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A Spirit of Trust

Chapter Five:

Holism and Idealism in Hegels Phenomenology

I. Introduction

The opening Consciousness section of Hegel's Phenomenology addresses our understanding of the physical world around us. The next section Self-Consciousness !egins to consider our understanding of oursel"es and each other. This order of discussion is neither ar!itrary nor merely con"enient. #ather one of the principal lessons we are to ha"e learned !y the end of the de"elopment of Consciousness is that our !est conception of the world that is the object of our cogniti"e acti"ities is intelligi!le only as part of a story that also considers the nature of the subject engaging in those acti"ities. The rationale for this expository transition is an important strand in Hegel's idealism. $n this essay $'ll offer a rational reconstruction of an argument that $ see as supporting this transition and the %ind of idealism it em!odies.&

II. The problem: understanding the determinateness of the objective world.

Hegel starts the line of thought $'ll !e rehearsing with the e"eryday idea of how things are'the idea that there is some way the world is. (nderstanding how things are or might !e is grasping a certain sort of content. )nd his first o!ser"ation is that that content'the

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way things are or could !e ta%en to !e'must !e determinate. That is to say at a minimum that there must !e a distinction !etween things !eing that way and them !eing some other way. 1 The wa! things objectivel! are must be definite or determinate.

Determinateness is a matter of identity and indi"iduation. $t concerns how one thing is distinguished from others.

$n thin%ing a!out the sort of difference implicit in the notion of determinateness it is important to distinguish !etween two different %inds of difference. ,roperties -for instance. can !e different !ut compati!le as s"uare and red are. /e might call this 0mere0 difference. But properties can also !e different in the stronger sense of material incompati!ility'of the impossi!ility of one and the same thing simultaneously exhi!iting !oth'as s"uare and triangular are. /e might call this 0exclusi"e0 difference. )lthough $ cannot discuss here how the point is made in Sense Certainty Hegel argues that the idea of a world exhi!iting definiteness or determinateness as mere 1gleichg2ltige translated !y Miller as 0indifferent03 difference without exclusive 1auschliessende3 difference is incoherent. This is why compati!ly different properties always come as mem!ers of families of exclusi"ely different ones.*

Hegel em!races the medie"al -and 4pino5ist. principle omnis determinatio est negatio. But mere difference is not yet the negation that determinateness re6uires according to this principle. 7or an essential defining property of negation is the exclusi"eness codified in the principle of noncontradiction: p rules out not-p they are incompatible. 7or Hegel it

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is this exclusi"eness that is the essence of negation. He a!stracts this feature from the case of formal negation and generali5es it to include the sort of material incompati!ility that o!tains !etween the properties s"uare and triangular. -7ormal negation can then reappear as the shadow of material incompati!ility: not-p is the minimal incompati!le of p. $t is what is entailed !y e"erything materially incompati!le with p.. $n a conceptually deep sense far from re8ecting the law of noncontradiction $ want to claim that Hegel radicali5es it and places it at the "ery center of his thought.9

4o his idea is that # The essence of determinateness is modall! robust exclusion. :ne understands items -for instance propositions or properties. as determinate 8ust insofar as one understands them as standing to each other in relations of material incompati!ility. The many determinate properties...are only determinate in so far as they differentiate themsel"es from one another and relate themsel"es to others as to their opposites.; $t is through its determinateness that the thing excludes others. Things are therefore in and for themsel"es determinate< they ha"e properties !y which they distinguish themsel"es from others...They are determinate properties in it only !ecause they are a plurality of reciprocally self-differentiating elements.+ The idea Hegel is wor%ing with here is a common feature of !oth contemporary information theoretic and possi!le worlds approaches to semantics. The concept of the information con"eyed !y a signal is defined in terms of the way its reception ser"es to restrict for the recei"er some antecedent set of possi!ilities. Before recei"ing the

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message $ only %new the num!er lay !etween > and &>>. )fterwards $ %now that it is an even num!er in that range. -This fundamental idea must not !e confused with the much more specific strategy for wor%ing it out that assigns num!ers as measures of information in that sense.. The defining function of information is to rule out possi!ilities. )gain possi!le worlds semantics sees a proposition as significant 8ust insofar as it effects a partition of the space of possi!le worlds. $ts correctness excludes the actual world from one element of the partition -although rhetorically the focus is usually put on its !eing included in the other..

The concept of material incompati!ility or as Hegel calls it 0determinate negation0 is his most fundamental conceptual tool. Here are two uses of it that are particularly important for articulating the sort of idealism that is my topic. 7irst relations of determinate negation allow the definition of consequence relations that are modally ro!ust in the sense of supporting counterfactual inferences'what show up at the end of Consciousness in the form of laws. The proposition or property p entails q 8ust in case e"erything incompati!le with -ruled out or excluded !y. q is incompati!le with -ruled our or excluded !y. p. 7or instance ha"ing the property s"uare entails ha"ing the property pol!gonal !ecause and in the sense that e"erything materially incompati!le with s"uare -for instance circular. is incompati!le with pol!gonal. $n this sense it is impossible for something to !e s6uare without its also !eing polygonal. 4o we can see -though Hegel ne"er ma%es the point explicitly. that: $ %aterial incompatibility relations induce modall! robust material

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consequence relations. Ta%ing his cue from the role played !y the middle term in a classical syllogism Hegel uses the term 0mediation0 1@ermittlung3 in discussing the inferential articulation of contents induced !y relations of determinate negation. Thus mediation can !e understood in terms of determinate negation.6 This is to say that for Hegel schlieAen is rooted in ausschlieAen -conclusion in exclusion.. Together these two sorts of relation define what Hegel means !y 0conceptual0 1!egrifflich3: & To be conceptually articulated is just to stand in material relations of incompatibilit! and 'so conse"uence 'inference . $n this sense conceptual articulation is a perfectly o!8ecti"e affair. $t has nothing o!"iously or explicitly to do with any subjective or psychological process. 4howing that it nonetheless does ha"e an implicit connection to such processes and what that connection is is the tas% of moti"ating o!8ecti"e idealism -that is idealism a!out the o!8ecti"e conceptual structure of the world.. Bi"en this definition Hegel's conceptual realism can !e seen as 8ust the form ta%en !y a modal realism. There really are modally 6ualified states of affairs: possi!ilities and necessities -necessitations !eing the inferential "ersion of this categorical notion and conditional possi!ility !eing the corresponding wea%er conditional modality.. 7urther without ac%nowledging them we cannot ma%e intelligi!le ordinary descripti"e predicates and properties. )gain Hegel will claim that modal realism re6uires o!8ecti"e idealism. 4econd $ started this story with the idea of how things are'the idea that there is some way the world is. (nderstanding how things are is grasping a certain sort of

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content. $n tal%ing a!out o!8ecti"ity and su!8ecti"ity in terms of 'truth' and 'certainty' Hegel wants us to start !y focusing on this notion of content rather than on the objects of -claims to. %nowledge. :ne reason to do this of which Hegel's ntroduction reminds us is so our philosophical idiom will not rule out from the !eginning as incoherent the possi!ility that how things are in themsel"es might also !e how they are for some consciousness'that there is a sense of 'content' in which at least in some cases truth and certainty may !e two different forms ta%en !y the same content. $f we start !y terminologically committing oursel"es to a picture of consciousness as a relation !etween two sorts of thing su!8ects and o!8ects we cut oursel"es off from the shift in theoretical perspecti"e that Hegel wants to recommend under the heading of 'idealism' which is my topic here. Tal% of su!8ects and o!8ects comes late in the story not at the !eginning. )nd when they do officially !ecome a topic in Perception ( The concepts subject and object can be defined in terms of determinate negation or material incompatibilit!. Both are to !e understood as loci or units of account that in a generic sense 0repel0 or 0exclude0 incompati!ilities. :!8ects repel o!8ecti"ely incompati!le properties -such as s"uare and triangular. in that one and the same o!8ect cannot at the same time exhi!it !oth'though they can !e exhi!ited !y different o!8ects. )nd su!8ects repel su!8ecti"ely incompati!le commitments -for instance commitment to something !eing s6uare and commitment to it !eing circular. in that one and the same su!8ect ought not at the same time endorse !oth -though the same prohi!ition does not apply to the commitments of different su!8ects.. The different ways in which o!8ects and

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su!8ects 0repel0 or 0exclude0 them ma%e it clear that incompati!ilityo!8 and incompati!ilitysu!8 are different concepts. -4ince while one o!8ect cannot simultaneously exhi!it o!8ecti"ely incompati!le properties one su!8ect merely ought not simultaneously underta%e su!8ecti"ely incompati!le commitments.. The intimate relation !etween these concepts'the way in which incompati!ilityo!8 and incompati!ilitysu!8 turn out to !e two sides of one coin each intelligi!le in principle only in relation to the other'is the essence of Hegel's objective idealism concerning the relation !etween the su!8ecti"e and the o!8ecti"e poles of consciousness.= III. Holism

