This chapter contains sections titled: Background The Philosophy of Right : New Essays, New Insights Note Abbreviations References. -/- Hegel's Philosophy of Right presents a collection of new essays by leading international philosophers and Hegel scholars that analyze and explore Hegel's key contributions in the areas of ethics, politics, and the law. The most comprehensive collection on Hegel's Philosophy of Right available Features new essays by leading international Hegel interpreters divided in sections of ethics, politics, and law Presents (...) significant new research on Hegel's Philosophy of Right that will set a new standard for future work on the topic. (shrink)

Hegel's Philosophy of Right was his last systematic work and the most complete statement of his mature views on ethical and political philosophy. It explores the relationships between three distinct conceptions of human freedom: persons as possessing contract rights, subjects as reflective moral agents, and individuals as members of an ethical community. It strongly influenced the early Marx and with the rise of debates over liberalism and communitarianism in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this volume an outstanding (...) line up of contributors examine the nature and impact of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. A diverse array of topics is examined, ranging from Hegel's account of rights, freedom, the state and history to some hitherto relatively overlooked topics such as Hegel and Luther, art and nationality and Hegel and the market. Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Critical Perspectives on Freedom and History will be valuable reading for scholars of Hegel, nineteenth-century German philosophy, political philosophy and history of political thought. (shrink)

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. The topics covered herein_from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism_are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

In this response I first address the criticisms of omission by discussing some of the elements of the original project that were excluded in the final version (section 1). In section 2 I respond to Howard’s criticism that I assume too much transparency in conscience. In section 3 I discuss the problem of evil and the transition in the Phenomenology of Spirit from conscience to religion. I focus here especially on the distinction between Objective and Absolute Spirit, and on how (...) that distinction plays out differently in the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right. In section 4 I take up the specifically political issues of conscience, responding to Speight’s suggestion that conscience should have a transformative role and to De Nys’s query about the State’s relationship to dissenting moral and religious views. Finally, in section 5 I take up the issues of whether I and Hegel do justice to the range of uses of conscience and whether or not the Hegelian view is too optimistic about modernity. (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social (...) ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

Professor Walsh, of the University of Edinburgh, has here given us an admirable little book. But the well-informed admirer of Hegel must read it through to the end to be sure it is admirable. For it begins where most of the condescending hacks who squeeze an academic living out of exploitation of Hegel begin - with the assertion that Hegel lacked what the condescending hacks presumably have: mastery of the art of philosophical writing; and also with the suggestion that there (...) may be a kernel of truth in the widespread belief that, as W.D. Hudson phrases it in the "Editor's Preface," "the most repugnant forms of totalitarianism from which our modern world has suffered, and still suffers, owe their inspiration to him." It is a relief to realize, when one has read through his text, that Professor Walsh has not been in the least tempted to acquire anti-Nazi credentials at Hegel's expense. And one may reasonably expect that, if ever he becomes less dependent on translations than he says he is, the author may come to admire Hegel's style - which has the "rebarbative" excellence of permanent intelligibility - perhaps as much as Giovanni Gentile admired it. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Hegel is often considered as obscure author. This means that for him, reason speaks differently than it thinks. It is at stake, first of all, the Hegelian terminology and the invocation of Heraclitus. It is interesting that Hegel himself had spoken out against an obscure terminology and against the (...) abuse of abstractions. Initially, as a professor, he was not taken very seriously. He was a bad story-teller, although an exceptional thinker. He could not narrate, however, he could explain. But, people would eventually understand, since Hegel was one obsessed with method. For him, the method had a far greater significance than the system. In the present text, I will focus on these things, trying to see whether Hegel was, indeed, obscure and if, for him, reason really does speak differently than it thought. For this, I have chosen a few fragments that I believed to be exemplary from Hegelian philosophy. The purpose is to show that Hegel is not, however, as Papini maliciously named him, a philosopher of the incomprehensible. On the contrary! And the considerations on Hegelian ethics do not come to help, as an application of the theme that I assumed as starting point for the present text. (shrink)

This dissertation argues that an agent's particular commitments are an integral and necessary part of his autonomy. I refer to Hegel's Philosophy of Right to argue that the autonomous self is in fact a committed self. According to Hegel, freedom is only possible when the agent inhabits roles within a family, civil society, and the greater community of the state. These roles make up the agent's practical identity, or the set of commitments and characteristics around which he orients his actions. (...) His practical identity provides him with norms: he has specific obligations as, for instance, a parent, police officer, or judge. ;Chapter One critiques Christine Korsgaard's Kantian account of practical identity, arguing that it is inadequate because of its insistence on an ontologically divided self. Chapter Two argues that practical identity according to Hegel must include consideration of an agent's contingent circumstances. Chapter Three claims that Hegel's agent knows himself and other humans to possess universal rights and to be sources of moral certainty. Chapter Four discusses social institutions and the norms they generate. When the agent freely embraces roles in these institutions, he embraces the obligations that accompany those roles. He gives himself these obligations and is autonomous through them. ;Chapter Five argues that Hegel's definition of conscience crucially depends on his theory of practical identity. Hegel's conscience is not a source of arbitrary, unimpeachable conclusions but refers to the norms of rational institutions. It does not neglect an agent's particular commitments within those institutions such as commitments to particular causes, family members, or political organizations. It rather explains the freedom of his actions through those commitments. So defined, conscience allows for both inner certainty and external sanction. Chapter Six argues that a wide range of professions describe their ethical experience in terms of conscience, and that Hegel's definition of conscience makes sense of this experience. By referring to roles, Hegel's conscience also requires the agent to be involved in the evaluation and reformation of institutions. As such, his theory is of great relevance to contemporary ethical life. (shrink)

Hegel’s practical philosophy has important insights for understanding the ethical role of the firm in modern society. From a broadly Hegelian perspective, the firm’s role in society is to facilitate freedom, that is, the concrete realization of rational agency. It does this by providing the institutional structures, norms, practices, and modes of discourse necessary for individuals to link their subjective aims with objectively valid societal aims, embodied in the firm’s purpose. Accordingly, I first present a Hegelian account of (...) the link between action and social structure, before arguing that the firm, when it functions properly, enables individuals to express their capacity for rational agency within concrete social contexts. I then draw upon Paul Adler’s Marxist analysis of the development of organizational structures and processes to support the viability of a broadly Hegelian account of the firm within a contemporary economic context. I conclude by outlining a number of practical implications of this account, before explaining its implications for two prominent theories of business ethics, the MacIntyrean perspective, and the Market Failures Approach. (shrink)

