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Hegel
Claudia Melica (Sapienza Università di Roma)
The Owl's flight: Hegel's legacy to contemporary philosophy
co-editors: Stefania Achella (Chieti-Pescara), Francesca Iannelli (Roma Tre), Gabriella Baptist (Cagliari), Serena Feloj (Pavia), and Fiorinda Li Vigni (Italian Institute for Philosophic Studies)
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110709278
This book presents a unique rethinking of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy from unusual and controversial perspectives in order to liberate new energies from his philosophy. The role Hegel ascribes to women in the shaping of society and family, the reconstruction of his anthropological and psychological perspective, his approach to human nature, the relationship between mental illness and social disease, the role of the unconscious, and the relevance of intercultural and interreligious pathways: All these themes reveal new and inspiring aspects of Hegel’s thought for our time.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110709278/html
Contents
OVERVIEW Editors’ Introduction. The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy in a Different Voice Stefania Achella, Francesca Iannelli, Gabriella Baptist, Serena Feloj, Fiorinda Li Vigni and Claudia Melica
INTRODUCTION Hegel’s Theory of Absolute Spirit as Aesthetic Theory Birgit Sandkaulen
SECTION 1 THE NIGHT OF REASON The Dark Side of Thought. The Body, the Unconscious and Madness in Hegel’s Philosophy Stefania Achella
The Feminine in Hegel. Between Tragedy and Magic Rossella Bonito Oliva
A Plastic Anthropology? Dialectics and Neuroscience in Catherine Malabou’s Thought Federica Pitillo
Maternal Consciousness and Recognition in the Anthropology of Hegel Laura Paulizzi
The Rise of Human Freedom in Hegel’s Anthropology Carmen Belmonte
Seele, Verrücktheit, Intersubjektivität. Einige Überlegungen zu Hegels Anthropologie Giovanni Andreozzi
Die Behandlung der psychischen Störung. Hegel und Pinel gegen die De-Humanisierung der Geisteskranken Giulia Battistoni
Verrücktheit und Idealisierung. Wachen, Schlaf, Traum in Hegels Philosophie des Geistes Mariannina Failla
Im wachen Zustand träumen. Der Einfluss der Gefühle auf die Entstehung psychischer Krankheiten Caterina Maurer
Dialectics of Madness: Foucault, Hegel, and the Opening of the Speculative Alice Giuliani
SECTION 2 WOMEN FOR AND AGAINST HEGEL Hegel’s Master and Servant Dialectics in the Feminist Debate Serena Feloj
Giving an Account of Precarious Life and Vulnerability. Antigone’s Wisdom after Hegel. Nuria Sánchez Madrid
“Men and women are wonderfully alike after all”. The Practical Adaption of Hegel by Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911). Andreas Giesbert
Simone de Beauvoir Reading Hegel. The Master-Slave Dialectic. Mara Montanaro and Matthieu Renault
Irigaray as a Reader of Hegel. The Feminine as a Marginal Presence. Viola Carofalo
Domination and Exploitation. Feminist Views on the Relational Subject. Federica Giardini
Subversion without Subject? Criticism of the Dissolution of Nature and I-Identity in Performativity. Carolyn Iselt
Considerations on the Female Body between Political Theory and Feminism. The Rehabilitation of Hegel? Nunzia Cosmo
Reading Hegel on Women and Laughing. Hegel against or with Women/Other? Sevgi Doğan
SECTION 3 FEMALE CHARACTERS IN HEGEL’S PHILOSOPHY
Hegel’s Constellation of the Feminine between Philosophy and Life. A Tribute to Dieter Henrich’s Konstellationsforschung. Francesca Iannelli
Von Antigone zur anständigen Frau. Hegels Frauenbild im Spannungsfeld zwischen der Phänomenologie des Geistes und der Rechtsphilosophie von 1820. Erzsébet Rózsa
„Der Stand der Frau − Hausfrau“. Hegels Affirmation der bürgerlichen Geschlechterverhältnisse. Dieter Hüning
Antigone and the Phenomenology of Spirit. Between Literary Source (vv. 925–928) and Philosophical Reading. Eleonora Caramelli
The Feminist Potential of Hegel’s Tragic Heroines. Rachel Falkenstern
Welches Recht ist gerecht? ‚Sittlichkeit‘ und ‚Gerechtigkeit‘ in Hegels Deutung der Antigone. Wenjun Niu
Antigone’s Guilt. Reading Antigone with Hegel and Butler. Yuka Okazaki
Die Tochter der Nacht: „Nemesis“ im Maß. Das Maßlose und die absolute Indifferenz in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Misa Sanada
Die mütterliche Seite der Dreieinigkeit an einer Stelle der Phänomenologie des Geistes. Pierluigi Valenza
The Sphinx and Hegel’s Philosophy of History. On the Philosophical Riddle. Luis Antonio Velasco Guzmán
SECTION 4 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND HEGEL: SUBVERSION OR CONCILIATION?
