HEGEL KANTIANIZED
THE KANTIO–HEGELIAN LOGIC OF GEORGE DI GIOVANNI
Christopher Richard Wade Dettling (2018)
It is now known that unlike Kant, Hegel was despised by the Nazis.¹
Interpretations of Hegel which are products of today are the productions of our world in the American Age, and therefore are the result of the evolution of two centuries of Hegelianism in universal history: They are the productions of the world of today, and therefore the Hegelianism of our interpretations, our interpretations themselves, require justification from our world, justifications which are themselves inseparable from Hegelianism, the result of Hegel’s influence in the arena of world politics and economics, — in the universal historical strife between Kantians and Hegelians. All this is from the genuine Hegel of the Pure Hegelian philosophy: We read Hegel systematically, and in the light of Americanism as the rise of universal American Liberty from the ashes of the Civil War, which is the fountainhead of Globalism in the 21st century world of today:
“Admirers of Hegel are accustomed to refer to the first edition [Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline], as having most of the author’s freshness and power … in America, no one can look back a few years, without observing that the whole tone of our public men has changed, and that the phrases, ‘progress,’ ‘necessary development,’ and ‘God in history,’ occur with marked frequency.”²
Our world historical (rational) reading of Hegel therefore distinguishes the modern European nation–state from American civilization in the light of authentic Hegelianism, in order to avoid the delusions and phantasms of European modernity, namely the importation of Oriental despotism and Asiatic barbarism into Europe, especially after the fall of Constantinople, — as the contagion of the political and economic irrationalism of Machiavellianism. Interpreters who do not justify their interpretations in this way remain within the contagion of modern European unreason and its standpoints, perspectives and outlooks, the delusions and phantasms of 20th century Kantianism and Kantio–Hegelianism: Their sophistical interpretations are therefore susceptible to the defects of impure Hegelianism, even if they make no reference to the traditions of the Berlin edition, — in order to mask their Kantian and Kantio–Hegelian affiliations. We turn our backs upon the contagion of modern European political and economic santanism, especially as the racialism of Kantianism and Kantio–Hegelianism.
The philological and hermeneutical sophistry of his editors and translators, sometimes even unconscious, is therefore precisely the origin of the myth of Hegel, which depicts his philosophy as “clotted nonsense” (Stirling):
“Even though Hegel had not prepared these materials for publication, these posthumous volumes amply reveal Hegel’s characteristic keenness of insight, his penetrating awareness of life’s paradoxical nature, and his deep sensitivity to the tortuous struggle of the human spirit in its concrete history … History, for Hegel, is the story of the development of the consciousness of freedom in the [ix] world — the development of the human spirit in time through the growth of its own self–consciousness … [Hegel’s] most salient words have entire clusters of meanings attached to them. Thus the problematic term ‘Aufhebung’ means not only ‘negation’ and ‘nullification’ but also ‘elevation,’ ‘transcendence,’ and ‘retention’ — among numerous other meanings. It would be bad enough if Hegel adopted a different meaning from one usage to the next, for we might then get the word’s meaning from the context. Unfortunately, Hegel often has all of the various and even contradictory meanings in mind when he uses such a word. He works with positive as well as negative connotations, and he exploits their ambiguities. Indeed, it is the very essence of the Hegelian dialectic to show how a concept’s meaning can be ‘negated’ yet ‘retained’ by being taken up to a higher order of meaning. That very negativity itself goes into the translation of a word such as ‘Aufhebung.’”³
Hegel, according to Leo Rauch, has “contradictory meanings in mind,” and he “exploits … ambiguities.” Because Leo Rauch makes the Lectures and Addenda philologically equivalent to the Great Works that were published in Hegel’s lifetime, he makes their respective content hermeneutically and philosophically equivalent: This profound error of past Hegel philology has resulted in the Kantianized Hegel of Kantio–Hegelianism. In other words, Kantian and semi–Kantian meanings from the transzendentalphilosophie are attached to key Hegelian conceptions such as Aufhebung: “‘Aufhebung’ means not only ‘negation’ and ‘nullification’ but also ‘elevation,’ ‘transcendence.’” Such Kantio–Hegelian mistranslations of Hegel are therefore the result of philological and hermeneutical sophistry, based upon the pseudo–Hegelianism of the Kantian influenced editors of the Berlin edition.
