dicates implying a surplus in the background from previous negation) and the other three combinations . The second part of the study in relation to the issue of intersubjectivity summarizes Hegel's unhappy consciousness analysis of figures from the Phenomenology of Spirit and shows that it takes insufficient account of Hegel older authors, which is just Dionysios. In writings on mystical theology can find is the formal structure of intersubjectivity, and Hegel's analysis so they can not be correct.

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a careful description of the progressive unfolding of Spirit. Its dialectic is the education of consciousness. There are three stages of unhappy consciousness: external beyond, changing individual, and achieved reconciliation. Being aware of its own mutability, the self yearns for reconciliation, which can only come from the external beyond, from the unchanging. The quest of unhappy consciousness for reconciliation is characterized by the three stages of devotion, sacramental desire and labour, (...) and self-mortification. The self, constituted by what is other, is never able to achieve lasting satisfaction; it desires the unity of self-consciousness. Through the experience of itself, the self comes to a clearer self-awareness and transgresses its own limits. (shrink)

Perhaps even more radically than under the criticism of the ‘Maîtres du soupçon’, a whole world goes down in Greek comedy. Not only traditional religion, but also ethical life and finally even reason itself seem to be affected by the all-destroying power of laughter.The title of Aristophanes’ famous play ‘The Clouds’ has a symbolic meaning: in the comedy, Greek ethical life dissolves into a vanishing mist. Behind the player’s mask hides the principle of this total decomposition: the autonomous, selfconfident individual. (...) This event does not only have a theatrical meaning. It does not only exist in the artist’s imagination. It concerns a whole nation, a whole culture. The comedy is an expression of the way society understands itself. It represents in an aesthetic way the fact that the individual human being sees himself as ‘principium essendi et cognoscendi’ of everything. The comedy voices a new truth, namely that all truth begins and ends with man. The gods — symbols of truth and actuality- have dissolved in the shamelessness of a laughter, which does not halt for anything anymore. Formulated in modern terms: the comedy voices the philosophical principle that from now on the subject will be the reference point of all reality. Long before Descartes’s Cogito, a metaphysics of subjectivity here finds one of its remarkable expressions.At least, that is how Hegel interprets the comedy in his Phenomenology of Spirit. According to him, the destruction of the Greek world announces itself in the comedy. It signals the experience that a certain culture has grown old, that something new is coming. This new actuality will get its first, symbolic expression in the Christian religion. However, this transition is only possible if consciousness undergoes new experiences, by which the self-sufficient and frivolous cheerfulness of the comedy gets lost. In these new experiences the implications of the principle of the autonomous subjectivity, which is decisive for the comedy, come to light. Hegel defines this principle as following: “das Selbst ist das absolute Wesen; das Wesen, das Substanz und an dem das Selbst die Akzidentalität war, ist zum Prädikate herunter gesunken ...”.These new experiences are indicated by a term which is already familiar to the readers of the Phenomenology, namely ‘the unhappy consciousness’. Hegel writes: “We see that this Unhappy Consciousness constitutes the counterpart and the completion of the comic consciousness that is perfectly happy within itself”. The text is clear: the unhappy consciousness is not only that into which the comic consciousness turns. It is at the same time a change in which this consciousness accomplishes itself.The “Self which is for itself the absolute being” could not durably maintain itself in its position. Its “Leichtsinn” makes it “light”, too light to be the substance of everything. Very quickly, it loses its uncomplicated enjoyment of itself and becomes unhappy, even more: it has to become unhappy. I will return to the reason for this “having to” later on. But first, how does Hegel typify this historical experience, which is connected with the origin of Christianity? What does the bitter fruit of Greek comedy consist of? (shrink)

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a careful description of the progressive unfolding of Spirit. Its dialectic is the education of consciousness. There are three stages of unhappy consciousness: external beyond, changing individual, and achieved reconciliation. Being aware of its own mutability, the self yearns for reconciliation, which can only come from the external beyond, from the unchanging. The quest of unhappy consciousness for reconciliation is characterized by the three stages of devotion, sacramental desire and labour, (...) and self-mortification. The self, constituted by what is other, is never able to achieve lasting satisfaction; it desires the unity of self-consciousness. Through the experience of itself, the self comes to a clearer self-awareness and transgresses its own limits. (shrink)

Whitford states in her preface that the limits of Merleau-Ponty's critique of Sartre form the limits of her investigation. Since Merleau-Ponty had little to say about Sartre's later development, except that it brought to light certain contradictions inherent in his ontology, the discussion centers around L'Etre et le néant. In effect, Merleau-Ponty, even after his break with Sartre, never ceased returning to that work in order to challenge some of its premises, speculate upon its implications, and use it as a (...) point of reference in the elaboration of his own phenomenology. Whitford has done a solid job of analyzing this rather one-way dialogue between the two thinkers. Her method is expository and her approach unbias. Unlike Simone de Beauvoir, who defended Sartre against Merleau-Ponty's criticisms by arguing that they were based upon flagrant misinterpretations and misrepresentations, Whitford attempts to expose, with straightforward lucidity, the validity as well as shortcomings of Merleau-Ponty's critique. (shrink)

The anti-metaphysical kind of philosophy known as Deconstruction, associated with the name of Derrida, has done much to trouble the conventional distinctions between philosophy and literature. Its project of "textualizing" metaphysical works in order to expose their rhetorical components and reliance on metaphor, their groundless erection of fundamenta inconcussa, has radically affected, among other things, literary criticism. Even where literary critics dissociate themselves from the deconstructive enterprise, their activity betrays an increasing involvement with issues that once belonged to the domain (...) of philosophy alone. Eugene Kaelin's book on "The Poetic Plight of Samuel Beckett" is an example of this relatively recent and problematical marriage between philosophy and literary analysis. (shrink)

헤겔의 주인과 노예의 변증법은 근대성의 양면성과 현대사회의 이념적 모델을 파악하는데 핵심적인 요소다. 여기서 헤겔이 노예제를 인지하고 그것을 자신의 철학적 구도에 어떻게 수용했으며, 어떻게 관념적으로 재구성했느냐 하는 점은 무수한 논의의 대상이다. 헤겔은 당시의 다른 철학자들과 마찬가지로 계몽주의와 노예제의 공존에서 혼란을 느꼈으며 이를 구체적으로 파악하려고 했던 것으로 보인다. 이러한 상황에서 헤겔은 ‘자유’의 문제를 전면적으로 제기하게 되었으며, 자유의 변증법을 전개함으로써 프랑스 혁명과 계몽주의 전반을 성찰하는 ‘정신’의 변증법을 구상하게 되었다. 주인과 노예의 변증법이 은유를 넘어선 현실적 의미를 획득하게 된 것도 이러한 과정 때문이었다.BR 주인과 노예의 (...) 상호인정의 투쟁은 ‘시민사회’에서 원자적 개인이 무한 경쟁을 통해 자신들의 욕망을 실현하려고 하는 데서 비롯된다. 시민사회의 욕망은 생존하고자 하는 자기유지의 본성에 따라 이루어짐으로써 목숨을 건 투쟁에 이르게 되고, 이를 통해 지배와 예속의 관계가 정립된다. 주인의 지위를 차지한 욕망은 권력욕망 또는 순수욕망의 실현으로, 노예의 지위를 차지한 욕망은 노동욕망 또는 간접욕망(매개된 욕망)의 실현으로 귀결되었다. 이 두 가지 욕망이 근대성의 틀을 유지하는 기본 개념인 셈이다. 이때 주인은 추상적 체계의 원형으로 기능하고, 노예는 근대적 개인의 원형으로서 노동하는 개인의 표상이 된다. 특히 노예는 노동욕망을 가진 개인으로서 생의 자기유지를 위해 불가피한 생산활동과 생산체계에 자의적으로나 타의적으로 편입됨으로써 현대 사회의 대중을 이루게 되었다. 이러한 원형적 개인이 프로테스탄티즘을 내면화하면 비로소 자본주의적 개인이 등장하게 된다.BR 헤겔이 말하는 ‘시민사회’의 욕망의 무한경쟁은 바로 부르주아의 무한경쟁을 말한다. 이는 소유하는 개인의 자유라는 근대성의 인간형을 모델화한 것이다. 여기에 헤겔은 노동하는 개인을 덧붙여 욕망과 노동의 근대적 개인을 완성한다. 욕망과 노동은 상호보완하는 역할을 하는 것이 아니라, 각자의 정신에서 발생하는, 동일성과 비동일성, 또는 동일성과 차이의 동일성을 말한다. 우리가 자본주의적 개인이라 말하는 이념적 존재는 바로 추상적 체계를 대변하는 주인의 의식이겠다. 그러나 구체성을 상실한 추상성의 전개는 윤리적 상황을 비롯한 철학적 상황을 추상성 일변도로 만들었다. 물론 헤겔도 추상성에 대한 전면적인 반성 체계로 주인과 노예의 변증법을 전개했으나 근본적으로는 구체적 추상성이라는 ‘추상적’ 수준에 머물렀다. 이는 헤겔의 윤리학과 인륜성의 전개에서 뚜렷하게 전개된다.BR 또한 세계사의 도정을 역사철학적으로 단절/분절시켜 이해하는 것 또한 계몽의 특징이다. 헤겔이 직접 시도한 ‘철학사’ 강의 또한 서구 중심주의의 산물이며 계몽주의 시기의 산물이다. 철학사 서술에서 그리스 철학을 호출한 것도 이러한 보편주의의 요청 때문이었다. 말하자면 헤겔은 구체와 추상을 통일하는 변증법적 과정을 제시했지만 철학적 관성에 따른 추상성의 요구로 인해 다시 서구 일변도의 근대성과 추상성으로 빠져버렸다. 헤겔 사유의 추상성에 대한 비판적 검토를 통해 식민성과 노예제의 현대적 의미를 다시 살펴보는 계기로 삼아야 할 것이다. 인륜성을 인식론적 견지가 아니라 존재론적 견지에서 다룬다고 하더라도 추상성의 윤리학의 범주를 넘어설 수 없기 때문이다. (shrink)

