Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 117 John Burbidge. On Hegel'sLogic. Fragmentsof a Commentary.Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982. Pp. ix + 28o. $17.5o. John Burbidge has here given us an authentically philosophical confrontation with a great philosopher, and as such an important contribution to Hegel studies and to the cause of philosophy itself. The commentary is fragmentary only in the sense that it is limited to the categories comprising the first main moments of, respectively, the doctrines of Being, Essence, and Concept. This analysis, contained in Chapters 4 through ~1, is careful, insightful, and will be of interest to both beginners and those who are already familiar with Hegel, The analysis is in language relatively free of jargon, and Burbidge will often employ interpretative schema from contemporary logic and philosophy. He lays the foundation for his analysis of these categories by exploring Hegel's view of "thinking" (Denken) as this is given in the Encyclopedia in the section on Psychology. This constitutes a decided departure from more traditional routes through the Phenomenologyof 18o7 or through the Introduction to the Encyclopedia. However questionable this will seem to those who insist on treating Hegel systemically -thus challenging the appropriateness of a later section in the system as a ground for an earlier section--Burbidge makes a case by clarifying in this way the nature of "thinking" for Hegel. He also offers a penetrating analysis of Hegel's theory of language and the way it relates to the thinking which goes on in the categories. Although there would seem to be a Kantian flavor to this grounding, a careful reading of his analysis of Hegel in this regard reveals a subtlety which rules out a too-hasty judgment against Burbidge's approach. Following the analysis of the categories, the question of the necessity of the system is taken up in two ways: (1) the necessity of the categories when considered in themselves , and (2) the necessity which is claimed to hold between the categories and the world itself. A clear account of Hegel's defense of the first necessity is offered in an overview of the three sections of the Logic, showing how there is a true self-reflection and thus self-referential account within the Logicitself. The second question of necessity is confronted by giving a brief but precise account of the Phenomenologyof a8o7. With the establishment of the warranty for Hegel's claims to necessity, Burbidge then turns in the final chapter to the question of our own relation to the system of Hegel. As I said at the beginning of this review, this is an authentically philosophical encounter with Hegel and not simply a superficial account. This means that valid philological and philosophical disagreements will surely arise. One which seems to me particularly central derives from Burbidge's intention to interpret the Logic as a logic rather than as a metaphysics. To accomplish this, he chooses to deal only with the first categories of each main section because, according to him, these have to do directly and solely with intellectual operations and not with connections with external reality. The latter function belongs, in Burbidge's view, to the second and third moments of each main section respectively (2oo). Two different problems seem to me to arise here. In regard to the thesis that the Logic is not a metaphysics but is truly a logic, the argument seems weakened; for, even granting Burbidge his interpretation, 118 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 23:1 JANUARY 198 5 inclusion of these other categories would constitute the Logic as a metaphysics in the sense applicable to Hegel's system. The second problem is that in moving from the first moment of Being (Quality) to the first moment of Essence (Reflection)--and in the respective movements from Essence to Concept--one must assume the movement through the categories absent from Burbidge's analysis. Although he does give a brief account of these missing movements, a fuller commentary would have profited us even more. If this book has not presented us with definitive answers to the questions we put to Hegel's Logic--and Burbidge would never pretend that it has--we have been given...