Abstract: Hegel expounds an expansive theory of rationality which helps to avoid the pitfalls of additive as well as certain transformative accounts of rational capacities. While transformative positions rightfully reject the dualism at the heart of additive conceptions of the rational animal, they tend to overlook that all rational capacities which are actualized by a particular subject of knowledge must necessarily go through a process of development over time. A detailed look at Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit can help us see that this development is not empirically contingent, but is part and parcel of a proper understanding of the form of the rational being's aim to know the object of its acts. By showing that this implies that all thinking is tied to its realization through some form of expression, Hegel convincingly argues for a completion of the linguistic turn.
