Rebecca Comay – The Postmodern Peripatetic

Rebecca Comay’s Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution (2011) is a far better book than her recent collaboration with Frank Ruda (see Hopes Dashed). This is in the genre of literature people doing a sort of philosophy, and tends to dwell too much for my taste on broadly “existentialist” themes like sickness, loss, anxiety, etc., but it is a prolonged meditation on its subject matter, ending with a substantial discussion — and ultimately a positive, if somewhat paradoxical assessment — of the role of forgiveness in Hegel’s Phenomenology, as politically liberating.

Around 1800 in Germany, it was something of a commonplace to claim that Germany did not need a political revolution like France did, because Germany had already had the Reformation, as well as Kant’s Copernican revolution as interpreted by Fichte. Kant had expressed sympathy with the French Revolution’s ideals, but horror both at the idea of revolution, and at the execution of the French monarch in particular. (See also Enlightenment.) To oversimplify a bit, the German Romantics tended to feel that the freedom of the Subject claimed by Fichte captured everything good about the Revolution.

Hegel distanced himself from the Romantics, and mixed praise of Fichte with sharp criticism of his one-sidedness. Though Hegel championed what he considered to be true freedom, he also noted there was an uncomfortable relation between one-sided freedom and Terror. This should not be too surprising, since one-sided freedom on Hegel’s analysis is a kind of mastery. (See also Independence, Freedom; Freedom Without Sovereignty.)

In the context of the paranoia that drove the Terror, which Comay associates with Hegel’s allegory of the hard-hearted judge, Comay quotes Hegel saying “the fear of error is itself the error” that “mistrusts everything except [its] own mistrust” (p. 121).

I think every state and every revolution has sometimes followed a kind of Realpolitik, under which ethical goods are sacrificed in the name of what are expediently deemed to be greater goods, e.g., the conformist political “Virtue” promoted by Robespierre. It becomes all too easy to denounce others as counter-revolutionaries or Reds or terrorists or the moral equivalent thereof, while equating one’s own Terror with Virtue. There is a rather desperate need for an Aristotelian mean here. People should not be unconditionally pacifist in the face of oppression or aggression, but we ought to be very selective and conditional about endorsing the legitimacy of violence in the name of a greater good. (See also Stubborn Refusal; Sanctions.)

Hegelian forgiveness, Comay says, “evacuates the substantial plenitude of every community. The opening of the universal is thus neither reconstructive (forgiveness does not presuppose the stable identity of the social context) nor constructive (it does not stipulate a social norm).” (p. 133.) Then “The event is historicized: instead of determining the future, the past is freed to receive a new meaning from the future…. I am freed from the past, freed to act differently, only by exposing myself to the moral claim of others…. If I am no longer the prisoner of my act, this is because I am not its proprietor either.” (p. 133.) And “The reconciling yes… retains its participial, unfinished aspect. It speaks not of reconciliation but of an unfinished and ongoing movement of reconciling” (p. 136).

Rhetorical differences notwithstanding, this much seems to me entirely compatible with Brandom’s reading of Hegelian forgiveness.

Comay says, however, that it “challenges every politics of recognition (especially those formulated in Hegel’s name) constructed on a model of dialogical transparency” (p. 135). I’m not quite sure what is meant to be implied here by “dialogical transparency”, but I don’t think the work of reason in dialogue is “transparent”. Work is not a metaphor here. Dialogue involves actual conceptual/interpretive and communicative work leading to developments that do not come ready-made.

Comay goes on to associate a politics of recognition with identity politics, without saying of whom she is thinking. I’m used to a more positive, universalist Kantian-ethical view of recognition that has nothing to do with identity politics.

The Dash — The Other Side of Absolute Knowing (2018), by Rebecca Comay and Frank Ruda, advertised itself as a tour de force vindication of absolute knowing in Hegel, but hardly even mentions absolute knowing. Thick rhetoric rehearsing common Žižekian themes introduces more rhetoric and a few bits of Hegelian trivia. This little book is organizationally reminiscent of middle-period Derrida’s focus on obscure “minor” points, but lacks the redeeming grace of Derrida’s literary sparkle and prolonged thoughtfulness. I am terribly disappointed, and must beg forgiveness from my readers for another defensive response to what come across as very unfair comments about the kindly Brandom, who may be as misunderstood as Hegel himself.

According to the authors, “self-avowed Hegelian pragmatism — undoubtedly the most influential form of Hegelianism today” constrains us to remain within an allegedly preestablished “space of reasons” (scare quotes in original) “legitimized within a restricted sphere” that “cannot be fundamentally changed” (emphasis in original) “with all exits and entrances sealed” so that “the terms of rational agency are already determined such that alternate forms of practical rationality are ruled out from the outset”. I’m really sorry, but I don’t know what planet these people live on. They make something beautiful sound like a source of oppressive conformism.

The “space of reasons” introduced by Sellars and promoted by Brandom simply names the abstract possibility of ethical reasoning and dialogue. It is the wide open space of all possible Socratic questioning (see What and Why; Context). It is not the shared beliefs of some empirically existing community. Existing unjust practices are an affront to reason.

Because the space of reasons is not an empirically existing thing to begin with, talk about changing it or opting out reflects a complete misunderstanding. We could opt out from the established practices of an existing community, or change them. But it doesn’t make any sense to talk about “opting out” from an abstract possibility of questioning. In fact, those who want to opt out from the possibility of questioning are those who want to claim special privilege or to abuse others. (See also Stubborn Refusal.)

By the same token, “alternate forms” of rationality are automatically ruled in to the space of reasons. The autonomy of reason means that no one gets to dictate. Ethically speaking, there is an implied, rather minimal standard of reasonableness and good faith. However, as an abstract thing, the space of reasons can’t enforce anything at all. The social danger is not that reason could possibly oppress us, but that it is too often ignored. (See also Recognition; Fragility of the Good.)