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Document Details : Title: Houlgate and Žižek on Hegel's Science of Logic Subtitle: A Formal Shift of Perspective Author(s): BOLLAERT, Iben Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 87 Issue: 1 Date: 2025 Pages: 23-47 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.87.1.3294637 Abstract : This paper investigates the reception of G.W.F. Hegel’s Science of Logic through a comparison of Stephen Houlgate and Slavoj Žižek’s interventions. Both thinkers have been positioned in the movement insisting that Hegel’s Logic should be read ontologically as a work of speculative metaphysics, reacting to the more Kantian, epistemologically inspired movement with key figures such as Robert Pippin. Both Houlgate and Žižek have critiqued Pippin but neither has engaged with the other’s interpretation, and there has been no comparative analysis of their approaches to date. In light of this lacuna, I argue that Houlgate and Žižek diverge significantly in their reading of the Logic. First, I systematize Žižek’s diverse readings of Hegel to highlight Žižek’s emphasis on the formal structure of the dialectical process. Second, I analyze Houlgate’s notion of immanence and passivity in the Logic in order to demonstrate its difference with Žižek. Drawing upon the work of David Gray Carlson, one of the few scholars to engage with both Žižek and Hegel’s Logic, I demonstrate this difference through a comparative close reading of both authors’ interpretation of the transition from becoming to determinate being in the opening of the Logic. |
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