10:

Hegel is not entirely unsympathetic to the impulse of those he is criticizing. The impulse is to seek the infinite and divine and stems from spirit's loss (#8) The problem is that it sees science as the very thing that limits rather than frees the spirit. They

... intentionally stands aloof from both the concept and from necessity, which it holds to be a type of reflection at home in mere finitude.

What it fails to see is that:

The force of spirit is only as great as its expression, and its depth goes only as deep as it trusts itself to disperse itself and to lose itself in its explication of itself.

But they:

... While abandoning themselves to the unbounded fermentation of the substance ... suppose that, by throwing a blanket over self-consciousness and by surrendering all understanding, they are God’s very own, that they are those to whom God imparts wisdom in their sleep.

11:

This kind of intellectual passivity or receptivity:

... is interrupted by the break of day

For:

... spirit is never to be conceived as being at rest but rather as ever advancing.

As with gestation and birth there is:

... the gradualness of only quantitative growth [and then] it makes a qualitative leap and is born.

In the same way:

... in bringing itself to cultural maturity, spirit ripens slowly and quietly into its new shape, dissolving bit by bit the structure of its previous world, whose tottering condition is only intimated by its individual symptoms.

The activity of those Hegel is critical of in #10 is seen as:

The kind of frivolity and boredom which chips away at the established order and the indeterminate presentiment of what is yet unknown are all harbingers of imminent change. This gradual process of dissolution, which has not altered the physiognomy of the whole ...

But with Hegel the process:

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

I think the offspring is philosophy. It is of you but other than you. Plato's "child" has gained a sort of immortality.

Philosophy is both the desire for wisdom and what that desire engenders. We might think in this regard of Socrates' role as a mid-wife. What one gives birth to may be a "wind egg" - a defective egg that will not produce a chicken. And in his role as mid-wife he helps not only in the delivery but in seeing it for what it is and discarding it, which can be hard, as he points out, because we love what is our own. Speaking less metaphorically, philosophy helps us evaluate our opinions and reject them when they are infertile.

But on what basis can we judge them if we cannot distinguish opinion from truth or opinion from true opinion? To begin to answer this question we must look not only as is usual to the Republic but to the Symposium. The Symposium is about eros and beauty, the Republic provides a beautiful image of truth as the ascent to the Forms. But the ascent is not compelled by eros but by force.

I would say the ideal offspring would be self knowledge. For only through wisdom, can we see how ignorant we are. — Mark Dennis

I think that in one sense this is right, knowledge of ignorance is a between. Socrates claims that he possesses "human wisdom", by which he means he still does not possess the wisdom the philosopher desires.

Offspring are of you but other than you. Self knowledge is of you but not other than you.

With all these immigrants around, it makes you wonder why we can’t find any real white nationalists to play the racism card any more. All these foreigners are taking the jobs away from our pure-bred bigots. They ought to go back to where they came from. — Richard Wolffe

Funny.

How does the term 'function' function for our precocious three year old girl? Perhaps "function" means "I want it" and she is not going to give it up.

With regard to philosophy as the love of wisdom, Plato's Symposium is most instructive. The topic of discussion is Eros, the god of desire. Socrates says that the love of wisdom is the eros or desire for wisdom. The philosopher desires wisdom but does not possess it. (This is at odds with the image of the philosopher in the Republic who possesses wisdom.) Socrates' tale of his instruction by the woman Diatoma, plays off the various objects of desire and the role of opposites - Eros himself is the offspring of the god of wealth, who drinks too much wine at a banquet, passes out, and is taken advantage of my the goddess of poverty, who gives birth to Eros, the offspring of the opposites wealth and want. In line with the theme of eros and reproduction, the question arises what does the love of wisdom produce, that is, what is the offspring of ignorance and wisdom?

From a review of Yovel's translation of the Preface:

The Preface explains just what this transformation of philosophy into science fundamentally involves. In the first place, it involves the repudiation of the romantic notion, associated with Hegel's friends from the Tübingen Stift, Hölderlin and Schelling, that absolute truth can be grasped only in intuition or immediate feeling. In his younger days, Hegel shared with Hölderlin and Schelling the aspiration to overcome the dichotomies of Kant's critical philosophy, in particular its denial that we can have knowledge of the absolute or thing in itself. In the Phenomenology, Hegel does not abandon this aspiration, but he rejects Hölderlin's and Schelling's conception of absolute knowledge in terms of immediate intuition or feeling. Such a conception, he argues, dissolves the rich differentiation and determination of empirical content into a "night in which all cows are black" (94).

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/hegel-s-preface-to-the-phenomenology-of-spirit/

What is, what was, and what will be are not determined by what we can comprehend about what is, was, and will be. This is a simple truth that is too often not understood, thus resulting in idle speculation that misunderstands itself as argumentative proofs of what must be and cannot be.

Corresponding to this requirement ...

That is, for ecstasy, elevation, "insight as edification".

... to save mankind from its absorption in the sensuous, the vulgar, and the singular.

As if people :

... were like worms, each and all on the verge of finding satisfaction in mere dirt and water.

Their eyes must be directed to the stars, to what is higher, to the divine.

But:

There was a time when people had a heaven adorned with a comprehensive wealth of thoughts and images. The meaning of all existence lay in the thread of light by which it was bound to heaven and instead of lingering in this present, people’s view followed that thread upwards towards the divine essence; their view directed itself, if one may put it this way, to an other-worldly present.

In other words, the felt need for what is higher is not simply reactionary, the result of man's lowliness. There was a time when meaning was found in the thread of light binding all existence to the divine.

Hegel's image can be likened to an inversion of Plato's image of the cave. Instead of being forced to leave the cave under duress:

It was only under duress that spirit’s eyes had to be turned back to what is earthly and to be kept fixed there ...

And as with being compelling to return to the cave:

... a long time was needed to introduce clarity into the dullness and confusion lying in the meaning of things in this world, a kind of clarity which only heavenly things used to have ...

It is not, however, to a cave with the artificial light of the fire and shadows on the cave wall that the spirit's eyes (German Geist - spirit/mind, as in phenomenology of) were now turned:

... to draw attention to the present as such, an attention that was called experience, and to make it interesting and to make it matter.

But:

Now it seems that there is the need for the opposite, that our sense of things is so deeply rooted in the earthly that an equal power is required to elevate it above all that.

It is not a simple back and forth movement from the heavens to the earth and back to the heavens:

Spirit has shown itself to be so impoverished that it seems to yearn for its refreshment only in the meager feeling of divinity ... That it now takes so little to satisfy spirit’s needs is the full measure
of the magnitude of its loss.

The spirit has undergone a change. The felt need for elevation is too easily satisfied. Note the change from the "spirit’s eyes" that looked back to the earth from above to "people’s eyes" that must now be directed to the stars.

Why were the spirit's eyes compelled to turn to the earthly? Perhaps it has something to do with the tension between "this present" and "an other-worldly present". Does this turn mark the advent of modern science?

Thanks. That clearly states what has been at issue a a couple of recent discussions here. As well, of course, within the philosophical community at large.

A provocative claim from Meillassoux:

... there is only one thing that is absolutely necessary: that the laws of nature are contingent.

And at the risk of being unfair to Meillassoux without providing his defense:

... all those aspects of the object that can be formulated in mathematical terms can be meaningfully conceived as properties of the object in itself.

The thesis we are defending is therefore twofold: on the one hand, we acknowledge that the sensible only exists as a subject’s relation to the world; but on the other hand, we maintain that the mathematizable properties of the object are exempt from the constraint of such a relation, and that they are effectively in the object in the way in which I conceive them, whether I am in relation with this object or not.

I don't know. I was just introduced to him a few hours ago by @fdrake.

But Hegel's polemical regard for "edification" could use some edifying explication. — tim wood

To edify is to instruct, to lift up or improve in a moral or spiritual sense. Etymologically, to build up. From #8:

Corresponding to this requirement is a laborious and almost petulant zeal to save mankind from its absorption in the sensuous, the vulgar, and the singular. It wishes to direct people’s eyes to the stars ...

