On Tue, 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

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 4:26 PM, C A V cavermette@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

Thank you. 

You have to understand that given that Zambrana and I are both "deontic-scorekeepers", it is impossible at times for me to tell the difference between what - couched in the the language we share - counts as fluent opinion and what counts as sensible truth. In my view, if an argument has force, some truth is at work.  

If you want to talk to more deontic-scorekeepers... go play The Sims 4. (I'm not making that up. I used to love the fact that Making it Explicit was the resource used to program the AI characters in that video game; now I hate that fact, but whatever.) Never forget Rule 1 for me in Philosophy: The Matrix was, and still is, a terrible movie. I am not an NPC in Dungeons and Dragons, and I think my sister is real, and that her life is doubtless more important than mine. I might even go so far as to say her "existence" is of secondary importance to all of this.
  
I will go on the hunt for what is behind this argument you've presented. (I will search for what of the argument I can find in what you've posted...) That might even constitute a productive use of my time... you've profoundly helped me to orient myself here philosophically for a long while at least. 

At a later time I might refer back to this. I think I need to do more "heavy lifting" before I can call myself worthy of unpacking Zambrana's many insightful remarks. I already know what I think is going to be wrong with her reading, but it does not matter. (Abstracting from "Phi-losophy": I don't see a single false report in her.)

I've closely read the first chapter, and loosely read the fourth chapter. (My struggle to comprehend Hegel's infinite. She was better with it than Pinkard. Also, more insightful than Inwood, whose account of the infinite informed my reading for a good couple years.) I think I loosely read more chapters than the first and the introduction, but I don't remember. The discussion of her work here came to an abrupt end. I am still planning to turn to her as I work through the Logic. I've taken some copious notes on her work. (Also will employ Mr. Errol E. Harris's commentary. Old, obscure, but mine.)    

Best,
-Chuck

On Tue, 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

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 7:09 AM, R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

This made sense to me with a kind of brilliant clarity because of the political situation we are struggling with in my city.  If you remember I posted some off topic notes on the suicide of Rohith Vemula, and then some more details about a police atrocity.  

Three weeks ago we had an opportunity to conduct a People's Tribunal with a retired high court judge, and two senior professors.  The judge wound up by providing spirit to the large gathering (it was a resounding success!) suggesting that we wouldn't be able to get 'justice' from any institution or establishment, because judges aren't immune to the waves of culture (Benjamin Cardozo In think).  

I heard him as saying that at given moments, there is no normative authority that is established in power that will be able to deliver the kind of justice you seek.  In other words, to interpret with Zambrana, the Concept of justice we sought has no normative authority because the established universal of justice has no scope to deal with the concrete new situation we are presenting to it.  

The students who were at the forefront of the struggle against caste injustice were throwing up an completely new possibility of a concrete universal, which had no scope to become acutality.  This was because whatever the state of justice and its concepts were across the world, the concept that animated and was externalized in India had material and established conditions that were crystallized in a form that couldn't deliver the new demand of justice addressed to it.

Srivats

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 4:26 PM, C A V cavermette@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

Thank you. 

You have to understand that given that Zambrana and I are both "deontic-scorekeepers", it is impossible at times for me to tell the difference between what - couched in the the language we share - counts as fluent opinion and what counts as sensible truth. In my view, if an argument has force, some truth is at work.  

If you want to talk to more deontic-scorekeepers... go play The Sims 4. (I'm not making that up. I used to love the fact that Making it Explicit was the resource used to program the AI characters in that video game; now I hate that fact, but whatever.) Never forget Rule 1 for me in Philosophy: The Matrix was, and still is, a terrible movie. I am not an NPC in Dungeons and Dragons, and I think my sister is real, and that her life is doubtless more important than mine. I might even go so far as to say her "existence" is of secondary importance to all of this.
  
I will go on the hunt for what is behind this argument you've presented. (I will search for what of the argument I can find in what you've posted...) That might even constitute a productive use of my time... you've profoundly helped me to orient myself here philosophically for a long while at least. 