Subversion or Conciliation? The Challenges of Hegel’s Legacy. Gabriella Baptist
Hegels Relevanz für den heutigen Diskurs zu „Gemeinschaft/Community“ Herta Nagl-Docekal
The Work of Man and the End-of-History. Hegel Transfigured by Kojève’s Thought. Luisa Sampugnaro
Subjects of Desire and Law Hypothesis on Kojève’s Hegel. Claudia Cimmarusti
Der Andere in der Begierde. Kojèves Hegelianismus und dessen Einfluss auf die französische Philosophie. Yufang Yang
Kreis und Ellipse Adornos Kritik an Hegel. Mauro Bozzetti
The Hegelian Influence in Adorno’s Construction of the Idea of Nature. Miriam Rodríguez Moran
Difference and Affirmation. Deleuze against Hegel. Daniela Angelucci
WO-MAN DIFFÉRANCE (I): Figuras indecidibles. Sexual Difference and Gender (Hegel read by Heidegger, read by Derrida, read by Cixous, read by Butler … et ainsi de suite) Francisco José López Serrano
The Logic of Remains in Derrida. Pablo B. Sánchez Gómez
With Portia in the Passage towards Philosophy. The Place of Translation in Hegel’s System. Elena Nardelli
Reading Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. A Feminist Issue. Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod
SECTION 5 RE-THINKING THE ABSOLUTE SPIRIT
Suggestions on a Re-interpretation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Absolute Spirit. Stefania Achella, Francesca Iannelli, Gabriella Baptist and Claudia Melica
Friendship and Religion. Some Missing Elements in Hegel’s Conception of “Lordship and Bondage” Myriam Bienenstock
„Das Lob der Frauen“. Hegel und das ästhetische Ideal Schillers Mariafilomena Anzalone
The Reins of the Inconceivable. Contemporary Echoes of Hegel’s Theory on Symbolic Art: Interpreting Kapoor’s Art between Danto, Mitchell and Gadamer. Riccardo Malaspina
Philosophy and the End of Art. Hegel in Danto’s View. Francesco Lesce
Judaism as the Other of Greek-Christian Civilization. Samuel Hirsch, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Cassirer on Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie. Irene Kajon
Von Homer bis Hegel. Die Konzeption der Geschichte in Homer und der ‚Traum des Hades‘ als vorstrukturierte Lesart der Hegelschen spekulativen Philosophie. Giuseppa Bella
Hegel’s Thought in Egypt. The “East”, Islam, and the Course of History. Lorella Ventura
The “Feminine”. A Breach in the Absolute Levinasian Anti-idealism. Giorgia Vasari
CONCLUSION
Critique, Refutation, Appropriation: Strategies of Hegel’s Dialectic. Angelica Nuzzo
TRANSCRIPT: AUGUST BAKER INTERVIEW TO CLAUDIA MELICA
August Baker:
Welcome to Philosophy Podcasts, where we interview leading philosophers about their recent work. We're based in the US, but we're reaching across the Atlantic to get a perspective from Europe and specifically Italy. We're talking about a book with a lot of great ideas and very inspiring and productive ideas. It's called The Owl's Flight and the subtitle is: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy. It's edited by six Italian women philosophers, and I'm delighted that one of them has joined me today to talk about the volume. I'm speaking to Claudia Melica. Her blurb says she's qualified as an associate Professor in Moral Philosophy and in History of Philosophy. She was affiliated with Sapienza University of Rome, University of Trento, and I.I.S.F. (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi filosofici, Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies) in Naples. Welcome, Claudia. Claudia Melica:
Oh, thank you very much for taking me in your podcast and to take our books in your podcast. August Baker:
It's a great pleasure. I want to thank you for doing this interview in English, because if we tried to do it in Italian, I would not be able to do it. I know that your ideas would probably come most naturally in Italian to you and be willing to express them in English, I really appreciate that. Let's start with Hegel. I think my overview would be that on one hand, Hegel's very important in the 20th century. He was thought of as the founder or the intellectual precursor both to Marx as a man to bourgeois liberalism. On the other hand, there was a lot of criticism of Hegel in the 20th century. And my sense, please, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's more of an embrace of Hegel in the beginning of the 21st century.
Claudia Melica:
You are perfectly right. This is really a good point. But before speaking about Marx or Marxism, we should, perhaps, briefly mention one of the points of why Marx appreciated very much the Hegelian dialectical method. For Marx, such a method was able to show the contradiction implicit within history. And in Marx's opinion, such Hegelian dialectic gave a lot of importance to the so-called “negative” or “opposite”, which Marx later will call it “alienation”. Well, for Marx, this is a condition for the poor workers in a so-called “capitalistic society”. Therefore, for Marx, the worker identifies himself with his job and with the object that he produces, but, in a certain way, he will lose his independence, his autonomy.
Claudia Melica:
This was clearly mentioned in some passages of the Phenomenology of Spirit, especially in chapter four, by Hegel. But Marx added that: because we are in a capitalistic society, there will certainly be someone who will profit economically from the job of those so-called “poor workers”. So, very shortly, certainly Marx and Marxist grounded on Hegel, but then they moved in a totally different direction, in the so-called historical “materialism”. It's certainly true, as you mentioned it, that also Hegel was the source for the so-called “bourgeois liberalism”, which is totally opposite from, in general, the Marxist view. Because of the Marxist view, it's more a collective idea. Let's call it like that in a very simple way.
Claudia Melica:
And when you speak about “bourgeois liberalism”, you push the concept a lot in the direction of “individualism”. Anyway, Hegel was able in his philosophy to recognize that the subject has got its autonomous value. Obviously, there is a risk for individualism, private purposes, and that's why we speak and we add the term, which is not simply an adjective “bourgeoisie”. Because, if in one way, it eliminates the action of the State, of the Government; on the other side, the risk is that the competition between different individual beings and, especially, in an organized society [will be that] only the bourgeoisie [will] profit of the work of the Other. That is why such liberalism could be dangerous. Claudia Melica:
Today, we assist at a re-thinking of such a concept, because the market and politics push over a lot [in such a direction] and there are a lot of difficulties in the so-called “social justice”. Rawls' studies investigated very deeply such topics. Anyway, our volume has not taken into consideration such a point of view. Therefore, it's not analyzing which influence has got Hegel on Marx or which influence has got Hegel on such concepts on Marx which I'm trying to explain to you.
