Introduction 1 What Motivated Hegel's Philosophical Project?
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Notes Introduction 1 . PH 472. 1 What Motivated Hegel’s Philosophical Project? 1 . In recent decades, several important attempts have been made to fill this lacuna – the absence of a post-Kantian schema – the most salient of which has been that of Henrich (1982, 1991, 2003), who revisits the story of the genesis of German Idealism. See too Horstmann (1991). 2 . The English-speaking world has of late experienced a resurgence of interest in German Idealism, especially Hegel, attested to by the numerous books and articles on the subject published over the past decade. Although these studies are far from monolithic, we can safely say, without fear of over-simplification, that the interpretations offered tend to see Hegel’s philosophy as the culmi- nation of Kant’s epistemological project. See Pippin (1997, 6); Pinkard (1994, 230). 3 . Let me pre-empt a possible misunderstanding. The rupture thesis does not, of course, seek to claim that German Idealism is altogether free of Kantian influ- ence, which would be absurd. The rupture thesis can also be formulated as follows: Kant is the source of the problem of Kantian dualism, and its solution requires total rejection of his philosophy, which must be supplanted by a new philosophical program. 4 . For a thorough defense of the philosophical importance of this question, see Düsing (1983); Pippin (1989); Henrich (1991); Horstmann (1991). 5 . This route is also chosen both by those who seek to show that German Idealism provides insight only into highly speculative epistemological or ontological questions, a claim that is patently indefensible, and by those who seek to show how Idealism sheds profound light on the flaws of the philosophy of subjectivity, and on how accepting the suggested remedy will render the theo- retical position espoused by German Idealism less vulnerable to critique. 6 . For the time being, I will accept the premise that the transition from Kant to Hegel was accompanied by a substantive change in the philosophic enterprise. This claim will be argued for below, when I describe the genesis of Hegel’s philosophy and the main problems it addresses. 7 . Although “German Idealism” is sometimes used very broadly as referring to post-Kantian philosophy in general, I use it here as shorthand for the philo- sophical activity of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. 8 . It is impossible to discuss German Idealism without using what is now consid- ered to be sexist language, as the pertinent texts are replete with gendered concepts, which were taken for granted in the language of the era. Readers must keep in mind, however, that despite the sexist language of the day, the 227 228 Notes authors in question did not take notions such as Menschheit to apply to males alone, but rather intended them to refer to all human beings. 9 . Taylor provides the best description of the genesis of this movement as part of the story of the emergence of Hegel’s philosophy; see Taylor (1975, 1979). Taylor suggests that Hegel’s thought should be seen as an attempt to systematically confront the foundational principles of the Enlightenment, on the one hand, and Romanticism, on the other, movements that espoused competing views of man. The Romantic principle of “expressivism” saw man as embedded in an organic natural and cultural context, within which he expresses his goals and desires. By contrast, the Enlightenment view of man, especially as formulated by Kant, sought to liberate man from this dual context of nature and culture, and see him as a rational individual. On this picture of man, the rational individual manifests radical self-determination that demands freedom from any external restrictions on him or his reason. Taylor understands Hegel as seeking to reconcile, as it were, these two incom- patible guiding principles, to connect the idea of man as embedded in a specific natural and cultural context with that of the individual demanding freedom. According to Taylor, Hegel saw no need to completely relinquish either of these pictures. 10 . See Berlin (1990, 1999). Berlin’s description of the origins of Hegelianism is the classic example of such a primarily historical and ideological reading. 11 . As noted, the number of studies that explore the systematic development of Hegel’s thought is prodigious. Even without surveying all of them, it is obvious that no one today disputes the claim that Hölderlin’s contribution was decisive. For a clear exposition of this thesis, see Jamme (1984, 15). 12 . For detailed discussion, see Henrich (1971, 1992); Harris (1983); Jamme and Schneider (1990). 