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Aug 25, 2022

Claudia Melica (Sapienza Università di Roma

The Owl's flight: Hegel's legacy to contemporary philosophy

co-editors: Stefania Achella (Chieti-Pescara), Francesca Iannelli (Roma Tre), Gabriella Baptist (Cagliari), Serena Feloj (Pavia), and Fiorinda Li Vigni (Italian Institute for Philosophic Studies) 

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110709278

This book presents a unique rethinking of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy from unusual and controversial perspectives in order to liberate new energies from his philosophy. The role Hegel ascribes to women in the shaping of society and family, the reconstruction of his anthropological and psychological perspective, his approach to human nature, the relationship between mental illness and social disease, the role of the unconscious, and the relevance of intercultural and interreligious pathways: All these themes reveal new and inspiring aspects of Hegel’s thought for our time.

Contents

OVERVIEW
Editors’ Introduction. The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy in a Different Voice
Stefania Achella, Francesca Iannelli, Gabriella Baptist, Serena Feloj, Fiorinda Li Vigni and Claudia Melica

INTRODUCTION
Hegel’s Theory of Absolute Spirit as Aesthetic Theory
Birgit Sandkaulen

SECTION 1 THE NIGHT OF REASON
The Dark Side of Thought. The Body, the Unconscious and Madness in Hegel’s Philosophy
Stefania Achella

The Feminine in Hegel. Between Tragedy and Magic
Rossella Bonito Oliva

A Plastic Anthropology? Dialectics and Neuroscience in Catherine Malabou’s Thought
Federica Pitillo

Maternal Consciousness and Recognition in the Anthropology of Hegel
Laura Paulizzi

The Rise of Human Freedom in Hegel’s Anthropology
Carmen Belmonte

Seele, Verrücktheit, Intersubjektivität. Einige Überlegungen zu Hegels Anthropologie
Giovanni Andreozzi

Die Behandlung der psychischen Störung. Hegel und Pinel gegen die De-Humanisierung der Geisteskranken
Giulia Battistoni

Verrücktheit und Idealisierung. Wachen, Schlaf, Traum in Hegels Philosophie des Geistes
Mariannina Failla

Im wachen Zustand träumen. Der Einfluss der Gefühle auf die Entstehung psychischer Krankheiten
Caterina Maurer

Dialectics of Madness: Foucault, Hegel, and the Opening of the Speculative
Alice Giuliani

SECTION 2 WOMEN FOR AND AGAINST HEGEL
Hegel’s Master and Servant Dialectics in the Feminist Debate
Serena Feloj

Giving an Account of Precarious Life and Vulnerability. Antigone’s Wisdom after Hegel. Nuria Sánchez Madrid

“Men and women are wonderfully alike after all”. The Practical Adaption of Hegel by Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911). Andreas Giesbert

Simone de Beauvoir Reading Hegel. The Master-Slave Dialectic. Mara Montanaro and Matthieu Renault

Irigaray as a Reader of Hegel. The Feminine as a Marginal Presence. Viola Carofalo

Domination and Exploitation. Feminist Views on the Relational Subject. Federica Giardini

Subversion without Subject? Criticism of the Dissolution of Nature and I-Identity in Performativity. Carolyn Iselt

Considerations on the Female Body between Political Theory and Feminism. The Rehabilitation of Hegel? Nunzia Cosmo

Reading Hegel on Women and Laughing. Hegel against or with Women/Other? Sevgi Doğan

SECTION 3 FEMALE CHARACTERS IN HEGEL’S PHILOSOPHY

Hegel’s Constellation of the Feminine between Philosophy and Life. A Tribute to Dieter Henrich’s Konstellationsforschung. Francesca Iannelli

Von Antigone zur anständigen Frau. Hegels Frauenbild im Spannungsfeld zwischen der Phänomenologie des Geistes und der Rechtsphilosophie von 1820. Erzsébet Rózsa

„Der Stand der Frau − Hausfrau“. Hegels Affirmation der bürgerlichen Geschlechterverhältnisse. Dieter Hüning

