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Lectures on the History of Philosophy #1
Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1: Greek Philosophy to Plato
G. W. F. Hegel (1770�1831), the influential German philosopher, believed that human history was advancing spiritually and morally according to God’s purpose. At the beginning of this masterwork, Hegel writes: “What the history of Philosophy shows us is a succession of noble minds, a gallery of heroes of thought, who, by the power of Reason, have penetrated into the being of things, of nature and of spirit, into the Being of God, and have won for us by their labours the highest treasure, the treasure of reasoned knowledge.�
In his introduction to this Bison Book edition, Frederick C. Beiser notes the complex and controversial history of Hegel’s text. He makes a case that this English-language translation by E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson is still the most reliable one.
In his introduction to this Bison Book edition, Frederick C. Beiser notes the complex and controversial history of Hegel’s text. He makes a case that this English-language translation by E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson is still the most reliable one.
487 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1833
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About the author
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1,873books2,363followersGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.
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June 19, 2014So why Hegel? And why Hegel’s History of Philosophy?
First, it should really almost go without saying that we not only live and think in the shadow of Hegel even today, especially when we least expect it and most loudly object against such an accusation, but that we are so incredibly close to Hegel. Almost every accusation made against him in regard to History either we commit ourselves or we are enabled to make such an accusation on the very basis of Hegelian thinking. As only a quick example, that Hegel judged other times and other places and other people and other philosophies upon the basis of his own overestimation of his own System and upon his overvaluation of the Prussian mode of government as the end/telos of the History of Freedom is pretty close to our own practice of judging all previous modes of civilization as deficient in relation to our own socio-democratic societies and our scientific-critical modes of discourse. And when we, despite ourselves, insist that other traditions ought to be judged and evaluated from their own internal and implicit criteria, we repeat the kind of historicism which Hegel himself assisted in developing.
And in reading this history one is struck by how frequently what goes on philosophically prior to Plato is still going on today ; I mean by that how frequently the True falls into mere opinion and diversity with such an obstinateness that this very form of the bad is raised by naive consciousness to Truth. And how frequently Hegel sees among his contemporaries the very same degeneration of thinking insisted upon as the highest. At the same time, one must insist upon progress that one may also measure the degree to which the retrograde is always preserved as a moment within the truth of whence we’ve come and whither we shall stride. Both modes of one-sidedness, the pride of superior advancement and the shame of the retrograde, must be maintained in their unity, but not their balance. This is the difference between the Hegelian and the non-Hegelian.
Why his History? Because his Phenomenology is so damn microscopically difficult to read! Which is to say that the develop of the Concept in the history of philosophy is a path toward the plane of science which parallels the path consciousness takes in The Phenomenology toward the same position of thought coming to think itself purely in and for itself. The historical development of the Concept, Hegel clearly assures us, also mimics the develop of the Concept within itself as laid out in his Logic. The movement of Being-Nothing-Becoming, for instance, is not only the beginning of thinking within the Logic, but is the very beginning of philosophy itself as it arises historically. So, Hegel’s History as an introduction to the System.
And here’s a little nugget I’ve been saving re: Hegel’s Phenomenology. You know that anecdote about how Johnson supposedly refuted Berkeley’s idealism by kicking a stone and declaring thusly, “I refute Berkeley thus�? Well, that is where Hegel’s Phenomenology begins, at that point where consciousness stubs its toe on a stone and first begins to experience. It is not the refutation of Truth, but is the very beginning of coming to Truth.
A few words attempting to locate the question of the text. (Mostly trivial and geeky).
________________
This is not the "1770s text." 1770 was the year of the birth of Hegel. This translation is over 100 years old and in need of revision. I'm not sure what the status of the German text is, but I'm absolutely certain it is in a better state than it was in the 1880's. Hopefully we will have a new edition and translation of these lectures before long. Edit -- but if you're waiting for a newer brighter better edition and translation, don't hold your breath. It's complicated. Meaning, this edition/translation is serviceable.
________________
The current Critical Edition pertains only to volume one of these Lectures ::
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie
Teil 1: Einleitung in die Geschichte der Philosophie. Orientalische Philosophie
Kritische Ausgabe. Neu herausgegeben von Walter Jaeschke.
PhB 439. 1993. XL, 403 Seiten.
