Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Kid of the Black Hole
02-07-2007, 06:45 PM
Well, lets move on with your propositions, I need a little more time to dissect your contentions of what we've established.
I'm not sure you've demonstrated that the indeterminate can't be, just that it isn't relevent for us. However, the biology thread here makes me think there is a big caveat.
Just like what was determinate to the Apes pales compares to what is determinate to Man (not what is unknown but what is actually determinate), could we not be at a similar 'evolutionary' stage?
We don't know what we don't know.
EDIT: and c'mon even if we can arrive at some non-speculative conclusions using Hegel's track of thinking, he was still speculating like a madman.
02-07-2007, 06:45 PM
Well, lets move on with your propositions, I need a little more time to dissect your contentions of what we've established.
I'm not sure you've demonstrated that the indeterminate can't be, just that it isn't relevent for us. However, the biology thread here makes me think there is a big caveat.
Just like what was determinate to the Apes pales compares to what is determinate to Man (not what is unknown but what is actually determinate), could we not be at a similar 'evolutionary' stage?
We don't know what we don't know.
EDIT: and c'mon even if we can arrive at some non-speculative conclusions using Hegel's track of thinking, he was still speculating like a madman.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Kid of the Black Hole
02-07-2007, 11:09 PM
Hmmm I was just checking in hoping you'd added some more stuff bc I am getting just a little nervous about how you are going to get this back to Marx.
02-07-2007, 11:09 PM
Hmmm I was just checking in hoping you'd added some more stuff bc I am getting just a little nervous about how you are going to get this back to Marx.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
anaxarchos
02-07-2007, 11:16 PM
Nope... Not movin' on... prove your case. You have the books and you have the links.
If it ain't "relevent"... "doesn't touch us", etc., then how can it "be" or how can that "Be" be any different than "not Be"? If it is exactly the same to us whether it is or it isn't AND if it can only touch us by being something else... If in fact it touches anything else? You are assuming what you claimed was Hegel's assumption at the beginning.
Now, you are being stubborn (and the ape thread is not germaine). Determinate, here, means "touches", interacts with, etc. The reason Hegel uses "determination" is because he his articulating this in terms of human consciousness. But if we later put Hegel "on his feet", we are then discussing nothing other than "bodies in motion" or a "river" or "becoming" from a social standpoint.
BTW, you read that about Hegel being "speculative". It is a misunderstanding... typically the issue is in the dialectic: One thing "passing into" the other. Yes, it's been called "speculation" but not in the terms you are using. The question is this simple: "Are bodies transformed, moved, changed, etc. by their interaction or do they remain static and unchanged?" To a science guy like you, it is easy. If it ain't easy, prove that too.
This will be the basis of our second proposition. If everything is in motion, does motion have a vector? You can start bitching about this being "too optimistic", already...
Cry me a river... Hah...
02-07-2007, 11:16 PM
Nope... Not movin' on... prove your case. You have the books and you have the links.
If it ain't "relevent"... "doesn't touch us", etc., then how can it "be" or how can that "Be" be any different than "not Be"? If it is exactly the same to us whether it is or it isn't AND if it can only touch us by being something else... If in fact it touches anything else? You are assuming what you claimed was Hegel's assumption at the beginning.
Now, you are being stubborn (and the ape thread is not germaine). Determinate, here, means "touches", interacts with, etc. The reason Hegel uses "determination" is because he his articulating this in terms of human consciousness. But if we later put Hegel "on his feet", we are then discussing nothing other than "bodies in motion" or a "river" or "becoming" from a social standpoint.
BTW, you read that about Hegel being "speculative". It is a misunderstanding... typically the issue is in the dialectic: One thing "passing into" the other. Yes, it's been called "speculation" but not in the terms you are using. The question is this simple: "Are bodies transformed, moved, changed, etc. by their interaction or do they remain static and unchanged?" To a science guy like you, it is easy. If it ain't easy, prove that too.
This will be the basis of our second proposition. If everything is in motion, does motion have a vector? You can start bitching about this being "too optimistic", already...
Cry me a river... Hah...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
anaxarchos
02-07-2007, 11:18 PM
Just cause you are nuts, doesn't mean that I am....
I'm just a little busy. We'll get there.
02-07-2007, 11:18 PM
Just cause you are nuts, doesn't mean that I am....
I'm just a little busy. We'll get there.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Kid of the Black Hole
02-07-2007, 11:31 PM
Well, lets move on with your propositions, I need a little more time to dissect your contentions of what we've established.
I'm not sure you've demonstrated that the indeterminate can't be, just that it isn't relevent for us. However, the biology thread here makes me think there is a big caveat.
Just like what was determinate to the Apes pales compares to what is determinate to Man (not what is unknown but what is actually determinate), could we not be at a similar 'evolutionary' stage?
We don't know what we don't know.
EDIT: and c'mon even if we can arrive at some non-speculative conclusions using Hegel's track of thinking, he was still speculating like a madman.
Nope... Not movin' on... prove your case. You have the books and you have the links.
If it ain't "relevent"... "doesn't touch us", etc., then how can it "be" or how can that "Be" be any different than "not Be"? If it is exactly the same to us whether it is or it isn't AND if it can only touch us by being something else... If in fact it touches anything else? You are assuming what you claimed was Hegel's assumption at the beginning.
