Hegel’s Critique of Materialism

Philosophy Compass, 2006

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

2007

Science of Logic has received less attention than his Phenomenology of Spirit, but Hegel himself took it to be his highest philosophical achievement and the backbone of his system. The present book focuses on this most difficult of Hegel's published works. Béatrice Longuenesse offers a close analysis of core issues, including discussions of what Hegel means by "dialectical logic," the role and meaning of "contradiction" in Hegel's philosophy, and Hegel's justification for the provocative statement that "what is rational is actual, what is actual is rational." She examines both Hegel's debt and his polemical reaction to Kant, and shows in great detail how his project of a "dialectical" logic can be understood only in light of its relation to Kant's "transcendental" logic. This book will appeal to anyone interested in Hegel's philosophy and its influence on contemporary philosophical discussion.

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

This essay defends a reading of Hegel as a metametaphysical antirealist. Metametaphysical antirealism is a denial that metaphysics has as its subject matter answers to theoretical questions about the mind-independent world. Hence, on this view, metaphysical questions are not, in principle, knowledge transcendent. I hold that Hegel presents a version of metametaphysical antirealism in the Science of Logic because he pursues his project by suspending reference to all supposed objects of metaphysical theory as practiced before him. Hegel introduces reference in his theory only by the self-reference of thought to itself in the Doctrine of the Concept. I motivate the relevance of Hegel’s approach to metaphysics by comparing it to Kit Fine’s (2017) concept of “naïve metaphysics.” I argue that Hegel’s theory results from a comprehensively naïve metaphysics.

It is the argument of this paper that Robert Pippin is wrong. What he is wrong about is, depending on one's point of view, either very interesting or exceedingly dull. I argue that he is wrong about the plausibility of his own non-metaphysical idealism. For such non- or anti-metaphysical idealism is, whatever else it is, very likely quite false to the facts of Hegel's idealism and for that reason inadequate to address the philosophical issues which Hegel's idealism raises. But this is to say that Pippin's position is a very implausible position to take concerning the truth about Hegel. I have endeavored to show, at least schematically, that and how all this is so. (This paper was written for a graduate seminar at Villanova University)

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2012

This paper examines Hegel’s claim that philosophy “has no other object than God” as a claim about the essentiality of the idea of God to philosophy. On this idealist interpretation, even atheistic philosophies would presuppose rationally evaluable ideas of God, despite denials of the existence of anything corresponding to those ideas. This interpretation is then applied to Hegel’s version of idealism in relation to those of two predecessors, Leibniz and Kant. Hegel criticizes the idea of the Christian God present within his predecessors in terms of his own heterodox reading of the Trinity in order to resolve a paradox affecting them – the “paradox of perspectivism”.

Philosophies, 2018

Revista de Estudos Hegelianos, vol. 18, nº 31, 2021

The aim of this article is to provide a roadmap to assess the contemporary appeal of Hegel’s metaphysics. I will take the contemporary debate between “metaphysical”, “revised-metaphysical” and “post-Kantian” or “transcendental” interpretations of Hegel as a framework. I will claim that, more or less explicitly, all of the readings involved in the debate establish the contemporary interest of Hegel’s metaphysics by comparing it to a specific kind of philosophical theory, either present or absent in the wider contemporary (Anglo-American) philosophical conversation. Paragraphs 2 and 3 will be devoted to understanding these meta-philosophical commitments, presenting a brief reconstruction of the history of the consideration of metaphysics in XX- and XXI-century Anglo-American philosophy, and a brief presentation of the three main interpretations in the debate. In paragraph 4, I will provide insights on whether Hegel’s notion of metaphysics actually corresponds to one of those suggested in the debate, and whether it could consequently be considered of contemporary relevance. I will hold that Hegel’s metaphysics not only exceeds all of the three interpretations in the debate but also contains insights that challenge the contemporary meta-philosophical assumption of what should be “in” and what should be “out” in metaphysics.

Poststructuralism and analytic philosophy represent extremes on any philosophical spectrum. One of the few things that Poststructuralism and analytic philosophy explicitly share is a common origin myth. Both traditions are often represented as having their genesis in the rejection of Hegel's metaphysics. In both cases these myths have been questioned and problematised. ii For both these traditions Hegel, rather than being the figure that continues and radicalises Kant's critique of metaphysics, is taken to be engaged in an anachronistic project of attempting to solve the residual problems in the critical philosophy (thing-in-itself, concept-intuition, freedom-causation and so on) by reverting to a pre-critical metaphysics. Poststructuralist thinkers such as Deleuze and Derrida, largely under the influence of Heidegger, regarded Hegel's system as the culmination of metaphysics. iii Following Heidegger, they take Hegel's claim for thought's self-possession to be advocating thought's complete self-transparency. The canon of poststructuralist terms such as différance, individuation and multiplicity develop in clear opposition to what they take to be the all consuming and all knowing trajectory of the Hegelian dialectic. In the analytic tradition Hegel's name is synonymous with a type of metaphysics, the murkiness and obscurity of which was corrected by the clarity of common sense, the methodology of the natural sciences and propositional logic, the success of which has relegated interest in Hegel to that long list of great errors that is the history of ideas.