Brandom 2011_Hegel and Analytic Philosophy

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Brandom

10/21/2011

Hegel and Analytic Philosophy

Paul Redding’s thoughtful and thought-provoking book Analytic Philosophy and the

Return of Hegelian Thought is a paradigm of the sort of philosophy Hegel desribed as !its time"

aptured in thought#$ %t is at one impressively and usefully learned" and philosophially

insightful and suggestive# Redding’s strategy is to tunnel from t&o diretions# 'n the one hand"

he has interesting things to say about &hat elements in the analyti tradition make it ripe for a

Hegelian turn# 'n the other" he lays out some features of Hegel’s vie&s that are partiularly

amenable to appropriation by that tradition# % think one probably learns more from this book

about Hegel than one does about analyti philosophy# But that does not keep Redding from

putting himself in a position to dra& some more general onlusions#

Redding is good on the origin myth that Bertrand Russell onoted" &hih loates the

&ellsprings of the analyti movement in a prinipled reoil from &hat the British %dealists made

of Hegel# (s Russell presents things" Hegel merely brings out e)pliitly &hat &as all along

impliit in the traditional sub*et-prediate term-logi+ a thorough-going ontologial holism#

Redding ,uotes Russell from his 11. Our Knowledge of the External World +

o& the traditional logi holds that every proposition asribes a prediate to a

sub*et" and from this it easily follo&s that there an be only one sub*et" the

(bsolute" for if there &ere t&o" the proposition that there &ere t&o &ould not

asribe a prediate to either#1

1 ondon+ (llen and n&in" p# .# Heneforth APRHT #

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%t seems a bit muh to ob*et to traditional term-logi for not being atomisti enough#

(fter all" it is relations that it had the most trouble e)pressing# %n any ase" sine traditional

logiians &ere austomed to treating" say" being a twin as a property" they &ould not have

balked at not being lonely 3in the sense of being the only sub*et4# 5o be fair" &hen Russell &as

in full propaganda mode for the ne& logi he &as ,uite apable of blaming sub*et-prediate

logi for the oppression of &omen" famine in 6hina" and the 7irst 8orld 8ar# Be that as it may"

Russell lines up the hoie bet&een the old logi" &hih he sees Hegel 3or at least his follo&ers"

espeially Bradley4 as having brought to its logial metaphysial onlusion" and the ne&

,uantifiational logi &ith the hoie bet&een ontologial monism and pluralism+ as he

memorably put it" bet&een seeing the universe as a bo&l of *elly and seeing it as a buket of

shot#2

'n suh an understanding" semanti" logial" and metaphysial atomism is an" indeed the"

essential" founding priniple of analyti philosophy# o& % think" as Redding does" that Hegel

was" indeed" a semanti" logial" and metaphysial holist# %f that is right" then on the line that

Russell &as pushing" bringing Hegel bak into the analyti onversation &ould re,uire

*ettisoning its beating heart+ first-order ,uantifiational prediate logi# But % do not think that

Hegel &as driven to holism beause the logi he and 9ant inherited &as a term-logi# %f

anything that fat made it more diffiult for him to find oherent &ays to e)press his holism#

(nd Russell’s atomisti insistene on starting &ith objects" and building up first propositions and

then inferential relations among propositions follo&s the very same order of logial and

2 :;ome have suggested that the te)t is garbled on this point" and that the original referred not to ontologial but to

deep politial" and perhaps ultimately affetive differenes bet&een the sensibilities of Bradley 3author of y

!tation and "ts #uties4 and Russell 3author of Why " A$ %ot a &hristian4" one vie&ing the smug" plaid" late-

<itorian &orld as a bo&l of *olly and the other as a buket of shit#=

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semanti e)planation that &as enshrined in the traditional logi’s progression from a basi

dotrine of concepts 3singular and general4" to a dotrine of judg$ents 3lassified aording to

the kinds of lassifiation or prediation they involve" to a dotrine of syllogis$s 3lassified

aording to the kinds of lassifiations their omponent *udgments involve4# %n this regard" it

&as Russell &ho &as the reationary#

But the early analyti tradition did not speak &ith *ust this one" Russellian" voie#

Redding reminds us that the first step on the holisti road to Hegel &as taken already by 9ant"

&ho broke &ith the traditional order of semanti and logial e)planation by insisting on the

primay of *udgment# He understood partiular and general representations" intuitions and

onepts" only in terms of the funtional role they played in *udgment# 3% think that is beause

*udgments are the minimal units of responsibility" so that the primay of *udgment should be

understood as an immediate onse,uene of the nor$ati'e turn 9ant had given philosophy of

mind and semantis>but that is a story for another oasion#?4 7rege took up this 9antian idea"

in the form of his !onte)t priniple$+ only in the onte)t of a sentene do names have referene#