Antigone and the Phenomenology of Spirit. Between Literary Source (vv. 925–928) and Philosophical Reading. Eleonora Caramelli

The Feminist Potential of Hegel’s Tragic Heroines. Rachel Falkenstern

Welches Recht ist gerecht? ‚Sittlichkeit‘ und ‚Gerechtigkeit‘ in Hegels Deutung der Antigone. Wenjun Niu

Antigone’s Guilt. Reading Antigone with Hegel and Butler. Yuka Okazaki

Die Tochter der Nacht: „Nemesis“ im Maß. Das Maßlose und die absolute Indifferenz in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Misa Sanada

Die mütterliche Seite der Dreieinigkeit an einer Stelle der Phänomenologie des Geistes. Pierluigi Valenza

The Sphinx and Hegel’s Philosophy of History. On the Philosophical Riddle. Luis Antonio Velasco Guzmán

SECTION 4 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND HEGEL: SUBVERSION OR CONCILIATION?

Subversion or Conciliation? The Challenges of Hegel’s Legacy. Gabriella Baptist

Hegels Relevanz für den heutigen Diskurs zu „Gemeinschaft/Community“ Herta Nagl-Docekal

The Work of Man and the End-of-History. Hegel Transfigured by Kojève’s Thought. Luisa Sampugnaro

Subjects of Desire and Law Hypothesis on Kojève’s Hegel. Claudia Cimmarusti

Der Andere in der Begierde. Kojèves Hegelianismus und dessen Einfluss auf die französische Philosophie. Yufang Yang

Kreis und Ellipse Adornos Kritik an Hegel. Mauro Bozzetti

The Hegelian Influence in Adorno’s Construction of the Idea of Nature. Miriam Rodríguez Moran

Difference and Affirmation. Deleuze against Hegel. Daniela Angelucci

WO-MAN DIFFÉRANCE (I): Figuras indecidibles. Sexual Difference and Gender (Hegel read by Heidegger, read by Derrida, read by Cixous, read by Butler … et ainsi de suite) Francisco José López Serrano

The Logic of Remains in Derrida. Pablo B. Sánchez Gómez

With Portia in the Passage towards Philosophy. The Place of Translation in Hegel’s System. Elena Nardelli

Reading Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. A Feminist Issue. Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod

SECTION 5 RE-THINKING THE ABSOLUTE SPIRIT

Suggestions on a Re-interpretation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Absolute Spirit. Stefania Achella, Francesca Iannelli, Gabriella Baptist and Claudia Melica

Friendship and Religion. Some Missing Elements in Hegel’s Conception of “Lordship and Bondage” Myriam Bienenstock

„Das Lob der Frauen“. Hegel und das ästhetische Ideal Schillers Mariafilomena Anzalone

The Reins of the Inconceivable. Contemporary Echoes of Hegel’s Theory on Symbolic Art: Interpreting Kapoor’s Art between Danto, Mitchell and Gadamer. Riccardo Malaspina

Philosophy and the End of Art. Hegel in Danto’s View. Francesco Lesce

Judaism as the Other of Greek-Christian Civilization. Samuel Hirsch, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Cassirer on Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie. Irene Kajon

Von Homer bis Hegel. Die Konzeption der Geschichte in Homer und der ‚Traum des Hades‘ als vorstrukturierte Lesart der Hegelschen spekulativen Philosophie. Giuseppa Bella

Hegel’s Thought in Egypt. The “East”, Islam, and the Course of History. Lorella Ventura

The “Feminine”. A Breach in the Absolute Levinasian Anti-idealism. Giorgia Vasari

CONCLUSION

Critique, Refutation, Appropriation: Strategies of Hegel’s Dialectic. Angelica Nuzzo

TRANSCRIPT: AUGUST BAKER INTERVIEW TO CLAUDIA MELICA

 

August Baker:


Welcome to Philosophy Podcasts, where we interview leading philosophers about their recent work. We're based in the US, but we're reaching across the Atlantic to get a perspective from Europe and specifically Italy. We're talking about a book with a lot of great ideas and very inspiring and productive ideas. It's called The Owl's Flight and the subtitle is: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy. It's edited by six Italian women philosophers, and I'm delighted that one of them has joined me today to talk about the volume. I'm speaking to Claudia Melica. Her blurb says she's qualified as an associate Professor in Moral Philosophy and in History of Philosophy. She was affiliated with Sapienza University of Rome, University of Trento, and I.I.S.F. (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi filosofici, Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies) in Naples. Welcome, Claudia. 

