Transcript of discussions from the Hegel email list
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Subject: Re: Hegel, Marx, "non-metaphysical"
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Hans Despain wrote:
> [...] I have offered some thoughts on the so-called "non-
> metaphyscial" interpretation of Hegel. It would be quite interesting
> to me to begin a discussion of this interpretation. Hence, the aim
> of my post is in an attempt to initiate such a discussion (especially
> comments from the "non-metaphysical" contributers on this list).
I'm very interested in such a discussion, but I have great difficulties
in understanding, before further clarification, what "non-metaphysical"
means.
Below I make three, propably stupid, guesses what it might be about.
I haven't got the work of either Hartmann or Smith to my hands yet, so
propably my questions are simply missing the point.
I would be very pleased if you, Hans, or anyone else, enlightened me.
> The "non-metaphysical" interpretation of Hegel views his aim as first
> to address philosophical problems (e.g. the infinite regress problem,
> etc.). Second to go beyond the poverty of empiricism (skepticism)
> and transcendental idealism. Third, it explicitly presents Hegel's
> justification of believing his system (and method) to be both
> philosophy and science (suggesting Lockean motives of philosophy as
> the underlaborer of science).
> Whereby, the Absolute, is the *one* true systematic circle of
> knowledge. It is self-grounding and self-justifying, or "[as] we
> might put it, the Absolute would be a self-subsuming and self-
> explanatory principle. It would be self-subsuming in that it would
> be an instance of itself; it would be self-explanatory in that it
> would explain itself in the same way it explained other things"
> (Pinkard 1991:298).
>
> This seems supported by Hegel's category of Absolute Idea in *Logic*.
> Rather than being confronted with a metaphysical entity (or deity),
> one finds a summary of the Dialectical "journey" just traveled.
Now isn't this 'summary of the journey' *made by* an metaphysical "entity", not
conceived as a substance but as a subject?
The humans who do the summarizing are an embodiment of this metaphysical "entity" or "principle" or "subjectivity", Geist.
Or better put, the Geist who does the summarizing, gains self-consciousness in
this act.
First guess:
Does "non-metaphysical" means that this Geist is not a metaphysical entity
or deity in the orthodox christian or platonic sense, ie. it does not
exist in a "beyond". (this hardly is the point, as I'm not sure if there are
"metaphysical" interpretations of Hegel in this sense).
But is there a reason for calling this "non-metaphysical"?
Geist, or Hegel's system, seems to me to be metaphysical
idea in the sense that it answers ontological questions of
the ultimate principles of everything. This is my second guess of the meaning
of "metaphysical".
In this meaning of "metaphysical" the non-metaphysical readings
seem a bit hazardous. (And I'm not sure whether there are any.)
I think that we, after Hegel, can learn a lot from him in specific
philosophical problems, or from his critique of empiricism etc., but isn't
there a danger that we end up in biased interpretations of Hegel if we neglect
the metaphysical, systematic connections the specific problems have in Hegel's
thought?
Third guess:
Does the non-metaphysical mean non-theological or non-religious, ie. that
Hegel's system is science and philosophy, but not theology?
Thus the difference between "non-metaphysical" and "metaphysical" would be
whether Hegel's concern with religion is seen as having the same importance
as the three concerns Hans names above.
This guess seems backed up by this quote from Hans:
> This seems supported by the writing of the Young Hegel, especially
> pre-Phenomenology. It is true that theology and religion is quite
> important to Hegel, but the "non-metaphysical" writers suggest that
> this is not at all inconsisent with their reading of Hegel.
Doesn't Hegel in the Phenomenology state that religious consciousness gets
it almost right, but only in the form of 'picture-thought', which is yet to
be refined into conceptual form? Is the idea that the property of being
'metaphysical' vanishes in that move?
So, to repeat myself, my guesses were:
1) metaphysical thinking = thinking which posits a 'beyond'
2) metaphysical thinking = one that answers ontological questions,
even if it does not posit a 'beyond'
3) metaphysical thinking = religious/theological thinking
any hits? all misses?
yours,
Arto Laitinen
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From: "d. macgregor"
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Subject: Re: Hegel, Marx, "non-metaphysical"
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
I am writing a book called "Hegel and Marx After the Fall of Communism."
A key argument in the book is that for Marxism to renew itself it will
have to become more Hegelian. This means embracing areas that Marxism
thought were already at an end, including especially metaphysics. I
think the Hegelian meaning of metaphysics refers to the rational
structure of the universe, its "mind-like" quality. And rationality in
the end refers to the logic of freedom, with its highest embodiment being
the rational human individual living in a "rational state," as Hegel
called it. In so far as theology is about how to live the good life, it is
Hegelian. Insofar as religion supports the dialectic of freedom, as in
liberation theology, it is Hegelian. But "God-talk" is external as long
as we forget the precept that God is a "picture thought" representing "the
rational human individual living in the rational state."
Best. David
David MacGregor
Professor of Sociology HOME: 258 Seaton Street
King's College Toronto, Ontario
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266 Epworth Avenue Tel: 416-922-2984
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From: "Hans Despain"
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Subject: Re: Hegel, Marx, "non-metaphysical"
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Thanks Arto for your thoughtful comments. I will not be able to give
a complete, nor propably an adequate response in this post. But I do
have a few comments.
Arto writes in summary:
> Doesn't Hegel in the Phenomenology state that religious consciousness gets
> it almost right, but only in the form of 'picture-thought', which is yet to
> be refined into conceptual form? Is the idea that the property of being
> 'metaphysical' vanishes in that move?
>
> So, to repeat myself, my guesses were:
> 1) metaphysical thinking = thinking which posits a 'beyond'
> 2) metaphysical thinking = one that answers ontological questions,
> even if it does not posit a 'beyond'
> 3) metaphysical thinking = religious/theological thinking
>
> any hits? all misses?
>
> yours,
> Arto Laitinen
Hartmann claims that the "non-metaphysical" interpretation is a
"minimal" reading of Hegel. This orientes us to understand Hegel
first as a (non-empiricist) dialectical thinker. Hence, what is at
issue is transcendentalism and dialectic systematic thinking.
There are two moments, the first has Hegel as a neo-Kantian
transcendental philosopher, the second is purely Hegelian.
The neo-Kantian moment is non-metaphysical, non-foundational, and
circular. The Hegelian moment is systematic and ontological. Hence,
it seems to me that (2) above should be included in this "minimal"
reading [however, Tom Rockmore as argued for a non-ontological
interpretation within the "non-metaphysical" literature].
That is to say that Hegel should not be read, at least in the first
instance, as a theological thinker, nor as a metaphysical
philosopher. Rather, his aim is transcendental and (imo) ontological.
Hence, the "non-metaphysical" interpretation must account for both
Hegel's "metaphysics" and "theology." Smith's comments that Hegel
conflated the Absolute with God so to communicate to his Christian
readership, I find this less in adequate. I am not all too familar
with Hartmann's argument specifically.
I would also like to mention, besides Hartmann and Smith, that Terry
Pinkard has some very nice articles, and book(s) on this
interpretation.
In a post to follow I will attempt offer further the argument of the
"non-metaphysical" interpretation. Following especially Pinkard.
Hans Despain
hans.depsian@m.cc.utah.edu
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
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From: HANS DESPAIN
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Subject: A "non-metaphysical" (transcendental) Hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
In a previous post I aruged that a non-metaphysical interpretation has
two moments: (I) neo-Kantian (transcendental, non-foundational); and (II)
Hegelian (ontological, categorial).
(I) THE NEO-KANTIAN MOMENT: (see especially Hartmann's "Taking the
Transcendental Turn" *The Review of Metaphsysics*, 1966, vol. XX(2), pp.
223-249:
Although Hegel rarely uses the (Kantian) term transcendental, Hartmann
argues that Hegel is clearly a transcendental philosophier.
Transcendental knowledge is first concerned with justification of
knowledge, rather than immediate (simple) "facts". "Clearly if no
understanding of 'right' and 'justification' can be assumed at the outset
we will never be able to build it up from 'facts'" (Hartmann 1966:225).
Notice here that this non-empiricist moment is in agreement with a
(Kuhnian-Polanyian) sociological theory of knowledge. That is that
"facts" are "theory-dependent". However, the transcendental theorist
aviods the pitfalls of the sociological theorists, by (a) not making a
"miracle" of knowledge (science); and (b) the transcendental theorist
avoids also the relativism of post-modernism. In both cases, it is
in the justification of knowledge which is decisive.
Here the transcendental theorist sees a stratification of knowledge;
between the (a) empirical level (Hartmann and Pinkard call this the "real";
I perfer empirical to avoid a notion of a Kantian world nomena) and (b) the
transcendental level. Hence, to step beyond the pitfalls of empiricism
(positivism) [e.g. infinite regress, problem of induction] and to understand
"facts" the transcendental "turn" must be taken.
There seems no other justification of making this "turn" or step to the
transcendental level, save the transcendental argument that synthetic a
priori knowledge is possible. The a priori is the domain where "truth"
is available without an actual performed reference to a referent (i.e.
oppossed to the correspdence theory of truth). Therefore, the question
for the transcendental theorist is *what* allows us claims to "facts" and
*how* do we know they are correct. The *what* are categories of
knowledge (ideal forms or universals), the *how* is our system of
transcendental knowledge.
Wherefore, the transcendental philosopher is (transcendentally) committed
to two levels of explanation, first the empirical level of knowledge, and
second the (ontological) level of basic categories. The latter being
presuppossed (usually pragmatically) by the first level. Whereas the
empiricist will argue that knowledge is grounded in the pragmatic level of
knowledge, based on experience; the transcendental approach wants to know
*how* a priori is justified, which is presuppossed by the empiricist and
the possibility of knowledge.
There are four main differication of transcendental and empirical
knowledge. Transcendentalism (1) aims to offer *explanation*, not simply
description; (2) it concerns itself with the ontological premise of our
categories [which are claimed or presupposed to ground epistemological
truth]; (3) it is a different kind of claim to knowledge, whereby there
is a stratification between what we [a] (epistemological) know and
[b] (ontological) understand as truth (being); (4) explanation is
(ontologically and epistemologically) distinct from prediction.
It should be emphasized, that with the stratifiction of knowledge it is not
the case that transcendental philosophy (mistakenly) leaves behind our
*common-sense* understanding of basic catgories that allow us to lay
claim to knowledge about the world; rather the transcendental theorist
embraces (a priori) *common-sense* and attempts to explain it.
The transcendental theorist aims to extend the explanation of a priori
knowldge of that offered by formal logic. The justification of our
ontological categories occers in level two of explanation "where truth is
available without an actually performed reference to a referent"
(Hartmann 1966:225).