8ittgenstein" early and late" sees sentenes as playing some suh distinguished role" first as the

minimal unit of sense" and later as the minimal linguisti unit that an be used to make a move in

a language-game# %n other important figures" suh as 6arnap and 6#%# e&is" the empiriist-

atomist urrent of thought" &hih had motivated Russell" oe)isted and blended &ith serious

neo-9antian influenes" even &here those did not take the form of treating propositional ontents

as primary in the order of semanti e)planation# Redding redits this 9ant-7rege-8ittgenstein

3 iterally# % tell it in my 8oodbridge letures+ Ani$ating "deas of "dealis$( A !e$antic !onata in Kant and

Hegel " forthoming from Harvard niversity Press as the first part of Reason in Philosophy( Ani$ating "deas#

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strand in analyti philosophy &ith opening up the spae &ithin &hih an eventual rapprohement

&ith Hegel might take plae#

% think he is right about that# But % also think that ontinuing the story beyond the early

history of the analyti movement on &hih Redding fouses helps round out the story# 7or the

9antian promotion of *udgment to pride of logio-semanti plae is only the first step a&ay from

the atomism of the traditional order of e)planation to&ards full Hegelian holism# Hegel didn’t

*ust start in the middle of the traditional order" &ith *udgment rather than onept@ he fully turned

it on its head" not only understanding ob*ets and onepts in terms of *udgments" but

understanding *udgments in terms of their role in inferene# (nd *ust as some philosophers &ho

played entral roles in the analyti tradition follo&ed 9ant" others took the further holist step

do&n that road that Hegel had pioneered# %ndeed" all these strands of thought &ere represented

already in the lassial (merian pragmatist tradition+ not only the empiriist-atomist line 3think

of Aames’s radial monism4" but also the 9antian 3Peire4 and even the Hegelian 3e&ey" and

Peire as &ell4# Cuine" heir to both this tradition 3via his teaher" 6# %# e&is" himself the student

of Aames and the Hegelian Aosiah Roye4 and the logistial-analyti one" in !5&o ogmas of

Dmpiriism"$ took the minimal unit of meaning to be" not the proposition" but &hat he alled

!the &hole theory$+ everything one believed" and all the inferential onnetions linking them to

eah other and to other believables# avidson deepened and developed this thought" and

e)plored its onse,uenes for a number of topis of entral onern to the analyti tradition# 5o

those oming of philosophial age during this period" the influene of this line of thought ould

seem so pervasive that someone like Aerry 7odor ould" &ith some *ustifiation" see his

reassertion of semanti atomism as s&imming against the dominant tide of the times#

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%n this onnetion it is interesting to reall the onsiderations that impelled Cuine to

endorse this holist move# His slogan &as !Eeaning is &hat essene beomes" &hen it is

detahed from the thing" and attahed to the &ord#$ 5his ditum e)presses the translation of

ontologial issues into a semanti key that &as the hallmark of the linguisti turn# Cuine re*eted

essenes beause he re*eted as ultimately unintelligible everything e)pressed by the voabulary

of alethi modality# 3%n another fine phrase" he dismissed modal logi as at best !engendering an

illusion of understanding#$4 He did so on t&o grounds# 7irst of all &as the residual empiriism

that remained even after he had re*eted the !t&o dogmas of empiriism#$ (s far as modality

&ent" he thought that !the Humean ondition is the human ondition#$ ;eond &as the fat that

the ne& logi" in the post-7regean" pre-9ripkean" Russellian stage of development that Cuine

perfeted" did not have the e)pressive resoures to deal semantially &ith modality# 7or these

reasons" Cuine had to re*et the distintion bet&een internal and e)ternal relations+ those that are

essential to the identity of a thing and those that are merely aidental to it# 3%n a Bradleyan

e)ample+ the relation bet&een the rungs and the rails of a ladder are internal to it" &hile its

relation to the &all it is leaning against is e)ternal#4 ;ine one of the empiriist dogmas Cuine

&as re*eting &as its semanti atomism" he ould not follo& Russell 3and the Tractatus4 in

responding to his re*etion of the distintion by" in effet" treating all relations as e)ternal# 5he

result &as his reoil to a thoroughgoing semanti holism" in &hih all their inferential relations

are treated as onstitutive of the meaning of sentenes and 3so4 the terms and prediates they

ontain>as all being" in effet" internal relations# (ttempting to evade &hat 8hitehead alled

the !fallay of lost ontrast"$ and in keeping &ith his Russellian logi" he onstrued those

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inferential relations e)tensionally" as not being modally robust" in the sense of ounterfatual-

supporting" but even so" semanti holism had been let loose in the land#

5his development demonstrated a dynami that % think is ative in our o&n time" and that

