So, negation is important because there is no motion forward without it. The Notion is not an explanation but an activity. It is not "automatic" as a process. If it was, then it would already be appropriated like a Category of Reason. — Valentinus
However, the life of spirit is not a life that is fearing death and austerely saving itself from ruin; rather, it bears death calmly, and in death, it sustains itself. Spirit only wins its truth by finding its feet in its absolute disruption. Spirit is not this power which, as the positive, avoids looking at the negative, as is the case when we say of something that it is nothing, or that it is false, and then, being done with it, go off on our own way on to something else. No, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face and lingering with it. This lingering is the magical power that converts it into being. — Hegel
Nowadays the task before us consists not so much in purifying the individual of the sensuously immediate and in making him into a thinking substance which has itself been subjected to thought; it consists instead in doing the very opposite. It consists in actualizing and spiritually animating the universal through the sublation of fixed and determinate thoughts. — Hegel
Analysis (Analysieren) of an idea into its constituent elements, through the understanding (Verstand ), as distinguished from reason, will not yield knowledge. Kant's critical philosophy features categories, or pure concepts of the understanding, that "produce," or "construct," the objects of experience by unifying the contents of sensory experience. For Hegel, on the contrary, the understanding does not unify but rather separates. He refers to "the activity of separation of theUnderstanding, the most astonishing and mightiest of powers, or rather the absolute power" (§32, 18). The understanding's capacity to introduce distinctions, to separate what was whole, or the power of the negative that causes death, is a phase of the cognitive process. In a further phase, mere individuality is transformed into universality. In this way, thoughts, or pure essences, are brought together in an "organic whole" (§34, 20). — Tom Rockmore
But to seek to know before we know is as absurd... — Hegel, Logic, paragragh 10
that the usual course which proceeds by assumptions and anticipations is no better than a hypothetical and problematical mode of procedure. But his perceiving this does not alter the character of this method; it only makes clear its imperfections. — Hegel, Logic, paragragh 10
At this point a decision to be made. Hegel is either a dinosaur, interesting but in-himself a quaint piece of history of no direct interest, or, even today the bearer of truths timeless in-themselves, that ought to be known — tim wood
I consider your question of dinosaur versus current player the one that is most interesting to me and shapes the tenor of many reactions to Hegel's text.
But I will respond more thoughtfully after a little bit. — Valentinus
To understand any book or text requires first that it be read - and understood. That's the task of this thread, and that is the only task of this thread! Opinions and arguments are not welcome! Exception: given a reading, if someone can add light or improve on - or correct - the explication given, then they're very welcome. Or if anyone wants to add their own parallel "reading," also welcome.
With luck, 50-odd pages, maybe the thing can be done in under 50 - 100 posts! — tim wood
I'll proceed paragraph-by-paragraph. — tim wood
This is a difficult read. I intend to proceed through it paragraph-by-paragraph, — tim wood
In any case the origin of the mystical tradition in Western philosophy is (neo)Platonism and its successors, whose doctrines were fused into early Christianity by the Greek-speaking theologians, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and later Pseudo-Dionysius and John Scotus Eriugena. The intuition of 'the One' which is the ground/source of all being through the domain of the forms/ideas is central to that tradition. Although it should be said the marriage of Hebrew prophetic religion with Greek rationalism was often a rather fraught one, and that (in my view) the mystical elements became almost completely subordinated to the literalistic tendencies in Protestantism. But there's a huge amount of study involved in all of those issues, and I've only skimmed the surface. But I think it is possible to identify aspects the Hegelian 'absolute' with both the 'first mover' of Aristotle, and also with the One of neo-platonism (feasibly a kind of 'world soul'). — Wayfarer
I find the paragraphs taken severally difficult to get through. Often in trying to follow the path I find no path. I.e., where I look for meaning I have to provide it - and remember that as mine it's provisional — tim wood
If something in a view you're examining is unclear to you, don't gloss it over. Call attention to the unclarity. Suggest several different ways of understanding the view. Explain why it's not clear which of these interpretations is correct. — Jim Pryor
People can attain knowledge and own it, but that's not the end. Ancient studies were essentially observational and reflective, the attempt to know what is, and to make sense of it. That is, an open questioning.33. That what is represented becomes a possession of pure selfconsciousness, namely, this elevation to universality itself, is only one aspect of cultural formation and is not yet fully perfected cultural formation.
