• unenlightened
    8.8k
    There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

    There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
    — Douglas Adams

    If the latter theory is true, I blame Hegel.

    I didn't study Hegel in my undergraduate days, because he was too woo for school. Well in the event, I was too woo for school as well, but more importantly for today, Hegel remains (a) German. and (b) difficult. But he keeps popping up all over the place, and he seems to be an influence on various people that are an influence on me, so by way of passively absorbing something of him with minimum effort, I have started listening to the podcast, The Cunning of Geist, by Gregory Novak. available wherever you source your podcasts. There is also a facebook page here.

    I'm putting this in the lounge, because I don't want to get out of my philosopher's armchair, and because the library is clearly unsuitable to such a noisy endeavour.

    There are 78 episodes and counting, and I have listened to enough to want more, and they are easy listening, and not too long. So I aim to go back to the beginning and put here any thoughts I have on each episode. And you are welcome to chip in with quotes from the man himself or whatever reflections and expertise you find in yourself, and listen along or not as you please.

    001 Introduction.

    As one of the administrators of the large and globally growing Hegel Study Group on Facebook, I explain my reason for starting this podcast.  I review my personal development through various psychological, philosophical, New Age, and scientific teachings.  This introductory episode includes discussion of my progress through the I-Ching, Gurdjieff/Ouspensky, the Rosicrucian Order, A Course in Miracles, the nature of time, and how this eventually led me to the philosophy of G.W.F Hegel.

    That 3 digit numbering system betrays something of an ambition; we must prepare ourselves for the long haul - bring some sandwiches! I have a passing familiarity with most of these references, but I had to look up 'Course in Miracles'. A quick scan of the preface produced this:—
    ...you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. [snip]
    While the Course is comprehensive in scope, truth cannot be limited to any finite form, as is clearly recognized in the statement at the end of the Workbook:

    9This Course is a beginning, not an end...No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them. Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God...He will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word (https://acim.org/acim/en/s/42#8:3-9:2 | Preface.8:3–9:2)

    I might have a closer investigation of all this at the same time as I do this thread, and I might report back here, and/or separately as the world spirit dictates.

    Our man introduces himself, and a particular concern with the nature of time, protests that he is not at all anti-science, and presents the notion of 'geist' which I/we are familiar with in the term 'zeitgeist'. Geist alone means something like 'spirit/mind'.

    Now I want immediately to deal with something that has become problematic here, because of the reification of individuality as the only manifestation of mind. The idea that mind is brain, and therefore there is my mind, your mind, and everyman's mind - and nothing else minded, has to be put in question to grasp even the title of the podcast. so if you cannot do that, walk away before you get annoyed and annoying. The cunning of geist is that the mind/spirit of the age will use what you think of as your mind for its own grander purposes without you necessarily being aware of it or of its purposes.
    And I'll just include a reference for McTaggart, on time. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mctaggart/
    and that's my introduction to the introduction.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    Hegel remains (a) German. and (b) difficult.unenlightened

    These are my usual criteria for selecting philosophers to read ;)

    But he keeps popping up all over the place, and he seems to be an influence on various people that are an influence on me, so by way of passively absorbing something of him with minimum effort, I have started listening to the podcast, The Cunning of Geist, by Gregory Novak. available wherever you source your podcasts.unenlightened

    I've now listened to episode 1. This should be good to listen to when I'm feeling the itch.

    I didn't study Hegel in my undergraduate days, because he was too woo for school.unenlightened

    I read The Phenomenology of Spirit, but my mentor came from the continental cut of cloth so it was encouraged rather than frowned upon. So not woo, but philosophy -- stuff that's interesting and worth exploring with the rational methods of philosophy.

    Now I want immediately to deal with something that has become problematic here, because of the reification of individuality as the only manifestation of mind. The idea that mind is brain, and therefore there is my mind, your mind, and everyman's mind - and nothing else minded, has to be put in question to grasp even the title of the podcast.unenlightened

    I'm on board, naturally.

    And I'll just include a reference for McTaggart, on time. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mctaggart/
    and that's my introduction to the introduction.
    unenlightened

    I re-read that entry recently due to the physicalism thread. cause and time are linked, and physicalism typically gets support from causation, so I think it natural.


