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Hegel's Conception of the Study of Human Nature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
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It is easy to understand why Hegel's philosophy should be little studied by English-speaking philosophers today. Those who at the beginning of the twentieth century initiated the movement we are now caught up in presented their earliest philosophical arguments as criticisms of the prevailing Anglo-Hegelian views. It may now be thought illiberal to take much interest in this perhaps excusably slaughtered royal family, and positively reactionary to hanker after the foreign dynasty from which it sometimes claimed descent. Hegel was a systematic philosopher with a scope hardly to be found today, and men who, as we say, wish to keep up with their subject may well be daunted at the idea of having to understand a way of looking at philosophy which they suspect would not repay them for their trouble anyway. Furthermore, since Hegel wrote, formal logic has advanced in ways he could not have foreseen, and has, it seems to many, destroyed the whole basis of his dialectical method. At the same time, the creation of a science of sociology, it is supposed, has rendered obsolete the philosophy of history for which Hegel was at one time admired. In countries where there are Marxist intellectuals, Hegel does get discussed as the inadvertent forerunner of historical and dialectical materialism. But in England, where there is no such need or presence, there do not seem to be any very strong ideological reasons for discussing him. In what follows I shall be asking you to direct your thoughts to certain forgotten far-off things which I hope you will find historically interesting even if you do not agree with me that they give important clues for an understanding of human nature and human society.
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References
page 34 note 1 These references are from §§4 456 and 458 of the second edition (1738).
page 34 note 2 Phenomenology of Mind, German ed., Lasson (1928) p. 224Google Scholar; English ed., Baillie (1931) pp. 332–3.
page 34 note 3 Review of Schulze, G. E.'s Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie (1801)Google Scholar entitled ‘Verhältniss des Skeptizismus zur Philosophie’. Hegel, , Gesammelte Werke (Hamburg, 1968) IV 237. See also p. 200.Google Scholar
page 34 note 4 Kant, , Werke (Akademie Ausgabe) VII 119–22.Google Scholar
page 35 note 1 Ibid., pp. 324–5.
page 35 note 2 Ibid., pp. 133–4.
page 36 note 1 Phenomenology, Lasson, p. 226Google Scholar; Baillie, , p. 335.Google Scholar
page 36 note 2 Phenomenology, Lasson, p. 226Google Scholar; Baillie, , p. 335.Google Scholar
page 36 note 3 Of Clarke, Lavater writes: ‘Good nature, unconfused brilliant science, quiet passionless reflection, the power of attracting and holding every object are the characteristics of this face which are most remarkable and immediately strike the eye. Anyone who could hate such a face would have to work against his own instinct, his own inner, innate physiognomical feeling’ (1 62–3). Of Descartes, Lavater writes: ‘What a thousandfold speaking mind, what a powerful activity must have animated the living original’ (III 304). These references are to the edition of 1783–7.
page 37 note 1 Lichtenberg, , Ausgewählte Werke (Reclam, 1879) pp. 360–1.Google Scholar
page 37 note 2 Ibid., p. 359.
page 37 note 3 Kant, , Werke, VII 295 ff.Google Scholar
page 38 note 1 Phenomenology, Lasson, p. 236Google Scholar; Baillie, , pp. 349–50.Google Scholar
page 39 note 1 Herbart, J. F., Einleitung in die Philosophie, 1st ed. (1812), 4th ed. (1837)Google Scholar. Vorläufige Übersicht. B. Von der Psychologie. ‘The presupposition of this science is therefore observation.’ ‘What we observe in ourselves is generally speaking a very great changeability of our thoughts and states of mind; a constant becoming and changing. The ego, which is present to everyone all the time, appears to form a firm point over against all this.’