The purpose of the present work is to analyze Hegel's Unhappy Consciousness in light of the psychoanalytic conceptualization of the relation Subject-Other. The analysis will investigate unhappiness on two counts: its relation to Hegelian dialectic and the possibility of its coming to an end. Examining Hegelian unhappiness through the prism of psychoanalytic thought will allow us to formulate a crucial distinction between the philosophical (Hegelian) and psychoanalytic (Freudian, Lacanian) approaches to unhappiness as they relate to the arch-concepts of (...) knowledge, possibility, negation, and end.The first part of this work will be dedicated to the investigation of these arch-concepts through two main and opposing .. (shrink)

This paper explores the connection between Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of despair and W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness. The concepts have been separately argued to share a root in Hegel’s “Unhappy Consciousness,” and further, each notion in part explains the interaction of a person with their culture. The paper seeks to highlight the importance of culture in interpreting Kierkegaard’s despair, and to do so by including a critique via Du Bois that a person’s existence in a (...) culture of oppression potentially impacts one’s relation to oneself, whether that person is the oppressor or the oppressed. (shrink)

The transition from self-consciousness as the unhappy consciousness to reason as the critique of idealism is among the most important in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Yet this transition is implicit and not readily discernible. This paper investigates whether we can discover and describe any roadblock that the unhappy consciousness is able to knock down, or despite which it is able to maneuver, and so become reason; or whether the unhappy consciousness arrives at an (...) impassable dead end and either manages to create a detour around it or just begins again, unexplained and unexplainably, almost ex nihilo, as reason; or whether, despite its implicitness, there exists a continuous, tenable, and unimpeded path from self-consciousness to reason. (shrink)

The transition from self-consciousness as the unhappy consciousness to reason as the critique of idealism is among the most important in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Yet this transition is implicit and not readily discernible. This paper investigates (1) whether we can discover and describe any roadblock that the unhappy consciousness is able to knock down, or despite which it is able to maneuver, and so become reason; or (2) whether the unhappy consciousness arrives (...) at an impassable dead end and either manages to create a detour around it or just begins again, unexplained and unexplainably, almost ex nihilo, as reason; or (3) whether, despite its implicitness, there exists a continuous, tenable, and unimpeded path from self-consciousness to reason. (shrink)

There is in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit a relatively brief passage at the beginning of Chapter IV, “Self-Consciousness,” which may well be one of the most difficult passages in the whole Hegelian corpus, but which is also of supreme importance for coming to grips with the movement of Hegel’s thought, not only in the Phenomenology but in the entire “system.” It is precisely the difficulty of the passage, it would seem, that explains why it has not been given by (...) commentators an attention proportionate to its significance. So much attention has been focused on the “independence of self-consciousness,” expressed in the sections on “Lordship and Bondage,” “Stoicism and Skepticism” and “The Unhappy Consciousness” — which are, it is true, important and which lend themselves most readily to extended interpretation — that not enough attention has been given to the introductory section, entitled “The Truth of the Certainty of Self,” in which are enunciated the principles which regulate the whole movement of Hegel’s thought. The section might be described as the indispensable transition from those forms of consciousness, which are merely “objective” yet try to give themselves off as authentic knowing, to what Hegel considers to be the only possible way of authenticating the objectivity of human consciousness, i.e., the self, which claims to know, progressively coming to know itself, a self-knowing which will be knowing at all only if it culminates in “absolute knowing.” Only in the light of this section will the preface be intelligible; only in its light will the whole of the Phenomenology hang together. (shrink)