Claudia Melica:

 
Oh, thank you very much for taking me in your podcast and to take our books in your podcast. 

August Baker:


It's a great pleasure. I want to thank you for doing this interview in English, because if we tried to do it in Italian, I would not be able to do it. I know that your ideas would probably come most naturally in Italian to you and be willing to express them in English, I really appreciate that. Let's start with Hegel. I think my overview would be that on one hand, Hegel's very important in the 20th century. He was thought of as the founder or the intellectual precursor both to Marx as a man to bourgeois liberalism. On the other hand, there was a lot of criticism of Hegel in the 20th century. And my sense, please, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's more of an embrace of Hegel in the beginning of the 21st century.

 
Claudia Melica:


You are perfectly right. This is really a good point. But before speaking about Marx or Marxism, we should, perhaps, briefly mention one of the points of why Marx appreciated very much the Hegelian dialectical method. For Marx, such a method was able to show the contradiction implicit within history. And in Marx's opinion, such Hegelian dialectic gave a lot of importance to the so-called “negative” or “opposite”, which Marx later will call it “alienation”. Well, for Marx, this is a condition for the poor workers in a so-called “capitalistic society”. Therefore, for Marx, the worker identifies himself with his job and with the object that he produces, but, in a certain way, he will lose his independence, his autonomy. 


Claudia Melica:

 
This was clearly mentioned in some passages of the Phenomenology of Spirit, especially in chapter four, by Hegel. But Marx added that: because we are in a capitalistic society, there will certainly be someone who will profit economically from the job of those so-called “poor workers”. So, very shortly, certainly Marx and Marxist grounded on Hegel, but then they moved in a totally different direction, in the so-called historical “materialism”. It's certainly true, as you mentioned it, that also Hegel was the source for the so-called “bourgeois liberalism”, which is totally opposite from, in general, the Marxist view. Because of the Marxist view, it's more a collective idea. Let's call it like that in a very simple way.

 
Claudia Melica:


And when you speak about “bourgeois liberalism”, you push the concept a lot in the direction of “individualism”. Anyway, Hegel was able in his philosophy to recognize that the subject has got its autonomous value. Obviously, there is a risk for individualism, private purposes, and that's why we speak and we add the term, which is not simply an adjective “bourgeoisie”. Because, if in one way, it eliminates the action of the State, of the Government; on the other side, the risk is that the competition between different individual beings and, especially, in an organized society [will be that] only the bourgeoisie [will] profit of the work of the Other. That is why such liberalism could be dangerous. 

Claudia Melica:

 
Today, we assist at a re-thinking of such a concept, because the market and politics push over a lot [in such a direction] and there are a lot of difficulties in the so-called “social justice”.  Rawls' studies investigated very deeply such topics. Anyway, our volume has not taken into consideration such a point of view. Therefore, it's not analyzing which influence has got Hegel on Marx or which influence has got Hegel on such concepts on Marx which I'm trying to explain to you.

 
August Baker:


I'm a little embarrassed to ask this, but I think this is my real question. So, I'll ask it. You know, it's not a very interesting question, but it's one that comes to mind. And if we want to look at social problems today, why would we want to reread or reinterpret a man who lived centuries ago? I mean, I can think of several different reasons. One might think this was an extraordinary person, although you'd think, <<Well, he was just a person. He sat on the toilet like everyone else and probably was well educated and had a lot of advantages that enabled him to write what he wrote. He had a following and he's been remembered.>> 


August Baker:


So, I don't want to put too much on him being a great man or a hero. Maybe he worked at an important time. Maybe it's just that he's part of the canon. But I guess my question is, what are your thoughts in terms of it might look strange that if you want to learn about problems today, let's read and interpret and read the prior interpreters of this man?