Transcendental explanation can be termed a *systematic rediscription*, in
that it is able to (re-)describe what has been described in a less
adequate way, that is in an inferior system of logic
This moment (I) in a "non-metaphysical" interpretation of Hegel, is first
Kantian with respect to transcendental theory. For Kant the "objective
reality" of our categories is provided by the transcendental question:
"what are the conditions necessary for the possiblity of experience", the
answer being universal categories or "Novum" (a category that is
irreducible to other categories).
This moment (I) is second neo-Kantian in that Hegel believed Kant did not
complete the "transcendental turn"; by neither providing a full
explanation of categories, nor their full justification. For Kant,
explanation and justification must necessarily rest on intuition. For
Hegel the transcendental turn begs the question of intuition. Hence,
Hegel constructs a system of logic that explains and justifies our
categories of description (knowledge). This for Hegel is the dialectic.
"Once one is at the categorial [transcendental] level, one is in an
autonomous domain of thought in which the categories are to be justified
by a self-validating procedure that does not need to refer to the
'ordinary level' in order to be justified" (Pinkard "Klaus Hartmann: A
Philosophical Appreciation, *Aeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung*,
Band 46, 1992:601). Hence, dialectical logic is needed on this level to
ontologically order the categories (Novum) in a systematic architectonic.
Whereby, the dialectic can be defined as a systematic transcendental
self-subsuming and self-justifing rediscription (explanation) of formal
logic, logic. That is the set of categories (Novum), or categorial
system established in a transcendental framework and level, which is
necessary to offer an explanation of, both, phenomena of the world and
itself.
"What makes categories theoretically meaningful is the idea that they
have 'governance' with respect to predicates of concrete things or
objects. ... In deed, nowdays, the main problem is to understand what
categories are, why they have governance and which ones can be claimed as
a priori determinations" (Hartmann 1966:226-227).
Hans Despain
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
hans.despain@m.cc.utah.edu
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From: "David Westbrook"
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Subject: non-metaphysical?
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If I may interject briefly in this fascinating thread, I'm afraid I don't see
how this interpretation of Hegel purports to be "non-metaphysical". While I
can imagine a number of ways in which this appellation may be intended
(epistemological, logical, sociological, etc.), this interpretation strikes
me as being thoroughly embedded in metaphysics, despite claims to the
contrary. Perhaps Hans or one of the other serious contributors could clarify
this further.
David Westbrook
Social and Political Thought
York University
dwest@yorku.ca
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From: HANS DESPAIN
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Subject: Re: non-metaphysical?
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
On Tue, 22 Aug 1995, David Westbrook wrote:
> If I may interject briefly in this fascinating thread, I'm afraid I don't see
> how this interpretation of Hegel purports to be "non-metaphysical". While I
> can imagine a number of ways in which this appellation may be intended
> (epistemological, logical, sociological, etc.), this interpretation strikes
> me as being thoroughly embedded in metaphysics, despite claims to the
> contrary. Perhaps Hans or one of the other serious contributors could clarify
> this further.
Yes, metaphysics must be defined here, actually this is the direction I
would like to see this discussion take. For not only is it difficult to
understand Hegel "non-metaphysically", philosophy [and science] (seems to)
require it.
Tom Rockmore aruges Hartmann "holds that we can provide a categorial and
systematic interpretation of Hegel's position which reveals the latter's
achievement as a hermeneutic of categories ... [however] Hartmann is ...
non-Hegelian in choice of terminology. What Hartmann calls
"non-metaphysical" should be called "metaphysical" since Hegel's
hermeneutic of categories is in fact, from his angle of vision, a
metaphysical theory" ("Hegel's Metaphysics, or the Categorial Approach to
Knowledge of Experience" *Hegel Reconsidered: Beyond Metaphysics and the
Authoritarian State* 1994, eds. Engelhardt and Pinkard, p. 45).
I thouhgt Arto Laitinen's comments where a good beginning for approaching
the notion of metaphysics.
Rockmore's conclusion is Hegel is non-ontological, this is even more
difficult for me to understand. "Non-" in both I interpret as a metaphor
to mean that Hegel's concern is first with the dialectic method and
dialectic logic, along with the transcendental approach to knowledge.
Hans Despain
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
hans.despain@m.cc.utah.edu
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From: duquda@sncac.snc.edu (David A. Duquette)
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Hegel, Marx, "non-metaphysical"
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Paul Trejo wrote:
> > Here I cannot agree, Professor MacGregor. Hegel's primary concept is
> > Spirit. Spirit is not simply a self-consciousness living happily in
> > a free Republic. That is incomplete. Spirit is the whole community,
> > the 'We that is an I and the I that is a We.' This is not collectivism,
> > which remains at the stage of the 'We only, and the I be damned.'
> >
> > Nor is it simply individualism, which is the 'I only, and the We be damned.'
> >
> > God is not 'simply' a picture-thought, either, but is the living Spirit
> > Itself.
> >
David McGregor replied:
> Moreover, as you have phrased these, I do not find anything to disagree
> with. There is a human spirit that transcends the individual and
> includes her. Isn't this the essence of Hegel's message?
>
Apart from the issue of the transcendental character of Hegel's
philosophy, which is important, and the inescability of metaphysics,
which was Eric von der Luft's point, the central "metaphysical issue in
Hegel, in my view, lies precisely in the characterization of Spirit. One
does not have to be a narrow minded empiricist to find the point agreed
upon by Trejo and McGregor to be problematic. The very idea that there
is some spiritual being that transcends humanity, while incorporating it
(which is the crucial immanentist qualifier that presumably gets Hegel
off the hook of a traditional metaphysician) points us into the direction
of religious Vorstellung. There is no way that Hegel can demonstrate the
transcendence of Spirit, dialectically or otherwise. When Hegel speaks
of the Volkgeist or Weltgeist, however, he is speaking in cultural and
institutional contexts where what transcends humans, either
distributively or collectively, is the totality of the social world.
Here Spirit simply refers to the rational structure of that world, much
as Montesquieu intended the rationality of legal systems in his "The
Spirit of the Laws."
There is indeed reason to be concerned, as Marx was, with the theological
nature of Spirit in its transcendental meaning when applied to humanity
per se. The most generous interpretation I can give is that Hegel does
understand the transcendental character of Spirit to be a sort of
representational image which we, as with religion generally, cannot
practically do without. However, the rational content of the idea of
Spirit is found in the cultural and institutional contexts to which it
refers in concrete ways.
The issue of Hegel's metaphysics, as I see it, is a matter not of whether
he can escape metaphysics altogether, but whether he is able to give
rational justification for conclusions he draws--taking into account
Hegel's complex notion of reason--regarding the Absolute and Spirit.
Does Hegel's metaphysics involve the sort of "leaps of faith" that
traditional metaphysics was unable to avoid?
--
David A. Duquette
St. Norbert College
De Pere, WI 54114
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From: --David Kolb--Bates College--
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Subject: Re: non-metaphysical?
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
>If I may interject briefly in this fascinating thread, I'm afraid I don't see
>how this interpretation of Hegel purports to be "non-metaphysical". While I
>can imagine a number of ways in which this appellation may be intended
>(epistemological, logical, sociological, etc.), this interpretation strikes
>me as being thoroughly embedded in metaphysics, despite claims to the
>contrary. Perhaps Hans or one of the other serious contributors could clarify
>this further.
>
Re: non-metaphysical:
Part of the problem is that "metaphysics" has no single application.
Does it refer to foundationalism (epistemic or causal--lots of
thinkers), or to hierarchy (ontic or epistemic--again lots), or to the
study of being qua being (Aristotle), or to the study of the highest
beings (Aristotle), or to the study of the ontic commitments of
various theories or ordinary language (Strawson's "descriptive
metaphysics"), or to the study of what must be quantified over if we
are to do science (Quine) or to have a theory of truth (Davidson), or
a study of the necessary categories and principles of areas of thought
or action (Kant), or the claim that there can be transparent direct
presence of meanings or beings (cf. Derrida), or the belief in an
effective and exhaustive self-reflection and meta-discourse (cf.
Derrida), and so on? It is not self evident that all these qualities
and studies must belong together, so one can be non metaphysical in
many ways.
Many "anti-metaphysics" are themselves metaphysics: Nietzsche most of
the time seems to me to be arguing for a non-hierarchical ontology of
forces. It's very much aimed against classical metaphysics of the
Greek sort, but it's still a view about what is and the nature of its
being. The positivists are anti-metaphysical in one sense because they
make no claims about what is, but they are metaphysical in another
sense because of their epistemological foundtionalism.
Deconstruction poses similar issues, depending on how it is
interpreted; Derrida is well aware of the "complicity" of any critique
with metaphysics (cf. the essays in Margins of Philosophy) and he
tries to find a way to stay in motion and complicate borders without
being caught out in making any universal or formal claims, but there
still seems to be something like a transcendental (though not
foundationalist) theory of meaning functioning within all the
maneuvers.
Heidegger argues in his essays in Identity and Difference (which are
aimed at Hegel) that all metaphysics involves foundationalism and the
confusion of "what allows beings to be revealed (or to have sense)?"
with "what highest being grounds all other beings (in whatever way the
particular theory claims grounding happens)?" I've tried to argue that
Hegel avoids that confusion with what amounts to a transcendental
study of categories which is then applied to itself. Spirit is the
result, the categories in their application and realization. In one
sense it is all that is, in another it is the highest being, but it is
not directly a ground or foundation in the sense that Heidegger
claims.
Hegel avoids the word "transcendental" because for him it is too
connected with an analysis of thought in subject-object terms, which
are not the final categories of the Logic. But in the sense the word
has now he is doing transcendental philosophy. If it is "metaphysical"
to claim a priori truth, and to use it in normative ways, then he is
metaphysical. But he's not metaphysical in the full Greek sense, nor
does he fail to see the problems of varying "meanings of being,"
despite what Heidegger says about him being caught in just one form of
subjectivism.
David Kolb
Bates College
dkolb@bates.edu
http://abacus.bates.edu/~dkolb/
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From: duquda@sncac.snc.edu (David A. Duquette)
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Subject: Re: Marx 'n Hegel 'n non-metaphysics
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Ralph Dumain wrote:
>
> Puh-leeze. When dealing with Paul Trejo, it is axiomatic to note
> that his only subject is theology. Everything for him is
> theological fiat: worship or thunderous condemnation, declaring
> what is and can be from stratospheric categories. He thinks he is
> the reincarnation of Bruno Bauer, and he thinks that is something
> to be proud of.