Now, you are being stubborn (and the ape thread is not germaine). Determinate, here, means "touches", interacts with, etc. The reason Hegel uses "determination" is because he his articulating this in terms of human consciousness. But if we later put Hegel "on his feet", we are then discussing nothing other than "bodies in motion" or a "river" or "becoming" from a social standpoint.
BTW, you read that about Hegel being "speculative". It is a misunderstanding... typically the issue is in the dialectic: One thing "passing into" the other. Yes, it's been called "speculation" but not in the terms you are using. The question is this simple: "Are bodies transformed, moved, changed, etc. by their interaction or do they remain static and unchanged?" To a science guy like you, it is easy. If it ain't easy, prove that too.
This will be the basis of our second proposition. If everything is in motion, does motion have a vector? You can start bitching about this being "too optimistic", already...
Cry me a river... Hah...
Was it Engels who called philosophy the underlabourer of science? I'm not sure, although I guess it could fit him. Anyway, thats what I meant above. So we've reached a conclusion that philosophy is just a smoldering corpse that defers to science. Can't we at least invoke Pascal's Wager as a reason to keep speculating?
I mean, the Whys and the Wherefores don't seem as clear-cut to me as the Hows
02-07-2007, 11:31 PM
Well, lets move on with your propositions, I need a little more time to dissect your contentions of what we've established.
I'm not sure you've demonstrated that the indeterminate can't be, just that it isn't relevent for us. However, the biology thread here makes me think there is a big caveat.
Just like what was determinate to the Apes pales compares to what is determinate to Man (not what is unknown but what is actually determinate), could we not be at a similar 'evolutionary' stage?
We don't know what we don't know.
EDIT: and c'mon even if we can arrive at some non-speculative conclusions using Hegel's track of thinking, he was still speculating like a madman.
Nope... Not movin' on... prove your case. You have the books and you have the links.
If it ain't "relevent"... "doesn't touch us", etc., then how can it "be" or how can that "Be" be any different than "not Be"? If it is exactly the same to us whether it is or it isn't AND if it can only touch us by being something else... If in fact it touches anything else? You are assuming what you claimed was Hegel's assumption at the beginning.
Now, you are being stubborn (and the ape thread is not germaine). Determinate, here, means "touches", interacts with, etc. The reason Hegel uses "determination" is because he his articulating this in terms of human consciousness. But if we later put Hegel "on his feet", we are then discussing nothing other than "bodies in motion" or a "river" or "becoming" from a social standpoint.
BTW, you read that about Hegel being "speculative". It is a misunderstanding... typically the issue is in the dialectic: One thing "passing into" the other. Yes, it's been called "speculation" but not in the terms you are using. The question is this simple: "Are bodies transformed, moved, changed, etc. by their interaction or do they remain static and unchanged?" To a science guy like you, it is easy. If it ain't easy, prove that too.
This will be the basis of our second proposition. If everything is in motion, does motion have a vector? You can start bitching about this being "too optimistic", already...
Cry me a river... Hah...
Was it Engels who called philosophy the underlabourer of science? I'm not sure, although I guess it could fit him. Anyway, thats what I meant above. So we've reached a conclusion that philosophy is just a smoldering corpse that defers to science. Can't we at least invoke Pascal's Wager as a reason to keep speculating?
I mean, the Whys and the Wherefores don't seem as clear-cut to me as the Hows
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Kid of the Black Hole
02-08-2007, 12:14 AM
OK, I guess I'll just come out and ask: are you headed for dialectical materialism here? Its not something I claim to be particularly up on, but eventually all the bells do go off in my head given that you are almost word for word defining it (unless you're about to veer off in another direction..)
If so, then I can scour my bedroom floor for a book I found but never got around to reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Revolt-Dia ... F8&s=books (http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Revolt-Dia ... F8&s=books)
I'd ask you for the synopsis but "Don't read the review, read the book"..yeah, yeah
02-08-2007, 12:14 AM
OK, I guess I'll just come out and ask: are you headed for dialectical materialism here? Its not something I claim to be particularly up on, but eventually all the bells do go off in my head given that you are almost word for word defining it (unless you're about to veer off in another direction..)
If so, then I can scour my bedroom floor for a book I found but never got around to reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Revolt-Dia ... F8&s=books (http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Revolt-Dia ... F8&s=books)
I'd ask you for the synopsis but "Don't read the review, read the book"..yeah, yeah
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Kid of the Black Hole
02-08-2007, 12:35 AM
OK, are you being straight-up and I'm missing something? Doesn't the idea of evolutionary jumps - or ! pts if you will - exactly fit your "quantitative changes into qualitative change" model? If so, then how is the Ape example not germaine?
I am going to do some more reading on this so I am better versed in the exact(ing) terminology.
Nevertheless, I read somewhere that authors who lived around the time of the New Testament didn't have a word for the color blue.
EDIT: and I didn't miss the "too optimistic" comment but really that should be directed at others on this site, they're the ones who think the world is going to end in 10 years if we don't listen to Al Gore..or something like that. Personally, I think we are due for an Ice Age soon anyway. How's that for optimism?
EDIT #2: of course Capitalism is going to fall, the only 'debate' is whether we will be around to pick up the pieces.
02-08-2007, 12:35 AM
OK, are you being straight-up and I'm missing something? Doesn't the idea of evolutionary jumps - or ! pts if you will - exactly fit your "quantitative changes into qualitative change" model? If so, then how is the Ape example not germaine?
