Charles Taylor's Hegel

Ivan Soll

The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 73, No. 19, Seventy-Third Annual Meeting Eastern Division,
American Philosophical Association. (Nov. 4, 1976), pp. 697-710.

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cation are incompatible. These interests are compatible only if it is
denied that knowledge of historical phenomena and the capacity for
identifying historical actors as analogous centers of consciousness
are mutually dependent. But since Ricoeur acknowledges both that
the interest of knowledge is necessary for the satisfaction of the
interest for communication and that an understanding of anyone
as a historical agent is possible only so far as a communicative in-
terest is maintained, the alleged conflict can only be a result of
adopting a particular analysis of knowledge that rules out knowl-
edge of agents as agents. T h e paradox therefore seems forced and
artificial.
My final request for clarification amounts to the question of what
is achieved by introducing the notion of "distantiation." T h a t her-
meneutics demands an object, and that historical inquiry is made
possible by the fact that things people do leave traces, seems ob-
vious, but I do not know what else the "descending argument" from
hermeneutics to historical inquiry is supposed to show. History
deals with a special kind of object in special kinds of ways, of which
hermeneutics describes a very important one. Ricoeur has indeed
succeeded i n performing the task he set himself of resisting the
position that historical method and hermeneutics are in a "dichot-
omous relation." But then one may wonder why they should have
been thought to be so opposed in the first place.
MICHAEL SIMON
T h e University of Connecticut

CHARLES TAYLOR'S HEGEL '

HARLES TAYLOR'S Hegel t is like Hegel's own Phenom-

C enology of Spirit in its ambition to present an extremely

comprehensive account of its subject matter. Taylor cor-
rectly sees Hegel as a philosopher with an extraordinarily broad
and integrated "vision"; and Taylor resolutely sets himself the diffi-
cult and commendable task of presenting that "vision" in its mani-
festation, work by work, across the entire Hegelian corpus. More-
over, this already comprehensive account is set i n the context of
an even more general theory about the mainsprings of the entire
* T o be presented in an APA ~~'rnposium on Hegel, by Charles Taylor, De-
cember 30, 1976; cosymposiasts will be Kenneth L. Schmitz and Charles Taylor:
see this JOURNAL, this issue, pp. 710-723 and 723-725, respectively.
t Cambridge, London, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge UP, 1975; here-
after H.
698 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