>
> I think it would be incorrect to
> suppose, though, that Marx was one-sided because he concentrated
> his attention on the investigation of social processes,
> specifically the elaboration of a scientific critique of political
> economy. Or that Marx was one-sided because when he broke with
> Philosophy as a whole and declared it had come to an end (a notion
> that remains to be interpreted properly), he did so because his
> interest was in philosophy as an understanding of society. I have
> often harped on the attitudes real and hypothetical of Marx toward
> the natural and the social sciences, and admittedly I have not
> been clear about this issue yet. I shall try to do better in the
> future. However, I think it is wrong to state that Marx's
> fundmanetal viewpoint was narrow just because he focused his
> attention on a certain area. I don't think Marx is fully
> appreciated, not least of all because his realization of the
> crippling effects of the division of labor upon intellectuals as
> well as other people goes completely over the heads of Marxist
> academics as well as non-Marxists, as the case of poor Dr. Van
> Gelding has shown. The academic or the bootlicker of the academic
> is a rather limited beast.
>
Marx had a tendency, as you do Ralph, to see theology lurking
everywhere. Indeed, Marx was quite explicit that the critique of society
and politics was to be modelled on the critique of religion.
Unfortunately, Marx's transformational technique became a rather tedious
rhetorical device for flushing out all relations of power and rejecting
them an antithetical to fulfilled human existence. Marx was actually
quite insightful regarding the ways that social institutions can provide
mytifying legitimation for relations of dominance and subservience, but
he went too far in thinking that all forms of institutionalization of
power necessarily dehumanized us. To out it another way, he was somewhat
utopian in thinking that these forms of institutionalization could be
virtually transcended with the society of free associated producers (Marx
is best characterized as a social anarchist regarding his vision of the
future society).
So the issue that Marx raises about Hegel's theological agenda is a
legitimate one, but Marx reads "theological" in such a hyper-
conspiratorial sense that even the more pragmatic among Hegelians would
not be able to escape the criticism. Hence, at least one of the reasons
that the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory had to move beyond Marx's
somewhat narrow definition of human praxis. It is not simply that Marx
restricted himself to political economy as his domain of analysis, he
understood all human relationships to be a function of relations of
production, which is quite clear in the GRUNDRISSE where he defines the
variety of economic relations in terms of production as constituting the
totality of such relations. Parallel moves are suggested in Marx
regarding other types of socuial relations, politics, religion, culture, etc.
One of the upshots of Marx's approach is the radical deconstruction of
all forms of symbolic action and communication as "religious" and as
fostering the mytification of real relations. It was part of Marx's
"scientific socialism" to construct the theory and practice of a
programme that overcome all such forms of mystification, where humans are
brought back to face to face relations of immediacy where everything is
clear, literal, and upfront and nothing is masked over. While I am not
willing to go along with those who argue that Communist state socialism
followed from Marx's theorizing, the "socialist realism" promoted in
these societies does have an affinity with Marx's somewhat reductionist
conception of human relations.
Lest I be misunderstood here, I am not suggesting as Paul Trejo does that
Marx's theorizing is basically bankrupt. I think it was a matter of
Marx's taking some insights and exaggerating them for the purposes of
radical critique. So in my view, the debate between Hegelians and
Marxists, particularly on the issue of the theological-metaphysical
dimension of Hegel's thought, is an important one and needs to occur
without sleight of hand to either side. The brushing aside of Marx as
politically incorrect on the one hand, which is done arbitrarily by some
people regardsless of how much Marx they have read, and ad hominem remarks
against Hegelians on the other, will do very little to advance us in
making intelligible the substance of the issues in the Hegel-Marx debate.
--
David A. Duquette
St. Norbert College
De Pere, WI 54114
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From: Charles David Miller
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Subject: Re: non-metaphysical?
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
Has anyone considered the possibility that "non-metaphysical" could be
understood in the sense that Wittgenstein used it: a misunderstanding of
the grammar (logic) of a concept?
If Wittgenstein is right, there is a way to make non-metaphysical
statements. This would be to refrain from making grand, theoretical
statements based on a misunderstanding of grammar!
___________________________________________________________________________
Charles David Miller, University of New Mexico Department of Philosophy
Home: (505) 867-1892 Work: (505) 883-5959
God grant the philosopher insight into what lies in front of
everyone's eyes.
[Moge Gott dem Philosophen Einsict geben in das, was vor allen
Augen liegt.]
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
On Wed, 23 Aug 1995 Luft@alcor.unm.edu wrote:
> We can allow Miller's point only if we allow equivocation on two definitions of
> "metaphysics," to wit: 1. Grandiose speculation; 2. Theory about the nature of
> reality.
Witt.: PHUN Prt 1 Sct 58 ln 8
Es erscheint uns, als sagten wir damit etwas uber die Natur von Rot: dass
die Worte "Rot existiert" keinen Sinn ergeben. Es existiere eben 'an und
fur sich'. Die gleiche Idee, - dass dies eine metaphysische Aussage uber
Rot ist, - druckt sich auch darin aus, dass wir etwa sagen, Rot sei
zeitlos, und vielleicht noch starker im Wort "unzerstorbar".
"It looks to us as if we were saying something about the nature of red in
saying that the words "Red exists" do not yield a sense. Namely that red
does exist "in its own right". The same idea--that this is a metaphysical
statement about red--finds expression again when we say such a thing as
that red is timeless, and perhaps still more strongly in the word
'indestructible'." (G.E.M. Anscombe, trns., Philosophical Investigations,
MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1968)
Witt.: PHUN Prt 1 Sct 116 ln 6
Wir fuhren die Worter von ihrer metaphysischen, wieder auf ihre
alltagliche Verwendung zuruck.
"When philosophers use a word--'knowledge', 'being', 'object', 'I',
'proposition', 'name'--and try to grasp the ESSENCE of the thing, one
must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in
the language-game which is its original home?--
What WE do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their
everyday use." (Ibid.)
Witt.: ZTTL Sct 55 ln 1
Wie alles Metaphysische ist die Harmonie zwischen Gedanken und
Wirklichkeit in der Grammatik der Sprache aufzufinden.
"Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is
to be found in the grammar of language." (Ibid)
Witt.: ZTTL Sct 458 ln 1
Philosophische Untersuchungen: begriffliche Untersuchungen. Dass
Wesentliche der Metaphysik: das sie den Unterschied zwischen sachlichen
und begrifflichen Untersuchungen verwischt.
"Philosophical investigations: conceptual investigations. The essential
thing about metaphysics: it obliterates the distinction between factual
and conceptual investigations." (Ibid) >
> > As far as metaphysics def. #
2 is concerned, Wittgenstein, primus inter pares, > clearly knew that it
could not be avoided. (Perhaps that knowledge was what > kept him so
moody. ;-> ) His Tractatus is one of the most quintessentially >
metaphysical (by def. # 2, of course) books ever written. "Die Welt ist
alles, > was der Fall ist." Has there ever been a more purely, more
blatantly > metaphysical assertion than that?
As the preceding selections from Wittgenstein's later writings show, he
modified his views on metaphysics dramatically. He came to see
metaphysics as a logical misunderstanding of the true use of words.
My original question therefore stands: could this sense of
"non-metaphysical" form a valid distinction for the discussion about the
"non-metaphysics" of Hegel?
___________________________________________________________________________
Charles David Miller, University of New Mexico Department of Philosophy
Home: (505) 867-1892 Work: (505) 883-5959
God grant the philosopher insight into what lies in front of
everyone's eyes.
[Moge Gott dem Philosophen Einsict geben in das, was vor allen
Augen liegt.]
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Subject: 'non-metaphyical'
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
"Non-metaphysical" interpretation of Hegel:
(II) The Heglian Moment. First, just a couple notes on how metaphysics
should be understood as I understand the "non-metaphysical" agrument. In
general philosophy (and science) cannot procede without "metaphysics."
Hence, the non-metaphyscial interpretation is arguing that Hegel is best
understood as constructing a philosophical system which provides
categorial knowledge about the world. Hence, the system does not provide
necessary truths about transcendent reality, nor does it offer specific
knowledge of existence. Therefore, at stake is dialectic as method, the
first horn of the Hegelian dialectic.
Second the "non-metaphyscial" interpreation can be seen as a defense
against interpretaions or reformulations of the dialectic as (a) an a priori
material force (e.g. Engelsian dialectical materialism); (b) a force to
explain the motion of history (e.g. Lukcasian relational dialectics of
class struggle); (c) some sort of instrumentist or opertionalist
fictional tool.
Whereby, the Hegelian objective should be seen as a response to the
poverty of empiricism, following the transcendental suggestion of Kant.
The above is not to suggest that there isn't dialectic as process (the
second horn) in the Hegelain system, but that this can only be
established following the completion of the categorial system.
The aim of dialectic as method is in response to the empiricist
dichotomies of subject\object, and particular\universal. The latter
being the Humean "problem of induction." For the non-metaphysical
interpretaion dialecticians (should) possess no metaphysical
presumptions about the essential nature of reality. However, they do
indeed remain formally committed to system, totality, internal
relations, and dyanamic process. Or as Tony Smith depicits Hegel's
philosophy: "Philosophy begins with an appropriation of the
fundamental categories underlying the thought of a historical epoch.
Its goal is to reconstruct the intelligibility of the world through
tracing the immanent logical connections amoung these pure thought
determinations" (Smith, "The Debate Regarding Dialectical Logic in
Marx's Economic Writings":290).
Dialecic as method is an organization and structuring of our logic
and re-construction of reality in thought. A "non-metaphysical"
dialectical approach, like all others, immediately runs into the
infinite regressive problem. For the dialectician the way around this
is not to appeal to some external criterion, but to appeal to the
argument, or to the "intrinsic merits" of the (dialectical) system,
itself. Whereby, the grounding of the argument or logic is found
within the presentation of the system itself (Reuten and Williams,
1987:11).
For Hegel (Kantian) dichotomies between subject\object; freedom\necessity;
universal\particular; etc., arise from an "onesidedness" of
understanding. Hegel's dialectic as method is "an attempt to
construct a categorial framework which successfully balances two
things: (1) competing categorial schemees; (2) to do this by
reconstructing according to a finite set of basic principles the
basic concepts of experience, science, and the history of philosophy"
(Pinkard, "Hegel's Idealism and Hegel's Logic":211).
Terry Pinkard and Tony Smith follow Klaus Hartmann's "non-
metaphysical" interpretation of Hegel. Whereby Hegel's foremost
concern in his *Logic* is to construct a (dialectical) epistemological
method, which is self-justifing and self-subsuming. Thus, instead
gaining knowledge by grounding our categories that (re-)describe the
world in the conditions of experience and observation, Hegel argues
that the "grounding" of a category is demonstrated in "its logical
condition for the determinateness of some other category (this is
apparently what is meant by Hegel's talk of the 'immanent
development' of thought)" (Pinkard, ibid:213).
