Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations and citations
- Chapter 1 Substance, subject, system: the justification of science in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
- Chapter 2 “Science of the phenomenology of spirit”: Hegel's program and its implementation
- Chapter 3 The Phenomenology of Spirit as a “transcendentalistic” argument for a monistic ontology
- Chapter 4 Sense-certainty and the “this-such”
- Chapter 5 From desire to recognition: Hegel's account of human sociality
- Chapter 6 “Reason … apprehended irrationally”: Hegel's critique of Observing Reason
- Chapter 7 What is a “shape of spirit”?
- Chapter 8 Ethical life, morality, and the role of spirit in the Phenomenology of Spirit
- Chapter 9 Self-completing alienation: Hegel's argument for transparent conditions of free agency
- Chapter 10 Practical reason and spirit in Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit
- Chapter 11 Religion and demythologization in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
- Chapter 12 The “logic of experience” as “absolute knowledge” in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 6 - “Reason … apprehended irrationally”: Hegel's critique of Observing Reason
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations and citations
- Chapter 1 Substance, subject, system: the justification of science in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
- Chapter 2 “Science of the phenomenology of spirit”: Hegel's program and its implementation
- Chapter 3 The Phenomenology of Spirit as a “transcendentalistic” argument for a monistic ontology
- Chapter 4 Sense-certainty and the “this-such”
- Chapter 5 From desire to recognition: Hegel's account of human sociality
- Chapter 6 “Reason … apprehended irrationally”: Hegel's critique of Observing Reason
- Chapter 7 What is a “shape of spirit”?
- Chapter 8 Ethical life, morality, and the role of spirit in the Phenomenology of Spirit
- Chapter 9 Self-completing alienation: Hegel's argument for transparent conditions of free agency
- Chapter 10 Practical reason and spirit in Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit
- Chapter 11 Religion and demythologization in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
- Chapter 12 The “logic of experience” as “absolute knowledge” in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Die Frage könnte eigentlich so gestellt werden: Wie hängt, was uns wichtig ist, von dem ab, was physisch möglich ist?
(Ludwig Wittgenstein)“Observing Reason” is one of the longest sections of the Phenomenology of Spirit. It is, for instance, twice as long as the much-noted part dedicated to self-consciousness. Yet it is one of the least commented, interpreted, and productively appropriated passages of this seminal work. There are two clusters of reasons that can explain this relative disregard: First, in the section on “Observing Reason” Hegel deals with scientific theories and accounts in the philosophy of nature of his times. These are, at least at first sight, remote from both the actual overarching topic of the Phenomenology and from the model of a socially and historically oriented theory of the mental that is attractive from today's perspective. The problems Hegel deals with here not only lie outside the interests of most interpreters of the Phenomenology. They refer to questions and theories that are unfamiliar to us. It would seem that in this section Hegel's general philosophical program in the Phenomenology can find only sparse anchorage in the subject matter being investigated. Interpreters interested in the systematic sustainability of the entire work tend to look to other parts of the book for arguments in favor of Hegel's attempt to prove the necessity of the sequence of all our epistemic projects on the route to Absolute Knowing.
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- Information
- Hegel's Phenomenology of SpiritA Critical Guide, pp. 91 - 111Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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