History, Concepts, and Normativity in Hegel

Introduction

That Hegel somehow linked history with logic is almost universally taken to be one of his most original contributions to philosophy. Many, of course, would grant that this link is an original but a philosophically uninteresting move. One only needs to consult the official histories of logic to see that Hegel's Logic plays no role.1 Others would concede there might be something philosophical about the link, but that the connection Hegel hinted at is really one between history and metaphysics, rather than between history and logic. Thus, if the enterprise carries any interest at all it must lie in its contribution to metaphysics, not to logic or semantics. A more sympathetic account would consider Hegel's departure from traditional logic and insist that his originality lies in the attempt to come to terms with the "logic" of human historical existence.

I suggest that, in fact, the linking of logic to history was neither an original Hegelian contribution, nor a distinctive feature of German idealism or romanticism. Linking history to logic was not an uncommon undertaking during the entire eighteenth century and was by no means an exclusively German concern. If the argument, then, is in part meant to deflate the so-called originality of Hegel's position or of German Idealism in general, I hope that the end result will not be sheer disenchantment. Showing how Hegel's position stands in relation to a more general endeavour to relate our conceptual capacities with our historical existence will help to locate where exactly lies the originality of his contribution. After briefly presenting previous attempts to link history with logic, I will explain in what sense Hegel's genetic account of concepts is a history. More specifically, I will show how Hegel's genetic account of concepts stands in relation to other competing genetic accounts, particularly to naturalistic ones. In t...

If you are already a vLex customer, Access Here