August Baker:
I'm a little embarrassed to ask this, but I think this is my real question. So, I'll ask it. You know, it's not a very interesting question, but it's one that comes to mind. And if we want to look at social problems today, why would we want to reread or reinterpret a man who lived centuries ago? I mean, I can think of several different reasons. One might think this was an extraordinary person, although you'd think, > So, with really a peculiar expression, she wrote this book, Let's Spit on Hegel (Sputiamo su Hegel), which had a great influence in Italy. There is a movement connected with her and there are [in our collective volume] many articles, many, many papers dedicated to Carla Lonzi too. Especially one part, by Federica Giardini. She's a very well-known professor at Roma Tre University and she is also a feminist and a very good researcher on feminist thinking. She analyzed this point too.
August Baker:
I'm not sure if there's a section that focuses on the “master-slave dialectic” in Hegel. Of course, it's very famous. Is there a specific section developed not devoted to it, but it goes through all of them, would you say?
Claudia Melica:
Well, the section concerning the “master and servant dialectics” is explicitly only into the Phenomenology of Spirit and in chapter four. I'm going to explain to you. What is the topic over there? This section was deeply analyzed by some interpreters and, especially, most of them [investigated] Hegel's “master and servant dialectics” in section two [of our book]. Serena Feloj wrote a paper with references on American contemporary debate, which is very important, because she analyzed the way in which [Judith] Butler or [Nancy] Fraser or [Luce] Irigaray they interpreted such a part of Hegel. And I quoted Mara Montanaro with Simone de Beauvoir or Federica Giardini in the re-interpretation of Carla Lonzi. Anyway, for the American audience and not the specialists on Hegel, what is it this “master and servant or slave dialectics”?
Claudia Melica:
To make it very easy, and clear, it is the following. For Hegel, a self-consciousness could not “recognize” its value, if it is not “recognized” by another self-consciousness. To “recognize” the value of someone else, Hegel analyzed something that is so developed into history. So, for example, the opposition, and at the same time, there's a relation between “master and slave”. But what happened exactly? The self-consciousness of the master is pushed by a desire to obtain more and more and more and more objects, but he cannot obtain them alone. He needs a huge work of the slave or of the servant. Therefore, the master is totally dependent for his desire, for his material desire, from the work of the servant.
Claudia Melica:
But Hegel made a good point. If, from one side, it looks like, at the first glance, that the servant looked totally dependent and submitted by the master. On the other side, the servant is able to transform the object with his work. He is not the one whom, after he has used the object, he threw it away and he doesn't need it anymore. But, anyway, this passage is important, because for the first time, Hegel is trying to speak about dialectical opposition, social justice, and inequality. This comes, in German language as recognition and it is Anerkennung. It means not only to “recognize” the value of someone else, but means also to “know” deeply, to have the self-consciousness of someone else, because I “know” myself deeply only if I “recognize” the Other and the value of the Other.
Claudia Melica:
And, therefore, this is a very important model or a paradigm, which was used also later to investigate all the oppositions within the history. And also, as I told you, through all the feminist battle. Because the question was for the feminist thought, whether such paradigm should be applied to women too. Does it work for women too? So, women (as “slave”) are submitted to a “master” as man or not? This is one of the questions, which for example, as first was questioned by Simone de Beauvoir, but it is still investigated.
August Baker:
Right. Just as much as different cultures embrace different nationalities and so forth, right? Claudia Melica:
Yeah.
August Baker:
So, this is difficult because there's so much in this book, but I want to give listeners an idea of an overview of what's in the different sections. Even though it may seem surface level, it'll be a pointer, I hope. So, the first section deals with The Night of Reason. It was talking about madness dreams and passion. Could you speak a little bit about what people could find there?
Claudia Melica:
Yes. Hegel is not seen from this point of view. There are a lot of generalizations about Hegel. So, for example, he's a “systematic thinker” or only a “rational thinker”. But what we would like to show is that Hegel at his time, he was studying the so-called “neurosciences”. So, he was studying psychiatry, psychology at the time. He was given a lot of importance of what as a metaphor was called “the dark side of the reason”. He was not criticizing such a part. He was able to demonstrate that the spirit (and “spirit” means our spiritual manifestations which go through our development) could be found also in illness or in dreams or as well, in this “dark side” [see paper by S. Achella, The Dark Side of Thought, pp. 23-36].
Claudia Melica:
That's why when he was teaching in Berlin during his lectures, which were lectures followed by thousands of students, he wrote a book, which was an Encyclopaedia, a compendium, including all the sciences. And within all those sciences, Hegel included all sciences of the time called "anthropology", which was not the anthropology of our days. Within anthropology, there was what is today called also psychiatry, psychology, and so on. And then in this part, he was able to study madness and unconsciousness.
Claudia Melica:
This was recently discussed by a very well-known interpreter, Catherine Malabou, which is the subject of a paper by Federica Pitillo and how the neurosciences have become important in our time to communicate the concept [of “plasticity”] and have re-interpreted such Hegelian anthropology and the implication also of the research on the brain, which started at a time and which is quite important for us, because this give us a new perspective of Hegel, which until now was not very well known for such studies.
August Baker:
That was fascinating. Absolutely. And then we have talked about section two. I will come back to section three at the end. For section four, it's entitled The Twentieth Century and Hegel: Subversion or Conciliation? Claudia Melica:
Yes. In this section four which is the purpose? The purpose is the following. There have been many interpreters, like Jacques Derrida for example, which is the topic of the first paper by Gabriella Baptist, which totally criticizes Hegel's point of view. And the point of view, very simply, criticized by Derrida, was to destroy the subject, to destroy the effort done by Hegel to affirm the autonomy of the subject, even if for Hegel, always within a qualitative structure, which was the ethical life. But there is this paper by Gabriella Baptist, which is the beginning of section four, where she showed well, this point of view of how Derrida was going in a different [direction] of what originally Hegel did.
