Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility

Hegel’s Theory of Intelligibility is an interpretation of Hegel’s Science of Logic in light of recent revisionist readings. Revisionists have argued that Hegel carries the legacy of Kant’s idealism forward albeit in a new direction. Zambrana transforms this interpretive tradition by distilling the theory of normativity elaborated in the Logic and pursuing the implications of Hegel’s signature treatment of negativity for this theory of normativity. The book thereby aims to clarify crucial features of Hegel’s theory of normativity previously thought to be absent from the argument of the Logicwhat Zambrana calls normative precariousness and normative ambivalence. Hegel’s theory of determinacy, Zambrana claims, supports the view that intelligibility is revisable given that it is the result of practices and institutions that gain and lose authority throughout history. She argues that Hegel’s emphasis on negativity, however, should not be read as merely stemming from an interest in the ways in which authority fails, is contested, and prompts revision of the most significant commitments of a society. This insistence can be traced to the theory of normativity and, more precisely, normative authority in theScience of Logic. Zambrana explains that negativity accounts for why determinacy is the result of social practices, anchored in material existence, and fundamentally pragmatic. But it also establishes that historically specific forms of intelligibility are precarious and ambivalent. The book is an important intervention in recent Kant, Hegel, and German Idealism studies that offers an alternative understanding of the value of Hegel’s systematic ambitions and provides a new rubric for rereading his system of science. It thereby opens up Hegel’s notoriously dense text to a wide range of philosophical problems and traditions. In addition to offering a reading of Hegel’sLogic, it presents analysis of key sections in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit,Philosophy of Right, and Lectures on Aesthetics. The book also aims to contribute readings of Kant and Fichte’s theoretical philosophy.

Rocio Zambrana is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon.