Hegelian Metaphysics Research Articles

Hegelian Metaphysics, by Robert Stern.

At first glance the title of Robert Stern's book, Hegelian Metaphysics, sounds rather bold. It gives rise to the expectation that what one will find here is an informed and unbiased assessment of what is contained in the ultimate formulation of Hegel's metaphysics, that is, his Science of Logic. And because this Science of Logic has proved to be one of the most inaccessible works in the philosophical literature, every effort to deal with it with the intention of elucidating its obscure (or perhaps only hidden) message has to be acknowledged as a bold enterprise. However, already a short look at the table of contents shows that the title Hegelian Metaphysics is misapprehended if read as meaning Hegel's Metaphysics. The title is meant to characterize a much more modest project. It is an endeavor to explore in the face of various criticisms the plausibility of a number of views Hegel allegedly held and to defend some of these views against certain contemporary and historical misconceptions. The views under discussion are indeed metaphysical in that they include Hegel's position with regard to the nature of individuality, the structure of reality, the ontological status of concepts, and the relation between thinking and being as well as his perspective on truth and rationality. This impressively broad spectrum of topics is dealt with in a relatively unconnected way which is presumably due to the fact that the book is a collection of essays all of which have already been published between 1993 and 2009. The book suffers a little from a defect which is quite characteristic of many collections of essays by one and the same author: it is a bit repetitive. This is not that surprising given the fact that the individual essays, though dealing with similar subjects, were written for different occasions. However, one wonders whether these repetitions are really necessary.

Mou Zongsan, Hegel, and Kant: The Quest for Confucian Modernity

This essay discusses the New Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan (1909–1995), who in a number of highly influential writings in the 1970s attempted a kind of Confucian Aufhebung of Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy. Section 1 analyzes Mou's hybrid terminology and demonstrates how his use of Kantian concepts such as intellectual intuition (zhi de zhijue) and autonomy (zi lu) significantly altered the meaning of these terms without making the differences explicit. By relating this particular brand of Kantian Confucianism to the Chinese discourse on modernization—in which New Confucians took a stand against May Fourth iconoclasm—section 2 brings to light the inner strategic logic of Mou Zongsan's approach, namely a two-step argument for both the possibility and the necessity of Confucian Modernity. The concluding third section traces Mou's strategic appropriation of Kantian philosophy to his brief but momentous encounter with Hegel's metaphysics of history in the 1950s. Although Mou Zongsan himself never fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Hegel, the essay demonstrates that it was Hegel who first provided Mou with an understanding of how to enlist Kant's services in his quest for Confucian Modernity.

El último feminismo: hacia la subversión de la diferencia

This article intends to think a feminist theory in the speculative context that starts with the Hegelian metaphysics and continues with the French post-Hegelianism of J. Derrida, G. Deleuze and M. Foucault among others. The great challenge of these authors –and with them the great challenge of our time– consists in deconstructing the binary logic which has dominated western thought and culture, in order to overcome the political and social exclusion promoted by it. In this context lies the femininity-masculinity dualism, whose overcoming we prefer to think as the intrinsic implication of a new relational and dynamic, multiple and concrete identity.

Hegel's Metaphysics: Changing the Debate

AbstractThere are two general approaches to Hegel's theoretical philosophy which are broadly popular in recent work. Debate between them is often characterized, by both sides, as a dispute between those favoring a more traditional “metaphysical” approach and those favoring a newer “non‐metaphysical” approach. But I argue that the most important and compelling points made by both sides are actually independent of the idea of a “non‐metaphysical” interpretation of Hegel, which is itself simply unconvincing. The most promising directions for future research, for those on both sides of recent debates, will require recognizing that Hegel's theoretical philosophy includes a metaphysics, and engaging new debates about the specific character of that metaphysics.

Reading: Derrida in Hegel's Understanding

AbstractHegel's dialectic "Consciousness," Part A from the Phenomenology of Spirit, is interpreted in light of the concept of "reading." The logic of reading is especially helpful for interpreting the often misunderstood dialectic of understanding, as that is described in chapter 3 of the Phenomenology, "Force and Understanding: Appearance and the Supersensible World." Hegel's concept of "the Inverted World" in particular is clarified, and from it Hegel's notion of originary difference is developed. Derrida's notion of "differance" is used to illuminate Hegel's use of difference and to interpret the Hegelian metaphysics that is developed in "Force and Understanding" and in the opening moves of Hegel's Science of Logic. It is argued that the philosophical projects of Hegel and Derrida are ultimately indistinguishable.

