Stephen Houlgate

In this essay, I examine Robert Williams’s account of Hegel’s concept of divine “personhood.” I endorse Williams’s claims that God, for Hegel, is not a person but exhibits only personhood, and that divine personhood realises itself in a human community based on mutual recognition. I take issue, however, with Williams’s further claim that Hegel also takes God and humanity to stand in a relation of mutual recognition to one another, since this claim, in my view, risks turning God into a person after all. To conclude, I briefly consider a difference between Williams and myself concerning the relation of right to mutual recognition.

RESUMEN Largamente desatendida o malinterpretada, la noción de caos en la filosofía de Nietzsche es una pieza constitutiva de la particular concepción del ser que este autor habría dejado apenas esbozada. El artículo se propone elaborar este concepto en la obra nietzscheana, siguiendo algunas de las metáforas que lo iluminan. Desde allí se busca plantear los rasgos centrales de una ontologia del caos, de sesgo no metafísico, que, al afirmar el carácter acontecimental de la realidad, puede verse como precursora de la ontología hermenéutica contemporánea. ABSTRACT The notion of chaos, which has long been neglected or misinterpreted, is a constitutive element of a peculiar conception of being that the philosopher only had time to outline. The objective of this article is to elaborate on this concept in Nietzschean philosophy, guided by some of the metaphors that shed light on it. This serves as the basis to set forth the main characteristics of a non-metaphysical ontology of chaos that asserts the eventful nature of reality and can thus be seen as a precursor of contemporary hermeneutic ontology.

In his excellent recent book, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other, Robert Williams argues that, contrary to what many commentators claim, Hegel’s philosophy does not seek to swallow up individuality and difference in an all-embracing and all-consuming absolute, but rather takes individuality and differentiation seriously as essential features of the society and the world in which we live. Williams defends this interpretation by arguing that Hegel understands all forms of genuine human community and interaction - including not just civil society and the state, but also family relations and forgiveness - as modes of reciprocal recognition between individuals.

The Fifth Annual Conference of the Hegel Society of Great Britain took place on September 15–16, 1983 in the delightful setting of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. The theme of this year’s conference - “Hegel’s Dialectic” - was approached in a variety of ways by the contributors and provoked several lively and interesting discussions. The first paper of the conference was to have been given by Howard Williams, but unfortunately he had found his way to Pembroke College instead of St. Edmund Hall and so was unable to begin the proceedings. The conference started therefore with a paper by John Llewelyn entitled “The Development of Dialectic from Kant to Hegel.”

The philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1771-1831) is now recognized to be one of the most important modern thinkers. His influence is to be found in Marx's conception of historical dialectic, Kierkegaard's existentialism, Dewey's pragmatism and Gadamer's hermeneutics and Derrida's deconstruction. Until now, however, it has been difficult for the non-specialist to find a reasonably comprehensive introduction to this important, yet at times almost impenetrable philosopher. With this book Stephen Houlgate offers just such an introduction. His book is written in an accessible style and covers a range of topics: the philosophy of history, logic and phenomenology, political philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion. In the course of the book the author relates Hegel's ideas to those of many other thinkers, including Luther, Descartes, Kant and Thomas Kuhn.

This study of Hegel and Nietzsche evaluates and compares their work through their common criticism of the metaphysics for operating with conceptual oppositions such as being/becoming and egoism/altruism. Dr Houlgate exposes Nietzsche's critique as employing the distinction of Life and Thought, which itself constitutes a metaphysical dualism of the kind Nietzsche attacks. By comparison Hegel is shown to provide a more profound critique of metaphysical dualism by applying his philosophy of the dialectic, which sees such alleged opposites as defining components of a dynamic. In choosing to study a theme so fundamental to both philosophers' work, Houlgate has established a framework within which to evaluate the Hegel-Nietzsche debate; to make the first full study of Nietzsche's view of Hegel's work; and to compare Nietzsche's Dionysic philosophy with Hegel's dialectical philosophy by focusing on tragedy, a subject central to the philosophy of both.

IN HIS PROVOCATIVE AND HIGHLY READABLE BOOK, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy, Andrew Bowie argues that “Schelling... helps define key structures in modern philosophy by revealing the flaws in Hegel in ways which help set the agenda for philosophy even today.” The claim that Schelling’s critique of Hegel has exercised considerable influence on subsequent generations of philosophers is undeniably true. Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Engels all heard Schelling lecture in the years after Hegel’s death in 1831 and were receptive to his critique of the Hegelian system. Furthermore, many leading twentieth-century continental philosophers, including especially Heidegger and Habermas, studied Schelling closely and have taken up positions vis-à-vis Hegel which are recognizably Schellingian in origin and which have influenced other philosophers in turn. Schelling’s critique of Hegel is thus by no means merely of local interest to students of German idealism, but is of interest to all students of the continental tradition in post-Kantian philosophy for the simple reason that his critique is one of the most important sources of that very tradition.

Alan White’s review in The Owl, 22, 1 : 91–96, of my book, Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Criticism of Metaphysics, offers a generous appraisal of what he considers to be the book’s merits and faults. White is clearly not satisfied that the book has successfully accomplished what it set out to achieve. However, after having been told by one reviewer that what “plainly” lay closest to my heart was a full-blooded defense of Hegel, and after having been scolded by another reviewer for not having “engaged” with Nietzsche in the manner of Heidegger and for daring to suggest that Nietzsche might have been misguided in his thinking, it it pleasing to read a review - there have fortunately been one or two others as well - which considers worthwhile not only the project of the book itself, but also to explain in some detail what the book is actually about. For that I am very grateful.