INCLUSIÓN SOCIAL Y DERECHO A LA CIUDAD

of Philosophy and Politics

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Andrew Fiala

In world-history philosophy begins where free people have appeared. This happens first with the Greek people in the West (Abendland). In the East (Morgenland), the subjectivity of consciousness only dawned (geht auf); only in the West does spirit go down into itself (geht nieder in sich selbst). . . .

It is not merely a relative dawn and a relative evening, but rather it is an essentially different world.1

Hegel claims that philosophy begins in the transition from East to West. “Philosophy proper commences in the West.”2 _{Hegel also links the} origin of philosophy to the origin of the development toward political free- dom that occurs with the Greeks. “Philosophy only appears in history where and in as far as free institutions are formed.”3 _{This would seem to create a} chicken-or-egg problem, as the formation of free political institutions depends on the philosophical idea of freedom and vice versa. For philosophy to occur, we need political freedom; for political freedom to occur, we need the idea of free spirit. Hegel resolves this by locating both philosophy and politics in the general spirit of Greek culture. Both the history of philosophy and the history of political institutions begin with the Greeks because the Greeks shared both the original political idea of freedom that gives rise to philo- sophical reflection and the philosophical self-consciousness of spirit that gives

rise to the project of political freedom. Significantly, Hegel argues that both the political and philosophical transformations that occur with the Greeks mark radical breaks from preceding history. This radical transformation cre- ates as Hegel says above “an essentially different world.” In this chapter, I will critique the way in which Hegel resolves this chicken-or-egg dilemma. I will indicate that Hegel’s account contains a Eurocentric bias and that the language of “drive” and “desire” that occurs in Hegel’s History of Philosophy indicates the limits of his account.

Despite these criticisms, I will attempt to defend Hegel by discussing his view of the logic of history. For Hegel, the history of philosophy is a story we tell ourselves about the origins of our own way of thinking. As historians of philosophy, we want to know exactly what counts as philosophy and what conditions its appearance so we can search for its origins. However, to begin this history, we must presuppose an idea of what philosophy is, as well as an idea of its connection to the history of political life in which it occurs. In the preface to the History of Philosophy, Hegel tells us that “the history of a subject is necessarily intimately connected with the conception which is formed of it.”4 _{We justify our history of philosophy by appealing to a concept} of philosophy that is itself the result of this history. One way out of this circle would be simply to ground philosophy in political life, as Marx, for example, does. However, Hegel states, quite clearly and explicitly, that the relation between philosophy and politics is not simply a matter of causal or temporal order. The category of causality should not be applied to the originary rela- tionship between philosophy and politics. “Hence political history, forms of government, art and religion are not related to philosophy as its causes, nor, on the other hand, is philosophy the ground of their existence—one and all have the same common root, the spirit of the time.”5 _{In other words, philoso-} phy and politics are the same thing in different forms: a difference expressed in the difference (and similarity) between Absolute and Objective spirit. The history of philosophy and the history of political freedom are two dif- ferent accounts of the same thing, spirit, in its different modes of expression. The problem is to comprehend the originary relationship between these different expressions of spirit without reducing one to the other. This is a difficult task, one that I am not sure Hegel completes. The limits of Hegel’s account are indicated by the language of desire that occurs in his History of

Philosophy as well as recurrent metaphors such as the “flash” of thought that

initiates the “dawning” of philosophy in the West (Abendland). Such difficulties are understandable if we recognize that the problem of origins is primarily a problem for us, the historians of philosophy who, from the vantage point of evening, ask the question of the dawning of our own desire for philosophical self-consciousness. We undertake this project so that we may better under- stand ourselves and thus be prepared to “greet the dawn (Morgenröte) of a

better time,” as Hegel says in his preface to the History of Philosophy.6 _This new dawn is our own future, a future that develops from out of our concep- tion of our past.7

The Logic of Development

Insight into the systematic relation between philosophy and politics can be found in Hegel’s account of the organic developmental structure of history and the movement of spirit from its implicit form, named by Hegel under a series of synonyms which includes capacity, power, being-in-itself, potentia, and dynamis, to its explicit form, named by another set of synonyms including being-for-itself, actuality, actus, and energeia.8 _{Hegel does not deny that there} is a circle here. His notion of development is a complex systematic affair: the end of history follows from its origin and its origin is known retrospectively from the vantage point of the end. The explicit development in history of the implicit idea is merely a “going within” into the implicit. At the same time, to comprehend what is implicit is to “go out” into history and the development of the implicit idea. Both of these movements of thought, seeing the differences and similarities in development from origin to end, are part of a proper philosophical idea of history. From this perspective, the idea of history is ambiguous. History is, on the one hand, the objective unfolding, in time, of events. On the other hand, it is the rational reconstruction of these events. Although it is natural for us to ask the question of the temporal and causal relation between philosophy and politics, it is important to recognize that such a question occurs only in retrospect as we attempt to locate the origin of philosophy as we recollect its history. Temporal and causal se- quences are ordered retrospectively by us, i.e., by we who have some idea of the development we seek to organize.

