Abstract

Some anti-metaphysical readings of Hegel have been recently proposed by analytical (but not only analytical) philosophers. According to them, absolute idealism is reduced to the holistic system of concepts that organizes and regulates linguistic practices. I regard such interpretations as misrepresentations of Hegel's thought. On the contrary, I put forward a metaphysical reading that hinges upon the notion of objective thought. This is regarded as the result of a sort of triangulation between, on the one hand, Kant's criticism and, on the other, traditional metaphysics. The objectivity of thought is not merely the overcoming of phenomenalism in favour of a new form of empirical realism. Rather, it is the grounded certainty that what appears to be rationally undeniable is actually true. A parallelism between Hegel and Descartes is then drawn with regard to their attempt to ground the objectivity of reason: in Descartes by means of the mediation of God's existence, and in Hegel through the structure of the whole system. Thus, Hegel is thought of as closely related to rationalistic metaphysics. Just as the objection of the Cartesian circle can be raised to the author of the Meditations, analogously one could speak of a Hegelian circle with respect to objective thought