Hegel's Treatment Research Articles

Hegel's Critique of Kantian Practical Reason

While many philosophers have found Hegel's critique of Kantian ethics to be interesting in certain respects, overall most tend to find it rather shallow and to think that Hegel either misunderstands Kant's thought or has a rather crude understanding of it. For example, in examining the last two sections of Chapter V of the Phenomenology— ‘Reason as Lawgiver’ and ‘Reason as Testing Laws’ (where we get an extended critique of the categorical imperative)- Lauer finds Hegel's treatment to be truncated and inadequate. The only trouble, though, is that like most other readers of the Phenomenology, Lauer does not recognize that Hegel had been examining and criticizing Kantian ethics throughout a much greater part of—indeed, more than half of—Chapter V. Once we do understand this, I think we must concede that Hegel's treatment is hardly truncated and that it cannot be described as shallow or inadequate. I will try to show that Hegel demonstrates a rather sophisticated understanding of, and gives a serious and thorough critique of, Kantian practical reason.

Self-consciousness, the other and Hegel's dialectic of recognition

This article examines Hegel's treatment of self-consciousness in light of the contemporary problem of the other. It argues that Hegel tries to subvert the Kantian opposition between theoretical and practical reason and tries to establish a form of idealism that can avoid solipsism. All of this requires that Hegel get beyond the Kantian concept of the object - or the other. Hegel attempts to establish an other that is not marginalized, dominated, or negated. What he gives us is a valuable alternative to post modernism, which attempts instead to deconstruct or dissolve the other.

Charles S. Peirce's Evolutionary Philosophy (review)

682 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:4 OCTOBER t994 the Aristotelian project;5 and (3) Hegel as a philosopher of language, the philosopher who, anticipating Davidson's betterment of Quine's project, did that project better still. This third Hegel is McCumber's. To make his case, McCumber does not attempt what a thoroughgoing argument for his interpretation--clearly impossible in a book of this length--would entail: a consecutive study of the "moments" in Hegel's system. Instead he gives a sequence of four "analyses" of putatively Hegelian positions. They are: (t) "Truth as Systematicity," in which he cogendy argues that Hegel is not an "assertionist," that is, one for whom assertables, sentences or propositions, rather than, e.g., names, are the elementary units for systematizing; (2) "Dialectics," in which, deploying an elaborate symbolism for "moves" (that are mentioned but never used by McCumber)--for "conjunction," "disjunction," "explication," "abbreviation," "reflection," "counter'reflection," "full mediation ," "partial mediation," "transition," "immediation," and "introduction" (13233 )--he argues that"the dialectic moves by regrouping markers" (132), but in a way that seems completely arbitrary. This arbitrariness is then allegedly accounted for in (3) "A Philosophy of Words," in which he engages in his most intensive Auseinandersazung with a Hegelian text (Encyc/oped/aw167 451-64, "Die Vorstellung," and its transition to w167 46568 , "Das Denken"). Here he invokes Hegel's much-discussede elimination (in w463) of the dimension of Bedeutung (meaning) to legitimate the free "regrouping of markers" required by what he again and again hails as the most significant accomplishment of his book, his rewriting of, and therewith improvement upon, Hegel's "systematicdialectics." The final stage of his argument for Hegel as a philosopher of language is given in (4) "The Dynamics of Philosophical Expression," in which he provides a sustained commentar ), on Hegel's treatment of "Das Objekt" (Encyc/oped/a w167 194-212). Though this reviewer did not find McCumber's reinterpretation of Hegel as a philosopher of language compelling, the book will nevertheless commend itself to the attention of Hegel scholars for its superior erudition and for its systematic elimination of spurious contenders to the position of determining Hegel's systematic project. K. R. Dovz Purchase College, The State University of New York Carl R. Hausman. Charles S. Peirce's Evolutionary Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii + 23o. Cloth, $49.95This is an excellent study of a philosopher whose originality, sophistication, and scope entide him to be considered nothing short of first-rank. But a first-hand and finegrained understanding of his wridngs (beyond several widely known essays such as sWell known representatives of this interpretation include NicolaiHartmann, G. R. G. Mure, J. Glenn Gray, and--most recendy and completely (though uncited by McCumber)--Alfredo Ferrarin, Hegelimet~ete diArirtotele(Pisa: ETS Editrice, 199o). eMcCumber's command of the Hegel literature (esp. in the wridngs of Josef Simon and Theodor Bodammer) is most impressive at this point, whether or not one finds his own arguments persuasive. BOOK REVXrWS 683 "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear") is still limited to a somewhat smaller number of specialists. Carl R. Hausman's Charles S. Peirce's EvolutionaH Philosophy, however, is ideally constructed to win a wider hearing for Peirce's complex vision, especially since this study challenges, from a Peircean perspective, some of the most important figures in contemporary American philosophy. In the concluding chapter, the author directly contests the views of Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty regarding their outright denial or, at best, inadequate recognition of the extralinguistic constraints on interpretation and inquiry. He concludes this critique and, in fact, the book itself by affirming that Peirce's "evolutionary realism is a picture that is a uniquely human way of looking toward the extrahuman" (225)Thus Peirce's evolutionary realism is an instance of metaphysical realism, but an instance with a human face (to borrow the expression which Putnam uses for his very different doctrine of internal realism). While fully acknowledging that the view from here and now is a historically fated perspective, proponents of this doctrine do not conclude that the only viewpoint attainable at present is a hermetically sealed perspecfive...

