The Spectre of the Negative: Contemporary Readings of Hegel
A series of workshop-seminars with Ray Brassier on Hegel and on contemporary interpretations of Hegelian philosophy.
In January 2017, Ray Brassier will be leading a series of seminars on Hegel at the University of Brighton. These sessions have been organised by the University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Ethics, and take place between the 18th and the 20th of January.
Ray will also give a public lecture on Friday 20th January.
Information on the focus, timings and venues for the seminars and lecture is below. If you would like to attend the seminars, please contact either Tom Bunyard (tombunyard@gmail.com) or Toby Lovat (t.lovat2@brighton.ac.uk) to reserve a place.
Introduction
Hegel once remarked that ‘philosophy is its own time comprehended in thought’. Philosophy, for Hegel, involves an awareness of the nature and tensions of a given historical moment. Our own time is a time of crisis, and contemporary philosophers have turned to Hegel himself as a means of addressing this moment.
Ray will argue that that the tensions and contradictions between contemporary understandings of Hegel’s philosophy bear relation to the concrete conditions of crisis that prompted this turn to Hegel in the first place.
These seminars will explore the idea that Hegelian thought not only demands the overcoming of crises of understanding within philosophy, but also the overcoming of crises within the social reality to which such philosophy responds.
This will involve considering the nature and status of Hegelian reason, with a view towards distancing the latter from versions of Hegel that emphasise placid resolution, or which stress the tragic inevitability of discord.
We will go on to address these issues in connection to the political antagonisms between democratic reformism and revolutionary communism, and between differing conceptions of communism.
Venue and Focus for Seminar Series
(Map link for venues)
Wednesday the 18th of January
The work of Robert Brandom and Stephen Houlgate
Venue and time: Edward Street room 102, 11.00am to 4.00pm
Thursday the 19th of January
Adorno’s criticisms of Hegel
Venue and time: Grand Parade, room G4, 11.00am to 4.00pm
Friday the 20th of January
The work of Robert Pippin and Slavoj Žižek
Venue and time: Grand Parade, room G4, 11.00am to 4.00pm
Ray Brassier’s Public Lecture:
'The Persistence of Form: Hegel and Psychoanalysis'
Venue and time: Friday the 20h of January, Edward Street lecture theatre, 6.30pm to 8.00pm.
Suggested Preparatory Reading for Seminar Work
Day 1 - Wednesday 18th January
- Brandom, Robert, ‘Holism and Idealism in Hegel’s Phenomenology’ and ‘Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel’s Idealism’ in Tales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays on the Metaphysics of Intentionality, Harvard University Press, 2002, pp. 178-234
- Brandom, Robert, A Spirit of Trust: A Semantic Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology [available online] Part V, Chapter 15 ‘Trust: Forgiveness as Recollection, Magnanimity as the Final Form of Recognition’
- Houlgate, Stephen. The Opening of Hegel’s Logic, Purdue University Press, 2006, Chapter One ‘The Categories of Thought’, and Chapter Six ‘Logic and Ontology’
- Houlgate, Stephen, ‘Phenomenology and De Re Interpretation: A Critique of Brandom’s Reading of Hegel’ International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 17, No.1, 2009, pp. 29-47
Day 2 – Thursday 19th January
- Adorno, Theodor. History and Freedom, Polity, 2006, Part I, Lecture 5 ‘The Totality on the Road to Self-Realization’, Lecture 9 ‘The Critique of Universal History’, Lecture 10 ‘‘Negative’ Universal History’
Day 3 - Friday 20th January
- Pippin, Robert, ‘Back to Hegel?’ in Mediations 26.1-2 (Fall 2012-Spring 2013) 7-28.
- Pippin, Robert, Modernity as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture, 2nd edition, Blackwell Publishers, 1999, Ch. 3 ‘Idealism and Modernity’ pp. 45-77, Chapter 7 ‘Unending Modernity’ pp. 160-179.
- Žižek, Slavoj, Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, Verso, 2012, Part II, Chapter 4, Interlude 1,Chapters 7 and 8.
If you would to attend, please contact either Tom Bunyard (tombunyard@gmail.com) or Toby Lovat (t.lovat2@brighton.ac.uk) in order to reserve a place.
