On Hegel’s ‘altogether new concept of scientific procedure’

Main ideas, concepts, and lessons

• The talk frames Hegel as solving (or reworking) a Kantian problem about metaphysics

  • Kant’s inherited problem: how we can speak about what is fundamentally the case (i.e., how to do metaphysics).
  • Kant’s lesson: philosophy must not ignore the structure of thought, otherwise it confuses:
    • what is thought / thinking,
    • with what is in itself fundamentally the case.
  • First-person mediation: there is “one and only one perspective,” the first-person perspective; third-person perspectives depend on it. There is no “view from nowhere.”
  • No access outside mediation: everything appears under conditions of thought and experience; you cannot appeal to anything beyond that mediation without already presupposing it.

• Sellars’ “myth of the given” is used to support the Kantian starting point

  • Wilfrid Sellars (1950s) names the error as the myth of the given:
    • the idea that there are raw, unmediated facts (e.g., sense data) that ground knowledge independently of conceptual structure.
  • The talk argues that even “raw” sense data is mediated by the structure of first-person consciousness.

• Hegel’s response in the Science of Logic

  • Post-Kantian metaphysics cannot speculate freely about what lies behind appearances.
  • Instead, it must investigate the necessary structure of thought.
  • Hegel’s target: how thought must be structured for concepts like truth, proof, science, and even thought itself vs. non-thought.

• Metaphysics is positioned as uniquely foundational and methodologically constrained

  • Unlike science/mathematics (which study particular objects starting from “givens”), metaphysics studies possibility of any kinds whatsoever.
  • Therefore, metaphysics must be self-grounding:
    • it must not borrow its method from subordinate sciences,
    • it must explain its own beginning and method from within.

• Core Hegelian methodology: “an altogether new concept of scientific procedure”

  • In the prefaces and introduction to the Science of Logic, Hegel insists on a distinctive method:
    • Philosophy cannot borrow method from mathematics or rely on inner intuition and external reflection.
    • Movement in scientific knowledge is generated by the content itself:
      • “the content’s own reflection” posits and generates what the content is.

• A key clarification provided in the talk: why the method seems self-referential

  • The science’s content begins with thinking as such.
  • Thinking is special because it can reflect on itself (like a mirror), making it possible to treat thinking as both subject and object.
  • Therefore:
    • any “externally presented” methodology must ultimately arise from thought itself.
    • the “absolute beginning” is fundamentally self-referential: thought thinking itself.

• The “chicken-and-egg” problem of the beginning, and Hegel’s strategy

  • Problem: if nothing is given, including the method, how does the inquiry start?
  • Hegel’s move (as presented): set aside reflection to take up what is before us.
  • Hegel calls the beginning “speculative” (akin to attending/contemplating), but this generates a paradox:
    • observation requires prior reflection,
    • yet reflection requires the object (which is itself).

• Hegel’s way of handling the paradox: immediacy and mediation are inseparable

  • The beginning is not purely immediate or purely mediated; it contains both.
  • Thought is characterized as a feedback loop:
    • nothing is wholly immediate,
    • nothing is wholly mediated,
    • hence immediacy and mediation become “unseparated and inseparable.”

• Hegel’s “contentless” starting point: pure being and pure nothing

  • The talk presents Hegel’s opening as requiring a starting point with no content, i.e., a “pure” concept.
  • Hegel begins with:
    • Pure being: “raw isness,” contentless.
    • On reflection, pure being implies pure nothing.
    • Pure nothing also implies pure being.
  • The loop thus begins with:
    • a mutually implying, contentless pair,
    • forming the minimal differentiated unity of thought thinking itself.

• How the “method” is supposed to arise from the content

  • Because pure being and pure nothing necessarily imply each other, the talk claims:
    • this already contains a germ of method,
    • with rudimentary “rules” of valid inference emerging internally.
  • Truth is characterized as no longer a subject–object relation but:
    • absolute, necessary inferential relations among concepts in a closed system.

• Dialectical logic and proof-like deduction

  • Hegel aims for a proof-like deduction (compared to mathematics):
    • each step inferred from prior steps,
    • with necessity at every stage.
  • Dialectical logic here is described as:
    • logic working at the ground of any thinking, even when that thinking is irrational.

