Not usually what people complain about when they complain about me.

Your statement sounds like a particular reading of Kant, I suppose.

Do you see "what you have read" in the portions I have quoted from Hegel?

I don't understand

which cannot be subjectively imposed on them — Corvus

Does Hegel say time is just subjective perception? Or does he talk about time as some external entity in the material world? — Corvus

In Hegel, the life of an individual human being happens in the context of an unfolding over time of the potential for freedom to actually come into concrete existence:

Spirit, on the contrary, may be defined as that which has its centre in itself. It has not a unity outside itself, but has already found it; it exists in and with itself. Matter has its essence out of itself ; Spirit is self-contained existence (Bei-sich-selbst-seyn). Now this is Freedom, exactly. For if I am dependent, my being is referred to something else which I am not; I cannot exist independently of something external. I am free, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon myself. This self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than self-consciousness — consciousness of one's own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self consciousness these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially. According to this abstract definition it may be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibition of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of hat which it is potentially. And as the germ bears in itself the whole nature of the tree, and the taste and form of its fruits, so do the first traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole of that History. — Hegel, Philosophy of History, translated by J. Sibree, page 27

Hegel's Phenomenology of Geist details how this happened through stages of human history. Hegel recognized the harsh aspect of this process on the lives of particular individuals.

The notion, too, is extremely hard, because it is itself just this very identity. But the actual substance as such, the cause, which in its exclusiveness resists all invasion, is ipso facto subjected to necessity or the destiny of passing into dependency: and it is this subjection rather where the chief hardness lies. To think necessity, on the contrary, rather tends to melt that hardness. For thinking means that, in the other, one meets with one's self.—It means a liberation, which is not the flight of abstraction, but consists in that which is actual having itself not as something else, but as its own being and creation, in the other actuality with which it is bound up by the force of necessity. As existing in an individual form, this liberation is called I: as developed to its totality, it is free Spirit; as feeling, it is Love; and as enjoyment, it is Blessedness.—The great vision of substance in Spinoza is only a potential liberation from finite exclusiveness and egoism: but the notion itself realises for its own both the power of necessity and actual freedom. — Hegel's Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (pp. 309-310

As you can see, this is pretty far away from the question of mind-independence from the workings of a single tiny skull.

Thank you for all of the debate.

Fare forward.

I wonder if the experience with beauty competitions plays a part in the reactions.

My push back on Reitan's comments is not an endorsement of what Westacott objects to. I am not defending Kant or Hegel.

I think all readers can agree that Hegel does not put forward the humility of Kant. That means we should be extra careful about how to compare their language.

There is a significant element in Hegel regarding time and history. Can that be approached through an enlargement of the general ideas or does the new philosophy introduce incompatible ideas?

Judging from my own study of Hegel (admittedly many a year ago now) he rejects the idea of noumena and the "in itself" altogether. "The Rational is the Real" — Janus

He certainly does not treat the things in themselves as a mysterious region behind the veil of appearance:

44.] It follows that the categories are no fit terms to express the Absolute—the Absolute not being given in perception;—and Understanding, or knowledge by means of the categories, is consequently incapable of knowing the Things-in-themselves. The Thing-in-itself (and under 'thing' is embraced even Mind and God) expresses the object when we leave out of sight all that consciousness makes of it, all its emotional aspects, and all specific thoughts of it. It is easy to see what is left,—utter abstraction, total emptiness, only described still as an 'other-world'—the negative of every image, feeling, and definite thought. Nor does it require much penetration to see that this caput mortuum is still only a product of thought, such as accrues when thought is carried on to abstraction unalloyed: that it is the work of the empty 'Ego,' which makes an object out of this empty self-identity of its own. The negative characteristic which this abstract identity receives as an object, is also enumerated among the categories of Kant, and is no less familiar than the empty identity aforesaid. Hence one can only read with surprise the perpetual remark that we do not know the Thing-in-itself. On the contrary there is nothing we can know so easily. — Hegel's Logic, being part one of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences translated by William Wallace

I did a word search for noumena in the book and came up empty. I don't read it as a rejection of the ideas but a part of Hegel opposing how objectivity is contrasted with subjectivity in our thinking. Here is a sample from Logic:

Thought in such a case is, on one hand, the synonym for a subjective conception, plan, intention or the like, just as actuality, on the other, is made synonymous with external and sensible existence. This is all very well in common life, where great laxity is allowed in the categories and the names given to them: and it may of course happen that e.g. the plan, or so-called idea, say of a certain method of taxation, is good and advisable in the abstract, but that nothing of the sort is found in so-called actuality, or could possibly be carried out under the given conditions. But when the abstract understanding gets hold of these categories and exaggerates the distinction they imply into a hard and fast line of contrast, when it tells us that in this actual world we must knock ideas out of our heads, it is necessary energetically to protest against these doctrines, alike in the name of science and of sound reason................................

