Rethinking Hegel's Conceptual Realism

Readers of Hegel are frequently impressed by his seemingly idiosyncratic use of the term "the concept" (der Begriff) throughout his works. A recent wave of interpreters have held to a "conceptual realist" view, according to which Hegel uses this term to refer either to the monistic structure of reality or to indwelling essences of natural entities. In this essay, the author offers a way to avoid these conceptions of Hegel's conceptual realism by explaining his view of the "isomorphism" between concepts and the world. The isomorphism recommended, however, is metaphysically deflationary, for Hegel's conception of conceptual form creates a conceptually internal standard for the adequacy of concepts; it depends on his view of the negative relations between concepts and the objects they represent. This standard of conceptual adequacy is also "graduated" in that it allows for a lack of fit between concept and world. Nevertheless, the possibility for a "maximally isomorphic" fit between concept and world obtains through the teleological realization of concepts, which marks especially the world of human culture (law, art, religion, and so on). The author contends that some of the most seemingly exaggerated claims Hegel makes about the concept can be understood when we consider the significance Hegel ascribes to human making, which offers the best cases of maximally isomorphic concepts. But the framework here provides an interpretive key for the way Hegel sees concepts imperfectly realized in the natural world as well.