Maurizio Canfora wrote:

> Dear list,
>
> ........
>
> For those who are interested, I am posting a brief commentary of Beiser's
> real arguments -- by the way, you will find his essay from page 1 to
> page 20
> of "The Cambridge Companion to Hegel" (edition 1993), "TCCTH" from now
> on .
>
> ***
>
> Beiser's aim is to introduce a discussion on Hegel's philosophy. Aware of
> the harsh debates that Hegel has always stirred among interpreters,
> particularly on his approach to philosophy and particulalry to
> metaphysics,
> our author wishes to clarify in what sense we can say that Hegel's
> philosophy "redeems" metaphysics, and by doing so rectify some false
> impressions we could have gathered from the reading of misleading
> interpretations by the kind of Russell, Popper, and so on.
>
> First observation:
> the polemics Paul Trejo unleashed against "non-metaphysical" readings of
> Hegel misses its target completely, if it has to be referred to Beiser.
> Actually, Beiser acknowledges that Hegel's philosophy has an undeniable
> metaphysical character, only it is necessary to better define what
> this term
> "metaphysics" means.

You are right, there is a term of "metaphysics" which is quite different
to Paul's theological notion of metaphysics. There are not only the
alternatives of theological metaphysics on the one side and
non-metaphysical readings of Hegel on the other side. This is too easy.

> For instance, Beiser inequivocally says:
>
> >>
> [...] Hegel himself regarded metaphysics as a very problematic undertaking
> in need of legitimation, [...] he accepted the Kantian challenge to
> metaphysics, insisting that "any future metaphysics that is to come
> forward
> as a science" must be based upon a critique of knowledge.
> The main task of this introduction is to address the chief problem
> confronting the understanding and evaluation of Hegel's philosophy, the
> problem of metaphysics. [...] The chief advantage of this approach is that
> we should be able to produce an interpretation of Hegel that is neither
> obscurantist nor reductivist, that neither regards *his metaphysics* as
> speculation about the supernatural nor reduces it to mere categorical
> analysis. (TCCTH, page 3, emphasis mine)
> <<

It seems that Beiser shows two extremes of metaphysical readings:
speculation about the supernatural or a reduction to mere categorical
analysis (as Kant did). The latter as a reduction of metaphysics seems
to fall again into non-metaphysical reading. Your following quotations
from Beiser's Introduction do not really answer the question what
Hegel's own notion of metaphysics is between these two extremes though
this question seems to make up the core of his Introduction.

> Beiser goes on articulating his essay as constituting of 4 answers to 4
> major questions, i.e.: what does Hegel mean by "metaphysics"? What does he
> mean by "the absolute"? Why does he postulate the existence of the
> absolute?
> How does he responds to Kant's critique that the absolute is not knowable,
> endorsing the opposite view?
>
> Second observation:
> one crucial fault in Beiser's following argument is to deal Hegel's and
> Schelling's position as if they were the same or at least analogical.
> It is
> true that Hegel shared Shelling's position during his Jena first
> years, when
> they were very close and collaborated to the redaction of the 'Critical
> Journal of Philosophy', and when (we could say) Hegel was completing his
> philosophical "Bildung" with the help of his famous friend. However, at
> least beginning from 1804, Hegel's position started to evolve,
> differentiating itself completely from the one of Schelling.
>
> Not that Beiser completely fails to recognise those developments -- on the
> contrary he seems to be fully aware of the profound differences.
> However, he
> seems to be of the opinion that Hegel's philosophy is *only* a successful
> attempt to render Schelling's thought more founded from a strictly
> epistemological point of view.

This may be correct. But the "strictly epistemological point of view"
means rather a reduction to a categorical analysis which Beiser seems to
reject as a false view on Hegel's metaphysics?

> What Beiser fails to take into account is the revolutionary scope and
> power
> of Hegel's major accomplishment vis-a-vis Schelling, that is the
> introduction of the method of dialectic. Of course, without dialectic,
> Hegel
> would only have been a brilliant disciple of Schelling; but to
> downplay the
> role of dialectic in Hegel's philosophy in the way Beiser does, is a
> serious
> mistake, even though it derives from Beiser's (alleged) doubts on the
> actual
> validity of dialectic as a solution to the problems Hegel was facing (see
> TCCTH, page 20).

Yes, this is also Schelling's later basic critique on Hegel's
philosophy: it is only an imitation of his own philosophy burdened by
all this fuss of dialectic. Beiser seems to repeat this critique?

