•  458
    Necessity and Contingency in Hegel’s Science of Logic
    The Owl of Minerva 27 (1): 37-49. 1995.
    In this essay I propose to examine Hegel’s account of necessity and contingency in the Science of Logic. Anyone who dares to take Hegel’s Logic seriously in public risks being accused by legions of formal logicians of “elementary logical fallacies”. Nevertheless, John Burbidge, Dieter Henrich, and others have demonstrated that it is possible to discuss the Logic with clarity and intelligibility, and I shall endeavor to emulate their example as best as I can. One should take heed, however; even H…Read more
  •  370
    This classic introduction to one of the most influential modern thinkers, G.W.F. Hegel has been made even more comprehensive through the addition of four new chapters. New edition of a classic introduction to Hegel. Enables students to engage with many aspects of Hegel’s philosophy. Covers the whole range of Hegel’s mature thought. Relates Hegel’s ideas to other thinkers, such as Luther, Descartes and Kant. Offers a distinctive and challenging interpretation of Hegel’s work
  •  310
    McDowell, Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit
    The Owl of Minerva 41 (1/2): 13-26. 2009.
    In this essay I challenge John McDowell’s controversial claim that “the real topic” of Hegel’s master/slave dialectic is the relation between “two aspects of the consciousness of a single individual.” I first consider McDowell’s interpretation of Kant, and then, by analysing briefly Hegel’s account of self-consciousness prior to the master/slave dialectic, I defend the more traditional view that that dialectic describes the relation between two separate individuals. I also criticize McDowell’s c…Read more
  •  209
    Hegel and the "End" of Art
    The Owl of Minerva 29 (1): 1-21. 1997.
    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 abstrac…Read more
  •  208
    Essence, Reflexion, and Immediacy in Hegel's Science of Logic
    In Stephen Houlgate & Michael Baur (eds.), A Companion to Hegel, Wiley‐blackwell. 2011.
    This chapter contains sections titled: From Being to Essence Essence and Seeming Reflexion Positing and Presupposing External and Determining Reflexion Identity and Difference Diversity Reflexive and Non‐reflexive Immediacy Reflexion and the Concept Conclusion Abbreviations.
  •  190
    Phenomenology and De Re Interpretation: A Critique of Brandom’s Reading of Hegel
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (1). 2009.
    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 Br…Read more
  •  139
    World History as the Progress of Consciousness
    The Owl of Minerva 22 (1): 69-80. 1990.
    In this paper I wish to consider the following sentence from Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of history: “World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom, — a progress whose necessity it is our business to comprehend.” I wish to consider this sentence because it seems to me to lie at the heart of two important misunderstandings of Hegel’s philosophy of history. On the one hand, the statement that world history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom has led some — notabl…Read more
  •  132
    Hegel's Realm of Shadows: Logic as Metaphysics in The Science of Logic by Robert B. Pippin
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 57 (4): 765-766. 2019.
    Robert Pippin's impressive new book examines Hegel's claim in his Science of Logic that "logic coincides with metaphysics". Part 1 contains chapters on logic and metaphysics, self-consciousness in the Logic, and negation, and part 2 then considers what Pippin takes to be the central topics of the three books of the Logic. Throughout, there are also important discussions of Aristotle, Kant, and Brandom. Pippin's book is well-written and immensely thought-provoking, and will be essential reading f…Read more
  •  129
    I—Hegel's Critique of Kant
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 89 (1): 21-41. 2015.
    In this essay I argue that Hegel criticizes Kant for failing to carry out a thorough critique of the categories of thought. In Hegel's view, Kant merely limits the validity of the categories to objects of possible experience, but he does not challenge the way in which the ‘understanding’ conceives of those categories and other concepts. Indeed, for Hegel, Kant's limitation of the validity of the categories itself presupposes the sharp distinctions, drawn by understanding, between concepts such a…Read more
  •  129
    Response to John McDowell
    The Owl of Minerva 41 (1/2): 39-51. 2009.
    In this response, I accept some of McDowell’s criticisms of my presentation of his views in my essay, but argue that his understanding of Hegel remains problematic. In particular, I claim that he fails to see that, for Kant, intuitional unit y is inseparable from judging; that his understanding of Hegelian absolute knowing is wrong as it stands ; that he fails to see that self-consciousness aims, not to overcome the specific antithesis between self-consciousness and the empirical world, but to a…Read more
  •  123
    Part Two contains the text-in German and English-of the first two chapters of Hegel's Logic, which cover such categories as being, becoming, something, limit, ...
  •  121
    Absolute Knowing Revisited
    The Owl of Minerva 30 (1): 51-67. 1998.
  •  116
    Hegel, Derrida, and restricted economy: The case of mechanical memory
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 34 (1): 79-93. 1996.
    Hegel, Derrida, and Restricted Economy: The Case of Mechanical Memory STEPHEN HOULGA'FE A GLANCE AT THE TEXTS OF Jacques Derrida and at the texts and lectures of G. W. F. Hegel indicates that Hegel and Derrida are extraordi- narily different thinkers. Hegel is clearly what Derrida would regard as a philosopher of presence, working toward the point "where knowledge no longer needs to go beyond itself, where knowledge finds itself," where con- sciousness is present to itself as it is in itself. 1 …Read more
  •  111
    Hegel's Critique of Foundationalism in the 'Doctrine of Essence'
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 44 25-45. 1999.