Claudia Melica:


I understand your point and this is a point which is not easy to reply to. But, anyway, what we try to do is to demonstrate that still in our days Hegel is not obsolete. And obviously in general, when you ask why we should go back to the past, why we should still use such a philosopher of the late 18th century or early 19th century, and why he is useful [the reply is the following]. The way in which you find him useful is when you find out some theories and you discover that such theories could be used as a paradigm still in our days. That is, such theories have been so rich in certain aspects that still can be very fruitful for our investigation. Obviously, Hegel was a man of his time and, therefore, he was influenced by the historical situation of Germany of late 18th century or early 19th century.

 

Claudia Melica:


And obviously, in a certain way, he was not so open-minded to give a role to the women at the time. But he was able to demonstrate, for example, in the social context (we spoke here about “social justice”) how two different self-consciousness could gain their “recognition”. And in this case such argument was still used in our days by activists and feminists to re-think Hegelian thought.

 
Claudia Melica:


I think for example, one very well-known part is when Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit, in the beginning of chapter six, he took the tragedy philosophically of Sophocle, and he took the character of Antigone and he was able to show how Antigone, in a certain way, she was a heroine, because she was able to broken the law of the State represented by Creonte. She represents, in a certain way, the law of the family, anyway, a different kind of law. And she represents the effort of a subjective individual to get its autonomy. And such character was very largely appreciated by the gender studies. It is still deeply studied and still in our days has got a deep value in research on Hegel and not only on Hegel. 

August Baker:


As I hear you talking, it makes me think there's a sense that Hegel also was going back to the past. He was going back to read antiquity or to interpret that. There's a sense of going back to the source as a way of getting rid of things that have covered it over since then. 


Claudia Melica:


Yes, you're perfectly right. Obviously, also Hegel was going back to the past and the fact that he was going back to the past is very important because he was trying to reconstruct the origin, for example, of the “ethical life” in ancient Greece. Once ancient Greece was organized in a so-called (in Greek term) “polis”, an independent little State. It was a way of going back to Greece to show the difficulty of an individual being to face the accustomed, the abbots, the norms of an ethical life. So, this is an important point for Hegel.


Claudia Melica:


And, anyway, Hegel was a great Historian. Hegel was the one who wrote not only the Phenomenology of Spirit, but is very well known that he wrote his History of Philosophy and, therefore, he was able to reconstruct philosophically, from his point of view, the different periods of the philosophy.

 

August Baker:


Right, you were talking about the Phenomenology of Spirit and how influential it is today. Incidentally, I'm affiliated with Boston College. I'm a student there. And this term, there are two classes on the Phenomenology of Spirit, two classes devoted to it, one in the Philosophy Department and one in the Political Sciences Department. I think that one of the things you are talking about is ... I'll read this sentence from your book’s introduction.

 

August Baker:

 


<<We also believe it is necessary to ask ourselves whether the Hegelian dialectical process is apt to eliminate inequalities in the current epic, neutralizing, as a consequence, even “sexual difference” or whether it fails to free itself from such conditioning>> (S. Achella, F. Iannelli, G. Baptist, S. Feloj, F. Li Vigni & C. Melica, Editors Introduction. The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy in a Different Voice, in: The Owl’s Flight. Hegel’s Legacy in Contemporary Philosophy, ed by S. Achella, F. Iannelli, G. Baptist, S. Feloj, F. Li Vigni & C. Melica, De Gryter, Berlin/Boston 2022, pp. 4-5).

I mean, you can comment on any part of that you want, but I was thinking that we're very concerned now with “differences” and groups that are opposed to each other. I'm wondering if the dialectical process somehow naturally captures such tension.

 

 

Claudia Melica:


Oh, well, we know and we wrote it in our book, and especially in our introduction, where, as you correctly mentioned, we are six women, six editors. We know that in our day, gender studies, as you quoted, are concerned with the “differences”, not only between “gender”, but also “sexual identity”. And we know (there is huge references in the secondary literature) that such “differences” are determined socially or by the culture, what Hegel called in a German expression the “Kultur”, or biologically determined, naturally determined what in German is called the “Natur”. 

