This broadcast is brought to you by LMU Munich
Now I will switch to English
and I have the pleasure and honor to introduce Robert B. Brandom to you.
Robert Brandom is the professor at the University of Pittsburg
He earned his B.A. from Yale University
and his PH. D from Princeton University
In 1994, he published his famous book Making It Explicit
followed in 2000 by sort of shorter version
Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism
Robert Brandom has also published a collection of essays
on the history of philosophy Tales of the Mighty Dead, 2002
He delivered the 2006 John Locke Lectures at Oxford University
and has published under the title
Between Seeing and Doing: Towards An Analytic Pragmatism, 2008
Allow me some further,remarks
There is a distinction
between an earlier and a later form of analytic philosophy
says Richard Rorty, in his introduction to a new edition of
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
The earlier form is the form of empiricism
developed out of the work of Russell and Carnap
The later form is a, as Rorty puts it
post-positivistic form of analytic philosophy
To Rorty, the shift from the earlier to later form
is connected to the works of Quine, Wittgenstein, and Sellars
The general idea of this shift from the earlier to the later form
is a critique of the myth of the given
to quote the famous expression of Sellars
What does this expression mean
Well, this way of philosophy is deeply influenced
by the gap between the world and mind
the gap between the real things and the not-so-real worlds
which refer somehow to reality
Whatever the world is, it's a given
Whatever the things are, they are a given
On the other hand, there are thoughts and words are not given
And this seems a disadvantage to our thoughts and words
because it's the world which makes our thoughts true or false
The things of the world of the truth makers
but they are for themselves not true
but given
The gap between world and mind
is the working place for numerous bridge builders
They want to bridge the gap
in order to gain true knowledge of the world
But in the end
they just discover that there is no possible bridge
between the world and the mind
because the gap is too deep
both sides are too different
Hegel called this a desire of certain fear of truth
They fail to establish a bridge between the world and mind
because we want to fail
And the best way to guarantee the failure of all attempts
is the myth of the given
Once the gap between the given world and a totally different mind
is established
truth is impossible
and skepticism is the only option
Hegel is quite clear on this
To oppose skepticism
one must oppose the myth of the given
Robert Brandom, as I understand
stands a tradition of this later form of analytic philosophy
especially in the Pittsburgh tradition of Sellars
Therefore, he opposes the gap between the world and mind
and claims, quote
"that not only appearance
but also the reality is conceptually articulated."
In the old days, this claim was called idealism
For Hegel, idealism was true
because it was the only way to defend realism
Is idealism the true realism?
I think this is the very question
And if I'm not mistaken
this is the question for Robert Brandom as well
We're about to learn more about it
and I'm looking forward to your talk
Hegel opens the first paragraph of
the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit
by introducing a model of cognitive faculties
that he supposes will be most familiar to his readers
in its Kantian form
with which one takes hold of the absolute
or as the medium through which one discovers it."
He thinks no account that this general shape
can meet basic epistemological criteria of adequacy
By showing that, he hopes to make his readers appreciate
the need for an alternative model
which he will then supply
The general character of his complaint against
construing cognitive faculties
on the instrument-or-medium model
seems clear enough
He offers a two-fold summary
That model leads to
1) the conviction that there is an absurdity in the Concept
of even beginning a process of knowledge designed to gain
for consciousness that which is in-itself
and 2) that there is a strict line of demarcation
separating knowledge and the absolute
The first objection alleges
that theories of the sort he is addressing
must lead to a kind of skepticism
a failure to make intelligible the idea
of knowing how things are in themselves
The second complaint
points to a diagnosis of the reason for this failure
the model excavates a gulf separating consciousness
from what it is consciousness of
Professor Hooter was just talking about
under the heading of The Myth of the Given
Hegel expands on both these points
He fills in the charge
that instrument-or-medium theories lead to skepticism by saying
"if knowledge is the instrument to take hold of the absolute essence
one is immediately reminded that the application of an instrument
to a thing does not leave it as it is
but brings about a shaping and alteration of it
Or, if knowledge is not an instrument for our activity
but a more or less passive medium through w
hich the light of truth reaches us
then again we do not receive this truth as it is in itself
but as it is in and through this medium
In both cases we employ a means
which immediately brings about the opposite of its own end
or, rather
the absurdity lies in our making use of any means at all."