Georg Lukács wrote that "there is autonomy and 'autonomy.' The one is a moment of life itself, the elevation of its richness and contradictory unity; the other is a rigidification, a barren self-seclusion, a self-imposed banishment from the dynamic overall connection." Though Lukács' concern was with the conditions for the possibility of art, his distinction also serves as an apt description of the way that Hegel and Hegelians have contrasted their own interpretations of self-determination with that of Kant. But it (...) has always been difficult to see how elevation is possible without seclusion, or how rigidification can be avoided without making the boundaries of the self so malleable that its autonomy looks like a mere cover for the power of external forces. Yeomans explores Hegel's own attempts to grapple with this problem against the background of Kant's attempts, in his theory of virtue, to understand the way that morally autonomous agents can be robust individuals with qualitatively different projects, personal relations, and commitments that are nonetheless infused with a value that demands respect. In a reading that disentangles a number of different threads in Kant's approach, Yeomans shows how Hegel reweaves these threads around the central notions of talent and interest to produce a tapestry of self-determination. Yeomans argues that the result is a striking pluralism that identifies three qualitatively distinct forms of agency or accountability and sees each of these forms of agency as being embodied in different social groups in different ways. But there is nonetheless a dynamic unity to the forms because they can all be understood as practical attempts to solve the problem of autonomy, and each is thus worthy of respect even from the perspective of other solutions."Everyone recognizes the importance of Hegel's critique of Kantian morality as empty, but until now there has not been a fully worked out presentation of how Hegel's views in his discussion of Sittlichkeit actually provide the missing content. Yeomans has finally provided us with a reconstruction of Hegel's mature position that makes good on all the promissory notes that Hegel gives in his famous descriptions of his alternative to Kantian ethics. Yeomans offers a compelling account of Hegel's view of individuality, societal differentiation and its roots in Kantian and Fichtean moral theory. The book will be a major contribution to the scholarship on Hegel's practical philosophy." - Dean Moyar, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University -/- "Yeomans' book is a subtle, detailed and original explication of some key ideas having to do with how Hegel's general philosophy of action relates to his social and political philosophy. It is attentive to Hegel's texts, and it ties its discussions into all the relevant contemporary themes in philosophy. It is very ambitious in its attempt to make Hegel's theory into a real competitor to other views that are currently in wide play in the philosophical world. It will very likely become one of the key texts in the secondary literature on Hegel." - Terry Pinkard, University Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University. (shrink)

An individual is in the lowest phase of moral development if he thinks only of his own personal interest and has only his own selfish agenda in his mind as he encounters other humans. This lowest phase corresponds well with sixteenth century British moral egoism which reflects the rise of the new economic order. Adam Smith (1723–1790) wanted to defend this new economic order which is based on economic exchange between egoistic individuals. Nevertheless, he surely did not want to support (...) the moral theory of British egoism. His book The Wealth of Nations suits well into the world view of British moral egoism, but in the book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he presents a moral theory which is the total opposite of moral egoism. Contemporary German intellectuals saw contradiction in Adam Smith’s moral (social) philosophy which they called as Das Adam - Smith - Problem . Smith himself didn’t think that there is any contradiction in a situation where in economic sphere (civil society) individual act egoistically and in ethical sphere (encounter with the imagined Other) he feels humanity and compassion toward his fellow men. Hegel was a passionate reader of Adam Smith and he acknowledged Das Adam - Smith - Problem . He set the task of his social philosophy to overcome this paradox. He wanted to create a theory of a social totality where economic egoism and feelings of humanity are not in contradiction. In the same time Hegel wanted to create a theory on Bildung process where human spirit develops from moral un-freedom (heteronomy) to moral freedom and maturity (autonomy) taking care both aspect of love and reason. In certain Hegel’s texts notion of recognition plays crucial role. That is why modern Hegelians Ludwig Siep, Axel Honneth and Robert Williams consider the notion of recognition to be elementary in Hegel’s threefold theory of developing human spirit from family via civil society to sittliche state . For Hegel family is a sphere where people love their “concrete other” and where feeling surpasses reason. Civil Society is a sphere of private contracts and economic exchanges where cold egoistic and calculative reason surpasses feelings. In the sphere of State the contradiction between family and Civil Society ( Das Adam - Smith - Problem ) is solved by “rational feeling”. According to Hegel State should protect citizens from alienating effect of egoistic reason of Civil Society and cultivate “family-feelings” to rational feelings which integrate citizen into “sittliche community” through reciprocal process of recognition. In this article I want to consider Hegelians Honneth’s and Williams’s relevance to the theory of moral development. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, I will argue that Levinas’ criticisms of Hegel are insufficient. Levinas’ accusation that Hegel’s system is totalitarian ignores the centrality of love in the latter’s work, which constitutes the ethical character of the State. Second, though, I will expand Levinas’ critique to encompass love. I argue that Hegelian love is an insufficient ground for ethics because it is, ultimately, a self-love. But, Levinasian love is sufficient, since it account for societal (...) love, while nevertheless demanding an ethical responsibility for those outside of a given community. Hence, Levinasian love expresses the love of the stranger. (shrink)

Semën [Simon] Liudvigovich Frank was born in Moscow, the son of a doctor. He studied law at Moscow University, joined a student Marxist group headed by P.B. Struve, and as a result was barred by the Russian authorities from living in any of the Russian “university cities.” He continued his university education at the Universities of Berlin and Munich. His first published work was a critique of Marx’s theory of value. Between 1902 and 1905 he divided his time among Berlin, (...) Munich, and Moscow. In 1902 he published his first philosophical essay, on Nietzsche’s doctrine of Fernstenliebe. He was a contributor—along with Nicolas Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, and Struve—to three influential symposium volumes: Problemy idealizma [Problems of idealism], Vekhi [Signposts], and Iz glubiny [De profundis]. This last work was printed but its release was blocked by Soviet censorship. All of these works were originally published in Moscow; all of them have, in the past three or four years, been republished in Moscow, but for more than seventy years they were banned in the Soviet Union and could be reprinted only abroad. (shrink)

Review of a book: Matthew C. Altman, Kand and Applied Ethics. The Uses and Limits of Kant’s Practical Philosophy , Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford 2011.

The aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the very conditions which Kant argues constitute the obligation of each individual to will the actualization of the universal moral law in the world and in one's own personality lead to the overall ruin of the Kantian practical reason. To this end we investigate that feature of persons--the divided self--which gives rise to moral obligation, and the postulates, which allegedly make the fulfillment of obligation possible. ;One of the central problems in (...) Kant's critical ethics is how to account for moral obligation in terms of a self divided into noumenal and phenomenal aspects. This problem leads to a crisis when moral consciousness comes to understand the irreconcilable gulf which lies between its atemporal self and its empirical temporal self. Thus our thesis is that Kant, having established autonomy of the will on the ground of a transcendent self, fails, despite the introduction of the moral postulates, to explain the ultimate harmony of the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of the self. ;Kant attempts to preserve the autonomy of Willkur by placing its possibility in an order not subject to the "mechanism of nature." But while thus preserving the integrity of freedom, Kant makes it difficult to explain the manner in which an atemporal decision can establish virtue in the temporal personality. ;This dissertation examines the Kantian cirtique of heteronomous will and his alternative theory of autonomous will by focusing on the differences between the ethics of Kant and Hume. We then analyze in detail the problem of explaining moral obligation on the basis of a divided self. Here we criticize the Hegelian interpretation of moral consciousness with the aim of articulating the central antithesis within the divided self. ;This dissertation, in conclusion, indicates a path away from, but always in dialogue with, Kant's practical reason. We finally reject the atemporal self and the abstract universal and raise questions about any future metaphysics of morals. (shrink)

This paper introduces America's first women Idealists and discusses their appropriation and reconfiguration of Hegel's public/private distinction. Through their philosophies of education two of these women, Susan E. Blow (1843--1916) and Anna C. Brackett (1836--1911), legitimized women's active involvement in public life. A third, Marietta Kies (1853--1899), put forth a political theory of altruism. Her theory anticipates feminist critiques of male-centered political theory and has important implications for today's ethic of care. Blow and Brackett were associates of William T. Harris (...) (1835--1909) in the St. Louis Philosophical Movement (ca. 1860--1880) and contributors to The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Kies was associated with Harris through the Concord Summer School of Philosophy (1879--1888). She was also a student of John Dewey at the University of Michigan. (shrink)

THE most prevalent interpretation of Hegel’s political philosophy charges him with a glorification and even a divinization of the Prussian State of his day at the expense of the freedom of the individual. This interpretation has its origins in the existentialist critique of Hegel. Kierkegaard, for example, in his evaluation of Hegel’s philosophy of history abhors the apparent deification of the existing State as the manifestation of the Objective Spirit since it robs the individual of his freedom, responsibility, and dignity. (...) ‘The derelict Hegelian ethics, with its desperate attempt to make the State the court of last resort, is a most unethical attempt to reduce the individual to finitude.…’ Karl Popper has helped to perpetuate this interpretation by the existentialists by claiming that according to Hegel ‘the State is everything and the individual nothing’. William Shirer has claimed that one can trace the rise of the second and third Reichs to Hegel’s ‘ringing glorification of the State as supreme in human life’. In determining the validity of this interpretation we shall examine Hegel’s statements on the nature of the ideal State, his evaluations of existing States and ancient States, and his detailed position on the rights of citizens within his ideal State. (shrink)

This study argues for three main theses: (1) Immanuel Kant’s ethics is a social ethics; (2) the basic premises of his social ethics point to a socialist ethics; and (3) this socialist ethics constitutes a suitable platform for criticizing and improving Karl Marx’s view of morality. -/- Some crucial aspects of Kant’s social ethics are that we must promote the “realm of ends” as a moral society of co-legislators who assist each other in the (...) pursuit of their individual ends, which requires in turn that we seek the realization of the republican state and peace between the nations. Thus, hope for progress, as supported by the enthusiasm engendered among the spectators of the French Revolution, becomes pivotal to Kant’s ethics as well as other moral feelings such as moral indignation and solidarity with the victims of oppression. -/- Kant views the moral society in the final instance as an “inner” unification of good wills. In a decisive elaboration of Kant, the neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen argues that all our social institutions, and notably economic enterprises, must instantiate the “realm of ends,” leading him to support cooperative socialism in Wilhelmine Germany. In his own words, Kant “is the true and real originator of German socialism” (1896). -/- There are important evaluative similarities between Kantian socialist ethics and Marx, such as a condemnation of capitalism as a system of servitude and an understanding of the ideal society as a cooperative society, but only Marx contends that the ideal society does not set a moral task and that there is a dialectic operative in human history that inevitably leads to communist society. This dogmatic Hegelian understanding of history must be replaced by Kantian regulative understanding of progress in support of revolutionary praxis as moral praxis. -/- We need a “Kantianization” of Marx, as Cohen and other neo-Kantian socialists also proclaimed in the three decades leading up to World War I. This study concludes with “A Historical Note on Kantian Ethical Socialism,” addressing, among others, Cohen, Karl Vorländer, Eduard Bernstein, and Kurt Eisner and the Munich Revolution of 1918. Their voices were largely silenced by the rise of fascism, and this study hopes to show that their voices still need to be heard. -/- Awarded the 1985 Johnsonian Prize in Philosophy. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers are right to criticize Hegel’s prejudices against women. In many of his works, Hegel reduces women to their physiology as means of explaining why they occupy a subordinate role in nature and in society. Such treatment seems arbitrary at best, for the gendering of roles disrupts Hegel’s dialectical approach to spirit without any meaningful gain. Despite this defect in Hegel’s work, what is positive in Hegelian social and political philosophy remains intact. In this paper I argue that (...) the sexist claims that Hegel makes about women are irrelevant to his theory of the family in the Philosophy of Right. Therein, Hegel outlines three components that are necessary for the completion of the family: marriage, property and assets, and the raising of children. Hegel also includes a description of the different roles occupied by family members and divides these roles along gender lines. Given the three components that are essential to the family, I argue that there is no necessary basis for familial roles to be divided by gender. (shrink)

In this article I respond to Wendell Kisner’s Hegelian environmental ethic. Kisner argues that because life is ontologically irreducible to mechanism it is rational to treat life not merely as a means to human purposes but as an end in itself. I argue that had Hegel consistently adhered to this position, he would have had to argue that the modern social world objectively alienates human beings from their rational selves. But Hegel in fact sees this social world as a (...) home for rational humanity. This is because Hegel believes life is ontologically higher than mechanism but ontologically lower than human mind. For Hegel therefore, minded beings may use life for their own self-objectification and self-realisation. (shrink)

Gillian Rose was an influential though idiosyncratic British philosopher whose work helped introduce the Frankfurt School's critical theory and renew interest in Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Jewish thought in Anglo‐American philosophy. After years of relative oblivion, her life and thought have recently received new attention in philosophy, sociology, and theology. However, her work's critical Hegelian contribution to feminist philosophy still remains unexplored. This article seeks to reassess the place and the meaning of feminism and gender identity in Rose's work by (...) addressing both her philosophical writings and her personal memoir, written in the months preceding her untimely death. It argues that although Rose's overall work was not developed in a feminist context, her philosophy, and in particular her ethical‐political notion of diremption, is valuable for developing a critical feminist philosophy that overcomes the binaries of law and morality, inclusion and exclusion, power and powerlessness—and focuses on the meaning of love as negotiating, rather than mediating, these oppositions. (shrink)