The reflexive project: reconstructing the moral agent

In the 17th century, ‘reflexivity’ was coined as a new term for introspection and self-awareness. It thus was poised to serve the instrumental function of combating skepticism by asserting a knowing self. In this Cartesian paradigm, introspection ends in an entity of self-identity. An alternate interpretation recognized how an infinite regress of reflexivity would render ‘the self’ elusive, if not unknowable. Reflexivity in this latter mode was rediscovered by post-Kantian philosophers, most notably Hegel, who defined the self in its self-reflective encounter with an other, and whose full articulation would occur at the final culmination of Reason's evolution. In the rising tide of 19th-century individualism, Emerson and Kierkegaard formulated constructions both in debt to, and in opposition against, Hegelian metaphysics. For each, although employing distinct strategies of self-consciousness, ‘the self’ reached its apogee through divine encounter. Characterized by personal responsibility and individual choice, their philosophies would later be subsumed by secular existentialists committed to defining moral individualism and asserting the possibilities for human freedom and selfauthentication.

Rationality, Anthropomorphism, and Hegel's Metaphysics of Nature: Remarks on Alison Stone's Petrified Intelligence

Rationality, Anthropomorphism, and Hegel's Metaphysics of Nature: Remarks on Alison Stone's <i>Petrified Intelligence</i>

Absolute Subjectivity: Kierkegaard and the Question of Onto-Theo-Egology

Although Kierkegaard's authorship mainly elaborates the structures of existential subjectivity, his work does presuppose certain metaphysical commitments. To be exact, Kierkegaard appropriates, from German idealism, the concept of the absolute, or being-in-and-for-itself. The absolute is the object of a first philosophy or metaphysics. Further, Kierkegaard follows German idealism in positing the absolute as pure or infinite As infinite subjectivity, the absolute signifies God. On the surface, then, it looks as though Kierkegaard's existentialism presupposes what Heidegger called the ontotheological constitution of metaphysics.1 In the following want to explore the extent to which this is the case. Looking at Kierkegaard's relation to German idealism-Fichte and Hegel in particular-I will argue that Kierkegaard's appropriation of the metaphysics of absolute subjectivity operates within a more general movement of reversal. For Kierkegaard absolute subjectivity is no longer ground but, anarchically, that which interrupts grounding. Thus the would like to raise is whether in thinking the absolute as infinite subjectivity Kierkegaard reinscribes his thinking, at a very fundamental point, within the horizon of the metaphysics of subjectivity, i.e., the speculative metaphysics, that he otherwise contests. The impetus behind this is a critique of Kierkegaard by Heidegger that suggests Kierkegaard's metaphysical naivete. In a typical passage Heidegger writes: By way of Hegelian metaphysics, Kierkegaard remains everywhere philosophically entangled, on the one hand in a dogmatic Aristoteleanism that is completely on par with medieval scholasticism, and on the other in the subjectivity of German idealism. No discerning mind would deny the stimuli produced by Kierkegaard's thought that prompted us to give renewed attention to the existential. But about the question-the essential nature of Being-Kierkegaard has nothing whatever to say.2 Kierkegaard's thought, in other words, is insufficiently radical. However much he would like to contest idealism, he remains trapped within its basic horizon: the metaphysics of Attempting to surmount Hegel without engaging the decisive question of metaphysics, i.e., the of the meaning of being, Kierkegaard all the more profoundly falls under Hegel's sway.3 With Heidegger in mind, will consider some late texts from Kierkegaard's Papirer, where he formulates in an explicit way a concept of infinite or absolute These entries are extremely important for gauging Kierkegaard's relation to speculative metaphysics, and in particular the metaphysics of They show without that Kierkegaard reflected upon the metaphysical presuppositions of his thought and they articulate, as will argue, a standpoint incommensurable with the metaphysics of However, it will be useful to make more precise the meaning of the modern metaphysics of subjectivity. According to Heidegger, idealist metaphysics, whose exemplary instance is Hegel, is summarized by the term onto-theo-ego-logy.4 This complex term links together ontotheology, which Heidegger identifies with metaphysics in its broadest sense, with egology, which refers to the specifically element. An egological interpretation of being grasps subjectivity, the I as such, as the ground and principle of what is. Within the ego, taken as ground, thought and being are identical. Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre is the effort to carry through this interpretation, which brackets transcendence, in a rigorous way. Hegel's thought grafts the egological back into the ontotheological. Ontotheology signifies for Heidegger a certain unclarified conflation, foundational for metaphysics as such, between the Being of beings (ontos) and a being (theos). The result of linking ontotheology and egology is a certain interpretation of the meaning of being according to which the latter presents itself as what can be known (logos) in a threefold way: in general (ontology), in terms of its paradigmatic or highest instance (theology), and as that which is posited by the subject (egology). …

