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Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:13:06+00:00

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This essay’s aim is to investigate whether there can be a connection between Hegel’s and Wittgenstein's philosophy.
The comparison immediately presents enormous difficulties since Wittgenstein was never a hegelian and the only brief remark confessed to M. Drury about Hegel’s thought is certainly not comforting in this respect. In other words, it is impossible to prove that Wittgenstein has been influenced by Hegel.
This seems not to have discouraged D. Lamb who in 1979 attempted the comparison at issue, taking into consideration language and perception in both authors. His aim was not to show that Wittgenstein was in any way influenced by Hegel, rather to what extent the linguistic revolution was bounded up to the hegelian or neo-hegelian tradition, against which it originally defined itself.
Assuming Lamb’s investigation kas a starting point, I will forget about perception in order to focus on the relationship between language and logic in both authors. As a consequence, the comparison in not intended to be exhaustive.
Furthermore, two remarks are to be made concerning the purposes of this paper. Firstly, Lamb is really careful in stating that the affinities between the authors can involve just the so called later Wittgenstein: I intend to go against this tendency in order to show that Tractatus logico-philosophicus is as much a valid element for this comparison.
Secondly, it is important not to forget about differences while drawing affinities in order to maintain the two authors connected but separated at the same time. In this guise possible tendencies to assimilate one author to the other will be prevented. About the content of this paper, I will be taking into consideration the connection between The Phenomenology of Spirit with the Science of Logic on one side, and the Tractatus on the other side, focusing on a few aspects: in particular, we will see how language and logic emerge in Hegel's and Wittgenstein’s perspectives.
The first part of this paper will be talking about the speculative proposition in Phenomenology and, on the other hand, on logical propositions of Tractatus. The former is defined as what destroys the form of judgement which can be identified as the limit of language and how can be investigated in its connection with logic. On the other hand tautology and contradiction are said to be the limiting cases where the combination of signs dissolve, showing a connection with logic, which we will outline. The extent of the analogy will be drawn in the fact that both speculative proposition and logical propositions can be considered as limits of language. We will see the consequences of this.
The second part of the paper will be investigating the role of logic. We will be tracing its role in Tractatus in its connection with language. Then we will be taking into consideration proposition 5.552 of Tractatus and we will see how can be applied to Phenomenology’s consciousness, helping to shed some light on the relationship between language and logic in Hegel.
In Wittgensteins direktem philosophischen Umfeld in Cambridge wurde Hegels dialektische Logik regelmäßig charakterisiert, als „das Spielen eines Spiels mit der Sprache“ oder als „basierend auf Wortspielen in der deutschen Sprache“. Der Vortrag soll zeigen, wie sich diese Charakterisierung der Hegel’schen Logik über McTaggart, Russell und C. D. Broad in der Cambridger Philosophie manifestieren konnte und auf welchen Wegen dieses von Wittgenstein rezipiert wurde.
Weiter wird erläutert, wie Wittgenstein zuerst das „Wortspiel“ oder „Sprachspiel“ als eine Kritik Russells an Hegels Logik kennenlernt – die aus Russells Sicht durch ihre spielerische Form nicht das eigene Ideal als den Ernst und die Strenge einer philosophischen Logik erreicht – und wie Wittgenstein später über C. D. Broad und dessen Vorlesungen sich tiefer mit Hegels Philosophie vertraut macht. In diesem Zusammenhang stellt Wittgenstein Hegels dialektische Methode ausdrücklich in den Kontext seines eigenen Denkens.
Abschließend wir dafür argumentiert, dass Wittgenstein die eigene Sprachspiel-Konzeption aus der Auseinandersetzung mit Hegels Dialektik und als Reaktion auf die ursprünglich Russell’sche Kontroverse über das spielerische oder ernste Wesen der Logik entwickelt. Diese Sprachspiel-Konzeption ist so zu verstehen als eine Kritik an bestimmten frühen Weichenstellungen des Russell’schen Logizismus-Projektes, im Besonderen an dessen Vereinseitigung gegen die dialektisch-diskursive Logik Hegels.
In my paper I aim to confront Hegel’s and Wittgenstein’s notion of Wirklichkeit. If on the one hand, Hegel writes that “real actuality [reale Wirklichkeit] is as such at first the thing of many properties, the concretely existing world” (Science of Logic, 482), on the other hand, Wittgenstein maintains that “the total actuality [die gesamte Wirklichkeit] is the world” (Tractatus, 2.063), which is, in turn, “the totality of existent facts [Sachverhalte]” (2.04). Apparently, their treatment of the concept of Wirklichkeit overlaps, somehow. In my view, this is what actually happens, notwithstanding their well-known opposite views on actuality – Wittgenstein’s atomism vs. Hegel’s holism. More precisely, I believe that the Wittgensteinian perspective necessarily presupposes the Hegelian one; put another way: in order to pick up and pinpoint existent facts, atomistically, it is indispensable to understand how they come out of the world, holistically.
For this reason, a large section of my paper shall show the sundry phases which the progressive determination of the Hegelian world consists in. I take this process to be describable as the passage from what Hegel calls Sache, which is the indeterminate thing, to Ding, which is the determinate “thing of many properties” (SL: 471). It is in the chapter of the Logic of Essence entitled ‘Die Wirklichkeit’ that we find the description of such process, in the form of the path moving from formal possibility to real actuality, through formal actuality and real possibility. Formal possibility is the first stage we encounter in dealing with the process of coming to be actual by the world. The realm of possibility is the realm of boundless indeterminate multiplicity. I consider this as the set of all possible properties as well as the set of any possible Sache; both are however considered as totally indeterminate. In the second place, I take formal actuality to be any possible Sache of many possible properties. This is the object as a mere possible thing, namely as the matrix of a multiplicity of possible objects. At this level, Sachen are potentially distinguished from each other just by their being merely countable: they do not possess any particular actualized property yet. Real possibility is represented by the conditions thanks to which things acquire actuality. In fact, “the real possibility of a Sache is … the immediately existent manifoldness of circumstances that refer to it” (SL: 482). Finally, real actuality emerges. The particular Sache is now caught in the web which the world is made up of, and it becomes a Ding, a concrete and determinate “thing of many properties”.
In this manner, I maintain that the section ‘Die Wirklichkeit’ displays how objects come to be constituted, namely how they can acquire actuality, when considered in connection with the surrounding world. In other words, it might be said that, in a Wittgensteinian way, the Ding is the Sache considered as a Sachlage (state of affairs). This relationship therefore produces a Tatsache, in which the Ding is completely constituted in its concreteness and determinateness. In parallel with the presentation of the Hegelian constitution of Wirklichkeit, I shall confront Hegel’s and Wittgenstein’s use of the terms Sache, Sachverhalt, Tatsache and Ding, in order to make clear how Wittgenstein’s view requires Hegel’s standpoint.
