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The Parmenides and De Anima in Hegel's Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Allegra de Laurentiis
Allegra de Laurentiis*
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Stony Brook University
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Abstract

In the chapter on ‘Plato and Aristotle’ of the Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel praises Aristotle's work for displaying a principle of ‘pure subjectivity’ in a manner that he considers to be largely absent from the Platonic corpus:

In general, Platonic thinking [das Platonische] represents objectivity, but it lacks a principle of life, a principle of subjectivity; and this principle […], not in the sense of a contingent, merely particular subjectivity, but in the sense of pure subjectivity, is proper to Aristotle. (W vol. 19, p. 153)

Elsewhere, Hegel refers to Aristotelian conceptions of organic life and of thinking as to the earliest speculative insights of Western philosophy. In § 378 of the Encyclopaedia (1830) he calls the De Anima ‘the best or even only work of speculative interest ever written on the philosophy of spirit’. In yet other places, however, Hegel attributes at least ‘intuitive’ forms of speculation to Plato as well.

In a preliminary way, a 'speculative relation’ in Hegel's acceptation is instantiated by a subject's theoretical and practical relation to itself — that is, theoretical self-knowing and practical self-will. ‘Speculative’ is any concept which grasps as a unity what other kinds of cognition keep asunder: for example, the subjective and objective dimensions of a phenomenon or state of affairs. But even independently of a detailed analysis of what ‘the speculative’ entails, one is struck by the apparent inconsistency of these claims regarding Plato or Aristotle with Hegel's overall view of the logical necessity of philosophy's historical development. This view is synthetically expressed in the 1820 Introduction to these same Lectures.

Type
Hegel and the Greeks
Information
Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain , Volume 27 , Issue 1-2: number 53/54 , 2006 , pp. 51 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2006

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References

Notes

1 Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie (Werke in zwanzig Bänden [W] vol. 19) p. 153 Google Scholar. This edition is based on Hoffmeister's Werke of 1832–45. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.

2 The ‘abstract’ formulation of speculative subjectivity in the practical sphere in the Philosophy of Right (1821) is: ‘derfieie Wille, derdenjreien Willen will’ (W vol. 7 § 27).

3 Other features, of course, belong to the meaning of ‘speculative’ in Hegel. The connection between speculative knowing and absolute idealism cannot and need not be discussed here.

4 Vorlesungsmanuskripte II (1816–1831), Gesammelte Werke [GW] vol. 18, pp. 49–50 Google Scholar. Hegel attributes ‘speculative content’ to Aristotelian philosophy at several junctures in the Greater and Lesser Logic as well as in the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (1830) [E].

5 The concept of a ‘theory of the history of philosophy’ in Hegel has been introduced by Düsing, Klaus, Hegel und die Geschichte der Philosophie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983. Chapter I, pp. 7 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 Cherniss, Harold, ‘Parmenides and the ‘Parmenides” of Plato’. American Journal of Philology 27 1-2 (1932), pp. 122–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 See Republic 430e—431: ‘Yet isn't the expression 'self-control’ ridiculous?’ The solution offered by Plato is to conceive the paradox of self-control as an ‘interaction’ between separate (‘better’ and ‘worse’) parts of the soul. See also Republic 436b and Sophist 230b and 263b. Citations from Plato's work are from Cooper, J. M., ed. Plato. Complete Works, 1997 Google Scholar, with my occasional modifications due to comparison with the Greek text in Burnet, (ed.), Piatonis Opera, 1900–7Google Scholar.

8 Menn, Stephen, ‘Aristotle's Definition of Soul and the Programme of the De Anima ’. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Sedley, David (ed.), vol. XXII, Summer 2002, pp. 83–139 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Citations from the De Anima [DA] are from the translation by Hicks, R. D., Aristotle. De Anima. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1907 (reprint Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991)Google Scholar.

10 Sections II–IV are a slightly revised version of Chapter 4 of my Subjects in the Ancient and Modern World. On Hegel's Theory of Subjectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005 Google Scholar.

