Is Hegel's theory of sensation commited to metaphysics? A Comparison Between Hegel and McDowell...

Published in: Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy, 18, 2015, pp. 179-198.

IS HEGEL’S THEORY OF SENSATION COMMITTED TO METAPHYSICS?

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HEGEL AND MCDOWELL ON PERCEPTUAL

KNOWLEDGE

Federico Sanguinetti

Rio de Janeiro State University / University of Padua

ABSTRACT: The main aim of this paper is to analyse Hegel’s theory of cognitive reference to the world and, in particular, Hegel’s theory of sensation (Empfindung), in order to verify whether it implies metaphysical commitments (and, if so, to what extent). I will pursue my goal by investigating the problem of sensation in Hegel’s philosophy starting from McDowell’s conception of the relation between mind and world and from his theory of perception. In my view, this strategy offers a threefold advantage that will enable us to do the following: i) persuasively interpret the Hegelian theory of sensation; ii) better understand the authenticity and the limits of McDowell’s ‘Hegelianism’; iii) place the Hegelian theory of sensation within the complex contemporary debate on the status of sensible experience.

0. Introduction

One of the core issues in the contemporary analytic debate on the interpretation of Hegel’s

philosophy is the question of whether the Hegelian system should be understood as an essentially

metaphysical one, or whether it can be read in a way that avoids metaphysical commitments. 1 The

main aim of this paper is to analyse Hegel’s theory of cognitive reference to the world and, in

particular, Hegel’s theory of sensation (Empfindung), in order to verify whether it implies

1 For an overview on this debate see Redding 2012 and Kreines 2006. Hegel Without Metaphysics? will also be the title of the next Conference of the Hegel Society of America, 2014.

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metaphysical commitments (and, if so, to what extent).

In the present context it is not possible to reconstruct in detail the Hegelian theory of sensation and

the systematic context in which it is situated. Therefore I will not offer an exhaustive internal

analysis of the Hegelian account of sensation and of the role it plays in the speculative economy of

the system. This task would require a longer examination. Rather I will adopt a different

methodological strategy. I will pursue my goal by investigating the problem of sensation in Hegel’s

philosophy starting from McDowell’s conception of the relation between mind and world and from

his theory of perception. Even though McDowell’s philosophy can be situated within the analytic

tradition, it shares many similarities with some important aspects of Hegel’s philosophy. Moreover

McDowell himself seems to aim at representing a modern version of ‘Hegelianism’.2

In my view, this strategy offers a threefold advantage that will enable us to do the following: i)

persuasively interpret the Hegelian theory of sensation; ii) better understand the authenticity and the

limits of McDowell’s ‘Hegelianism’;3 iii) place the Hegelian theory of sensation within the complex

contemporary debate on the status of sensible experience.

I will thus proceed as follows.

1. I will sketch McDowell’s epistemological proposal on perceptual experience; 2. I will briefly

reconstruct the outlines of Hegel’s account of sensation—which in my view shares some interesting

similarities with McDowell’s proposal; 3. I will then try to make certain aspects of Hegel’s theory

of sensation explicit through a comparison with McDowell’s theory of perception. These aspects go

beyond the ‘minimal’ and ‘therapeutic’ character of McDowell’s proposal and clearly imply a

commitment not only to a ‘constructive’ but also to a ‘metaphysical’ position.4

2 See McDowell 2003a, 78. 3 In regards to the Hegelian tendencies in McDowell’s proposal, R.J. Bernstein has noted that, beyond McDowell’s creative appropriation of some fundamental aspects of Hegel’s thought, there is a large part of it that is indigestible from a McDowellian point of view—see Bernstein 2002, 10. Westphal 2008, 140, stresses persuasively that McDowell’s references to Hegel are vague and undetermined and hide an ambiguous attitude between constructive philosophy (which aims at radicalising Kantian insights) and therapy. 4 The choice to assess the metaphysical commitments of Hegel’s philosophy in the light of his theory of sensation may seem unmotivated at first glance. On the contrary, I believe that this project is both justified and fruitful. It is justified to the extent that it will be shown that Hegel’s theory of sensation cannot be correctly understood apart from notions like “universal natural soul” and “Idea”. These notions are interpreted here as irreducible to any non-metaphysical framework that does not imply, at the same time, an oversemplification or a misunderstanding of them. Moreover, this project is fruitful to the extent that Hegel’s commitment to metaphysical assumptions is shown to be part of his theory of knowledge, which is to be found in Hegel’s Encyclopedia. In contrast to this view, Hegel’s theory of knowledge has often been sought in the Phenomenology of 1807. Furthermore, it has often been interpreted as inserted in an anti-metaphysical post-Kantian framework—more specifically, as a radicalisation of Kant’s insights. Both these latter views seem to be endorsed by McDowell and will be (at least partially) criticized in this paper. My analysis, therefore, 1) aims at representing a further, unexplored argument which corroborates a metaphysical interpretation of Hegel’s system. At the same time, 2) it aims at highlighting an essential difference between Hegel’s philosophy and McDowell’s alleged ‘Hegelian’ proposal.

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1. McDowell’s minimal empiricism

McDowell challenges both the idea of an immediate, non-conceptual, and justificatory impact of the

world on our senses, and the idea of a gap between our thought and the rational constraint provided

by the world itself. On the one hand, thought’s answerability to the world cannot rest on a mere

given, which is completely heterogeneous to our conceptual capacities. This is because the non-

conceptuality of the given implies its justificatory inefficacy. On the other hand, normative and

justificatory validity cannot be a prerogative of self-conscious, active, and linguistic thought,

because it would lose the grasp of the informative contents that our perception provides.

McDowell’s proposal is a minimal empiricism. The idea is that the contents of our perceptual

experiences must already be normatively structured to count as reasons within the logical space of

justification and, at the same time, they must be answerable to how things are in the world. Thus,

with his minimal empiricism, McDowell holds that perceptual experience is the tribunal of our

beliefs insofar as it makes states of affairs directly present to us.5 But in order to play its role as

tribunal of conceptual thought, it must be already conceptually and normatively shaped.

A good way into the picture I offer is to consider the plausibility of a minimal empiricism.

To make sense of the idea of a mental state’s or episode’s being directed towards the world, in the way in

which, say, a belief or judgement is, we need to put the state or episode in a normative context […]. This

relation between mind and world is normative, then, in this sense: thinking that aims at judgement, or at

the fixation of belief, is answerable to the world—to how things are—for whether or not it is correctly

executed.6

α) In this picture perceptual experiences are already shaped through the normative rationality which

characterizes conceptual thought and judgements. Human thought is characterized by spontaneity.

But that does not mean that it is completely free from constraint. As a matter of fact, thought is free

insofar as it is subject to its own laws—which it recognizes as such—not as free from every sort of

lawfulness. McDowell’s idea is that the free lawfulness of thought is always already present in

perception. The same conceptual capacities that allow us to be answerable to norms are already at

work in receptivity.7

5 MW, XII: “That is what I mean by ‘a minimal empiricism’: the idea that experience must constitute a tribunal, mediating the way our thinking is answerable to how things are, as it must be if we are to make sense of it as thinking at all”.6 MW, XI-XII.7 McDowell criticizes the interpretation of normativity as result of social and reciprocal recognition between individuals (as Pippin and Brandom claim). As a matter of fact, McDowell holds that the norms which constrain our thought are not

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In this account, the content that perception offers to conceptual thought must be at least potentially

conceptually shaped. That is, it must show in itself the normative dimension which characterizes

conceptual and linguistic thought. If considered that way, the contents of perception can function as

reasons. And this is possible only if conceptual capacities are already present and operative in the

receptivity of perception.