The sophistical philosophical basis of Kantio–Hegelianism is cast into disrepute, namely the Berlin edition of Hegel’s works, therefore our modern sophists seldom refer to the Lectures and Addenda, but they nonetheless cling to their sophistry. Even without textual evidence from the Great Works of Hegelianism, modern sophists wallow in the absurdity that Hegel followed unconsciously in the footsteps of Kant and transzendentalphilosophie, since their youthful pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism is still deeply embedded within their flabby minds: Because of its voluminous size, their favorite battleground these days, wherein they can entrench themselves unmolested for many years, is Hegel’s Greater Logic:
“[Hegel’s] Logic is to be read as still in line with Kant’s Transcendental Logic, though without being ‘transcendental’ in Kant’s sense.”⁴
Hegel’s Science of Logic is still in line with Kant’s Transcendental Logic, but is not ‘transcendental’ in Kant’s sense: The sense of ‘transcendental’ in Kant’s Transcendental Logic is not in line with Hegel’s Greater Logic. How therefore is Hegel’s Science of Logic is still in line with Kant’s Transcendental Logic?
“The Logic is absolute science only in the sense that it is capable of recognizing itself (and thus containing its limitation even as logic) as an analog of rationality as such … but at a distance as it were, with something always being lost in translation.”⁵
Hegel’s Science of Logic is therefore still in line with Kant’s Transcendental Logic, namely the tradition of the subjectivism, relativism and irrationalism of so–called “German Idealism,”—George Di Giovanni and company set up in their translations, the basis for the elimination of the bad Hegel and bad Kant of 20th century barbarism and inhumanism (found in earlier interpretations and translations), in order to rescue (salvage) the good Hegel and good Kant in the philological and hermeneutical tradition of the New York intellectuals: In other words, Kant is not a sophist, and Kantianism is not sophistry. The Kantio–Hegelian basis of George Di Giovanni’s unsystematic rescue mission flounders on the subjectivism, relativism and irrationalism of the New York intellectuals’ unhistorical and anti–historical version of the German Idealism of Kantianism and transzendentalphilosophie: The Americanism of 21st century American Idealism is the universal historical refutation of modern political and economic irrationalism in the world of today.
George Di Giovanni in his introduction to Hegel’s Science of Logic has extracted Hegelianism from the arena of world history in order to give his Kantio–Hegelian interpretation the appearance of plausibility, — following in the sophistical footsteps of Charles Margrave Taylor, Henry Silton Harris and John W. Burbidge: “Hegel still seems to think … Hegel takes us … Hegel presents … Hegel’s intent.”⁶ The Logic of Hegel is not a literary work in the sense of Chaucer’s poetry, but a work of philosophical science: Di Giovanni, by separating Hegelianism from world history and modern European philosophy, avoids raising political and economic questions that cast suspicion or doubt upon his sophistical interpretation of Hegel. Thus Di Giovanni’s interpretation goes beyond the speculative logical and dialectical system of the genuine philosophical science of absolute idealism; the professor judges the rational system of genuine Hegelianism from the standpoint, perspective and outlook of Kantianism which is surpassed by the rationality of authentic Hegelianism. For this reason he remains in the realm of literature, which is disingenuous because he remains beyond the field of world history, — he seeks to immunize himself against scrutiny of his “conception” of exact historiography: His sophistical interpretation of the genesis of German Idealism and Hegel’s Logic flounders upon the standpoints, perspectives and outlooks of inexact historiography. What are these standpoints, perspectives and outlooks of Kantian and Kantio–Hegelian historical development, within which Di Giovanni inscribes his tendentious hermeneutical analyses, but the bankrupt delusions and phantasms of subjectivism, relativism and irrationalism, — are they not the very opposite of the universal history of philosophical science?
Without the genuine philosophical science of absolute idealism, which is the fountainhead of the rational conception of exact historiography and world history (as universal history), all psychology and biography collapse into imaginative literature: The world historical roots of Hegel’s Science of Logic and the Pure Hegelian philosophical science of absolute idealism, are discovered in the Phenomenology of the Spirit. The Pure Hegelian conception of the rational development of the Science of Logic in the exact historiography of world history as the genuine philosophical science of absolute idealism is the aim of exact philology and hermeneutics: The exact philological and hermeneutical conception of the rational development of the Science of Logic in the exact historiography of world history as the authentic philosophical science of absolute idealism, first requires the rational notion of the genuine Hegel of Pure Hegelianism.
