This article interprets Hegel’s hierarchical theory of race as an application of his general view... more This article interprets Hegel’s hierarchical theory of race as an application of his general views about the metaphysics of classification and explanation. Sections 1-3 offer a reconstruction of Hegel’s hierarchical theory of race based on the critical edition of relevant lecture transcripts: we argue that Hegel’s position on race is appropriately classified as racist (section 1), that it postulates innate mental deficits of some races (section 2), and that it turns racism from an anthropological into a metaphysical doctrine by claiming that the division of humankind into races (at least in the Old World) is not a brute fact, but follows a ‘higher necessity’ (section 3). We then summarise our interpretation of the relevant metaphysical background to this theory. In our reading, Hegel postulates an essentialist form of explanation that explains given kinds as stages in a teleological, non-temporal process through which the nature of a superordinate kind is realised (section 4). We argue that Hegel’s views about a hierarchical and necessary division of humankind into races are an application of this model to the case of human diversity, motivated by explanatory considerations and subject to confirmation bias (section 5). By way of conclusion, we address two possible attempts to ‘save’ Hegelian philosophy from its racist baggage (section 6).
In this article, I explore the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's social philosophy. Basing myse... more In this article, I explore the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's social philosophy. Basing myself on an exegetical approach to Hegel's general metaphysical framework for finite reality which has been popular in the recent literature on Hegel, and which assigns crucial roles to objective kinds ("concepts") and teleological structures, I examine to what extent Hegel can be seen as applying this framework also to social entities. After summarizing the general exegetical approach in the first three sections, I argue that Hegel sees social reality as ordered by objective, teleologically structured kinds, and use Hegel's analogy between organism and state to get clearer about the relevant understanding of teleology (or social functions). I argue that Hegel fails to resolve an important problem for his approach, namely the absence of a proper social analogue to biological reproduction and inheritance, and propose a form of social teleological explanation that is apt to fill the resulting gap in Hegel's theory. I also indicate ideas in Hegel's approach to social ontology that are of interest independently of Hegel's normative views on society and politics.
[English version of the article is available here: https://www.academia.edu/44266062/Hegel_on_Obj... more [English version of the article is available here: https://www.academia.edu/44266062/Hegel_on_Objective_Kinds_and_Teleology_From_Nature_to_Society] In this article, I explore the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's social philosophy. Basing myself on an exegetical approach to Hegel's general metaphysical framework for finite reality which has been popular in the recent literature on Hegel, and which assigns crucial roles to objective kinds ("concepts") and teleological structures, I examine to what extent Hegel can be seen as applying this framework also to social entities. After summarizing the general exegetical approach in the first three sections, I argue that Hegel sees social reality as ordered by objective, teleologically structured kinds, and use Hegel's analogy between organism and state to get clearer about the relevant understanding of teleology (or social functions). I argue that Hegel fails to resolve an important problem for his approach, namely the absence of a proper social analogue to biological reproduction and inheritance, and propose a form of social teleological explanation that is apt to fill the resulting gap in Hegel's theory. I also indicate ideas in Hegel's approach to social ontology that are of interest independently of Hegel's normative views on society and politics.
Gilles Bouche, ed. Reading Brandom: On 'A Spirit of Trust' (forthcoming)
Robert Brandom’s semantic reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit culminates in an account of ... more Robert Brandom’s semantic reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit culminates in an account of an ideal form of reciprocal recognition that we are always already committed to whenever we apply a concept, but that still awaits its concrete realization in an adequate recognitive practice replacing modernity. This future practice will be a “postmodern” form of ethical life that is based on a commitment to “forgiveness”, a willingness to offer rational reconstructions of past concept applications. On Brandom’s reading, Hegel describes the form of reciprocal recognition that is characteristic of postmodern ethical life in the account of forgiveness that concludes the Spirit chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In this article, I explore practical consequences of Brandom’s account of postmodern ethical life (PEL). I argue that it is possible to derive moral norms from Brandom’s account of PEL, but that this account at the same time has implications regarding the way we should understand each other’s actions which are morally not acceptable by PEL’s own lights. Among other things, PEL leaves no room for moral critique, and it makes us helpless against covert manipulation and oppression by powerful agents. I therefore conclude that the normative structure of PEL is inconsistent.
