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Hegel’s Internal Critique of Naïve Realism Kenneth R. WESTPHAL University of East Anglia, Norwich Journal of Philosophical Research 25 (2000):173–229. ABSTRACT. This article reconstructs Hegel’s chapter, “Sense Certainty” (Phenomenology of Spirit, ch. 1), in detail in its historical and philosophica...

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Hegel’s Internal Critique of Naïve Realism Kenneth R. WESTPHAL University of East Anglia, Norwich Journal of Philosophical Research 25 (2000):173–229.

ABSTRACT. This article reconstructs Hegel’s chapter, “Sense Certainty” (Phenomenology of Spirit, ch. 1), in detail in its historical and philosophical context. Hegel’s chapter develops a sound internal critique of naïve realism that shows that sensation is necessary but not sufficient for knowledge of sensed particulars. Cognitive reference to particulars also requires using a priori conceptions of space, spaces, time, times, self, and individuation. Several standard objections to and misinterpretations of Hegel’s chapter are rebutted. Hegel’s proto-semantics is shown to accord in important regards with Gareth Evans’ view in “Identity and Predication.”

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INTRODUCTION

The first chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), “Sense Certainty, or the This and the Meaning,” has probably received more comment than any other section of Hegel’s book, even more than his notorious discussion of Master and Bondsman. However, there has been substantial disagreement about and misunderstanding of the aim and character of Hegel’s discussion and argument in this chapter. Only two prior studies have examined and reconstructed Hegel’s text in detail. Those studies, by Kettner and by Harris, have considerable merits, but I don’t believe that they have fully or properly identified the subject of Hegel’s critique, nor have they quite properly characterized or assessed the merits of Hegel’s argument.1 This essay reconsiders afresh the aim and structure of Hegel’s critique of “Sense Certainty.” I begin with a brief summary of Hegel’s argument (§2). This provides a basis for identifying the philosophical views Hegel criticizes (§3). I then reconstruct Hegel’s analysis in detail (§4) and assess its philosophical implications (§5).

{The pagination of this text matches that of the published article; apologies for the odd page breaks.} WESTPHAL, Kenneth R. 2000. ‘Hegel’s Internal Critique of Naïve Realism’. Journal of Philosophical Research 25: 173–229.

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An adequate interpretation of Hegel’s Phenomenology, as with any great philosophical text, requires jointly fulfilling two requirements: systematically reconstructing Hegel’s theme in view of its central issues and arguments within their philosophical and historical context, and reconstructing Hegel’s text in detail to provide a maximally complete and accurate reconstruction, down to individual sentences, phrases, even terms.2 These two aspects of an interpretation must match. I have reconstructed the systematic role of “Sense Certainty” within Hegel’s epistemological argument in the Phenomenology elsewhere.3 Harris has reconstructed its role within Hegel’s philosophical Kulturkritik.4 (Hegel’s Phenomenology combines these two prongs, and my account of Hegel’s epistemology complements Harris’ account of Hegel’s Kulturkritik.) Here I present a complete reconstruction of Hegel’s chapter in its historical and philosophical context. Thus I return once again to “Sense Certainty” in order to provide a complete reading of Hegel’s chapter that (1) sets it in its proper historical and philosophical context, (2) reconstructs the complete text of Hegel’s chapter, and (3) examines and assesses its philosophical significance.5 Hegel’s phenomenological dialectic has been likened to Platonic dialogue.6 More illuminating, I think, is its relation to Platonic dialectic as “exercises” designed to improve not just our wits but also our understanding of the concepts, examples, and issues involved in some particular topic of philosophical inquiry.7 There is no question that Hegel greatly overestimated his readers’ preparedness for, indeed often their patience with, his exercises. However, Hegel’s expositors have worsened the situation by disregarding epistemology, and so failing to recognize Hegel’s clear references (in his Introduction) to Sextus Empiricus’s dilemma of the criterion. Consequently, Hegel’s expositors have assumed that the Phenomenology begins directly with metaphysics. They have thus overlooked the absolutely central and basic epistemological issues Hegel addresses in the Phenomenology. In particular, they have failed to interpret “Sense Certainty” in the epistemological context Hegel provides for it. Thus it is well worth our while to return to Hegel’s text with epistemic issues clearly in mind.8 2