intellectual history of the modern world. Taylor tries to show what

an important place Hegel has in this development, not just in the
conventional manner of listing prominent successors whom Hegel
directly or indirectly influenced, but by arguing that Hegel's phi-
losophy remains one of the most serious and successful attempts to
resolve certain central problems besetting western intellectual life
in the last few centuries.
I n the face of this vast enterprise, I propose to narrow the focus
and take a rather close look at Taylor's treatment of a specific text
which both he and I consider crucial to a general interpretation of
Hegel's philosophy, the opening section of the Phenomenology of
Spirit.**
Taylor's approach to the Phenomenology is avowedly and justifi-
ably selective, his strategy being to concentrate on those sections
which throw light on Hegel's general philosophic position and
method. T h e opening section of the Phenomenology proper, "Die
sinnliche Gewissheit," traditionally translated as "sense-certainty"
and by Taylor as "sensible certainty," is naturally selected for ex-
tensive treatment. Taylor finds this section particularly deserving
of our close attention because he thinks it furnishes a clear par-
adigm of Hegel's dialectical method and argues certain central
Hegelian positions. I would like to critically examine Taylor's in-
terpretation of this important section.
I n the section on "sensible certainty" Hegel considers a form of
consciousness that is supposed to directly take in what is present to
it without in any way changing what it receives, in particular, with-
out subjecting it to any conceptualization. Because there is to be
no processing or, to use a Hegelian term, "mediation," through con-
ceptualization, this form of consciousness is supposed to provide
"immediate knowledge."
Since conceptualization seems to entail a process of selection, of
focusing upon certain aspects of reality while ignoring others, to
contemplate reality using any conceptualization seems to entail fail-
ing to consider all of it. T o consider anything as described by con-
ceptual categories is to consider only that fraction of it which is
explicitly caught in the conceptual net; there is, for example, more
to the reality that is correctly described as a brown, wooden, table
than is captured in the concepts, "brown, wooden," and "table."
Consciousness without the mediation, alteration, and inevitable
** Hegel, G. W. F., Phunomenologie des Geistes, 1807. G . Lasson edition,
(Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1952); hereafter referred to as PG. Translations are
p y own.
omissions of any intervening conceptualizations seems, therefore, to
offer the most complete and accurate knowledge: "The concrete
content of sense certainty causes it to appear immediately as the
.
richest knowledge. . . Sense certainty appears, moreover, as the
truest Fnowledge], for it has not left anything out of the object"
(PG 79). Hegel claims, however, that sense certainty dialectically
reveals itself to furnish only "the abstractest and poorest truth."
As Taylor points out, Hegel activates this dialectic by asking "the
subject of sensible certainty to say what it experiences" because "he
treats the ability to say as one of the criteria1 properties of know-
ing" (H 141). But Taylor misrepresents Hegel's requirement, that
what we know must be statable, by interpreting it as a much more
modest, innocuous and unproblematic thesis than it is:
.
And it is hard not to agree with him [Hegel]. . . We are after all
not dealing with know-how, or with unconscious cunning, or anything
of the sort, but with knowledge which we have in waking experience.
If we know something in this sense, then we must be able to say what
we know, and this even if we have not got the (adequate) words for
it, even if we put it stumblingly and badly, and are forced to use
words like 'ineffable'. The point is only that what is known be enough
of an object of awareness that we can put ourselves to the task of
trying to describe it (H 141).
Hegel's point is not, however, only this; it is a thesis of more
philosophical consequence than the one Taylor attributes and com-
mends. T h e proponent of sense certainty can obviously "put him-
self to the task of trying to describe" what he claims to be conscious
of; Hegel's point is rather that the proponent of sense certainty
cannot sr~ccessfullyor adequately give linguistic expression to this
form of consciousness. And Taylor's suggestion that Hegel's require-
ment would be met even if one were "forced to use words like
'ineffable'," would be anathema to Hegel, who throughout his
works repeatedly attacks all appeal to ineffability. Towards the end
of this very section Hegel typically says, that "what is called the
ineffable [das Unaussprechliche] is nothing but the untrue, irra-
tional, the merely intended [bloss Gemeinte]" (PG 88). Hegel re-
alized what Taylor seems to overlook: that to consider the require-
ment, that we be able to say what we know, satisfiable "even if we
have not got (adequate) words for it" or have to describe it as
"ineffable," is to undermine the requirement's significance and
philosophic usefulness almost completely.
What Hegel is actually asserting about the relation between what
we know and what we can say emerges in his argument that sensible
70° THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

