Hegel critic by Groves

A dialog from the PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA list, March 1998

Dear Professor Groves,

let me first state that I usualy enjoy your posting to this list and that I also liked most of your arguments in your last post.

However, in your post you write:

> […] involved in holding such beliefs. Our area, the phil of history,
> seems to be afflicted with a number of practitioners of conspiracy,
> which I view as a danger to our standing in the academy. If phil of
> history becomes associated with conspiracy theory it will take years
> to regain our respect. Look what Hegel did to us. This trend has the
> potential to make us irrelevant for decades. […]

I’m not sure what you are trying to say? Hegel has nothing to do with conspiracy theory. Do you want to imply that you find Hegel as absurd? That you can argue as well against Hegel as against conspiracy theory?

Have you read Hegels philosophy of world history?

What is your problem with it?

As a Hegelian who wants to bring Hegel uptodate to the 21st century, I am both prepared to defend Hegel and OTOH to listen to/learn from/ implement/sublate thoughtful scientific critics.

Kai Froeb
Munich, Germany

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Dear Prof. Froeb, you are right to take me to task on Hegel. He does have much to offer us in the phil of history, although probably not from his phil of history book. My point was that there was a time when phil of history was in bad repute because Hegel's phil of history (his least respected work: the one dealing with the travels of the world spirit, not the Lectures, which I like—I also like the Phenomenology even though I am no expert) seemed wildly speculative. Lots of people were turned off to the whole enterprise of substantive philosophy of history. For years the only thing going on in the phil of history was analytic study of the epistemological foundations of historiography. Not that such studies were anything bad; indeed, they brought a rigor to the phil of history that has been beneficial ever since. It is just that they seemed to forgo the substantive project. Now that work in substantive phil of history is rolling, I didn’t want to get side-tracked into conspiracy theory.

Randy Groves

I am not saying that Hegel was a conspiracy theorist. He certainly wasn't. My concern was to keep phil of history academically sound, and although I understand the temptation to believe in conspiracies—the crazy stuff the gov't has done sometimes suggests them—I think conspiracy theory takes us down an academically unacceptable path. My post was not meant to disparage Hegel's work generally, just the effect one of his books had on the phil of history.

Randy Groves

J. Randall Groves, M.A.,M.A., Ph.D
Associate Professor of Humanities
Ferris State University
rgroves@art01.ferris.edu

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Kai,

I’d like to see a serious discussion of Hegel on this list, and so allow me to encourage it by asking a couple questions.

1. You indicate a wish to update Hegel for the 21st century. Does that mean removing all traces of his (presumably) un-scientific objective idealism?

2. Is Hegel without that objective idealism still Hegelian?

3. If the Idea of something only emerges through the process of its becoming, then how is this “idea” different from a simple functionalist explanation?

Haines Brown

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On Wed, 4 Mar 1998, Randy Groves wrote:

> when phil of history was in bad repute because Hegel's phil of
> history (his least respected work: the one dealing with the travels
> of the world spirit, not the Lectures, which I like—I also like the
> Phenomenology even though I am no expert) seemed wildly speculative.

Which book is the one dealing with the travels of the world spirit? Having read the Lectures, I am convinced that Hegel was on the right track, though he didn’t have the thing that he was observing in very clear focus, and I feel I need to explore some of his ideas deeper.

Eustace Frilingos

---

Eustace, the book is easily available. It is called The Philosophy of History. I have the old Dover edition with the introduction by C.J. Freidrich. I'm sure there are more recent editions.

I suppose everyone in the area should have a glance at it, but I don’t think it is a fruitful place to hang one's methodological hat. For years most people have been convinced that it is not the way to proceed in the philofhi.

Randy Groves
J. Randall Groves, M.A.,M.A., Ph.D
Associate Professor of Humanities
Ferris State University
rgroves@art01.ferris.edu

---

In a message dated 3/4/98 1:16:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU writes:

<< 1. You indicate a wish to update Hegel for the 21st century. Does that mean
<< removing all traces of his (presumably) un-scientific objective idealism?

You mean the objective idealism found in the Phenomenology called the master- slave dialectic?

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Vunch said,

>> 1. You indicate a wish to update Hegel for the 21st century. Does that
>> mean removing all traces of his (presumably) un-scientific objective
>> idealism?

> You mean the objective idealism found in the Phenomenology
> called the master- slave dialectic?

I’m not sure if you are suggesting that there is more than one form of objective idealism in Hegel, or there is none at all. In any case, it has been over half a century since I’ve read Phenomenology, and I now have no recollection of the “master-slave dialectic.”

So allow me to unpack my question into a less presumptuous form:

1. In Hegel is there a distinction between essence and existence such that there is a truth about something that is independent of its empiri- cal manifestation?

