SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... The Dialectic of Indifference and the Process of Self-determination in Hegel’s Logic and the Philosophy of Right A Dissertation Presented by Senem Saner to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Stony Brook University August 2008 Copyright by Senem Saner 2008 The Graduate School Senem Saner We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Allegra de Laurentiis – Dissertation Advisor Associate Professor, Philosophy Department Eduardo Mendieta – Chairperson of Defense Associate Professor, Philosophy Department Anne O’Byrne – Internal Reader Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department Kelly Oliver – External Reader Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Lawrence Martin Dean of Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation The Dialectic of Indifference and the Process of Self-determination in Hegel’s Logic and the Philosophy of Right by Senem Saner Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Stony Brook University 2008 In this dissertation I argue that Hegel‘s analysis of freedom based on the concept of self-determination provides us with an opportunity to radically rethink personal freedom and restore it to its necessary domain: the political. I reconstruct Hegel‘s exposition of the dynamic of self-determination in the Logic by focusing on a central premise: that the exposure and overcoming of the conceptual indifference [Gleichgültigkeit] between categories – between, for example, something and other, identity and difference, or universality and particularity – is the driving force of the argument leading to the Concept, i.e., the concept of self-determination. I show that Hegel‘s critiques of abstract universal free will as well as of particular arbitrary freedom use the same strategy, that of exposing the claims of indifference that sustain the legitimacy of these conceptions of freedom. I argue that the critique of indifference, explicit in the analysis and exposition of self-determination in the Logic and implicit in Hegel‘s discussion of the free will in the Philosophy of Right, offers a new perspective for thinking personal freedom. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 1 The Concept of Indifference in Hegel’s System 1. Hegel‘s Critique of ―Finite Thinking‖ 2. The Philosophical Relevance of Gleichgültigkeit 3. Indifference and Self-determination 4. Self-determination and Freedom 5. Chapter Outline II. CHAPTER ONE 31 Maneuvering Skepticism: Systematic Presuppositions and Hegel’s Analysis of Finite Thinking 1. Common-sense Assumptions Regarding Thinking 2. Understanding [Verstand] and the Antitheses of Finite Thinking 3. The Concept of the Logical and Self-determination III. CHAPTER TWO 82 The Dialectic of Indifference: Hegel’s Derivation and Analysis of Self-determination in the Science of Logic 1. Overview of Hegel‘s Project in the Science of Logic 2. Aufhebung: Self-sublation and Self-determination 3. The Inadequacy of Indifference and the Drive for Self-determination iv IV. CHAPTER THREE 129 Self-determination of Humanity and the Place of Individual Freedom in the Philosophy of Right 1. Indifference and Free Will 2. What Hegel Accomplishes in the Philosophy of Right 3. Das Sittliche as Second Nature V. EPILOGUE 183 The Ambiguous Function of Indifference: Philosophy and Self- determination 1. The Controversy Surrounding Hegel‘s Doppelsatz 2. Subject-Matter and Purpose: What is philosophy? VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY 206 v INTRODUCTION The Concept of Indifference in Hegel’s System No philosophical discussion of [change] would be complete without an inspection of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel‘s notion that change flows inevitably from the fact that the ―the universal elements‖ that constitute any particular thing are in contradiction. These contradictions result in the ―disintegration of their unity‖ – a new combination, and therefore, a new entity is the result… Hegel said change happens as a result of the unfolding of the World Spirit, not because some politico makes it happen.1 The word ―change‖ has become the mantra among the presidential candidates in the early months of 2008. Consequently, this philosophically significant and difficult concept has also found its way to newspaper columns and become a popular topic. In this quotation, Cathcart and Klein express basically a Heraclitean account of the inevitability of change and our powerlessness to determine or even affect the coming of what will inevitably transpire. Hegel‘s system, according to these authors, claims to give an account of the law of becoming, of coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be, of the logos of the world (natural and human), and thus his system implies that we humans are nothing but pawns of and witnesses to the self-unfolding of the universe. The problem that I see expressed in such claims is the incompatibility of, on the one hand, understanding and accounting for reality, including the human 1 Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, ―The only constant,‖ Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2008, M6. 1 world, and on the other hand, attributing agency and freedom to human beings. How can anything be said to be free when it is acting only according to its very nature, under the tutelage of natural laws, or reacting to multiple stimuli in a system of reciprocal actions and reactions? Our attempts at self-knowledge endanger our positing ourselves as free, and our assumption of freedom calls into question ever coming to know ourselves and, by extension, the world as such. What are we to do? The prevalent solution of our times, if I may be allowed to make this generalization, seems to be the leaving of such ―metaphysical questions‖ aside, bracketing our concerns about human self- determination and free agency, and taking the so-called objective route of science, following the research wherever it leads. This requires an acceptance of the scientific method, of the legitimacy of observation and experimentation, as well as of the authority (and possibility) of impartial description of so-called facts. Indeed, most of what we call ―knowledge‖ today is produced in this manner. For example, the question ―what do people want from their lives?‖ could be a research topic in psychology or sociology. The subject, i.e., ―people,‖ would be too general and ambiguous, and so the researcher could introduce age, vocation, nationality, etc, as limiting factors. The way to approach this question could be conducting a survey, and such a survey, hypothetically, would give us results about a limited group of people. Since such results would only be partial in scope, other surveys have to be conducted to complete it, etc. 2 However, such a study would be proceeding on the assumption that people indeed know what they want from their lives. The study‘s aim, the determination of people‘s expectations from life, already assumes that this knowledge is available and reliable at the individual level. A study such as this leaves unquestioned many presuppositions, such as our capacity to know ourselves, while trying to produce knowledge about ourselves. This is a basic critique that Hegel makes about the sciences: that the sciences assume their objects as given and do not question the basic legitimacy of their conceptual definitions. Whether we call it scientism, positivism, or empiricism, the inadequacy of this attitude is not limited to its silence about or negation of human agency, nor to its unquestioned presuppositions. Once ―scientific knowledge‖ becomes the sole reliable explanatory framework of reality, natural and social sciences come to be seen as the legitimate disciplines to provide a ―grounding‖ of facts. However, in actuality, these sciences only claim to produce ―objective‖ descriptions and such descriptions neither give nor claim to provide an account of reality, or a grounding of facts. The result of this is that all non-descriptive or normative judgments that do not qualify as the proper subject-matter of these sciences (e.g., ethical judgments, questions of rights and merit, policy decisions, etc.) are condemned to uncertainty, arbitrariness, or at best, consensus. Furthermore, following Kuhn and the fallibilistic method dominant in the sciences, science itself has come to be seen as an interpretative framework that claims no absolute knowing. The general result of these considerations is that our accounts of reality 3 are based on conventions and only have the status of well-established opinions or of theories not-yet falsified. It is no longer a radical statement to point out that facts rely on and are meaningful only within an interpretive framework, whether grounded on linguistic convention, scientific authority, subjective interest, or political ideology. All these frames of meaning make a partial claim to truth; they do not claim to set the criterion of truth for all objects of analysis once and for all. Hence, these frameworks and ―discourses‖ function as possible paradigms of ―factual‖ truth. It is due to the wide acceptance of this view that what we generally call ―opinion‖ has also lost its distinctly negative philosophical significance. From its beginnings,