Outlines a systematic historical account of the developments of Hegel's logic, both in his own works and those of his most significant followers. This study then provides an interpretation and internal criticism from an idealistic-transcendental philosophical perspective.

It is almost unanimously acknowledged that the formation of Hegel’s philosophy was largely determined by the appropriation and further development of some fundamental achievements of Kant’s transcendental idealism - first of all his polemic against the “old metaphysics” or, as Hegel also said, the “empty metaphysics of the understanding”. The most decisive assumption of this metaphysics consisted, indeed, in the belief that the totality of our universe could be exhaustively resolved into a plurality of isolated entities, devoid of any “internal,” (...) essential, mutual relations. Each entity was, as a consequence, considered to be only abstractly self-identical and so different from any other. In such a perspective, the absolute, the infinite, the divine, could not but be conceived as being substantially alien to the human mind’s innermost life and essence, as a merely motionless object, absolutely transcendent to the self-creative process in which our rational subjectivity essentially consists. Kant’s critique - especially by virtue of his conception of knowledge as an “a priori synthesis” of intuition and category, of experience and concept, which finds the ultimate condition of its possibility not in its conformity to a presupposed objectivity, but precisely in the original unity of self-consciousness, the “I-think-in general” - has certainly by now rendered unsustainable the strict dualism typical of such a metaphysics, and in particular its pretension of rationally “demonstrating” the existence and the most general properties of the alleged merely transcendent absolute. Whereas Kant’s idealism seems nevertheless to limit itself to the statement and foundation of this simply critical and negative outcome of the transcendental analysis of our knowledge, the ultimate aim of Hegel’s whole philosophy consists rather in the attempt explicitly and systematically to develop a conception of the universe, according to which the universe, far from dividing into a plurality of absolutely different and exclusive entities, instead constitutes itself as a unique, absolute, organic totality, in which any immediate difference and opposition tends to merge, to “reconcile” itself in a superior and deeper “dialectical” unity, which is both divine and human, infinite and finite, identical and different, ideal and real, eternal and in a process of becoming, transcendent and immanent. Every one of its determinate aspects and grades of development, every element into which it differentiates itself, thus turns out to be intimately immanent in, and connected with, every other, and finally in and with the absolute totality itself. Totum in toto et in qualibet parte. “Outside” of such unique, concrete totality, there appear to be but empty, irrational, unreal abstractions: first of all the A = A of formal logic and the absolutely transcendent God of the “old metaphysics.”. (shrink)

The philosophic, historical, and literary Italian culture of the first half of our century was largely dominated by a trend of thought that can be correctly called “Neo-idealist,” the most prominent exponents of which were Giovanni Gentile and Benedetto Croce. The latter’s very broad scientific activity moved, and attained its highest and most durable achievements, in the ambit of the theory and history of Italian and European literature, of civil historiography, and of social and political theory. We cannot here attempt (...) even a very sketchy explanation, interpretation, and evaluation of the undoubtedly remarkable contribution which Croce’s scientific work was able to offer to the development of our century’s European culture. Here we shall confine our critical interest only to the philosophical theories stricto sensu elaborated by Croce in the course of his wider historiographic activities. They stem indeed from a personal reading, interpretation, and criticism of Hegel’s speculative idealism; and he proposed them to contemporary scholars as the extreme and most mature stage of modern thought’s whole development. Thus, should they turn out to be generally tenable, any attempt today to vindicate Hegel’s thought as fully up-to-date and valid, at least with respect to its deepest logical-metaphysical and methodological-dialectical “substance,” could not but appear to be openly anachronistic. Whence, then, the inescapable need for a careful critical examination of their content, meaning, and real plausibility in the present historical-cultural situation. (shrink)

