I do not think the leap is an illusion: — Fooloso4

Having taken the time to read more, I now understand the term 'qualitative leap' and the revolutionary aspect.

So, I agree with you and the important point you were making.
Thanks.

14:

This paragraph ends with a rather surprising statement given what was said above in paragraph 11 about:

... the break of day, which in a flash and at a single stroke brings to view the structure of the new world.

Here he speaks of:

... the boredom and indifference which result from the continual awakening of expectations by promises never fulfilled.

How are these to be reconciled? The answer comes at the beginning of paragraph 14:

At its debut, where science has been brought neither to completeness of detail nor to perfection of form ...

To return to an earlier analogy it is as if one were to look at a baby or toddler or child or youth or teen and on that basis alone judge what it is to be a human being. The potential is there but at each of these stages it has not been actualized and thus cannot even be realized or known.

We must identify the demands on science that he says:

... are just, those demands [that] have not been fulfilled.

They are the demands of those who are critical of science who:

... insists on immediate rationality and divinity

It might help to think of this in relation to the analogy in 12 of the prize at the end of the path, won through struggle and effort.

That prize is:

... the whole which has returned into itself from out of its succession and extension and has come to be the simple concept of itself.

In each of its moments it has not yet completed itself via its return to itself. With its return to itself there is no longer any mediacy. This is the satisfaction of the demand for immediate rationality and divinity, where science has been brought to completeness of detail and to perfection of form.

Pinkard #15

"15. When it comes to content, at times the other side certainly makes it easy for itself to have a vast breadth of such content at its disposal. It pulls quite a lot of material into its own domain, which is to be sure what is already familiar and well-ordered, and by principally trafficking in rare items and curiosities, it manages to put on the appearance of being in full possession of what knowing had already finished with but which at the same time had not yet been brought to order.

It thereby seems to have subjected everything to the absolute Idea, and in turn, the absolute Idea itself therefore both seems to be recognized in everything and to have matured into a wide-ranging science. However, if the way it spreads itself out is examined more closely, it turns out not to have come about as a result of one and the same thing giving itself diverse shapes but rather as a result of the shapeless repetition of one and the same thing which is only externally applied to diverse material and which contains only the tedious semblance of diversity.

The Idea, which is true enough for itself, in fact remains ensnared in its origin as long as its development consists in nothing but the repetition of the same old formula. Having the knowing subject apply the one unmoved form to whatever just happens to be present and then externally dipping the material into this motionless element contributes as much to fulfilling what is demanded as does a collection of purely arbitrary impressions about the content.

Rather, when what is demanded is for the shapes to originate their richness and determine their differences from out of themselves, this other view instead consists in only a monochrome formalism which only arrives at the differences in its material because the material itself has already been prepared for it and is something well known.

It's useful background to know that the book was published in 1807. I am not a student of the Napoleonic period, but I think Hegel is writing while Napoleon is tearing Europe to pieces, at times within the sound of cannon. — tim wood

The beauty of having a pdf is its search function. Type in 'Napoleon' to read of Hegel's claim.

For context and understanding, I think it helpful to read Pinkard's Introduction which tells of 'Hegel's Path to the Phenomenology'. Hegel calls it his 'voyage of discovery' (p10).

The Intellectual, Political and Social Ferment of the Time (p12).
2 major upheavals:
1. When Hegel was 19yrs old - the French Revolution upended all conventional thought.
2. Intellectual upheaval - brought in by Kant's writings with his insistence on freedom of thought revolutionised philosophy (p13).

Then 3. Goethe changed the outmoded Jena University from stuffy, conventional orthodox to a place where a professor could be a hero following Kant's injunction to 'think for oneself', laying the blueprint for the emerging modern world itself (p14).

This ties in with Fooloso4's important point re para 13:

Hegel is not talking just about the development of some intellectual pursuit, philosophy, or even a science of the whole, but of a new world in its incipience. — Fooloso4

The emergence of a new Spirit.

p18 continues with 'What is a Phenomenology?'.
And so on.

Hegel envisaged his audience to be the people of modern Europe (p10).

it strikes me there are two distinctly different meanings of over-thinking, over-working, and worth noting, even if just in passing. First is the idea of existing material over-worked, over-wrought; second the idea of additional and too-much material added. If we try to eat all the thistles in the field, there won't be any left, nor appetite nor capacity for them. — tim wood

Yes. It is right to point out the problem of over-thinking.
For sure, the Preface won't be completely understood after a first read through.

Individual appetites and capacity for close reading and analysis vary.
While the thread and the 'we' of a reading group might need or wish to proceed quickly, it is about finding the right balance.To take time to discuss. To share thoughts.

