PhD Dissertation by George Saad
While it is widely agreed that Hegel’s philosophy is a philosophy of freedom, the significance an... more While it is widely agreed that Hegel’s philosophy is a philosophy of freedom, the significance and scope of Hegel’s theory of freedom is disputed. Most scholarly work on this topic has been devoted to the socio-political philosophy of the Philosophy of Right. But Hegel also speaks of freedom in a way which extends beyond the concerns of his socio-political thought. This dissertation demonstrates how Hegel’s theory of freedom is more fully grasped when it is understood as a comprehensive philosophy which also involves an ontology (a logic of being) and a phenomenology (a direct experience of this logic). The free state which Hegel outlines in the Philosophy of Right is still only a limited manifestation of a freedom which also pervades other aspects of human experience. A way of thinking which is “free” (in the sense that it does not restrict itself by assuming false methodological limitations) is itself essential to our capacity for rational self-determination. Moreover, this “speculative” perspective has only been achieved through the gradual cultivation (Bildung) of the free personality throughout history. This dissertation therefore investigates why Hegel thinks that freedom is at issue in abstract philosophical thought (in his logical works) as well as in concrete historical phenomena (in the Phenomenology of Spirit). This logic and appearance of freedom explicates Hegel’s statement in the Preface of the Phenomenology that the absolute is not only substance, but also subject. Having shown that both the ancient freedom of the “social substance” and the modern freedom of the “pure I” are untenable on their own terms, Hegel advances a logical and phenomenological theory of freedom in which these one-sided truths are reconciled with each other. The “substantial subject” of Hegelian freedom more fully actualizes the purely subjective freedom of the Enlightenment, enabling true individual self-determination. Freedom appears not just as the right to make arbitrary choices, but as substantial thought and conviction.
Articles by George Saad
Borderless Philosophy, 2025
Formalism holds that the truth of things resides in their precise arrangement. As we have built a... more Formalism holds that the truth of things resides in their precise arrangement. As we have built a society which builds, maintains, and depends upon an unprecedented structure of legal, social, and scientific classification, the modern world is an essentially formalist enterprise. While a formal approach can achieve remarkable results, defining the boundaries of previously opaque inquiries, it is also necessary, from time to time, to stir up and shatter categories which have ossified, discard schema which presume too much, and break up labels which speak only on their own behalf.
Borderless Philosophy, 2024
My aim in this paper is to show how the functionalist standards assumed in the AI debate are, in ... more My aim in this paper is to show how the functionalist standards assumed in the AI debate are, in fact, the assumptions of a capitalist, ableist society writ large. The already established argument against the proposed humanity of AI systems implies a wider critique of the entire ideology of functionalism under which the notion of intelligent machines has taken root.
Analecta Hermeneutica, 2023
In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes presents a p... more In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes presents a philosophy of mind with radical implications for contemporary discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). The ability of AI to replicate the cognitive functions of human consciousness has led to widespread speculation that AI is itself conscious (or will eventually become so). Against this functionalist theory of mind, Jaynes argues that consciousness only arises through the mythopoetic inspiration of metaphorical language. Consciousness develops and enacts new forms of self-understanding, continually evolving new "metaphors of mind," metaphors which must now account for the emergence of AI.
Borderless Philosophy 5, 2022
Reflections and projections upon the history of ontology and its meaning for the future of philos... more Reflections and projections upon the history of ontology and its meaning for the future of philosophy.
Borderless Philosophy 4, 2021
Cicero’s "Academica" offers a particularly rich demonstration of how the unhappy dialectic betwee... more Cicero’s "Academica" offers a particularly rich demonstration of how the unhappy dialectic between stoicism and skepticism engages Roman historical self-consciousness. The Hegelian thesis of philosophy as mediated through historical development is given a clear articulation in the “derivative” Romans, precisely through their reception of a tradition, their experience of philosophy as inseparable from the self-consciousness of historical relation. The dispute happening in the "Academica" between a dogmatic stoicism and academic skepticism thus directly echoes the problems of contemporary 21st century philosophy insofar as the structures of the unhappy consciousness endure in the “academic” give and take between the authority of received doctrine (say, of mainstream post-classical analytic philosophy) and their subversion in skeptical critique.
Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual 10, 2020
Heidegger develops his reading of a-lētheia as privative un-concealment (Unverborgenheit) in tand... more Heidegger develops his reading of a-lētheia as privative un-concealment (Unverborgenheit) in tandem with his early phenomenological theory of truth. He is not simply reinterpreting a word, but rather reading Greek philosophy as having a primordial understanding of truth which has itself been concealed in interpretation. After shedding medieval and modern presuppositions of truth as correspondence, the existential truth-experience shows itself, no longer left puzzlingly implicit in unsatisfactory conventional readings of Greek philosophy. In Sein und Zeit §44, Heidegger resolves interpretive difficulties in Parmenides through his interpretation of alētheia and philologically grounds this reading in Heraclitus's description of the unconcealing logos. Although this primordial sense of the word has already been obscured in Plato and Aristotle, the structural gradation of their theories of truth conserves the primordial pre-Socratic sense of truth as the experience of unconcealment.
