I think everything Alan is saying here is important. I've quoted these two statements because these are the only statements I think I can claim to really understand in this context. I'll just share what I know. 

The notion of the "space of reasons" derives from Wilfrid Sellars his essay Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, appearing in probably the most famous collection of his works: "Science, Perception, and Reality"(1963). There are two passages there that to this day divide readers of Sellars. I'll present them here out of the order which they appear in in the essay, only because there is an important thing which I think becomes apparent when we recognize the mysterious character of what Sellars "commits" himself to. (You'll have to pardon me Alan, I am sorry to have used the euphemism, but I think I'm going to have to to point this out.) 

Sellars was a self-avowed "Scientific Realist", and for many he is one of the avatar of Naturalism in American Philosophy. Here is the infamous passage, named the "scientia mensura" passage: 

"...in the dimension of describing and explaining the world, science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not." (Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, IX. Science and Ordinary Usage)

...but Sellars says this only after he unleashes the other infamous passage, important for contemporary readers of Hegel: the "space of reasons" passage:

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 2:15 AM, 'Alan Ponikvar' ponikvaraj@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

As I understand the space of reasons it involves an interlocking web of inferential relations between statements. Whenever we make a meaningful statement the statement is meaningful not because it refers to something extra-linguistic – some referent – but rather its meaning derives from its relation to the web of implicit inferences that accompany any statement. A statement’s normative authority comes from the fact that it relates within this web of relevant inferences.

 

Now the fact that this is not a good fit for what is happening in Hegel’s Logic is signaled by Zambrana with her observation that “norms” to be Hegelian would have to be ambivalent and precarious. These two feature relate quite nicely to my view that the logical moves unique to a speculative logic are reversal (ambivalence) and inversion (precariousness).

 

But it is difficult to see how she can actually relate such talk to the space of reasons. This space seems at the very least to be neutral with respect to ambivalence and precariousness. There is nothing about inferential relations that suggest that they can be well founded and at the same time ambivalent and precarious.

 

And if some norms appear to have these characteristics – maybe due to conflicting inferential chains that are viewed as equally essential to establishing the norm - this does not signal that within the space of reasons there is a reason uniquely suited to such ambivalence and precariousness.

 

As you note, whatever she is talking about – you say speculation - refers to interlocked stability. I do not think this stability is speculative in part because a speculative system is not a web of reasons. It is not even a web of determinations.

 

I do agree that there is a connection between determinacy and intelligibility, but this connection is not inferential but what I would call emergent. The “truth” of any speculative derivation involves a reconception of the initial immediate determinacy in this way revealing through mediation what the initial determinacy actually signifies, what it really means, its true intelligibility.

 

This movement through ever expanding intelligible renderings of unconditioned thinking is nothing like what happens in Brandom’s space of reasons where the connections are statements about contingent conditions linked so as to provide support for the initial statement.

 

So Zambrana seems to me to be caught between Brandom and Hegel.

 

You raise a number of questions that one would have to address if we to bring these two thinkers together. I think the last one in particular marks the squared circle. An inner difference creates a rational “space” within which thought moves.

 

And the initial moves being inferential resemble space of reasons moves. But this movement is quite brief as it quickly comes to an impasse. It is not expansive but constrictive. At the precise point when space of reasons talk ceases to be appropriate speculative talk comes to the fore.

 

In the end, Zambrana is trying to relate a theory of intelligibility that functions within the realm of common reason to a theory – if we allowed ourselves to call it that – of an entirely different species of reason.

 

The misstep that marks this impossible task is Brandom’s reading of determinate negation as a first negative distinguishing – something Zambrana accepts - rather than a speculative or second negative creation of absolute form.

 

Having said all this, I think that much of what Zambrana does in her book is first rate and not particularly compromised by these problems.