The notion of immediacy presupposes determinateness of content !ut cannot !y itself underwrite it. Determinate content must !e articulated !y relations of material incompati!ility. That reali5ation entails re8ecting the semantic atomism that lies at the core of what /ilfrid 4ellars would later call the DMyth of the Bi"en E in a wor% that opens !y in"o%ing DHegel that great foe of immediacy.E The concept of immediacy can itself !e made intelligi!le only against a !ac%ground of mediating relations of exclusion. This is the conclusion of HegelFs discussion of Sense Certainty.? (nderstanding determinate conceptual content in terms of relations of exclusion among such contents commits one then to some %ind of semantic holism. )lthough earlier thin%ers outside the empiricist tradition -especially Gant. had dipped their toes in the water Hegel is the first thin%er explicitly to ta%e the plunge and try to thin% through rigorously the conse6uences of semantic holism. But what exactly is he committed toH To !egin with

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) *e can distinguish two grades of holistic commitment: !ea" indi"iduational holism: )rticulation !y relations of material incompati!ility is necessary for determinate contentfulness -for instance of states of affairs and properties on the o!8ecti"e side and propositions and predicates on the su!8ecti"e side.. Strong indi"iduational holism: )rticulation !y relations of material incompati!ility is sufficient'all there is a"aila!le to define it'for determinate contentfulness -for instance of states of affairs and properties on the o!8ecti"e side and propositions and predicates on the su!8ecti"e side.. Hegel is clearly committed to the wea%er claim. 4o for instance in a characteristic expression introducing it in the discussion of Perception Hegel says of 0differentiated determinate properties0 that 0many such properties are esta!lished 1geset5t3 simultaneously one !eing the negati"e of another.0C #ne property can !e understood as determinate only !y understanding many other properties'those incompati!le with it' as similarly determinate. But is he also committed to the stronger formH

There are reasons to thin% that he is. 4tandard contemporary ways of thin%ing of conceptual content in terms of the exclusion of possi!ilities'paradigmatically information theoretic and possi!le worlds accounts'treat the space of possi!ilities partitioned !y such a content as fixed and gi"en in ad"ance of any such partition. By contrast to !oth the line of thought Hegel de"elops here does not ta%e it that the possi!ilities are a"aila!le conceptually antecedently to the possi!le -indeed actual&>. contents of messages or claims or that the properties are already sitting there intelligi!ly

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determinate before the relations of exclusion among them ha"e !een considered. 7or what would that determinateness consist inH $f immediacy as immediacy is indeterminate it seems that the relations of exclusion must !e what their determinateness consists in. /hat might !e called 0asymmetric relati"e indi"iduation0 of one sort of item with respect to another is a relati"ely straightforward matter. Thus if $ understand the property red as selecting out of the set of o!8ects a pri"ileged su!set namely those that exhi!it that property $ can identify and indi"iduate another property not+red entirely in terms of its contrast with the original property. $ understand it also as selecting out of the set of o!8ects a pri"ileged su!set defined in terms of the other namely the complement of the first. But this is not what Hegel offers us. He is committed to symmetric relati"e indi"iduation in which a whole set or system of determinate contents'comprising red blue !ellow and so on'is IpositedF at once each indi"iduated !y its relations to -its strong differences from. the others.&& $f such a "iew does not entail strong indi"iduational holism a story will ha"e to !e told a!out why not.

The second reason to attri!ute to Hegel commitment to strong indi"iduational semantic holism is the nature of the transition from Perception to $orce and %nderstanding that is dri"en !y ma%ing explicit the holism that turns out to !e implicit in understanding properties as identified and indi"iduated !y the relations of determinate negation and mediation in which they stand to one another -and at a higher le"el to the o!8ects ultimately defined as centers of exclusion of them.. Thus e"en in its first appearance where the concept of force is understood as di"iding into forces playing the roles of soliciting and solicited we are told:

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1T3hese moments are not di"ided into two independent extremes offering each other only an opposite extreme: their essence rather consists simply and solely in this that each is solely through the other and what each thus is it immediately no longer is since it is the other. They ha"e thus in fact no su!stance of their own which might support and maintain them.&* )t this point relations to other items of the same category are not merely one necessary element in the indi"iduation of the items !eing considered. $t seems that they are all there is. The whole discussion of Consciousness leads up to putting on the ta!le the final holistic conception of the conceptual that Hegel calls 0infinity0. )t the "ery end of that part of the Phenomenology Hegel says: $nfinity... in which whate"er is determined in one way or another...is rather the opposite of this determinateness this no dou!t has !een from the start the soul of all that has gone !efore.&9 The conception of the conceptual as 0infinite0 is the axis around which Hegel's systematic thought re"ol"es. Brasping it is the primary goal towards which the exposition of the whole &ogic is directed. $n the discussion at the end of $orce and %nderstanding the 0Jotion of inner difference 0&; contrasting with the inade6uate atomistic conception of 0a!solute0 difference is repeatedly e6uated with infinity. $n fact the term is introduced for the first time as characteri5ing what is itself and its opposite in one unity. :nly thus is it difference as inner difference or difference as its own self or difference as an infinity.&+ $nner difference is material incompati!ility among items understood to !e the items they are solely in "irtue of standing in those relations of necessary mutual exclusion. $nner difference is a difference which is no difference or only a difference of what is selfsame and its essence is unity. The two distinguished moments !oth

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su!sist 1!estehen3< they are implicit and are opposites in themselves i.e. each is the opposite of itself< each has its 'other' within it and they are only one unity.&6 (nderstanding such a holistic unity re6uires Dthe distinguishing of what is not to !e distinguished or the unity of what is distinguished.0&=

The holistic successor conception to a world of facts'namely the world as ha"ing the structure of infinity'emerges as the lesson of the discussion of the constituti"e holistic interrelations of laws. That the simple character of law is infinity means according to what we ha"e found a. that it is self-identical !ut is also in itself different< or it is the selfsame which repels itself from itself or sunders itself into two...!. /hat is thus dirempted 1Knt5weite3 which constitutes the parts...exhi!its itself as a sta!le existence...!ut c. through the Jotion of inner difference these unli%e and indifferent moments...are a difference which is no difference or only a difference of what is self-same and its essence is unity...The two distinguished moments !oth su!sist< they are implicit and are opposites in themselves i.e. each is the opposite of itself< each has its 'other' within it and they are only one unity. &? /e are now to thin% of the whole as ha"ing its differences within it as an articulating structure essential !oth to the constitution of the whole and to the constitution of its 0selfdifferentiating0 components.

Those components can !e thought of as particular facts particular laws and general laws pro"ided we do not forget that these cannot !e understood as atomistic elements intelligi!le independently of and antecedently to consideration of the modal relations of exclusion and inclusion in which they stand to one another. $f we %eep firmly in mind that the topic is a holistically understood system of determinately contentful elements that

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are determinately contentful conceptually contentful 8ust !ecause and insofar as they are articulated !y relations of material incompati!ility and hence material inferential relations we can at least !egin to see what Hegel is trying to get across in passages such as this one: This simple infinity or the a!solute JotionLwhose omnipresence is neither distur!ed nor interrupted !y any difference !ut rather is itself e"ery difference as also their supersession< it pulsates within itself !ut does not mo"e inwardly "i!rates yet is at rest. $t is self-identical for its differences are tautological< they are differences that are none...that "ery self-identicalness is an inner difference. These sundered moments are thus in and for themselves each an opposite'of an other< thus in each moment the 'other' is at the same time expressed< or each is not the opposite of an 'other' !ut only a pure opposite< and so each is therefore in its own self the opposite of itself. $n other words it is not an opposite at all !ut is purely for itself a pure self-identical essence that has no difference in it....But in saying that the unity is an a!straction that is is only one of the opposed moments it is already implied that it is the di"iding of itself< for if the unity is a negative is opposed to something then it is eo ipso posited as that which has an antithesis within it. The different moments of self-sundering and of becoming self-identical are therefore li%ewise only this mo"ement of self-supersession' for since the selfidentical which is supposed first to sunder itself or !ecome its opposite is an a!straction or is already itself a sundered moment its self-sundering is therefore a supersession of what it is and therefore the supersession of its di"idedness. $ts becoming self-identical is e6ually a self-sundering< what !ecomes identical with itself there!y opposes itself to its self-sundering< i.e.. it there!y puts itself on one side or rather becomes a sundered moment(&C The concept of infinity in play here is clearly a holistic one. But should we understand it as holist in the strong senseH $t turns out that there is a real 6uestion as to whether we e"en can so understand it.

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I,. Conceptual -ifficulties of .trong Holism

7or Hegel also reali5es what the difficulty of his language perhaps ma%es manifest: it remains far from e"ident 8ust how to understand such holistic claims in detail. /e will see that one of the primary tas%s dri"ing Hegel's exposition'in particular the crucial transition from Consciousness to Self-Consciousness'is unpac%ing the commitments implicit in holist conceptions of content and assem!ling the conceptual raw materials needed to explain them.

