Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on Robert Brandom’s semantic reading of the Introduction and the Consciousness, Self-Consciousness, and Reason chapters of the Phenomenology, and on what Brandom understands as an “edifying intent” at work in the large Spirit chapter. It is concerned with Brandom truncates Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s notion of negation is echoed by Ficara, who, forging a bridge from Hegel to modern-day dialetheism and non-classical logic, takes Hegel, unlike Brandom, to countenance the existence of true contradictions. The book examines Brandom’s magnanimous reconstruction of the Introduction to task, setting out to deconstruct it piece by piece. It offers a reconstruction of Brandom’s reading of the Spirit chapter that reflects on the relation between language and culture and draws into question the very idea of a “semantics with an edifying intent.”