This article offers a general “immanent” critique of Derrida’s Deconstructionism, whose positive outcome is an argument for the continuing viability of a Hegel-oriented idealistic metaphysics. Derrida’s thought is construed as an unspokenly skeptical and nihilistic development of Heidegger’s existential ontology and of the sensu latiori “structuralist” trend of contemporary human sciences. The main difficulties pointed out hinge on (§ 1) the relationship deconstructionism establishes between thought and language, speech and writing, and phonetic and non-phonetic writing, (§ 2) its paradoxical concept (...) of “transcendental writing” as the “origin” of empirical writing and of the “trace” as more “original” than original reality; and, finally, (§ 3) its specification of the alleged “radical other” to metaphysical thought as writing, difference, and literature. (shrink)

Die Entwicklung der zeitgenossischen Philosophie ist durch Hegels Denken entscheidend beeinflusst worden. Die Grunde fur seine andauernde Aktualitat aber sind selten verstanden worden. Im Gegensatz zu vielen Hegel-Interpreten wird hier der -absolute Idealismus- als das Wesen der Philosophie Hegels erkannt. Die -dialektische Methode- und das -System- bilden eine untrennbare Einheit. Auf dieser Grundlage erfolgt in einer streng theoretisch-systematischen Perspektive eine konsistente Auslegung von Hegels -Philosophie des unendlichen Selbstbewusstseins-. Einen besonderen Schwerpunkt legt die Arbeit auf die Auseinandersetzung mit dem gegenwartigen amerikanischen (...) Hegelianismus. Ubereinstimmung besteht mit E.E. Harris und R.D. Winfield, wahrend R.B. Brandom entschieden kritisiert wird.<BR> Contemporary philosophy's development has been decisively influenced by Hegel's thought, yet only rarely have the grounds for its everlasting up-to-dateness been understood. Contrary to many Hegel-interpreters, -Absolute Idealism- is here regarded as the core of Hegel's philosophy. The -dialectical method- and the -system- constitute an inseparable unity. On this basis a consistent interpretation of Hegel's -philosophy of infinite self-consciousness- is outlined. Attention is focused especially on the discussion of contemporary American Hegelianism, largely agreeing with E. E. Harris and R. D. Winfield, while sharply criticizing R. B. Brandom.". (shrink)

The historical origin of the concept of ‘intentionality’, as is well-known, is very remote, dating back to the age of scholastic philosophy. In the epistemological theories worked out by medieval thinkers, from Thomas Aquinas up to the latest minor exponents of the nominalistic trend, the concept of ‘intentio’ is very often to be found, there playing a role of undoubtedly primary importance. Sometimes it means the universal ‘concept’ abstracted by the human understanding from sense datum; sometimes, instead, both the act (...) through which human intelligence directs itself towards the object of its cognition, the material ‘thing’, and the reflective act by virtue of which it refers to its subjective representation of the external ‘res’. In any case, it evidently turns out to be a fundamental function of any knowing whatsoever. (shrink)

The historical origin of the concept of ‘intentionality’, as is well-known, is very remote, dating back to the age of scholastic philosophy. In the epistemological theories worked out by medieval thinkers, from Thomas Aquinas up to the latest minor exponents of the nominalistic trend, the concept of ‘intentio’ is very often to be found, there playing a role of undoubtedly primary importance. Sometimes it means the universal ‘concept’ abstracted by the human understanding from sense datum; sometimes, instead, both the act (...) through which human intelligence directs itself towards the object of its cognition, the material ‘thing’, and the reflective act by virtue of which it refers to its subjective representation of the external ‘res’. In any case, it evidently turns out to be a fundamental function of any knowing whatsoever. (shrink)

In this essay I try, first of all, to outline the development of Joachim's epistemology from his most significant book, The Nature of Truth (1906), to his posthumous Logical Studies (1948), which gathers together the lectures on Logic delivered by him at the University of Oxford in the years up to his death in 1938. The conception of truth as systematic coherence, upheld by him in his earlier work in a lively polemic against Bertrand Russell's empirical-realist 'correspondence theory of truth' (...) as well as against the intuitionist appeal to immediate self-evidence, shows the thorough- going influence of F.H. Bradley's epistemology in its declaredly idealistic orientation and its 'sceptical' outcome. I then criticise the arguments by which, in the final pages of The Nature of Truth, he supports his denial of truth's reality, pointing out that they are plainly self-refuting. Finally, I examine the further development of his conception of thought and truth in his Oxford lectures, where he subjects the above-mentioned arguments to a careful self-critique, which prompted his pupil Errol E. Harris to vindicate, against contemporary anti-metaphysical thought, the perennial theoretical value and moral significance of metaphysics in general, and of Hegel's Absolute Idealism in particular. (shrink)

