A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, and Consciousness: Hegel Part Two Practical Philosophy, Aesthetics, and History.

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Hegel’s criticisms of Kant might largely be medieval, based upon a scholastic theoretical attachment to the negative judgment and the positive judgment that can never be “proved”. This stream of scholasticism had obviously detached itself from the more positively inclined hylomorphic theory of Aristotle. Hylomorphic theory is a theory in which kinds of change(substantial, qualitative, quantitative, locomotion), principles of change(that which something changes from, that which something changes to, and that which endures throughout the change)and causes of change(material, efficient, formal and final) provide the infrastructure of Aristotle’s view of reality. Kant rejects the negative scholastic tradition referred to above and restores large parts of Aristotle’s infrastructure(probably to a greater extent than critics such as Hegel suspect) in the course of constructing the superstructure of his Critical Theory.

This is not to suggest that there is nothing of value in Hegelian theory. As we pointed out in the previous essay much of Hegel’s philosophy, interpreted in the right spirit could be seen to be complementary to what we find in Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophy.

Robert Pippin in his work “Hegel’s Practical Philosophy” points out three aspects of the Hegelian account of “Spirit”, all of which have generated controversy: Firstly, its historical dimension, secondly, its scepticism of a modern ontology of action, agency, and freedom and thirdly, the claimed systematic nature of the theory. Pippin has the following to say concerning the historical dimension and systematic intentions:

“The historical dimension of the systematic project is notorious in its ambition. Hegel’s account of what makes an event a deed(truly or fully) and even a righteous or evil deed, appears to be inextricably linked to the grandest of grand narratives, an account of a continuous human(more properly, in his account, Western) struggle to understand what it is to be a human being: a progressive self-educative enterprise with a beginning, a middle, and some sort of end (wherein we learn that we are absolutely free beings and therewith learn what a free life consists in). Hegel, in other words, tries to do justice to the fact that attention to the possibility and importance of freedom, at least when freedom is understood as self-determination of some sort and when freedom so understood is counted as a possibility for each and every individual. One might then ask why and when did the theoretical question begin to look the way it now does, and why and when did the political question of justice come to depend so much on the question of freedom.”(P. 8-9)

Contrary to what Pippin claims in the above quote, the questions “What is a human being?” and “What is the relevance of freedom to justice?” are both intimately connected in Aristotelian Philosophy: intimately related, that is to the kinds of change, principles of change and causes of change referred to above. Moreover, biological change, social change, and political change are also intimately related to hylomorphic theory that sees such change in terms of concepts and principles.

In Aristotle, for example, the family is a biological and social form that becomes in its turn the matter to be formed by the social/political unit of the village that is striving toward self-sufficiency as a social unit. The village, that is, is not self-sufficient in itself but strives to become so by possibly growing in size or uniting with other villages(the village by the sea with its fish and the village on the slopes of the hills with its olives and agricultural products). If successful the social matter of the village becomes transformed by the political unit of the city-state that is self-sufficient. In this process of actualisation, a biological unit or form is transformed into a social unit or form which in its turn is transformed into a political unit or form, by a process that is partly governed by human nature(its matter and form) and partly governed by the “forms” that emerge in the actualisation process. The issue of the day during the times of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle was Justice, but freedom was also an underlying concern (the Greeks saw themselves to be “free” in comparison to other peoples and Athens saw itself to be freer than Sparta). Also, Greek political theorising contained a negative attitude toward tyranny which Plato in “The Republic” saw to be the enemy of the idea or form of “The Good”. Aristotle, in his turn also regarded “the good” as an umbrella term for the virtues all of which concentrated on doing the right thing at the right time in the right way in different contexts. The virtues, then, regulated action and agency, and tyranny for Aristotle was also a vice to be combatted by virtuous men or what he called great-souled men (his name for virtuous statesmen). The principles involved in the virtues were in the realm of thought and functioned like the laws of a city which also regulated action and agency. Freedom, insofar as it was a political issue could also be a vice when unregulated by virtue, or the idea of the good, especially in the democracies of the time which apparently were the breeding ground of tyrants.

There is no reason to believe that Kant would have substantially disagreed with any of the above. What he added to the equation was a focus on the concept of freedom which, to use Hegelian language involved the “recognition of other people’s rights and freedom”. This recognition was manifested in the practical rational activity of exercising one’s freedom in social and political contexts. It is, however, not clear that the kind of “individual recognition” involved in the Master-slave struggle is the kind of recognition that occurs between citizens of a city-state which one imagines is a more abstract affair involving an awareness of the normativity (universality and necessity) of our duties and responsibilities as citizens of the polis.

