Abstract
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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Hösle (1998, pp. 424–425). Hegel writes: “since philosophy is the exploration of the rational, it is for that very reason the comprehension of the present and the actual, not the setting up of a world beyond which exists God knows where—or rather, of which we can very well say that we know where it exists, namely in the errors of a one-sided and empty ratiocination.” Hegel (1991, p. 20/vol. 7, p. 24).
The critique of what merely ‘ought’ to be is frequent in Hegel. For example: “The severing of actuality from the Idea is particularly dear to the understanding, which regards its dreams (i.e., its abstractions) as something genuine, and is puffed up about the ‘ought’ that it likes to prescribe, especially in the political field—as if the world had had to wait for it, in order to learn how it ought to be, but is not. If the world were the way it ought to be, what then would become of the pedantic wisdom of the understanding’s ‘ought-to-be’? … This science deals only with the Idea—which is not so impotent that it merely ought to be, and is not actual—and further with an actuality of which those objects, institutions, and situations are only the superficial outer rind.” Hegel (1975a, p. 30/vol. 8, pp. 48–49). There are many similar passages in Hegel’s writings.
Hegel (1977, p. 21, 56/vol. 3, p. 38, 80).
Hegel (1977, p. 492/vol. 3, p. 590).
Hegel (1975b, vol. 1, p. 150/vol. 13, p. 199).
Hegel (1975b, vol. 1, p. 150/vol. 13, p. 199).
Hegel (1975b, vol. 1, p. 150/vol. 13, p. 202).
The word ‘undialectical’ perhaps most readily conjures up images of socialist mud-slinging, re-education, and show trials. In this context, to be undialectical was to be counted among the “lickspittles of the defeated classes,” as Stalin’s regime referred to Trotsky, Bukharin, and their followers. See the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). Short Course (1939, p. 324). Lenin perhaps had a slightly more nuanced view in 1916 when he wrote: “to think that world history should move forward smoothly and uniformly without occasional but significant moments of regression is undialectical, unscientific, and theoretically incorrect.” See Lenin (Lenin 1960, vol. 22, p. 315). In any event, this ‘post-history’ is downstream from Hegel and not particularly relevant for present purposes.
Hegel (Hegel 1969, p. 788/vol. 6, p. 504).
“What at once meets us in development is that there must be something self-enclosed [ein Eingehülltes]—the germ [der Keim], the disposition [die Anlage], the potentiality [das Vermögen], what Aristotle calls δύναμις, i.e., possibility …, or what is called the Ansich, what is in itself.” See Hegel (1985, pp. 71–72)/Hegel (1940, vol. 15a, pp. 101–102).
Hegel (1977, p. 60/vol. 3, p. 85).
Hegel (1977, p. 66/vol. 3, p. 92).
Hegel (1969, pp. 835–836/vol. 6, p. 563).
Goethe (1889ff., vol. 6, p. 253).
Hegel (1977, p. 486/vol. 3, p. 583).
An example of such blind optimism: “It is of course essential that someone dot the ‘i’ but when it comes to realizing universal structures of objective spirit, the domain of historical rationality, there will always be someone there to do it!” Bourgeois (1989, p. 61).
Interest in Hegel’s reading of the Antigone, as well as broader philosophical interest in the tragedy, has been on the rise for some time now, as attested, for example, by the emphasis on the play in Beistegui and Sparks (2000). The rich texture of philosophical reflection on the “tragedy of ethical life” is well rendered in Menke (1996). See too Steiner (1996). There have also been numerous readings of the Antigone that privilege the themes of sexual difference, kinship, and feminine desire, which can perhaps be traced back to Irigaray (1974). See Chanter (1991, 2002), Butler (2002), Sjöholm (2004), and, more generally, the Söderbäck (2010) collection.
Hegel (1977, p. 407/vol. 3, p. 492).
Hegel (1977, p. 407/vol. 3, p. 492).
Hegel (1971, p. 14/vol. 10, p. 25).
Hegel (1991, p. 165/vol. 7, p. 255).
As her argument with Ismene shows; see Sophocles (2004a, vv. 20–99).
Sophocles (2004a, v. 821).
Sophocles (2004a, v. 83).