Thus, to move from one concept or category to another, must follow
the logical relations between the concepts. Whereby, the movement
between concepts should "be taken as a metaphor for their logical
relations" (Pinkard, ibid:214);
or metaphorically as a movement from one "contradiction" to another in a
Bhaskarian sense: "The concept of contradiction may be used as a metaphor
(like that of force in pyysics) for any kind of dissonance, strain or
tenision" (Bhaskar 1993:56). "This concept [contradiction] ranges from
constraints to conflicts. External should be distinguished from internal
contradictions, which include the 'inner conplicity' arguably necessary
for change; and dialectical from logical contradictions, which
intersect (when grounded in a common mistake) but are not coterminous.
Dialectical contradictions are mutually inclusive internally related
oppositions, conveying tendencies to change. Most, but not all,
dialectics are consistent with the formal logical norm of
non-contradiction" (Bhaskar 1993:396);
or metaphorically as "negation," whereby, the usage [of] "contradiction"
and "negation" are logical operators for ordering
categories systematically" (Smith, 1990:6). The rules of dialectical
ordering of concepts begins with the more abstract and procedes
towards every more concrete determinations. Marx's comments on
method in *Grundriesse* illustrates these rules.
Hegel's *Logic* separates his systematic dialectical logic in two
volumes and three books. In the first volume "objective logic"
functions as a "general ontology, a treatment of the a priori
determinations of being. Nothing, that is, except a purely
categorial, conceptual analysis has been offered" (Pinkard,
ibid:216). In volume two, "subjective logic" Hegel attempts to take
account for conceptuality. In his third book, "Begriff" [The
Concept] Hegel intends to answer the "transcendental question: what
are the logical conditions of the possiblity of thought's having
established the categories that it so far has, i.e., what are the
conditions of the possiblity of thought's comprehending objective
categories?" (Pinkard, ibid:217).
In the "non-metaphysical" interpreation of Hegel, the "Absolute Idea"
is not a metaphysical entity, but simple preforms a lingustic
function as a metaphor for a "completed" dialectical system. The
entire structure of Hegel's *Logic* in fact follows the dialectical
rules of a systematic construction of reality.
The "non-metaphysical" interpretation argues systematic dialectics is a way
to organize our transcendental understandings, thought and logic about the
world inself-justifing and self-subsuming manner. The Hegelian and Marxian
dialectic follows a triadic formula to organize our thought [however
Bhaskar demonstrates this need not be the case].
The dialectic is a "non-metaphysical" transcendental approach to
knowledge. It is systematic, self-justifing and self-subsuming. It
is not necessarily a method which supersedes and subsumes all other
methods, but a translucent attempt to make explicit, which is
implicit in our understanding about the world.
Hans Despain
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
hans.despain@m.cc.utah.edu
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Subject: Re: Hegel vs Marx (2/2)
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
Hans Despain asks, "What is the significance (strength or liability)
of subscribingh to such an interpretation? [i.e., non-metaphysical
interpretation of Hegel]
One answer is that it is a liability since Hegel himself held that he
was doing metaphysics. I have already cited one work in which he says
this, but perhaps the more significant text is found in the _Science
of Logic_. Hegel says,
<<...objective logic also comprises the rest of metaphysics in so far
as this attempted to comprehend with the forms of pure thought
particular substrata taken primarily from figurate conception, namely,
the soul, the world and God...>>
Hegel's logic is metaphysical, even when it criticizes "old" metaphysics.
I would think that Hegel's own assertions belie a straightforward
non-metaphysical reading of his position.
Taken in a certain light Hegel looks even to defend the metaphysicians
against their critics. For instance, in the Subjective Logic, idea of
cognition, he writes,
<>
Since Hegel is adamant that truth is the ground and purpose of philosophical
endeavor it is easily to see how he would side with the metaphysicians
against the "critics," even though he might not agree with the nature
of the metaphysical position that, say, the scholastics used.
Those commentators who hold that Hegel is anti-metaphysical, or just
non-metaphysical, will have to prove their case against Hegel's own
testimony, otherwise I cannot see how their position could be viable. That
"proving the case" has not been done, or at least, not done to my
satisfaction.
Dan "ens" Shannon
DePauw University
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
> Those commentators who hold that Hegel is anti-metaphysical, or just
> non-metaphysical, will have to prove their case against Hegel's own
> testimony, otherwise I cannot see how their position could be viable. That
> "proving the case" has not been done, or at least, not done to my
> satisfaction.
I think a distinction or two is in order here. Hegel, like Kant, was
against the "old" (scholastic, Wolffian, etc.) metaphysics; but like Kant, he
was also in developing a new, revised, viable metaphysics, no longer subject to
problems with the thing-in-itself, etc. He himself claims that his revised
metaphysics is the objective logic in the *Science of Logic*. Once in a while
he refers to this as his "metaphysics" - e.g. in one place in the Philosophy of
Nature, he speaks about applying his metaphysical "diamond-net" to the theories
of empirical physics. But it seems to me he purposely refrains from referring
very often to his "metaphysics", because of the tendency (still extant) to
equate metaphysics with the "old" metaphysics.
Howard Kainz
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Subject: A non-metaphysical Hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
>From Howard Kainz's post we can see that a "non-metaphysical" reading of
Hegel has something very specific in mind. Hartmann is not suggesting
that metaphysics have somehow been overcome, but that Hegel is able to
provide a new type of (systematic) reasoning. In this sense Tom
Rockmore's critique seems valid.
If we define metaphysics as a study of our most general categories
within which we are able to re-construct reality; then I would agree that
a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel is not viable. However, it seems
that this is not what Hartmann has in mind.
Hartmann is not an anti-metaphysical nor de-metaphysical Hegelian; but
seems more concerned with protecting the Hegelian system itself against
purely (or over-)metaphysical interpretations. In this sense, it is not
Hegel's own metaphysics which is necessarily the issue (though it is
also); but more traditional metaphysical readings of Hegel. That is it
seems that Hartmann's use of the term metaphysics is in reference to
*transcendent* (oppossed to transcendental) reasoning--- or has Klaus
Brinkmann says it:
"That is to say, although Hegel absorbed into his own
system the main topics of metaphysics, his methodological treatment of
them changed their character from being the tanscedent objects of
reasoning to becoming the subject matter of self-explicating
thought. Indeed, it can be said that Hegel found the new way which
made possible that 'future metaphysics' for which Kant's *Critique
of Pure Reason* was supposed to pave the way ... Hegel thus
transormed speculation about transcendent entities into a self-contained,
and hence presuppositionless, theory of the structural analysis
of categorial concepts ... [traditional] Metaphysics is replaced by an
ontology which may justifiably be called 'transcendental'"
(Brinkmann 1994 "Hegel's Critique of Kant and Pre-Kantian Metaphysics"
in *Hegel Reconsidered*:58).
However, it is true (as Dan Shannon points out) that even this more
humble non-metaphysical interpreation must still confront the traditional
metaphysical and theological language which Hegel chose to employ. This
is indeed a task. Hence, it seems more viable to attempt to argue if a
non-metaphysical reading of Hegel is a capable of capturing the project
of Hegel; and is correct in "righting" or "understanding" Hegel, and what
he was up to, as first overcoming the fallacies of traditional
metaphysical philosophy. Where to place his theological language is
another; though not unimporant; issue.
Therefore, is Hegel best understood as some sort of quasi-theologian or is
his project different than this?
Hans Despain
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
hans.depsian@m.cc.utah.edu
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Subject: a non-metaphysical hegel
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For those who think Hegel is non-metaphysical, here are a few
questions to consider.
Is Hegel's philosophy "transcendental?," that is, does Hegel's
demonstrations constitute a "transcendental analytic" or "pure deduction"
of cognitive principles from some putative "facts of experience?" What
a number of American commentators think so, including Charles Tayolr,
Robert Solomon, Kenely Dove, Merold Westphal, et. al. I wonder what
other people think about this?
Is Hegel's philosophy "historical," that is, does Hegel's
demonstrations concerning self-certainty, spirit, world constitute
a philosophical history? A number of commentators think so, including
Kojeve, Joe Flay (in the `70s), Habermas, et.al.
Is Hegel confused between the two kinds of philosophical
demonstration? Rudolf Haym thought so, and Heidegger also seems to think so.
Is Hegel's philosophy a retreat into subjectivism, an "emptying
of the concept" from the point of view of total subjectivity. I.H. Fichte
made this claim in his _Characteristik der neuen Philosophie_, when he
likens Hegel to an ememdation of his father's work. Is Hegel's philosophy
a retreat into objectivity, an "emptying of the concept" from the point
of view of objectivity. Kierkegaard and Levinas seem to think so in their
criticism of Hegel.
I take it that these commentators all present a "non-metaphysical"
reading of Hegel in one form or another. Each of these "non-metaphysical"
readings look to be incompatible with each other, which one is the "right"
one?
Is there a reading of Hegel which takes issue with these readings
and at the same time remains true to Hegel's own arguments?
Any volunteers?
Cheers,
Dan Shannon
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Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical hegel
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 29 Aug 95 12:06:20 EDT."
<01HUN5DSEHO2001MSX@DEPAUW.EDU>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 12:30:41 -0400
From: --David Kolb--Bates College--
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> For those who think Hegel is non-metaphysical, here are a few
>questions to consider.
>
> Is Hegel's philosophy "transcendental?," that is, does Hegel's
>demonstrations constitute a "transcendental analytic" or "pure deduction"
>of cognitive principles from some putative "facts of experience?" What
>a number of American commentators think so, including Charles Tayolr,
>Robert Solomon, Kenely Dove, Merold Westphal, et. al. I wonder what
>other people think about this?
It's not a good idea to lump these people together. Kenley Dove and
his confreres such as Richard Winfield and Bill Maker would insist
that they are not reading Hegel as working from any "facts of
experience" but as a presuppositionless development of pure thought (a
standpoint reached by the Phenomenology but carried out in the Logic).
I'm fairly sympathetic to this reading, though I have my doubts that
Hegel actually achieves this, if it is what he sets out to do.
As for the others mentioned above, Taylor certainly takes Hegel to be
doing a Kantian style search for the conditions of possibility for
given patterns in experience, but Taylor's Hegel is ultimately quite
"metaphysical" in that he claims Hegel posits a cosmic subjectivity.
I suggested the other day that this discussion needs to be clearer
about what meaning of "metaphysics" Hegel is supposed to be "non-". I
think he certainly remains "metaphysical" in the sense that Heidegger
and Derrida are worried about: foundationalist and interested in a
priori truth. I don't think he's metaphysical in the second sense they
accuse him of, namely, some version of subjectivism. Neither of these
is quite the same as the "classical" metaphysics of the Schools,
Wolffian philosophy, etc. But there is a close connection to
Aristotle's description of metaphysics as the study of categories and
of what is true of things just in virtue of their being.
The question for the "non-metaphysical" interpretations of Hegel may
really be: can you divorce metaphysics-1 a categorial study together
with the question of what is true of a being insofar as it is a being,
from metaphysics-2, the study of the highest foundational being.
