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THE BEING OF THE CONCEPT: A HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC INQUIRY by Gregory Scott Moss (Under the Direction of Richard Dien Winfield) ABSTRACT Traditionally, the concept of universality has been governed by four dogmas: the principle of non-contradiction, the finitude of the concept, the separation of the principles of universality and particularity, and the appeal to the given. From these dogmas four paradoxes of self-reference follow: the problem of the missing differentia, the problem of participation, the problem of psychologism, and the problem of onto-theology. In this dissertation I show how these dogmas, as well as the paradoxes that follow from them, first arise in Ancient Greek philosophy, and how they continually re-appear throughout the history of Western philosophy. Hegel, in his Science of Logic, develops a novel concept of universality in which he defines universality as self-differentiation. Following the general historical exposition, I systematically reconstruct Hegel’s Logic of the Concept where he defines the concept as self-differentiation. In argue that self-differentiation undermines the classical dogmas of universality, and thereby solves the four paradoxes of self-differentiation. INDEX: Universality, Particularity, Individuality, Self-determination, Concepts, Hegel, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Science of Logic, Self-reference THE BEING OF THE CONCEPT: A HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC INQUIRY by Gregory Scott Moss A.B., The University of Georgia, 2007 M.A., The University of Georgia, 2007 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2014 © 2014 Gregory Scott Moss All Rights Reserved THE BEING OF THE CONCEPT: A HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC INQUIRY by Gregory Scott Moss Major Professor: Richard Dien Winfield Committee: Edward Halper Elizabeth Brient Electronic Version Approved: Julie Coffield Interim Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………..vi Introduction: Motivating the Question……………………………………………....1 Division I The History of the Problem of Universality: Recollecting the Universal: A Brief Begriffgeschichte………………………………..25 Section I Classical Greek, Hellenistic, and Medieval Philosophy: Self-Reference and Existential Implication in the Concept of Form……………...26 Ch. 1 Plato…………………………………………………………………….................27 Ch. 2 Aristotle…………………………………………………………………………..45 Ch. 3 Classical Greek Philosophy In Review……………………………………….................84 Ch. 4 The Principle of Divine Omnipotence…………………………………………………88 Ch. 5 Infinitude in Neo-Platonism………………………………………………..................94 Ch. 6 The Will in the Christian Doctrine of Creation………………………………................ 120 Section II Modern Philosophy: The Rise of Nominalism and Intellectual Intuition………..148 Ch. 7 British Empiricism…………………………………………………………..............148 Ch. 8 Continental Rationalism…………………………………………………………......173 Ch. 9 Kant……………………………………………………………………………....193 Ch. 10 Continental Philosophy……………………………………………………………..250 Ch. 11 Analytic Philosophy………………………………………………………………..302 iv Division II The Being of the Concept…………………………………………………………..333 Section III Four Paradoxes of Self-Reference………………………………………………….333 Ch. 12 Kinds of Universality……………………………………………………………..333 Ch. 13 Four Dogmas…………………………………………………………………....338 Ch. 14 Four Paradoxes of Self-Reference…………………………………………………...345 Section IV Hegel’s Logic of the Concept……………………………………………………....363 Ch. 15 Hegel’s Alternative: The Self-Differentiation of the Concept…………………………....363 Ch. 16 Outline of the Argument………………………………………………………….379 Ch. 17 Universality…………………………………………………………………….405 Ch. 18 Particularity……………………………………………………………………459 Ch. 19 Individuality…………………………………………………………………....558 Ch. 20 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..595 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………....617 v LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1………………………………………………………………………………....156 Figure 2………………………………………………………………………………....157 Figure 3………………………………………………………………………………....161 vi Introduction: Motivating the Question Mit der Miene des Hofmanns, Die kurzsichtig, doch lächelnd, des Ernstes Sache verdammet1. Philosophy, unlike every other science, inquires into itself. Any inquiry that inquires into itself may be called a reflexive discipline, since it is about itself. By noting the reflexivity of philosophy, we absolutely do not mean to restrict the philosopher’s domain of inquiry to the activity of philosophizing. Indeed, philosophy takes as its object more than just philosophy. Unfortunately, though this little fact is widely acknowledged, it hardly earns our respect. When we, as philosophers, take the reflexivity of philosophy as our object, we discover it to be a source of philosophical problems, the depths of which have rarely been plumbed. Of course, our very inquiry into the reflexivity of philosophy is itself a higher order instantiation of this reflexivity, and empirical proof of the reflexivity of philosophical thought. Still, the aim of this treatise is not to ponder the reflexivity of philosophy per se, but to inquire into the being of universality. Why the being of universality is one of the central issues to philosophy, as a reflexive discipline, is the topic of this short propaedeutic. It