Contemporary philosophical discourse has deeply problematized the possibility of absolute existence. Hegel’s Foundation Free Metaphysics demonstrates that by reading Hegel’s Doctrine of the Concept in his Science of Logic as a form of Absolute Dialetheism, Hegel’s logic of the concept can account for the possibility of absolute existence. Through a close examination of Hegel’s concept of self-referential universality in his Science of Logic, Moss demonstrates how Hegel’s concept of singularity is designed to solve a host of metaphysical and epistemic paradoxes (...) central to this problematic. He illustrates how Hegel’s revolutionary account of universality, particularity, and singularity offers solutions to six problems that have plagued the history of Western philosophy: the problem of nihilism, the problem of instantiation, the problem of the missing difference, the problem of absolute empiricism, the problem of onto-theology, and the third man regress. Moss shows that Hegel’s affirmation and development of a revised ontological argument for God’s existence is designed to establish the necessity of absolute existence. By adopting a metaphysical reading of Richard Dien Winfield’s foundation free epistemology, Moss critically engages dominant readings and contemporary debates in Hegel scholarship. Hegel’s Foundation Free Metaphysics will appeal to scholars interested in Hegel, German Idealism, 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and contemporary European thought. (shrink)

Hegel’s Doctrine of the Concept advances a theory of conceptual determinacy. As I will demonstrate, Hegel’s theory of conceptual determinacy leads him to endorse self-predication and existential implication as features endemic to conceptual content. I first demonstrate some features of this logic, and some of its entailments. Following the reconstruction of Hegel’s logic of self-predication, I apply this logic to illuminate Hegel’s critique of formal logic. Finally, the self-predicative feature of Hegel’s logics offers a measure by which to determine the (...) potential and the limitations of any formal account of Hegel’s logic. (shrink)

Carnap famously argued that metaphysics unavoidably involves a confusion between science and poetry. Unlike the lyric poet, who does not attempt to make an argument, the metaphysician attempts to make an argument while simultaneously lacking in musical talent. Carnap’s objection that metaphysics unavoidably involves a blend of philosophy and poetry is not a 20th century insight. Plato, in his beautifully crafted Phaedo, presents us with the imprisoned Socrates, who having been condemned to death for practicing philosophy in the Apology, has (...) a dream in which he realizes that he ought to make music. In this dialogue, however, Plato indicates no hint of the scorn that Carnap has for metaphysics—rather Socrates’ friends find him setting Aesop’s fables to verse. In the modern era, Nietzsche re-introduced the ‘music making Socrates’ in his Birth of Tragedy. But Nietzsche is not the first to revive the concept in modern philosophy. Before Nietzsche’s call for a new music-making Socrates, the early German Romantics, in particular Schlegel, explicitly called for the identification of poetry and science in the concept of Poesie. As Schlegel writes: ‘Alle Kunst soll Wissenschaft werden, und alle Wissenschaft Kunst werden; Poesie und Philosophie sollen vereinigt sein.’ On the one hand, in Ion Socrates is not wrong to critique Ion for not knowing the significance of his own work. On the other hand, Socrates himself recognizes in Phaedo that he is guilty of failing to heed the call to make music. Long misunderstood, the Romantic concept of Poesie is not mere irrationalism, for it offers an aesthetic metaphysics of the Absolute. Romanticism is indeed a philosophy of the Absolute, but one which cannot conceive of any solution to the profound impasses that confront philosophical knowing except by learning to make music. (shrink)

Gregory S. Moss examines the central arguments in Ernst Cassirer’s first volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms to show how Cassirer defends language as an autonomous cultural form, and how he borrows the concept of the “concrete universal” from G. W. F. Hegel in order to develop a concept of cultural autonomy.

In this introduction to the Being of Negation in Post-Kantian Philosophy, I elucidate the problem of negation in classical Greek philosophy, Kant, and German Idealism. Inspired by the Platonic insight that any inquiry into non-being must impute non-being with the being of non-being, this book sets out to think the being of nothing. Whenever we ask ‘what is nothing?’ we are implicitly asking ‘what is it for nothing to be?’ To answer with a judgment of the form ‘nothingness is such (...) and such’ inevitably identifies the being of nothing. To think nothingness by itself cannot be achieved without introducing what nothingness is not—namely being. Thus, inquiries into nothingness turn back on themselves [παλίντροπός] in the manner of Heraclitus’ back turning harmony [παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη]. (shrink)

Herein I investigate how four dogmas underpinning the traditional concepts of universality, the genus, class, and abstract universal, generate four paradoxes of self-reference. The four dogmas are the following: (1) that contradiction entails the total absence of determinacy, (2) the necessary finitude of the concept, (3) the separation of principles of universality and particularity, and (4) the necessity of appealing to foundations. In section III I show how these dogmas underpin the paradoxes of self-reference and how one cannot make progress (...) on these paradoxes as long as these four dogmas are in place. Corresponding to the abovementioned dogmas are the four paradoxes of self-reference: (1a) the problem of the .. (shrink)

