essays

Longer essays and disquisitions.

The relation of ancient skepticism to Hegel’s problem of the criterion in the Phenomenology of Spirit

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Image: Pierre-Narcisse Guérin’s
Le retour de Marcus Sextus (1799)
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In introducing the method by which his Phenomenology of Spiritis to proceed, G.W.F. Hegel addresses the epistemological “problem of the criterion.” [1] The criterion problem, it turns out, inheres in all finite determinations of truth. For Hegel, the internal contradictions it engenders serve to demonstrate the essential inadequacy of all relative (versus absolute) forms of cognition. It thus facilitates the dialectical unfolding of consciousness as it speculatively approaches Absolute Spirit. This, put simply, is the stated goal of Hegel’s Phenomenology. Beyond examining its merely functional role in this work, however, the reader might observe the way in which the problem of the criterion directly emerges from the context of a discussion of skepticism,[2] which appears in the Introduction. Hegel’s procession from the topic of skepticism to criticism is no accident; indeed, its logic can be seen to mirror his understanding of their historical relation. Did not the historic problem of the criterion arise out of the resolute skepticisms of Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus, after all? Comparing the remarks in Hegel’s Introduction with some of the pertinent philosophical digressions in his later Lectures on the History of Philosophy, the connection between the logical order of his argument and the history of the event may be further established. Reflexively, this then has recourse to his phenomenological treatment of Skeptical self-consciousness in the second section of the earlier work, in which Hegel dismantles its principle of one-sided negativity by applying the critical method which ancient Skepticism had itself inspired.

Our investigation can thus be understood to contain two integrally related parts. The first claims that Hegel’s movement from the issue of skepticism to the problem of the criterion in the Introduction to the Phenomenology is tacitly modeled after their historical succession. Evidence supporting this assertion will be gathered from his interpretation of Skeptical philosophy in the History of Philosophy. This part of the inquiry is thus of a hermeneutic aspect. Conversely, the second part is oriented critically (one might say “autocritically”) back to Hegel’s answer to the problem of the criterion in the Phenomenology. We will assess the way in which the distinctive brand of self-relating skepticism he develops therein is then applied to the Skeptical self-consciousness as its object, both phenomenologically and historically.

It must be noted from the start that the two parts of this study simultaneously follow from and ground one another. At first glance, the reciprocity of this relation is bound to confuse the reader. But this operation is not as confounding as it may initially seem, and demands no great dialectical rigor. To begin with, Hegel’s methodological solution to the criterion problem presupposes his high regard for ancient Skepticism’s critical enterprise, as well as his concurrent dissatisfaction with its epistemological nihilism. If he did not take seriously the implications of skepticism’s problem of the criterion, he could forego the negativity of dialectic altogether. Hegel would have no reason not to relapse into the dogmatic metaphysical positivism that held sway before the appearance of the Kantian philosophy. On the other hand, if he had not objected to ancient Skepticism’s stubborn disbelief, he would have been comfortable with its purely negative result. Hegel’s critical method, which we seek to apply back to his own system, would thus seem to require that our prior hermeneutic claim be accurate. Oppositely, however, his historical interpretation of skepticism, on which our hermeneutic is based, can equally be seen to presume the critical apparatus he develops in the Introduction to the Phenomenology. Whatever the actual order in which they fell, for the purposes of this essay their logic will coincide. As such, the consequences of each will be borne in mind throughout. Continue reading →

Adorno’s critique of Hegel’s theodical philosophy of history in Negative Dialectics

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“Our intellectual striving aims at realizing the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, a Theodicaea — a justification of the ways of God — which Leibnitz [sic] attempted metaphysically, in his method, i.e., in indefinite abstract categories — so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil.”[1]

— Hegel, Introduction to The Philosophy of History

“The earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the theodicy of Leibniz, and the visible disaster of the first nature was insignificant in comparison with the second, social one, which defies human imagination as it distills a real hell from human evil.”[2]

