The dialectic of articulation: a Hegelian response to Adams

ABSTRACT

This article responds to Nicholas Adams by exploring the affinities between his account and Hegel, with a particular focus on the dialectic of articulation. They seem to agree on the undermining effect of articulation and reflection on implicit commitments. However, Adams diverges from Hegel by questioning the consequence and supposed inevitability of this dialectical process. Whereas Hegel argues for the desirability of conscious articulation in the progress towards modernity, Adams contends that it is actually a destructive and oppressive process, challenging Hegel’s Enlightenment optimism and Eurocentrism. Still, I suggest that Hegel’s concern for rational dialogue as an indispensable condition for modern life and community should be taken seriously. Scriptural reasoning, as discussed by Adams, provides a model how we can have a form of rational dialogue that escapes from the dilemma posed by the Hegelian dialectic, and that it may be possible to combine strong ethical commitments with an openness to pluralistic dialogue.

KEYWORDS:

• Hegel
• dialectic of articulation
• moral reflection
• modernity
• scriptural reasoning
• sittlichkeit

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 10.

2. Hegel, Logic, 74. For a more detailed analysis of Hegel’s view of ineffability, see Voogt, “Hegel on What Cannot Be Said.”

3. Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, 280.

4. Hegel, Phenomenology, 47.

5. Hegel, Phenomenology, 266, emphasis altered.

6. Ritter, “Hegel und die französische Revolution.”

7. The anti-Jewish supersessionism is particularly manifest in Hegel’s early religious writings, for instance in The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate (1797). See also Brumlik, Deutscher Geist und Judenhass; and Svenungsson, Divining History, 96ff.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ariën Voogt

Ariën Voogt is PhD student in philosophical theology at the Protestant Theological University in Amsterdam and is part of the Moral Compass Project. He writes his dissertation on the tension between pantheism and personhood in Classical German Philosophy. His broader research interests lie in philosophy of religion and philosophy of secularization, specifically regarding the relation between religion or theology and modern (secular) thought, and also philosophy of the person and philosophy of (digital) technology. He is co-founder of non-profit Algorithm Audit, working on the responsible use of AI. His recent publications include Agamben on Secularization as a Signature (in this journal) and Hegel on What Cannot Be Said: an Interpretation of the Ineffable in the Phenomenology’s ‘Sense-Certainty’ (Hegel Bulletin).