The thread appears steady and on course to reach its aim of understanding the Preface.
As well as possible.

.

OK, #15
I think I get most of that. I'd summarize like this:
Hegel has just presented and defended his idea, saying that the new concept of science is still at an initial starting point, and now needs to grow, to unfurl, to develop. So in the end we'll have a well-ordered universal system.
Now in #15 he describes a false way of growing.
He complains that the "others" take two unrelated elements: the available content and material gathered by the older stages of science, and their own idea.
And then they pretend that this existing material is all nicely explained by their one idea, like they were the ones who invented and gathered it all. Which is not the case, and neither is the material explained better nor their own idea improved or developed by this artificial joining.

Like: they're just piling up stuff that was already there, and spray-paint it pink, and then expound how this perfectly shows the superiority of the theory of pinkness.
Or like some guy with a conspiracy theory, who will copy and paste all kind of unrelated stuff from all over the internet then then go on how this is all proof for his pet theory.

Unfortunate detail: I'm not totally sure who exactly those "others" are he's complaining about, and what exactly that "absolute idea" is which they are trying to pass off as the pinnacle of all science.
Thoughts?
Is he still complaining about Romanticism?

To return to an earlier analogy it is as if one were to look at a baby or toddler or child or youth or teen and on that basis alone judge what it is to be a human being. The potential is there but at each of these stages it has not been actualized and thus cannot even be realized or known. — Fooloso4

Yes. That is a helpful way of looking at and understanding para 14. As is :

They are the demands of those who are critical of science who:

... insists on immediate rationality and divinity

It might help to think of this in relation to the analogy in 12 of the prize at the end of the path, won through struggle and effort. — Fooloso4

Unfortunate detail: I'm not totally sure who exactly those "others" are he's complaining about, and what exactly that "absolute idea" is which they are trying to pass off as the pinnacle of all science.
Thoughts? — WerMaat

Good questions.
I don't know. However, I think it might refer to Hegel's critique of Kantian idealism.
Perhaps the contemporary 'Empty Formalism Objection' as googled after reading:

'this other view instead consists in only a monochrome formalism' (para 15 ).
[my bolds]

Others will know better and in greater detail. I look forward to hearing from them.

Note: I am reading outwith the text. I find the SEP article on Hegel useful:

In Hegel, the non-traditionalists argue, one can see the ambition to bring together the universalist dimensions of Kant’s transcendental program with the culturally contextualist conceptions of his more historically and relativistically-minded contemporaries, resulting in his controversial conception of spirit, as developed in his Phenomenology of Spirit. — Paul Redding

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/

15:

When it comes to content, at times the other side certainly makes it easy for itself to have a vast breadth of such content at its disposal.

This is a continuation of 14, of the:

... opposition [that] seems to be the principal knot which scientific culture is currently struggling to loosen and which it does not yet properly understand.

The other side refers to those who reproach science. But in doing so they make use of what science has accomplished.

It pulls quite a lot of material into its own domain, which is to be sure what is already familiar and well-ordered, and by principally trafficking in rare items and curiosities, it manages to put on the appearance of being in full possession of what knowing had already finished with but which at the same time had not yet been brought to order.

It treats knowledge as a collection of things known, as a collection of items, and in doing so it does not see the order that science has not yet brought to order, that is, the order of the whole.

It thereby seems to have subjected everything to the absolute Idea, and in turn, the absolute Idea itself therefore both seems to be recognized in everything and to have matured into a wide-ranging science.

The absolute is the unconditioned, that is, what is determined in and of itself. It not to be recognized in everything at this point because there is not yet a science of the whole, which is not wide-ranging but self-contained.

However, if the way it spreads itself out is examined more closely, it turns out not to have come about as a result of one and the same thing giving itself diverse shapes but rather as a result of the shapeless repetition of one and the same thing which is only externally applied to diverse material and which contains only the tedious semblance of diversity.

It is as if it (he is still talking about the reproach to science) lays out the items of knowledge before itself and applies the idea of the absolute to them. It fails to see that it is one and the same thing, namely the absolute idea, giving itself diverse shapes, and instead it repeats one and the same thing, giving to them the idea of the absolute. Rather than finding the absolute idea in them it imposes the idea on them.

... what is demanded is for the shapes to originate their richness and determine their differences from out of themselves ...

A word about the 'idea'. In paragraph 12 Hegel says:

It is the whole which has returned into itself from out of its succession and extension and has come to be the simple concept of itself. The actuality of this simple whole consists in those embodiments which, having become moments of the whole, again develop themselves anew and give themselves a figuration, but this time in their new element, in the new meaning which itself has come to be.

