These lectures constitute the earliest version of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, one of the most influential works in Western political theory. They introduce a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. This transcription of the lectures, which remained in obscurity until 1982, presents the philosopher's social thought with clarity and boldness. It differs in some significant respects from Hegel's own published version of 1821. Nowhere does Hegel make plainer the difference between (...) his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural law or offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. His description of poverty is more forceful and his critique of existing social conditions more thorough than in the published edition, which had to satisfy the Prussian censor. The strictly limited powers of the monarch are more clearly delineated in the Heidelberg lectures, and the arguments for a bicameral legislature are more explicit. Hegel formulates in a more dynamic way his understanding of the relationship between rationality and actuality--the rational is not what exists but what is coming into being--and sets forth more simply and clearly the central themes of his political philosophy--freedom, justice, and community. The Heidelberg lectures are an indispensable resource for understanding the edition of 1821 and an invaluable supplement to one of the great classics of political philosophy. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Social Autopoiesis?” by Hugo Urrestarazu. Upshot: Urrestarazu, basing himself on Maturana and Varela, argues that human society is not autopoietic. This commentary presents a counter-argument, the main point being that freedom is not to be confused with an absence of constraints.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: Cadenas and Arnold argue in favour of deploying the concept of autopoiesis to study human societies. This OPC makes a case for the opposition: autopoiesis is not an appropriate tool for studying human societies, and attempts to do so both miss out key aspects of human societies and, incidentally, damage the concept of autopoiesis.

This article presents a close textual analysis of the concept of selfhood in Heidegger's central work, Being and Time. It is shown that Heidegger's model of the self is actually a conflation of two mutually exclusive models. The first is an individually grounded heroic quest for authenticity arising from a confrontation with finitude. The other is based in the passive acceptance of a historically grounded Volksgeist and its accompanying societal roles. It is found that the tension arising from these disparate (...) models renders Heidegger's political theory necessarily ambiguous, as it ultimately breaks down in the transition between the individual and social spheres. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “A Cybernetic Computational Model for Learning and Skill Acquisition” by Bernard Scott & Abhinav Bansal. Upshot: The Computational Theory of Mind suffers from an inherent weakness owing to its difficulty in taking semantics and embodiment properly into account. It is suggested that these difficulties could be alleviated if it were recognized that the fact that the model presented here employs a computer as a tool, to highlight certain key features of its dynamics, does not (...) necessarily involve assuming that the underlying processes that are modelled are themselves strictly computational in nature. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Sensorimotor Direct Realism: How We Enact Our World” by Michael Beaton. Upshot: Direct realism can be better distinguished from objectivism and naïve realism, by recognizing the radical plurality of the incommensurable realities that can be enacted by living organisms in coupling with their environment.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: My suggestion is that the shift from objects to processes can be seen as grounded in the processes of self-generation common to all living organisms. Specifically human cognition is a subsequent evolutionary emergence.

Open peer commentary on the target article “How and Why the Brain Lays the Foundations for a Conscious Self” by Martin V. Butz. Excerpt: The article opens with the statement “perceived reality is a complex construct”; clearly, no constructivist could disagree with that! However, in the very next sentence Butz simply assumes, without argument, that we are dealing with an “inner” construct; he goes on, throughout the article, to speak of “inner realities.” I would like to explain (a) why I (...) think this is a mistake; and (b) why it is a serious mistake ... especially for constructivists. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Second-Order Science: Logic, Strategies, Methods” by Stuart A. Umpleby. Upshot: The author claims that second-order science leads to “an awareness of our impact on our social and biological environment.” If this is true, it is sheer irresponsibility not to address the possibility that human activity is leading the biosphere to a point of catastrophic collapse. More generally, I hold that science should openly address explicitly value-laden issues.

Open peer commentary on the article “Enaction as a Lived Experience: Towards a Radical Neurophenomenology” by Claire Petitmengin. Upshot: Mild” neurophenomenology does not solve the “hard problem” of consciousness; in a way it actually aggravates it. “Radical” neurophenomenology “dissolves” the hard problem. However, I suggest that it may be premature to give up on actually solving the hard problem; and indicate several lines of research that are still open.

_Philosophy of Right_ remains among the most influential works in Western political theory. It introduces a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. In this transcription of the lectures that formed the initial version of Hegel's text, the philosopher presents his thought with a clarity and directness seldom matched in his later writings. Nowhere does Hegel make clearer the difference between his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural law. (...) Nowhere does he offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. The long-awaited appearance of this first English-language translation of these lectures is a major event for Hegel scholars, philosophers, and political theorists. (shrink)