Hegel on Philosophy in History

In this volume honouring Robert Pippin, prominent philosophers such as John McDowell, Slavoj Žižek, Jonathan Lear, and Axel Honneth explore Hegel's proposals concerning the historical character of philosophy. Hegelian doctrines discussed include the purported end of art, Hegel's view of human history, including the history of philosophy as the history of freedom (or autonomy), and the nature of self-consciousness as realized in narrative or in action. Hegel scholars Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Sally Sedgwick, Terry Pinkard, and Paul Redding attempt to vindicate some of Hegel's claims concerning historical philosophical progress, while others such as Robert Stern, Christoph Menke, and Jay Bernstein suggest that Hegel either did not conceive of philosophy as progressing unidirectionally or did not make good on his claims to progress: perhaps we should still be Aristotelians in ethics, or perhaps we are still torn between sensibility and reason, or between individuality and social norms. Perhaps capitalism has exacerbated such problems.

Part I. Philosophy and History in Hegel: 1. Why does it matter for Hegel that Geist has a history? John McDowell; 2. Remarks on history, contingency, and necessity in Hegel's Science of Logic Sally Sedgwick; 3. Philosophy and the stream of cultural history Ludwig Siep; Part II. Aristotelian Master and Stoic Slave: 4. From epistemic incorporation to cognitive transformation Paul Redding; 5. Freedom, norms, and nature in Hegel: Self-Legislation or Self-Realization Robert Stern; 6. The form of self-consciousness Terry Pinkard; 7. Hegel on objects as subjects Rolf-Peter Horstmann; 8. The historical turn and late modernity Karl Ameriks; Part III. Hegel and After: 9. Autonomy and liberation: the historicity of freedom Christoph Menke; 10. Three, not two, concepts of liberty: a proposal to enlarge our moral self-understanding Axel Honneth; 11. 'Our amphibian problem': nature in history in Adorno's Hegelian Critique of Hegel Jay Bernstein; 12. Comedy between the ugly and the sublime Slavoj Žižek; 13. The Freudian sabbath Jonathan Lear; Bibliography.

Rachel Zuckert is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, Illinois.
James Kreines is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, California.