Thus intelligence is explicitly, and on its own part cognitive: virtually it is the universal, —its product (the thought) is the thing: it is a plain identity of subjective and objective. — Pantagruel

so is Hegel then saying the universe itself is consciousness (or intelligence)? This bit may also indicate that all reality is perception, which of course would be in line with idealism, the way that it's currently defined.

Bear in mind this is an extension of Hegel's reasoning that (I believe) clarifies the core historical problematic of idealism, that it is somehow refuted (or even refutable) by a naive reductive materialism. I would say Hegel's formulation might be that thought is the form in which reality becomes explicit to itself through the mechanism of history. Mine is (I hope) a modern-informed take.

the questions were intended to help clarify what you and Hegel mean with the above proposition...

the questions were intended to help clarify what you and Hegel mean with the above proposition... — ProtagoranSocratist

As was the answer.

The section from Hegel definitely expands further beyond what I explored. However it very nicely expands the Cartesian cogito in such a way as to render intuitively satisfying the sense of the meaning of idealism. Which was my take. Among other interesting aspects is the contention that this self-recognition is its own, "in the name it rediscovers the fact". Elaborating his contention from another section that "we think in names". The mechanism whereby the particular and the universal are unified in and through intelligence.

However it very nicely expands the Cartesian cogito in such a way as to render intuitively satisfying the sense of the meaning of idealism. — Pantagruel

I guess the famous (or infamous) descarte quote is one of the earliest forms of philosophical idealism...as opposed to visionary idealism, which is a totally different thing.

I guess the famous (or infamous) descarte quote is one of the earliest forms of philosophical idealism...as opposed to visionary idealism, which is a totally different thing. — ProtagoranSocratist

I definitely would say that the Cartesian cogito supports mind-independence (which I have long believed). Although it doesn't inherently imply idealism, I think it works well with Hegel's formulation above, which explicitly does.

I like it. From an earlier idealist philosopher, but still….

like it. From an earlier idealist philosopher, but still…. — Mww

Very generous.

Which does not require any material scaffolding, but does not contradict any material evidence. The culmination of the Cartesian ego cogito. — Pantagruel

:100:

Plainly an echo of the scholastic doctrine of universals, but reformulated in terms of dialectic. When he says “intelligence is explicitly, and on its own part cognitive… it is a plain identity of subjective and objective,” he is restating the \ scholastic idea of the correspondence of thinking and being but now as a result of a dialectical self-movement rather than as a pre-given harmony originating in the mind of God.

The culmination of the Cartesian ego cogito. — Pantagruel

The conceptual incoherence of which is made explicit by "the interaction problem" (as well as violation of physical conservation laws) entailed by Descartes' mind-body (substance) duality, thus rendering idealism (re: mind as ontologically separate from / logically prior to body) a much less parsimonious – less cogent – philosophical paradigm than naturalism.

Maybe cartesian logic would be more cogent if it was "i am, therefore i think"

???

By the inference of the interaction problem drawn from the intuitions of the material you mean? Course you do. And I never mentioned a thing about substantial dualism. Nice strawman though, just in time for Halloween!

It is also very interesting how he frames "names" as instrumental in the intelligent cognition of reality as reflective consciousness. Intriguing because the name is the intersection of the universal and the particular, again, the intersection point of being and meaning (thinking).

....

I figured that the error is in saying "i think therefore i am", which many criticize as false since existing seems to come before thinking...

I find the argument tendentious in that it presupposes what it seeks to prove, i.e. that thought is fundamental. It presumes that we most directly know our thoughts, and then goes on to make a universal ontological claim based on that presumption. Even if it were true that what we most directly know is thought, that would merely be a truth about us, and the justification of a leap from there to an ontological claim remains unargued.

A further point I would add is that the idea that what we are most directly aware of is thought if true at all, would seem to be true only in moments of linguistically mediated self-reflection. If that were so, it shows us only how language might make things seem to us, and that says nothing about the arguably more fundamental pre-linguistic experience of the world.

The argument relies on the premise that we most directly know our thoughts, a premise which seems plausible only when we are already in a linguistically reflective mode. It then concludes, as though it were self-evident, that thought is fundamental to reality.

But the linguistically mediated reflective mode is not the most common mode of human experience at all. When I am engaged in activities, such as playing or listening to music, painting, wood-working, gardening, playing ball games and an endless list of other activities, it is simply not phenomenologically true that thoughts are what I am most directly aware of.

So, as I see it, the argument doubly fails―the premise fails to be sound, and even if it were sound it would tell us something only about our selves. Basically the argument makes an unsupported leap from the epistemological premise to the ontological conclusion, while the epistemological premise itself is only true, if true at all, in a very particular mode of being.

Which does not require any material scaffolding, but does not contradict any material evidence. The culmination of the Cartesian ego cogito. — Pantagruel

That does not depict the role of history Hegel insisted upon.

How ever that is framed in the many interpretations, History is the criteria absent from the mythological as various attempts at representation.

I would not like to see people skate by a problem which Hegel intended to bust up the party.

By the inference of the interaction problem drawn from the intuitions of the material you mean? — Pantagruel

I've no more idea of what you mean than you do, 'gruel.

That does not depict the role of history Hegel insisted upon.

How ever that is framed in the many interpretations, History is the criteria absent from the mythological as various attempts at representation.

I would not like to see people skate by a problem which Hegel intended to bust up the party. — Paine

I'm aware of Hegel's views on history, but they aren't central to my perspective on rehabilitating the validity of the intuition of Idealism. They don't necessarily undercut or limit all of his other descriptions of the relationship between thought and object.

I did not mean to bring up that element as a rebuttal to your thesis. But if the introduction of history is not germane to the argument, why not just stick with Kant where all of this is just the way it is?