In this paper, I focus on Hegel’s discussion of Kant’s second antinomy in order to show the anti-analytical presuppositions of Hegel’s philosophy. This consideration is used to understand what I call the “cosmologic antinomy” of the Tractatus, that is, its internal tension between an analytic principle (centred on the concept of simple objects) and a synthetic one (centred on the concept of form).
In this paper, I will reconstruct the influence of Wittgensteinian ideas on the American reception of Hegel, starting in the 1950s. I will focus in particular on the origins of what Friedrich Beiser has called the “Hegel Renaissance”, which was brought about by famous scholars such as Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom. This revival of Hegel, I claim, was rooted in the early 1960s and decisively intertwined with and influenced by the history of Wittgensteinianism in the United States.
My aim is to reconstruct the historical and conceptual path of convergence between Hegel and Wittgenstein, focusing on the route by which Wittgensteinian themes came to bear on Hegel’s philosophy, giving birth to the current rediscovery of Hegel’s thought. My analysis of the history of this interweaving between Wittgenstein and Hegel will be divided into three parts, which correspond to the three main phases of the reception of Hegel through Wittgenstein. (1) I will start in the mid-1950s by briefly presenting the disappearance of Hegel from the American mainstream. (2) Then I will take up the first attempts to bring together Hegel and Wittgenstein, which was facilitated by a Wittgensteinian interpretation of Hegel developed by John Findlay and, later, David Lamb. I will contextualize these scholars within Anglo-Saxon Hegelism, explaining why their interventions were not particularly influential. (3) Finally, I will turn to the main role Wittgenstein played in the revival of Hegel, which I argue followed an indirect route. (3.1) On the one hand, it resulted from the work of Wilfrid Sellars. Although Sellars was not directly interested in Hegel, he provided a conception of “conceptual activity” and an influential reinterpretation of the notions of “rule” and “norm” in Kant that notably laid the groundwork for rediscovery of Hegel. (3.2) Sellars’ approach was then supplemented by a set of “transcendental” readings of Wittgenstein in the 1980s (put forth by Jonathan Lear, Barry Stroud, and others, who opened up a large debate). This brought the notions of Kant and Wittgenstein close to each other. I will analyze the effect of those two strains, starting with the first attempt to read Hegel’s Science of Logic through the lens of a conceptual role semantic, made by Terry Pinkard in 1979. I will reconstruct the historical connection and influences played by people such as Laurence Bonjour and John Findlay both on Pinkard’s attempt and on other readings, such as Robert Pippin’s interpretation in 1989. (4) Lastly, I will analyze the development of this connection between Hegel and Wittgenstein, as it appeared more explicitly in 1994 with three books by McDowell, Brandom and Pinkard. The presence of Wittgenstenian themes in these interpretations of Hegel became evident in their definitions of notions such as “conceptual activity” and “space of reason” (a notion that Terry Pinkard draws from Jay Rosenberg, a student of Sellars), “inferential role” etc., which are now standard in the debate. The article thus traces a chapter in the recent history of philosophy, helping us to understand the origins of many key notions at stake in the contemporary philosophical debate on Hegel.
In some articles and books published in the last twenty years, the American philosopher Terry Pinkard has suggested to reinterpret the Hegelian concept of Gestalt des Geistes, identifying it with the concept of Lebensform–– thereby explicitly relying on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy. To the best of my knowledge, this terminological choice has not been adequately explored in secondary literature. Aim of my paper is on the one hand to clarify some features of this claim, on the other hand to suggest a further development of Pinkard’s proposal.
I am convinced that both the notion of Gestalt des Geistes for Hegel and Lebensform for Wittgenstein – aside from Pinkard’s way of defining the first notion in terms of the latter – disclose a peculiar complexity, which does not allow their complete identification. Nonetheless, and this is the argument I want to develop in the paper, I hold that the two concepts might exhibit a closer resemblance than Pinkard seems to think.
1) I will present Pinkard’s definition of Gestalt des Geistes in order to contextualize his highly original, although controversial interpretation of Hegel through Wittgenstein. I will also mention the article in which Pinkard sets a relation between Wittgenstein and Hegel, explicitly stating the equation between Gestalt des Geistes and Lebensform.
2a) I will focus my analysis on Wittgenstein’s own formulation of the notion of Lebensform, analyzing two possible interpretations of this notion, in which it is mainly considered as expressing i) human or biological nature and ii) culture.
2b) I will try to sketch some features of the notion of Gestalt in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, basing my argument on some remarks made by Angelica Nuzzo and Franco Chiereghin, in which the authors show interestingly how this concept includes a variety of meanings in Hegel’s philosophy. Other than being merely “a figure of a world”, in fact, the notion of Gestalt is also related with Hegel’s understanding of the development of the organisms, so with the section “Physics” of Hegel’s Encyclopedia.
3) In the conclusion I will draw the results of my comparative analysis. First of all, I will express disagreement with Pinkard, due to some methodological issues, even though I appreciate the main features of his interpretative move. Secondly, I will try to stress a problem in Pinkard’s account which seems to make his interpretation fall in a contradiction. Finally, I identify a possible way in which Pinkard could improve his proposal, namely by adopting an interpretation of the notion of “form of life” which is culturally shaped, and which is the same both in Hegel and Wittgenstein.
Brandom’s reading of Hegel is clarifying for assessing the importance of Hegel’s view in the perspective of analytical philosophy, and for stressing, more specifically, the continuity between Hegel’s philosophy and the Wittgensteinian (but also Quinean and Davidsonian) strand in analytic philosophy. In what follows, I focus on one aspect of Brandom’s view that needs to be made more explicit (or maybe slightly changed), namely Hegel’s concept of truth, in particular the typically Hegelian connection between truth and contradiction. In 2005, Brandom claims that truth, “Hegelianly” intended, is (rightly, in my view) the whole proces through which we inferentially determine the content of concepts, and transform judgements. However, this seems to imply that Hegelian truth is not a property of single judgements/propositions. I stress, in contrast, that truth is, in Hegel’s view, both the proces through which we inferentially determine the content of concepts, and a predicate (or predicative function) we use to express the property of propositions, claims, statements, assertions, or any other truth-bearer.
This allows anchoring Hegel’s philosophy more solidly to the analytic tradition, showing, in particular, the link between Hegel’s dialectic and contemporary philosophical logic.