The relevant conceptual capacities are drawn on in receptivity […]. It is not that they are exercised on an

extra-conceptual deliverance of receptivity.8

In perceptual experience we are passive with respect to a series of contents, which present

themselves immediately to us. However, according to McDowell, perceptual content (with respect

to which we are passive) is not heterogeneous to the content of our beliefs and our judgements.

Conceptual capacities do not apply externally to non-conceptual content which affects the subject.

Rather they are already passively operative in the receptivity of the content itself9 and that content is

already conceptually shaped: “Experiences already have conceptual content [...]”.10 This could

suggest a picture in which perceptual experiences are only inferior manifestations of a sort of

spontaneous, conceptually structured intentionality which stretches out toward the world without

grasping it. Nevertheless McDowell stresses the necessity of submitting this “expansive

spontaneity” to a kind of “control”:

We need to conceive this expansive spontaneity as subject to control from outside our thinking, on pain of

representing the operations of spontaneity as a frictionless spinning in a void.11

In this picture, the grip is provided by perceptual experience itself, which—by virtue of its passive

character—plays its constraining role on the spontaneity of thought.

reducible to intersubjective interactions. Norms and reasons are therefore to a certain extent independent from our practical and cognitive activity. In this sense, McDowell speaks of a naturalized Platonism of norms (see MW, 91-92). It is not possible here to focus more specifically on the matter of human capability of grasping norms and on McDowell’s account of Bildung. The thesis that I suggest here is that McDowell does not develop a persuasive ontological theory, which is able to offer a convincing account of how we can conceive norms as both independent and accessible to human thought. The broadening of the concept of nature through the introduction of a specifically human second nature, which should make norms available, seems not to solve the problem. Hegel engages the question in a more radical way in his system, exposing himself to a different kind of criticism—as I will suggest in the conclusions.8 MW, 9. See also McDowell 2003a, 77.9 See MW, 10.10 MW, 10. In some more recent essays McDowell has proposed his thesis of the conceptuality of perceptual content in weaker terms than in his previous works—see McDowell 2009, 259ff. Perceptual contents are not conceptual in the sense that they are already linguistically and propositionally structured, but they are conceptual insofar as they are homogeneous to the spontaneous faculty of judgement.11 MW, 11.

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Experiences are indeed receptivity in operation; so they can satisfy the need for an external control on our

freedom in empirical thinking.12

β) But what ensures us that the contents of our perceptual experiences are not mere subjective

contents, lacking any objectivity?

This question leads McDowell to endorse another thesis, that of our direct openness to the world:

there is no hiatus between experience and world. Experience makes states of affairs directly present

to us, and the states of affairs are conceptually shaped. According to McDowell, perceptions are not

to be conceived as images or simulacra of the things existing in the world or as interfaces which

divide us from it. If the perceptual capacity is correctly exercised in a non-defective way,

perceptions make states of affairs directly present to us.13 In this sense, McDowell denies that there

is an ontological distance between the facts in the world and the perceptions which make them

available to the subject.

[T]here is no ontological gap between the sort of thing one can mean, or generally the sort of thing one

can think, and the sort of thing that can be the case. When one thinks truly, what one thinks is what is the

case. So since the world is everything that is the case […], there is no gap between thought, as such and

the world.14

McDowell’s thesis of the subject’s openness to the world has generated a lot of criticism. In

particular McDowell has been charged of the coherentism and—at least in some sense—idealism

that he critically attributes to Davidson.15 Nevertheless, McDowell wants to reject the one-sidedness

of Davidson’s coherentism and of the philosophies of the Given. At the same time he accepts, from

the former, that a mere causal and non-conceptual sensible impact cannot justify our beliefs, and

from the latter, that the world in itself represents a decisive factor of answerability determining the

correctness of our beliefs.

12 MW, 24.13 As noted by Baird 2006, McDowell’s framework is transcendental—see for example McDowell 2000; McDowell 1996a, 232; McDowell 2002, 287, where McDowell defines his theory as “transcendental empiricism”. Nevertheless, McDowell does not intend to draw a position which is incompatible with the epistemological framework of direct realism and common sense. An important feature of this project is his disjunctive theory of perception—see McDowell 2008. On the problematic issue of a conciliation between idealism and common sense in McDowell, see Haddock 2008.14 MW, 27. See also MW, 10.15 See Willaschek 2000, in particular 37-38. Willaschek holds that McDowell’s thesis of the “unboundedness of the conceptual” is essentially a metaphysical thesis which fundamentally undermines the thesis of the mind-independence of reality. A charge of idealism against McDowell is also raised by Engel 2001 and Ayers 2004.

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That things are thus and so is the conceptual content of experience, but if the subject of the experience is

not misled, that very same thing, that things are thus and so, is also a perceptible fact, an aspect of the

perceptible world.

Now it can seem that this refusal to locate perceptible reality outside the conceptual sphere must be a sort

of idealism, in the sense in which to call a position ‘idealism’ is to protest that it does not genuinely

acknowledge how reality is independent of our thinking. If that were right, my affirmation of reality’s

independence would be disingenuous, mere lip-service. But though this objection is easy to understand,

and even to sympathize with, it is wrong. It reflects the conviction that we have to choose between a

coherentist denial that thinking and judging are subject to rational constraint from outside, on the on hand,

and an appeal to the Given as what imposes the constraint, on the other. If someone takes it that those are

the only options, and if she has a firmer grip on the defects of unconstrained coherentism than she has on

the uselessness of the Given, then anything short of believing in the Given will strike her as slighting the

independence of reality. But the point of the third option, the option I am urging, is precisely that it

enables us to acknowledge that independent reality exerts a rational control over our thinking, but without

falling into the confusion between justification and exculpation that characterizes the appeal to the

Given.16

Thus according to McDowell the fact that perception is always already conceptually shaped does

not imply a sort of idealistic subjectivism, according to which objects would be the result of a

projection or a construction of our thought.

It is interesting to note that McDowell, when defending that thesis, makes reference to Kant and to

his connection between receptivity and spontaneity.17

Objects come into view for us in actualizations of conceptual capacities in sensory consciousness, and

Kant perfectly naturally connects sensibility with receptivity. If we hold firm to that, we can see that the

presence of conceptual capacities in the picture does not imply idealism, in the sense in which Sellars

means invoking idealism to frighten us. If we conceive subjects as receptive with respect to objects, then,

whatever else we suppose to be true of such objects, it cannot undermine our entitlement to the thought

that the objects stand over against them, independently there for them.18

The refusal of subjective idealism—which is implicit in the thesis β)—is closely related to α) the

thesis of the non-heterogeneity and cooperation of active spontaneity and passive receptivity in

16 MW, 26-27. See also MW, 21: “In the case of ‘outer sense’, the idea is that the Given mediates between the experiencing subject and an independent outer reality, of which the subject is aware through this mediation. If we reject the Given, we are not thereby abolishing the outer reality, but merely obliging ourselves not to suppose that awareness of it is mediated in that way”.17 See McDowell 2009, 3.18 McDowell 2009, 43.