In either case
there is going to be a distinction
between what things are for consciousness
the product of the exercise of cognitive faculties
and what they are in themselves
the raw materials on which the cognitive faculties are exercised
Something about the character of this distinction
Hegel seems to be arguing, is incompatible with
what things are for consciousness
according to such a picture counting as
genuine knowledge of how things really are ("in themselves")
He elaborates the problem that was diagnosed in the passage I just read
It is that instrument-or-medium picture
"presupposes the notions about knowledge as an instrument and a medium
and also the notion that there is a difference
between ourselves and this knowledge
but above all
it presupposes that the absolute stands on one side
and that knowledge, though it is on the other side
for itself and separated from the absolute
is nevertheless something real
Hence it assumes that knowledge may be true
despite its presupposition that knowledge is outside the absolute
and therewith outside the truth as well
By taking this position
what calls itself the fear of error
reveals itself as a fear of the truth
Another famous passage of Professor Hooter
I'll repeat it
It is apparently of the essence of the instrument-or-medium model
to see such a "difference," "separation,"
two "sides" of one divide
and to understand the job of cognitive faculties to
consist in bridging that divide
The argument here seems to be that
if there is a gulf separating how things are in themselves
from how they are for consciousness
that requires the operation of cognitive faculties to bridge it
or re-unite the two sides
then all that investigation of those faculties can do
is re-institute the gulf or separation
I think we can see in these passages the general shape of an argument
But it is hazy
and it is hard to discern
both the exact outlines of the class of views it targets
and just how the criticism of them is supposed to work
The haziness of the argument I think
is due partly to the compression of its exposition
and partly to the metaphorical terms in which it is conducted
To fill in the details
one would have to specify
what criteria of adequacy for epistemological theories
Hegel is insisting on
what class of theories exactly he claims cannot satisfy those criteria
what features of those theories are responsible for that failure
and how, exactly, the argument for that conclusion works
In the rest of this lecture
I offer one way of sharpening
the argument Hegel is putting on the table here
along these four dimensions
and also an initial characterization of the shape of the alternative model
that Hegel proposes to replace the instrument-or-medium model
To get a better specification of the range of epistemological theories
that fall within the target-area of Hegel's argument
what is metaphorically labeled as the "instrument-or-medium" model
it will help to begin further back
The theories
he is addressing are representational theories of the relations
between appearance and reality
Representation is a distinctively modern concept
In order to understand how strings of algebraic symbols
could be useful, veridical, tractable
appearances of geometrical realities
Descartes needed a new way of conceiving
the relations between appearance and reality
His philosophical response to the scientific and mathematical advances
in understanding of this intellectually turbulent and exciting time
was the development of a concept of representation
that was much more abstract, powerful, and flexible
than the resemblance model of the ancients and medieval it supplanted
He saw that what made algebraic
understanding of geometrical figures possible
was a global isomorphism
between the whole system of algebraic symbols
and the whole system of geometrical figures
That isomorphism defined a notion of form
that was shared by the licit manipulations of strings of algebraic symbols
and the constructions possible with geometric figures
In the context of such an isomorphism
the particular material properties of what now become intelligible
as representings and represented
become irrelevant to the semantic relation between them
All that matters is the correlation
between the rules governing the manipulation of the representings
and the actual possibilities that characterize the represented
Inspired by the newly emerging forms of modern scientific understanding
Descartes concluded that this representational relation
of which the ancient notion of resemblance
then appears merely as a primitive species
is the key to understanding the relations between mind and world
appearance and reality, quite generally
This was a fabulous, tradition-transforming idea
and everything Western philosophers have thought since
no less on the practical than on the theoretical side
is downstream from it
conceptually, and not just temporally
But Descartes combined this idea with another
more problematic one
This is the idea that
if any things are to be known or understood representationally
whether correctly or not
by being represented
then there must be some things that are known or understood
nonrepresentationally, immediately
not by means of the mediation of representings
If representings themselves could only be known representationally
by being themselves in turn represented
then a vicious infinite regress would result
For we would only be able to know about a represented thing
by knowing about a representing of it
and could only count as knowing about it
if we already knew about a representing of it, and so on
In a formulation that was only extracted explicitly
centuries later by Josiah Royce
if even error (misrepresentation)
never mind knowledge, is to be possible
then Descartes thought there must be something
about which error is not possible
something we know about not by representing it
so that error in the sense of misrepresentation is not possible
If we can know (or be wrong about)
anything representationally
by means or the medium of representings of it
there must be some representings
that we grasp, understand, or know about immediately
simply by having them
The result was a two-stage, representational theory
that sharply distinguished between two kinds of things
based on their intrinsic intelligibility
Some things, paradigmatically physical, material, extended things
can by their nature only be known by being represented
Other things, the contents of our own minds
are by nature representings
and are known in another way entirely
They are known immediately
not by being represented
by just by being had
They are intrinsically intelligible
in that their mere matter-of-factual occurrence
counts as knowing or understanding something
Things that are by nature knowable only as represented
are not in this sense intrinsically intelligible
Their occurrence does not by itself entail
that anyone knows or understands anything
As I have indicated
I think that Descartes was driven to this picture by two demands
On the one hand
making sense of the new theoretical mathematized scientific forms
in which reality could appear
the best and most efficacious forms of understanding of his time
required a new, more abstract notion of representation
and the idea that it is by an appropriate way of representing things
that we know and understand them best
So we must distinguish between representings and represented
and worry about the relations between them
in virtue of which manipulating the one sort of thing
counts as knowing or understanding the other
On the other hand
such a two-stage model is threatened
with unintelligibility
in the form of a looming infinite regress of explanation
if we don't distinguish between
how we know represented
by means of our relations to representings of them
and how we know at least some representings
immediately, at least
not by being related to representings of them
The result was a two-stage model
in which we are immediately related to representings
and in virtue of their relation to represented
stand in a mediated cognitive relation
to those represented things
The representings must be understood
as intrinsically and immediately intelligible
and the representeds as only intelligible
in a derivative, compositional sense
as the result of the product of our immediate relations to representings
and their relations to represented
I want to say that it is this epistemological model
that Hegel takes as his target in his opening remarks
in the Introduction of the Phenomenology
What he is objecting to is two-stage, representational theories
that are committed to a fundamental difference in intelligibility
between appearances (representings, how things are for consciousness)
and reality (representeds, how things are in themselves)
according to which the former are immediately
and intrinsically intelligible
and the latter are not
What Hegel talks about is
the gulf, the "difference," the "separation," the two "sides" of one divide