Claudia Melica:


It's very well known that feminists and activists were trying all the time to discuss and to criticize as such “differences”. But the level of complexity now and articulation have reached such positions! So, for example, the re-interpretation of the very well-known French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. She was able to re-interpretate some passage of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, and especially chapter four, where there is a lot of references to the “battle for” recognition” between “master” and “slave”. And she was able to insert such dialectical Hegelian argument within the feminist debate in France at the time. 


Claudia Melica:


She was also going to listen to the lectures of Kojève, who had a great influence on the French thinkers at the time. And nowadays, Simone de Beauvoir, as for example, was shown in many, many papers of our book. For example, in the paper of Mara Montanaro. The interpretation of Simone de Beauvoir was of early years ‘50 and ’60. It is still interpreted, still read as a very fruitful way to read and think on Hegel. But, anyway, we noticed that there are a lot of changes in sensibility and we could interpret Hegel from different points of view, which we call “voices” immersed in different cultures, in different perspectives.

 

Claudia Melica:


That's why we included it in the volume 40 different papers, but they are in a special form. Because the book has got a special form! Really, from all the world, we try to invite speakers from China, from Spain, from any part of the world to face such different cultures and problems. 

August Baker:


Right. Now, that's very helpful. Thank you. By the way, you are the one who is speaking to me today, but I wanted to mention the names of the other editors. Could you say something briefly about the other five please?

 

Claudia Melica:


Yes, I will be very pleased because I'm only here speaking with you and I’m giving my voice, but actually, we are six women and we are all academics. We struggle, all of us, to reach a position into the University. Let's mention all of them, because they are: Professor Stefania Achella from University of Chieti; Professor Francesca Iannelli from University Roma Tre; professor Gabriella Baptist from University of Cagliari; Professor Serena Feloj from University of Pavia: and Fiorinda Li Vigni. She's a professor, but she is also leading this important Institute for philosophical Studies in Naples (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici), and last, really last, me.

 

 

August Baker:


I'm sure that's not true.


Claudia Melica:


That's true.



August Baker:


It's very impressive and it is interesting to see so many different voices and helpful to see so many different voices in a volume. In your editor's introduction, you use the phrased in “a different voice”. It might have been Hegel in a “different voice”, but you were pointing there to the Carol Gilligan book. Is that right?

 
Claudia Melica:


Yeah. Yeah. We also quoted it in a footnote. Yes, we appreciate very much the book of Gilligan, which was printed in the last century in the year '70 and which was translated in Italian. In Italy, it had a great influence as it's very well known. Gilligan, she is still alive and she is a psychologist. She analyzed the “different voices” of the women of the time. Our goal it's also implicitly referred to her. So, the purpose is to give “voices” for the first time, not only in a volume, which includes mostly, but not only women, also some very good male researchers and professors are included into the volume.

 
Claudia Melica:


But the conference, which was organized in Rome in 2018, was the World WoMen [Hegelian] Conference. WoMen was W., o., and M. was capital block. Therefore, we want to say Women, but, at the same time, together with Men. This is a way to assert “different voices” in such a large community in what we call “post-ideological scenario”. But yes, Carol Gilligan is very important for us and it's very important to speak of “plural voices” also in this case.

 
August Baker:


Right, and multicultural as well. 


Claudia Melica:


Yeah. 

August Baker:


Let's talk about the different sections of your book of the volume. You mentioned, I think, section two, which is about Women for and against Hegel and you talk about Simone de Beauvoir there.

Claudia Melica:


Yes.