Russell and Eoore had already &arned against# 7or the fighting faith they rafted for the ne&

analyti movement did not define its reed *ust by re*etion of Hegel# 5hey understood the

idealist rot they fought against as having set in already &ith 9ant# 5hey suspeted that one ould

not open the pearly gates of analyti respetability far enough to let 9ant slip through" and then

lose them ,uikly enough to keep Hegel out# Both Cuine’s e)ample and some of the

ontemporary developments Redding rehearses suggest they might turn out to have been right#

%n this onnetion % think it is instrutive to reall *ust ho& reently it is that 9ant has re-entered

the analyti anon# Russell’s and Eoore’s stritures by and large held until they &ere loosened

in the late G0s by ;tra&son and Bennett’s &ork on and use of 9ant’s theoretial philosophy"

and Ra&ls’s 9antian &ork in pratial philosophy 3espeially his 1I0 Theory of )ustice4# ;ine

then &e have had several aademi generations of first-rate analyti &ork on 9ant# (nd no&" as

day follo&s night" &e see the first stirrings of &hat Redding alls !the return of Hegelian

thought$ in analyti irles# Ey guess is that Hegel is *ust too interesting a reader of 9ant to be

struk off the rolls of the readable one 9ant himself has moved to enter stage 3elbo&ing

empiriism into the &ings4# 8ilfrid ;ellars one said that he hoped that an effet of his &ork

&ould be to begin to move analyti philosophy from its Humean to its 9antian phase# (nd

Rorty has harateriJed my &ork" and that of Aohn Eo&ell" as potentially helping to begin to

move it from its inipient 9antian to its inevitable Hegelian phase# 5his is the development

Redding is harateriJing and assisting# 35he Ear)ists al&ays laimed that one should push

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&hat is falling#4 8ittgenstein is an interesting ase in point for suh a transition# 7or if &e think

about the pride of plae given to propositional ontent in the former" and the soial theory of the

normativity harateristi of intentionality in the latter" &e an see the 8ittgenstein of the

Tractatus as a neo-kantian" &ithout 9ant’s residual empiriism" and the 8ittgenstein of the

"n'estigations as a neo-hegelian" &ithout Hegel’s revived rationalism#

5here is another 9antian" anti-empiriist" ultimately anti-atomisti theme running through

reent analyti philosophy that Redding does not disuss# %t" too" % think &ill eventually support

a rene&ed appreiation of Hegelian ideas# 5his is the a)ial role $odality should be understood

to play in semantis" logi" and metaphysis# 'ne of the driving motors of 9ant’s reoil from

empiriism is his realiJation that the frame&ork of empirial desription>the ommitments"

praties" abilities" and proedures that form the neessary pratial bakground &ithin the

horiJon of &hih alone it is possible to engage in the ognitive theoretial ativity of desribing

ho& things empirially are>essentially involves elements e)pressible in &ords that are not

desriptions" that do not perform the funtion of desribing ho& things are at the ground level#

5hese inlude &hat is made e)pliit as statements of laws" using alethi modal onepts to relate

the onepts applied in desriptions# (s ;ellars put the point+

%t is only beause the e)pressions in terms of &hih &e desribe ob*ets" even

suh basi e)pressions as &ords for the pereptible harateristis of molar

ob*ets" loate these ob*ets in a spae of impliations" that they desribe at all"

rather than merely label#.

4 Pp# ?0-?0I 3K10I4 in+ 8ilfrid ;ellars+ !6ounterfatuals" ispositions" and 6ausal Eodalities$ %n innesota

!tudies in the Philosophy of !cience" *olu$e ""( &oncepts+ Theories+ and the ind,-ody Proble$" ed# Herbert 7eigl"

Eihael ;riven" and Lrover Ea)&ell 3Einneapolis+ niversity of Einnesota Press" 1F4" p#22F-?0#

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(nd the impliations that artiulate that !spae of reasons$ are modally robust" ounterfatual-

supporting ones# %t &as appreiation of this 9antian point that led the (merian neo-9antian

6#%# e&is to apply the methods of the ne& logi to develop $odal logis 3indeed" he did so

essentially ontemporaneously &ith Principia athe$atica4# ;ellars dra&s the onlusion"

&hih Cuine had not" that the !&hole theories$ that Cuine sa& as the minimal !unit of meaning$

&ere theories that inluded laws# He summed this lesson up in the title of one of his less

readable essays !6onepts as %nvolving a&s" and %noneivable &ithout 5hem#$F

( holism that emphasiJes the semantogeni harater of alethi modal relations of

neessitation and prelusion brings us muh loser to Hegel than even Cuine had gotten# 7or at

the enter of Hegel’s innovations is a non-psyhologial oneption of the oneptual" aording

to &hih to be a $odal realist about the ob*etive &orld 3the &orld as it is independent of its

relation to any ativities or proesses of thinking4 is thereby to be a conceptual realist about it#

