• tim wood
    8.7k
    So, what is the formalism that Hegel rejects? That "in the absolute everything is one ... in the absolute everything is the same" or, as he mocks it in #7: " to stir it all together into a smooth mélange".Fooloso4

    Opinion again. I think the formalism Hegel opposes lies in the identity of Being with everything - as if to know that what-ever-it-is "bes is the ultimate step in knowledge. Fooloso4 (if I recall) has rightly highlighted the word "knowledge" as a word to be careful of in use. Knowledge, in its ordinary sense, is not quite - not at all - what Hegel is on about.

    Hegel as his first step opposes Being with nothingness. That is, if you know nothing, then you know nothing. At the same time, if you know Being, then still you know nothing, because Being in itself is not in-itself knowable; there is no-thing to know. Thus in conjuring being at the start, nothing has been conjured but an illusion and a deception.

    In this also is a foreshadowing of the movement to the concrete from both through and out of the abstract and "universal." Hegel's end-point is going to be the encounter of Being-in-itself in the concrete. But the getting there will require the traversal of philosophy itself, understood itself as science, including history, through the working out of the tensions between them all.

    In this I am taking a tremendous license. I am aware that the semantic fields of Hegel's terminology, his words, are several steps removed from the understandings I start with. He's a difficult late 18th-early 19th century German philosopher. I none of those things. My decision is not to worry too much about slippage in terminology: it should all auto-adjust and auto-correct as we move further into the subject matter. BUT, I - we - also have a wing-man, Fooloso4, who has, can, and I hope will continue to add such correctives as may, and in my case no doubt will, need it.

    In a sense, then, I think we're in rough-carpentry at the moment. What matters is sound structural understanding. Too much refinement, at the wrong time or place, can be wasted time and effort - not is, but can be.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Pinkard #s 17, 18

    "17. In my view, which must be justified by the exposition of the system itself, everything hangs on
    grasping and expressing the true not just as substance but just as much as subject.

    At the same time, it is to be noted that substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing. – However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved. However, in part, the opposite view, which itself clings to thinking as thinking, or, which holds fast to universality, is exactly the same simplicity, or, it is itself undifferentiated, unmoved substantiality.

    But, thirdly, if thinking only unifies the being of substance with itself and grasps immediacy, or intuition grasped as thinking, then there is the issue about whether this intellectual intuition does not then itself relapse into inert simplicity and thereby present actuality itself in a fully non-actual mode.


    "18. Furthermore, the living substance is the being that is in truth subject, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of self-positing, or, that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.

    As subject, it is pure, simple negativity, and, as a result, it is the estrangement of what is simple, or, it is the doubling which posits oppositions and which is again the negation of this indifferent diversity and its opposition. That is, it is only this self-restoring sameness, the reflective turn into itself in its otherness.

    – The true is not an original unity as such, or, not an immediate unity as such. It is the coming-to-be of itself, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal and has its end for its beginning, and which is actual only through this accomplishment and its end."

    ------------
  • Fooloso4
    5.4k
    16:

    In so doing, this formalism asserts that this monotony and abstract universality is the absolute ...

    In its formulaic universality it abstracts from every difference, every particularity, and thus renders everything the same. It is not the universal Idea that he objects to but:

    ... the universal Idea in this form of non-actuality

    It calls itself speculative knowledge but:

    ... what counts as the speculative way of considering things turns out to be the dissolution of the distinct and the determinate, or, instead turns out to be simply the casting of what is distinct and determinate into the abyss of the void, an act lacking all development or having no justification in its own self at all.

    As opposed to this:

    ... whereas in the absolute ...

    that is, in the absolute as it is properly understood:

    ... in the A = A, there is no such “something,” for in the absolute, everything is one.

    At first glance it may seem as if the two views are the same, that there is no difference between them, but in unity there is difference, otherwise there is nothing to be unified.

    What does it mean for A=A? Traditionally it means identity, but to say that this equals that is to assert some difference. In identity there is difference. Is it then that A=A means this equals this? What then is the function of the equal sign, what does it mean for something to equal itself?