At a later time I might refer back to this. I think I need to do more "heavy lifting" before I can call myself worthy of unpacking Zambrana's many insightful remarks. I already know what I think is going to be wrong with her reading, but it does not matter. (Abstracting from "Phi-losophy": I don't see a single false report in her.)

I've closely read the first chapter, and loosely read the fourth chapter. (My struggle to comprehend Hegel's infinite. She was better with it than Pinkard. Also, more insightful than Inwood, whose account of the infinite informed my reading for a good couple years.) I think I loosely read more chapters than the first and the introduction, but I don't remember. The discussion of her work here came to an abrupt end. I am still planning to turn to her as I work through the Logic. I've taken some copious notes on her work. (Also will employ Mr. Errol E. Harris's commentary. Old, obscure, but mine.)    

Best,
-Chuck

On Tue, 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

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 5:13 PM, C A V cavermette@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

"This was because whatever the state of justice and its concepts were across the world, the concept that animated and was externalized in India had material and established conditions that were crystallized in a form that couldn't deliver the new demand of justice addressed to it."

With all due respect Srivats: I used to read such sentences as this fine one you have posted here, as mushy obscure post-modern self-aggrandizing! Then my Uncle, a theologian who gave me my first copy of the Phenomenology of Spirit (...first of 3.) said to me while we were driving... "...oh no Chuck, I think that concept became self-aware..."

I don't remember the context. All I remember was that that statement was supposed to be complete non-sense for me. (...But why did it make complete sense.) Why did it explain to the very extent that it ought to have been false. To borrow Kant's concept, I could not synthesize my uncles assertion with the unity of my consciousness. 

So I am glad that I finally understand what people are saying when they write these things. I ought never forget that curled up in the mushiness is at times something like this:

"...at given moments, there is no normative authority that is established in power that will be able to deliver the kind of justice you seek.  In other words, to interpret with Zambrana, the Concept of justice we sought has no normative authority because the established universal of justice has no scope to deal with the concrete new situation we are presenting to it..."

...the true is the whole. What comes before determines what comes after. Aristotle knew that. 

So I would hesitate to modify this thought, for it is lovely as it stands. (The courage expressed, that is.) 

If you must know, all I retain of my awareness of the nature of the caste system and its history in India (pathetically enough) is what I retain from the Hegel lectures on world-history, (and yes I have read way further deeper in there than that one paragraph I embarrassingly enough posted in your discussion where you addressed Mary,) in addition to the reports you make of it on this site. (...just so you know the extent to which I am wholly uninformed and ignorant.) 

...So for me, in what you say, I can only see much truth. 

((I'll just give you one more hint about my view, something I intended to mention, but did not. Hegel thinks concepts have personalities.)) (I really don't think I'm wrong about that. There are countless interpretive problems that arise... the problems are becoming for me problems which I see Hegel himself anticipating as he writes.))) 

So... how then... might any one of these concepts be universal!? Whether or not any one might, what we have here is a fine story of overcoming, despite what is tragic in what is realized. I hope the story - together with the overcoming - continues, for as you know, from here I can only imagine. I'm a very lucky person. To use Zambrana's language, I happen to know that I am not entitled to what I've been committed to... I'm not even entitled to the entitlement of it. 

If I be permitted to say this - sir - I wish you the best with your struggles; they are more real than my own. (<--Non-philosophical statement.)    

Thanks much,
-Chuck   

 

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 7:09 AM, R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

This made sense to me with a kind of brilliant clarity because of the political situation we are struggling with in my city.  If you remember I posted some off topic notes on the suicide of Rohith Vemula, and then some more details about a police atrocity.  

Three weeks ago we had an opportunity to conduct a People's Tribunal with a retired high court judge, and two senior professors.  The judge wound up by providing spirit to the large gathering (it was a resounding success!) suggesting that we wouldn't be able to get 'justice' from any institution or establishment, because judges aren't immune to the waves of culture (Benjamin Cardozo In think).  

I heard him as saying that at given moments, there is no normative authority that is established in power that will be able to deliver the kind of justice you seek.  In other words, to interpret with Zambrana, the Concept of justice we sought has no normative authority because the established universal of justice has no scope to deal with the concrete new situation we are presenting to it.  

