Diddling with the Negative: Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit' 2.3 - Zizek and Brassier on Rationality in Hegel's Madness

Text of the Matter

When reading Hegel, we find points of both complex logical reasoning and a mad production of language and concepts. This dynamism between points of strange speculation and orgiastic representations of culture as a whole, creates two Hegels that are often difficult to reconcile. The work of Robert Brandom attempts to remove the wild layer of idealization to produce a consistent theory of human rationality and the process by which that rationality forms consistent mores, laws, and structures of meaning. Ray Brassier uses this analysis to delineate the power of dialectics as a means to transcend classical philosophy, while Slavoj Zizek sees Brandom's work as reducing Hegel to a logical form that cannot recognize the radical power of negativity.

Egon and Misha work through this series of texts on Hegel to understand how genealogy relates to Kant and Hegel's philosophical inventions, what differentiates classical philosophy from theory, how do dialectics model the way in which we develop norms and values, to define what Zizek believes is the radical character of negativity that makes Hegel central to all philosophy, as well as many other fascinating ideas.