August Baker:


One of the articles that comes up a few times is an article called: Let's Spit on Hegel



Claudia Melica:


Yes. Well, the title of the book Let's Spit on Hegel [Sputiamo su Hegel] was the title of a book by Carla Lonzi. She was a very well-known activist and feminist in Italy. And she was the one who was deeply, deeply critics of Hegel. This is, in a certain way, linked with the topic we are trying to develop together. Because, from one side, of the feminism at the time in early ’70 years in Italy, it was following Simone de Beauvoir as saying that Hegel could be fruitful to understand the social differences and social inequality between men and women. Even if Simone de Beauvoir told us in her book in The Second Sex that actually the women never, never struggled, never put themself into the battle for “recognition”.

 
Claudia Melica:


Well, Carla Lonzi was very explicit. She won't throw away Hegel totally. She said: ≤≤He has nothing to do with our battle. Our battles are totally different.>> So, with really a peculiar expression, she wrote this book, Let's Spit on Hegel (Sputiamo su Hegel), which had a great influence in Italy. There is a movement connected with her and there are [in our collective volume] many articles, many, many papers dedicated to Carla Lonzi too. Especially one part, by Federica Giardini. She's a very well-known professor at Roma Tre University and she is also a feminist and a very good researcher on feminist thinking. She analyzed this point too.

 
August Baker:


I'm not sure if there's a section that focuses on the “master-slave dialectic” in Hegel. Of course, it's very famous. Is there a specific section developed not devoted to it, but it goes through all of them, would you say?

 

Claudia Melica:


Well, the section concerning the “master and servant dialectics” is explicitly only into the Phenomenology of Spirit and in chapter four. I'm going to explain to you. What is the topic over there? This section was deeply analyzed by some interpreters and, especially, most of them [investigated] Hegel's “master and servant dialectics” in section two [of our book]. Serena Feloj wrote a paper with references on American contemporary debate, which is very important, because she analyzed the way in which [Judith] Butler or [Nancy] Fraser or [Luce] Irigaray they interpreted such a part of Hegel. And I quoted Mara Montanaro with Simone de Beauvoir or Federica Giardini in the re-interpretation of Carla Lonzi. Anyway, for the American audience and not the specialists on Hegel, what is it this “master and servant or slave dialectics”?

 
Claudia Melica:


To make it very easy, and clear, it is the following. For Hegel, a self-consciousness could not “recognize” its value, if it is not “recognized” by another self-consciousness. To “recognize” the value of someone else, Hegel analyzed something that is so developed into history. So, for example, the opposition, and at the same time, there's a relation between “master and slave”. But what happened exactly? The self-consciousness of the master is pushed by a desire to obtain more and more and more and more objects, but he cannot obtain them alone. He needs a huge work of the slave or of the servant. Therefore, the master is totally dependent for his desire, for his material desire, from the work of the servant.

 
Claudia Melica:


But Hegel made a good point. If, from one side, it looks like, at the first glance, that the servant looked totally dependent and submitted by the master. On the other side, the servant is able to transform the object with his work. He is not the one whom, after he has used the object, he threw it away and he doesn't need it anymore. But, anyway, this passage is important, because for the first time, Hegel is trying to speak about dialectical opposition, social justice, and inequality. This comes, in German language as recognition and it is Anerkennung. It means not only to “recognize” the value of someone else, but means also to “know” deeply, to have the self-consciousness of someone else, because I “know” myself deeply only if I “recognize” the Other and the value of the Other.

 

Claudia Melica:

 

And, therefore, this is a very important model or a paradigm, which was used also later to investigate all the oppositions within the history. And also, as I told you, through all the feminist battle. Because the question was for the feminist thought, whether such paradigm should be applied to women too. Does it work for women too? So, women (as “slave”) are submitted to a “master” as man or not? This is one of the questions, which for example, as first was questioned by Simone de Beauvoir, but it is still investigated.


August Baker:


Right. Just as much as different cultures embrace different nationalities and so forth, right? 

Claudia Melica:


Yeah. 

August Baker:


So, this is difficult because there's so much in this book, but I want to give listeners an idea of an overview of what's in the different sections. Even though it may seem surface level, it'll be a pointer, I hope. So, the first section deals with The Night of Reason. It was talking about madness dreams and passion. Could you speak a little bit about what people could find there?