One of the greatest challenges of consciousness research is to understand the relationship between consciousness and its implementing substrate. Current research into the neural correlates of consciousness regards the biological brain as being this substrate, but largely fails to clarify the nature of the brain-consciousness connection. A popular approach within this research is to construe brain-consciousness correlations in causal terms: the neural correlates of consciousness are the causes of states of consciousness. After introducing (...) the notion of the neural correlate of consciousness, we argue (in section 2) that this causal strategy is misguided. It implicitly involves an undesirable dualism of matter and mind and should thus be avoided. A non-causal account of the brain-mind correlations is to be preferred. We favor the theory of the identity of mind and brain, according to which states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with their neural correlates. Research into the neural correlates of consciousness and the theory of identity (in the philosophy of mind) are two major research paradigms that hitherto have had very little mutual contact. We aim to demonstrate that they can enrich each other. This is the task of the third part of the paper in which we show that the identity theory must work with a suitably defined concept of type. Surprisingly, neither philosophers nor neuroscientists have taken much care in defining this central concept; more often than not, the term is used only implicitly and vaguely. We attempt to open a debate on this subject and remedy this unhappy state of affairs, proposing a tentative hierarchical classification of phenomenal and neurophysiological types, spanning multiple levels of varying degrees of generality. The fourth part of the paper compares the theory of identity with other prominent conceptions of the mind-body connection. We conclude by stressing that scientists working on consciousness should engage more with metaphysical issues concerning the relation of brain processes and states of consciousness. Without this, the ultimate goals of consciousness research can hardly be fulfilled. (shrink)

This chapter explores Simone de Beauvoir's relation to Hegel's philosophy beyond her adaptation of the master and slave dialectic to the question of woman's historical relation to man. It focuses on her reading of the Hegelian Absolute, which underlies her rejection of the patriarchal representation of the female alterity as absolute, as manifested in the eternal myth of the feminine. Through a survey of Simone de Beauvoir's early intellectual history, it shows that the idea of the Absolute is more important (...) for Simone de Beauvoir than it is generally acknowledged in the philosophical literature on her. She interprets the Absolute as the idea of freedom, which unfolds itself in historical reality, and from which women cannot be excluded as persons. On personalist grounds, she argues that women's acquisition of political and moral status as persons is a necessary implication of the Absolute, if the Absolute has to overcome the unhappy consciousness the consciousness falls into in patriarchal myths. (shrink)

The article is aimed at comprehending the perception of J. Wahl’s philosophy in Russia. The central role is assigned to the notion of “unhappy consciousness” in Hegel’s “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and to the interpretation of this notion in J. Wahl’s philosophy. The analysis of Russian–language studies dealing with his philosophy allows to outline two primary strands of engagement with it: within the framework of “French Neo–Hegelianism”, and within the framework of existentialism. Th e need to renounce this (...) established characteristic of his philosophy is shown. Two arguments are stated in favour of this, conceptual and substantial. As for the former, the restriction of J. Wahl’s philosophy to the two aforementioned frameworks narrows the real horizons of his research. For the latter, the “unhappy consciousness” in J. Wahl’s philosophy besides the tragic–religious interpretation of Hegel’s ideas also contains pluralistic criticism of Hegel’s “monism” as a part of J. Wahl’s own philosophical project of “metaphysical empiricism”. It is argued that treating the entire corpus of J. Wahl’s writings will allow for a more thorough insight into the history of 20th century French philosophy, in particular “French Neo–Hegelianism” and the Franco-German debates concerning phenomenology and existentialism. (shrink)

Robert Pippin reviews Slavoj Žižek’s Less than Nothing, a serious attempt to re-actualize Hegel in the light of Lacanian metapsychology. But does Žižek’s attempt to think Hegel with Lacan produce, as Žižek hopes, a political figuration adequate to the present? Or does it land us rather in the Hegelian zoo, along with such well-known specimens as the Beautiful Soul, the Unhappy Consciousness, and The Knight of Virtue?

