Christmas Break

Okay, so are we reading the Intro to The Philosophy of History over Christmas? I remember Dr. Davis and Mr. York talking about it.

The Self-Sublating of Finitude

What would the implications of this view be for the possibility of artificial intelligence?

Hegel and Schopenhauer

I figured this wouldn't be a productive point to bring up in class, but it would make a nice blog post.

It struck me through the chapter that Hegel's Force seems a lot like Schopenhauer's Will (note: I have only experienced Schopenhauer through secondary sources, Dr. Anderson, and Nietzsche, so I might be off). There's an inner secret world (world-as-will), and a world of appearance (world-as-representation), but the thing that observes force and makes it manifest is actually force itself (just as we, for Schopenhauer, are manifestations of the will). Force and its expression are one, just as the will and its appearance are two sides of the same coin. I also don't think it would be unfair to draw a parallel between Schopenhauer's use of "Platonic" Ideas and Hegel's Laws.

I have no doubt that I've misread Hegel, misread Schopenhauer, or perhaps both, but it's an interesting thought.

Just for the sake of using the blog...

Force and the understanding was the craziest thing I have ever read in my life. The part that really bothered me about the reading was that I felt like I understood where he went, at least for the first part of the section, but I never had any idea how he got there. It is really unfortunate that this section was twice as long and (at least) twice as hard because it seemed like he was talking about really interesting and important things. Somehow in 25 pages we got from "Things" to "The simple Infinity, or the absolute Notion, [which] may be called the simple essence of life, the soul of the world, the universal blood, whose omnipresence is neither disturbed nor interrupted by any difference; but rather is itself every difference, as also their suppression; it pulsates within itself but does not move , inwardly vibrates, yet is at rest." That is crazy. I don't have any idea how he got there in 25 pages. Also, How is Holy of Holies a void? I thought God lived there...

The thing that really blows my mind is that one guy wrote all of this stuff! If its this hard to understand, Hegel must have been some sort of divine prophet to have put all of this in words. Either that or he was the most insane man to ever live...

Unconditioned Universals

In the first paragraph of FatU, Hegel talks about the object of consciousness now being an "unconditioned universal." I'm not quite sure what he's talking about.

He first mentions such a thing back in §129: "From a sensuous being [the object] turned into a universal; but this universal, since it originates in the sensuous, is essentially conditioned by it, and hence is not truly a self-identical universality at all, but one afflicted with an opposition; for this reason the universality splits into the extremes of singular individuality and universality, into the One of the properties, and the Also of 'free matters.' These pure determinatenesses seem to express the essential nature itself, but they are only a 'being-for-self' that is burdened with a 'being-for-another.' Since, however, both are essentially in a single unity, what we now have is unconditioned absolute universality, and consciousness here for the first time truly enters the realm of the Understanding."

So if we are to understand the unconditioned universal, that paragraph seems like the place to look, but I can't make much sense of it. It seems that since "conditioned" universality has to do with the senses, unconditioned universality must be non-sensuous. And this unconditioned universality somehow comes about by recognizing that being-for-self and being-for-another are part of a unity...

Wait, that makes sense, I think. Unconditioned means that we aren't making a distinction between "for self" and "for another," and thus we are unifying the in-itself and the for-us under one universal.

Any ideas? I kind of thought out loud, so I apologize if this post seemed disorganized.

Moments of Clarity

Are the best (no matter how quickly you fall back into frustration). I thought I would bring up a couple things:
1. Should we forget the idea of meeting once a week? I know work schedules are unpredictable and it is difficult to find a good time for everyone. We can simply get together to talk in smaller groups whenever it strikes us as convenient. On the other hand, the more time we have to discuss Hegel the better, and not having a crutch (Mr. Davis) may be a good thing. Let me know what you all think.
2. I think it is worth bringing up the question of changing our future reading schedule. I suspect that I am not alone in wanting to maximize Hegel study time even if that means reducing other readings. But I don't assume that everyone feels that way. I don't know if Mr. Davis feels that to be out of the question, but I do have a feeling that he would crack under the pressure of a democratic concensus. Again, let me (and everyone else) know what you think.

Sense-Certainty

I'm still a little uncertain of what sense-certainty can be, and I was wondering what any of you might have to say.

My original understanding was that sense-certainty is the immediate and instantaneous awareness of sensual experience. In other words, sense-certainty consists of all the sensual data available (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) at a particular time t. But this can't be right, because some (if not all) of our senses exist in time and not at a particular moment. I am thinking particularly of sound; sound is vibration and thus does not exist in any particular now, and cannot be included in the sensual data available at any time t. I suspect touch operates much the same way, and perhaps the other three, depending on how one looks at them. At any rate, sense-certainty cannot be aggregated sense-data (or something to that effect) at a particular time because sense-data can't be produced in a single moment.