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experience.

Referring to the Sellarsian reading of Kant, McDowell finds in a passage of the Critique of the Pure

Reason the key to understanding how the content of passive perception is always already available

for judgements, because concepts are always already at work in empirical receptivity itself.

In the section On The Pure Concepts of Understanding Kant writes:

The same function that gives unity to the different representations in a judgment also gives unity to the

mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition.19

Sensibility and understanding, receptivity and spontaneity do not provide separate contributions—

as Kant seems to assert in other passages—but are already intertwined at the level of the subject’s

first reception of perceptual content.

According to McDowell, β) perception makes states of affairs in the world directly present to us,

ensuring a real grasp of the world. α) On the other hand, our perceptual grasping of the world is

already conceptually shaped. This ensures that our reflexive knowing is not heterogeneous to the

content of perceptions. In this way, perceptions can be used as reasons for our beliefs about the

world.

[α), FS] Experiences already have conceptual content, so this last step does not take us outside the space

of concepts. But it takes us to something in which sensibility—receptivity—is operative, so we need no

longer be unnerved by the freedom implicit in the idea that our conceptual capacities belong to a faculty

of spontaneity. [β), FS] We need not worry that our picture leaves out the external constraint that is

required if exercises of our conceptual capacities are to be recognizable as bearing on the world at all.20

2. Hegel on Sensation

Like McDowell, Hegel also rejects the idea of an immediate and irrational imposition of the world

on human knowing, as well as the idea of an unbridgeable distance between our epistemic attitude

towards the world and the world as it is in itself.21 In particular, Hegel’s theory of sensation 19 Kant 1787, A79/B104-105. On McDowell’s interpretation of this Kantian thesis see McDowell 2009, in particular Chapter 2, The Logical Form of an Intuition, 23-43.20 MW, 10.21 In this sense, Hegel’s discussion of the Third and the Second Attitude of Thought Toward Objectivity can be read in a parallel way to McDowell’s criticism of the Myth of the Given and to Davidson’s coherentism. A similar comparison is expressed in strong terms by Quante 2011, 37-63. Quante refers specifically to the three attitudes of thought towards

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(Empfindung)—outlined in the §§ 399-402 of the Anthropology in the Encyclopedia22—aims at

accounting for the possibility of objective reference to an external and mind-independent world (i.e.

nature).23 Hegel’s aim, like McDowell’s, is to show how it is possible that empirical determinations

coincide with determinations of reality and, at the same time, are conceptually informed.

Nevertheless, this thematic core is hidden within a very complex dialectical movement, the

comprehension of which is made even more difficult by Hegel’s cryptic prose.

The peculiar and decisive aspect of Hegel’s concept of sensation is its treatment as the first concrete

realization of the universal natural soul (allgemeine natürliche Seele) in epistemic activity.24 But

what does this mean? What does the universal natural soul mean for Hegel?

objectivity, which he interprets “as a diagnosis and a description of the historical genesis” (my translation) of the problem regarding the relation between mind and world, as McDowell formulates it.22 Anthropology is the first part of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, which is in turn the first part of the Philosophy of Spirit in Hegel’s Encyclopedia.23 A reasonable objection could be that Hegel’s treatment of sensation in the Anthropology section is not a suitable place for a comparison with McDowell’s concept of perception. As a matter of fact, Hegel discusses his theory of knowledge (Erkennen) in the Psychology section of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit—in particular, in the section entitled Theoretical Spirit. Nevertheless, in my view, Hegel does not want to restrict his epistemology to the section devoted to the Theoretical Spirit. Indeed, Hegel’s thesis of the “concreteness” of spirit (see ES, § 380) implies that the various moments and stages of spirit’s development cannot be seen as separate and independent, or simply modularly organised. This implies that the epistemic stages discussed in the Anthropology are integrated—not excluded—with respect to the activities discussed in the Psychology. This is, in particular, the case of sensation. Sensation constitutes the starting point of Theoretical Spirit (see ES, §§ 446-447)—even though in the first paragraphs there is a sort of confusion between the uses of the terms “sensation” (Empfindung) and “feeling” (Gefühl). Nevertheless, it is not in the Psychology, but in the Anthropology, that sensation is described by Hegel as the epistemic form which accounts for the passive reference of the subject to the contents existing in the external natural world. The specificity of the anthropological sensation is its passive and receptive character—and it is this passive character that justifies the comparison with McDowell’s concept of perception. As a matter of fact, in the Psychology section there is no occurrence of the term “passivity” with respect to the epistemic ‘faculties’ discussed there: feeling, intuition, recollection, representation, memory, thought are all ‘activities’. This is because in the Psychology section we are not presented with the relation of the epistemic subject with the determinations of an external, natural world, but we are presented with the relation of spirit with itself. The externality of the natural world and of the contents existing in it have already been sublated by the previous stages. As Hegel writes: “Only soul is passive, the free spirit is essentially active, productive.” (ES, § 444, Zusatz). I will therefore argue that the concept of sensation discussed in the Encyclopedia Anthropology—not the epistemic activities described in the Psychology section—conveys the features of the natural environment to the epistemic subject in a passive form (even though Hegel, like McDowell, does not conceive of sensation as merely passive), and, at the same time, that this does not imply that one must step outside the space of concepts. At the level of the Psychology section, the passivity of the subject with respect to the world is already presupposed and sublated. As a matter of fact, Hegel says that the content of the activities of spirit discussed in the Psychology is not the world nor nature anymore, but sensations themselves, which must be elevated to the form of thought (see ES, § 440, Anmerkung: “The content that is elevated to intuitions is its sensations; similarly it is its intuitions that are transformed into representations, and its representations that are transformed again into thoughts, etc.”). For these reasons, it is possible to understand how the determinations of sensation coincide with objective determinations of the external natural world only by analysing the concept of Empfindung in the Anthropology section. Like McDowell’s concept of perception, Hegel’s discussion of the concept of Empfindung in the Encyclopedia Anthropology should account for the fact that the empirical contents of our epistemic determinations are contents existing in the external world, with which we are passively saddled, and, at the same time, that they are always already conceptual (at least potentially).24 Sensation is the third moment γ) Sensation of the natural soul, as concrete realization of α) Natural Qualities and β) Natural Changes.

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The universal natural soul represents for Hegel the mediation between nature and spirit.25 It is

described on the one hand as a) the “truth […] of everything material”,26 that is the being in itself,

the “universal immateriality” of nature. On the other hand, it is described as b) the basis

(Grundlage) and possibility (Möglichkeit) of every further determination of spirit. It is the material

(Stoff) of the cognitive determination of spirit itself.

The soul is not only immaterial for itself. It is the universal immateriality of nature, its simple ideal life.

Soul is the substance, the absolute foundation [absolute Grundlage, FS] of all the particularizing and

individualizing of spirit, so that it is in the soul that spirit finds all the stuff of its determination, and the

soul remains the pervading, identical ideality of this determination.27

To put it in other terms, the universal natural soul simultaneously holds in itself:

a) the determinacy of things, which have an independent existence in the external world (i.e., in

nature);

b) the universal possibility of thought, its pure potentiality, its capability of being everything.