    This is probably a better way for myself to ease my way back to Hegel. I believe he's important for me and in general, though I find him terribly frustrating.
  • Paine
    2k
    The cunning of geist is that the mind/spirit of the age will use what you think of as your mind for its own grander purposes without you necessarily being aware of it or of its purposes.unenlightened

    The flipside of that view of living in a particular situation with a limited view of the horizon is that the 'dialectic' starts with the desire of an individual. The impulse of the tyrant is located in the formation of logic as experienced by a proposed 'first' logician.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    Got through episode 4 tonight, on true infinity. This is great. He has a clear passion for Hegel and an admirable humility.
  • AmadeusD
    1.9k
    I’m on board. Dude is fantastic to listen to.
    No comments yet but I know this will be extremely rich listening
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    002

    Quite a lot of placating of science-botherers here to counterbalance the woo of the introduction. Speaking of which, I have decided that A Course in Miracles is too steeped in Christian language and symbolism to be combined here, and the metaphysics is very different anyway. I might try to do something with it at some stage, but not here.

    so we get the first classificatory system logic, nature, and geist, more or less titles of books or book sections, but the suggestion here already is that geist is in a sense the working out, or the interaction, of logic and nature. And this triadic form looks like it's going to be thematic, and the introduction of time as a way to resolve inherent contradictions.

    003 This is the beginning of the logic.

    Presuppositionless Being, is the same as Nothing. "If something has no attributes or properties at all, it is in fact nothing." So being and nothing cannot be distinguished and being becomes nothing and nothing becomes being. So there is the third term again, 'becoming'.

    And from there we go into a discussion of time and flow, and becoming of course encompasses unbecoming, which you may or may not have heard of elsewhere. It is mentioned here that time is not in the logic as such, but as it is the 'science' of logic it immediately plunges into being and seems to imply time even though time is not a dimension of logic as such.

    Hopefully that will become clearer as we go on, or someone here will clarify it for me?
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    The cunning of geist is that the mind/spirit of the age will use what you think of as your mind for its own grander purposes without you necessarily being aware of it or of its purposes.unenlightened

    I have not listened to the podcast, but based on what is said here, rather than putting the question of mind into question it sounds as if the question has been answered in favor of a universal mind with its own purposes. Accordingly, and I use the religious terminology intentionally, Hegel is the prophet of Geist.

    This raises the question of the relationship between his writing as a reflection of or a response to the zeitgeist. Of whether what we read reflects Hegel's own mind, his own thinking as opposed to what he he needs to say given the beliefs and thinking of others.

    As I read him, time is the realization, the development and working out of eternity. The completion of the circle - from eternity to time to the self-knowledge of being/eternity through its becoming/time.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    I have not listened to the podcast, but based on what is said here, rather than putting the question of mind into question it sounds as if the question has been answered in favor of a universal mind with its own purposes.Fooloso4

    Well that is my understanding of where we are heading in broad terms, but for sure Hegel doesn't answer on page one, but arrives there, and I am listening to what is a tertiary source not reading the original, so if you want to argue, I am not your man. I am looking to understand what is being proposed and that is all. Please don't critique Hegel on the basis of my student beginner's crib-sheet.
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    Please don't critique Hegel on the basis of my student beginner's crib-sheet.unenlightened

    I have struggled with Hegel over the years. Some years ago I participated in this thread.

    My intention was not to argue but rather to pose what I take to be a guiding question. I have not made up my mind. Or should I say, it has not been made up for me?
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    Well if you don't have 50 hours or so spare to listen to the podcast, I'll try and give you a shout if I hear anything that might sound like a bit of an answer. But a quick scan of the first couple of pages of that thread confirms for me the wisdom of letting someone else do the hard work while I sit in my armchair and nod. But you do have me about right, in that I am looking for a philosophy that will sustain a view of psyche and consciousness and personal identity that at least leans somewhat in the direction of geist, because the individualism of today feels immiserating and false.
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    But you do have me about right, in that I am looking for a philosophy that will sustain a view of psyche and consciousness and personal identity that at least leans somewhat in the direction of geist, because the individualism of today feels immiserating and false.unenlightened

    I am suspicious of the idea that world history culminated with and through Hegel.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    Yeah, that sounds like bullshit to me too. One of the interesting things about the podcast is that it aims to relate Hegel to modern stuff in physics, psychology, etc. Things have moved on already, and in some ways may have contradicted some of Hegel's thought. but in other ways they may confirm or extend it. I'm looking forward to some stuff on brain hemispheres...
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    It is mentioned here that time is not in the logic as such, but as it is the 'science' of logic it immediately plunges into being and seems to imply time even though time is not a dimension of logic as such.

