CFP: Hegel Bulletin Special Issue ‘Hegel and Aristotle on the metaphysics of mind’

‘Hegel and Aristotle on the metaphysics of mind’

The Hegel Bulletin will publish a special issue devoted to the topic of ‘Hegel and Aristotle on the metaphysics of mind’. We welcome contributions that explore the relationship between Hegel’s and Aristotle’s conception of mind. This includes both historical papers that base their argument on careful textual analysis and reconstructive papers that frame their argument in the context of contemporary debates.
Themes relevant to this special issue are metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, practical philosophy, history of philosophy. For a detailed description of the issue’s rationale, see below.

Accepted submissions will illuminate specific aspects of both Hegel’s and Aristotle’s philosophies.

Authors are encouraged to contact one of the guest editors in advance of submission if they are unsure of whether their papers are appropriate for the special issue.

Confirmed contributor: Michael Inwood
All papers (7000 words to 8000 words) will be double-blind refereed.
The editors of the special issue are Luca Corti ([email protected]),  Ermylos Plevrakis ([email protected]) and Sebastian Stein ([email protected]).

The deadline for submissions is 31st January 2019.
Please submit your papers by e-mail to: [email protected]

RATIONALE OF THE ISSUE
In recent years, readings of Hegel that emphasise the strong relationship of his project with classical and pre-Kantian thinkers have been gaining considerable traction. In particular, amongst the metaphysicians Hegel praises the most, Aristotle takes prime place. This has inspired some interpreters to claim that Hegel is profoundly Aristotelian in outlook.
Inspired by Aristotle’s metaphysics of substance and its form/matter-informed and teleological configurations, Hegel thinks of the world as imbued with concepts that define the immanent purpose of reality (e.g. Stern 2017, Pippin 2016, Redding 2007).
However, this raises various profound questions in the context of the Philosophy of Mind. Despite his praise for Aristotle, Hegel repeatedly argues that ancient philosophy lacked a modern and decidedly Kantian notion of freedom that is capable of expressing how and why the subject as a subject is truly self-determining in its theoretical and practical, i.e. ethical activity. Given the systematic ambitions of both Hegel and Aristotle, the origins of this lack of freedom in Aristotle on one hand and the praise of freedom in Hegel on the other should be traceable to the metaphysical commitments of both thinkers. While Hegel claims in the Science of Logic to be committed to a ‘metaphysics of the concept’ (e. g. Kreines 2015, Houlgate 2006), Aristotle is regularly described as a ‘metaphysician of substance’.
Some guiding questions for the investigation into the relationship between Hegel and Aristotle will thus be: what is the nature of Aristotle’s and Hegel’s metaphysics and how does it affect each thinker’s philosophy of theoretical or practical mind?  How do the metaphysics of mind relate to the ontology (metaphysica generalis), cosmology or even the  theology (metaphysica specialis) of both thinkers? Further: does Aristotle’s metaphysical enquiry into the nature of substance  prevent him from conceptualising free mental activity? Does Hegel’s commitment to concept-metaphysics enable him to incorporate Aristotelian insights into a general account of free cognition and action, and if so how? How does the reference to Aristotle affects metaphysical and non-metaphysical readings of Hegel? We hope that this special issue will help elucidate the nature of Hegelian and Aristotelian metaphysics and the consequences metaphysical commitments have for the philosophy of mind.