Ethical constructivism holds that truths about the relation between rationality, morality, and agency are best understood as constructed by correct reasoning, rather than discovered or invented. Unlike other metaphors used in metaethics, construction brings to light the generative and dynamic dimension of practical reason. On the resultant picture, practical reasoning is not only productive but also self-transforming, and socially empowering. The main task of this volume is to illustrate how constructivism has substantially modified and expanded the agenda of metaethics by (...) refocusing on rational agency and its constitutive principles. In particular, this volume identifies, compares and discusses the prospects and failures of the main strands of constructivism regarding the powers of reason in responding to the challenges of contingency. While Kantian, Humean, Aristotelian, and Hegelian theories sharply differ in their constructivist strategies, they provide compelling accounts of the rational articulation required for an inclusive and unified ethical community. (shrink)

In this article, I defend the view that conscience exemption clauses for medical practitioners (doctors, nurses, technicians, pharmacists) should be limited by patient protection clauses. This view was also defended by Mark Wicclair, in his book on conscience exemptions in medicine (Cambridge UP, 2011). In this article, I defend Wicclair’s view by supplementing it with Hegelian ethical theory and feminist critical theory. Conscience exemptions are important to support as a matter of human rights. They support an individual’s right to (...) protect their deepest value-commitments. A true understanding of conscience is dialectical, however, and it requires patient protection clauses because they, too, protect individuals in their deepest value-commitments. In this article, I show that the defense of patient protection clauses is historically supported by the theory of “conscience [Gewissen]” developed by G.W.F. Hegel in the nineteenth century (mostly in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)). (shrink)

Time and History in Hegelian Thought and Spirit examines a conspicuous feature of Hegel's major works: that they are progressive narratives. They advance from less to more perfect, abstract to concrete, indeterminate or empty to determinate. This is true, argues the author, of his lectures on aesthetics and on the history of philosophy, and it is also true of his most abstract work, the Science of Logic. In answer to the question of why is it so important for Hegel (...) to structure his various philosophical works as developmental narratives, this book defends the thesis that Hegel's motivation is in part metaphysical, intending his developmental accounts to reveal something significant about who we are as thinking, willing natures. He undertakes his study of past in order to demonstrate that there have been advances in the nature of human thought or reason itself and in our resulting freedom and his concern with our reason's development conveys his interest in how human reason is anchored in and shaped by its past. Ultimately, this book specifies the extent to which we can accurately attribute to Hegel the view that human reason and the freedom it affords us are indebted for their nature to this temporal order of nature and history. (shrink)

I offer here a critical assessment of Beall and Ficara’s most recent take on Hegelian contradictions. By interpreting differently some key passages of Hegel’s work, I favor, unlike them, a no-gaps approach which leads to a different logic.

In this paper, I argue that, despite his remarks to the effect that freedom consists in the ‘movement’ away from nature, Hegel conceives of the will as a natural power or capacity of sorts. I articulate and defend this thesis in two steps. In section I of the paper, I sketch a reading of Hegel’s account of practical freedom in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right as a capacity to respond to ethical requirements or duties. In section II, I (...) argue that the will, on that account, qualifies for Hegel as natural in the following two respects: First, in the good or virtuous case, our responsiveness to ethical requirements exhibits features similar to the lawlike behavior of subhuman denizens of the natural world and other law-governed natural processes. Second, our capacity for practical freedom emerges through processes of habituation from the exercises of capacities that we share with other animals. Although the second thesis is the more important of the two for the purposes of naturalizing Hegel’s account of the will, I believe it has not yet been the focus of satisfactory scholarly attention. I thus hope to help remedy what I take to be a gap in the recent literature. Published on 2022-10-14 10:55:29. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Confucian Liberalism: Mou Zongsan and Hegelian Liberalism by Roy TsengMilan Matthiesen (bio)Confucian Liberalism: Mou Zongsan and Hegelian Liberalism. By Roy Tseng. Albany: SUNY Press, 2023. Pp. 405. Hardcover $95.00, isbn 978-1-4384-9111-0.With Confucian Liberalism, Roy Tseng sets a new landmark in the contemporary discourse on Confucian political theory. His intricate account of the political philosophy of Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995) and other New Confucian philosophers, in conjunction (...) with his study of T.H. Green's (1836–1882) and other British idealists' liberalism, offer a fresh and novel approach to Confucianism and liberalism alike. Throughout the eight chapters of his book, Tseng develops the concept of "Confucian liberalism." This concept stays faithful to civil liberties, but grounds democracy on an ethics of self-realization and a perfectionist ideal of the state, "where the government helps the people to 'attain accomplishment according to the individual's nature' (jiu geti er shuncheng 就個體而順成)" (p. 125). On the one hand, this framework attempts to circumvent the overbearing tendencies of traditional Confucianism, whose moral imperatives had prohibited the development of an independent sphere of politics. On the other hand, it reintroduces the Confucian concept of humaneness (ren 仁) as an answer to the lack of common meaning in modern societies. On the one hand, Tseng therefore dissociates himself from anti-Confucian liberals such as Yin Haiguang 殷海光 (1919–1969) or Zhang Foquan 張佛泉 (1907–1994), who had proclaimed the incompatibility of Confucianism and liberal values. On the other hand, he also differentiates himself from what he calls "antiliberal Confucians." Especially recently, the latter have attracted much attention by proposing a political vision opposed to the perceived foreign and "Western" concept of liberalism. Under labels such as "political Confucianism" (Jiang Qing 蔣慶), "socialist Confucianism" (Chen Lai 陳來), "politics of benevolence" (Kang Xiaoguang 康曉光), "Confucian meritocracy" (Bai Tongdong 白彤東), or "Confucian political perfectionism" (Joseph Chan 陳祖為), they have had a profound impact on the discourse of Confucian political theory. Turning toward the [End Page 1] political works of Mou Zongsan and the British idealists, Tseng neither advocates for the inherent elitism and anti-Western sentiments of antiliberal Confucianism, nor does he fully subscribe to the radically iconoclast ideals of the anti-Confucian liberals who had denied all value of tradition and saw Confucianism as a mere obstacle toward a modernized China. Another aspect of Tseng's study that stands out from the current field of research on Mou Zongsan is his reading of Mou's conceptual framework through the lens of Hegel. While many prominent researchers, e.g. Li Minghui 李明輝, point toward Mou's reliance on Kantian ideas and concepts, Tseng convincingly argues that Mou's appropriation of the idealist framework, as well as many concepts utilized by Mou, are fundamentally Hegelian, therefore warranting a shift in perspective. Confucian Liberalism is subdivided into three parts and eight chapters. Part I, titled "Confucian Ethics," introduces the reader to Mou Zongsan's moral philosophy by providing a comparative analysis of Mou, Kant, Hegel, and the British idealists, primarily represented by T.H. Green and F.H. Bradley (1846–1924). In part II, "Civil Liberalism," Tseng then moves on to elaborate on the New Confucian view of politics. Here, he pays close attention to Mou's revaluation of Confucian politics through the Hegelian framework, the notion of "civility," and the concept of "humane government." Turning again to Mou and Green, the final part, "Perfectionist Liberalism," presents the political vision of a democratic state underpinned by a strong belief that the primary task of the state is to provide an environment for the individual citizens that allows them to fully realize their moral capabilities. The third part further argues that the values upheld by New Confucianism not only do not contradict the liberal values of human dignity, tolerance, and equal respect, but are in fact able to lay a moral foundation for modern democracies that is able to overcome the weaknesses of mainstream liberalism, manifested in atomism, nihilism, and egoism. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the core principles and concepts of Mou Zongsan's moral metaphysics. Following Mou's own approach, Tseng applies a comparative method in this introductory chapter, meticulously delineating the varying philosophical influences that shaped Mou's... (shrink)