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is probably his most famous work. First published in 1807, it has exercised considerable influence on subsequent thinkers from Feuerbach and Marx to Heidegger, Kojève, Adorno and Derrida. The book contains many memorable analyses of, for example, the master / slave dialectic, the unhappy consciousness, Sophocles' Antigone and the French Revolution and is one of the most important works in the Western philosophical tradition. It is, however, a difficult and challenging book and needs to (...) be studied together with a clear and accessible secondary text. Stephen Houlgate's Reader's Guide offers guidance on: Philosophical and historical context Key themes Reading the textReception and influence Further reading. (shrink)

Introduction: Critical realism, hegelian dialectic and the problems of philosophy preliminary considerations -- Objectives of the book -- Dialectic : an initial orientation -- Negation -- Four degrees of critical realism -- Prima facie objections to critical realism -- On the sources and general character of the hegelian dialectic -- On the immanent critique and limitations of the hegelian dialectic -- The fine structure of the hegelian dialectic -- Dialectic : the logic of absence, arguments, themes, perspectives, configurations -- Absence (...) -- Emergence -- Contradiction I : Hegel and Marx -- Contradiction II : misunderstandings -- On the materialist diffraction of dialectic -- Dialectical arguments and the unholy trinity -- Dialectical motifs : tina formation, mediation, concrete universality, etc -- On the generalized theory of the dialectical remark, the failure of detachment, and the presence of the past -- Dialectical critical naturalism -- Towards a real definition of dialectic -- Dialectical critical realism and the dialectic of freedom -- Ontology -- The dialectic of truth -- On the emergence and derivability of dialecticized transcendental realism -- 1m realism : non-identity -- 2e realism : negativity -- Space, time and tense -- Social science, explanatory critique, emancipatory axiology -- 3l realism : totality -- 4d realism : agency -- The dialectic of desire to freedom -- Dialectical critical realism and the dialectics of critical realism -- Metacritical dialectics : irrealism and its consequences -- Irrealism -- The problems of philosophy and their resolution -- Contradictions of the critical philosophy -- Dilemmas of the beautiful soul and the unhappy consciousness -- Master and slave : from dialectics of reconciliation to dialectics of liberation -- The metacritique of the hegelian dialectic -- Marxian dialectic i: the rational kernel in the mystical shell -- Marxian dialectic ii: the mystical shell in the rational kernel -- Metacritical dialectics : philosophical ideologies, their sublation and explanation -- The consequences of irrealism -- Diffracted and retotalized dialectics -- Dialectic as the pulse of freedom. (shrink)

This paper examines how Kant's Copernican shift in philosophy had a decisive influence on philosophical religious thought; reflection on the nature of subjectivity shaped how the question of God was approached and understood. I examine three interrelated issues at the forefront of nineteenth and twentieth-century thought on subjectivity and the problem of God. These are a) the ontological nature of subjectivity and what it reveals about the conditions of possibility of a subject's relation to the Absolute; b) interiority and subjectivity (...) with respect to the subject's relation to God, and c) the theme of the "unhappy consciousness" and how its development led to important attacks on theism. I look at these issues as they were worked out by F. Schleiermacher, G.W.F Hegel, S. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, P. Tillich, and K. Rahner. (shrink)

Introduction -- Roots, rootlessness, and fin de siècle France -- Stranger and self: Sartre's Jew -- Anti-Semite and Jew -- Dialectical history, unhappy consciousness, and the Messiah -- The ethics of uprootedness: Emmanuel Levinas's postwar project -- Literary unrest: Maurice Blanchot's rewriting of Levinas --"The Last of the Jews": Jacques Derrida and the case of the figure -- The cut -- The exemplar -- Conclusion.

Hegel's _Phenomenology of Spirit_, his first major work, is one of the classics of Western philosophy. Although previous translations, in whole or in part, have made the text available in English, they are for various reasons not fully adequate, especially for use in teaching undergraduates. Howard Kainz has therefore undertaken to provide his own translation of major selections from the work, which are tied together by summaries of the parts not translated so as to provide the reader with a sense (...) of the whole. The translated selections include the Introduction, Chapter I on Sensory-Certainty, the sections from Chapter IV on Self-Consciousness, the Master-Slave dialectic, and the Unhappy Consciousness, the introductory section to Chapter V on Reason, the sections in Chapter VI on Ethical Action, Absolute Liberty, and Shiftiness and the central argument of Chapter VIII on Absolute Knowledge. The translation is based on the 1980 "Akademie" edition of the _Phänomenologie des Geistes_, edited by Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Reinhard Heede, and the German original is printed alongside the English translation in parallel columns. This edition includes some of the editorial devices used by De Negri in his Italian translation and Hippolyte in his French translation—namely, the use of editorial subdivisions and subtitles to indicate major transitions in the text, plus commentary and cross-references by way of footnotes. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

