Skip to main content
Log in

Satisfying the Demands of Reason: Hegel's Conceptualization of Experience

  • Published:
Topoi Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Hegel had taken the Kantian categories of thought to be merely formal, without content, since, he argued, Kant abstracted the conditions of thought from the world. The Kantian categories can, as such, only be understood subjectively and so are unable to secure a content for themselves. Hegel, following Fichte, tried to provide a content for the logical categories. In order to reinstate an objective status for logic and conceptuality he tries to affirm the unity of thought and being. The idea that this unity is established by reinstating a pre-Kantian metaphysics has in most of the recent Hegel literature been discredited. In the wake of this non-metaphysical Hegel there is a concern that the architectonic of concepts which is taken as the organizing principle of consciousness offers an account of experience which is too schematic. While Hegel disputes the intuition/concept distinction as it is played out in Kant and Fichte, he does nevertheless retain some residue of a notion of intuition in his theory of the Concept. This is central to understanding his notion of experience as it can't simply be equated with rule governed conceptuality. Satisfying the demands of reason for Hegel requires more than conceiving our experience solely as judgments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allison, H.: 1983, Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brandom, R.: 1999, ‘Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel's Idealism’, European Journal of Philosophy 7, 164–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brandom, R.: 2000, Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falkenstein, L.: 1991, ‘Kant's Account of Intuition’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21, 165–195.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flay, J.: 1984, Hegel's Quest for Certainty. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guyer, P.: 2000, ‘Absolute Idealism and the Rejection of Kantian Dualism’, in K. Ameriks (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, pp. 37–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1969, Science of Logic [1812]. Trans. A. V. Miller. Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1977a, Faith and Knowledge. Trans. H. S. Harris and W. Cerf. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1977b, The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy. Trans. H. S. Harris and W. Cerf. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1979, System of Ethical Life and First Philosophy of Spirit. Trans. H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1985, Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Trans. T. M. Knox and A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1988, Phänomenologie des Geistes. Hrsg. H-F. Wessels u. H. Clairmont. Hamburg: Meiner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1989, Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Teil. Erster Band. Die Lehre vom Sein [1832]. Hrsg. H-J. Gawoll. Hamburg: Meiner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1994, Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweiter Band. Die Lehre vom Begriff. Hrsg. H-J. Gawoll. Hamburg: Meiner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1991a, The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting and H. S. Harris. Indianapolis: Hackett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.: 1991b, Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Trans. H.B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I.: 1933, Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Longuenesse, B.: 1998, Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lumsden, S.: 2000, ‘A Subject for Hegel's Logic’, International Philosophical Quarterly 40, 85–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, J.: 1994, Mind and World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinkard, Terry: 1994, Hegel's Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinkard, Terry: 1999, ‘Virtues, Morality and Sittlichkeit’, European Journal of Philosophy 7, 217–238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinkard, Terry: 2000a, ‘Hegel's Phenomenology and Logic: An Overview’, in K. Ameriks (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, pp. 161–179. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pinkard, Terry: 2000b, Hegel: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinkard, Terry: 2001, ‘Objektivität und Wahrheit innerhalb einer subjektiven Logik’. Presented in Tübingen June 14–16 ‘Der Begriff als die Wahrheit: Zum Anspruch der Hegelschen “Subjektiven Logik”.’

  • Pippin, Robert: 1989, Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self Consciousness. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Redding, P.: 1996, Hegel's Hermeneutics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Redding, P.: 1999, The Logic of Affect. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sedgwick, S.: 2000, ‘Hegel, McDowell, and Recent Defenses of Kant’, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 31, 229–247.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, M.: 1972, ‘Singular Terms and Intuitions in Kant's Epistemology’, Review of Metaphysics 26, 316–343.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, M.: 2001, Problems of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lumsden, S. Satisfying the Demands of Reason: Hegel's Conceptualization of Experience. Topoi 22, 41–53 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022176519973

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022176519973

Keywords

Navigation