This dissertation examines Matthew Arnold's belief in the role the State must play in actualizing the ideals of the French Revolution in Victorian England by exploring parallels between Arnold's development and implementation of this belief and similar elements present in G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy. Beginning with Arnold's early engagement with the Bhagavad-Gita, moving into the preface to his 1853 volume of poems, and finally ending with his more mature religious, political, and social works, this dissertation traces the sources and development of Arnold's criticism of what he perceives as a widely held and dangerous antipathy towards State interference in the civil sphere in Victorian England. Believing this trajectory wrongheaded, Arnold asserts his belief in the connection between a strong State power and the emergence of true subjective freedom within a polity. By placing Arnold's texts and ideas alongside selections from Hegel's work, including On the Episode of the Mahabharata Known as the Bhagavad-Gita by Wilhelm von Humboldt, the preface to The Philosophy of Right, and some of Hegel's early theological writings, one realizes that Arnold's belief in both subjective freedom and a strong State power demonstrates a sustained and parallel engagement with Hegel's own commitment to both the ideals of the French Revolution and the role that a strong State power plays in actualizing those ideals.

Recent work on the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel has emphasized his interest in skeptical concerns. These contemporary scholars argue that, despite common opinions to the contrary, Hegel actually had a very keen interest in skepticism, one that informed and motivated much of his overall project. While I welcome this recent literature, I argue here that contemporary scholars have overemphasized the importance of skepticism for Hegel. By looking closely at Hegel’s arguments against skepticism in the Phenomenology of Spirit, I argue that Hegel’s anti-skeptical arguments are in fact major failures. Hegel’s failure is at odds with the emphasis that contemporary literature places on Hegel’s interests in skepticism. For a philosopher who was supposedly centrally concerned with skeptical issues, Hegel sure does not act like it. I conclude that the tension here is the result of contemporary scholars’ overemphasis of the role that skepticism plays in Hegel’s project.

Cette thèse s’intéresse au traitement de la notion de vie au sein du système hégélien. Que ce soit comme vie logique, organique ou comme vie de l’esprit, cette notion représente un élément structurant dans le discours philosophique de Hegel. À un point tel que l’on peut, à partir de la systématicité dynamique de la vie et du vivant tel qu’ils sont thématisés chez Hegel, penser le caractère dynamique et vivant du système hégélien. Ce faisant, nous sommes en mesure de situer l’entreprise hégélienne dans le contexte de la philosophie postkantienne visant à un renouvellement de la pratique philosophique comme philosophie vivante capable d’articuler raison spéculative et vie pratique. Cela permet également de mieux situer l’entreprise hégélienne vis-à-vis des critiques tendant à faire de son système un système clos et ossifié. Partant du système hégélien tel qu’il se présente au cours de la période berlinoise au sein de l’Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques, nous retraçons ainsi l’entreprise hégélienne dans sa volonté de penser à la fois la vie de la pensée et la rationalité du vivant.

Kierkegaard is generally regarded as a quintessential individualist who leaves no room for social or political engagement. This interpretation is the dominant lens through which many scholars view Kierkegaard, and it also shapes the way Kierkegaard’s thought has been received by his followers and critics. Many recent works have significantly challenged the traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, but they have not examined the topic systematically. In order to remedy this deficit, this study provides a holistic account of Kierkegaard’s social thought. First, it challenges the dominant view that society as represented by the crowd is simply a foil for Kierkegaard’s individual by: (a) articulating a general approach for understanding how Kierkegaard’s negative comments about society and community do not constitute a rejection of sociality as such, and (b) demonstrating that Kierkegaard’s well-developed ideas on faith and religiosity are compatible with an account that emphasizes a broader social dimension in his thought. Second, I present a framework that outlines a positive theory of community, a ‘Dialectic of Community,’ which explains the importance of the Kierkegaardian single individual in the formation and development of community. This framework provides an interpretation of the social period of Kierkegaard’s authorship and its importance for the entirely of the authorship. Even though the interpretation is helpful for understanding Kierkegaard and his relationship to 19th and 20th century European moral, social, and political thought, Kierkegaard never explicitly describes how his conception of the self is consistent with his social thought. I address this problem by developing a narrative model of selfhood that illustrates the importance of subjectivity and the single individual for an adequate account of intersubjective selfhood. More specifically, I argue that narratives are important intersubjectively for becoming a person and a moral agent, but the concept of self is not exhausted in narrative. That is, having a self-narrative presupposes that the person is a subject who has a set of principles that organize one’s experiences and activities. This framework not only shows how Kierkegaard’s concept of subjectivity can be understood in a social context, but it also addresses a significant problem in narrative identity theory.