The aim of this paper is to give a deeper account of Wittgenstein’s epistemological view in Philosophical Investigations in the context of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (PoS). Phenomenology of Spirit serves as a model structure with through the conception in Philosophical Investigation is being gradually outlined. First, it is argued that pure sensory experience without the intrusion of a concept cannot grasp any particular object in apprehension. Second, Hegel’s account of force and understanding introduces the theme of conceptuality. It is concluded that both Hegelian and Wittgensteinian conception implies that any kind of knowledge requires certain social basis, i.e. that cognition is possible only when language, or conceptuality and propositionality respectively, intervenes.
The paper goes through three stages of the process of cognizing an object, while the term object is denoted in three different ways in accordance with Hegel’s dialectical move in PoS. The first obstacle is presented on the background of foundationalism that seeks for a belief, infallible or non-inferential, that would ground the dependence of all justified true beliefs. It is concluded that this ambition is in fact redundant, for if the grounding for all possible beliefs, i.e. for all possible knowledge, is of a social character, the last infallible or non-inferential belief cannot be found ex definitione, otherwise one would have to say that the last language rule can be found as well, which of course is a false belief.
There is indeed a question, whether there are any beliefs that hold the most basic ground of human knowledge. The conditionality is rather inscribed in the sole nature of human mind, i.e. in the fact that most people have similar experiences of the outer world, share certain cultural and social backgrounds, and long for similar things. This condition shall be metaphysically sufficient for the explanation of for example why most of humans believe that Japan lies eastwards from China – and, who knows, even this proposition may change in time.
Now, redefining the concept of justified true belief, on behalf of what has been argued in the paper, requires two separate definitions. The first definition concerns the problem of truth. One may not know, what things in themselves are, or how sense data correspond to the true nature of things. What one, contrarily, may know is that other people perceive the same things in an approximately same way, that other people share certain beliefs, such as that what is under one’s feet is a ground, and what remains above one’s head is the sky, no matter in which language. These are beliefs commonly shared all around the world of humans, and for that reason they shall also suffice to explain other things, such as that most of the things in the world tend to fall to the ground. They are very close to what Wittgenstein seems to understand under the term hinge propositions; yet, in order to avoid misinterpretation of Wittgenstein’s concept, let them be called complex belief, for they obviously require consistent consideration, so as to avoid a collapse of all other beliefs interrelated. Socially, these beliefs have to do with the so-called form of life, in Hegel’s, they would correspond with particular stage of the historical development of consciousness.
The second definition echoes the introductory chapter on the concept of justified true belief. Sensory evidence plays usually the key role when justifying certain belief. It is suggested, however, that the key role may belong to testimony that is often taken as merely a second order system of evidence. Not only justifiedness implies that a belief is consistent with the content of one or more complex belief(s), but it also implies that a belief is capable of being directly verified through the situational circumstances.
The motto for our conference is provided by a remark Wittgenstein made to Drury in 1948 (Recollections of Wittgenstein 157). It continues: ‘I was thinking of using as a motto for my book [PI] a quotation from King Lear [I.iv.94] “I'll teach you differences!”’. He was also fond of Butler's motto ‘Everything is what it is, and not another thing’.
I am not presumptuous enough to teach differences, especially since Hegel’s work manages to be even more difficult to understand than that of Wittgenstein. Nevertheless I shall suggest that there are important differences between their respective conceptions of and ways of doing philosophy. And some of these indeed concern their contrasting attitudes towards difference and variety. I shall begin by noting common ground: a profound interest in philosophical method, the inspiration of philosophical dialectic in the Socratic sense, and the ideal of an immanent critique: in criticizing a philosophical position we should not have to rely on dogmatic assumptions of our own, but only to point out its internal inconsistency.
In Hegel’s dialectic, this dialogical blueprint is embedded in a profoundly metaphysical (and even theological) conceptual teleology. By contrast, in what Wittgenstein envisaged as his ‘undogmatic procedure’ (Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle 183–6) it turns into an elenctic method for overcoming conceptual confusions arising out of a failure to recognize the differences between metaphysical ways of using words on the one hand, and established and controlled ways of using them on the other. A downside of this laudable ambition was Wittgenstein’s susceptibility (especially in the Tractatus) to what I call the ‘myth of mere method’, the error of believing that one can develop and practice a philosophical method without relying on any philosophically contentious assumptions of one’s own. As Hegel suggests in his meta-critique of Kant’s critical philosophy, however, we can no more settle the proper method of philosophy in advance or independently of philosophizing than Hegel’s scholasticus could learn how to swim without getting wet (Encyclopedia § 10).
Eine wesentliche Verbindung zwischen Hegel und Wittgenstein liegt in der entscheidenden Rolle, die beide dem Vollzug des Philosophierens zuweisen. Demnach zielt die Philosophie nicht einfach auf Theorien und Systeme, sondern ist als Praxis zu verstehen, die unser Selbst- und Weltverhältnis verändert. In meinem Vortrag möchte ich insbesondere zeigen, dass es beiden Philosophen in ihrer philosophischen Praxis um eine transformative Einsicht in die Endlichkeit der menschlichen Situation geht.
Dazu argumentiere ich gegen quietistische Lesarten, nach denen Wittgenstein philosophische Probleme einfach auflöst und zur Ruhe bringt. Er zeigt zwar in der Tat die Unsinnigkeit des philosophischen Anspruchs, einen absoluten Standpunkt einnehmen oder ein letztes Fundament der Begründung finden zu wollen. Aber die entsprechende Einsicht in die Unabschließbarkeit unseres Denkens führt nicht zur quietistischen Auflösung des Problems, sondern in eine nur aus dem Vollzug von Wittgensteins Philosophie heraus verstehbare Einsicht in die Endlichkeit der menschlichen Situation.
In Hegels Beschreibung der Entwicklung des Geistes hin zum absoluten Wissen sieht es auf der Oberfläche so aus, als wäre mit der Selbstreflexion des Geistes ein absoluter Standpunkt erreicht und die Endlichkeit des Denkens überwunden. Dagegen möchte ich daran erinnern, dass die Durchgangsstation des unglücklichen Bewusstseins, das sich über die Unabschließbarkeit seiner Selbstreflexion im Klaren ist, im absoluten Wissen präsent bleibt, das nicht nur sich selbst kennt, sondern auch seine Grenze. Daher kann auch hier von einer Einsicht in die Endlichkeit der menschlichen Situation gesprochen werden, die sich im Vollzug der Hegelschen Philosophie zeigt.
Aufgrund der Undenkbarkeit eines absoluten Standpunkts ist der Status dieser Einsicht in beiden Fällen nicht ganz klar und berührt das Problem des Unsagbaren. Mit dem genannten Hinweis, dass sich diese Einsicht in beiden Fällen nur aus dem transformativen Vollzug des Philosophierens heraus verstehen lässt, möchte ich hier eine Lösung andeuten, die aber letztlich auf den entsprechenden performativen Charakter des Vortrags selbst verwiesen bleibt.