page 39 note 2 Hegel was largely responsible for Beneke's failure to obtain permission to teach at the University of Berlin in 1822. In 1820 Hegel had taken part in the oral examination and had agreed to the award of the Ph.D. to Beneke, who appears to have slipped into teaching soon afterwards. Late in 1821, however, he sent a copy of his Grundlegung zur Physik der Sitten to von Altenstein, the Prussian Minister of Education, who considered it contrary to Christian morals and ordered that Beneke should not be allowed to teach. Beneke thereupon appealed to the Philosophical Faculty, and this body informed the Minister that they would expect to judge whether a philosophical book was worthy of a teacher in the University. Hegel, however, dissociated himself from this protest, saying that Beneke had never been officially granted permission to teach and that the Minister was as much entitled as the Philosophical Faculty to pass judgement on a book. Hegel would not even agree with his colleagues that the reasons for the dismissal should be shown to the Faculty and discussed by them. In 1822 Beneke was invited to teach at Jena, but was prevented from teaching there by Altenstein's ban. In 1824 he obtained a post at the University of Göttingen in the Kingdom of Hanover, where Lichtenberg had taught earlier. In 1827 n e obtained permission to teach at Berlin and remained there until his death by drowning in 1854. Applications for an Extraordinary Professorship at Berlin in 1828 and 1830 were unanimously rejected by the Philosophical Faculty, and from what Rosenkranz says (Hegels Leben (Berlin, 1844) p. 380Google Scholar) it seems that Hegel continued to obstruct. Details of the Beneke case, which caused a stir at the time and was much discussed afterwards, are given in Hegel's Berliner Schriften, ed. Hoffmeister (Hamburg, 1956) pp. 612–26Google Scholar. There are extracts from the minutes and memoranda of the Philosophical Faculty, including Hegel's own contributions. Presumably in 1827 Hegel was overridden or changed his mind, but Hoffmeister gives no information on this.
page 40 note 1 Ausgewählte Schriften (Reclam) p. 121Google Scholar. It seems likely that Wittgenstein read these and similar passages from Lichtenberg and was influenced by them in his views on mental states and their expression. Franz H. Mautner seems to think so in his Lichtenberg (Berlin, 1968)Google Scholar. Professor von Wright, in ‘Georg Ghristoph Lichtenberg als Philosoph’ (Theoria, 1942Google Scholar), considers that Lichtenberg's view that philosophy is ‘rectification of speech-usage’ is a forerunner of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, but that any influence of Lichtenberg on Wittgenstein ‘seems to be excluded’, in spite of the ‘strange congeniality’ of their views. In the lectures by Wittgenstein reported in Mind (1954–5) by G. E. Moore, Wittgenstein quotes Lichtenberg's remark that ‘I think’ might be replaced by ‘it thinks’ (Mind (1955) pp. 13–14).
page 41 note 1 Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., §351, Addition β. Hegel remarks: ‘The voice comes very close to thought.’
page 42 note 1 Ibid., § 351, Addition δ.
page 42 note 2 Ibid., § 352, Addition.
page 42 note 3 Ibid., § 376, Addition.
page 43 note 1 Ibid., § 389.
page 43 note 2 Ibid., § 406.
page 44 note 1 Ibid., § 408. Hegel's long addition to this passage contains much interesting material. For example: ‘Although an insane individual is potentially one and the same subject, nevertheless he is not a coalesced individual subject but is two conflicting personalities.’
page 44 note 2 The Philosophy of Hegel (London, 1965) p. 76Google Scholar. Hegel's account, summarised here, occurs in the Encyclopedia, §§ 424–35.
page 45 note 1 Ibid., §453.
page 45 note 2 Ibid., § 459. Wallace's translation, ‘a posture in the corporeal act of oral utterance’, seems to me to miss the point. The word ‘Gebärde’ means, not a posture — for which the word would be ‘Haltung’ – but a gesture, gesticulation, play of features, action on the stage. Hegel had in mind the derivation from the verb ‘gebären’ which means to bring forth, produce, give birth to. The account of language as arising from gestures is elaborated by G. H. Mead in his Mind, Self and Society (Chicago, 1934)Google Scholar pt ii, § 9: ‘The Vocal Gesture and the Significant Symbol’.