certainty, which claims to be the richest form of consciousness and

knowledge, turns out to be "the abstractest and poorest."
O n Taylor's account, the poverty of sense certainty resides i n its
refusal to be selective:
Sensible certainty is supposed to be immeasurably rich compared to
conceptual consciousness because nothing yet has been selected, ab-
stracted, or put in a category with other phenomena not now present.
The whole scene is there in its richness and particularity. But now
we see that in order to know something we have to say something
about it; and to say something about it we have to focus on some
dimension or other of the reality before us. ... In other words, the
exigencies of awareness are that we focus on certain dimensions of the
.
objects before us. . . Consciousness which is aware is always selec-
tive. This cannot help coming out as soon as we are asked to say what
we know (142).
Though this would be a reasonable enough way to argue against
a proponent of a supposedly unselective consciousness, it is not how
Hegel actually argues against the cognitive claims of sense certainty.
H e does not argue that "to say something about it we have to focus
[selectively] on some dimension or other of the reality before us,"
nor does he even mention the necessity of selectivity at this junc-
ture. Because the claims of sense certainty to richness and veracity
are based upon its freedom from the inevitable selectivity, omission
and distortion of conceptualization, it cannot utilize any descriptive
concepts. But Hegel does not argue that in order to say anything at
all one must use such concepts and thus reveal the selectivity of all
awareness. Instead, he argues that the proponent of sense certainty
can say something about what he knows without descriptive con-
cepts, though what he can say is extremely meager. "It says about
that which it knows only this; it is. And the truth of sense certainty
contains only the being of the matter" (PG 79). Taylor's interpreta-
tion has Hegel completely denying any content to sense certainty,
whereas Hegel explicitly asserts only that its content is the "poorest
and abstractest." Contrary to Taylor, Hegel neither asserts nor im-
plies that the result of sense certainty's endeavor "to go beyond
selection in the attempt to 'take in everything' can only be to fall
over into unconsciousness" (H 142). Sense certainty, though casti-
gated as the poorest form of consciousness, remains nevertheless a
form of consciozlsness.
And the attack on its purported richness is based, not, as Taylor
claims, on the rather weak requirement that "in order to know
something we must be able to say something about it," but on the
more rigorous thesis that our knowledge is limited to what we can
express. If all the proponent of sense certainty can say, while main-
taining consistency with his position, is that what he is conscious
of is or has being, then this, according to Hegel, is all he is con-
scious of or knows.
Taylor's interpretation of this section of the Phenomenology
hinges upon the proposition, that "consciousness which is aware is
always selective," which he not only artificially reads into the text,
but also seems himself to support. "In grasping things under one
description, we exclude (for the present) being aware of them under
others. Looking at the objects in my study under ordinary descrip-
tions as use objects (typewriter, desk, chairs, etc.), I cannot see them
as pure shapes; or looking at them as pure shapes, I cannot see them
as juxtapositions of different materials, and so on" (H 142).
Whatever the philosophic merits of this position, which neither
appears nor even seems suggested in the text, the examples Taylor
cites in support of it are unfortunately loaded and, thus, uncon-
vincing. If, looking at the objects in his study as use objects, he
cannot see them as pure shapes, it is (if for no other reason) because
"seeing things as pure shapes" semantically entails seeing them only
as shapes. For the same trivial reason, seeing them as pure shapes
excludes seeing them "as juxtapositions of materials" or, for that
matter, in any other way. But, since "seeing something as pure
shape" means seeing it only as shape, the selectivity generated by
seeing things in this way is peculiar to this mode of consciousness;
and thus Taylor's examples, which use the notion of seeing things
as pure shapes, beg the question of whether consciousness in general
is selective. It is simply a matter of definition that we cannot see
things as pure shapes and as anything else at the same time. T h e
relevant question is whether we can see them as shapes (simpliciter)
and as "objects of use" or "juxtapositions of materials" at the same
time. There is every reason to think that we can. Can we not be
simultaneously conscious of something as a certain kind of object
of use, having a certain shape, and made of certain materials, for
example, as a round, metal desk?
According to Taylor, language is supposed to reveal the selectiv-
ity of consciousness, but he leaves it quite unclear how this is sup-
posed to happen. Even if we accept the Hegelian thesis that the
content of one's consciousness is exhausted by what one can say
about it, what are the limitations on language which indicate that
consciousness is selective? As my example of "the round, metal
desk" shows, something can be presented under a plurality of de-
 702 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

