The Inhospitality of Philosophy

Intellect and Common Sense in Hegel’s Jena Writings

Abstract

One of the forms the concept of understanding (Verstand) takes in Hegel’s Jena writings is that of common sense. Hegel criticizes those philosophies that seek to popularize philosophical ideas. The aim of this essay is to show that Hegel does not advocate an exclusive and esoteric form of knowledge, but rather refuses to ascribe scientific dignity to positions based on prejudice and untested knowledge. For Hegel, the task of philosophy is to question the known and to place us in the unknown, the inhospitable, forcing us to constantly reformulate our categories in a relentless critical exercise. In this paper, I will first analyse Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer’s essay On the Claims of Common Sense to Philosophy (§ 2). I will then focus on the Hegelian critique of common sense in the Differenzschrift (§ 3) and finally in the essay against Wilhelm Traugott Krug (§ 4).