A further point I would add is that the idea that what we are most directly aware of is thought if true at all, would seem to be true only in moments of linguistically mediated self-reflection. If that were so, it shows us only how language might make things seem to us, and that says nothing about the arguably more fundamental pre-linguistic experience of the world. — Janus

this is why I don't fully subscribe to idealism; I accept it on the basis that thought = perception, and those perceptions can "create reality", yet it seems that people like Hegel and Descartes can't really acknowledge the wordless and indescribable aspects of existing.

It presumes that we most directly know our thoughts, and then goes on to make a universal ontological claim based on that presumption — Janus

Not exactly what I said. I noted that the self-evidence of material intuition can't exceed that of self-evidence simpliciter, which is to say thought. It isn't an ontological claim, but an epistemological framework for making an ontological claim.To assert anything about reality —material or otherwise— is already to presuppose the structure of intelligibility in which that claim appears. That structure is thought.

A further point I would add is that the idea that what we are most directly aware of is thought if true at all, would seem to be true only in moments of linguistically mediated self-reflection. If that were so, it shows us only how language might make things seem to us, and that says nothing about the arguably more fundamental pre-linguistic experience of the world. — Janus

To me, this aligns with my further reflections on Hegel's claim that "We think in names." Perhaps not pre-linguistic, per se, but proto-linguistic. And yes, linguistically mediated self-reflection is a kind of culmination of self-awareness, which doesn't exclude or preclude other kinds, whose existence doesn't contradict the characterization.

But the linguistically mediated reflective mode is not the most common mode of human experience at all. When I am engaged in activities, such as playing or listening to music, painting, wood-working, gardening, playing ball games and an endless list of other activities, it is simply not phenomenologically true that thoughts are what I am most directly aware of. — Janus

Your phenomenological inventory doesn't actually contradict the premise, which doesn't require us to be constantly reflective, only capable of reflectivity...among other things.

I did not mean to bring up that element as a rebuttal to your thesis. But if the introduction of history is not germane to the argument, why not just stick with Kant where all of this is just the way it is? — Paine

Sure. But I'm reading Hegel right now. And I liked the formulation, it was evocative. If you wanted to reformulate something in more Kantian terms that would also be interesting. Which isn't to say I don't consider the historical dimension worth study, just not in this specific context.

My own views on historicism align more with Collingwood, less an unfolding of Absolute Spirit, more as a reconstructive act of thought. Historical thinking recovers the conditions of intelligibility, just as reflective thought recovers its own ontological foundation.

this is why I don't fully subscribe to idealism; I accept it on the basis that thought = perception, and those perceptions can "create reality", yet it seems that people like Hegel and Descartes can't really acknowledge the wordless and indescribable aspects of existing. — ProtagoranSocratist

As for Hegel, I'd say that Will is the culminating synthesis of self-determining awareness that coincides with these 'wordless and indescribable existences.'

it seems that people like Hegel and Descartes can't really acknowledge the wordless and indescribable aspects of existing. — ProtagoranSocratist

Could you describe them for us?

Could you describe them for us? — Wayfarer

haha, touche...pretty ironic for me to say that, right? It's whatever exists besides you thinking and writing messages on here (as the buddhists and new age people talk about: "feeling the breath coming in your nose", etc.)

As for Hegel, I'd say that Will is the culminating synthesis of self-determining awareness that coincides with these 'wordless and indescribable existences.' — Pantagruel

Huh, i thought that was the hallmark of shopenhauer. I suppose we would have to consult the german translation.

Hegel has quite a lot to say about Will...

The conceptual incoherence of which is made explicit by "the interaction problem" (as well as violation of physical conservation laws) entailed by Descartes' mind-body (substance) duality, thus rendering idealism (re: mind as ontologically separate from / logically prior to body) a much less parsimonious – less cogent – philosophical paradigm than naturalism. — 180 Proof

No such problems need to be encountered. We observe that human beings act of free will, and we observe a hole in conservation laws, losses which are commonly written off as entropy. Therefore there is no reason to assume an interaction problem.

As for Hegel, I'd say that Will is the culminating synthesis of self-determining awareness that coincides with these 'wordless and indescribable existences.'
— Pantagruel

Huh, i thought that was the hallmark of shopenhauer. I suppose we would have to consult the german translation. — ProtagoranSocratist

You see the beginnings of that in Schelling’s “dark ground”, a pre-rational, primal force or will. It is the non-rational foundation that makes freedom, personality, and consciousness possible. Kierkegaard was influenced by this, and studied with Schelling, but went beyond Schelling’s and Schopenhauer’s Idealism of the Will with his existentialism.

Since the problem of will was brought up, Hegel's formulation leads to the recognition that will necessarily includes the concept of its own right application. And also that the concept of the freedom of will or Liberty as a fundamental right - as it emerged in and through Christianity - freedom unearned, is a misconception.

"No Idea is so generally recognised as indefinite, ambiguous, and open to the greatest misconceptions (to which therefore it actually falls a victim) as the idea of Liberty: none in common currency with so little appreciation of its meaning. Remembering that free mind is actual mind, we can see how misconceptions about it are of tremendous consequence in practice. When individuals and nations have once got in their heads [pg101]the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength, just because it is the very essence of mind, and that as its very actuality. Whole continents, Africa and the East, have never had this idea, and are without it still. The Greeks and Romans, Plato and Aristotle, even the Stoics, did not have it. On the contrary, they saw that it is only by birth (as e.g. an Athenian or Spartan citizen), orby strength of character, education, or philosophy (—the sage is free even as a slave and in chains) that the human being is actually free. It was through Christianity that this idea came into the world."