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Hegel and McDowell on the “Unboundedness of the Conceptual”

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Part of the book series: Studies in German Idealism ((SIGI,volume 20))

Abstract

In his philosophical proposal, McDowell draws on theoretical elements that can be found in Hegel’s thought. The thesis of the “unboundedness of the conceptual” (UC) is one of the central theoretical aspects (if not the central theoretical aspect) that McDowell claims to share with Hegel. In this chapter, I claim that the Hegelian version of UC has a specific ontological and metaphysical import that implies an excess with respect to McDowell’s “therapeutic” attitude. This excess in Hegel’s version of UC does not simply amount to a meta-philosophical difference. Rather, it has decisive theoretical consequences, which can be recognised as further having repercussions on other theoretical aspects shared by McDowell and Hegel. In Sect. 8.1, I analyse McDowell’s version of UC. In Sect. 8.2, I discuss the form UC assumes in Hegel’s thought. Here I show that, unlike McDowell, Hegel defends a more robust form of conceptualism, which is the result of a (partly) different argumentative framework. Unlike McDowell, the objects of the world are not something immediate or a-conceptual, but are always already intrinsically ontologically mediated in a conceptual way, insofar as they are determined starting from the holistic articulation of the Concept. In Sect. 8.3, I show the repercussions of these two interpretations of UC on other theoretical claims that can be ascribed both to McDowell and Hegel, such as α) the denial that an immediate givenness can count as a justification for a belief, β) the conceptuality of sensible experience, γ) a non-subjectivistic account of reason, δ) the direct openness to the world.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    RRBS, 269. See also HMG, 76. For a valuable reconstruction of McDowell’s Hegelianism, see Corti (2014).

  2. 2.

    In this paper I will focus merely on this dimension of McDowell’s project.

  3. 3.

    This label derives, as it is known, from the title of Chap. 2 of MAW.

  4. 4.

    See MAW, 44, and, more in general, his interpretation of Hegel in SDSEC, HIRK, OPP, AIES, and HMG.

  5. 5.

    MAW, 26.

  6. 6.

    McDowell attributes the same logical form to both sensible intuition and judgments. To elucidate this idea, McDowell quotes the following passage from Kant’s Deduction A79/B104-5: “The same function which gives unity to the various representations in a judgment also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition”—see HIRK, 70; SDSEC, 94–96; AIES, 148; RPS: 276; HMG, 79; RC, 414; RH2, 28. On the propositionality of perceptual content see, for example, LFI, 35 and IR, 44.

  7. 7.

    MAW, 26.

  8. 8.

    MAW, 26. See also MAW, 77: “According to the picture I have been recommending, our sensibility yields states and occurrences with conceptual content. That enables us to see an experiencing subject as open to facts. The conceptual sphere does not exclude the world we experience. To put it another way: what we experience is not external to the realm of the kind of intelligibility that is proper to meaning.”

  9. 9.

    See also CCP, 143 and 144, where McDowell affirms that “the world in itself is indeed structured by the form of judgment” and that “[t]he form of thought is already just as such the form of the world,” although he maintains that “we should not take it to express ‘a grand ontological or metaphysical vision’, to use Ayers’s words.” Other references can be found in Echeverri (2011, 364). For readings that highlight (often with critical purposes) the Tractarian element in McDowell’s ontology, see Dodd (1995), Suhm , Wagemann , Wessels (2000), Ayers (2004), Wright (2002), Putnam (2002), Travis (2008), Echeverri (2011).

  10. 10.

    Already in MAW there are assertions which seem to exclude the complete reduction of the world to a conceptually and propositionally structured world. McDowell refers to a neo-Fregean framework by considering objects in themselves as non-conceptual (the realm of reference), but manifesting themselves in the conceptual sphere of thought by figuring in the realm of sense (see MAW, 104–107, 179–180; EW, 93–95). This neo-Fregean framework becomes more evident after the redefinition of McDowell’s position about the propositionality of perceptual content in 2008—see below, 1b), and RTL. On the ambiguity of relation between the realm of reference and the realm of sense in McDowell, see Suhm , Wagemann , Wessels (2000), Gaskin (2006, in particular 169ff.—see for example 172, fn. 16), and Echeverri (2011).

  11. 11.

    See, among others, Collins (1998), Willaschek (2000b), Ayers (2004), Engel (2001), Friedman (2002).