 

-          Alan

 

 

 

 

From: hegel@yahoogroups.com [mailto:hegel@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 12:33 AM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hegel] Zambrana's normative authority

 

 

Further just after the previous quote:

 

Hegel’s account of the actualization of the idea is the proper inheritor of the Kantian view of synthesis. The strictures of the actualization of the idea are elaborated in the Logic at a formal register, bracketing a substantive reference to Geist as the concrete ground of actualization. Parts 2 and 3 of this book are dedicated to explicating and assessing these strictures by focusing on the relation between determinacy and intelligibility developed in the Logic. While Hegel’s theory of intelligibility is developed as a theory of normative authority under the banner of the idea, his theory of determinacy establishes the inseparability of form and content crucial for clarifying his view of the actualization of the idea. A logic of actualization indicates that intelligibility is not only historically specific but also precarious and ambivalent. The system as a whole— logic, nature, Geist— provides the context for fully elaborating Geist as the concrete ground of actualization. Such a task is beyond the bounds of this book.

 

Zambrana, Rocío (2015-11-20). Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility (Kindle Locations 1054-1058). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition. 

 

 

It would seem to me Alan, that Zambrana is focusing on the this side of the speculative.  She is referring precisely to the interlocked stability of the 'hurly burly of the space of reasons' and of the challenge of hypostasis (or the tendency of conservation of a previous state-- being stuck at a lower level) to the work (that is never guaranteed) of actualization.   However, it is not exactly clear to me what you mean by speculative in your response.  Is it the 'progressive' or the rationally emergent, or is it the 'view of the whole, or the frame'.  Wouldn't focusing on the character of the rational space and the logical configuration as a whole, which constitutes a given impasse be precisely speculative?  How would the inner difference work in such a space?

Srivats

 

 

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Alan Ponikvar ponikvaraj@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

In reading this I am reminded of how Hegel makes a distinction that gets lost here between the actual as rational and everything that happens to be the case being rational.

 

Put differently, Zambrana does not seem to respect the difference between the hurly burly that is the space of reasons and speculative conceptual space.

 

I suspect that Hegel would appreciate what Brandom is doing but would note that there is nothing to prevent ill-conceived concepts from being carved out in the space of reasons. 

 

Speculative concepts are defined by their inner difference and not by how they function within the space of reasons. 

 

Because there is a certain family resemblance between a systematic array of determinations and an inferential net I can see how this confusion might take hold.

- Alan

On Apr 26, 2016, at 6:16 AM, R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Impressively solid argument:

 

 

Hegel argues that “the concept is to be regarded  .  .  . not just as a subjective presupposition but as absolute foundation; but it cannot be the latter except to the extent that it has made itself into one.”  The concept is not a presupposed foundation; it is not a unity that is not itself the result of synthetic activity. It is made into a foundation, it counts as a foundation, when it adequately expresses a form of rationality specific to concrete conditions at hand. The concept must make itself into a foundation, must establish itself as authoritative, given that it itself is a synthetic unity, a concrete form of rationality specific to the context at hand. Determinacy is not the result of the work of the concept, then, if we understand by concept an abstract rule or norm that makes possible the unity of an object of experience. It is a matter of distinctions articulated by and within specific concrete conditions— conditions that refer us to a specific shape of Geist. Any determination is maintained or debunked by the ongoing work of synthesis within and by concrete practices, discourses, institutions that comprise a shape of a world. But these practices and institutions are themselves synthetic unities. They are themselves sustained by forms of rationality and hence articulated by historically specific conditions. The concept must make itself into the foundation, then, because the normative commitment at work in the determinacy of any way of life is itself a concrete form of rationality that may or may not express or capture the conditions at hand. It may or may not be actual or, as we will see, authoritative.

 

Zambrana, Rocío (2015-11-20). Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility (Kindle Locations 1040-1049). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition. 

 

Srivats

 

--

R Srivatsan
Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies 
2-2-18/2/A Durgabai Deshmukh Colony
Hyderabad 500 013
Phone: +91 40 27423690
Fax:     +91 40 27423168
Mobile: +91 94404 80762, +91 77027 11656

 

--

R Srivatsan
Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies 
2-2-18/2/A Durgabai Deshmukh Colony
Hyderabad 500 013
Phone: +91 40 27423690
Fax:     +91 40 27423168
Mobile: +91 94404 80762, +91 77027 11656