The Dash-The Other Side of Absolute Knowing

by Rebecca Comay, Frank Ruda

An argument that what is usually dismissed as the “mystical shell” of Hegel's thought—the concept of absolute knowledge—is actually its most “rational kernel.” This book sets out from a counterintuitive the “mystical shell” of Hegel's system proves to be its most “rational kernel.” Hegel's radicalism is located precisely at the point where his thought seems to regress most. Most current readings try to update Hegel's thought by pruning back his grandiose claims to “absolute knowing.” Comay and Ruda invert this deflationary gesture by inflating what seems to be most the absolute is grasped only in the minutiae of its most mundane appearances. Reading Hegel without presupposition, without eliminating anything in advance or making any decision about what is essential and what is inessential, what is living and what is dead, they explore his presentation of the absolute to the letter. The Dash is organized around a pair of seemingly innocuous details. Hegel punctuates strangely. He ends the Phenomenology of Spirit with a dash, and he begins the Science of Logic with a dash. This distinctive punctuation reveals an ambiguity at the heart of absolute knowing. The dash combines hesitation and acceleration. Its orientation is simultaneously retrospective and prospective. It both holds back and propels. It severs and connects. It demurs and insists. It interrupts and prolongs. It generates nonsequiturs and produces explanations. It leads in all continuation, deviation, meaningless termination. This challenges every cliché about the Hegelian dialectic as a machine of uninterrupted teleological progress. The dialectical movement is, rather, structured by intermittency, interruption, hesitation, blockage, abruption, and random, unpredictable change—a rhythm that displays all the vicissitudes of the Freudian drive.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory

192 pages, Paperback

Published May 4, 2018

Reviews

[Edward Backman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comay’s Essay was an excellent account of a text that refuses to be digested fully, written by a man who always finds himself ‘chewing more than he bit off’. So its appropriate that this, like everything else Comay writes, is frustrating in the same way. Ive read “Hegel’s last words” like three times now and can’t seem to land on a final word!

And Frank Ruda’s essay is equally hard but in a different way. Here’s a highlight: “the beginning of the Logic demonstrates that retroactivity is itself a retroactive phenomenon. What will have been indeterminate immediacy will have been what it will have been when it will have become what it will have become (103). I wish I knew what Frank is talking about. But this is a great book for Hegel’s end! The last problems, what is truly at stake, what is left unsaid when all is said and done—its all here!

*The PERFECT book for anyone who’s already read and internalized every other book by and about Hegel.*

4.5/5

[Colt Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a refreshing text on one of the most avoided areas of Hegel's thought: absolute knowing. Maybe a bit excessive in their rehashing of Ž's Hegel (i.e. the first couple chapters), but the last section of the book is where it really launches.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this very much except the part where they attributed the Stalin (unacceptable) quote to Lenin (surprisingly acceptable now). It is fun seeing all these academics expositing Hegel referring to Lenin as he was a major Hegelian after 1914-15 and even after the revolution he was imploring the communist party members to read the Science of Logic - in an address to the congress he maintains that the “dialectical” part of dialectical materialism is just Hegelian dialectics and you can’t be a marxist without it.

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written and engaging, presents some great ideas and full of insight into the process that is sustaining a reading of Hegel. Incredibly useful to me as a Hegel nerd and at times quite funny. Recommended.

[Suraj Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

great idea, mediocre execution. the academic setting really killed this book, i was hoping for a roller coaster joyride through hegel once again but what i got was mrs henessey taking me to school in the back of a station wagon, very suburban reading. not recommended.