I first outline the arguments by which Hegel upholds the validity of his ‘rationalistic’ ideal of an ‘absolute knowing’, and then attempt to state precisely the sense in which such a Hegelian conception can be rightfully styled ‘idealistic’, and the reasons why it turns out to be preferable to the opposite empirical-realistic outlook. Thirdly, I examine his critique of ‘finite knowing’. Finally, I enumerate the fundamental features of that ‘speculative (i.e., strictly philosophical) knowing’ which, as the Absolute Idea, Hegel sets (...) against ‘finite knowing’ as the higher category in which the peculiar deficiencies and contradictions of the latter are integrated and reconciled. (shrink)

I first outline the arguments by which Hegel upholds the validity of his ‘rationalistic’ ideal of an ‘absolute knowing’, and then attempt to state precisely the sense in which such a Hegelian conception can be rightfully styled ‘idealistic’, and the reasons why it turns out to be preferable to the opposite empirical-realistic outlook. Thirdly, I examine his critique of ‘finite knowing’. Finally, I enumerate the fundamental features of that ‘speculative (i.e., strictly philosophical) knowing’ which, as the Absolute Idea, Hegel sets (...) against ‘finite knowing’ as the higher category in which the peculiar deficiencies and contradictions of the latter are integrated and reconciled. (shrink)

A widespread commonplace in contemporary continental philosophy is that an idealistic metaphysics of mind - in the wake of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, or Gentile - on the one hand, and a consistently “scientific” description and explanation of human experience and social praxis, on the other, are two quite irreconcilable theoretical enterprises. Although a philosophical clarification of languages, methodologies, and results of the particular sciences is generally held to be unavoidable by the scientists themselves, most epistemologists would still maintain that it (...) must necessarily be “analytic” or, at best, phenomenological in character. It is certainly one of the most remarkable merits of Errol Harris’ philosophy of science to have shown that, on the contrary, only a genuine Hegelian dialectical epistemology is actually able to discover, articulate, and justify the ultimate conceptual presuppostions of 20th century scientific thought. The Harris project is gaining more and more recognition within and influence on today’s epistemology. (shrink)

The reprint of this book by Errol Harris, which collects and integrates a series of lectures on the philosophy of religion delivered in 1977, and which was originally published as Volume XXVI of Tulane Studies in Philosophy, appears to me to be highly commendable and opportune. For the most remarkable event in the world history of the past decade is certainly the world-wide breakdown of Communist regimes. Having adopted Marx’s and Engels’s historical and dialectical materialism as their official ideology, they (...) usually assumed a radically negative attitude towards religion, somewhat paradoxically raising atheism to the status of a sort of state religion. As a consequence of the end of Communism, traditional religions, on the one hand, and an individualist, subjectivist, at its leanings anarchic and nihilistic conception of human existence, on the other, have step by step regained credit and influence in the western world. The careful reader of Atheism and Theism will find in it a firm, enlightening guidance to a rational, unpassionate understanding and assessment of the significance as well as limits of such a historical-spiritual revolution. However, paradoxical it may prima facie appear, the reason for this lies just in the fact that Harris’s philosophical outlook emphatically rejects any scientistic and/or humanistic attempt to compromise the pure immanence and autonomy of metaphysical speculation by making it dependent upon the temporal contingencies of historical-social problematics, or even to do away with it altogether. Scientism, naturalism and humanism, Harris points out. (shrink)

