Endings: Questions of Memory in Hegel and Heidegger, edited by Rebecca Comay and John McCumber, is a monumental exploration of the intersections, divergences, and mutual transformations between two of the most profound thinkers of Western philosophy. This volume is not merely a comparative analysis but a rigorous and provocative engagement with the dynamic and historically charged relationship between the philosophies of Hegel and Heidegger. It challenges the reader to think beyond static frameworks, presenting a kaleidoscope of perspectives that reveal how these thinkers fundamentally reshape our understanding of history, memory, and the very nature of thought.
The collection begins at the moment of Heidegger’s critical encounter with Hegel, a juncture that underscores their shared preoccupation with the historical constitution of thought. Yet, as this volume demonstrates, this shared concern unfolds into radically different trajectories. The essays navigate these trajectories by employing a variety of models to articulate the relationship between Hegel and Heidegger, not as static entities to be compared and evaluated, but as dynamic, evolving dialogues in which mutual transformations continually occur. In this sense, the volume insists that Hegel and Heidegger cannot be understood in isolation from each other; their philosophical projects are inextricably interconnected, each reshaping the other’s horizons and limits.
Central to the collection is the notion of historical thinking as a self-transformative act. Hegel’s conception of history as the dialectical unfolding of Spirit contrasts with Heidegger’s idea of history as the epochal sending (Geschick) of Being. Yet, as these essays reveal, both thinkers grapple with the interplay between presence and absence, memory and forgetting, and the implications of these dynamics for the constitution of meaning. Memory, in particular, emerges as a pivotal concept: for Hegel, as the sublation (Aufhebung) of Spirit’s self-alienation into self-consciousness, and for Heidegger, as a more originary An-denken, a thoughtful recollection of Being that resists closure.
The introduction by John McCumber sets the stage with a sweeping narrative of the “story of things,” tracing the transformation of metaphysical concepts from static, independent entities to the dynamic, self-transforming processes envisioned by Hegel and Heidegger. McCumber’s historical framing situates the transition from classical metaphysics to post-Kantian and post-Hegelian thought, emphasizing the revolutionary shift that occurs when logos is recaptured by time. This framing underscores the stakes of the volume: how does thought, in its engagement with its own history, become both the inheritor and the transformer of its past?
The essays that follow engage with this question from diverse angles. Martin Donougho and Michel Haar examine the resonance of Hegel’s aesthetics in Heidegger’s thought, focusing on how art functions as collective memory. Haar’s analysis of epochality in Heidegger’s philosophy demonstrates a point-for-point inversion of Hegel’s historical dialectic, where Heidegger’s concept of the “forgetting of Being” critiques Hegel’s teleological narrative of Spirit’s return to itself. Jacques Taminiaux deepens this exploration by highlighting Heidegger’s periodicity of art history as a transformative yet inconsistent appropriation of Hegelian themes.
Other contributors, such as Kathleen Wright and David Farrell Krell, go into specific figures and texts—notably Sophocles’ Antigone and Hölderlin—to elucidate how Hegel and Heidegger engage with memory as both a retention of the past and an opening to new possibilities. Wright’s treatment of gender in Heidegger’s readings of Antigone offers a critical lens through which to interrogate the political and ethical dimensions of memory, while Krell’s reflections on Hölderlin reveal the limits and possibilities of poetic thought in both Hegelian and Heideggerian frameworks.
Dominique Janicaud’s essay stages an “impossible dialogue” between Hegel and Heidegger, reconstructing their encounter as a mutual interrogation of the foundations of metaphysics and ontology. Janicaud emphasizes that this dialogue—though historically asymmetrical—reveals the inherent tensions and complementarities in their respective approaches to Being, truth, and history. This essay, along with Robert Bernasconi’s critique of the Eurocentrism in both thinkers, challenges readers to consider the broader implications of their philosophies for contemporary thought, particularly in relation to politics and multiculturalism.
Art, science, and politics are seen as crucial intermediaries through which Hegel and Heidegger articulate the transformative potential of thought. John Sallis’s exploration of stone—from the Gothic cathedral to the temple at Paestum—illustrates how materiality itself becomes a site of memory and transformation, bridging the natural and the historical. Similarly, the volume addresses the “crisis of science” and its implications for truth, demonstrating how both Hegel and Heidegger wrestle with the tension between stability and transformation in scientific inquiry.
Endings positions Hegel and Heidegger as the pivotal figures in a new era of philosophical thought, akin to the roles of Plato and Aristotle in antiquity. By placing their philosophies in dialogue, this volume not only illuminates their respective contributions but also opens new pathways for thinking in our own time. It is a work of remarkable depth and rigor, demanding that its readers actively participate in the transformative processes it seeks to describe. Through its essays, Endings achieves what it sets out to do: to engage in the “self-transforming thought” that both Hegel and Heidegger envisioned, offering a reflection on the questions of memory, history, and the future of philosophy.
Simon Gros 
Leave a comment