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Criticism of Hegel’s philosophy of science

Criticism of the philosophy of science does not entail criticism of Hegel’s philosophy of reason. However, Hegel really defies empirical views — just because it defines science as subjective forms of knowledge.

Modern empirical science is empiricism: knowledge of empirical phenomena is described in terms of relationships. Hegel calls this a deterministic episteme (negation) and rejects it as a rationalistic practice of abstract concepts. Criticism of Hegel is critical of those who accept this episteme, and considers its rationality inferior in comparison with the experience of the subject. Hegel’s concept of the rational is a concept of empirical determinism and, in turn, is subjected to critical analysis. This critical research is conducted empirically and by establishing an understanding of the subject.

This description of the critical practice of empirical science is known as the dialectical method. He tries to arrange the understanding of the subject in terms of his empirical experience, or his rational thinking. Hegel’s criticism is based on an empirical deterministic episteme, and that the rational itself is only an aspect of the subject. Consequently, Hegel’s thinking is fundamentally conditioned by his understanding of the empirical sciences.

However, there is a difference between epistemological criticism and the critical practice of empirical science. According to Hegel, in the critical practice of empirical science, a person looks at random aspects of nature, the world, and also at the empirical knowledge of the subject. Critical practice differs from its epistemological criticism in that in epistemological criticism it looks at the subject as if it were a certain knowledge. The subject has a certain knowledge, but at the same time there is no critical question about the nature of this knowledge and, therefore, there is no critical study of the subject.

Since the conscious subject represents himself only in the mental existence of his dependent objects, he is not aware of his subjectivity as an episteme. As Hegel says, «the essence of the philosophical consciousness or mental existence of the subject is self-reproduction.» Criticism of the subject’s dependence on his subjectivity is not a criticism of his reality as an empirical deterministic episteme.

Hegel would characterize this thinking as dialectical, because it is the formation of an understanding of an object in terms of a non-analytical way of thinking, which is a way of seeing. In this mode, subjectivity is incomprehensible from the point of view of its certain rationality, because this rationality is determined by the nature and external action of subjectivity. In the same way, it is incomprehensible from the point of view of its rational deterministic nature. This thinking is not thinking at all, because logic is inseparable from subjectivity in it, and subjectivity is not independent of objectivity.

Thus, the understanding of the non-analytical nature of the world and the critical practice of empirical science exists in a dialectical perspective. Since knowledge of nature itself is uncertain, we place our understanding of nature in terms of subjective certainty. We place our understanding of nature in the context of our subjective knowledge of our rational consciousness and its dependence. Since objective knowledge of nature is determined by its objectivity, we look at objectivity from the point of view of its subjectivity.

As for the method, we have to place it in a dialectical perspective, since it is not an external method. The method does not fit into the attitude of objectivity, since the method is not an external system that takes an external form. This is what arises from the movement and interaction of the subject with the object. The method of scientific research becomes the object of criticism not because it is within the assumptions of external objectivity; rather, it is because it itself has become a product of objectivity, namely objectivity as the one-sided and deterministic nature of subjectivity. Thus, the method becomes a non-analytical form of thinking in the context of non-analytical, independent subjectivity, because it depends on the subject, and not independently of him. This dependence on the object makes it possible for the method to think of the object as something in its own right.

Just as the problem of pure rationality does not exist outside nature, so does the problem of solving the problem of pure rationality. This problem exists in the context of a system of pure rationality, in which the decision is identified with the overcoming of subjectivity. However, the problem does not exist outside the solution, because the solution is always the product of the system that creates it. This system is subjectivity and, in a broader sense, knowledge of nature, which defines the rational nature of subjectivity, thereby defining subjectivity as dependent on objectivity.

Beginning in the 1960s, Hegel’s Anglo-American studies challenged the traditional interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy as a revolution in ethical thinking. One of the components of this problem, starting with the work of David Bell, was the theoretical substantiation of the contradiction between the literal, even Marxist, ways of understanding Hegel’s ideas and their philosophical validity as experiences. Even if Enlightenment thinkers understood the philosophical tradition as the ethical tradition of rational thought, as some understand in modern science, it was not the naturalistic methodology of modern philosophers.

Neo-Hegelians are interested in understanding the difference between the interpretation of philosophy in its traditional, metaphysical and metaphysical ways and its philosophical usefulness as an ethical discourse. For example, some authors believe that Hegel’s writings must be understood strictly in the traditional religious and philosophical terms revelation, revolution, rational mind, and so on. Although Hegel understands how the ancient Christians interpreted the Bible in terms of rational thought, there is something inherently irrational in the concept of religion and the accompanying theological rationalism that lends itself to the paradigm of ethical discourse. More precisely, Hegel’s ethical-philosophical method includes the concepts and practices of democratic egalitarianism, the democracy of rational thinking.

However, these conceptual values are not naturalistic values of rational thinking, democracy, egalitarianism. These values are not ideals of democratic (i.e. rational) equality of people. Rather, it is a kind of logical justice that accompanies the philosophical study of human nature. While these values of rational thought are ideals of democratic equality, the practice of democracy is not tied to the legitimacy of democratic practices and values. They are not an act of humanity’s ethical justice and rationality. It is a philosophizing method for creating practices of democratic thinking and equality.