Hegel (1975b, p. 232/vol. 13, p. 301).
Hegel (1977, p. 284/vol. 3, p. 348).
Hegel (1977, pp. 282–283/vol. 3, p. 346).
Pace Hölderlin’s reference to Antigone’s Aufstand, her “rebellion” against the state (translating βίᾳ πολιτῶν, really just an act of violence against the people). See Hölderlin (1975ff., vol. 16, p. 271, v. 81). Gewalt, violence, would be closer to the original. Aufstand, rebellion, makes of Antigone’s decision an essentially political act, whereas it is in the first instance a one-sided religious act whose political implications are of little importance to her. This point is reinforced by the fact that it is Ismene who raises this political concern in opposition to Antigone’s insistence on the law of the lower deities. See Sophocles (2004a, vv. 69–79). This conservative aspect of Antigone’s character perhaps poses problems for some feminist readings. Of course, the act is ‘revolutionary’ in its ultimate consequences, namely, the ruin of Greek ethical life, but the nature of the link between Antigone the individual’s dogmatism (her one-sidedness) and her positive contribution to spiritual progress is precisely what is at issue here.
Cf. Hegel’s use of the concept of Nachwelt, posterity or future generations, in Hegel (1995, vol. 1, p. 444/vol. 18, p. 512).
Hegel (1970, vol. 12, pp. 76–77).
Sophocles (2004a, vv. 1337–1338).
Sophocles (2004a, vv. 1291–1292).
Sophocles (2004a, vv. 1334–1335).
In a discussion of the theme of abjection in Kristeva, Tina Chanter writes that Antigone is to be understood “as an abject figure, as constitutive of a system that both excludes and incorporates her, as the unassimilable part object that is only included in the dialectic in terms that have already decided in favor of its teleology. The terms that contest that teleology are marked out precisely not only by her exclusion from that system but also by her refusal of its logic, a refusal that amounts to a transgression of that logic and thereby opens up the possibility of new logics, new symbolic meanings.” See Chanter (2007, p. 161). Antigone certainly has one foot in another world and can perhaps for that reason be seen as a figure of abjection. But two points need to be underscored here. First, her transgression is a suspension of actuality whose form is thoroughly dialectical, though perhaps not teleological (as I have been arguing here). Second, the new possibilities she makes possible are not only not of her actuality, but of an actuality that would have been abhorrent to her had she glimpsed it. In this sense, she cannot be the initiator of any new symbolic meanings, and cannot even be recognized, in her own time, as announcing the need for such new meanings.
Hegel (1975c, p. 104/vol. 2, pp. 494–495).
Hegel (1975c, p. 104/vol. 2, p. 495).
Christoph Menke has argued in favor of the continuity between Antigone’s individuality and political individuality, thereby stressing the direct development from ethical life to legal personhood, as presented in the Phenomenology: “Acting within and for the sake of the family oversteps merely natural duties as well as community mores. In this overstepping, Hegel descries the beginnings of, and the space for, the development of an individual freedom beyond ethical life. … In her reverence of the non- or not yet ethical old gods, Antigone preserves a consciousness of power that is structurally bound up with the ethical community. In this way, she is a figure of reversal, Umkehr, as Hölderlin puts it, who initiates the idea of an immanent turn to a notion of individuality beyond the ethical community.” Menke (1996, pp. 163–164). This is indeed Hegel’s view (though stated more clearly than Hegel states it in the Phenomenology). But there is nevertheless a kind of ‘transition problem’ that arises from the idea that Antigone unwittingly—and against her will, even—contributes to the development of spirit beyond ethical life. She herself is unable to evolve in this way and her actions remain those of a conservative religious activist rather than a social or political revolutionary. Within her actuality, she serves not individuality but the family and, through them, the lower deities—she serves not a ‘beyond’ but a ‘below.’ Perhaps for future generations she incarnates an intelligible “space” (Freiraum), i.e., a rational possibility, for development. But how do we actualize this possibility from out of an actuality that undialectically denies and suppresses its reality? How do we actually make the move to a ‘more developed’ shape of spirit?
Hegel (1977, 290/vol. 3, p.356).
Hegel (1977, 290/vol. 3, p.355).