In that vulgar conception of actuality which mistakes for it what is palpable and directly obvious to the senses, we must seek the ground of a wide-spread prejudice about the relation of the philosophy of Aristotle to that of Plato. Popular opinion makes the difference to be as follows. While Plato recognises the idea and only the idea as the truth, Aristotle, rejecting the idea, keeps to what is actual, and is on that account to be considered the founder and chief of empiricism. On this it may be remarked: that although actuality certainly is the principle of the Aristotelian philosophy, it is not the vulgar actuality of what is immediately at hand, but the idea as actuality. Where then lies the controversy of Aristotle against Plato? It lies in this. Aristotle calls the Platonic idea a mere δύναμις, and establishes in opposition to Plato that the idea, which both equally recognise to be the only truth, is essentially to be viewed as an ἐνέργεια, in other words, as the inward which is quite to the fore, or as the unity of inner and outer, or as actuality, in the emphatic sense here given to the word. — ibid. section 142

The interpretation prompted me to re-read a lot of Hegel. A lonely enterprise these days.

I understand the importance of learning through contradiction but where in Hegel's words can I find the reason to agree with:

According to Hegel’s own developed philosophy, the vision I have of my noumenal self turns out to be not just a vision of one small piece of the noumenal realm, but rather a vision of the Absolute (Hegel’s term for the ultimate noumenal reality).

Why should I accept this interpretation? Hegel does not, to my knowledge, use the term "noumena" in this way.

Edit to add: I do think a reading of Hegel's Logic is good place to look for where Hegel departs from Kant. I don't mean to make my challenge outside of any context.

What follows is not intended as a summary of their responses, but mainly to point out that they were reacting against Kant's declaration of the unknowable nature of the in-itself. — Wayfarer

All I am asking for is an example of Hegel doing that in his own words. I think Reitan is misrepresenting
Hegel's intentions regarding the "unknowable" as a departure from Kant.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1035819

So: the self that has experiences is a noumenal reality. ...Hegel believed that this fact could be made use of, so that somehow the self could serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway through the wall of mystery, into an understanding of reality as it is in itself. — Eric Reitan

While it is true that Hegel introduced a view of Reason that overturned many elements of Kant's work, Reitan is mischaracterizing these differences by suggesting that Hegel discovered his individual self as an intellectual thing through the subject of the Transcendental Ego. I challenge anyone to find Hegel using "noumena" and "thing in itself" in this context. In his Logic Hegel does criticize the limits of what can be known through through intuition and the categories as presented by Kant. He also acknowledges Kant did well to criticize the "old" metaphysics.

Before digging into all that, a good starting place is to remember that Hegel presented Geist as an agent that worked through generations of individuals lives. You would never know that from Reitan's depiction.

Hegel, as discussed by Reitan in your linked article, did say, in a number of places, that Kant wanted to figure out the limits of reason before using it discover those limits. From my reading of Hegel, this is directed more at the limits of "rational psychology" than searching beyond the limits of experience.as described by Kant.

I recognize that Kant is the headwaters of many different views of psychology. One interesting element of Kant's efforts to dispel "transcendental illusion" is how many of the opposed arguments fall apart on the basis of logic rather than an arbitrary restriction.

In any case, is there a passage from Hegel that shows him reaching for what Kant did not?

Perhaps I erred by pulling in a quote relatively late in the Critique. The arguments have already been made about what is given through intuition and thought through reason. The quote is from the section headed by "Conclusion of the solution of the psychological paralogism." The paragraph preceding my quote is part of Kant's attempt to view all the "classical" problems of metaphysics through the lens of what can be said if one accepts his arguments:

The dialectical illusion in rational psychology rests on the confusion of an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the concept, in every way indeterminate, of a thinking being in general. I think of myself, in behalf of a possible experience, by abstracting from all actual experience, and from this conclude that I could become conscious of my existence even outside experience and of its empirical conditions. Consequently I confuse the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking Self, and believe that I cognize what is substantial in me as a transcendental subject, since I have in thought merely the unity of consciousness that grounds everything determinate as the mere form of cognition. — ibid. B426

I cannot parse your comment about intuition. From your previous remarks, I understood you to not being satisfied with Kant saying in the Preface to the second edition that representations can be "real." I do understand that argument.

