System

Abstract

A hint of Hegel’s answer to the question ‘What are the consequences of a non-foundational approach?’ is to be found in his proposal to ‘undertake a description of knowledge as it appears, a presentation of knowledge as a phenomenon’ (PG.MM.72/B.135). If knowledge is accepted as a going concern, then one proceeds straightaway to the problem in hand. Knowledge itself is not examined since, as we have seen in Hegel’s description of the critical method, we cannot employ an external yardstick without the circularity of ‘knowing before you know’. Instead, knowledge is to be described as it appears. The phenomenologist ‘makes no contributions’, simply surrendering to the ‘effort of the concept’ (Anstrengung des Begriff).

Our knowledge forms an enormous system. And only within this system has a particular bit the value we give it. (Wittgenstein, OC.410)