    Hopefully that will become clearer as we go on, or someone here will clarify it for me?
    unenlightened

    It's cool that he's starting with The Science of Logic because that's where I dropped off last time I seriously pursued reading Hegel. It was just a smidge too dry for me at the time to want to keep going.

    Flipping open the Table of Contents the first mention of "time" comes from page 234 in my Miller translation. Miller in the translator's preface:

    ...above all, [the student] must 'mark, learn, and inwardly digest' what Hegel himself has to say in his Prefaces and Introduction and, last but not least, in the chapter entitled "With What Must the Science Begin?'. This chapter is of great importance for understanding of the beginning of the Science of Logic, for in it Hegel has made it quite clear why he begins with pure being

    My thought is that time is derivative rather than comes along with becoming. I can't remember how time, as a concept, gets introduced, but that's how I'd put it from memory and listening -- so time is implied by the passage of sentence-to-sentence and by the notion of becoming, but it's not a proper concept or moment at this point.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    005

    Super interesting interpretation of the Christian story through Hegel: the notion that Jesus was real, and his death is the second coming that brings his spirit upon all the people -- so we don't have to wait, it's already here, but in a "picture-thinking" rather than "hard-thinking" way.
  • AmadeusD
    1.9k
    Through ep 004.

    I’m beginning to be convinced Hegel was an absolute moron. Interesting
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    :monkey: ;)

    While I agree with I wouldn't go that far.

    The perspective I think of Hegel from is Kant -- I think he's attempting to respond to Kantian arguments, or at least the influence of Kantian arguments, in favor of a different kind of absolute. Where Kant claimed his system, if true, is complete, Hegel claims that if it's true then this implies important things about knowledge in philosophy. He's attempting to build a philosophy that overcomes Kant's antinomies and deduction of the categories because he's proposing a different sort of logic -- which is why the stuff about philosophy counting as a kind of knowledge resonates with me, at least. It makes sense.
     
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    004 True infinity.

    Very abstract. Dasein is determinate being, which is being, limited by not being what it isn't.

    Then, by negation again, what it isn't is other, from Dasein - a becoming unbecoming {can be seen as} Etwas, a something that implies an other.

    And then with a quick "go and read Hegel or a commentary" and a bit of hand waving, we arrive at a being that is self defining and self creating, and by 'going beyond it's own limits, produces true infinity. And this is a move that is very reminiscent of the Laws of Form, where a function is inserted into itself, that feedback also producing an infinite, and eventually producing time also.

    In fact it's starting to look like the Laws of Form is pretty much a Hegelian calculus:
    Make a distinction between being and nothing. Call it the first distinction...

    And I'm also hearing echoes of Bateson here, but I need to think a bit more about that.

    But if I think about this as verbal mathematics constructing an abstract system, the arguments are only important to avoid contradiction, and what is more significant is definition and construction. Looked it in this light, there is as much woo here as there is in set theory.
  • Paine
    2k

    What is different about the logic is that Hegel connects it to the process of people living together over time.

    For instance, the question of what is moral cannot be reduced to a set of universal principles applicable to all times. But to say it is completely arbitrary according to custom is also not acceptable because that ignores a logic displayed in human interaction.

    Without that background of interaction, the statements are mere theological musings upon a completed world. The discussion of Master and Slave in the Phenomenology of Spirit crashes the cosmopolitan party.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    I'm not following your final paragraph very well, but it's OK because I agree that the emphasis on others is an important part of Hegel's philosophy, and so is time. I view Hegel's logic as an attempt to connect the classic philosophical categories to the process of science's development in history, where science is understood in the wider sense as "a systematic body of knowledge" rather than the modern sense of "these topics".

