Ahhh you mean like this? :D

:) You got it!

Anyway, yeah the Master slave dialectic is a key passage, also in its own right. I was always struck with the fact that later continental philosophy such as phenomenology or existentialism had so little concern with 'togetherness'. I am sure I will incur the wrath of a host of Hedeggerians, but his 'Dasein' seems very lonely as does 'l'etre' in Sartre. Nietzsche's overman is a lonely figure too. What I like a lot in Hegel is the idea of 'being the same in difference', one remains a true individual but always within a conceptual network of indviduals, genus, society and history. Not 'thrown into it' as Heidegger would have it, but 'growing up' in it, with all the pain, conflict, scepticism and heartache that entails. For me that is something very modern in Hegel actually, so modern that current thinking completely seems to negate it and only focusses on difference. .

What struck me as well is how similar Hegel and Marx seemed to be appreciating the nature of 'work'. In Hegel working and working together are key as well in order to form a society that is wat once guided by law and held together by a certain moral substance — Tobias

I agree that this is a striking difference! In Marx work is central -- our species-being is almost defined by work, in my understanding of Marx. How we go about managing our material needs and wants is the mechanism by which history goes.

I think that Levinas begins to scratch the surface of togetherness, to give at least a 20th century example of a continental that begins to look at togetherness... but I agree that these philosophers were more interested in individuality and a picture of a lonely individual. Perhaps the influence of capital and liberalism on their views?


Naturally, I think being-with is important, but I do read Hegel as a conservative for the most part though I recognize his legacy is to influence both right and left political thinkers.

I do read Hegel as a conservative — Moliere

What makes him a conservative?

His love of Napoleon Bonaparte :D

IDK, just a vibe really. He's a wiggly dude to interpret. It's only my love of Marx that has carried me through his texts lol :D

His love of Napoleon Bonaparte — Moliere

I don't know if it is love, but Hegel does seem to praise Napolean.
But it is because of his idea of a World Historical Figure that moves history.
Hegel's Philosophy of Right gives his political views in detail, which I would not describe as conservative.

On a side note, I enjoy some of the existentialists that emphasize the importance of becoming for people in pointing out the relevence of the dialectical negative. it is accurate to identify them as the earliest modern psychlogists. — Merkwurdichliebe

Interesting! I wonder which existentialists you refer to. Relatedly, @180 Proof recently somewhere (I couldn't find the post) presented the idea that Hegel's is a positive dialectic in contrast to the negative dialectic of Adorno; I'm not much familiar with Adorno, but this intrigued me so I consulted Wiki:

Adorno sought to update the philosophical process known as the dialectic, freeing it from traits previously attributed to it that he believed to be fictive. For Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the dialectic was a process of realization that things contain their own negation and through this realization the parts are sublated into something greater. Adorno's dialectics rejected this positive element wherein the result was something greater than the parts that preceded and argued for a dialectics which produced something essentially negative. Adorno wrote that "Negative Dialectics is a phrase that flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation; the thought figure of the 'negation of the negation' later became the succinct term. This book seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits without reducing its determinacy."[1]

Adorno's purpose was to overcome the formal logical limits of the previous definitions of dialectics by putting into light that new knowledge arises less from a Hegelian unification of opposite categories as defined following Aristotelian logic than by the revelation of the limits of knowledge.[2] Such revelation of the limits of knowledge reaches out to its experienced object, whose entirety always escapes the simplifying categories of purely theoretical thinking.[3] Adorno raises the possibility that philosophy and its essential link to reality may be essentially epistemological in nature.[4] His reflection moves a step higher by applying the concept of dialectics not only to exterior objects of knowledge, but to the process of thought itself.[5]

To summarize, "...this Negative Dialectics in which all esthetic topics are shunned might be called an “anti-system.” It attempts by means of logical consistency to substitute for the unity principle, and for the paramountcy of the superordinate concept, the idea of what would be outside the sway of such unity. To use the strength of the subject to break through the fallacy of constitutive subjectivity—this is what the author felt to be his task [...]. Stringently to transcend the official separation of pure philosophy and the substantive or formally scientific realm was one of his determining motives."[6]

( I don't know how accurate this portrayal is, but it seems relevant enough to be of interest).

Thanks for your own excellent summary, Tobias! I think you are exactly right that the conflict, and potential for negation, in ideas arises only when an attempt is made to absolutize them; I think this is a very important point. I also agree with you about the potentially misleading distortions lurking in the 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' model; to counteract the notion that any synthesis could itself be stable and absolute it must be borne in mind that it becomes a new thesis with its own inherent potentiality for negation and new synthesis, and so on endlessly.

