Grounds of Pragmatic Realism: Hegel’s Internal Critique and Reconstruction of Kant’s Critical Philosophy

563 Pages·2017·5.627 MB·English

by  Kenneth R. Westphal

Grounds of Pragmatic Realism
Critical Studies in German
Idealism
Series Editor
Paul G. Cobben
Advisory Board
Simon Critchley – Paul Cruysberghs – Rózsa Erzsébet – Garth Green
Vittorio Hösle – Francesca Menegoni – Martin Moors – Michael Quante
Ludwig Siep – Timo Slootweg – Klaus Vieweg
VOLUME 20
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/csgi
Grounds of Pragmatic Realism
Hegel’s Internal Critique and Reconstruction of
Kant’s Critical Philosophy
By
Kenneth R. Westphal
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958414
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
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isbn 978-90-04-36017-4 (e-book)
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Dieses Buch widme ich aus tiefstem Herzen meinen lieben und verehrten treuen
Kollegen, vor allem Bernd Ludwig, Andree Hahmann, Sami Pihlström,
Martin Carrier, Michael Wolff und Matthias Kaufmann, die mich bei einem
beruflichen Engpass in den Jahren 2011 bis 2014 durch Gastgeberschaft,
Stipendien und eine Vertretungsstelle großzügig unterstützt und gefördert
haben, so dass ich in dieser Zeit weiter erfolgreich philosophieren konnte.
Kuruçeºme, Ýstanbul, 1. September 2017

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Note on Sources and Citations xi
1 Introduction 1
PART I: HEGEL’S CRITICAL RECONSIDERATIONS OF METAPHYSICS
AND EPISTEMOLOGY
2 Henry Harris and the Spirit of Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology 25
3 Idealism: Transcendental or Absolute? 57
4 Hegel’s Early Critique of Kant’s Critical Foundations of Physics 77
5 The Transcendental, Formal and Material Conditions of the ‘I Think’ 89
6 The Fate of ‘the’ Intuitive Intellect in Hegel’s Philosophy 109
7 Hegel’s Post-Kantian Epistemological Reorientation 127
PART II: HEGEL’S CRITICAL EPISTEMOLOGY IN THE 1807
PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT
8 Hegel’s Manifold Response to Scepticism in the 1807 Phenomenology
of Spirit 143
9 Hegel’s Pragmatic Critique and Reconstruction of Kant’s System of
Principles I: The 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit 163
10Hegel’s Solution to the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion 181
11 Hegel’s Transcendental Proof of Mental Content Externalism 205
12 Mutual Recognition and Rational Justification in Hegel’s 1807
Phenomenology of Spirit 231
13 Mutual Recognition and Rational Justification in Substantive Domains 265
viii
PART III: HEGEL’S SYSTEMATIC CRITICAL PRAGMATIC REALISM
14 Hegel’s Critique of Intuitionism: Encyclopaedia §§61–78 297
15 Analytic Philosophy and the Long Tail of Scientia: Hegel and the
Historicity of Philosophy 319
16Hegel’s Pragmatic Critique and Reconstruction of Kant’s System of
Principles II: the Science of Logic and Encyclopaedia 349
17 Science and the Philosophers 373
18 Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature: Its Aims, Scope and Significance 395
19 Cognitive Psychology, Intelligence and the Realisation of the Con-
cept in Hegel’s Encyclopaedic Epistemology 417
20 Robust Pragmatic Realism in Hegel’s Critical Epistemology:
Synthetic Necessary Truths 439
21 Autonomy, Freedom and Embodiment: Hegel’s Critique of
Contemporary Biologism 471
22 Appendix 493
Analytical Contents 495
Bibliography 505
Index of Names 539
Index of Subjects 541
Acknowledgements
This book draws upon materials previously published in articles listed below,
variously improved, revised, augmented and integrated into the present stu-
dy. I am grateful to each of the editors, journals and presses who have permit-
ted me to recast this material here, and thank them (and their anonymous re-
ferees) for so supporting my research. I am also grateful to the several organ-
isers of conferences to which drafts of these chapters were presented, to their
audiences for discussion and to Paul Cobben, editor of the series in which this
volume appears, for his keen interest in my heterodox scholarship and help-
ful comments on my penultimate draft. Howard Stein’s exemplary research
has been an inspiration and model from the beginning: I had the luck to find
his ‘Newtonian Space-Time’ (1967) as an undergraduate, and the still better
luck to have some opportunities to discuss with him our interests in Kant.
Tom Nickles gave me a great start in philosophy of science. Various conversa-
tions and correspondence on related matters with Martin Carrier, Bill Harper,
Paolo Parrini, Bob Scharff, Rein Vihalemm and Michael Wolff have been very
helpful. As will be evident, Cinzia Ferrini’s incisive research on Hegel’s philos-
ophy of nature has been invaluable. My new institutional home has been most
welcoming and supportive in all regards; my thanks again to Lucas Thorpe for
getting this ball rolling! Completing this book was partially supported by the
Boðaziçi Üniversitesi Research Fund (BAP), grant code: 9761.1 Thank you, one
and all, for your kind interest, generous support and ever-helpful advice!
‘Kant, Hegel, and the Transcendental Material Conditions of Possible Experience’.
Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 33 (1996):23–41.
‘Harris, Hegel, and the Truth about Truth’. In: G. Browning, ed., Hegel’s Phenomenol-
ogy: A Reappraisal (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 23–29.
‘Hegel’s Attitude Toward Jacobi in the “Third Attitude of Thought Toward Objectiv-
ity”’. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 27.1 (1989):135–156.
‘Hegel’s Solution to the Dilemma of the Criterion’. The History of Philosophy Quarterly
5.2 (1988):173–88; rev. ed. in: J. Stewart, ed., The Phenomenology of Spirit Reader: A
Collection of Critical and Interpretive Essays (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), 76–91.
‘On Hegel’s Early Critique of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’. In:
S. Houlgate, ed., Hegel and the Philosophy of Nature (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998),
137–166.
1 In Turkish, ‘ð’ is silent and stresses the preceding vowel; ‘ç’ is pronounced like the English ‘ch’.