    The differences between Kant/Hegel... are huge. One might be tempted to say incommensurable, except we can read them and compare. I only mean to point out that I believe Hegel's target is the influence of Kant -- I believe he is targeting Kant's philosophical arguments on the limitations of knowledge because they were influential, and certainly conflicts with his project of establishing knowledge in philosophy, including metaphysical knowledge.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    In fact it's starting to look like the Laws of Form is pretty much a Hegelian calculus:
    Make a distinction between being and nothing. Call it the first distinction...
    unenlightened

    But if I think about this as verbal mathematics constructing an abstract system, the arguments are only important to avoid contradiction, and what is more significant is definition and construction. Looked it in this light, there is as much woo here as there is in set theory.unenlightened

    Yup. That's how I read him. And there's definitely echoes of Hegel in the Laws of Form, which is interesting... but I'd stay on guard too because Hegel has a way of seeming to relate to everything.

    But, yeah, no magical thinking at all. Odd or incorrect or of the times or whatever thinking, but not magical. At least as I understand him.
  • Paine
    2k
    I believe he is targeting Kant's philosophical arguments on the limitations of knowledge because they were influential, and certainly conflicts with his project of establishing knowledge in philosophy, including metaphysical knowledge.Moliere

    I agree. I am not following the podcast so I won't go further in that direction. I will just point to Logic where Hegel says Kant is declaring where one cannot swim without getting wet himself.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    005 - 009

    There's plenty of interesting stuff here but I'm not learning anything much about Hegel, so if anyone wants to comment feel free, but I'm going to move on to

    010

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary

    The first thing I want to say is that to my mind there has been a mistranslation, whereby the distinction Hegel makes between understanding and reason has become inverted to the normal meaning of the terms in English, such that 'reason' in Hegel refers to an intuitive grasp of significance, whereas 'understanding' is a narrow definitional approach. It surely ought to be the other way round?

    Apart from that, and the mystery of the origin of the story of The Master and his Emissary, (which sounds Chinese to me, or possibly Middle eastern), Gilchrist channeling Hegel seems to work quite well and make good sense. I remember reading split brain studies back in the day and being fascinated and revolted in equal measure.

    Then we get to sublation, where the left brain precision focused Emissary reports back to the right brain master and its findings are integrated into a world view.
    Or else, if one is suffering from an excess of modernity and left brain dominance, which results in a rigidity of thought, where the emissary has taken over, and become dictatorial, the integration is not complete and the mind remains divided and in conflict - and thus 'unhappy', or un-at-oned.
  • AmadeusD
    1.9k
    Hegel's target is the influence of Kant -- I believe he is targeting Kant's philosophical arguments on the limitations of knowledge because they were influential, and certainly conflicts with his project of establishing knowledge in philosophy, including metaphysical knowledge.Moliere

    Yes, I get the feeling there's a underlying "This is at you, Immanuel..." with a but of a sneer - But, i agree with unenlightened that it's taking some handwaving to get past Kant's base-level limitations of reason.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    Found this to listen along to an interpretation of Hegel at the part cited in episode 010 quoting paragraph 53 of The Phenomenology of Spirit.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    Cheers. Another voice, another perspective.

    011 The Hegelian Dialectic

    Here is a paper on Marxist dialectic as the result of his "inversion" of Hegel.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21598282.2022.2054000

    Looks like a total misunderstanding to me from my ignorance.

    So my point about the poor/inverted translation above is made at the end of this episode in a quote from David Bohm no less, who I have read before and so I wonder if I already heard this before and forgot it. Or maybe I'm just smart.

    I'm trying to get a sense of what is going on here, and I'm taking a cue from the title of the first book, and 'phenomenology' seems to relate to Kant's term but Hegel applies it inwardly rather than outwardly , and so he begins with logos and psyche in the first instance - ie geist. So his phenomena are being and nothing and they are interdependent because a phenomenon has to be a a Batesonian 'difference that makes a difference'. and that is the phenomenon which is to be understood and reasoned and developed into - for example - 'subject and experience' as one might understand things. Materiality, for Marx, or the Noumenon for Kant have to be derived from geist, and cannot be fundamental.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    Here is a paper on Marxist dialectic as the result of his "inversion" of Hegel.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21598282.2022.2054000