I think Kant is campaigning for an understanding of objectivity that differs from your narrative. I need to think about how to put that forward.

The "history of philosophy" approach is a problem for all who use it, Kant included.

Well, I brought in the relationship with a "transcendental object" to express Kant's vision of himself as walking between two extreme views. Getting the sense for what 'empirical realism' means for Kant is not a wholesale rejection of Descartes. I will try and come back with a report.

A person might look at oneself, a human subject, as purely noumenal, but only by looking exclusively at the temporal intuition, and filtering out any influence from the external (spatial) intuition, if this is possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kant's intent seems to be going the other way in regard to the two intuitions working together:

The problem of explaining the community of the soul with the body does not properly belong to the psychology that is here at issue, because it intends to prove the personality of the soul even outside this community (after death), and so it is transcendent in the proper sense, even though it concerns an object of experience, but only to the extent that it ceases to be an object of experience. Meanwhile in accord with our doctrine a sufficient reply can also be given to this problem. The difficulty presented by this problem consists, as is well known, in the presumed difference in kind between the object of inner sense (the soul) and the object of outer sense, since to the former only time pertains as the
formal condition of its intuition, while to the latter space pertains also. But if one considers that the two kinds of objects are different not inwardly but only insofar as one of them appears outwardly to the other, hence that what grounds the appearance of matter as thing in itself might perhaps not be so different in kind, then this difficulty vanishes, and the only difficulty remaining is that concerning how a community of substances is possible at all, the resolution of which lies entirely outside the field of psychology, and, as the reader can easily judge from what was said in the Analytic about fundamental powers and faculties, this without any doubt also lies outside the field of all human cognition. — Critique of Pure Reason, B427

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego — Wayfarer

He does refer to it, albeit in as a source of misunderstanding:

Now to these concepts four paralogisms of a transcendental doctrine of the soul are related, which are falsely held to be a science of pure re son about the nature of our thinking being. At the ground of this doctrine we can place nothing but the simple and in content for itself wholly empty representation I, of which one cannot even say that it is a concept, but a mere consciousness that accompanies every concept. Through this I, or He, or It (the thing), which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, which is recognized only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and about which, in abstraction, we can never have even the least concept; because of which we therefore turn in a constant circle, since we must always already avail ourselves of the representation of it at all times in order to judge anything about it; we cannot separate ourselves from this inconvenience, because the consciousness in itself is not even a representation distinguishing a particular object but rather a form of representation in general, insofar as it is to be called a cognition; for of it alone can I say that through it I think anything.
— Critique of Pure Reason

From this it follows that the first syllogism of transcendental psychology imposes on us an only allegedly new insight when it passes off the constant logical subject of thinking as the cognition of a real subject of inherence, with which we do not and cannot have the least acquaintance, because consciousness is the one single thing that makes all representations into thoughts, and in which, therefore, as in the transcendental subject, our perceptions must be encountered; and apart from this logical significance of the I, we have no acquaintance with the subject in itself that grounds this I as a substratum, just as it grounds all thoughts. Meanwhile, one can quite well allow the proposition The soul is substance to be valid, if only one admits that this concept of ours leads no further, that it cannot teach us any of the usual conclusions of the rationalistic doctrine of the soul, such as, e.g., the everlasting duration of the
soul through all alterations, even the human being's death, thus that it signifies a substance only in the idea but not in reality. — ibid A350

More at A355, B427, and B441. To the matter of objects, this footnote ties it to the limits of a transcendental object:

* To the question, "What kind of constitution does a transcendental object have?" one cannot indeed give an answer saying what it is, but one can answer that the question itself is nothing, because no object for the question is given. Hence all questions of the transcendental doctrine of the soul are answerable and actually answered; for they have to do with the transcendental subject of all inner appearances, which is not itself an appearance and hence is not given as an object, and regarding which none of the categories (at which the question is really being aimed) encounter conditions of their application. Thus here is a case where the common saying holds, that no answer is an answer, namely that a question about the constitution of this something, which cannot be thought through any determinate predicate because it is posited entirely outside the sphere of objects that can be given to us, is entirely nugatory and empty. — ibid. B506

This suggests to me that the problem is not so much about treating people as objects but one of framing the difference between objectivity and subjectivity incorrectly.

I dig the previous recommendations.

A Fire Upon The Deep by Victor Vinge is great work of world-building. Vinge has other books that are stories assuming the same premises/narrative fleshed out in very different ways. They are all good in their own way, but this one hurt my brain the most.