scriptive categories within a single sentence or phrase. Even if lan-

guage is the mirror of consciousness, making the limits of language
also the limits of consciousness, the possibility of modifying a single
noun by an indefinitely large series of descriptive adjectives suggests
the corresponding possibility of grasping something simultaneously
under an indefinitely large number of descriptive categories. If it
is countered that this possibility of concatenating categories in a
single phrase or sentence does not represent the possibility of con-
catenating them into simultaneous elements of a single experience,
then we are abandoning the theory that the structure of language
mirrors and reveals the structure of consciousness.
One might be tempted to argue from the fact, that any concatena-
tion of descriptions in language must be presented serially within
a single sentence or across a series of sentences rather than simulta-
neously, to the conclusion that something can be grasped in con-
sciousness under a plurality of descriptions not simultaneously, but
only serially. On this argument, however, even the various elements
in a single kind of description, for example, the three colors of the
American Aag, because they must appear serially when expressed
linguistically, could not be experienced simultaneously. Clearly an
unacceptable conclusion.
Even if Taylor's thesis that consciousness is necessarily selective
turns out ultimately, in some sense, to be true, it puzzles me why
he thinks "This cannot help coming out as soon as we are asked
to say what we know" (H 142).
, Taylor reaches firmer ground when he turns to HegeI's assertion
that, though in sense certainty one is supposed to be aware of par-
ticulars, without the intervention or "mediation" of concepts that
are universals, all attempts to refer to particulars involve us in uni-
versals. Hegel again bases his argumentation on the principle that
what we can say reveals what can and cannot be the object of our
consciousness. Thus, if we really can be conscious of particulars, we
should be able to refer to them by means of language. Hegel crit-
ically examines those locutions which are not descriptive class con-
cepts, like 'red' and 'rose', but seem to have the specific function of
referring to particular individuals, and he argues that they really
function as universals, that is, apply equally and indifferently to
each member of a class of individuals.
Hegel begins by considering the demonstrative, 'this', which ap-
parently has the function of picking out a particular. He analyzes
"the this" into "the now and the here"; i.e., this rose is the one that
is present spatially and temporally, the one that is here, now. Then
he points out that for someone properly located any place could be
"here," any time could be "now," and thus anything could be
"this." H e concludes that these locutions and others that seem to
refer to a particular individual, such as 'that' and 'the individual',
are really universals referring indifferently to each member of a
class. As he says in the Encyclopedia: "When I say, 'the individual',
'this individual', 'heref, 'now', all of these are universals. Everything
and anything is an individual and a this."
T h e attempt to salvage the specific reference of demonstratives by
referring them back to the subject using them is similarly dismissed:
"Now is day, because I see it; here is a tree for the same reason. ...
This I sees the tree and asserts the tree to be here; another I sees,
however, a house and asserts, not the tree, but the house to be here"
(PG 82). Every speaker, however, refers to himself as "I": "I is only
a universal like now, here, or this . . . everyone is this individual
I" (PG 82/3).
With the realization that these locutions fail to refer to particular
individuals in a way that is independent of the context of their use
or utterance, the proponent of the view, that we are directly aware
of particulars and can refer to them, naturally or "dialectically"
adopts the view that reference to particulars is successful if con-
sidered in context. As Taylor nicely puts it: "I cannot say who is
meant by 'I' or 'this' or 'now' in a way that will be available to
anyone regardless of context; and for the same reason, sentences
containing such words cannot be transplanted from their context
and retain the same truth value. But when I say 'I' or 'this', I know
what I mean, and I can show you if you will just place yourself in
the same context" (H 143).
Taylor takes Hegel's point here to be: "As a pure contact with
the particular, it is of course available only in context, and as a
knowledge unmediated by concepts, it can of course only be shown"
(loc. cit., my italics). This formulation is somewhat ambiguous. If
one takes Hegel to be saying that, in order to avoid the difficulties
connected with the use of locutions like 'now', 'here', and 'this' to
refer to a particular, one must abandon language and make refer-
ence in context without language, he mistakes Hegel. Though, as
is often the case, the Hegelian text is not absolutely clear, there is
more reason to think that Hegel is talking about the procedure of
locating the referential locution in a context and of supplementing
its use with nonlinguistic referential procedures. I n order to avoid
1 Enryklopbdie dcr Philosophischm lYissenschaften irn Grundrisse, 1830. F.
Nicolin and 0. Poggeler edition (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1959), sec. 20.
7O4 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