MA Thesis by George Saad
Memorial MA Thesis in Philosophy, 2020
This thesis explores the implications of Hegel’s remark in §31 of Encyclopedia Logic that the Gre... more This thesis explores the implications of Hegel’s remark in §31 of Encyclopedia Logic that the Greeks thought freely while moderns are bound to presuppositions. Plato is today generally regarded as the originator of the a priori, yet Hegel’s reading of Plato exempts him from what he sees as a distinctly modern tendency towards presupposition. Hegel sees Platonic presuppositions as self-mediating and ultimately self-canceling in the flow of thought. Modern philosophy, by contrast, aims to establish an unshakable first principle external to and exempt from thoughtful reflection. This radical disjunction between Greek and modern philosophy can be best seen in Plato’s aporetic moment. Plato opted to allow the bewilderment of aporia at the same crucial juncture of thought where we moderns buttress our challenged definitions upon an a priori presupposition. This aporetic moment arises when thought, still stuck in its first moment of abstraction, realizes that it cannot rigorously define crucial philosophical concepts. In the aporia Plato exposes the pretensions of those who believe that the good can be defined. Hegel likewise critiques the overreach of the modern understanding (Verstand) in attempting to directly predicate the highest philosophical concepts. This thesis draws out each thinker’s descriptions of the circumstances and presuppositions surrounding the aporetic moment and closely correlates them, ultimately showing why Hegel regarded Greek thought as so radically misunderstood by his contemporaries. Looking at the movement of his thought and not its static conclusions, Hegel reads Plato as a dialectical antidote to the hubris of recurring modern sophistry.
Dalhousie MA Thesis in Classics, 2017
This thesis provides a comprehensive interpretation of Vergil’s "Aeneid" as an expression of cycl... more This thesis provides a comprehensive interpretation of Vergil’s "Aeneid" as an expression of cyclical time. In capturing the historical intensity of the transformative Augustan moment, Vergil compresses the archaic past of Homer together with an eternally unfolding Roman future. Through this reading, the interpretative difficulties of the "Aeneid" come into dialogue with the evolutionary cosmology of antiquity and the historical consciousness of modernity. The “two voices” Adam Parry found in the "Aeneid", the voice of public triumph and the voice of private despair, are unified by their reconciliation in an irreducible Roman experience of tragic history. As literature, the epic repeats itself in its ring composition; as a cosmology, it expresses the ongoing generational conflict of the gods; as history, it describes the reoccurring process by which the whole world became Roman. In the cycle’s dense repetitions and vivid transformations, the mystery of tragic joy is made visible.
Book Chapters by George Saad
Pre-publication proof of Chapter 11 of "The Aeneid and the Modern World"
Access the final public... more Pre-publication proof of Chapter 11 of "The Aeneid and the Modern World"
Access the final publication here:
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003176145
Talks by George Saad
Society for Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2025
In this paper, I present a phenomenological argument against the possibility of artificial genera... more In this paper, I present a phenomenological argument against the possibility of artificial general intelligence (AGI) by considering it in the context of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I contend that, while artificially intelligent technologies can mimic consciousness, their inevitable deficiencies can be understood as the result of their lack of self-consciousness. First, I will give a very general overview of the relevant sections of the Phenomenology of Spirit. I will then consider the shortcomings of artificial intelligence in the context of this phenomenological account of what it means to be a thinking being.
Handout accompanying presentation on Aristotle's prime move as divine self-consciousness (thought... more Handout accompanying presentation on Aristotle's prime move as divine self-consciousness (thought thinking itself) and its reception in German idealism
In-class presentation on Aristotle's prime mover as "thought thinking itself" and its reception i... more In-class presentation on Aristotle's prime mover as "thought thinking itself" and its reception in German idealism
Fall 2019 Memorial University Philosophy Colloquium
Powerpoint Presentation briefly presenting the system of Hellenistic astrology
Powerpoint Presentation featuring the main ideas of my MA thesis
"The self" has a deep history. What seems to be the most modern concept is actually among the mos... more "The self" has a deep history. What seems to be the most modern concept is actually among the most ancient. While Christopher Gill and Edward Jeremiah have demonstrated that the Greeks did not have a modern discourse about "the self", their fundamental metaphysical concepts were often defined with reflexive formulae. This "selfness" is an ontological commitment established in the beginning of Western thought and underlying the modern subject. As Plato says in "Phaedo" 83a7-b2, the gathering of the soul together in philosophy, the formation of a self, brings us into harmony with the forms, ideas "themselves according to themselves," αὐτὸ καθ' αὑτὸ.
Lecture to an Introduction to Philosophy class on Hegel's history of philosophy.
Theme: Since P... more Lecture to an Introduction to Philosophy class on Hegel's history of philosophy.
Theme: Since Plato, philosophy has shunned history and attempt to find what is timeless. Hegel attempts to reunify the disciplines by understanding philosophical ideas as developing in and through history.
Lecture audio plays with the PP presentation.
Drafts by George Saad
Unpublished Draft, 2024
Hegel’s concept of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) establishes the reciprocal interrelationship of th... more Hegel’s concept of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) establishes the reciprocal interrelationship of three social spheres: family, civil society, and the state. In accordance with Hegel’s logic, these can be considered like the three terms of a system of syllogisms, with each serving as the middle term. In this paper, I will construct such a “circle of mediations” showing how each sphere shapes the others and is shaped by them in turn. In this circle, we come to see these spheres as they concretely exist within the whole of ethical life, as they are no longer falsely abstracted and taken as self-sufficient.
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PhD Dissertation by George Saad
Articles by George Saad
MA Thesis by George Saad
Book Chapters by George Saad
Access the final publication here:
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003176145
Talks by George Saad
Theme: Since Plato, philosophy has shunned history and attempt to find what is timeless. Hegel attempts to reunify the disciplines by understanding philosophical ideas as developing in and through history.
Lecture audio plays with the PP presentation.
Drafts by George Saad