Hegel's Philosophy of Reality, Freedom, and God

by Robert M. Wallace

• ISBN13: 9780521844840
• ISBN10: 0521844843
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-04
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book shows that the repeated announcements of the death of Hegel's philosophical system have been premature. Hegel's Philosophy of Freedom, Reality, and God brings to light accomplishments for which Hegel is seldom given credit: unique arguments for the reality of freedom, for the reality of knowledge, for the irrationality of egoism, and for the compatibility of key insights from traditional theism and naturalistic atheism. The book responds in a systematic manner to many of the major criticisms leveled at Hegel's system, from Feuerbach and Kierkegaard to Heidegger and Charles Taylor. It provides detailed interpretations of Hegel's Philosophy of Spirit, large parts of his indispensable Science of Logic, and important parts of his Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Right. Unlike many academic books on Hegel, this one treats him very much as a 'live' thinker, whom we can learn from today.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xv
Publication Citation Style	xvii
Preface	xxiii
Introduction	1	(9)
Our Commitment to Individualism and Our Problems With It	1	(4)
Hegel Endorses Individualism -- As a Point of Departure	5	(5)
Naturalism, Plato, Kant, and Hegel on Reason, Freedom, Responsibility, Ethics, and God	10	(38)
Kant and Hegel on the Will	10	(8)
Is This ``Freedom'' Actually Slavery (For the ``Inclinations'')?	18	(2)
Is This ``Freedom'' Ethically Empty?	20	(2)
Is This ``Going Beyond'' Really ``Freedom''?	22	(5)
Individualism and Ethics: Hobbes and Gauthier	27	(4)
An Early Critic of Hobbes and Gauthier: Plato on the Will and Justice	31	(8)
Kant on Individualism (``Autonomy'') and Ethics: The Apparent Failure of a Great Argument	39	(3)
Hegel's Reformulation of Kant's Argument from Autonomy to Ethics	42	(2)
Kant and Hegel on God and the World	44	(4)
Reality, Freedom, and God (Science of Logic I)	48	(93)
Introduction	48	(5)
Objective Thinking	53	(1)
Being	54	(5)
Determinate Being, Quality, and the Beginning of the Subject	59	(5)
``Negativity,'' or the ``Negation of the Negation''	64	(2)
Finite Being	66	(3)
The Finite and the Infinite	69	(4)
Infinity, Freedom, and Nature	73	(3)
Spurious Infinity and True Infinity	76	(4)
Empiricism, Dualism, and True Infinity	80	(2)
How Hegel's Position Relates to ``Compatibilism'' and ``Incompatibilism''	82	(1)
True Infinity, ``Striving,'' and ``Actuality''	83	(3)
True Infinity and the ``Negation of the Negation''	86	(2)
Substance and Subject	88	(3)
Modernity and ``Metaphysics'': Hegel and His Predecessors	91	(1)
Reality and Ideality, ``Realism'' and ``Idealism''	92	(4)
True Infinity and God	96	(7)
Two Contrasting Critiques of Hegel's Theology: Heidegger and Magee	103	(6)
Knowledge, Skepticism, and True Infinity	109	(7)
Knowledge and ``Faith''	116	(2)
Earlier Versions of These Ideas, in Hegel's Development	118	(4)
Charles Taylor's Interpretation of True Infinity	122	(4)
Hegel Not An ``Atomist''	126	(1)
Being-For-Self and the ``Collapse'' of True Infinity	127	(5)
Atomism	132	(4)
Social Atomism	136	(5)
Identity, Contradiction, Actuality, and Freedom (Science of Logic II)	141	(73)
Introduction to Chapters 4 and 5	141	(2)
Quantity and the Theme of ``Unity''	143	(4)
Measure	147	(5)
Absolute Indifference	152	(2)
Beyond Absolute Indifference: Essence	154	(1)
Introduction to Essence: Being-in-and-for-Self	155	(4)
Essence as Shine and Negativity: Hegel's New Conception of Immediacy or Being, and His Critique of ``The Given''	159	(10)
Essence as Reflection	169	(6)
The Reflection-Determinations: Identity and Difference	175	(3)
The Reflection-Determinations: Difference	178	(2)
The Reflection-Determinations: From Diversity to Opposition	180	(4)
The Reflection-Determinations: From Opposition to Contradiction	184	(6)
From Reflection to Actuality	190	(2)
From Actuality to Absolute Necessity	192	(5)
The Actual and the Rational	197	(2)
Substance and Causality	199	(3)
From Reciprocal Action to Freedom	202	(6)
What Sort of ``Freedom'' is This?	208	(6)
Freedom, God, and the Refutation of Rational Egoism (Science of Logic III)	214	(54)
From Substance to the ``Concept''	214	(2)
The Concept as ``Free Love'' and True Infinity	216	(2)
Why Call This a ``Concept''?	218	(6)
Substance and Subject	224	(4)
Particularity and Singularity; ``Abstractness'' and ``Emptiness'' Versus ``Concreteness''	228	(3)
The ``Emptiness'' of Kant's Principle of Ethics	231	(2)
The Concept and the Will (Philosophy of Right, Introduction)	233	(4)
From the Concept (``Subjectivity'') to Objectivity	237	(2)
From Objectivity to the ``Idea''	239	(4)
The ``Idea,'' Reason, and Actuality	243	(3)
Can Metaphysics, Like This, Be Rationally Defended?	246	(1)
The Idea, the ``Cunning'' of Reason, and ``God''	247	(2)
The Idea as Life	249	(1)
The ``Genus'': Universality and ``Identity with the Other''	250	(3)
The ``Death'' of the Living Individual	253	(5)
The Idea as ``Cognition,'' or Spirit	258	(2)
The Absolute Idea as a Refutation of Egoism	260	(5)
``Method'' as Being and as Result: The Circle Closes	265	(3)
Nature, Freedom, Ethics, and God (The Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit)	268	(51)
From Logic to Nature to Spirit	268	(2)
Subjectivity Within Nature	270	(6)
Spirit	276	(3)
Subjective Spirit: ``Soul''	279	(4)
Subjective Spirit: ``Consciousness''	283	(9)
Self-Consciousness, ``Recognition,'' And Reason	285	(7)
Subjective Spirit: ``Spirit as Such,'' Theoretical, Practical, and Free	292	(6)
Objective Spirit: Introduction	298	(1)
Objective Spirit: Abstract ``Right,'' Property and Wrong	298	(1)
Objective Spirit: ``Morality,'' Conscience and Evil	299	(3)
Objective Spirit: ``Ethical Life'' (Sittlichkeit)	302	(6)
Absolute Spirit: Introduction	308	(4)
Absolute Spirit: Art	312	(1)
Absolute Spirit: Revealed Religion	313	(3)
Absolute Spirit: Philosophy	316	(3)
Conclusion	319	(4)
Index	323