I am going to do some more reading on this so I am better versed in the exact(ing) terminology.
Nevertheless, I read somewhere that authors who lived around the time of the New Testament didn't have a word for the color blue.
EDIT: and I didn't miss the "too optimistic" comment but really that should be directed at others on this site, they're the ones who think the world is going to end in 10 years if we don't listen to Al Gore..or something like that. Personally, I think we are due for an Ice Age soon anyway. How's that for optimism?
EDIT #2: of course Capitalism is going to fall, the only 'debate' is whether we will be around to pick up the pieces.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
anaxarchos
02-08-2007, 02:54 AM
Yes, I am headed for dialectical materialism (but your book is not a good place to start). Hegel supplies the Dialectic, the earlier materialists (those whom Kant is criticising, in part) provide the basis, and Marx does the "synthesis". Further, you won't get there from "science". There is too much baggage. You have to take it on its own ground and then, work your way back.
I changed my mind. I am going to tell you the whole punchline right now. I'll do it in a couple of parts because I don't have the time to do it all at once. The downside of just saying it this way is that we won't learn anything from it. Hegel's logic is derivative and the subject particularly lends itself to a dialogue (remember, it is the method or logic we are after) More than that, Hegel spends most of his time deriving his terms. These are often non-intuitive. It leads directly to the misunderstandings that are contained in... say, your "critique". It's not so bad, though, cause you are on your own anyway (by the way... the reason you can't "debate" philosophy on the web is that it requires the most disciplined cooperation. A "debate" creates too great a temptation). OK, here goes:
Phenomenology is partly written about or "against" Plato's paradox of the cave (yes, yes... I know. I am not to be trusted because I never stop playin'). The book is about "Consciousness" and phenomena are as the shadows of Plato's cave. As such, they both hide and reveal what stands behind appearance. Phenomena exist in both material reality (for which Aristotle starts us out through classification, etc.) and in the mind (for which our head start comes from Kant). Understanding reality is a function of a thorough understanding of appearences. This book is about the connection between phenomena of the mind and consciousness. But, this is something that has no meaning statically (dig at Plato). Consciousness is constantly in motion, both internally and externally. This motion derives from the interaction of the various elements of consciousness which causes its evolution. The evolution of consciousness goes through several distinct stages but the direction of travel is upward, from less advanced to more advanced, earlier to later, etc. The logic or method which describes this evolution and gives it its motive power is described by Hegel's dialectic (which is the subject of another book, Science of Logic). The accuracy of Hegel's description is less important than the efficacy of his system. You need to know that "Spirit" in Hegel has nothing metaphysical attached to it. It is objective and is similar to "national spirit" and so on: a kind of collective consciousness or of consciousness of the collective. In this regard, the motive force of human consciousness divides between that of the master and that of the slave. It doesn't take a big leap to understand that it is the revolutionary impetus of the slave which drives forward consciousness Conversley, the desire of the master to keep things as they are becomes a direct impediment. (I led you here in part because of your statement that "somebody" had to "prove" to you that politics would "change" things. Hegel just did... or he would if you stuck to the script. Yes, yes... I know. I am not to be trusted because I never stop playin').
Now, that's Hegel (well, it is the best one paragraph summary of Hegel that I can do) and you might call him a dialectical idealist. But as such, he is a very serious one. The advance of philosophy consists of the criticism of who came before (often creating a unified whole). Directly behind Hegel is a line of truely titanic thinkers whose contributions are clearly accepted. Ahead of Hegel stands... who? With a few exceptions, philosophy, to the extent that it survives as such, mostly changes the subject.... sometimes though the subject itself changes the philosophy.
Before we go there, if you think you can shoot holes in Hegel with a few distant potshots, you are nuts. This is some exceedingly serious stuff. The highlighting for the web copy of Logic we've been reading is provided by V.I. Lenin. Lenin? Yes, the same guy. Whatever you think of him, the quintessential professional revolutionary who never did anything that was not materially pertinent to revolution is found grinding his way through this abstract book, not once but several times. Why? Take a look at the historical impact of Hegel as well.
Anyway, the next on stage is Karl Marx. Marx's criticism of Hegel is largely "friendly". The problem though, is that Hegel concerns himself with ideas or consciosness and thus "he stands on his head". Consciousness itself is the reflection of the movement of the real world and actual society. Thus the dialectic applied to material reality or "dialectical materialism":
Karl Marx, The German Ideology, 1845
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... 01a.htm#a1 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... 01a.htm#a1)
Part I: Feuerbach.
Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook
A. Idealism and Materialism
The Old Hegelians had comprehended everything as soon as it was reduced to an Hegelian logical category. The Young Hegelians criticised everything by attributing to it religious conceptions or by pronouncing it a theological matter. The Young Hegelians are in agreement with the Old Hegelians in their belief in the rule of religion, of concepts, of a universal principle in the existing world. Only, the one party attacks this dominion as usurpation. while the other extols it as legitimate.
