The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

Hegel's recent resurgence within certain analytic circles is the result of a parallel movement: on the one hand, a new line of interpretation in Hegel scholarship now makes it possible to move beyond the metaphysical, spirit-monist interpretations that were the grounds for his dismissal from analytic discourse a century ago. On the other hand, Wilfrid Sellars's critique of givenness has led analytic thinkers such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell to form alliances with those who, like Hegel, are generally critical of appeals to immediacy in its various forms. In his book Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought, Paul Redding offers the most substantial account of this parallel movement to date. Aligning himself with Pippin, Pinkard, and other key figures of this "nonmetaphysical" Hegelian school, Redding contextualizes the works of Brandom and McDowell within the analytic tradition and points out precisely those Hegelian elements of their thought that are most amenable to a nonmetaphysical interpretation, all while maintaining remarkable range and clarity.

There are three main parts to Redding's book. In chapters 1 and 2, he analyzes the analytic philosophical context within which Brandom and McDowell develop their critiques of givenness. Then, in chapters 3 through 6, Redding critically assesses McDowell's and Brandom's fidelity to Kant's and Hegel's texts. Finally, chapters 7 and 8 widen the scope to consider Hegel's place within analytic philosophy generally, [End Page 138] showing how his positions on contradiction and metaphysics, respectively, are not as fusty and outmoded as many analytic scholars still seem to think.

The first part is unquestionably the highlight of the book. Beginning with Moore's and Russell's influential critiques of Hegel and idealism, Redding moves through Sellars's response to them to his "Hegelian" appropriation in McDowell (in chapter 1) and Brandom (in chapter 2). The latter discussion is particularly worthy of note: there, Redding's insight is that Brandom follows Sellars in rejecting a logical given, or the notion that logic lies a priori in the mind. This way of situating Brandom with respect to the logical positivists also motivates and grounds the discussion on Kant, Hegel, and the contents and processes of applying concepts in Tales of the Mighty Dead. Without Redding's assessment, the outsider may too easily gloss over that analysis as just another in a series of strange appropriations of the German tradition.

In the second part, however, the book struggles to wholly realize its ambitions. For though the stated goal of these chapters is "to assess the degree to which [Brandom and McDowell] capture the views of [Kant and Hegel]" (19), it is largely Redding's own views, mostly of Kant and Aristotle, that are in play here, and the comparisons between his positions and those of Brandom and McDowell are frequently too brief. In chapter 4, for example, Redding goes to great lengths to show how certain insights of Brandom's inferentialism—particularly, claims about the normativity of inference and conceptual content—find their roots in Kant. But not only does Redding fail to mention how Brandom actually attributes most of these inferentialist claims only to Hegel; he gives almost no indication of what interpretive claims of Brandom's are at stake.¹ As such, it is unclear what Redding wishes to do with the account he goes to such pains to elaborate: he neither addresses the "two-phase," model theoretic account of conceptuality that Brandom attributes to Kant nor the differences he claims exist between Kant and Hegel on the semantic revisability of conceptual content. These are issues that any interpretive evaluation of Brandom, Kant, and Hegel should undertake as central to its argument.

This reluctance to engage fully with the main figures of the book carries over into the later chapters. In chapter 7, where Redding wishes to accommodate both Brandom's and Priest's views on Hegel's principle of contradiction, it is again Aristotle, not Brandom or Priest...