  12. 12.

    See, for instance, MAW, 26–27, 39–40; LFI, 42–43; CCP, 141ff.; IR, 62; RFS, 273–274. McDowell endorses a sort of idealism only insofar it is understood as identical with the common sense realism—see CCP,141 and MAW, 44–45.

  13. 13.

    The essay in which McDowell explicitly modifies his conception is AMG. In this essay (see AMG, 3) McDowell rejects: (1) the thesis of the propositionality of perceptual content; (2) the thesis according to which the content of experience should include everything experience allows to know non-inferentially.

  14. 14.

    AMG, 11. See also RTL, 260.

  15. 15.

    See AMG, 6.

  16. 16.

    See AMG, 7. The “carving out” seems to be the transformation of the “taking experience at face value.” Against this new position has been raised the charge of a latent scheme-content dualism—see Echeverri (2011) and Corti (2012).

  17. 17.

    RTL, 259. See also RTL, 260: “Certainly pieces of meat are not thinkables: not Gedanken or constituents of Gedanken. They belong on the left-hand side of Frege’s line. But that does not put them beyond the reach of thinking. Just so, my condition does not put them beyond the reach of reason.”

  18. 18.

    Gaskin notices that McDowell, unlike Frege, places concepts in the realm of the sense, not in the realm of reference (though, according to Gaskin , Frege fails “to link up objects and concepts in propositionally structured combinations at the level of reference”—Gaskin (2006, 175 fn. 25). For an interesting reading of Hegel’s position starting from the Fregean notions of sense and reference, see the draft of Brandom’s book A Spirit of Trust, Chap. 10.

  19. 19.

    I refer here to two famous criticisms by Collins (1998, 379) and Ayers (2004, 251, fn. 23). For a reply by McDowell, see in particular CCP, 134ff.

  20. 20.

    This must not necessarily be explicit. Moreover, this position does not imply a subjective constructivism: the result of the fact that concepts are operative in experience has an objective purport. As a matter of fact, McDowell conceives of conceptual content as world dependent.

  21. 21.

    LFI, 43. On the Rortyan origin of this image see Gaskin (2006, 224).

  22. 22.

    In some passages, McDowell seems to hold (in a very Kantian way) that the presence of conceptual capacities that belong to spontaneity in receptivity is sufficient for the subject’s self-ascription of knowledge of the world as it is itself—see, for example, MAW, 26, 58, 67, and LFI, 36 and 39, SDSEC, 103, AEIS, 148ff. A necessary integration of this thesis is provided by McDowell’s theory of the direct access to reality and by his disjunctive theory of perception.

  23. 23.

    See SL M, 577. See also EL, § 159, 233–235.

  24. 24.

    This will imply a strong shift in the vocabulary of this section with respect to the former one. Unfortunately, it is not possible here to translate the Hegelian vocabulary into a more contemporary set of terms.

  25. 25.

    See SL M, 601. See also SL M, 596.

  26. 26.

    SL M, 596. I have modified Miller’s translation by using “Concept” instead of “Notion” for the German word “Begriff.”

  27. 27.

    SL M, 605. See also EL, § 160A, 236: “Certainly the Concept must be considered as a form, but it is a form that is infinite and creative, one that both encloses the plenitude of all content within itself, and at the same time releases it from itself.”

  28. 28.

    SL M, 587. The claim of a scientific “deduction” of reality from the Concept implies that the particularization and the singularization of the Concept is a necessary process. This process coincides with the development of both rationality and the world as it is in itself.

  29. 29.

    See SL M, 608: “The Concept, in determining or differentiating itself, is negatively directed against its unity and gives itself the form of one of its ideal moments, that of being; as determinate Concept, it has a determinate being in general. This being, however, no longer has the meaning of mere immediacy, but of universality, of an immediacy that is identical with itself through absolute mediation, an immediacy that equally contains within itself the other moment, namely, essential being or reflection.” See also LL, 11.

  30. 30.

