From Gegenstand to Gegenstehenlassen: On the Meanings of Objectivity in Heidegger and Hegel

ABSTRACT

One of Heidegger’s enduring concerns was to develop an original meditation on the meaning of (the presence of) the present. Integral to this attempt is his critique of the understanding of the being of beings in terms of the objectivity of the object. In this paper, I trace Heidegger’s analyses of objectivity, through which Heidegger consistently establishes objectivity as non-primordial and derivative. In order to do this, however, Heidegger had to identify a specific, narrow (spatio-temporalized) conception of objectivity (in terms of Gegenstehenlassen and Vorstellen) as the hallmark of modern philosophy. I show that it is unclear whether that conception is a justified result or rather an unjustified presupposition of his approach. I then suggest what meanings of objectivity might be lost after Heidegger, by pointing to several aspects of Hegel’s notion of objectivity that are incompatible with Heidegger’s account, to wit: the lack of ‘subject-object’-terminology in his definitions of objectivity; the special language of ‘forms of’ objectivity; Hegel’s critique of representation; his notion of Gegenstand as a content with a categorical form, and, finally, that Aristotle’s notion of hypokeimenon might provide a clue as to how Hegel’s notion of object can be understood.     

The I and World history in Hegel

In this paper, I investigate the relations between the notion of the I and the conception of World history in Hegel’s philosophy. First, I address Hegel’s account of the I by reconstructing its phenomenological and logical development from consciousness to self-consciousness through recognition with the other and arguing that the project of the Philosophy of Right is normative, as it provides an account of the logical process of affirmation of the I as the normative source of the realm of objective spirit. I then argue for an account of World history as the self-conscious development and liberation of the I in time and objectivity, and I consider Hegel’s philosophy of history in light of the Philosophy of Right as the historical emergence of the I through the forms of objective spirit in history. Finally, I focus on two of the allegedly most problematic issues related to Hegel’s conception of World history: the nature and very possibility of an ‘intersubjective consciousness’ and the notion of ‘World spirit’. I conclude by outlining how the conception of World history, if reconstructed in light of Hegel’s conception of the I, can have previously unnoticed political implications.     

Critical Theory as a Legacy of Post-Kantianism

This paper traces some lines of influence between post-Kantianism and Critical Theory. In the first part of the paper, we discuss Fichte and Hegel; in the second, we discuss Horkheimer, Adorno, and Honneth.     

Adorno,Hegel, and Dialectic

This article explores critical theory's relations to German idealism by clarifying how Adorno's thought relates to Hegel's. Adorno's apparently mixed responses to Hegel centre on the dialectic and actually form a coherent whole. In his Logic, Hegel outlines the dialectical process by which categories – fundamental forms of thought and reality – necessarily follow one another in three stages: abstraction, dialectic proper, and the speculative (famously simplified as ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’). Adorno's allegiance to Hegel's dialectic emerges when he traces the dialectical process whereby enlightenment reverts to myth and human domination over nature reverts into our domination by nature. However, Adorno criticizes Hegel's dialectic as the ultimate form of ‘identity thinking’, subsuming unique, material objects under universal concepts by using dialectical reason to expand those concepts to cover objects utterly. These two responses cohere because Adorno shares Hegel's view that dialectical contradictions require reconciliation, but differs from Hegel on the nature of reconciliation. For Hegel, reconciliation unites differences into a whole; for Adorno, reconciled differences co-exist as differences. Finally, against Habermas who holds that Adorno cannot consistently criticize the enlightenment practice of critique, I show that Adorno can do so consistently because of how he reshapes Hegelian dialectic.     

Hegel,Danto, Adorno,and the end and after of art

In this paper, I consider Adorno's claim that art is at, or is coming to, an ‘end’. I consider Adorno's account in relation to the work of Arthur Danto and G. W. F. Hegel. I employ Danto's account, together with two distinct interpretive glosses of Hegel's account, as heuristic devices in order to clarify both Adorno's own arguments, and the context within which they are being advanced. I argue that while Danto and Hegel see art as coming to an end autonomously, owing to art's successful realization of its governing principle, Adorno by contrast sees art as coming to an end heteronomously. Art's narrative is forcibly broken off, rather than completed. Adorno's account, indebted to Hegel, of art's commitment both to autonomy and the realization of ‘spiritual needs’ is explored in order to clarify how, on Adorno's view, this has happened to art; and why, precisely, he believes art is coming to an end.     