This collection of fifteen philosophical essays, principally prepared between 1974 and 1987, is an indispensable complement to Darrel E. Christensen’s major work on the Hegel-Whitehead relation, The Search for Concreteness: Reflections on Hegel and Whitehead, which appeared only two years earlier. The problematic of the earlier work was predominantly “methodological,” the intent having been to outline an authentically “critical” approach to fundamental issues of epistemology and metaphysics from a “somewhat Hegelian perspective.” The present work, building out from SC, is mainly (...) devoted to a historical “dialogue” between his original Hegel appropriation and reconstruction and some representative streams of contemporary philosophy. This is on the basis of his assumption, shared by the reviewer, that today’s most helpful contribution to Hegelianism can no longer consist in entanglements in “potentially endless interpretative debate of a sort that would be found of interest only to a few specialists,” so much as in bringing out “something of the import of Hegel’s work” “in confrontation with competing philosophical orientations”. Such a confrontation cannot, of course, be fruitful apart from having previously made clear what aspects or tenets of Hegel’s philosophy are being appropriated. This clearly presupposes the development of a consistent Hegel interpretation, to which especially the preface along with Essays I and XI offer an invaluable contribution. In the last two parts of the work he presents his readers with a somewhat detailed account of his position with respect to much debated issues in contemporary thought such as the “philosophy of language” and “cultural relativity.” This seems to me to be very likely the most original and up-to-date contribution to philosophy to be found in all of his philosophical work. In fact, as I shall presently show, although never departing from a close commitment to Hegelian principles, his reflections on these subjects seem to go a little, at least, toward justifying his claim to have advanced “first philosophy” somewhat “beyond” Hegel. (shrink)

The recent publication of the second edition of this monumental work by Hösle on Hegel’s philosophical system, which appeared for the first time in 1988, is surely to be regarded as one of the most important and encouraging events in continental philosophy this past decade. For, on the one hand, the very necessity of a second edition obviously indicates that the first fortunately did not escape the attention of a wide readership. On the other hand, it adds a postscript, in (...) which a forthright self-critique is provided with respect to what seems to me to be the most questionable thesis presented in this work, i.e. the primacy of the category of intersubjectivity over that of subjectivity. A brief but interesting paper on Hegel and Spinoza follows the Postscript. Such a self-critique, together with some enlightening remarks on the shortcomings of contemporary Marxist and historicist interpretations of Hegel’s absolute idealism—which should be construed as the completion of the tradition of Western idealistic metaphysics initiated by Parmenides and Plato—unquestionably shows that the development of Hösle’s thought in these years has moved in the very direction which is logically required by the peculiar character of its original “systematic-theoretical” approach to Hegelian philosophy. (shrink)

Owing both to the significance of its speculative achievements and to the originality of its structure and finalities, this arduous, complex, and deep treatise stands out within the extensive literature pertaining to the epistemological and ontological doctrines of Hegel and Whitehead. Rather than as a traditional historical/critical essay, or a comparative one, dedicated to the work of these two eminent thinkers, it presents itself as an attempt at a “reconstruction of method for first philosophy”. Its author intends to draw upon (...) the most valid and tenable methodological criteria worked out by each of the two philosophers, in turn, and, after submitting these to a critical examination and revision, to outline something like the indispensable “prolegomena” to a metaphysics. In accordance with the present requirement of our cultural context, however, this is not to be “dogmatic” but “critical”. (shrink)

Owing both to the significance of its speculative achievements and to the originality of its structure and finalities, this arduous, complex, and deep treatise stands out within the extensive literature pertaining to the epistemological and ontological doctrines of Hegel and Whitehead. Rather than as a traditional historical/critical essay, or a comparative one, dedicated to the work of these two eminent thinkers, it presents itself as an attempt at a “reconstruction of method for first philosophy”. Its author intends to draw upon (...) the most valid and tenable methodological criteria worked out by each of the two philosophers, in turn, and, after submitting these to a critical examination and revision, to outline something like the indispensable “prolegomena” to a metaphysics. In accordance with the present requirement of our cultural context, however, this is not to be “dogmatic” but “critical”. (shrink)