2. If so, is it fair to call this essence “objectively ideal?”

3. In terms of science, it is possible to speak of a truth that is in- dependent of contingency?

These questions leave open two others you might want to address: a) What- ever their merit, do they really come to grips with Hegel? b) What relevance do the answers have for our understanding of world history?

Haines Brown

---

Dear Haines Brown,
You wrote:

> I’d like to see a serious discussion of Hegel on this list, and so allow
> me to encourage it by asking a couple questions.

Thanks for your interest. I will discuss Hegels Philosophy of History in an answer to Prof. Randy Groves. For some general english information on Hegel, have a look at the pages of the Hegel Society of America (HSA) at http://www.hegel.org. They also have a hegel Mailing list which you can subscribe over there and they also maintain some Hegel-links.

I doubt that Prof. Nicolai will be happy of us discussing general (= not realted to his philosophy of history) Hegel questions on his list (and I want to respect his whishes and not to abuse his hospitality here on the list), so I will answer your questions here, but encourage a wider Hegel discussion in private email or, even better, on the Hegel-list.

Now to your questions:

> 1. You indicate a wish to update Hegel for the 21st century. Does that
> mean removing all traces of his (presumably) un-scientific objective
> idealism?

An “updating “Hegel for the 21st century” means to include the knowledge and therories which evolved since Hegel into his system (and yes, I know that this can only be achieved in team work). To sublate the philosophies which emerged since Hegel, and which also include some basic critics of Hegel, will also include some basic changings of Hegel.

Also, Hegel conceptualy tried to reach a *higher* scientific standard then usual/commom, i.e. he asked for (and tried to provide) proves/ arguments for *everything*, beginning from the order of a scientific system, its logic etc.

When one accept this aim (which doesn’t necessarily imply that we’ve reached it), it is very clear that any error/fault/missing etc. one may find in Hegels teachings are to be corrected.

Hegel had the idea, that for a theory for beeing called better then other theories, it should include all the reasonsonable stuff in the other theories (In the same sense that we say that Einsteins Theorie includes the resonable stuff in Newtons Theory).

Hegel aimed to integrate and sublate all the knowledge and theories of his time. If Hegelians accept that goal, why should we stop at Hegels time? This also includes all the new scientific knowledge and the philosophical theories (at least the most important/fundamental ones). So much new theories and knowledge has been gained till then.

For an idea, there is a very good book called “Hegels System” from Vittorio Hoesle (Professor in Essen, Germany), wich tries to inspect Hegel under this perspective (both, book and author are quite famous and well respected in the international Hegel community).

It critics sevral place in Hegels System and some of Hegels decissions in its architecture but in the same place it also shows the misconception/misunderstandings in the usual/common place Hegel critique.

For example ideas that

• Hegel is for resolving contradictions (he finds a contradiction to be something subject to a critique not to be praised)
• Hegel does deny a world outside of and independent from the mind
• Hegel denies that we get the facts of our theories from the outside world and the like

are all very grave misunderstandings of Hegel

So I am not sure what you mean by:

> uncientific objective idealism

Keep in mind that Hegel used his terminology not in the same way we use them today (or, take the marxists for example, which use very similar terminology than Hegel, but nearly every term has a *very* different meaning in their terminology).

Btw, while the terminology may be Okay in the sense that it tries to remember that Hegel accepts a world outside/independent from the individual mind and accepts the goal that a theory has to be measured in that it realy covers and explains its topic, Hegel himself used to call his theory “absolute Idealism”. (absolute in the sense that you can not consistently argue against his arguments for it without falling into contradictions. As I mentioned Hegel sees contradictions as something a sign of falsehood/failure which has to be overcome)

2. Is Hegel without that objective idealism still Hegelian?

3. If the Idea of something only emerges through the process of its becoming, then how is this “idea” different from a simple functionalist explanation?

Haines Brown

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Dear Kai, you mentioned my name as a philofhi moderator, and i have some general comments on the list politics and private notes on Hegel and Hoesle

On 8 Mar 98 Kai Froeb wrote:
> I doubt that Prof. Nicolai (my fist name is Nikolai, and i prefer to
> be called this way; i think it's OK also for calling by firstname
> majority of other listmembers—a community of colleagues involved in
> regular professional communication; sure, any member has all rights to
> be called officially, or to call smb officially using ‘Prof (Dr, Mr, Mrs
> etc) Lastname’ form, but i think that the first way is by all means
> correct, much more friendly and appropriate for philofhi)

will be happy of us discussing

> general (= not realted to his philosophy of history) Hegel questions
> on his list (and I want to respect his whishes and not to abuse his
> hospitality here on the list),

not at all, the list was organized for wide international communication of colleagues, not for me; that's why one should bother if his/her msgs (especially long and multiple) meet expectations and intersts of the list major part, not mine

taking this, you are right that long discussions on the whole hegelian philosophy would be more appropriate for the hegel list, but discussion of hegelian philosophy of history (or his/his followers' other ideas connected with PH) fits well both philofhi politics/range of topics and , i think, expectations of list members