 

Claudia Melica:


Yes.  Hegel is not seen from this point of view. There are a lot of generalizations about Hegel. So, for example, he's a “systematic thinker” or only a “rational thinker”. But what we would like to show is that Hegel at his time, he was studying the so-called “neurosciences”. So, he was studying psychiatry, psychology at the time. He was given a lot of importance of what as a metaphor was called “the dark side of the reason”. He was not criticizing such a part. He was able to demonstrate that the spirit (and “spirit” means our spiritual manifestations which go through our development) could be found also in illness or in dreams or as well, in this “dark side” [see paper by S. Achella, The Dark Side of Thought, pp. 23-36].

 
Claudia Melica:


That's why when he was teaching in Berlin during his lectures, which were lectures followed by thousands of students, he wrote a book, which was an Encyclopaedia, a compendium, including all the sciences. And within all those sciences, Hegel included all sciences of the time called "anthropology", which was not the anthropology of our days. Within anthropology, there was what is today called also psychiatry, psychology, and so on. And then in this part, he was able to study madness and unconsciousness. 


Claudia Melica:


This was recently discussed by a very well-known interpreter, Catherine Malabou, which is the subject of a paper by Federica Pitillo and how the neurosciences have become important in our time to communicate the concept [of  “plasticity”] and have re-interpreted such Hegelian anthropology and the implication also of the research on the brain, which started at a time and which is quite important for us, because this give us a new perspective of Hegel, which until now was not very well known for such studies.

 

 

August Baker:


That was fascinating. Absolutely. And then we have talked about section two. I will come back to section three at the end. For section four, it's entitled The Twentieth Century and Hegel: Subversion or Conciliation?

Claudia Melica:


Yes. In this section four which is the purpose? The purpose is the following. There have been many interpreters, like Jacques Derrida for example, which is the topic of the first paper by Gabriella Baptist, which totally criticizes Hegel's point of view. And the point of view, very simply, criticized by Derrida, was to destroy the subject, to destroy the effort done by Hegel to affirm the autonomy of the subject, even if for Hegel, always within a qualitative structure, which was the ethical life. But there is this paper by Gabriella Baptist, which is the beginning of section four, where she showed well, this point of view of how Derrida was going in a different [direction] of what originally Hegel did. 


Claudia Melica:


So, for example, there are many other papers like the one by Herta Nagl-Docekal. She analyzed, in the same section four, how Hegel is important today in order to discuss common values. I would like to underline that for Hegel, it's not only in German the word Gesellschaft, which you could translate in English “society”, but Gemeinschaft (or Gemeinde) which means really to do something together as society, which shares something in common. There is this paper by Herta Nagl-Docekal, a very well-known professor from Vienna. She analyzed all the social pathologies of Hegel’s concept of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). And she focused on Charles Taylor of the common constitution and individual identity which in the United States (U.S.A.) nowadays is deeply discussed.

 

Claudia Melica:


And then she also analyzed John Rawls’ thesis on Hegel crucial achievement and how it was very important for organizing a modern State and an institution in order to build a so-called real freedom, not an abstract freedom. And also, she discussed, which is very important, Axel Honneth, whom was and still he is a German a very well-known Hegelian interpreter, who claim to reformulate the Philosophy of Right of Hegel in term of social sphere, because such social problems, are really very important even today in any global society, not only in Hegel's time. I would like to stop, otherwise it is too much.


August Baker:


Yes. And I think Honneth has an appointment currently in the US at Columbia, I believe. 


Claudia Melica:


Yeah. 


August Baker:


But I should also mention that. So, when you talked about section four, you talked about first an essay by Gabriella Baptist and then the second essay by Nagl-Docekal.



Claudia Melica:


Herta Nagl-Docekal. 



August Baker:


Nagl-Docekal, and I should point out that the structure of each of these sections is that there's an introductory essay by one of the editors and then there's an essay by an invited contributor with a lot of stature. And then there's seven or eight other essays. Maybe you could go through the other invited contributors.

