줄리 E. 메이비의 Picturing Hegel

[YOUN]

줄리 E. 메이비의 Picturing Hegel이라는 책을 읽고 있습니다. 헤겔의 『엔치클로페디』의 논리학을 해설한 입문서입니다. 제가 읽어본 헤겔 입문서 중에서 글을 가장 평이하고 깔끔하게 쓰네요. 무엇보다, 그림을 통해 독자의 이해를 돕는 것이 참 좋습니다. 제목도 "picturing Hegel"이고 부제 역시 "an illustrated guide to Hegel's Encyclopaedia Logic"일 정도로 그림에 진심인 책입니다. 『엔치클로페디』의 논리학이 주된 내용이긴 하지만, 1장에서 헤겔의 체계 전체를 철학사적으로 아주 잘 소개하고 있어서, 헤겔에 관심이 있으신 분들이 입문용으로 읽어도 좋을 듯합니다. (그렇지만 단순한 입문서라기엔 600쪽짜리 책이라는 게 다소 함정이지만요.) 메이비는 스탠포드 철학백과의 '변증법' 항목을 작성한 인물이기도 하니, 책의 내용은 두말할 것도 없이 신뢰할 만하다고 봅니다. 책의 서문과 1장에서 흥미로웠던 몇몇 분을 여기도 올려봅니다.

Why study Hegel's logic today? Aside from a historical interest in Hegel's work, there are two main reasons why scholars should still be interested in Hegel's logic. First, the logic offers complex and penetrating definitions of many of Western philosophy's most central and enduring concepts: universality, reason, cause, thing, property, and appearance, just to name a few. […] Second, Hegel's logic is not the standard logic that we teach and learn in schools today. Hegel offered an alternative model of logic that he would have argued is more scientific than the formalistic logics we study now. In the end, we may not come to think that his model is best, but our devotion to our own logic is all the weaker if we fail to engage the challenges posed by his. (p. xiii)

For Hegel, a "logic" that is concerned merely with the form of truth but does not say anything about the contents of truthful forms is inadequate (again, see his Remark to § 162 in the Encyclopaedia Logic). His logic aims to address the contents of truthful judgments and arguments by defining concepts and their relationships with one another in a way that shows how they can be combined into meaningful forms. This aim requires his logic to be much more concerned with semantics—the meanings and meaning-relationships of concepts—than are formalistic logics. (p. xx)

• 헤겔의 논리학이 일종의 의미론의 문제에 관심이 가진다는 주장이 인상적이네요. 헤겔의 논리학을 전공하신 J 선생님도 얼마 전에 비슷한 이야기를 하신 적이 있습니다. 헤겔의 논리학은 사실 의미론이라고요. 전제에서 결론을 도출해내는 형식논리적 타당성 자체보다는, 각각의 개념 사이의 의미 관계를 해명하려는 작업이 논리의 학이라는 거죠.

How does Hegel respond to Kant's problem? How does Hegel try to show that we have knowledge not only of our human world of experience, but also of the world itself? This question is especially pressing because Hegel accepted Kant's Copernican revolution to a certain degree. Hegel agrees with Kant that we have knowledge of the world because of what we are like, namely, because of our reason or rationality. So how, for Hegel, can we get out of our heads, so to speak, to the world as it is in itself? The short answer to this question is that, for Hegel, our reason or rationality gives us knowledge of the world in itself because the same rationality or reason that is in us is in the world itself. Kant is wrong to think that reason or rationality is only in us human beings, in our consciousnesses (§§43-44). We can use our reason or rationality to have knowledge of the Thing-in-itself because the world just is, in itself, reason. (p. 6)

