This paper explores Hegel’s perspective on development within nature, his supposed rejection of evolution, and his concept of nature as a “system of stages.” It argues that interpreting Hegel through the lens of emergentist thinking provides a more accurate understanding of his conception of nature and its development, as well as his critique of evolution. The paper is structured in three parts. First, we introduce emergentist theory, exploring its contemporary and historical meanings to establish where Hegel fits within this framework. (...) Second, we carefully examine Hegel’s critique of evolution, particularly his opposition to simple causal chains, and clarify what “evolution” meant in his time. Finally, we argue that viewing Hegel through emergentist theory not only rehabilitates his ideas but also resolves lingering concerns about his understanding of development within nature. This paper aims to open new avenues for interpreting Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature. (shrink)

This paper discusses what I call “biological individuation” in the works of Kant and Hegel. Biological individuation is what makes one organism numerically distinct from another. Following a common distinction in metaphysics today, I separate this discussion into what I call “epistemic” and “metaphysical biological individuation”. The former is how we distinguish one organism from another, and the latter is how one organism distinguishes itself from another. Metaphysicians today convincingly hold that epistemic individuation presupposes metaphysical individuation. I apply this to (...) the case at hand. It is impossible for us to distinguish one organism from another if this organism has not already distinguished itself from another. However, this poses a problem for a standard reading of Kant’s regulative ideas: it does not allow us to provide a Kantian account of metaphysical biological individuation. This paper offers an alternative, Hegel-inspired reading of the same, one that solves this problem. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Hegel’s account of causality as developed in the Science of Logic can be described as a ‘manipulationist’ account of causality. First, some conceptual clarifications will help set our sights on the goal of the paper. What is a theory of causality comprised of? And what is a manipulationist account of causality? Next, I sketch the development of those concepts in the SL that are relevant to the present topic (e.g., causality, objectivity, and the idea). (...) Here, Hegel moves from developing the concept of causality to unfolding a set of objective causal relations. The latter is then understood as a theory and hence as a product of the self-conscious mind that filters for relevancy and usability. I argue that Hegel’s account of causality does meet the criteria for being understood as an example of a MAC. (shrink)

Against recent naturalist critiques of Kant and interpretations of Hegel, it can be shown that Hegel’s accounts of consciousness and mind (Geist) commit him to a distinctly supernatural, post-Kantian idealist concept of subjectivity. While Kant describes this subjectivity as independent, unconditioned and self-positing, he relies on the notion of an interplay of two distinct realms — labelled the ‘natural’-phenomenal and the ‘supernatural’-noumenal — to justify it. While Fichte accepts Kant’s description of the structure of supernatural subjectivity, he rejects the two-realms-doctrine (...) by arguing that Kant’s prioritization of the realms’ difference renders their unity unintelligible. Instead, Fichte maintains that all of reality is posited by a subjectivity that posits itself and then posits the objective world, thereby rendering the natural dependent on the supernatural. While Hegel agrees with Kant and Fichte on the supernatural properties of subjectivity, he rejects Fichte’s prioritization of supernatural subjectivity over natural objectivity and argues that both the supernatural and the natural are aspects of supernatural Geist. Although Hegel ultimately contrasts subjective Geist with objective nature, grounding both in the notion of the metaphysical idea, his idealist commitment to the supernatural subjectivity of consciousness and Geist renders his accounts of mind and cognition incompatible with recent naturalist interpretations. (shrink)

I begin by distinguishing, in Hegel’s writings, between the subject-matter of the science of logic, and the science of logic itself. I then argue for an interpretation of the subject-matter of logic in terms drawn from the ancient Greek discussions of logos, discussions which Hegel himself exposits at length and applauds in his lectures on the history of philosophy, and which Hegel directly alludes to, at key moments, in the course of presenting the subject-matter of logic in his own voice. (...) Drawing on the fact that logos, in this tradition, is at once ontologically pervasive while also something which in itself does not involve consciousness or self-consciousness (and so is not essentially ‘psychological’ or ‘spiritual’, in Hegel’s sense of these terms), I argue against recent attempts to cast Hegel’s logic as about something which is first, foremost, and essentially self-conscious (‘apperceptive’), and in favor of a more straightforwardly metaphysical interpretation of logic, one according to which logic treats its subject-matter (logos) in a way that is ‘neutral’ with respect to whether it is realized in spirit or in nature. I conclude by returning to the significance of distinction between logos itself and the philosophical science of this subject-matter for Hegel’s broader system. (shrink)