To explain historical development, Hegel contrasts it with nonhistorical development. Organic processes that are nonhistorical include the develop- ment of a plant from its seed and the development of a human child from its parent. In both of these cases, the developmental process is circular, with the origin moving toward its end only to reproduce itself in the next succes- sive generation. If such development were indeed a mere circle without progress, we might conclude that in such cases, although there is develop-

ment, there is no history. While organic development involves the process of

making implicit potential into explicit actuality and repeating the process ad infinitum, historical development also includes the process of becoming con- scious of this process. Thus Hegel claims that the process of development, which is circular in nature, is “otherwise” for spirit: “in spirit it is otherwise: it is consciousness and therefore it is free, uniting in itself the beginning and

the end.”9 _{This process involves consciousness of the sameness connecting} origin and end, as well as the difference separating them. This is exactly what history is: it is the appropriation of our own seemingly alien develop- ment, the turn to the origin from the vantage point of the end.10 _Historical progress occurs as spirit becomes conscious of itself in its development. Moreover, this historical self-consciousness occurs in the present as we rec- ollect our past. Our desire for historical self-comprehension leads us to search for the origin of this desire, i.e., that point in time when what was implicit began to become explicit.

According to Hegel’s histories (of both philosophy and politics) our origin is to be found in the transition from East to West, most notably in the transition from Eastern despotism and religious philosophy to Greek freedom and philosophy proper. Despite Hegel’s warnings about an “external” ap- proach to the history of philosophy, which would focus on the geographic and political development of philosophical thought, a proper comprehension of the relation between politics and philosophy is crucial for an understand- ing of the history of philosophy. Despite his warnings, Hegel does not ignore political and geographical details in his account of the Greek dawning. Hegel tells us that Thales’s new type of thinking, for example, was conditioned by Ionian political diversity, which led him to search for universal principles that underlie difference.11 _{Moreover, Thales’s revolution was also conditioned} by the “appearance of freedom” that occurred during Greek struggles with the Persian empire.12 _{Finally, geography matters. As Hegel says, “geographi-} cal distinction makes its appearance in the manifestation of thought, in the fact that with the Orientals a sensuous, material side is dominant, and in the West (Abendlande), thought, on the contrary prevails.”13 _{Moreover, even} within the Greece of the pre-Socratics this geographical distinction occurs: the Italian Greeks were supposedly more idealistic (as Pythagoras is supposed to be), while the Ionian Greeks were more naturalistic (as Thales is supposed to be).

The problem is that, in acknowledging the geographical and political ground of philosophical reflection, Hegel makes it appear that philosophical insight depends on contingent externalities, as if Thales’s search for truth were somehow “caused” by geographical and political life. As an antidote to this, Hegel claims that “actual freedom develops political freedom, and this only begins where the individual knows himself as an independent individual to be universal and real, where his significance is infinite, or where the subject has attained the consciousness of personality and thus desires to be esteemed for himself alone.”14 _{From this perspective, philosophical insight into individuality} is a necessary precondition for political freedom and thus for the creation of those free institutions under which philosophy appears: the Ionians’ troubles with Persia would thus be the result of Greek individualism.

We thus fall back on the chicken-or-egg dilemma. To solve this prob- lem, it is important to recognize that our historical account of the origin of philosophy depends on our current conception of philosophy: it is a story we tell ourselves about the origin of our own way of thinking. The philosophical and political transformations that occur in ancient Greece possess temporal and causal significance because we, historians reflecting upon ourselves, trace our origin back to this moment. Since we recognize the necessary connec- tion between political freedom and philosophical thought, we look for a social and political origin of Thales’s thought. Likewise, we discount the developments of Eastern thought, where “the idea has not become objective” because it does not find its basis in “the real freedom of the subject” that we view as fundamental.15 _{The chicken-or-egg dilemma is a problem for us, i.e.,} for historians of philosophy who want to comprehend the relation between philosophy and history.

This interpretation can rapidly devolve into cultural relativism unless we can answer the following questions. Why do we demand this self- consciousness of our own history? Why do we feel that philosophy must take account of its own history? Is there anything necessary about the objective unfolding of events and our historical self-consciousness?

Hegel wants to maintain that there is necessity in this development. He claims, for example, that the Greek trajectory is inaugurated with the Greeks’ sense of history—that this is somehow necessary to the origin of philosophy. The Greeks, he claims, self-consciously denied their “foreign,” i.e., Oriental, origins in order to make themselves at home in the world. This inaugural historical rupture allows us, Hegel claims, speaking to his fellow historians of philosophy, to ignore any further “retrogression” beyond the Greeks, because the Greeks began the process of taking history seriously.16 Moreover, this historical inauguration in which the Greeks were “making what they are to be also a sort of Mnemosyne” is, Hegel claims, what makes it “requisite that philosophy should arise amongst them.”17 _{In other words,} philosophy begins when the Greeks denied their foreign inheritance and asserted the origin of their own historical progress. Hegel is fully aware that the Greeks were causally and temporally related to previous cultures such as Persia and Egypt. However, what is significant for Hegel is that the Greeks self-consciously asserted the origin of a new tradition of freedom and think- ing. It is this self-conscious self-assertion that identifies them as the founders of the Western philosophical and political tradition

