Both continental and analytic traditions have tended to associate Hegel’s idealism
with metaphysics and therefore as divorced from and even pernicious to reality. Hence,
contemporary Hegel studies have tended to concentrate on discrete elements of his
philosophy while attempting to avoid its metaphysical dimensions and their systematic
pretensions. I seek to show that rather than dwelling in abstraction, Hegel’s metaphysics,
as presented in his Logics, recount the thought determinations th…
Read moreBoth continental and analytic traditions have tended to associate Hegel’s idealism
with metaphysics and therefore as divorced from and even pernicious to reality. Hence,
contemporary Hegel studies have tended to concentrate on discrete elements of his
philosophy while attempting to avoid its metaphysical dimensions and their systematic
pretensions. I seek to show that rather than dwelling in abstraction, Hegel’s metaphysics,
as presented in his Logics, recount the thought determinations through which being
comes to be grounded and thus, scientifically knowable as nature. Such categorical
determining is essentially linguistic, taking place through the grammatical forms of
judgment (Urteil) and their outcome in the syllogism. The centrality of these grammatical
forms reveals the anthropological goal of Hegel’s metaphysics, where the fully
determined copula of judgment presents itself as the object of natural science, for us.