    SL M, 591–592. See also SL M, 602–603; EL, § 163A2, 241, and, above all, SL M, 758–759: “[T]he Concept as such is itself already the identity of itself and reality; for the indefinite expression ‘reality’ means in general nothing else but determinate being, and this the Concept possesses in its particularity and individuality. Similarly too, objectivity is the total Concept that out of its determinateness has withdrawn into identity with itself. In the former subjectivity the determinateness or difference of the Concept is an illusory being [Schein] that is immediately sublated and has withdrawn into being-for-self or negative unity; it is an inhering predicate. But in this objectivity the determinateness is posited as an immediate totality, as an external whole. Now the Idea has shown itself to be the Concept, liberated again into its subjectivity from the immediacy in which it is submerged in the object; to be the Concept that distinguishes itself from its objectivity, which however is no less determined by it and possesses its substantiality only in that Concept. […]. Although therefore the Idea has its reality in a material externality, this is not an abstract being subsisting on its own account over against the Concept; on the contrary, it exists only as a becoming through the negativity of indifferent being, as a simple determinateness of the Concept.”

  31. 31.

    See EL, § 24A1 and LL, 16.

  32. 32.

    For a debate on Hegel’s concept of truth, see Baldwin (1991), Stern (1993), Halbig (2002), Puntel (2005). The peculiarly Hegelian material dimension of truth is absent in McDowell.

  33. 33.

    See EL, § 159R, 233: “[B]eing has shown itself to be a moment of the Concept […].”

  34. 34.

    EL, § 166A, 245. Because of his theory of the concrete universal, Hegel can argue for a theory according to which particular objects (traditionally considered as non-conceptual) have a conceptual structure—see Wartenberg (1993)—and are manifestations of the Concept—see Halbig (2009a, 45). In this sense, Hegel seems to radicalize the Fregean framework within which McDowell develops his theory—not because McDowell would not agree with the possibility for one to conceptually refer to singular objects, but because ontological constitution of the singular objects seems to remain to a certain extent beyond the Fregean realm of sense (even though McDowell is reluctant to trace lines of this sort). Referring to this feature of Hegel’s position, some authors have highlighted an essentialistic tendency—see Quante (2011, 23, 29, 41, 59, 122, 162, 282, 329) Halbig (2002), Stern (2009) and Knappik (2016).

  35. 35.

    See LL, 15, 182–183, 208–209 and 16: “We will see that things themselves are concepts, judgments, and syllogisms.” It must be noted that Hegel does not identify and does not reduce the determinations of the Concept, Judgment and Syllogism to the properly linguistic dimension. See for example SL M, 669: “Everything is a syllogism, a universal that through particularity is united with individuality; but it is certainly not a whole consisting of three propositions.” The idea I would like to put forward is that propositions with conceptual content can be objective only because, for Hegel, the world is ontologically structured by the movement of the Concept, Judgment and Syllogism. Let’s take, for example, the simplest form of judgment: “The rose is red.” I think that Hegel would not conceive it as a conceptual mode of presentation of a non-conceptual object (like McDowell seems to maintain). “The rose is red” is a judgment which is grounded in the conceptual ontological structure of the world—even though the conceptual is conceived by Hegel in a way which seems to exceed the discussions of the contemporary epistemology and philosophy of language. It is not possible to further discuss here the issue of the relation between natural dimension of language and ontological conceptual structure of reality in Hegel’s philosophy.

  36. 36.

