Hegels "Wissenschaft der Logik" im Spannungsfeld der Kritik (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 527 Rauch also begins the discussion of the relation of Marx to Hegel. But this topic properly belongs to Robert Nola, who provides a bird's-eye view of the evolution of the Hegelian Left. I found his analysis of the transition from Feuerbach to Marx both clear and convincing; and his use of the "Theses on Feuerbach" will enlighten all beginners. The Communist Manifesto marks the boundary of "German Idealism" here. Marx followed the active way out of Idealism. Schopenhauer took the contemplative route. Kathleen Higgins makes high claims for his influence. But her lucid summary of his "system" shows clearly how one-sided it was. The system itself teaches us why Russell's accusation of practical inconsistency was mistaken. But the system is simply Kant with freedom and responsibility eliminated. German Idealism perishes-just as Hamlet would perish without the Prince. Kierkegaard refused to make what he recognized as the rational sacrifice demanded by German Idealism; he would not give up the experienced encounter with a transcendent God. Judith Butler concentrates on his rejection of the Hegelian mediation , as seen in Fearand Tremblingand The Sicknessunto Death.This is by no means all of Kierkegaard, but it makes a very appropriate ending for the volume. As can be seen even from this rapid overview, the volume is a rather uneven performance. It is certainly not an adequate history of Northern European philosophy between 177o and 185o. But the students who discover it will usually find it helpful in the study of particular texts that their professors want them to read. H. S. HARRIS York University Bernd Burkhardt. Hegels "Wissenschaflder Logik" im Spannungsfeld der Kritik. Studien und Materialen zur Geschichte der Philosophie. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1993. Pp. xiv + 562. Paper, DM 128.oo. In a superb example of German scholarship, Burkhardt explores the criticisms made of Hegel's Science of Logic during his lifetime, together with Hegel's responses and those of his disciples. Schelling formulates the basic thrust of the critique, focusing on the beginning, the method and the transition from the logic to the philosophy of nature. Ten specific challenges can be identified in his polemics (though few of these were published during his lifetime). Christian Hermann Weisse adds another halfdozen , while Immannel Hermann Fichte (son of J. G. Fichte) and two anonymous writers contribute four more. Chrisdieb Julius Braniss, Jakob Friedrich Fries (Hegel's b~tenoire),Johann Friedrich Herbart, a jointly written work by Karl Ernst Schubarth and Karl Anton Carganicos, as well as one further short anonymous critique, are also subjected to careful analysis. Not only are we given the criticisms made of Hegel, but these are set within a careful exposition of their philosophical context. One learns to distinguish between the careful, disciplined discussions of a Schelling or (perhaps) a Schleiermacher (suggested as author of "Letters against Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences") and the "nonphilosophical standpoint" of Schubarth and Carganicos or the sloppiness of another anonymous author. 528 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:3 JULY t995 In the first half of this work, then, we have a detailed historical exposition of a collection of works which have the common theme of Hegel as antagonist. But Burkhardt does not leave the matter there. For he is interested as much in systematic questions as historical ones. So he analyses the twenty challenges. For all of the differences among them, they share a common presupposition: that pure thought is abstract and can become concrete only by being applied to the intuited world of experiences. It is always subjective, as opposed to objective, possible rather than actual, form rather than content. One could say that Hegel's antagonists take all intellectual operations to be VorsteUungen,images in the mind, rather than Denken,the thinking of pure concepts. For them, the pure being of Hegel's beginning is not immediate but mediated; the method advances not on its own but because of a "positive more" that leads one impotent thought to the next; having abandoned all content, the logic cannot then, by its own decision, reintroduce it again. Hegel took note of many of these criticisms in the prefaces to the second (and...