The figure of the unhappy consciousness animates Hegel’s philosophical treatment of religion. Consciousness despairs and is unhappy because it cannot deal with the demands of its existence. Human beings are by their very nature agents who seek out the truth, yet the anguished plight of the unhappy consciousness consists in the fact that truth cannot be had; at this stage of the dialectic, truth and authority seem to be beyond human consciousness. “What makes (...) the unhappy consciousness unhappy is that, in its thinking about itself and the ultimate, it cannot get over an asymmetry that always must exceed its own self-mediation”. For Hegel, religion is humankind’s creative attempt to overcome this unfulfilled longing for truth. Religion is a reflective practice in which representational forms are used to make the divine, the seat of universal value and authority, present to human thinking. Thus for Hegel, fully to overcome despair religion must disavow the ontological asymmetry mentioned by Desmond, thereby implicitly acknowledging that humanity and divinity are but two sides of the same coin. (shrink)

This paper offers a reading of Todd Solondz Happiness (1998) in relation to Lacan’s notion of sexual difference. It argues that both the film and theorist present a ‘logic’ of sexuality and sexual difference which seems to owe much to Hegel’s master-slave dialectic but that in the end owes more to Kojève’s (mis)reading than to Hegel himself. It outlines the usefulness of an expanded notion of the dialectic to understand sexual difference through the inclusion of the Hegelian figures of the (...) stoic, the sceptic and the unhappy consciousness. It also suggest that the priority of identity and non-identity to dialectic logic has been obscured by this focus on the master-slave relationship and that an analysis of the role of the autoerotic develops modes of sexual similarity and difference that cuts across heteronormative gender lines. The anxiety both Lacan and the film seem to suffer with regard to autoerotic is then used to critique their sexual conservatism and their prescriptive rather than descriptive representation of sexual relationships. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to expose a misrepresentation of Jean-Luc Nancy’s ideas on community in the secondary literature. I argue that discussions of Nancy’s work have failed to recognize a transformation that has occurred in his later thought, which distances him from Jacques Derrida. I propose that Nancy’s later work points the way beyond the “persistence of unhappy consciousness” in deconstruction through allowing for the possibility of the creation of a world alternative to globalization. Recognition of (...) this transformation is suggestive for how Nancy’s theoretical framework might be employed in analyses of recent resistance movements. (shrink)

The article analyzes the reception of Hegel’s philosophy in feminist theory on the example of the concepts of Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Judith Butler. The first part of the article examines Hegel’s teaching on the role of women in the family, identifies the place of the feminine in Hegel’s system and analyzes the Hegelian interpretation of Sophocle’s “Antigone”. The second part of the article presents an interpretation of Si­mone de Beauvoir. I affirm that the oppositions “woman – man” (...) and “the Other – I” are heirs to the “slave – master” opposition. The third part of the article discusses Irigaray’s in­terpretation of Hegel’s Antigone. It is argued that Antigone in Irigaray’s view goes be­yond the dialectic of slave and master, and therefore becomes a symbol of anti-woman. The fourth part of the article examines the paradox of bodily submission during the transi­tion to the Unhappy Consciousness by Judith Butler. The historical and philosophical study of influence is accompanied by a conceptual analysis of the problems that arise in the inter­pretation of feminist versions of the slave – master dialectic. At the end of the article, I briefly formulate the problems identified during the study and present possible solutions. (shrink)

The struggle for self-consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit is fraught with false achievements. In sense-certainty, consciousness is aware of itself as consciousness of an object, but this awareness of self is thoroughly mediated by the object, which remains the essential element in the relation until this view collapses with the untenability of the theory of force. As self-certainty, consciousness then becomes immediately aware of itself, and so seems to have achieved real self-consciousness. But such (...) is not the case, since self-consciousness requires the recognition of others; certainty of self must be raised to the level of truth. This is easier said than done. The ensuing dialectical passage from the life-and-death struggle through the unhappy consciousness seems to end in failure - at least up until the very end, when, out of despair, the individuals sacrifice their sense of self only to regain it through the action of the mediating counselor. In renouncing their one-sided claims to self-consciousness, the alienated consciousnesses who confess their misery gain precisely what had seemed irredeemably lost just a moment before. It is a dialectical irony that, though the struggle for recognition began with the individuals’ willingness to risk everything for the sake of self, they achieve genuine self-recognition only when they are willing to risk their sense of self for the sake of everything else. (shrink)

