Infinite phenomenology: the lessons of Hegel's science of experience

423 Pages·1.441 MB·English

by  Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Russon, John

INFINITE PHENOMENOLOGY

I N F I N I T E
P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
The Lessons of Hegel’s Science
of Experience
John Russon
Northwestern University Press
Evanston, Illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2016 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2016. All rights
reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Russon, John, 1960– author.
Infinite phenomenology : the lessons of Hegel’s science of experience /
John Russon.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 8101- 3190- 3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 0- 8101- 3191- 0
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 0- 8101- 3192- 7 (ebook)
1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831. Phénomenologie des
Geistes. 2. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831. I. Title.
B2929.R858 2015
193—dc22
2015025261
Dedicated to Jay Lampert, my friend for more than thirty years, and the
guy who introduced me to Hegel.
’Tis the good reader that makes the good book.
— Emerson, Society and Solitude
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Citations xi
Introduction: Reading Hegel’s Phenomenology xiii
Prologue: The Project of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit 3
Part 1. Reality
1 The Lessons of Sense- Certainty: Temporality and Ontology 27
2 The Logic of Perception: On Things, Persons, and the Nature of Love 42
3 Understanding: Reading and Différance 57
Part 2. Personality
4 Desiring-P roduction and Spirit 77
5 Mood and Articulation 96
6 Recognition and Religious Narrative 107
7 The Call of the Beyond: Unhappy Consciousness and the Structure
of Hegel’s Argument 126
Part 3. Freedom
8 Spirit and Method 145
9 Freedom as Nature, Revolution, and Event 162
10 Freedom and Institutions: Perception, Spirit, and the Time of Right 176
11 Democratic Regime and Democratic Practice: The Politics
of Modernity 192
12 Conscience and the Unity of Being 208
vii
13 The Phenomenology of Religion: Freedom as Exposure to
the Absolute 228
Epilogue: Subjectivity and Objectivity in Hegel’s Science of Logic 256
Appendix: The Reception of Hegel in French Philosophy 271
Notes 293
Bibliography 365
Index of Passages 387
Index of Subjects 389
Acknowledgments
Writing acknowledgments is a particularly pleasant task, because it gives
one the opportunity to make clear the personal level of meaning and
indebtedness that is purposely effaced from scientific writing. This book
is a major personal accomplishment for me, and so it has a reality that
reverberates with all the major intersubjective dimensions of my life. First
and most obviously, I am eager to acknowledge my incalculable debt to
Shannon Hoff, who daily supplied me with the emotional and intellec-
tual support that kept me motivated to do this work. Indeed, much of
the writing of this book was done while sitting across from Shannon at
Ideal Coffee as she wrote The Laws of the Spirit, her first book on Hegel,
and much of the writing of this book channels the energy and insights
generated in our conversations in that setting. Throughout the time of
the writing of this book I also drew heavily on the resources of my dear
friends Patricia Fagan from the University of Windsor (to whom I dedi-
cated my first book on Hegel) and Kirsten Jacobson from the University
of Maine, both of whom have proved themselves over many years to be
intellectual interlocutors of the first order, as well as excellent compan-
ions. I have also benefited greatly from the inspiration and insights of-
fered by many other friends and colleagues, some of the most prominent
of whom are Kym Maclaren, David Ciavatta, Maria Talero, Luis Jacob,
Greg Kirk, Whitney Howell, Laura McMahon, John Lysaker, Len Law-
lor, Pravesh Jung, Siby George, John Hacker- Wright, Pete Costello, Tim
Brownlee, Réal Fillion, Karen Robertson, Brian Rogers, Joe Arel, Bryan
Richard, Jacob Singer, Jeff Morrisey, Jill Gilbert, Emily Jaklic, Cherilyn
Keall, Fred Guerin, Jing Long, Scott Marratto, Alexandra Morrison,
Thom Campbell, Adam Loughnane, Tim Fitzjohn, Jared Babin, Jenn
Friis, and Adam Schneider. I am also extremely grateful to all those who
have participated, over the last ten years, in my annual Toronto Summer
Seminar in Philosophy: this has proved to be the most stimulating and
rewarding arena for philosophical exchange that I have known, and I am
grateful to you all for your contributions to this intellectual community.
Many of the chapters of this book were initially delivered as public
lectures. I am grateful to all those who participated in sessions at E mory
ix