Over-Measure in Kant, Hegel and Shakespeare: Putting the Principles Into Play

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In Over-Measure in Kant, Hegel and Shakespeare: Putting the Principles Into Play, four Shakespeare plays become the experiential-dramatic playground where the operations of principled virtues and their informing categories are meticulously tested. Jennifer Ann Bates begins with Hegels logic of measure and Shakespeares Measure for Measure, showing essential measure is indeterminable. She then combines Kants Pure Principles of the Understanding with Shakespearean Roman tragedy, exploring principles of measure through over-measure. Bookended by Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, she investigates over-measures of quantity in Antony and Cleopatra, quality in Titus Andronicus, and relation and modality in Julius Caesar.

She then turns to Kant for epistemic measures that make experience possible, highlighting his warnings against exceeding those limits. Putting Kants Principles into play produces principled virtues, which are epistemic principles made practical and differ from Kants Doctrine of Virtues, not just from Aristotles virtues. Read through Shakespeares plays, principled virtues are tragic: they miss the mark, and they are executed in both senses. The reason is that their over-measures are not grasped dialectically. The author finds a solution in Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, which she calls his book of over-measures. In it, Hegel reveals the necessity of over-measures in experience, thus providing the measure for measure.

Author Bio

Jennifer Ann Bates is professor of philosophy at Duquesne University, USA.