Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T22:05:28.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hegel’s Concept of Empfindung and the Debate on State vs. Content Nonconceptualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2017

Federico Sanguinetti*
Affiliation:
Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In this paper, I suggest that Hegel’s concept of sensation (Empfindung) can be fruitfully read against the background of the recent distinction between state vs. content nonconceptualism. I) I provide a brief outline of the distinctions that characterize the debate between state and content nonconceptualism. II) I discuss Hegel’s concept of sensation, arguing that Hegel’s concept of sensation is compatible with a certain version of content conceptualism that is combined with a ‘weak’ state nonconceptualism for adult, rational subjects and with a ‘strong’ state nonconceptualism for non-rational animals and infants. III) I conclude my paper by illustrating some features of Hegel’s conception of mental content starting from distinctions that characterize the debate on state vs. content nonconceptualism.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allais, L. (2009), ‘Kant, Non-Conceptual Content and the Representation of Space’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 47:3: 383413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bermúdez, J. L. (2007), ‘What is at Stake in the Debate about Nonconceptual Content?’, Philosophical Perspectives 21:1: 5572.10.1111/j.1520-8583.2007.00120.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandom, R. (2002), Tales of the Mighty Dead. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2015), Wiedererinnerter Idealismus. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (forthcoming), A Spirit of Trust: A Semantic Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology. Available at: http://www.pitt.edu/~brandom/spirit_of_trust_2014.html.Google Scholar
Byrne, A. (2005), ‘Perception and Conceptual Content’, in E. Sosa and M. Steup (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Corti, L. (2016a), ‘Conceptualism, Non-Conceptualism, and the Method of Hegel’s Psychology’, in S. Hermann-Sinai and L. Ziglioli (eds.), Hegel’s Philosophical Psychology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Corti, L. (2016b), Pensare l’esperienza. Una lettura dell’ Antropologia di Hegel. Bologna: Pendragon.Google Scholar
Corti, L. (forthcoming), ‘Senses and Sensations. On Hegel’s Later Account of Perceptual Experience’.Google Scholar
Crowther, T. (2006), ‘Two Conceptions of Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism’, Erkenntnis 65: 245276.10.1007/s10670-006-0001-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeVries, W. (1988), Hegel’s Theory of Mental Activity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Duhau, L. (2014), ‘Perceptual Nonconceptualism: Disentangling the Debate between Content and State Nonconceptualism’, European Journal of Philosophy 22:3: 358370.10.1111/j.1468-0378.2011.00492.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrarin, A. (2001), Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gomes, A. (2014), ‘Kant on Perception: Naive Realism, Non-Conceptualism, and the B-Deduction’, Philosophical Quarterly 64: 119.10.1093/pq/pqt019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunther, H. Y. (2001), ‘Content, Illusion, Partition’, Philosophical Studies 102: 185202.10.1023/A:1004700918246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halbig, C. (2002), Objektives Denken. Erkenntnistheorie und Philosophy of Mind in Hegels System. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.Google Scholar
Halbig, C. (2009), ‘Objektive Gedanken. Zum Kernbegriff der Philosophie Hegels’, Verifiche 37: 3360.Google Scholar
Hanna, R. (2005), ‘Kant and Nonconceptual Content’, European Journal of Philosophy 13:2: 247290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanna, R. (2008), ‘Kantian Nonconceptualism’, Philosophical Studies 137: 4164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanna, R. (2011), ‘The Myth of the Given and the Grip of the Given’, Diametros 27: 2546.Google Scholar
Hanna, R. (2013), ‘Kant, Hegel, and the Fate of Non-Conceptual Content’, Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 34:1: 132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heck, R. G. (2000), ‘Nonconceptual Content and the Space of Reasons’, The Philosophical Review 109: 483523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heidemann, D. (2013), Kant and Non-Conceptual Content. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hermann-Sinai, S. and Ziglioli, L. (eds.) (2016), Hegel’s Philosophical Psychology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Houlgate, S. (2006), ‘Thought and Experience in Hegel and McDowell’, European Journal of Philosophy 14:2: 242262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houlgate, S. (2016), ‘Hegel, McDowell, and Perceptual Experience: A Response to McDowell’, in S. Hermann-Sinai and L. Ziglioli (eds.), Hegel’s Philosophical Psychology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Illetterati, L. (2007), ‘L’oggettività del pensiero. La filosofia di Hegel tra idealismo, anti-idealismo e realismo: un’introduzione’, Verifiche 36:1–4: 1331.Google Scholar