When Creon finally decides to release Antigone, it may seem that the need for clemency—or even forgiveness—is given substance, but the fact that he arrives too late is just as much a sign of the discontinuity between his actuality and an actuality wherein forgiveness is really possible.
Sophocles (2004a, v. 1346).
Hegel (1969, p. 832/vol. 6, p. 559).
References
Adorno, Theodor W. 1978. Minima moralia (trans: Jephcott, E.F.N.). London: Verso.
Adorno, Theodor W. 1997. Gesammelte Schriften, ed. R. Tiedemann, vol. 20 Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Beistegui, Miguel de, and Simon Sparks eds. 2000. Philosophy and tragedy. London: Routledge.
Bourgeois, Bernard. 1989. Hegel et la déraison dans l’histoire. In Logik und Geschichte in Hegels system, ed. H.-C. Lucas, and G. Planty-Bonjour. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.
Butler, Judith. 2002. Antigone’s claim: Kinship between life and death. New York: Columbia University Press.
Chanter, Tina. 1991. Antigone’s Dilemma. In Re-Reading Levinas, ed. R. Bernasconi, and S. Critchley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Chanter, Tina. 2002. Looking at Hegel’s Antigone through Irigaray’s speculum. In Between ethics and aesthetics: Crossing the boundaries, ed. D. Glowacka, and S. Boos. Albany: SUNY Press.
Chanter, Tina. 2007. The picture of abjection: Film, fetish, and the nature of difference. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. 1889ff. Goethes Gespräche, ed. W. F. v. Biedermann, vol. 10. Leipzig
Hegel, G.W.F. 1940. Sämtliche Werke. ed. J. Hoffmeister. Leipzig: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1969. Hegel’s science of logic (trans: Miller, A.V.). Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1970. Werke, vol. 20. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1971. Hegel’s philosophy of mind (trans: Wallace, W. and A.V. Miller). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1975a. The encyclopaedia logic (Part I of the encyclopaedia of philosophical sciences with the Zusätze) (trans: Geraets, T.F., W.A. Suchting and H.S. Harris). Indianapolis: Hackett.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1975b. Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on fine art, vol. 2 (trans: Knox, T.M.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1975c. Natural law: The scientific ways of treating natural law, its place in moral philosophy, and its relation to the positive sciences of law (trans: Knox, T.M.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1977. Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit (trans: Miller A.V.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1983ff. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, ed. W. Jaeschke. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1985. Hegel’s introduction to the lectures on the history of philosophy (trans: Knox, T.M. and A.V. Miller). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1991. Elements of the philosophy of right, ed. A. W. Wood (trans: Nisbet, H.B.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1995. Lectures on the history of philosophy, vol. 3 (trans: Haldane, E.S. and F.H. Simson). Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 2007. Lectures on the philosophy of religion, vol. 3, ed. P.C. Hodgson (trans: Brown, W.F., P.C. Hodgson and J.M. Stewart). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). Short Course. 1939. Moscow: International Publishers.
Hölderlin, Friedrich. 1975ff. Sämtliche Werke, ed. D. E. Sattler. Basel: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern.
Hösle, Vittorio. 1998. Hegels System. Der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Irigaray, Luce. 1974. Speculum de l’autre femme. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit.
Kierkegaard, Søren. 1962. Samlede Værker, ed. Drachmann, A.B., J.L. Heiberg, H.O. Lange and P. Rohde. 5. udgave. Copenhagen: Gydendal.
Kierkegaard, Søren. 1983. Fear and trembling: Dialectical lyric. Repetition: A venture in experimenting psychology (trans: Hong, H.V. and E. H. Hong). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lenin, W.I. 1960. Gesammelte Werke, vol. 42. Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag.
Menke, Christoph. 1996. Tragödie im Sittlichen. Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit nach Hegel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Sjöholm, Cecilia. 2004. The Antigone complex: Ethics and the invention of feminine desire. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Söderbäck, Fanny, ed. 2010. Feminist readings of Antigone. Albany: SUNY Press.
Sophocles. 2004a. Sophocles: Plays. Antigone,ed. P.E. Easterling (trans: Jebb, R.C.). London: Bristol Classical Press.
Steiner, George. 1996. Antigones. New Haven: Yale University Press.