• 메이비는 세계 자체 속에 이성과 합리성이 있다는 주장을 칸트에 대한 헤겔의 비판에서 핵심이라고 봅니다. 칸트의 문제는 소위 '사물 자체'를 이성과 합리성 바깥에 알 수 없는 대상으로 상정한 점이기 때문에, 그 문제를 해소하기 위해서는 이성과 합리성 바깥에는 아무것도 없어야 한다는 거죠. 물론, "세계 자체 속에 이성과 합리성이 있다"라는 주장이 정확히 무엇을 의미하는 것인지에 대해서는 논란이 생길 수 있을 것입니다. 형이상학적 헤겔 해석자들은 말 그대로 이 주장이 일종의 '유사 신적 지성'을 도입하는 주장이라고 보고, 비형이상학적 헤겔 해석자들은 이 주장이 (맥도웰의 표현대로) '개념적인 것의 무속박성(unboundedness of the conceptual)'에 대한 주장이라고 보죠. (메이비는 다소 형이상학적으로 해석하는 것 같습니다.)

As we go through the development of Hegel's logic, I will examine from time to time the degree to which I think Hegel's logic supports the traditional claim that Hegel is an idealist. I will suggest that Hegel's logic has some characteristics usually associated with materialism rather than idealism. I will not be the first person, certainly, to read Hegel somewhat materialistically. The 19th century Christian, Danish philosopher, S0ren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), for instance, accused Hegel of being a pantheist (see, for example, Kierkegaard 1992, VI, 122-3). According to pantheism, the world just is God, or, put the other way around, God just is the world. Kierkegaard's charge that Hegel is a pantheist suggests a materialistic reading of Hegel's concept of the Absolute. If the Absolute is God, and if the Absolute expresses itself in the world, as Hegel suggests, then Hegel's God is in the world. Indeed, Hegel's God is in the world so completely, for Kierkegaard, that there is no longer room for a god conceived of as a spiritual entity beyond or independent of the physical world. […] My own view is that, although Kierkegaard's charge is unfair (see Chapter Four, Section VI), Hegel is more of a materialist than is usually believed. (pp. 8-9)

• 헤겔의 입장이 관념론보다는 유물론에 가깝다는 주장도 굉장히 흥미롭습니다. 특별히, 이 주장을 옹호하기 위해 키에르케고어를 끌어들이는 방식도 재미있고요. 확실히, (자주 오해되는 것과 달리) 헤겔은 물리적 세계 너머에 초자연적 공간을 남겨두지 않죠. 메이비가 지적하는 것처럼, 절대자가 신이고, 신이 세계 속에 자신을 표현한다면, 헤겔의 신은 세계 속에 있는 것이 됩니다. 헤겔의 신은 너무나 완벽하게 세계 속에 있어서, 물리적 세계 너머의 혹은 물리적 세계와 독립적인 영적 존재자로 이해되는 신을 위한 공간 따위란 더 이상 존재하지 않는 거죠. 물론, 여기서도 '절대자'나 '신'이라는 용어들을 어떻게 해석해야 하는지에 대한 추가적인 논쟁이 개입하기는 합니다. 저는 헤겔이 '신'을 초자연적 공간에 두려 하지 않았다는 점에 대해서는 동의하지만, 이 주장을 키에르케고어처럼 일종의 범신론으로 해석하거나 메이비처럼 일종의 유물론으로 해석하기보다는, 차라리 지젝처럼 '성령 공동체'에 대한 강조로 해석하는 게 더 적절하다고 봅니다. 성령 공동체(교회)가 세상에서 하는 일들이 곧 신이 세상에서 일으키는 일이라는 식의 해석 말이에요.

Thus, every one of Hegel's works is an attempt to grasp the unfolding of reason as it occurs in some particular realm of knowledge, be it human history, ethics, natural science, or phenomenology (conscious awareness). Each one tells a dialectical story about self-developing reason in relation to some particular subject-matter. The development of the subject-matter creates and determines, as it goes along, the concepts that are at issue in any particular work. In every case, the same syntactic devices, the same dialectics, are used in the unfolding story that Hegel tells. That is why logic, which outlines the range of syntactic devices for dialectics, underpins all of Hegel's works. (p. 32)

