Speck, Simon John (1993) Hegel on time : Derrida, Glas and "the remain(s) of a Hegel". PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis takes up the challenge of Jacques Derrida's Glas
from an Hegelian perspective and addresses the central question
of Derrida's book: "quoi du reste [ ••• ] d'un Hegel?" - "what
remain(s) of a Hegel?". Glas construes a Hegel whose system is
'reappropriative' of all alterity and Derrida's efforts are
devoted to disclosing the elements of Hegel's system that are
not only incapable of reappropriation but which are, for that
reason, the system's condition of possibility. Each chapter of
the thesis addresses the construction of these 'remain(s), with
regard to Hegel's text. The essay considers Derrida's
reconstruction of Hegel's conception of Sophocles' Antigone, of
the absolute religion and the construal of the Jews, whilst it
also addresses the 'general fetishism' that is the method of
Glas and is paricularly evident in the portion of the text
devoted to Genet. In response, the thesis examines the Hegel
of deconstruction and counters this construal with a rereading
of the Hegel texts from which the 'remain(s), are collected.
The fundamental argument of the thesis is that Glas presupposes
and confronts the Hegel-reading of Alexandre Kojeve: a
'reappropriative' Hegel whose system concludes with the selftransparency
of the bourgeois subject as citizen of the modern
state. The 'remain(s)' represent all that refuses to be
subsumed by the law or 'concept' of this state. In parallel,
the argument focuses upon Derrida's construal of Hegel's
thought as the 'metaphysics of the proper' and the essay
thereby conceives of 'differance' as the alienation that
constitutes formal identity or 'propriety'. Thus, the
inadmissable 'remain(s), supply the formally-universal state
and citizen of Kojeve with the moment of 'difference' that it
must suppress: the 'remain(s)' collude with the sphere of
production and exchange, with civil society and the proprietor.
In contrast to the Kojevean Hegel of Glas, the thesis shows
that Hegel's thought is not the narrative justification of
modern, positive, property law but the determination of the
latter's fixed and abstract oppositions. The response to Glas
considers the 'remain(s)' to be the moment of alienation that
is constitutive of the modern, universal right of private
appropriation. Derrida, incapable of thinking otherwise than
according to abstract law renders that moment transcendental.
Thus, the thesis depicts Hegel as confronting the one-sided
conceptuality of Kojevean 'right' and the one-sided emphasis
upon non-identity and intuition in Derridean differance. The
thesis asserts that Hegel's 'absolute' and the notion of
'ethical life', far from being the justification of positive
law, adumbrate the possibility of cognizing this law without
imposing the abstract concept anew. In the name of precluding
the domination of the concept, however, the 'remain(s), will
simultaneously reassert positive law as 'unknowable' whilst
maintaining the violence of the law's imposition and its
undeterminable oppositions.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Derrida, Jacques, Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831 , Derrida, Jacques. Glas
Official Date:	February 1993
Dates:	Date Event February 1993 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Extent:	328 leaves
Language:	eng

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