4trong indi"iduational semantic holism as%s us to thin% of conceptual contents'that is for Hegel whate"er is in any coherent sense determinate'as forming a holistic relational structure. 4uch a structure would consist of a domain and set of relations of material exclusion defined on that domain. But further it as%s us to understand the domain elements themsel"es as constituted !y the relations of material exclusion it stands in to other domain elements. The relata are in a sense dissol"ed into the relations !etween them. )nd at this point we ha"e a chic%en-and-egg pro!lem: the relations are indi"iduated !y their relata and the relata !y the relations they stand in. But relations !etween what exactlyH The intelligi!ility of the relations themsel"es is threatened. Man we really understand relations of incompati!ility without any prior grip on what is incompati!leH How does the whole thing get off the groundH :nce we ha"e eschewed asymmetric relati"e indi"iduation in fa"or of the symmetric "ariety the strong "ersion of

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holism threatens to dissol"e into unintelligi!ility. /hat is supposed to !e the "ery structure of determinateness itself seems wholly indeterminate and unconstrained. The strongly distinguished items are defined in terms of their strong differences. There is an e"ident danger of circularity in"ol"ed in trying to indi"iduate some items in terms of others when the situation is symmetric. 7or in that case those others to which one appeals are themsel"es only indi"iduated in terms of their relations to the so-farunindi"iduated items with which one !egan. The sort of structure !eing descri!ed threatens to !e 0unendlich0 in the sense that we chase our tails endlessly in search of some firm distinctions and distinguished items to appeal to in getting the process of identification and indi"iduation started. $ thin% there is not 8ust a prima facie pro!lem in ma%ing strong indi"iduational semantic holism intelligi!le !ut one that is unsol"a!le in principle. / .trong individuational semantic holism is not a coherent position.

$f we are to ma%e good sense of Hegel we must come to see that in spite of the ways in which his language repeatedly in"ites us to attri!ute this "iew to him he is in fact not committed to this sort of strong holism. But we must also then see what it is a!out the "iew he does endorse that ma%es these forms of expression tempting. Hegel's understanding of determinateness'whether thought of o!8ecti"ely as a matter of how things really are or su!8ecti"ely in terms of our grasp of how things might really !e'in terms of modally ro!ust exclusion entails a certain %ind of holism. )nd $ ha"e indicated that $ thin% Hegel's idealism should !e understood as moti"ated in the Phenomenology !y !eing re"ealed as an implicit presupposition of the intelligi!ility of that holism. $n e"aluating the philosophical credentials and significance of Hegel's idealism the

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argument for this claim is of the utmost importance. 4o it is worth some care to get it right.

,. 0 1ad 0rgument

(nfortunately the texts that discuss this mo"e'!asically those that descri!e the rationale for the transition from the consideration of the o!8ects of consciousness in Consciousness to the su!8ects of consciousness in Self-Consciousness'in"ite a reading in which only a "ery wea% argument is "isi!le. 7or Hegel emphasi5es from the !eginning that consciousness itself must !e thought of as ha"ing a certain %ind of holistic structure: it is a unity that essentially consists in the relation !etween its distinct su!8ecti"e and o!8ecti"e poles -what appear for instance as 0the immediately self-differentiating moments within perception0*> 1M&&&3.. )nd it can loo" as though what he is saying is that once we disco"er the holistic character of the objects of consciousness we see that they resem!le consciousness itself in this respect so that consciousness of e"erything should !e understood on the model of consciousness of o!8ects that themsel"es ha"e the holistic structure characteristic of consciousness'that is that we should understand consciousness generally on the model of self-consciousness. $'ll call this the 0analogical argument from holism0 for the sort of idealism that models consciousness on selfconsciousness there!y underwriting the expository transition from Consciousness to Self-Consciousness. Thus in the penultimate paragraph of Consciousness after the discussion of 0infinity0 we find this summary of what appears to !e the rationale for mo"ing at this point to concern with self-consciousness:

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4ince this Jotion of infinity is an o!8ect for consciousness the latter is consciousness of a difference that is no less immediately canceled< consciousness is for its own self it is a distinguishing of that which contains no difference 1(nterscheiden des (nunterschiedenen3 or selfconsciousness. $ distinguish myself from myself and in doing so $ am directly aware that what is distinguished from myself is not different. $ the selfsame !eing repel 1a!stoAen3 myself from myself< !ut what is posited as distinct from me or as unli%e me is immediately in !eing so distinguished not a distinction for me. $t is true that consciousness of an 'other' of an o!8ect in general is itself necessarily self-consciousnessL consciousness of itself in its othernessL1J3ot only is consciousness of a thing possi!le only for a self-consciousness !ut that self-consciousness alone is the truth of those shapes.*& The o!8ect of consciousness has the holistic relational structure Hegel calls 0infinity0. This is a structure of differences -exclusions. that are canceled or superseded -0aufgeho!en0. in that the identity or unity of the differentiated items is understood as consisting in those relations of reciprocal exclusion. But consciousness itself is such a structure. 4o consciousness of o!8ects is consciousness of something that has the same structure as consciousness. $t is therefore structurally li%e consciousness of selves rather than o!8ects. Benerically then it is to !e understood as self-consciousness.

This is a dreadful argument. $f it were intended to show the identity of consciousness and self-consciousness -if that were the intent of the 'is' in the claim 0consciousness of an 'other' of an o!8ect in general is itself necessarily self-consciousness0. it would ha"e the same form as what has !een called the 0schi5ophrenic syllogism0: Men die. Brass dies.

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'''''' Men are grass. That is it would illegitimately infer identity from mere similarity. :n the other hand if it is intended merely to show a structural analogy the situation seems entirely symmetrical. /hy should self-consciousness !e pri"ileged !ecause of its holistic character as the fixed end of analogy on the !asis of which to understand the holistic character of the o!8ects of ordinary consciousness rather than the other way aroundH $n any case the analogy does not seem "ery strong. :n the face of it the relation !etween su!8ects and o!8ects in consciousness is asymmetric: there cannot !e su!8ects of consciousness without o!8ects !ut the "ery same things that can !e the o!8ects of consciousness -e.g. the physical forces theoretically postulated !y natural science. can !e there without su!8ects to !e conscious of them. :f course they are not there qua o!8ects of consciousness !ut so whatH The asymmetry would still seem to !e real. Hegel might mean to deny that there is any asymmetry of this sort !etween the status of su!8ects and o!8ects of consciousness !ut if so he would hardly !e entitled to assume such a "iew in arguing for an idealist conclusion. )nd there does not seem to !e any corresponding asymmetry in the holistic relational structure he has discerned as implicit in the determinateness of the o!8ecti"e world. -:ne could try to wor% one up from the asymmetry underlined !y the discussion of the in"erted world'the asymmetry namely !etween the actual facts a!out what o!8ects ha"e what properties on the one hand and the merely possi!le instantiations of properties !y those same o!8ects that they as determinate exclude. But this seems importantly different from the su!8ect-o!8ect asymmetry.. $f this is right then the analogy !etween the underlying holistic structure of the o!8ecti"e world arri"ed at !y the end of Consciousness and the holistic structure consciousness is supposed to ha"e would

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depend on a "ery thin and a!stract respect of similarity'a slender reed on which to !uild an idealist edifice.

Things would loo% if anything worse if Hegel is relying on his terminology to shore up the comparison. Thus one might see% to appeal to the formula that determinate o!8ecti"e content -say of a property. is a %ind of 0identity in difference0 and then use the same words to descri!e consciousness. But the mere fact that the same phrase could !e used a!out !oth surely counts for "ery little here especially gi"en the differences 8ust pointed to. )gain the fact that Hegel can say that 0in general to !e for itself and to !e in relation to an other constitutes the essence of the content 0** and that one could also say that consciousness was !oth 0for itself and in relation to an other0 -i.e. essentially in"ol"ed consciousness of itself and of its o!8ect. may 8ust show the flexi!ility of this somewhat figurati"e way of spea%ing rather than e"idencing any "ery illuminating similarity. Malling the relations something stands in its 0!eing for others0 would !e a pretty cheap way to !uy the right to model the o!8ects of consciousness on the su!8ects of consciousness especially in the context of a social theory of self-consciousness which explains !eing-for-self in terms of !eing-for-others. The point is not that using the same terminology for !oth cases cannot !e earned or that it cannot !e illuminating. The point is that it must !e earned in order to !e illuminating. )t the end of the story we may see why it is useful to tal% this way. But it is hard to see how these tropes !y themsel"es can mo"e that story along. The mere fact that it is possi!le to tal% a!out the o!8ects of consciousness and consciousness itself in terms that are so generic that we say some of the same things a!out !oth is a "ery wea% rationale for the expository transition to Self-

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Consciousness. The most it would pro"ide is an excuse for a shift of topic along the lines of saying 0Jow let's loo% at self-consciousness since it has come up in the story...0. But it would pro"ide no argument at all for any sort of interesting or contro"ersial idealism and no clarification of such a thesis. $f this sort of argument'really a "er!al slide that conflates two 6uite different points one wholly on the side of o!8ecti"e content -facts o!8ects properties. the other a!out the relation !etween such contents and %nowers'were the !est we could find Hegel presenting at this crucial 8uncture in his account there would !e no reason to ta%e his idealism seriously.