My next guess is that sense-certainty is not any particular kind of sensation, but maybe only our ability to have conscious experience of sensation. Of course, that might be Hegel's point in the first place.

Any thoughts?

Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice why she is wrong to prefer birthdays, which come once a year to un-birthdays which seem to come 364 times:

«And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!»

«I don't know what you mean by “glory,”» Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. «Of course you don't— till I tell you. I meant “there's a nice knock-down argument for you!”»

«But “glory” doesn't mean “a nice knock-down argument,”» Alice objected.

«When I use a word,» Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, «it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.»

«The question is,» said Alice, «whether you can make words mean so many different things.»

«The question is,» said Humpty Dumpty, «which is to be master— that's all.»

Had Alice been properly armed with a knowledge of the dialectic of sense-certainty, perhaps she could have shown Mr. Dumpty how very unmasterful meaning to say things can be. She may also have explained how very little he knows about this supposed 'I' in which he contemptuously reclines. Oh, Humpty Dumpty isn't the master of much! But then I suppose that is why, Alice's lack of Hegel competence notwithstanding, he falls from the wall as even little children know.

On Paragraph 74: fear of error = division between self and cognition = division between cognition and absolute = impossibility of cognizing absolute = impossibility of truth = fear of truth or lazyness that gives up on seeking truth.

I am struck by a parallel between Hegel's argument here and Plato's Meno. Meno argues that if we claim ignorance, we don't know what we are looking for and thus we can't set out in search of it (80d). How will you know you have found it if you don't already know what it is? Socrates responds by talking about the possibility of an immortal soul. If the soul is immortal, then learning may be recollecting knowledge we already have but have forgotten. Socrates notes that whatever the problems with recollection might be, it makes us ready to search, it makes us better and braver while Meno's objection makes us lazy (86b-c).

"The fundamental belief of metaphysicians is the belief in the antitheses of values. It never occured even to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold (where, doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, "de omnibus dubitandum." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular variations and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from some corner, perhaps from below-"frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters."
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.


The "belief in the antitheses of values" juxtaposed with "de omnibus dubitandum" makes me wonder whether or not Nietzsche is reading Hegel right. Hegel isn't saying that all facts should be doubted at all; however, from context clues it seems that Nietzsche is referring to Hegel's dialectical method.

Class 09/31

I was impressed with the general preparedness of the group.

I think the core question today really was "What is consciousness?" Consciousness, the first phenomenal appearance of knowing, seems to have at least a double nature. It is an object known and a knowing. It is a "distinguishing" and a "relating".  Somehow, this double nature proves productive and allows consciousness to go "beyond itself." When it does, we call this process "experience."

The most immediate contrast seems to be between Hegel's account of learning or experience and one wherein some new object is not produced BY consciousness but is instead given TO consciousness. Throughout his writings Hegel emphasizes the need reason has for immanent causes not external causes (in part because an external cause simply begs another question).

At the moment, I am imagining that immanent, dialectical progress is like those illusions that you stare at which become something else just by staring. They become something they already are and the nature of your apprehension changes with the object. Nothing is added, and yet all the relations flip or switch and there is a "new" object/relation to object (always both together!). 

What does "Science" refer to in Hegel's writing?

"Science" comes up frequently in the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit (or PhS). It translates "Wissenschaft" and is not an incorrect translation. Still, it can be misleading. What Hegel means by "Wissenschaft" is more like what we call metaphysics than what we call natural science.

The PhS is a ladder to Wissenschaft (cf. 77) and the Wissenschaft der Logik (Science of Logic) is the book that the PhS is building up toward. The Science of Logic is neither about what we call science nor about what we call logic. It is pretty much a book of metaphysical inquiry [where Hegel takes the basic categories we use to think about the ultimate causes of things (Being, Essence, Idea) as a path to apprehending the nature of "ultimate reality" or truth.]

As you can glean from the Introduction to the PhS, Science is not phenomenal knowing. That is, it does not have to do with the appearances of things to the senses in space and time. Science has to do with the ultimate and abiding conceptual nature of things, what in studying Plato we call "Eide" or Forms.

That said, the PhS will deal precisely with this phenomenal knowing (to the senses, in space and time) NOT Wissenschaft. The PhS shows how phenomenal knowing leads us to the deeper truth of Wissenschaft by the unstable structure of appearance itself.

Welcome

Welcome to your Hegel Seminar class blog. Raise questions, test ideas and vent frustrations about the reading here. 

Check weekly, post as often as you like (especially after reading and after class if your thoughts are still churning.) 

Post all short writing assignments here after you turn them in so that we may learn from one another's writing.