Proceedings of the annual congress of the Finnish Philosophical Association in 2013. Theme: memory.

In this dissertation, I seek to explain G.W.F. Hegel’s view that human accessible conceptual content can provide knowledge about the nature or essence of things. I call this view “Conceptual Transparency.” It finds its historical antecedent in the views of eighteenth century German rationalists, which were strongly criticized by Immanuel Kant. I argue that Hegel explains Conceptual Transparency in such a way that preserves many implications of German rationalism, but in a form that is largely compatible with Kant’s criticisms of (...) the original rationalist version. After providing background on Hegel’s relationship to the traditional rationalist theory of concepts and Kant’s challenge to it, I claim that Hegel’s central task is to provide a theory of conceptual content that allows a relationship to the objective world without being dependent on the specifically sensory aspect of the world, which Kant’s theory of concepts required. Since many interpreters deny that Hegel’s use of the term “concept” is comparable to other historical philosophers (or our own), I first show that Hegel’s critique of standard conceptions of concepts presupposes an agreement of subject matter. I then show how Hegel’s account of the “formal concept” provides the skeleton for a view of conceptual content that relies on negative relations between terms, rather than a relation to sensibility, to provide content. Hegel’s account of conceptual content is completed when he shows how a universal term is further specified so that it can determine singular objects. This occurs in its adequate form in a teleological process. I argue that Hegel’s account of teleology in the Science of Logic is an attempt to explain how and where Conceptual Transparency obtains. A teleological process is one in which a concept constitutes an object, and this means that a concept is perfectly adequate to express that thing’s nature and not merely to represent it. However, in the final chapter, I show that Hegel’s concept of teleology is meant paradigmatically to illuminate how human purposive processes have constituted a social world that is conceptually accessible to us. In this way, the primary “province” of Hegel’s rationalism is the human constructed world. (shrink)

Play has undergone a "process of abjection" in western philosophical thinking: It is considered to be repulsive and loathsome, yet it is also fascinating and desirable, that is, the more reason disavows play and unseriousness, the more it desires to incorporate them. Even though play has to be denounced, philosophers seem unaware that their own activity is inherently playful. In my dissertation I trace a malediction of play in western metaphysics to Aristotle who eclipses tragic, Dionysian play in his ethical (...) and political theory. In the archaic ludic beginnings of Homer and Hesiod, play is not yet put in binary opposition to seriousness; this conceptual shift occurs in the pre-Socratic classical Greek period. While Plato maligns certain mimetic practices in his infamous critique of the poets, I aver that he does not turn against the Dionysian aspects of play. This is clearly shown in his uses of masks and mimicry, in his mockery of the sophists and in his endorsement of divine inspiration. ;I pursue the Aristotelian thread of the malediction of play in Kant's and Schiller's discussions of the concept and function of play. Although Kant parts from Aristotle in important ways in The Critique of Judgment, e.g. with the modern conception of the artist as not merely being a follower but also a creator of standards, I argue that Kant still remains committed to an Apollonian, rationalistic play of the imagination. In this dissertation, Kant serves as a transition figure between Aristotle and Hegel. In Nietzsche's thought, we see an important ludic turn, as argued by many play theoreticians. However, I argue that this reversal has been paved by Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. In good Heraclitean terminology, truth becomes a "Bacchanalian whirl," an interplay of drunken frenzy and calm repose, i.e. of Dionysian and Apollonian impulses. This trope serves as a key category for the interpretation of Hegel's play theory. Hence, I will argue against critics, who narrowly view Hegel's dialectic as carrying a notion of 'resentment' and a 'spirit of gravity.'. (shrink)