More on #8 to follow but note the movement from a time when people gazed upward followed by a turning back to the earth and now a need for elevation.

It's also important to note that 'Notion' (or concept) is used here (beginning in section 6 iirc) in contrast to 'intuition'. — emancipate

Yes, I agree. My earlier comment on #6:

#6:

Hegel is opposing his claim that:

... truth has the element of its existence solely in concepts

with the claim that it is not the concept but the feeling and intuition or immediate knowing of the absolute which are supposed to govern what is said of it. — Fooloso4

Clearly the only sensible answer is, as @Tzeentch, would have it, to lock your doors and pretend that it is still 1919.

But of course we can no longer sustain that fantasy.

Newton knew first hand what gravity is, while making it known that he didnt know what it is in the sense of having a theory for it. — frank

A good example in that with both we know that they work but not how the work.

I'm not making any claims. I'm just pointing out that lacking a scientific theory of consciousness, there is nothing but personal bias and possibly contemporary fashion supporting the idea that consciousness had a beginning. — frank

Actually, I think the contemporary fashion, at least in some quarters, favors panpsychism, and part of the fashion may be due to the appeal of being fashion forward; but I agree, the matter is far from settled. My own bias is a kind of theoretical modestness - don't build too much on theories unless we have good reason to think they are probably true. That is not to say they should be dismissed but unless there is good evidence that consciousness is not a property limited to sufficiently advanced organisms able to demonstrate consciousness, I won't rule it out but I won't rule it in either.

This strikes me as analogous to the "God question". Interestingly from the little I have read Meillassoux does not approve of the religious turn in philosophy. I don't know if he names names but I am guessing he has in mind Derrida.

I would say that we do know first hand what consciousness is, although we cannot explain how it came to be, or, as some would argue, that it came to be rather than it being fundamental. We also know that at least some organisms have consciousness, but there is no evidence that less complex and inorganic things do. In addition, we know that there was a time without complex organisms, and so the assumption that there was consciousness requires evidence.

As some would have it, however, we cannot even speak of time in the absence of human beings, that 'before man' is an oxymoron. Such a view, in my opinion, is based on a theoretic construct of time. that attempts to dismisses time as a theoretical construct

I've been through it with Wayfarer a couple of times — fdrake

Yes, you and I have been on the same side of that argument.

Meillassoux' ... After Finitude: — fdrake

I was just reading a bit about this. Sounds interesting. From the little I read about the book, and not the book itself, would it be correct to say that he denies Parmenides' claim that thinking and being are the same? Does finitude have to do with the limits of knowledge?

Countrymen are to a country, like family is to a home.

Immigrants are to a country, like a stranger is to a home.

Notice the word like, implying likeness and not sameness. — Tzeentch

And do you regard your countrymen like family? By this I mean not simply as a matter of drawing lines between "us and them" but as you treat members of your family is opposed to the strangers most of your countryman are.

Excuses to justify inaction. — Tzeentch

Not at all. The question is whether to prevent immigration or manage immigration. By your analogy I am allowing strangers into my home.

Don't you see the inherent hypocrisy in preaching about how other people should accept total strangers to negatively impact their lives, while at the same time these preachers don't carry any of the negative consequences and squander every opportunity to help their fellow man? — Tzeentch

If those who live in a country allow immigrants into their country then it potentially impacts their lives. It is not squandering every opportunity to help their fellow man, it is by their actions helping their fellow man.

If one wishes to be a saint ... — Tzeentch

My interest here is in having a rational discussion about a very serious problem, not hyperbole, sweeping generalizations, and mischaracterizations. The funny, or maybe not so funny, thing is that everything you say has been said in places like the United States throughout its history whenever there has been a large influx of immigrants - Irish, Italians, Chinese, Jews ...

Like it or not the world is changing any unless you are extremely wealthy you are not going to be able to hide from it behind locked doors.