Wittgenstein entwickelt bereits im tractatus eine Theorie des Unsinns, die die Entstehung metaphysischer Themen und "Gegenstände" nachzeichnet, etwa mit Bezug auf die Psychologie, welche als solche unbestreitbar eine (historische) Realität sind. Die hier zugrundeliegende Problemlage zeigt eine exquisite Strukturverwandtschaft mit Hegels Konzeption einer Produktion symbolischer Objekte im dialektischen Verhalten von Begriffen. Dieser Zusammenhang soll möglichst plastisch dargestellt werden.
Hegel and Wittgenstein are not often brought together in our contemporary philosophic discourse. Moreover, a comparison of these two thinkers only by contrast is possible but will be nearly without epistemic value. In my contribution I will focus therefore mainly on subjective spirit, speech and language in Hegel and Wittgenstein because they share an interest in these topics.
Hegel, in the writings that precede the Phenomenology of Spirit in time, fails to make a coherent distinction between the “self” and the “I”. But when naming as the origin of speech and language is under scrutiny, the self will become by necessity an I or a We. An interpretation of Hegel may make use of a passage of the late Wittgenstein in which the formulation and understanding of sentences is compared to the development of a musical theme. Personal roles, and the corresponding pronouns, namely, I, You, She / He, We, You and They are nuances or overtones of an underlying (inter-)subjectivity. The self, on the other hand, does not allow of an anthropomorphic interpretation at all when Hegel comes to comment on the objective spirit and absolute knowing. A look on the philosophy of language of W. v. Humboldt gives additional support to this view.
Wittgenstein, in the Notebooks 1914 – 1916 which precede his Tractataus Logico-Philosophicus in time, occasionally makes the remark that he had planned to write a book that would have described how he, the author, had to get involved with his wordly contexts. It would have been the autobiographical implementation of a pure ego or I. Although he never wrote such a book, some reflections of his later Philosophical Investigations seem to continue his early line of thought. Wittgenstein disposes of some insights that one might expect to find exclusively in the writings of Hegel: For example, he realizes that personal pronouns, adverbs of place and adverbs of time are implicit universals. I attempt at a Hegelian interpretation of Wittgenstein's usage of personal pronouns and the contraction or formula “L.W.”: They do not correspond to fully-fledged psycho-physical selves but are projections of segments of (inter-)subjectivity onto a common plane. As in Hegel, the importance of naming and making assertions is overrated by some commentators of Wittgenstein.
Hegel und Wittgenstein treffen über das „Unaussprechliche“ philosophische Aussagen, welche entgegengesetzter nicht sein könnten: In Wittgensteins Tractatus logico-philosophicus ist ausschließlich der auf Tatsachen referierende Satz (sowie Sätze, welche sich von diesen „Elementarsätzen“ logisch herleiten lassen) ein sinnvoller Satz; die „logische Form“ hingegen, die Grenzen von Sprache und Welt, werden als das „Unaussprechliche“ einer höheren, transzendenten Sphäre zugeschrieben, welche das menschliche Denken nur indirekt erreichen kann. Hingegen hat Hegel zu zeigen versucht, dass – genau umgekehrt – der auf unmittelbar gegebenes Sein referierende Satz sinnlos ist und das sinnliche Gegebene daher das bloß „Gemeynte“ und das „Unaussprechliche“ ist, da jede Bestimmung eines unmittelbaren Einzeldinges durch allgemeine Kategorien einen Widerspruch in sich enthält. Absolut bestimmen und beschreiben lässt sich jedoch die logische Grundstruktur der Wirklichkeit überhaupt, welche Hegel den Begriff oder die Idee nennt. Das eine mal ist die Tatsache artikulierbar und die logische Form unaussprechbar (Wittgenstein), das andere Mal ist die logische Form (der Begriff) artikulierbar – sogar „absolut bestimmbar“ – und die Tatsache (das Unmittelbare) ist unaussprechbar (Hegel).
Es soll gezeigt werden, was mit dieser Differenz zwischen Hegel und Wittgenstein philosophisch in Frage steht, und sodann, dass Wittgensteins Philosophie – und zwar in seinem Frühwerk sowie auch in seinem Spätwerk – ein überzogener Negativismus zu Grunde liegt, welcher stark dualistische Züge aufweist, wohingegen die Dialektik Hegels die Aufhebung des Negativen, welche er als „Negation der Negation“ und als „bestimmte Negation“ denkt, zu ihrem philosophischen Hauptthema hat. Zugleich aber ist das Problem der Sprache in Hegels Philosophie nach wie vor zu bedenken.
In the introduction to his philosophy of nature, Hegel speaks of metaphysics as “the entire range of the universal determinations of thought, as it were the diamond net into which everything is brought and thereby first made intelligible. Every educated consciousness has its metaphysics, an instinctive way of thinking…” Both Wittgenstein and Hegel see our many languages and forms of life constituted by different diamond nets of categories/grammars. I argue that both Wittgenstein and Hegel take a non-reductive attitude toward this plurality of local ontologies, but that they disagree about what that plurality implies for history and philosophy. Their disagreements come in part from their differing choice of examples, influenced by atomism and holism. Even more, their disagreements stem from divergent notions about the structure and inner mode of being of those diamond nets. During the discussion, I distinguish three related uses of the word ontology, and I ask each thinker about what might improve the other's philosophical project.
Wittgenstein’s saying that he sees differences where Hegel sees identities is interesting for many reasons, one of them being that it applies to Hegel’s and Wittgenstein’s final conceptions of human knowledge, “Geist” and “Sprachspiel”. While the former stands for ultimate unity, the latter is known for its plurality, and this makes them opposed to one other. In my paper, I want to argue that this opposition is only an apparent one with the unity of both concepts lying in the manner that Hegel and Wittgenstein develop them from more primitive forms of consciousness such as perception, understanding or Augustine’s and Wittgenstein’s own earlier representational concepts of language.
The common starting point might be identified as the subject-object distinction (think here of Hegel’s Differenzschrift, on the one hand, and the word-world metaphysics of Tractatus, on the other hand) and the attempts at its deconstruction based on the observation that the intrinsic impossibility of reaching the objective truth from a merely subjective standpoint inevitably leads to an epistemic skepticism. In Philosophical Investigations, this skepticism is phrased in what Kripke has called Wittgenstein’s skeptical paradox concerning the (im)possibility of following some rule.
