Ryan Froese

It is often assumed that Hegel is opposed to "the ought" because he privileges actuality over and against what merely ought to be and what is merely possible. In this paper, the author argues that, far from denying or dismissing their existence, the ought and unactual possibility are ineliminable parts of his metaphysics as laid out in his Science of Logic. However, although Hegel argues for the existence of the ought and unactual possibility, he also demonstrates why the good itself cannot be captured with these concepts alone. His account of the good demonstrates why his metaphysics is open to an ought which is not a mere beyond, and unactual possibility that is not abstract. This in turn allows him to conceive of a metaphysical account of the good that surpasses these categories by framing the good in terms of actuality and truth.

Readings of Hegel's account of modality tend to emphasize the “necessity of contingency” thesis. In this paper, I argue that this is not the primary aim of Hegel's “Actuality” chapter in the Science of Logic. Instead of arguing simply for the necessity of contingency, Hegel argues for the identity between contingency and necessity. I offer a reading of formal, real, and absolute modality in Hegel's Logic that shows how this identity claim is established, demonstrating that necessity is not simply that which cannot be otherwise, but a process whereby something becomes what it is in becoming its other.