Hegel's Later Theory of Cognition: An Additive or Transformative Model?

Abstract

This article investigates Hegel's later theory of perception and cognition, identifying and analysing its general assumptions about the relation among the mind's activities. These often unremarked upon assumptions, I claim, continue to underwrite recent interpretive controversies. I demonstrate how a correct understanding of such assumptions points us toward an alternative interpretation of Hegel's model of the mind. I argue that this new model changes how we understand (a) Hegel's later notion of ‘non-conceptual content’ and (b) his distinction between human and animal minds—two areas that constitute the fault line dividing interpretations of late Hegel. To isolate the relevant assumptions, I use Matthew Boyle's influential conceptual distinction between ‘additive’ and ‘transformative’ models of rationality. I demonstrate that Hegel himself addresses the basic issues characterizing this distinction and clarify how approaching his work in these terms presents considerable interpretative and conceptual advantages, including allowing us to defend the position that Hegel adopts a ‘transformative’ framework of mind. To support this argument, this paper closely analyses Hegel's treatment of sensation (Empfindung), which has not yet been systematically addressed by scholars. I show how sensation can be best understood as part of Hegel's later ‘transformative’ framework for cognition. I also show how this framework can be extended to other parts of Hegel's theory.

Enactivism and the Hegelian Stance on Intrinsic Purposiveness

“…The claim of Geist as 'the truth of nature' (cf. also Enz § 381) can be interpreted, as some critics have done, as conveying the idea that, while for Hegel mental phenomena might be fundamentally grounded in the agency of biological systems, the world of Geist, with its linguistic and inter-subjective features, transforms organismal cognition into something else entirely (Moss 2017;Testa 2020Testa , 2021Corti 2021).…”

Rationality: What difference does it make?

“…For discussion of this point, especially as it applies to the interpretive debate concerning Kant's conception of an 'intuition' see(McDowell, 1996, ch. 6;Conant, 2016;Corti, 2021;Land, 2018).…”

“…For further discussion and defense of a "transformative" reading of Hegel's theory of cognition see(Corti, 2021).15 Points (1)-(3) are advanced in(Land, 2018). Point (4) is advocated by(Conant, 2016), and point (5) by(Pendlebury, 2021).16(Pendlebury, 2021, p. 21) puts the contrast between rational and non-rational sensibility not in terms of transformation, so…”