Anke Breunig / Stefan Brandt (eds.), Sellars and Twentieth-Century Philosophy, London: Routledge, forthcoming
Wilfrid Sellars had an elaborate theory of self-knowledge about one’s own thoughts that anticipat... more Wilfrid Sellars had an elaborate theory of self-knowledge about one’s own thoughts that anticipates some crucial claims and topics of current work on self-knowledge. In this contribution, I reconstruct Sellars’s theory of self-knowledge, and explore connections with more recent work on the topic. I argue that Sellars’s account undermines Shoemaker’s and Burge’s influential arguments against “perceptual” accounts of self-knowledge, and I discuss whether Sellars’s position is apt to give a plausible account of the relation between self-knowledge and phenomenal consciousness.
On a widely held view, episodes of inner speech provide at least one way in which we become consc... more On a widely held view, episodes of inner speech provide at least one way in which we become conscious of our thoughts. However, it can be argued, on the one hand, that consciousness of thoughts in virtue of inner speech presupposes (unconscious) interpretation of the simulated speech. On the other hand, the need for such self-interpretation (even if unconscious) seems to clash with distinctive first-personal characteristics that we would normally ascribe to consciousness of one’s own thoughts: a special reliability; a lack of conscious ambiguity and incomprehensibility; and a sense of causal agency. I try to resolve this puzzle by proposing an account for the requisite self-interpretation of inner speech in terms of Bayesian probabilistic inference. Drawing on “perceptual loop” accounts of speech control, I argue that such interpretive probabilistic inferences are used for the control of inner speech, and that as a consequence of this function, they are biased toward the correct interpretations. I conclude by showing how this model can explain the first-personal characteristics of consciousness of one’s own thoughts. In the case of the sense of causal agency, the resulting explanation yields novel accounts for “audible thoughts” and thought insertion.
Spinoza’s necessitarianism—the doctrine that everything that is actual is necessary—is an importa... more Spinoza’s necessitarianism—the doctrine that everything that is actual is necessary—is an important matter of debate in German Idealism. I examine Schelling’s discussion of Spinozist necessitarianism in his 1809 Freedom Essay, and focus in particular on an objection that Schelling raises against this view: namely, that it has “blind necessity” govern the world. While Schelling draws in this context on Leibniz’s critique of Spinoza’s necessitarianism, he rejects the assumption of divine choice that stands behind Leibniz’s version of the charge of blind necessity. I develop an interpretation that shows both how Schelling consistently avoids necessitarianism despite denying divine choice, and how his own version of the charge of “blind necessity” offers objections against Spinozist necessitarianism that focus on the issues of divine personhood and love.
This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philos... more This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philosophy, that the verdicts of conscience are infallible. We argue that Kant’s infallibility claim must be seen in the context of a major shift in Kant’s views on conscience that took place around 1790, and that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. This shift led Kant to treat conscience as an exclusively second-order capacity which does not directly evaluate actions, but one’s first-order moral judgments and deliberation. On the basis of this novel interpretation, we develop a new defense of Kant’s infallibility claim that draws on Kant’s account of the characteristic features of specifically moral judgments.
Natural Kind Essentialism (NKE) is the view that the objects of sciences like physics, chemistry ... more Natural Kind Essentialism (NKE) is the view that the objects of sciences like physics, chemistry and biology fall into natural kinds, and that such kinds have essences—sets of properties possession of which is necessary and sufficient for kind-membership. Since Putnam and Kripke brought NKE back onto the philosophical agenda, it has found many advocates. But comparatively little attention has been paid to the question how this view can be positively motivated. After illustrating the current need for an argument for NKE through critical discussions of Putnam’s, Kripke’s and Ellis’ arguments for NKE, this article aims to show that Hegel offers the resources for an original argument for the view. This argument works by deriving metaphysical implications from an account of what it means to understand an explanandum.
International Yearbook of German Idealism 11 (2013 [published 2016])
One important piece of textual evidence that has been cited in favour of influential non-metaphys... more One important piece of textual evidence that has been cited in favour of influential non-metaphysical readings of Hegel (such as Pippin’s) consists in a number of passages where Hegel attempts to argue for “idealism” on the basis of considerations about consciousness and self-consciousness. Several authors have recently rejected such anti-metaphysical readings, and instead proposed readings on which Hegel’s idealism is a robust metaphysical doctrine. But those authors have not explained yet how they can do justice to the role that Hegel ascribes to (self-)consciousness when arguing for his idealism. In this article, I take up this challenge and show how these connections can be accommodated within a metaphysical reading. First, I argue for a new reading of the chapter “Force and Understanding” in the Phenomenology of Spirit. When Hegel describes as upshot of the chapter a relation to the physical world that is a form of self-consciousness, he only means, on this reading, that the self recognizes in nature structures that are isomorphic to its own structure. Second, I develop a new reading of a section from "On the Concept in general" in the Science of Logic, where Hegel draws on Kant’s theory of apperception in order to argue for his idealism. I show how this passage, too, can be understood along the lines of a metaphysical reading, and offer a reconstruction and completion of Hegel’s argument in this passage.
According to a view which is common both in contemporary philosophy and in the history of philoso... more According to a view which is common both in contemporary philosophy and in the history of philosophy, we possess a particular epistemic access to our own present intentional actions. This article examines accounts of this access which have been put forward in Classical German Philosophy. After a short survey of the relevant Kantian background (1.), I discuss the positions that Schopenhauer (2.) and Fichte (3.) have proposed in this regard. Schopenhauer’s approach, which anticipates current theories of non-perceptual knowledge of one’s actions, turns out to face substantial problems. Fichte, by contrast, offers an original alternative to non-perceptual accounts, which is based on the assumption of a practical form of perception.
In: Thomas Oehl / Arthur Kok (Hrsg.), Objektiver und absoluter Geist nach Hegel, Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming (Reihe: Critical Studies in German Idealism)
Despite a long tradition of scholarly and philosophical interest in Hegel’s aesthetics, very litt... more Despite a long tradition of scholarly and philosophical interest in Hegel’s aesthetics, very little has been written about the systematic core of Hegel’s aesthetics, his theory of the “aesthetic ideal”. In this theory, Hegel describes a form of free, heroic agency as ideal object of artistic representation. I offer a reading of this theory on which it adds an important political dimension to Hegel’s aesthetics that has been neglected so far in scholarship. This dimension consists in a fundamental critique of the political and social sphere as such: for Hegel, artworks like classical tragedies and modern dramas present to us a form of free, heroic agency as something that we take a profound interest in, but that is not possible anymore under the conditions of a developed political community. Since a return to an uncivilized “mythical” age is not something we can reasonably wish for, art makes us aware of necessary limits in the degree to which we can realize our freedom in the social and political sphere. I argue that this melancholic message of Hegel’s aesthetics opposes political utopias in the tradition of political millenialism that were highly influential in the wake of the French Revolution; as a paradigmatic case of such a utopia and a foil to Hegel, I discuss Schiller’s views in the Letters on the "Aesthetic Education of Man".
Several recent interpretations see Hegel's theory of the Concept as a form of conceptual realism,... more Several recent interpretations see Hegel's theory of the Concept as a form of conceptual realism, according to which finite reality is articulated by objectively existing concepts. More precisely, this theory has been interpreted as a version of natural kind essentialism, and it has been proposed that its function is to account for the possibility of genuine explanations. This suggests a promising way to reconstruct the argument that Hegel's theory of objective concepts is based on—an argument that shows that the possibility of explanation rests on metaphysical preconditions and that natural kind essentialism gives the only adequate account of those preconditions. But in order for such a reconstruction to be successful, one needs to spell out the metaphysical features in virtue of which Hegelian natural kinds can account for the possibility of explanation. The article takes up this challenge. It offers the first detailed analysis of the modal fine-structure of Hegel's natural kind essentialism and shows how Hegel's position, thus understood, provides the details needed to complete the explanation-based argument.