Given that the movement of history is central to Hegel's system, Plato is not to be understood as a static moment in the past of that history but as part of its ongoing development, which means not just the dialogues but all that follows, that is, his influence on the tradition. And, of course, when, for example, he talks about "the convictions of the present age" in #6 it is clear that he is addressing more than Plato and the influence of Plato. Having said that, such things as Plato's depiction of the love of wisdom as an erotic pursuit of something one does not posses, and knowledge of the Forms as ekstasis and noesis (intuition), are things worth pursuing. But since this is not a thread on Plato I thought it worth mentioning without pursuing it here.

There's nothing faulty about my analogy. — Tzeentch

Do you know everyone in your country? No strangers? Do you allow all of them in your home? Do you have as much say in who enters your neighbor's house as your own?

But since we're on the topic of preaching, how many immigrants and homeless people have you let into your house so far, dear Judas? — Tzeentch

My house is not my country. I am in favor of allowing those who seek asylum to go through an expedient process and a path to citizenship. I am also in favor of international cooperation to spread the burden. As I pointed out in an earlier post immigration can be a problem when the numbers are high. I am also in favor of helping people in their own country if possible before they are forced to leave.

I am sure that wherever you live if the situation became dire and you were forced to leave you would find a different song to sing.

That is not how I interpret that quote at all. — Tzeentch

The quote does not stand alone. It is part of Jesus' message which says: "Lock your doors lest those in need who seek food and shelter invade your country", or something like that. Or maybe nothing like that.

I wouldn't let a stranger stay in my home — Tzeentch

This is a faulty analogy. Your country is made up of strangers, many of whom you may not want in your home.

I think this should sound familiar to you since you posted it on your about page:

"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." - John 1:5

In this time of darkness we need more comprehension of the light. Yes? Forget the theology for a moment and comprehend the human message. Many immigrants are in desperate need. What they don't need is locked doors. When a flood comes locked doors will not keep you dry. When the winds blow off your roof locked doors will not keep you safe. Comprehend it not?

#7 continues the issue of #6:

If such a requirement is grasped in its more general context ...

That is, the requirement that the absolute be felt and intuited. Then:

... it has gone beyond this immediacy of faith

The result is the opposite of what it intended. From this stage it:

... now demands from philosophy not knowledge of what spirit is; rather, it demands that it again attain the substantiality and the solidity of what is, and that it is through philosophy that it attain this.

But rather than:

unlock substance’s secret and elevate this to self-consciousness

it proceeds:

... to take what thought has torn asunder and then to stir it all together into a smooth mélange, to suppress the concept that makes those distinctions, and then to fabricate the feeling of the essence.

In its desire for oneness or unity it ignores or destroys the multiplicity or distinct elements that are essential to knowledge of unity.

What it wants from philosophy is not so much insight as edification. The beautiful, the holy, the eternal, religion, and love itself are all the bait required to awaken the craving to bite. What is supposed to sustain and extend the wealth of that substance is not the concept, but ecstasy, not the cold forward march of the necessity of the subject matter, but instead a kind of inflamed inspiration.

Reading all this I am constantly reminded of Plato who is perhaps a primary target here.

When you have rebutted my argument, you may claim this. Without pointing out a false premise or a logical misstep, this remains your unsupported belief. — Dfpolis

Do you imagine that when you close your eyes the world disappears? I have done just what you say must be done, only with your eyes shut you do not see it.

Then you should not claim the authority of Aristotle. — Dfpolis

Here is where we differ. I do not claim the authority of Aristotle. My position is that Aristotle is a zetetic skeptic - he inquires based on the knowledge that he does not know. You are a Christian who accepts what you have been told.

This mischaracterizes the argument. — Dfpolis

The argument is tortuous bending itself into unnatural positions in the hopes of escaping what is plainly evident. Aquinas' supreme being is a being, it is, it exists. As you say: God is "a particular, infinite being".