From whence comes the rational conception of the genuine Hegel of Pure Hegelianism? The authentic Hegel of Pure Hegelianism is the result of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the philosophical science of absolute idealism, as discovered in the Phenomenology of the Spirit, the Science of Logic, the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline and the Philosophy of Right. The exact philological and hermeneutical conception of the rational development of the Science of Logic from the Phenomenology of the Spirit, in the exact historiography of world history as the authentic philosophical science of absolute idealism, results from the rational notion of the genuine Hegel of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the Pure Hegelian philosophical science of absolute idealism, as discovered in the Phenomenology of the Spirit, the Science of Logic, the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline and the Philosophy of Right. Therefore, the exact philological and hermeneutical conception of the rational development of the Science of Logic from the Phenomenology of the Spirit, in the exact historiography of world history as the authentic philosophical science of absolute idealism, results from the phenomenological, scientific, and encyclopaedic sublation of the genuine Hegel of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the Pure Hegelian philosophical science of absolute idealism, as discovered in the Philosophy of Right. Therefore, the exact philological and hermeneutical conception of the rational development of the Science of Logic from the Phenomenology of the Spirit, in the exact historiography of world history as the authentic philosophical science of absolute idealism, is the result of the Pure Hegelianism of the Philosophy of Right. Pure Hegelianism is therefore the fountainhead of the exact philological and hermeneutical conception of the rational development of the Science of Logic from the Phenomenology of the Spirit, in the exact historiography of world history as the authentic philosophical science of absolute idealism. The sublation of Kant and Hegel is precisely the phenomenological, scientific, and encyclopaedic sublation which results in the Pure Hegelianism of the Philosophy of Right:
“The speculative of Hegel is also clear; it is what explanatorily sublates all things in the unity of God; or, in general, that is speculative, that sublates a many into one (or vice versa). A speculative philosophy, consequently, must be a chain of mutually sublating counterparts.”⁷
Without the Pure Hegelian conception of the exact philological and hermeneutical notion of the rational development of the Science of Logic from the Phenomenology of the Spirit (as a chain of mutually sublating counterparts of speculative philosophy), in the exact historiography of world history as the authentic philosophical science of absolute idealism, all interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy are doomed to extinction on the dunghill of the world, as a vanishing phase of universal history: This at least is the verdict of American Idealism in the world of today.
“Reflective understanding took possession of philosophy … this turn taken by cognition, which appears as a loss and retrograde step, is based on something more profound on which rests the elevation of reason into the loftier spirit of modern philosophy. The basis of that universally held conception is, namely, to be sought in the insight into the necessary conflict of the determinations of the understanding with themselves. The reflection already referred to is this, to transcend the concrete immediate object and to determine it and separate it. But equally it must transcend these its separating determinations and straightway connect them. It is at the stage of this connecting of the determinations that their conflict emerges. This connecting activity of reflection belongs in itself to reason and the rising above those determinations which attains to an insight into their conflict is the great negative step towards the true Notion of reason. But the insight, when not thorough–going, commits the mistake of thinking that it is reason which is in contradiction with itself; it does not recognize that the contradiction is precisely the rising of reason above the limitations of the understanding and the resolving of them. Cognition, instead of taking from this stage the final step into the heights, has fled from the unsatisfactoriness of the categories of the understanding to sensuous existence, imagining that in this it possesses what is solid and self–consistent. But on the other hand, since this knowledge is self–confessedly knowledge only of appearances, the unsatisfactoriness of the latter is admitted, but at the same time presupposed: As much as to say that admittedly, we have no proper knowledge of things–in–themselves but we do have a proper knowledge of them within the sphere of appearances, as if, so to speak, only the kind of objects were different, and one kind, namely things–in–themselves, did not fall within the scope of our knowledge but the other kind did, phenomena did.”⁸
Thanks to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia, this selfsame doctrine of the Science of Logic exemplifies a much greater, richer and all–encompassing (systematic) significance in the Rechtsphilosophie:
“It is as particular entities that states enter into relations with one another. Hence their relations are on the largest scale a maelstrom of external contingency and the inner particularity of passions, private interests and selfish ends, abilities and virtues, vices, force, and wrong. All these whirl together, and in their vortex the ethical whole itself, the autonomy of the state, is exposed to contingency. The principles of the national minds are wholly restricted on account of their particularity, for it is in this particularity that, as existent individuals, they have their objective actuality and their self-consciousness. Their deeds and destinies in their [216] reciprocal relations to one another are the dialectic of the finitude of these minds, and out of it arises the universal mind, the mind of the world, free from all restriction, producing itself as that which exercises its right — and its right is the highest right of all — over these finite minds in the ‘history of the world which is the world’s court of judgement’ … The concrete Ideas, the minds of the nations, have their truth and their destiny in the concrete Idea which is absolute universality, i.e., in the world mind. Around its throne they stand as the executors of its actualization and as signs and ornaments of its grandeur. As mind, it is nothing but its active movement towards absolute knowledge of itself and therefore towards freeing its consciousness from the form of natural immediacy and so coming to itself … Mind and its world are thus both alike lost and plunged in the infinite grief of that fate for which a people, the Jewish people, was held in readiness. Mind is here pressed back upon itself in the extreme of its absolute negativity. This is the absolute turning point; mind rises out of this situation and grasps the infinite positivity of this its inward character, i.e., it grasps the principle of the unity of the divine nature and the human, the reconciliation of objective truth and freedom as the truth and freedom appearing within self–consciousness and subjectivity, a reconciliation with the fulfilment of which the principle of the north, the principle of the Germanic peoples, has been entrusted … These two realms stand distinguished from one another though at the same time they are rooted in a single unity and Idea. Here their distinction is intensified to absolute opposition and a stern struggle ensues in the course of which the realm of mind lowers the place of its heaven to an earthly here and now, to a common worldliness of fact and idea. The mundane realm, on the other hand, builds up its abstract independence into thought and the principle of rational being and knowing, i.e., into the rationality of right and law. In this way their opposition implicitly loses its marrow and disappears. The realm of fact has discarded its barbarity and unrighteous caprice, while the realm of truth has abandoned the world of beyond and its arbitrary force, so that the true reconciliation which discloses the state as the image and actuality of reason has become objective. In the state, self–consciousness [223] finds in an organic development the actuality of its substantive knowing and willing; in religion, it finds the feeling and the representation of this its own truth as an ideal essentiality; while in philosophic science, it finds the free comprehension and knowledge of this truth as one and the same in its mutually complementary manifestations, i.e., in the state, in nature, and in the ideal world.”⁹
What is essential, therefore, in the rational Hegelian (systematic) reading of the Science of Logic, from the first and second editions, is the General Notion of Logic, which leads to the universal tripartite (dialectical) division of logic in the name of philosophical science: The rational conception of dialectical logic involves the speculative unfolding of the spiritual universe in the light of the history of philosophy, and therefore the speculative notion of the spiritual conception of philosophical science, in the rationality of the pure Hegelian Idea of the Absolute Idealism of the philosophy of history in the Science of Logic, is not as comprehensive (systematic) as conceived world historically in the Weltgeist, via the Encyclopaedia and the Rechtsphilosophie:
“Former metaphysics … consequently incurred the just reproach of having employed these forms uncritically without a preliminary investigation as to whether and how they were capable of being determinations of the thing–in–itself.”•
The pure Hegelian distinction between the “former metaphysics” of Western civilization, and the genuine Hegelianism found in the great works, is therefore discovered speculatively (world historically) as the rational conception of Hegel’s critique of the Kantian philosophy as modern European sophistry: The pure Hegelian conception of the “former metaphysics” of Western civilization, in the philosophical science of genuine Hegelianism, is therefore inscribed speculatively within Hegel’s rational (anti–Kantian) notion of world historical criticism.
George Di Giovanni, by keeping the discussion of Hegel’s Logic on the purely literary plane, avoids the political and economic question of the rôle of Kantianism in the contagion of modern European irrationalism an the collapse of European modernity, — which is essential to the rational interpretation of genuine Hegelianism in the world of today: There is no question therefore of whether or not Kant is a sophist, whether or not Kantianism is sophistry. Di Giovanni therefore entirely misses the world historical dimensions of Hegel’s Logic, which is the backbone of the Hegelian system, especially the Rechtsphilosophie, and which rationally evolved from out of the Phenomenology’s doctrine of science, — which means that his Kantian interpretation is incapable of correctly inscribing Hegelianism within the universal history of European modernity and Western philosophy. The cause of this monstrous error of 20th century sophistical Hegel philology, is easy to discover: George Di Giovanni suffers profoundly from the mental flabbiness of modern European unreason, the sophistical disease of subjectivism, relativism and irrationalism, — therefore he is in good company with the careerists and opportunists of the Québécocracy. “The Logic is absolute science … with something always being lost in translation.”¹⁰ For this reason Di Giovanni’s translation of Hegel’s Science of Logic is suspect, and will undoubtedly be applied to the arena of politics and economics, and be used as an ideological weapon against Americanism by the last remnants of modern unreason, especially in Canada and the United States of America, but also in the European Union and the Commonwealth.
George Di Giovanni follows in the footsteps of Charles Margrave Taylor, and therefore labors in the tradition of the New York intellectuals and the State University of New York (SUNY), to rehabilitate and salvage Kantio–Hegelianism, and to uphold the modern European divisions between conservatism and liberalism in the arena of politics and economics, inherited from the French Revolution and Napoléon Bonaparte. Wherefore? The great negative step towards the true Notion of reason is the world historical overcoming of modern European unreason in the world, as the genuine dialectical necessity of the Hegelian Logic in the supremacy of Globalism.¹¹ This is the secret of Hegel’s Science of Logic in the world of today, the result of reading Hegel in the universal light of the rational and spiritual evolution of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the philosophical science of absolute idealism, as discovered in the the Great Works of Hegel, — in the Phenomenology of the Spirit, the Science of Logic, the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline and the Philosophy of Right. Modern sophists rehabilitate Kantio–Hegelianism, in order to pervert and debase the rational distinction between superior and inferior ruling classes, — and to protect the backwards cartels, outdated monopolies and corrupt trusts of their masters, the Bonapartists: So they dig their own graves.
One last word from Hegel, albeit read in the light of rational Hegelianism, regarding the non–speculative analyses made by the modern sophists, philosophical, philological and hermeneutical or otherwise:
“In connection with the refutation of a philosophical system, I have also remarked quite in general that we must get over the distorted idea that that system has to be represented as if thoroughly false, and as if the true system stood to the false as only opposed to it … Refutation would have to come not from outside, that is, not proceed from assumptions lying outside the system and irrelevant to it. The system need only refuse to recognize those assumptions; the defect is such only for one who starts from such needs and requirements as are based on them … The nerve, therefore, of any external refutation consists solely in obstinately clinging to the opposite categories of these assumptions, for example, to the absolute self–subsistence of the thinking individual as against the form of thought which in the absolute substance is posited as identical with extension. Effective refutation must infiltrate the opponent’s stronghold and meet him on his own ground; there is no point in attacking him outside his territory and claiming jurisdiction where he is not.”¹²
For the genuine Hegel, refutation is an overcoming, a surpassing, namely a sublation: Kantio–Hegelian interpretations of Hegel’s philosophical science end in pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism, precisely because they do not enter into the genuine Hegelian system. Kantio–Hegelians refute impure Hegelianism according to their Kantian tradition of transcendental logic, precisely because they make Hegel’s Science of Logic an off–shoot of Kantianism: The transcendental refutations and interpretations of Hegelianism entirely miss the genuine Hegelian conception of dialectical logic, namely the pure Hegel’s speculative system of the philosophical science of absolute idealism. Kantio–Hegelians have therefore turned their backs upon the Weltgeist of genuine Hegelianism, — in the name of Zeitgeist.
Genuine Hegelianism in the world of today, therefore ignores the development of Hegel’s thought precisely because philosophical science avoids psychology and biography, the so–called thoughts, viewpoints, perspectives, and standpoints in Hegel’s head (regardless whether or not these are rechristened as concepts, notions, and ideas, in the tradition of Kantio–Hegelianism), but instead targets the spiritual and rational evolution of the pure Hegelian conception of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the philosophical science of absolute idealism as the Weltgeist.
The modern sophists of the Québécocracy continue to pervert and corrupt Hegelianism in the name of modern European irrationalism, in order to salvage their philosophical (sic) reputations from the charge of Marxism and communism, exactly as certain universities in England and their outdated ruling classes assist the last remnants of Kantianism and Kantio–Hegelianism, as they endeavour to mask from rational criticism their own world historical rôle in the collapse of the British Empire and European modernity.
The power struggles in the United States of America between the eastern and western establishments, the clashes within Americanism between genuine Hegelianism and Kantio–Hegelianism, are therefore inscribed within the rise of Globalism as the supremacy of American Liberty: The warfare between philosophers and sophists, scientists and idéologues in the world of today is therefore the death rattle of the last remnants of European modernity in the Americas, as the world historical sweeping–away of the corruption of Oriental despotism and Asiatic barbarism in Western politics and economics, and not therefore as the mortal corruption of modern European unreason. The modern European political and economic irrationalists are fish without water in the Western world of today.
The effort of modern sophistry to “refute” rational Hegelianism fails miserably in the face of Americanism and the rise of Global rational political and economic order in the world of today.
ENDNOTES
1. Yitzhak Y. Melamed & Peter Thielke, “Hegelianism,” New Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Game Theory to Lysenkoism, vol. 3, Maryanne Cline Horowitz, editor in chief, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005, 975–977; 977.
See: “Kant inaugurated a Copernican revolution in philosophy, which claimed that the subject doing the knowing constitutes, to a considerable extent, the object; i.e., that knowledge is in part constituted by a priori or transcendental factors (contributed by the mind itself), which the mind imposes upon the data of experience. Far from being a description of an external reality, knowledge is, to Kant, the product of the knowing subject. When the data are those of sense experience, the transcendental (mental) apparatus constitutes man’s experience or his science, or makes it to be such.”
Herman Jean de Vleeschauwer (Herman Jan de Vleeschauwer, 1899–1977/1986?), “Kantianism,” Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropædia, 15th edition, vol. 22, Chicago, The University Press, 1991, 495–499; 495. See: Herman Jan de Vleeschauwer, “Kants invloed op Duitschlands geest,” Jong Dietschland, 4.32(1930): 500–501; Herman Jan de Vleeschauwer, “De Joodsche godsdienst–philosophie der laatste jaren,” Jong Dietschland, 4.32(1930): 823–825; Herman Jan de Vleeschauwer, “Hegel in de laatste eeuw,” Jong Dietschland, 5.46(1931): 741–744; Herman Jean de Vleeschauwer, La déduction transcendantale dans l’oeuvre de Kant,Antwerpen/Paris/‘S–Gravenhage, De Sikkel–Édouard Champion–Martinus Nijhoff, 1934–1937; Herman Jean de Vleeschauwer, L’évolution de la pensée Kantienne: L’histoire d’une doctrine (Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1939; Herman Jean de Vleeschauwer, The Development of Kantian Thought, Edinburgh/London, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962.
See: Charles W. Mills, “Kant’s Untermenschen,” Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, Andrew Valls, editor, Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press, 2005, 169–193.
2. Anonymous, “Karl Rosenkranz: The Life of Hegel,” The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, 20.4(October, 1848): 561–591; 575–586.
3. Leo Rauch, editor and translator, “Translator’s Introduction: Note on the Text and Translation,” Introduction to the Philosophy of History, With Selections From the Philosophy of Right, G.W.F. Hegel, Indianapolis, Indiana, Hackett Publishing Company, 1988, vii–xiii; viii–xi. [Italics added]
See: “[Hegel] is cloaked in a dense and obscure language that is virtually impenetrable to the uninitiated.”
John W. Burbidge, The Logic of Hegel’s Logic: An Introduction, Peterborough, Ontario, Broadview Press, 2006, 12.
4. George Di Giovanni, editor and translator, “Introduction,” The Science of Logic, G.W.F. Hegel; Michael Baur, General editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, xi–lxii; xi.