In "A Spirit of Trust", Robert Brandom interprets the last parts of the Phenomenology of Spirit a... more In "A Spirit of Trust", Robert Brandom interprets the last parts of the Phenomenology of Spirit as projecting a new, post-modern form of mutual recognition and ethical life. While Brandom explicitly claims that such ethical life requires political institutions, he is silent regarding Hegel’s views about such institutions, and restricts his interpretation instead to very abstract features of linguistic practices. It therefore becomes an urgent question what exactly, if anything, the semantics that Brandom finds in Hegel (and that he himself endorses) implies at the political level. In this article, I propose a way in which the gap between Brandom’s purely semantic reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit, on the one hand, and Hegel’s views about the concrete political requirements for stable mutual recognition, on the other hand, can be bridged. Drawing on recent philosophical work on trust and on Hegel’s writings on politics and political philosophy, I argue that a “hermeneutic” form of trust that is central to Brandom’s interpretation presupposes a more general form of mutual trust, which in its turn can exist only if certain political institutions are in place. Moreover, I examine the criteria of adequacy for such trust-enabling institutions that Hegel offers in his discussions of trust in the context of his political philosophy. I argue that these criteria are plausible both philosophically and in the light of empirical findings from social science. Thus, a relatively concrete account of the political preconditions for Brandom’s hermeneutic trust results.
I propose a new reading of Hegel’s discussion of modality in the ‘Actuality’ chapter of the Scien... more I propose a new reading of Hegel’s discussion of modality in the ‘Actuality’ chapter of the Science of Logic. On this reading, the main purpose of the chapter is a critical engagement with Spinoza’s modal metaphysics. Hegel first reconstructs a rationalist line of thought – corresponding to the cosmological argument for the existence of God – that ultimately leads to Spinozist necessitarianism. He then presents a reductio argument against necessitarianism, contending that as a consequence of necessitarianism, no adequate explanatory accounts of facts about finite reality can be given.
Abstract: Hegel repeatedly presents arguments for idealism that are based on the claim that consc... more Abstract: Hegel repeatedly presents arguments for idealism that are based on the claim that consciousness of objects presupposes self-consciousness. In this article, I examine whether a metaphysical reading of Hegel’s idealism is able to accommodate these arguments. I discuss several different notions of consciousness and self-consciousness in Hegel’s writings and examine two arguments for idealism, one from the Phenomenology of Spirit and one from the Science of Logic. I argue that the metaphysical reading can account for both arguments, but that only the latter really turns on a connection between consciousness and self-consciousness in broadly ordinary senses of these terms.
Recently influential ‘rationalist’ views of self-knowledge about our rational attitudes hold that... more Recently influential ‘rationalist’ views of self-knowledge about our rational attitudes hold that such self-knowledge is essentially connected to rational agency, and therefore has to be particularly reliable, immediate, and distinct from third-personal access. This approach has been challenged by ‘theory theory’ or (as I prefer to call them) ‘interpretationist’ views of self-knowledge: on such views, self-knowledge is based on the interpretation of information about ourselves, and this interpretation involves the same mindreading mechanisms that we use to access other persons’ mental states. Interpretationist views are usually dismissed as implausible and unwarranted by advocates of rationalism. In this article, I argue that rationalists should revise their attitude towards interpretationism: they can, and ought to, accept themselves a form of interpretationism. First, I argue that interpretationism is correct at least for a substantive range of cases. These are cases in which we respond to a question about our attitudes by a conscious overt or inner expression of our attitude, and form a self-ascriptive belief on the basis of that expression. Second, I argue that rationalists can adopt interpretationism without abandoning their basic tenets: the assumption that both approaches are incompatible is unfounded.
This article interprets Hegel’s hierarchical theory of race as an application of his general view... more This article interprets Hegel’s hierarchical theory of race as an application of his general views about the metaphysics of classification and explanation. Sections 1-3 offer a reconstruction of Hegel’s hierarchical theory of race based on the critical edition of relevant lecture transcripts: we argue that Hegel’s position on race is appropriately classified as racist (section 1), that it postulates innate mental deficits of some races (section 2), and that it turns racism from an anthropological into a metaphysical doctrine by claiming that the division of humankind into races (at least in the Old World) is not a brute fact, but follows a ‘higher necessity’ (section 3). We then summarise our interpretation of the relevant metaphysical background to this theory. In our reading, Hegel postulates an essentialist form of explanation that explains given kinds as stages in a teleological, non-temporal process through which the nature of a superordinate kind is realised (section 4). We argue that Hegel’s views about a hierarchical and necessary division of humankind into races are an application of this model to the case of human diversity, motivated by explanatory considerations and subject to confirmation bias (section 5). By way of conclusion, we address two possible attempts to ‘save’ Hegelian philosophy from its racist baggage (section 6).