It seems to me that what is most critical in the culture wars is what the role of equal rights under law amounts to in application. That is often conflated with other initiatives but persists as the greatest obstacle to proportional representation in the U.S.

The distinction made between a realm of becoming and the realm of eternity in early Greek thought is an interesting frame to consider.

Change becomes the most difficult thing to talk about.

I was responding to you saying:

What I'm saying is that you're only perceiving the real world when you're not in the mental gallery at all. — Clarendon

In your statements so far, that limit is self-evident for you. Pointing out that is not the same for others is not an argument against your thesis.

What I'm saying is that you're only perceiving the real world when you're not in the mental gallery at all. — Clarendon

That suggests that our thoughts about perception are an impediment to perception. I accept that they are speculative but against what measure can they said to be false?

The situation is interesting to compare to the U.S. backed coup in Chile that brought in Pinochet. The corporate backers of that action were stinging from the loss of recently nationalized infrastructure.

Venezuela is decades past that moment.

You set up those conditions of what a "mental state" involved. You presume the difference that you hope to demonstrate.

Upon what basis do you make this distinction?

We do not own our experiences; we just have them.

As in order to secure direct contact with the mind-external ship, the experience would surely have literally to contain the ship. It's not enough that it's 'about' a ship. A note about a ship is about a ship, but it can't thereby be a means by which we perceive a ship. A thought about a ship is about a ship, but again one can't perceive a ship by thinking about a ship. So it won't help at all to make a view 'direct' just to focus on the way in which a sensation is 'about' or 'of' a ship. The sensation would have to include the ship itself. — Clarendon

There is a problem here with comparisons. If one invokes "experience", that includes all that we do not understand about it happening. Thinking about how perception works does not require a zero sum game where the "real" is real or not. If we do not stand on both sides, we cannot judge.

Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass tried to talk about it. Their attempts listened to the silence.

Happy New Year.

My last Rödl quote of the year:

In Metaphysics Γ 3, Aristotle announces a principle—indeed, the first principle—of the science that he has introduced in Γ 1 as the science of what is insofar as it is. In the course of the book, he expresses this principle in various ways. On the one hand he says it is impossible that something both be and not be (adding all the qualifications known from the sophistical refutations). On the other hand he says it is impossible to hold that something both is and is not. Aristotle gives no indication that he takes these formulations to represent different principles. Rather, his manner of writing suggests that he thinks it a matter of course, not requiring explicit mention, that these are ways of saying one and the same thing. It has been presented as a sign of the superior acumen of modern philosophical thought that it has been able to distinguish in Aristotle’s text two principles: a principle of being, an ontological principle, and a principle of thought, a psychological principle. In truth, this is not a sign of the intellectual maturity, but a manifestation of the corruption of modern philosophy by psychologism. — Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: Rödl. An Introduction to Absolute Idealism (pp. 149)

This is a two-for-one as Rödl acknowledges the influence of Kimhi in saying this.

Continuing on the topic of Being not being understood as a class or kind, the following from Bernadette captures an important aspect of Aristotle pursuing "being qua being""

Each of Aristotle's three most theoretical writings begins with a critique of his predecessors; but whereas the second books of his Physics and On Soul present his own definitions of nature and soul respectively, the second book of the Metaphysics seems to be nothing but a series of questions. Nature and soul are there regardless of what anyone might say about them (cf. Physics 193a3); but without perplexity there is nothing to metaphysics. Metaphysics seems to be the only science that in asking questions discovers all of its own field, and so, in completing philosophy, somehow returns philosophy to its origin in wonder. Perhaps, then, being is not just in speech a question (ti esti}; and that which was sought long ago, is sought now, and forever will be sought is precisely what being is. — Seth Bernadette, The Argument of the Action, 19: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy

In the context of the Rector speech, it is helpful to contrast Heidegger's vision with Nietzsche's.

I think my post of three years ago is germane to the role of retributive justice in locating the enemies of the "German people"

Imagine if this passage, we said:

412a11, It is bodies especially which are thought to be substances subjects, and of these, especially natural bodies; for these are sources of the rest.

('The rest' incidentally being artifacts, parts and properties, relations, etc).

So, here, 'subject' is nearer in meaning to the original 'being', and it gives the whole phrase a subtly different meaning, with the caveat that 'subjects' is also not exactly right. But it is arguably nearer the mark that 'substance' (IEP explains where that translation originated.) — Wayfarer

While I appreciate the work of Sachs as a translator and interpreter, the following from the article is problematic:

To Aristotle, this means that being is not a universal or a genus. If being is the comprehensive class to which everything belongs, how does it come to have sub-classes? — Sachs

If there are good reasons not to consider Being as a class, the different ways it is spoken or thought of will not be sufficient instances of being parts of that class which is not a class.