5. Di Giovanni, Ibidem, xi–lxii; lxii.
6. Ibidem, xi–lxii; xx–lxii.
See: “My claim is that the Logic is to be read as still in line with Kant’s Transcendental Logic, though without being ‘transcendental’ in Kant’s sense … Hegel still seems to think of dialectic in a negative, basically still Kantian sense, as a movement that irrupts from within finite thought revealing the contradictory nature of its determinations when these are held absolutely apart … Logic thus loses whatever vestige of a role it might still have had as an introduction to the system, and regains instead, if one just ignores the ‘thing–in–itself’ of Kant, a function not unlike that of the latter’s Transcendental Logic … On the face of it, Hegel’s Logic has all the markings of a classical, pre–critical metaphysics. But this is a false impression, and our first task is to understand in what sense it in fact still falls within the compass of Kant’s critical project … As Hegel takes us systematically across the content of his Logic, he tacitly assumes and makes use of a psychological model which he borrows from Kant and Fichte and which these had borrowed in turn from a long–standing scholastic tradition … In a way, Hegel’s point is still a Kantian one. It is only ideally that full intelligibility is attained, the kind of intelligibility, to put it in more phenomenological terms, that would satisfy reason … I have also interpreted Hegel’s Logic in a transcendental spirit. But one must remember that, for one thing, Hegel presents the Logic as itself a form of life, the perfect instance of self–becoming in which nature finds intelligent completion; and, for another, that there is no question of applying the categories to a material external to them, as is the case for Kant’s categories … the Logic is absolute science only in the sense that it is capable of recognizing itself (and thus containing its limitation even as logic) as an analog of rationality as such — a rationality of which there can be other analogs, all of them capable of communicating across cultures and across times precisely because they are the analogs of one rationality — but at a distance as it were, with something always being lost in translation. I would like to take the claim in this sense, but it is not at all clear that this was Hegel’s intent.”
George Di Giovanni, editor and translator, “Introduction,” The Science of Logic, G.W.F. Hegel; Michael Baur, General editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, xi–lxii; xi–xx–xxii–xxvii–xxxvi–xlix–lxii. [Italics added]
Remark: “Our current dating of texts is as trustworthy as historical methods will allow, and it provides us with a solid basis for a convincing reconstruction of the evolution of Hegel’s thought to which the texts themselves give witness” (Di Giovanni, Ibidem, xv): What George Di Giovanni means by the “evolution of Hegel’s thought” is the theory of thought according to impure Hegelianism, namely “development and concepts” as extracted from the juvenilia, manuscripts, letters, addenda, transcripts, articles, books, and so forth. From this pile of Hegelography there miraculously emerges the sophistical Hegel of Kantio–Hegelianism, — as Minerva from the brain of Jupiter: What the professor means by “historical methods” is undoubtedly the techniques of Kantio–Hegelian historical scholarship (sic) which makes exact historiography into standpoints, outlooks and perspectives, — inspired by the tradition of the modern European unreason of impure Hegelianism.
The spiritual significance of the rational development of Pure Hegelianism, — the speculative logical and dialectical system of the philosophical science of absolute idealism, — is a very high conception, as opposed to what Kantio–Hegelians name the “evolution of Hegel’s thought.” We can name the rational development of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the philosophical science of absolute idealism as the “evolution of Hegel’s thought,” but only so long as the spiritual significance involves Pure Hegelianism: But then the Kantio–Hegelian meaning is irrevocably changed so that the evolution of thought no longer signifies the collapse of ideation into a heap of sophistry, but rather entails the spiritual uplifting of self–determining cognition, — as the rise of the superior ruling class of Globalism (das Herrschende).
The “evolution of Hegel’s thought” in the works of Kantio–Hegelianism is therefore absolutely opposed to the rational development of the speculative logical and dialectical system of the philosophical science of the absolute idealism of Pure Hegelianism. The Kantio–Hegelian version of Hegel’s thought is therefore a delusion of modern European irrationalism, whose absolute opposition to genuine Hegelianism constitutes a vanishing phase of world history.
7. Friedrich Carl Albert Schwegler (1819–1857), Handbook of the History of Philosophy, 2nd edition, translated and annotated by James Hutchison Stirling, Edinburgh, Edmondston & Douglas, 1868, 401. [1848]
8. Hegel, “Introduction: General Notion of Logic,” Hegel’s Science of Logic, Arnold Vincent Miller, translator & John Niemeyer Findlay, Forward, New York, The Humanities Press, 1976, 59–64; 46. [1969] [Italics added]
9. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Thomas Malcolm Knox, editor and translator, notes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1978, §340/215–216, §352/218, §358/222, §360/222–223. [1942/1952]
• Hegel, “Introduction: General Division of Logic,” Hegel’s Science of Logic, Arnold Vincent Miller (1899–1991), translator & John Niemeyer Findlay, Foreward, New York, The Humanities Press, 1976, 43–64; 59–64; 64–64. [1969]
10. George Di Giovanni, editor and translator, “Introduction,” The Science of Logic, G.W.F. Hegel; Michael Baur, General editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, xi–lxii; lxii.