In the history of philosophy the 'idea' at one stage is the 'eidos' of Plato's Forms, that is, the things themselves as they are known in direct immediate intuition. Even as it develops and becomes in Descartes and others something that exists in the mind as an image, it is to be taken up again in its new element in each of its moments. An idea for Hegel is not an image in the mind, something which gives rise to the problem of the relationship between idea and those real things they are ideas of.

[Edited to add the close quote in the second to last paragraph. The next paragraph should not have been enclosed.]

Re #15, two things I get - infer - from it is that "idea" is itself not static, and thus anyone or anything, any system, that claims to "have" it, is wrong. Second, that the wrong (person, system,...) in applying the wrong tools, forces the idea into a kind of Procrustean Bed, where in the name of knowledge, violence is done to the idea in forcing it to conform to knowledge, instead of knowledge conforming itself to what is to be known. I find in this idea an opposition to the Platonic eidos - the perfect form that is the model for the Greek's imperfect reality.

And Platonic forms can be understood as a Greek solution to a problem Greek thought had with nature, that nature was - is - essentially imperfect. That is, the Greek looking for perfection could not find it in nature. He could find it in mathematics, and possibly felt that corresponding to the perfection of mathematics he might find a perfection in a super-world of forms.

And this idea collided with Christianity in that for a Christian, God made nature, and thus nature itself possessed the perfection the Greek could not find in nature - and it is the Christian's job to find out and understand exactly what that perfection is and exactly how it works.

Thus if we use some Greek ideas as structural support for our own understanding and thinking, we may just be going down a woods-path that doesn't go anywhere - or worse, that having traversed, we fool ourselves into thinking we did get somewhere. And in this latter case, perhaps we ourselves as Hegel's other making the mistakes he warns us against.

' ...this other view instead consists in only a 'monochrome formalism' (para 15 ).

I referred to this earlier, thinking it might have to do with the formalism of Kant.

I would be grateful for some clarity on this, thanks.

Pinkard #16

#s 17 and 18 seem to go along with this, but combined are too long for one entry. No law against looking ahead at them.

------------------------------

"16. In so doing, this formalism asserts that this monotony and abstract universality is the absolute, and it assures us that any dissatisfaction with such universality is only an incapacity to master the absolute standpoint and keep a firm grip on it.

However much there was once a time when the empty possibility of imagining things differently was sufficient to refute a view, and however much the general thought, the same mere possibility, had also at that time the entirely positive value of actual cognition, nonetheless nowadays we see the universal Idea in this form of non-actuality get all value attributed to it, and we see that what counts as the speculative way of considering things turns out to be the dissolution of the distinct and the determinate, or, instead turns out to be simply the casting of what is distinct and determinate into the abyss of the void, an act lacking all development or having no justification in its own self at all.

In that mode, to examine any existence in the way in which it is in the absolute consists in nothing more than saying it is in fact being spoken of as, say, a “something,” whereas in the absolute, in the A = A, there is no such “something,” for in the absolute, everything is one.

To oppose this one bit of knowledge, namely, that in the absolute everything is the same, to the knowing which makes distinctions and which has been either fulfilled or is seeking and demanding to be fulfilled – that is, to pass off its absolute as the night in which, as one says, all cows are black – is an utterly vacuous naiveté in cognition.

– The formalism which has been indicted and scorned by the philosophy of recent times and which has been generated again in it will not disappear from science even though its inadequacy is well known and felt. It will not disappear until the knowing of absolute actuality has become completely clear about its own nature. – Taking into consideration that working out any general idea is made easier by first having it right before us, it is worth indicating here at least very roughly what those ideas are. At the same time, we should also take this opportunity to rid ourselves of a few forms which are only impediments to philosophical cognition.

...this other view instead consists in only a 'monochrome formalism.' I referred to this earlier, thinking it might have to do with the formalism of Kant.
I would be grateful for some clarity on this, thanks. — Amity

Not clarity, but an opinion. I think the "monochrome formalism" is a generic attack. Possibly you once had an older aunt or uncle whom you approached on a day in which you were excited by the fulgent newness of something, rich with a fecundity of new ideas and significances, that you wanted to talk about, to share, and as you shared it, your listener categorized, analyzed, and explained it all away into a dry dust with neither colour nor life. If you have had that experience, then perhaps you can link it with Hegel's critique. In his running commentary, Kaufmann, mentions Schlegel and Schelling as likely targets.