> An “updating “Hegel for the 21st century” means to include the
> knowledge and therories which evolved since Hegel into his system …
> Hegel aimed to integrate and sublate all the knowledge and theories
> of his time. If Hegelians accept that goal, why should we stop at
> Hegels time? This also includes all the new scientific knowledge and
> the philosophical theories (at least the most important/fundamental
> ones). So much new theories and knowledge has been gained till then.

great, the idea to integrate new strongest scientific and philosophical approaches and theories on History (more close to or more far from hegelian ones) seems to me very promising and worthy discussion in the list; take f.e. Collins's geopolitical theory which he has already connected with military resource mobilization of state formation (Ch.Tilly and M.Mann), theory of social revolutions and state breakdowns (T.Skocpol, Goldstone), world system theory (Wallerstein, Chase-Dunn, et al). Taking into account that ‘State’ had one of central places in Hegel's PH we can treat recent syntheses in long-term philosophical perspective

> For an idea, there is a very good book called “Hegels System”
> from Vittorio Hoesle (Professor in Essen, Germany), wich tries to
> inspect Hegel under this perspective (both, book and author are
> quite famous and well respected in the international Hegel
> community).

it's a pleasure to listen here about Vittorio with whom i had long philosophical talks when he visited Novosibirsk (i even brought him for yachting in our Ob Sea); that time his moral and axiological views (greatly influenced by Apel) seemed to me strong, but in ontology he demonstrated clear and hard platonian idealism with which i could not agree (i still think that Kant-Russel-Popperian mode of platonism is more flexible, realistic and appropriate for solving ontological problems of modern science and philosophy) in any case Hoesle is really one of most significant figures of modern German philosophy, and it would be interesting to discuss his views on PH, maybe also to involve him to the list.

best regards
Nikolai

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Dear Haines Brown,
you kindly asked:

> I’d like to see a serious discussion of Hegel on this list, and so allow
> me to encourage it by asking a couple questions.

> 1. You indicate a wish to update Hegel for the 21st century. Does that
> mean removing all traces of his (presumably) un-scientific objective
> idealism?

> 2. Is Hegel without that objective idealism still Hegelian?

> 3. If the Idea of something only emerges through the process of its
> becoming, then how is this “idea” different from a simple functionalist
> explanation?

I’m sorry that a very early version of my reply to you has escaped my mail program by escape. Here is an updated version, which hopefully makes some issues clearer (I try not to repeat those issues already discussed in the last mail).

I will first answer what I find to be the essence of Hegels teaching (2), then explain what I think is obejective (or, how Hegel calls it, absolute idealism and how this relates to the basic questions one might have towards such a position (3), I will then explain some ideas how to criticise it (4). This will make this mail rather long but I hope it's worth it.

I will address Hegels Philosophy of History in a seperate mail to Randy Groves, hopefully tomorow or the day after tomorow, if time permits.

1. The last 20–30 years have seen a fundamental advance in Hegel studies in that we now (At least in germany) not only have great philological editions of most of Hegels works and lectures (published at Meiner Verlag, Hamburg) but also very good and clear commentaries to most parts of Hegels System, the most important being Hegels System from Vittorio Hoesle (also at Meiner Verlag, Hamburg).

Let me state that the following statements are based on my understanding of the late Hegel, the Hegel of the “Encyclopaedia”, the Hegel of the Berlin years (about 1815–1831).

2. So what are the basic teachings of Hegel in the context of science?

a) truth is only relative to the arguments (in a wide sense, including “facts”) you have for it to prove it. So try to explain as much as possible with arguments as strong as possible. This does not only include explaining as much known facts as possible, but also the category system used: your notions/concepts and their relation/system, both in the general sense and applied to the concrete situation/theory. Don't presume anything.

