The Greatest Mistake:
A Case for the Failure of Hegel’s
Idealism
Four Questions
- What is a great mistake?
- What is Absolute Idealism?
- Why is Hegel an Absolute Idealist?
- Where does Hegel go wrong?
What is a great mistake?
1. It is an error from which we can learn.
2. We gain understanding by explaining why it is an error.
3. This means either:-
i) It forces us to make explicit our previously vague intuitions.
ii) It forces us to acknowledge genuinely counterintuitive results.
What is Absolute Idealism?
We must distinguish between Absolute Idealism and Subjective
Idealism.
The Identity Thesis: the subject and the object are identical.
Berkeley’s Maxim: esse ist percipi – to be is to be perceived or
thought about.
Three Forms of Identity
Terms
Role
Unity
subject / object
method
Absolute Knowing
thought / Being
system
Absolute Idea
subject / substance
reality
Absolute Spirit
Hegel and Heidegger
Unity
Structure
Role
Content
Absolute
Idea
general
beings as such
subjects in general
Absolute
Spirit
singular
beings as a whole
highest subject
Hegel is an onto-theologian because he thinks what Heidegger calls
Being – the unified structure of beings as such and as a whole – in
terms of specific beings.
This explicitly violates the ontological difference.
Science as Method
The identity thesis as method = Absolute Knowing = Science
Hegel claims that the Science of Logic is presuppositionless.
This is true in a limited sense: the identity thesis does not function as
a premise.
The identity thesis functions as a methodological presupposition in
two ways:i) It determines a deductive procedure.
ii) It provides the schema for interpreting its results.
The Structure of the Logic
The Basic Dialectic: the linear progression of categories: Being,
Nothing, Becoming, etc., ...Absolute Idea.
The Division of Books: the threefold separation into the Doctrine of
Being, the Doctrine of Essence, and the Doctrine of the Concept.
The Division of Volumes: the twofold separation into the Objective
Logic, which includes both Being and Essence, and the Subjective
Logic, which includes the Concept.
The Overall Dialectic: the complete transition from Being to Absolute
Idea.
Science as Deductive Procedure
Science as deductive procedure is dialectic.
It constitutes a non-intentional form of thought in which we do not
use pre-individuated concepts to form fixed propositions about
particular objects.
Instead, we think the content of concepts directly, allowing them to
immanently transform themselves into other concepts by way of what
Hegel calls speculative propositions.
The logic explicates the structure of thought by beginning with the
most minimal content that can be thought – immediate
indeterminacy – or what Hegel calls Being.
Science as Interpretational Schema
Science as interpretational schema determines the Logic as both a
logic and a metaphysics.
Logical Categories = Metaphysical Categories
It also grounds the interpretation of the Logic as theology.
Why is Hegel an Absolute Idealist?
The Phenomenology is what justifies the standpoint of the Logic.
The Phenomenology is motivated by responding to skepticism, and
the transcendental response to skepticism.
The Problem of Transcendental Method: responding to skepticism by
analysing the structure of knowledge in terms of its conditions of
possibility presupposes the possibility of knowledge about
knowledge.
Pyrrhonian Skepticism
Pyrrhonianism is the most extreme form of skepticism, and it can be
described in two equivalent ways.
The Problem of the Criterion: how can we find a criterion for choosing
between a proposition and its negation (P and not P) that does not
itself require a criterion to be justified?
The Agrippan Trilemma: how is it possible to justify any proposition (in
contrast to its negation) without either:a) merely asserting its truth (bare assertion)?
b) appealing to another proposition that itself must be justified
(regress)?
c) justifying it by appeal to itself (circularity)?
Leveraging Skepticism
The Problem of Transcendental Method (cont.): the transcendental
philosopher must presuppose that knowledge is possible in order to
describe its conditions of possibility.
Hegel’s Solution: if we bracket the possibility of knowledge we may
describe knowledge as it appears.
This is precisely what Hegel does with his concept of Natural
Consciousness.
The Role of Natural Consciousness
Natural Consciousness = the non-identity of subject and object.
The Phenomenology is the self-contradiction of the concept of
Natural Consciousness, which thereby transforms itself into its
negation, the concept of Science.
The Structure of Natural Consciousness
1) Consciousness relates itself to its object, or takes its object to be a
certain way. What this means, is that it expresses a proposition about
its object.
2) Consciousness distinguishes between this proposition and the
object as it is in itself. In essence, consciousness allows for the
possibility that this proposition is false.
3) Because consciousness itself makes the distinction between its
claim and the object it is about, the object cannot be truly in-itself, but
has two
basic features:mustIt be
for-consciousness.
This means that consciousness must
have a concept of its object in order to individuate it.
1) Consciousness relates itself to its object, or takes its object to be a certain way.
What this means, is that it expresses a proposition about its object.
4) However, consciousness cannot be aware that the object is for-it
without ceasing to be consciousness, and thus must suppress this
fact. This means that consciousness cannot recognise that the
concept of the object is dependent upon it without undermining the
possibility of falsity.
Natural Consciousness as Deductive Procedure
Natural Consciousness as deductive procedure is ordinary
discourse.
This describes the form of intentional thought, in which we think
about particular objects using fixed propositions composed of preindividuated concepts.
This is opposed to Science as the form of non-intentional thought, in
which we think the content of concepts directly.
The Method of the Phenomenology
The Phenomenology proceeds by a method of exhaustion.
It does this by showing that each possible form of Natural
Consciousness ultimately contradicts itself, thereby transforming itself
into another possible form, until we have exhausted all possible forms.
It thus demonstrates that if knowledge is conceived as Natural
Consciousness, then it is impossible.
The Structure of the Phenomenology
The Basic Dialectic: the progression of various things consciousness
purports to know about its object. This is a series of propositions,
beginning with the sequence in Sense Certainty: ‘This is here and
now’, ‘This is here and now for me’, etc., and ending in the identity
thesis.
The Division of Forms: the forms of consciousness, such as Sense
Certainty, Perception, Understanding, Self-Consciousness, etc. and
ending in Absolute Knowing.
The Division of Sections: the more general categories, such as
Consciousness, Self-Consciousness and Reason.
The Overall Dialectic: This is the Phenomenology viewed as the
justification of the Logic, or the transformation of the concept of
Natural Consciousness into the concept of Science.
The Phenomenology as Dialectic
The Phenomenology is still a dialectic, albeit it one that consists in
propositions that are purportedly absolute, rather than speculative
propositions that are explicitly transitional.
Each form of consciousness is a concept whose content is thought
immanently by the method of exhaustion.
These form a hierarchy of genus and species that correspond to the
various higher level ways of dividing the dialectic. The concept of
Natural Consciousness is the highest genus, with each level beneath
is divided into mutually exclusive species.
The Hierarchy of Concepts of Consciousness
Natural
Consciousness
Consciousness
Sense Certainty
Self- Consciousness
Perception
Understanding
Reason
Absolute Knowing
The dialectical movement at each level constitutes the
dialectical movement of the level above.