Reflective Rationality and the Claim of Dialectic of Enlightenment

That something is profoundly wrong with the way in which enlightenment has unfolded has widely been taken to be the main thrust of Dialectic of Enlightenment. In this paper, I propose to defend that to understand the book and shed light on some of its most puzzling features, one should rather take Horkheimer and Adorno's critical claim at face value: through their criticism they contend to have prepared a positive concept of enlightenment. How this can be so is the question I want to answer. I defend that what we need is an account that works out the conceptual grounds on which their critique can operate. The focus of my attempt will consist in understanding (1) what they mean when they assert that rationality is intrinsically social and (2) how they conceive of rationality as being reflective at its core.     

Hegel and the history of idealism

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to expose an unwarranted narrowness in the study of idealism in nineteenth century philosophy, and to show that the field of idealism is much wider than usually assumed. This narrowness stems from the influence of Hegel’s history of philosophy, which saw the idealist tradition as beginning in Kant, passing through Fichte and Schelling, and then culminating in his own system. This conception of history has been disseminated by Hegel’s followers and still prevails today. I argue that this conception is too narrow for several reasons. First, it ignores the romantic idealists (Hölderlin, Novalis, Schlegel); second, it excludes the opposing tradition of idealism of Herbart, Fries and Beneke, which affirmed (against Schelling and Hegel) transcendental idealism, an empiricist epistemology, the existence of the thing-in-itself and the value of the Kantian dualisms; and, third, it neglects the history of idealism after Hegel later in the nineteenth century, more specifically, the idealism of Trendelenburg, Lotze and Hartmann.     

Adorno and Schelling on the art–nature relation

When it comes to the relationship between art and nature, research on Adorno’s aesthetics usually centres on his discussion of Kant and Hegel. While this reflects Adorno’s own position – his comprehension of this relationship is to a large extent developed through a critical re-reading of both the Kantian and the Hegelian position – I argue that we are able to gain important insights into Adorno’s aesthetics and the central art–nature relation by reading his ideas in the light of Schelling’s conception of this relationship. The article focuses on the similarities between Schelling’s notion of nature’s productivity and Adorno’s understanding of natural beauty. It concludes with a discussion on Adorno’s re-evaluation of the reconciliatory power of the exemplary unity of the artwork in conjunction with Schelling’s comparison between artwork and organism, as well as his concept of the construction of nature.     

Annihilating the Nothing: Hegel and Nishitani on The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism

In Nishitani’s The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, Nishitani explores, among other related topics, the history of the problem of Nihilism in the West. Conspicuously absent from Nishitani’s historical analysis is the thought of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, who famously raised the charge of Nihilism against Fichte’s philosophy in 1799. As is evident from a variety of Hegel’s texts, Hegel explicitly responds to Jacobi’s charge against Speculative Idealism and designs his philosophy in part as a response to Jacobi’s charge of Nihilism. On the one hand, Nishitani fails to appreciate Hegel’s philosophy as a response to the problem of Nihilism because he has an incomplete possession of the history of the problem. On the other hand, Nishitani’s critique of Hegel begs the question. Nishitani’s dogmatic rejection of Hegel appears to be grounded in his methodological approach to the philosophy of history, which assumes the falsehood of Hegel’s account. Jacobi’s charge against Speculative Idealism consists in the Idealist’s failure to account for the very existence of the world. On his view, philosophy is Nihilism because the world disappears completely from philosophical speculation. Hegel attempts to overcome this charge of Nihilism by re-thinking the structure and content of reason.     