separating appearance and reality, knowing and the known
that he complains about is just this gulf of intelligibility
His critical claim is that
any theory of this form is doomed to yield skeptical results
Of course
Descartes's view is not the only one that Hegel means to be criticizing
Kant, too, has a two-stage, representational theory
Cognitive activity needs to be understood as the product
of both the mind's activities of manipulating representations
(in the sense of representings)
and the relations those representings stand in to what they represent
Both what the mind does with its representations
and how they are related to what they represent
must be considered
in apportioning responsibility for features of those representings
to the things represented
as specified in a vocabulary
that does not invoke either the mind's manipulation of representations
or the relations between representings and represented
(that is, things as they are, as Kant said, "in themselves" [an sich])
or to the representational relations
and what the cognitive faculties do with
and to representings
The latter for Kant yields what the represented things
are "for consciousness,"
in Hegel's terminology: contentful representings
Kant's theory to be sure is not the same as Descartes's
but it shares the two-stage representational structure
that distinguishes the mind's relation to its representings
and its relation to
represented that is mediated
by those representings
Although Kant does sometimes seem to think
that we have a special kind of access to
the products of our own cognitive activity
he does not think of our awareness of our representings
as immediate in any recognizably Cartesian sense
For him, awareness is apperception
The minimal unit of apperception is judgment
To judge, for Kant
is to integrate a conceptually articulated content
into a constellation of commitments
exhibiting the distinctive synthetic unity of apperception
Doing that is extruding from the constellation
commitments incompatible with the judgment being made
and extracting from it inferential consequences
that are then added to that constellation of commitments
This is a process that is mediated
by the relations of material incompatibility
and consequence that relate the concepts
being applied in the judgments
to the concepts applied in other possible judgments
So Kant shares with Descartes the two-stage representational structure
but does not take over
the idea that our relation to our own representations
is one of immediate awareness
Still, his view still falls within the range of Hegel's criticisms
because he maintains the differential intelligibility
of representings and represented
Representings are as such intelligible
and what is represented is, as such, not
I will call this commitment to
a strong differential intelligibility of appearance and reality
the claim that the one is the right sort of thing to be intelligible
and the other is not
Kant gives a new model of intelligibility
to be intelligible is to have a content articulated by concepts
It is the concepts applied in an act of awareness (apperception)
that determine what would count as successfully integrating that judgment
into a whole exhibiting the distinctive synthetic unity of apperception
But the conceptual articulation of judgments
is a form contributed by the cognitive faculty of the understanding
It is not something we can know or assume to characterize
what is represented by those conceptual representings
as they are in themselves
On Hegel's reading
Kant is committed to a gulf of intelligibility
separating our representings from what they are representings of
in the form of the view that the representings are in conceptual shape
and what is represented
the way things are in themselves, is not
Just to remind ourselves how much is at stake in Hegel's criticism
of two-stage representational theories of the relations
between appearance and reality
that are committed to the differential intelligibility of the relata
it is worth thinking in this connection also about Frege
For Frege
discursive symbols express a sense [Sinn]
and thereby designate a referent [Bedeutung]
Senses are what is grasped when one understands the expression
and referents are what is thereby represented
what expressing that sense is talking or thinking about
A sense is a representing
in that what he calls a "mode of presentation"
[Art des Gegebenseins] of a referent
No more than Kant does Frege construe grasp of a sense
as immediate in a Cartesian sense
according to which the mere occurrence of something
with that sense counts as the mind's knowing or understanding something
Rather, grasping a judgeable content
requires mastering the inferential and substitutional relations
it stands in to other such contents
But like Descartes and Kant
Frege thinks that grasping senses
understanding representations as representations
does not require representing them in turn
and that representings in the sense of senses are graspable
in a sense in which what they represent is not
So if, as I have claimed
Hegel's argument is intended to be directed at
two-stage representational models
committed to treating representings as intelligible
in a sense in which representeds are in general not
then it seems Fregean sense-reference theories
as well as the Kantian and Cartesian versions
will be among the targets of Hegel's argument
In order to see whether there is an argument of the sort Hegel is after
that tells against theories of this kind
two-stage representational theories committed to
the strong differential intelligibility of representings and represented
we must next think about what criteria of adequacy
for such theories Hegel is appealing to
In general
we know that what Hegel thinks is wrong with them
is that they lead to skepticism
Further, he tells us that
what he means by this is that
such theories preclude knowing things as they are "in themselves."
I think what is going on here is
that Hegel learned from Kant
that the soft underbelly of epistemological theories is
the semantics they implicitly incorporate and depend upon
And he thinks that two-stage representational theories
committed to the strong differential intelligibility of representings
and what they represent
semantically preclude genuine knowledge of those represented
I will call the criterion of adequacy on epistemological theories
that Hegel is implicitly invoking here
the "Genuine Knowledge Condition" (GKC)
Obviously, a lot turns on what counts as genuine knowledge
But it is clear in any case
that this requirement demands that an epistemological theory
not be committed to a semantics
in particular, a theory of representation
that when looked at closely turns out
to rules out as unintelligible the very possibility
of knowing how things really are ("genuine" knowledge)
I do not take it that the very existence of a contrast
between how we know what is represented
and how we know representings by itself
demonstrates such a failure
Hegel's specific claim is that
when that difference is construed
as one of intelligibility in the strong sense
representings are intrinsically intelligible
and representeds are not
then skepticism about genuine knowledge is a consequence
And he takes from Kant the idea
that intelligibility is a matter of conceptual articulation
to be intelligible is to be in conceptual shape
If this reading is correct
then Hegel's argument must show
that to satisfy the Genuine Knowledge Condition
an epistemological theory must treat not only appearance
(how things subjectively are, for consciousness)
but also reality
(how things objectively are, in themselves) as conceptually articulated
Again, what could count as a good argument for this claim
obviously turns on what is required to satisfy that requirement
Both resemblance and representation models
of the relations between appearance and reality
have a story about what error consists in
This is what happens when on resemblance picture
antecedently intelligible properties are not shared
so that resemblance breaks down
or when there are local breakdowns in the globally defined isomorphism
between the systems of representings and represented
In the middle paragraphs of the Introduction
in which Hegel begins to present his alternative
to two-stage representational epistemological theories
committed to strong differential intelligibility
of representings and represented
the treatment of error looms large
I think we can take it as an implicit criterion of adequacy
Hegel is imposing on epistemological theories
that they make intelligible also the phenomenon
not only of genuine knowledge, but also of error
I will call this the Intelligibility of Error Condition
The Genuine Knowledge Condition and the Intelligibility of Error Condition
are epistemological constraints
The semantics presupposed by
or implicit in an epistemological theory must
Hegel is telling us
not preclude the intelligibility either of genuine knowledge, or of error
being wrong about how things really are.