    Looks like a total misunderstanding to me from my ignorance.
    unenlightened

    Read the paper over the day. I think it's a fair interpretation of Marx, but I'd also separate out Marxist from Hegelian dialectics. The one thing I'd disagree with the author of the paper on is that Hegel's argument is fallacious, because the accusation of fallacy requires a logic and Hegel is working at that level of generality where since he's building a logic there's a choice to be had -- you can choose Hegel's logic, or the one that paper chooses (which is far more popular, and gets along with Marx, so fairs fair)
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    011

    Glad to see the podcast highlighting the thesis-antithesis-synthesis being an oversimplification that doesn't exactly correspond to what Hegel wrote. And I like his quotes of Bohm in relation to Hegel. The Bohm quote about the in-itself and the for-itself and the in-and-for-itself is a better rendition. I didn't realize Bohm was a victim of McCarthyism. And I agree that the most important part of the dialectic is that it is a movement.

    EDIT:

    Decided to skip 012.
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    013

    Good intro to a classic. I encourage others thinking along to read it
  • Moliere
    4.1k
    014

    I agree with the title. Freedom is the core of Hegel, same as Marx. This would be the center if we could connect them together.

    I wasn't jiving with the QM interps, tho I suppose that's predictable.

    There's some Epicurean handwaving with the swerve.

    But I prefer the existential approach where we obviously must choose things every day. So it's worth noting that these descriptions won't tell us what to do.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    013. Master and Slave dialectic.
    I listened to this twice and really struggled. Reading the text, (in contradiction to my title) the penny dropped, or at least I made my own sense of it, that you can tell me is wrong and stupid.

    ... this other is for itself only when it cancels itself as existing for itself , and has self-existence only in the self-existence of the other. Each is the mediating term to the other, through which each mediates and unites itself with itself; and each is to itself and to the other an immediate self-existing reality, which, at the same time, exists thus for itself only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another. — Hegel-184

    This describes what happens when a mother first looks at her newborn, that confirms the sociality of human consciousness. If there is not that mutual recognition, then one or the other is dead. And it is different from the birth scene of sheep or cows or chickens which recognise each other separately, and thus more as objects than subjects.

    Hegel is talking from the pov. of the infant primarily. Birth is the physical separation, and the look is the mutual recognition, but self-consciousness proper has yet to develop, because ...

    ... its truth would be merely that its own individual existence for itself would be shown to it to be an independent object, or, which is the same thing, that the object would be exhibited as this pure certainty of itself. By the notion of recognition, however, this is not possible, except in the form that as the other is for it, so it is for the other; each in its self through its own action and again through the action of the other achieves this pure abstraction of existence for self. — 186

    One has to grow up, and become independent. So we arrive at Freudian territory.

    End of part 1. (more to follow)
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    Ecosia showed me this, which reassured me I am not entirely alone:

    To put it in a nutshell, to follow Freud’s image, the unconscious is a gap, and meaning is the stopgap. Meaning provides a narrative, which begins already in the work of “the unconscious philosopher”; the work of meaning is a counterpart to the workings of the unconscious. The unconscious and the philosopher are a couple in an odd division of labor: one makes the holes, the other fills them in. If there is a diagnosis of the philosophical endeavor as such at stake, then this business of philosophy starts already in the unconscious—the philosopher has an accomplice in the unconscious, which starts stopping the gaps even before philosophy starts filling them in. The unconscious is effaced at the same time that it is produced, and the one who effaces it is the unconscious philosopher struggling to make sense and provide a narrative account free of gaps. The philosophical illusion is structural, it has its basis in the unconscious itself as effacement.
    https://www.e-flux.com/journal/34/68360/hegel-and-freud/

    One commonality is that both made claims to "science" that ring somewhat false in terms of current usage. But then Science at the time did have ambitions that it has since relinquished. But I am not going to go very far into that rather peculiar stuff about death, so reminiscent of Freud's 'death wish'.that then leads to the Lordship and Bondsman relation, which I take to be a "normal" result of childhood trauma that permeates the human world as the everyday insanity of government and social organisation. I'll leave it at that for now, but I might have more to say when I know Hegel a bit more.
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