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What Might Hegel and Wittgenstein Have Seen in Goethe’s Colour Theory?

  • Paul Redding
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Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy
This chapter is in the book Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy

Abstract

Hegel and Wittgenstein were both attracted to the idiosyncratic theory of colour that Goethe had put forward in 1810 in the work Zur Farbenlehre. The phenomena to which Goethe had pointed brought to the surface fundamental flaws in standard ways of thinking about logic, especially, the reduction of negation to the single relation of contradiction. For Hegel, Goethe’s critique of Newton’s approach showed the need for two distinct ways in which individual colours could be conceptualized, admitting both contrariety and contradiction between colour concepts. In relation to this, parallels can be found between Hegel’s logic and that of late nineteenth-century ‘algebraists’ such as W.E. Johnson and Charles Sanders Peirce. In the case of Wittgenstein, these logicians provide alternatives to Frege’s classical logic on which Wittgenstein had earlier relied. Moreover, behind these logical issues, we can glimpse concerns with ethical issues concerning the nature of the good.

Abstract

Hegel and Wittgenstein were both attracted to the idiosyncratic theory of colour that Goethe had put forward in 1810 in the work Zur Farbenlehre. The phenomena to which Goethe had pointed brought to the surface fundamental flaws in standard ways of thinking about logic, especially, the reduction of negation to the single relation of contradiction. For Hegel, Goethe’s critique of Newton’s approach showed the need for two distinct ways in which individual colours could be conceptualized, admitting both contrariety and contradiction between colour concepts. In relation to this, parallels can be found between Hegel’s logic and that of late nineteenth-century ‘algebraists’ such as W.E. Johnson and Charles Sanders Peirce. In the case of Wittgenstein, these logicians provide alternatives to Frege’s classical logic on which Wittgenstein had earlier relied. Moreover, behind these logical issues, we can glimpse concerns with ethical issues concerning the nature of the good.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Table of Contents VII
  4. List of Abbreviations of Wittgenstein’s Works IX
  5. Notes on Authors XI
  6. Introduction: Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy – Logic, Language, Life 1
  7. I Logic
  8. Differences in Form, Identities in Content – Wittgenstein and Hegel on Two Complementary Aspects of Meaning 13
  9. What Might Hegel and Wittgenstein Have Seen in Goethe’s Colour Theory? 35
  10. Shining and Showing 53
  11. Two Faces of Contradiction 81
  12. Infinity as the Form of the Finite: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Remarks, XII and the Notion of the Infinite in the Critique of Pure Reason 101
  13. II Language
  14. Talking is Lying: On One Suspicious Metaphor 125
  15. Rhetoric, Negativity, and Philosophy of Language – Hegel’s Sophists as Early Wittgensteinians 137
  16. Reflections on Rule-Following 147
  17. Wittgenstein’s Übersichtliche Darstellung and Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy 167
  18. Wittgenstein and Schlegel on Forms of Life: Talking To or Past Each Other 183
  19. III Life
  20. Hegel, the Pragmatic Turn, and the Later Wittgenstein 201
  21. Following the Rule Without Interpreting It? – Gadamarian and Kantian Revision of Brandom’s Solution to the Wittgensteinian Problem 213
  22. Following a Rule Blindly: Hegel and Wittgenstein on the Immediacy of Habit 225
  23. Wittgenstein and Critical Theory – From ‘Sub Specie Aeterni’ to the ‘Entanglement in Our Rules’ – Wittgenstein, Adorno, Marx 255
  24. Wittgenstein and Hegel on Art and the Everyday 277
  25. Subject Index 297
  26. Person Index 307
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698497-005

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Table of Contents VII
  4. List of Abbreviations of Wittgenstein’s Works IX
  5. Notes on Authors XI
  6. Introduction: Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy – Logic, Language, Life 1
  7. I Logic
  8. Differences in Form, Identities in Content – Wittgenstein and Hegel on Two Complementary Aspects of Meaning 13
  9. What Might Hegel and Wittgenstein Have Seen in Goethe’s Colour Theory? 35
  10. Shining and Showing 53
  11. Two Faces of Contradiction 81
  12. Infinity as the Form of the Finite: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Remarks, XII and the Notion of the Infinite in the Critique of Pure Reason 101
  13. II Language
  14. Talking is Lying: On One Suspicious Metaphor 125
  15. Rhetoric, Negativity, and Philosophy of Language – Hegel’s Sophists as Early Wittgensteinians 137
  16. Reflections on Rule-Following 147
  17. Wittgenstein’s Übersichtliche Darstellung and Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy 167
  18. Wittgenstein and Schlegel on Forms of Life: Talking To or Past Each Other 183
  19. III Life
  20. Hegel, the Pragmatic Turn, and the Later Wittgenstein 201
  21. Following the Rule Without Interpreting It? – Gadamarian and Kantian Revision of Brandom’s Solution to the Wittgensteinian Problem 213
  22. Following a Rule Blindly: Hegel and Wittgenstein on the Immediacy of Habit 225
  23. Wittgenstein and Critical Theory – From ‘Sub Specie Aeterni’ to the ‘Entanglement in Our Rules’ – Wittgenstein, Adorno, Marx 255
  24. Wittgenstein and Hegel on Art and the Everyday 277
  25. Subject Index 297
  26. Person Index 307
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