Praxis und Objektivität: Anmerkungen zu Robert B. Brandoms postanalytischer Hegel-Interpretation

After a short introduction concerning efforts by two Pittsburgh philosophers, Robert Brandom and John McDowell, to transform analytic philosophy from a Kantian stage to a Hegelian one, I discuss two important components of Brandom’s pragmatic interpretation of Hegel. First, I thematize how
Brandom’s historical understanding of rationality leads back to a conception of praxis that regards conceptual normativity as essentially a social institution. This makes it possible to read Hegel’s idealism as pragmatic in a fundamental sense that contrasts sharply with the instrumental orientation of the classical American pragmatists. Secondly, I show how the method of Hegel’s
suspension of perspectives within absolute knowledge (in the Phenomenology of Spirit) serves as a model for Brandom’s determination of objectivity, which turns out to be a structural feature of the social and perspectival form of conceptual contents.