11. See also: “To have called attention to this uncritical procedure has been the infinite merit of the Kantian philosophy, and in so doing to have [12.244] given the impetus to the restoration of logic and dialectic understood as the examination of thought determinations in and for themselves.”
Hegel, “The Absolute Idea,” The Science of Logic, George Di Giovanni, editor and translator, Introduction; Michael Baur, General editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 735–753; 743.
See finally: “It must be regarded as a step of infinite importance that dialectic is once more recognized as necessary to reason, although the result to be drawn from it must be the opposite of that arrived at by Kant.”
Hegel, “The Absolute Idea,” Hegel’s Science of Logic, Arnold Vincent Miller (1899–1991), translator & John Niemeyer Findlay, Foreward, New York, The Humanities Press, 1976, 824–844; 831. [1969]
Remark: “The result to be drawn from it” : Here the word “it” signifies “a step of infinite importance,” while the statement that “dialectic is once more recognized as necessary to reason” refers to the genuine philosophical science of Hegelianism, and not the philosophical sophistry of Kant.
The step of infinite importance is Hegel’s dialectical sublation of the idealism of the idealistic philosophies of Judaeo–Christian civilization and Western humanity, but not the so–called subjective idealism of Kant, rather the rational form of idealism as found in Descartes, Spinoza and Berkeley, — which Kant corrupted in his aesthetic, resultant from his sophistical distinction between phenomena and noumena. From the world historical heights of the Rechtsphilosophie, and after the sublation of the Science of Logic performed in the Encyclopaedia, Hegel means that what Kant names as idealism is the “opposite,” and is therefore diametrically opposed to the genuine idealism of the Pure Hegelian philosophy, as a vanishing phase of world history.
Wherefore? “The Kantian philosophy thus serves as a cushion for intellectual indolence which soothes itself with the conviction that everything is already proved and settled.”
Hegel, “Introduction: General Division of Logic,” Hegel’s Science of Logic, Arnold Vincent Miller, translator & John Niemeyer Findlay, forward, New York, The Humanities Press, 1976, 62. [1969]
See: Hegel, “Einleitung: Allgemeine Eintheilung der Logik,” Wissenschaft der Logik: Die objektive Logik, Erster Band, Zweite Ausgabe, Stuttgart und Tübingen, J.F. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1832, 26–34; 29–30. [1812]
Remark: According to Hegel, the only merit of the Kantian philosophy (𝔡𝔦𝔢 𝔎𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔥𝔢 𝔓𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔬𝔰𝔬𝔭𝔥𝔦𝔢) is that Kantianism is popular and influential in Germany: Kant’s philosophy has merit, according to Hegel, as a passing–phase of world history. Hegel therefore refers to the Kantian philosophy in the Science of Logic because he discusses important questions of logic, which he opposes to the transcendental logic of Kant. Kantian results (𝔡𝔢𝔫 𝔎𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔫ℜ𝔢𝔰𝔲𝔩𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔢n), which in Kant’s eyes are proved, lead to skepticism of the absolute truth, — which he likewise considers as demonstrated by his theory of Tranzsendentalphilosophie. Kantian philosophy ignores such niceties and merely takes Kant’s skepticism for granted without any inquiry: The epigones ignore their precise affiliation to Kant’s theories. The skeptical meaning of Kantian theory must be found in Kant’s work, not in his epigones, who use Kantianism as an excuse for their mental flabbiness (intellectual indolence). In other words, the Kantian philosophy of Hegel’s time is sophistry (intellectual indolence and barren and arid complacency). Hegel complains that it is difficult to argue with Kantian sophists who are ignorant of Kant’s arguments: “The exposition which precedes the [Kantian] result … is excised beforehand.” Once Hegel’s enemies are uncovered as Kantians, the refutation of their sophistry comes easily: “[Their] result is derived and … [the exposition] constitutes [Kant’s theory of] philosophical cognition.” Thus, in returning to the roots of Kant’s exposition, the epigones will discover they are surpassed in world history: In the eyes of the genuine Hegel, the meaning of whose statements are not corrupted by impure Hegelianism, those Kantian philosophers who refuse to recognize that their time is come, they are become modern sophists.
12. Hegel, “The Science of Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of the Concept: Of the Concept in General,” The Science of Logic, George Di Giovanni, editor and translator, introduction, Michael Baur, general editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 507–753 & 508–527; 511–512–512.
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