form contributed by the cognitive faculty of the understanding. It is not something we can know or assume to characterize what is represented by those conceptual representings, when the representeds are considered apart from their relation to such representings: as they are in themselves. On reading, Kant is committed to a gulf of intelligibility separating our Hegel’s representings from what they are representings of, in the form of the view that the representings are in conceptual shape, and what is represented is not. Just to remind ourselves how much is at stake in criticism of two-stage Hegel’s representational theories of the relations between appearance and reality that are committed to the differential intelligibility of the relata, it is worth thinking in this connection also about Frege. For Frege, discursive symbols a sense [Sinn] and thereby a referent express designate [Bedeutung]. Senses are what is grasped when one understands the expression, and referents are what is thereby represented: what expressing that sense is talking or thinking A sense is a about. representing in that it is a of of a referent. No more des Gegebenseins] “mode presentation” [Art than Kant does Frege construe grasp of a sense as immediate in a Cartesian sense—according to which the mere occurrence of something with that sense counts as the knowing or mind’s understanding something). Grasping a judgeable content requires mastering the inferential and substitutional relations it stands in to other such contents. But like Descartes and Kant, Frege thinks that grasping senses, understanding representations as representations, does not require representing them in turn, and that representings in the sense of senses are graspable in a sense in which what they represent is not (apart from the special case of indirect discourse, where what is represented is senses). So if, as I have claimed, argument is intended to be directed at Hegel’s two-stage representational models committed to treating representings as intelligible in a sense in
form contributed by the cognitive faculty of the understanding. It is not something we can know or assume to characterize what is represented by those conceptual representings, when the representeds are considered apart from their relation to such representings: as they are in themselves. On Hegel’s reading, Kant is committed to a gulf of intelligibility separating our representings from what they are representings of, in the form of the view that the representings are in conceptual shape, and what is represented is not. Just to remind ourselves how much is at stake in Hegel’s criticism of two-stage representational theories of the relations between appearance and reality that are committed to the differential intelligibility of the relata, it is worth thinking in this connection also about Frege. For Frege, discursive symbols express a sense [Sinn] and thereby designate a referent [Bedeutung]. Senses are what is grasped when one understands the expression, and referents are what is thereby represented: what expressing that sense is talking or thinking about. A sense is a representing in that it is a “mode of presentation” [Art des Gegebenseins] of a referent. No more than Kant does Frege construe grasp of a sense as immediate in a Cartesian sense—according to which the mere occurrence of something with that sense counts as the mind’s knowing or understanding something). Grasping a judgeable content requires mastering the inferential and substitutional relations it stands in to other such contents. But like Descartes and Kant, Frege thinks that grasping senses, understanding representations as representations, does not require representing them in turn, and that representings in the sense of senses are graspable in a sense in which what they represent is not (apart from the special case of indirect discourse, where what is represented is senses). So if, as I have claimed, Hegel’s argument is intended to be directed at two-stage representational models committed to treating representings as intelligible in a sense in
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