MA Defence: Isaiah Wilkinson, Philosophy

Hegel’s Speculative Idealism & The Truth of Freedom

Isaiah Wilkinson

Supervisor: Emilia Angelova

ABSTRACT: This paper attempts to articulate the speculative nature of freedom within Hegel’s philosophical system. I begin with addressing how Hegel’s philosophy lives up to the speculative title through an articulation of his identity theory adapted from Fichtean absolute subjectivism. I then relate the speculative aspect with the practical by forwarding a reading of freedom within Hegel’s philosophy as split between the freedom of thought as the Notion in its ideal ends, alongside and in relation to, the freedom of the will within a contingent historical era within empirical reality. A consequence of this speculative formulation of freedom is that it enables an approach to Hegelian philosophy to avoid the charge of positivism and totalitarianism, as was widely associated with his philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. An aspect of Hegel’s thinking that enables the overcoming of the charge of totalitarianism, as I attempt to show, is affirming the necessity of the individual in order to give validity to the authority of the Absolute Subject of a given historical era, in so doing, pointing to the requirement of individuals within the totality of Hegel’s claim that the “Truth is the whole.” Thus the results of this approach reject the claim that Hegel’s system liquidates the individual in favour of the validity of any historical moment within civil society.  

To attend, join on Zoom