often seems difficult for philosophers to comment upon the historical development of the sciences outside of philosophy without giving away their prejudice toward their own discipline. On one conception of philosophy, a philosophical discipline becomes a science after it acquires principles. Illustrations of this process range from cosmology to psychology. Such historical illustrations give some hope that in the future disciplines remaining in the philosophical canon, e.g. philosophy of mind and metaphysics, 1 “With the courtier’s men that purblind yet smiling condemns the cause of the earnest soul”. Klopstock, Der Messias, Seventh Canto. Hegel, Science of Logic, Forward to the Subjective Logic, or the Doctrine of the Notion, 575. Hegel, G.W.F. Science of Logic. Translated by A.V. Miller. Amherst: Humanity Books, 1969. 1 will be reduced to neuroscience and cosmology respectively. Philosophy progresses when it is on the way to becoming a non-philosophical science. What such comments reveal is that such a speaker views philosophy as inherently uncertain, a discipline without established principles. If we judge the success of philosophy by the extent to which it establishes principles, and thereby becomes a particular non- philosophical science, then the ultimate success of philosophy would simultaneously be its self-annihilation. When we contemplate the reflexivity of philosophy, we immediately see why progress in philosophy cannot, and should not, be judged, by the extent to which philosophy hands over its content and method to another discipline. Instead, we find that any properly philosophical inquiry ought to be in principle incapable of becoming a particular, non-philosophical science. Strong propositions as these require arguments. Let us discuss three questions: Why is philosophy reflexive? Why is the being of universality a central concern to philosophy? Why is the question concerning the being of universality incapable of being exported beyond philosophy? Instead of beginning with philosophy per se, let us begin elsewhere, namely with the concept of the non-philosophical science. In principle, every non-philosophical science, from the empirical sciences, to formal logic and mathematics, begins with two fundamental givens: method and subject matter.2 Methodology, from mejqodos, is the way a subject is approached, as its etymology indicates.3 Since the non-philosophical sciences are concerned with knowing, this approach may be further specified as an inquiry into the subject matter, and as such it is a way of thinking about the subject matter. On the one hand, one reason philosophy inquires into itself is 2 Hegel, SL, 43. 3 The etymology of ‘methodology’ is formed from odos meaning ‘road’, and meta, meaning ‘ following after’. A method is a road one follows. 2 exactly because it aims at knowledge of what knowledge is. Indeed, philosophy is the love of wisdom, not just any particular wisdom, but wisdom as such. As such, it must inquire into its own form of knowing.4 On the other hand, insofar as a science is non-philosophical, the concept of knowing is assumed and applied in the investigation of some content of knowing, but is not itself taken up as the object of inquiry. For this reason, knowing itself cannot be its own subject matter in the non-philosophical sciences. Hence, in the non-philosophical sciences we find that method and subject matter are divorced.5 Although method is conceived as separate from subject matter6, it is purportedly structured to study the subject matter that has been selected in advance. Since method and subject matter are separate, the method cannot take itself to be its own subject matter. If it could, then the method would not be separate from the subject matter. Thus, scientific method, for example, cannot in principle inquire into itself. Scientific method is not about itself, and for this reason fails to be a reflexive method. Examples of this restriction on the scientific method are not difficult to uncover. Biology inquires into life, and the scientific method is employed for the sake of knowing life. In this pursuit universals are employed in the cognition and differentiation of the subject matter, e.g. ‘life’, ‘matter’, chemical’, ‘entity, etc.… But in biology, the scientific method is not itself an object of knowledge.7 If the scientific method were the object of its knowledge, it would assume its own legitimacy. Its legitimacy is always already assumed. In order to test whether the scientific method were true 4 Though I take issue with the definition of philosophy as the inquiry into first principles, this definition may be instructive here. Whether we think about the first principles of Being, knowing, or thinking, namely metaphysics, epistemology, or logic, we necessarily find ourselves under the obligation to account for the being, knowing, and thinking of the activity by which those principles are posited. 5 This theoretical division between the philosophical and non-philosophical science is born out in the actual practice of the other sciences. I should not like to indict poetry in this distinction, for I do not consider it a science in the general sense of ‘knowing’. 6 See Hegel’s Science of Logic, Introduction, 43. 7 Though this is not the case in Aristotle’s system of biology, my claim is systematic and is not meant to represent every historical position. 3