Hegel and ancient philosophy: a re-examination

218 Pages·2018·1.8 MB·English

by  Glenn Alexander Magee (editor)

Hegel and Ancient Philosophy
Hegel’s debts to ancient philosophy are widely acknowledged by scholars,
and by the philosopher himself. Roughly half of his Lectures on the History
of Philosophy is devoted to ancient philosophy, and throughout his work
Hegel frequently frames his positions in relation to the thinkers and
movements of antiquity. This volume presents original essays from leading
scholars dealing with Hegel’s debts to ancient thinkers, as well as his own,
often problematic readings of ancient philosophy. While around half of the
chapters discuss Hegel’s treatment of Aristotle—a topic that has long been
at the forefront of scholarship—the other half explore his relationship to
such ancient figures as Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Sextus
Empiricus, and the Stoics. The essays challenge a number of longstanding
scholarly assumptions regarding, for example, Hegel’s denigration of
the “mythical,” his developmentalist approach to ancient thought, his
conception of the state in relation to the Greek polis, his “hermeneutic” of
the Platonic dialogues, and his use of Aristotelian concepts in arguments
concerning the psyche, the body, and their unity and distinction.
Glenn Alexander Magee is Professor of Philosophy at the C.W. Post Campus
of Long Island University. He is the author of Hegel and the Hermetic
Tradition (2001) and The Hegel Dictionary (2011), as well as editor of The
Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism (2016). He
was Vice President of the Hegel Society of America from 2014 to 2016.
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Hegel and Ancient Philosophy
A Re-Examination
Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee
Hegel and Ancient Philosophy
A Re-Examination
Edited by
Glenn Alexander Magee
First published 2018
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Contents
ContentsContents
Abbreviations and Conventions ix
Acknowledgments x
Editor’s Introduction 1
1 Xenophanes and Presocratic Thought: A Critical Perspective
on Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy 9
ROBERT METCALF
2 On the Speculative Significance of Anaxagoras in
Hegel’s Lectures 25
ANDREW ALEXANDER DAVIS
3 Hegel on the Trial of Socrates and the End of
Aesthetic Democracy 39
PAUL T. WILFORD
4 How Hegel Read the Platonic Dialogues 57
JERE O’NEILL SURBER
5 The Platonic Dimension of Hegel’s System 70
LAWRENCE BRUCE-ROBERTSON
6 Mens Divina as Lebendigkeit: Hegel’s Interpretation
of Metaphysics 1072b26–27 86
ANDY GERMAN
7 The Way Past the Stripping Argument in Hegel and Aristotle 103
JOSHUA MENDELSOHN
viii Contents
8 The Aristotelian Metaphysics of Hegel’s “Soul” 115
ALLEGRA DE LAURENTIIS
9 Parts and Souls 132
ANTÓN BARBA-KAY
10 On Contradiction: Hegel versus Aristotle, Sextus
Empiricus, and Kant 147
RICHARD DIEN WINFIELD
11 On Theory and Praxis: Hegel’s Reformulation of an
Aristotelian Distinction 161
FEDERICO ORSINI
12 Ethical Life, Politics, and the Actualization of Freedom:
Hegel and Aristotle’s Politics 174
ANGELICA NUZZO
13 Hegel’s Critique of Stoicism 189
BERNARDO FERRO
Contributors 202
Index 205
Abbreviations and Conventions
Abbreviations and ConventionsAbbreviations and Conventions
Hegel scholars disagree about which German editions should be used,
which translators are superior to others, how key terminology should be
rendered into English, and even how Hegel’s works should be cited in end-
notes. For the most part, the editor has adopted a laissez faire approach,
allowing individual authors to follow their own scholarly convictions. All
abbreviations are explained in the endnotes to the articles, but the following
are often used:
A = addition (Zusatz).
Enz. = Enzyklopädie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften.
LHP = Lectures on the History of Philosophy.
PhG = Phänomenologie des Geistes.
PhS = Phenomenology of Spirit.
PWH = Lectures on the Philosophy of World History.
R = remark (Anmerkung).
SL = The Science of Logic.
VGP = Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie.
Werke = (usually) G.W.F. Hegel, Werke in zwanzig Bänden, eds. Eva
Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986).
WL = Wissenschaft der Logik.
The titles of specific books by Hegel have been italicized, but not the names
of divisions within his philosophy. Hence, Phenomenology of Spirit is itali-
cized, but “Philosophy of Spirit” (a division within the Encyclopedia of
the Philosophical Sciences) is not. When “Logic” is not italicized it refers
to the division within Hegel’s system. When a specific text of the Logic is
meant, reference is made to either The Science of Logic or to the Encyclo-
pedia Logic (division one of the Encyclopedia). The editor has adopted the
familiar custom of capitalizing certain important terms which have a special
meaning in Hegel’s philosophy (e.g., Spirit). In general, however, such capi-
talization has been used sparingly.