Since the Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society) it is evident that the Young Hegelians have to fight only against these illusions of consciousness. Since, according to their fantasy, the relationships of men, all their doings, their chains and their limitations are products of their consciousness, the Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus of removing their limitations. This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret reality in another way, i.e. to recognise it by means of another interpretation. The Young-Hegelian ideologists, in spite of their allegedly “world-shattering" statements, are the staunchest conservatives. The most recent of them have found the correct expression for their activity when they declare they are only fighting against “phrases.” They forget, however, that to these phrases they themselves are only opposing other phrases, and that they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world. The only results which this philosophic criticism could achieve were a few (and at that thoroughly one-sided) elucidations of Christianity from the point of view of religious history; all the rest of their assertions are only further embellishments of their claim to have furnished, in these unimportant elucidations, discoveries of universal importance.
It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.
First Premises of Materialist Method
The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.
The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself – geological, hydrographical, climatic and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.
Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.
The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have to reproduce. This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the production of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.
02-08-2007, 02:54 AM
Yes, I am headed for dialectical materialism (but your book is not a good place to start). Hegel supplies the Dialectic, the earlier materialists (those whom Kant is criticising, in part) provide the basis, and Marx does the "synthesis". Further, you won't get there from "science". There is too much baggage. You have to take it on its own ground and then, work your way back.
I changed my mind. I am going to tell you the whole punchline right now. I'll do it in a couple of parts because I don't have the time to do it all at once. The downside of just saying it this way is that we won't learn anything from it. Hegel's logic is derivative and the subject particularly lends itself to a dialogue (remember, it is the method or logic we are after) More than that, Hegel spends most of his time deriving his terms. These are often non-intuitive. It leads directly to the misunderstandings that are contained in... say, your "critique". It's not so bad, though, cause you are on your own anyway (by the way... the reason you can't "debate" philosophy on the web is that it requires the most disciplined cooperation. A "debate" creates too great a temptation). OK, here goes:
Phenomenology is partly written about or "against" Plato's paradox of the cave (yes, yes... I know. I am not to be trusted because I never stop playin'). The book is about "Consciousness" and phenomena are as the shadows of Plato's cave. As such, they both hide and reveal what stands behind appearance. Phenomena exist in both material reality (for which Aristotle starts us out through classification, etc.) and in the mind (for which our head start comes from Kant). Understanding reality is a function of a thorough understanding of appearences. This book is about the connection between phenomena of the mind and consciousness. But, this is something that has no meaning statically (dig at Plato). Consciousness is constantly in motion, both internally and externally. This motion derives from the interaction of the various elements of consciousness which causes its evolution. The evolution of consciousness goes through several distinct stages but the direction of travel is upward, from less advanced to more advanced, earlier to later, etc. The logic or method which describes this evolution and gives it its motive power is described by Hegel's dialectic (which is the subject of another book, Science of Logic). The accuracy of Hegel's description is less important than the efficacy of his system. You need to know that "Spirit" in Hegel has nothing metaphysical attached to it. It is objective and is similar to "national spirit" and so on: a kind of collective consciousness or of consciousness of the collective. In this regard, the motive force of human consciousness divides between that of the master and that of the slave. It doesn't take a big leap to understand that it is the revolutionary impetus of the slave which drives forward consciousness Conversley, the desire of the master to keep things as they are becomes a direct impediment. (I led you here in part because of your statement that "somebody" had to "prove" to you that politics would "change" things. Hegel just did... or he would if you stuck to the script. Yes, yes... I know. I am not to be trusted because I never stop playin').
Now, that's Hegel (well, it is the best one paragraph summary of Hegel that I can do) and you might call him a dialectical idealist. But as such, he is a very serious one. The advance of philosophy consists of the criticism of who came before (often creating a unified whole). Directly behind Hegel is a line of truely titanic thinkers whose contributions are clearly accepted. Ahead of Hegel stands... who? With a few exceptions, philosophy, to the extent that it survives as such, mostly changes the subject.... sometimes though the subject itself changes the philosophy.
Before we go there, if you think you can shoot holes in Hegel with a few distant potshots, you are nuts. This is some exceedingly serious stuff. The highlighting for the web copy of Logic we've been reading is provided by V.I. Lenin. Lenin? Yes, the same guy. Whatever you think of him, the quintessential professional revolutionary who never did anything that was not materially pertinent to revolution is found grinding his way through this abstract book, not once but several times. Why? Take a look at the historical impact of Hegel as well.
Anyway, the next on stage is Karl Marx. Marx's criticism of Hegel is largely "friendly". The problem though, is that Hegel concerns himself with ideas or consciosness and thus "he stands on his head". Consciousness itself is the reflection of the movement of the real world and actual society. Thus the dialectic applied to material reality or "dialectical materialism":
Karl Marx, The German Ideology, 1845
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... 01a.htm#a1 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... 01a.htm#a1)
Part I: Feuerbach.
Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook
A. Idealism and Materialism
The Old Hegelians had comprehended everything as soon as it was reduced to an Hegelian logical category. The Young Hegelians criticised everything by attributing to it religious conceptions or by pronouncing it a theological matter. The Young Hegelians are in agreement with the Old Hegelians in their belief in the rule of religion, of concepts, of a universal principle in the existing world. Only, the one party attacks this dominion as usurpation. while the other extols it as legitimate.