'n this &ay of thinking about the oneptual" to take it that there really are la&s of nature" that it

is ob*etively necessary that pure opper melt at 10.° 6#" and i$possible for a mass to be

aelerated &ithout being sub*eted to some fore" is to see that ob*etive &orld as already in

oneptual shape" and hene graspable as suh# 7or Hegel understands &hat is oneptual as

&hatever stands in relations of &hat he alls !determinate negation$ and !mediation$>by &hih

he means material inompatibility and material onse,uene# 7or there to be some determinate

&ay the &orld is *ust is for it to be artiulated into states of affairs>ob*ets possessing properties

and standing in relations>that inlude and e)lude eah other in modally robust &ays# Lrasping

those oneptual strutures in thought is onforming one’s pratie of amplifying and ritiiJing

5 ;ellars" 8# 31.4 !6onepts as %nvolving a&s" and %noneivable 8ithout 5hem#$ Philosophy of ;iene 1F+

2IM?1F#

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one’s ommitments to those ob*etive relations+ embraing the inferential onse,uenes of the

ommitments one akno&ledges" and re*eting ommitments that are inompatible &ith them#

5he same sort of onsideration that onvines us that &e &ill not sueed in building up

an understanding of fats and states of affairs 3statables" laimables" *udgeables4 from one of

ob*ets 3and properties and relations thought of as a kind of thing4" but must rather seek to

understand ob*ets and properties and relations in terms of the ontribution they make to fats

and states of affairs" should be deployed as &ell to onvine us that fats and states of affairs

annot be made intelligible e)ept in the light of the modally robust" ounterfatual-supporting

3!la&like$4 material onse,uential and inompatibility relations they stand in to one another and

&hih artiulate their propositional ontents# 5o take that step is to embark on one path that

leads from 9ant to Hegel# 7or it is to move from the order of semanti and ontologial

e)planation that takes judg$ent " the understanding" as primary" to embrae the metaoneption

that takes inference+ reason as primary# %n Hegel’s adaptation of 9ant’s terminology" that is to

move from the frame&ork of <erstand to that of <ernunft#

5he modal revolution that has taken plae in analyti philosophy in the last half-entury

amounts to a deisive repudiation of the hostility to modality that resulted from the unfortunate

onsonane on this point of both of the intelletual inspirations of logial empiriism# % take it to

have developed through three phases so far+ 9ripke’s seminal development of possible &orlds

semantis for the &hole range of 6#%# e&is’s modal logis" the employment of that apparatus to

provide intensional semantis for a host of non-logial e)pressions" and the se,uelae of 9ripke’s

treatment of proper names in !aming and eessity#$ 5he last of these" deepened and e)tended

6 6f# APRHT p# 1?I#

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to apply to other sorts of e)pressions suh as natural kind terms" inde)ials" and demonstratives"

has been assoiated &ith the severing of physial-ausal and oneptual modalities from

metaphysial ones" and the pursuit of semantis in terms of the latter rather than the former#

5hat is" it has arried &ith it the re*etion of the assoiation of modality and oneptual

artiulation that both Cuine and ;ellars had taken for granted 3the former as a reason to do

&ithout both" the latter in embraing them4# But that re*etion is ruially prediated on a

psychological oneption of the oneptual+ one that understands onepts in the first instane in

terms of our grip on them" rather than" as 9ant had taught" in terms of their normative

bindingness on us# 8e have yet to ahieve a reoniliation and synthesis of the 9ripke-9aplan-

;talnaker-e&is 3avid4 approah to modality &ith the 9ant-Hegel-;ellars one>but perhaps

someday &e shall#I

NNN

'ne of Redding’s aims in this book is to emphasiJe the importane not only of 9ant’s"

but of (ristotle’s influene on Hegel# %n this onnetion" he an elebrate Eo&ell’s approah#

He does so in t&o fine hapters on (ristotle" Hegel" and Eo&ell on phronesis and the

!dynamis of evaluative reason#$ % &on’t say anything in detail about this disussion" keeping

my fous here 3and not only here4 rather on theoretial semanti" logial" and metaphysial issues

than on those arising in pratial philosophy# ( prinipal manifestation of his onern to follo&

Hegel in keeping (ristotle in vie& is that a thread running throughout Redding’s book onerns

7 % take some initial steps to&ards one &ay of doing this in the last three hapters of -etween !aying and #oing #

(lthough the point is not developed there" as Aaroslav Peregrin has sho&n" the inompatibility semantis that is

introdued there an in large part be translated into possible &orld semantis" by trading minimal inoherent sets of

sentenes for ma)imal oherent ones#

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the signifiane of Hegel’s &orking &ithin the ultimately (ristotelian tradition of ter$ logi"

rather than the modern onte)t he alls 3some&hat misleadingly4 !propositional logi#$ %n my

remarks so far" % have onentrated on the perspetive on Hegel and analyti philosophy that

results &hen one regards them from the point of vie& of the tension bet&een Hegel’s holism and

