Hegel's 'Individuality'

This book explores the role that ‘individuality’ (Individualität) plays within Hegel’s philosophy, a topic virtually unexplored by the scholarly literature. It is argued that the role is substantial, yet hard to grasp, in part because of the ‘category’ itself, which admits of no definition or principle. The book seeks to put Hegel’s employment of ‘individuality’ in its intellectual context, and to provide detailed exegesis of the major texts in which it surfaces including the Phenomenology (1807), the Encyclopedia (1817-30), and the Aesthetics (1821-1828/29). Attention is also paid to Hegel’s ‘pragmatics’ (besides his logic and semantics): viz. the tacit assumptions both he and his texts make, and the implicit terms of address he and his texts instantiate (language about language).