Since the Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society) it is evident that the Young Hegelians have to fight only against these illusions of consciousness. Since, according to their fantasy, the relationships of men, all their doings, their chains and their limitations are products of their consciousness, the Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus of removing their limitations. This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret reality in another way, i.e. to recognise it by means of another interpretation. The Young-Hegelian ideologists, in spite of their allegedly “world-shattering" statements, are the staunchest conservatives. The most recent of them have found the correct expression for their activity when they declare they are only fighting against “phrases.” They forget, however, that to these phrases they themselves are only opposing other phrases, and that they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world. The only results which this philosophic criticism could achieve were a few (and at that thoroughly one-sided) elucidations of Christianity from the point of view of religious history; all the rest of their assertions are only further embellishments of their claim to have furnished, in these unimportant elucidations, discoveries of universal importance.
It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.
First Premises of Materialist Method
The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.
The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself – geological, hydrographical, climatic and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.
Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.
The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have to reproduce. This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the production of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
Kid of the Black Hole
02-09-2007, 12:32 PM
OK ok. Distant potshots huh? Says the guy who is trying to debunk Plato in 500 words or less.
You asked about motion having a vector. Here is the assumption I'm not sure you can defend. If you don't get your vector, then motion is an abstraction that doesn't relate to development and lower order-->higher order etc. What if sometimes it regresses, sometimes advances, sometimes goes sideways (pun?). In that case are vectors even an adequate explanation? Its like the concept of Up and Down which actually have no meaning really. There is really only in and out from a center.
Point being, this is all based on one tunnel vision viewpoint that everything gets more complex as time/motion 'advances'.
EDIT: OK, maybe I have it totally wrong, but how is Hegel's "Geist" not metaphysical again? *distant potshot*
02-09-2007, 12:32 PM
OK ok. Distant potshots huh? Says the guy who is trying to debunk Plato in 500 words or less.
You asked about motion having a vector. Here is the assumption I'm not sure you can defend. If you don't get your vector, then motion is an abstraction that doesn't relate to development and lower order-->higher order etc. What if sometimes it regresses, sometimes advances, sometimes goes sideways (pun?). In that case are vectors even an adequate explanation? Its like the concept of Up and Down which actually have no meaning really. There is really only in and out from a center.
Point being, this is all based on one tunnel vision viewpoint that everything gets more complex as time/motion 'advances'.
EDIT: OK, maybe I have it totally wrong, but how is Hegel's "Geist" not metaphysical again? *distant potshot*
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"
anaxarchos
02-09-2007, 02:33 PM
I just did Hegel in less than 500... but, only because you have ADD ("name dropper", huh?)
You are back to symantic manuvers. This is a mixed metaphor. My analogy was simply to indicate that interaction creates motion and motion has a vector. There is no claim that physics and philosophy are the same. They can't be. For starters, the words mean different things.
What matters here is that Hegel is deriving both the method and the content of the "evolution" of consciesness, and this evolution is clearly from "less advanced" to "more advanced". In this system, things don't just "churn"... or wrap back around to some "understanding" of some absolute "god" or "idea" that was there ("innate" - a priori) to begin with (philosophical "creationism").
When Marx put's "Hegel on his feet", evolution moves from that consciousness back to the world of humans. This is what I meant by "optimism", even if it has no individual implication. The engine of it is Becoming, which is where we stopped in the Science of Logic.
This is a pretty good segue to Giest. You have it "all wrong", mainly because you are insisting on the semantic thing. Spirit is a key idea, in that it not only solves Kant, but a whole raft of confusion in our own time, as well. Consider it as the nexus between individual and collective consciousness. We may have individual uncertainty about objective reality in that it is mediated by our senses, but there is no reason to assume a disconnection based on the collective sense that it is as we see it.
The following is from William S. Jameson. I'm only quoting him because it is handy and because it has a short "survey" section, so that you can follow the references, if you want to. The guy, himself, is a routine Platonist and reproducing his arguments will get you nowhere![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
http://www.geocities.com/williamjamison/Heg/2.htm
Hegel’s solution to the problem with the theory of the “thing-in-itself” was to reject the categories as Kant described them. Hegel argued simply, if the categories are inapplicable to the “thing-in-itself” then the categories “…themselves are something untrue…if they are inadequate for the thing-in-itself, then the understanding, whose forms they are supposed to be, ought to tolerate them even less.”[12] The “thing-in-itself” as the collectively human intelligible world is not something beyond human experience. As it is self-contradictory to claim the “thing-in-itself” is the cause of sensations and, at the same time, to claim that the categories cannot be applied to it, so if the categories can only be applied to appearances:
…we have no grounds whatsoever for assuming anything beyond experience. But in that case we also have no grounds for considering the categories merely subjective. So far from merely telling us something about the structure of the human mind, they are part of the structure of all knowledge and of discourse on any subject whatsoever – whether that subject be knowledge and discourse, nature, ethics, art, religion, or philosophy.[13]
The forms of thinking are first of all articulated and laid down in the language of man…. In everything that becomes for him something inward, any kind of notion, anything he makes his own, language has intruded; and what man makes into language and expresses in language, contains, shrouded, mixed in, or elaborated, a category….[14]
And in language Hegel can show how subject and object, thought and being form a conceived unity in the history of the collectively human, intelligible world, which is for Hegel, Geist.[15]
It is in this way that the traditional Mind-Body problem enters into the context of Hegel’s thought. The “we, the collectively human, that is Geist, incorporates both the individual and the collective. Through this distinction in Geist the perspective of philosophy and religion changes from one of mind and matter to one of individual Geist and collective Geist. It is this change in perspective that is the key to understanding the influence of Hegelianism on philosophy and religion. Through an examination of this relationship in Hegel’s thought between collective and individual Geist his philosophy can best be clarified and his influence clearly seen.