Russell’s atomism and nominalism# 3ominalism is &hat atomism beomes" &hen it is detahed

from the &orld and attahed to the &ord#4 But Redding thinks that some of the lessons % e)trat

from my reading of Hegel are distorted by being situated in the frame&ork of t&entieth entury

logial ategories" rather than the traditional term-logial ategories Hegel adapts to his

distintive e)pressive purposes#

Redding is ertainly right to remind us to be vigilant about impliit hermeneuti

assumptions that might stem from forgetting about the very different logial setting Hegel &as

&orking in in the first third of the nineteenth entury# He is surely also right" as &as already

pointed out" that this differene mattered a great deal to the terms in &hih Russell 3espeially4

dre& the bright border line 3&hih he e)horted us to defend4 bet&een Hegelian thought 3even"

and perhaps espeially" in its late nineteenth entury Bradleyan form4 and the nasent analyti

movement in philosophy# 7or the term !analyti philosophy$ has" among its many senses" a

narro& one in &hih its harateristi ore ommitment is to &orking out ho& the !ne& logi$

that triggered the movement at the da&n of the t&entieth entury opens up ne& approahes to

entral onepts" issues" and aounts of traditional philosophial onern# 5his pro*et and its

master idea tie together 7rege" Russell" 6arnap" the 8ittgenstein of the Tractatus" Ramsey" (yer"

and 6#%# e&is" in the first half of the entury" and suh figures as Cuine" ;ellars" avidson"

Hempel" Putnam" ummett" Leah and avid e&is in the seond half# 5his narro&

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harateriJation &ould not" % think" ount in even Eoore" nor the later 8ittgenstein# Peire

&ould be inluded" but not Aames or e&ey# 5his restritive riterion of demaration &ould

validate ommon usage by e)luding Heidegger" Husserl" and Eerleau-Ponty" not to mention

Rorty# But it &ould diverge from that usage in e)luding also suh figures as Ra&ls" agel"

;earle" ;troud" and 7odor>though not ;tra&son" 9aplan" Burge" ;talnaker" and 7riedman# %

have signed on to this e)pedition 3e)pliitly in -etween !aying and #oing " and impliitly in

a.ing "t Explicit 4" but Eo&ell 3in ind and World 4 is not even a fello&-traveler# %t is" then"

a 'ery narro& riterion#

But is Redding right to see the differene bet&een Hegel’s term logi and our logi as

engendering a substantial tension at the heart of the pro*et of integrating Hegel’s ideas into the

analyti onversationO % do not think so# ( prinipal test ase" to &hih he devotes the

penultimate hapter of the book" onerns negation and ontradition# 5he master-onept of

Hegel’s logi" semantis" and metaphysis is determinate negation # %t is modal onept# 8e

have to understand it 3&e are told in the Perception hapter of the Pheno$enology4 in terms of

the differene bet&een t&o kinds of differene+ $ere or indifferent :gleihgltige= differene and

exclusi'e :ausshlieQende= differene# Square and red are different properties in the first sense"

&hile square and circular are different in the modally oomphier seond sense+ they are

inco$patible# %t is i$possible 3an alethi modal matter4 for one and the same plane figure to

8

Eediation is also a key onept" but is learly subordinated to determinate negation # GEediation’ is a matter ofstanding in inferential relations# %ndeed" the term itself derives from the role the middle term in a syllogism

performs in liensing the move from ma*or and minor premises to the onlusion in a syllogism# %t is also lear" %

think" that the inferential relations Hegel has in mind are thought of as modally robust inferenes of the sort that

&ould be e)pressed by ounterfatual onditionals# (lthough Hegel no&here makes this point" % think the

onnetion is seured by the fat that suh inferenes an be defined in terms of material inompatibilities

3determinate negations4# 7or p entails / 3 Pa entails 0a4 in a modally strong sense in ase everything inompatible

&ith / is inompatible &ith p# 5hus !Pedro is a donkey$ entails GPedro is a mammal$" beause everything

inompatible &ith being a mammal is inompatible &ith being a donkey 3but not 'ice 'ersa4#

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e)hibit both# 8e an say that circular is a 3not Gthe’4 determinate negation of square#

