Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Group Talk and Workshop (W. Clark Wolf, St. John’s College, Annapolis)

In this paper, I offer an account of the project of Hegel’s Doctrine of the Concept (DoC), the third and final Book of his Science of Logic. On this reading, the DoC must be read as having a dual-facing goal. The first, backward facing task of the DoC is to consolidate Hegel’s critique of metaphysics in the Objective Logic. I argue that the Objective Logic does not itself make metaphysical assertions but primarily presents a critical account of the concepts of metaphysics. The backward facing task of the DoC is to show that the ground of these metaphysical concepts is the “subjective” and formal logical concepts (i.e., forms of thought, judgment, and syllogism) of the first part of the Concept Logic. The second, forward-facing task of the DoC is not commonly emphasized in readings of Hegel’s Logic. This is a constructive task: namely, an attempt to vindicate a domain of positive philosophical truth that Hegel calls the Idea. This side of his project looks forward to the “concrete” philosophical sciences (the Realphilosophien of nature and spirit). A feature of this account is that it shows why Hegel privileges philosophical truth in the domain of human culture and mind over that of nature.