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
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