The students who were at the forefront of the struggle against caste injustice were throwing up an completely new possibility of a concrete universal, which had no scope to become acutality.  This was because whatever the state of justice and its concepts were across the world, the concept that animated and was externalized in India had material and established conditions that were crystallized in a form that couldn't deliver the new demand of justice addressed to it.

Srivats

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 4:26 PM, C A V cavermette@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

Thank you. 

You have to understand that given that Zambrana and I are both "deontic-scorekeepers", it is impossible at times for me to tell the difference between what - couched in the the language we share - counts as fluent opinion and what counts as sensible truth. In my view, if an argument has force, some truth is at work.  

If you want to talk to more deontic-scorekeepers... go play The Sims 4. (I'm not making that up. I used to love the fact that Making it Explicit was the resource used to program the AI characters in that video game; now I hate that fact, but whatever.) Never forget Rule 1 for me in Philosophy: The Matrix was, and still is, a terrible movie. I am not an NPC in Dungeons and Dragons, and I think my sister is real, and that her life is doubtless more important than mine. I might even go so far as to say her "existence" is of secondary importance to all of this.
  
I will go on the hunt for what is behind this argument you've presented. (I will search for what of the argument I can find in what you've posted...) That might even constitute a productive use of my time... you've profoundly helped me to orient myself here philosophically for a long while at least. 

At a later time I might refer back to this. I think I need to do more "heavy lifting" before I can call myself worthy of unpacking Zambrana's many insightful remarks. I already know what I think is going to be wrong with her reading, but it does not matter. (Abstracting from "Phi-losophy": I don't see a single false report in her.)

I've closely read the first chapter, and loosely read the fourth chapter. (My struggle to comprehend Hegel's infinite. She was better with it than Pinkard. Also, more insightful than Inwood, whose account of the infinite informed my reading for a good couple years.) I think I loosely read more chapters than the first and the introduction, but I don't remember. The discussion of her work here came to an abrupt end. I am still planning to turn to her as I work through the Logic. I've taken some copious notes on her work. (Also will employ Mr. Errol E. Harris's commentary. Old, obscure, but mine.)    

Best,
-Chuck

On Tue, 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

--

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

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

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 11:45 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

--

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

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 11:45 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

--

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

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

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 1:16 PM, C A V cavermette@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

"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)."

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:

"The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says." (Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, VIII. Does Empirical Knowlege Have a Foundation)

I think Sellars' Kantianism becomes manifest here. What he has said is that is saying of someone that they know something, we are not describing them, but "putting" their state of mind in the a space where relations of justification are the concern. What is important to note here is that Brandom doesn't think we need any input from the sciences to get at what the mind is, normativity is all we need to talk about.  

I hope this isn't irrelevant, and might be useful information.   

Best,
-Chuck 
 

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

--

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
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On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 4:07 AM, R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Looks from what you are saying that Sellars is drawing a distinction between an empirical state and a rational knowledge of that empirical state. The moment this is stated, to my mind, there is a problem.  The empirical state pre-exists the rational knowledge.  This opens the door to a correspondence theory, the thing-in-itself, and the acceptance of natural of the subject object divide  -- which the descriptor 'Scientific Realist' already conveys.   

From what I will essay as Hegel's perspective, it would seem that the empirical state as actual is already existent within a space of reasons (both implicit and explicit).  The "referent" comes into being as a correlate of the act of knowing at a given moment of logical development -- where logical development is not individual or even I dare say merely human.  The concept is the human reflection of the process within which that development occurs.

I'll stop here because I don't know what to say next.

Srivats

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 1:16 PM, C A V cavermette@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

"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)."

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:

"The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says." (Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, VIII. Does Empirical Knowlege Have a Foundation)

I think Sellars' Kantianism becomes manifest here. What he has said is that is saying of someone that they know something, we are not describing them, but "putting" their state of mind in the a space where relations of justification are the concern. What is important to note here is that Brandom doesn't think we need any input from the sciences to get at what the mind is, normativity is all we need to talk about.  

I hope this isn't irrelevant, and might be useful information.   

Best,
-Chuck 
 

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

--

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