For this reason, Hegel is often viewed in an extremely ethical-political context as the creator of a different ethics. Undoubtedly, the ethical-philosophical method of Hegel is a philosophically useful method of philosophical research. In the introduction to the English translation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Robert M. Young describes how Hegel’s ethical philosophy engenders rational ethics and democratic ideals of equality. Young, using a complex philosophical argument, argues that the texts of Hegel’s philosophy contain ethical concepts and values specific to democratic politics. These values are relevant to the study of political philosophy, even if there is no obligation to translate these values into terms of democratic practice and democracy itself. For example, the word «equality» is often found in an extremely ethical-political context in texts such as The Phenomenology of Spirit. However, this understanding of equality does not make it a democratic ideal in its naturalistic philosophical sense. Indeed, this understanding of equality is difficult to justify as an ideal for political discourse, since it presupposes that democratic processes can involve inequalities of power. Much more useful to interpret the ethical philosophy in its traditional metaphysical m method e.

Young insists that the relevant ethical concepts and values are those that characterize the ethos, ethical values and democratic ideals of the philosophy of rationality of ancient democracies. Such ethics and values are a form of philosophy and rational thought, but they are not democratic ideals and political practices in their naturalistic philosophical sense. Rather, these values are the idealistic principles of modern democratic politics. Such ethics and values are part of the culture of modern democracy, not an ethical or political form of rationalism. For example, Young insists that Hegel’s ethical-philosophical method is neither a naturalistic ethics nor a naturalistic philosophical methodology of rational thought. On the contrary, it is a moral method of rational thought, not ethics. Indeed, such an interpretation of Hegel’s method as an ethical methodology of rational thinking is unconvincing, since it can only mean that ethical-political practices can only take the form of rationalism, which is not a democratic ideal. This interpretation assumes that philosophy is simply an art or a methodology of philosophizing that has no democratic values. This is also not necessarily true for Hegel, because Hegel’s method can sometimes be a method of studying ethics without caring about democratic ideals.

This need to understand the philosopher’s ethical method in terms of democratic ideals is the reason why Hegel is often considered an ethical philosopher who is not a democratic philosopher. This interpretation denies that a philosopher can be an ethical philosopher with any political commitment. This interpretation assumes that only the naturalistic and philosophical method produces political ethics or democratic political culture, and that ethics without political commitment should not have any democratic ideals. In fact, for Hegel, the goal of his philosophy is to create the ideal of rational thought, which means that the political beliefs of a philosopher and his ideas about the ways of democracy are inevitably part of a philosophical enterprise. In other words, this kind of analysis is irrelevant to the study of political philosophy. A philosopher’s ethical commitment is not a condition of how he understands his philosophical methods or whether they should apply those methods. Rather, the common goal of modern political philosophy is to explore the cultural roots of the idea of democracy, and these cultural roots were deeply rooted in the ethical views of the ancient democratic philosophers of ancient societies. Consequently, Hegel’s ethical-philosophical method has democratic values and is associated with democratic ideals.

As a result, we must understand that ethical philosophy has democratic ideals that are not naturalistic. Rather, they are democratic ideals, philosophers and rationalists who were attracted by the philosophical discourse of ancient democracies. The ethical theory and method of the philosopher must be such that there are democratic ideals that the philosopher defends. Moreover, in order to defend these ideals, a philosopher must engage in ethical and political debates, and one way to engage in such debates is by adopting democratic political practice. Such interaction is impossible without adherence to democratic ideals. We can also see this in Hegel’s case, and this is the reason why Hegel’s philosophy has democratic ideals and politics.

In conclusion, Young suggests understanding the philosopher’s ethical theory and method in terms of democratic ideals and practices, and this might have been the right approach when there was a tradition of applying political ideas to ethical debate. However, Young rejects this approach now due to the relative historical lack of democracy in modern society. He writes: «As far as I know, there are no published works defending democratic ideals or democratic practices as a philosophical method. But those who believe that philosophy, especially ethical philosophy, is capable of justifying democratic ideas in the same way that political philosophies justify their ideas by being democratic, can use such philosophy to justify their political convictions. This is a mindset that could justify an abstract political ideology as the correct understanding of political issues in the democratic process». Young’s position that we must understand philosophical method and philosophy in terms of democratic ideals and practices does not seem very successful. One might be of the opinion that in the past, philosophers who led ethical and political discussions were involved in political discourse. But Young’s argument is that these discussions are no longer relevant to the study of modern society.

Because of this, his ideas and conclusions do not seem very productive to consider. Some merit can be seen in his claim that philosophy is not political philosophy, and because of the relative political absence of modern democracy, there is no need to view philosophers involved in ethical debates or their rationalistic theories in the political realm. But this seems to imply that philosophical methodologies containing ethical ideas and practices are not political methods. For example, thinking is a method that is used to solve ethical problems, while thinking in