Fichte's synthetic method of logical development can be described with the classical "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" model often ascribed to Hegel. The original judgment is the "thesis," the contradictory judgment would be the "antithesis," and the judgment which resolves the contradiction and introduces the new concept would be the "synthesis." Indeed, Fichte himself used the terms "thetic" judgment-the original assertion, understood as identical to itself and not opposed to anything else (Fichte 1982 [1794], 114)—antithesis, and synthesis to characterize his own model of logical development. Hegel, by contrast, never uses these terms to characterize his method. That Hegel never uses this terminology even though he was certainly familiar with it from both Fichte's and Schelling's work and could have chosen to use it—shows that Hegel did not think that the model applied to his own method of logical development. (p. 39)

• 정반합(thesis-antithesis-synthesis)이 헤겔의 용어나 모델이 아니라는 주장이 여기서도 나오네요.

[Eidos]

전기가오리에서 번역되어 나온 『헤겔의 변증법』이 이 책의 번역서인 것이죠?
(댓글로 첫 글을 남기고 말았네요.)

[TheNewHegel]

그 책은 본문에서 소개된 책이 아닌 스탠퍼드 철학백과 항목의 번역입니다.

[YOUN]

아뇨, 전기가오리에서 나온 건 메이비의 스탠퍼드 철학백과 ‘변증법’ 항목의 번역입니다. 이 책은 다른 책입니다. 다만 동일한 저자가 쓴 것이다 보니, 이 책과 그 책에 동일한 그림이 종종 등장하기는 합니다.

[Eidos]

아, 그런가요? 알라딘의 서지정보에 원제가 Picturing Hegel 로 되어있던데, 오류인가 보군요.

[sophisten]

철학적 사유를 그림으로 표현하거나 모형화하는게 참 힘든 일인데, 대단하네요.

[yhk9297]

대논리학을 쉽게 풀어쓴 엔치클로페디를 풀어쓴 책이라... 이건 귀하군요. 그만큼 헤겔이 대중성과 거리가 멀다는 뜻일 수도 있겠네요.

[yhk9297]

@YOUN

정반합(thesis-antithesis-synthesis)이 헤겔의 용어나 모델이 아니라는 주장이 여기서도 나오네요.

작년 여름에 이 부분에 대해서 잠깐 생각한 적이 있었어서 잠깐 써볼까합니다. 하지만 헤겔에 대해서 한국어로 쓰려다가 실패한 적이 많기 때문에 영어로 쓰겠습니다. 애초에 인용하신 부분들도 영어니 크게 상관없을 것이라 믿습니다. 정반합 구조는 TASS (Thesis-Anthesis-Synthesis Structure) 으로 줄여쓰겠습니다.

Although people say it is misleading to characterize Hegel's philosophy as having TASS, I don't think we should refrain us from thinking Hegel's philosophy as having TASS. This is because, in my reading of Hegel, we have two senses in which Hegel's philosophy could be described in terms of TASS, and only one of them is misleading and the other not. Furthermore, I believe that commentators including Maybee (although I have not read the work yet) in that specific passage agree with one sense in which Hegel's philosophy is described with TASS and disagree with the other. I will explain how it is the case that it is not totally misleading to read Hegel's philosophy through TASS and Maybee in the specific passage seems to agree with me.

I begin with two components present in each of his project, Phenomenology and Science of Logic. The first component is the object of our inquiry. In Phenomenology, it is an object as opposed to the consciousness as well as the consciousness, and in Science of Logic, it is thought itself. The second component is philosophers. In Phenomenology, Hegel makes it clear that we, as phenomenological observers, are just watching how each mode of consciousness unfolds to one another. As a consequence, in Logic, although Hegel doesn't explicitly say it, we have philosophers, us readers, watching the thought unfolding. Hegel makes this clear by often intervening and making "external reflections." The thought unfolds itself, but we can still make comments and reflections.