PRELIMINARY SUMMARY OF “SENSE CERTAINTY”

Hegel’s chapter on “sense-certainty” argues for one of Kant’s dicta, that intuitions without conceptions are blind, and against the possibility of aconceptual cognition of objects.9 “Sense-Certainty” presents a naïve realism, according to which there is a world that is what it is independently of our thought, and that can be known intuitively or “immediately,” that is, without applying conceptions to it (G63.4-8). This view is close to Russell’s “knowledge by acquaintance,” though its prime examples of objects of knowledge are spatio-temporal particulars, not the sense-data, universals, or complexes

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favored by Russell. By beginning with a form of consciousness that holds this realism, Hegel discharges his own realist contentions in the Introduction to the Phenomenology.10 Hegel aims to retain the realist tenet of this ontology while rejecting aconceptual empirical knowledge and, with that, rejecting correspondence as a criterion of truth. Hegel argues on internal, phenomenological grounds rather than following Kant by arguing against aconceptual empirical knowledge on the basis of a very controversial philosophy of mind. He focuses on the use of singular demonstrative pronouns (tokens of indexical terms like “this,” “that,” “here,” and “now”11) in putative knowledge claims, because the use of descriptive terms would either cede or beg the question of the necessity of universal conceptions for knowledge. Hegel argues that even the use of tokens of indexical terms requires understanding indexical type terms and the implicit spatio-temporal coördinate framework they presuppose. Understanding indexical terms as tokens of types that have sense only within an implicit coördinate framework is far too much mediation to count as “immediate knowledge,” for it presupposes conceptions of space, time, self, and individuation. Conceptions of identity and individuation are necessary for knowledge, insofar as they are necessary for identifying and individuating objects of knowledge and for identifying and individuating cognitive episodes and subjects of cognitive episodes. These conceptions thus involve or entail a conception of number, or at least of plurality. Hegel’s argument shows the necessity of these elementary logical, spatial, and temporal conceptions for empirical knowledge. His argument also shows that these conceptions are a priori, insofar as having and using them is presupposed by any experience that could serve for learning or defining any a posteriori conception. Furthermore, successful use of indexical terms or ostensive gestures indicates that we have the ability to determine the scope or range of space or time designated as relevantly “here” or “now,”12 but this obvious ability cannot be accounted for without recognizing our use of universal conceptions to designate or circumscribe the particulars we designate. Sense certainty is an inadequate form of consciousness on all of these counts. In refuting this view of knowledge, Hegel refutes strong forms of epistemological foundationalism. The important point Hegel sees, unlike many recent critics of foundationalism, is that rejecting foundationalism need not rescind realism.13 Realism survives the loss of the myth of the given and the loss of the myth of confronting theories with the brute facts or other unconceptualized reality. How realism survives this is, of course, a complicated story.14 3

THE (MAIN) TARGETS OF HEGEL’S CRITIQUE

Who or what views does Hegel criticize in “Sense Certainty”? Henry Harris is certainly correct that one important target of Hegel’s critique of “Sense Certainty” is the prephilosophical naïve realism of common sense, which

