Eric v.d. Luft

The transition from self-consciousness as the unhappy consciousness to reason as the critique of idealism is among the most important in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Yet this transition is implicit and not readily discernible. This paper investigates whether we can discover and describe any roadblock that the unhappy consciousness is able to knock down, or despite which it is able to maneuver, and so become reason; or whether the unhappy consciousness arrives at an impassable dead end and either manages to create a detour around it or just begins again, unexplained and unexplainably, almost ex nihilo, as reason; or whether, despite its implicitness, there exists a continuous, tenable, and unimpeded path from self-consciousness to reason

One notices immediately that this is a very well organized piece of work, complete with both name and subject indices. The six-page analytic table of contents helpfully distinguishes Angehrn’s various digressions, chiefly into Marxian thought, from the mainstream of his argument. The bibliography is generally an excellent brief sampling of the pertinent Hegelian literature of the last fifteen or twenty years; although, as one might easily expect, since Angehrn earned his doctorate with this work at Heidelberg in 1976, there is perhaps a disproportionate emphasis on the contributions of his dissertation director, Michael Theunissen.

Pure serendipity got me involved in the HSA. I was in my first month of graduate school, had already decided to write my M.A. thesis on Hegel, and had begun to study the Philosophy of Right in preparation for this work. Then I learned from a posting on a bulletin board that some outfit called the “Hegel Society of America” - which I had never heard of - was about to have a meeting just two miles down the road. My thesis advisor strongly encouraged me to attend - so I went, but with no idea what to expect.

This paper argues for the primacy of language over vision as a means of communication. Words convey information more clearly, accurately, reliably, and profoundly than images do. Images by themselves give only impressions; they do not denote, unless accompanied by some sort or level of description. Also, any visual image, whether physical or mental, unless it is eidetic, must involve some degree of interpretation, interpolation, or description for it to be capable of conveying information, having meaning, or even being intelligible. Pictorialism is the theory that mental imagery is visual, while descriptionalism holds that mental imagery is nonvisual. As an epistemology, pictorialism supports representationalism as a philosophy of art. The poverty and limitations of representational theories of art militate against pictorialism. Descriptionalism as an epistemology supports several versions of symbolist theories of art. The richness and versatility of symbolic interpretations of art works support descriptionalism. Pictorialism fails the test of consistency unless eidetic imagery exists. Any pictorialism that claims support from noneidetic imagery or invokes the photographic fallacy is in fact a crypto- or quasi-descriptionalism. Since the photographic fallacy denies eidetic imagery, it is invalid and misbegotten as a defense of pictorialism. The interplay between the richness of visual images and the precision of verbal descriptions is a key element in developing a comprehensive pedagogy of aesthetics.

A book on this topic is long overdue. It is high time that a competent Hegel scholar recognized and assessed the danger posed to Hegel’s whole system by the skeptical tradition, argued that Hegel’s Jena writings, culminating in the Phenomenology, are primarily works of epistemology rather than metaphysics, examined Hegel’s own views on ancient and modern skepticism, identified and criticized Hegel’s own strategies for defending his thought against the skeptical threat, and took Hegel seriously as an epistemologist. Forster does all this and more, and does it very well.

The three theories considered here, real continuous time, real serial time, and unreal time, are each in some sense a reaction to Hume’s theory of serial or “spatialized” time. Hence, Hume’s theory is elaborated on as a foundation for the discussion and comparison of the subsequent three. This brief excursion into the nature of time may help to illuminate the differences among these three and to suggest some of their possible implications, particularly with regard to the existential difference between intuited or transcendent time and experienced or immanent time and the qualitative or ontological difference between the eternal and the temporal.

Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed a small but very significant difference between the Spring 1989 Owl and previous issues. The Spring issue was the first to be accomplished completely by desktop publishing instead of typesetting. The “desk” from whose “top” this Owl flew is mine, equipped with an IBM-PC, a modem, two 5 1/4 inch 360 K floppy drives, a 40 megabyte hard drive, a Hewlett Packard LaserJet II printer with a Times Roman soft font, and the newest version of Microsoft began our long experiment with electronic preparation of The Owl about three years ago. Our motive in pursuing this project was to improve our efficiency, not to have a few new toys. During that experiment we made a few mistakes, some of which found their way into The Owl itself. We apologize to all the authors and readers who were affected by them, and especially by the tardiness of recent issues. But we have learned a lot too. Among what we think we have learned is how to avoid repeating our mistakes. The new production system we have developed is not only faster, easier, and cheaper for us editors, but also, we hope, more convenient and more dependable for our authors. At this point, we must count our experiment a success.