http://www.geocities.com/williamjamison/Heg/3.htm
The section on Phrenology (Schadellehre) contains many uses of Geist that cannot be translated as “Spirit.”[22] The means of clarifying the distinction between collective Geist and individual Geist is available to us in just this manner. In the English language “Mind” is attached to the concept “individual.” Each member of a football team has a mind. The football team does not have “a mind of its own. “ What it has is team spirit. “Spirit” is primarily a group characteristic. There are instances where “Mind” may be attributed to more than one individual, and there are many instances where “Spirit” may be used with respect to an individual. However, it remains that “Spirit” as an animating principle of life and energy, pertains to a group. “Mind” is much less frequently shared. We can be of “the same mind” as someone else but we are more often “in the same spirit.”
In translating the Phanomenologie, where Geist must be understood as “Mind” put instead “individual Geist”. Where Geist must be understood as “Spirit” put “collective Geist.” Where Geist can be either, leave it as Geist. This rule would greatly help clarify the distinction but keeps intact the technical nature of Geist that Baillie ignores.[23]
With this in mind the nature of Geist and its relationship to the Mind-Body problem may be more clearly understood.
http://www.geocities.com/williamjamison/Heg/4.htm
Hegel does not deal with any of the usual Mind-Body problems. His concept of Geist prevents those problems from ever arising. In only one section of the Phanomenologie does he even discuss the interaction issue, the previously mentioned section on Phrenology. He says: "Brain and Spinal cord...may be looked at as the immediate presence of self-consciousness..."[1] But this is the case only in the perspective of another person. The self-consciousness "...qua abiding character and self-moving conscious activity exists for itself and within itself."[2] Hegel argues that Geist is a thing, since it is.[3] But "...what is 'thing' in this case is self-consciousness; 'thing' here is the unity of ego and being - the Category." [4] And: "The true being of man is...his act; individuality is real in the deed, and a deed it is which cancels both the aspects of what is 'meant' or 'presumed' to be."[5] The Category as self-consciousness, as man's act, is the substance of both individual Geist and collective Geist. By equating self-consciousness and act in the concept of Geist the interaction issue never arises.
Hegel, on the whole, takes the Mind-Body problem lightly. He presents a rather light-hearted reductio ad absurdum of the phrenologist's thesis in one instance[6] and later says:
When, therefore, a man is told, 'You (your inner being) are so and so,
because your skull-bone is so constituted,' this means nothing else than
that we regard a bone as the man's reality. To retort upon such a
statement with a box on the ear removes primarily the 'soft' parts of his
head from their apparent dignity and position, and proves merely that
these are no true inherent nature, are not the reality of mind; the retort
here would, properly speaking, have to go the length of breaking the
skull of the person who makes a statement like that, in order to
demonstrate to him in a manner as palpable as his own wisdom that a
bone is nothing of an inherent nature at all for a man, still less his true
reality.[7]
Hegel treats this central Mind-Body problem so lightly because he believed Kant had solved it. Hegel accepts as his starting point several basic elements in Kant's thought. Since Kant dismissed the usual interaction problem and replaced it with ego and the "thing-in-itself," with the categories of the understanding and the forms of perception as the interaction site, the categories and forms are the solution. Hegel accepts Kant's position that we contribute to experience the categories by which we have that experience.
Hegel also accepts Kant's position that what we recognize as "objects" are real objects.[8] Hegel disagrees with Kant on the nature of ego, the "thing-in-itself," and the categories. For Kant, the ego and the "thing-in-itself" are out of the range of the categories. Yet Kant claims that the categories are such that my experience of objects is not limited to me but are experienced by others as well. The "thing-in-itself" is the cause of this shared experience. Hegel claims Kant takes an illegitimate step in positing the "thing-in-itself" as the cause of this shared experience. Hegel's move is to say the cause of the shared experience is Geist. "Self-consciousness found the thing in the form of itself, and itself in the form of the thing; that is to say, self-consciousness is explicitly aware of being in itself the objective reality."[9] But Geist is not always this, only at the stage one step past Kant. Geist is not a constant, defined once and remaining the same throughout the Phanomenologie. The book traces the evolution of Geist from even before its origination through to Absolute Knowledge (Geist knowing itself as Geist.)
The book begins with the "I" and "This" of "sense-certainty" where the "I" does not think.[10] This is not Geist collective or individual. It is instead "the mere history of its (sense-certainty's) process - of its experience; and sense-certainty itself is nothing else than simply this history."[11] This stage evolves into "Perception" in which consciousness begins having thoughts in the form of "unconditional universals."[12] The next step is that of "Understanding." In this section consciousness comes to believe in "two forces."[13]
These two forces exist as independent entities: but their existence
lies in a movement each toward each, of such a kind that in order
to be, each has in reality to get its position purely through the other;
that is to say, their being has purely the significance of disappearance.[14]
Most of the above is close enough...
Finally on "potshots". This is Jamison's assessment of Hegel, despite his considerable hostility:
"So much for our non-philosophical interlude. I present this historical explanation as the only credible reason for the ferociousness of anti-Hegelian attitudes. With this attitude disappearing, the positive Hegelian influences on contemporary philosophy are freed for study. So, not only is it acceptable to point out that Hegel marks an unmistakable turning point in the history of philosophy but, it is also acceptable to point out why.
