1 Bowie argues that although Schelling was committed to this theological project, “the arguments of the later philosophy that need not be couched in theological terms are … most in need of re-assessment”; it is these that he sees as “post-modern”. The issue of Schelling's theology is relevant to him only, he asserts, because “the most important defences of Hegel against Schelling insist on it”. He then twice quotes me ( Absolute Knowledge [Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1983]Google Scholar – hereafter AK – p 74, p 99), but in neither of the passages cited do I assert – as does Klaus Brinkmann, in a passage said to be “in a similar vein” – that “Schelling's objections [to Hegel] would only be acceptable if one could opt for the position of the late philosophy', by which he means the late philosophy in all its theological splendour” (SMEP p 141). I never take the position Bowie here ascribes to me. AK is structured as follows: I argue first, in Part One, that Hegel's system survives Schelling's critique only if the system is interpreted as a transcendental ontology; I do not even suggest that the success of the critique, on this level, depends on the success of Schelling's theology. I then however raise the question, in Part Two, whether Hegel's system, so interpreted, fulfills the requirements of “first philosophy.” Schelling argues that it does not, because it leaves unaddressed certain meaningful questions that can be answered within his “positive philosophy”, ie, his metaphysical theology. At this stage of the argument, the viability of Schelling's theology does become relevant. If he could answer his fundamental questions (most famous among them, “Why is there anything at all? Why is there not nothing?”), he would indeed have advanced beyond Hegel (as I read him). But given his failure to answer them, my “Hegelian” alternative of dismissing them as meaningless (see below) remains preferable.

2 Henrich's article is included in Hegel im Kontext (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971)Google Scholar.

3 For objections to Henrich other than my own, see Flach, Werner, “Zum ‘Vorbegriff’ der kleinen Logik Hegels,” in Guzzoni, U, Rang, B, and Siep, L, eds, Der Idealismus und seine Gegenwart (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1976), p 140 and note 54Google Scholar; Lachterman, David, “Response to Professor Henrich”, in Henrich, Dieter, ed. Die Wissenschqft der Logik und die Logik der Reflexion, Hegel-Studien, Beiheft 18 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1978), pp 325–328 Google Scholar; Pinkard, Terry, Hegel's Dialectic (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp 184–85 (notes 25, 34)Google Scholar.

4 Bowie here attributes to Frank's critique a scope broader than that claimed by its author; Frank acknowledges the dependence of his argument on Henrich's “minute and – for the investigation of the fundamental operation [Grundoperation] of Hegel's Logic – trailblazing [bahnbrechenden] analyses” in the article, “Hegel's Logic of Reflection” (Der unendliche Mangel an Sein [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975], p 41n5)Google Scholar.

5 I do not have the space to pursue the problem of negation and affirmation in detail, but I do want to point toward an additional problem with Bowie's account. Having cited me as one of his predecessors in recognizing the importance, for Schelling, of Kant's “ideal of pure reason” (SMEP p 102; see AK pp 118-22), Bowie then fails to note my Hegelian argument that both Kant and Schelling, in discussing the ideal, misconstrue the relation between negation and affirmation (AK 143-44).

For Kant, the ideal arises as, in Bowie's terms, “a necessary theoretical condition of predication”, or a cognitive ground. Kant recognizes the temptation to transform the ideal into a real ground – a perfect, highest being or, again in Bowie's terms, “a real condition of a world of which things can be predicated” – but whereas Kant argues that this temptation should be avoided, Schelling projects a “metaphysical empiricism” within which it can be warranted.

One key premise in Kant's construction of the ideal – one accepted by Schelling but rejected by my Hegel – is that, in Bowie's terms, “any concept … must, as a determinate concept, be able to be characterized by one or other of two contradictorily opposed predicates. This much is obvious from the law of excluded middle and the law of contradiction” (p 102). Consider then the two predicates “bald” and “hairy”: which applies to the determinate concept “animal”? Which applies to the determinate concept “triangle”? Hegel's answer, in both cases, is “neither”; hence his rejection of the traditional law of excluded middle.

A further Kantian premise – likewise accepted by Schelling but rejected by Hegel – is that affirmation is prior to negation: “‘nobody can think a negation determinately without having the opposed affirmation as its ground’ (A575/B603)” (quoted SMEP p 102). Which then is the affirmation, “hairy” or “bald”? Is “hairy” an affirmation one must have as a ground before one can understand the negation “bald”? Why not the reverse? And could one be said to know the meaning of “hairy” without knowing it to be the opposite of “bald”?

One line of Kantian-Schellingian response would be to say that the predicate contradictorily opposed to “hairy” is “non-hairy”; one could then say, comfortably, “triangles are non-hairy”, although “animals are non-hairy” might continue to pose problems. But even if this move is allowed, it causes problems of a different sort at the next step of Kant's argument. If we assume that negative concepts can be derived from affirmative ones, then we may safely exclude all negatives from “the aggregate of all predicates of things in general” (Critique of Pure Reason, A572/B600). We then have “the idea of an entirety of reality” that can be thought as a single, perfect being (A576/B604). The problem is that although we have avoided thinking this being as either non-hairy or non-bald, we have thought it as both hairy and bald, as well as, it seems, both animalian and triangular.

6 In introducing the distinction between “metaphysical construction” and “transcendental reconstruction,” I do not mean to suggest that these are the only options available for philosophy.

7 The claim that even a categorial or transcendental reading of Hegel fails the test posed by such “inescapable questions” is, it seems to me, the central claim made by Bowie. But one of the observations with which he introduces that claim points in the direction of a different objection, and one that can, I believe, be made separately. The observation is that the condition of possibility of a transcendental ontology is “the demonstration that determintions of thought are really determinations of being” (p 141). For Bowie, the requisite demonstration must show that the determinations discovered or recognized by thought are “really” the determinations being gives to itself; this demonstration would have to be metaphysically constructive in that it would have to be an account of being's own development or articulation, independent of its being thought. But the demand for demonstration could point in a different direction, as it does, for example, for Robert Pippin, who objects, “I do not see how, on Hartmann's view, Hegel's theory of categories can defend the claim that such categories represent ‘determinations of the real’ (…) (rather than ‘of the real as thought’ and so not necessarily real)” ( Hegel's Idealism [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 295)Google Scholar. The most promising line of defense against Pippin's objection, it seems to me – a line I here do no more than suggest – is to question the disjunction upon which it is based; it raises questions of modality that are in some ways similar to those that arise from Bowie's critique. What is Pippin's distinction between “the real as thought” and the “necessarily real”? What is the force of Pippin's “necessarily”? If I believe I see a puddle in the distance, I may “think” that the puddle is “real”; I will not likely consider it as “necessarily real”, although if, when I then approach it, it feels wet, splashes when I throw stones in it, etc, I likely will conclude that it is “actually real”. If on the other hand it disappears as I approach, I will probably conclude that although I had thought it to be real, it had “really” been a mirage. Here, I can identify, so to speak, criteria for falsifiability; because I can, I recognize as meaningful the distinction between “what I think” and “what is real”. But if Hegel's categories are indeed those under which I can think anything at all as real – those under which alone I can have any awareness at all – then it would seem to be impossible for me to think or encounter anything beyond them, or outside their scope, as “really real”. That the glass I believe to contain water might “really” contain hydrochloric acid is a possibility I acknowledge, and one that would, if I took it seriously, persuade me not to imbibe the liquid before me; that what I “think to be really a glass of water” might be described by Tralfamadorians in ways unintelligible to me and incommensurate with my own description is a possibility I likewise acknowledge, but not one that prevents my slaking my thirst.