The problem is parallel to the way actuality and potentiality are considered as central to the way mortal beings come to be but Aristotle says we can only explore through analogy.

In any case, this all seems tomfoolery against simply pointing to natural beings as prime candidates for "beings being what they are."

I think de-individualization more precisely than "immersion" describes what Heidegger is after. — 180 Proof

I was thinking of how Heidegger played hide and seek with Nietzsche's version of Dionysus.

Adam Lecznar's Dionysus After Nietzsche does a great breakdown of which aspects of the "Greek awakening" Heidegger wanted to emphasize or ignore.

Works for me, even if that is not the only thing to be said.

Those are difficult questions. Judging from my readings of the Lectures on Nietzsche, the "Last Metaphysic" is the end of finding "value" in a system of the world as conceived as a given condition..

Against that, Heidegger is abandoning a formulation of virtue.

On the other hand, he exhorts his listeners to follow a higher good than their previous understanding permitted. Another thought: The Rector speech speaks of being at war with other people, within and without the borders of the state. Not a great context to talk about the "good" life while glorifying sacrifice.

That document is interesting in how it ties a revival of a "Greek awakening" to his moment. The references to the Republic seem to be a direct appeal to the unified participation in the proposed Ideal city.

There is a desire for immersion at play here.

Being was originally encountered before it was conceptually distorted by centuries of bad metaphysics? — Tom Storm

Heidegger did argue that thesis in many places. It may not be a marker for a particular set of beliefs but does set up a Golden Age logic you have questioned in other places.


Your focus does fit with the politically conservative "cultural war" Heidegger fought earlier as a dutiful Catholic opposing modern expressions of individual liberty. There is a strange twist to his attempt to re-direct the Nazis to his paradigm because many Catholics were put down during that time.

To have been a crucifix on the wall during those confessions....

I accept that trying to understand persons as objects is difficult and integral to our experience over time but balk at the idea that such a development can be reduced to a single habit that can be stopped like smoking or swinging arms after certain verbal outbursts.

The quote doesn't say this specifically, but I interpret the Soul (ousia, essence, form -- subject?, person?) as Transcendent & Potential, and Body (matter, flesh, substance) as Immanent & Actual. — Gnomon

Your depiction of Actual and Potential reverses their roles given in Aristotle's writing:

For this reason those are right in their view who maintain that the soul cannot exist without the body, but is not itself in any sense a body. It is not a body, it is associated with a body, and therefore resides in a body, and in a body of a particular kind; not at all as our predecessors supposed, who fitted it to any body, without adding any limitations as to what body or what kind of body, although it is unknown for any chance thing to admit any other chance thing. But our view explains the facts quite reasonably for the actuality of each thing is naturally inherent in its potentiality, that is in its own proper matter. From all this it is clear that the soul is a kind of actuality or notion of that which has the capacity of having a soul. — ibid. 414a

The key thing here is that matter is not an utter lack of actuality but reflects an architecture of integration. If we investigate with that model in hand, we can start thinking about nature (physis or what comes-to-be.

When talking about the intellect as possibly eternal, De Anima does not present that in the way it is discussed as a personal survival of death in Plato (a topic for another day). For Aristotle, the actuality of life includes all forms and their functions must include all the simpler types even if the more advanced kinds do things the others cannot. Later Platonists, especially Plotinus, disliked this tension and argued against Aristotle in some places and remodeled his model in others. What you call a "hylomorph" has a job in Plotinus.

Whoever you think more correct, the distinction between transcendental versus immanent is a confusing attribution amongst these ideas. With the different accounts of creation, the consequences were what they were. In Plato's Statesman, there is an interesting account of the Maker reversing time to reboot the system but that is quite different from imagining a power above nature that acts willy nilly and directly interferes with the affairs of men. Spinoza said that all that sort thing was the projection of our limitations upon the Creator.

Best of the season for you and the dear other.

Yes, there has been a sharp falling off of attempts to defend his behavior as a political device.

Experiencing, understanding and reasoning are acts of subjectivity. They are not something over and above the subject but constitutive of the subject itself. So when I engage in these activities I am intrinsically conscious of them as constitutive of me. Or so I would argue... — Esse Quam Videri

Kant made an effort to address this in the Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason. Perhaps you could set your thesis against that since his view is sharply different from yours.