The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (47 page)

2
I am sure I cannot be alone in having more than once had the following experience: initially finding some turn of phrase in Hegel obscure; eventually satisfying myself that I have some understanding of it; then struggling to find some less obscure paraphrase; eventually satisfying myself that I have a perfect candidate; and finally turning back to the original in order to compare the two, only to find that they are the same.

3
‘
Aufhebung
’ is a noun. I shall also make use of its corresponding verb ‘
aufheben
’ – not only in this its infinitive form, but also in its third-person singular form ‘
aufhebt
’ and in its past participial form ‘
aufgehoben
’.

4
Cf.
Phenomenology
, IV.A, ¶188, where Hegel says of a certain kind of negation that concerns him that it ‘supersedes in such a way as to preserve and maintain what is superseded, and consequently survives its own supersession.’ That Hegel’s philosophy stands in this kind of relation to Kant’s is evidenced, in the small, by some passages in Kant that look strikingly Hegelian, that certainly anticipate Hegel, but that do not admit of a full Hegelian interpretation: see e.g. Kant (
1998
), A834–835/B862–863.

5
In Charles Taylor (
1975
), pp. 122–124, Taylor identifies three starting points that Hegel himself adopts: one in
Phenomenology
, one in the
Science of Logic
and
Encyclopedia
I, and one in
Encyclopedia
II and III.

6
Michael Hardt makes this point in Hardt (
1993
), p. xi. See also Foucault (
1982
), p. 74.

7
For an overview of Hegel’s attitude to Kant’s transcendental idealism, see
Encyclopedia
I, IV.II.

8
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §65.

9
See n. 3.

10
For Hegel’s reaction to Fichte’s work, see
Fichte and Schelling
.

11
See
Phenomenology
, Introduction; and
Encyclopedia
I, §42. See also Taylor (
1975
), pp. 29–41.

12
Cf. Beiser (
1993
), p. 8

13
Thus consider the Transcendence Question from §6 of the Introduction. Hegel would not answer this question by denying that there is scope for us to make sense of what of transcendent: he would reject the question altogether. See further §9.

14
See
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.2 and I.ii.2.C, and
Encyclopedia
I, §§28
Z
and 94–95. For discussion, see Taylor (
1975
), pp. 114–115; Moore (
2001a
),
Ch. 7
, §1; and, in much greater detail, Inwood (
1983
), Chs 6 and 7.

15
See n. 3. (Purists may object to my use of ‘to’ alongside an infinitive, but ‘He wants
aufheben …
’ sounds precious to my ear.)

16
Since Hegel also shares Kant’s view that the concepts in question, and the constitution of the natural world by them, are in some sense
a priori
, he likewise endorses Kant’s critique of Humean empiricism; see
Encyclopedia
I, IV.1.

17
See again Berkeley (
1962a
). The differences should be clearer by the end of the chapter. For two helpful discussions, see Wartenberg (
1993
) and Stern (
2009
).

18
Robert Pippin, in Pippin (
1989
), presents the question of how Hegel manages to keep his distance from Kant very differently: see the useful summary at pp. 9–10. But I hope and believe that he and I are approaching the same issue from two different directions. I have learned much from Pippin’s discussion.

19
In fact, Hegel is unsympathetic to Kant’s distinction between intuitions and concepts. See
Faith and Knowledge
, p. 87;
Phenomenology
, I and II; and
Science of Logic
, II, ‘The Notion in General’, pp. 585ff. For discussion, see Solomon (
1985
), §I, and Stern (
2002
), pp. 43–59. For some comments specifically targeted at Kant’s ‘straight line’ example of synthetic
a priori
knowledge, see
Encyclopedia
II, §256
Z
.

20
It is tempting at this point to see a connection with what Foucault calls ‘the historical
a priori
’, which he characterizes as ‘an
a priori
that is not a condition of validity for judgements, but a condition of reality for statements,’ and which he says ‘has to take account of the fact that discourse has not only a meaning or a truth, but a history’ (Foucault (
1972
), p. 127; see further ibid.,
Ch. 5
, passim). In fact, however, what Foucault has in mind – something that he takes to be discernible in any given historically situated, unified set of linguistic practices, characterizing their unity – is far more reminiscent of what we shall see later in Wittgenstein and Collingwood (see Chs 10 and 19, respectively) than it is of anything in Hegel.

21
This is truth in the broad sense appropriated by Hegel: see e.g.
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶55, and
Encyclopedia
I, §213
Z
.

22
This is our first indication of how non-Spinozist this otherwise Spinozist vision is: see
Ch. 2
, §2, and see further §6.

23
See also
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶¶22 and 25. For discussion of Hegel’s conception of a subject, see Taylor (
1975
),
Ch. 3
, §§2 and 3.

24
See further Inwood (
1983
), pp. 193ff. The work by Jacobi that Hegel principally has in mind is Jacobi (
1995
).

25
Hegel is well aware of the Aristotelian connotations that this has. Aristotle held God to be thought thinking itself (
Metaphysics
, Bk Λ,
Ch. 9
), and Hegel explicitly likens his own conception to Aristotle’s at
Encyclopedia
I, §236.