This universal structure is described by Hegel through an important analogy (which cannot be

exhaustively analysed here) as:

the sleep of spirit—the passive nous of Aristotle, which is potentially all things.28

Thus, with the words of Ferrarin, the universal natural soul is “openness to the world, the world

itself in potentiality”.29 The universal natural soul is therefore the structure which plays the role of

justifying the absence of an ontological gap between states of affairs and epistemic determinations.

The universal natural soul, to put it in McDowellian terms, is the concept that exemplifies in

Hegel’s system the thesis according to which the world is not external to the space of reasons.

Given this background, sensation is defined as the cognitive actualization of a determinacy which is

b) potentially present (as thinkable) in the universal natural soul as passive nous—passive nous

which is potentially all things. And a) that determinacy coincides with one existing in the external

25 Hereafter, the German word “Geist” will be translated as “spirit” instead of “mind”, as Inwood does in his revised translation. 26 ES § 406, Zusatz, 102.27 ES, § 389, 29. For a detailed commentary on this paragraph see Wolff, 1992.28 ES, § 389, 29. It is not possible to analyse more specifically Hegel’s reading of Aristotelian epistemology, and, in particular, Aristotle’s account of sensation. On this topic, see Ferrarin 2001 and 2004. See also Kern 1971 and Wiehl 1988.29 Ferrarin, (forthcoming).

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world. Therefore sensation can be conceived as a subjective-objective determination. Both sides of

the determination of the soul are not conceived as autonomous members of an external relation, but

are originally conceived as aspects of a unity. There is no dualism between existing determinacy

and cognitive determinacy. Both coincide in an ‘immediately mediated’ way in sensation.

The unity of the two sides of the soul—a) and b)—has its justification in the highest result of the

Hegelian ontological logic, namely the Idea. From a global systematic standpoint, Hegel asserts in

many places that the ontological structure of the Idea (namely, the Absolute, “what is true in and for

itself, the absolute unity of Concept and objectivity”30) represents the principle of mediation

between its two ‘real’ (real) manifestations, nature and spirit. Nature and spirit are not two opposed

substances (like res cogitans and res extensa in the Cartesian tradition), but are related to one

another as internal manifestations of the one absolute Idea. The Idea is the unitary and rational root

of reality (Wirklichkeit): nature and spirit must be conceived as configurations and expressions of it,

i.e. as forms of its realization. Spirit and nature are different modalities of the Idea’s existence and

are reciprocally related only by virtue of the mediation of the Idea itself, conceived as the rational

element in its ontological purity. This mediation of the Idea is posited as the highest truth at the end

of the Encyclopedia, in the form of the third syllogism of § 577. This is the syllogism that defines

the structure of true philosophy, according to which the self-knowing Idea mediates between nature

and spirit.31 For this reason, the mediating role which the universal natural soul plays between

nature and spirit seems to be the expression of the fundamental mediation of the Idea. 32 The Idea as

common root of nature and spirit is represented in the Realphilosophie by the universal natural soul,

which encompasses in itself both the totality of nature and every determinacy of spirit.

Der Geist als abstracte Naturseele ist [...] der einfache bewußtlose Gedanke, der als dieß allgemeine

Wesen, die innre Idee ist und seine Wirklichkeit an der inter ihm liegenden Aeusserlichkeit der Natur hätte

30 EL, § 213, 286.31 See ES, § 577, 276: “The third syllogism is the Idea of philosophy, which has self-knowing reason, the absolutely universal, for its middle, a middle that divides into spirit and nature, making spirit the presupposition, as the process of the Idea’s subjective activity, and nature the universal extreme, as the process of the Idea that is in itself, objective. The self-judging of the Idea into the two appearances (§§ 575, 576) determines them as its (self-knowing reason’s) manifestations, and in it a unification takes place: it is the concept, the nature of the subject-matter, that moves onwards and develops, and this movement is equally the activity of cognition. The eternal Idea, the Idea that is in and for itself, eternally remains active, engenders and enjoys itself as absolute spirit”.32 I claim that the mediatory activity of the Idea is implicitly operative in the realization of the soul as sensation (empfindende Seele), though Hegel does not spend many words in order to better define the relation between the soul and the Idea. Hegel stresses explicitly that the universal natural soul (although playing the ‘ideal’ role of mediation between nature and spirit) cannot be immediately identified with the Absolute. It is rather only its potential basis, which does not yet exist for-itself. The universal natural soul is the Absolute only as the ‘object’ of itself, not yet the self-thinking Absolute. This universal natural soul is only the “internal Idea”, which is still self-enclosed in itself. Nevertheless it is already both the universal totality of nature and the ‘simple unconscious thought’.

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[…].33

As a matter of fact, the universal natural soul is defined by Hegel (like the Idea) as the universal

structure that mediates in itself the separation of nature and spirit.

But how is the notion of universal natural soul related to sensation in Hegel’s system?

If we read the concretization of the universal natural soul as sensation by referring to the thought

determinations of Hegel’s logic, we can see that Hegel describes sensation as the reunification in a

‘syllogism’ of the ‘judgement’ of the universal natural soul, which is in turn defined as the ‘concept’

(the ‘concept’ which represents indeed the ‘skeleton’ and the formal structure of the Idea).

Through sensation, the unity of the universal natural soul as the not yet self-conscious ‘concept’

(ES, § 389)—i.e., the identity in itself (ansichseiende Einheit) of objective determination of the

thing and epistemic determination—is restored in the ‘syllogism’ of sensation (ES, § 399, Zusatz)

after the ‘judgement’/separation (Ur-teil) between subjective intentionality and the world, a

separation which Hegel explains with a metaphor about sleep and waking (ES, § 398).34 This means

that sensation is the mediation, the middle term, the link between (potentially) conceptually shaped

epistemic activity and the content existing in the world.

Through the identification of the soul—as (a) totality of nature and (b) substance and absolute

foundation of spirit—with the ‘concept’35—as “absolute unity of being and reflection”36—it is

possible to ascribe to Hegel the thesis of material normativity. By material normativity I mean an

epistemological view according to which the normative constraint on knowledge is not merely

semantic and does not depend on intersubjective and socio-cultural practices. Rather, the normative

constraint is provided by the ontological determinacy of the world.37 According to Hegel, every

33 E 1817, § 311, 185. The universal natural soul is therefore the Idea existing in itself, the still unconscious rationality, which will be brought to the transparent consciousness of itself in absolute spirit. In order to further justify the identification between the universal natural soul and the Idea existing in itself, it is useful to look at Hegel’s manuscript notes to the § 311 of the 1817 Encyclopedia, where he describes the universal natural soul as follows: “Das Ansich der Natur—noch nicht ALS Geist—aber Denken. Auch oft Gott genannt—Als die EINE durchdringende Idee—Natur in Gott—Wesen—Eins pulsirt durch alles. Welt Seele—der reine substantielle Gedanke—nicht entgegengesetzter nicht selbstbewußter Gedanke—die schlaffende Vernunft das Leben der allgemeinen Geseze—”. My claim, therefore, is that the notion of universal natural soul and its mediatory role within the system can be understood only starting from Hegel’s metaphysics of the absolute Idea.34 The Hegelian term ‘judgement’ means here an extrinsic and negative relation between two terms—in this case the subjective intentionality that contraposes itself to an external world. The Hegelian term ‘syllogism’ means here a three-term relation among subjective intentionality, content existing in the world, and sensation. Sensation is here the link which ties epistemic activity to the world, restoring and actualizing the immediate and potential unity of epistemic and ontological determinations of the world—unity which was represented by the universal natural soul as ‘concept’.35 See ES, § 403, Anmerkung, 88: “The soul is the existent concept, the existence of the speculative”.36 SL II, 509.37 See Hösle 2003, 311; Halbig 2002, Chapter 5; and Soresi 2010, 187-214. For material normativity I do not mean, in this context, the ontological relation between a being and its concept, but the thesis according to which the object and the content of epistemic activity constitute the norm of knowledge. The kind of normativity which characterizes the

