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Concept and Time in Hegel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

John Burbidge
John Burbidge
Affiliation:
Trent University
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Extract

To formulate a philosophy of time is not easy, even though it would seem to be the basic requirement for any philosophy which attempts to comprehend the world of nature or of history. The problem is briefly posed: Can the conceptual framework of philosophical thought do justice to the dynamic character of time?

The purpose of this paper is not to provide a definitive answer to this question. Its aim is more limited. By discussing carefully the way in which Hegel's philosophy related conceptual thought to time, it hopes to provide new perspectives on this vexing philosophical problem.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1973 , pp. 403 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1973

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References

1 “For Hegel, Time is the Concept”. (154); “Hegel is the first to identify the Concept and Time”. (131). Op. cit., (Basic Books, New York & London, 1969).

2 My translation, cf. Baillie, , tr. The Phenomenology of Mind, (London & New York, 1955) 800Google Scholar: “Time is just the notion definitely existent”. Hoffmeister edition (Phänomenologie des Geistes, Hamburg, 1952) 558Google Scholar: “Die Zeit ist der Begriff selbst der da ist.” I will refer to these two editions as Baillie and Hoffmeister respectively.

3 Hoffmeister, 558; Cf. Baillie, 800.

4 Kojève, op. cit., 102.

5 Kojève, op. cit., 148 f.

6 Another puzzling comment of Kojève's fails to do justice to this fact. Referring to the last two paragraphs of the Phenomenology he claims that Hegel identifies Nature with Space and Time with History (Kojève, op. cit., 133). This can happen only through a very perverse reading of the text. Hegel writes: “This sacrifice is the renunciation in which spirit sets forth its own becoming in the form of free, contingent happening, intuiting its pure self as time, external to it; and also its being as space. This its final becoming—Nature—is its living immediate becoming …” (Hoffmeister, 563; Baillie, 806 f.) If Nature is a Werden, or becoming, it cannot be simply identified with Space, but is also essentially temporal.

7 All quotations from the Encyclopedia are my own translation from the edition of Nicolin and Poeggeler, Hamburg 1959. References are to the numbered sections. The abbreviation Anm (Anmerkung) refers to Hegel's own written comments on the section.

8 Cf. Enz. #86–#88; also the Science of Logic, Book I, Section I, Chapter I.

9 Enz. #258 and Anm.

10 This embodies the process which Hegel calls ‘bad infinity’ in contrast with the ‘valid infinite’ of the circle. Cf. Enz. #94 and #95, and Science of Logic, Book I, Section I, Chapter 2, B and C.

11 Cf. the difficulties Kojève has with this relation: “(If the opposition of Life and Spirit exists), Life is not historical; therefore there is no biological dialectic; therefore there is no conceptual understanding of life. … Hence (Hegel's) absurd philosophy of Nature …” (op. cit., 146). Because Kojève identifies the Concept with Time, he can only use ‘time’ in the sense of historical time—that temporal process which has conceptual meaning. Therefore he cannot make sense of a dialectical comprehension of natural structures.

12 Cf. Baillie 800, Hoffmeister, 558.

13 Cf. Enz. #259 Anm: “In nature, where time is now, there never develops subsisting differentiation of those dimensions (past, present and future); they are necessary only in subjective representation, in memory and in fear or hope.”

14 The dialectic of this process is carefully presented by Hegel in the section on Sense Certainty in the Phenomenology, Baillie, 155–7; Hoffmeister, 85 f.

15 This is an important concept in Hegel, noted particularly by Fackenheim, E. L. in his The Religious Dimension of Hegel's Thought, Bloomington, 1967, 98Google Scholar.

16 This is stressed by Hegel in his Preface to the Philosophy of Right. This discussion of the future is based on Enz. #469–552. Reference should also be made to the Philosophy of Right and the Lectures on the Philosophy of History.

17 There is an interesting difference in Hegel's German between the two, however. The Phenomenology uses the present participle: “Die offenbare Religion”, the Encyclopedia uses the past: “Die geoffenbarte Religion”. Both, however, are analyses of Christianity.

18 This discussion is based on Enz. #569–571.

19 All from Phenomenology: Hoffmeister, 558; Baillie, 800. Note that the philosopher's awareness of sharing the Absolute's life is a necessary condition for justifying his claim that the speculative move in logic (that which recognizes the circularity of dialectic thought) is sound.

20 Hegel's Science of Logic, ed. Johnston, and Struthers, , (New York and London, 1929) I, 26Google Scholar.