• Ordinary language vs formal logic (and critiques of Hegel’s choice)

  • Hegel insists the Science of Logic should be expressed in ordinary language, not formal logic.
  • The talk quotes/claims Hegel:
    • formal logic is empty templates (atoms like A and B),
    • ordinary language carries richer speculative content.
  • The speaker (Ian) then offers criticisms:
    • ordinary language is historically contingent and semantically polluted,
    • meaning may leak into the “hermetically sealed” deduction,
    • Hegel’s interpretive instability: after decades, no stable single meaning has emerged.
  • Ian’s proposed alternative direction:
    • more formalization, but ideally self-referential formalism (formal systems about themselves rather than relying on external interpretation).

• Science-of-logic as a “research program”

  • The speaker frames Hegel’s method as:
    • starting imperfectly,
    • proceeding via observation, deduction, and eventual testing against phenomena.
  • Hegel applies the logic to many domains:
    • history, natural science, mathematics, religion, human consciousness.

• Teleological end-state of the system (as presented)

  • The beginning (thought thinking itself) is transformed at the end:
    • into what existence necessarily is,
    • with an end-quote about “God in his internal essence before the creation…”

• First-person perspective remains decisive

  • The talk emphasizes: no matter which metaphysical conclusions you adopt,
    • thought must examine its own ground using a self-referential bootstrapping method.
  • The Science of Logic remains essential for understanding what is fundamentally the case.

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Methodology / procedure (detailed bullet format)

Hegel’s “scientific procedure” for metaphysics as described in the talk

1. Step 1: Accept the Kantian constraint

   • Treat metaphysical claims as constrained by the structure of thought.
   • Reject “unmediated facts” as foundational (Sellars’ myth of the given).

2. Step 2: Define metaphysics’ special task

   • Metaphysics must determine the absolute ground of:
     • truth, proof, science,
     • and even the possibility of thought vs non-thought.

3. Step 3: Impose a methodological constraint

   • The method cannot be borrowed from subordinate sciences (e.g., mathematics).
   • The inquiry must be self-grounding (method arises from within its own content).

4. Step 4: Start with thought as its own object

   • Begin with thinking as such, because only thinking can reflect on itself.

5. Step 5: Address the beginning problem

   • Attempt to “set aside reflection” to take up what is before us.
   • Accept that the beginning is paradoxical: it involves both immediacy and mediation.

6. Step 6: Treat thought as a feedback loop

   • No thought is wholly immediate; no thought is wholly mediated.
   • Therefore, contradiction is not an error external to thought; it is constitutive of thought’s self-relation.

7. Step 7: Use a presuppositionless, contentless starting concept

   • Begin with pure being (contentless “isness”).
   • On reflection, pure being implies pure nothing.
   • Pure nothing implies pure being.
   • Result: a minimal inferential loop with a seed of method.

8. Step 8: Let the content generate the movement

   • The “method” is not externally imposed; it is generated by the content’s own reflections/implications.
   • The system proceeds via internally necessary inferential transitions.

9. Step 9: Aim for proof-like necessity

   • Deduction must have mathematical-style necessity:
     • each step justified by what follows from prior steps’ constitutive meanings.

10. Step 10: Express the deduction in ordinary language (Hegel’s choice)

    • Hegel prefers ordinary language over formal logic because:
      • formal logic allegedly lacks the internal structure and richness needed.
    • (Ian adds that this choice may introduce historical/semantic contamination, and may contribute to interpretive instability.)

11. Step 11: Extend/testing across domains

    • Apply the resulting logic to history, nature, mathematics, religion, consciousness.
    • Evaluate the explanatory success of the method as a long-term research program.

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Speakers / sources featured (identified)

• Zed (meeting host; introduced the format and turned to Ian)
• Ian (primary speaker; delivered the main talk and later responded in Q&A)
• Wilfrid Sellars (cited as author who coined “myth of the given”)
• Immanuel Kant (major framework source; discussed extensively)
• G. W. F. Hegel (subject of the talk; especially Science of Logic)
• Robert Pippin (mentioned in discussion as an interpreter of Hegel)
• Stephen Houlgate (mentioned in discussion as an interpreter of Hegel)
• Richard (name mentioned briefly; appears as someone knowledgeable about Kant)
• Robin (named participant in Q&A)
• Hamlet (referenced indirectly via “to be or not to be” as an illustration)
• Buddhist tradition / Upanishads / Rigveda (referenced as comparative philosophical-religious contexts; not as specific named authors)