Flenady, Gene (2018) Indifference and determination: Kant’s concept/intuition distinction and Hegel’s doctrine of being. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis considers Kant’s concept/intuition model of objective determination [Bestimmung] as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/87) and Hegel’s critical transformation of that model in “The Doctrine of Being,” the first book of the Science of Logic (1812-16/32). Although subject to competing interpretation, the Critique’s “Transcendental Logic” advances the “togetherness principle,” namely, that both intuitional representations (logically characterised by singularity and immediacy) and concepts (mediate and general representations) are required for determinate cognition of empirically real objects. It is often claimed that Hegel’s Logic vitiates this principle via a conceptualist reduction of intuition to conceptual form. I argue that this view misses a central motivation of the Doctrine of Being (or “Being Logic”). My thesis is that the Being Logic begins by ontologically generalising the logical structure of Kant’s concept/intuition distinction, deriving from the being of thought the inseparability of mediation and immediacy in any determinacy whatsoever. From this understanding of determinacy, the Being Logic then derives the minimal logical form of the qualitative determination of singular immediacies (or “somethings”). For Hegel, something in its immediacy is “indifferent” [gleichgültig] to other such somethings in the sense that they cannot be qualitatively distinguished. Hegel follows Kant’s Transcendental Logic in arguing that qualitative determination requires the conceptual mediation of singular somethings; unlike Kant, Hegel accounts for such mediation without constitutive reference to conceptuality understood as an independently articulable propositional form. Thus, rather than advance a one-sided conceptualism, Hegel’s Doctrine of Being provides a logical corrective to Kant’s tendency to present the respective cognitive contributions of concepts and intuitions as independently determinate, as well as to “two-stage” interpretations of Kant that argue for some form of concept/intuition separability. Instead, Hegel’s Being Logic constitutes a systematic derivation and ontological generalisation of Kant’s togetherness principle.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BC Logic
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831 -- Criticism and interpretation, Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804 -- Criticism and interpretation, Intuition, Logic -- Philosophy, Determinism (Philosophy)
Official Date:	August 2018
Dates:	Date Event August 2018 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Philosophy
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Ross, Alison ; Houlgate, Stephen
Sponsors:	Monash University ; University of Warwick
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	188 leaves
Language:	eng

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