Claudia Melica:
So, for example, there are many other papers like the one by Herta Nagl-Docekal. She analyzed, in the same section four, how Hegel is important today in order to discuss common values. I would like to underline that for Hegel, it's not only in German the word Gesellschaft, which you could translate in English “society”, but Gemeinschaft (or Gemeinde) which means really to do something together as society, which shares something in common. There is this paper by Herta Nagl-Docekal, a very well-known professor from Vienna. She analyzed all the social pathologies of Hegel’s concept of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). And she focused on Charles Taylor of the common constitution and individual identity which in the United States (U.S.A.) nowadays is deeply discussed.
Claudia Melica:
And then she also analyzed John Rawls’ thesis on Hegel crucial achievement and how it was very important for organizing a modern State and an institution in order to build a so-called real freedom, not an abstract freedom. And also, she discussed, which is very important, Axel Honneth, whom was and still he is a German a very well-known Hegelian interpreter, who claim to reformulate the Philosophy of Right of Hegel in term of social sphere, because such social problems, are really very important even today in any global society, not only in Hegel's time. I would like to stop, otherwise it is too much.
August Baker:
Yes. And I think Honneth has an appointment currently in the US at Columbia, I believe.
Claudia Melica:
Yeah.
August Baker:
But I should also mention that. So, when you talked about section four, you talked about first an essay by Gabriella Baptist and then the second essay by Nagl-Docekal.
Claudia Melica:
Herta Nagl-Docekal.
August Baker:
Nagl-Docekal, and I should point out that the structure of each of these sections is that there's an introductory essay by one of the editors and then there's an essay by an invited contributor with a lot of stature. And then there's seven or eight other essays. Maybe you could go through the other invited contributors.
Claudia Melica:
Yes. I'm very grateful to introduce such a subject, because it's very important for us to explain the structure, the form of the book, because it's not simply a collection of different papers. We wanted to give a form of the book, which could be understandable. Therefore, we decided to organize the structure of the book in the following way. As you precisely told the audience, there is in each part an introductory essay, written by the different editors. So, Achella, another by Iannelli, another by Baptist, another by Feloj, another by Li Vigni, and the other by Melica. Then we decide that each section should be open by a contribution from a world renowned expert in Hegelian studies. And they should in our opinion, so we planned the book, coming from all different parts of the world. Claudia Melica:
Therefore, the invited speakers are: Rossella Bonito Oliva from Italy, Nuria Sánchez from Spain, Madrid, Erzsébet Rózsa from Debrecen in Hungary. We quoted yet, but we should quote it again, Herta Nagl-Docekal from Vienna, Austria, Myriam Bienenstock from France, from Paris, and so on. But it's also important to underline that the book, it's opened by the director of the Hegel Archive. She is a woman and she is Birgit Sandkaulen. And she is leading the famous and very important Hegel Archive in Bochum in Germany. And the book is closed by Angelica Nuzzo. She's Italian, but she's been teaching for years in New York and in the United States.
August Baker:
At CUNY.
Claudia Melica:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the book is divided into five different sections. We can speak later about the five different sections.
August Baker:
So, I think we only have CUNY, meaning City University of New York. And I think the fifth section is in the interest of time, I'll leave the fifth section to just name the title, which is Re-thinking the Absolute Spirit. Spirit is one of the essential topics in Hegel, but let's close with the description of section three about the female characters in Hegel's philosophy. And if you could also mention the title of the book. People are probably wondering: "What does an owl have to do with philosophy?" I did anyway. I think I had a sense of what it was, but yeah, go ahead.
Claudia Melica:
Yeah. Well, it's very well known that this kind of birds normally arrive at night and this is a metaphor used by Hegel in the Preface of the Philosophy of Right (1821), where he would like to say the following. This kind of bird, it's the symbol of Minerva, it the symbol of philosophy. The philosophy arrives only in the end, but the philosophy may [understand history in conceptual thoughts]. We use it as metaphor and that's why we use it as a title “owl” symbol of Minerva and philosophy may have a female form. That's why we thought that the Hegelian philosophy may have different languages, but the title is also that Hegel told us such bird (Owl of Minerva) arrived at night and begin to flight only with the falling of the dusk. And what does it mean?
Claudia Melica:
It is a metaphor which became most celebrated and very well known. It means that the way of making philosophy is part of an historical process. Only when this historical process, which means chronologically, historically, it's concluded, then arrives philosophy, which it's able to understand, to comprehend with conceptual thought all historical processes. Therefore, such female figures, let's say it with that, may offer an insider view of all the historical process. That's why we decided to give a title in this way.
August Baker:
Finally, just a survey of some of the articles in that section on the female characters or some of the other female characters.
Claudia Melica:
Well, there are many other female characters in Hegel. Not only he took them from the ancient tragedy from Sophocles, not only Antigone, but he took them from W. Shakespeare. So, for example, just to quote Shakespeare, Julia or Miranda or even Lady Macbeth have been quoted by Hegel and re-interpreted as a metaphor as heroines to re-read the conflict within the history. That's why we decided to call also a chapter, section three of this book, Female Characters in Hegel's Philosophy, where it's analyzed also these potential in Hegelian interpretation of those tragic heroines, not only the ancient one, the Greek heroines, but also the modern one as from English Literature by Shakespeare. August Baker:
Fascinating. Okay. Thank you so much, Claudia Melica. The book is: The Owl's Flight: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy. I went longer than I told you, an hour, but there's so much to cover. It's a fascinating volume and it's published by, The Owl's Flight: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy, De Gruyter 2022. Thank you so much, Claudia.
Claudia Melica:
I am really very grateful for the conversation and for the interview. Thank you.
August Baker:
Thank you.
Claudia Melica:
Thank you.