We must be able to understand both
what it is for what there is to appear as it is
and for it to appear as it is not
An epistemological theory that does not make both of these intelligible
is not adequate to the phenomenon
of our efforts to know and understand how things really are
But approaching epistemology
as Kant suggests, from this semantic direction
suggests that behind these epistemological constraints
are deeper semantic ones
I think that is in fact the case here
We cannot read these off of Hegel's extremely telegraphic remarks
in the text of the opening paragraphs of the Introduction
but must infer them from the solution
he ultimately proposes to the challenges he sets out there
First is what we could (looking over our shoulders at Frege)
call the Mode of Presentation Condition (MPC)
This is the requirement that appearances (senses, representings)
must be essentially, and not just accidentally
appearances of some purported realities
One does not count as properly having grasped an appearing
unless one grasps it as the appearance of something
When all goes well
grasping the appearance must count as a way of
knowing about what it is an appearance of
Appearances must make some reality semantically visible
or otherwise accessible
The claim is not that one ought not to reify appearances
think of them as things
but rather, for instance, adverbially
in terms of being-appeared-to-p-ly
That is not a silly thought
but it is not the present point
The present idea is that
if the epistemological Genuine Knowledge Condition
is to be satisfied by a two-stage, representational model
representings must be semantic presentations
of representeds in a robust sense
in which what one has grasped is not a representation
unless it is grasped as a representation of some represented
Further along we'll see how Hegel, again following Kant
understands this requirement
taking or treating something in practice as a representing
is taking or treating it as subject
to a distinctive kind of normative assessment as to its correctness
in a way in which what thereby counts as represented
serves as a standard for normative assessment of correctness
A second semantic constraint on epistemological theories
that I take to be implicitly in play in
Hegel's understanding of the epistemological Genuine Knowledge Condition
is that if the representational relation is to be understood semantically
in a way that can support genuine knowledge
it must portray what is represented as exerting rational constraint
on representings of it
That is
how it is with what is represented must
when the representation relation is not defective
provide a reason for the representing to be as it is
What we are talking (thinking) about must be able to
provide reasons for what we say (think) about it
We can call this the Rational Constraint Condition (RCC)
Though he does not argue for this constraint in the Introduction
I think in many ways
it is the key premise for the argument that Hegel does offer
The thought is that
the difference between
merely responding differentially to
the presence or absence of a fact or property on one hand
and comprehending it, having thoughts that are about it
in the sense that counts as knowledge if everything goes well
depends on the possibility of that fact or property
being able to serve for the knower as a reason
for having a belief or making a commitment
The central sort of semantic aboutness
depends on being able rationally to take in how things are
in the sense of taking them in
as providing reasons for our attitudes
Those of you who are familiar with the work of
my colleague John McDowell in his language
Hegel learns from Kant
to think about representation in normative terms
What is represented exercises
a distinctive kind of authority over representings
Representings are normatively responsible to what they represent
What is represented serves as a kind of authoritative normative standard
for assessments of the correctness of what count as representings of it
(whether correct or incorrect)
just in virtue of being subject to assessments of their correctness
in which those representeds provide the standard
The Rational Constraint Condition adds that the standard
what is represented
must provide reasons for the assessments
In fact, in the context of Kant's and Hegel's views
this is not a further commitment
For neither of them distinguishes between norms (or rules) on one hand
and norms (or rules) that are rational
in the sense of being conceptually articulated on the other
All norms are for them understood as conceptual norms
Norms or rules, and concepts
are just two ways of thinking about the same thing
Conceptual norms are norms that determine what is a reason for what
For a norm to contentful is for it to have conceptual content
a matter of what it can be a reason for or against
and what can be a reason for or against it
This is the only kind of content they acknowledge
The German Idealists are rationalists about norms
in that norms (rules) are contentful
exclusively in the sense of being conceptually contentful
The Rational Constraint Condition accordingly fills
in the sense of 'representation' or 'aboutness'
on which the Mode of Presentation Condition depends
And these two semantic conditions provide the crucial criteria of adequacy
for satisfying the two epistemological conditions
the Genuine Knowledge Condition
and the Intelligibility of Error Condition
For the intelligibility of genuine knowledge of
or error about how things really are
turns on the rational normative constraint those realities exert
on what count as appearances or representings of those realities
just insofar as the representings are subject to
normative assessments of correctness and incorrectness
(knowledge or error)
in which those realities serve as the standard
in the sense of providing reasons for those assessments
Supposing that these four conditions
two epistemological and two semantic
represent the relevant criteria of adequacy for epistemological theories
(and their implicit semantics)
what in the end is
the argument against two-stage representational theories
that are committed to a strong difference of intelligibility
between representings and representeds (appearance and reality)?
Why can't theories of this form in principle
satisfy the four criteria of adequacy?
It is characteristic of two-stage theories
not just Descartes's but also those of Kant and Frege
that they incorporate a distinction
between two ways of knowing or understanding things
Some things are known (only) representationally
by being represented
Other things
at least some representings, according to the regress argument
are known nonrepresentationally
in some way other than by being represented
If we are interested in investigating cognitive faculties
in the context of theories like this
we are interested in the end in
semantics in the representation relation
For cognitive faculties are the instrument or medium
that produces representings of the real
But then we must ask
is the representational relation
the relation between representings and what they represent
itself something that is known representationally
or it is something that can be known nonrepresentationally?
