• Jackson
    1.8k
    "The Science of this pathway is the Science of the experience
    which consciousness goes through; the substance and its movement are viewed as the object of consciousness. Consciousness
    knows and comprehends only what falls within its experience;

    for what is contained in this is nothing but spiritual substance,
    and -this, too, as object of the self. (Phenomenology of Spirit, #36)

    The dialectical method is the logic of experience, not ideal forms.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    There is no ideal world, only experience.

    "86. Inasmuch as the new true object issues from it, this dialectical
    movement which consciousness exercises on itself and which
    affects both its knowledge and its object, is precisely what is
    called experience [Eifahrung]. "
  • Tobias
    984
    We are done.Jackson

    Proof is right I think Jackson, ultimately Hegel holds that what we can consider as 'world' is ideal. You are right in a way too though (in true dialectical form :wink: ) because of the caricature that is often made of idealism, as if it would mean that things are somehow unreal. That is not what it means in Hegel's quote above though.. What it means is that our metaphysical beliefs, the core of what we hold to be our world, is inescapably a thought construction, dependent on the concepts we have of it, the manifold of relationships to which we stand towards it. If there is anything real, he says, anything that is infinite, it is that we perceive the world in a mediated way, mediated by the elaborate theories, constructions, normative determinations, we have of it. So philosophy has to be idealist because it examines the concepts by which we think of the world, not the world as it is in its materiality, that will be the domain of physics or other sciences.

    What he does here is play Kant, but making Kan historical, showing that the mediating concepts do not come out of nowhere but are historically constructed. The process of its construction can be discerned, that is the dialectic. So Hegel is an idealist, just not one taken in the everyday hack interpretation of idealism, as if the world is not real. That is something entirely different.

    The Pheno serves as a pre-study to the logic. what appears in the Phenomenology? Spirit. What is spirit, I think it is rationality perceiving (or experiencing) itself. What it perceives is the way it relates to the world, namely in a dialectical fashion. When we know that, we can begin to examine the concepts proper. That is done in the 'Logik'. In the Pheno he shows that we cannot make sense of experience other than dialectically. That is a necessary beginning for metaphysics which is the object in the Logik.

    At least that is how I conceive of it.

    In this conception, Hegel as the progenitor of the mediating concept, grasped in its historicity, makes him a forerunner of social constructivism, discourse theory and those branches of thought that feel that instead of the real, we need to study they way it comes to be perceived as real.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    ultimately Hegel holds that what we can consider as 'world' is ideal.Tobias

    I've studied a lot of his work and see that nowhere. Please cite something by Hegel.
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    :rofl: :lol: :sweat: :smirk: :zip:
  • Average
    469
    The idea moves in a certain way, it moves dialectically, meaning that a certain theory or worldview runs into contradictions and will engender opposition, leading to a new theory which manages to make sense of this earlier contradiction.Tobias

    What is a "Contradiction"? In other words what is it's nature or essence? When does a "Contradiction" occur? Maybe it would help if you defined it in terms of an if then statement. In other words if X then "Contradiction" or if X occurs then a "Contradiction" is the result. An example might be if I was trying to define a square and said "if a shape has 4 sides of equal length and 4 right angles then it is a square" in other words "When a shape has 4 sides of equal length and 4 right angles it is a square" or if I was to put it in the form of a standard definition "A square is a shape that has 4 sides of equal length and 4 right angles". Maybe this method is only useful in geometry or maybe it is completely useless but I think I need some sort of definition in order to understand what is being referred to. I'll reiterate the fact that my understanding of "Contradiction" is probably confined to my reading of Plato's dialogue Euthyphro.
  • Tobias
    984
    I've studied a lot of his work and see that nowhere. Please cite something by Hegel.Jackson

    Well I found the section Proof quoted quite convincing. Funny thing is I thought about just that section when I read the discussion, though I would have no idea anymore where to find it I am grateful to 180 for locating it.