Third, in my proof infinite being does not stand as unexplained, but as self-explaining and precisely because it is infinite being, so that what it is entails that it is. — Dfpolis

This is an equivocation. Either you can explain the existence of God, that is provide a discursive explanation or you cannot. You have not. If you follow Aquinas you cannot. If you cannot explain the existence of God, you have not proven the existence of God. Positing an infinite being is not a proof of the existence of that being. Claiming that being is infinite and self-explaining is not proof that there is an infinite being that is self-explaining. Every being that is is what it is.

I made it clear in the OP that I was not talking about discursive explanations, but about dynamical ones. — Dfpolis

More equivocation. A proof is a demonstration. If it is an argument then it is by definition discursive. You claim that there is an:

Infinite being [who] can act in all possible ways in all pos­sible places at all possible times. — Dfpolis

and build your discursive explanation based on that assertion.

Premise 2: Whatever exists is either finite or infinite. — Dfpolis

We know that finite things exist but do you prove that an infinite being does?

Premise 6: A finite being cannot explain its own existence. — Dfpolis

In defense of this you claim:

But, being human does not imply that I exist. If it did, no human could cease existing. — Dfpolis

The finitude of our being is part of what it means for us to be.

Our existence is dependent. It is "explained" by the existence of our human and non-human ancestors, the earth, the sun, molecules, atoms, the fundamental forces. You might argue that each of these is limited, and that may be, but they are also capable of acting in such a way as to give rise to us.

That there is something rather than nothing may be both the starting point and limit of human understanding, but of course this does not satisfy the desire for a God who creates ex nihilo, a desire that conflates itself with the desire to know, a desire that confuses the dependence of individual beings for a dependence of all being save the being on which all is dependent, a being you declare is not dependent.


Added: There is a Jewish tradition that takes the dot in the first word of Genesis בְּרֵאשִׁית (read right to left) as symbolic of our inability to go back before when God began to create. We start, as he did, with a world that is chaotic, without form and with nothing distinct from anything else until God began to separate.

This has become a problem in many countries. What is not always so clear is how much the problem is created by the influx of immigrants and how much is created by those who do not like immigrants. Sweden, for example, has generally been tolerant of immigration but is now facing problems because of the number of immigrants who do not work and cannot contribute their share of the high tax rates.

A great deal has been written about Aristotle's concealment. Here I want to point out a few things that may serve as hints as to whether Aristotle is arguing for the existence of God in the Metaphysics. Despite the appearance of writing as if these are things known, he gives us reason to doubt that assumption. This could be expanded and developed. It was done quickly and covers only a few sections of the text.

In Book Book 1, 2:

Hence also the possession of it [wisdom, universal knowledge of causes and principles] might be justly regarded as beyond human power.

He does not pursue this, however. There are some who suggest that Aristotle like Socrates was as skeptic, possessing human wisdom - knowledge of his ignorance, rather than divine knowledge

12:6:

… we must assert that it is necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance.

Why must it be asserted? Aristotle is a careful writer. If it is something known of could be demonstrated to be true then he would say so

For substances are the first of existing things, and if they are all destructible, all things are destructible.

Is there anything that we have knowledge of that is not destructible? If all things are destructible, as the available evidence indicates they are, then the assertion that it is necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance is questionable.

12:10:

Further, in virtue of what the numbers, or the soul and the body, or in general the form and the thing, are one-of this no one tells us anything; nor can any one tell, unless he says, as we do, that the mover makes them one.

Of course what one says and what has been demonstrated to be true is not the same thing.

That is why I provided a proof. — Dfpolis

Call it what you like but it is nothing more than a claim for the existence of a being whose existence you assert but cannot prove or demonstrate exists.

Do you have a citation for Aristotle? — Dfpolis

No. Aristotle requires us to think if we are to understand him. Claiming that a being is the cause of being leaves unexplained the existence of that being. Here I am using explanation in the ordinary sense as Aristotle did. An explanation is discursive. Claiming that there is self-explaining being is not to provide a discursive explanation.