> John Bardis' disparate quotes from Beiser are essentially drawn from the
> first part of his essay, the one where he responds to the first two
> questions he raised (see above). There, Beiser compares Schelling's
> concept
> of "absolute" as vitalistic organism -- as "living force", to the one of
> Hegel, surprisingly finding that their concepts are the same, only Hegel
> manifests more attention to the evident conclusion that an absolute, to be
> really so, must be conceived as the unity of finite and infinite (TCCTH,
> page 7).
>
> It is clear that this is not (or better, not *the all of*) Hegel's
> conception of the "absolute". What it lacks, is definitely dialectic.
> Beiser
> will somehow recover this lost dimension in the fourth and final part
> of his
> contribution, but it will be too little, too late. For now, Beiser insists
> on the *immanent* aspect of Schelling's-Hegel's conception of this
> "absolute", an absolute that (because it entails the "finite" within
> itself)
> has some strong "naturalist attributes". It is evident to me that all this
> stress on "nature", on the taumaturgical powers of this "living force"
> fits
> much more to Schelling's vantage point than to Hegel. It is less evident
> from Beiser's argument, but as I said, he tends to downplay the obvious
> difference.
>
> However, for all these shortcomings, I cannot but agree with Beiser
> when he
> draws our attention to the undeniably materialist consequences and
> intrinsic
> aspects of Hegelianism. He says (and John Bardis quoted him right):
>
> >>
> If it seems strange to regard Hegel as a materialist, given all his talk
> about 'spirit', then we must lay aside the usual mechanistic picture of
> materialism. We also must not forget that for Hegel, spirit is only the
> highest degree of organization and development of the organic powers
> within
> nature. (TCCTH, page 9)
> <<
>
> I agree with Beat Greuter (01/25 post) that the last sentence is
> completely
> wrong and does not portray Hegel's philosophy accurately. It is
> probably the
> worst way to organise an argument on the materialist aspects of Hegel's
> thought.

The problem seems to be that Beisers interpretation is based on
Schelling's Philosophy of Nature which he equates with Hegel's
Philosophy of Nature. This is a great mistake. Schelling meant that his
Philosophy of Nature could be a kind of substitution (or important
supplement) for modern natural science which according to him lacks
precisely the content of this ""absolute" as vitalistic organism -- as
"living force"" and has become only mechanical and particular. In
Hegel's mature philosophy we can no longer find such a point of view.
Hegel's Philosophy of Nature is only a demonstration how the concept of
freedom is going to be actualized in nature (and later in spirit). It is
a pure philosophical viewpoint which does no longer mix up the contents
of natural science and philosophy of nature.

> ............
>
> Beiser continues replying to the last two questions he raised.
>
> This is probably the best part of his essay, the one which partly
> "redeems"
> the previous gross simplifications and mistakes. Displaying his best
> qualities and showing his competence and profound knowledge of the
> development of idealism from Kant through Fichte, he illustrates how
> Schelling's - first - and Hegel's - eventually - philosophies respond to
> Fichte's first unsatisfactory attempt to solve Kant's dualism. In the end,
> he will finally make Hegel's difference vis-a-vis Schelling completely
> explicit, by analysing the opposition "in-kind" between the latter's
> "intellectual intuition" and Hegel's dialectical approach.

Yes, Hegel demonstrates this difference in his Introduction to the
Phenomenology of Spirit (§§ 16 and 17): The "intellectual intuition" as
such is only the negation of all determination, the void absolute, the
nothing. With the determination of "intellectual intuition" the
dialectical approach begins by demonstrating the logical structure of
this absolute as the process of the cognizing of absolute actuality
becoming clear about itself. It is therefore the dialectical approach
which avoids that "intellectual intuition" again 'falls back into inert
simplicity, and depicts actuality itself in an non-actual - that is
again in a dualistic - manner' (§ 17). Therefore Hegel's philosophy is
not merely an imitation of Schelling's philosophy but its sublation.

> It is offensive and insulting (to use two terms that have already been
> used,
> see 01/23 posts) that John Bardis omitted to quote this final part of
> Beiser's essay. He gave of Beiser's essay a false impression, as if
> all what
> Beiser was trying to do was to interpret Hegel as a "non-metaphysical"
> thinker. This is false. Let's see:
>
> >>
> Yet there can be no doubt that the dialectic presented an original and
> ingenious solution to the problem facing Hegel: how to legitimate
> metaphysics in the face of the Kantian critique of knowledge. Even if
> Hegel's dialectic fails, we cannot accuse him of an uncritical
> indulgence in
> metaphysics. It should be clear by now that this would be only to beg
> important philosophical questions. (TCCTH, page 20)
> <<
> and also:
> >>
> It should now be clear that Schelling's and Hegel's idea of the
> absolute was
> anything but an uncritical leap into metaphysics. Rather than ignoring the
> challenge of Kant's philosophy, *their metaphysics* was the only means to
> resolve its fundamental problem, namely, to explain how our a priori
> concepts apply to experience. (TCCTH, page 15, emphasis mine)
> <<
>
> ...........
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Maurizio Canfora

This is all true but I cannot derive from these quotations what in
Hegel's philosophy 'metaphysics' does really mean. Is it only an
extension of Kantian categorical analysis - "to explain how our a priori
concepts apply to experience" - or is it something which goes basically
beyond Kantian philosophy but nevertheless does not fall back into mere
conceptual realism or nominalism again? In my opinion 'dialectical
method' alone does not evoke 'metaphysics', otherwise also Marx's
historical and social theory would be 'metaphysics' what most probably
you will reject.

Best wishes,
Beat Greuter