Aristotle does both (linked by the notion of substance as the prime
example of being). Plato does both most of the time but perhaps not in
the Sophist and Parmenides? Does Hegel do both? Or is the theological
language in the end to lead us back to the categorial and logical
progression, and perhaps a conception of the world as a rational
whole?
Put in Heideggerian jargon: is metaphyics inevitably "onto-theology"
or can there be a pure study of "onto-logy"?
(And an appendix: none of this immediately impacts "metaphysical"
discussions in the more analytic traditions which are more concerned
with what entities should be affirmed to exist (universals? numbers?
sets? events? souls?) and with questions of ontological reduction
(universals to particulars, intentional states to brain states, etc.
It would be an interesting discussion to ask about the categorial
structure, in the sense of Hegel's logic, for such discussions. Doing
so, would it be doing "metaphysics" or not?)
David Kolb
Bates College
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Subject: Re: Hegel, Wittgenstein
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Reply to: RE>>Hegel, Wittgenstein
I will not take up Charles Miller's invitation to try to say more about
Wittgenstein and Hegel in a direct way - but only recommend McDowell's Locke
Lectures ("Mind and World") to which I referred earlier, and suggest their
general direction. There McDowell starts off at Kant's distinction between
conceptual form and intuitive content, and, relying on Wittgenstein and
others, argues that the notion of a passively given intuitive content which
fills out the conceptual form cannot play the role that is usually attributed
to it. That is, he attempts to undermine the "myth of the given". For a start,
that seems to put him on a trajectory that was taken by Fichte and Hegel vis a
vis Kant's notion of intuitive content.
Wittgenstein's criticisms of the notion of a private language forms part of
McDowell's resources here (along with Sellars, Davidson et al.). But McDowell
takes the relevant passages from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
in a much more general way, and as directed at the idea that some "bare
presence" given to consciousness could play any role in our justifications.
This is at the nub of his assertions about the conceptual having no outside or
being unbounded. McDowell rejects various alternatives (eg Davidson's idea
that causal relations somehow constrain our beliefs in a way that bypasses
concepts) because he apparently thinks that it is not necessary to find a way
around the idea that there is no outer limit to the conceptual (intuitive
content, cause, or whatever).
It is here that he sounds as if he is advocating the sort of idealism that one
finds in Hegel. To give just one example: "We can formulate the point in a
style Wittgenstein would have been uncomfortable with: there is no ontological
gap between the sort of thing one can mean, or generally the sort of thing one
can think, and the sort of thing that can be the case. When one thinks truly,
what one thinks IS what is the case. So since the world is everything that is
the case (as he himself once wrote), there is no gap between thought, as such
and the world." (p. 27)
In flipping through McDowell's book just now I noticed that he uses
Wittgenstein's comments about the use of "I" in the Blue Book (the sort of
comments that l earlier responded to when they were used as "evidence" of
Wittgenstein's un-Hegelian philosophising) to bring him into relation with
Kant. (M&W 178-79)
Paul Redding
Sydney
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From: --David Kolb--Bates College--
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
> For those who think Hegel is non-metaphysical, here are a few
>questions to consider.
>
> Is Hegel's philosophy "transcendental?," that is, does Hegel's
>demonstrations constitute a "transcendental analytic" or "pure deduction"
>of cognitive principles from some putative "facts of experience?" What
>a number of American commentators think so, including Charles Tayolr,
>Robert Solomon, Kenely Dove, Merold Westphal, et. al. I wonder what
>other people think about this?
It's not a good idea to lump these people together. Kenley Dove and
his confreres such as Richard Winfield and Bill Maker would insist
that they are not reading Hegel as working from any "facts of
experience" but as a presuppositionless development of pure thought (a
standpoint reached by the Phenomenology but carried out in the Logic).
I'm fairly sympathetic to this reading, though I have my doubts that
Hegel actually achieves this, if it is what he sets out to do.
As for the others mentioned above, Taylor certainly takes Hegel to be
doing a Kantian style search for the conditions of possibility for
given patterns in experience, but Taylor's Hegel is ultimately quite
"metaphysical" in that he claims Hegel posits a cosmic subjectivity.
I suggested the other day that this discussion needs to be clearer
about what meaning of "metaphysics" Hegel is supposed to be "non-". I
think he certainly remains "metaphysical" in the sense that Heidegger
and Derrida are worried about: foundationalist and interested in a
priori truth. I don't think he's metaphysical in the second sense they
accuse him of, namely, some version of subjectivism. Neither of these
is quite the same as the "classical" metaphysics of the Schools,
Wolffian philosophy, etc. But there is a close connection to
Aristotle's description of metaphysics as the study of categories and
of what is true of things just in virtue of their being.
The question for the "non-metaphysical" interpretations of Hegel may
really be: can you divorce metaphysics-1 a categorial study together
with the question of what is true of a being insofar as it is a being,
from metaphysics-2, the study of the highest foundational being.
Aristotle does both (linked by the notion of substance as the prime
example of being). Plato does both most of the time but perhaps not in
the Sophist and Parmenides? Does Hegel do both? Or is the theological
language in the end to lead us back to the categorial and logical
progression, and perhaps a conception of the world as a rational
whole?
Put in Heideggerian jargon: is metaphyics inevitably "onto-theology"
or can there be a pure study of "onto-logy"?
(And an appendix: none of this immediately impacts "metaphysical"
discussions in the more analytic traditions which are more concerned
with what entities should be affirmed to exist (universals? numbers?
sets? events? souls?) and with questions of ontological reduction
(universals to particulars, intentional states to brain states, etc.
It would be an interesting discussion to ask about the categorial
structure, in the sense of Hegel's logic, for such discussions. Doing
so, would it be doing "metaphysics" or not?)
David Kolb
Bates College
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To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
David Kolb commented on Dove's interpretation. David claimed that Dove
does not believe that Hegel's argument begings with any presuppositions,
nor deals with "facts of experiences." I think on both counts David
has misrepresented Dove's views. But, I will admit that "facts of
experience" is ambiguous, since it mean either some empirical content
or a "pure" content. In any case here is Dove's claim:
<> (Dove, "Phenomenology and
Systematic Philosophy," in _Method and Speculation in Hegel's
Phenomenology_ (Humanities, 1982), p. 29.
To be quite honest, I don't think Dove is very consistent in this argument.
We find for instance _denying_ that there are any fundamental presuppositions
in an earlier paper. In the following quotation he rejects the hypothesis
being offerred:
<> (Dove, "Hegel's
Phenomenological Method, " Review of Metaphysics, 4 (June, 1970),
616f.
Despite the contradiction. It is likely that Dove just changed his mind,
and that we was willing to take up the view that Hegel's argument is
"transcendental" in 1982, even though he denies it in 1970.
What makes Dove's 1982 view different from Charles Taylor's view (at least
Taylor in the late 70s) is that the "fundamental facts" being supposed
are different. Dove takes "intentionality" to be what is supposed by
Hegel, i.e. a relational consciousness to the world, while Taylor takes
the facts to be indisputable "beings in the world," i.e. ordinary objects
of experience.
My suspicion is that neither Taylor's nor Dove's views will hold up under
close scrutiny if one disregards the former's Neo-Kantianism and the latter's
modest Phenomenology (aka Husserl).
Dan Shannon
DePauw
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From: --David Kolb--Bates College--
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
>David Kolb commented on Dove's interpretation. David claimed that Dove
>does not believe that Hegel's argument begings with any presuppositions,
>nor deals with "facts of experiences." I think on both counts David
>has misrepresented Dove's views. But, I will admit that "facts of
>experience" is ambiguous, since it mean either some empirical content
>or a "pure" content. In any case here is Dove's claim:
I must admit that I was thinking more of Winfield and Maker's position
than Dove's, but in any case you have to distinguish what is
presupposed by the *Phenomenology* (consciousness) and what Dove
thinks is presupposed by the *System* (which seems to mean, the
Logic). In the view I'm speaking of, the presupposition of
consciousness is done away with by the Phenomenology, leaving you with
pure thought. The intro essay "With What Should the System Begin"
weighs heavily in this interpretation. The System has no
presupposition and is not to be thought as an examination of
transcendental conditions for anything "given" since "givenness" has
supposedly been removed as a working presupposition in the move to
Absolute Knowledge in the Phenomenology. So I don't think the
comparison with Husserl is appropriate. Also this might explain the
seeming contradiction in Dove's views. But he hasn't written much;
you'll find much more elaborated versions of the view in Winfield's
papers or Maker's.
It's one question if the view is Hegel's, and another if it works.
I've always been suspicious of views that demand purification of the
examiner (Husserl's is another) since the purification always seems to
need to be done yet more carefully, and that provides a quick
refutation of any objection. In this case the purification can only be
accomplished by putting immense stress on the necessity and
exhaustiveness of the Phenomenology, which I'm not sure that
polyvalent and multi-purpose text can bear. In any case this view is
a good example of something that is non-metaphysical in one sense but
not in another. (It's also not the same as Klaus Hartman's view which
involves reconstruction rather than purified self-development of
thought.)
David Kolb
Bates College
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Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
A couple small points in reply to David Kolb.
1) In both papers I cited, Dove is referring to the PG. What concerns he
may have beyond the PG are not really addressed in these papers, or not
clearly addressed.
2) The reference to Husserl comes from Dove. I did not quote the entire
paragraph in either quotation, but Husserl's reduction to pure consciousness
as an intentional attitude is explicit.
3) The problem of the two termini (consciousness to absolute knowing) is too
big a problem to address here, but I rather doubt that "purification" of
consciousness is intended--either by Dove in his 1982 paper or in Hegel's
argument. The reason I believe this is that in the _Logic_ the categories
of being are explicitly referential, in that they are descriptive of real
"states of affairs." The fact that the categories are referential does not
mitigate against their purity however. On this point there has been some
confusion as to Hegel's meaning. (For instance Michael Rosen accuses Hegel
of "hyperintuitivism" and Platonism in the _Logic_, since Rosen claims sense
(Sinn) replaces meaning (Bedeutung) in Hegel's system.) I tend to believe that
Terry Pinkard got it right when he speaks of the opening of the _Logic_
in the following way:
"Hegel argues that two things are necessary to understand his conception
of the being of individuals (what Hegel calls Dasein): (1) a substrate
that provides the background for the scattered plurality; and (2) an
individualizing factor, which is provided by things," "Reply to David
Duquette," _Essays on Hegel's Logic_, p. 18.
If I understand Terry's position rightly, even the initial categories of
the _Logic_ have an intentionality, and although the reference to "things"
may be indeterminate at the beginning, it is still implied.
From what I can tell about Dove's position, he might actually
agree with this assesment.
4) Do Maker and Winfield input to Hegel's argument a "transcendental deduc-
tion" of some sort? It was on this point that I made my initial comparision
between Dove and Taylor, because even Dove appears to admit that this is
the kind of method that Hegel uses. To repeat myself, the difference between
the two concerns from what "facts of experience" the argument proceeds,
and not on the species of argument used.
