New School for Social Research
Department Member, Philosophy
University of Essex, Department of Philosophy
Goethe Universitaet Frankfurt am Main, Philosophy
University of Toronto, Philosophy
Thesis Title: The Life of the Concept: Freedom and Form in Hegel's Subjective Logic
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J.M. Bernstein
Richard Bernstein Frederick Neuhouser |
About
AOS: Kant, Hegel, German Idealism
AOC: History of Modern Philosophy (Early and Late, including 19th Century), 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Aesthetics, Feminist Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy
Dissertation Abstract:
It is well known that Hegel consistently employs metaphors of life and aliveness to describe his own philosophy throughout his corpus, while the views of his opponents are characterized by descriptions of death, abstraction, fixity, and emptiness. What is less well known is whether or not these rhetorical flourishes contribute conceptually and systematically to Hegel’s thought, particularly beyond his early writings, and if so, how such contributions fit with many of the more familiar concepts in his mature system. My dissertation argues that the concept of life is in fact central not only for grasping how Hegel understands the activity of the Concept (der Begriff) or conceptual activity as a whole, but in particular, for understanding the idea of a Subjective Logic, the final book and conclusion to the Science of Logic and in many ways the key to his philosophy. Through careful engagements with Kant’s Critiques and Hegel’s texts from his Jena period onwards, I establish the precise connection between life, self-consciousness, and conceptual activity, arguing that Hegel’s conception of freedom as self-determination must be understood as a kind of living organization, one that cannot be grasped apart from the form characteristic of living things. By drawing an intrinsic connection between living and conceptual form, my aim is to demonstrate not only how Hegelian logic offers an alternative to abstract and instrumental modes of thinking, but further, that it presents a novel conception of freedom that cannot be understood except in its connection to life.
