The Reception of Hegel - Independence, Not Mere Explication
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Heinrichs Is Not a Mere “Hegelian”
Heinrichs’ relation to Hegel must be precisely determined—against two misunderstandings. The first: that Heinrichs is a “Hegelian” who merely comments on what the master said. The second: that Heinrichs has nothing to do with Hegel. Both are false.
Heinrichs is a student of Hegel—but a critical one. His dissertation “Die Logik der Phänomenologie des Geistes” (The Logic of the Phenomenology of Spirit, 1974) attests to years of wrestling with the texts. But he consciously detached himself from academic Hegel exegesis in order to continue thinking independently. He does not stand within the tradition of the academic Hegel school—neither among the Right Hegelians nor among the Neo-Hegelians, neither in the Heidelberg school around Dieter Henrich nor in the Frankfurt School.
His philosophical sources are diverse: scholastic ontology of reflection (Thomas Aquinas, mediated through Johannes B. Lotz), dialogical philosophy (Feuerbach, Buber, Rosenzweig), Paul Tillich’s philosophy of meaning, Gotthard Günther’s many-valued logic—and indeed Hegel too. These traditions converge in Heinrichs’ thought into an independent approach.
What Is NOT Found in Hegel
Most of what Heinrichs developed is not implicitly present in Hegel:
- His theory of action (256 systematically ordered types of action) is not found in Hegel
- His philosophy of language (five volumes!) is not found in Hegel
- His theory of democracy (the fourfold structuring of democracy) is not found in Hegel
- His theory of art, theory of mysticism, semiotic systematics—none of this is found in Hegel
These theories are genuine discoveries, not “explications” of something Hegel “actually already knew.”
The Fundamental Discovery: Equal Originality
The basic difference between Heinrichs and Hegel lies in a fundamental discovery:
The four elements of meaning—I, It, Thou, Medium—are equally original.
This means: none of the four poles is “earlier” than the others. None can be derived from the others. They are the irreducible structure of every act of meaning.
This discovery is absent in Hegel. In his Logic there is no explicit “Thou”—that appears only in the Phenomenology (Master and Servant) and in the Philosophy of Right (recognition). And even there, the Thou is not conceived as equally original with the I. In Hegel, otherness is characterized by negativity—the other is the not-I, the negated. But the Thou is not a negative limitation of the I, but a positive enabling: without the Thou there would be no I.
The Critique of the Starting Point of Being
Hegel begins his Science of Logic with “pure being”—the completely indeterminate, empty thought of mere “is.” Heinrichs criticizes:
“Hegel argues in his Science of Logic not from the structure of plural elements of meaning, but from a ‘being’ that is again understood in objective terms […] Thus ‘logic of reflection’ becomes a barely comprehensible part of the Science of Logic instead of the characterization of the whole.”
This critique carries systematic weight. Even “pure being” can only be thought if a thinker already exists. Beginning with being conceals the fact that we are always already within reflection. Heinrichs’ starting point in the four elements of meaning makes the subjective and intersubjective dimension a topic from the outset.
From the Dialectic of Thought to the Dialectic of Action
Marx criticized that Hegel’s dialectic “only proliferates beneath the cranium.” Heinrichs shares this criticism—and resolves it at the same time:
“Hegel did not yet fully recognize the essence of the entire dialectic as a logic of reflection.”
The logic of reflection must be related to the entire practical reality of human action—not only to thought. This is Heinrichs’ program, carried out in his theories of action, language, society, politics.
At the same time, the equal originality of the four elements of meaning resolves the old dispute between idealism and materialism:
- Neither does the I (consciousness) produce the world
- Nor does the It (being) unilaterally determine consciousness
- The four poles are equally originally given, not derived from one another
This is not a mediation between idealism and materialism but a position beyond this alternative.
What Heinrichs Preserves
For all his independence, Heinrichs preserves central insights:
Sublation [Aufhebung]—with its threefold meaning of cancellation, preservation, and elevation. Heinrichs’ own critique of Hegel is itself an act of sublation.
The speculative—the ability to grasp the positive within the negative. Heinrichs warns against the “cult of a negative dialectic in the sense of a general unsublatability of oppositions.”
Systematic ambition—the claim to pursue philosophy as a coherent science, not as a mere collection of individual analyses.
And above all: Hegel’s “sanctuary”—the formula from the Phenomenology: “pure self-recognition in absolute otherness.” Heinrichs defends this insight against the Henrich school, which has criticized the concept of reflection as a “vicious circle.” The objection confuses implicit and explicit reflection. Implicit self-relatedness is not a subsequent cognition but the constitutive structure of consciousness itself.
Convergence, Not Derivation
The relation between Heinrichs and Hegel is thus this:
What converges: Both understand philosophy as a logic of reflection. Both see self-consciousness as reflexively structured. Both employ dialectical methods.
What goes beyond Hegel: The equal originality of the four elements of meaning. The systematic theory of action. The philosophy of language. The fourfold structuring of society. The theory of democracy. The theory of art. The theory of mysticism. The semiotic systematics.
This also explains why Heinrichs was barely noticed by established Hegel scholarship: he did not speak their language, did not move within their debates, did not raise their questions. His questions came from practice—from the analysis of concrete communication, social structures, political institutions.[1]
For a detailed presentation of Heinrichs’ relationship to Hegel, see: Kai Froeb, Heinrichs’ Aufhebung Hegels, Kapitel 34. The title “Aufhebung” [Sublation] is meant here in a threefold sense: preserving the philosophy of reflection, negating its limits, raising it to a new level. Heinrichs’ approach is, however, less an “Aufhebung” of Hegelian logic in the sense of an immanent further development than a conceptual new beginning drawing on other sources (Scholasticism, dialogics, Tillich, Günther) that converges with Hegel on central points. ↩︎