Hegel Through Pragmatism: An Introduction to the Research of Hegelian Pragmatism

Abstract

The systematic philosophical thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one of the central achievements in modern western philosophy, although it is historically relegated to an outside position of the pragmatism tradition, if not frankly hostilized by it. The figure that stands out when a pragmatist thinks of Hegel is an obscure, metaphysical, idealistic philosopher. Nevertheless, this image proves itself completely false, as the revitalized Hegel studies that have been growing since the half of the twentieth century have successfully shown Hegel’s writings have revealed itself to be profoundly pragmatic according to his own conception of metaphysics, one that goes completely contrary of thinkers of his time, and hardly classifies him as idealist in this sense. Hegel’s philosophy of consciousness, although developed in his own construed concepts that may seem idealistic, is explicitly grounded in experience, in practical activity of a knower-agent, for Hegelian selfconsciousness’ logical structure, that is revealed by concepts of his Logic and are made clear and determinate by his own method of Dialectics, is dependent on this practical activity, as it is dependent of mutual self-recognition, of intersubjectivity and of conceptual application. The present article intends to elucidate the particular pragmatic approach offered by Hegel and assert that the logical concepts he have called as the Absolute, the Spirit, the Concept and the Idea are not to be comprehended as metaphysical and transcendent, but are deeply rooted in a social, intersubjective, pragmatic point of view, a route that can bring new light on the study of pragmatism.