Thanks for your response. I would be very interested in gaining information
about point 4 especially.
Dan Shannon
DePauw University
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From: Frederik van Gelder
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Subject: a non-metaphysical Hegel (Dan Shannon)
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
[Dan Shannon:]
>For those who think Hegel is non-metaphysical, here are a few
>questions to consider.
>
Dan Shannon's thoughtprovoking questions are always a pleasure to read
and to mull over.
Allow me to venture the following.
Hegel is the culmination of a two-millenia long tradition of thought
which starts with the Greeks, and ends with our contemporary faith in
science and technology. One can insist, with Moore, Russell, Carnap and
their contemporary followers that everything called 'meta'-physics (as
opposed to the no-nonsense prefix-less kind of physics, as well as
everything else not verifiable by empirical methods or experimental
testing) is arrant nonsense, but there is then still the little matter
of explaining why most of the human race, for most of recorded history,
insisted that the world of experience is merely the jejune and un-
interesting reflection of whatever it is that transcends it. (And
they're still with us: although no longer a majority; I mean those for
whom the essence/ appearance distinction is more fundamental than the
one between theory and empirical reality.)
i.e. to argue that Hegel is non-metaphysical really begs the much more
interesting question of _what metaphysics is_, since we then need to
account for a mode of thinking fundamentally different from our own, and
which has been around a lot longer than our own. In this unexpected way
one ends up, even if one's rejection of Hegel is so complete that one
denies the existence of a meaningful topic called 'metaphysics' at all,
with considerations dealing with the course of the human race on this
planet, since not even the most austere empiricist will deny that we've
lived on this planet for three or four million years or so, and that for
most of this time human beings have believed in all kinds of things, but
not in science. We're then right back to a very Hegelian theme: the
universal history of the human race on this planet, in relation to the
collectively shared convictions of the same.
I get the impression that by a 'non-metaphysical Hegel' something like
the following is meant: that it should be possible, on the basis of the
knowledge and scholarship available to us today, to _reformulate_ the
problems and paradoxes Hegel grappled with in such a way that they make
sense to _us_, without having to invoke such dubious mental contortions
as 'the absolute spirit in history', 'identity of subject and object', a
'dialectic of positivity and negativity', a double reality which is 'an
und fuer sich' and so on. If that is what is meant by this notion of a
'non-metaphysical Hegel', then it is worth remembering that such an
enterprise is itself a venerable one: in Europe this is nothing other
than the program of the Hegelian _Left_ and _Right_, (Herbert
Schnaedelbach, colleague of Habermas, has a book out called _Philosophy
in Germany 1831-1933_, where 1831 is of course the death of Hegel) in
the english-speaking world it has left traces in the work of Dewey, G.H.
Mead, C.S. Peirce. (Richard Bernstein has dealt with some of these
things)
In Europe the quest for a 'non-metaphysical Hegel' is _no different_
from the general 'critique of idealism', or to invoke the by now rather
hackneyed Engels phrase for the same: what it is that a general theory
of history would look like once Hegel has been 'turned from his head
onto his feet'. A 'materialist reformulation of the dialectic' no less,
except that those who insist on the possibility of a 'non-metaphysical
Hegel' seem not to be aware of the well-trodden path they have set out
upon. One could perhaps argue that that does'nt matter very much, but it
does seem rather a pity that for the lack of awareness of the existence
of this huge literature on the subject all these bods should be
forlornly trying to rediscover the wheel all over again. I mean: it's no
accident that the _Anti-Duehring_ has fallen into that limbo reserved
for outmoded dogmas ...
One last aspect: what we're talking about is no less than the question
of an objective explaination for _religion_, of those peculiar mimetic
impulses which have expressed themselves through the millenia in a
multiplicity of magical, then religious practices. I get the impression
that those who speak of a 'non-metaphysical Hegel' think that all this
can be sidestepped by pretending that it's all a matter of formal
_logic_, i.e. by pretending that _Hegel's_ logic has something to do
with contemporary logic of science.
regards,
------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederik van Gelder Ph.D.
Institut fuer Sozialforschung
Frankfurt University
email: gelder@em.uni-frankfurt.de
(yes, the old 'Frankfurt School')
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>From: Dan Shannon
>Reply to: hegel-l@bucknell.edu
>To: Multiple recipients of list
>Subject: a non-metaphysical hegel
>
>For those who think Hegel is non-metaphysical, here are a few
>questions to consider.
>
>
>Is Hegel's philosophy "transcendental?," that is, does Hegel's
>demonstrations constitute a "transcendental analytic" or "pure deduction"
>of cognitive principles from some putative "facts of experience?" What
>a number of American commentators think so, including Charles Taylor,
>Robert Solomon, Kenely Dove, Merold Westphal, et. al. I wonder what
>other people think about this?
>
>Is Hegel's philosophy "historical," that is, does Hegel's
>demonstrations concerning self-certainty, spirit, world constitute
>a philosophical history? A number of commentators think so, including
>Kojeve, Joe Flay (in the `70s), Habermas, et.al.
>
>Is Hegel confused between the two kinds of philosophical
>demonstration? Rudolf Haym thought so, and Heidegger also seems to think so.
>
>Is Hegel's philosophy a retreat into subjectivism, an "emptying
>of the concept" from the point of view of total subjectivity. I.H. Fichte
>made this claim in his _Characteristik der neuen Philosophie_, when he
>likens Hegel to an ememdation of his father's work. Is Hegel's philosophy
>a retreat into objectivity, an "emptying of the concept" from the point
>of view of objectivity. Kierkegaard and Levinas seem to think so in their
>criticism of Hegel.
>
>I take it that these commentators all present a "non-metaphysical"
>reading of Hegel in one form or another. Each of these "non-metaphysical"
>readings look to be incompatible with each other, which one is the "right"
>one?
>Is there a reading of Hegel which takes issue with these readings
>and at the same time remains true to Hegel's own arguments?
>
>Any volunteers?
>
>Cheers,
>Dan Shannon
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Dan wrote:
> 4) Do Maker and Winfield input to Hegel's argument a "transcendental deduc-
> tion" of some sort? It was on this point that I made my initial comparision
> between Dove and Taylor, because even Dove appears to admit that this is
> the kind of method that Hegel uses. To repeat myself, the difference between
> the two concerns from what "facts of experience" the argument proceeds,
> and not on the species of argument used.
Well Bill is on the list if memory serves. I'm still chewing on his
paper from last year's meeting and he oughta have something to say
about all this. Hey Bill??
hiho
--
mce peterson, philosophy
university of wisconsin centers
The shorter the tether, the sooner the goat starves.
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From: "d. macgregor"
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Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical Hegel (MacGregor)
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
Frederick van Gelder's comment on the non-metaphysical Hegel is an
important, thoughtful contribution. Anyway Hegel without metaphysics is
like the proverbial "kiss without a squeeze, or apple pie without
cheese." The Understanding consciousness is rampant in our society, as
Hegel predicted it would be; to search for a non-metaphysical Hegel is to
abandon the higher realm of consciousness Hegel called, Reason.
Best. David
David MacGregor
Professor of Sociology HOME: 258 Seaton Street
King's College Toronto, Ontario
University of Western Ontario CANADA M5A 2T4
266 Epworth Avenue Tel: 416-922-2984
London, Ontario Fax: 416-969-9500
CANADA M5A 2T4
Tel: 800-265-4406 ext. 376
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Subject: The non-metaphysical interpretation of Hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
I've only just tuned into the discussion on the list about the
non-metaphysical Hegel, and I've no doubt passed over some of the
interesting postings on the subject. At the risk of just repeating
what's already been said, let me add a couple of things to the
discussion.
When Hartmann first spoke of a non-metaphysical Hegel, he had in mind
Kant's attack on traditional metaphysics as a doctrine of
supersensible transcendent objects that could only be discerned
by reason (or by some special intuitive faculty). The Copernican
revolution was supposed to undo that, showing that "reason has
insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own"
(Critique of Pure Reason, Bxiii). The idea was that all claims to
knowledge, moral action, aesthetic judgment, etc. didn't need to be
underwritten by an appeal to a transcendent supersensible object or
set of objects. Hartmann used that to pose again the question of how
we are to understand Hegel's project in light of the post-Kantian
debate. Hartmann's way was to try to see Hegel as attempting to
complete the Kantian project by showing how it is possible to give
such a self-grounding account in which the criteria for
knowledge-claims (etc.) are to be underwritten only by some kind of
self-legitimating process -- to cash out Kant's rather startling claim
in the note to #16 of the B Deduction that the transcendental unity of
apperception is "that highest point, to which we must ascribe all
employment of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and
conformably therewith, transcendental philosophy." Hartmann, like his
good friend, Rorty, took this to imply that Kant had undermined any
kind of appeal to a 'given' (C.I. Lewis' old phrase), to anything
which simply had to be accepted on faith. Accepting a 'given'
amounted to what Kant called dogmatism. (Even "sense-certainty, the
term coined by Jacobi, did not offer any 'givens.')
We might put it more colloquially: once we've kicked all the usual
props out from underneath ourselves (no more appeals to any 'givens'
at all -- not to tradition, sacred text, nature, whatever), then we're
left with the prospect of legitimating the various claims to knowledge
in terms that are purely internal to itself -- in Kant's words, to
what reason "produces after a plan of its own." That is, we've
nothing but our own freedom on which to rely, and the only normative
constraints that can count are those are in some sense self-imposed
constraints.
One way of taking Hegel to have resolved that problem is Taylor's:
Hegel combines the new emphasis on freedom with the old metaphysics by
combining the two of them into an overall doctrine of Geist directing
itself through us to some kind of cosmic self-consciousness. Now,
that's a metaphysical Hegel; the whole process is underwritten not us
but by something supersensible to us that is working through us. Of
course, on such a reading, you've got to make sense of how Geist is
both transcendent to us and immanent to us, etc., and the result is
usually a very murky set of thoughts.
Hartmann sometimes spoke as if that understanding of Hegel really was
Hegel, but that Hegel was being inconsistent with himself. That is,
if Hegel had remained true to the Kantian program, then he wouldn't
have extended his project from this kind of internalist
self-legitimating post-Kantian project into the kind of more robust
metaphysics that he did. Hartmann's idea then came down to preserving
the Kantian, transcendental core of Hegel's thought because he thought
that in fact ruled out the metaphysical part of Hegel's thought.
There weren't any ulterior motives, such as trying to jettison
religion, etc. His project was driven by the investigation of what it
made sense to say once one operated in a post-Kantian, critical
project.
A number of us agree with that sense of a non-metaphysical Hegel.