13 . Schiller expounds this critique in three of his key works on aesthetics and ethics: “On Grace and Dignity” (1793); “On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters” (1795); and “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry” (1795/96). To rectify the flaws in the Kantian approach to ethics, he invokes the aesthetic perspective, which, he contends, is a more appropriate frame- work for ethics, as it is applicable not only to man qua thinking being, but also qua agent and sentient being. 14 . See ELT 137. 15 . StA 6.1, p. 119. 16 . ELT 137. 17 . On the two works’ enormous influence on Hegel and Hölderlin, see Harris (1972, 109–111); Jamme (1983). 18 . AE, letter 27. 19 . Schiller states: “Closer attention to the character of our age will, however, reveal an astonishing contrast between the contemporary form of humanity and earlier ones, especially that of Greece. The reputation for culture and refinement on which we otherwise rightly pride ourselves vis-à-vis humanity in its merely natural state, can avail us nothing against the natural humanity of the Greeks. For they were wedded to all the delights of art and the dignity of wisdom, without however, like us, falling a prey to their seduction. ... This disorganization, which was first started within man by civilization and learning, was made complete and universal by the new spirit of government. Notes 229 It was scarcely to be expected that the simple organization of the early repub- lics should have survived the simplicity of early manners and conditions; but instead of rising to a higher form of organic existence it degenerated into a crude and clumsy mechanism. The polypoid character of the Greek States, in which every individual enjoyed an independent existence but could, when need arose, grow into the whole organism, now made way for an ingenious clock-work, in which, out of the piecing together of innumerable but lifeless parts, a mechanical kind of collective life ensued. State and the Church, laws and customs, were now torn asunder; enjoyment was divorced from labour, the means from the end, the effort from the reward. Everlastingly chained to a single little fragment of the Whole, man himself develops into nothing but a fragment; everlastingly in ear the monotonous sound of the wheel that he turns, he never develops the harmony of his being; and instead of putting the stamp of humanity upon his own nature, he becomes nothing more then the imprint of his occupation or of his specialized knowledge. But even the meagre, fragmentary participation, by which individual members of the State are still linked to the Whole, does not depend upon forms which they spontaneously prescribe for themselves ... it is dictated to them with meticulous exactitude by means of a formulary which inhibits all freedom of thought. The dead letter takes the place of living understanding, and a good memory is a safer guide than imagination and feeling” (AE, letter 6, 35). 20 . See AE, letter 11, 42–43, and see too letter 13, where Schiller asserts: “At the first sight nothing could seem more diametrically opposed than the tendencies of these two drives, the one pressing for change, the other for changelessness. And yet it is these two drives that between them, exhaust our concept of humanity, and make a third fundamental drive that might possibly reconcile the two a completely unthinkable concept.” He proceeds to pose the question that he takes to define the philosophical challenge at hand: “How, then, are we to restore the unity of human nature which seems to be utterly destroyed by this primary and radical opposition?” (AE 89). 21 . See AE, letter 27, last paragraph. 22 . See ELT 33–37. 23 . ELT 33–34. 24 . StA 3, 163. 25 . Hölderlin’s great enthusiasm for Fichte is revealed primarily through his correspondence from that period, especially with his friends from Tübingen, Schelling and Hegel. 26 . What is special about this text, which some scholars consider to be the first part of the version known as “Hyperion’s Youth,” is that Hölderlin attempts to write in verse using the metrical patterns of classical Greek poetry. However, it is unclear whether the metrical section is the first part of “Hyperion’s Youth,” or a separate, self-standing version. On the genesis and various versions of Hyperion , see Beissner’s introductory essay in his edition of Hölderlin’s collected works (StA). 27 . The fact that Hölderlin, and Hegel after him, adduce these lectures, is instruc- tive, as it shows that they viewed these polemical lectures – today we would characterize them as “ideological” – as no different from the lectures that make up the various versions of the Wissenschaftslehre , where the same ideas are formulated philosophically. What we tend to see as a significant 230 Notes difference between Fichte’s polemical-political writings, e.g., the Addresses to the German Nation , and his later theoretical work is, for Hölderlin and Hegel, simply irrelevant. 28 . Some interpretations suggest parallels between figures in the novel and Hölderlin’s contemporaries. Some take the scholar to be Fichte himself, and take Hyperion to be a disciple who seeks to actualize the ideals revealed by the scholar.