Between Causes and Reasons: Sellars,Hegel (and Lewis) on “Sensation”

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Sellars’ and Hegel’s treatment of ‘sensation’ – a notion that plays a central role in the reflections of both authors but which has garnered little scholarly attention. To disentangle the issues surrounding the notion and elaborate its role, function, and fate in their thought, I begin with a methodological question: what kind of philosophical argument leads Sellars and Hegel to introduce the concept of ‘sensation’ into their systems? Distinguishing between their two argumentative approaches, I maintain that Hegel offers what I broadly label a ‘transcendental’ argument for ‘sensation,’ which he presents in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit and in the corresponding Lectures, whereas Sellars introduces the notion of sensation for what I term empirically ‘explanatory’ reasons. Next, I closely analyze Hegel’s and Sellars’ theories of sensation to produce a textually supported and conceptually coherent reading of their views on the notion. To clarify my methodological distinction and its stakes in Hegel’s and Sellars’ I will reference Lewis’ notion of the given.     

Despair and the determinate negation of Brandom’s Hegel

In this paper, I contend that Brandom’s interpretive oversights leave his inferentialist program vulnerable to Hegelian critique. My target is Brandom’s notion of “conceptual realism,” or the thesis that the structure of mind-independent reality mimics the structure of thought. I show, first, that the conceptual realism at the heart of Brandom’s empiricism finds root in his interpretation of Hegel. I then argue that conceptual realism is incompatible with Hegel’s thought, since the Jena Phenomenology, understood as a “way of despair,” includes a critique of the philosophical framework upon which conceptual realism relies. Finally, I offer the Hegelian critique of Brandom that results from these textual infidelities.     

The political theology of Fichte’s Staatslehre: immanence and transcendence

Given its use of religious concepts and language, it is tempting to class Fichte’s rarely discussed Staatslehre as a political theology. I argue that the Staatslehre can be classed as a political theology because of the way in which it can be understood in terms of the concepts of immanence and transcendence. The concept of immanence applies to Fichte’s account of history in particular. Fichte himself allows for a moment of transcendence at the very beginning of history. I argue that the concept of transcendence is also implicit in the Staatslehre in relation to some problems faced by Fichte’s own account of the role of the Zwingherr in the historical development and actualization of right and moral freedom, despite his attempt to avoid introducing theologically based explanations of political concepts at this stage of his Staatslehre.     

Leaping Ahead of Heidegger: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Being and Time

Abstract

This article challenges Honneth’s reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right in The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory (2001/2010). Focusing on Hegel’s method, I argue that this text hardly offers support for the theory of mutual recognition that Honneth purports to derive from it. After critically considering Honneth’s interpretation of Hegel’s account of the family and civil society, I argue that Hegel’s text does not warrant Honneth’s tacit identification of mutual recognition with symmetrical instances of mutual recognition, let alone his subsequent projection of symmetrical forms of mutual recognition onto the various spheres of the Philosophy of Right as a whole. I conclude by indicating an alternative way in which Hegel’s text might be used to understand contemporary society.     

Hegel: Death of God and Recognition of the Self

Abstract

This paper covers the theme of the death of God considered from a Hegelian standpoint. For Aristotle, the image of God as ‘thought thinking itself’ was an image of the knowledge aspired to in philosophy. With the notion of God becoming man and his insistence on the icon of the Cross, Hegel challenged the Aristotelian goal of philosophy as immutable knowledge of an ‘ultimate’ reality. Hegel viewed the crisis of normativity (the death of the Cartesian divine guarantor) as strictly linked to the conception of the self. It is Nietzsche who is best known for alluding to the full significance of this image for modern life, but Hegel’s thought on the complex relations of philosophy and religion in the modern world can be regarded as an attempt to think through this same historical phenomenon. In this paper, I focus on the philosophical relevance of Hegel’s notion of the death of God. I argue that unpacking the significance of the ‘truths’ presented symbolically in modern Christianity is crucial in understanding the requirements that an idealistic philosophy must meet.     