    If you read what I wrote you also see that I do not think Hegel holds the world to be ideal in any Berkeleyan sense. So maybe what you refer to as realism and I as idealism are not far off. I find this quibbling over words quite uninteresting. In the section quoted I think Hegel states so too. He finds the question whether he is an idealist rather trite it seems to me. If you follow his train of thought in that section he says that every possible philosophy is idealist in the sense that it concerns our idea of the world, whether we have an idea of the world as material or as ideal. I think it makes eminent sense and is by no means a very far fetched claim so I wonder why you would find it so discomforting.
    My Hegel interpretation by the way is formed by Wather Jaeschke, a German scholar and Robert Pippin's book... Hegel's Idealism ;)

    edit:
    "86. Inasmuch as the new true object issues from it, this dialectical movement which consciousness exercises on itself and which
    affects both its knowledge and its object, is precisely what is
    called experience [Eifahrung]. "
    Jackson

    Actually I think you just cited something rather idealist. There is only experience, but experience results from the dialectical movement of consciousness. It is not the experience with the world, i.e. the real impinging on our idea of it, that causes an experience, experience happens when the mind shifts and starts considering things differently. Of course that shift is caused perhaps by sense data about the world, but experience only happens when it is mentally processed. That is what I mean when I said in my first post that Hegel seems to prioritize the mental. (It is dialectical so again, I think such prioiritzations are not what it is about, but even so, from the very section you cited you may argue that Hegel prioritzes the mental over the material).
  • Tobias
    984
    What is a "Contradiction"? In other words what is it's nature or essence? When does a "Contradiction" occur?Average

    Well, it is Hegel's idea that every definition runs into problems as it engenders its own opposition when taken to the extreme, so any definition will immediately incur an objection. Quite Wittgensteinian come to think of it... :gasp: So I cannot give a definition, best i to show how it works. The beginning of the Science of Logic by Hegel gives an apt account. When we consider the concept of 'being' (Sein) and claim for instance that that is the object of first philosophy, and we try to define it, than it shows that in fact the concept is empty. It is as empty as its conceptual opposite, nothing (Nichts). So thinking in terms of being is immediately faced with nothing, because conceptually they are the same thing and not the same thing. We need the concept of 'becoming' to resolve this contradiction (or maybe 'antonomy' is a better word). Now becoming, if considered in the extreme also engenders its opposite because if there is only 'becoming' there is not really anything that 'becomes', to consider becoming you need some sense of a fixed point right, something that becomes something else. We find the concept of 'something' and so on and so on, three volumes of the Logik long...
  • Average
    469
    The beginning of the Science of Logic by Hegel gives an apt account. When we consider the concept of 'being' (Sein) and claim for instance that that is the object of first philosophy, and we try to define it, than it shows that in fact the concept is empty. It is as empty as its conceptual opposite, nothing (Nichts). So thinking in terms of being is immediately faced with nothing, because conceptually they are the same thing and not the same thing.Tobias

    I'm not sure if the English words you used are adequate translations of the German words Hegel used. "Being" is a word we rarely use in common parlance and it is difficult for me to see how it could possibly be the opposite of "Nothing".
  • Average
    469
    Well, it is Hegel's idea that every definition runs into problems as it engenders its own opposition when taken to the extreme, so any definition will immediately incur an objection.Tobias

    What exactly is meant by "it's own opposition"? How can a definition oppose itself? It's all very alien to me. I wish you would provide an example or some description of a purely hypothetical scenario in which this occurs.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    It's all very alien to me. — Average

    Join the club, fellow forum member! :snicker:
  • Average
    469
    I don't know you so I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    @180 Proof

    Dialectical Materialism

    1. Dialectical. There are two opposing sides. What are they?

    2. Materialism. What's that?

    Muchas gracias in advance!
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I don't know you so I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.Average

    :smile:
  • Tobias
    984
    What exactly is meant by "it's own opposition"? How can a definition oppose itself? It's all very alien to me. I wish you would provide an example or some description of a purely hypothetical scenario in which this occurs.Average

    I am sorry but I wish you would do the mental jogging yourself. I am not a free philosophy teacher. Read up on it and try to understand what I write if you feel like it of course. I think you are just trolling actually.
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    Dialectical Materialism

    1. Dialectical. There are two opposing sides. What are they?

    2. Materialism. What's that?

    Muchas gracias in advance
    Agent Smith
    1. (yin) Has too much stuff at the moment & (yang) Doesn't have enough stuff at the moment.
    2. Stuff (i.e. enabling facts).

