Towards a Hegelian Account of Self-Constitution

我的项目涉及黑格尔的能动性哲学，包括两方面的努力。在训诂学上，我的目的是从黑格尔的文本中提取出一个关于能动性构成的全面说明。系统地说，我的目标是将这种解释的核心观点发展成一种代理宪法理论，作为当代关于代理的辩论中的一种可用的理论选择。黑格尔的行动理论被许多人视为标准的“因果”解释的替代品，根据这种解释，只要现象是适当的精神状态的因果产物，它们就被视为行动。相反，黑格尔被解读为提供了一种“定性”的解释，根据这种解释，只要现象充分地“表达”了适当的精神状态，它们就被视为行为。这是联系到一个非标准的方法，意图/行动的关系，规范性的限制，从而引入，即使适当的因果关系引导的运动可能无法行动，如果他们的关系与一个人的内心状态是表达缺陷。这反过来又与代理人及其社会政治背景之间复杂的互动动态有关。黑格尔对自主能动性如何受到主体间性结构中嵌入性影响的关注，被强调为对实践理性的“社会”解释的详细阐述提供了关键资源。有益地介入解经辩论将需要对黑格尔的思想进行深远的解释。这是由于黑格尔哲学的系统性，以及他认为行动在个人自我意识的主观领域和主体间结构的客观领域之间的界面上发挥的中介作用。我的调查路线旨在追求强调这种接口作为主体的实践身份的构成的关键所在。我的指导思路将是强调我认为黑格尔根据个人自我的首要性，即使他将主体维度锚定在不可还原的主体间性因素上。与黑格尔的能动性理论相关的最明确的来源是《精神现象学》中的“理性”一章、《百科全书》中的“道德”一节以及《法哲学》中的导言和“道德”一节。由于后者的文本提供了对这一问题的最广泛的论述，学者们倾向于把重点放在这一文本上。然而，这妨碍了对《百科全书》本身的论述，也妨碍了系统地试图追溯黑格尔早期和成熟时期对这一问题的论述之间的关系。在我的研究中，我希望涵盖这个被忽视的领域。另一方面，我的项目的系统目标是在项目第一部分进行的分析的基础上，详细阐述一个历史上知情的“黑格尔”对能动性的描述。然后，我的目标是解决这种帐户本身的哲学价值，作为一个候选理论的框架内的当代辩论机构。发展一种受黑格尔启发的能动性理论，意味着要确定黑格尔自己的论述的核心主张和承诺，判断什么必须保留，什么可以抛弃，以期提供一种理论上立即令人信服的当代标准，但在某种意义上是“黑格尔的”。既然有人认为黑格尔对能动性的解释不能脱离他的形而上学的基本框架，那么一个关键的任务将是探讨这些主张在黑格尔整个哲学体系中的地位。尽管这种分离是可取的，但一个关键的挑战将是衡量事实是否如此。

My project concerns Hegel's philosophy of agency and consists of a twofold endeavour. Exegetically, my aim is to extract from Hegel's texts a comprehensive account of the constitution of agency. Systematically, my aim is to develop the central insights of such account into a theory of agential constitution as an available theoretical option in contemporary debates on agency.Hegel's theory of action has been seen by many as providing an alternative to standard 'causal' accounts whereby phenomena are deemed actions insofar as they are the causal product of appropriate mental states. Hegel, by contrast, is read as providing a 'qualitative' account whereby phenomena are deemed actions insofar as they adequately 'express' appropriate mental states. This is linked to a non-standard approach to the intention/action relationship whereby normative constraints are introduced such that even appropriately causally guided movements can fail to be actions if their relations with one's inner states are expressively defective. This is in turn linked to complex dynamics of interaction between agents and their socio-political context. Hegel's attention to the ways in which autonomous agency is affected by embeddedness in intersubjective structures has been emphasised as offering key resources for the elaboration of a 'social' account of practical rationality.Profitably intervening in the exegetical debate will require delivering a far-reaching interpretation of Hegel's thought. This is due both to the systematic nature of Hegel's philosophy and to the mediating role he regards action as performing at the interface between the subjective domain of individual self-consciousness and the objective domain of intersubjective structures. The line of investigation I aim to pursue emphasises such interface as the key locus of the constitution of subjects' practical identities. My guiding thread will be an emphasis on the primacy I regard Hegel as according to individual selfhood, even as he anchors the subjective dimension to irreducibly intersubjective factors. The most explicit sources of relevance to Hegel's theory of agency are the 'Reason' chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the 'Morality' section in the Encyclopedia, and the introduction and 'Morality' section in the Philosophy of Right. Since it is the latter text which provides the most extended treatment of the matter, the tendency among scholars has been to focus on it. This, however, has prevented from addressing the Encyclopedia treatment in its own right, and has precluded a systematic attempt at tracing the relationship between Hegel's early and mature treatments of the matter. In my research I wish to cover this overlooked ground.On the other hand, the systematic aim of my project is to elaborate a historically-informed 'Hegelian' account of the nature of agency, based on the analysis carried out in the first part of the project. I then aim to address such account on its own philosophical merits, as a candidate theory within the framework of contemporary debates on agency. Developing a Hegel-inspired theory of agency will imply identifying the core claims and commitments of Hegel's own account, to judge what must be preserved and what may be discarded with a view to providing a theory at once theoretically compelling given contemporary standards and nevertheless 'Hegelian' in some meaningful sense. Since it has been argued that Hegel's account of agency cannot be detached from the underlying framework of his metaphysics, a critical task will be probing the standing of such claims over and above their embeddedness within the whole of Hegel's philosophical system. Insofar as such a detachment is desirable, a crucial challenge will thus be gauging whether this is in fact the case...