Having this in mind, the similarity between the structures of the first chapters of Phenomenology of Spirit and of the first half of Philosophical Investigations becomes apparent, both in the immanent style of their expositions and the skeptical points they both make at first, only to turn into cautiously optimistic standpoints later.
The structure of my argument will be roughly as follows: (1) In what Kripke described as a skeptical solution to the skeptical paradox, Wittgenstein provides a certain kind of “Aufhebung” of the one-sided attitudes of Kant and Hume toward rules. Knowledge is neither based on the explicit rules of the reflective mind nor on the mere regularities of nature, but instead on implicit, socially instituted rules or institutions. This leads to an insight into its intrinsic social and fallible or, in Hegel’s terms, mediated nature. (2) The social dependency of knowledge is developed within the master-slave parable, on the one hand, and the problem of mastering the rule, including the private language argument, on the other hand. This completes the parallel reading of Phenomenology and Investigations and the sought unity of “Geist” and “Sprachspiel”.
The basic idea behind points (1) and (2), to be found formerly, e.g., in Stekeler (2008) or Brandom (2014), is to read Hegel’s master-slave parable not as a loose reference to the problem of mastering the rule but as a complex epistemological argument concerning the fight of mere “private” opinions resulting in the emergence of intersubjective knowledge. According to Wittgenstein’s examples, the mastering of the rules arises from the mutual conditioning of the pupil and his teacher in the process of following a rule. What is risked here, I claim, is the certainty of one’s private opinion which, in its aiming at objective knowledge, necessarily becomes fallible.
Hegel und Wittgenstein sprechen verschiedene philosophische Sprachen. Ein Vergleich der beiden Denker, der sich thematisch beschränkt und nicht auch auf das Ganze ihres Selbstverständnisses als Philosophierende geht, droht daher immer, einem falschen Schein bloß vermeintlicher Gemeinsamkeiten oder Unterschiede aufzusitzen. In meinem Vortrag will ich deshalb versuchen, bei diesem Ganzen anzusetzen, indem ich Wittgensteins und Hegels Auffassung philosophischer Probleme mit einander vergleiche. Und weil Wittgenstein unserer Zeit philosophisch näher steht, werde ich dabei so vorgehen, dass ich versuche, ausgehend von den Gemeinsamkeiten ihres Philosophieverständnisses, das Spezifische der Hegelschen Auffassung philosophischer Probleme systematisch plausibel zu machen.
Hegel und Wittgenstein sind sich einig darin, dass wir in der Philosophie unser Selbstverständnis als denkende, mithin sprechende Wesen artikulieren. Sie stimmen darin überein, dass das Denken eine selbstbewusste Tätigkeit ist, deren Form daher, anders als zum Beispiel die Form des sinnlichen Bewusstseins nichtdenkender Tiere, prinzipiell unbeschränkt ist. Und der späte Wittgenstein stimmt mit Hegel auch darin überein, dass sich die Form des Denkens und Sprechens nicht unabhängig von der Wirklichkeit intersubjektiver Übereinstimmung in konkreten Urteilen, einem gemeinsamen Leben als Denker also, bestimmen lässt.
Einer recht einfachen Überlegung zufolge konstituiert das so gefasste Denken und Sprechen jedoch gerade einen Widerspruch in sich selbst. Hegel akzeptiert diese Überlegung. Sein philosophisches System ist der Versuch, die skeptische Verzweiflung, in der die Anerkennung dieses Widerspruchs zunächst besteht, durch Einsicht in dessen unbedingte Notwendigkeit zu überwinden.
Und diese philosophische Strategie Hegels hat Folgen für seine Auffassung philosophischer Probleme. Für Hegel sind philosophische Probleme weder, wie etwa Rorty und andere Vertreter einer bestimmten Form des Wittgensteinianischen Quietismus meinen, in Wahrheit bloß Scheinprobleme, die auf zufälligen Verwirrungen beruhen, deren Auflösung uns zurück in ein Leben führt, dem solche Probleme letztlich nur äußerlich sein können. Noch handelt es sich bei ihnen, wie zum Beispiel Heidegger und Vertreter einer anderen Form von Wittgensteinianismus meinen, um Schwierigkeiten, die zwar insofern wenigstens subjektiv notwendig sind, als wir die Form unseres Lebens als soziale, denkende Wesen ausschließlich im Gang durch ihre Auflösung erfassen können, von denen wir aber dennoch nicht sagen dürfen, sie seien dieser Form selbst intern. Sondern für Hegel sind philosophische Probleme – jedenfalls die interessanten unter ihnen – Ausdruck einer skeptischen Verzweiflung über unser gemeinsames Leben als Denker, deren Notwendigkeit denselben unbedingten Grund hat wie die Notwendigkeit ihrer Auflösung.
Ich werde einige zentrale Aspekte des Hegelschen Denken, nämlich seine antikantianische Auffassung von Dialektik sowie den Grundgedanken der Architektonik seines Systems, aus diesem Verständnis philosophischer Probleme entwickeln. Am Ende meines Vortrags werde ich die Grenzen meiner Argumentation benennen und anzeigen, wo sie möglicherweise Raum lässt für eine Wittgensteinianische Replik.
In the early 2Oth century British philosophy, nobody can ignore the debates between analytical philosophy and idealism in what regards the topic of relation. According to Russell, Bradley would defend internal relations. Considering Bradley’s infinite regress, which is developped in Appearance and Reality, Russell tries to show that the inability to recognise external relations is due to the fact that Bradley considers relations as some kinds of quality.
According to Russell, the relation of the relation and its terms is leading to an infinite regress once the relation is considered as a quality. The only way to get out of the problem is to consider that the terms are the inner properties of the relation. The reject of external relation is also linked to a dogma of internal relations and further to the idea of an absolute monism that Bradley would have inherited from Hegel.
When Wittgenstein defends internal relations (internen Beziehungen) in the section 5 .2 of his Tractatus, it seems not unnatural to wonder if it draws a way leading to the position attributed by Russell to Bradley and Hegel.
As scholars usually acknowledge it, there is in the Tractatus a critic of logical atomism (of Russell) and the endorsement of the context’s principle of Frege. But can we go further? Is it possible to build a space for a connection between Wittgenstein, Hegel and Bradley within the basis of their contextualistic views?
In what concerns this topic, I would like to say, that the internal relations of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus are not pointing towards Bradley for two reasons. The first one is that Bradley does not defend internal relations. It is a myth invented by Russell. The second reason is that Wittgenstein in his Tractatus does not take into account the ideality of language, which is more or less implicit in Hegel and Bradley.
