This paper investigates the reception of G.W.F. Hegel's Science of Logic through a comparison of Stephen Houlgate and Slavoj i ek's interventions. Both thinkers have been positioned in the movement insisting that Hegel's Logic should be read ontologically as a work of speculative metaphysics, reacting to the more Kantian, epistemologically inspired movement with key figures such as Robert Pippin. Both Houlgate and i ek have critiqued Pippin but neither has engaged with the other's interpretation, and there has been no comparative analysis of their approaches to date. In light of this lacuna, I argue that Houlgate and i ek diverge significantly in their reading of the Logic. First, I systematize i ek's diverse readings of Hegel to highlight i ek's emphasis on the formal structure of the dialectical process. Second, I analyze Houlgate's notion of immanence and passivity in the Logic in order to demonstrate its difference with i ek. Drawing upon the work of David Gray Carlson, one of the few scholars to engage with both i ek and Hegel's Logic, I demonstrate this difference through a comparative close reading of both authors' interpretation of the transition from becoming to determinate being in the opening of the Logic.
Iben Bollaert (Wed,) studied this question.