View all episodes
By August BakerClaudia Melica (Sapienza Università di Roma)
The Owl's flight: Hegel's legacy to contemporary philosophy
co-editors: Stefania Achella (Chieti-Pescara), Francesca Iannelli (Roma Tre), Gabriella Baptist (Cagliari), Serena Feloj (Pavia), and Fiorinda Li Vigni (Italian Institute for Philosophic Studies)
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110709278
This book presents a unique rethinking of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy from unusual and controversial perspectives in order to liberate new energies from his philosophy. The role Hegel ascribes to women in the shaping of society and family, the reconstruction of his anthropological and psychological perspective, his approach to human nature, the relationship between mental illness and social disease, the role of the unconscious, and the relevance of intercultural and interreligious pathways: All these themes reveal new and inspiring aspects of Hegel’s thought for our time.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110709278/html
Contents
OVERVIEW Editors’ Introduction. The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy in a Different Voice Stefania Achella, Francesca Iannelli, Gabriella Baptist, Serena Feloj, Fiorinda Li Vigni and Claudia Melica
INTRODUCTION Hegel’s Theory of Absolute Spirit as Aesthetic Theory Birgit Sandkaulen
SECTION 1 THE NIGHT OF REASON The Dark Side of Thought. The Body, the Unconscious and Madness in Hegel’s Philosophy Stefania Achella
The Feminine in Hegel. Between Tragedy and Magic Rossella Bonito Oliva
A Plastic Anthropology? Dialectics and Neuroscience in Catherine Malabou’s Thought Federica Pitillo
Maternal Consciousness and Recognition in the Anthropology of Hegel Laura Paulizzi
The Rise of Human Freedom in Hegel’s Anthropology Carmen Belmonte
Seele, Verrücktheit, Intersubjektivität. Einige Überlegungen zu Hegels Anthropologie Giovanni Andreozzi
Die Behandlung der psychischen Störung. Hegel und Pinel gegen die De-Humanisierung der Geisteskranken Giulia Battistoni
Verrücktheit und Idealisierung. Wachen, Schlaf, Traum in Hegels Philosophie des Geistes Mariannina Failla
Im wachen Zustand träumen. Der Einfluss der Gefühle auf die Entstehung psychischer Krankheiten Caterina Maurer
Dialectics of Madness: Foucault, Hegel, and the Opening of the Speculative Alice Giuliani
SECTION 2 WOMEN FOR AND AGAINST HEGEL Hegel’s Master and Servant Dialectics in the Feminist Debate Serena Feloj
Giving an Account of Precarious Life and Vulnerability. Antigone’s Wisdom after Hegel. Nuria Sánchez Madrid
“Men and women are wonderfully alike after all”. The Practical Adaption of Hegel by Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911). Andreas Giesbert
Simone de Beauvoir Reading Hegel. The Master-Slave Dialectic. Mara Montanaro and Matthieu Renault
Irigaray as a Reader of Hegel. The Feminine as a Marginal Presence. Viola Carofalo
Domination and Exploitation. Feminist Views on the Relational Subject. Federica Giardini
Subversion without Subject? Criticism of the Dissolution of Nature and I-Identity in Performativity. Carolyn Iselt
Considerations on the Female Body between Political Theory and Feminism. The Rehabilitation of Hegel? Nunzia Cosmo
Reading Hegel on Women and Laughing. Hegel against or with Women/Other? Sevgi Doğan
SECTION 3 FEMALE CHARACTERS IN HEGEL’S PHILOSOPHY
Hegel’s Constellation of the Feminine between Philosophy and Life. A Tribute to Dieter Henrich’s Konstellationsforschung. Francesca Iannelli
Von Antigone zur anständigen Frau. Hegels Frauenbild im Spannungsfeld zwischen der Phänomenologie des Geistes und der Rechtsphilosophie von 1820. Erzsébet Rózsa
„Der Stand der Frau − Hausfrau“. Hegels Affirmation der bürgerlichen Geschlechterverhältnisse. Dieter Hüning
Antigone and the Phenomenology of Spirit. Between Literary Source (vv. 925–928) and Philosophical Reading. Eleonora Caramelli
The Feminist Potential of Hegel’s Tragic Heroines. Rachel Falkenstern
Welches Recht ist gerecht? ‚Sittlichkeit‘ und ‚Gerechtigkeit‘ in Hegels Deutung der Antigone. Wenjun Niu
Antigone’s Guilt. Reading Antigone with Hegel and Butler. Yuka Okazaki
Die Tochter der Nacht: „Nemesis“ im Maß. Das Maßlose und die absolute Indifferenz in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Misa Sanada
Die mütterliche Seite der Dreieinigkeit an einer Stelle der Phänomenologie des Geistes. Pierluigi Valenza
The Sphinx and Hegel’s Philosophy of History. On the Philosophical Riddle. Luis Antonio Velasco Guzmán
SECTION 4 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND HEGEL: SUBVERSION OR CONCILIATION?
Subversion or Conciliation? The Challenges of Hegel’s Legacy. Gabriella Baptist
Hegels Relevanz für den heutigen Diskurs zu „Gemeinschaft/Community“ Herta Nagl-Docekal
The Work of Man and the End-of-History. Hegel Transfigured by Kojève’s Thought. Luisa Sampugnaro
Subjects of Desire and Law Hypothesis on Kojève’s Hegel. Claudia Cimmarusti
Der Andere in der Begierde. Kojèves Hegelianismus und dessen Einfluss auf die französische Philosophie. Yufang Yang
Kreis und Ellipse Adornos Kritik an Hegel. Mauro Bozzetti
The Hegelian Influence in Adorno’s Construction of the Idea of Nature. Miriam Rodríguez Moran
Difference and Affirmation. Deleuze against Hegel. Daniela Angelucci
WO-MAN DIFFÉRANCE (I): Figuras indecidibles. Sexual Difference and Gender (Hegel read by Heidegger, read by Derrida, read by Cixous, read by Butler … et ainsi de suite) Francisco José López Serrano
The Logic of Remains in Derrida. Pablo B. Sánchez Gómez
With Portia in the Passage towards Philosophy. The Place of Translation in Hegel’s System. Elena Nardelli
Reading Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. A Feminist Issue. Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod
SECTION 5 RE-THINKING THE ABSOLUTE SPIRIT
Suggestions on a Re-interpretation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Absolute Spirit. Stefania Achella, Francesca Iannelli, Gabriella Baptist and Claudia Melica
Friendship and Religion. Some Missing Elements in Hegel’s Conception of “Lordship and Bondage” Myriam Bienenstock
„Das Lob der Frauen“. Hegel und das ästhetische Ideal Schillers Mariafilomena Anzalone
The Reins of the Inconceivable. Contemporary Echoes of Hegel’s Theory on Symbolic Art: Interpreting Kapoor’s Art between Danto, Mitchell and Gadamer. Riccardo Malaspina
Philosophy and the End of Art. Hegel in Danto’s View. Francesco Lesce
Judaism as the Other of Greek-Christian Civilization. Samuel Hirsch, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Cassirer on Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie. Irene Kajon
Von Homer bis Hegel. Die Konzeption der Geschichte in Homer und der ‚Traum des Hades‘ als vorstrukturierte Lesart der Hegelschen spekulativen Philosophie. Giuseppa Bella
Hegel’s Thought in Egypt. The “East”, Islam, and the Course of History. Lorella Ventura
The “Feminine”. A Breach in the Absolute Levinasian Anti-idealism. Giorgia Vasari
CONCLUSION
Critique, Refutation, Appropriation: Strategies of Hegel’s Dialectic. Angelica Nuzzo
TRANSCRIPT: AUGUST BAKER INTERVIEW TO CLAUDIA MELICA
August Baker:
Welcome to Philosophy Podcasts, where we interview leading philosophers about their recent work. We're based in the US, but we're reaching across the Atlantic to get a perspective from Europe and specifically Italy. We're talking about a book with a lot of great ideas and very inspiring and productive ideas. It's called The Owl's Flight and the subtitle is: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy. It's edited by six Italian women philosophers, and I'm delighted that one of them has joined me today to talk about the volume. I'm speaking to Claudia Melica. Her blurb says she's qualified as an associate Professor in Moral Philosophy and in History of Philosophy. She was affiliated with Sapienza University of Rome, University of Trento, and I.I.S.F. (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi filosofici, Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies) in Naples. Welcome, Claudia. Claudia Melica:
Oh, thank you very much for taking me in your podcast and to take our books in your podcast. August Baker:
It's a great pleasure. I want to thank you for doing this interview in English, because if we tried to do it in Italian, I would not be able to do it. I know that your ideas would probably come most naturally in Italian to you and be willing to express them in English, I really appreciate that. Let's start with Hegel. I think my overview would be that on one hand, Hegel's very important in the 20th century. He was thought of as the founder or the intellectual precursor both to Marx as a man to bourgeois liberalism. On the other hand, there was a lot of criticism of Hegel in the 20th century. And my sense, please, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's more of an embrace of Hegel in the beginning of the 21st century.
Claudia Melica:
You are perfectly right. This is really a good point. But before speaking about Marx or Marxism, we should, perhaps, briefly mention one of the points of why Marx appreciated very much the Hegelian dialectical method. For Marx, such a method was able to show the contradiction implicit within history. And in Marx's opinion, such Hegelian dialectic gave a lot of importance to the so-called “negative” or “opposite”, which Marx later will call it “alienation”. Well, for Marx, this is a condition for the poor workers in a so-called “capitalistic society”. Therefore, for Marx, the worker identifies himself with his job and with the object that he produces, but, in a certain way, he will lose his independence, his autonomy.
Claudia Melica:
This was clearly mentioned in some passages of the Phenomenology of Spirit, especially in chapter four, by Hegel. But Marx added that: because we are in a capitalistic society, there will certainly be someone who will profit economically from the job of those so-called “poor workers”. So, very shortly, certainly Marx and Marxist grounded on Hegel, but then they moved in a totally different direction, in the so-called historical “materialism”. It's certainly true, as you mentioned it, that also Hegel was the source for the so-called “bourgeois liberalism”, which is totally opposite from, in general, the Marxist view. Because of the Marxist view, it's more a collective idea. Let's call it like that in a very simple way.
Claudia Melica:
And when you speak about “bourgeois liberalism”, you push the concept a lot in the direction of “individualism”. Anyway, Hegel was able in his philosophy to recognize that the subject has got its autonomous value. Obviously, there is a risk for individualism, private purposes, and that's why we speak and we add the term, which is not simply an adjective “bourgeoisie”. Because, if in one way, it eliminates the action of the State, of the Government; on the other side, the risk is that the competition between different individual beings and, especially, in an organized society [will be that] only the bourgeoisie [will] profit of the work of the Other. That is why such liberalism could be dangerous. Claudia Melica:
Today, we assist at a re-thinking of such a concept, because the market and politics push over a lot [in such a direction] and there are a lot of difficulties in the so-called “social justice”. Rawls' studies investigated very deeply such topics. Anyway, our volume has not taken into consideration such a point of view. Therefore, it's not analyzing which influence has got Hegel on Marx or which influence has got Hegel on such concepts on Marx which I'm trying to explain to you.