Russell does not take into account the fact that Bradley rejects not only external relations, but internal relations too. In fact the debate over internal and external relations covers another debate, the one between the reality of relations and the unreality of relations. Bradley considers that relations are unreal because they are partly ideal. There is in the language a kind of « self-transcendence » of the words, which renders the pure logic defective (as it is clearly made in the end of Bradley’s Principle of Logic) and which makes necessary to construct an ideal horizon of meaning, a reality beyond the appearances of finite consciousness.
Bradley does not found the logic of this idealization in Hegel’s Wissenschaft der Logik, but in the concept of the ideality of the finite, which is developed in the philosophy of subjective spirit (translated by Wallace). The influence from Hegel to Bradley is not the one of some logical or metaphysical topics; it concerns the ideal character of our discourse about the whole, something that is completely unacknowledged by Russell and Wittgenstein. This later one explicitly reduces transcendental philosophy to a formal logic and makes possible by this way the idea of internal relations, which would be impossible for Bradley inasmuch the whole is always ideal.
I provide a distinctively Wittgensteinian interpretation of Hegel’s subjective logic, esp. the parts on concept and judgment. In my interpretation I bring the subject in Hegel closer to the linguistic community in Wittgenstein. Subjective logic, then, becomes logic of language-games, or more broadly, grammar in Wittgenstein’s sense. I argue that Wittgenstein implicitly recognized the moments of universali*ty, particularity and individuality; moreover, he was sensitive to Hegel’s crucial distinction between abstract and concrete universals. More closely, the moment of particularity occupies in Wittgenstein a paradigmatic sample which mediates between a universal concept and its singular instances. Then, a concrete universal is precisely such that includes every individual via its paradigmatic sample. Next, I provide a generic account of the emergence of concrete universals through a series of negations that follows the basic structure of Hegel’s judgment: the individual is the universal. This development will be illustrated with examples from Hegel (a plant, Socrates, Caesar, a Stoic sage, Jesus) as well as from Wittgenstein (color samples, the standard meter, works of art). The nature of these negations is however different in these thinkers. For Hegel, negation amounts to material annihilation, e.g. death; for Wittgenstein, this negation is symbolic, an expression is excluded from the language, withdrawn from circulation.
While questions of method are widely debated in philosophy it is quite unclear what the term method comprises in Wittgenstein and Hegel. Scholars such as Conant hold that the early Wittgenstein’s philosophical method was to point out the misunderstanding of “the” logic of our language. “The” logic of language soon had to give way to a conception of multiple grammars in the middle period, which then leads to methods in the plural in the later Wittgenstein. Speculative method, on the other hand, is understood as the development of all natural and spiritual life out of the content of logic. It is the immanent development of the concept through which philosophy constitutes itself. Thus method in Hegel is the activity of the concept.
My paper contends that the issue of method in Wittgenstein has not been adequately addressed, and that method there must be understood in a way similar to how Hegel understands it.
Specifically, I will be looking at the passages about method in Hegel’s Science of Logic and contrasting them with passages of Wittgenstein’s development of a projection method as he develops it in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I argue that method appears in both thinkers’ logical treatises since these treatises are themselves understood as the inner activity or development or life of the concept. Wittgenstein as well as Hegel thinks of method as that which happens within concepts. By closely examining how such an understanding of method is brought forth in the Tractatus and Science of Logic this paper sheds new light on a rarely acknowledged connection between Wittgenstein and Hegel.
The rejection of Hegel’s audacious speculative expenses as well as his pretention to close its system upon itself may be considered as a constitutive element of Austrian philosophy. As Kevin Mulligan’s work have shown it, Austrian philosophy from Bolzano, Mach and the Brentanian tradition to Musil and Wittgenstein is characterised by two obsessions: clarity and exactness. I would like to add to this list one common theme regarding my thematic: the “economy” of energy. Wittgenstein is one of the greatest figures embodying this Austrian tendency which may explain his apparent detachment from the idealist tradition and its obscure formulas. My paper will firstly underline the importance to redraw the frame of the Austrian reception of German idealism in order to understand what may have led to a caricature of the “enemy” in the analytical tradition. In order to do so, I will contextualize the relationship between Prussia and the Austrian Empire as well as the different sociological and political issues both States were facing at that time, showing their direct impact on divergent methodologies. Secondly, if one follows Adorno’s affirmation in Three Studies on Hegel that German Idealism was actually a collective movement rather than an individualised one, then confronting Wittgenstein to Hegel may also mean confronting him to certain common patterns of German Idealism’s Program. More precisely, I will argue that it is precisely by following the thread of German Naturphilosophie that productive connections between Wittgenstein and Hegel might be founded. Hegel’s “own” philosophy of Nature, mainly elaborated in the Encyclopedia, is profoundly indebted to his contemporary Naturforscher fellows and, among them, to Goethe, who had in return Hegel as a permanent support in his scientific controversies. It is well known that Wittgenstein’s late Remarks on colours starts with an allusion to Goethe’s Farbenlehre and its controversy with Newtonianism. It is by inheriting this linguistic, epistemological and ontological problem that Wittgenstein came up with his synoptical method. Although the relation between this method and Goethe’s morphology has already been highlighted in a few papers, it has rarely been noticed that in order to create a “mathematics of colour” adapted to the phenomenon one wants to clarify and to order, Wittgenstein made a great use of the combinatorial analysis that the Naturphilosophen were very fond of, especially in the chemical field. This calculus helped them to understand life’s inherent creativity with a “restricted budget” (Goethe). If romantic science was syntaxazing life, Wittgenstein, as I will argue, is vitalising the syntaxe. These two tendencies tend to coincide nowadays in cybernetics and modern genetic. The common denominator between organic matter and language’s form of life is entropy, a concept that dominated the whole Austrian imaginary of the epoch. I will show that the Hegelian system, or the way it was understood at that time, is not compatible with such an imaginary and differs on that matter with the goethean Nature. This would explain why Goethe was seen as a more acceptable reference for the Austrian Philosophy, including Wittgenstein, and why, despite everything Wittgenstein and Hegel have more than a few elements in common.
Es ist an der Zeit, dass wir uns von einer karikaturartigen Gegenüberstellung von Wittgenstein und Hegel fortbewegen. Eine schiere Gleichsetzung oder die Feier eines Triumpfs des einen Denkers über den anderen wäre jedoch sicherlich voreilig. In diesem Vortrag möchte ich dafür argumentieren, dass Wittgensteins Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung und Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik – wie bereits die Titel selbst zu erkennen geben – gemeinsame Themen unter jeweils verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten behandeln, sodass sie schließlich zu vergleichbaren (wohlbemerkt: nicht gleichen) Resultaten gelangen. Beide erzielen eine Homogenität des logischen Raumes und sorgen für eine Revolutionierung von Logik und Metaphysik. Wittgenstein ist aber dabei bescheidener als Hegel und zieht eine aus der Sicht Hegels besonders scharfe Grenze zu allem Nicht-Logischen.