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Hegel calls “natural consciousness.” Common sense generally is confident in its ability to know whatever particular facts or information about the world it desires. Consequently, it disregards issues in epistemology and any controversies about the “possibility” of knowledge, whether commonsense or “absolute.” One aim of Hegel’s analysis is to show that the naïve confidence in our ordinary cognitive abilities and claims stems from how well our cognitive abilities are suited to their aims, not from how simple—unstructured and so failsafe—they are. Philosophy begins in perplexity, and the first epistemic perplexity involves recognizing that our cognitive abilities and achievements, which we take for granted, are far more complex and sophisticated than we ordinarily recognize.15 Certainly commonsense naïve realism is part of the story, but as Harris notes, Hegel’s methodological reflections in the Introduction to the Phenomenology follow an important point of Aristotle’s dialectical method, namely, critically reflecting on the opinions of the many and the wise.16 Who among the philosophically “wise” would or could Hegel have been considering? The strategic role for aconceptual knowledge of particulars, as a standpoint outside our propositions or conceptual schemes from which to assess their adequacy, justifies a primarily epistemological interpretation of “Sense Certainty” for both systematic and historical reasons. In his Introduction to the Phenomenology Hegel rehearses the “dilemma of the criterion” propounded by Sextus Empiricus, the problem, roughly, of establishing criteria for judging disputed claims without dogmatism, circularity, or question-begging.17 Aconceptual knowledge of particulars, or “sense certainty,” supposedly offers a direct escape from this dilemma by entitling us simply to look and see what the facts are. Aconceptual knowledge of particulars was espoused, both in Hegel’s day and in this century, just for this purpose. Among Hegel’s German contemporaries it was espoused by G. J. Hamann, F. H. Jacobi, G. E. Schulze, and W. T. Krug.18 These Germans were influenced by the Scottish Common Sense philosophy, though they simplified the Scottish view by disregarding the role of conceptions in forming beliefs about (and hence knowledge of) commonsense objects or events. Reid rejected intermediating perceptual representations (“ideas”), but held that beliefs with propositional, conceptual content were required for knowledge of spatio-temporal particulars.19 In this regard, the Germans just mentioned held a view much more akin to what Moore and Russell called “knowledge by acquaintance.” However, Moore and Russell thought that the objects of such knowledge were not spatio-temporal particulars (physical objects and events), but rather sense data (and, in Russell’s case, universals and complexes). They took recourse to sense data in order to uphold the prospect of indubitability, infallibility, or incorrigibility.20 Moore avowed a representationalist account of perception of the kind those Germans rejected.21 In this regard, these German philosophers espoused a radically naïve direct realism with regard to spatiotemporal particulars. In the

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twentieth century, this kind of radical, direct, naïve realism was espoused by Schlick and Ayer, precisely in order to check our propositions from without, directly against reality.22 This purportedly simple, direct, immediate, aconceptual knowledge of particulars raises enormously complex questions in each of the many versions in which it has been developed. It is not germane to enter into most of these questions here because only one specific issue about this kind of knowledge is raised by Hegel in “Sense Certainty.” In particular, Hegel does not raise issues about the infallibility, incorrigibility, or indubitability (epistemic certainty) involved in such knowledge, nor does he raise issues about whether the objects of such knowledge must be mind-dependent, nor does he raise issues about whether such knowledge (if there is any) suffices to justify even commonsense beliefs about ordinary objects and events in our immediate surroundings. The sole issue Hegel investigates is whether basic knowledge of particular objects or events in our environs is aconceptual. The “certainty” of sense certainty is the ‘certainty’—the conviction, the position—that sensation alone suffices for knowledge of particulars. This is Hegel’s typical usage of the term “certainty” in describing a form of consciousness; a form of consciousness’s “certainty” indicates what that form of consciousness is sure its knowledge and objects of knowledge are like, what their basic characteristics are.23 Hegel contends that sensation is insufficient for knowledge because simply picking out any alleged object of sensory knowledge requires conceptually mediated use of indexical terms or ostensive gesture. (Epistemic certainty is quite beside this point.) It is significant that Hegel focuses on demonstrative reference, for this involves non-logical yet non-empirical conceptions. This suffices as a preliminary indication of the target of Hegel’s critique.24 Three facts may appear to make reconstructing Hegel’s critique of “sense certainty” a merely historical exercise: the views he criticizes are generally very strong and hence inherently contentious; most of these views are no longer widely espoused; and Hegel’s contemporaneous German exponents of “sense certainty” were not models of philosophical rigor. There are at least two reasons why Hegel’s critique of sense certainty retains philosophical interest. First, the vagueness of the views of his contemporaries, combined with Hegel’s requirement of strictly internal critique, entails that Hegel bears the burden of analysis and proof by beginning with an utterly simple-minded view of “immediate” knowledge and distinguishing on grounds internal to that view various relevant kinds of “mediation” within our knowledge of commonsense particulars. The very terms of this debate—“immediacy” and “mediation”—are almost hopelessly vague and equivocal. As I shall show, Hegel executes their difficult analysis and disambiguation brilliantly.25 Second, taking recourse to aconceptual knowledge of particulars in order to avoid historicism or relativism (to which Hegel’s views have been wrongly assimilated) exhibits a very common pattern of argument that has been highly

