History, Concepts, and Normativity in Hegel

AuthorDario Perinetti
PositionAssistant Professor, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Pages81-94

Page 81

Introduction

That Hegel somehow linked history with logic is almost universally taken to be one of his most original contributions to philosophy. Many, of course, would grant that this link is an original but a philosophically uninteresting move. One only needs to consult the official histories of logic to see that Hegel's Logic plays no role.1 Others would concede there might be something philosophical about the link, but that the connection Hegel hinted at is really one between history and metaphysics, rather than between history and logic. Thus, if the enterprise carries any interest at all it must lie in its contribution to metaphysics, not to logic or semantics. A more sympathetic account would consider Hegel's departure from traditional logic and insist that his originality lies in the attempt to come to terms with the "logic" of human historical existence.

I suggest that, in fact, the linking of logic to history was neither an original Hegelian contribution, nor a distinctive feature of German idealism or romanticism. Linking history to logic was not an uncommon undertaking during the entire eighteenth century and was by no means an exclusively German concern. If the argument, then, is in part meant to deflate the so-called originality of Hegel's position or of German Idealism in general, I hope that the end result will not be sheer disenchantment. Showing how Hegel's position stands in relation to a more general endeavour to relate our conceptual capacities with our historical existence will help to locate where exactly lies the originality of his contribution. After briefly presenting previous attempts to link history with logic, I will explain in what sense Hegel's genetic account of concepts is a history. More specifically, I will show how Hegel's genetic account of concepts stands in relation to other competing genetic accounts, particularly to naturalistic ones. In this respect I will argue:Page 82

  1. Hegel's theory of concepts is a conceptual history and, as such, like naturalistic conceptions of logic, is descriptive rather than prescriptive.

  2. The descriptive character of Hegel's logic does not imply that the theory is non-normative. A conceptual history will be shown to be a description of relations between concepts, rather than of facts about concepts.

  3. Hegel's position does not entail a rejection of naturalistic accounts of concept acquisition. It only entails a rejection of the naturalistic standpoint as an adequate one for grounding a philosophical understanding of concepts.

I Post-Cartesian Logics and History

The early modern-approach to logic was in part prompted by Descartes' complaint that Aristotelian logic centered exclusively on justifying already known propositions. Traditional logic consisted, in Descartes' view, in merely stipulating truth-preserving rules for connecting already known propositions. It amounted to showing, according to Descartes, that propositions that we were predisposed to accept were valid, that is, acceptable. Justifying already accepted knowledge was, in Descartes view, a sort of mechanical approach to logic and reasoning; one in which, as he put it, "reason goes on Holiday."2 Post-Cartesian logics were designed to be manuals in the art, or practice of thinking, an idea that was captured in titles like L'art de penser3. As manuals of the practice, or art, of thinking, these logics involved both a reflection on how the materials of that practice (i.e. the concepts) become available for those involved in the practice and on how the rules for what counts as a correct move in the practice of thinking emerge out of a reflection on accepted practice.

These logics, particularly the empiricist ones, were historical first of all in a trivial sense. Historical in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was synonymous with empirical; the use thus reflected the perceived common feature of any descriptive disciplines (e.g., natural and civilPage 83 histories were perceived as two different species of the same genus).4 In this trivial sense, logics were also histories insofar as they contained a description of concept acquisition -that is, insofar as they gave a factual account of how concepts become available to a knower. They were also histories insofar as they described how inferential rules related to factually describable psychological dispositions, such as association, memory, and so forth. Locke, for instance, after having presented in the Essay an account of the human faculties designed to "discover them in their rise, progress, and gradual improvements"5 claims to have given "a short, and . . . true History of the first beginnings of Humane Knowledge .... "6

This psychological flavour given to the connection between history and logic develops in some eighteenth century logics into a wider notion with some cultural and truly historical overtones. That is the case of Duncan's The Elements of Logic, one of the most popular logics in eighteenth century England.7 Duncan holds that both the inner structure of the mind and human cognitive faculties are not static dispositions inherent to human nature but admit perfection and progress. In addition, Duncan states that differences in culture and historical development must also play a role in explaining differences in logical and cognitive competence between human beings.8 The structure of the mind, he claims, mirrors the structure of the development of culture. Duncan's introduction of cultural and historical development in the explanation of the acquisition of concepts and the development of the faculties gives a special flavour to his claims that logic is "the History of the human Mind."9Page 84

It is then not surprising to find that philosophies of history, a genre emerging by mid-eighteenth century, tend to have a logical structure. Many philosophies of history, particularly in the French and Scottish Enlightenment, were intended to show how the development of culture, economy, and civilisation were closely related to the development of human cognitive and logical capacities.10

Not surprisingly, in Germany the conception of logic as the history of the mind was couched in a special language. Logic was thought by some philosophers, such as Enst Platner, to be "a pragmatic, that is, a critical history of the human power of cognition."11 This assertion is to be found in Platner's Philosophische Aphorismen, a book that was used by Fichte in his lectures on logic and metaphysics,12 and one that Hegel certainly knew.13 Although Platner understands pragmatic history as almost a synonym of psychological explanation, the notion was mostly used to denote a conceptually organized genetic account in contrast to one that would merely put a series of facts in temporal order. This was, for example, the view of Salomon Maimon who thought that philosophical histories should not be blob historisch (merely factual reports). A "pragmatic history of philosophy," he writes, "must be written a priori" and "should present not opinions of philosophers but ways of thinking, not writings but methods, not disconnected witty ideas (Einfalle) but systems."14Page 85

II Hegel's Conceptual History

Hegel understands the relation of logic to history in a substantially different way. For him, I submit, a concept is the history of the way a place in a contextually defined inferential space has been determined. The history Hegel has in mind is the history of the way the determinations of a concept have been fixed by reference to contextually defined relations of material incompatibility, or to say it in Hegelian language, by reference to the determinate negations that constitute it as concept.15 A concept is the result of this process of determination, a process that by defining an inferential context also generates a logical space. By inferential context, I understand the group of concepts against which a particular concept stand in concrete, material, inferential relations, and through the mediation of which a concept becomes a concrete universal. By logical space, I understand the system of interrelated concepts that is thus generated.

Let me first consider the role that inferential context plays in determining the content of a concept. Hegel shares with many post-Cartesian thinkers the idea that logic is essentially concerned with explaining how inferential relations are content related and not purely pre-given, formal truth-preserving procedures for relating conceptual content that is independently given to consciousness.

    Hitherto, the Notion of logic has rested on the separation, presupposed once and for all in the ordinary consciousness, of the content of cognition and its form, or of truth and certainty. First, it is assumed that the material of knowing is present on its own account as a ready-made world apart from thought, that thinking on its own is empty and comes as an external form to the said material, fills itself with it and only thus acquires a content and so becomes real knowing.16

The logic he wants to put forward is one that understands it is its particular content, and not a pre-given rule that defines an inferential context for any given concept. For example, it is by virtue of what IPage 86 know about "salt" and "ice" that I will accept the following reasoning: There is ice in the sidewalk. I had better spread some salt.

I will accept this reasoning, as such, without requiring further premises or middle terms, enabling me to determine that the proposition "I had better spread some salt" is a valid conclusion for an argument in which "There is ice in the sidewalk" is the first premise.17 It is then by virtue of the knowledge I have of the content of the concepts "salt" and "ice," though of course not of these concepts...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT