Stephen Houlgate

This companion provides original, scholarly, and cutting-edge essays that cover the whole range of Hegel’s mature thought and his lasting influence. A comprehensive guide to one of the most important modern philosophers Essays are written in an accessible manner and draw on the most up-to-date Hegel research Contributions are drawn from across the world and from a wide variety of philosophical approaches and traditions Examines Hegel’s influence on a range of thinkers, from Kierkegaard and Marx to Heidegger, Adorno and Derrida Begins with a chronology of Hegel’s life and work and is then split into sections covering topics such as Philosophy of Nature, Aesthetics, and Philosophy of Religion.

In this essay I examine Hegel’s critique of England and France in his own day, and I argue that this critique sheds light on what he would say about constitutional states in the twenty-first century. Hegel’s critique is based on the normative “idea” of freedom he sets out in his Philosophy of Right (1820). This idea, which in Hegel’s view determines what rights and institutions are necessary for true freedom, gives a central role to what he calls “corporations” — business or trade associations, but also local communities and towns — in the free, rational state. The purpose of these corporations is twofold: first, to render economic activity cooperative and “ethical”, and so to prevent the emergence of systematic poverty, and second, to send delegates to the legislature who represent legitimate interests in civil society, rather than just numbers of people. Hegel argues, however, that corporations disappeared or were abolished in England and France and that this led to extreme poverty in England and to the “liberal” idea in France that political authority should derive from the individual will (an idea that in turn sets the “people” permanently against government). I argue that poverty and individualistic “liberalism” remain problems in the twenty-first century, and that a Hegelian solution to these problems would be to reintroduce corporations (or their equivalent) something that Hegel himself advocated in the 1820s. Hegel’s alternative to unrestrained capitalism and liberalism both of which he thinks undermine true freedom and right is thus not, as Marx recommends, to abolish the system of free production and exchange altogether, but to imbue citizens with an ethical concern for one another in their economic and political life an ethical concern that is grounded in corporations, associations and other communities.

This essay examines Hegel’s interpretation of Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre_. It argues that, for Hegel, the archetypal modern novel depicts the struggles of idealistic youth as an “apprenticeship” that ends with the young man concerned becoming reconciled to the social order around him. The essay then looks closely at Goethe’s novel and assesses to what extent Hegel’s interpretation does justice to it. The conclusion is that it does, even though it overlooks many significant details. The essay then briefly compares Goethe’s novel with Hegel’s _Phenomenology_, which is itself often regarded as a “novel of education,” and notes that in both cases a self-absorbed consciousness is gradually transformed into one that finds satisfaction in mutual recognition. The essay concludes by comparing the accounts given by Hegel and Goethe of Hamlet and the beautiful soul.

This chapter aims to argue, contra Charles Taylor, that Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is not ‘an essay in transcendental argument’. To clarify the difference between Hegel’s phenomenology and transcendental argumentation, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction in the first Critique is examined first. Second, a passage from the Introduction to the Phenomenology is considered in which Hegel criticizes what can be called a ‘quasi-transcendental’ approach to ordinary, natural consciousness. Third, Hegel’s own strategy in the Phenomenology itself is examined. The chapter shows that, unlike transcendental philosophy, Hegelian phenomenology never becomes a philosophical theory about consciousness and its conditions, but remains throughout a study of what emerges in and for consciousness. The conclusion considers briefly the consequences of interpreting the Phenomenology as an essay in rigorously phenomenological, rather than transcendental, argument for understanding the relation between the Phenomenology and the Logic.

The aim of this article is to explain why, in Hegel's view, art's history brings it to the point at which it can no longer afford the highest satisfaction of our spiritual needs and so fulfill its own highest calling, and why, nevertheless, we moderns still need art and still need it to create beauty. I argue that Hegel advocates a modern art of beauty because he believes that what has to be given aesthetic expression in the modern world is concrete human freedom and life (ratherthan the abstract, subjective freedom of Romantic irony) and that the aesthetic expression of such concrete human freedom entails beauty.

Brandom’s interpretation of Hegel in Tales of the Mighty Dead is subtle, tightly argued and hugely impressive. It takes no account, however, of Hegel’s distinctive conception of phenomenology and as a result – for all its subtlety – offers a somewhat distorted picture of Hegel. In the opening chapters of Hegel’s Phenomenology we learn that perception is committed as much to the unity of differences as to exclusive difference, that neither perception nor understanding is committed to holism as Brandom understands it, and that the understanding is not governed by the law of non‐contradiction but in fact understands the world to be a thoroughly contradictory place. All of this, however, gets lost sight of in Brandom’s de re interpretation of Hegel’s Phenomenology.