– The course of studies of the ancient world is distinct from that of modern times in that the ancient course of studies consisted in a thoroughgoing cultivation of natural consciousness. Experimenting particularly with each part of its existence and philosophizing about everything it came across, the
ancient course of studies fashioned itself into an altogether active universality. — Hegel/Pinkard
Hegel's criticism appears to be that much of the then current thinking (and our own?) is the free association of idea with nature to "create" understanding. The job, then, is to recover the concrete, the what is, from a too-sensuous appreciation and to study the concrete through the "dialectic" of its being.In contrast, in modern times, the individual finds the abstract form ready-made. The strenuous effort to grasp it and make it his own is more of an unmediated drive to bring the inner to the light of day; it is the truncated creation of the universal rather than the emergence of the universal from out of the concrete, from out of the diversity found in existence. Nowadays the task before us consists not so much in purifying the individual of the sensuously immediate and in making him into a thinking substance which has itself been subjected to thought; it consists instead in doing the very opposite. It consists in actualizing and spiritually animating the universal through the sublation of fixed and determinate thoughts.
The abstract is not the concrete. The abstract flows easily into the fantastic, as ideas. The concrete, on the other hand, has the power of being determinate, as against what it is not. The collision between the what-is and the what-is-not, in so far as both are real, yields to the understanding, through their opposition in the understanding, called by the general name of sublation, a reality that combines and acknowledges them both as a unity, a being-together in difference.However, it is much more difficult to set fixed thoughts into fluid motion than it is to bring sensuous existence into such fluidity. The reason for this lies in what was said before. The former determinations have the I, the power of the negative, or, pure actuality, as their substance and as the element of their existence, whereas sensuous determinations have their substance only in impotent abstract immediacy, or in being as such.
Thoughts become fluid by pure thinking, this inner immediacy, recognizing itself as a moment, or, by pure self-certainty abstracting itself from itself – it does not consist in only omitting itself, or, setting itself off to one side. Rather, it consists in giving up the fixity of its self-positing as well as the fixity of the purely concrete, which is the I itself in opposition to the differences of its content – as the fixity of differences which, posited as existing in the element of pure thinking, share that unconditionality of the I. Through this movement, pure thoughts become concepts, and are for the first time what they are in truth: self-moving movements, circles, which are what their substance is; namely, spiritual essentialities.
A modern phrase (first used before Hegel!) suffices here: "hermeneutic circle." More accurately, spiral. in simplest terms, as you go 'round and 'round with a thing, or idea, it makes the more sense. "Circle" referring variously to a "circle" of texts that inform (by successive recourse to) on the text in question. Or because the Greek root means translate/interpret, which in itself evokes a "taking counsel with," implying an other even it the other needed be found only in one's own critical awareness. — tim wood
Correction/refinement welcome.
— tim wood
A lot of waffle.
For anyone interested in a more objective and substantive account, this is recommended:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/ — Amity
I am at a loss to see how "waffle" is any kind of correction or refinement - or contribution. What is waffling, where, how? — tim wood
noun
1.BRITISH
lengthy but vague or trivial talk or writing.
"we've edited out some of the waffle"
synonyms:prattle, jabbering, verbiage, drivel, meaningless talk, nonsense, twaddle, gibberish, stuff and nonsense, bunkum, mumbo jumbo, padding, flannel, verbosity, prolixity; — Oxford online dictionary
But I do observe that there is in your posts almost zero reference to any reading you're doing of Hegel's text. Anyone, everyone, else, but not Hegel. Why would that be? I assume you do read the paragraphs. — tim wood
As to the question of whether Hegel was a mystic, we must first ask what a mystic is. Is it someone who has experiences or someone who has been initiated formally or informally into secret teachings or someone who yearns for immediacy or someone who attempts to attain altered states of consciousness via particular practices or ...? — Fooloso4
A modern phrase (first used before Hegel!) suffices here: "hermeneutic circle." More accurately, spiral. in simplest terms, as you go 'round and 'round with a thing, or idea, it makes the more sense. "Circle" referring variously to a "circle" of texts that inform (by successive recourse to) on the text in question. Or because the Greek root means translate/interpret, which in itself evokes a "taking counsel with," implying an other even it the other needed be found only in one's own critical awareness. — tim wood
Another thing might be that each thing must be other than all other things. Is the whole other than itself? In one sense since there is nothing other than the whole of what is then there would be nothing other than the whole. But self-knowing requires the self to treat itself as is object of knowledge. — Fooloso4
34. This movement of pure essentialities constitutes the nature of scientific rigor per se. As the connectedness of its content, this movement is both the necessity of that content and its growth into an organic whole.