The relation between Nature and Spirit was a matter of concern for Hegel’s theory of the actualiSation process which also needed an account of how biological, social, and political elements of life are related and integrated with each other. It is not clear for example, that Hegel could embrace the kind of account Aristotle provided where biological nature dwells in symbiosis with the social and political forms of life. From being a mere matter of our survival, social and political processes embody more complex principles that incorporate one another and demand a way of being that cannot be described as “artificial” or “conventional”, but are rather a natural outgrowth of life in a family. These social and political processes demand a way of relating to the environment that Hegel wished to characterise as “spirited”. The major difference between the Aristotelian and Hegelian actualisation processes resides in the role that Hegel believes dialectical logic plays in the movement of these processes. The major tool of dialectical logic is the very theoretical tool of negation but it is not clear, for example, what role such a “logical” tool can play in the developmental process that moves us from a family-based existence to a city-state form of existence: is village life a bare negation of family life, for example? Aristotle, were he confronted with such a theory would wonder how ,if village life were a negation of family life, village life could still value family life, how, that is, village life could incorporate, the more biological aspects of family life in its form of life. Here one is reflecting upon where the boundaries go insofar as sexual promiscuity and sexual prohibitions are concerned and how these boundaries may help to shape the acceptance of sexuality in village life(and whether these boundaries would change in the shift to a city-state). The Hegelian account would have difficulties with answering such questions in a way that would not be the case with the Aristotelian account. Aristotle also would have wondered what it was that endured in the process of change that is controlled by a theoretical notion of negation, i.e what endures in the change from family life to village life and from village life to life in a city-state. For Hegel, the formula for change is somehow contained in the “unfolding” of absolute spirit.

Pipping regards “Spirit” as a form of “mindedness” which more precisely is defined as a collectively achieved normative human mindedness. According to Pipping(P. 17) the idea of Spirit abandons Aristotelian notions of “natural growth and maturation into some flourishing state.”. Given the complexities of Aristotelian hylomorphism presented above it is not clear, however, whether this is a coherent criticism. If it is the case that Kant’s critical superstructure is built upon an Aristotelian infrastructure then the Hegelian criticisms of Kant also lose some of their force. There is no doubt, for example, that for Aristotle normative life is naturally and rationally tied to the successive actualiSation of powers and capacities of the “rational animal capable of discourse” and that along this continuum of actualiSation there will be biological, social, and political manifestations of animality, discourse, and rationality.

Spirit, Hegel somewhat mystically claims, is a product of itself. Less problematically he claims that manifestations of spirit take the forms of art, religion, and philosophy. Aristotelian powers and capacities such as discourse and rationality will be involved in the practical artistic, religious and philosophical activity as well as in the theoretical accounts of these activities. We should recall in this context that the Kantian account of Art, Science, and Morality will require not dialectical logic but a transcendental deduction in which in at least the first edition of the First Critique there was a reference to the cognitive powers and capacities involved. To the extent that rationality as a power or capacity is involved is also the extent to which involved parties in discourse relating to these activities can ask for and give reasons for what they have created, believe, or have done in moral contexts.

In such discussions we would not, for example, have encountered Kant claiming, that reason “constitutes itself” or is a “product of itself” and this might be because contrary to a complaint made by Pippin to the effect that Kant is fixated on substance and causation(Kant having said the agent causes itself to act), there just is no argument for claiming either that reason constitutes itself or is a product of itself. This form of reasoning may be a consequence of the “location”(partly as a consequence of regarding the self as a “substance”) of reason in a self that is thinking but we should remind ourselves here of the Kantian account of this self which is not a particular individual “situated” in a particular social environment thinking particular thoughts but rather a self-in.general capable of thought-in-general, a transcendental self( not the self of scientific psychology). We should also point out that if it is the case that Kant is building the superstructure of his theory on Aristotelian infrastructure, there is no reason to characteriSe the self he is referring to as an individual self, independent of the community he is a part of because a community is a community both of individual selves leading their individual lives and the general aspect of these selves described above(self-in-general): selves which are endowed abstractly with rights and responsibilities vis-a-vis the political communities they are a part of and partly constitute with their political actions and agency(voting, passing laws, etc.). Kant is not committed to the individual empirical or scientific self or agent but rather to a transcendental self or agent: This is a self that makes something of itself(Kant’s Anthropology) using powers of sensibility, imagination, understanding, and reason. Hegel points out that individual men do not have to be aware of exactly what they are intending to do because the awareness may dawn upon them in exactly the same way as the “I think” dawns upon the maturing three-year-old who begin using their powers in ways they do not fully understand.