    To oppose this one bit of knowledge, namely, that in the absolute everything is the same, to
    the knowing which makes distinctions and which has been either fulfilled or is seeking and demanding to be fulfilled – that is, to pass off its absolute as the night in which, as one says, all cows are black – is an utterly vacuous naiveté in cognition.

    The opposition here is not between the affirmation and denial that in the absolute everything is the same. Both sides agree on this. The difference is between the knowing which has only this one bit of knowledge and the knowledge which makes distinctions and either has or seeks to fulfilled itself in knowing the same in difference, the one out of many.
  • Amity
    4.6k

    Thanks.
    I appreciate the time, patience, knowledge and experience you bring.
    Will be taking some time out now but will follow with interest.
  • WerMaat
    70
    everything hangs on
    grasping and expressing the true not just as substance but just as much as subject.
    tim wood
    Now, I'm not an expert, but this part reminds me of Plotin a little. It sounds like substance is To Hen, the platonic oneness which is totally abstract, and according to Hegel it requires a notion of being a subject, an awareness, a reflection on itself - as the platonic "nous", intellect.

    if thinking only unifies the being of substance with itself and grasps immediacy, or intuition grasped as thinking, then there is the issue about whether this intellectual intuition does not then itself relapse into inert simplicitytim wood
    "inert simplicity" - I think this is what Hegel tries to avoid at all cost. He likes the idea of there being a universal principle, but an unchanging, abstract oneness is useless in his eyes. He wants this highest notion to be aware, dynamic, "begreiflich" (graspable...)
    Or am I getting that wrong? I feel that I may be over-simplifying matters.

    it is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of self-positing, or, that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.tim wood
    And here we have another notion of change, of constant movement and reflection, right? The living substance.
    Would it be too speculative to go back to our child and acorn metaphor?
    As in: a newborn child is a fully realized human in itself. But at the same time, it is in some ways only a potential, it is in constant change. A human being is can be grasped only in their current state, in their current age and development. And in the next moment, they will already have changed.
    But in a way, a human is also the sum of all his moments, past and present:
    it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.tim wood



    .
  • Fooloso4
    5.4k
    17:

    I trust that everything I have said in this discussion is taken as tentative, but here it may be necessary to state it. I have worked and re-worked this, each time seeing it somewhat differently. But since, as Hegel says, we cannot see clearly what has not yet completed its development, there may be errors here that will become evident to me as we move forward.

    In my view … everything hangs on grasping and expressing the true not just as substance but just as much as subject.

    It is instructive to compare this to what Spinoza says about substance.

    By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception. (Ethics , Part One, Definitions, III)

    Hegel continues:

    At the same time, it is to be noted that substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.

    The universal is unity of the immediacy, direct and unmediated, of knowing and being, of knowing and for knowing.

    However, in part, the opposite view, which itself clings to thinking as thinking, or, which holds fast to universality, is exactly the same simplicity, or, it is itself undifferentiated, unmoved substantiality.

    In what sense is this the opposite of the view Hegel presents above as his view? In Hegel’s view the universal is within substance, here thinking is itself undifferentiated, unmoved substantiality, the universal.

    But, thirdly, if thinking only unifies the being of substance with itself and grasps immediacy, or intuition grasped as thinking, then there is the issue about whether this intellectual intuition does not then itself relapse into inert simplicity and thereby present actuality itself in a fully non-actual mode.

    Intellectual intuition is given in its immediacy to thought by thought. It is inert simplicity because as given it does no work.

    In the middle of these distinctions there is what seems to be a non-sequitur:

    However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved.

    I take this is a direct reference to Spinoza’s God. Hegel thinks it shocked the age not because, as is commonly assumed, threatening the status of God as distinct and separate, but because it threatens the status of man as distinct in his self-consciousness. It is not a non-sequitur because this is precisely what is at issue - the relationship between God, man, thinking, and the whole.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    re #s 17, 18 above. It's long been an axiom of mine that there is an upper limit on the meaning that can be loaded into sentences and paragraphs on certain topics. And a corollary, if the selected text is not too long, it should not be too difficult to figure out what it means. The main use of this axiom for me has been to help me know when I'm on the wrong track or looking in the wrong direction. And sometimes I have to back off and suspend judgment until something adds clarity so that I can again move forward. The above paragraphs are full of terms that in their context I cannot attach any firm meaning to.

    the true not just as substance but just as much as subject.tim wood

    And here are three: substance, subject, true, and add a fourth, universal.

    or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.tim wood

    It is not clear to me yet that there can be any such thing as an immediacy of knowing. So for me, this is at the moment a word salad, with terms whose meanings cannot be what they seem to be - at least not without some violence.

    I see that Fooloso4 has posted already. He quotes Spinoza, "By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception."

    Our hazard here - maybe just my hazard - lies in accepting something like this from Spinoza as explanation. My problem is that I have no idea what it means to have a single unitary conception "formed independently of any other conception."

    I take my business here to understand, not to add meaning, nor allow myself to suppose I understand if I don't. Were Hegel here, I'd say, "Wha-at," and ask him to go through it again.

    I think Fooloso4 just above has got some of it, but not all. But at the moment it seems to me Hegel is allowing himself to float a bit, no feet on the ground. And it's his business to get back to ground, not-so-much ours to build a ramp under him. Maybe in the next paragraphs....
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    I am not sure how this works out in the Preface but Hegel discusses the immediacy of knowing in the early chapters of the book itself. He takes away the platform Kant gave himself. Or one gives oneself.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Nice resource. Maybe not a Dummy's Guide, but helpful.
  • Fooloso4
    5.4k
    I see that Fooloso4 has posted already. He quotes Spinoza, "By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception."

    Our hazard here - maybe just my hazard - lies in accepting something like this from Spinoza as explanation.
    tim wood

    It is not a question of accepting Spinoza for an explanation of what Hegel means by substance. I introduced Spinoza because of what Hegel goes on to say about God as the one substance. Why does he introduce this here, at this point?

    Were Hegel here, I'd say, "Wha-at," and ask him to go through it again.tim wood

    One thing we can do is go through it again and again and again ourselves.

    My problem is that I have no idea what it means to have a single unitary conception "formed independently of any other conception.tim wood

    I do not want to get into a discussion of Spinoza but it means that there is only one substance and that it is not derived from or dependent on anything else.

    I think Fooloso4 just above has got some of it, but not all.tim wood

    Hence my comment about the tentativeness of what I said. One disadvantage of the way we are proceeding is that we have not read the whole of the preface or the whole of the book.

    But at the moment it seems to me Hegel is allowing himself to float a bit, no feet on the ground.tim wood

    One assumption that guides my reading of the philosophers is that when things do not make sense to me the problem is probably with me and not the text. Hegel is certainly not floating. If anything, the density and compactness of what he is saying is likely to sink us. But the sense of not having your feet on the ground is apt. He is talking about the whole from within the whole, there is no ground on which to stand.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    No argument. And I often enough seek assistance in secondary literature. And indeed we haven't finished and you're right it's my confusion - and I work on that. My only point is that there are moments when Hegel is not making sense to me. That's I put on my dog glasses, even as just bookkeeping that I will need something to make sense reasonably soon. And I'm looking at Hegel to supply that clarity.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Pinkard #19

    "19. The life of God and divine cognition might thus be expressed as a game love plays with itself. If this Idea lacks the seriousness, the suffering, the patience, and the labor of the negative, then it lowers itself into edification, even into triteness.

    In itself that life is indeed an unalloyed sameness and unity with itself, since in such a life there is neither anything serious in this otherness and alienation, nor in overcoming this alienation. However, this in-itself is abstract universality, in which its nature, which is to be for itself, and the self-movement of the form are both left out of view. However much the form is said to be the same as the essence, still it is for that very reason a bald misunderstanding to suppose that cognition can be content with the in-itself, or, the essence, but can do without the form – that the absolute principle, or, the absolute intuition, can make do without working out the former or without the development of the latter.

    Precisely because the form is as essential to the essence as the essence is to itself, the essence must not be grasped and expressed as mere essence, which is to say, as immediate substance or as the pure self-intuition of the divine. Rather, it must likewise be grasped as form in the entire richness of the developed form, and only thereby is it grasped and expressed as the actual."
  • Amity
    4.6k
    Nice resource. Maybe not a Dummy's Guide, but helpful.tim wood

    Yes. This glossary is more in-depth and explanatory than the previous Gardner one.
    It links concepts and shows how Hegel uses them.

    A glossary is an essential piece of kit when trying to understand or explicate the meaning.
    Care needs to be taken that it is a reliable source. I think this one is.
    However, I agree, even the definitions can be difficult to understand !
    Some will already have acquired and are adept at using this specialised language.

    It might be helpful to build own glossary along the way.
    And edit it as understanding progresses.
    Just a thought...
  • Amity
    4.6k
    One thing we can do is go through it again and again and again ourselves.Fooloso4

    Yes. We shouldn't expect to understand everything on a first read.
    Read, reread and reread again.This requires time and focus.

    One assumption that guides my reading of the philosophers is that when things do not make sense to me the problem is probably with me and not the text.Fooloso4

    Likewise.

    One disadvantage of the way we are proceeding is that we have not read the whole of the preface or the whole of the book.Fooloso4

    Agreed. I was taught to scan or skim through the first time, not stopping at obstacles or confusing parts. Then return to take notes, look up specialised key terms and issues. But each to their own. I like to note and understand key words first...

    This group discussion is a bit of a mix. Apparently taking place during a first read, hence the advice to carry on and not get bogged down. It seems we carry on - in various stages of ignorance - and return later, having gained an overall picture. Or in the perhaps vain hope of
    ... looking at Hegel to supply that clarity.tim wood

    Now I need to return to time out...
  • Amity
    4.6k

    Need to sort out the quotes. Tim should not be confused with Hegel.
  • Amity
    4.6k


    I don't know but it might be an idea to use the quote function, stating Hegel as source.
    Otherwise, when your post is used as reference, it looks like Hegel's words are yours.
    Confusing enough already.
  • WerMaat
    70
    Good point, I'll make sure to sort out the quote function in future! Sorry about that!

    .
  • WerMaat
    70
    This group discussion is a bit of a mix. Apparently taking place during a first read, hence the advice to carry on and not get bogged down. It seems we carry on - in various stages of ignorance - and return later, having gained an overall picture. Or in the perhaps vain hope of

    ... looking at Hegel to supply that clarity. — tim wood
    Amity

    Wise words.
    I guess that Hegel wrote this text with his peers and contemporaries in mind. It was probably much easier for them to get his allusions and references. And without that whole background, it's indeed a challenge for us to find any stable ground at all.
    For that reason we should probably rely on our more knowledgeable participants as well as secondary literature to point us in the right direction (thank you for linking all those useful resources!)

    I like to note and understand key words first...Amity
    Good idea. If we can at least keep track of some key words, that's a big step already, and the glossary is a huge help there.
    I myself like to use a kind of falsification method... not sure how to describe that in English, an "Ausschlussverfahren"? As in, I see what ideas, associations and hypotheses I can come up with myself, and then check if they hold up under scrutiny: Test them against the text itself, and with external sources, shave them with Occams razor and see what remains.
    For example, my association with Plotin is probably nonsense if we have much closer, more contemporary candidates in Spinoza and Kant.
    (I take this from the way I tackle Latin translations... I go with my first vague understanding of a sentence, and then check the grammar in detail to see if it matches my thesis. A lot of times I have to discard my first idea, or at least revise it significantly, but it gives me a starting point)
  • Amity
    4.6k
    Good point, I'll make sure to sort out the quote function in future! Sorry about that!WerMaat

    Kein Problem !
    The quote function can be a bit of a pain :roll:
  • WerMaat
    70
    #19
    Is it just me, or was that one rather more easy?

    However, this in-itself is abstract universality, in which its nature, which is to be for itself, and the self-movement of the form are both left out of view. — Hegel
    Until here, we continue from before, right? Abstract universality is nice, but useless, because it's somehow incomplete (not sure I get the "otherness" and the overcoming of that alienation, though).


    Precisely because the form is as essential to the essence as the essence is to itself, the essence must not be grasped and expressed as mere essence, which is to say, as immediate substance or as the pure self-intuition of the divine. Rather, it must likewise be grasped as form in the entire richness of the developed form, and only thereby is it grasped and expressed as the actual — Hegel
    Now, this is actually rather clear, isn't it?
    The key words are "form" and "essence" I guess. Thankfully no trouble with the translation, the German "Form" and "Wesen" have pretty much the same range of meanings.
    Well, "Form" has the additional meaning of "mold", and "Wesen" can also be a "creature" (as anyone who watches the series "Grimm" would know...) - but Hegel's context is clear enough to avoid those ambiguities.
  • Amity
    4.6k
    (I take this from the way I tackle Latin translations... I go with my first vague understanding of a sentence, and then check the grammar in detail to see if it matches my thesis. A lot of times I have to discard my first idea, or at least revise it significantly, but it gives me a starting point)WerMaat

    Yes, that makes sense to me. Try an initial understanding before grabbing the dictionary.
    That is kinda what I do. Have to say though, Latin, German and Italian are easier for me to understand than Hegelese.

    I see what ideas, associations and hypotheses I can come up with myself, and then check if they hold up under scrutiny: Test them against the text itself, and with external sources, shave them with Occams razor and see what remains.WerMaat

    I like that. I would like it even better if I could do it in German. Consider me in awe !
    My favourite German word: Ausgezeichnet :cool:

    For example, my association with Plotin is probably nonsense if we have much closer, more contemporary candidates in Spinoza and Kant.WerMaat

    I am still not sure about any of this. You seem well ahead on the path of understanding.

    For that reason we should probably rely on our more knowledgeable participants as well as secondary literature to point us in the right directionWerMaat

    Yes. I think that is the point of a group discussion. To benefit from others sharing their views and insights. And also to keep questioning...as you do so well.

    Thanks.
  • WerMaat
    70
    Have to say though, Latin, German and Italian are easier for me to understand than Hegelese.Amity
    I agree! :grin: :lol:
    You know quite a bit of German, don't you? Du kannst mir gerne schreiben, wenn du deutsche Konversation üben möchtest..
  • Fooloso4
    5.4k
    I myself like to use a kind of falsification method... not sure how to describe that in English, an "Ausschlussverfahren"? As in, I see what ideas, associations and hypotheses I can come up with myself, and then check if they hold up under scrutiny: Test them against the text itself, and with external sources, shave them with Occams razor and see what remains.WerMaat

    I do something similar. I start with what I think he is saying and then go back to the text to see how well that squares with what it says. It may seem as though I am on the right track but then I ask myself how this or that statement fits in. Without forcing it I see if I can make it fit and whether this helps make sense of the larger context or if I need to change how I initially understood it. This process continues as I read. Sometimes what I thought fit together must be torn apart and rebuilt if I cannot get what I am now reading to fit. Maybe what I had put together is not right and maybe what I am now trying to put together is not right and sometimes neither is right and the whole thing needs to be revised. But it may be that there are pieces that come later, and so, everything remains tentative.

    Each part must be understood in its details and taken together all the parts should form a whole with those parts serving their function within the whole. The parts themselves can form wholes in the same way that a hand is a whole but a part of a larger whole. The process of reading is both analytic and synthetic, breaking things down and putting them together.
  • Amity
    4.6k
    You know quite a bit of German, don't you?WerMaat

    Nicht wirklich. I knew it fairly well a long time ago.
    Thanks for your very kind offer. But that would be too much for my fried brain right now.
  • Fooloso4
    5.4k
    18.

    Furthermore, the living substance is the being that is in truth subject, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of self-positing, or, that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.

    In #17 he said:

    ... substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.

    How are we to reconcile these statements? Is it immediacy or mediation?

    #17 begins as a view from the end or completion, a view which Hegel says:

    ... must be justified by the exposition of the system itself ...

    Hegel identified two modes of this exposition. Both are the consequence of thinking identity without difference. These should not be thought of as simply abstract logical consequences but as having occurred within the history of philosophy, the logic of the development of spirit.

    In the first it is the identity of thinking with itself - universality, simplicity, undifferentiated, unmoved substantiality.

    In the second the identify of thinking and being as immediacy - inert simplicity, actuality itself in a fully non-actual mode.