Am prägnantesten lässt sich das systematische Verhältnis zwischen den zwei Werken anhand Wittgensteins Formulierung „Die Eine logische Konstante“ (T 5.47) zusammenfassen. Dabei möchte ich zunächst pointieren, dass diese Konstante nach Wittgenstein „das Wesen des Satzes“ (T 5.471) und „der Welt“ (T 5.4711) sowie das „eine und einzige allgemeine Urzeichen der Logik“ (T 5.472) ist. Logische und metaphysische Problematik sind an diesem Punkt am engsten miteinander verknüpft. Einen ähnlichen Anspruch erhebt Hegels Begriff zu Beginn der Begriffslogik (BL1 32–52). Dieser soll die Operation begreifenden Denkens darstellen, die alle logischen und realphilosophischen Begriffe erzeugt und systematisch prägt, und somit dem gesamten Projekt einer spekulativen Philosophie und Erkenntnis der Welt eine begriffliche Homogenität verleiht.
Allerdings bestimmt Wittgenstein die Logik emphatisch als eine „transzendental[e]“ (T 6.13), grenzt sie von der „Erfahrung“ (T 5.552) ab und lässt bekanntlich freien Raum für das „Unaussprechliche“ und „Mystische“ (T 6.522). Zudem postuliert Wittgenstein eine „Substanz“ der Welt (die „Gegenstände“, T 2.021) und sieht das „Subjekt“ nicht als der Welt zugehörig, sondern als ihre „Grenze“ (T 5.632). Hegel hingegen sieht den Begriff als das Resultat der „Enthüllung der Substanz“ (BL 15) und zugleich als den logischen Kern des Subjekts (BL 17), sodass er Logik, Welt und Subjektivität in ein begriffliches Kontinuum auffasst. Zwar akzeptiert er den Unterschied zwischen Logik und erfahrbarer Realität; gleichwohl postuliert er nicht einfach ein Unaussprechliches, das sich bloß zeigt, sondern er stellt sich der Aufgabe, dessen logische Bestimmung ausführlich zu untersuchen: Die Unaussprechlichkeit, so eine zentrale These dieses Vortrags, lässt sich nach Hegel sprachlich sehr differenziert festlegen, und zwar durch all die endlichen Begriffe, die im Rahmen der ersten zwei Bände der WdL exponiert werden und kein Bestehen in sich haben, sondern ineinander übergehen oder scheinen (Enz. § 161).
Aus der Sicht Hegels betreibt Wittgenstein eine Art apriorische Semantik, die ihren Platz im zweiten Band der WdL, der Logik der Reflexion, findet, die genau die logischen Grundlagen denkerischer Abbildung von Gegenständen untersucht. Seine „Eine logische Konstante“ versteht er ausdrücklich als eine begrenzte und relative. Hegel hingegen widmet sich dem Begriff und bemüht sich um eine logische Konstante, die auch über Nicht-Logisches übergreift. Ein netter Nebeneffekt dieser Bemühung ist, dass sich die Philosophie nicht für „unsinnig“ erklären und selbst zum Schweigen nötigen muss.
„[…] noch wenn ein solcher besonderer Inhalt für das Handeln zur Betrachtung kommt, liegt ein Kriterium in jenem Prinzip, ob er Pflicht sei oder nicht. - Im Gegentheil kann alle unrechtliche und unmoralische Handlungsweise auf diese Weise gerechtfertigt werden“ (Hegel, GPhR §135).
„Unser Paradox war dies: eine Regel könnte keine Handlungsweise bestimmen, da jede Handlungsweise mit der Regel in Übereinstimmung zu bringen sei“ (Wittgenstein, PU §201).
Hegel verweist in seinen Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts als Kritik am kategorischen Imperativ Kants darauf, dass eine Berufung auf eine abstrakte ethische Regel keine kontinuierliche zwischenmenschliche Interaktion etablieren kann, die als solche gewollt und gewusst ist. Wittgenstein verweist in seinen Philosophischen Untersuchungen darauf, dass Regeln alleine tatsächlich keine regelmäßigen Handlungen begründen können. Folge einer Regel zu sein könne ein Spektrum von Einzelauslegungen für sich in Anspruch nehmen, das Positionen umfasse, die sich offen widersprächen, im Fall moralischer Normen hieße dies, die von moralisch bis unmoralisch reichen. Damit scheint der Willkür Tür und Tor geöffnet, mehr noch: Einzelne Regelauslegungen, geschweige denn einzelne Handlungen, sind weder durch eindeutigen Bezug auf eine gemeinsam befolgte Regel zu identifizieren noch durch eindeutigen Bezug auf verschiedene Regeln gegeneinander klar zu differenzieren. Differenz wie Identität sind demnach unter den Bedingungen vollkommener Relativität nicht zu bestimmen.
Tatsächlich leugnen beide Denker ihrer Analyse zum Trotz nicht das faktische Bestehen regelgeleiteter Handlungen. Und für beide Denker bietet ein Ausweg aus dieser Diskrepanz die Ablehnung abstrakter Regeln bzw. die Offenlegung von reinen Regeln als Abstraktionen. Tatsächlich sind für beide Regeln eingelassen in ihren jeweiligen Kontext durchaus bestimmt, und zwar für genau die Akteure, die selbst Teil dieses Kontextes sind. Das Eingelassen-Sein bedeutet dabei nicht, dass die allgemeine Regel von ebenso allgemeinen Erklärungen umringt ist oder dass sie nur gedeutet und die Deutung gegebenenfalls noch einmal gedeutet werden muss. Die Brücke vom Konkreten zum Allgemeinen schlägt bei Wittgenstein ein in letzter Instanz blindes, unmittelbares und damit deutungsloses Befolgen und bei Hegel ein ebenso unmittelbares Verbundensein tatsächlicher Allgemeinheit mit tatsächlich Konkreten als konkret-Allgemeinem. Diesen zur faktischen Regelbefolgung notwendigen Kontext bildet sowohl in Hegels Rechtsphilosophie als Sitte als auch in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen als Lebensform die öffentliche soziale Institution.
„Durch die Oeffentlichkeit der Gesetze und durch die allgemeinen Sitten benimmt der Staat dem Recht der Einsicht [in die Gesetze] die formelle Seite und die Zufälligkeit für das Subject, welche dieß Recht auf dem dermaligen Standpunkte noch hat“ (Hegel, GPhR §135).