978-3-7873-1023-4. Kartoniert 22.90
Hegels Konzeption der Philosophiegeschichtsschreibung als eigenständige Form philosophischer Erkenntnis hat entscheidend dazu beigetragen, die Philosophiegeschichte als Disziplin innerhalb der philosophischen Wissenschaften zu etablieren.
[which is to say, that's the only (affordable) volume I found on the Meiner website :: the critical thing is :: .]
It is based on different manuscripts than is the text underlying the H&S translation (that of Michelet's 2nd ed. of 1840-44, which is an abridgement of his 1833-36 1st ed.) ; and thus does not supersede this earlier form. Rather, Jaeschke's supersedes the earlier attempt of Hoffmeister at a critical edition. The Hoffmeister text was translated in 1985 by Knox and Miller, which, as you see, is now outdated. Two volumes based on the recent critical edition have now been english'd :: & -- but, again, these are different versions of Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy which he had presented nine times throughout his career. (cf H&S, I, xxxi.ff)
It's complicated. Really rather.
First, it should really almost go without saying that we not only live and think in the shadow of Hegel even today, especially when we least expect it and most loudly object against such an accusation, but that we are so incredibly close to Hegel. Almost every accusation made against him in regard to History either we commit ourselves or we are enabled to make such an accusation on the very basis of Hegelian thinking. As only a quick example, that Hegel judged other times and other places and other people and other philosophies upon the basis of his own overestimation of his own System and upon his overvaluation of the Prussian mode of government as the end/telos of the History of Freedom is pretty close to our own practice of judging all previous modes of civilization as deficient in relation to our own socio-democratic societies and our scientific-critical modes of discourse. And when we, despite ourselves, insist that other traditions ought to be judged and evaluated from their own internal and implicit criteria, we repeat the kind of historicism which Hegel himself assisted in developing.
And in reading this history one is struck by how frequently what goes on philosophically prior to Plato is still going on today ; I mean by that how frequently the True falls into mere opinion and diversity with such an obstinateness that this very form of the bad is raised by naive consciousness to Truth. And how frequently Hegel sees among his contemporaries the very same degeneration of thinking insisted upon as the highest. At the same time, one must insist upon progress that one may also measure the degree to which the retrograde is always preserved as a moment within the truth of whence we’ve come and whither we shall stride. Both modes of one-sidedness, the pride of superior advancement and the shame of the retrograde, must be maintained in their unity, but not their balance. This is the difference between the Hegelian and the non-Hegelian.
Why his History? Because his Phenomenology is so damn microscopically difficult to read! Which is to say that the develop of the Concept in the history of philosophy is a path toward the plane of science which parallels the path consciousness takes in The Phenomenology toward the same position of thought coming to think itself purely in and for itself. The historical development of the Concept, Hegel clearly assures us, also mimics the develop of the Concept within itself as laid out in his Logic. The movement of Being-Nothing-Becoming, for instance, is not only the beginning of thinking within the Logic, but is the very beginning of philosophy itself as it arises historically. So, Hegel’s History as an introduction to the System.
And here’s a little nugget I’ve been saving re: Hegel’s Phenomenology. You know that anecdote about how Johnson supposedly refuted Berkeley’s idealism by kicking a stone and declaring thusly, “I refute Berkeley thus�? Well, that is where Hegel’s Phenomenology begins, at that point where consciousness stubs its toe on a stone and first begins to experience. It is not the refutation of Truth, but is the very beginning of coming to Truth.
A few words attempting to locate the question of the text. (Mostly trivial and geeky).
________________
This is not the "1770s text." 1770 was the year of the birth of Hegel. This translation is over 100 years old and in need of revision. I'm not sure what the status of the German text is, but I'm absolutely certain it is in a better state than it was in the 1880's. Hopefully we will have a new edition and translation of these lectures before long. Edit -- but if you're waiting for a newer brighter better edition and translation, don't hold your breath. It's complicated. Meaning, this edition/translation is serviceable.
________________
The current Critical Edition pertains only to volume one of these Lectures ::
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie
Teil 1: Einleitung in die Geschichte der Philosophie. Orientalische Philosophie
Kritische Ausgabe. Neu herausgegeben von Walter Jaeschke.
PhB 439. 1993. XL, 403 Seiten.