August Baker:
I'm a little embarrassed to ask this, but I think this is my real question. So, I'll ask it. You know, it's not a very interesting question, but it's one that comes to mind. And if we want to look at social problems today, why would we want to reread or reinterpret a man who lived centuries ago? I mean, I can think of several different reasons. One might think this was an extraordinary person, although you'd think, > So, with really a peculiar expression, she wrote this book, Let's Spit on Hegel (Sputiamo su Hegel), which had a great influence in Italy. There is a movement connected with her and there are [in our collective volume] many articles, many, many papers dedicated to Carla Lonzi too. Especially one part, by Federica Giardini. She's a very well-known professor at Roma Tre University and she is also a feminist and a very good researcher on feminist thinking. She analyzed this point too.
August Baker:
I'm not sure if there's a section that focuses on the “master-slave dialectic” in Hegel. Of course, it's very famous. Is there a specific section developed not devoted to it, but it goes through all of them, would you say?
Claudia Melica:
Well, the section concerning the “master and servant dialectics” is explicitly only into the Phenomenology of Spirit and in chapter four. I'm going to explain to you. What is the topic over there? This section was deeply analyzed by some interpreters and, especially, most of them [investigated] Hegel's “master and servant dialectics” in section two [of our book]. Serena Feloj wrote a paper with references on American contemporary debate, which is very important, because she analyzed the way in which [Judith] Butler or [Nancy] Fraser or [Luce] Irigaray they interpreted such a part of Hegel. And I quoted Mara Montanaro with Simone de Beauvoir or Federica Giardini in the re-interpretation of Carla Lonzi. Anyway, for the American audience and not the specialists on Hegel, what is it this “master and servant or slave dialectics”?
Claudia Melica:
To make it very easy, and clear, it is the following. For Hegel, a self-consciousness could not “recognize” its value, if it is not “recognized” by another self-consciousness. To “recognize” the value of someone else, Hegel analyzed something that is so developed into history. So, for example, the opposition, and at the same time, there's a relation between “master and slave”. But what happened exactly? The self-consciousness of the master is pushed by a desire to obtain more and more and more and more objects, but he cannot obtain them alone. He needs a huge work of the slave or of the servant. Therefore, the master is totally dependent for his desire, for his material desire, from the work of the servant.
Claudia Melica:
But Hegel made a good point. If, from one side, it looks like, at the first glance, that the servant looked totally dependent and submitted by the master. On the other side, the servant is able to transform the object with his work. He is not the one whom, after he has used the object, he threw it away and he doesn't need it anymore. But, anyway, this passage is important, because for the first time, Hegel is trying to speak about dialectical opposition, social justice, and inequality. This comes, in German language as recognition and it is Anerkennung. It means not only to “recognize” the value of someone else, but means also to “know” deeply, to have the self-consciousness of someone else, because I “know” myself deeply only if I “recognize” the Other and the value of the Other.
Claudia Melica:
And, therefore, this is a very important model or a paradigm, which was used also later to investigate all the oppositions within the history. And also, as I told you, through all the feminist battle. Because the question was for the feminist thought, whether such paradigm should be applied to women too. Does it work for women too? So, women (as “slave”) are submitted to a “master” as man or not? This is one of the questions, which for example, as first was questioned by Simone de Beauvoir, but it is still investigated.
August Baker:
Right. Just as much as different cultures embrace different nationalities and so forth, right? Claudia Melica:
Yeah.
August Baker:
So, this is difficult because there's so much in this book, but I want to give listeners an idea of an overview of what's in the different sections. Even though it may seem surface level, it'll be a pointer, I hope. So, the first section deals with The Night of Reason. It was talking about madness dreams and passion. Could you speak a little bit about what people could find there?
Claudia Melica:
Yes. Hegel is not seen from this point of view. There are a lot of generalizations about Hegel. So, for example, he's a “systematic thinker” or only a “rational thinker”. But what we would like to show is that Hegel at his time, he was studying the so-called “neurosciences”. So, he was studying psychiatry, psychology at the time. He was given a lot of importance of what as a metaphor was called “the dark side of the reason”. He was not criticizing such a part. He was able to demonstrate that the spirit (and “spirit” means our spiritual manifestations which go through our development) could be found also in illness or in dreams or as well, in this “dark side” [see paper by S. Achella, The Dark Side of Thought, pp. 23-36].
Claudia Melica:
That's why when he was teaching in Berlin during his lectures, which were lectures followed by thousands of students, he wrote a book, which was an Encyclopaedia, a compendium, including all the sciences. And within all those sciences, Hegel included all sciences of the time called "anthropology", which was not the anthropology of our days. Within anthropology, there was what is today called also psychiatry, psychology, and so on. And then in this part, he was able to study madness and unconsciousness.
Claudia Melica:
This was recently discussed by a very well-known interpreter, Catherine Malabou, which is the subject of a paper by Federica Pitillo and how the neurosciences have become important in our time to communicate the concept [of “plasticity”] and have re-interpreted such Hegelian anthropology and the implication also of the research on the brain, which started at a time and which is quite important for us, because this give us a new perspective of Hegel, which until now was not very well known for such studies.
August Baker:
That was fascinating. Absolutely. And then we have talked about section two. I will come back to section three at the end. For section four, it's entitled The Twentieth Century and Hegel: Subversion or Conciliation? Claudia Melica:
Yes. In this section four which is the purpose? The purpose is the following. There have been many interpreters, like Jacques Derrida for example, which is the topic of the first paper by Gabriella Baptist, which totally criticizes Hegel's point of view. And the point of view, very simply, criticized by Derrida, was to destroy the subject, to destroy the effort done by Hegel to affirm the autonomy of the subject, even if for Hegel, always within a qualitative structure, which was the ethical life. But there is this paper by Gabriella Baptist, which is the beginning of section four, where she showed well, this point of view of how Derrida was going in a different [direction] of what originally Hegel did.