This returns us to our problem, however: why did this self-conscious self-assertion in political institutions and in philosophical thought occur? Hegel attempts to resolve this problem by looking at it from both sides. Each side represents a different notion of “priority” or “origin.” On the one hand, political life is temporally prior. Political transformations thus form the historical origin

of Thales’s philosophical activity. Hegel tells us that first Thales was a politi- cal advisor before he became a philosopher.18 _{On the other hand, spirit is} logically prior in the sense that the meaning of history is implicit in its historical origin. Thales’s philosophical reflection is thus required for politi- cal development to come to fruition: he must have had an implicit idea of freedom when he attempted to defend the freedom of the Greek cities in his efforts as a political agent. This is, as we’ve seen, ambiguous. While Hegel argues that the end of history (its philosophical development) is present in history as its implicit idea, he also argues that philosophical activity tempo- rally depends on previous political development. While philosophy depends on temporal developments in political life, this dependence does not make philosophy contingent on the seemingly arbitrary occurrences of political history. Rather, development that runs through political actuality up to philosophical comprehension is necessary, i.e., it is the necessary unfolding of the implicit idea that grounds the totality (even, we might add, somehow organizing the geographical distribution of Greek philosophical thought and distinguishing it in this way from Oriental “substantiality”). Thus the originary act of memory that occurs in Greece is not an arbitrary occurrence; rather it is part of the necessary development of spirit. Spirit develops toward the West, as it were. We see this necessity in retrospect as we attempt to memorialize the origin of the spirit of Western philosophy. We see ourselves as descendents of the Greeks because we understand ourselves in terms of the political, philosophical, and historical activities of spirit that we see in the Greeks.

Metaphors and Limits

Hegel’s account clearly contains a recipe for Eurocentrism, although we must be careful because such a charge is itself anachronistic. Hegel is Eurocentric; however, we cannot expect a philosopher of the early nineteenth century not to be. What is interesting about this problem is that, in Hegel, we see Eurocentrism stretched to the point of breaking. Hegel’s talk of the geo- graphical distribution of self-consciousness, for example, is silly. Moreover, we see him constrained by a metaphorical system that hinders his thinking: the language of East (Morgenland), West (Abendland), dawning, and the owl of Minerva metaphor form a Procrustean metaphorical structure into which Hegel forces the history of philosophy. As we shall see, Hegel’s metaphorics indicate the limits of his account. Although it is too much to suggest that Hegel was aware of these limits, it is clear that these limits were broached. One of these limits can be seen in Hegel’s discussion of the mechanism of the logic of development: an urge or desire impels history to unfold. In speaking of organic development, Hegel indicates that the movement from

implicit to explicit is an impulse or desire (Trieb). He says of the seed, for example, that “the germ cannot remain merely implicit, but is impelled towards development, since it presents the contradiction of being only im- plicit and yet not desiring to be so” (Er hat den Trieb, sich zu entwickeln; er

kann es nicht aushalten, nur an sich zu sein. Der Trieb ist der Widerspruch, daß er nur an sich ist und es doch nicht sein soll. Der Trieb setzt in die Existenz heraus.)19 _{Development is understood in terms of a force that impels it for-} ward by the mechanism of desire. We see this trope recur in Hegel’s discus- sion of the development of spirit. “This being-at-home-with-self, or coming- to-self of spirit may be described as its complete and highest end: it is this alone that it desires (Nur dies will er) and nothing else.”20 _{Desire and impul-} sion constitute the life of spirit. Hegel uses this language in other places in his work. In the Logic, Hegel states, for example, that if the concept of the state did not correspond with its actuality, the implicit concept would exist in individuals as “an urge (Trieb) so powerful that they are impelled to translate it into reality. . . .”21 _{In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel explains this} further by telling us that “The absolute determination or, if one prefers, the absolute drive (absolute Trieb) of the free spirit is to make its freedom into its object.”22 _{For Hegel, the development of self-conscious freedom in both the} creation of free political institutions and in the philosophical comprehension of these is the drive, instinct, desire, and life of spirit.

It is crucial to remember that the implicit drive that begets the move- ment of events in history is the same as the drive of spirit that returns to recollect this history in self-consciousness. In other words, the language of drive serves to mediate the two meanings of the term ‘history’: history as the unfolding of natural events and history as the recollection and internaliza- tion (Erinnerung) of this process.23 _{We identify with the Greeks because in} them we see the same drive toward self-consciousness that leads us to history in the first place. History, in the objective sense of events unfolding in time, is not completed until there is history in the subjective sense of a narration which gives meaning to these events. In the history of philosophy we see a diversity of “philosophies” arrayed through time. When we construct a his-