The future of Hegelianism

Summary

It would be tempting to conclude this book by suggesting the possibility of a partial Aufhebung between the German critical theory and French poststructuralist perspectives on Hegelian thought. The book's central thesis on the adventures of Hegelianism has been that contemporary European philosophy, in particular much twentieth-century French and German philosophy, has been decisively shaped by the simultaneous critique and appropriation of key Hegelian themes and concepts. Continental philosophy might even be facetiously called a series of footnotes to Hegel. As I have tried to show, the critical theorists' emphasis on Hegel as philosopher of modernity and theorist of intersubjectivity and recognition can be productively contrasted with French existentialist and poststructuralist critiques of Hegelianism in the name of singular existence, pure difference and radical alterity. The conflicting relationship between critical theory and poststructuralism, moreover, can be traced, at least in part, to their differing emphases in the appropriation of key Hegelian themes (singularity, difference and a rethinking of dialectics in the case of French Hegelianism; modernity, intersubjectivity and recognition in the case of German Hegelianism). At the same time, we find a certain convergence or resonance between Adorno, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Derrida on the question of rethinking Hegelian dialectics as an open-ended, pluralist dialectic of difference, singularity, multiplicity and so on.

Certain Hegelian themes have played an essential role in the development of both French and German strands of European philosophy, above all the figure of the unhappy consciousness, the master/slave dialectic, and the struggle for recognition.