If it is itself something that is knowable or intelligible
only by being represented
it seems that we are embarked on a vicious Bradleyan regress
(a successor to the one Descartes was worried about)
The epistemological enterprise is not intelligible
unless we can semantically make sense of
the relation between representations of representational relations
and those representational relations
and then representations of those relations, and so on
Until we have grasped all of that infinite chain of
we are not in a position to understand the representational relation
and hence not the "instrument or medium" of representation
Semantic skepticism
skepticism about what it is so much
as to purport to represent something
must then be the result
This argument is essentially
the Cartesian regress-of-representation argument for
nonrepresentational knowledge of representings
but applied now not just to the representings
but to the relation they stand in to what they represent
So on this argument
if epistemology, and so knowledge
is to be intelligible
it seems that within this sort of framework
we must embrace the other horn of the dilemma
and take it that the representation relation is something
that can itself be known or understood non
or representationally
that in this respect
it belongs in a box with the representations
or appearances themselves
Responding this way to the dilemma
concerning our understanding of the representational relation is
in effect, acknowledging the Mode of Presentation Condition
For it is saying
that part of our nonrepresentational understanding
of appearances (representings)
must be understanding them as appearances
(as representings) of something
Their representational properties
their 'of'-ness
their relation to what they at least purport to represent
must be intelligible
in the same sense in which the representings themselves are
The Rational Constraint Condition says that
for appearances to be intelligible
as appearances, representings, modes of presentation
of something
they must be intelligible as rationally constrained
by what they then count as representing
This means that what is represented must be intelligible
as providing reasons for assessments of correctness and incorrectness
of appearances or representings
Reasons are things that can be thought or said
cited as reasons, for instance
for an assessment of a representing as correct or incorrect
as amounting to knowledge or error
That is to say that
what provides reasons for such assessments must itself
no less than the assessments themselves
be in conceptual form
Giving reasons for undertaking a commitment
(for instance, to an assessment of correctness or incorrectness)
is endorsing a sample piece of reasoning
an inference
in which the premises provide good reasons for the commitment
It is to exhibit premises
the endorsement of which entitles one to the conclusion
So the reasons, no less than what they are reasons for
must be conceptually articulated
Put another way
appearances are to be intelligible, graspable
in the sense that they are conceptually articulated
Understanding the judgment that things are thus-and-so
requires knowing what concepts are being applied
and understanding those concepts
One only does that insofar as
one practically masters their role in reasoning
what their applicability provides reasons for and against
and the applicability of what other concepts
would provide reasons for or against their applicability
If the relation between
appearances and the realities they are appearances of
what they represent
how they represent things as being ("thus-and-so")
is to be intelligible in the same sense
that the appearances themselves are
(so that a regress of representation is avoided)
this must be because that relation itself is a conceptual relation
a relation among concepts or concept-applications
a relation between things that are conceptually articulated
The conclusion is that
if the Rational Constraint Condition must be satisfied
in order to satisfy the Genuine Knowledge Condition
and the Intelligibility of Error Condition
(if the RCC really is a semantically necessary condition
on satisfying these epistemological criteria of adequacy)
perhaps because it is a necessary condition
of satisfying the Mode of Presentation Condition
which itself is a necessary semantic condition on
satisfying the epistemological GKC and the IEC
then those conditions cannot be satisfied
by a two-stage representational theory that is committed
to the strong differential intelligibility of representing and represented
If not only representings
but the representation relation must be intelligible
in a sense that requires their conceptual articulation
then both ends of the representation relation
must be conceptually contentful
Only in that way is it intelligible
how what is represented can exert rational constraint on representings
in the sense of providing reasons for assessments
of their correctness or incorrectness
What I want to do in the rest of my talk today
is to begin to introduce the alternative shape of theory
that Hegel is going to recommend to us
So far, I have been working to find structure beneath
what appears on the telegraphic surface of the text
of the opening paragraphs of Hegel's Introduction
I claim so far only to have sketched
a potentially colorable argument
Further exploration is required of the reasons for accepting the RCC
which this exposition reveals
as the principle load-bearing premise of that argument
A key component of that enterprise
would be clarifying the concepts of
conceptual articulation and conceptual content
what the RCC says must
characterize both representing and represented
which commitment to a representational theory
with a strong difference of intelligibility denies
It will help to begin on this latter task
by looking at what sorts of theories
might be thought to be available
once the strong difference of intelligibility of appearance and reality
has been denied
that is
once one is committed to not excavating a gulf of intelligibility
between representings and what they represent
between the appearance and the reality
between the mind and world
One place to begin is with Frege's
proposed definition in "The Thought"
He says "a fact is a thought that is true."
Thoughts for Frege are the senses of declarative sentences
They are claims
in the sense of claimable contents, rather than claimings
A fact, he is saying
is not something that corresponds to
or is represented by such a sense
It just is such a sense
a sense that is true
Facts, for Frege, are a subset of claimables
senses, representings, cognitive appearing
Of course, Frege retains the two-stage representational model
for the relation between senses and their referents
for thoughts, truth-values
And this matters for what he thinks senses are
namely, modes of presentation of referents
But as far as the relations between thoughts and facts are concerned
he does not appeal to that model
Again, Wittgenstein says
in what is possibly
John McDowell's favorite quotation from the investigations
"When we say, and mean
that such-and-such is the case
we！and our meaning！do not stop anywhere short of the fact
but we mean: this！is！so."
In these cases
the content of what we say
our meaning, is the fact
Such an approach is sometimes talked about
under the title of an "identity theory of truth."
It is sometimes attributed, under that rubric, to John McDowell
On such an approach
there is no principled gulf of intelligibility
between appearance and reality
because when all goes well
the appearances inherit their content
from the realities they are appearances of
Thoughts (in the sense of thinkings)
can share their content with the true thoughts
(in the sense of thinkables)
that are the facts they represent
Representings are distinct from represented
so the two-stage representational model is still endorsed
But they are understood as two forms
in which one content can be manifested
What is most striking
I think, about views of this stripe is that
they are committed to the claim, as McDowell puts it in Mind and World
that "the conceptual has no outer boundary."
What is thinkable is identified with what is conceptually contentful
But the objective facts
no less than the subjective thinkings and claiming about them
are understood as themselves already in conceptual shape
The early Wittgenstein, no less than the later
thought of things this way
When he said, "The world is everything that is the case
And what is the case can be said of it
Facts are essentially, and not just accidentally
things that can be stated and thought
Views with these consequences provide a very friendly environment
in which to satisfy the Rational Constraint Condition
and so (in the context of a suitable Kantian
normative understanding of aboutness)
the Mode of Presentation Condition
on understandings of the relations between cognitive appearances
and the realities of which they are appearances
The defensibility and plausibility of this sort of approach
depend principally on the details of the understanding
of the (meta-)concept of the conceptual
(conceptual contentfulness, conceptual articulation)
in terms of which it is explicated
For on some such conceptions
it is extremely implausible and perhaps indefensible
For instance
if one's understanding of concepts is ultimately psychological
then the idea that thoughts (thinkings, believings) and facts
might have the same conceptual content
would seem to have undesirable consequences
If one thinks that what is in the first instance conceptually contentful
is beliefs and thoughts
and that other things
such as visual and auditory sign designs (marks and noises)
can count as conceptually contentful only at one remove
by being expressions of beliefs and thoughts
then the claim that the facts those beliefs and thoughts
(and derivatively, marks and noises) express (when all goes well)
are themselves conceptually contentful
That thought threatens to make the existence of those facts
(including ones that will never be expressed or represented)
objectionably dependent on the existence of thinkings and believing
The same unfortunate sort of implication results from
conjoining the RCC version of the MPC with Davidson's claim
that "Only a belief can justify a belief."