Are normative reasons based in our desires, or are they instead grounded in our rational faculties? A familiar way of approaching this question focuses on the fact that individuals are often motivated by very different concerns. Our desires seem to provide us with operative or motivating reasons that are not shared by others, and the question is whether desires can also provide us with different good or normative reasons. Reasons internalism is the view that an agent’s normative reasons for action (...) must be within the reach of his or her interest and understanding. Many contemporary followers of Hume as well as Kant endorse this view, but their versions of internalism differ in one key respect. The Humean view is that reasons are relative to the particular motivations of individuals and thus not universally shared. In contrast, the Kantian view is that being fully rational involves converging on reasons that all agents share as such. But what is common to both of these versions of reasons internalism is a focus on the relative powers of the faculties of reason and desire. Hegel, however, introduces an interesting and distinctive way of approaching the question of the source or grounding of normative reasons. Instead of focusing exclusively on the relative powers of inner faculties, Hegel proposes that what we have reasons to do depends largely upon how we understand ourselves within an actual social space. We will consider three different versions of this claim, the most plausible of which sheds new light on reasons internalism. We need not think that there are only two possibilities: either reasons are universal or they are relative to subjective motivations. Instead, what distinguishes a Hegelian approach is the contention that what counts as normative depends in part upon fundamental self-conceptions that we share as participants in a complex social world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Ohio HegeliansDenys P. LeightonSelected and introduced by James A. Good. The Ohio Hegelians. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005. Volume I: Peter Kaufmann, The Temple of Truth (1858). Volume II: Moncure D. Conway, The Earthward Pilgrimage (1870). Volume III: J. B. Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (2nd ed., 1884).This collection of facsimile reprints prepared by James A. Good is one of the newest contributions to (...) the series 'History of American Thought' published by Thoemmes Continuum. Good has already made significant contributions to study of the history of American philosophy and 'thought' by editing for the same series a reprint edition of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 1867–1893 (22 volumes, 2002) and co-editing, with Michael DeArmey, a selection of writings by the St. Louis Hegelians (3 volumes, 2001). The latter constitutes very nearly a subset of the former. The acknowledged leader of the 'St. Louis Movement' from 1858 until the late 1870s was William Torrey Harris (1835–1909), who edited the Journal of Speculative Philosophy during the entire period of its publication. JSP predated Mind in England by nearly ten years and was the first specialized venue in the [End Page 445] Anglo-American world for serial publication of scholarly writing on philosophical issues. It also featured original writing on arts and literature, education, and theology, as well as some of the first translations into English of works by J. G. Fichte, F. Froebel, F. A. Trendelenburg and K. Rosenkranz. In addition to publishing work by North American and European thinkers who have by now—perhaps predictably—fallen from scholarly view, JSP featured writing by G. Stanley Hall, William James, C. S. Peirce, Josiah Royce, John Watson and John Dewey.There is a general historical rationale for Good's compilation of ostensibly significant writings by men collectively dubbed by Loyd Easton—with genuflection to the better-known St. Louis Idealists—'the Ohio Hegelians'.1 Yet, as I shall elaborate, the criteria of selection of documents for this collection are somewhat puzzling. Easton grouped under the label 'Ohio Hegelians' Peter Kaufmann (1800–1869), August Willich (1810–1878), John Bernhard Stallo (1823–1900) and Moncure Daniel Conway (1832–1907), while nevertheless denying that they formed a distinctive school of Hegelian philosophy. The most obviously Hegelian among them was Willich, a radical democratic journalist and agitator who features prominently in the complex history of 'Left Hegelianism' and early Marxism. However, Good has decided not to include Willich's writings in this collection, reasoning that his journalistic writings and ephemera 'do not lend themselves... readily to a collection of philosophical works' ('Introduction', p. v). Neither were all the items Good selected for the aforementioned collections of a strictly philosophical nature (whatever that might mean), so one wonders why Willich's Hegelian writings were left out here. It is somewhat curious that Good should include here The Earthward Pilgrimage (1870) by Conway, a Virginian by birth, who, after alienating his Unitarian congregation in Washington, DC by his strongly abolitionist sentiments, was appointed in 1856 to a pastorate at the First Congregational Church in Cincinnati. This 'Ohioan' left the state and the country by 1863 and was thereafter more directly associated with English intellectual life. For most of the period 1864–1897 Conway presided over the undenominational South Place Chapel in London (subsequently, the South Place Ethical Society), which literally served as a pulpit for many guest speakers expressing forms of religious and political radicalism (e.g., agnosticism, 'secularism', republicanism, producer and consumer co-operation). There are few direct references in Conway's The Earthward Pilgrimage to his American experiences. Easton's reason for including Conway among these Ohioans was that Conway had interacted closely in Cincinnati with Willich and Stallo after 1856, when all were enthusiastic supporters of the Republican, 'free-soil' candidate for President, John C. Fremont.Of Peter Kaufmann, author of The Temple of Truth (1858), something will be said in due course, but Stallo became the most un-Hegelian of the Ohio Hegelians. In his Preface to the first edition of The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1881)—the second edition is the one included in Good's [End Page 446] compilation... (shrink)

By the mid-19th century, an increasing number of Japan's political leaders and scholars realized that Japan had to adapt and incorporate some elements of Western-style industrialization into their own political and economic order as the necessary means to remain independent of Western imperialism. The Opium War in China, and later the Euro-American bombardments of the domain capitals in Choshu and Satsuma demonstrated that trying to defend the realm with only an increased emphasis on coastal defense would ultimately fail to keep (...) out the barbarians from the West. Sakuma Shozan, a samurai scholar from Matsushiro, proposed a dichotomous philosophy of 'Eastern ethics, Western science' as the means to strengthen Japan both internally and externally, and allow Japan to maintain its independence. In this paper, I argue that Sakuma's dichotomous approach can be interpreted within a Hegelian dialectical paradigm. After the traditional order of Japan (Eastern ethics as Idea/Thesis) came into contact with the industrializing order of the West (Western science as Nature/Anti-Thesis), Sakuma believed a new order would be created in Japan (Synthesis) that combined an increased knowledge on the Eastern ethics of Neo-Confucianism with the 'new' scientific knowledge of the West. (shrink)