This highly original history of ideas considers the impact of Hegel on French philosophy from the 1920s to the present. As Baugh's lucid narrative makes clear, Hegel's influence on French philosophy has been profound, and can be traced through all the major intellectual movements and thinkers in France throughout the 20th Century from Jean Wahl, Sartre, and Bataille to Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida. Baugh focuses on Hegel's idea of the "unhappy consciousness," and provides a bold new account of (...) Hegel's early reception in French intellectual history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Betrayal of Substance: Death, Literature, and Sexual Difference in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” by Mary C. RawlinsonShannon Hoff (bio)Mary C. Rawlinson, The Betrayal of Substance: Death, Literature, and Sexual Difference in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” New York: University Press, 2021, 215 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-19905-6Mary rawlinson shows that to be genuinely receptive to a philosophical text one must be creative, and she brings the Phenomenology of Spirit to (...) life with her reading. It speaks of and to experience, and she makes it resound as such, matching its aptitude with her own rich descriptions of the character of experience. The reader is bound to learn a lot from her careful and vivid analyses of consciousness, self-consciousness, reason, and spirit, where she displays her power to digest a text that is almost impossibly unwieldy. Both students and scholars of Hegel’s philosophy will find satisfaction here: her book will spark understanding and excitement in inexperienced readers and hone approaches to complex issues of interpretation in experienced ones.Rawlinson opens The Betrayal of Substance with the provocative thesis that Hegel “writes with both hands” (xv). On the one hand, he affirms the abundance of difference in life by insisting on the material realization of the abstract concept, on the life of the singleton (her translation of das Einzelne) as the site of this realization, and on the difference intrinsic to identities (xiii). On the other hand, she says, he aims at a science of logic beyond phenomenology, where singularity has been erased and difference comprehended, such that “nothing is other to it”; this is “an unrelenting insistence on an absolute [End Page 225] detachment from life” (53). Rawlinson tracks this severance of concept and life throughout the Phenomenology: in the abandonment of sensuousness in sense-certainty; in the thing’s dissolution in perception; in “the ‘loss of reality’ of the play of forces”; in the struggle to the death, where self-consciousness “risks life absolutely” (66); in stoicism and skepticism, which “install an absolute difference between life and thought” (47). The life of the singleton is severed from the concept by the production (on the part of the unhappy consciousness) of “ethics, culture, morality, and religion as institutional infrastructures sustaining the self-transcendence of the singleton in the ‘we’ of a community” (66); by reason’s erasure of singularity in its accomplishment of a universal consciousness (68); by perpetual reference to the Bacchanalian revel, that “frenzy of the group that survives [the singleton’s] collapse” (xxx). (Indeed, one of the book’s contributions is its illumination of the prevalence of the image of the revel in Hegel’s text.)In response, Rawlinson asserts the need for a double reading of this double writing: (1) to affirm the capacious narrative that dislodges “ready-made abstractions” and engages the “thick richness of life,” because that is where the truth lies (xxix–xxx); and (2) to oppose Hegel’s “completion” of the phenomenological project and the departure from it to logic, and with it the erasure of the singleton. The book reflects the style of this double reading at each turn, in turns rebellious and appreciative, at ease with its own ambiguity toward Hegel. Rawlinson produces three central pieces of evidence for her critique, three “dangling threads [that] refuse to be woven into the completed fabric of absolute knowing[:] sexual difference, the mortality of the singleton,... and the differences of style in art and literature” (xv). Her critique of Hegel’s abandonment of life sets in relief the critical centrality of Hegel’s identification of maternal love as “the most dangerous force with which the state must contend” (68): this love is a clear instance of affirmation of the singleton over the “we” in which it is submerged. Finally, Rawlinson opposes the idea that truth is “the fully realized series of shapes of knowing and figures of truth” in which “science will have been the truth of phenomenology” with the hypothesis instead that “phenomenology will prove to have been the truth of science” (xliv).Itself beginning several times, The Betrayal of Substance thematizes Hegel’s multiple beginnings and the insight ref lected thereby... (shrink)