The path along which the concept of knowing is reached likewise itself becomes a necessary and complete coming-to-be, so that this preparation ceases to be a contingent philosophizing which just happens to fasten onto this and those objects, relations, or thoughts arising from an imperfect consciousness and having all the contingency such a consciousness brings in its train; or, it ceases to be the type of philosophizing which seeks to ground the truth in only clever argumentation about pros and cons or in inferences based on fully determinate thoughts and the consequences following from them. Instead, through the movement of the concept, this path will encompass the complete worldliness of consciousness in its necessity.
35. Furthermore, such an account constitutes the first part of science, since the existence of spirit as primary is nothing else but the immediate itself, or, the beginning, which is not yet its return into itself. Hence, the element of immediate existence is the determinateness though which this part of science renders itself distinct from the other parts. – The account of this difference leads directly to the discussion of a few of those idées fixes that usually turn up in these discussions.
36. The immediate existence of spirit, consciousness, has two moments, namely, knowing and the objectivity which is negative to knowing.
While spirit develops itself in this element and explicates its moments therein, still this opposition corresponds to these moments, and they all come on the scene as shapes of consciousness.
The science of this path is the science of the experience consciousness goes through. Substance is considered in the way that it and its movement are the objects of consciousness. Consciousness knows and comprehends nothing but what is in its experience, for what is in experience is just spiritual substance, namely, as the object of its own self.
However, spirit becomes the object, for it is this movement of becoming an other to itself, which is to say, of becoming an object to its own self and of sublating this otherness. And experience is the name of this very movement in which the immediate, the non-experienced, i.e., the abstract (whether the abstract is that of sensuous being or of “a simple” which has only been thought about) alienates itself and then comes round to itself from out of this alienation. It is only at that point that, as a property of consciousness, the immediate is exhibited in its actuality and in its truth. — Hegel/Pinkard
Therefore every man of worth, when dealing with matters of worth, will be far from exposing them to ill feeling and misunderstanding among men by committing them to writing. In one word, then, it may be known from this that, if one sees written treatises composed by anyone, either the laws of a lawgiver, or in any other form whatever, these are not for that man the things of most worth, if he is a man of worth, but that his treasures are laid up in the fairest spot that he possesses. But if these things were worked at by him as things of real worth, and committed to writing, then surely, not gods, but men "have themselves bereft him of his wits."
Anyone who has followed this discourse and digression will know well that, if Dionysios or anyone else, great or small, has written a treatise on the highest matters and the first principles of things, he has, so I say, neither heard nor learnt any sound teaching about the subject of his treatise; otherwise, he would have had the same reverence for it, which I have, and would have shrunk from putting it forth into a world of discord and uncomeliness. For he wrote it, not as an aid to memory-since there is no risk of forgetting it, if a man's soul has once laid hold of it; for it is expressed in the shortest of statements-but if he wrote it at all, it was from a mean craving for honour, either putting it forth as his own invention, or to figure as a man possessed of culture, of which he was not worthy, if his heart was set on the credit of possessing it. — plato 7th
Perhaps men have themselves bereft Hegel of his wits, or maybe he too is a man of worth. In that case he would be like Plato in that both have a lot to say but both leave the things of the most worth unsaid. I am certain that this is the case for Plato but do not know if it is for Hegel. — Fooloso4
So, to make things clear, you say that a mystic is like the one being portrayed in the following music video, one that "saw the whole of the moon"? — Pussycat
And that Plato was not one, but Hegel was? — Pussycat
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