There are great differences among us as to how this project of
self-grounding is to proceed. The cartoon version of our views goes
something like this. One way is that taken by Winfield, to
reconstruct the 'system' in an internally rigorous, self-grounding
kind of way. Houlgate, on the other hand, has tried to show how this
way of proceeding in fact gets us to the more robust metaphysical
claims that Hartmann thought were ruled out by the critical project in
general. So we have a dispute as to just how much can be derived from
a project that takes the post-Kantian critical starting point of
self-grounding; Hartmann says not nearly as much as Hegel thought,
Winfield says it's quite a bit more, and Houlgate says that it's
practically the whole show. Sally Sedgwick has tried to show how you
can take the move from Kant to Hegel, remain true to the critical
project but avoid getting entangled at all in the thorny stuff about
self-grounding, etc., that discussion of the self-imposition of norms
(the kind of thing Kant tries to do in his ethics) will do the job.
(This is all too brief, and there are other people and responses left
unmentioned, but I hope that suffices as a cook's tour.)
I originally sided with Hartmann's view (having been his student),
but I've come to change my views a good bit since then (by
and large because of the criticisms that I received
about Hegel's Dialectic, which led me to rethink some things I had
held dear). Part of the issue has to do with that most vexing of
problems, the place of the Phenomenology in the overall corpus. In my
recent book, Hegel's Phenonomenology: the Sociality of Reason, I tried
to show how a complex self-reflexive historicism of the type for which
I take Hegel to be arguing in that book can be taken as the way in
which the system actually gets underwritten and thus is the
presupposition of the system. Roughly, it tries to show that once one
takes such an internalist view, one must show how all attempts at
prescribing some given or some transcendent legitimation to knowledge
claims internally undermine themselves such that later conceptions of
what counts as an authoritative reason are necessitated out those
failures,and that only some conception of our own own
'like-mindedness' (or sociality) can possibly underwrite such claims.
Robert Pippin takes something like this view too. (In the August 4
TLS, Robert Stern takes both Pippin and myself to task on that point,
arguing that such a project is just too unbelievable to those who have
come to see how often reason has proven to be beholden to other
powers). This forms, I suppose, yet another variant on the idea of a
non-metaphysical Hegel.
(Some of the above mentioned people obviously also could be placed in
this variant. Maybe those mentioned will correct my characterization of them
if I've got them wrong.)
As I read him, David Kolb partially accepts the Hartmann
view but tries to show that it and all the variants of
'self-underwriting reason' actually presuppose much more than they
admit and thus don't really answer the kind of Heideggerian criticisms
that they think they do. (Kolb's position is really quite subtle and
deserves more discussion; Hartmann in fact began his career as a
Heideggerian and always thought that he had answered the kinds of
criticisms that Kolb in fact raised.)
Now obviously none of this is going to be satisfactory to those who
think that all the talk of self-grounding and self-legitimating is
like those Tex Avery characters in the Warner Brothers cartoons who
can walk on thin air until they look down and realize there's nothing
underneath them, at which point they fall. (The cartoon equivalent of
Kierkegaard's criticism?) In one sense, Kolb's critique of Hegel in
his Critique of Pure Modernity is a bit like that, to the extent that
I've understood him adequately. But that's a real issue to be
discussed.
If we wanted a slogan for such things, I guess you could say that it
comes down to how much 'freedom' is capable of underwriting its own
claims, how much reason really can claim to be autonomous, and what,
if anything follows from that. Such issues go the heart of the
post-Hegelian attempts at denying such a Kantian and post-Kantian
project, such as Pragmatism, Frege-Russell Platonism, Heideggerian
'Denken,' and all the various 'isms that have also come on the scene
(psychologism, historicism, sociologism, neurophilosophy, etc.) It
also goes to the heart of the debates about what counts as logic, as
analysis, etc. For those of us who've been quite taken by the issues
surrounding the so-called "non-metaphysical Hegel" debate, it also
seems that such engagement with the various post-Hegelian responses to
what those Post-Hegelians saw as the inadequacies and breakdowns of
Hegelianism in all its forms is necessary if we're to come to any kind
of resolution about what, if anything, remains alive and viable in
the idealist, post-Kantian project in an age of pragmatism, cognitive
science, post-modern thought, etc. That's at the basis of what
the non-metaphysical Hegel hullabaloo is all about, at least
as I understand it.
Terry Pinkard
Georgetown University
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From: HANS DESPAIN
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Subject: Re: The non-metaphysical interpretation of Hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
Personally I have very much enjoyed this discussion, Terry Pinkard
comments are quite interesting. However, what can it mean that there are
"no givens?" Especially in light of the sociological approach to
knowledge (e.g. Kuhn, Polanyi, Toulmin, etc.); or merely our language
(as Feuerbach points out).
It seems to me that much of Pinkard's posts begs for a conception of
idealism, that is what sort of idealist is Hegel. Perhaps this could be
another important thread.
But what of "no givens?" In the *Phenomenology* Hegel takes us through
A. Consciousness: Sense-certainty; Perception; and Understanding;
B. Self-consciousness: Master-Slave metaphor; Stoicism; Scepticism; and
the Unhappy consciousness.
How can we understand these but as (epistemologically) given? Scepticism
tells us that we cannot be certain of what precedes it, while the
contradictions of scepticism informs us that we must move beyond it
(scepticism). Is it here that we can metaporically say there are no givens?
If this is meant to say that it is here we must take the "transcendental
turn," o.k., but does not the transcendental trun depend on something
(givens; even if epistemological relative [or fallible])?
Perhaps it is meant to say that "truth" is not given, in a positivisit or
empiricist sense. But must not the transcendental thinker (dialectician)
have her empirical moment, not to necessarily justify, but merely to
*make* the "transcendental turn."
In this sense, transcendentalism needs to make room for analytical
approaches, not at the expense of the dialectic (in a Russellian sense)
but in fact to understand the dialectic.
The issue here seems to be to keep science and philosophy autonomous,
that is neither should negate the other. Freedom, that is further human
emanicaption, depends on there (dialectical) inter-(inner-)action. If the
*Phemenology* parts A and B can be said to argue that empiricism
(sense-data) cannot do it (discover truth) on its own; neither can pure
reason (tranditional metaphysics).
Thus, if Hegel is indeed taking the "transcendental turn" in part C of
the *Phemenology* (as Taylor has argued); it is a "turn" which is quite
fallible. That is a "turn" which is dependent on the sociological and
relational development of knowledge (science) itself. In other words, it
is dependent on epistemological relativism, but need not suffer the same
fate (e.g. empiricist scepticism, or postmodern absolute (ontological)
relativism).
It is our scientific imagation; our ideas and theories which attempt to
take the giant leaps toward "truth" (or falsehood); the transcendental
turn is quite humble in that it aims to correct the anomalies the
endeavor encounters.
That is transcendentism moves us beyond mere (Kantian) dialectical
comments, or limits of Reason, toward dialetical resolutions.
It seems to me that this (dialectical) project is self-grounding and
self-justifing (in Hartmann's or Pinkard's sense) only temporarily; at
least for Realphilsophie. The empirical, or better, the epistemological
moment is always capable of further "discovery," which must be
interpreted ontologically (as Hartmann interprets Hegel's *Logic*),
rather than metaphysically (in a traditional sense).
That is whereas the traditional metaphysics hetronomously told us how to
understand (epistemology) science; transdentalism interprets our
epistemology as autonomously understanding and constructing our
conception of Being (ontology).
Thus, science furthers our philosophical knowledge; while philosophy,
via transcendentalism, is the underlabor of science (in a Lockean sense).
Hence, if "no givens" means that philosophy (pure Reason) can negate
science, this seems a metaphysical mistake. If it is meant
metaphorically to suggest the poverty of positivism; i.e., begging for
the "transcendental turn;" then it seems a metaphysical necessity for
the development and progression of knowledge.
Hans Despain
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
hans.despain@m.cc.utah.edu
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Subject: Reply: Marx (Duquette on)
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David Duquette comments on Marx where quite good. I would tend to
agree that Marx's "strategy" is to understand the "deep structural
causes" of unfreedom or social exploitation. Not necessarily for a
conception of the future, but for the transformation of the present,
e.g. for further human emancipation.
As for "social relations in future society;" Duquette says Marx's
"very thin sketch, of communist society" is toward the abolishment
of the "contradictions" which exist in present society between
property and poverty.
If this is to say that the production relations, as a concept of
private property, well need be re-established; that is the
historical form is transformed, I would agree. If this means that
private property is abolished in a transhistorical sense, it must be
mistaken.
Perhaps this is what Duquette means when he says: "Thus, it is not
the mere abolishing of private property alone which brings
emancipation but rather the socializing and humanizing of productive
activity." It is not the private property which need be abolished,
but the production relations as such.
Duquette reveals the Hegelian motives of Marx in his conception of
rational freedom requiring: "that the individual and society be
integrated in an organic fashion such that individuals, considered as
parts or members of the organism, pursue their interests and goals
so that the good and well being of the society as a whole is also
promoted, and conversely in promoting the goals of society the best
interests of the individual are served. We might refer to this as
a 'perfectionist' view ..." as opposed to the "accomodationist" view.
The accomodationist view remains within the Logic of Essence (with
respect to Hegel's *Logic*); this is Marx's conception of capitalism.
Which explains why we encounter so many Hegelian Essence categories
in the writing of Marx. His view of communism must metaphorically
encounter the the "perfectionist view" or Logic of Concpet. For Marx,
it is a metaphysical mistake to believe that full emanicpation can be
accomplished in the production relations of capitalism. The wage-
capital nexus negates freedom.
Duquette raise some important questions on the (Hegelian motive)
of creating a synthesis between the individual and society
(universal). He points out that the (orthodox) Marxian "utopia"
rests on "their belief in the unboundedness of technical progress
for grounding this emancipation." Yes, this is the post-modern and
frankfurt school critiques. Although "Participatory Political
Economy" models have attempted to address this; Marx's and Marxian
lack of an adequate theory of State, leave this ambiguous.
Mandel has argued that the negation of the current production
relations implies the whithering away of domination etc. The
models of Albert and Hanhel and Devine have much to be desired.
However, in any event it seems a mistake to believe that (Marxian)
emancipation depends on unbounded technical progress. For it does
not. It depends on the transformation of the subject of Political
Economy, namely production relations.
In this sense, the normative criteria of Marx is more humble than
Duquette would seem to have it. Moreover, it seems that the
(Feuerbachian) notion of species-being misleds Duquette to believe
that Marx's conception of human nature is "over-optimistic." Marx
in fact did abandon this term following his (and Engels) *German
Ideology*. IMO Marx returns to Hegel, rather than Feuerbach's
natrualistic conception, for a notion of human nature.
I have no problem with the term itself being "seen" in the mature
Marx, but the early Marx use of the term must be interpreted from his
latter writings, rather than on Feuerbachian terms. The same can be
said of alienation.