Thanks for that. All opinions welcome :smile:
It sounds good.
Kaufmann as an authority on the subject is more than likely to be right :cool:

Re #15, two things I get - infer - from it is that "idea" is itself not static, and thus anyone or anything, any system, that claims to "have" it, is wrong. — tim wood

You are correct in that the idea is not static, it does not follow, however, that anyone or anything, any system, that claims to "have" it, is wrong. Hegel's claim is that he has it.

Your assumption seems to be that since the idea is not static that it does not complete itself. But Hegel claims that it has completed itself, at least to the extent that it understands itself within the whole of itself.

... knowledge conforming itself to what is to be known. — tim wood

What is to be known is itself, that is, it is not simply a matter of knowledge of things but knowledge of knowledge, knowledge of the knower.

I find in this idea an opposition to the Platonic eidos - the perfect form that is the model for the Greek's imperfect reality. — tim wood

That too is correct, but you seem to have missed the point.

When Hegel says:

... having become moments of the whole, again develop themselves anew and give themselves a figuration, but this time in their new element, in the new meaning which itself has come to be.

that does not mean a return to Plato but a dialectical rethinking of not only Plato but of the whole history of philosophy. Although he has not used the term, it is aufheben, both to cancel or negate and preserve. You referred to "aufheben and sublation" on page 4. Sublation is the English translation of aufheben. It is the preserve part that you seem to have overlooked. It is not a matter of leaving the past behind. If we are to understand the ontological status of 'idea' for Hegel we must see that he does not mean what we ordinarily mean when we talk about ideas. On the other hand, he does not mean some transcendent realm of unchanging beings either.*

On the relationship of Hegel to Plato by a quick search I found this: https://www.academia.edu/20121186/Platos_Positive_Dialectic_Hegel_Reads_Platos_Parmenides_Sophist_and_Philebus

I only skimmed parts but it might give you a better sense of what is at issue.


*Of course, it should not be overlooked that Plato himself rejected this. In the dialogue Parmenides, the Forms, as presented by a young Socrates, are shown to be incoherent by Parmenides. The Forms are Plato's poetry, designed to replace the theology of the poets. I have written about this elsewhere on the forum. Plato was, after all, both a master dialectician and rhetorician.

The wiki article on Naturphilosophie might be helpful, particularly the following:

Schelling's Absolute was left with no other function than that of removing all the differences which give form to thought. The criticisms of Fichte, and more particularly of Hegel (in the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit), pointed to a defect in the conception of the Absolute as mere featureless identity.

Thank you for that.
It seems that Schelling is indeed a target of Hegel. And vice versa.
Bearing in mind the need to focus on the text, I only add this as a matter of interest.

Section 5. Positive and Negative Philosophy, and the Critique of Hegel

The differences between Hegel and Schelling derive from their respective approaches to understanding the absolute.  — Andrew Bowie

plato.stanford.edu/entries/schelling/#5

The next few paragraphs further develop this. 16 begins:

In so doing, this formalism asserts that this monotony and abstract universality is the absolute ...

Fooloso4 has taken me to school a bit in "correcting/refining" my contribution above, and in my opinion he did a great job!

I'm reminded of reading somewhere that philosophy just is the history of philosophy. I take it to mean both that the new builds on the old, but also that the new incorporates the old. I suppose I should not speak for Fooloso4, but I think that's along the way to the point he was making explicit. And I understand that point as being realized in a very broad and open understading of aufheben/sublation. Hegel himself wrote (I forget where) that his idea of process was not confined to any particular way of development, or even ways, but was (perhaps) instead just the result of the continual tension between ideas as they work out their collective interconnected histories.

Anyway, points to Fooloso4 both for his explications and corrections!

Fooloso4 has taken me to school a bit in "correcting/refining" my contribution above, and in my opinion he did a great job! — tim wood

Thank you Tim. That was most gracious. Perhaps one of these days I will be obliged to return the favor.

*Of course, it should not be overlooked that Plato himself rejected this. In the dialogue Parmenides, the Forms, as presented by a young Socrates, are shown to be incoherent by Parmenides. The Forms are Plato's poetry, designed to replace the theology of the poets. I have written about this elsewhere on the forum. Plato was, after all, both a master dialectician and rhetorician. — Fooloso4

I agree that Parmenides, the Dialogue, is important to this discussion of what is an "absolute" and what not so absolute elements might have to do with it.

But, while the dialogue brings up many problems to the notion of "participating in the eidos", I don't read it as kicking it to the curb. Parmenides and Zeno, in so far as they spoke for themselves (in pre-Socractic texts) presented a unity that did not permit a way to understand change. This view has often been contrasted to Heraclitus who made it difficult to understand what continues to exist after accepting the complex world of change as the primary state. The introduction of the idea of forms was, in some part, to bridge the gap between the two.