    The strong conceptual reading of Hegel that I am putting forward here is not devoid of problems. Among the Hegelian theses which seem to represent a problem for it, it is possible to mention the following. (a) Universals do not exist as such in nature, which seems rather to be the place of contingency and of the singularity irreducible to rationality (see EL, § 21A; EN, § 246A and SL M, 607–608). (b) Some epistemic capacities are explicitly described by Hegel in non-conceptual terms (see, for instance, Hegel’s treatment of sensation in ES, § 400R and § 400A). (c) It seems that, in addition to a Begriff, objects have a Realität opposed to the concept itself (see, for instance, SL M, 37). It is possible to try to provisionally respond to these difficulties. a) Universals do not exist in nature in the form of “abstract universals”—the “lion” in general does not exist, only individual lions exist. Universals exist in nature as “concrete universals,” as embodied in individuals. Even though in some cases natural configurations seem to radically escape from conceptual determination, their “hybrid” or spurious status coincides exactly with their rational nature, which can be conceptually determined. b) The fact that some epistemic capacities have not an explicitly conceptual form does not mean that also their content is non-conceptual. These forms convey conceptual contents in a (still) not explicitly conceptual form. c) I don’t think that the Realität must necessarily be conceived in non-conceptual terms. It can be rather interpreted as a dimension of the way in which a concept manifest itself in the finite. This dimension is responsible for the fact that an object might correspond in a more or less adequate way to the sollen determined by its concept. For example: a particular knife does not have a non-conceptual Realität—something like its “matter”—which would be opposed to the concept of knife as “essence.” A particular knife is simply a singular and imperfect manifestation of the concept of knife. The elimination of a residual and opaque a-conceptuality of the world allows Hegel to conceive the perfection of the Idea as manifested self-identity of the Concept, in which the manifestation corresponds to the Concept (the Idea is the perfect identity of Begriff and Realität). It is possible to further object that Hegel explicitly affirms that finite things are in themselves ontologically “broken” in a concept and a Realität. Nevertheless, if the Realität were an authentically non-conceptual dimension, it would represent an opaque leftover within the self-transparent structure of the Idea. Thinking the Realität as a side of the manifestation of the Concept itself—even though, from a finite standpoint, the Realität appears to be a dimension which is “other” with respect to the Concept—seems to be functional to the internal coherence of Hegel’s project—see SL M, 759 and SL M, 49–50 for textual evidence in favour of this reading. However, these considerations are programmatic and would need a more detailed justification.

  37. 37.

    See EL, § 166A, 244–245 and EL, § 167R, 246.

  38. 38.

    See EL, § 24A2, 58–59 and EL, §§ 181–182, 256–259.

  39. 39.

    EL, § 167, 245–246. It is interesting to notice that, in order to highlight the ontological purport of these logical determinations, Hegel takes as examples objects (the plant) or states of affairs (the theft), not assertions.

  40. 40.

    See M. Bordignon’s paper in this volume.

  41. 41.

    SL M, 61: “Thus what is to be considered is the whole Concept, firstly as the Concept in the form of being, secondly, as the Concept; in the first case, the Concept is only in itself, the Concept of reality or being; in the second case, it is the Concept as such, the Concept existing for itself […].”

  42. 42.

    This is what Hegel calls thought “in its […] subjective significance”—see EL, §§ 20–23.

  43. 43.

    See ES, § 379A, 7: “Our thinking, which is propelled by the concept, here remains entirely immanent in the object, which is likewise propelled by the concept; we merely look on, as it were, at the object’s own development, not altering it by importing our subjective ideas and notions.”

  44. 44.

    On the difference between the “subjective” and “objective” dimension of thought see EL, § 24A1, 56–58.

  45. 45.

    SL M, 37.

  46. 46.

    EL, § 24A1, 56–58.

  47. 47.

    See SL M, 782–783: “Consequently though the object that is for the Concept is here also a given object, it does not enter into the subject as an object operating on it, or as an object having a constitution of its own, or as a picture thought; on the contrary, the subject converts it into a determination of the Concept. It is the Concept that is active in the object, relates itself to itself therein, and by giving its reality in the object finds truth.”

  48. 48.

    See, for example, Hegel’s critique to empirical psychology, which conceives of thought only as a particular cognitive faculty, parithetical with respect to the others—see ES, § 378A, 5–6, and ES, § 445R, 173–174.

  49. 49.

    ES, § 398A, 66.

  50. 50.

    As acknowledged by Rockmore (2002a, 135), McDowell himself recognizes the importance of experience in Hegel’s thought—see SDSEC, 85–89.

  51. 51.

    As a matter of fact, every epistemic content is for Hegel conceptual content—see LL, 185: “The concept lies at the foundation of all content” (trans. modified). I have analysed this topic in Hegel, trying not to avoid some interpretive and theoretical difficulties, in Sanguinetti (2015a) and (2015b).

  52. 52.

    See for example OPP, 189, where McDowell describes conceptual capacities as “capacities that belong to our [italics mine, FS] spontaneity.”

  53. 53.

    SL M, 586. See also EL, § 24A1, 57: “Just as thinking constitutes the substance of external things, so it is also the universal substance of what is spiritual.”; and EN, § 376A, 444–445: “The forms [Die Gestalten, FS] which Nature wears are only forms of the Concept, although in the element of externality; it is true that these forms, as grades of Nature, are grounded in the Concept, but even where the Concept gathers itself together in sensation, it is still not yet present to itself as Concept. The difficulty of the Philosophy of Nature lies just in this: first, because the material element is so refractory towards the unity of the Concept, and, secondly, because spirit has to deal with an ever-increasing wealth of detail. None the less, Reason must have confidence in itself, confidence that in Nature the Concept speaks to the Concept and that the veritable form of the Concept which lies concealed beneath Nature’s scattered and infinitely many shapes, will reveal itself to Reason” (trans. modified).