„Einer Regel folgen, eine Mitteilung machen, einen Befehl geben, eine Schachpartie spielen sind Gepflogenheiten (Gebräuche, Institutionen)“ (Wittgenstein, PU §199).
Der Vortrag hinterfragt, ob die hier skizzierte Analogie zwischen Hegel und Wittgenstein in Problemstellung und Lösungsansatz bezüglich des Regelfolgens dazu geeignet ist, beide Denker so zueinander in Stellung zu bringen, dass Differenzen und Übereinstimmungen klar hervortreten und eine produktive gegenseitige Kritik möglich ist. Hauptinteresse liegt dabei darauf zu zeigen, dass mit dem Ausweis der Untauglichkeit abstrakt allgemeiner Regeln letztlich nicht einem Relativismus das Wort geredet, sondern vielmehr der Analyse und gegenseitigen Bestimmung konkreter Differenzen der Weg geebnet wird.
Die Kernthesen besagen, dass drei Grundeinsichten Hegels gesamte Systematik prägen und allererst ermöglichen, die wir ganz stark mit Wittgenstein identifizieren. Es ist erstens die Grundeinsicht in die fundamentale Struktur des Satzes. Es ist zweitens die Einsicht in die Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Konstitution von Sinn und Bedeutung durch den tatsächlichen, konkreten Sprachgebrauch. Drittens ist es die Grundeinsicht, die wir mit Wittgensteins berühmtem Privatsprachenargument verbinden. Ich versuche, kurz aufzuzeigen, wie Hegel auf seine Weise in Kernstellen seines Werkes diese Grundeinsichten formuliert. Ferner will ich zeigen, dass und wie die systematischen Grundlagen von Hegels Philosophie im Kern auch darin bestehen, wie diese Einsichten zusammenwirken und so die Dialektik und die Wissenschaft der Logik ermöglichen. Schließlich will ich zeigen, dass und wie auch das Gesamtsystem Hegels mit Bezug auf die drei Grundeinsichten zu begreifen ist, mit Bezug auf Recht, Staat und Politik bis hin zu Religion und Theologie und die Rekonstruktion der Weltgeschichte.
Schaut man sich die zahlreichen Kritiken Russells über Hegel an, wird schnell deutlich, dass Russell Hegel einen wie auch immer gearteten ontologischen Mystizismus unterstellt. Nach Russell lehrt Hegel eine sogenannte „Doktrin der internen Relationen“. Einhergehend damit, sei nichts Real außer dem Absoluten. Auch Konzepte wie Zeit und Raum sind für Hegel nach Russells Lesart irreal.
Erstaunlich ist hierbei, dass Russell sich selbst für einige Zeit als Hegelianer bezeichnete und nach eigener Aussage Versuche unternahm, die dialektische Methode auf die Naturwissenschaften anzuwenden.
Zum Hegelianer wurde Russell, folgt man seinen biographischen Aussagen, durch McTaggart.
In dieser Verbindung, so möchte ich nahelegen, liegt auch der Grund für Russells harsche Kritik an Hegel, die nach meinem Dafürhalten eben nicht auf Hegel selbst abzielt, sondern eben auf die ihm durch McTaggart vermittelte Sicht auf das hegelsche Gesamtwerk. Denn während sich bei Hegel keine Beweise der Irrealität der Zeit, noch eine detaillierte Darstellung der sogenannten „Doktrin interner Relationen“ finden lassen, lassen sich derartige Argumentationen in McTaggarts eigenem Werk sehr wohl aufzeigen.
Einmal mit dem Vorbehalt befangen Hegels Philosophie wäre Metaphysik (negativ konnotierte Lesart) wird Hegel dann auch nicht für das eigene philosophische Bestreben bemüht, ein Faktum, das sich dann eben nicht nur auf Russell selbst sondern auf die ihm Nachfolgende analytische Tradition ausweiten lässt. In diesem Sinne ist es sinnvoll, mit gängigen Vorurteilen aufzuräumen und alternative Deutungsansätze den existierenden Interpretationen wie denen McTaggarts und Bradleys gegenüberzustellen.
Hegel and Wittgenstein have both been read as giving powerful arguments for the social constitution of philosophically central entities that are in a certain sense analogous. Taking Hegel first, on Robert Brandom’s reading of the self-consciousness chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel argues that reflexive self-consciousness can only arise through a transitive and symmetric relation of recognition. That is, one can only become self-conscious, on Brandom’s reading of Hegel, by being recognized as a recognizer by another recognizer whose recognitions one recognizes as such. This recognition-based requirement means that self-consciousness as such is socially constituted, at least according to Brandom’s Hegel.
Turning now to Wittgenstein, on Saul Kripke’s reading of the private language argument in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues that the standards of correctness implicated by the normativity of meaning can only consist in the intersubjective agreement of a community of language users. That is, one can only become a language user, on Kripke’s reading of Wittgenstein, by being recognized as competent by the members of a linguistic community. This recognition-based requirement means that the normativity of meaning as such is socially constituted, at least according to Kripke’s Wittgenstein.
Though I wrote the preceding paragraphs so as to emphasize the analogy between Hegel and Wittgenstein on recognition and social constitution, here I want to probe the arguments for differences. The first difference concerns the anti-Hegelian theory of mind presupposed by Wittgenstein’s private language argument. Two of Wittgenstein’s influences deserve mention here: Russell, to whom Wittgenstein seems to be granting a number of assumptions in setting up the private language argument, and Brouwer, exposure to whose work is generally accepted to have brought Wittgenstein back to philosophy. Russell’s influence is fairly obvious. But getting clearer on Brouwer’s philosophy of mind, including his commitment to an individually constituted consciousness that uses language fundamentally for its own purposes, can help shed light on the private language argument. In particular, it helps to explain the assumption that we can make sense of a mind considered in isolation from social interaction to begin with.
The second difference concerns the success of a certain individualist response to the social constitution arguments of Brandom’s Hegel and Kripke’s Wittgenstein. In particular, I explore whether relations between different time slices of a single mind can stand-in for genuine social contributions. It is unclear, in Wittgenstein’s case, what is gained by positing intersubjective agreement over and above diachronic intrasubjective agreement, that is, over and above agreement between different time slices of an individual. But in Hegel’s case, the argument can be made that the recognitional subject’s catching sight of itself requires its synchronic reflection by another recognizer. If this is right, then the question of the private language argument may be reduced to the question that Brandom’s Hegel answers in the master-slave dialectic. That is, insofar as using language requires selfconsciousness, Brandom’s Hegel is in the position of supplying a more fundamental argument against the possibility of a private language.

References: § 10
 v. 
 § 161
 §135
 §201
 §135
 §199