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America • Karl Popper—The Formative Years, 1902–1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America • Karl Popper—The Formative Years, 1902–1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna

La manière est le poème même

Manner is the poem itself. Manner, as a critical concept sitll valued by Diderot is eliminated during the 19 th century by a Hegelian metaphysics of aesthetics seeking an objectified subjectivity — and not signs of an individual subject, repeating itself. Yet, reconceptualised as the mark of the unknown, understood as what of poetic utterance has not yet become language but might, manner is dialectically what literature passes on of itself into collective reality.

History and the Paradoxes of Metaphysics in Dantons Tod

History and the Paradoxes of Metaphysics in Dantons Tod is the first in-depth analysis exploring the dynamic relationship between Hegelian metaphysics and Georg Buechner's literary masterpiece. This study illuminates the fascinating paradoxes emerging from Buechner's portrayal of the collision of historical reality with the monumental concept of freedom developed in the monistic idealism of Hegel. It also brings to light much-neglected interconnections between Buechner's Hegelian reading of Spinoza and his theories on nature and history.

Sumner on Natural Rights

I am pleased to participate in this joint Critical Notice, in part because it is an opportunity to pay a debt of gratitude. Thirteen years ago, as a Toronto undergraduate with interests in things like Hegelian metaphysics, I enrolled in an ethics seminar with Wayne Sumner. I had not done any ethics before, and took this course largely because I thought I ought to. But it turned out to be the best course of my undergraduate career, and permanently changed my philosophical interests. Having learned what I did in the seminar I have been doing ethics ever since—so, thank you, Wayne.

Who is Fooled by the "Cunning of Reason"?

To Hegel's supporters, the of reason is in various ways a source of embarrassment. In my view, some reasons for this embarrassment are less enlightening than others. What enlightens me least is the belief evinced by some Hegel interpreters that there is no coherent model of how the of reason might work. A foray into Hegelian metaphysics enables us to dismiss these difficulties. In doing so, we free ourselves to evaluate Hegel's theory in terms of a larger problem, which has been with us at least since the Enlightenment.1 The issue I have in mind is whether one is obliged or even able to invoke history in support of progressive politics. That is, no matter what I recommend as progress, am I not obligated to show that it is humanly achievable? If so, should I not expect to find evidence for its achievability somewhere in the historical record? Hegel did not answer these questions consistently, and the deeper one delves into the metaphysics behind the cunning of reason, the clearer this inconsistency becomes.

Karl Mannheim and Conservatism: The Ancestry of Historical Thinking

The recently discovered full text of Karl Mannheim's Habilitationsschrift on conservatism documents the interaction between his empirical and philosophical interests. While his philosophical interests at the time of writing (1925) centered on philosophy of history as ground for substantive social theory, following the methodological lead of Luk6cs, Conservatism is Weberian in its theoretical design. Mannheim employs the empirical approach of the new academic sociology to establish findings which link a politically radical philosophy of history to conservative thought while suspending his own judgment concerning an adequate integration between them. Although he indicates that Hegel's conception of theory anticipates the synthesis required, he finds that this conception presupposes metaphysical or sociological premises he cannot accept. He nevertheless also distances himself from the disillusioned realism of Weber, and leaves open the project offinding a functional equivalent for Hegel's metaphysics or Lukacs' Marxist economist.

Hegel's Metaphysics and the Problem of Contradiction

Hegel's Metaphysics and the Problem of Contradiction

Predication and Hegel's Metaphysics

Predication and Hegel's Metaphysics

"Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen: The Defense of Reason in Descartes's Meditations," by Harry G. Frankfurt; and "An Introduction to Hegel's Metaphysics," by Ivan Soll

"Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen: The Defense of Reason in Descartes's Meditations," by Harry G. Frankfurt; and "An Introduction to Hegel's Metaphysics," by Ivan Soll

Political Freedom and Hegelian Metaphysics

Political Freedom and Hegelian Metaphysics