In Michel de Certeau’s Invention of the Everyday, improvisational community dance function as a catalyst for the subversive art of the oppressed, via its ancient Greek virtue/power of mētis, being “foxlike.” And in de Certeau’s The Possession of Loudun, this foxlike dance moves to the stage, as an improv chorus that disrupts the events at Loudon when reimagined as a tetralogy of plays at City Dionysia. More precisely, Loudun’s tetralogy could be interpreted as a series of three tragedies and one (...) comedy, the latter of which involves the chorine nuns’ channeling of anomie into a proto-feminist transfiguration. More precisely, the tactical prowess of the nuns’ chorus leader, namely the prioress Jeanne des Anges, elevates her to the status of an angelic prophet, which in de Certeau’s theatrical dancing critique makes her the Loudun tetralogy’s Dionysian, foxlike mage. In conclusion, this analysis suggests de Certeau’s relevance for revolutionary social justice today. (shrink)

In Michel de Certeau’s Invention of the Everyday, improvisational community dance function as a catalyst for the subversive art of the oppressed, via its ancient Greek virtue/power of mētis, being “foxlike.” And in de Certeau’s The Possession of Loudun, this foxlike dance moves to the stage, as an improv chorus that disrupts the events at Loudon when reimagined as a tetralogy of plays at City Dionysia. More precisely, Loudun’s tetralogy could be interpreted as a series of three tragedies and one (...) comedy, the latter of which involves the chorine nuns’ channeling of anomie into a proto-feminist transfiguration. More precisely, the tactical prowess of the nuns’ chorus leader, namely the prioress Jeanne des Anges, elevates her to the status of an angelic prophet, which in de Certeau’s theatrical dancing critique makes her the Loudun tetralogy’s Dionysian, foxlike mage. In conclusion, this analysis suggests de Certeau’s relevance for revolutionary social justice today. (shrink)

My primary aim in this paper is to show that the structure of experience must include a subject (or self). I argue that the subjectless (No-Self) views of our experience must be rejected, primarily because without the consciousness-unifying function of a subject they are unable to account for the unities of consciousness present in our experience. In addition, I contend that such views fail in another respect. They emphasize the streaming of experience, the ever-changing flow of conscious events, but have (...) difficulty identifying what must stand unmoving to provide the contrast needed for the experience of motion. (shrink)

Anglophone philosophers have shown a surprising interest in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s aesthetics in recent years. At the same time, new approaches to aesthetics have been proposed that come very close to the original conception of aesthetics that Baumgarten introduced in the middle of the eighteenth century. In light of these developments, this article undertakes a critical examination of a central concept in Baumgarten’s poetics and aesthetics—extensive clarity. It argues that historians of philosophy and contemporary aestheticians should be wary of this (...) concept for two reasons. First, in Baumgarten’s poetics, the extensive clarity of sensible representations constitutes a dubious standard with which to determine whether those representations are “poetic.” Second, in aesthetics, using extensive clarity as an alternative standard with which to determine the perfection of sensible cognition undermines the “marriage of reason and experience” that characterized the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy and raises the specter of dualism that Kant tried, with questionable success, to address in the ‘Schematism’ chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. The article concludes that historians of philosophy should acknowledge the philosophical shortcomings of Baumgarten’s conception of extensive clarity and contemporary aesthetics should not reproduce them. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between linguistic expression and human reason in Herder’s Treatise on the Origin of Language. I argue that additive theories of human language, which contend that the linguistic capacity is in principle separable from the other cognitive faculties of the linguistic being, cannot be brought into agreement with Herder’s distinctly transformative account of human language and reason. For Herder, the transformation of our sensible faculties through language is required in order to guarantee the unity of human (...) cognition, and hence reason itself is understood as fundamentally linguistic. This positing of a strong unity between language and reason makes Herder an important, if still under-appreciated, precursor of the twentieth-century linguistic turn. (shrink)