So, in one way, this dialogue, written later in Plato's life, was not a disavowal of an idea but the gift of a problem to future generations.

the gift of a problem to future generations. — Valentinus

A most generous gift! (and I love how you phrased that)

Thank you all for your helpful comments! I currently feel that I have nothing useful to add, but I'm following this discussion with great enjoyment.

One comment, perhaps: I find the translation to be very good. I, at least, found no clues or meanings in the German text of #15 and #16 that weren't adequately represented in the English translation also. In #16, the English was even easier to read than the rather convoluted German sentences...

I don't want to derail the topic, so I will only make a few quick comments. I would be glad to discuss the issue elsewhere. While I agree that the Forms can be seen as situated between Parmenides and Heraclitus (there is interestingly enough no dialogue Heraclitus), the setting of the dialogue at the time when Socrates was young suggests that it was not simply in his later years that Plato came to question the Forms as some claim. The Forms are not things known, they are images and despite all the talk of them being what things are the image of, they are themselves images. Further, since Plato makes clear that, contrary to what Neo-Platonists, mystics, and some religious believes hold to be true, anamnesis or recollection is a myth, and as such does not support the Forms but makes their existence even more problematic. They are, in my opinion, and in no way only my own, a gift of philosophical poetry, which does not to diminish their importance and value.

I currently feel that I have nothing useful to add, but I'm following this discussion with great enjoyment. — WerMaat

On the contrary, your take of how German text sounds to a German reader is very helpful. It is the sort of information that is typically added in footnotes to translation as a back up argument for why a phrase appears as it does. Responding as a reader is a different thing.
Keep going, please.

You are right. The topic requires its own discussion.
I am not sure how Hegel understood what happened in regards to the topic.
I really like the observation that there is no Platonic dialogue called Heraclitus.

The next few paragraphs further develop this. 16 begins:

In so doing, this formalism asserts that this monotony and abstract universality is the absolute ... — Fooloso4

Yes. I noticed that when Tim posted it earlier.

Pinkard #16
- 17 and 18 seem to go along with this, but combined are too long for one entry. No law against looking ahead at them. — tim wood

Indeed. It is helpful so to do.
I have also used the search function. 'Formalism' comes up 13 times.
Of interest to me relates to WerMaat's thoughts:

Like: they're just piling up stuff that was already there, and spray-paint it pink, and then expound how this perfectly shows the superiority of the theory of pinkness. — WerMaat

Hegel speaks of monotonous formalism being not that difficult to handle. It is like the limited palette of red and green. The painter using red for a historical piece, green for landscapes ( para 51, p79 ).

I am now wondering just how much of that is a true depiction of Schelling's view ( if he is the target ).
But that would be another book, another time - I guess...

Thank you all for your helpful comments! I currently feel that I have nothing useful to add, but I'm following this discussion with great enjoyment. — WerMaat

Without your curiosity, questions, imagery and ideas, I might well have carried on in ignorance.
Now out of a sleepy stupor and fully engaged.

I agree this group discussion is stimulating. Look forward to hearing more...

It is reassuring to know you find the translation to be good. I think having German as a first language will come in very useful when it comes to deciding meaning. For example:

Although he has not used the term, it is aufheben, both to cancel or negate and preserve. You referred to "aufheben and sublation" on page 4. Sublation is the English translation of aufheben. It is the preserve part that you seem to have overlooked. It is not a matter of leaving the past behind. If we are to understand the ontological status of 'idea' for Hegel we must see that he does not mean what we ordinarily mean when we talk about ideas. On the other hand, he does not mean some transcendent realm of unchanging beings either.* — Fooloso4

Pinkard discusses 'aufheben' and 'sublate' in his Translation Notes.
He leaves it up to the reader to judge whether it is being used simply as 1.negate 2.preserve or 3.both.
Another suggested meaning: to raise up.

He gives an example of 3. both.
A move in a philosophical conversation where an interlocutor might deny an opponent's point but there is still something worthy in it. So it is kept in a changed format in the ongoing discussion.

' ...this other view instead consists in only a 'monochrome formalism' (para 15 ).

I referred to this earlier, thinking it might have to do with the formalism of Kant.

I would be grateful for some clarity on this, thanks. — Amity

I just looked into this a bit. Hegel says that Kant's Categorical Imperative, his moral formula of universal law, is "empty formalism". It is empty because it has no content just the form. Although we find here the absolute and the universal, I don't think that it is Kant's formalism that is at issue.

So, what is the formalism that Hegel rejects? That "in the absolute everything is one ... in the absolute everything is the same" or, as he mocks it in #7: " to stir it all together into a smooth mélange".