11 I take for granted here, without argument, the equivalence of ‘finitude’ and ‘bad infinity’ with lack of self-reference, and of ‘genuine infinity’ with self-reference. For a concise account of Hegel's use see Inwood, Michael, A Hegel Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, p. 141 Google Scholar.

12 Düsing, K. (1983) and Hegel e l'antichità classica, Giammusso, S. (ed.). Napoli: La Città del Sole, 2001 Google Scholar.

13 For the Greater Logic, see GW vol. 11 (Doctrine of Essence) pp. 311–12; and GW vol 12 (Doctrine of the Concept), pp. 241–44. For the Encyclopaedia Logic, see E § 92 Addition, § 95 Remark, § 96 Addition, § 121 Addition, § 142 Addition, and § 214.

14 Parmenides, Peri Physeos. Diels, Hermann & Kranz, Walther, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [Diels-Kranz] 1, pp. 227–5 (1966)Google Scholar.

15 I have modified slighdy the translation by Gill and Ryan in Cooper (1997).

16 Plato's notion that ideas are ‘most fully real’ is based on his conviction that what is truly real (ontō;s on) cannot have a history of more, less or nil existence. Only ideas can be known with full clarity, without interference by opinion or sensation. For a general characterisation of ideas see Phaedo 65d–e and Parmenides 135b–c; for ideas' separate existence, Republic 508c and Timaeus 52a–c; for ideas as causes, Phaedo lOOb–101c.

17 In 131a–e Parmenides rejects ‘participation’ as implying self-contradiction in the ideas. In 132a–b, he argues that participation would require a mediator between idea and thing, a mediator for this mediator, and so on in (‘badly’) infinite regress.

18 The other ‘difficulties’ are the infinite regress implied by ‘participation’ (see n. 17) and the self-contradictory character of ideas: perfect equality must differ from inequality, and so forth.

19 I follow the reconstruction of the second part of the Parmenides in Düsing (2001): If (a) the beginning as foundation is only one, then this one can be shown to be nothing (thesis 1), as well as everything (thesis 2). But if the principle is only one, it follows also that the many are nothing (thesis 3) as well as everything (thesis 4). Vice versa, if (b) not-one is the foundation, then it follows, with regard to the one, that it is everything (thesis 5) and nothing (thesis 6); and again, under the same assumption follows, with regard to the many, that they are everything (thesis 7) and nothing (thesis 8).

20 My analysis is based on the following selection: Harold Cherniss (1932); Friedlaender, Paul, Platon. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1954 Google Scholar; Taylor, Alfred E., Plato: The Man and His Work. New York: Meridian, 1956 Google Scholar; Jean-Louis, Vieillard-Baron, , Platon et l'idéalisme allemande 1770–1830. Paris: Beauchesnes, 1979 Google Scholar; Hägler, Rudolph-Peter, Platons ‘Parmenides’. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klaus Düsing (1983) and (2001); von Kutschera, Franz, Platons ‘Parmenides’. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Jowett, Benjamin, Plato. Dialogues. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. Vol. 2, p. 98 Google Scholar.

22 Cornford, Francis M., Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides' Way of Truth and Plato's Parmenides. New York: Humanities Press, 1939, p. 108 Google Scholar.

23 Ficino, Marsilio, Platonis Opera Omnia (first edition 1484)Google Scholar. Despite superficial resemblance, modern translations do not necessarily render Ficino's intended meaning. As argued below, the Latin (sup)positio is not semantically equivalent to ‘supposition’ or ‘hypothesis’ in their modern acceptation. Like the Greek hypothesis, (sup)positio denotes the act of placing underneath, as in the planting of seeds or in the laying out of grounds. If Ficino had understood Plato to be introducing a hypothesis in the modern sense, he would have used assumptio, opinio or coniectura.

24 See Hankins, James, ‘Some Remarks on the History and Character of Ficino's Translation of Plato’ in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Studi e documenti, pp. 287–304 Google Scholar, G. C. Garfagnini (ed.), 1986.

25 Schleiermacher, F. D. E., Platons Werke (1817–1828)Google Scholar.

26 Diès, Auguste, Platon, Oeuvres complètes. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1923, 1989. Vol. 8, p. 71 Google Scholar.

