Hegel-Studien Band 48: 2015

Abstracts Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer: Autonome Vernunft und Normbefolgung des Verstandes Wie Hegel eine Unterscheidung Kants präzisiert H.s central criticism of Kant's philosophy urges us to separate the level of understanding or rationality ("Verstand") from the level of (speculative) reason ("Vernunft"). The first is a faculty to follow explicit rules properly and to comply with implicitly given norms, the second is active autonomy in developing the rules and norms. This claim might be astounding since Kant himself seems to have stressed the distinction. But it was H. who has drawn the necessary consequences, for example that it is logically impossible to determine laws autonomously for oneself because we need a frame of a we-group or community and a communal practice or institution for the very possibility of having well-determined rules at all. The conceptual relation between norms of proper conduct and forms of cooperation shows up paradigmatically in the fact that I can sing in a choir correctly only together with others. Moreover, only after I can show that I can participate and judge the fulfilment of the norms, my proposals to change such forms of action and practices will count in a community. This holds as well for any attempt to make rules explicit by articulating implicit norms that already govern our (cooperative) actions implicitly – which is a prerequisite for conscious changes of general laws that presuppose at least some forms of comments on pregiven norms. All this holds for the dimensions of the (epistemic) True in diverse areas of judgements and inference as well as for dimensions of the (legal or moral) Good, in evaluating actions or for (aesthetic) Beauty and the corresponding attitudes and reactions. Georg Sans Sj: Weisen der Welterschliessung Zur Rolle des Chemismus in Hegels subjektiver Logik The second section of H.s Subjective Logic deals with the "objectivity" of the concept. It is explained through the categories of mechanism, chemism, and teleology. For H., in contrast to Kant, the alternative between mechanism and teleology is incomplete. As the case of chemism shows, it is not necessary to suppose internal finality in order to conceive of objects which determine themselves according to their concepts. After highlighting the distinction between physical bodies and chemical substances, I discuss H.s claim that chemical processes can be represented in inferential form, namely as a circle of three syllogisms. The syllogistic presentation provides evidence of the conceptual structure behind the chemical phenomena, as exemplified in particular by elective affinities. H.s treatment of chemism, however, is not limited to the realm of chemistry but concerns also spiritual relations like friendship and love. These fields of application prove chemism to be a third way, besides mechanism and teleology, of understanding objective wholes. Nadine Mooren/Tim Roje K: Hegels Begriff der "Wissenschaft" H.s view of the relation between philosophical and non-philosophical sciences has been neglected in debates that concentrate on the relation of common sense and philosophy. Based on this diagnosis the article aims to explicate H.s understanding of non-philosophical sciences as well as their relation to his speculative philosophy. In addition, the article demonstrates that in H.s view philosophy and non-philosophical sciences are not competing or in conflict with each other. Rather, he conceives of them as compatible. After specifying the scope of our research (1.) and presenting a systematic overview of relevant forms of Weltbezug in H. (2.), we analyze four central relations between speculative philosophy and non-philosophical sciences through a close-reading (3.). The final section sketches the systematic implications of our reading (4.).