Stemming from a reading of Hegel’s account of the struggle for recognition in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Kojève argued that death is the central notion of Hegel’s philosophy. I will discuss several themes in relation to this claim of Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel, namely the themes of freedom, individuality, and historicity. I will also discuss Kojève’s reading that Hegel rejects both all conceptions of the afterlife, and too the belief in the afterlife as a manifestation of the “unhappy (...) class='Hi'>consciousness”. I will point out flaws of Kojève’s interpretation throughout. (shrink)

Stemming from a reading of Hegel’s account of the struggle for recognition in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Kojève argued that death is the central notion of Hegel’s philosophy. I will discuss several themes in relation to this claim of Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel, namely the themes of freedom, individuality, and historicity. I will also discuss Kojève’s reading that Hegel rejects both all conceptions of the afterlife, and too the belief in the afterlife as a manifestation of the “unhappy (...) class='Hi'>consciousness”. I will point out flaws of Kojève’s interpretation throughout. (shrink)

Although this conference, held at Oxford on September 6–7, 1993, did not completely fulfil the ambitions of its subtitle, it nonetheless provided a stimulating forum for the presentation and exchange of ideas on various topics arising from Hegel’s Phenomenology. In the first paper, “Rupture, Closure, and Dialectic,” Joseph Flay dealt with the Phenomenology in its role as an introduction or beginning to the system. David Duquette then discussed the master/slave dialectic and the political significance of Hegel’s concept of recognition in (...) the Phenomenology. Following this, Jay Bernstein focussed on Hegel’s treatment of conscience and guilt, and related this to his views of ethical action, arguing that Hegel leaves room for moral autonomy and hence tragic suffering even within his conception of Sittlichkeit. In the fourth paper, “The Presence of Aristotle in Hegel’s Phenomenology,” Nicholas Walker analyzed the relation between Hegel and Aristotle, and the complexities of the latter’s influence on the Phenomenology. H.S. Harris then offered a sketch of his own view of the Phenomenology in “Let’s Not ‘Leave out the Ethical’: A ‘Conscientious’ Response to S.K.”, starting from a discussion of Hegel’s theory of truth and how this shapes the structure of this work. Finally, in “The ‘Unhappy Consciousness’ and Conscious Unhappiness,” Simon Jarvis examined Adorno’s critique of Hegel, and emphasized the continuing importance and value of this critique for any truly living contemporary Hegelianism. (shrink)

Although this conference, held at Oxford on September 6–7, 1993, did not completely fulfil the ambitions of its subtitle, it nonetheless provided a stimulating forum for the presentation and exchange of ideas on various topics arising from Hegel’s Phenomenology. In the first paper, “Rupture, Closure, and Dialectic,” Joseph Flay dealt with the Phenomenology in its role as an introduction or beginning to the system. David Duquette then discussed the master/slave dialectic and the political significance of Hegel’s concept of recognition in (...) the Phenomenology. Following this, Jay Bernstein focussed on Hegel’s treatment of conscience and guilt, and related this to his views of ethical action, arguing that Hegel leaves room for moral autonomy and hence tragic suffering even within his conception of Sittlichkeit. In the fourth paper, “The Presence of Aristotle in Hegel’s Phenomenology,” Nicholas Walker analyzed the relation between Hegel and Aristotle, and the complexities of the latter’s influence on the Phenomenology. H.S. Harris then offered a sketch of his own view of the Phenomenology in “Let’s Not ‘Leave out the Ethical’: A ‘Conscientious’ Response to S.K.”, starting from a discussion of Hegel’s theory of truth and how this shapes the structure of this work. Finally, in “The ‘Unhappy Consciousness’ and Conscious Unhappiness,” Simon Jarvis examined Adorno’s critique of Hegel, and emphasized the continuing importance and value of this critique for any truly living contemporary Hegelianism. (shrink)

The recent translation of Emmanuel Levinas’s essay On Escape complicates our view of his relationship to Hegel, and reopens the ontological question of escape. The impetus for Levinas’s essay was National Socialism’s effort to reduce subjectivity to being qua biologistic. To resist this, Levinas enlists idealism as an ally. He affirms the idealist subject’s effort to escape being, but denies that it makes good its escape. I challenge this denial by comparing Levinas’s phenomenology of escape with Hegel’s phenomenology of (...) class='Hi'>unhappy consciousness, paying special attention to the themes of shame and the will to escape. The similarity between treatments leads me to suggest that the urge to escape emerges at least as early as medieval Christianity, thus predating the historical predicament of mid-1930s European Jewry. I conclude by interpreting space travel and the posthuman figure of the cyborg as signs that escape continues asan object of human aspiration. (shrink)