¿Quién piensa en concreto? Una apuesta hegeliana por la concreción de la filosofía

Who would bet on the concrete character of philosophy today? In various circles it is often considered an abstract discipline, judged to be socially useless. In order to reverse this narrative, this paper explores how the abstract and the concrete act (1) in the constitution of philosophy as an epistemic enterprise and (2) in the identification of its social role within a system whose normative logic subordinates utility to productive capacity. The article elaborates these points through two operations. First, it reconstructs and discusses some of the contemporary strategies for defending philosophy in the social (especially educational) context. Secondly, it develops an interpretation of Hegel’s position on the concreteness of philosophical activity, showing how this conception can reinforce contemporary stands, while at the same time exposing their limits. Building on the Hegelian approach, this paper argues for an understanding of concreteness as a conceptual activity that includes transformative, critical and relational processes, and that is capable of producing real effects. The theoretical advantages of Hegel’s view on the concreteness of philosophy are also highlighted: it produces a powerful resemanticisation of the terms “abstract” and “concrete”; it emphasises the co-constitution of the processes of abstraction and concreteness, unmasking the exclusionary opposition between them; it does not derive the concreteness of philosophy from its character of utility, but defends the intrinsically concrete constitution of philosophy, providing a non-utilitarian argument.