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Scepticism and Hegelian Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Thomas R. Webb
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Extract

One of the greatest difficultiess in the understanding Hegel is the notorious obscurity of his terminology. Even a sympathetic reader faces the problems that in seeking clarification of one term he is led to another which is equally obscure and which often presupposes an understanding of the first. But Hegel himself described the structure of his system as circular and stressed the contextual nature of his terminology. Indeed, he insisted that only a philosophy which is so structured could be worthy of the name “science.” The difficulty in understanding Hegel is thus not merely a terminological one. It is primarily the difficulty of understanding why Hegel conceived philosophical science as he did, and why the problems which confront Hegel's enterprise arise in the first place. For unless we can make the problems of the Hegelian philosophy our own, in the minimal sense of understanding why they arise, our appreciation of Hegel will be limited to “the repetition and inspired variation of Hegel's theses or their criticism from a distance which blurs their structures.” What is needed is an “unscientific” introduction to Hegelian science which provides insight into the motivation for Hegel's standpoint precisely because it does not presuppose it. Hegel himself suggested that such an introduction could be found in scepticism. However, Hegel declined to provide a sceptical introduction to science on the grounds that it would be unscientific. For Hegel, the path to science was already science.

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Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 139 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1977

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References

1 Henrich, Dieter. Hegel im Kontext (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1971), p. 7.Google Scholar

2 E, Sec. 78, Anmerkung.

3 “Es kann scheinen, als schritte dieser Fortgang [of philosophical systems] ins Unendliche. Er hat aber auch ein absolutes Ziel, was wir späterhin weiter erkennen werden.” SW, XVII, 64. “Das letzte Ziel und Interesse der Philosophic ist, den Gedanken, den Begriff mit der Wirklichkeit zu versöhnen.” SW, XIX, 684. “Der Ausdruck von objektiven Gedanken bezeichnet die Wahffieit, welche der absolute Gegenstand, nicht bloss das Ziel der Philosophic sein soil.” E. Sec. 25. Cf. Phän, p. 12; WL, I, 53; SW, XIX, 684, 689–90. This does not mean Hegel thought philosophy (i.e. science) should no longer be done or that apparently new forms of philosophy would not continue to appear. Still less does it mean he thought political affairs had reached a condition of perfection in his own time; thus, the exhortation to his listeners concluding the Lectures on the History of Philosophy (SW, XIX, 691) to realize in their own lives the spiritual completeness already achieved in thought by philosophy.

4 £. Sec. 14.

5 “So sehr als das räsonnierende Verhalten ist dem Studium der Philosophie die nicht räsonnierende Einbildung auf ausgemachte Wahrheiten hinderlich. auf welche der Besitzer es nicht nötig zu haben meint zurückzukommen. sondern sie zugrunde legt und sie aussprechen zu können glaubt. sowie durch sie richten und absprechen.” Phän, p. 54.

6 E, Sec. I.

7 “Das Aufsuchen und Angeben von Gründen. worin vorhehmlich das Räsonnement besteht, ist darum ein endloses Herumtreiben, das keine letzte Bestimmung enthält.” WL, II, 88. Cf. Phän, 40, “Es ist aber nicht schwer ein-zusehen, dass die Manier, einen Satz aufzustellen, Gründe für ihn anzüfuhren und den entgegengesetzten durch Gründe ebenso zu widerlegen, nicht die Form ist, in der die Wahrheit auftreten kann.”

8 It must be remembered that this sceptical attack is meant to apply only t o claims to philosophical truth. In ordinary life and the language which reflects it we can and must, in Hegel's view, accept things without making demands for ultimate justifications. As Hegel has pointed out in the Phenomenology, radical scepticism is inconsistent when applied to everyday life.

9 Kritik der reinen Vermtnft, B 83.

10 SW. I, 229, 232–33, etc; SW, XVIII, 540.

11 Kekes, Cf. John, “The Rationality of Metaphysics,” Metaphilosophy, vol. 4, no. 2, 04 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 In the article cited Kekes maintains that “to assert is to commit oneself o t something being such-and-such and to exclude it not being such-and-such.” (p. 137) While Hegel would certainly admit that this is so in the case of empirical propositions and those of the “finite sciences,” he would deny its application to philosophy. WL, II, 58–59; WL, I, 17–18.