The narrative of individual selves will, of course, involve the actualisation of powers but the theoretical account of the transcendental activity of the self-in-general(the transcendental self) will not involve any “narrative” but rather “explanation” in terms of three principles four causes and four kinds of change involved. The logic involved in this process will not be dialectical but rather Aristotelian or alternatively Kantian transcendental or metaphysical logic.

It is this self-constituting character of Spirit that for Hegel requires dialectical logic and the tool of negation in order to structure the “narrative” of the manifestation and actualization of Spirit. The theoretical notion of negation is the prime mover of this narrative and it is at work in an environment that Hegel characterizes in German as “Sittlichkeit” which roughly means the communal form of ethical life.

Hegel in speaking of the individual life “situated” in relation to the communal form of ethical life does, however, have a view of the essence of the individual and thereby what he calls its “inner universality” which he claims originates from an ethical situation in which one is a citizen of a good state with good laws. The problems many interpreters experience in interpreting Hegel are associated directly with these ideas of “individual life” and “recognition” which hark back to the very psychologically oriented narrative of the master and the slave dialectic in which it is maintained the different movements of this drama result in mutual recognition. What we, in fact, have here is a dialectic not just of survival and recognition, but also the actualisation of freedom in a context of conflict. The context of conflict is also sometimes projected onto a theoretical context and it is argued that the individual with their individual intentions, desires, and knowledge is often at odds with the social/political environment, According to Hegel, individuals in such states mysteriously “transcend” their individualism by “recognising” other individuals and being recognised by them in this context of conflict. This is largely a theoretical conflict between the so-called narratively constituted agent or believer and the social/political situation they find themselves a part of. Conflict at this individual level (not at the level of judgment) always occurs in the context of a narrative with at least one concrete individual in opposition to someone or something or some situation which in its turn requires a concrete description of the elements involved.

The philosophical or ethical problem for Aristotle or Kant is not at this level of phenomena, but rather at the level of the conceptualisation of phenomena which occurs in judgments that refer not to individuals but to transcendental selves. In such a process individuals “disappear” as does the individual concrete act of “recognition”.

In order to illustrate the issue involved, consider a debate in Aesthetics between Stanley Cavell and his critics who wish to claim that it is impossible in fact to recognize intention in a work of art because on a theory they hold dear, intention is “located” “Inside” a mind and a work of art is something external to the mind. Once minds and the world are logically distinguished in this fashion, the only possible way of re-connecting them is through some kind of causal interaction. This may be the fantasy that Pippin is engaging in when he suggests that for many commentators normativity and causality are also somehow in need of “reconnection”. In Art, Kant pointed to the importance of intention and a disinterested response and in some commentators’ estimation, thereby committed what was referred to as “the intentional fallacy”( a fallacy coined by Wimsatt and Beardsley). The theoretical concept of a mind in a “space” in which intentions, feelings, and thoughts are located is, of course, a modern consequence of a philosophical position that seeks to eliminate all transcendental and metaphysical theorising. This is usually done by conjuring up a picture of the mind as an immaterial substance that is subject to the laws of material and efficient causation. What is going on in a mind, is, in accordance with such a picture, some kind of event that can have “effects” in the external world. These are very modern thoughts of very modern (philosophical?)major-generals and have caused considerable confusion in the arenas of Aesthetics, Ethics, and Religion. Neither Hegel nor Kant or Aristotle would share this view of the mind which Stanley Cavell refuted in the name of the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein. This refutation is particularly interesting because it bears on the issues being discussed. Cavell maintains with Wittgenstein that in theorising about the mind we are not dealing directly with phenomena concretely but rather with the more abstract “possibilities of phenomena”(by which he means the conceptualisations of phenomena). The concept of intention, Cavell maintains, is very different from that conceived of by Wimsatt and Beardsley, namely as something located inside the private space of a mind which of course we observers cannot know because what goes on in this space is hidden from everyone except the individual whose mind is engaged in the intending, feeling, or thinking. The intentional fallacy as applied to Art is the fallacy of assuming that one can read the intention the artist had when he produced the work of art under consideration. Cavell refuted this by pointing out firstly that an assumption about the mind is involved which is false( the immaterial substance assumption) and secondly, by pointing out that the concept of intention that ought to be evoked is “categorical”, not something concrete but rather something universal and necessary. That this must be so, Cavell argues, is connected to the categorical aspect of our responses to works of art that are logically connected to our categorical responses to people. Ethics and Aesthetics, then, share this idea of a transcendental self, a self-in-general, generally willing and generally responding to aesthetic objects conceptually and to people rationally. On this account, there is no logical space for the concrete individual concretely reflecting upon concrete relations to the institutions of a society or a society-in-general. Such is the stuff of novels which, it is true, presupposes aesthetic and ethical responses if the meaning of the work is to be properly understood. If in a novel every word on every page is not fully intended then we are not dealing with a responsible author. This is probably why Kant claims that the fine artist must be a man of genius. This is of course not to deny that as a matter of fact particular artists in particular works may either shirk this responsibility or allow words to occur as random events: as some kind of “experiment”.