Transitions and Tensions in Hegel's Treatment of Determinate Religion

Transitions and Tensions in Hegel's Treatment of Determinate Religion

Hegel's reception of the sophists

Hegel's treatment of the Sophists challenged the centuries‐old characterization of them as fraudulent intellectuals. Though he “rehabilitated” Protagoras, Gorgias, and others, however, he also domesticated sophistical rhetoric, divesting it of its capacity to shape the public sphere. The effect of Hegel's historical analysis was to characterize Sophistic rhetoric as speculative philosophy. Thus his attempt to “normalize” the Sophists functioned more to render their rhetoric impotent.

Hypocrisy and the Highest Good: Hegel on Kant's Transition from Morality to Religion

Hypocrisy and the Highest Good: Hegel on Kant's Transition from Morality to Religion R. Z. FRIEDMAN SHORTON ARGUMENT,rich in ambiguity, Kant's contention that the moral facts of our experience require a religious framework is an important moment in the relationship of philosophical thought and religious belief. The most thorough and penetrating criticism of Kant's position is found in Hegel's "The Moral View of the World" in the PhenomerwlogyofSpirit.There Hegel argues that Kant's position is built on contradiction, not simply that it falls into contradiction but that it needs contradiction in its very foundation in order to present itself to itself as coherent, intelligible, and rational. Kant's insistence that morality requires religion is, in Hegel's view, an affirmation of contradiction in the name of reason. This situation forces consciousness into a posture of "insincere shuffling" (schwindelndenBewegung)for consciousness is "aware of its contradiction and shiftiness."' Unable tO escape from contradiction or from the need to include contradiction within it, and unable to get beyond its own certainty that morality is the highest task for man and his only vantage point on reality, moral consciousness ends in hypocrisy'----a moral affirmation of itself which denies what it knows, that it cannot make itself cogent and intelligible, that it bases itself on reason and yet insults reason by claiming that, rational or not, it is morally necessary and this takes precedence over all other considerations. ' G, W. F. Hegel, Phanomenok~g/e des Ge/su,, edited by Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg, t95~), 454- Hereafter referred to as Philnomenolog'.e_Phenomenologyof Spirit. translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford, 1977), 374. Hereafter referred to as Miller. 9 Ph~nomeno/og/e, 444, Miller, 383 . [5o3] 504 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 24:4 OCTOBER ~986 The commentators, for the most part, agree with Hegel's critique of Kant, although there is not general agreement that all of Hegel's arrows hit their marks. Walsh, for instance, defends Kant against Hegel's accusation that "the moral man cannot be in earnest with morality''s lest by realizing himself morally he cause morality to disappear, and Loewenberg introduces a helpful and critical discussion of Hegel's use of the term 'hypocrisy'? Lauer allows that "as a presentation" of Kant's position, Hegel's analysis "may be superficial" and as "a critique it may be unfair.''5 Lauer, however, like most of the commentators deals with Hegel's analysis not as a critique which itself merits critical attention but as a stage in Hegel's extended argument in the Phenomeno/ogy. In the Phenomenok~gyHegel attempts to demonstrate, among other things, that at various stages in its development to scientific and all-encompassing truth consciousness operates according to "Reason" which deals with reality by fracturing it into subject and objectma move which results in dualisms of various kinds, internal contradictions, and which results in a consciousness divided against itself. Kant figures large in this error, and Kantian reason, which is portrayed as dividing and fracturing, is unfavorablyjuxtaposed with Hegelian spirit which integrates and synthesizes. Most of the commentators see Hegel's treatment of Kant's position in this light. Hyppolite refers to an "unself-conscious dialectic" and a "fraudulent dualism,'~ while Norman refers to "divisions and antagonisms" which attend an "alienated consciousness.''7 Kainz also emphasizes the theme of a contradictory consciousness which cannot escape contradiction and hypocrisy,s At least one commentator, however, looks at Hegel's critique of Kant's Moral Point of View as an issue itself deserving of attention rather than simply as a stage in Hegel's vast argument. Jonathan Robinson, in Duty and Hypocrisy in Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, takes a stand squarely behind Hegel's critique of Kant. In Robinson's view, Kant's moral religion is unconvincing , a demonstration, as Hegel would have it, of the failure rather than the success of Kant's whole enterprise in the sphere of practical reason, s W. H. Walsh, Hegelian Ethics(New York: MacMillan, St. Martin's Press, t9C>9), 33. 4 j. Loewenberg, Hegel'sPhenomenology:Dialogueson the Life of Mind (LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1965), ~,7o--72. 5 Quentin Lauer, S...

