Hegel on Possibility: Dialectics, Contradiction, and Modality

Description

Providing a clear interpretation of Hegel's characterizations of possibility and actuality in the Science of Logic, this book departs from the standard understandings of these concepts to break new ground in Hegelian scholarship. The book draws out some of the implications of Hegel's view of immanent possibility, especially as it relates to Leibniz's thesis of modal optimism: his view that this world is the best of all possible worlds. Reading Hegel as a philosopher of possibility, against a tradition that has conceived of him primarily as a philosopher of necessity, rationality, and finitude, Nahum Brown demonstrates the historical background and philosophical traditions from which Hegel's concept of possibility emerges. Systematically outlining Hegel's conceptions of positive and negative freedom, Brown reveals the Hegelian underpinnings of our conception of reality and what it is to be in the world itself. Original and convincing, this book is crucial for philosophers approaching modality from any tradition. Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations The modal indeterminacy problem Introduction Actuality stands higher than possibility Possible worlds are separate from each other This one world contains every possibility Hegel’s two conceptions of possibility Possibility and Contradiction (Chapters 1–3) The Thesis from Modal Optimism (Chapters 4–6) Part 1 Possibility and Contradiction 1 Hegel on Totality: From Being to Nothing Being, nothing, becoming Controversies surrounding Hegel’s transition from being to nothing Various interpretations of the being-to-nothing transition Source Interpretations Non-source Interpretations The Dialectical Totality Interpretation Desmond’s objection to Dialectical Totality Dialectical Totality is the good infinite Dialectical Totality and contradiction 2 Hegel on Contradiction: From the Categories of Reflection to Ground Qualifying Hegel’s treatment of contradiction The categories of reflection From identity to difference From difference to contradiction From contradiction to ground The substitution interpretation Contradiction as contrariety Contradiction as essence Contradiction as life and vitality Contradiction is productive 3 Hegel on Possibility: From Actuality to Absolute Contingency The two sides of possibility Modality and contradiction The actuality of the possible Formal contingency: The indifference strategy Conditional actualization: The dispersion strategy Absolute modality: The substance strategy Absolute necessity is contingency Part 2 The Thesis from Modal Optimism 4 Necessity Amplifies Possibility: Hegel’s Theory of Modal Transitivity Hegel’s bi-conditional account of possibility and necessity “Possibility entails necessity” is not absurd “Necessity entails possibility” is not trivial The necessity-access model The necessity-production model Modal transitivity and aesthetics 5 Leibniz, Hegel, and Deleuze on Incompossibility Leibniz and the thesis that God has actualized the best of all possible worlds Absolute and hypothetical necessity Leibniz and the ontological status of unactualized possibilities The compossible and incompossible relation Why do other incompossible worlds seem to be better than this one? Why cannot all incompossible worlds come into existence? Hegelian revisions to the incompossibility problem in Leibniz The objection from the inclusion of divergence The objection from modal elitism Deleuze and the question of the ontological status of incompossibilities Hegel and the incompossibility problem in Deleuze 6 Totality and Transformation: More Objections and Consequences The objection from determinism The objection from radical transformation Introduction Notes Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Bibliography Index