Cavell uses the word “acknowledgment”, which he argues takes us beyond the kind of knowledge suggested by the Hegelian term “recognition”: recognising, for example, that someone is in pain does not necessarily have the ethical implications that acknowledging someone is in pain does, it is argued. The latter obviously requires the human act of sympathy which the former may not. If the slave, on this account, were to “merely” recognise the humanity in his master without any display of sympathy he would not be responding ethically and “categorically” to use the Kantian term. The master may, of course, fail to acknowledge the humanity in his slave and according to Cavell’s theory, this might not be adequately represented as a failure to “recognise” which appears to be a straightforward cognitive failure similar to a failure to recognise a fact. The failure to acknowledge the humanity in a man is, on the other hand, a practical failure and the failure may or may not be expressed in behaviour. In terms of the artwork the appreciator is not called upon to act but only to think or interpret, find out the meaning of the work, and here again, we should recall we are not dealing with a particular response of a particular individual but rather with a self-in-general acknowledging that a work is intentional and demands a work of interpretation in accordance with certain categories of acknowledgment. What is at issue in this “existentiale” of acknowledgment is that it is a kind of achievement that is a form of comportment towards the world: comportment that is not “causally” related to the world either materially or in terms of efficient causation as conceived by Aristotle.

Hegel prefers to characterise the above in terms of “Spirit” which he often regards as normative or sometimes as a “form of life”. The idea of a “form of life” is, however, hardly sufficient to capture the complexity of either the Aristotelian or Kantian accounts of human normativity, which are driven by thought and its activity of conceptualising phenomena when we are dealing with belief and a good-will manifested in action, (i.e. dealing with the more practical idea of the good). The will, on the Kantian account, is not, of course causally related to action, but rather related in the way in which a norm is related to what it regulates.

Hegel attempts in several different ways to introduce social practices and history into his theory of recognition without importing causal thinking and the result is sometimes confusing. He claims, for example, that the “will is a particular way of thinking” but because a human being in some way “returns to itself out of nature” there is clearly a complex relationship between nature and the world of spirit which he claims is composed of shapes or forms of spirit. Hegel is correct to refuse to embrace any modern conception of causal thinking in normative contexts but when he introduces social practices and history a question arises as to whether he is forced to think instrumentally about social phenomena and action. and this, of course, implies acknowledging a role for causal thinking: connecting means and ends often translates into cause and effect. The problem with this cross-fertilisation of practical and theoretical thinking of nature and the normative then requires, for example, a theory of recognition and perhaps also a theory of negation to bridge the metaphysical gap between nature and spirit as Hegel conceives of them. If we use the theories of recognition and negation to characterise the relation of theoretical and practical rationality we must remember that theoretical knowledge is observationally based knowledge and events observed must be related causally in order to create a relation of logical inference between effects and causes. Practical knowledge, on the other hand “, negates” this approach because it is argued, I cannot recognise myself in independently caused events. In practical categorical knowledge, it seems, we are concerned with what was done not in terms of causal thinking but rather we reflect upon what was done and the reason why the action concerned was done According to the infrastructure of Aristotelian theorising and the superstructure of Kantian theorising categorial practical reasoning is normatively self-regulating thought that is self-explanatory especially if one reflects upon what was done in terms of Hylomorphic or critical theory, where explanation is in terms of “grounding conditions”.

All explanation is, however not normative. Some explanatory judgments will refer to material and efficient causation and there will then inevitably be a historical dimension connected to the final complete explanation of the action(probably in terms of powers, capacities and the actualisation of potentialities). The dangers of universalising this kind of hypothetical explanation at the expense of the more categorical formal and final “causes” is that we will then be lured into “recognising” the “I” as a particular event in the world that then causally forms relations with other “I’s” in the community. Intentions will then also become events and individualised: minds will become individualizsed events embedded in causal networks. Neither Kant nor Aristotle succumbed to this way of thinking about the mind.