    In #18 he shifts from lifeless categories to living substance, the being that is in truth subject. In its immediacy it is both the knower and what is known (#17). But in is in truth only insofar as it
    is the movement of self-positing. The term comes from Fichte:

    Fichte is suggesting that the self, which he typically refers to as "the I," is not a static thing with fixed properties, but rather a self-producing process. Yet if it is a self-producing process, then it also seems that it must be free, since in some as yet unspecified fashion it owes its existence to nothing but itself. https://www.iep.utm.edu/fichtejg/


    Hegel adds that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself. As self-determining it is other than itself in that it is not yet what it determines itself to be.

    As subject, it is pure, simple negativity, and,as a result, it is the estrangement of what is simple, or, it is the doubling which posits oppositions and which is again the negation of this indifferent diversity and its opposition.

    Self-positing is negative in that it is a rejection of what it is in order to become what it will be.

    That is, it is only this self-restoring sameness, the reflective turn into itself in its otherness.

    The movement is within the subject, a turning from within itself away from and back to itself. In its otherness it is still its sameness. That is, it is never wholly other.

    The true is not an original unity as such, or, not an immediate unity as such. It is the coming-to-be of itself, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal and has its end for its beginning, and which is actual only through this accomplishment and its end.

    The subject here is not the individual or only the individual but mankind.
  • WerMaat
    70
    just great... now I don't just have Hegel to read and reread again, now I need to do the same AGAIN with your posts..
    (just kidding. :grin: Thank you for your insightful words! It's just that, when I read them the first time, I'm swept away by the elegance of your sentences, It's like watching somebody dance. And then I tend to loose sight of the actual content and need to start over.)
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    From Stanford.edu, I've removed lots of citations to make it easier to read (italics mine).
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/

    "The second moment—the “dialectical” or “negatively rational” moment—is the moment of instability. In this moment, a one-sidedness or restrictedness in the determination from the moment of understanding comes to the fore, and the determination that was fixed in the first moment passes into its opposite. Hegel describes this process as a process of “self-sublation”. The English verb “to sublate” translates Hegel’s technical use of the German verb aufheben, which is a crucial concept in his dialectical method. Hegel says that aufheben has a doubled meaning: it means both to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time. The moment of understanding sublates itself because its own character or nature—its one-sidedness or restrictedness—destabilizes its definition and leads it to pass into its opposite. The dialectical moment thus involves a process of self-sublation, or a process in which the determination from the moment of understanding sublates itself, or both cancels and preserves itself, as it pushes on to or passes into its opposite.

    The third moment—the “speculative” or “positively rational” moment—grasps the unity of the opposition between the first two determinations, or is the positive result of the dissolution or transition of those determinations. Here, Hegel rejects the traditional, reductio ad absurdum argument, which says that when the premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, then the premises must be discarded altogether, leaving nothing. As Hegel suggests in the Phenomenology, such an argument

    is just the skepticism which only ever sees pure nothingness in its result and abstracts from the fact that this nothingness is specifically the nothingness of that from which it results.

    -----------

    I've copied this to help get a handle on "negate." From this I get that negating isn't something I do, either consciously or unconsciously, rather it is a step intrinsic to understanding as the thing in revealing itself also conceals, and as (my) the understanding becomes aware of the concealment, the original insight/understanding is "destabilizes" (from above).

    The first moment I didn't copy, but the three together comprise what is called thesis, antithesis, synthesis (in some books, and as noted above somewhere, is terminology Hegel disavowed).
  • Amity
    4.6k
    just great... now I don't just have Hegel to read and reread again, now I need to do the same AGAIN with your posts..WerMaat

    Fooloso4 works hard at this; note his reading process above. His practice means an ever-increasing fluency in Hegelese. If anyone doesn't understand, he is accessible and amenable to answering questions like: 'Eh? You what ?!'

    Fooloso4 is a teacher in the best sense, having patience and a desire to help others understand.
    However, right now, I am a bit like the 3yr old girl in:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6244/i-simply-cant-function-without-my-blanket

    Only with me, it's 'I Simply Can't Function Without My Glossary!' ( and Friends ).
    And even then, I struggle.
    I realise that I am not ready to climb Everest, being more of a rambler.

    That is why I have downloaded a free pdf from scribd.com:
    Peter Singer's 'HEGEL: A very short introduction'.

    I'll continue to follow this fascinating discussion, from the foothills.
    Happy climbing!
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