Berkeley claims that the only things
we can intelligibly be understood to represent by our thoughts
are other thoughts (the thoughts of God)
Some of the British Idealists thought that
the reality that appeared to us in thought and belief
consisted of the thought of the Absolute
and thought they had learned that lesson from Hegel
More recently
Derrida (using de Saussure's conceptually pre-Kantian
and pre-Fregean terminology)
offers a picture of a world consisting only of signifiers
with the only things available to be signified being further signifiers
At this point, things have clearly gone badly wrong
If Hegel's opening argument has to be filled-in
in a way that has this sort of idealism as its consequence
we ought to exploit it by modus tollens
not modus ponens
In fact, though, Hegel's idea is that
the criteria of adequacy for accounts of the relations
between appearance and reality that underline his argument
can be satisfied without untoward consequences
but only in the context of quite a different
wholly nonpsychological conception of conceptual contentfulness
The kind of idealism
that requires a "world-thinker" on the objective side
no less than a finite thinker on the subjective side
is indeed, for Hegel and for us, a reduction
But what it should lead us to reject is not the claim
that two-stage representational theories must avoid
making strong distinctions of intelligibility
between representings and represented
(because they cannot then satisfy
the RCC and MPC
and so not the epistemological
GKC and IEC either
What we should reject
is the particular conception of conceptual articulation
(and hence intelligibility)
with which they have been conjoined
Hegel gets his concept of conceptual content
from thinking about Kant's theory of judgment
and taking on board Kant's understanding of concepts
as functions of judgment
Kant understands judging
in normative and pragmatic terms
On the normative side
he understands judging as committing oneself
taking responsibility for something
endorsing the judged content
On the pragmatic side
he understands these normative doings in practical terms
as a matter of what one is committed or responsible for doing
What one is responsible for doing is
integrating the endorsed content into a constellation of other commitments
that exhibits the distinctive unity of apperception
Doing that ("synthesizing" the unity)
is extruding from the dynamically evolving unity commitments
that are materially incompatible with the new commitment
and extracting and endorsing, so adding, commitments
that are its material consequences
Judging that p, for Kant
is committing oneself to integrating p with
what one is already committed to
synthesizing a new constellation exhibiting
that rational unity characteristic of apperception
From Hegel's point of view
that extrusion or expulsion of incompatible commitments
and extraction of and expansion
according to consequential commitments
is the inhalation and exhalation
the breathing rhythm by which a rational subject lives and develops
Synthesizing a normative subject
which must exhibit the synthetic unity
distinctive of apperception
is a rational process
because if one judgment is materially incompatible with another
it serves as a reason against endorsing the other
and if one judgment has another
as a material inferential consequence
it serves as a reason for endorsing that other
Understanding the activity of judging
in terms of synthesis-by-integration
into a rational unity of apperception
requires that judgeable contents stand to one another
in relations of material incompatibility and consequence
For it is such relations that normatively
constrain the apperceptive process of synthesis
determining what counts as a proper or successful fulfilling
of the judging subject's integrative task-responsibility or commitment
Concepts, as functions of judgment
determine what counts
as a reason for or against their applicability
and what their applicability counts as a reason for or against
Since this is true of all concepts
not just formal or logical ones
the incompatibility and inferential consequence relations
the concepts determine must in general
be understood as material
(that is having to do with non-logical content of the concepts)
not just as logical
(having to do with their logical form)
Well, I have introduced the idea of conceptual content
as articulated
by relations of material incompatibility and consequence
in Kantian terms of the norms
such contents impose on the process of judgment
as rational integration
their providing standards for the normative assessment
of such integration as correct or successful
settling what one has committed oneself to do
or made oneself responsible for doing in endorsing a judgeable content
But I also said that
Hegel's notion of conceptual content is not a psychological one
One could mean by that claim
that what articulates conceptual content is normative relations
a matter of what one ought to do
rather than something that can be read immediately off of
what one actually does or is disposed to do
That distinction is indeed of the essence for Kant
(and further for Hegel)
But in Hegel's hands
this approach to conceptual content shows itself to be nonpsychological
in a much more robust sense
For he sees that
it characterizes not only the process of thinking on the subjective side
of the intentional nexus
but also what is thought about, on the objective side
For objective properties
and so the facts concerning which objects exhibit which properties
also stand in relations of material incompatibility and consequence
Natural science, paradigmatically Newton's physics
reveals objective properties and facts as standing to one another
in lawful relations of exclusion and consequence
That two bodies subject to no other forces collide
is materially
(non-logically, because of laws of nature)
incompatible with their accelerations not changing
That the acceleration of a massive object is changed
has as a material consequence
(lawfully necessitates) that a force has been applied to it
In the first case
the two ways the world could be
do not just contrast with one another
They don't just differ
It is impossible
so Newtonian physics tells us it's not logic
It's physically impossible
that both should be facts
And in the second case
it is physically necessary
a matter of the laws of physics
that if a fact of the first kind were to obtain
so would a fact of the second kind
It follows that
if by "conceptual" we mean, with Hegel
"standing in relations of material incompatibility and consequence,"
then the objective facts and properties
natural science reveals to as physical reality
are themselves in conceptual shape
Modal realism, the claim that
some states of affairs necessitate others
and make others impossible
the acknowledgment of laws of nature
entails conceptual realism in this sense
the claim that the way the world objectively is
is conceptually articulated
This is a non-psychological conception of the conceptual in a robust sense
because having conceptual content
standing in relations of material incompatibility and consequence
does not require anyone to think or believe anything
If Newton's laws are true
then they held before there were thinkers
and would hold even if there never were thinkers
The facts governed by those laws
for instance early collisions of particles
stood in lawful relations of relative impossibility and necessity
to other possible facts
and hence on this conception of the conceptual
had conceptual content
quite independently of whether any subjective processes
of thinking had gone on
were going on, or ever would go on
(in this, or any other possible world)
Hegel thinks that underlying this point
about the conceptual character of objective reality is a deeper one
For he thinks that the idea of determinateness itself is to be understood
in terms of standing in relations of incompatibility and consequence
to other things that are determinate in the same sense
He endorses Spinoza's principle
"Omnis determinatio est negatio."
