Hegelian Logic & Analytic Philosophy

Instructor: J.-P. Caron Date & Time: May 13, 20, 27, June 3rd. 14:00-16:30 ET

DESCRIPTION: It is trivial to say that the rejection of Hegel is foundational to analytic philosophy. According to standards introduced by Russell and Moore, Hegelianism, of which they were at one point acolytes, upheld a form of thoroughgoing Idealism that prevented the possibility of external relations, not only between thought and the world but between concepts themselves. One-sided as it is, this view has proven to be influential for a few decades within analytic circles. In contrast, these other two authors count as the principal harbingers of a sea change in these attitudes toward Hegel: Robert Brandom and John McDowell. But are they true to Hegel’s ideas?

This Seminar tackles the issue of the reception of Hegelian philosophy within analytic circles, addressing ambiguities such as the relationship between Kantian and Hegelian logic; the lingering influence of Aristotle on Hegel; the status of dialectics and contradiction, and its interpretation in the analytic reception of Hegel. For that aim, we shall use Paul Redding’s Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought as a guide throughout the Seminar while branching out to different sources and texts that may add to the problems within Redding’s texts.

Session 1. Two contemporary analytic routes to Hegelianism Focusing on Redding’s first two chapters, we present the appropriations of Hegel performed by Brandom and McDowell, in tandem with the first three sessions of the Phenomenology of Spirit, which works like a continuing thread to the Seminar, grounding Hegel’s critique of the Given while unfolding his inferentialism.

Session 2. The critique of transcendental logic Hegelian logic departs from Kant’s transcendental logic not only because of its embrace of contradiction (in a sense to be fleshed out in our last session) but also in its jettisoning of the separation between intuition and concepts. In this session, we trace some consequences of that critique in Hegel and its contemporary inferentialist appropriation.

Session 3. Between Aristotle and Frege, we examine the hybrid character of Hegel’s logic, which keeps some elements of Aristotelian term logic while developing some elements of Kantian logic that point towards Frege. This will enable us to differentiate between types of negation operative in Hegel’s logic in preparation for the subject of the last session.

Session 4. Using Redding’s chapter 7 and branching out to Michela Bordignon’s paper “Contradiction or not contradiction?”, we compare interpretations of Hegel’s contradiction, focusing primarily on the Brandomian conception of material incompatibilities and Graham Priest’s concept of the inclosure schema.

IMAGE: Miroslav Damevski, Hegel Painting 2022.

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