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epistemological theory which irreducibly separates the content existing in the world and epistemic,

normatively and conceptually structured activity implies the impossibility of accounting for

knowledge. Rather, knowledge must exhibit a normative force and this normativity must be

embodied in the ontological constitution of the object. Therefore, conceptual determinations do not

correspond to mere mental or semantic forms that apply to an extrinsic, non-conceptual content.

Rather, they coincide with ontological determinations of reality. That is to say: conceptual

determinations are both epistemic and ontological determinations. Insofar as they are embodied in

the world, these determinations exercise a rational constraint (at least potentially) on the various

epistemic forms of the subject, including sensation. According to this thesis, the ‘concept’,

unconsciously embodied in the universal natural soul, does not represent a mere semantic and intra-

linguistic notion, independently of its referential component.38 Rather it encompasses two aspects

that define the two sides of the soul: a) the objective and existing nature of things and b) subjective

epistemic determinacies, which are potentially already conceptually and linguistically shaped.

This thesis is importantly analogous with McDowell’s thesis of the non-separatedness of subjective,

conceptually shaped and normatively structured epistemic activity and empirical content. As a

matter of fact, the embodiment of the ‘concept’ in the universal natural soul can be seen as the

Hegelian version of McDowell’s thesis of the “unboundedness of the conceptual”.39 According to

McDowell, the knowing subject can use the contents of perception in order to justify his beliefs

about the world within a normative context, insofar as norms are embodied in the world and do not

depend only on subjective thinking or on intersubjective recognition. According to Hegel, in a

similar way, the twofold structure of the universal natural soul as embodied ‘concept’ between

nature and spirit implies that the subject senses (empfindet) the world itself and at the same time, at

least potentially, senses (empfindet) reasons.40

‘concept’ is not a formal one—neither a normativity which is dogmatically found as external to epistemic activity nor a normativity which is merely posited by subjective reflection. Rather, the material normativity of the ‘concept’ coincides with the unity of these two one-sided positions. I believe that this thesis has some important analogies to the McDowellian thesis according to which norms are embodied in the world and available in experience—see fn. 7 above.38 Brinkmann 2011, IX ff. and Chapter 4.2, argues that Hegel achieves a paradigm shift from a referential dimension of thought to a non-referential and explicative one. According to Brinkmann, Hegel would replace the standard of correctness with the standard of intelligibility. As Brinkmann highlights, Hegel rejects ab origine the dichotomy between mind and world in favour of an idealism without boundaries, which interprets every opposition as internal to thought without giving up the requirement of the objectivity of knowledge. Even though Brinkmann gives an interesting and plausible interpretation of Hegel, I am not sure: 1) whether Hegel completely abandons a referential conception of thought; 2) whether the ‘idealism without limits’ can provide adequate standards for the objectivity of knowledge. 39 See MW, Lecture II.40 A problem with this view is that Hegel sometimes seems to conceive of sensation as a faculty without epistemic significance. According to some passages, sensation refers to a merely corporeal dimension and it seems to be something human beings have in common with animals (see for example ES, § 400, Anmerkung; ES, § 400, Zusatz). Yet, there are other passages in which Hegel seems to argue in favour of a distinction between human and animal sensation, as well as between human and animal soul (see for example FsG, p. 239). In my view, Hegel considers

12

As I have mentioned above, the universal natural soul embraces in itself the existence of things in a

way that is already meaningful and available for conceptual and self-conscious thought. Things in

the world do not exist beyond or outside the soul but are already contained and preserved in its

‘sleeping’ side—as Hegel puts it—and are founded (gefunden) and sensed (empfdunden) in the soul

itself. Thanks to the mediation of the universal natural soul, then, subjective intentionality is not

directed towards a noumenal and meaningless reality, which is always beyond the cognitive

possibilities of the subject, nor does it refer to a mere phenomenal interface of the world. Rather, it

grasps the meaningfulness of the world itself, something that is already present at the level of mere

sensation.41

Therefore, as for McDowell, according to Hegel the knowing subject perceives and senses

(empfindet) reasons (the forms, to express it according to the Aristotelian framework which

constitutes the background of the Hegelian theory).42 Thanks to the mediation of the universal

natural soul as (not yet self-conscious) ‘concept’, the sensed forms are real forms, existing in the

world and at the same time already homogeneous to the conceptuality of the self-conscious subject.

Through the mediation of the universal natural soul, then, β) the sentient subject grasps the very

meaningfulness of the external world and α) that meaningfulness is a manifestation of the

human soul (and its capacities) qualitatively different from animal soul (and its capacities), according to an Aristotelian framework. By virtue of this qualitative difference between animal and human soul, animal sensation takes place merely against the background of the process of the natural genus. Animal sensation remains a simple response to the environment and does not assume a properly epistemic character. On the contrary human sensation, even in its corporeal dimension, is always already permeated by thought, that is, the universal that is for itself. As a matter of fact, animal sensation is not described as an actualization of a determinacy potentially present in the passive nous, which is a feature exclusively of the human being. For this reason, animals do not sense reasons, while humans (at least potentially) do. In sum, I don’t believe that Hegel interprets sensation as a sort of ‘highest common factor’ between animals and human beings. According to Hegel, the ‘identity’ of human and animal sensation is only an analogical one, because human sensation is always already permeated by thought. Moreover, I think that McDowell would agree—to a certain extent—with this distinction: human nature is a second nature by virtue of the spontaneity of thought which pervades it. And the human receptive faculty is different from the animal receptive faculty by virtue of the very same reason.41 It is necessary to stress here that, while for McDowell perceptions are to be considered as a tribunal for knowledge (and thus a verification principle of our beliefs), Hegel does not attribute a decisive function to sensation within the knowledge process. He seems rather to criticize harshly those philosophies that consider sensation to provide the criteria to justify a belief (see ES, § 400, Anmerkung, 70). On the anti-verificationist and anti-foundationalist character (in an empiristic sense) of Hegel’s philosophy see Illetterati 2011. Nevertheless, even though sensation is not formally apt to play a justificatory role for a belief, it is necessary to make the contents existing in the world available for the subject—such contents will then be elaborated by the subject until they obtain the form of thought. On this issue, Houlgate 2006, 251, notices that Hegel himself seems to exclude sensation from the space of reasons. In my view, to conceive of sensation as external to the space of reasons tout-court contrasts with Hegel’s thesis according to which the content of sensation is a rational content, which is already included potentially in the universal natural soul qua passive nous. In particular, Houlgate’s interpretation seems not to account for the Hegelian idea that thought penetrates all epistemic activities (including sensation). However, it seems to me that this is actually a core problem of Hegel’s theory of sensation, namely the oscillation between rationality (and conceptuality) and extra-conceptual immediacy of sensation.42 I agree with Stern 1999, 251-252, in considering Hegel a suitable reference for McDowell to defend the thesis of a minimal empiricism—against Friedman’s and Rorty’s interpretations (see Friedman 1996, 439-440; Rorty, 1998, 140). But I am not so sure that McDowell is as thorough as Hegel in trying to avoid the risk of relativism implicit in subjective idealism—see Stern 1999, 259.