 
Claudia Melica:


Yes. I'm very grateful to introduce such a subject, because it's very important for us to explain the structure, the form of the book, because it's not simply a collection of different papers. We wanted to give a form of the book, which could be understandable. Therefore, we decided to organize the structure of the book in the following way. As you precisely told the audience, there is in each part an introductory essay, written by the different editors. So, Achella, another by Iannelli, another by Baptist, another by Feloj, another by Li Vigni, and the other by Melica. Then we decide that each section should be open by a contribution from a world renowned expert in Hegelian studies. And they should in our opinion, so we planned the book, coming from all different parts of the world. 

Claudia Melica:


Therefore, the invited speakers are: Rossella Bonito Oliva from Italy, Nuria Sánchez from Spain, Madrid, Erzsébet Rózsa from Debrecen in Hungary. We quoted yet, but we should quote it again, Herta Nagl-Docekal from Vienna, Austria, Myriam Bienenstock from France, from Paris, and so on. But it's also important to underline that the book, it's opened by the director of the Hegel Archive. She is a woman and she is Birgit Sandkaulen. And she is leading the famous and very important Hegel Archive in Bochum in Germany. And the book is closed by Angelica Nuzzo. She's Italian, but she's been teaching for years in New York and in the United States.

 

August Baker:


At CUNY. 


Claudia Melica:


Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the book is divided into five different sections. We can speak later about the five different sections.

 

August Baker:


So, I think we only have CUNY, meaning City University of New York. And I think the fifth section is in the interest of time, I'll leave the fifth section to just name the title, which is Re-thinking the Absolute Spirit. Spirit is one of the essential topics in Hegel, but let's close with the description of section three about the female characters in Hegel's philosophy. And if you could also mention the title of the book. People are probably wondering: "What does an owl have to do with philosophy?" I did anyway. I think I had a sense of what it was, but yeah, go ahead.

 
Claudia Melica:


Yeah. Well, it's very well known that this kind of birds normally arrive at night and this is a metaphor used by Hegel in the Preface of the Philosophy of Right (1821), where he would like to say the following. This kind of bird, it's the symbol of Minerva, it the symbol of philosophy. The philosophy arrives only in the end, but the philosophy may [understand history in conceptual thoughts]. We use it as metaphor and that's why we use it as a title “owl” symbol of Minerva and philosophy may have a female form. That's why we thought that the Hegelian philosophy may have different languages, but the title is also that Hegel told us such bird (Owl of Minerva) arrived at night and begin to flight only with the falling of the dusk. And what does it mean?

 
Claudia Melica:


It is a metaphor which became most celebrated and very well known. It means that the way of making philosophy is part of an historical process. Only when this historical process, which means chronologically, historically, it's concluded, then arrives philosophy, which it's able to understand, to comprehend with conceptual thought all historical processes. Therefore, such female figures, let's say it with that, may offer an insider view of all the historical process. That's why we decided to give a title in this way. 


August Baker:


Finally, just a survey of some of the articles in that section on the female characters or some of the other female characters. 


Claudia Melica:


Well, there are many other female characters in Hegel. Not only he took them from the ancient tragedy from Sophocles, not only Antigone, but he took them from W. Shakespeare. So, for example, just to quote Shakespeare, Julia or Miranda or even Lady Macbeth have been quoted by Hegel and re-interpreted as a metaphor as heroines to re-read the conflict within the history. That's why we decided to call also a chapter, section three of this book, Female Characters in Hegel's Philosophy, where it's analyzed also these potential in Hegelian interpretation of those tragic heroines, not only the ancient one, the Greek heroines, but also the modern one as from English Literature by Shakespeare. 

August Baker:


Fascinating. Okay. Thank you so much, Claudia Melica. The book is: The Owl's Flight: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy. I went longer than I told you, an hour, but there's so much to cover. It's a fascinating volume and it's published by, The Owl's Flight: Hegel's Legacy to Contemporary Philosophy, De Gruyter 2022. Thank you so much, Claudia. 


Claudia Melica:


I am really very grateful for the conversation and for the interview. Thank you. 


August Baker:


Thank you. 


Claudia Melica:


Thank you.