In this paper, I discuss the connection between happiness and reason in the work of Herder, Kant, and Hegel. First, I consider Herder’s integration of satisfaction and rationality and Kant’s complete separation of rational imperatives from particular experience. I discuss (and partially endorse) Kant’s critique of Herder as arbitrary and overly reliant on analogy. I then turn to Hegel’s response to this debate. I argue that Hegel’s Phenomenology provides an integration of happiness (in the broad, Aristotelian sense) and reason that is not subject to the same pitfalls as Herder’s solution. I examine two examples of rational critique in the Phenomenology and conclude with brief remarks about happiness and the rational society in Hegel’s work.

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Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous proposons d’explorer la patiente explication que Heidegger a poursuivie avec Hegel à propos de l’origine de la négativité – problème qui s’impose de fait à titre d’« unique pensée d’une pensée qui pose la question de l’être ». Partant du constat d’une affinité insoupçonnée entre les deux penseurs quant au rôle insigne qui doit revenir à la négation en philosophie, nous entendons percer à jour les motifs de la constante fin de non-recevoir que Heidegger oppose néanmoins à la méthode dialectique de son plus coriace adversaire. Afin de rendre justice aux différents rebondissements d’une explication en constante mutation, et qui, de surcroît, traverse l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Heidegger, nous procédons à une division chronologique qui en circonscrit les quatre principaux moments. I. En un premier temps, notre regard se porte ainsi sur l’opposition résolue que le jeune Heidegger manifeste à l’égard de la montée du néo-hégélianisme, au nom d’une appropriation toute personnelle de l’intuitionnisme husserlien. Les transformations auxquelles il soumet la méthode phénoménologique de son maître doivent néanmoins laisser transparaître un furtif emprunt à la dialectique hégélienne, dont le principal mérite serait d’avoir conféré une fonction productrice à la négation. II. Le propos d’Être et temps demeure toutefois bien discret quant à cette dette méthodologique, bien que ses vestiges se laissent exhumer, notamment sous la forme d’une négation contre-déchéante dont l’intervention essentielle ponctue l’analytique existentiale. C’est qu’un désaccord subsiste entre Heidegger et son prédécesseur quant à l’origine ontologique de la néantité, qui semble devoir se dérober à toute forme de sursomption dialectique. III. Loin d’être alors définitivement réglé, le problème de l’origine du négatif rejaillit au cœur d’une nouvelle mouture métaphysique du projet heideggérien, la minant peut-être même en son fond. Il s’agit en l’occurrence de disputer à Hegel une compréhension plus originaire du néant, comprise comme témoignage de la finitude de l’être lui-même et s’inscrivant en faux face à l’accomplissement spécifiquement hégélien de la métaphysique. IV. Des tensions qui ne sont pas étrangères à cette délicate entreprise entraînent toutefois Heidegger sur la voie d’un dépassement de l’onto-théo-logie et de l’achèvement technique que Hegel lui a préparé. Il s’agit dès lors de situer l’origine abyssale du négatif auprès d’un irréductible retrait de l’estre, à l’encontre de l’oubli nihiliste auquel Hegel l’aurait confinée en la résorbant au sein de l’absolue positivité de la présence. Par là même, Heidegger propose un concept de négation qu’il juge plus originaire que son contrepoids dialectique, négation à laquelle il attribue la forme d’une réponse interrogative, patiente et attentive à la réticence hésitante de l’événement appropriant. Mais est-ce suffisant pour soutenir qu’il parvient, en définitive, à se libérer de l’embarras dialectique qui semble coller à sa pensée et qui exige de lui un constant effort de distanciation ? Cette thèse entend contribuer à établir les conditions d’une décision à cet égard. / In this thesis we explore Heidegger’s patient engagement (Auseinandersetzung) with Hegel about the origin of negativity – an inescapable problem insofar as it is “the sole thought of a thinking that asks the question of Being”. We begin by noting an unsuspected affinity between the two thinkers with respect to the privileged role that negation must play in philosophy, and from there we elucidate the motives for why Heidegger nevertheless rejects the dialectical method of his toughest adversary. Heidegger’s engagement with Hegel evolved constantly over his entire oeuvre; in order to do it justice we therefore propose a chronology that delimits its four principal stages. I. Firstly, we examine the young Heidegger’s resolute opposition to the rise of Neo-Hegelianism in the name of a very personal appropriation of Husserl’s intuitionism. The modifications that Heidegger made to his master’s phenomenological method nevertheless reveal that he also surreptitiously borrowed from Hegelian dialectic, the principal merit of which was to have granted negation a positive function. II. Being and Time does not openly declare this methodological debt, yet traces of it can be found, notably in the form of a counter-falling negation that plays a marked and essential role in the existential analytic. A disagreement remained between Heidegger and his predecessor as to the ontological origin of nothingness, which seemed to elude any form of dialectical sublation. III. The problem of the origin of the negative, far from having been definitively settled, then resurged at the heart of a new conception of metaphysics within the Heideggerian project, perhaps even undermining its very foundations. Heidegger vied with Hegel for a more originary understanding of nothingness, one which he conceived as a testament to the finitude of Being itself and as opposed to the specifically Hegelian accomplishment of metaphysics. IV. However, the tensions inherent to this delicate enterprise led him to go beyond onto-theo-logy together with the technical completion that Hegel had envisioned for it. From then on, Heidegger sought to situate the abyssal origin of the negative in an irreducible refusal of Being – over against the nihilistic forgetfulness to which Hegel had confined it by having resorbed it into the absolute positivity of presence. In so doing Heidegger proposed a concept of negation that he deemed more originary than its dialectical counterpart, construing negation as an interrogative answer, patient and attentive to the hesitant refusal of the event (Ereignis). But can it ultimately be maintained that Heidegger thereby succeeded in freeing himself, once and for all, from the dialectical troubles that seemingly clung to his thought and from which he constantly strove to distance himself? The present thesis will contribute to settling this very question.

Le présent mémoire retrace l’évolution du concept de contradiction dans l’œuvre de Karl Marx de la rédaction de L’Idéologie allemande (1845-1846) à la publication du Capital (1867). Il se concentre sur le rôle de la contradiction dans l’explication du processus par lequel un mode de production peut produire les conditions de son propre dépassement. Au-delà de la formule générale selon laquelle les forces productives entrent en contradiction avec les rapports de production au sein desquels elles se développent, nous verrons une transformation de l’appareil conceptuel marxien qui modifie la manière dont est pensée la contradiction. Cette transformation, déterminée principalement par la construction de sa critique de l’économie politique, conduit Marx à penser la contradiction du capital à partir de catégories lui étant spécifiques et non seulement à partir de catégories applicables à l’ensemble des modes de production. Ce changement de perspective centre le caractère contradictoire d’un rapport donné sur ses modalités de reproduction le rendant intenable et pousse à interroger les conséquences tirées des premières utilisations marxiennes du concept de contradiction. En suivant une pensée en constante évolution, ce mémoire permet de situer les origines d’un concept clé autant dans l’œuvre de Marx que dans les traditions s’inspirant de celle-ci. / This master’s thesis follows the evolution of Karl Marx’s concept of contradiction from the German Ideology (1845-1846) to the publication of the Capital (1867). It focuses on the role of contradiction in explaining how a mode of production can produce the conditions of its own overcoming. Beyond the general view according to which the development of the forces of production ‘‘contradicts’’ the actual relations of production, we will also examine how this contradiction is conceived at different points in Marx’s intellectual trajectory. We will see how this evolution is essentially a result of the development of Marx’s critique of political economy. In particular, progress at the level of theory leads him to conceive the contradiction of capital in terms of categories specific to this mode of production, instead of categories applicable to all modes of production. With this shift and from that point forward, the contradiction is based on the modes of reproduction of given relations of production which prevent their sustainability. By following a theoretical production in constant evolution, this master’s thesis specifies the origins of a key concept both in Marx’s work and in the traditions inspired by it.

This thesis presents Hegel’s account of abstract ‘understanding’ (Verstand) and asserts that his thought is to be read as primarily presenting a critique of abstract understanding. Verstand involves the methodological supposition of a self-subsistent fundament of what it speaks of, and hence the critique of understanding is the critique of the supposition of self-subsistent fundaments. Grasping his account and reading him in its critical light yields a very different image of Hegel than the caricature of ‘totalizing systems’. The dimension of the Verstandeskritik has been relatively neglected in Hegel-reception and misunderstandings result from trying to ‘understand’ Hegel, by overlooking the topic of ‘understanding’ in his work as critique. Many caricatures result from understanding Hegel as a proponent of what he actually critiques (‘absolute knowing’ is often understood as a mega-understanding). The thesis then addresses the historically influential criticisms raised by his contemporary, F.J.W. Schelling, to give a voice to a Hegel that has been hitherto drowned out by caricatures that began with Schelling.