,I. 2bjective 3elations and .ubjective 4rocesses

) good place to start is with a distinction !etween inferential processes and inferential relations that emerges first in thin%ing a!out logic. Bil!ert Harman has argued pro"ocati"ely that there are no such thing as rules of deducti"e inference.*9 7or if there were they would presuma!ly say things li%e 07rom p and if p then q infer q.0 But that would !e a !ad rule. :ne might already ha"e much !etter e"idence against q than one had for either p or the conditional. $n that case one should gi"e one of them up. /hat deducti"e logic really tells us is not to !elie"e all of p) if p then q) and *q. But it does not tell us what to do inferentially. $t merely specifies some deducti"e relations of entailment and incompati!ility which constrain what we should do without determining it. $nference is a process< implication is a relation. Jothing !ut confusion can result from running together the 6uite different concepts of inferential processes and inferential relations. /hat $ will call 0the Harman point0 is

*=9

Brandom: TMD--6

2ne must distinguish6 and consider the relations between6 inferential relations 'and hence relational structures#& and inferential processes.

He ma%es the point in connection with formal deducti"e logic !ut it has !roader applica!ility.

$n particular Hegel's term 04chluA0 exhi!its 8ust this relationNprocess am!iguity. $t is usually translated 0syllogism0 on the perfectly reasona!le grounds that 04chluA0 is the term historically used in Bermany to discuss )ristotelean syllogistic inferences. )nd there are places particularly in the Science of &ogic discussion of the forms of syllogism where this is the only proper translation. But the term means inference more generally. )nd while it is clear that sometimes he is tal%ing a!out the relations !etween the different elements of a classical syllogism'for instance a!out ha"ing the status or playing the role of a middle term'as we shall see it is also clear that sometimes he is tal%ing a!out the movement from the premises to the conclusion.*+ -#elated terms such as 0mediation0 1@ermittlung3 ta%e similar dou!le senses.. $ndeed one of his ma8or concerns $ shall argue is with the relation !etween inferential relations and inferential practices or processes.

)s we ha"e seen Hegel has a deeper notion than that of material inference namely material incompatibility. The only sorts of inference Hegel considers as contri!uting to determinate conceptual content are the modally ro!ust ones that deri"e from relations of exclusion. Ta%ing material inferential relations -mediation schlieAen. to !e grounded in material incompatibility relations -determinate negation ausschlieAen. suggests a

*=;

Brandom: TMD--6

generali5ation of the Harman point to relational structures defined !y exclusion and -so. !y necessitation. Hegel's "ersion of the Harman point accordingly is something li%e 17 In thin8ing about determinateness in terms of material incompatibilit!6 and so in terms of inference6 we should also distinguish between relations and processes.

$ thin% it is helpful to construe the distinction !etween the objective incompati!ility of situations properties states of affairs or the determinate elements of an 0infinite0 holistic conceptual relational structure on the one hand and the subjective incompati!ility of commitments on the other hand on the Harmanian model of relations and processes -or practices.. The process on the subjective side of certainty that corresponds to the relation of incompati!ility of facts or properties on the objective side of truth is resolving incompati!le commitments !y re"ising or relin6uishing one of them. )s a "ersion of the point was put a!o"e objectively incompati!le properties cannot characteri5e the same o!8ect -o!8ecti"ely incompati!le facts cannot characteri5e the same world. while subjectively incompati!le commitments merely ought not to characteri5e the same su!8ect. )ny case where they do is a case of error the ac%nowledgment of which -as Hegel has argued in the ntroduction. is what ta%ing one's commitments to !e answera!le to an o!8ecti"e world -in the sense constituti"e of treating them as representations of such a world. consists in. But to ac%nowledge an error that is to ac%nowledge the incompati!ility of two of one's commitments is to ac%nowledge an o!ligation to do something to alter one's commitments so as to remo"e or repair the incompati!ility.

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Brandom: TMD--6

$ thin% that the idealism that emerges from the expository transition from Consciousness to Self-Consciousness claims !roadly that one cannot understand the relations of objective incompati!ility that articulate the conceptual relational structure in "irtue of which the o!8ecti"e world is determinate unless one understands the processes and practices constituting the ac%nowledgment of the subjective incompati!ility of commitments that are there!y treated as representations of such a world'in the sense of !eing answera!le to it for their correctness. 4uch a "iew a!out the relation !etween su!8ecti"e cogniti"e processes and the relations that articulate potential o!8ects of %nowledge in"ol"es extending the Harman point along another dimension. $t re6uires not 8ust that there !e a distinction !etween conceptual relations -paradigmatically material inferential and incompati!ility relations. and conceptual processes -of !elief and concept re"ision. !ut further that grasp of the relations consists in engaging in the corresponding processes. This "iew is a more specific "ersion of 11 Conceptual pragmatism: grasp of a concept 'conceptual content is a practical capacit!6 master! of a practice6 or the capacit! to undergo or engage in a process9 it is the capacit! to do something. -4ellars propounds a linguistic "ersion of conceptual pragmatism in claiming that grasp of a concept is always mastery of the use of a word.. )pplied to the case in hand understanding the o!8ecti"e relation of determinate negation or material incompati!ility which pro"ides the most !asic structure of the conceptual is ac%nowledging in practice a su!8ecti"e o!ligation to engage in the process of resol"ing incompati!le commitments.*6 #ead !ac% into the "ery simple Harman case with which we !egan endorsement of conceptual pragmatism supports a stronger claim than Harman ma%es: the claim that one

*=6

Brandom: TMD--6

does not understand the concept of deducti"e implication relations unless one understands them as constraints on inferential processes of rationally altering one's !eliefs. This the idea that what it is for the relations in 6uestion to !e implication relations 8ust is for them to play a certain role in constraining rational !elief change. Kndorsing this thought is mo"ing !eyond the original point. 7or Harman does not say that what it is for one proposition to stand in a relation of implying or entailing another 8ust is for certain inferential mo"es and not others to !e correct or appropriate -and "ice "ersa.. He does not ta%e the process of grasping inferential relations to !e an essential defining element of what those relations are.*=

,II. .ense -ependence6 3eference -ependence6 and 2bjective Idealism

$t will !e helpful here to introduce some definitions. 1# Concept 4 is sense dependent on concept : just in case one cannot count as having grasped 4 unless one counts as grasping :.
&9.

Concept 4 is reference dependent on concept : just in case 4 cannot appl! to something unless : applies to something.*?

) paradigmatic sense dependence claim is 4ellars' classic argument in 0Kmpiricism and the ,hilosophy of Mind0 that one cannot master the use of 'loo%s' tal% without ha"ing mastered the use of 'is' tal%. The concepts nail and hammer may !e related li%e this: one cannot understand what a nail is'something meant to !e dri"en !y a hammer'without understanding what a hammer is.*C

*==

Brandom: TMD--6

:ne important point to %eep in mind is 1& .ense dependence does not entail reference dependence. That is e"en if the concept nail is sense dependent on the concept hammer it would not follow that it was impossi!le for there to be nails without there !eing hammers to dri"e them. -May!e the nails were in"ented first or all the hammers were destroyed.9>. The point is clearest if we loo% at intensions and extensions in a possi!le worlds framewor%. Monsider a property or intension defined !y a de re comparison: !eing more massi"e than the Karth's sun -in fact. is. -Malling it a 0de re0 comparison 8ust mar%s the familiar distinction of scope: in e"aluating its application one first determines the mass of the Karth's sun in this world and then compares it to the mass of !odies in other possi!le worlds.. Jow $ ta%e it that this intension is intelligi!le only in the context of another: the mass of the Karth's sun. Jo-one who did not understand the latter could count as understanding the former. -:f course understanding the concept does not re6uire %nowing what the mass of the Karth's sun is in the sense of !eing a!le to specify a num!er of %ilograms or pounds.. )nd this is not 8ust a point a!out understanding. $t is a point a!out the intensions themsel"es: one is defined in terms of -as a function of. the other. But it is clear that there could !e stars that ha"e the property being more massive than the ;arth<s sun e"en though they are in possi!le worlds in which the Karth and its sun ne"er formed. That is the dependent intension can !e instantiated e"en though the intension it depends upon is not.

)nother example: the property being produced b! a reliable belief+forming mechanism is conceptually dependent on that of being a true belief !ecause to !e a

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Brandom: TMD--6

relia!le !elief-forming mechanism is to produce !eliefs that are li%ely to !e true. But a !elief can exhi!it the dependent property without exhi!iting the property it is conceptually dependent on'it can !e produced !y a relia!le mechanism without !eing true. 7rom the fact that ,* is defined as an intension that is a function of the intension of ,& it simply does not follow that where"er ,* is instantiated so is ,&. Definitional dependence of intensions does not entail de facto dependence of extensions.

$f one first extends the Harman point from formal logic and applies it also to material inferential and incompati!ility relations and then strengthens it into commitment to a %ind of conceptual pragmatism what one gets is a characteristic %ind of reciprocal sense dependence claim: 1( 2ne can onl! understand the concept of a determinate objective world to the e=tent to which one understands subjective process of ac8nowledging error>what Hegel calls ?e=perience++which is treating two commitments one finds oneself with as incompatible. $ thin% one should understand the strand in Hegel's idealism we might call objective idealism as codifying this genus of reciprocal sense dependence !etween the realm of truth and that of certainty. Bi"en Hegel's most !asic concept a slightly more articulated "ersion is: 1) 2bjective Idealism: The concepts of incompatibilit!obj and incompatibilit!subj6 and therefore the concepts of an objectivel! determinate world6 on the one hand6 and of error6 and e=perience>which

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Brandom: TMD--6

characteri@e the process of resolving incompatible commitments>on the other6 are reciprocall! sense dependent. 7or Hegel the conceptually fundamental reciprocal sense dependence is that !etween incompati!ilityo!8 and incompati!ilitysu!8 epitomi5ed in the different senses in which o!8ects and su!8ects 0repel0 incompati!ilities respecti"ely of properties and of commitments.9& But the force of the claim is pro!a!ly clearer for us if we consider its applica!ility to what Hegel ta%es pains in Consciousness to show are phenomena defina!le in terms of those incompati!ilities: o!8ect and property fact and law -or necessity..

$n fact these are three examples of o!8ecti"e idealist theses that $ thin% can and should !e defended on their own merits !y contemporary conceptual pragmatists.9* 7irst the concepts singular term and o!8ect are reciprocally sense dependent. :ne cannot understand either without at least implicitly understanding the other and the !asic relations !etween them. :nly people who %now how to use singular terms can pic% out o!8ects and distinguish them from properties situations or states of affairs. )nd one cannot master the use of singular terms without understanding that they stand for o!8ects. Gant's "ersion of idealism depends in part on his understanding of the relation !etween our 8udgments !eing a!out o!8ects and their containing -directly or indirectly. singular representations. 7rege -who would !e no less horrified !y the appellation 0idealist0 than any of our contemporaries'!ut who also had perhaps no less flat-footed an understanding of what the Berman idealists were after. argues "igorously and cogently for at least one direction of sense dependence of o!8ect on

*?>

Brandom: TMD--6

singular term -that is the direction that is most important for idealists. in the +rundlagen. 4econd the concepts asserting and fact are reciprocally sense dependent. That facts can !e the contents of assertions 8udgments !eliefs'that they are claima!le thin%a!le !elie"a!le'is an essential feature of them. :ne does not %now what a fact is unless one understands that they can !e stated. This line of thought is opposed to an explanatory strategy that would start with o!8ects and try to construe facts as arrangements of o!8ects'what might !e called the 0tin%ertoy0 picture of facts. :ne would then go on to understand sentences as a special %ind of complex representation one that represented not o!8ects !ut o!8ects as characteri5ed !y properties and standing in relations. -The Tractatus is often misread as promulgating a "iew of this sort.. $ thin% such an approach is doomed to failure at ma%ing propositional contents as such intelligi!le. The e"ident difficulties this strategy has with modal facts pro!a!ilistic facts and normati"e facts for instance are merely the surface manifestations of the deeper difficulties in ma%ing the notion of proposition or fact intelligi!le in a context in which one is not also ta%ing into account what it is to use an expression as a declarati"e sentence. My aim here howe"er is not to argue for this sense dependence claim !ut merely to place it relati"e to a contrary approach to things and to suggest that it is not a "iew that ought to !e dismissed out of hand. Third the concepts necessity and law on the one hand and counterfactually ro!ust inference on the other are reciprocally sense dependent. 4ellars has argued for the more contro"ersial direction of sense dependence on the !asis of his conceptual pragmatism: one has not grasped the difference !etween lawli%e regularities and mere

*?&

Brandom: TMD--6

regularities unless one understands that the former !ut not the latter support counterfactual reasoning. -Hegel's "ersion is the connection !etween law and explanation which stand to each other roughly as do the concepts percepti!le property and ac%nowledging error..

$n assessing these claims a!out the sense dependence of concepts that articulate our understanding of the structure of the o!8ecti"e world on concepts pertaining to our cogniti"e and practical acti"ities it is important to %eep firmly in mind that sense dependence does not entail reference dependence -claim -&;. a!o"e.. The claim is not that if there were no cogniti"e acti"ity'no resol"ing of su!8ecti"ely incompati!le commitments no use of singular terms no asserting no counterfactual reasoning'then there would !e no determinate way the world is no o!8ects facts or laws. There is not the slightest reason to !elie"e that Hegel thought any such thing. Mertainly ma%ing the sense dependence claims that $ ta%e to constitute o!8ecti"e idealism does not commit him to such an idea.

$t may !e helpful in clarifying this crucial feature of idealism to focus on a less contro"ersial case that is somewhat analogous to o!8ecti"e idealism in that it in"ol"es the sense dependence of properties of o!8ecti"e things on su!8ecti"e acti"ities. Monsider response dependent properties. By this $ mean properties defined !y their relation to the responses of something else. The general form of such a definition might !e this: )n o!8ect has property P 8ust in case a creature of %ind , would -in circumstances of %ind C. respond to it with a response of %ind -.

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Brandom: TMD--6

To say that P is a response dependent property in this sense entails that it is sense dependent -!y definition. on other concepts nota!ly -) the response -as well as , and C.. :ne could not understand what property P is unless one also understands what the response - is. $t doesn't matter for our purposes here 8ust what properties are properly thought of as !eing response dependent in this sense. $t is plausi!le that the property humorous or funn! is a property of this sort< a remar% or e"ent is humorous or funny 8ust in case the right people -those with a sense of humor. are disposed in appropriate circumstances to ta"e it to !e funny that is to laugh at it. 4ome ha"e thought that beautiful is a response dependent property. The notion of response dependence has also !een forwarded as an analysis of secondary 6uality concepts pic%ing out properties such as red: to !e red 8ust is to !e such that properly sighted creatures respond to it in a certain way !y ha"ing a certain %ind of experience !y its loo"ing red to them.99 #egardless of whether any of these particular potentially philosophically pu55ling sorts of properties are !est thought of as response dependent the concept of response dependent properties is clearly a coherent one. )nd it should !e e6ually clear that it does not follow from a response dependent definition of the form a!o"e that in a world that lac%s creatures of %ind , responses of %ind - or circumstances of %ind C nothing has the property P. 7or things might still ha"e the dispositional property -counterfactually in the cases imagined. that if they were placed in circumstances C and there were creatures of %ind , those creatures would produce responses of %ind -. K"en if response-dependent analyses of the sort gestured at a!o"e were correct for concepts such as !eautiful and red it would not follow that there were no !eautiful sunsets or red things !efore there were creatures to respond to them as such or that there are not such things in worlds that are

*?9

Brandom: TMD--6

ne"er shared with such creatures. $n the same way and for the same reason the o!8ecti"e idealist su!8ecti"e-o!8ecti"e sense dependence claim does not entail that there would !e no o!8ects facts laws or -to sum these all up in Hegel's master concept. o!8ecti"e incompati!ilities -and hence a determinate o!8ecti"e world. unless and until there were singular term uses assertions practices of drawing conclusions from counterfactual situations or acti"ities of attempting to resol"e incompati!le commitments. 4uch a claim would !e cra5y -or at least !oth o!"iously and demonstra!ly false.. But no claim of that sort is a conse6uence of o!8ecti"e idealism as here adum!rated.

,III.

1e!ond .trong Holism: a %odel

/ith these conceptual raw material in hand we are in a position to !e somewhat clearer a!out indi"iduational holism. Karlier $ distinguished two grades of holistic commitment: according to the wea%er one relations among holistically indi"iduated items are necessary for them to !e determinate and according to the stronger one they are sufficient. But now we can as%: should HegelFs holism'whether understood as strong or as wea%'!e understood as a sense dependence claim or a reference dependence claimH Hegel's answer is clear: 1/ Individuational holism is a reciprocal sense dependence claim.

(nderstanding it as a reciprocal reference dependence claim would !e ma%ing the mista%e of the 7irst $n"erted /orld9;: thin%ing that !ecause an o!8ect's !eing determinate is intelligi!le only in terms of its exhi!iting properties that are each themsel"es determinate in "irtue of their modally ro!ust exclusion of other strongly contrasting

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properties that therefore where one property is possessed !y an o!8ect the contrasting ones must also !e possessed !y that or other o!8ects.

The conception of the $n"erted /orld is what results if one mista%enly thin%s that !ecause the exclusi"e contrast !etween !eing positi"ely charged and !eing negati"ely charged is essential to each !eing the determinate electrical property that it is that therefore in saying that one thing is actually positi"ely charged one must implicitly !e claiming that some other corresponding thing is actually negati"ely charged. Hegel in"o%es this flat-footed way of misconstruing the significance of the holism that follows from his understanding of what determinateness consists in'in a portion of his text that many ha"e found pu55ling'in order to mar% the necessity for a more nuanced construal of 8ust what that holism does in"ol"e. Jotice that on this account 15 2bjective idealism is itself the assertion of a reciprocal sense dependence relation6 and hence a 8ind of holism. The looming pro!lem we ha"e identified concerns strong indi"iduational holism: the case where all there is to appeal to in indi"iduating elements of a holistic relational system are the relations they stand in to each other. The examples $ offered of clearly intelligi!le sense dependence without reference dependence where one intension is a function of another -paradigmatically as in response dependent properties. did not in"ol"e reciprocal !ut only asymmetric sense dependence. :ne intension is ta%en as already specified apart from its relations to others. 4trong holism as%s us to do without such antecedent independent indi"iduation of the items that stand in sense dependent relations

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of modally ro!ust exclusion. )nd my claim was: without antecedent relata we cannot really understand the relations -and so the relata.. )s we will see immediacy plays a crucial role in HegelFs distincti"e %ind of holism. 4o in the end it is a distincti"e %ind of wea" not strong holism that characteri5es the DinfiniteE relational structures within which alone anything can !e understood as ha"ing determinate conceptual content. which is accordingly a "ersion of the wea% not strong sort. The passages that seem to commit him to strong holism should !e understood rather as corresponding to one -ultimately inade6uate. phase in the process of grasping or understanding a holistic relational structure.

