Idealism Without Limits Hegel and the Problem of Objectivity

In this study of Hegel's philosophy, Brinkmann undertakes to defend Hegel's claim to objective knowledge by bringing out the transcendental strategy underlying Hegel's argument in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Logic. Hegel's metaphysical commitments are shown to become moot through this transcendental reading. Starting with a survey of current debates about the possibility of objective knowledge, the book next turns to the original formulation of the transcendental argument in favor of a priori knowledge in Kant's First Critique. Through a close reading of Kant's Transcendental Deduction and Hegel's critique of it, Brinkmann tries to show that Hegel develops an immanent critique of Kant's position that informs his reformulation of the transcendental project in the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit and the formulation of the position of 'objective thought' in the Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Brinkmann takes the reader through the strategic junctures of the argument of the Phenomenology  that establishes the position of objective thinking with which the Logic begins. A critical examination of the Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy shows that Hegel's metaphysical doctrine of the self-externalization of spirit need not compromise the transcendental project of the Logic and thus does not burden the position of objective thought with pre-critical metaphysical claims.

Preface Introduction Chapter One: The Problem of Objectivity: A Problem of Modernity 1.1 The Objectivity Problem and the Crisis of Subjectivity 1.2 Descartes and the Roots of the Crisis 1.3 Some Traditional Arguments in Defense of Objectivity 1.4 Contemporary Defenses of Objectivity 1.5 Conclusions Chapter Two: The Problem of Objectivity: Kant 2.1 Kant’s Transcendental Idealism 2.2 Hegel’s Critique of Kant: The Transcendental Deduction 2.3 Beyond the Matter-Form Distinction: Hegel as a Philosopher of Radical Immanence Chapter Three: The Argument of the Phenomenology 3.1 Methodological Presuppositions 3.2 Sense-Certainty: The Particular and the Universal 3.3 Perception and Understanding: The Immanence of Thinking and the Meaning of Aufhebung 3.4 The Native Land of Truth: From Desire to Reason 3.5 Methodological Interlude: Overcoming the Opposition of Consciousness 3.6 The Internalization of Spirit: From the Ethical Substance to the Spiritual Individual 3.7 Spirit That Knows Itself as Spirit: Religion and Absolute Knowing Chapter Four: Objective Knowledge and the Logic 4.1 Interlude: Does the System Need a Ladder? 4.2 Hegel’s Paradigm Shift: From Referentiality to Intelligibility of Thought 4.3 The Metaphysical and the Non-Metaphysical Hegel 4.4 Hegel’s Integrative Pluralism and Its Limits Bibliography Index