Marx's normative criteria rests on the concept that human beings are
in part defined by social relations with one another. Which in turn,
is in part determined by the production relations they find
themselves inheriting, reproducing and sometimes (usually
unconsciously) transforming. Thus, we can only understand the
individual when we have understood the production and social
relations in which she has been formed. This sociological or
relational perspective cannot be negated, as Feuerbach does in his
conception of species-being, and Striner does in his conception of
ego.
It is our Self-consciousness and Resaon whereby we can understand that
production relations are not only inherited, reproduced and
transformed historically, but can be "consciously" (rather than the
normally historically unconciously) transformed toward greater
freedom. Thus, Marxian emancipation does not depend on a
telelogical historical entity, but rather the unteleogical "freedom"
of human reason and will.
Hans Despain
despain@econ.sbs.utah.edu
hans.despain@m.cc.utah.edu
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From: duquda@sncac.snc.edu (David A. Duquette)
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: a non-metaphysical Hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
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Frederik van Gelder made an acute observation when he wrote:
>
> One last aspect: what we're talking about is no less than the question
> of an objective explaination for _religion_, of those peculiar mimetic
> impulses which have expressed themselves through the millenia in a
> multiplicity of magical, then religious practices. I get the impression
> that those who speak of a 'non-metaphysical Hegel' think that all this
> can be sidestepped by pretending that it's all a matter of formal
> _logic_, i.e. by pretending that _Hegel's_ logic has something to do
> with contemporary logic of science.
>
I'm reminded of Heidegger's essay "What is Metaphysics" which has always
struck me as "hitting the nail on the head," so to speak, regarding the
issue of metaphysics. It's no accident that theologians have attempted
to appropriate Heidegger's notion of Being qua Being, but of course any
anthropomorphizing of Being misses Heidegger's point that Being is not an
entity.
Nonetheless, the thrust of Heidegger's idea of the return to Being,
hearing its "call" and responding with a sort of "devotion," suggests
something like a spiritual, religious connection of humans to
meta-physical (in Heidegger's reconstituted sense) of Being. A radically
demythologized Being thus seems to be the subject of metaphysics, but in
order to "grasp" Being philosophy must de-emphasize pure intellectual
appropriation and turn to more emotive connections.
It may be that dissatisfaction with Hegel's "meta-physics" results not so
much from his positing of the transcendent aspects of reality, assuming
this is inescapable for a philosophy that will not limit itself to the
conventional language games in the search for Truth or Meaning, but from
his logicizing of Being, perhaps with the implication that the proper
"attitude" or disposition to Being follows naturally from
conceptualization. I realize that one might respond that Hegel's logic
is precisely what spiritualizes reality, but perhaps it is the
systematization that is at issue. Perhaps the ultimate paradox of
meta-physics is that it attempts to say what cannot be said.
Just some thoughts on what I think Frederik has suggested about the
intrinsically "spiritual" character of metaphysics.
Yours,
David
--
David A. Duquette
St. Norbert College
De Pere, WI 54114
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From: Dan Shannon
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Subject: non-metaphysical hegel
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X-Comment: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Discussion Group
I enjoyed reading Terry Pinkard message and I must admit
I have his book, but I have not yet had a chance to read it.
However, I would like to express some concerns over the thesis that
Hegel is employing either (a) a transcendental argument in the
"Kantian manner," or (b) that the dialectic of self is the
_leitmotif_ of the entire PG. I realize that Terry Pinkard did not
discuss the first, except to note that it is possible based on
Charles Taylor's interpretation, and that what he says about the
second is only by way of introducing us to a thesis developed in
his book. But, at least for the sake of conversation, I will go
where even the angels may fear to tread.
I. A "transcendental argument" (TA) could mean a number of
different arguments, since Kant employed at least three different
kinds of TAs himself, one for each Critique. Taylor, however, takes
a TA to be a deduction that proceeds from some indisputable facts
of experience, and from these facts we could derive what is
necessary in cognition for us to obtain knowledge of these facts.
This argument is _epistemological_ in kind even though it may
presume an ontological condition, such as, the world is composed of
things and the qualities of things. This TA looks to agree with the
Neo-Kantian readings of Kant's Transcendental Analytic presented in
the 1920s (esp. by Hermann Cohen and Erik Adickes), but what made
into a _standard_ reading of Kant by Smith and even by Paton.
Whether this interpretation is a genuine interpretation of
Kant doesn't matter if Hegel used this method. If Hegel used this
method, then we should expect at least three things: (1) he begins
with certain assumptions concerning the facts of experience, such
as, that I am acquainted with empirical objects and that they are
in some way given to me; (2) the method of deduction will proceed
from these facts to what is necessary to obtain these facts; (3)
that there are derived from this method specific categories and
principles which will be both universal and necessary. If Hegel
used this method we would expect him to say that he is using this
method, and that points 1-3 could be found in his arguments. The
problem here is that Hegel appears to dispute #1, since he says,
often enough not to bear repeating verbatim, that he _begins_ the
science of the experience of consciousness (i.e. the PG) _without
assumptions_. The second point seems very difficult to prove from
Hegel's own arguments, since Hegel's method does not seem to be a
"deduction," but what Pierce called an "abduction." But more
importantly, if Hegel did follow this method, he would have
committed a grave philosophical error. Since, as Hume pointed out,
nothing necessary comes from what is empirical. At best such a
"deduction" would attain a description of contingencies, not what
is necessary for cognition. (Hegel could also be accused of a kind
of _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ since his argument would proceed
from the given variables of experience (the _post hoc_) to a set
number of constants that supposedly produce/explain/or cause the
variables to appear (the _propter hoc).)
The third point looks possible to prove in the text, since Hegel
describes a variety of "universals" demonstrated from the dialectic
of sense and understanding, but it is hard to determine from the
text that these are suppose to be categories or first principles.
(Since Hegel's own discussion of categories belongs to the Logic
and not the PG, and the universals in the PG are not the same as
the universals in the Logic, it looks as if there is an added
complication in _precisely_ what "categories" are being deduced by
a TA.)
One possible effect of interpreting Hegel this way is to show
that he is confused or at least his "categories" are incoherent.
Taylor actually says that the categories are incoherent, but this
is a _good thing_ (see Taylor, _Hegel_ (CUP, 1975), p. 230--"...the
categories are incoherent.") The other way of getting out this
disaster is to reject ## 1-2, and try for a deduction that is not
supposing anything about "empirical" facts, but "facets of
consciousness," such as intentionality. Dove does this, and it is
a _better_ approach, but still subject to problems of subjectivity.
I mean by this the kind of problem that plagued Bradley's arguments
in _Appearance and Reality_. Even if one could overcome this
problem, it still looks difficult to prove that Hegel is adopting
this precise method because of the way he talks about the world--we
see night following day, we write the truth down on paper, we turn
this way and that way. It looks at the very least that Hegel is not
performing a _pure_ deduction, but more like a _Phenomenology of
Perception_ in manner of Merleau-Ponty.
II. Can we get out of the perils of a TA by making a move to the
realm of personal experience? When Kojeve speaks of the dialectic
of the PG as showing us an anthropomorphic condition, rooted in
desire and liberty, it looks as if he is making this move. Flay in
his _Quest for Certainty_ book, and I suspect from Terry's comments
that he too is making this move, or something similar to it. From
what I can gather about this kind of interpretation the intent is
to demonstrate that the dialectic of the PG only _appears_ to be
about cognition of objects, about experience in the world, but _in
reality_ the _leitmotif_ is pragmatic, social, and self-reflective.
It is as if we began reading Kant but somehow found ourselves
reading William James. I believe it was Bloch who described the PG
as three stages (epochs) in which the subjective spirit, i.e. the
individual's consciousness, is displayed, but then subsumed under
the objective spirit (i.e. society), which is next displayed, and
then finally it too is subsumed under the absolute spirit (i.e.
religion). The point here being that while the focus may be on the
individual's own consciousness it is only in the social/political
arena that consciousness becomes truly defined, and only in the
social/religious arena that the individual's true spirit is
defined. In this way Hegel's argument is "pragmatic" and its
epistemology is rooted in anthropology.
While this approach looks more promising than the first one,
I still wonder if it could work, or if it is Hegel's argument? I
doubt that it could work since it is committing us to a relativity
thesis in terms of human cognition. If "experience" is--as Dewey
and the other pragmatists defined it--a true unity of subject and
object, the individual's subjective condition emerges as a
necessary condition for objective cognition. And if this subjective
condition is--as Quine and other later pragmatists have defined it-
-rooted in conventions and "habits of belief," which are themselves
defined culturally, then the sufficient and necessary condition of
cognition will be radically relative. For instance, we cannot
assume an "intentionality" in consciousness, since this form of
thought is itself dependent on "habits of belief" and cultural
associations. Sentences will have no propositional content, and
standard ontological descriptions, such as thing and property of
thing, will have to abandoned for "occasional" sentences, such as,
`I am sensing "red" now.' There will be for consciousness an
inscrutability of reference and almost an impenetrable barrier to
any "objective" criteria for coherence and sense. (This has been
illustrated in the famous Gavagi case in Quine's _Word
and Object_).
Whatever the merits, or lack thereof, in the pragmatic model,
the more important question is whether Hegel's argument contains
this model? I suspect that it does not. In fact from the historical
accounts of Hegel's criticisms of Herder and Fries (both of whom
favored an anthropological basis in epistemological accounts), it
looks as if Hegel recognized what the pragmatic thesis would be,
and he rejected it totally. Hegel seems extremely suspicious of any
argument that is based in the "empirical conditions" of human life.
(Cf. his rejection of `good, sound common sense' in his _Critical
Journal_ articles back up my suspicion.) The argument in the PG,
which, on the one hand, looks to a thoroughgoing skepticism of any
relative (and dogmatic) claim to knowledge, and, on the other hand,
looks to prove apodictically specific concepts inherent in
cognition, just doesn't agree with the pragmatic model. Even his
treatment of society looks to be anti-pragmatic, since we see
inherent concepts in human experience that are not relative to any
specific milieu, but encompass the entire history of humanity. (In
some societies, of course, the inherent concepts are merely
implicit.)
My objections, I realize, are only suspicions, but it does seem
necessary that Hegel scholars consider _other_ options than these
two non-metaphysical and somewhat popular ones. Perhaps there would
be more success in treating Hegel's argument as following Plato's
method in the _Theaetetus_ (as Kojeve & Dove suggested, but did not
follow up on), or even that Hegel is giving an historical argument
on how philosophy progressed from being rooted in sense and
perception to "higher" cognition in understanding and observing
reason. (Kant suggests that such a history is a _necessary_ part of
systematic philosophy and it belongs to the dialectic of pure
reason--not the analytic of principles.)
Dan Shannon
DePauw University