In this article, I explore the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's social philosophy. Basing myse... more In this article, I explore the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's social philosophy. Basing myself on an exegetical approach to Hegel's general metaphysical framework for finite reality which has been popular in the recent literature on Hegel, and which assigns crucial roles to objective kinds ("concepts") and teleological structures, I examine to what extent Hegel can be seen as applying this framework also to social entities. After summarizing the general exegetical approach in the first three sections, I argue that Hegel sees social reality as ordered by objective, teleologically structured kinds, and use Hegel's analogy between organism and state to get clearer about the relevant understanding of teleology (or social functions). I argue that Hegel fails to resolve an important problem for his approach, namely the absence of a proper social analogue to biological reproduction and inheritance, and propose a form of social teleological explanation that is apt to fill the resulting gap in Hegel's theory. I also indicate ideas in Hegel's approach to social ontology that are of interest independently of Hegel's normative views on society and politics.
[English version of the article is available here: https://www.academia.edu/44266062/Hegel_on_Obj... more [English version of the article is available here: https://www.academia.edu/44266062/Hegel_on_Objective_Kinds_and_Teleology_From_Nature_to_Society] In this article, I explore the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's social philosophy. Basing myself on an exegetical approach to Hegel's general metaphysical framework for finite reality which has been popular in the recent literature on Hegel, and which assigns crucial roles to objective kinds ("concepts") and teleological structures, I examine to what extent Hegel can be seen as applying this framework also to social entities. After summarizing the general exegetical approach in the first three sections, I argue that Hegel sees social reality as ordered by objective, teleologically structured kinds, and use Hegel's analogy between organism and state to get clearer about the relevant understanding of teleology (or social functions). I argue that Hegel fails to resolve an important problem for his approach, namely the absence of a proper social analogue to biological reproduction and inheritance, and propose a form of social teleological explanation that is apt to fill the resulting gap in Hegel's theory. I also indicate ideas in Hegel's approach to social ontology that are of interest independently of Hegel's normative views on society and politics.
Gilles Bouche, ed. Reading Brandom: On 'A Spirit of Trust' (forthcoming)
Robert Brandom’s semantic reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit culminates in an account of ... more Robert Brandom’s semantic reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit culminates in an account of an ideal form of reciprocal recognition that we are always already committed to whenever we apply a concept, but that still awaits its concrete realization in an adequate recognitive practice replacing modernity. This future practice will be a “postmodern” form of ethical life that is based on a commitment to “forgiveness”, a willingness to offer rational reconstructions of past concept applications. On Brandom’s reading, Hegel describes the form of reciprocal recognition that is characteristic of postmodern ethical life in the account of forgiveness that concludes the Spirit chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In this article, I explore practical consequences of Brandom’s account of postmodern ethical life (PEL). I argue that it is possible to derive moral norms from Brandom’s account of PEL, but that this account at the same time has implications regarding the way we should understand each other’s actions which are morally not acceptable by PEL’s own lights. Among other things, PEL leaves no room for moral critique, and it makes us helpless against covert manipulation and oppression by powerful agents. I therefore conclude that the normative structure of PEL is inconsistent.
Anke Breunig / Stefan Brandt (eds.), Sellars and Twentieth-Century Philosophy, London: Routledge, forthcoming
Wilfrid Sellars had an elaborate theory of self-knowledge about one’s own thoughts that anticipat... more Wilfrid Sellars had an elaborate theory of self-knowledge about one’s own thoughts that anticipates some crucial claims and topics of current work on self-knowledge. In this contribution, I reconstruct Sellars’s theory of self-knowledge, and explore connections with more recent work on the topic. I argue that Sellars’s account undermines Shoemaker’s and Burge’s influential arguments against “perceptual” accounts of self-knowledge, and I discuss whether Sellars’s position is apt to give a plausible account of the relation between self-knowledge and phenomenal consciousness.
On a widely held view, episodes of inner speech provide at least one way in which we become consc... more On a widely held view, episodes of inner speech provide at least one way in which we become conscious of our thoughts. However, it can be argued, on the one hand, that consciousness of thoughts in virtue of inner speech presupposes (unconscious) interpretation of the simulated speech. On the other hand, the need for such self-interpretation (even if unconscious) seems to clash with distinctive first-personal characteristics that we would normally ascribe to consciousness of one’s own thoughts: a special reliability; a lack of conscious ambiguity and incomprehensibility; and a sense of causal agency. I try to resolve this puzzle by proposing an account for the requisite self-interpretation of inner speech in terms of Bayesian probabilistic inference. Drawing on “perceptual loop” accounts of speech control, I argue that such interpretive probabilistic inferences are used for the control of inner speech, and that as a consequence of this function, they are biased toward the correct interpretations. I conclude by showing how this model can explain the first-personal characteristics of consciousness of one’s own thoughts. In the case of the sense of causal agency, the resulting explanation yields novel accounts for “audible thoughts” and thought insertion.
Spinoza’s necessitarianism—the doctrine that everything that is actual is necessary—is an importa... more Spinoza’s necessitarianism—the doctrine that everything that is actual is necessary—is an important matter of debate in German Idealism. I examine Schelling’s discussion of Spinozist necessitarianism in his 1809 Freedom Essay, and focus in particular on an objection that Schelling raises against this view: namely, that it has “blind necessity” govern the world. While Schelling draws in this context on Leibniz’s critique of Spinoza’s necessitarianism, he rejects the assumption of divine choice that stands behind Leibniz’s version of the charge of blind necessity. I develop an interpretation that shows both how Schelling consistently avoids necessitarianism despite denying divine choice, and how his own version of the charge of “blind necessity” offers objections against Spinozist necessitarianism that focus on the issues of divine personhood and love.
This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philos... more This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philosophy, that the verdicts of conscience are infallible. We argue that Kant’s infallibility claim must be seen in the context of a major shift in Kant’s views on conscience that took place around 1790, and that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. This shift led Kant to treat conscience as an exclusively second-order capacity which does not directly evaluate actions, but one’s first-order moral judgments and deliberation. On the basis of this novel interpretation, we develop a new defense of Kant’s infallibility claim that draws on Kant’s account of the characteristic features of specifically moral judgments.
Natural Kind Essentialism (NKE) is the view that the objects of sciences like physics, chemistry ... more Natural Kind Essentialism (NKE) is the view that the objects of sciences like physics, chemistry and biology fall into natural kinds, and that such kinds have essences—sets of properties possession of which is necessary and sufficient for kind-membership. Since Putnam and Kripke brought NKE back onto the philosophical agenda, it has found many advocates. But comparatively little attention has been paid to the question how this view can be positively motivated. After illustrating the current need for an argument for NKE through critical discussions of Putnam’s, Kripke’s and Ellis’ arguments for NKE, this article aims to show that Hegel offers the resources for an original argument for the view. This argument works by deriving metaphysical implications from an account of what it means to understand an explanandum.
International Yearbook of German Idealism 11 (2013 [published 2016])
One important piece of textual evidence that has been cited in favour of influential non-metaphys... more One important piece of textual evidence that has been cited in favour of influential non-metaphysical readings of Hegel (such as Pippin’s) consists in a number of passages where Hegel attempts to argue for “idealism” on the basis of considerations about consciousness and self-consciousness. Several authors have recently rejected such anti-metaphysical readings, and instead proposed readings on which Hegel’s idealism is a robust metaphysical doctrine. But those authors have not explained yet how they can do justice to the role that Hegel ascribes to (self-)consciousness when arguing for his idealism. In this article, I take up this challenge and show how these connections can be accommodated within a metaphysical reading. First, I argue for a new reading of the chapter “Force and Understanding” in the Phenomenology of Spirit. When Hegel describes as upshot of the chapter a relation to the physical world that is a form of self-consciousness, he only means, on this reading, that the self recognizes in nature structures that are isomorphic to its own structure. Second, I develop a new reading of a section from "On the Concept in general" in the Science of Logic, where Hegel draws on Kant’s theory of apperception in order to argue for his idealism. I show how this passage, too, can be understood along the lines of a metaphysical reading, and offer a reconstruction and completion of Hegel’s argument in this passage.
