This course offers an introduction to the oft forgotten work of historian of philosophy Jean Hyppolite. Jean Hyppolite’s work on Hegel—despite being overshadowed by Kojevé’s Introduction to the Reading of Hegel—had a significant impact upon the post-war French reception of Hegel, and French philosophy more broadly. In stark contrast to Alexandre Kojevé, Hyppolite stresses the importance of both substance and subject even from his early work. In reading Hyppolite, we find a rich moment of Hegel scholarship in France which tends to lie outside of the usual interpretations of the ‘French Hegel’. The course is structured broadly chronologically in order to sketch the development of Hyppolite’s thought from Genesis and Structure to his post-Logic and Existence writings—especially on the question of the relation between the Phenomenology and the Logic.
N.B. Readings for each week are not strictly required, but are the main texts which will be referenced.
Lecture 1: The French Hegel and Hyppolite’s Genesis and Structure
The first week will introduce the concept of the ‘French Hegel’ and intellectual context of Hyppolite’s work. It will also introduce Hyppolite’s reading of the method and structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology, and how Hyppolite understands the relation between the Phenomenology and Logic—in 1946—through his reading of Hegel’s chapter on Absolute Knowledge.
Readings:
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘Generalities on The Phenomenology’ (in particular ‘Meaning and Method of the Phenomenology’ and ‘History and Phenomenology’), and ‘Phenomenology and Logic: Absolute Knowledge’ in Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974)
- G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Preface’ and ‘Absolute Knowing’ in The Phenomenology of Spirit tr. Terry Pinkard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp. 3-48, 454-467
- Judith Butler, ‘Hyppolite: Desire, Transcience, and the Absolute’ in Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), pp.79-92
- Michael S. Roth, ‘Heroic Hegelianism’ in Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 19-45
Lecture 2: Hyppolite’s ‘Middle Period’
In week two, we will focus upon Hyppolite’s work between the publication of Genesis and Structure and Logic and Existence. The first half of this lecture will focus on how Hyppolite reads the concept of ‘history’ in Hegel, and Marx’s response to Hegel—particularly through Hegel’s political philosophy. The second half of this lecture will focus on Hyppolite’s writing on the relation between the Phenomenology and the Logic in this period wherein we find early indications of the account that will be more fully developed in Logic and Existence. In turn, we will examine how Hyppolite’s writings on the Phenomenology-Logic relation problematise the notion of history found in his earlier readings of the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right.
Readings:
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘Ruse of Reason and History in Hegel’ (Translation will be provided)
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘Marx’s Critique of the Hegelian Concept of the State’, ‘The Human Situation in the Hegelian Phenomenology’, and ‘On the Logic of Hegel’ in Studies on Hegel and Marx pp. 106-125, 153-168, 169-186
- Michael S. Roth, ‘Logic in History and the Problematic of Humanism’ in Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 46-65
Lecture 3: The ‘Heideggerian Thunderbolt’ and Logic and Existence
Hyppolite, like many French philosophers of the period, was struck by the ‘Heideggerian thunderbolt’ in the wake of the publication of Heidegger’s ‘Letter on Humanism’. By turning to Hyppolite’s writings on Heidegger, we can see the lines of thought that structured his work during the period he was writing Logic and Existence (L&E) and immediately after. In particular, reading Hyppolite’s work on Heidegger allows us reflect on the movement of Hyppolite’s thought from Genesis and Structure, and the essays collected in Studies on Hegel and Marx to his more Heidegger-inspired reading in L&E in regards to the question of the ‘relation’ between Hegel’s Phenomenology and Logic. Hyppolite’s conclusions from his engagement with Heidegger and Hegel also allows us to distinguish him from Kojeve through his refusal of a ‘subjectivist’ reading of Hegel—which in turn will be important for students of Hyppolite such as Althusser, Deleuze, and Derrida.
Readings:
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘Ontology and Phenomenology in Martin Heidegger’ (Translation will be provided)
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘Study of Heidegger’s Commentary on the Introduction to the Phenomenology (Translation will be provided)
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘The Transformation of Metaphysics into Logic’, and ‘Logic and Existence’ in Logic and Existence, tr. Leonard Lawlor and Amit Sen (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997)
- Ethan Kleinberg, ‘The “Letter on Humanism” in Generation Existentential: Heidegger’s Philosophy in France, 1927-1961 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005) pp.184-206
Lecture 4: Post-Logic and Existence
In week four we will turn to Hyppolite’s later writings, and Geroulanos and Roth’s reading of them. In particular, we will focus on the reading of Roth and Geroulanos in which Hyppolite is a ‘hopeful Heideggerian’ and ‘ambiguous’ about the relation of Man and his role in history, which will be problematised through reading Hyppolite’s remarks on Althusser and Balibar’s Reading Capital.
Readings:
- Jean Hyppolite, ‘Language and Being: Language and Thought’ and ‘A New Perspective on Marx and Marxism’ in Pli Vol 24, pp. 10-39
- Stefanos Geroulanos, ‘Man in Suspension: Jean Hyppolite on History, Being, and Language’ in An Atheism That is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), pp. 287-304
- Michael S. Roth, ‘From Humanism to Being’ in Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 66-80
Lecture 5: Hyppolite and his After-lives
In week 5, we move from Hyppolite to his reception and influence in France. The first part of this lecture will focus on the influence of Hyppolite on his students—in particular Deleuze, and to a lesser extent, Foucault—before turning to his reception by those who could be considered his contemporaries in the field of Philosophy of Science, such as Georges Canguilhem and Suzanne Bachelard.
Readings:
- Gilles Deleuze, ‘Review of Jean Hyppolite, Logic and Existence’ in Logic and Existence, tr. Leonard Lawlor and Amit Sen (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997)
- Leonard Lawlor, ‘“If theory Is Gray, Green Is the Golden Tree of Life”: Philosophy and Non-Philosophy since Hyppolite’ in Thinking Through French Philosophy: The Being of the Question (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003) pp. 11-23
- Joe Huges, Christopher O’Neill, Lachlan Wells, and Alice Nilsson, ‘Homage to the ‘Homage to the Hommage à Jean Hyppolite’’, Philosophy, Politics and Critique, Vol 1, Issue 3, pp. 344-38
- Stuart Elden, ‘Canguilhem, Dumézil, Hyppolite: Georges Canguilhem and his Contemporaries’, Revue Internationationale de Philosophie, 307.1 (2024), 27-48.
- Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault ‘Jean Hyppolite (1907-1968)’, Pli Vol 24, pp.1-9
- Leonard Lawlor, ‘“Immanence is Complete” or the Legacy of Jean Hyppolite’s Thinking’ (Translation will be provided)