the previously adduced pitfalls of trying to refer to the present mo-

ment as "now," we are asked "to let ourselves be shown the now,
that is being asserted" (PG 85, my italics). We are not being asked
to be spectators at a mime show. (How does one even attempt to
point out "the now," as opposed to "the here," completely without
language?) T h e nonlinguistic "showing" is envisioned as supple-
menting what "is being asserted," confining the utterance to a cer-
tain nonlinguistic context, and thereby specifying its reference. It
is not being claimed that the particular, in Taylor's words, "can
only be shown," but that it must also be shown when referred to
linguistically.
Placing locutions that putatively refer to particulars into context
does not, according to Hegel, ultimately provide a solution, but
Taylor's account of what Hegel sees as the remaining problem
seems incorrect. H e claims that Hegel is concerned with "the fa-
miliar theme of ostensive definition," that is, with the need to spec-
ify its scope: "I cannot know even what I mean in this context if
all I can say is 'this' or 'here'. For what do these terms embrace?
Take 'now': does it mean this punctual instance, this hour, this day,
this decade, this epoch? I t can mean all of these, and others in
different contexts. But for it to mean something for me, and not
just an empty word, there must be something else I could say to
give a shape, a scope, to this 'now'; let it be a term for a time
period, such as 'day' or 'hour', or some description of the event or
process or action that is holding my attention and hence defining
the dimension of my present" (H 143/4).
Taylor cites no textual evidence that clearly supports the claim
that this is what Hegel was up to here, and I cannot find any. I t is
a line of argument that Hegel, given what he does say in this sec-
tion, might well have taken, or perhaps even should have taken, but
there seems to be no good evidence that he did in fact take it. If,
as it appears, ostensive words, in order to function, require, even
when located i n a nonlinguistic context of utterance, descriptive
categories to give them determinate scope, then clearly reference
cannot be made to particulars without the intervention of uni-
versal class concepts. But more is needed to warrant attributing this
argument to Hegel than the fact that it supports his conclusions.
What then, according to Hegel, prevents successful reference to a
particular, even when located within a specific context of utterance?
"Let us see," he says, "how that immediate [das Unmitlelbare] is
constituted, which is shown to us. T h e now is shown, this now.
Now; it has already ceased to be while it is being shown." T h e now
that is is a different one from the one shown" (PG 85). If now is
interpreted as a durationless point in time, what Taylor calls the
"punctual present," there is a problem in referring to it successfully
because, assuming that the process of showing it or pointing it out
takes some time, however short, this punctual present will have
passed into the past by the time we have pointed it out and thus
no longer be the present. I n order to escape from this untenable
situation, in which all attempts to refer to the present result in ref-
erence to a point in the past, one is forced to reinterpret the present
as having some duration, enough, at least, to allow successful refer-
ence to it as "the present" or "now." But "the now" that has ac-
quired duration as the result of a dialectical development activated
by trying to point it out is: "not quite the same as what it was at
first, namely, something immediate [ein Unrnittelbares-1. Rather it
is something reflected into itself . . . a now that is absolutely many
nows; and this is the true now, the now as a simple day that has
many nows (hours) in it, such a now (an hour) is is likewise many
minutes, and these nows in the same way [are composed of] many
nows, and so on. - T h e process of pointing out [das Aufzeigen] is
thus itself the movement that expresses what now in truth is,
namely a result or a multiplicity of nows collected and grasped to-
gether [zusarnmengefasst]. And the process of pointing out is [i.e.
provides] the experience that now is a universal."
Hegel in developing this dialectic is making two criticisms of
sense certainty. First, the now we are able to point out or refer to,
having undergone this process, is not an immediate given, as the
objects of sense certainty are supposed to be, but "a result" of dia-
lectical development. Second, having acquired duration, the now
to which we can refer is no longer a particular but a universal, for
it applies equally and indifferently to all its subdivisions. Reference
to the present, even when located in a specific context of utterance
and supplemented by the nonlinguistic procedure of showing or
pointing out, still turns out to involve reference to a universal.
Taylor, interprets this passage as propounding the view that, for
ostensive words to function, their scope must be specified by uni-
versal concepts, that in order to extricate ourselves from the ref-
erential problems posed by the notion of a punctual present, "we

