Ermylos Plevrakis

Nothing is an unconventional topic in ontology. In this essay, I argue that by positioning Nothing at the core of his ontology, Hegel initiates an even more radical conceptual framework—one that may be described as an anti-ontology. To uncover the significance of Nothing, I focus on the first two chapters of Hegel’s Objective Logic, setting aside broader metaphilosophical questions about his global ontological commitments. I distinguish between what I call proto-ontology (the study of Being qua Sein) and actual ontology (the study of Being qua Seiendes), as well as between what I call crypto-methodology and applied methodology in ontology. Ultimately, Nothing proves constitutive of both the concept of Being and the inquiry into it: to be is to become, and to comprehend this concept adequately is to unfold its content through immanent negation.

Wittgenstein opens his preface to the TLP with the following words: “Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it-or at least similar thoughts. […] Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.” In this chapter, I shall take this invitation literally and try to interpret the TLP by reference to the reader’s thoughts, feelings and understanding, imagining this reader to be Hegel. To this end, I give an anachronistic “Hegelian reading of the TLP” in which I, firstly, focus on the thoughts-and not mere propositions, as Wittgenstein puts it in his preface-expressed in the Tractatus and, secondly, examine how Hegel’s SL could be seen as a response to the TLP. To cut a long story short, the most important Tractarian thought from a Hegelian point of view would be “the sole logical constant” (TLP: 5.47), which the SL refers to as the Concept.

Most interpretations of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature emphasize its theoretical aspects, often limiting the debate to whether it should be understood as what I term philosophia contra scientiam or philosophia ancilla scientiae. Challenging this focus, I highlight the equally metatheoretical and metapractical dimensions in Hegel’s comprehending approach to nature, proposing that the Philosophy of Nature seeks to comprehend—and indeed rank—nature’s intrinsic value through the lens of the Concept, ascribing to it truth and freedom. My central thesis is that Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature provides an environmental metaethics that avoids both physiocentric and anthropocentric biases, instead establishing a ‘Concept-centric’ perspective on environmental ethics that proposes respecting natural beings for their own sake and according to their distinct constitutions, for reasons akin to those by which we respect humans. This has far-reaching ethical implications, especially pertinent to today’s systematic debates on environmental ethics, in view of the urgent environmental challenges we are confronted with.

Recent breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) have sparked a wide public debate on the potentialities of AI, including the prospect to evolve into a subject comparable to humans. While scientists typically avoid directly addressing this question, philosophers usually tend to largely dismiss such a possibility. This article begins by examining the historical and systematic context favoring this inclination. However, it argues that the speculative philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel offers a different perspective. Through an exploration of Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, particularly the ‘Phenomenology of Mind’ and ‘Psychology’ sections, this article investigates the conceptual resources within Hegel’s philosophy to understand and evaluate both current ‘weak’ AI and potential ‘strong’ AI. It contends that, according to the Hegelian speculative line of thought, AI is already partially ‘conscious,’ though not yet ‘intelligent’ or possessing a ‘mind.’ Furthermore, it highlights that the same line of thought does not philosophically dismiss the formal possibility of strong AI and artificial subjects like us; rather, it suggests that it is solely empirical research that possesses the competence to rigorously investigate the real possibility of such entities. Before reaching its conclusion, the article emphasizes that the Hegelian perspective implies a philosophy of integrating strong AI: if artificial subjects resembling humans become technically feasible, we have a moral responsibility to actively support their development from the beginning, similarly to how we nurture and welcome emerging human subjects into our families and societies.

