A system of trust? Robert Brandom and Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss Robert B. Brandom’s reading of G. W. F. Hegel, especially his later work, A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology, in order to tackle the question of “trust” as the structure of recognition. First, we reconstruct Brandom’s reading of Hegel’s philosophy as a form of “social recognitive pragmatics” with a “historical recollective account of conceptual content”, by which he aims at a re-definition of practical normativity based upon trust. Then, we examine his notion of trust as the ground for a future, post-modern society. Finally, we point at some difficulties concerning Brandom’s notion of post-modern age and examine the concept of trust as key to the modern understanding of social bonds.

Keywords

• hegel
• the phenomenology of spirit
• trust
• modernity
• postmodern age