26
See further
Science of Logic
, I, Introduction, ‘General Division of Logic’; II.i.1 and II.iii.3; and
Encyclopedia
I, §§15, 16, and 236ff. Note that the German word that I have rendered as ‘concept’, namely ‘
Begriff
’, is translated by both A.V. Miller and William Wallace as ‘notion’, which each of them also sometimes capitalizes.

27
Cf.
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶20, and
Encyclopedia
I, §§215 and 237
Z
.

28
Let us for the time being waive any anxieties that we might have about why there should be any such thing as the end of the process. We shall return to this issue in the next section.

29
Cf. Hegel’s own use of the word ‘movement’ in
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.1.C.1, p. 83.

30
For an extensive discussion of time, see
Encyclopedia
II, §§257–259. For a superb account of Hegel’s conception of time, see Turetzky (
1998
),
Ch. 8
, §1.

31
Consider, for example, how it is also possible for there to be light
here
but
not there
. (But see also Heidegger (
1962a
), ¶82, for a discussion that emphasizes the extent to which the existence of time
is
ineluctable for Hegel.)

32
As to its pervasiveness, see
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.1.C.1, Remark 4, p. 105, where Hegel urges that ‘
there is nothing which is not in an intermediate state between being and nothing
’ (emphasis in original). Cf. the Heraclitean doctrine that everything is in a constant state of flux, to which Hegel refers in
Encyclopedia
I, §88
Z
: see Barnes (
1987
), pp. 116–117.

33
But I note that
Encyclopedia
I, §88, lends some support to the view that he does. (And he definitely allows for
some
contingency in nature, contrary to an impression that he sometimes gives: see e.g.
Encyclopedia
I, §16, and
Encyclopedia
II, §250.) For further discussion, see Hartmann (
1972
). See also Stern (
2002
), pp. 18ff. where he argues that Hegel’s aim is ‘to show how the various categories of thought are dialectically interrelated, in such a way that the conceptual oppositions responsible for our perplexities [i.e. our various philosophical perplexities] can be resolved, once we rethink these fundamental notions’ (p. 18).

34
General references for these opening moves are
Science of Logic
, I.i, ‘With What Must the Science Begin?’, and I.i.i.1; and
Encyclopedia
I, §§84–88. For discussion, see Taylor (
1975
),
Ch. 11
and pp. 232–233; Pinkard (
1985
); Burbidge (
1993
); and, in much greater detail, Houlgate (
2006
).

35
Walter Kaufmann, in Kaufmann (
1960
), p. 166, informs us that this triad of terms occurs only once in Hegel’s entire corpus, in a reference to Kant. The occurrence is in
Medieval and Modern Philosophy
, pp. 477–478.

36
Note that, although we are dealing here with something importantly original in Hegel’s thinking, ideas of broadly the same kind were already in the air. The following very Hegelian-sounding passage occurs in some of Goethe’s lecture notes, written in 1805, before the publication of any of Hegel’s major works: ‘What appears must put itself asunder, just in order to appear. That which is asunder searches for itself, and it can find itself again and unite…. But the unification can … take place in a … sense … in which what has been separated first intensifies itself and by the combination of the two intensified sides brings forth a third thing, new, higher, unexpected’ (Goethe (
1893
), §II, Vol. 11, p. 166, trans. in Craig (
1987
), p. 157). The fact that such ideas were already in the air, and sometimes applied in a rather mechanical way, helps to explain Hegel’s admonishment against the temptation to reduce the dialectical structure to ‘a lifeless schema’ (
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶50). We must, Hegel urges, recover ‘the self-moving soul of the realized content [of that dialectical structure]’ (ibid., ¶53).

37
The owl of Minerva was the owl that accompanied Minerva, goddess of wisdom, in Roman mythology; it is seen as a symbol of wisdom. Shortly before the sentence quoted, Hegel amplifies as follows: ‘The teaching of the concept, which is also history’s inescapable lesson, is that it is only when actuality is mature that the ideal first appears over against the real and that the ideal apprehends this same real world in its substance and builds it up for itself into the shape of an intellectual realm.’

38
Versions of these questions are raised and addressed in Kierkegaard (
1941
), Bk One, Pt One,
Ch. 2
, §4.

39
‘Spurious’ is a common translation of ‘
schlechte
’ in the Hegelian phrase ‘
schlechte Unendlichkeit
’. Also common is the more literal ‘bad’. Wallace opts for ‘wrong’.

40
It is interesting to observe that, in contrasting the truly infinite with the spuriously infinite in this way, Hegel is adopting a position that is diametrically opposed to that of Aristotle: see Aristotle’s
Physics
, Bk III,
Ch. 6
, 206a 27–29, 207a 1, and 207a 7–9.

41
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §234.

42
Cf. the way in which the absolute idea exists in the concept of pure undetermined being.

43
Cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §§213 and 235, and
Encyclopedia
III, §§575–577. For a helpful discussion, see Taylor (
1975
), pp. 111–112. Also helpful is the entry on ‘in, for, and in and for, itself, himself, etc.’ in Inwood (
1992
), pp. 133–136.

44
But note the last three sentences of
Encyclopedia
I, §234
Z
. Hegel does not believe that, just because reality has already achieved full self-consciousness, we can now rest on our laurels; for, as he puts it, ‘the final end of the world … has being … only while it constantly produces itself.’ The suggestion seems to be that, for as long as nature persists, reality must maintain its self-knowledge through a kind of continual recapitulation.