Hegel marks an unmistakable turning point in the history of philosophy. One might even say the history of philosophy begins with Hegel, since the contemporary concern with the history of philosophy begins with him. At least Kaufmann says, "There is no history of philosophy written since his time that does not bear the stamp of his spirit."[19] Some say it ends with him. It is no mistake to say philosophy has never been the same since Hegel.
Much of what can be shown with respect to Hegel's influence on philosophy, as I've mentioned, is being discussed by others. A number of new translations of his works are being published and articles in the journal, Idealistic Studies, call for more individuals to make use of Hegel's methods.[20] An added dimension of this study is an examination of Hegel's influence on contemporary religion as well. Hegel's influence on contemporary religion has been just as drastic as his influence on philosophy but is hardly acknowledged at all. It is my view that Hegel has had the greatest impact on contemporary life through his influence on religion. Since Hegel's influence on religion is not as widely recognized, it is even more important to examine this aspect of Hegel's influence.
It ain't so easy to dismiss Hegel or find "obvious" fault.... Trust me![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
02-09-2007, 02:33 PM
I just did Hegel in less than 500... but, only because you have ADD ("name dropper", huh?)
You are back to symantic manuvers. This is a mixed metaphor. My analogy was simply to indicate that interaction creates motion and motion has a vector. There is no claim that physics and philosophy are the same. They can't be. For starters, the words mean different things.
What matters here is that Hegel is deriving both the method and the content of the "evolution" of consciesness, and this evolution is clearly from "less advanced" to "more advanced". In this system, things don't just "churn"... or wrap back around to some "understanding" of some absolute "god" or "idea" that was there ("innate" - a priori) to begin with (philosophical "creationism").
When Marx put's "Hegel on his feet", evolution moves from that consciousness back to the world of humans. This is what I meant by "optimism", even if it has no individual implication. The engine of it is Becoming, which is where we stopped in the Science of Logic.
This is a pretty good segue to Giest. You have it "all wrong", mainly because you are insisting on the semantic thing. Spirit is a key idea, in that it not only solves Kant, but a whole raft of confusion in our own time, as well. Consider it as the nexus between individual and collective consciousness. We may have individual uncertainty about objective reality in that it is mediated by our senses, but there is no reason to assume a disconnection based on the collective sense that it is as we see it.
The following is from William S. Jameson. I'm only quoting him because it is handy and because it has a short "survey" section, so that you can follow the references, if you want to. The guy, himself, is a routine Platonist and reproducing his arguments will get you nowhere
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
http://www.geocities.com/williamjamison/Heg/2.htm
Hegel’s solution to the problem with the theory of the “thing-in-itself” was to reject the categories as Kant described them. Hegel argued simply, if the categories are inapplicable to the “thing-in-itself” then the categories “…themselves are something untrue…if they are inadequate for the thing-in-itself, then the understanding, whose forms they are supposed to be, ought to tolerate them even less.”[12] The “thing-in-itself” as the collectively human intelligible world is not something beyond human experience. As it is self-contradictory to claim the “thing-in-itself” is the cause of sensations and, at the same time, to claim that the categories cannot be applied to it, so if the categories can only be applied to appearances:
…we have no grounds whatsoever for assuming anything beyond experience. But in that case we also have no grounds for considering the categories merely subjective. So far from merely telling us something about the structure of the human mind, they are part of the structure of all knowledge and of discourse on any subject whatsoever – whether that subject be knowledge and discourse, nature, ethics, art, religion, or philosophy.[13]
The forms of thinking are first of all articulated and laid down in the language of man…. In everything that becomes for him something inward, any kind of notion, anything he makes his own, language has intruded; and what man makes into language and expresses in language, contains, shrouded, mixed in, or elaborated, a category….[14]
And in language Hegel can show how subject and object, thought and being form a conceived unity in the history of the collectively human, intelligible world, which is for Hegel, Geist.[15]
It is in this way that the traditional Mind-Body problem enters into the context of Hegel’s thought. The “we, the collectively human, that is Geist, incorporates both the individual and the collective. Through this distinction in Geist the perspective of philosophy and religion changes from one of mind and matter to one of individual Geist and collective Geist. It is this change in perspective that is the key to understanding the influence of Hegelianism on philosophy and religion. Through an examination of this relationship in Hegel’s thought between collective and individual Geist his philosophy can best be clarified and his influence clearly seen.
http://www.geocities.com/williamjamison/Heg/3.htm
The section on Phrenology (Schadellehre) contains many uses of Geist that cannot be translated as “Spirit.”[22] The means of clarifying the distinction between collective Geist and individual Geist is available to us in just this manner. In the English language “Mind” is attached to the concept “individual.” Each member of a football team has a mind. The football team does not have “a mind of its own. “ What it has is team spirit. “Spirit” is primarily a group characteristic. There are instances where “Mind” may be attributed to more than one individual, and there are many instances where “Spirit” may be used with respect to an individual. However, it remains that “Spirit” as an animating principle of life and energy, pertains to a group. “Mind” is much less frequently shared. We can be of “the same mind” as someone else but we are more often “in the same spirit.”