2 PG 86. The German words translated and referred to by me as "to show"

and "to point out," zeigen and aufzeigen, respectively, differ only by the addition
of a prefix, which, without changing the basic meaning of the word, makes more
explicit that the "showing" under consideration is the showing of which partic-
ular among several is meant. In this text both words refer to the same procedure.
706 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

fall back on a description that gives the scope of our present, say
'today' or this 'hour'." H e concludes:

This example is less illuminating than it might be, because the partic-
ular fleetingness, whose punctual instants vanish in becoming past,
cannot be matched easily in the discussion of 'here' or 'this'. But the
general point seems to be this: in experience we meet particulars;
we can grasp these particular things only by in some sense "pointing,"
either literally or by focusing on a thing in a way we could only con-
vey through the use of some demonstrative or related word. But the
experience itself of pointing (Aufzeigen)is that, in trying to grasp the
thing, we show the fleeting, unseizable nature of the particular, and
we can recover it and hold it before our gaze, as it were, only by
subsuming it under a universal (H 145).

Although Hegel does speak of "the true now, the now a simple
day that has many nows (hours) in it," the thrust of his argument
is not that, in order for 'now' to function successfully, its scope must
be specified as being either this day or this hour or this minute, but
rather that, in order to be able to point or refer to the present suc-
cessfully, it must be understood as having some, though not neces-
sarily a determinate, duration. T h e referential problems posed by
the punctual present force us, according to Hegel, to treat the
present as having some scope or other, not as having some specific
scope.
As Taylor observes, the difficulty involved in pointing out a dura-
tionless present has no clear analogue in either the case of 'here' or
of 'this'. But Hegel nevertheless tries to generalize the conclusion
of this dialectic, and examining his attempt is instructive. Immedi-
ately following the passage that argues that only a present with
some duration can be pointed out, Hegel argues analogously that
the only here that can be pointed out must have extension, which
is, after all, the spatial analogue of duration. And, having exten-
sion, it has an indefinitely large number of subdivisions and is thus
"the universal here, which, as the day is a simple plurality of nows,
is a simple plurality of heres" (PG 86). Since, in this passage, there
is no mention of any kind of concepts that might specify the scope
of what one means by 'here', it becomes even clearer that Hegel is
not interested in arguing that the scope of ostensive words must be
specified. H e simply wants to establish that the two criticisms he
made of sense certainty with respect to now can also be made with
respect to here: that here, like now, in having subdivisions or parts
is a universal, not a particular, and second that, having acquired
 its extension, as now acquired its duration, through a dialectical
process, the here pointed to is not an immediate given. Given
Hegel's previously analysis of "the this" into "the now and the
here,'' if he can extend the points made about now to here, he has
also thereby made the case with respect to this and thus achieved
a substantial generalization of his critique.
The problem with the extension of his position to include here,
alluded to by Taylor, is that it is unclear what initiates the dialectic
that forces here to be understood as having extension. T h e fact that
the process of pointing out takes some time does not cause any
problems for the Aufzeigen of an extensionless here as it did in the
case of durationless now. What is the difficulty involved in pointing
out an extensionless here that forces one to understand it as having
extension? Hegel does not tell us. Perhaps he just carelessly assumed
that, if it is impossible to point out a dimensionless point in time, it
must analogously be impossible to point out a dimensionless point
in space. Perhaps the immediately preceding allusion to the infinite
divisibility of time is meant to be obviously also true of space, and
to suggest that, no matter how small a space is pointed out as here,
it always admits of subdivision and is thus not an extensionless
point.3
A problem of greater consequence concerning Hegel's arguments
about the pointing out of purported particulars goes unmentioned
by Taylor. Hegel argues that the here and now in having extension
and duration, and hence an indefinitely large number of subdivi-
sions, are universals and thus not particulars. But unless one con-
flates the notions of the instances of a universal and the parts of a
whole (as Hegel seems to have done), all the arguments would show,
if they work at all, is that here and now are divisible wholes, not
that they are universals. I t is in no way obvious that a whole having
parts cannot be a particular, and Hegel, not having made the dis-
tinction between wholes and universals, does not even address him-
self to this issue.
Finally, I believe Taylor inaccurately interprets the general point
and result of Hegel's various arguments concerning the possibility
3 That Hegel might have had something like tlus in mind, derives some fur-
ther support from his having made clear reference to the infinite divisibility
(and extension) of space and time in introducing sense certainty: "The concrete
content of sense certainty gives the appearance of the richest knowledge, even
as knowledge of infinite riches, for which no boundary can be found, either
when we move outward in space and time, as that in which it spreads out, or
when we take a part from this plenitude and enter into it by dividing it" (PC
79, my italics).
7 0 ~ T H E JOURNAL O F PHILOSOPHY