But when you question everything, what happens if you apply this to questioning itself? What are the grounds/reasons for this critical position itself? So a consequently applied position a) will need otoh some kind of non-relativstic foundation, but not in a way of just postulating/assuming it, but, in accordance to a), in a way that it can be proved. That's where b) and c) come in:

b) if we ask for proves to explain anything (all assumtions, axioms), how can we do this without falling in an endless regression (any explanation can itself be questioned)? In order to escape that endless regress, the most basic foundations have to be selfreflective/ selfproving/self grounding in the sense that they can't be questioned themselves in a meaningfull way (a kind of negative prove: we can show that the assumtion that they are not valid leads to contradictions).

c) c-1) In order for a position (i.e. theory) to prove to be superior to another, it is not enough to show that the other position differs. One has to show c-2) that the other theory has selfcontradictions (using the categorial system/methods/assumtions of the *other* theory, not presuposing my cateogories) and c-3) that the better position preserves or enhances everything meaningfull in the other theory (Sublation).

Hegels positions are of course much more sophisticated then I showed them in a) -c), but you will have a good understanding of them when you realize that most of the more complex stuff Hegel adds is due to the fact that he applies these 3 rules to these rules themselves (This itself is a consequence out of b)).

d) Probably the most known aspect of Hegel is that he tries to overcome all dualism: Be it the dualism of Monism vs. Dualism itself or Nature vs. Spirit, Subject vs. Object, Egoism vs. Altruism, Genes vs. Enviroment, Individual vs. Society, Knowledge and will, feeling and thinking, Form vs. Content etc.

You can see Hegels Sysem in vast parts an attempt to overcome these contrapositions. This is a consequence out of c).

They have to be overcome in a way that their difference is not neglected (but acknowleged), but that you also look for what they have in common (otherwise, if they hadn't anything in common, they couldn't be contrapositions of each other), the implicit basic assumtions both contra positions share.

So it is very clear that based Hegels own standards, whenever you can say something negative of his system/philosophy, it is either unjustified (probably based on lack of knowledge) because it is already sublated in/part of his system, or his system has to be changed, either because Hegel made an error or because he didn't know about that position (theory, fact). And yes, it should be clear by now, that indeed I find several things to change (See 3d and the mentioned book of Hoesle for a start).

3. a) So based on what I wrote in 2) it should become clear that Hegel doesn’t mean idealism in the sense of a simple contraposition to “materialism” or “realism” (as this would immediately be against principle c/d).

b) For Hegel, the highest peak of his logic is the Ideal, where subect and object become the same (but of course this has to proved not just postulated and therfor is subject to critisim).

In a scientific context, speaking of science, I find it helpfull to read Hegels Idealism as a way of speaking of the scientific aim to have a theory that meets its topic (I know that one can read him in a other ways too).

There are two very good books on that subject:

Guessbacher, Heinrich: Hegels Psychologie der Intelligenz Verlag Dr. Johannes Koenigshausen + Dr. Thomas Neumann, Wuerzburg 1988, ISBN 3-88479-346-2, 364 Pages, about 65 DM.

explains very detailed Hegels concept of how we aquire knowledge, how we learn etc (And yes, of course Hegel accepts that we take our knowledge of facts from the outside world, but he doesn't stop there. Nor does, say, physical science).

There is also a very good book from Mrs. Friederike Schick, which has the best discussion of Hegels Kant critique I know of (I can look up its biographical details if you are interested, I have lent the book, so I don't have them handy).

Both books together will give you a decent idea on Hegels “epistomology”, if you like to call it that way.

You will see that Hegels ideas are nearer to common sense and science, (which both are also based on the goal to meet with their topics by their concepts) then is comomnly believed of Hegel.

c) As for “absolute”, you can basicaly read this term as an abreviation for the 4 principles mentioned above( 2a-d). It is a very big mis- understanding if one would think that this is mainly a proclamation, arogance. Quite on the oposite, it means that Hegel tries to meet the highest possible standards with his theory, in that he wants to argue prove it in a way that it can’t be questioned (especialy think of 2b).

4. Based on Hegel, one would see the development of the theories after Hegel as an expression that Hegels theory in itself is incomplete, in a way or another and has to be sublated itself.

Two major areas come to my mind:

d-1) Apel and Hoesle see the philosophy of the 20th century basicaly under the aspect of intersubjectitvity. Hoesle goes to great length in his book Hegels System to show that some of the basic problems with Hegels System are probably due to that fact/can be corrected one taking intersubjectivity into account.

d-2) A trend I see in post hegelian philosophy especialy of the 19th century, but not limited to it, is the emphasis on the Non-Rational in it's widest sense. Hegel does include it in his philosophy, but people like Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Freud et all and many others provide a lot of material to be meaningful sublated.

I guess that most of the critique of Hegel comes from one of these two directions, where I personaly assume that more arguments will come from position d-2).

Sublating these 2 trends may mean to change a lot even of basic stuff in Hegel, however I think that when one still can apply the 4 rules listend above, the outcome still can be called Hegelian (Especialy as rule 3 will ask for sublating everything meaningfull from Hegel himself into that new theory).

Regards
Kai Froeb