For something to be determinate is
for it to be one way rather than some other way
This thought is incorporated in the twentieth-century
concept of information (due to Shannon)
which understands information
in terms of the partition each bit establishes between
how things are (according to the information) and how they are not
Everyone would I agree
that if a property does not contrast with any properties
if it is not even different from any of them
then it is just indeterminate
To know that an object had such a property
would be to know nothing about it
Beginning already in the Perception chapter of the Phenomenology
Hegel argues that determinateness requires
more than mere difference from other things
It requires what he calls "exclusive" [ausschlie?end] difference
The properties square and circular are exclusively different properties
since possession by a plane figure of the one excludes
rules out
or is materially incompatible with possession of the other
The properties square and green are merely or indifferently different
in that though they are distinct properties
possession of the one does not preclude possession of the other
An essential part of the determinate content of a property
what makes it the property it is
and not some other one
is the relations of material modally robust incompatibility it stands
in to other determinate properties
(for instance, shapes to other shapes, and colors to other colors)
We can make sense of the idea of merely different properties
such as square and green only in a context
in which they come in families of shapes and colors
whose members are exclusively different from one another
An important argument for understanding determinateness Hegel's way
in terms of exclusive difference or material incompatibility
(one pursued in the Perception chapter)
is that it is required to underwrite
an essential aspect of the structural difference between the fundamental
ontological categories of object and property (particular and universal)
Aristotle had already pointed out a structural asymmetry
between these categories
It makes sense
to think of each property as coming with a converse
in the sense of a property that is exhibited by all
and only the objects that do not exhibit the index property
Has a mass greater than 5 grams
is a property that has a converse in this sense
But it does not make sense to think of objects as coming with converses
in the analogous sense of
an object that exhibits all and only the properties
that are not exhibited by the index object
This is precisely
because some of those properties will be incompatible with one another
and so cannot be exhibited by a single object
The number 9 has the properties of being a number
not being prime, being odd, and not being divisible by 5
If it had a converse
that object would have to have the properties of not being a number
being prime, being even, and being divisible by 5
But nothing can have all of those properties
It follows that a world that is categorially determinate
in that it includes determinate properties and objects
so facts must be determinate in Hegel's sense
the properties must stand to one another
in relations of material incompatibility
If they do that
they will also stand to one another in relations of material consequence
since a property P will have the property Q as a consequence
if everything incompatible with Q is incompatible with P
So being a bear has being a vertebrate as a consequence
since everything incompatible with being a vertebrate
for instance being a prime number
is incompatible with being a bear
Since Hegel understands being conceptually contentful
as standing to other such items
in relations of material incompatibility and consequence
to take the objective world to be minimally determinate
in the sense of consisting of facts about what objects have what properties
that is to take the world to be conceptually structured in his sense
For him
only conceptual realists are entitled to think of objective reality
as so much as determinate
(Modal realism pretty much comes for free
We didn't need Newtonian physics
to get to conceptual realism in this sense
the barest Aristotelian metaphysics is already enough
This is the conception of the conceptual at the core of Hegel's thought
that is non-psychological in a very strong sense
In this sense
there is no problem with seeing both sides of
the appearance/reality distinction as conceptually structured
So we are not on that account obliged
to excavate a gulf of intelligibility between them
For the same reason
the principal obstacle to satisfying the Rational Constraint Condition
and therefore the Mode of Presentation Condition, is removed
Though I haven't yet said anything positive
about how they might be satisfied, either
that's the topic of my next lecture
That means in turn
that the semantic presuppositions
that I have been reading Hegel as taking to make it impossible
to satisfy the epistemological criteria of adequacy expressed
by the Genuine Knowledge Condition
and the Intelligibility of Error Condition can also be avoided
Access to all of these desirable consequences is
to be opened up by the non-psychological structural
understanding of the conceptual
in terms of relations of material incompatibility and (so) consequence
Hegel's term for what I have been calling "material incompatibility"
is "determinate negation" [bestimmte Negation]
His term for what I have been calling "material consequence"
is "mediation" [Vermittlung]
after the role of the middle term in classical syllogistic inference
The first is the more fundamental concept for Hegel
perhaps in part because, as I just argued
wherever there are relations of incompatibility
there will also be relations of consequence
Hegel often contrasts determinate negation
(material incompatibility)
with what he calls "formal" or "abstract" negation
(logical inconsistency)
square is a (not the) determinate negation of circular
where not-circular is the (not a) formal negation of it
(These are Aristotelian contraries, rather than contradictories)
We are in a position to see that
the choice of the term "determinate" to mark this difference
is motivated by Hegel's view
that it is just relations of determinate negation
in virtue of which anything is determinate at all
This is as true of thoughts as it is of things
of discursive commitments on the subjective side of cognitive activity
no less than of facts on the side of the objective reality
the subject knows of and acts on
That is why
though the conception is at base non-psychological
Hegel's metaconcept of the conceptual
does also apply to psychological states and processes
Thinkings and believings, too, count as determinately
and so conceptually contentful
in virtue of standing to other possible thinkings and believing
in relations of material incompatibility and consequence
But are subjective commitments conceptually contentful
in the same sense that objective facts are
even in Hegel's definition?