I agree that my argument uses insights due to Aristotle, ibn Sina and Aquinas. Still, being old is not a fallacy. Do you have an objection other than the ancient roots of my thought? — Dfpolis

I have no objections at all to the ancient roots of thought. I have made my objections clear. You simply posit what you cannot explain or demonstrate. It is just kicking the can.

Aquinas wrote for a more philosophically literate audience -- one that knew the distinction between essential and accidental causality. — Dfpolis

You should not underestimate your own audience. There may be some here who do not know the difference but some who do.

Has that caused you any difficulty? — Dfpolis

No, no difficulty at all. The difficulty is with your "proof".

Contingent facts cannot explain themselves. — Dfpolis

Positing a necessary being or, facts as you would have it, explains nothing. It is a misuse of the term explanation. I think you might know this and that is why you called you assertion a fact.

I think you can work that out for yourself. The question is irrelevant to the soundness of my argument. — Dfpolis

While there are some who still attempt to defend Aquinas' argument others, including theologians, have rightly moved on. Your argument fares no better than his.

I will sent you a PM.

I myself am an Ethicist, so fortunately I had other options than just teaching. — Mark Dennis

In what capacity do you work as an ethicist?

Nor do I feel it appropriate to hog the "commentary." — tim wood

To avoid the risk of doing the same I will hold off.

Philos meaning Knowledge and Sophia meaning love, so love of knowledge. — Mark Dennis

Philos means love sophia wisdom.

Philosophy can be understood as the academic study of everything — Mark Dennis

Although philosophy is today primarily an academic study that was not always the case, but if you hope to get paid then teaching is the standard route.

Have you read Parmenides? — frank

Plato's dialogue Parmenides? Yes. The extent fragments of Parmenides? Those as well.

You've sort of persistently refused to give an example of a "weed" to help me understand what you're talking about. Could you help me out with that? — frank

Plato's Forms - when I first came across this and for several years after I took this to be the truth, accessible to those few who have had transcended the limits of human reason and ordinary experience.

But trust in the Forms helped uproot an earlier weed, a form of indiscriminate relativism.

Um. What? — frank

It is common for those who begin to read philosophy to feel lost, as if the rug has been pulled out from under them. They begin to question and reject beliefs that they had held but are not yet able to replace them with something else.

So what is your take on this? Just quoting the whole of paragraph does not seem productive since the text is readily available.

Kaufman notes here that the German word for concept is "Begriff,.. closely related to begreifen (to comprehend),,, — tim wood

Yes, but this needs to be understood within the whole, that is, it is comprehensive in the double sense of comprehend and inclusive of the subject matter as both subject and object together. See my comments about on #3.

That is why I have outlined the relation between thought and reality. — Dfpolis

What you may regard to be the relationship between thought and reality is simply your thoughts on that relationship. A clear example of why your simplistic bivalent logic fails:

... the opposite of red is not-red ... — Dfpolis

What is the opposite of red? Is blue the opposite of red? Is green or yellow? All of them are not-red but are all of them the opposite of red? You are not-red, so are you the opposite of red? A car is not red even if it is a red car. Cars and colors are not the same and are not opposites.

I see. For me, philosophy is mostly something highly personal, so I thought you were talking about personal weeds, not communal ones. — frank

If philosophy is something highly personal then what counts as a weed would be highly personal. And sometimes we may come to change our mind. There is a sense in which this could be ominous if we do not, so to speak, have something to plant in place of the weed that will keep the soil from eroding. But then again, some are better able to cope with uncertainty than others.

I don't think it is ominous. It is not:

a weed philosophy might pull — frank

but rather, a school or trend or approach or individual that some are opposed to. Of course there are different levels of opposition. It is one thing to argue against what has been said, but another, to take measures to silence others.

Please expand on what you mean by a "metaphysical subject"? — Wallows

The subject is not an object.

#6:

Hegel is opposing his claim that:

... truth has the element of its existence solely in concepts

with the claim that it is not the concept but the feeling and intuition or immediate knowing of the absolute which are supposed to govern what is said of it.