Analytical Philosophy is the major supporter of Science and Empiricism and their corresponding commitments to observation and causality in theorizing about the physical world. The World is all that is the case and is a totality of facts(determined observationally and causally?) was the argument of the early Wittgenstein(Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). This position was refuted in his later work “Philosophical Investigations” sometimes in an Aristotelian spirit and sometimes in Kantian and Hegelian spirits. In his later work he managed, unlike Hegel to retain a realistic commitment to the principle of causality whilst insisting that there were contexts in which explanations relied on reasons and not causes. Emotional contexts, for example, being frightened by a face at the window during a storm is something that happens to me and when I drop my cup of coffee this is not something I do but something that happens to me. Here cause is the primary avenue of explanation. I did not drop my cup intentionally, it is argued. The topic of intention was taken up in Aristotelian fashion by a follower of Wittgenstein, Elisabeth Anscombe, in her famous work entitled “Intention”. Anscombe argues in this work that the connection between a man’s intention and his action is conceptual or logical and not causal. What Anscombe means by “causal” here is given in the Humean account that requires the causal interaction of two events(a cause and effect). She also in other works(“Human Life, Action and Ethics”) acknowledges different kinds of causes, e.g. historical causes. Here it is argued that intention may be the cause of actions that happen later:

“Henry VIII longed for a son: the death of many children made him believe he had sinned in marrying Queen Catherine: he formed the intention of marrying Anne Boleyn. All this led to, helped to produce, the Act of Supremacy, to his decision to break with Rome. This is a causal history”(P. 100)

Here we again have two events that are connected(cf the face at the window and the dropping of the coffee cup). Aristotelian material and efficient causality can explain the connection. In this situation, the Royal Act has clearly been caused. Had Henry passed a law on purely ethical grounds as an attempt to create a more just society the maxim of his action would not include longings and breaks and refer to events such as the death of potential heirs. but rather it would be the case that the reason for the act would lie in the universalisation of the maxim contained in the formula: So act that the maxim of your action can be acknowledged as a universal law. This imperative would have been the “reason” for acting, a reason that must be distinguished from any possible causes. This imperative both subsumes the action under it and simultaneously gives the action its ontological identity. This, in Hegel’s eyes, may be the mark of what he calls the “Concept”. Kant, on the other hand, sees in this imperative a judgment that combines concepts and intuitions in accordance with ideas of reason that in the case of the categorical imperative are both universal and necessary. That we are dealing with the imperative form of judgment, in this case, signifies that we are not dealing with facts and what is the case but rather with values and what ought to be the case.

History, then, for Kant, would be a hybrid discipline containing both theoretical and practical judgments. The above quote by Anscombe provides us with a good example of a theoretical judgment in History. Thomas More’s refusal, on the other hand, to be corrupted by the King’s agenda and his subsequent fate is also a part of the History of this period but insofar as the reasons for his refusal are categorical and not causal this episode of history gives rise to practical judgments with a completely different structure. Exactly which Concept would be at stake in this example for Hegel is not clear. It is also unclear whether Hegelian theory could embrace the causally connected two-event account involving the Act of Supremacy and the longing for an heir to the throne.

Anscombe’s account of intention refers to reasons for action that are given in answer to the question “Why?” which is asked in a certain “spirit”, to use Hegelian language–a conceptual logical “spirit” that excludes appeal to theoretical observations and causality. Theoretical causation requires observations, requires, that is, that someone like Thomas More observe Henry VIII’s longing for an heir and then observe the Act of Supremacy and think the connection of these two events in accordance with the category of causality. Thomas More’s refusal to be corrupted, on the other hand, is in accordance with the idea of Freedom and the Categorical Imperative. In these two accounts, we have, in Hegelian terms, two world-historical persons “making” History in different ways in accordance with different principles( category of causation, the idea of freedom). Hegel might, of course, be inclined to apply dialectical logic to Thomas More’s action and see in it a “theoretical”(?) negation of Henry VIII’s Authority, thus turning this into a battle to the death for mutual recognition. More, of course, loses his life in the battle and it is difficult not to see in this transactional event a lack of (Kantian?)respect for More by his king, Henry. If the master-slave dialectic is deemed to be relevant here perhaps Hegel may then be able to claim that Henry both respected More and allowed him to be killed(contradictions are not anathema to dialectical logic). But in spite of such concerns, a Hegelian might feel nevertheless that dialectical logic has not come to the end of its tether yet. It could be claimed that History contains the movement of Spirit toward a “recognition” of tyrants such as Henry VIII. Kantian logic, on the other hand, would not focus on the theoretical notion of negation but rather on how judgments logically subsume actions in order to give them their logical identity. Kant, in other words, would emphasise what endures through the change, namely, the freedom to do what is right whatever the consequences and the duty involved in doing what one ought to do. For Kant, it would be Thomas More who is the “master”, the “man for all seasons” and Henry who is the slave to causation in the winter of his own discontent.