Hegel's Critique of Kant's Theoretical Philosophy

Ivan Soll has remarked that entire program and conception of philosophy depended upon refuting Kant's limitation of reason.' But while Soll discusses Hegel's attempts in this regard, he admits he has not attempted to corroborate or criticize Hegel's interpretation of Kant.' Soll is not alone here, for even with the great renewal of interest in Hegel today,3 there has been surprisingly little critical discussion of Hegel's treatment of Kant, especially with regard to the difficult core of that treatment, namely, the rejection of the two central components of Kant's theoretical philosophy: the transcendental deduction of the categories and the doctrine of transcendental idealism. There have been a few helpful discussions of this subject recently,4 but none has given a systematic account of the distinction between these two crucial components in Kant's own view and of the general nature and ground of Hegel's treatment of the distinction. In the following sections, I first offer such an account (in section I) and then distinguish and evaluate Hegel's three types of objections to Kant's deduction (in sections II-IV) and his three types of objections to Kant's idealism (in sections V-VIII). I argue these objections all fail because of a closely related set of errors, errors which are understandable because they concern some of the most

HEGELS KRITIEK VAN HET EMPIRISME

Summary The main purpose of this article on Hegel's Criticism of Empiricism is a thorough analysis of the sections 37–39 of Hegel's Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (Berlin 1827 and 1830), in which he criticizes the philosophical method of empiricism. In order to prepare a complete understanding of this short passage, the article dwells first on Hegel's treatment of various British and French empiricists in his Courses on the History of Philosophy. After this preparation an explanation of all the details of Encyclopedia 37–39 is given and their structure is exposed.

Hegel on the Sublime

Hegel's treatment of the Sublime is both self-consistent and distinctive. He not only defines sublimity, but discovers and ranks its types or stages from one select point of view—the viewpoint of God-world relation; and the way he does this, on the one hand, distinguishes him from many others who have contributed to an understanding of the concept, and, on the other hand, enables him to suggest, if but implicitly, a criterion for distinguishing the sublime from allied concepts. Besides, he discusses the matter in the wide context of diverse cultures, making quite a few insightful references to Eastern literature; and, consistently with his own conception of philosophy, also from the viewpoint of historical necessity, so that the sublime appears, in his Aesthetik, as a specific stage which the evolving story of art must in fact traverse.

Hegel, Tillich, and the Secular

Previous articleNext article No AccessHegel, Tillich, and the SecularMerold WestphalMerold Westphal Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 52, Number 3Jul., 1972 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/486299 Views: 7Total views on this site Copyright 1972 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.