7or as conceptual pragmatism would lead us to expect ma%ing holistic relational structures intelligi!le re6uires engaging in a fairly specific sort of process. The relations !etween the holistic relational structure and that process can then !e seen !oth to instantiate and to support the o!8ecti"e idealism that results from extending and supplementing the Harman point. This $ thin% is the ultimate shape of HegelFs argument for o!8ecti"e idealism in the first part of the Phenomenology: determinateness re6uires a %ind of holism and that holism is intelligi!le only on the hypothesis of o!8ecti"e idealism.

Here is one way to thin% systematically a!out holistically indi"iduated roles that items play with respect to a set of relations: 4tart with some already identified and indi"iduated signs say proposition letters. These are things we can immediately distinguish that is noninferentially discriminate or tell apart. But initially we assume nothing a!out their

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content. That they are discrimina!ly different is enough.9+ Jext we loo% at relations among them. )s an example consider the relation two sign %inds p and q stand in if in some community to%ening !oth of them is su!8ected to a distincti"e sanction.96 :ne can then define the roles played !y signs with respect to that relation'for instance !y associating with each sentence letter the set of sentence letters that stand in the first practical-incompati!ility relation to it. /e can thin% of such a set of incompati!le sentence letters as a %ind of incompati!ility content that is expressed by the sentence letter it is associated with. )nd then we can define new relations on these roles or contents that are induced naturally !y the relations on the signs they comprise. 7or instance content-incompati!ility relations among the roles will shadow practical incompati!ility among the underlying signs. But we can also define entailment relations among the contents !y p -the content expressed !y 'p./ entails q 8ust in case q is a su!set of p.

#oles defined this way are abstracted from the underlying signs in a way somewhat analogous to orthodox mathematical a!straction !y the formation of e6ui"alence classes.9= 4uch a!stract roles are identified and indi"iduated entirely !y relations. $f we s6uint 8ust enough not to distinguish the two le"els of relations -the latter defina!le entirely in terms of the former. then the roles would appear to !e identified and indi"iduated wholly !y the relations they themselves stand in to each other. That is the paradoxical formulation of strong holism. But if we do %eep trac% of the -somewhat su!tle. distinction of le"els we see that there need !e nothing paradoxical a!out defining an a!stract relational structure of roles !y such a three phase process. Howe"er the only

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way to pic% out the roles and their relations is !y engaging in the process that proceeds through the recognition of the signs and their relations at the lower le"el. This is a sense dependence relation: what it is to !e an incompati!ility role -at the second le"el. is defined in terms of relations on signs -at the first le"el.. The symmetric sense dependence at the second le"el depends on the asymmetric sense dependence of the second le"el on the first.

IA. Traversing the %oments: -ialectical Bnderstanding

Here is where $ thin% the two-le"el model of holistic role formation can help in understanding Hegel: 1C The process of grasping or understanding holisticall! identified and individuated items is what Hegel calls Dtraversing the moments.D 9? Because of the holistic character of the conceptually articulated o!8ecti"e determinate contents it must grasp in order to %now the world as it is consciousness must !e posited in a two-fold manner: once as the restless mo"ement 1Bewegung3 to and fro through all its moments 1welches alle seine Momente durchlOuft3 aware in them of an otherness which is superseded in its own act of grasping it< and again rather as the tranquil unity certain of its truth.9C (nderstanding o!8ecti"e idealism re6uires understanding the relation !etween the 0restless movement to and fro through all the moments0 on the su!8ecti"e side and the content on the o!8ecti"e side that is grasped there!y. $n essence the o!8ect is the same as the mo"ement: the mo"ement is the unfolding and differentiation of the two moments and the o!8ect is the apprehended togetherness of the moments.;>

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/hat then are the 0moments0 of the holistic structure articulated !y o!8ecti"e modally ro!ust relations of exclusion and -so. inclusion which Hegel thin%s we must 0tra"erse0 in order to grasp the world as determinateH )nd what sort of 0mo"ement0 is it that we are to performH /hat do we need to do in order to count as 0tra"ersing the moments0H )lmost e"erything Hegel wrote is structured !y some "ersion of this conceptual progression. $n his hands the !asic thought is a flexi!le one which he adapts to many disparate topics and circumstances. 4o it is not easy to come up with a formula that will do 8ustice to them all. But the !asic outlines of the thought are not hard to discern. /e start with two 0moments0 or aspects that can !e a!stracted from a determinately contentful thought or way the world could !e. These are "ariously characteri5ed: identity and difference immediacy and mediation !eing-for-self and !eing-for-others.;&

Tra"ersing the moments is how one understands the relations !etween these concepts and that of determinateness according to the metaconcept of 0ernunft. Thin%ing that one can first understand the logical notions of say identity and difference and then somehow put them together to get an ade6uate conception of determinateness is how one understands the relations !etween these concepts and that of determinateness according to the ultimately unsatisfactory and unwor%a!le metaconcept of 0erstand. 0#unning through0 the two moments yields three stages one corresponding to each moment and the third to the distincti"e way of understanding their com!ination and relation that is the goal and result of the process. /hat one does at each of those stages is in Hegel's terminology to 0posit0 1set5en3 something determinate as for instance simply immediate !eing. Doing that is understanding it according to the conception of simple identity or !eing-for-self.

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0,ositing P as Q0 means ta%ing or treating P as Q understanding or representing P as Q applying the concept Q to P characteri5ing a referent P as pic%ed out !y a sense Q specifying an extension P !y means of an intension Q.;*

Hegel en"isages an expressi"ely progressi"e transition from one construal to another of the o!8ects of %nowledge each of which presupposes those that come !efore it. $t can !e illustrated to !egin with !y the course of thought we go through in understanding properties as holistically identified and indi"iduated'the first category in which this point comes up. /e can see our understanding of properties as comprising three stages: ). 7irst one grasps the property as immediately contentful. $t is 8ust the thing it is !rutely there. To say that one initially understands it as o!8ecti"ely immediate is to say on the o!8ecti"e side that one has an atomistic conception of it. :ne ta%es it to !e possi!le for that property to !e what it is apart from its relations to other properties. Thus on the su!8ecti"e side one need not consider those relations or those other properties in order to judge that something has the property. The properties in play are restricted to sense uni"ersals that is to o!ser"a!le properties'those a!out which one can ma%e 8udgments that are su!8ecti"ely immediate in the sense of !eing noninferentially elicited in o!ser"ation. These play the role of the primiti"ely indi"iduated signs at the first stage of holistic role a!straction. Thin%ing a!out these apart from the su!8ecti"e incompati!ility relations among those commitments is thin%ing a!out the o!8ecti"e world they present as itself consisting in o!ser"a!le states of affairs that are o!8ecti"ely immediate in the sense that the things presented in sensation are ta%en as !eing what they are apart from any relations among them.

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Brandom: TMD--6

This is a position that is unsta!le howe"er. 7or it does not include a coherent conception of what one grasps as determinately contentful. Beginning to ma%e explicit what is implicit in such a conception re6uires mo"ing to the next stage !y considering the next 0moment0. That is B. Jext one sees that the property is determinate only insofar as it strongly differs from other properties excluding them in the sense that it is impossi!le for one o!8ect -at one time. to ha"e two properties that are incompati!le in this sense. )t this point one has mo"ed away from considering the property in terms of its immediate identity or unity to considering its relations to) mediation by difference or disparity from other properties. )t this stage relations of su!8ecti"e incompati!ility among the commitments are considered. They present relations of o!8ecti"e incompati!ility among the states of affairs represented !y the original commitments. Doing this Hegel says is mo"ing out -in thought. from the thing -here property. into its other. Being-for-self has dissol"ed into !eing-for-others. The property is now understood exclusi"ely in terms of its relations to in particular -gi"en the relations of material incompati!ility Hegel has argued articulate determinateness. its determinate strong differences from other properties. This is the dissolution of the original conception of the identity of properties as immediate without yet putting in place any sta!le successor conception of identity. $t too is unsta!le !ecause positing the property as'understanding it 8ust in terms of' mediation exclusion relation to others puts the relations in place without yet pro"iding the conceptual resources to ma%e sense of the relata. This is essentially the position $ gestured at a!o"e as threatening to lea"e us with no ultimately intelligi!le conception of properties -facts 0forces0 etc.. as elements in a holistic relational structure articulated !y