According to a view which is common both in contemporary philosophy and in the history of philoso... more According to a view which is common both in contemporary philosophy and in the history of philosophy, we possess a particular epistemic access to our own present intentional actions. This article examines accounts of this access which have been put forward in Classical German Philosophy. After a short survey of the relevant Kantian background (1.), I discuss the positions that Schopenhauer (2.) and Fichte (3.) have proposed in this regard. Schopenhauer’s approach, which anticipates current theories of non-perceptual knowledge of one’s actions, turns out to face substantial problems. Fichte, by contrast, offers an original alternative to non-perceptual accounts, which is based on the assumption of a practical form of perception.
In: Thomas Oehl / Arthur Kok (Hrsg.), Objektiver und absoluter Geist nach Hegel, Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming (Reihe: Critical Studies in German Idealism)
Despite a long tradition of scholarly and philosophical interest in Hegel’s aesthetics, very litt... more Despite a long tradition of scholarly and philosophical interest in Hegel’s aesthetics, very little has been written about the systematic core of Hegel’s aesthetics, his theory of the “aesthetic ideal”. In this theory, Hegel describes a form of free, heroic agency as ideal object of artistic representation. I offer a reading of this theory on which it adds an important political dimension to Hegel’s aesthetics that has been neglected so far in scholarship. This dimension consists in a fundamental critique of the political and social sphere as such: for Hegel, artworks like classical tragedies and modern dramas present to us a form of free, heroic agency as something that we take a profound interest in, but that is not possible anymore under the conditions of a developed political community. Since a return to an uncivilized “mythical” age is not something we can reasonably wish for, art makes us aware of necessary limits in the degree to which we can realize our freedom in the social and political sphere. I argue that this melancholic message of Hegel’s aesthetics opposes political utopias in the tradition of political millenialism that were highly influential in the wake of the French Revolution; as a paradigmatic case of such a utopia and a foil to Hegel, I discuss Schiller’s views in the Letters on the "Aesthetic Education of Man".
Several recent interpretations see Hegel's theory of the Concept as a form of conceptual realism,... more Several recent interpretations see Hegel's theory of the Concept as a form of conceptual realism, according to which finite reality is articulated by objectively existing concepts. More precisely, this theory has been interpreted as a version of natural kind essentialism, and it has been proposed that its function is to account for the possibility of genuine explanations. This suggests a promising way to reconstruct the argument that Hegel's theory of objective concepts is based on—an argument that shows that the possibility of explanation rests on metaphysical preconditions and that natural kind essentialism gives the only adequate account of those preconditions. But in order for such a reconstruction to be successful, one needs to spell out the metaphysical features in virtue of which Hegelian natural kinds can account for the possibility of explanation. The article takes up this challenge. It offers the first detailed analysis of the modal fine-structure of Hegel's natural kind essentialism and shows how Hegel's position, thus understood, provides the details needed to complete the explanation-based argument.
In "A Spirit of Trust", Robert Brandom interprets the last parts of the Phenomenology of Spirit a... more In "A Spirit of Trust", Robert Brandom interprets the last parts of the Phenomenology of Spirit as projecting a new, post-modern form of mutual recognition and ethical life. While Brandom explicitly claims that such ethical life requires political institutions, he is silent regarding Hegel’s views about such institutions, and restricts his interpretation instead to very abstract features of linguistic practices. It therefore becomes an urgent question what exactly, if anything, the semantics that Brandom finds in Hegel (and that he himself endorses) implies at the political level. In this article, I propose a way in which the gap between Brandom’s purely semantic reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit, on the one hand, and Hegel’s views about the concrete political requirements for stable mutual recognition, on the other hand, can be bridged. Drawing on recent philosophical work on trust and on Hegel’s writings on politics and political philosophy, I argue that a “hermeneutic” form of trust that is central to Brandom’s interpretation presupposes a more general form of mutual trust, which in its turn can exist only if certain political institutions are in place. Moreover, I examine the criteria of adequacy for such trust-enabling institutions that Hegel offers in his discussions of trust in the context of his political philosophy. I argue that these criteria are plausible both philosophically and in the light of empirical findings from social science. Thus, a relatively concrete account of the political preconditions for Brandom’s hermeneutic trust results.