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‘concept’—it must be available for linguistic formulation and already situated in a normative

context.

3. The excess of Hegel’s theory of sensation compared to McDowell’s

minimal empiricism

Despite the above mentioned similarities, McDowell’s idea is not exactly the same as Hegel’s.43 In

order to highlight the differences between these two positions, it is possible to extend Hegel’s

criticism of Kant in Faith and Knowledge to McDowell’s reinterpretation of the Kantian Clue.44

Hegel’s high appreciation for Kant’s thesis that sensibility and intellect should be understood as

originally synthesized and homogeneous, rather than absolutely separated faculties, is well known.45

And this non-heterogeneity of sensibility and intellect, which Hegel in Faith and Knowledge sees in

the synthetic activity of productive imagination, is exactly the same as what McDowell recognizes

in the Kantian Clue. As a matter of fact, McDowell quotes Kant’s Clue to exemplify his idea that

concepts and intuitions are not separated and heterogeneous faculties, but that thought’s

conceptuality is always already present in empirical receptivity.46

43 Houlgate 2006, 251, outlines a comparison between the theories of Hegel and McDowell concerning the subject’s cognitive access to the world and the relation between world, sensation and thought. Houlgate finds three analogies between Hegel’s position and McDowell’s: 1) they both think that our experiences “have their content by virtue of the fact that conceptual capacities are operative in them” (MW, 66); 2) they both endorse the thesis that empirical concepts are historical and liable to change; 3) they both endorse the thesis of the “unboundedness of the conceptual”. It is not possible to discuss in detail Houlgate’s interpretation, which I find perspicuous, even though I have some reservations about it. In particular, it seems to me that Houlgate’s interpretation of Hegel ends up separating the contribution of sheer sensation from conceptual and linguistic thought (242), falling back into the pitfall of the Myth of the Given. More generally, I find Houlgate’s interpretive perspective analogous to Brinkmann’s and Ferrarin’s. They all defend the idea that conceptual thought has in itself the criterion of its own justification, which is provided by the objective character of the logical determinations (that is, by the way, a substantial difference that Houlgate underlines between Hegel and McDowell). Houlgate’s Hegel, more specifically, would criticize McDowell for his thesis that the external world constitutes a tribunal of our knowledge (255). 44 Sedgwick 1997, 21, stresses that Kant represents an ambivalent figure in McDowell’s reading. On the one hand, McDowell seems to consider Kant’s philosophy a suitable starting point for a promising philosophical answer to the problem of the relation between mind and world; on the other hand it seems that Kant’s philosophy is still affected by problems (e.g. a sort of exteriority of the forms of space and time to the space of concepts) which need to be corrected by looking at Hegel’s philosophy. I think that McDowell’s attempt at ‘correcting’ Kant through his reference to Hegel is not radical enough to avoid the risks of a subjectivistic account of the relation between mind and world. In this sense, I think that McDowell remains tied to a substantially Kantian framework. Therefore, if Sedgwick 1997, 32,—legitimately—uses Hegel’s and McDowell’s thesis of the “unboundedness of the conceptual” against Kant, in this paper I use Hegel against Kant and McDowell in the attempt to justify the objective reference of thought to the world in non-subjectivistic terms. In particular I suggest that Hegel (unlike Kant and McDowell) addresses such a question on a constructive ontological and metaphysical level.45 See Sedgwick 2001.46 On the absence in McDowell of a theory of imagination as mediation between sensibility and concepts, see Corti

14

Nevertheless, Hegel criticizes Kant because the latter believed that a synthesis between two

cognitive faculties of the subject (that is, two aspects of the epistemic activity of the subject, namely

sensibility and understanding) is sufficient for knowledge—excluding the external world from this

synthesis. According to Hegel’s interpretation of Kant, sensibility and intellect, as well as

imagination, are faculties pertaining to the epistemic structure of the subject. Therefore, Kant still

cannot get beyond a subjective epistemological dimension, because the synthesis between intuitions

and concepts does not involve the independent existence of the world.

It seems to me that it is possible to extend, at least to a certain extent, Hegel’s criticism of Kant to

McDowell. Even though McDowell rejects all accusations of coherentism and idealism, I believe

that he does not give a convincing account of the ‘grip’ of the world vìs-a-vìs the nexus of sensible

receptivity and conceptual spontaneity. In my view, α) considering the unifying activity of the

conceptual intellect to be already present in empirical and sensible receptivity—that is, to see the

empirical manifold as already (or at least potentially) conceptually shaped—is different from

believing β) that the facts of the world represent an element of rational constraint with regard to the

sensible receptivity. The intertwining of sensible receptivity and conceptual intellect does not yet

say anything about the nature and the reality of the external object. To say that a perception of red

contains in nuce the judgement “I see something red” is different from—and does not involve—

saying that there is actually a red thing in front of me (or a corresponding state of affairs) which

play the role of tribunal of my belief.47

Therefore, it seems to me that McDowell, on the basis of his interpretation of the Kantian Clue, tries

to merge together two heterogeneous theses:

α) our sensible and passive experiences are already (potentially) conceptually shaped;

β) the facts themselves—and not only subjective sense-data—are the elements which ground and

anchor our experience in the world.

In a way we are now equipped to understand, given the conception of intuitions adumbrated in the

passage from the ‘Clue’, the guidance is supplied by objects themselves, the subject matter of those

conceptual representations, becoming immediately present to the sensory consciousness of the subjects of

2012, in particular 65-69.47 For a criticism of McDowell’s thesis that facts (and not only mere subjective experience) are the content and the justification of our perceptual beliefs, see Chen 2006, 248: “McDowell’s requirement, though plausible, fails to support the move he wants to make from ‘rational constraint by facts’ to ‘rational constraint by experience’”. A related question concerns the fallibility of perceptual knowledge and the possibility for it to provide an indefeasible warrant for our beliefs—see McDowell 2011 and 2013. For other critical considerations against McDowell’s proposal on this issue see Stroud 2002, 79-91; De Gaynesford 2004, 161-162; Gaskin 2006.

15

these conceptual goings-on.48

Theses α) and β) are distinct.49 Moreover, only α) is implied in the Kantian Clue. The Clue contains

only the claim that perceptions are unified in the same way as concepts are unified in judgement. It

is not by accident that Kant introduces—controversially—the idea of a thing in itself, aiming to

‘sustain’ the grip that must be exercised on subjective epistemic activity if this is not to be

conceived as spinning in the void. Nevertheless, we cannot say anything concerning the

determination of the thing in itself. It is only a limit-concept.50

But which aspects of the Hegelian account are meant to solve this problem, and which represent the

‘excess’ of Hegel’s position in comparison to McDowell’s?