of making linguistic reference to particulars, or pointing them out.

H e takes Hegel's conclusion in these arguments to be: "Any attempt
at effective awareness of the particular can only succeed by making
use of descriptive, i.e., general terms (H 144). This interpretation of
Hegel's conclusions is of a piece with Taylor's belief that Hegel
was here trying to demonstrate the inevitable selectivity of con-
sciousness and the necessity of specifying the scope of ostensive
terms. Hegel's alleged argument for the inevitable selectivity of
consciousness depends, among other things, upon the inevitable use
of descriptive categories, and the scope of ostensive terms is to be
specified by the application of the same descriptive categories. Hav-
ing already disagreed with the attribution of those aims to Hegel,
I want to take issue with this more general position that underlies
it. Contrary to Taylor, these Hegelian arguments do not show
"awareness of the particular can only succeed by making use of
descriptive, i.e. general, terms." First, they do not argue for the
necessary introduction of descriptive concepts; second, it is not clear
that they allow for the successful awareness of particulars at all.
As I have already argued, Hegel's criticism of sense certainty as
the most impoverished form of consciousness depends not upon a
claim that to say anything at all one must use general, descriptive
concepts, but only on his claim that one can say relatively little
without them. T h e arguments concerning the difficulty of referring
linguistically to particulars try to show, not that success is achieved
only by introducing descriptive ternis that are universals, but that
both the ostensive terms and what is actually referred to by them,
the objects of our consciousness, are universals.
I n a well-known argument against the possibility of linguistically
referring to particulars, Hegel imagines someone writing, "Now it
is night," on a piece of paper, only to discover at noon the next day
that 'now' had changed its reference. Notice that the problem arises
despite the use of the descriptive concept, night.*
Hegel concludes from this argument, the now is "a universal" and
"the universal is the truth of sense certainty." As I have argued
elsewhere, "the truth" of a form of consciousness, in Hegel's termi-
nology, often means the object of that form of consciousness.6 I n his