I recently had a disagreement with a friend, a teacher at university, who not long ago ran a course on Hegel, when I said I don't see Hegel as a "progressivist" thinker meaning I don't see the idea that the sublation or synthesis is somehow "better" than the idea it grows out of as being inherent to his thinking, and she thinks I am simply wrong about that and have a "quirky" reading of Hegel. Anyway, in light of that I liked your invocation of Heraclitus' "flux".

Here we see the dialectic in full flow. Wishing someone goodnight is at face value a happy wish. However, it also has the connotation something is over and may therefore revert into its opposite, the meaning of "this is done" reverting 'good night' into an angry slam of the door. :wink: — Tobias

Nice extrapolation!

I recently had a disagreement with a friend, a teacher at university, who not long ago ran a course on Hegel, when I said I don't see Hegel as a "progressivist" thinker meaning I don't see the idea that the sublation or synthesis is somehow "better" than the idea it grows out of as being inherent to his thinking, — Janus

That teacher is correct.

It sounds relevant enough to me, and relates to 180's proof's apophatic metaphysics, the thought of determining that there is always something 'more', something missed or lying outside its scope. It reminds me of Heidegger actually who tried to retrace the steps of the old thinkers to determine what was 'not thought' in them, not what they 'missed' but what they could not think because of the assumptions they tacitly adopted. I think many postmodern thinkers actually adopted such an approach. In different variations it seems to me to be central to all the thinkers of 'difference'.

I always wonder though, but that is maybe because I cannot wrap my head around it, if it does not come down to the same thing. An inclusion can never be complete, there is always an exclusion. I hold that to be an insight of dialectical thinking. Hegel's absolute knowledge in my view comes down to the realisation that only continuous moveent is real, that there is never rest so always 'otherness'. I have been criticized for that view though as taking too much liberty with Hegel.

Fair enough. I haven't read The Philosophy of Right, only the phenomenology and the first third of the logic. The logic was too abstruse for me to make heads or tails of, but the phenomenology drew from history enough that I felt I could follow along for large portions (though, of course, not all of it. and not without the help of secondary literature, etc.)

There, however, I felt he wasn't a radical critique of Kant so much as attempting to deny Kant -- well, at least I don't find it convicing. I mean, that doesn't invalidate his project, I don't think, because he's not drawing from as much as criticizing Kant -- but I see a lot more value in Kant's epistemology than Hegel's (though that could just be a preference from understanding, of course) when addressing the questions about his three metaphysical questions on God, Freedom, and Immortality.

Though I think his idea about self and other co-constituting one another and becoming a lot more convincing when approaching the humanities. There's a lot of really interesting things in Hegel. But I ultimately feel like you just gaze at the process of ideas and let it all happen as it ascends to the absolute? There's something about it that just feels like you should obey the state.

I recently had a disagreement with a friend, a teacher at university, who not long ago ran a course on Hegel, when I said I don't see Hegel as a "progressivist" thinker meaning I don't see the idea that the sublation or synthesis is somehow "better" than the idea it grows out of as being inherent to his thinking, and she thinks I am simply wrong about that and have a "quirky" reading of Hegel. Anyway, in light of that I liked your invocation of Heraclitus' "flux". — Janus

Thanks Janus! Well, I do think that, even though the insight is minimal in this reading of Hegel, there is an insight nonetheless. In Hegel the new view does seem to accommodate the previous 'simpler' views into something richer. In the end we learn it is movement, but not movement willy nilly. It is movement towards subjectivity, (substance becomes subject) which is truly realized in freedom. So I would have to side with her in that respect, it becomes richer, more transparent to itself...

Movement willy nilly, just a from somewhere to somewhere seems to lead to what Hegel calls the 'bad infinite' just something leading further and further but to nothing concrete. I think that would be more Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. I do find it difficult to reconcile with his otherwise Hercleitian leanings though. I read an article which claimed that this 'end point' is nothing other than this moment in time and place now. The realization that it did not come about irrationally, but can after all be logically explained. Anyway, still struggling.

I do envy you... why do I not find a woman to discuss Hegel with...? That is a sidenote, and a silly lamentation, maybe she is just behind a dialectical corner somewhere...

There's something about it that just feels like you should obey the state. — Moliere

No. The state is just people and customs.

but I see a lot more value in Kant's epistemology than Hegel's — Moliere

Because?

I like the problems that it solves -- giving a straightforward reason for why it is one can know things about the world but not necessarily some kind of ultimate reality dreamed up by philosophers. I prefer the denial of metaphysics as a knowledge, and Hegel at least seems like the sort of ur-philosopher on that front -- a giant system that explains it all, somehow, but leaves you kind of wondering what it really explained in the first place.