Kelly, S. D. (2001), ‘Demonstrative Concepts and Experience’, The Philosophical Review 110:3: 397420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knappik, F. (2016), ‘Hegel’s Essentialism. Natural Kinds and the Metaphysics of Explanation in Hegel’s Theory of ‘the Concept’’, European Journal of Philosophy 24:4: 760787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurier, D. (2004), ‘Nonconceptual Contents vs. Nonconceptual States’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 68: 2343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerman, H. (2010), ‘Non-conceptual Experiential Content and Reason-giving’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81:1: 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolis, E. and Laurence, S. (2011), ‘Concepts’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Available at: <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/concepts/>..>Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (1996 2), Mind and World. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, J. (2003), ‘Hegel and the Myth of the Given’, in W. Welsch and K. Vieweg (eds.), Das Interesse des Denkens. München: Fink.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2008a), ‘Avoiding the Myth of the Given’, in J. Lindgaard (ed.), John McDowell: Experience, Norm, and Nature. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2008b), ‘Response to Charles Travis’, in J. Lindgaard (ed.), John McDowell: Experience, Norm, and Nature. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2009), Having the World in View. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McLear, C. (2014), ‘The Kantian (Non)-conceptualism Debate’, Philosophy Compass 9:11: 769790.10.1111/phc3.12166CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pippin, R. (1982), Kant’s Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Quante, M. (2011), Die Wirklichkeit des Geistes. Studien zu Hegel. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Redding, P. (2010–11), ‘Hegel’s Anticipation of the Early History of Analytical Philosophy’, The Owl of Minerva 42:1–2: 1840.Google Scholar
Redding, P. (2012), ‘McDowell’s Radicalization of Kant’s Account of Concepts and Intuitions: A Sellarsian (and Hegelian) Critique’, Verifiche 41:1–3: 937.Google Scholar
Rockmore, T. (1986), Hegel’s Circular Epistemology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Sanguinetti, F. (2015a), La teoria hegeliana della sensazione. Trento: Verifiche.Google Scholar
Sanguinetti, F. (2015b), ‘Is Hegel’s Concept of Sensation Committed to Metaphysics?’, Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 18: 179198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanguinetti, F. (forthcoming-a), ‘Hegel and McDowell on the Unboundedness of the Conceptual’.Google Scholar
Sanguinetti, F. (forthcoming-b), ‘Sense, Reference and the World as Conceptual. McDowell and Brandom between Hegel and Frege’. (manuscript)Google Scholar
Schmidt, E. (2015), Modest Nonconceptualism. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulting, D. (2012), ‘Kant, Non-Conceptual Content, and the ‘Second Step’ of the B-Deduction’, Kant Studies Online: 5192.Google Scholar
Schulting, D. (2016), Kantian Nonconceptualism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siep, L., Quante, M. and Halbig, C. (2001), ‘Direkter Realismus’, in R. Schumacher (ed.), Idealismus als Theorie der Räpresentation? Paderborn: Mentis.Google Scholar
Soresi, S. (2012), Il soggetto del pensiero. Trento: Verifiche.Google Scholar
Speaks, J. (2005), ‘Is There a Problem about Nonconceptual Content?’, The Philosophical Review 114: 359398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toribio, J. (2008), ‘State versus Content: The Unfair Trial of Perceptual Nonconceptualism’, Erkenntnis 69:3: 351361.10.1007/s10670-008-9120-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, M. (2006), ‘Nonconceptual Content, Richness, and Finenness of Grain’, in T. Szabó Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds.), Perceptual Experience. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wartenberg, T. E. (1993), ‘Hegel’s Idealism: The Logic of Conceptuality’, in F. Beiser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Westphal, K. (1989), Hegel’s Epistemological Realism. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winfield, R. D. (2010), Hegel and Mind: Rethinking Philosophical Psychology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wolff, M. (1992), Das Körper-Seele-Problem: Kommentar zu Hegel, Enzyklopädie (1830), §389. Frankfurt: Klostermann.Google Scholar