#eter$inate negation is to be distinguished not only from mere 3ompatible4 differene" but also

from &hat Hegel alls G for$al ’ or Gabstract ’ negation+ not-square# (s Redding notes"

determinate negations are (ristotelian contraries" &hile formal negations are (ristotelian

contradictories#

'n this point" Redding says that

Hegel’s meaning is masked if one approahes his logial laims e)lusively from

a fundamentally propositionally-based approah to logi" and ignores the

irreduible role Hegel attributes to aspets of (ristotelian ter$ logi#

5he key point seems to be that

5erm negation produes the contrary of the term negated" &hile denying rather

than affirming a prediate of a sub*et produes a sentene that is contradictory to

the affirmation#10

5hat is true" but it does not follo& that term logi has some inherent advantage in

e)pressing determinate" rather than formal" negations# (fter all" &e an use lassial

formal negation to form the ontraditories of prediates" too" as &e did &ith not-square

above# 5he important move is from for$al inconsistency to $aterial inco$patibility# 'n

the side of inferene" this is the move to &hat ;ellars alls !material$ inferenes+ those

under&ritten by the ontent of the non-logial onepts they essentially involve# 5hese are

inferenes suh as !%t is raining" so the streets &ill be &et"$ or !Pittsburgh is to the 8est of

Philadelphia" so Philadelphia is to the Dast of Pittsburgh#$ Eaterial inompatibilities and

9 APRHT p# 20.#10 APRHT p# 20I#

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onse,uenes an be onsidered either for prediates 3properties4 or for sentenes 3states of

affairs4# 5he differene of logial ategorial fous is orthogonal to the distintion bet&een

material inompatibility and formal inonsisteny# ;o % do not see that the entrality of

the onept of determinate negation to Hegel’s enterprise gives us any reason to think that

Hegel’s meaning &ill be !masked$ if &e don’t follo& him in setting his laims in the

frame&ork of a term logi#

5o be fair" Redding seems to onede some of this+

8hile Brandom’s inferentialist reading of Hegel tends to &ork from &ithin a

uniformly 1regean approah to logi" there seems nothing substantial about his

position that &ould not allo& the onsiderations that have been appealed to here

from being assimilated &ithin the inferentialist pro*et# 11

But then there is the bit &here he takes it bak# 5he passage ontinues+

evertheless" it &ould seem that from a stritly Hegelian position" Brandom’s

naturalisti $etaposition &ould be regarded as &orking at the level of Gthe

nderstanding’ rather than GReason’#

% do not see that this harateriJation is &arranted# 8hat stands behind it" % think" is t&o laims#

7irst" 7regean approahes to logi are 9antian in giving pride of logio-semanti ategorial plae

to the level of judg$ent # 5hat is harateristi of the nderstanding 3in both 9ant’s and Hegel’s

usages4# ;eond" the Hegelian metaoneptual frame&ork of Reason is artiulated by $aterial

inompatibility and onse,uene relations# But 7regean logi onerns for$al logial

inonsisteny and onse,uene# % aept those laims" more or less# But the onlusion that

beause % use 7regean apparatus % am not apturing &hat is distintive of Hegel’s frame&ork of

11 APRHT p# 21#

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<ernunft does not follo& from them# 'n the first point" % start &ith inferene>and so" % &ould

argue" does 7rege" at least in his seminal -egriffsschrift of 1I# 7or there he introdues his

topi" oneptual ontent :begriffliher %nhalt= &ith the observation+

###there are t&o &ays in &hih the ontent of t&o *udgments may differ@ it may" or

it may not" be the ase that all inferenes that an be dra&n from the first

*udgment &hen ombined &ith ertain other ones an al&ays also be dra&n from

the seond &hen ombined &ith the same other *udgments# 5he t&o propositions

the Lreeks defeated the Persians at Plataea and the Persians &ere defeated by the

Lreeks at Plataea differ in the former &ay@ even if a slight differene of sense is

disernible" the agreement in sense is preponderant# o& % all that part of the

ontent that is the same in both the oneptual ontent# 'nly this has signifiane

for our symboli language :Begriffsshrift=### %n my formaliJed language

:BL;=###only that part of *udgments &hih affets the possible inferenes is taken

into onsideration# 8hatever is needed for a orret :rihtig" usually

misleadingly translated as valid= inferene is fully e)pressed@ &hat is not needed

is###not#12

6oneptual ontent is determined by inferential role# 7urther" sine the point of introduing

speifially logical voabulary is for 7rege to odify antecedent proprieties of inferene that

artiulate the oneptual ontent of non-logial e)pressions" it is lear that the inferenes he has

in mind as artiulating those ontents is $aterial inferenes# (t any rate" that is the

understanding of 7rege on the basis of &hih % am prepared to use some of his metaoneptual

apparatus to e)pliate Hegel# 5his does not put 7rege" or me" on the &rong 3unHegelian4 side of

the fundamental <erstand/<ernunft divide#

12 7rege" -egriffsschrift " setion ?#

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7urthermore" there is an important dimension along &hih it seems to me that 7rege’s

logi offers a deisive advane over the term-logi Hegel &as obliged to take as his starting-

point" preisely in regard to the holisti top-do&n order of semanti e)planation harateristi of