*C&

Brandom: TMD--6

relations of determinate exclusion. ,ut slightly differently the first stage as%s us to understand properties as contentful independently of the relations among them: as each pic%ed out !y senses independent of one another. The second stage is then a strong construal of them as reciprocally sense dependent. But how are we to ma%e sense of thisH $f none of the senses as it were start off as determinate how can distinctions among them -among whatH. ma%e them determinateH The conception of reciprocal sense dependence threatens to send us around in -infiniteR. circles without ma%ing progress on determining the content of any of the senses we run through. How are we to understand the whole thing as getting off the groundH The model of holistic role a!straction tells us exactly how we must com!ine the first two conceptions -content as immediate and content as strongly holistic. to yield a third. /e must reconcei"e the things we are tal%ing a!out'here properties'in such a way that the immediacies that !ecame first a"aila!le are construed as signs expressing a reality articulated !y the relations that we first understood at the second stage. $t is relations among these roles that can !e played !y what is immediate that should ultimately !e understood as standing in holistic relations one to another. M. $n the final stage then one returns to the determinate content of the property !ut now understands its identity as essentially consisting in its relations of exclusion of or difference from those it contrasts with -as well as its relations of inclusion to those it entails or that entail it.. /here !efore one treated the determinate content as something merely immediate and then as something merely mediated one now grasps it as fully mediated immediacy.;9 :ne sees its !eing-for-self as consisting in its !eing-for-others. Thus at this stage we construct the roles and the new relations among them which are

*C*

Brandom: TMD--6

ta%en to !e expressed by the immediacies considered in the first stage. The underlying only theoretically -that is inferentially i.e. !y mediation. accessi!le reality is expressed by the o!ser"ationally -noninferentially i.e. immediately. accessi!le appearance which ser"es as a sign of it. These determinately contentful roles are constituted entirely !y their relations to one another'!ut these are the higher-order relations induced !y the lower-le"el relations on the signs -immediacies.. The final stage is a conception of the property as 0infinite0 as a holistic role with respect to relations of material incompati!ility or exclusion !ut one to which the immediacy of the sense uni"ersals ma%es an essential contri!ution. The su!8ecti"ely immediate commitments ac6uired noninferentially through sense perception are now understood as presenting an o!8ecti"e world whose immediacy -!rute thereness. is merely a sign an appearance expressing a richly mediated determinate and therefore holistic structure.

This is not a picture which has the immediacy as a mere sign for something else a content. That would !e a representational not an expressi"e model. )n immediacy-assign is im!ued with the content it expresses< it shows up as itself an immediacy as mediated'as it must !e to !e determinately contentful. The inferential and incompati!ility relations that ma%e such immediacies re"elatory of only inferentially accessi!le theoretical features of reality is not a passage beyond itself to something else !ut only to something implicit -in a straightforward inferential sense. in it in the content it has. This third stage the holistic 0infinite0 conception we are ultimately aiming at is made intelligi!le only !y the process of arri"ing at it. 7or one must build the holistic roles in stages starting with something construed as immediate and then in"estigating

*C9

Brandom: TMD--6

the mediation implicit in ta%ing it to !e determinate.

Here is another of the many passages in which Hegel descri!es this fundamental process -and $ hope !y this point in our story he can !e heard struggling here to say something that we can now put in somewhat clearer terms.: The mo"ement of a !eing that immediately is consists partly in !ecoming an other than itself and thus !ecoming its own immanent content< partly in ta%ing !ac% into itself this unfolding 1of its content3 or this existence of it i.e. in ma%ing itself into a moment and simplifying itself into something determinate. $n the former mo"ement negativity is the differentiating and positing of existence< in this return into self it is the !ecoming of the determinate simplicity(;; This 0mo"ement0 is what we must rehearse in order to trace the relations that articulate the sort of determinate content Hegel calls 0indi"iduality0. 0Jegati"ity0 appears here in its characteristic dou!le guise: on the objective side in the form of relations of modally ro!ust material exclusion and on the subjective side as movement as the doing of something the alteration of commitments that is the grasping and ac%nowledging of the significance of those relations.;+ Soo%ing !ac% from the perspecti"e achie"ed in Absolute ,nowledge Hegel sums up in this way the conception we are supposed to ha"e: Thus the o!8ect is in part immediate !eing or in general a Thingcorresponding 1entspricht3 to immediate consciousness< in part an othering of itself its relationship or being-for-another and being-foritself i.e. determinateness'corresponding to perception< and in part essence or in the form of a uni"ersal'corresponding to the (nderstanding. $t is as a totality a syllogism 14chluA3 or the mo"ement 1Bewegung3 of the uni"ersal through determination to indi"iduality as
*C;

Brandom: TMD--6

also the re"erse mo"ement from indi"iduality through superseded indi"iduality or through determination to the uni"ersal. It is6 therefore6 in accordance with these three determinations that consciousness must 8now the object as itself 1emphasis added3.;6

This then is the framewor% of Hegel's idealism pro"iding the context in which are situated !oth more specific idealist claims $ ha"e suggested -concerning the relations !etween the concepts of singular term and o!8ect of assertion and fact and counterfactual reasoning and law. and the generic Hegelian reading of o!8ecti"e incompati!ility in terms of experience: the process of resol"ing incompati!le commitments. The o!8ecti"e world is a holistic relational structure determinate 8ust insofar as it is articulated !y modally ro!ust relations of material incompati!ility. 4uch a conceptual structure is in principle intelligi!le only !y means of a process of tra"ersing the moments: holistic role a!straction ascending from immediacy through mediation to immediacy as expressi"e of purely mediated contents. The determinateness of the o!8ecti"e world and the structured process of grasping it are reciprocally sense dependent concepts each intelligi!le only in terms of the other. 4o understood o!8ecti"e idealism does not entail or in"ol"e any claims of reference dependence'as though our concept using acti"ity were re6uired to produce as opposed to !eing re6uired to ma"e intelligible the conceptually structured world. The thought that that world is always already there anyway regardless of the acti"ities if any of %nowing and acting su!8ects has always stood as the most fundamental o!8ection to any sort of idealism. $t is a true and important thought< !ut it is not an o!8ection to Hegel's o!8ecti"e idealism as here construed.

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Brandom: TMD--6

A.

Conclusion

$ ha"e argued: that understanding the objective world as determinate for Hegel entails that it must !e understood as a holistic relational structure< that there is a prima facie pro!lem with the intelligi!ility of strongly holistic relational structures< for the strengthened Harman point a specific %ind of conceptual pragmatism a!out construing the relation !etween o!8ecti"e relations and su!8ecti"e processes< for an understanding of idealism as a sense dependence relation of o!8ecti"e determinateness on su!8ecti"e processes of resol"ing incompati!le commitments< and for an understanding of holism also as a sense dependence relation.

Hegel's claim is then that the only wa! to ma8e holism6 and so determinateness6 intelligible is objective idealism. $t then remained only to say what subjective process can ma%e intelligi!le objective wea"ly holistic semantic relational structures. 7or that $ offer a model: holistic role abstraction !eginning with signs and ending with roles played !y those signs or contents expressed !y them thought of in terms of higher order relations among sets of those signs.

4o o!8ecti"e idealism'a sense dependence thesis relating the concept of o!8ecti"e holistic relational structures to the concept of a certain %ind of su!8ecti"e process'
*C6

Brandom: TMD--6

emerges as a response to conceptual difficulties attendant on the conception of strongly holistic relational structures. Disentangling issues of sense dependence from those of reference dependence shows idealism as a respecta!le and potentially defensi!le response to genuine conceptual pro!lems. )n unforeseen !onus of this way of approaching things is the pro"ision of a no"el -though admittedly telegraphic;=. account of the dialectical method that structures all Hegel's philosophical accounts. That method responds to the need to understand holistic structures !y tra"ersing the moments !y starting with conceptions of what things are immediately or in themsel"es then mo"ing to grasp them as what they are mediately or for others and then to understand what they are in themselves as constituted !y what they are for others as mediated immediacy. Jot only objective idealism !ut Hegel's distincti"ely structured dialectical process of understanding emerge as re6uired to understand the -wea%ly. holistic relational structures that Hegel ta%es to !e implicit in the notion of a world that is determinately one way rather than another. 4ituating a central strand of Hegel's idealism;? in this structure it seems to me sheds light !oth on his thought and on the issues he thought a!out.;C

*C=

&

By way of warning if not preparation for those who may not ha"e read the fuller discussion of this

issue in Mhapter Three $ should say that it is a de re reading of the rele"ant portions of the text not a de dicto one. )s $ use and de"elop these notions in 1a"ing t 2xplicit these are two styles in which one can specify the contents of the "ery same claims. By 0content0 $ understand !roadly inferential role. Brasping a content is to a first approximation %nowing what follows from it what is incompati!le with it and what would !e e"idence for it. But now an issue arises concerning the source of the auxiliary hypotheses one con8oins with it in order to extract those inferential conse6uences. ,resenting the content in the de dicto way re6uires restricting oneself to appeal only to other collateral commitments specified in terms that one ta%es it the one to whom one attri!utes the claim in 6uestion would also ac%nowledge commitment. ,resenting the content in the de re way relaxes this restriction and permits the employment of auxiliary hypotheses the interpreter ta%es to !e true whether or not the target of the ascription %nows or !elie"es them. )t se"eral crucial 8unctures in my story $ will help myself to mo"es that Hegel does not explicitly ma%e !ut which endorse as correct and important insights in characteri5ing the thought that Hegel is expressing. -)s an alternati"e model of this procedure one might thin% of domain extension in mathematics. :ften an important pattern in"ol"ing one domain of o!8ects-say the distri!ution of roots of polynomial e6uations with coefficients in the real num!ers-only !ecomes apparent when one considers them as a su!set of a wider domain for instance the complex num!ers. :nly the perspecti"e of the extended structure lets us see what is already true of the more restricted one.. $n the present case $ will signal explicitly when $ am importing something into the Hegelian story to ma%e the underlying rationale $ discern more "isi!le.
*

)ll citations from the Phenomenology are paragraph num!ers from ).@. MillerFs :xford (ni"ersity

,ress translation hereafter cited as 1. Mf. 1M&&;3 6uoted !elow -note ;..
9

He can then re8ect the merely formal principle in the sense that he does not ta%e it to !e an ade6uate

expression of the crucial relation of determinate negation.

