Aug 25, 2022
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.