When we say that
being pure copper and being an electrical insulator
are materially incompatible
we mean that it is (physically, not logically) impossible
that one and the same object,
at one and the same time, has both properties
But when we say that the commitments to a's being pure copper
and a's being an electrical insulator are materially incompatible
we do not mean that it is impossible for one and the same subject
at one and the same time, to undertake both commitments
We mean rather that one ought not to do so
That 'ought' has the practical significance
that violating it means that one is subject to
adverse normative assessment
that any subject with two commitments
that are materially incompatible in this sense
is obliged to do something, to relinquish (or modify) at least one of them
so as to repair the inappropriate situation
But it is still entirely possible for a subject to find itself
in this inappropriate normative situation
This is to say that
the relations of material incompatibility and consequence
in virtue of which objective facts and properties are determinate
are alethic modal relations
a matter of what is conditionally possible or impossible and necessary
The relations of material incompatibility and consequence
in virtue of which the commitments undertaken
and predicates applied by discursive subjects
are determinate
are deontic normative relations
a matter of what one is conditionally entitled and committed to
We may think of these as alethic and deontic modalities, if we like
but they are still very different modalities
Hegel is writing downstream from Kant's use of "necessity"
[Notwendigkeit]
as a genus covering both cases
"Notwendig" for Kant
means "according to a rule."
He can accordingly see what he calls "natural necessity"
and "practical necessity" as species of one genus
(They correspond to different uses of the English "must." for instance)
Nonetheless, these are very different modalities
substantially different senses of "necessary" (or "must")
The worry accordingly arises
that two quite distinct phenomena are being run together
and that the attempted assimilation
consists of nothing more than the indiscriminate use
of the same verbal label "conceptual."
One of the metacommitments for which I claimed Kant's authority
is that to be intelligible
(in a successor-sense to Descartes's)
is to be conceptually structured or
what on this broadly structuralist-functionalist account of content
amounts to the same thing！conceptually contentful
Once again following Kant
Hegel understands understanding (and so intelligibility)
in ultimately pragmatic terms
as a matter of what one must be able practically to do
to count as exercising such understanding
What one must do in order to count thereby
as grasping or understanding the conceptual content
of a discursive commitment one has undertaken
is be sensitive in practice
to the normative obligations it involves
That means acknowledging commitments that are its consequences
and rejecting those that are incompatible with it
What about the intelligibility of objective states of affairs
which are conceptually contentful
in virtue of
the alethic modal connections of incompatibility-and-consequence
they stand in to other such states of affairs
rather than the deontic normative relations
that articulate the conceptual content of discursive commitments?
The key point, I think
is that what one needs to do in order thereby to count
as practically taking or treating two objective states of affairs
as alethically incompatible
is to precisely acknowledge that
if one finds oneself with both the corresponding commitments
one is deontically obliged to reject or reform at least one of them
And what one needs to do in order thereby to count
as practically taking or treating one objective state of affairs
as a necessary (lawful) consequence of another
is to acknowledge the corresponding commitment to one
as a consequence of the corresponding commitment to the other
Here "corresponding" commitments
are those whose deontic normative conceptual relations
track the alethic modal conceptual relations
of the objective states of affairs
Isomorphism between
deontic normative conceptual relations of
incompatibility-and-consequence among commitments
and alethic modal relations of
incompatibility-and-consequence among states of affairs
determines how one takes things objectively to be
Practically acquiring and altering one's commitments
in accordance with a certain set of deontic norms
of incompatibility-and-consequence
is taking the objective alethic modal relations articulating
the conceptual content of states of affairs to be the isomorphic ones
Because of these relations
normatively acknowledging a commitment with a certain conceptual content
is taking it that things objectively are thus-and-so
that is, it is taking a certain fact to obtain
And that is to say that
in immediately grasping the deontic normative
conceptual content of a commitment
one is grasping it as the appearance of a fact
whose content is articulated by the corresponding (isomorphic)
alethic modal relations of incompatibility-and-consequence
This is how the Mode of Presentation Condition is satisfied
in this sort of two-stage representational model
while giving up a strong distinction of intelligibility
The Rational Constraint Condition is satisfied
because if the subject is asked why
that is, for what reason
one is obliged to give up a commitment to Q(a)
upon acknowledging a commitment to P(a)
(something we express explicitly
by the use of deontic normative vocabulary)
the canonical form of a responsive answer is
because it is impossible for anything to exhibit both properties P and Q
(something expressible explicitly
by the use of alethic modal vocabulary)
The Genuine Knowledge Condition is satisfied on this model
in the sense that it is not semantically precluded
by the model that the epistemic commitment to isomorphism of
the subjective norms of incompatibility-and-consequence
and the objective modal facts which is implicit in the semantic relation
between them should hold objectively
at least locally and temporarily
The model also makes sense of the possibility of error
For following, Kant construes
the representation relation in normative terms
In manipulating commitments
according to a definite set of conceptual norms
(deontic relations of incompatibility-and-consequence)
one is committing oneself to the objective modal facts
(to the alethic relations of incompatibility-and-consequence)
being a certain way
as well as to the gound-level empirical determinate facts
they articulate being as one takes them to be
the model also says what must be the case for
that isomorphism (or homomorphism) relation
to fail to hold in fact
Then one has gotten the facts wrong
perhaps including the facts about
what concepts articulate the objective world
In this lecture I have aimed to do six things
To demarcate explicitly the exact range of epistemological theories
epitomized by those of Descartes and Kant
that fall within the target-area of Hegel's criticism
To set out clearly the objection
that he is making to theories of that kind
in a way that does not make his argument obviously miss its mark
To formulate Hegel's criteria of adequacy for a theory
that would not be subject to that objection
which he is implicitly putting in play
More positively, to lay out the non-psychological conception
of the conceptual
that will form the backbone of Hegel's response
(even though that conception is not officially introduced
in the Introduction itself
but must wait for the opening chapters of Consciousness section)
To sketch the general outlines of an epistemological and semantic approach
based on that conception of the conceptual
And finally, to indicate how such an approach
might satisfy the criteria of adequacy for a theory
that is not subject to Hegel's objection
In the next lecture
I look more closely at the account of representation
that I take Hegel to construct out of elements
put in play by this discussion
Thank you
Somebody wants time for discussion?