;

1M&&;3.

1M&*>3. )s can uni"ersality though that is another story. Mf. Science of &ogic 1).@. Miller trans.

Humanities ,ress $nternational &CC> hereafter S&3 DLuni"ersality is a form assumed !y the difference and the determinateness is the content. 14S6>?3
=

Jote that $ will only try to s%etch one part of this story. )n account of how representational relations

can !e understood in terms of relations among graspa!le senses of how the concept of noumena arises out of relations among phenomena is a story for another occasion.
?

But the thought is of course per"asi"e in HegelFs writings. Thus for instance D$mmediacy in

general proceeds only from mediation and must therefore pass o"er into mediation. :r in other words the determinateness of the content contained in the definition !ecause it is determinateness is not merely an immediate !ut is mediated !y its opposite< conse6uently definition can apprehend its su!8ect matter only through the opposite determination and must therefore pass into division.E 14S?>>3
C

1M&&93. 4ee the discussion of this point in D4ome ,ragmatist Themes in HegelFs $dealismE 12uropean

&>

3ournal of Philosophy )ugust &CCC3.

&&

-Mf. T;*U of the Kncyclopedia.. /orse Hegel insists that we cannot help oursel"es to the category

o!8ect in defining properties since the categories o!8ect and property themsel"es stand in a symmetric holistic relation each in principle intelligi!le only in terms of the other.
&*

1M&;&3. 1M &693. 1M&6&3. 1M&6&3. 1M&6&3. 1M&6?3. 1M&6&3.

&9

&;

&+

&6

&=

&?

&C

1M&6*3. 1M&&&3. 1M&6;3. 1M &9;3. 0Sogic and #easoning 0 Synthese. &C?;< )7 pp. &>=-&*?. To !egin with grounded ones. This fact is sometimes o!scured for those reading the Phenomenology in Knglish translation since

*>

*&

**

*9

*;

*+

0syllogism0 unli%e 04chluA0 doesn't ha"e a naturally associated "er! form. $n the Science of &ogic Hegel often explicitly uses the phrase 0@erlauf der 4chl2sse0 1e.g. at /S $$ +C=3.
*6

)s Hegel says at. Kncyclopedia T +++: DThe su!8ecti"e consciousness of the a!solute spirit is

essentially and intrinsically a processLE

*=

This relation should !e understood as symmetrical and reciprocal: one also does not understand the

idea of purportedly representational commitments and so incompati!ilitysu!8 unless one also understands the idea of a determinate world whose determinateness means that it can !e other than as it is represented. This is an idea articulated !y relations of incompati!ilityo!8.
*?

This might !e called 'coarse' reference dependence which claims only that if one property is

instantiated somewhere in a world the other is instantiated in that same world. '7ine' reference dependence would then claim that if some o!8ect instantiates the one property that same object instantiates the other. teacher and student are -gi"en some straightforward stipulations. related in the first way while s6uare and rectangle are related in the second.
*C

4ince hammers are meant to !e used to do many things !esides dri"ing nails the relationship would

not !e reciprocal in this case.

9>

$'m not sure whether Heidegger was confused on this point in Di"ision :ne of 4eing and Time !ut

certainly some of the commentators on the 0e6uipmental in"ol"ements0 that structure Uuhandensein ha"e failed clearly to distinguish the two claims $ am calling 0sense dependence0 and 0reference

dependence0.
9&

Though !oth of these structures are e"entually aufgeho!en in fa"or of something e"en more holistic

the 'infinite' holistic incompati!ility relational structure of the end of Consciousness and situated em!odied communities !y the end of -eason.
9*

$ ha"e defended the first two explicitly in 1a"ing t 2xplicit and also there set out some of the raw

materials that would need to !e assem!led to !ac% up the third 4ellarsian claim.
99

:f course those who are sufficiently impressed !y 4ellars' analysis of the relation !etween loo8s+

red and is+red in 0Kmpiricism and the ,hilosophy of Mind 0 will not !e much tempted !y such an account. But a more sophisticated analysis of secondary 6uality concepts is a"aila!le to them. $ discuss one in 0Jon-inferential Gnowledge ,erceptual Kxperience and 4econdary Vualities: ,lacing McDowell's Kmpiricism 0 forthcoming.
9;

1M&+=-&6>3. Doing this need not !e assuming that the notion of immediate difference is autonomously

9+

intelligi!le. There will always !e some actual content to the difference: the sign designs exhi!it incompati!le shapes for instance. But we can a!stract from that content and employ in our reasoning only some of its conse6uences: the mere difference of the signs. )s Hegel says in the Kncyclopedia Sogic 1T &&+3: D)!straction isLthe transformation of something inherently concrete into this form of elementary simplicity. )nd this may !e done in two ways. Kither we may neglect a part of the multiple features which are found in the concrete thing -!y what is called analysis. and select only one of them< or neglecting their "ariety we may concentrate the multiple character into one.E
96

The sanction might !e !eing -counted as !eing. obliged to do something that one would not

otherwise !e o!liged to do--for instance to alter the conditions under which one is disposed to produce to%enings of other signs in the domain in systematically -systemati5a!ly. constrained ways. $n this example the relations are generically socially instituted normati"e relations of relati"e practical incompati!ility of act %inds. But this is just an example -though not chosen at random..

9=

)!straction in the usual sense re6uires an e6ui"alence relation on the underlying domain while the

"ariety considered here relies on an nonreflexi"e nontransiti"e relation. -$ndeed it need not e"en !e considered as symmetric though Hegel seems to treat determinate negation as symmetric..
9?

0Tra"ersing0 is Miller's translation of 0durchlaufen0'literally running or wal%ing through. 4ee for

instance 1M;=3 where Hegel says that the topic of philosophy is 0existence within its own Jotion. $t is and this whole mo"ement constitutes what is positi"e the process which begets and traverses its own moments 1in it3 and its truth.0 -Kmphasis added..
9C

1M*9=3. 1M&&&3. 07orce is the unconditioned uni"ersal which is e6ually in its own self what it is for another< or

;>

;&

which contains the difference in its own self'for difference is nothing else than !eing-for-another.0 1M&963 DBeing for anotherE is HegelFs way of tal%ing a!out relations'in the case that matters relations of strong exclusion.
;*

Hegel sometimes'$ thin% less happily'tal%s a!out the situation in which one posits say

properties now as immediate and again as mediated as one in which the same content -a determinate property. shows up in two different forms.
;9

0$n the consummation of the syllogismLwhere o!8ecti"e uni"ersality is no less posited as totality of

the form determinations the distinction of mediating and mediated has disappeared. That which is mediated is itself an essential moment of what mediates it and each moment appears as the totality of what is mediated.0 1Science of &ogic =>93
;;

1M+93. Here as often he tal%s a!out this mo"ement as something that happens rather than something we

;+

do. But that is 8ust a way of emphasi5ing that all we are doing in mo"ing this way is !ringing out into the explicit light of day what is implicit in each conception we entertain. The path of the mo"ement re6uired to understand them is accordingly determined !y the holistic relational nature of the

conceptual contents we are grasping.

;6

1M=?C3. ,articularly noticea!ly !y its a!sence in this s%etch is an account of how the su!8ect's engaging in

;=

the process of re"ising the commitments it finds itself with in response to their material incompati!ilities underwrites understanding them as presenting -representing !eing a!out answering for their correctness to. a world articulated !y o!8ecti"e relations of material incompati!ility. Hegel !egins to tell such a story in the ntroduction to the Phenomenology. $t is an account of how the representational dimension of concept use emerges from the process of rectifying one's commitments a!out how concern with reference emerges from concern with sense and the sorts of sense dependence considered here. $ tell that story elsewhere.
;?

)nother strand is what $ call 0conceptual0 idealism. $ understand absolute idealism as roughly the

product of o!8ecti"e and conceptual idealism. Monceptual idealism is the sort discussed in my essay D4ome ,ragmatist Themes in HegelFs $dealismE under the slogan DThe structure and unity of the concept is the same as the structure and unity of the self-conscious self.E 7rom the point of "iew of the current essay it is what one gets !y applying the strengthened Harman point one more time and construing su!8ecti"e processes and o!8ecti"e relations not as standing to each other as elements in a relational structure !ut as aspects of a process. This is construing how things stand !etween o!8ecti"e relations and su!8ecti"e processes as modeled on the processes of su!8ects rather than the relations of o!8ects. $t is within this process that the 0for others0 of the second stage comes to encompass relations !etween the o!8ecti"e and the su!8ecti"e. But that is another story.
;C

$ am grateful to Wohn McDowell for helping me to separate out distinct threads in this argument and

to see 8ust how to characteri5e the "iew $ am attempting to reconstruct and attri!ute to Hegel.