In my view, Hegel’s theory of sensation as realization and concretization of the ontological (and not

only epistemological) structure of the universal natural soul51 aims at balancing the subjectivistic

aspects of Kant’s theory (and, at least to a certain extent, McDowell’s conception). Thanks to the

twofold structure of the universal natural soul, which realizes itself firstly in sensation, human

knowledge is open to the world. There is no distance between the two sides. The universal natural

soul, as a matter of fact, does not only represent α) the basis of the homogeneity of the different

spiritual determinations (the soul is “the substance, the absolute foundation of all the particularizing

and individualizing of spirit, so that it is in the soul that spirit finds all the stuff of its determination,

48 McDowell 2009, 39.49 It is necessary to acknowledge that McDowell separates the two theses. The thesis α) of the conceptuality of experience is an epistemological thesis, while β) the thesis of the direct openness to the world is more committed to ontology—even though McDowell does not intend to attribute a constructive character to it. These theses are not in principle incompatible. Nevertheless, on the basis of his interpretation of the Kantian Clue, it seems to me that McDowell tends to conflate and make the thesis β) depend on the thesis α). On the contrary—as I will argue in the next pages—Hegel maintains the epistemological and the ontological dimension always inseparably together in his system, thanks to his theory of the universal soul as ‘concept’ and potential manifestation of the Idea. The epistemological and the ontological dimensions are two aspects of the same process and not two separate theories. What I want to claim, to put it in other terms, is that McDowell’s transcendental framework runs the risks of either dogmatically (not at all therapeutically!) maintaining that the two sides are separate, or reducing the ontological to the epistemological dimension.50 It could be objected here that McDowell seems to recognize the Hegelian ‘sublation’ of the Kantian impasse by referring and quoting the text of Faith and Knowledge. See McDowell 2004, in particular 199-200. Nevertheless, I think that the way McDowell reads the Hegelian criticism against Kant in Faith and Knowledge is still ‘too Kantian’—it is not fortuitous that McDowell sees the Kantian and the Hegelian positions as two versions of the same philosophical approach (205-206). In other terms, McDowell himself seems to acknowledge that the Kantian attempt of reconciling mind and world is still one-sidedly subjective (see McDowell 2003b, 466). Nonetheless, I think that McDowell’s reading of Hegel’s ‘sublation’ of Kant—a reading which focuses on the criticism against the mere givenness of the forms of space and time (476-477)—does not solve the problems inherited by Kant’s transcendental approach. On this issue, see Rödl 2007. 51 It is not an accident that Hegel discusses the concept of soul for the first time in Logic and Metaphysics (1804-05) as the first moment of the Metaphysics of Objectivity. On the analogies between the concept of soul in the Jena manuscript and in the different versions of the Encyclopedia see, Chiereghin 1991.

16

and the soul remains the pervading, identical ideality of this determination”52), but also β) the basis

of the homogeneity between the epistemic activities of the subject and the ontological

determinateness of the world (the soul is “unity of thinking and being”53).

The soul as universal substance (passive nous and universal container of the forms)54 establishes

ontologically (and not merely transcendentally) the realistic reach of our empirical judgements.

When describing the ‘syllogism’ of sensation as concrete restoration of the universal soul as

‘concept’ after its division in the ‘judgement’ between sleep and waking, Hegel defends the

possibility that empirical judgements have an authentic objective reach. This takes place at an

unconscious level, which precedes the opposition between the I and the world, between subject and

object.55 The universal natural soul, therefore, is the universal copula of every empirical judgement,

not as a formal copula, but as a copula which is already (potentially) full of content. Sensation is the

‘syllogistic’, pre-conscious realization of that copula, the link tying subject and object together

before they split (ur-teilen) according to the standpoint of conscience.

The structure of the universal natural soul (starting from which Hegel justifies the epistemic activity

of sensation in the system) does not correspond merely to an epistemological principle, but also to

an ontological and—I would say—metaphysical one. As a matter of fact, Hegel’s notion of soul is

tied to the Aristotelian notion of passive nous, which in Hegel becomes a sort of universal container

of potential forms (or reasons). These forms have, on one hand, independent existence in nature,

and on the other hand, a cognitive and explicitly linguistic dimension in human thought. This

function of the universal natural soul reinterprets and embodies in the mature system the Hegelian

need, expressed in Faith and Knowledge, of an objective reason which synthesizes—or, more

correctly, poses as originally unified—not only α) the various cognitive faculties of the epistemic

subject, but also β) his cognitive activity and the world.56 This embodiment takes place at a pre-

conscious level, in which subjective intentionality is not yet separated from its content.

For this reason it seems important to underline that the metaphysical aspect of Hegel’s theory of the

universal natural soul as passive nous and Idea existing in itself is the ‘excess’ with respect to

McDowell’s perspective. McDowell, in turn, despite his self-proclaimed ‘Hegelianism’ would never

accept this explicitly metaphysical dimension.57 Not only at a meta-philosophical level, because of 52 ES, § 389, 29.53 ES, § 389, Zusatz, 30.54 See Ferrarin 2001, 313.55 As noticed by Wiehl 1976, 439-441, the concept of universal natural soul ‘grounds’ the linguistic ‘judgement’/separation (Urteil) between the subject and the predicate.56 Forman 2010, in particular 343-345, sees Hegel’s account of habit as a version of a Kantian synthesis of the productive imagination and discusses this topic with respect to McDowell’s concept of second nature.57 I agree with Stern 1999, 259-264. I see a difference between Hegel’s metaphysical and McDowell’s therapeutic

17

its constructive (and not merely ‘therapeutic’) character, but also because of the theory’s old-

fashioned aspects which can hardly be integrated in our contemporary image of the world.

Nevertheless, defining his proposal as ‘therapeutic’, McDowell tends to reduce the relation between

knowing and the world on the epistemological level. As a matter of fact, when McDowell seems to

go beyond his fundamental Kantianism and to incline towards an Aristotelian and Hegelian

framework, he quickly denies any ontological or metaphysical commitment in his claim about the

identity of thought (as true thinkables) and reality.58 In my view, McDowell presents thinkables as

objective through a claim that is not supported by a theory with constructive ontological

commitments (whereas Hegel relies on the metaphysical character of the universal natural soul and,

more fundamentally, on the theory of the Idea and of ‘objective thought’).