Ostrich Nominalism and Peacock Realism: A Hegelian Critique of Quine

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to offer a Hegelian critique of Quine’s predicate nominalism. I argue that at the core of Hegel’s idealism is not a supernaturalist spirit monism, but a realism about universals, and that while this may contrast to the nominalist naturalism of Quine, Hegel’s position can still be defended over that nominalism in naturalistic terms. I focus on the contrast between Hegel’s and Quine’s respective views on universals, which Quine takes to be definitive of philosophical naturalism. I argue that there is no good reason to think Quine is right to make this nominalism definitive of naturalism in this way – where in fact Hegel (along with Peirce) offers a reasonably compelling case that science itself requires some commitment to realism about universals, kinds, etc. Furthermore, even if Hegel is wrong about that, at least his case for realism is still a naturalistic one, as it is based on his views on concrete universality, which is an innovative form of in rebus realism about universals.     

Perspectivity,Intersubjectivity, Normativity: On Malpas’s Place and Experience

ABSTRACT

The publication of the revised edition of Jeff Malpas’s Place and Experience in 2018 gives the opportunity to reconsider this book (originally published in 1999) and the debates that it originally sparked. In this article, I focus on Malpas’s characterization of space as subjective, allocentric, and objective and I approach them in conjunction with other notions and considerations that, I suggest, are useful to expand and complement Malpas’s central theses. I approach the concept of subjective space in conjunction with the notion of coenaesthesis and with Heidegger’s notion of mineness (Jemeinigkeit); the concept of allocentric space by addressing Malpas’s critique of Nagel’s notion of detachment; and the concept of objective space through a discussion of the issue of perspective in light of Merleau-Ponty’s critique of Leibniz’s notion of ‘géométral’ (geometrized projection). These analyses pave the way for a discussion of some possible normative implications of the conception of place and subjectivity that emerges from Malpas’s Place and Experience against the background of Heidegger’s thought, and particularly in relation to Heidegger’s notion of dwelling (Wohnen).     

How the Good Obligates in Hegel's Conception of Sittlichkeit: A Response to Robert Stern's Understanding Moral Obligation

Abstract

In Understanding Moral Obligation: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Robert Stern argues that Hegel has a social command view of obligation. On this view, there is an element of social command or social sanction that must be added to a judgment of the good in order to bring about an obligation. I argue to the contrary that Hegel's conception of conscience, and thus the individual's role in obligation, is more central to his account than the social dimension. While agreeing with Stern that Hegel's conception of Sittlichkeit does preserve a role for obligation, and that the social plays an important part in that account, I argue that there is no extra social component that converts the morally good into obligation. Rather, Hegel's conception of Sittlichkeit as the “living good” means that judgments of the moral facts are simultaneously judgments of obligation.     

Kant's Argument for the Apperception Principle

Abstract: My aim is to reconstruct Kant's argument for the principle of the synthetic unity of apperception. I reconstruct Kant's argument in stages, first showing why thinking should be conceived as an activity of synthesis (as opposed to attention), and then showing why the unity or coherence of a subject's representations should depend upon an a priori synthesis. The guiding thread of my account is Kant's conception of enlightenment: as I suggest, the philosophy of mind advanced in the Deduction belongs to an enlightenment epistemology. Kant's conception of enlightenment turns on the requirement that a subject be able to recognize herself as the source of her cognitions. The argument for the apperception principle is reconstructed under the guidance of this conception of the ideal of enlightenment.     

The Non-Conceptual Dimension of Social Mediation: Toward a Materialist Aufhebung of Hegel

ABSTRACT

Sellars’s relationship with Hegel is complex and itself ‘dialectical‘ in interesting ways. Sellars follows Hegel in recognizing that the normativity essential to intentionality and conceptuality is a social phenomenon. But Sellars criticizes Hegel for his inability to independently explain the emergence and function of this essential group phenomenon. I shall argue that Sellars’s critique of Hegel on this count is part of a larger, metaphysically ambitious and rigorously realistic position, which, though turning Hegel’s ontology on its head, shares with Hegel the methodological ambition of arriving at a position which is globally explanatorily closed. Further, it will be suggested that although Sellars would surely have been critical of the ontological reification of Hegel’s dialectical method, he nonetheless reserves an important role for conceptual dialectical development right at the heart of his system, namely in his understanding of the conceptual evolution that leads from the manifest to the scientific image. Finally, I shall argue that Sellars thereby aspires to provide nothing less than a materialist aufhebung of idealist Hegelian dialectics.