신자유주의 시대와 헤겔의 반성적 사유

Abstract

This paper was written in an attempt to reexamine Hegel’s philosophy within a philosophical project to overcome post-structuralism, which is the philosophical foundation of neoliberalism, now that neoliberalism is collapsing. Post-structuralism has justified the fragmented era of neoliberalism, as Lyotard said, by dismantling the central, unitary structure of the modern world and emphasizing relativity and diversity. However, in post-structuralism, the transition from one structure to another relies only on chance and the intervention of external forces, so it has reached its limit at this point when overcoming neoliberalism is being discussed. In contrast to this, Deleuze’s philosophy of difference and Levinas’s philosophy of the other attempted to secure the possibility of structural transition by reviving modernist direct truth, but as seen in Hegel’s criticism of the philosophy of Romanticism in the “Preface” to ’Phenomenolgy of Spirit’, it is like dreams in sleep, they remain unrealistic anarchism or at the level of ethical necessity. In order to escape the complicated situation where post-structuralism and the philosophy of immediacy confront each other, I think it is necessary to pay attention to Hegel’s thoughts once again. When examining Hegel’s thinking through its development in the ’Phenomenology of Spirit’ or ’Science of Logic’, I believe that he can be defined as reflective thinking. This kind of reflective thinking is confirmed through the concept of conscious experience in the introduction (Einleitung) of ’Phenomenology of Spirit’, the reflective movement in the essentialism, or the development process of judgment in the theory of judgment of ’Science of Logic’. On the one hand, Hegel’s reflective thinking presupposes the structure of thinking like structuralism, but on the other hand, it does not rely on chance and external forces like post-structuralism, but tries to approach the truth through reflective thinking through contradiction. In this way, reflective thinking can transform the structure of subjective thinking into an objective thinking structure, opening the way to approach the truth that the philosophy of immediacy tried to reach in a direct way through cool-headed reason. Although Hegel’s reflective thinking cannot ideologically depict a new society that overcomes the neoliberal era, it is thought to provide a methodological foundation for the historical movement toward a new society. Hegel’s reflective thinking will become the foundation for understanding ‘the inexorable inevitability of the situation moving forward’. In this paper, the author first describes the confrontation between post-structuralist philosophy and the philosophy of immediacy in the neoliberal era (Chapters 2 and 3) and then briefly explains Hegel’s reflective thinking (Chapter 4). And it seeks to show how Hegel’s reflective thinking overcomes structuralism and the philosophy of immediacy (Chapter 5). In the final conclusion, I will briefly discuss the meaning of reflective thinking.