Despite the emphasis on 'concept' and 'idea', Hegel never fails to utilize the term 'reality' as well throughout his work. This is particularly noteworthy, as Hegel does not discuss this term in a separate chapter, unlike other semantically related concepts such as 'being', 'existence', 'actuality', 'objectivity', and of course 'concept' and 'idea'. The contributions of this volume track Hegel's numerous but scattered mentions of reality and reconstruct the overlooked yet cohesive Hegelian philosophy of reality, overall shedding new light on the realistic dimension of Hegel's entire 'idealistic' philosophy from systematic, interpretive, and historical perspectives. Aller Betonung von "Begriff" und "Idee" zum Trotz verzichtet Hegel nirgendwo in seinem Werk auf die Verwendung des Ausdrucks "Realität". Dies ist umso bemerkenswerter, zumal Hegel diesem Ausdruck anders als bei anderen semantisch verwandten Begriffen wie "Sein", "Dasein", "Existenz", "Wirklichkeit" und "Objektivität" oder auch "Begriff" und "Idee" keine eigene Abhandlung widmet. Die Beiträge dieses Sammelbandes verfolgen Hegels zahlreiche, jedoch an verschiedenen Stellen verstreute Hinweise und rekonstruieren eine bislang unbeachtete, dennoch einheitliche und übergreifende Hegelsche Philosophie der Realität in systematischer, exegetischer und historischer Hinsicht. Dadurch wird die realistische Dimension der gesamten "idealistischen" Philosophie Hegels neu und umfassend beleuchtet.

Die Metaphysik hat eine lange Geschichte und ebenso viele Bedeutungen. Ein Konsens scheint aber unter den Denkern, die Metaphysik betreiben, hinsichtlich der Funktion der Metaphysik zu bestehen: Sie gehört zum Kerngeschäft der Philosophie. Denn sie soll die Grundlegung jeglicher systematisch konzipierter Philosophie sein. 0Wenn die Metaphysik aber als derart zentral vorgestellt wird, so muss die schwierige Frage nach einem gesicherten Zugang zur durchaus umstrittenen Disziplin der Metaphysik im Allgemeinen und ihrem?Gegenstand?, dem Absoluten, im Speziellen erörtert werden. Inwiefern kann sich die Metaphysik als fundierende Disziplin der Philosophie erweisen? Und inwiefern haben wir einen sicheren Zugang zum Absoluten, das innerhalb der Metaphysik als Grundlegung der Philosophie überhaupt verstanden wird? Aufgabe des Sammelbandes ist es, diese Fragen anhand ausgewählter Denker aus Antike, Mittelalter und Neuzeit zu beantworten.

While Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason aims to 'humiliate' reason by declining any possibility of knowledge of things 'in themselves', he does conceive such critique as 'the necessary preparation for a thoroughly scientific system of metaphysics'. In this paper I examine in what sense Hegel's Science of Logic goes beyond that Kantian view without neither relapsing back into dogmatic metaphysics nor turning into a mere pragmatism. I argue that reality in itself is ontologically deficient so that it is already reality itself that makes true knowledge of real things impossible. Nonetheless I contend that there is something in Hegel's Science of Logic that is truly absolute and turns Logic into 'a thoroughly scientific system of metaphysics', namely what Hegel calls the Concept or the Absolute Idea. Furthermore I point out the concrete importance of these metaphysical claims for human theoretical and practical knowledge. This finally provides a new reading of Hegel's Logic as a de-ontologised Aristotelian metaphysics that not just claims to regulate empirical knowledge in a Kantian manner, but to also conceptually constitute reality 'in itself'.

Although Hegel does not pass up the opportunity to express his deep admiration for specific aspects of the Aristotelian notion of God, he is not interested in giving a concrete account of its systematic significance for hisPhilosophy of Mindas a whole. In this article, I seek to take an overarching perspective on both the Aristotelian God and the Hegelian mind. By contrast to the common practice of focusing on Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle in hisLectures on the History of Philosophy, I first examine the Aristotelian text itself and then focus on Hegel'sEncyclopaedia Philosophy of Mind, in order to explore the coincidence between the two conceptions from a systematic point of view. With regard to Aristotle, I argue that ‘God’ represents the conceptual vanishing point of his philosophy at which all philosophical sciences appear to converge. With regard to Hegel, I show that it is precisely such conceptual convergence of all philosophical sciences that constitutes both the starting and ending points of thePhilosophy of Mind. The result is a novel meta-scientific and non-theistic conception of ‘God’ that provides the means not only to re-evaluate the systematic relation between Hegel and Aristotle but also to reconsider the character, content and aim of speculative philosophy in general.