Is Hegel's Master–Slave Dialectic a Refutation of Solipsism?

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (2):333-361 (2012)
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Abstract

This paper considers whether Hegel's master/slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Spirit should be considered as a refutation of solipsism. It focuses on a recent and detailed attempt to argue for this sort of reading that has been proposed by Frederick Beiser ? but it argues that this reading is unconvincing, both in the historical motivations given for it in the work of Jacobi and Fichte, and as an interpretation of the text itself. An alternative reading of the dialectic is proposed, where it is argued that the central problem Hegel is concerned with is not solipsism, but the sociality of freedom

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Robert Stern
University of Sheffield

Citations of this work

Experimental Evidence for the Existence of an External World.Eric Schwitzgebel & Alan T. Moore - 2015 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (3):564--582.

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References found in this work

Phenomenology of Spirit.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - 1977 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by Arnold V. Miller & J. N. Findlay.
Elements of the philosophy of right.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - 1991 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Allen W. Wood & Hugh Barr Nisbet.
The fate of reason: German philosophy from Kant to Fichte.Frederick C. Beiser - 1987 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Hegel.Frederick C. Beiser - 2002 - London: Routledge.
Foundations of natural right: according to the principles of the Wissenschaftslehre.Johann Gottlieb Fichte - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Frederick Neuhouser & Michael Baur.

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