It is not an accident that, when McDowell makes reference to Hegelian philosophy, he mainly refers

to the phenomenological enterprise (even when he discusses perception59) and that he does not seem

to take into account the encyclopaedic system. Hegel’s Phenomenology, as a matter of fact,

develops from within the epistemological perspective of consciousness, even though this work is an

internal criticism of it. In the Phenomenology, thus, the object is not philosophically justified as an

autonomous being existing independently of consciousness. It is always already inserted within the

horizon of consciousness itself.60

That is exactly what Hegel criticizes in Kant: the attempt to solve the problem of the relation

between mind and world merely in epistemological terms, underestimating the properly ontological

and metaphysical side of the problem. On the contrary, Hegel’s Anthropology, in which the

approach to philosophy. See here, 260: “To put the contrast simplistically: while McDowell wants to vindicate common sense, to put us back in touch with tables, cats and other people, and while Hegel is certainly no sceptic on this score, Hegel wants much more—to vindicate a kind of conception of philosophy that Kant had thought was impossible, and which would also appear to have no place in McDowell’s therapeutic, late-Wittgensteinian outlook”.58 See McDowell 1996b, 284-285: “(1) Is it my view that the world consists of the totality of potential contents of (true) thoughts? Yes. (‘We can just say the totality of true thoughts’, if we use ‘thoughts’ in the sense of thinkables rather than episodes of thinking.) Do I have a reason for holding this view, apart from its helpfulness in getting out from under philosophical anxieties? No; do I need one? Gibson suggests I do, on the ground that my picture of the world is ‘metaphysically substantial’. I am not sure what he means by this. The world is everything that is the case; that is, everything that can be truly thought to be the case. There is a permanent possibility of having to decide we were wrong, and that is enough to ensure that the world so conceived does not degenerate into a shadow or reflection of the norms that, at any time, we take to govern our thinking—a junior partner in the interaction of mind and world. That is as much ‘realism’ about the world as I want; as far as I can see, it is as much ‘realism’ about the world as it is sensible for anyone to want”. On this aspect see Sedgwick 1997, 23.59 It seems to me very significant that McDowell never seriously took into account Hegel’s concept of sensation (Empfindung) and, in a broader sense, Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit within the context of the Encyclopedia. On this limit of McDowell’s approach to Hegel see Quante 2002. Here Quante exhorts McDowell to deal with Hegel’s mature system. Also Houlgate 2006, 242 and 256 (endnote 3), seems to agree with Quante in considering the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit the systematic place that allows a fruitful comparison between Hegel and McDowell.60 The very structure of the Phenomenology lends itself is to be read as consciousness’ ‘therapeutic’ path through different inadequate forms of thematizing the subject-object relation.

18

concepts of soul and sensation are discussed, represents the attempt to preserve the objectivity of

knowledge from the subjective one-sidedness of the perspective of consciousness.61 Indeed, the

historical and systematic genesis of Anthropology as philosophical science can be read as a

conceptual ‘deduction’ of the standpoint of consciousness from the ontological structure of the

universal natural soul. The latter simultaneously represents the object and the correlate of

consciousness as well as its substrate, avoiding both the reciprocal exteriority of subject and object

and the absorption of the object into the subjective horizon of consciousness.

Conclusions

In this paper I have tried to show how Hegel’s theory of sensation (like McDowell’s theory of

perception) aims to reconcile the idea of a realistic access to a mind-independent world and the

rejection of the heterogeneity of empirical content to the conceptual capacities of the subject. I have

also stressed that Hegel’s theory of sensation is essentially committed to the theory of the universal

natural soul as passive nous qua ontological container of all potential forms. These forms become

actual in sensation and in epistemic activity in general. In my view, the notion of universal natural

soul is a metaphysical (not only constructive) concept, which exceeds McDowell’s ‘therapeutic’

stance.62 This ontological and metaphysical excess of Hegel’s proposal seems to more radically

challenge the risk of subjectivism implicit in the Kantian perspective (to which McDowell seems

ultimately still tied).

This metaphysical commitment does not mean that Hegel rejects McDowell’s problem of a sensible

anchoring of our thinking to the outer world. Hegel does not say that metaphysics should simply

dismiss the necessity of an empirical constraint for thinking. Against McDowell, however, Hegel

holds that the epistemological side of this question is inseparable from a constructive ontologically

and metaphysically committed theory.63

61 On this issue, I find the interpretive thesis of Wiehl 1976, 440-446, persuasive. Wiehl sees in the unconscious and substantial structure of the soul (and in its concretization into sensation) also a sub-conscious transcendental form. Nevertheless, Hegel’s concept of soul does not reduce itself to a formal transcendental function. Rather, it represents an ontological structure, which makes the realistic reach of the subject’s empirical knowledge possible. 62 On different meanings of ‘constructive’ and ‘therapeutic’ philosophy see Quante 2004.63 It could be objected here that in Hegel the ‘empiristic’ tendency according to which the epistemic determinations of the subject ought to sensibly anchor to an outer mind-independent world, is simply not present. Nevertheless, even though Hegel in the Encyclopedia seems not to give much importance to sensation (see for example ES, § 400, Anmerkung and Zusatz), it seems to me that a sound theory of sensation represents a decisive element of its absolute

19

However, Hegel’s position gives rise to a different sort of difficulty. Beyond underlining the old-

fashioned character of Hegel’s theory, I would like to point out an internal problem. This is the

problem of the ontological status of the universal natural soul and its controversial dependence on

the self-conscious rationality through the movement of positing and presupposing. As a matter of

fact, on the one hand Hegel seems to deny that the universal natural soul is a rigid substance or

substrate, which is absolutely independent from the activity of thinking.64 On the other hand, the

treatment of the universal natural soul as self-presupposition65 and objectual correlate of the

absolute spirit (which becomes as such only through the individuals’ activity of thinking) seems to

undermine the realistic-externalistic reach of the epistemic activity of individual subjects and the

authentic mind-independence of the world.66

This problem should be discussed against the background of the ontological and metaphysical

relation between nature, soul, and spirit. However, this is beyond the aims of this contribution.

Nevertheless—regardless of the difficulties to which Hegel’s theory leads—his commitment to the

metaphysical theory of the universal natural soul as passive nous, and the commitment to the theory

of the Idea and of objective thought, are aspects that cannot be superficially overlooked by anyone

who considers his epistemological proposal as ‘Hegelian in spirit’—as McDowell seems to do67—as

well as by those who discuss Hegel’s position within the contemporary debate.68

idealism. This does not imply that Hegel attributes to sensation the role of justificatory tribunal of our beliefs in a verificationist or even McDowellian sense (see fn. 41 above). Despite this, I think that Hegel’s system should also account for the ‘empiristic’ dimension of knowledge in order to fulfill the programmatic requirements of absolute idealism. Hegel’s metaphysical commitment does not mean that he shrugs his shoulders with respect to the problems of empiricism or simply tries to dissolve them. On the contrary, Hegel’s metaphysical commitment should be understood as an attempt to find a consistent solution to these problems. To put it in more general terms: I don’t believe that Hegel completely dismisses the ‘empiristic’ dimension of knowledge in favour of a metaphysics that rejects the problems the former poses. I believe that Hegel’s theory, by virtue of its very philosophical program, should convincingly account for the problems which arise in relation to the experience of the external world.64 It is important to notice that the universal natural soul cannot be conceived, according to Hegel, in a substantialized and hypostatized form, as a world-soul. See ES, § 391, 35, and ES, § 390, Zusatz, 34.65 See NG 1825, 211. See also ES, § 388.66 It would be useful here to examine in depth Hegel’s conception of ‘thought’. Hegel holds that thought cannot be reduced to its individual or intersubjective dimension and, at the same time, he hints at the sublation of a dogmatic/theological thematization of it (like the thematization provided by the so called alte Metaphysik). 67 See for example MW, 44.68 I would like to thank Luca Illetterati, James Kreines, Paolo Costa and Luca Corti for reading and commenting on previous versions of this paper and the two anonymous referees for their careful reviews and constructive suggestions.

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