La théorie de la tragédie de Hegel est à juste titre célèbre. Toutefois, le développement logique de l’art aboutit selon lui non à la tragédie mais à la comédie. Cet article compare ce que Hegel considère comme étant la véritable comédie (chez Aristophane et Shakespeare) et ce qu’il appelle « l’humour subjectif » (qu’il trouve, par exemple, chez Jean Paul) : alors que les humoristes manifestent liberté et maîtrise en se livrant à leurs fantaisies, les personnages comiques manifestent leur liberté en se détachant des fantaisies par le fait que leurs objectifs insensés sont frustrés, tout en conservant leur inébranlable assurance au cœur même de leurs échecs. Dans cet article, j’aborde également les différentes formes de subjectivité comique identifiées par Hegel, telles que le fou qui rit ouvertement de lui-même (Falstaff), celui qui reconnaît sa folie sans rire de lui-même (Strepsiade), ou celui qui ne reconnaît pas sa folie mais reste irrépressiblement sûr de lui-même dans cette folie (Don Quichotte). J’explique ensuite pourquoi, selon Hegel, la comédie mène logiquement à la religion, et porte ainsi à son terme le développement conceptuel de l’art. Pour Hegel, le cœur de la véritable religion (qu’il identifie avec le christianisme) réside dans l’amour et le pardon, qui impliquent tous deux de se déprendre de soi-même et d’atteindre ainsi une liberté infinie « divine » dans le fini (et non dans un « au-delà » transcendant). Il est clair que les personnages comiques ne«s’abandonnent » pas jusqu’à la mort ; mais ils font pourtant signe vers un don de soi et un amour religieux en montrant qu’ils ne sont pas liés à leurs objectifs finis mais jouissent d’une liberté « divine » dans leur finitude, qui est toute humaine et souvent irréligieuse.

Dans la Logique de l’E ncyclopédie et la Science de la logique, la doctrine de l’essence est présentée avec une différence importante : la forme, la matière et le contenu sont étudiés en des endroits différents. Si cette logique est immanente, comment peut-il en exister deux versions? En fait, il n’y a pas là deux logiques alternatives mais une même logique présentée de deux façons différentes. Cependant, la Science de la logique a la priorité car elle explique pourquoi la forme ainsi que d’autres déterminations du fondement, absentes de cette section dans l’ Encyclopédie, sont logiquement nécessaires.

Dans la Logique de l’E ncyclopédie et la Science de la logique, la doctrine de l’essence est présentée avec une différence importante : la forme, la matière et le contenu sont étudiés en des endroits différents. Si cette logique est immanente, comment peut-il en exister deux versions? En fait, il n’y a pas là deux logiques alternatives mais une même logique présentée de deux façons différentes. Cependant, la Science de la logique a la priorité car elle explique pourquoi la forme ainsi que d’autres déterminations du fondement, absentes de cette section dans l’ Encyclopédie, sont logiquement nécessaires.

This companion provides original, scholarly, and cutting-edge essays that cover the whole range of Hegel’s mature thought and his lasting influence. A comprehensive guide to one of the most important modern philosophers Essays are written in an accessible manner and draw on the most up-to-date Hegel research Contributions are drawn from across the world and from a wide variety of philosophical approaches and traditions Examines Hegel’s influence on a range of thinkers, from Kierkegaard and Marx to Heidegger, Adorno and Derrida Begins with a chronology of Hegel’s life and work and is then split into sections covering topics such as Philosophy of Nature, Aesthetics, and Philosophy of Religion.

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) was the last and greatest of the German Idealists and exercised an unparalleled influence on nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century thought. His legacy includes the idea that human existence is essentially historical, that history is the development of the consciousness of freedom, and that true freedom involves living in an ethical community whose members accord one another reciprocal recognition and respect. Through his emphasis on human historicity and freedom, as well as his analysis of concepts such as “alienation” and “dialectic,” Hegel's thought helped spawn such divergent philosophical movements as Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. He also had a profound impact on modern social theory and modern (especially, Protestant) theology; and he has even been called the “father” of art history.