With this distinction, we can now see two senses in which TASS can be applied or be a "model" to understand Hegel's project. First sense is that each unfolding, that is, unfolding of consciousness and of thought, does so in terms of TASS. The second sense is that we can always make sense of each unfolding in terms of TASS. We, as philosophers, in the midst of the unfolding processes, can comment on those unfoldings, and this need not mean that each unfolding happened by virtue of TASS. I believe the first sense is misleading, while the other is not. I also believe Maybee meant that we cannot use TASS as a method in the first sense and not in the second sense. I will explain each point respectively.

First, in the beginning of Science of Logic (and also for the first part of Encyclopedia), we do not have any determinate methods. This means that there cannot be any determinate ways in which thought categories can unfold. This is because we are engaging with so-called "presuppositionless" philosophy. We cannot begin with any determinate philosophical foundations, and having an absolute principle by which we can unfold thought categories would not be appropriate for Hegel's project.

However, each unfolding process present in Science of Logic has to be compatible with TASS, that is, we, as philosophers, can refer to later categories like TASS to make sense of early unfolding processes. This is because Hegel thinks any thought categories developed throughout the Logic was with us all along. For example, contradiction is what we face in his Doctrine of Essence. And because contradiction as a thought category is something determinate, we cannot have pure being unfolding to becoming by virtue of contradiction. Nonetheless, it is clear that we have contradictions present in the beginning: pure being is pure nothing yet pure nothing is what the pure being had to pass over. We resolve the contradiction and that is how we get to becoming and determinate being. By the same token, TASS is to appear later in his Logic and is compatible with the unfolding process. Although, as Maybee notes in the excerpt, TASS is not the phrase that Hegel uses, it is clear that in some point of Logic we have some sort of TASS. It might be a bit controversial to exactly point out where TASS arises, but for now, we will leave it here, that TASS or something equivalent to TASS appears somewhere in Logic.

It might be a bit puzzling that we cannot have each process unfolding by virtue of what comes up later in Logic but can be understood by what comes up later in Logic. But I shall say a distinction between that by virtue of which something happens and compatibility exists. Let me provide you an example with mathematics, and I hope that is sufficient for seeing the distinction. Suppose we start from axioms and have an equation "1+1 = 2." It is by virtue of various rules and axioms of addition that 1+1 is 2. And as we develop our additions, we arrive at multiplications. Since the notion of multiplication is derived from the notion of addition, it has to be the case that multiplications are compatible with additions. It has to be true that "1+1 = 2" can also be explained in terms of a multiplication, that is, "1*2 = 2," because we have two 1's in the equation. However, as we have seen, it was not the case that 1+1 was two by virtue of the multiplication. It was by virtue of laws and axioms of addition. In other words, we had something compatible with what happened previously, but that need not mean that the previous unfolding happened by virtue of something that is compatible.

So far, I explained how we have two ways in which we can understand Hegel's philosophy in terms of TASS: that by virtue of which a thought unfolds and that by which we can reflect on the unfolding. Also, it is clear that each unfolding doesn't necessarily happen by TASS such that we can have TASS as a method. But it doesn't mean that we can reflect on each unfolding through TASS. Then, we can say Hegel's philosophy can be understood with TASS in the second sense, but not with the first sense. Although I have not read Maybee's book, we can see that she is very careful with her wording:

@YOUN

That ... shows that Hegel did not think that the model applied to his own method of logical development.

In other words, what I take Maybee to mean is that it cannot be a method by which we can have each category unfold. It is the first sense in which we can say Hegel's philosophy cannot be explained through TASS. However, that doesn't mean that Maybee is denying the second sense. Any unfolding process can be explained in terms of TASS as reflections.

To conclude, I explained how there are two senses in which we say Hegel's philosophy unfolds in terms of TASS. To make it clear, I am not by any means raising an objection to Youn; I am just sharing my thought I had last summer. I hope this essay is helpful enough for readers that it was worth writing.

[TheNewHegel]

정반합, 세간에서 헤겔이라는 이름에 꼬리표처럼 따라다니는 용어죠. 완고한 헤겔학자들은 모두 싫어할 용어 같은데, 의외로 이 도식을 수용하는 학자들도 존재하더라고요. (Michael Forster가 대표적인 것 같습니다.) 개인적으로 정반합의 격렬한 안티팬(?)으로서 쓰신 답글에 몇 마디 덧붙여보겠습니다.