27 Liddell and Scott's Augmented Greek-English Lexicon does not provide even one instance of emautou as ‘my’ or ‘mine’, but renders it exclusively as ‘of me’, ‘of myself or, impersonally, Of oneself. This does not of course imply that emautou is never used in Greek to express the adjectival ‘my’. The syntactical and grammatical ambiguities of a text are circumstantial evidence, not definitive proof, for or against a philosophical interpretation. I am using this example only in concomitance with other (weightier) objections.

28 Platone: Tutte le opère. E. V. Maltese ed. Roma: Newton & Compton, 1997. Vol. 2, p. 167.

29 See ‘hen esti’ (Parmenides 128d, 137b) and peri tou henos’ (ibid. 137b); to hen recurs too often to cite.

30 At 128a Socrates initially characterises Parmenides’ doctrine as simply stating ‘that the whole is one’, where the copula connects ’the whole’ with the predicate One”. But a few lines later (128d) Zeno intervenes with an original rewording of the problem: ‘if the one is’, where ‘one’ has become the subject and ‘is’ has acquired an existential function (‘exists’).

31 See Timaeus 92a, Laws 682c and Politikos 289a, 308a.

32 All these are well documented in Plato. See Timaeus 26a and 53d, Laws 812a; and Phaedo 101d.

33 See GW vol 21 poctrine of Being), pp. 53 ff. and GW vol 11 (Doctrine of Essence), pp. 241 ff.

34 The intermediate stages in this deduction can only be sketched here briefly: the relation between objectivity and subjectivity in the category of ‘actuality’ reveals that the concept of an ‘actual substance’ is that of a ‘substantial relation’ (Substanz is Substansperhältnis). The relational nature of ‘substance’ in its completion (die Vollendung der Substanz) is subjectivity, the Concept.

35 An in-depth analysis of Parmenides' poem is beyond the scope of this paper, but I must mention that the identity of being and thinking is foreshadowed in it. See Diels-Kranz 1, 28B3: ‘the same it is to think and also to be’.

36 Sections V–VII are a revised version of my ‘On Hegel's interpretation of Aristode's psyché: a qualified defence’ in Deligiorgi, Katerina (ed.), Hegel: New Directions. Chesham: Acumen, 2006 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Ferrarin, Alfredo, Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2001 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Wolff, Michael, Das Körper-Seele-Problem. Kommentar zu Hegel, Enzyklopädie (1830), § 389. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992 Google Scholar.

39 To state this complex matter briefly, being-subject implies the self-particularisation of abstracdy universal subjectivity, a particularisarion that results in individuality or ‘universal singularity’: see E § 163.

40 See Hegel's comments in W vol 7 § 124 Addition, and § 185 Addition.

41 As a general category, Essence itself denotes the mediation performed by thinking between two poles: Being (thought's immediate content) and Thinking itself as the Concept (thought's absolute content).

42 DA 403a25. So as not to unduly ‘hegelianise’ Aristode, I replace Hicks’ rendering of logoi enuloi, ‘forms or notions realised in matter’ with ‘enmattered forms’, though Hicks’ formulation is even closer to Hegel's understanding of Objects’ as realisations of ‘concepts’. ‘Enmattered reasons’ would of course be the most literal and, in a Hegelian view, the most accurate rendition.

43 DA 412a9. Aristode's expression suggests a ‘composition’ of matter and form. Hegel's notion of a ‘unity’ is of course very different from that of a ‘compound’. It is an important part of Hegel's critique of Aristode that the latter is ultimately unwilling to conceive internally differentiated unities, as opposed to externally unified differences.

44 Thus Ferrarin's assertion that for Aristode ‘soul is a natural thing which is known like any other natural thing, as a form-in-matter’ (p. 258) is only a partial truth. If soul were only a natural compound of form and matter, it would presumably be a natural organism, the ‘animalcule’ that Aristode (and, mutatis mutandis, Hegel) explicidy rejects in criticising his predecessors.

45 Menn (2002, p. 114) and Wolff (1992, p. 154) also point out the vacuity of ‘hylemorphism’.