I propose a new reading of Hegel’s discussion of modality in the ‘Actuality’ chapter of the Scien... more I propose a new reading of Hegel’s discussion of modality in the ‘Actuality’ chapter of the Science of Logic. On this reading, the main purpose of the chapter is a critical engagement with Spinoza’s modal metaphysics. Hegel first reconstructs a rationalist line of thought – corresponding to the cosmological argument for the existence of God – that ultimately leads to Spinozist necessitarianism. He then presents a reductio argument against necessitarianism, contending that as a consequence of necessitarianism, no adequate explanatory accounts of facts about finite reality can be given.
Abstract: Hegel repeatedly presents arguments for idealism that are based on the claim that consc... more Abstract: Hegel repeatedly presents arguments for idealism that are based on the claim that consciousness of objects presupposes self-consciousness. In this article, I examine whether a metaphysical reading of Hegel’s idealism is able to accommodate these arguments. I discuss several different notions of consciousness and self-consciousness in Hegel’s writings and examine two arguments for idealism, one from the Phenomenology of Spirit and one from the Science of Logic. I argue that the metaphysical reading can account for both arguments, but that only the latter really turns on a connection between consciousness and self-consciousness in broadly ordinary senses of these terms.
Recently influential ‘rationalist’ views of self-knowledge about our rational attitudes hold that... more Recently influential ‘rationalist’ views of self-knowledge about our rational attitudes hold that such self-knowledge is essentially connected to rational agency, and therefore has to be particularly reliable, immediate, and distinct from third-personal access. This approach has been challenged by ‘theory theory’ or (as I prefer to call them) ‘interpretationist’ views of self-knowledge: on such views, self-knowledge is based on the interpretation of information about ourselves, and this interpretation involves the same mindreading mechanisms that we use to access other persons’ mental states. Interpretationist views are usually dismissed as implausible and unwarranted by advocates of rationalism. In this article, I argue that rationalists should revise their attitude towards interpretationism: they can, and ought to, accept themselves a form of interpretationism. First, I argue that interpretationism is correct at least for a substantive range of cases. These are cases in which we respond to a question about our attitudes by a conscious overt or inner expression of our attitude, and form a self-ascriptive belief on the basis of that expression. Second, I argue that rationalists can adopt interpretationism without abandoning their basic tenets: the assumption that both approaches are incompatible is unfounded.
Depersonalization Disorder (DPD) is a psychopathological condition in which subjects suffer from ... more Depersonalization Disorder (DPD) is a psychopathological condition in which subjects suffer from a massive alienation from themselves and the world around them. In recent years, several philosophers have proposed accounts that interpret DPD in terms of an alteration in global features of normal consciousness, such as a sense of mineness or emotional coloring. This article criticizes such accounts and develops an alternative to them. On the account I present here, the symptoms of DPD are due to impairments in implicit forms of self-consciousness that characterize many, but not all, types of conscious mental states.
Both in research on Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) and in their clinical assessment, it is... more Both in research on Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) and in their clinical assessment, it is common to distinguish between voices that are experienced as ‘inner’ (or ‘internal’, ‘inside the head’, ‘inside the mind’, ...) and voices that are experienced as ‘outer’ (‘external’, ‘outside the head’, ‘outside the mind’, ...). This inner/outer-contrast is treated not only as an important phenomenological variable of AVHs, it is also often seen as having diagnostic value. In this article, we argue that the distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ voices is ambiguous between different readings, and that lack of disambiguation in this regard has led to flaws in assessment tools, diagnostic debates and empirical studies. Such flaws, we argue furthermore, are often linked to misreadings of inner/outer-terminology in relevant 19th and early 20th century work on AVHs, in particular, in connection with Kandinsky’s and Jaspers’s distinction between hallucinations and pseudo-hallucinations.
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Articles (published / forthcoming) by Franz Knappik
and oppression by powerful agents. I therefore conclude that the normative structure of PEL is inconsistent.
and oppression by powerful agents. I therefore conclude that the normative structure of PEL is inconsistent.