This paper examines the social theory of Lester Frank Ward, one of the most significant representatives of early American social theory, with particular attention to his conception of the state, which can be described as Hegelian. The first part of the paper gives a brief overview of early American social theory: its basic features, the issues that were the focus of attention during this period in the development of sociology in the US, and its most significant representatives. The basic (...) features of Ward’s social theory are then presented and examined in more detail. It is pointed out that it is: conceptual and essentially based on the natural sciences; based on the distinction between pure and applied sociology; systematic; supportive of progressive and pro-social reforms. It was directed against the individualist tradition. His theory was based on the belief that the human mind can direct social progress and that the order based on social inequalities, which is a product of the laissez-faire doctrine, cannot guarantee freedom and prosperity. The fundamental institution capable of doing so is the state. Therefore, the central part of this paper is devoted to his conception of the state and makes a comparison with Hegel’s theory of the ethical state contained in Hegel’s philosophy of objective spirit – philosophy of law and philosophy of history. It concludes by pointing out that Ward’s theory indicated the general direction of development of social circumstances towards the era of collectivism, and was also atypical of American social theory in some of its features. (shrink)

This essay offers a comparative analysis of the notion of trust in Hegel and Confucius. It shows that Hegel’s two senses of trust depend upon his theory of recognition and recognitive struggle. The competitive thrust of Hegel’s account of trust, it argues, introduces a series of problems that cannot be adequately resolved within his theory, since it presupposes the kinds of trusting relations—self-, intersubjective- and world-trust—that it purports to explain. This essay then turns to the Confucian notions of xin 心 (...) and li 理 to address the problems in the Hegelian account. It concludes by outlining the Confucian account’s salience for critical social theory. (shrink)

Hegel’s Social Ethics offers a fresh and accessible interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s most famous book, the Phenomenology of Spirit. Drawing on important recent work on the social dimensions of Hegel’s theory of knowledge, Molly Farneth shows how his account of how we know rests on his account of how we ought to live. Farneth argues that Hegel views conflict as an unavoidable part of living together, and that his social ethics involves relationships and social practices that (...) allow people to cope with conflict and sustain hope for reconciliation. Communities create, contest, and transform their norms through these relationships and practices, and Hegel’s model for them are often the interactions and rituals of the members of religious communities. The book’s close readings reveal the ethical implications of Hegel’s discussions of slavery, Greek tragedy, early modern culture wars, and confession and forgiveness. The book also illuminates how contemporary democratic thought and practice can benefit from Hegelian insights. Through its sustained engagement with Hegel’s ideas about conflict and reconciliation, Hegel’s Social Ethics makes an important contribution to debates about how to live well with religious and ethical disagreement. (shrink)

John McTaggart was a Cambridge philosopher, famous for his metaphysical theory that time is not real and that temporal order is an illusion. Although best known for his contributions to the philosophy of time, McTaggart also spent a large part of his career expounding Hegel's work. In this book, first published in 1901, he discusses which views on a range of topics in metaphysics and ethics are compatible with Hegel's logic and idea of 'the Absolute'. Some early work on (...) theories for which McTaggart later became well known can be found in this work, such as his beliefs that humans are immortal, that the Absolute is not in any sense a person, and that love is the relation that binds people together. In this book he also discusses punishment, sin, morality and whether Hegel could be considered a Christian. (shrink)

TWO FACETS OF HEGEL’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY become clear on close inspection. On the one hand, Hegel attempts to take advantage of the Kantian focus on autonomy as the ground for ethical obligation and build an account of Right in terms of free self-determining agency. On the other hand, once the account is in, it looks and feels quite different from Kant’s, emphasizing social institutions and history in ways that are distinctive to Hegel. How far do these Hegelian emphases pull (...) us from Kant? Are they simply an essential corrective of the Kantian project, as some Hegelians would like to claim? Or does Hegel end up with a view that is significantly antithetical to a Kantian position? In this paper I do not intend to address such questions comprehensively. Rather, I would like to touch on such questions by exploring a particular issue that seems to me of central importance to answering them. (shrink)