  54. 54.

    In my view, Hegel’s metaphysics (even though it goes beyond the limits of Kantian criticism) cannot be defined as pre-critical insofar as Hegel’s project intends to immanently justify the standpoint both of the natural consciousness and of the philosopher’s subjectivity within the system. McDowell acknowledges that Hegel is not a pre-critical thinker, since he does not attribute objective validity to determinations of a reality conceived independently from the critical reflection of the subjectivity upon itself (Hegel does not conceives of the norms as objective independently from the fact that they are acknowledged as authoritative spontaneity). This is true. But this does not seems to lead McDowell to highlight the peculiar metaphysical context within which this position acquires its justification.

  55. 55.

    RTL, 261. This does not imply that McDowell conceives of concepts as mere “subjective” instruments through which we represent things—see DRS.

  56. 56.

    See MAW, 52. See also TMICT, 85.

  57. 57.

    See above, fn. 12.

  58. 58.

    See LFI, 43: “Objects come into view for us [italics mine, FS] in actualizations of conceptual capacities in sensory consciousness, and Kant perfectly naturally connects sensibility with receptivity.”

  59. 59.

    From a logical point of view, Hegel argues that in the Concept is shown that pure Being is not an immediacy deprived of any kind of mediation, but the Concept is the “foundation” of Being (see SL: 577).

  60. 60.

    See for example SPE, 3.

  61. 61.

    See above, footnote 22.

  62. 62.

    Concepts are the concepts expressed by a natural language and are determined according to objective norms (see, for example WFR, TRHA, OPP, SDESC, and STEIS). These concepts mediate our relation to the world (see MAW, 3), but seem not to be part of the ontologic structure of the world in a metaphysically substantive sense.

  63. 63.

    On the excess of Hegel’s notion of thought and Concept with respect to a natural language, see Ferrarin (2007).

  64. 64.

    See MAW, 30–31, and KAI.

  65. 65.

    For a criticism of this limitation in McDowell, see again Gaskin (2006)—Gaskin invites McDowell to consider the world as conceptually and propositionally structured, in order to avoid the risk of a subjective transcendental idealism which tries to relate conceptual and a non-conceptual side. As mentioned above (see footnote 18), Brandom’s interpretation of Hegel seems to go in the same direction.

  66. 66.

    In McDowell, the notion of “self-determination” is tied to his refusal to attribute an epistemic authority to a non-conceptual Given and seems to be inspired by Kant’s concept of autonomy—even though McDowell rejects any “legislative” metaphor which could let think to a sort of arbitrariness (see, for example, SDSEC, 104–107). In Hegel, the notion of “self-determination” McDowell focuses on is justified as a side of the self-determination of the Concept. McDowell sometimes seems to see this point (see SCSEC, 106 and HMG), but he does not elaborate on the ontological side of the self-determination of the Concept (see HMG, 88).

  67. 67.

    LFI, 39.

  68. 68.

    The standpoint of the finite subjectivity, who can doubt whether reality actually is in view for us, is sublated through a logical-argumentative process into the speculative point of view, in which human thought recognizes the conceptual determinations of reality as determinations of the Absolute.

  69. 69.

    McDowell seems to develop a hybrid position between Kant and Hegel—see also Redding (2012).

  70. 70.

    See HMG, 85: “That is the sort of Hegelian language that, as I put it before, needs to be domesticated. I hope the Kantian context I have supplied is suggestive of how we might begin to make sober sense of it.”

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Acknowledgements

I would like to sincerely thank Michela Bordignon, Luca Corti, Davide Dalla Rosa, Federico Orsini and Paolo Tripodi for reading and commenting on previous versions of this paper.

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Sanguinetti, F. (2018). Hegel and McDowell on the “Unboundedness of the Conceptual”. In: Sanguinetti, F., Abath, A. (eds) McDowell and Hegel. Studies in German Idealism, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98896-2_8

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