    It is a commonplace among certain recent philosophers that there is no such thing as the essence of anything. Nietzsche, for example, asserts that things have no essence of their own, because they are nothing but ceaselessly changing ways of acting on, and reacting to, other things. Wittgenstein, famously, rejects the idea that there is an essence to language and thought – at least if we mean by that some a priori logical structure underlying our everyday utterances. Finally, Richard Rorty urges…Read more
  •  111
    Schelling’s Critique of Hegel’s Science of Logic
    Review of Metaphysics 53 (1). 1999.
    IN HIS PROVOCATIVE AND HIGHLY READABLE BOOK, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy, Andrew Bowie argues that “Schelling... helps define key structures in modern philosophy by revealing the flaws in Hegel in ways which help set the agenda for philosophy even today.” The claim that Schelling’s critique of Hegel has exercised considerable influence on subsequent generations of philosophers is undeniably true. Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Engels all heard Schelling lecture in the years after Hegel…Read more
  •  111
    Thought and Being in Kant and Hegel
    The Owl of Minerva 22 (2): 131-140. 1991.
    The view that Hegel’s logic is a metaphysical logic has come under criticism in recent years from a number of commentators. Richard Winfield, for example, states unequivocally in Reason and Justice that Hegel’s “foundation-free theory of determinacy … turns out to be a theory of self-determined determinacy with no immediate ontological or epistemological application … It is no more an ontological theory demonstrating that the fundamental structure of reality is something self-determined, than it…Read more
  •  110
    G.W.F. Hegel's aesthetics, or philosophy of art, forms part of the extraordinarily rich German aesthetic tradition that stretches from J.J. Winckelmann's Thoughts on the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks and G.E. Lessing's Laocoon through Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment and Friedrich Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man to Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Martin Heidegger's The Origin of the Work of Art and T.W. Adorno's Aesthetic T…Read more
  •  109
    In this essay I argue that Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature combines four elements. Hegel develops (1) an a priori account of the logical determinations immanent in and peculiar to nature—determinations that incorporate (but are not reducible to) (2) the determinations set out in the Logic. Hegel then points to (3) the empirical phenomena corresponding to each determination and so proves indirectly that such phenomena are necessary. Finally, he draws attention to (4) those aspects of nature that can…Read more
  •  109
    Hegel’s Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, Logic
    Philosophical Review 131 (2): 226-230. 2022.
  •  101
    Action, right and morality in Hegel's Philosophy of right
    In Arto Laitinen & Constantine Sandis (eds.), Hegel on Action, Palgrave-macmillan. 2010.
    This volume focuses on Hegel's philosophy of action in connection to current concerns. Including key papers by Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John McDowell, as well as eleven especially commissioned contributions by leading scholars in the field, it aims to readdress the dialogue between Hegel and contemporary philosophy of action. Topics include: the nature of action, reasons and causes; explanation and justification of action; social and narrative aspects of agency; the inner and the …Read more
  •  98
    Hegel, Desmond, and the Problem of God’s Transcendence
    The Owl of Minerva 36 (2): 131-152. 2005.
    William Desmond maintains that preserving the difference between God and humanity means retaining the transcendent otherness of God. In this article, by contrast, I argue that Hegel is right to maintain that insisting on God’s transcendent otherness actually turns God into a finite divinity and so eliminates the very difference Desmond wishes to retain. The only way to preserve the genuine difference between God and humanity, therefore, is to give up the idea that God is a transcendent other and…Read more
  •  94
    Outlines of the Philosophy of Right (edited book)
    with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
    Oxford University Press. 2008.
    Hegel's Philosophy of right concerns ideas on justice, moral responsibility, family life, economic activity and the political structure of the state. He shows how human freedom involves living with others in accordance with publicly recognized rights and laws
  •  91
    Hegel and the Arts (edited book)
    Northwestern University Press. 2007.
    That aesthetics is central to Hegel's philosophical enterprise is not widely acknowledged, nor has his significant contribution to the discipline been truly appreciated. Some may be familiar with his theory of tragedy and his doctrine of the "end of art," but many philosophers and writers on art pay little or no attention to his lectures on aesthetics. The essays in this collection, all but one written specifically for this volume, aim to raise the profile of Hegel's aesthetic theory by showing …Read more
  •  87
    Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics
    Cambridge University Press. 1986.
    This study of Hegel and Nietzsche evaluates and compares their work through their common criticism of the metaphysics for operating with conceptual oppositions such as being/becoming and egoism/altruism. Dr Houlgate exposes Nietzsche's critique as employing the distinction of Life and Thought, which itself constitutes a metaphysical dualism of the kind Nietzsche attacks. By comparison Hegel is shown to provide a more profound critique of metaphysical dualism by applying his philosophy of the dia…Read more
  •  73
    Hegel on the Personhood of God
    The Owl of Minerva 39-58. 2017.
    In this essay, I examine Robert Williams’s account of Hegel’s concept of divine “personhood.” I endorse Williams’s claims that God, for Hegel, is not a person but exhibits only personhood, and that divine personhood realises itself in a human community based on mutual recognition. I take issue, however, with Williams’s further claim that Hegel also takes God and humanity to stand in a relation of mutual recognition to one another, since this claim, in my view, risks turning God into a person aft…Read more
  •  72
    Hegel, Kant and the Antinomies of Pure Reason
    Kant Yearbook 8 (1): 39-62. 2016.
    Name der Zeitschrift: Kant Yearbook Jahrgang: 8 Heft: 1 Seiten: 39-62.
  •  70
    God and Metaphysics in Hegel
    Philosophy Today 63 (2): 555-560. 2019.
  •  69
    Hegel’s Science of Logic is not usually thought to make a significant — or indeed any — contribution to logic. It is more often conceived as a work of outdated