<ernunft# 7or 7rege’s funtion-and-argument analysis is e)atly the deompositional tool one

needs to implement an e)planatory strategy that moves from inferene" through *udgment" to

terms and onepts" reversing the traditional term-logial strategy# %t is the method of noting

invariane under substitution" developed already by BolJano# %n the version % elaborate in

6hapter ;i) of a.ing "t Explicit " one treats t&o sentenes as e)pressing the ontent *ust in ase

substituting one for the other as premise or onlusion of inferenes never turns a materially

good inferene into a materially bad one# 'ne then treats t&o prediates 3say4 as e)pressing the

same onept in ase substituting one for another never hanges the ontent of sentenes

ontaining them# 5he result is a ategorial frame&ork intermediate bet&een" but muh more

intriately strutured than either *elly or shot# %f &e are interested in developing and thinking

through the onse,uenes of a shift from an empiriist atomism-nominalism" first to *udgement-

based <erstand and then to inferene-based <ernunft" 7rege’s logi gives us far better e)pressive

tools to do so than does the traditional logi# (nd it is ertainly apable of e)pressing prediate-

negation as &ell as sentential negation# %ndeed" one again" it is *ust &hat is &anted to larify the

differenes and relations bet&een them#1?

'ne ruial touhstone for the assessment of any aount of Hegel’s notion of

determinate negation is &hat sense one is able to make of his friendliness to ontraditions#

Redding spend a good bit of his hapter on this topi patiently pointing out many reasons not to

understand Hegel as embraing a position of the kind that has been &orked out in detail in

13 anielle Eabeth’s pathbreaking 1rege2s 3ogic :Harvard niversity Press" 200F= argues persuasively that one of

its prinipal e)pressive advantages is its apaity to e)press the $odal relations among onepts that must be taked

on as embarrassing afterthoughts to the Russell-6arnap-5arski-Cuine version of the ne& logi#

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ontemporary dialethism# 5his is a useful" if une)iting" enterprise" &hih % suppose Redding

felt obliged as an (ustralian to &alk through# % &ould have been glad" ho&ever" for a disussion

that penetrated loser to the heart of this issue# % &ould enapsulate it in four laims+

1# 5he formal la& of nonontradition" forbidding simultaneous ommitment to p and its

negation Sp" is orret as far as it goes" but fails to apture more than an abstrat shado&

of the important phenomenon#

2# Eaterial ontradition>finding oneself &ith materially inompatible ommitments"

ommitments that are determinate negations of one another>is inevitable#

3.;uh ontraditions sho& that something is &rong+ that one has made an error 3or

pratial failure4#

4. onetheless" material ontraditions and the errors they indiate are the path of 3not to4

truth#

7ormal negation is an abstration from determinate negation" &hih is &hat really matters#1. 5he

sense in &hih material inompatibility 3one sense of Gontradition’4 is fundamental to the

ob*etive &orld is that to be a deter$inate property or state of affairs is to ontrast &ith 3in the

sense of modally e)luding4 other properties an ob*et might have" or states of affairs that might

obtain>that is" to stand in relations of determinate negation to other items of the same

ontologial ategory# !'mnis determinatio est negatio#$ 5he sense in &hih material

inompatibility is fundamental to our ognitive and pratial ativities is that there is" and an in

principle be no set of determinate onepts suh that correct appliation of them>follo&ing the

norms for their use>&ill never lead to ommitments that are inompatible aording to those

material oneptual norms#

14 %f P is a property" SP an be thought of as the minimal materially inompatible property of P+ the one possession

of &hih is entailed by every property materially inompatible &ith P# 5hus not-square is entailed by circular"

triangular" hexagonal" and so on#

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8hy notO % think Hegel has a radially ne& idea of &hat the oneptual ine)haustibility

of sensuous immediay onsists in>one that is onsonant &ith his ne& holisti *ernunft setting"

rather than that of *erstand or of atomism# 5he tradition 39ant inluded4 had understood the

sense in &hih the immediate deliveries of our senses outrun &hat &e an apture oneptually

as a matter of its ine)haustibility by *udgments# o matter ho& many true pereptual *udgments

&e might make" there &ill al&ays remain further truths that remain as yet une)pressed# 7ully

apturing &hat &e sense in oneptually artiulated *udgments is an infinite task 3in 7ihte’s

sense4" hene in priniple unompletable# 5his is an appeal to &hat Hegel alled !bad infinity#$