Claudia Melica:
So, for example, there are many other papers like the one by Herta Nagl-Docekal. She analyzed, in the same section four, how Hegel is important today in order to discuss common values. I would like to underline that for Hegel, it's not only in German the word Gesellschaft, which you could translate in English “society”, but Gemeinschaft (or Gemeinde) which means really to do something together as society, which shares something in common. There is this paper by Herta Nagl-Docekal, a very well-known professor from Vienna. She analyzed all the social pathologies of Hegel’s concept of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). And she focused on Charles Taylor of the common constitution and individual identity which in the United States (U.S.A.) nowadays is deeply discussed.
Claudia Melica:
And then she also analyzed John Rawls’ thesis on Hegel crucial achievement and how it was very important for organizing a modern State and an institution in order to build a so-called real freedom, not an abstract freedom. And also, she discussed, which is very important, Axel Honneth, whom was and still he is a German a very well-known Hegelian interpreter, who claim to reformulate the Philosophy of Right of Hegel in term of social sphere, because such social problems, are really very important even today in any global society, not only in Hegel's time. I would like to stop, otherwise it is too much.
August Baker:
Yes. And I think Honneth has an appointment currently in the US at Columbia, I believe.
Claudia Melica:
Yeah.
August Baker:
But I should also mention that. So, when you talked about section four, you talked about first an essay by Gabriella Baptist and then the second essay by Nagl-Docekal.
Claudia Melica:
Herta Nagl-Docekal.
August Baker:
Nagl-Docekal, and I should point out that the structure of each of these sections is that there's an introductory essay by one of the editors and then there's an essay by an invited contributor with a lot of stature. And then there's seven or eight other essays. Maybe you could go through the other invited contributors.
Claudia Melica:
Yes. I'm very grateful to introduce such a subject, because it's very important for us to explain the structure, the form of the book, because it's not simply a collection of different papers. We wanted to give a form of the book, which could be understandable. Therefore, we decided to organize the structure of the book in the following way. As you precisely told the audience, there is in each part an introductory essay, written by the different editors. So, Achella, another by Iannelli, another by Baptist, another by Feloj, another by Li Vigni, and the other by Melica. Then we decide that each section should be open by a contribution from a world renowned expert in Hegelian studies. And they should in our opinion, so we planned the book, coming from all different parts of the world. Claudia Melica:
Therefore, the invited speakers are: Rossella Bonito Oliva from Italy, Nuria Sánchez from Spain, Madrid, Erzsébet Rózsa from Debrecen in Hungary. We quoted yet, but we should quote it again, Herta Nagl-Docekal from Vienna, Austria, Myriam Bienenstock from France, from Paris, and so on. But it's also important to underline that the book, it's opened by the director of the Hegel Archive. She is a woman and she is Birgit Sandkaulen. And she is leading the famous and very important Hegel Archive in Bochum in Germany. And the book is closed by Angelica Nuzzo. She's Italian, but she's been teaching for years in New York and in the United States.
August Baker:
At CUNY.
Claudia Melica:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the book is divided into five different sections. We can speak later about the five different sections.
August Baker:
So, I think we only have CUNY, meaning City University of New York. And I think the fifth section is in the interest of time, I'll leave the fifth section to just name the title, which is Re-thinking the Absolute Spirit. Spirit is one of the essential topics in Hegel, but let's close with the description of section three about the female characters in Hegel's philosophy. And if you could also mention the title of the book. People are probably wondering: "What does an owl have to do with philosophy?" I did anyway. I think I had a sense of what it was, but yeah, go ahead.
Claudia Melica:
Yeah. Well, it's very well known that this kind of birds normally arrive at night and this is a metaphor used by Hegel in the Preface of the Philosophy of Right (1821), where he would like to say the following. This kind of bird, it's the symbol of Minerva, it the symbol of philosophy. The philosophy arrives only in the end, but the philosophy may [understand history in conceptual thoughts]. We use it as metaphor and that's why we use it as a title “owl” symbol of Minerva and philosophy may have a female form. That's why we thought that the Hegelian philosophy may have different languages, but the title is also that Hegel told us such bird (Owl of Minerva) arrived at night and begin to flight only with the falling of the dusk. And what does it mean?
Claudia Melica:
It is a metaphor which became most celebrated and very well known. It means that the way of making philosophy is part of an historical process. Only when this historical process, which means chronologically, historically, it's concluded, then arrives philosophy, which it's able to understand, to comprehend with conceptual thought all historical processes. Therefore, such female figures, let's say it with that, may offer an insider view of all the historical process. That's why we decided to give a title in this way.
August Baker:
Finally, just a survey of some of the articles in that section on the female characters or some of the other female characters.
Claudia Melica:
Well, there are many other female characters in Hegel. Not only he took them from the ancient tragedy from Sophocles, not only Antigone, but he took them from W. Shakespeare. So, for example, just to quote Shakespeare, Julia or Miranda or even Lady Macbeth have been quoted by Hegel and re-interpreted as a metaphor as heroines to re-read the conflict within the history. That's why we decided to call also a chapter, section three of this book, Female Characters in Hegel's Philosophy, where it's analyzed also these potential in Hegelian interpretation of those tragic heroines, not only the ancient one, the Greek heroines, but also the modern one as from English Literature by Shakespeare. August Baker:
Fascinating. Okay. Thank you so much, Claudia Melica. The book is: The Owl's Flight: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy. I went longer than I told you, an hour, but there's so much to cover. It's a fascinating volume and it's published by, The Owl's Flight: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy, De Gruyter 2022. Thank you so much, Claudia.
Claudia Melica:
I am really very grateful for the conversation and for the interview. Thank you.
August Baker:
Thank you.
Claudia Melica:
Thank you.