— Adorno, “After Auschwitz,” Negative Dialectics

It has often been remarked that the twentieth century saw an end to the time-honored genre of theodicy. The senseless destruction of world war, the systematic genocide of peoples, and the advent of nuclear weaponry — all these conspired to cast doubt on the theodical belief in God’s redemption of creation, as well as the congruent Enlightenment belief in the inherent perfectibility of man.[3] Of these horrific events, Auschwitz became the modern synecdoche for man’s capacity for moral evil. For the Frankfurt philosopher and critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno, it served to “cure” him of Hegel’s optimistic philosophy of history, perhaps the most grandiose of the philosophical theodicies. Moreover, the historical event of Auschwitz shattered his faith in Hegel’s logical (atemporal) correlate: the speculative reconciliation or amelioration of dialectical contradiction. The idea of a logical progress to the absolute fueled by the annihilation of non-identical (metaphysical) concepts and an historical progress built on similar (only physical) premises – in which the violent means of both are justified by the absolute telos they help facilitate – seemed to Adorno morally perverse. His opposition to the theodical logic of totality would thus structure much of the thought expressed in his later work, especially Negative Dialectics. Or so it will be argued.

Beyond fulfilling a merely hermeneutic duty, however, we shall bracket our exposition of Adorno’s critique of Hegel, framing some pertinent metacritical questions along the way. For instance, the following questions will be asked: How apt is Adorno’s criticism? Is it fair for him to accuse Hegel of failing to give a proper account of the suffering endured throughout history? Was it not Hegel, after all, who so famously described history as “the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized”?[4] Finally, is it valid to suggest that a methodological procedure used in determination (Hegel’s so-called “positive dialectic”) gives rise to the political logic of extermination? Continue reading →

The absolution of Spirit: Hegel and the speculative infinite

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How does one think infinity? The question seems at first to place an unreasonable demand for provisioning an answer; the structure of the human mind immediately appears finite, conditioned. Yet one soon discovers that it is reason itself which places this demand. Man is irrepressibly driven by his rational faculty to apprehend the infinitely unconditioned ground(s) upon which the finite phenomena of experience are grounded. Limitation is anathema to the most primordial desire of humanity. For nothing is more human than to reject the human — to reject finitude and become God.
The spiritual epic of man is thus guided by his cognitive romance with the Absolute, qua true infinity. In the course of its unfolding, philosophers have variously located the metaphysical domain of infinity as either belonging to the structure of the world or the mind. Classical (pre-Kantian) metaphysics naïvely sought infinity in the predicate structure of the world, a world it had imparted with universality by virtue of its deductions. In other words, infinity was for this metaphysics a mere predicate in its determinations, and bore no necessary relation to its subject apart from its copular attachment (God is infinitely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, etc.). Rationalist ontology, pneumatology, cosmology, and theology were borne of its efforts. But cracks began to emerge in its objective edifice, and soon Hume arose to shatter the great deductive systems of philosophy. Only with Kant was universality rehabilitated, and even then only at a price. The phenomenal world was recognized for its objective finitude, but infinity was subjectively retained in the pure (a priori) faculties of the understanding. Within this categorical matrix, objectivity was granted to judgments which arranged the manifold of intuition under the twin categories of universality and necessity.[2] Objective laws could be hoped to have infinite application to finite phenomena. But even then this infinity was strictly formal, hence empty, having been methodologically stripped of empirical (a posteriori) content.[3] The philosophers of subjectivity (Kant, Jacobi, Fichte) had correctly diagnosed the dogmatism of the objective infinite, but the infinite they had replaced it with remained definite in its separation from the finite.

Both such conceptions of infinity (objective and subjective alike) ultimately fell short for Hegel. The objective infinity of being and the subjective infinity of thought each failed in its non-relation to finitude, i.e. its abstract isolation from infinity’s negative. The former thought the world all too gracious in its accommodation of the human mind; the latter, by contrast, “sen[t] man to feed upon husks and chaff.”[4] Always seeking some mediating ground between two dialectical opposites, Hegel hoped to recast abstract infinity and abstract finitude into the concrete unity of the speculative infinite, or the infinitum actu of Spinoza. The notion of the “true” or “good” infinity of speculation recurs throughout Hegel’s mature works, from his early collaboration with Schelling in Faith and Knowledge (1802) to the final edition of his Encyclopedia Logic (1831), his last published work. This is hardly a coincidence. For in Hegel’s estimation, “the true infinite is [my italics] the absolute Idea” — the grounding principle of all genuinely philosophical knowledge.[5] As such, a grasp of this immanent feature of Hegel’s thought is central to an appreciation of his philosophy. With reference to the pertinent texts that deal with this topic, its fine points might be thoroughly excogitated. As the concept takes shape, the speculative implications of its particulars will be briefly discussed, wherever appropriate.†

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