5he good infinity harateristi of <ernunft is different" and goes deeper# 5he tradition had

never doubted the intelligibility of the notion of determinate onepts that &ere fully ade,uate to

e)pressing *udgments that &ere simply true# Hegel does# 5he oneptual ine)haustibility of

sensuous immediay sho&s itself preisely in the impossibility of stably apturing ho& things

are using any set of determinate onepts# %f &e orretly apply any suh set long enough" they

&ill eventually sho& their inade,uay by leading us to embrae ommitments that are material

inompatible aording to the lights of the norms impliit in those very onepts# (t the ore of

Hegel’s vie& is not only an epistemi" but a deep se$antic fallibilism# (s far as our determinate

empirial and pratial onepts are onerned" &e are born in sin" and doomed to die in sin# 3%

think this aspet of Hegel’s thought has not been muh remarked upon beause of a failure to

keep t&o sets of books+ one on his vie&s of determinate empirial and pratial onepts" the

other on the logical " speulative" philosophial metaonepts &hose distintive e)pressive *ob it

is to make e)pliit &hat is going on &hen &e apply the ground-level onepts# Hegel does think

that there an be a stable" ade,uate battery of the latter#4 1F

15 % have e)plored these ideas further in !;keth of a Program for a 6ritial Reading of Hegel$ : "nternationales

)ahrbuch des #eutschen "dealis$us" <ol ?" 200F" pp# 1?1-11=#

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;o ontraditing ourselves>endorsing materially inompatible ommitments>is

unavoidable# But it is still a kind of sin@ there is something &rong &ith finding ourselves in suh

a state# 7or &e are normatively obliged" &hen &e do find ourselves &ith materially inompatible

ommitments" to remedy the situation+ to groom our ommitments" inluding the inferential ones

that artiulate the ontents of our onepts" so as to eliminate the ontradition# 8e must make

distintions" refine our onepts" relin,uish some *udgments" so as to remove or repair the

ontradition# 5hat is &hy the same relations of determinate negation that artiulate the

determinate ontents of our onepts are also the motor of change of our oneptually artiulated

ommitments>both at the level of *udgments and the level of inferene" hene at the level of

onepts themselves# eterminate 3and determining4 negation is &hat makes <ernunft dyna$ic#

%t is the soure of oneptual change# %nsofar as the merely formal la& of nonontradition

e)presses" ho&ever inade,uately" the overarhing normative obligation to repair material

inompatibilities &hen they are enountered" it is orret>as far as it goes#

But &e should not onlude from the fat that &e are fated to disover the inade,uay

and inorretness of every set of determinate onepts &e deploy that &e are on a path of

despair# 'n the ontrary" the e)periene of error is the &ay of enlightenment# %t is ho& &e

i$pro'e our understanding" raft better onepts-and-ommitments" ome to trak more losely

&hat really" ob*etively follo&s from &hat and e)ludes &hat" in the inferenes and

inompatibilities &e sub*etively endorse# 5his is the truth- process" the path of truth 3!the

movement of the life of truth$14# But &e must give up the idea of truth as a destination" as a

state or property that some time-slie of our ommitments an have# !5ruth is not a minted oin

that an be given and poketed ready-made#$1I !5ruth is its o&n self-movement#$1 5hat stati"

16 Pheno$enology+ Prefae" paragraph .I#

17 Pheno$enology+ Prefae" paragraph ?#18 Pheno$enology+ Prefae" paragraph .#

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stable oneption belongs to the standpoint of <erstand" not of <ernunft# %n a memorable

harateriJation 3admittedly something less than a definition4" Hegel says+

5ruth is a vast Bahanalian revel" &ith not a soul sober@ yet beause eah

member ollapses as soon as he drops out" the revel is *ust as muh transparent

and simple repose# Audged in the ourt of this movement" the single shapes of

;pirit do not persist any more than determinate thoughts do#1

5hat every ommitment is liable to being found to ollide &ith another" and so to be re*eted

means that as this proess" !truth inludes the negative#$20 5his is not a oherene theory of truth

>though there is a oherene theory of $eaning in the bakground# 7or lassial oherene

theories of truth" like their rival" orrespondene theories" share a ommitment to truth as an

ahievable state or property 3truth as !rigid" dead propositions$214# %t is something muh more

radial and interesting# 8hat matters is the proess" not the produt#

Redding’s fasinating book is an important progressive step in suh a truth proess# By

identifying" refining" and reoniling various material inompatibilities bet&een them 3both real

and merely rumored4" it inaugurates a ne& phase in the ongoing onversation bet&een analyti

philosophy and Hegelian ideas>a onversation &e an no& learly see &as not losed off one

and for all by the Eanihean spin Russell gave to it a entury ago#

Dnd

19 Pheno$enology+ Prefae" paragraph .I#

20 Pheno$enology+ Prefae" paragraph .#

21 Pheno$enology+ Prefae" paragraph .F#

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Brandom 2011_Hegel and Analytic Philosophy

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