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influential in epistemology from Descartes to the present. It has been widely supposed that the only way to maintain realism is to identify a certain privileged set of cognitions that individuals can have without relying on any social (and hence also linguistic) resources, and that allow individuals to check their conceptually formulated beliefs (propositions, judgments, theories) directly against the facts or reality. Realism thus is thought to require rejecting a fundamentally social or historical account of human knowledge. Conversely, those persuaded that human knowledge is fundamentally social and historical have generally held that this entails the rejection of realism. This alternative to realism may be called historicist relativism. In Hegel’s day it was espoused by Herder; in ours by Richard Rorty.26 Generally Hegel has been grouped with these historicist relativists simply because he holds that human knowledge is social and historical and he rejects the alleged asocial, aconceptual basic cognitions often thought to be required for realism. This dichotomy involves both a serious philosophical confusion and a serious misunderstanding of Hegel’s epistemology.27 In responding to Herder’s historicist relativism, Hegel was the first philosopher to recognize that realism is consistent with an astute social and historical account of human knowledge. Thus he shows that one of the most basic and pervasive (and often only implicit) debates in epistemology rests on a false dichotomy.28 For this reason, Hegel’s views are of great contemporary importance.29 Although most of Hegel’s positive views cannot be addressed here because they are not developed in “Sense Certainty,”30 it is very important to have this context of Hegel’s critique clearly in mind and to recognize in advance that Hegel’s critique of sense certainty is only a critique of epistemically naïve realism, not of realism per se. 4

RECONSTRUCTION OF HEGEL’S ANALYSIS OF SENSE CERTAINTY

Hegel’s discussion divides into five sections; an introduction (¶¶1–5), three sections of analysis (¶¶6–19), and a conclusion (¶¶20–21). In the first analytical section the object of knowledge is primary (¶¶6–11), in the second the subject of knowledge is primary (¶¶12–14), in the third the subject and object are taken together (¶¶15–19). Though it inverts the order of the first two phases, Hegel closely follows the classical skeptical modes based on the subject who judges, on the object judged, and on both taken together.31 Hegel’s arguments turn on what can be “said” using tokens of demonstrative terms (in the first two analytical sections) and on what can be ostended by gestures (in the third analytical section). (For easy reference I designate these three central analytical sections as Phases I–III.) The transition from “Sense Certainty” to “Perception” appears to be made only on the basis of a pun, but in fact is based on combining utterances with ostensive gestures. This suggests that central to Hegel’s arguments are the nature of and relation between what are

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known since Frege as “sense” and “reference,” or in earlier terminology, connotation and denotation or intension and extension. Now it is not to Hegel’s point to develop a semantic theory in the first chapter of the Phenomenology; the cognitive competence of philosophy must first be demonstrated (in the Phenomenology) before promulgating positive philosophical theories (in the Logic and Encyclopedia). However, it is very much to Hegel’s point to develop some basic parameters for, inter alia, a semantic account of singular demonstrative reference so far as this pertains to knowledge of particulars.32 In this regard, Hegel aims to explicate some basic conceptual presuppositions of cognitive reference to particulars. Hegel’s point is to show that what one says by uttering tokens of demonstrative terms and what one points out by ostensive gesture are linked and are only successful as referential acts and as components of knowledge of particulars by what one means, where definite meaning and determinate reference to particulars are only possible via conceptually structured determinate thoughts about the temporal and spatial scope of the object, event, or spatiotemporal region one intends to designate. One can well argue that it belongs to the meaning of a token-usage of a demonstrative term that some particular speaker picks out and refers to some particular spatio-temporal region.33 The problem Hegel urges is that determining the original point of reference (the speaker) and the scope of reference (the designated region) requires conceptions of space and time and specific determinations of spatio-temporal determinables, where these determinations involve determinate use of conceptions. Hegel’s point is that demonstrative meaning or demonstrative thought are unintelligible, indeed impossible, on the basis of alleg...