L’espressione del pensiero Lotze e la confutazione di Hegel nella Logica del 1874

Abstract

In the present article, I will discuss Lotze’s attempt to “sublate” (aufheben) Hegel’s conception of logic in his Logic of 1874. I will demonstrate that Lotze operates as a filter by recasting many Hegelian notions in a way that will influence the 20th-century philosophers in a decisive manner. In the first section, I will focus on how, according to both Hegel and Lotze, the relationship between representation and language conditions the transition from sensible impressions to concepts. In the second section, I will discuss Lotze's re-elaboration of Hegel's idea of the objectivity of thought based on his notion of validity. In the third part, I will finally show how Lotze's revaluation of the function of imagination in the domain of “logic” (in a straightforward opposition to Hegel’s underestimation thereof) allows us to re-discover the early modern idea of logic understood as an ‘ars inveniendi’.