13 “Das Denken, nur endliche Bestimmungen hervorbringend und in solchen sich bewegend, heisst Verstand (im genaueren Sinne des Wortes). Näher ist die Endlichkeit der Denkbestimmungen auf die gedoppelte Weise aufzufassen: die eine. dass sie nur subjektiv sind und den bleibenden Gegensatz am Objektiven haben, die andere, dass sie, als beschrankten Inhaltes iiberhaupt, sowohl gegeneinander als noch mehr gegen das Absolute im Gegensatze verharren.” E, Sec. 25. Cf. also Sw, I, 45–46.

14 SW, I, 44–45.

15 SW, I, 45–46.

16 WL, 1, 24–25. How the peculiar nature of these objects is conceived is irrelevant here.

17 WL. 1, 24–25.

18 WL, I, 24.

19 We are arguing only that certain presuppositions of the traditional logic are the root of the form of opposition, not that all those who took the traditional logic as the ultimate standard of rationality realized the implications of doing so. Hegel points out, for example, that Aristotle's understanding of logic is incompatible with his truly speculative insights. SW, XVIII, 414–415.

20 E. Sec. 80. Zusatz.

21 Phän, Ch. I.

22 BDG, pp. 88, 100, 102.

23 EDG, p. 101.

23a Hegel recognizes the standard objection to this critique, namely, that it is a only knowledge of God, not God himself, which is conditioned according to the proof. BDG, 101. But this objection only shows that the structure of the proof is not i n accord with the reality whose existence it is supposed to prove. The only way we can make a distinction between the conditional structure of the proof and the unconditioned being of God is by appealing to a notion of God not established by the proof. The concept of God provided by the proof alone is one of a conditional being.

24 BDG, pp. 92–93.

25 BDG, pp. 92–94. 103.

26 The Doctrine of Essence, the second book of the Science of Logic, provides a systematic account of all the varieties of this dialectical twist, though it is already to be found in its most abstract form in the dialectic of the finite and the infinite in the Doctrine of Being.

27 First Introduction to the Science of Knowledge, trans. Heath and Lachs (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970), pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

28 SW, XVIII, 331–32; SW, I, 35.

29 SW, XVIl, 67.

30 Strictly speaking, there is another possibility (though an unlikely one): Hegel's philosophy might have a successor which offered something new without standing in opposition or contradiction to his own. Hegel maintains, however, that no such indifferent variety is ultimate but is rather a proleptic form of opposition. WL, U, 40.

31 It must be remembered that Hegel's analysis is intended to apply only to philosophical principles or categories and not to empirical states of affairs or events. In empirical states of affairs and the propositions describing them the two sides may have independent existence apart from the relation between them.

32 “Es kann vom Vernünftigen... nicht gezeigt werden. dass es nur im Verhültnis, in einer notwendigen Beziehung auf ein Anders ist; denn es selbst ist nichts als da s Verhältnis.” SW, I. 249. Cf. SW, 1. 54. For an historical account of how Hegel came to this insight see Dieter Henrich, “Hegel und Hölderlin,” in Hegel im Kontext, pp. 9–40.

33 This is a bare schema of the logical advance and does not account for the different kinds of relations peculiar to the spheres of Being. Essence, and the Concept.

34 This schema approximates most closely to the dialectic of Being, where determinateness as such (Quality) is treated. In the spheres of Essence and the Concept further complications are introduced.

35 SW. I. 74.

36 Aristotle. Posterior Analytics, I, 3.

37 Cf. E, Sec. 238, “Von der spekulativen Idee aus aber ist es [das Sein oder Unmittclhare] ihr Selbstbestimmen, welches als die absloute Negativität oder Bewegung des Begriffs urteilt und sich als das Negative seiner selbst setzt.”