The concept of “conceptual personae” is a contradiction in terms. On one sense of the term, personae are the characters in a work of art, such as a play or a novel. As characters, they are not common terms – King Lear is a particular; he is not a universal, for he cannot be shared in common. However, concepts are quite unlike King Lear. As universals, they are common terms that can be shared in common. “Conceptual personae” renders the particular (...) universal and thereby declares the universal not to be universal. However, I argue that as long as philosophers maintain a traditional attitude toward conceptual truth, philosophers will not be able to successfully think the structure of being without appealing to the mythical imagination, of which conceptual personae form an essential constituent. (shrink)

Hegel repeatedly identifies rational self-consciousness as a real example of the concept, and its tripartite constituents: universality, particularity, and individuality. In what follows I will show that the concept as such, along with its tripartite constituents, are constitutive of rational self-consciousness. On the one hand, by showing how Hegel’s concept of the concept applies to rational self-consciousness, I aim to provide a concrete example of the concept of the concept in a real being whose being is not merely logical. On (...) the other hand, I aim to show that Hegel’s application of the concept to rational self-consciousness is motivated by a problem within the philosophy of mind. For this reason, Hegel’s application of the concept of the concept to the mind is not arbitrary, but motivated by significant philosophical problems. (shrink)

By drawing on the insights of diverse scholars from around the globe, this volume systematically investigates the meaning and reality of the concept of negation in Post-Kantian Philosophy—German Idealism, Early German Romanticism, and Neo-Kantianism. The reader benefits from the historical, critical, and systematic investigations contained which trace not only the significance of negation in these traditions, but also the role it has played in shaping the philosophical landscape of Post-Kantian philosophy. By drawing attention to historically neglected thinkers and traditions, and (...) positioning the dialogue within a global and comparative context, this volume demonstrates the enduring relevance of Post-Kantian philosophy for philosophers thinking in today’s global context. This text should appeal to graduate students and professors of German Idealism, Post-Kantian philosophy, comparative philosophy, German studies, and intellectual history. (shrink)

With the diversification of philosophy, and the dismantling of stark divides in philosophical methodology in the West, the character of philosophy appears more indeterminate than ever—and demands fresh investigations not only into the character of philosophy, but also the concept of indeterminacy itself. The over-arching aim of this collection, which brings together a wide range of philosophical and inter-disciplinary perspectives, is to bring into focus the prominence and significance of indeterminacy as a common thread in recent Asian philosophy, continental thought, (...) and other philosophical approaches. The theme of indeterminacy can be traced throughout the history of both Western and Asian philosophy. Among the pre-Socratics, Anaximander stands out as recognizing (though not fully clarifying) its significance in his famous formulation of the first principle of philosophy as the apeiron—the indeterminate. In modern philosophy, indeterminacy appears time and again as a recurrent theme in post-Kantian idealism, phenomenology, and continental philosophy. This volume shines a spotlight on the way indeterminacy arises as an important theme for relatively neglected thinkers in the Western tradition, such as F.W.J. Schelling, and it offers fresh perspectives on the significance of indeterminacy for well-read thinkers such as Husserl and Hegel. What is more, this volume includes chapters that bring out the presence and importance of indeterminacy in the various schools of Chinese and Japanese philosophy (among others), such as in various forms of Daoist thinking and the Kyoto school, which cannot be underestimated. By bringing these schools of thought into dialogue with each other, we hope that the volume will enrich the thinking of all traditions, East, West, and beyond. (shrink)

Journal Name: SATS Issue: Ahead of print.

In this paper I systematically reconstruct Hegel’s concept of “free mechanism” as developed in the Science of Logic. The term “free mechanism” appears absurd since each of the terms constituting it appears mutually exclusive. I argue that we may grasp it only on (1) the assumption of self-reference and (2) via a triad of syllogisms, which altogether constitute a process of alternating middle terms. On the whole, I employ Hegel’s account of “free mechanism” to illuminate the activity of objectivity, whereby (...) the self-determining concept resurrects itself from its dormancy in an indifferent totality. (shrink)

During the past few decades, Graham Priest has advocated for Dialetheism, the controversial position that some contradictions are true. Dialetheism entails that the Law of Non-Contradiction fails. In recent decades the philosophical community has begun to recognize the significant challenge posed by Priest’s arguments. Priest has primarily appealed to paradoxes of self-reference, such as the Liar Paradox, to support his position. Following Priest’s approach, I offer another argument for Dialetheism, which appeals to a self-referential paradox that has been more or (...) less ignored in the philosophical literature on the subject: the paradox of the missing difference. When we reflect on the question ‘what is a concept?’ from the perspective of a classical model of conceptual analysis, we arrive at the paradox of the missing difference. Although contradictions may be improbable, when we reflect on the question ‘how is the domain of concepts possible?’ we are led to a startling principle: without dialetheia any theory concerning concept formation would be impossible. Dialetheism is a necessary condition for the existence of a domain of concepts in general. As a result, Dialetheism may even be more central to philosophical reflection than even dialetheists themselves have recognized. (shrink)