In translating the Phanomenologie, where Geist must be understood as “Mind” put instead “individual Geist”. Where Geist must be understood as “Spirit” put “collective Geist.” Where Geist can be either, leave it as Geist. This rule would greatly help clarify the distinction but keeps intact the technical nature of Geist that Baillie ignores.[23]
With this in mind the nature of Geist and its relationship to the Mind-Body problem may be more clearly understood.
http://www.geocities.com/williamjamison/Heg/4.htm
Hegel does not deal with any of the usual Mind-Body problems. His concept of Geist prevents those problems from ever arising. In only one section of the Phanomenologie does he even discuss the interaction issue, the previously mentioned section on Phrenology. He says: "Brain and Spinal cord...may be looked at as the immediate presence of self-consciousness..."[1] But this is the case only in the perspective of another person. The self-consciousness "...qua abiding character and self-moving conscious activity exists for itself and within itself."[2] Hegel argues that Geist is a thing, since it is.[3] But "...what is 'thing' in this case is self-consciousness; 'thing' here is the unity of ego and being - the Category." [4] And: "The true being of man is...his act; individuality is real in the deed, and a deed it is which cancels both the aspects of what is 'meant' or 'presumed' to be."[5] The Category as self-consciousness, as man's act, is the substance of both individual Geist and collective Geist. By equating self-consciousness and act in the concept of Geist the interaction issue never arises.
Hegel, on the whole, takes the Mind-Body problem lightly. He presents a rather light-hearted reductio ad absurdum of the phrenologist's thesis in one instance[6] and later says:
When, therefore, a man is told, 'You (your inner being) are so and so,
because your skull-bone is so constituted,' this means nothing else than
that we regard a bone as the man's reality. To retort upon such a
statement with a box on the ear removes primarily the 'soft' parts of his
head from their apparent dignity and position, and proves merely that
these are no true inherent nature, are not the reality of mind; the retort
here would, properly speaking, have to go the length of breaking the
skull of the person who makes a statement like that, in order to
demonstrate to him in a manner as palpable as his own wisdom that a
bone is nothing of an inherent nature at all for a man, still less his true
reality.[7]
Hegel treats this central Mind-Body problem so lightly because he believed Kant had solved it. Hegel accepts as his starting point several basic elements in Kant's thought. Since Kant dismissed the usual interaction problem and replaced it with ego and the "thing-in-itself," with the categories of the understanding and the forms of perception as the interaction site, the categories and forms are the solution. Hegel accepts Kant's position that we contribute to experience the categories by which we have that experience.
Hegel also accepts Kant's position that what we recognize as "objects" are real objects.[8] Hegel disagrees with Kant on the nature of ego, the "thing-in-itself," and the categories. For Kant, the ego and the "thing-in-itself" are out of the range of the categories. Yet Kant claims that the categories are such that my experience of objects is not limited to me but are experienced by others as well. The "thing-in-itself" is the cause of this shared experience. Hegel claims Kant takes an illegitimate step in positing the "thing-in-itself" as the cause of this shared experience. Hegel's move is to say the cause of the shared experience is Geist. "Self-consciousness found the thing in the form of itself, and itself in the form of the thing; that is to say, self-consciousness is explicitly aware of being in itself the objective reality."[9] But Geist is not always this, only at the stage one step past Kant. Geist is not a constant, defined once and remaining the same throughout the Phanomenologie. The book traces the evolution of Geist from even before its origination through to Absolute Knowledge (Geist knowing itself as Geist.)
The book begins with the "I" and "This" of "sense-certainty" where the "I" does not think.[10] This is not Geist collective or individual. It is instead "the mere history of its (sense-certainty's) process - of its experience; and sense-certainty itself is nothing else than simply this history."[11] This stage evolves into "Perception" in which consciousness begins having thoughts in the form of "unconditional universals."[12] The next step is that of "Understanding." In this section consciousness comes to believe in "two forces."[13]
These two forces exist as independent entities: but their existence
lies in a movement each toward each, of such a kind that in order
to be, each has in reality to get its position purely through the other;
that is to say, their being has purely the significance of disappearance.[14]
Most of the above is close enough...
Finally on "potshots". This is Jamison's assessment of Hegel, despite his considerable hostility:
"So much for our non-philosophical interlude. I present this historical explanation as the only credible reason for the ferociousness of anti-Hegelian attitudes. With this attitude disappearing, the positive Hegelian influences on contemporary philosophy are freed for study. So, not only is it acceptable to point out that Hegel marks an unmistakable turning point in the history of philosophy but, it is also acceptable to point out why.
Hegel marks an unmistakable turning point in the history of philosophy. One might even say the history of philosophy begins with Hegel, since the contemporary concern with the history of philosophy begins with him. At least Kaufmann says, "There is no history of philosophy written since his time that does not bear the stamp of his spirit."[19] Some say it ends with him. It is no mistake to say philosophy has never been the same since Hegel.
Much of what can be shown with respect to Hegel's influence on philosophy, as I've mentioned, is being discussed by others. A number of new translations of his works are being published and articles in the journal, Idealistic Studies, call for more individuals to make use of Hegel's methods.[20] An added dimension of this study is an examination of Hegel's influence on contemporary religion as well. Hegel's influence on contemporary religion has been just as drastic as his influence on philosophy but is hardly acknowledged at all. It is my view that Hegel has had the greatest impact on contemporary life through his influence on religion. Since Hegel's influence on religion is not as widely recognized, it is even more important to examine this aspect of Hegel's influence.
It ain't so easy to dismiss Hegel or find "obvious" fault.... Trust me
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."