Albert Gutberlet

The idea and the history of the world are the two major themes that have consistently shaped Hegel’s philosophical reflection. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, these two foundational lines of inquiry—one theoretical-epistemological and the other historical—are particularly evident. In a previous article, the author sought to define the essence of Hegelian dialectics as a fundamental element of history. This current contribution, in turn, focuses on the theoretical-epistemological dimension: idealism. The author’s objective is to demonstrate that Hegel intended the Phenomenology of Spirit to serve as a kind of proof of idealism—a philosophical endeavor that ultimately proved ineffective.

Historically, there are two approaches to the fenomenon of life: the one that begins from organic life and the one that begins from conscious life. Many thinkers (such as Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Schelling, Hegel and Bergson) have seen a real continuity and analogy between the two. In our days, the discussion, particularly regarding organic life, has become interdisciplinary. Many times, though, the particular viewpoint of scientists and that of philosophers are difficult to reconcile. Therefore, thinkers as Seifert and Spaemann propose a new approach to the knowledge of life even in its organic form: Besides the traditional approach which begins by external observation of living organisms, there is also the possibility of gaining a certain knowledge of organic life from the analysis of selfconscious human experience. Exploring this possibility, it can be shown that in man, the “organic self” and the “self-conscious self” are identical.

For Hegel, what moves human history is the dialectical nature of consciousness. The analysis of the Introduction to Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit' shows that the dialectical nature of consciousness is ultimately rooted in its unconscious claim for absolute power over the world of experience. The dialectical process culminates in absolute knowledge as the reconciliation of all opposition. However, this "reconciliation" is only the self-awareness of the intrinsically contradictory nature of consciousness.

This article aims at further understanding the meaning and function of the verb “to be” in Aristotle’s Metaphysics: does it express mainly or even exclusively existence or is it used as a copula, linking a subject and predicate? Since the birth of Greek literature, the copula-use has been by far the more common, and so it is also with Aristotle. He even provides us with the nucleus of a theory of the copula, which is not the case with existence in the strict philosophical sense. Analyzing Met. V, 7, VI, 4 and VIII, 2, I conclude that wherever Aristotle tries to determine, what, for being as being, it means “to be”, he refers not to existence, but to some concrete being-such, where the verb “being” functions as a copula. So while metaphysical being does also consistently carry an existential force, regarding its syntactic function it is nonetheless copulative through and through.