    :smirk: De nada ...
  • Average
    469
    I am sorry but I wish you would do the mental jogging yourself. I am not a free philosophy teacher. Read up on it and try to understand what I write if you feel like it of course. I think you are just trolling actually.Tobias

    I can assure you that I'm not interested in trolling. It's interesting that you selected the figurative or metaphorical imagery of jogging because some people are crippled in the real world and not everyone is capable of the same cognitive feats. I wish I knew what mental gymnastics lead you to conclude that I was seeking a free philosophy teacher because I doubt that you have anything to teach me.
  • Tobias
    984
    I can assure you that I'm not interested in trolling. It's interesting that you selected the figurative or metaphorical imagery of jogging because some people are crippled in the real world and not everyone is capable of the same cognitive feats. I wish I knew what mental gymnastics lead you to conclude that I was seeking a free philosophy teacher because I doubt that you have anything to teach me.Average

    What makes you doubt that? You are basically asking questions all the time, so you seek answers, no? I guess you are thinking of yourself as some sort of modern day Socrates, but dream on. You are basically just being lazy. I can see that in the wording of your post. The argument you presented in unsound. You might still need a philosophy teacher even though you doubt that I have anything to teach you. The 'because' you use does not lead to a valid inference. You are not being average, you performing below par.
  • Average
    469
    I definitely don't view myself as some sort of Socrates.
  • Average
    469
    The argument you presented in unsound.Tobias

    The sentence you presented is nonsensical.
  • Tobias
    984
    We will talk again after you have presented something of interest on the subject at hand.
  • waarala
    97
    ultimately Hegel holds that what we can consider as 'world' is ideal. — Tobias

    I've studied a lot of his work and see that nowhere. Please cite something by Hegel.
    Jackson


    How about this one:

    "Third Subdivision: The Notion

    C. The Idea

    § 213

    The Idea is truth in itself and for itself — the absolute unity of the notion and objectivity. Its ‘ideal’ content is nothing but the notion in its detailed terms: its ‘real’ content is only the exhibition which the notion gives itself in the form of external existence, while yet, by enclosing this shape in its ideality, it keeps it in its power, and so keeps itself in it. The definition, which declares the Absolute to be the Idea, is itself absolute. All former definitions come back to this. The Idea is the Truth: for Truth is the correspondence of objectivity with the notion — not of course the correspondence of external things with my conceptions, for these are only correct conceptions held by me, the individual person. In the idea we have nothing to do with the individual, nor with figurate conceptions, nor with external things.And yet, again, everything actual, in so far as it is true, is the Idea, and has its truth by and in virtue of the Idea alone. Every individual being is some one aspect of the Idea: for which, therefore, yet other actualities are needed, which in their turn appear to have a self-subsistence of their own. It is only in them altogether and in their relation that the notion is realised. The individual by itself does not correspond to its notion. It is this limitation of its existence which constitutes the finitude and the ruin of the individual. "

    https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slidea.htm
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I can assure you that I'm not interested in trolling. — Average

    :snicker: Philosophers, going by the standard set by none other than Socrates (Athenian gadfly troll), are supposed to be trolls of the highest caliber!
  • Average
    469
    I'm not a Socratic
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I'm not a SocraticAverage

    Figures, you no troll!
  • Average
    469
    I'm barely a philosopher!
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I'm barely a philosopher!Average

    :smile:
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    Addendum to

    Positive dialectics (Hegel / Marx) —> sublating equilibrium (e.g. totality / communism)

    Negative dialectics (Adorno / Bakunin) —> ablating disequilibrium (e.g. non-totality / anarchism)

    NB: Run down the various terms at your leisure, amigo. ¡Hasta!
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