4 Curiously, Hegel does not make the point that a proponent of sense certainty
cannot with consistency even use concepts like night. That he lets several oppor-
tunities to make this criticism of sense certainty go by is puzzling, but it does
indicate that the focus of his argument was not to show that the proponent of
sense certainty must use descriptive concepts.
6 See my An Introduction to Hegel's Metaphysics (Chicago: University Press,
1969), pp. 10-11, 21.
discussion of "this," "the now," and "the here," these terms d o not
appear in quotation marks, but, along with a startlingly large per-
centage of the text, in italics. When Hegel uses these italicized
terms, he is often concerned with their verbal forms, but he under-
stands them in a broader way. When he asserts that the here, or the
now, or this are universals, he is making a point not merely about
language, but also about the contents of our consciousness, and
ultimately about reality. Hegel is not asserting, as Taylor suggests,
that there really are particulars, of which we are conscious but to
which we cannot refer simply by using ostensive terms. His position
is rather that the fact that even those words which seem to pick out
particulars turn out to be universals that do not pick out partic-
ulars, indicates that the reality of which we are conscious is itself
composed of universals rather than of particulars: For Hegel, the
limits of language reveal the limits of consciousness and, thus, of
reality. "We do not speak as we intend to in this sensible certainty.
Language is, as we see, what is truer; in it we refute our own in-
tentions. . . . the universal is the truth of sense certainty, and lan-
guage expresses only this truth." These arguments are not meant to
show that "we encounter and reach out for particulars and discover
that we can only hold them through the mediating instruments of
universal concepts" (H 145), but that as we reach out for the par-
ticulars we imagine we encounter, we come to realize that they are
really universals.
T h e arguments concerning the difficulty of pointing out partic-
ulars are the same in this respect. Taylor says, "But the experience
of pointing (Aufzeigen) is that, in trying to grasp the thing, we show
the fleeting, unseizable nature of the particular, and we can recover
it and hold it before our gaze, as it were, only by subsuming it
under a universal" (loc. cit). T h e n he mistakenly cites a sentence
as stating this position: "In other words, 'to point something out
is to experience that "now" is a universal' (das Aufzeigen ist das
Erfahren, dass Jetzt Allgemeines ist)" (PG, 86). But there is no men-
tion here of "subsuming" a particular under a universal.6 I n the
context of pointing something out, which is not exclusively a lin-
guistic procedure, it becomes even clearer than in the arguments
about linguistic reference, that Hegel is not merely claiming that
the word 'now' is a universal. I t is rather the present that we are
trying to point out, the object of our pointing and our conscious-
ness, which turns out to be a universal.

6 Nor do the quotation marks in Taylor's translation appear in the original.

71° THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

I n attempting to pick out particulars, universals are, according

to Hegel, dialectically generated, not as auxiliary descriptive devices
necessary to that task, but through the transformation of the par-
ticulars themselves into universals. And with this transformation
the task itself loses its point; the failure to refer to particulars is
supposed to reveal not just the inadequacies of our means or meth-
ods, but the misdirectedness of the enterprise.

Taylor tells us that he has treated this first chapter of the Phenom-
enology in detail because it illustrates what he takes to be "basic
Hegelian themes." I have tried to show that some of these pur-
portedly basic themes are not to be found here. Whether they are
to be found elsewhere in the Hegelian corpus is a question that my
criticisms leave open. Even if they are, their absence here deserves
to be noted and integrated into an over-all assessment of how gen-
erally and consistently these themes are propounded throughout
Hegel's philosophy.
IVAN SOLL
University of Wisconsin

EMBODIMENT AND SITUATION:

CHARLES TAYLOR'S HEGEL *

H
EGEL would have been pleased with the opening chapter
of Charles Taylor's recent bookt-and perhaps even in-
structed by it. T h e author restates Hegel's relationship to
his modern predecessors in a way that is faithful and yet not simply
a compilation of Hegel's remarks about them. It is a canvass di-
rected toward the problem that moved Hegel to philosophize in the
way he did. Some English-language expositors have rightly stressed
the prominence of the Greeks in Hegel's solution; and indeed, he
was in continual running commentary upon them. But Hegel's chief
problem was posed by what he called die moderne Bildung, that
spirit of modernity whose conflicting tendencies threatened the in-
telligibility of nature and the civility of modern society (H 513-
533). Professor Taylor finds Hegel's arguments to be unacceptable
today when measured by strict canons. Nevertheless, he is drawn to
T o be presented in an APA symposium on Hegel, by Charles Taylor, De-
cember 30, 1976; cosymposiasw will be Ivan Sol1 and Charles Taylor: see this
JOURNAL, this issue, pp. 697-710 and 723-725, respectively.
t Hegel (New York: Cambridge 1975); hereafter H.