_Freedom and Tradition in Hegel _stands at the intersection of three vital currents in contemporary ethics: debates over philosophical anthropology and its significance for ethics, reevaluations of tradition and modernity, and a resurgence of interest in Hegel. Thomas A. Lewis engages these three streams of thought in light of Hegel’s recently published _Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes_. Drawing extensively on these lectures, Lewis addresses an important lacuna in Hegelian scholarship by first providing a systematic analysis of (...) Hegel’s philosophical anthropology and then examining its fundamental role in Hegel’s ethical and religious thought. Lewis contends that Hegel’s anthropology seeks to account for both the ongoing significance of the religious and philosophical traditions in which we are raised and our ability to transcend these traditions. Pursuing the implications of the integral role of practice in Hegel’s anthropology, Lewis argues for a more progressive interpretation of Hegel’s ethics and a “Hegelian” critique of Hegel’s most problematic statements on political and social issues. Lewis concludes that Hegel offers a powerful strategy for reconciling freedom and tradition. "_Freedom and Tradition in Hegel_ is a highly important contribution to the scholarship. Lewis brings Hegel's 'philosophy of subjective spirit' to light in a way that corrects previous interpretations of Hegel's thinking on religion, ethics, and politics. This book establishes Lewis as one of the leading Hegel scholars based in religious studies. It is a book that Hegel scholars in several disciplines will need to take seriously." —Jeffrey Stout, Princeton University "Written with admirable clarity, this important contribution to Hegel scholarship is lively, argumentative, and substantial." —Stephen Crites, Wesleyan University. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Fatherhood and the Promise of EthicsKelly Oliver (bio)Both Paul Ricoeur and Emmanuel Levinas reject the Freudian/Lacanian association of father with law and instead associate fatherhood with promise. For Ricoeur, fatherhood promises equality through contracts, while for Levinas, fatherhood promises singularity beyond the law. The tension between equality and singularity, between law and something beyond the law, is what is at stake in Derrida’s The Gift of Death. There, Derrida (...) describes ethics as a paradox between the universal and the individual, between equality and singularity. Kierkegaard’s reading of the story of Abraham and Isaac from Genesis is the centerpiece of Derrida’s analysis. If we read The Gift of Death, with its focus on this story of father and son, in relation to Ricoeur and Levinas on the question of fatherhood, it reads as the culmination of a dialectical tension between the two. And if we read the Abraham story as a legend about father-son relations rather than just a parable of faith, The Gift of Death appears to uncover not just the paradoxical logic of ethics but also the uncompromising logic of patriarchy and paternal authority.Paternity Begets FraternityIn “Fatherhood: from Phantasm to Symbol” Ricoeur describes fatherhood as a battle of wills struggling for recognition. He brings together what he calls the different perspectives of psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and religion in order to rearticulate the oedipal situation as a process of recognition (rather than a structure) which moves from the father as phantasm to the father as symbol and replaces images of real murder with symbolic sacrifice. Through his dialectical analysis, Ricoeur himself attempts to articulate a recognition of fatherhood that moves us away from the phantasm of the father as castrator to the symbol of the father as compassionate. Relying on Hegelian dialectics, Ricoeur outlines a movement from psychoanalysis’s fantastic image of an omnipotent father who must be killed so that the son might live, through Phenomenology of Spirit’s master-slave dialectic, to the Christian religious representation of the loving father sacrificing Himself through His son for the sake of all His children. In this higher stage of the dialectic of paternity, the murder of the father is replaced by his sacrifice. Oddly, however, Ricoeur’s dialectic remains at the level of the master-slave fight to the death, where—without the Hegelian resolution—the only options available to insure the recognition of the father by the son (or the son by the father) are murder or suicide. For Ricoeur, recognition requires death, symbolic if not imaginary, whereas Hegel insists that recognition comes only when the master and slave are willing to risk death but also realize the necessity of avoiding it; mutual recognition cannot be maintained if one of the parties is dead.For Ricoeur, recognition does not necessitate avoiding death but rather moving away from the realm of the family and the body to the level of the social and the law. In order for the father-son relationship to be one of mutual recognition, the father must sacrifice his absolute authority so that the son might also participate in it. The goal of recognition is equality, which can be achieved only through social contracts that abstract from the particulars of embodied familial relations. One such social operation is designation, [End Page 45] which is removed from the realm of the bodily drives that motivate the oedipal scenario. Designation requires the sublimation of bodily drives into abstract laws that can equalize bodies by turning them into symbols.The move from psychoanalysis to Christianity is a move from a domestic family to a social family: through God the Father’s sacrifice of His son, we all become members of the Christian family; we all become children of God. For Ricoeur, it is not that God is the Father because He gives the Law. Rather, the law, the covenant or contract, enables Him to be recognized as father [490]. Ricoeur implicitly rejects the Lacanian association of the Father with the Law or the Name. He claims that there is no Name of the Father. “Father” is not a name but a designation [Ricoeur 485]. And the father’s proper name is... (shrink)

A Hegelian reading of good and bad luck -- In Shakespearean drama (phen. of spirit, King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, a Midsummer night's dream) -- Tearing the fabric: Hegel's Antigone, Shakespeare's Coriolanus, and kinship-state conflict (phen. of spirit c. 6, Judith Butler's Antigone, Coriolanus) -- Aufhebung and anti-aufhebung: geist and ghosts in Hamlet (phen. of spirit, Hamlet) -- The problem of genius in King Lear: Hegel on the feeling soul and the tragedy of wonder (anthropology and psychology in the encyclopaedia, (...) Philosophy of mind, King Lear) -- Richard II's mirror and the alienation of the Universal Will (of the I that is a We) (Richard II, phen. of spirit c. 5) -- Falstaff and the politics of wit: negative infinite judgment in a culture of alienation (Henry IV parts I & II, phen. of spirit c. 6, philosophy of right) -- Henry V's unchangeableness: his rejection of wit and his posture of virtue reinterpreted in the light of Hegel's theory of virtue (philosophy of right, Henry V) -- Hegel's theory of crime and evil: (re)tracing the rights of the sovereign self (aesthetics, phen. of spirit, phil. of right, Richard II through to Henry V) -- Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth and Henry V: conscience, hypocrisy, self-deceit and the tragedy of ethical life (phil. of right, Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry V) -- Negation of the negative infinite judgment versus sublation of it: punishment vs. pardon (phil. of right, phen. of spirit c. 6 and Henry VIII) -- Universal wit : the absolute theater of identity (phen. of spirit c. 6 and 8, Pericles, the Tempest) -- Absolute infections and their cure (phen. of spirit c. 6, the Winter's tale). (shrink)

It is a curious feature of Hegelian studies in English that its practitioners seem incapable of tackling their subject without first disclaiming any adherence to the more metaphysical side of Hegel's thought, be it called “speculative metaphysics,” “dialectical logic” or whatever. I say “curious” because I doubt that the same scholars would feel obliged to enter an equivalent disclaimer at the head of a study on, say, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza or even Newton—even though all of these classics have a (...) metaphysical side at least as abstruse as any of Hegel's worse romantic excesses. Hegel himself, if he could witness the practice, would be flattered by it. He would not see it as an indication that “the problems of [his] logic remain alien and artificial to us in ways that the problems of Cartesian and Kantian philosophy do not” but, on the contrary, as a hidden acknowledgement that, whether for good or bad, his philosophy is still alive, still so close to our culture that we instinctively feel the need of exorcizing it ritually, like a demon capable of frightening us. (shrink)

It is a curious feature of Hegelian studies in English that its practitioners seem incapable of tackling their subject without first disclaiming any adherence to the more metaphysical side of Hegel's thought, be it called “speculative metaphysics,” “dialectical logic” or whatever. I say “curious” because I doubt that the same scholars would feel obliged to enter an equivalent disclaimer at the head of a study on, say, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza or even Newton—even though all of these classics have a (...) metaphysical side at least as abstruse as any of Hegel's worse romantic excesses. Hegel himself, if he could witness the practice, would be flattered by it. He would not see it as an indication that “the problems of [his] logic remain alien and artificial to us in ways that the problems of Cartesian and Kantian philosophy do not” but, on the contrary, as a hidden acknowledgement that, whether for good or bad, his philosophy is still alive, still so close to our culture that we instinctively feel the need of exorcizing it ritually, like a demon capable of frightening us. (shrink)

John McTaggart was a Cambridge philosopher, famous for his metaphysical theory that time is not real and that temporal order is an illusion. Although best known for his contributions to the philosophy of time, McTaggart also spent a large part of his career expounding Hegel's work. In this book, first published in 1901, he discusses which views on a range of topics in metaphysics and ethics are compatible with Hegel's logic and idea of 'the Absolute'. Some early work on (...) theories for which McTaggart later became well known can be found in this work, such as his beliefs that humans are immortal, that the Absolute is not in any sense a person, and that love is the relation that binds people together. In this book he also discusses punishment, sin, morality and whether Hegel could be considered a Christian. (shrink)

Ethical physicians need to share their biases and prejudices and articulate alternatives and also be tolerant of the decisions of their patients and families.I believe that I am a moral, caring, dedicated doctor working with children and parents who are often faced with ethical problems of large and small dimensions. There is no question that these decisions should be ethical, but, in general, I find ethical theory of little day-to-day use. Indeed, even when an ethicist joins me in a discussion (...) of “What should I do?”, or more appropriately, “What should I advocate be done?”, I usually find their additions to the discussion wanting. Ethical theory gives guidance but does not seem to provide sufficient help in decisions for the individual case: What will be best for the infant with spina bifida while still in utero? Termination of the pregnancy? Birth and long-term care? What is best were that same child already born with a high paraplegia and hydrocephalus? What is best for the infant with a major malformation of the brain and uncontrollable seizures whose only hope for controlling the seizures is removal of half of the brain? What is best for the family in each of these situations and the many others I have encountered? What is best for society?I have been called a Hegelian pragmatist, although my knowledge of Hegel is minimal. I think that the term pragmatist is a badge of honour, because, on the front lines of clinical decision-making, I do not have the philosopher’s luxury of days or weeks for managing words. As a pragmatic doctor, I am forced to be a person of action or inaction. I must make a decision and advocate for the position I take.I am clearly a utilitarian, as I strive to produce the greatest good …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Ohio HegeliansDenys P. LeightonSelected and introduced by James A. Good. The Ohio Hegelians. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005. Volume I: Peter Kaufmann, The Temple of Truth (1858). Volume II: Moncure D. Conway, The Earthward Pilgrimage (1870). Volume III: J. B. Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (2nd ed., 1884).This collection of facsimile reprints prepared by James A. Good is one of the newest contributions to (...) the series 'History of American Thought' published by Thoemmes Continuum. Good has already made significant contributions to study of the history of American philosophy and 'thought' by editing for the same series a reprint edition of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 1867–1893 (22 volumes, 2002) and co-editing, with Michael DeArmey, a selection of writings by the St. Louis Hegelians (3 volumes, 2001). The latter constitutes very nearly a subset of the former. The acknowledged leader of the 'St. Louis Movement' from 1858 until the late 1870s was William Torrey Harris (1835–1909), who edited the Journal of Speculative Philosophy during the entire period of its publication. JSP predated Mind in England by nearly ten years and was the first specialized venue in the [End Page 445] Anglo-American world for serial publication of scholarly writing on philosophical issues. It also featured original writing on arts and literature, education, and theology, as well as some of the first translations into English of works by J. G. Fichte, F. Froebel, F. A. Trendelenburg and K. Rosenkranz. In addition to publishing work by North American and European thinkers who have by now—perhaps predictably—fallen from scholarly view, JSP featured writing by G. Stanley Hall, William James, C. S. Peirce, Josiah Royce, John Watson and John Dewey.There is a general historical rationale for Good's compilation of ostensibly significant writings by men collectively dubbed by Loyd Easton—with genuflection to the better-known St. Louis Idealists—'the Ohio Hegelians'.1 Yet, as I shall elaborate, the criteria of selection of documents for this collection are somewhat puzzling. Easton grouped under the label 'Ohio Hegelians' Peter Kaufmann (1800–1869), August Willich (1810–1878), John Bernhard Stallo (1823–1900) and Moncure Daniel Conway (1832–1907), while nevertheless denying that they formed a distinctive school of Hegelian philosophy. The most obviously Hegelian among them was Willich, a radical democratic journalist and agitator who features prominently in the complex history of 'Left Hegelianism' and early Marxism. However, Good has decided not to include Willich's writings in this collection, reasoning that his journalistic writings and ephemera 'do not lend themselves... readily to a collection of philosophical works' ('Introduction', p. v). Neither were all the items Good selected for the aforementioned collections of a strictly philosophical nature (whatever that might mean), so one wonders why Willich's Hegelian writings were left out here. It is somewhat curious that Good should include here The Earthward Pilgrimage (1870) by Conway, a Virginian by birth, who, after alienating his Unitarian congregation in Washington, DC by his strongly abolitionist sentiments, was appointed in 1856 to a pastorate at the First Congregational Church in Cincinnati. This 'Ohioan' left the state and the country by 1863 and was thereafter more directly associated with English intellectual life. For most of the period 1864–1897 Conway presided over the undenominational South Place Chapel in London (subsequently, the South Place Ethical Society), which literally served as a pulpit for many guest speakers expressing forms of religious and political radicalism (e.g., agnosticism, 'secularism', republicanism, producer and consumer co-operation). There are few direct references in Conway's The Earthward Pilgrimage to his American experiences. Easton's reason for including Conway among these Ohioans was that Conway had interacted closely in Cincinnati with Willich and Stallo after 1856, when all were enthusiastic supporters of the Republican, 'free-soil' candidate for President, John C. Fremont.Of Peter Kaufmann, author of The Temple of Truth (1858), something will be said in due course, but Stallo became the most un-Hegelian of the Ohio Hegelians. In his Preface to the first edition of The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1881)—the second edition is the one included in Good's [End Page 446] compilation... (shrink)

This article responds to Nicholas Adams by exploring the affinities between his account and Hegel, with a particular focus on the dialectic of articulation. They seem to agree on the undermining effect of articulation and reflection on implicit commitments. However, Adams diverges from Hegel by questioning the consequence and supposed inevitability of this dialectical process. Whereas Hegel argues for the desirability of conscious articulation in the progress towards modernity, Adams contends that it is actually a destructive and oppressive process, challenging (...) Hegel’s Enlightenment optimism and Eurocentrism. Still, I suggest that Hegel’s concern for rational dialogue as an indispensable condition for modern life and community should be taken seriously. Scriptural reasoning, as discussed by Adams, provides a model how we can have a form of rational dialogue that escapes from the dilemma posed by the Hegelian dialectic, and that it may be possible to combine strong ethical commitments with an openness to pluralistic dialogue. (shrink)

For some time, the role of culture in language education within schools, universities and professional communication has received increasing attention. This article identifies two aporias in the discourse of intercultural communication : first, that it contains an unstated movement towards a universal consciousness; second, that its claims to truth are grounded in an implicit appeal to a transcendental moral signified.These features constitute IC discourse as ‘totality’, or as ‘metaphysics of presence’.The article draws on the work of Levinas ; and Derrida (...) to propose more considered ethical grounds for intercultural praxis. Contra a Hegelian impetus towards universal consciousness,we posit an irreducible distance and separation between the self and other. In so doing, not only are we able to supersede the field’s implicit appeal to the transcendental as a source of truth but also to counter perceptibly ‘exorbitant’ claims and actions of the intercultural other. In this vein, the article proposes a discourse ethics of responsibility by which it still becomes possible for a critical intercultural praxis to make value judgements and to take potentially transformative action vis-à-vis cultural acts that challenge the limits of intercultural tolerance and hospitality. (shrink)