정반합 도식이 헤겔 논리학 전체를 관통하는 방법으로 간주될 수 있다는 주장을 뒷받침하기 위해 제시하신 근거는 모두 헤겔의 기획 전반에 두 가지 관점("의식"과 "우리", "사태 자체"와 "외적 반성" 등)이 존재한다는 점에 기대고 있습니다. 답글에서 이야기하신 대로 방법이란 결코 사태에 앞서 전제되는 것이 아니고, 증명이 수행된 이후에 사후적인 방식으로만 논의될 수 있습니다.

그런데 제가 보기에 이 구별은 정반합 도식의 타당성을 증명하는 데 크게 도움이 되지는 않는 것 같습니다. 물론 말씀하신 주장은 헤겔이 정반합 도식을 미리 전제하고서 철학을 시작한다는 식의 주장보다는 훨씬 낫죠. 그러나 정반합 도식이 헤겔 논리학의 방법이라는 주장은 여전히 의문스럽습니다. 일단, @yhk9297 님도 인정하고 계시지만, 정반합은 헤겔 텍스트 내에서 찾아볼 수 없는 용어입니다. 따라서 정반합 도식이 헤겔 논리학 전체의 방법임을 문헌적으로 증명하기는 어렵습니다.

그렇다면 남은 것은 정반합이 헤겔 논리학의 방법을 이해하는 데 유용한 모델임을 입증하는 것뿐입니다. (논증에 방점이 찍혀야 할 부분은 두 관점의 구별보다도 여기라고 생각합니다.) 그런데 저는 여기에 부정적입니다. 왜냐하면 정반합 도식은 그것을 옹호하는 입장이 떠안아야 하는 부담에 비해 지나치게 단순하기 때문입니다. yhk님이 '정반합'이라는 용어로 무엇을 뜻하시는지는 추후 하시는 설명을 들어봐야 하겠으나, 일단 저는 이렇게 이해합니다.

어떤 항이 정립된다. 그에 대해 다른 항이 정립된다. 대립되는 두 항이 종합된다.

이것이 '정반합'이라는 말의 대중적인 뜻에서 크게 엇나가지는 않을 것이라 생각합니다. 보시다시피 굉장히 단순한 도식이죠. 반면 방법이라는 개념은 굉장히 거대하고 복잡한 개념입니다. 아시다시피, 헤겔에게 방법이란 논리학의 최종장에 등장하는 범주로서, 논리학의 학적 형식을 규정하는 동시에 논리학이 그 대상으로 삼는 절대적 이념의 내용적 구조이기도 합니다. 그러니까 정반합 도식이 논리학 전체를 관통하는 방법이라는 주장은, 논리학이 최종적으로 밝히고자 했던 절대적 사유의 구조가 저 단순한 세 문장으로 모조리 설명될 수 있다는 주장입니다. 과연 그러한지 저는 잘 모르겠습니다. (절대적 사유의 구조가 구체적으로 어떻게 복잡한지에 대해서는 설명을 생략하겠습니다.)

[yhk9297]

뉴헤겔님은 헤겔이 그렇게 어려운데 정반합 한 마디로 정리될 순 없다는 입장인 것 같습니다. 그럼 저희가 서로 크게 반대하는 것 같지는 않습니다. 저는 그래도 정반합이 그렇게 틀린 것도 아닌데 박하게 굴 필요는 없다란 입장이고, 뉴헤겔님은 정반합이 그렇게 맞지는 않다라는 주장이니깐요. 결국 누가 쓰냐에 따라 다르겠네요. 비전공자가 정반합을 썼을 때 "오~ 맞아 잘 이해했네?" 라고 말할 수 있는 거 같습니다. 하지만 헤겔 세미나에 들어갔는데 강의한다는 사람이 모든 챕터를 정반합으로 세줄로 설명하고 넘어가면 때려도 정당방위죠.