I prefer the denial of metaphysics as a knowledge, and Hegel at least seems like the sort of ur-philosopher on that front -- a giant system that explains it all, — Moliere

I never read Hegel that way. And I never understood what denial of metaphysics meant. Hegel never argues that there are metaphysical objects.

Isn't it the nature of Hegel that it can be read whichever way?

I've read liberals, fascists and anti-colonial communists claim him in various capacities -- and I honest to goodness couldn't tell you which way it should be read -- it just seems like fair game, a creative grist mill which people read themselves into more often than not. And while I could come up with allusions to history and piece together bits, I'll admit I wasn't at all confident that this was somehow the way to read Hegel. And everything I've come across has always admitted that Hegel reads many ways too.

For me my interest in him derives from my interest in Marx, so this is my main interest in interpreting Hegel. Though I'll admit parts of it felt inspiring at times, at the end of the day I just decided I only had one life to live.

Isn't it the nature of Hegel that it can be read whichever way? — Moliere

No. Not that there is one way, but any reading must be justified with reasons.

Sure, I agree with that.

I've read liberals, fascists and anti-colonial communists claim him in various capacities -- and I honest to goodness couldn't tell you which way it should be read -- it just seems like fair game, a creative grist mill which people read themselves into more often than not. — Moliere

Hegel is rather straight forward in texts like Philosophy of History, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Right, Lectures on the Philosophy of Art.

But, you are saying you don't really want to read Hegel and that is fine.

So I would have to side with her in that respect, it becomes richer, more transparent to itself... — Tobias

Right, I agree that it becomes more elaborate, more complex, but I balk at "richer", and "more transparent to itself" since to assert that would entail asserting that our lives are richer and more transparent to themselves now than the lives of the ancients, or for that matter, hunter/gatherers. It is obviously true that they are conceptually richer, if quantity and complexity is the standard. But in the end, leaving aside aesthetics, the emotional life, religious feeling and experience and so on, it is all, from beginning to end, following the inherent logic of Hegel's thought, if not his own beliefs, just ideas and elaborations of ideas, no?

To put it another way because no idea, according to Hegel, is stable and immune to being subject to its negation, then all ideas are in that sense, so to speak, "on the same level". The greater richness then, on that view, does not consist as a greater richness of an idea compared to the idea it grew out of, but in the amplification that consists in the whole process.

I take this to entail that no point in the (necessarily) endless dialectical process is any better than any other, but I am not claiming that Hegel would agree with this, just that this is the logic inherent in his conception of the dialectic. No doubt I could be wrong about that given that I am no Hegel scholar, but I would need good relevant argument to convince me of that.

Yeaaahh... I'll admit my interest in the thread was mostly Marx. I'll keep The Philosophy of Right in mind if I feel the wild urge to give Hegel a chance again.

I'll keep The Philosophy of Right in mind if I feel the wild urge to give Hegel a chance again. — Moliere

The Philosophy of Right is amazingly current. I was surprised how relevant it was to contemporary politics.

Hegel never argues that there are metaphysical objects. — Jackson

You mean like e.g. "the Absolute" (re: Introduction, Phenomenology of Mind) or "Thought", "Being", "Nothingness", "Becoming", "Essence", etc (re: Science of Logic), they are not "metaphysical objects" – really? :roll:

go read wiki

I've read Hegel's works, especially those I've referenced. Clearly you have not and so I have previously offered a few wiki & SEP summaries to counter your misleading falsehoods about Hegel.

Wiki Tiki Toki.

Yep :sweat:

A lot of very peculiar usages of terminology that have very specific conventional meanings - any attempt to establish a connection betwixt the two is bound to fail (miserably). This of course only from a brief drive-by of some articles on Dialectical Materialism.

You mean like e.g. "the Absolute" (re: Introduction, Phenomenology of Mind) or "Thought", "Being", "Nothingness", "Becoming", "Essence", etc (re: Science of Logic), they are not "metaphysical objects" – really? — 180 Proof

I think 'concept' is a more apt definition than 'metaphysical object'. Metaphysical object has connotations with 'objective' things like a soul, angels, God, etc. The concepts referred to in this post are, if I understood correctly, what Hegel calls "Gedankending", "thought-things", or maybe thought constructions. These 'thought things' are the tools with which we determine our world, or, and I think therein lies Hegel's idealist moment, they determine our world, as all thought is conceptual and what cannot be articulated cannot be an object for thought, and no object (Gegenstand in German) altogether. At least, indeed Jackson, in the way I would read Hegel. Of this idea you also find an echo in Marx when he says we are the products and producers of history.

Thank you for sharing your insight on the subject. I clearly have a lot to learn about Hegel and Marx. Hopefully one day I will be able to discuss the subject with some degree of competence.