What Does It Mean to Say, of ‘Thoughts’, That They ‘ Used to Count as Expressing the Essentialities of Things’? Hegel and the Older Metaphysics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21604185
AutoresRichard Dunphy (0000-0002-3512-2433, University of Sussex, autor de correspondencia), Robb Dunphy (University of Sussex)
Año2026
Volumen34
Número1
Páginas70-87
Fecha de publicación2026-01-01
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0967-2559 • E-ISSN: 1466-4542
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09672559.2024.2444965
OpenAlexW4405910660
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas21

This essay is concerned with a passage from 24 of Hegel's Encyclopaedia, in which Hegel characterises the concepts or 'thoughts' developed in the discipline of metaphysics by saying that they 'used to count as expressing the essentialities of things'.I begin by drawing attention to Hegel's use of the past tense in this passage and suggest that it looks problematic for conceptual realist interpreters of Hegel's idealism, who want, roughly, to attribute to him the view that thoughts or 'thought-determinations' express the essentialities of things.I then develop this challenge with help from Robert Pippin, who takes Hegel, in this passage, to be rejecting the metaphysical projects of pre-Kantian European rationalism.If Pippin is right, then in this passage Hegel is in fact distancing himself from the view that conceptual realist accounts attribute to him.In the final part of the article, I re-examine some of Hegel's remarks concerning the history of European metaphysics and offer an alternative, better explanation of Hegel's use of the past tense in the passage in question, one which neutralises the objection to conceptual realist accounts of Hegel's idealism

Epistemology · Hegelianism · Idealism · Metaphysics · Rationalism · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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