Despair and the determinate negation of Brandom's Hegel

Joshua I. Wretzel

pp. 195-216

In this paper, I contend that Brandom's interpretive oversights leave his inferentialist program vulnerable to Hegelian critique. My target is Brandom's notion of "conceptual realism," or the thesis that the structure of mind-independent reality mimics the structure of thought. I show, first, that the conceptual realism at the heart of Brandom's empiricism finds root in his interpretation of Hegel. I then argue that conceptual realism is incompatible with Hegel's thought, since the Jena Phenomenology, understood as a "way of despair," includes a critique of the philosophical framework upon which conceptual realism relies. Finally, I offer the Hegelian critique of Brandom that results from these textual infidelities.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/s11007-014-9294-0

Full citation:

Wretzel, J. I. (2014). Despair and the determinate negation of Brandom's Hegel. Continental Philosophy Review 47 (2), pp. 195-216.

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