978-3-7873-1023-4. Kartoniert 22.90
Hegels Konzeption der Philosophiegeschichtsschreibung als eigenständige Form philosophischer Erkenntnis hat entscheidend dazu beigetragen, die Philosophiegeschichte als Disziplin innerhalb der philosophischen Wissenschaften zu etablieren.
[which is to say, that's the only (affordable) volume I found on the Meiner website :: the critical thing is :: .]
It is based on different manuscripts than is the text underlying the H&S translation (that of Michelet's 2nd ed. of 1840-44, which is an abridgement of his 1833-36 1st ed.) ; and thus does not supersede this earlier form. Rather, Jaeschke's supersedes the earlier attempt of Hoffmeister at a critical edition. The Hoffmeister text was translated in 1985 by Knox and Miller, which, as you see, is now outdated. Two volumes based on the recent critical edition have now been english'd :: & -- but, again, these are different versions of Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy which he had presented nine times throughout his career. (cf H&S, I, xxxi.ff)
It's complicated. Really rather.
Read
January 9, 2023Zdecydowanie można odczuć, że są to wykłady z wielu, bardzo wielu lat - posklejane, często bez retuszu. W efekcie mnóstwo tu powtórzeń, a i ciągłość wywodu trochę na tym kuleje. Trudno byłoby się jednakowoż zniżyć do poziomu postponowania autora za owe liczne powtórzenia. Są one urocze i nie powinno się ich unikać.
Nader ciekawy w 'Wykładach' jest sam 'Wstęp do historii filozofii'. Można w nim znaleźć sporo całkiem ciekawych uogólnień. Jest to część stanowiąca w gruncie rzeczy samodzielną całość. Potem sytuacja się komplikuje.
Ujęcie filozofii wschodniej jest nieobiektywne, europocentryczne i w sumie żenujące. Z drugiej wszakże strony intelektualna bezczelność Hegla jest czymś ujmującym, erotycznie zgoła uwznioślającym (w rozumieniu platońskim). Trzeba ją docenić.
Omówienie myśli Talesa jest nadinterpretacją, co uderza tym bardziej, że w rzeczonym 'Wstępie...' Hegel przestrzega przed ahistorycznością filozoficznej egzegezy.
Do plusów trzeba zaliczyć szczegółową analizę paradoksów Zenona i bardzo ciekawą eksplikację Heraklita. W rzeczy samej Hegel odkrywa się jako heraklitejczyk. Mówi o Heraklicie: "od niego trzeba datować początek istnienia filozofii" (411). A wcześniej - że Heraklita można nazywać nauczycielem Platona. Są to wielce znaczące słowa. "Bardzo wielkie i ważne słowa!" (416), cytując samego Hegla.
Najlepszą partią książki jest część dotycząca Sokratesa. Hegel zachwyca w niej błyskotliwością uwag.
Interpretacja sokratyków jest pośpieszna. Zapewne nazbyt pośpieszna.
Z historii jednej intelekcji - idącego psim swędem oglądu (proszę mi wybaczyć nonszalancję):
Hegel interpretuje historię filozofii tak, by pasowała do jego filozofii jako samorozwoju Ducha. Przytaczany przez niego zarzut, który Arystoteles kieruje w stronę pitagorejczyków, tyczy się, niewątpliwie, samego Hegla. A brzmi on: "jeżeli gdzieś powstała luka [w systemie pitagorejczyków] szybko ją oni wypełniali, ażeby tylko całą teorię uczynić spójną" (318). Hegel czyni tak samo. Jest to częstokroć wręcz irytujące, kiedy ociera się on o inercyjną dezinterpretację, czy wręcz świadomie się jej dopuszcza, gwoli programowo systematycznemu ujęciu (sic!) rozwoju myśli filozoficznej. W każdym razie, trzeba uważać, by całości jego wykładni nie brać bezkrytycznie jako po prostu wykładni historii filozofii - bez świadomości wiary Hegla w autentyczność postępu ducha w dziejach myśli; wiary w faktyczność systematycznego rozwoju doktryn filozoficznych w kierunku myślenia spekulatywnego i stopniowego w nich uświadamiania siebie samego sobie samemu przez Ducha jako ich podmiotu i przedmiotu zarazem. Poza tym, stosując swój żargon, Hegel czasami ociera się o bełkot, co ma to też, oczywiście, dobre strony. Trzeba pochwalić odwagę pozwalającą mu na tak ekscentryczną interpretację historii myśli filozoficznej. "Wykłady' czynią poniekąd usprawiedliwionym każdy ekscentryzm interpretacyjny. Hegel cenił przede wszystkim Arystotelesa, bardziej nawet od Platona, co zrazu może zaskakiwać. Jest to w tej książce widoczne w dwójnasób. 'Wykłady' zawierają pochwały Stagiryty, implicytne i nawet eksplicytne. Hegel korzysta z jego krytyki starożytnych myślicieli, jakby nie było go stać na własną. Cytuje go w sposób nieprzyzwoicie obszerny. Ale i sama forma 'Wykładów', ten nonszalancki sposób, w jaki je prowadzi, jest iście arystotelejski. Zachowane pisma Stagiryty to, jak wiadomo, notatki z wykładów, które powstawały pośpiesznie, na gorąco, jako materiał mnemotechniczny, z definicji więc niejako nieukończony i nie wymagający ukończenia, w efekcie czego widać w nich nieścisłość, chaotyczność, 'połebkowość' etc. To samo tyczy się 'Wykładów' Hegla, który właśnie z tego powodu wydaje się być następcą Arystotelesa.
Tutaj piękna platońska metafora Hegla:
"Trzeźwe myślenie odznacza się takim szczególnym talentem, ma taką dziwną zdolność, że jego stan bycia na czczo nie prowadzi do głodu ani pragnienia, lecz towarzyszy mu stałe uczucie sytości. W rezultacie myślenie, którem mówi takim językiem, [rezonerstwo] demaskuje się jako martwy [zdrowy] rozsądek, ponieważ tylko to, co martwe, będąc ma czczo, jest i pozostaje zarazem syte. Ale to, co żywe, zarówno w sensie fizyczny, jak i duchowym, nie pozostaje w byciu na czczo zaspokojone, lecz budzi się w nim popęd, zaczyna odczuwać głód i żądzę prawdy, jej poznania, domaga się zaspokojenia tego popędu i nie daje się nakarmić i nasycić tego rodzaju refleksjami, jakimi darzy nas trzeźwość myślenia" (44-45).
Tutaj pięknie, klasycznie idealistycznie, by tak rzec, wypowiada się Hegel o Pitagorasie i pitagorejczykach:
"Sam Pitagoras był pewnym dopracowanym w najmniejszych szczegółach dziełem sztuki, dostojną posągową naturą (plastiche Natur). [...] W trakcie tego nowicjatu [pitagorejskiego], który był czasem przeznaczonym na naukę, nakazane było milczenie. Można powiedzieć [...] że jest to istotny warunek wszelkiego wykształcenia. W kształceniu człowiek rozszerza i bierze w posiadanie swoją wewnętrzność. W wyniku tego, że trzyma się samego siebie, w milczeniu, człowiek nie staje się bynajmniej uboższy w myśli, w żywą treść ducha. Uczy się on przez to zdolności pojmowania i dochodzenia do zrozumienia tego, że jego pomysły, obiekcje, nie są nic warte. Dzięki wzrastającemu zrozumieniu tego, że takie pomysły [poglądy, przekonania] nie są nic warte, odzwyczaja się on w końcu od tego, żeby je mieć. [...] Prawdziwa kultura nie polega na tym, by zwracać zbytnią uwagę na samego siebie, zajmować się sobą jako jednostką - to bowiem jest próżność - ale na tym, by zapomnieć o sobie, zagłębić się w rzeczy, w tym, co ogólne - polega więc na samozapomnieniu" (276-277, 280).
I nawet klasyka Heglowska:
"To, dla czego istnieje inne, jest tym samym, co Inne. Tylko dzięki temu duch w swoim Innym jest u siebie samego. Rozwój ducha jest wychodzeniem z wewnętrzności, eksponowaniem na zewnątrz swoich momentów jako oddzielonych od siebie i zarazem dochodzeniem do siebie. Bo bycie u siebie ducha, to jego dochodzenie do siebie samego, może być określone jako jego najwyższy, absolutny cel. Chce on tylko tego i niczego innego. Wszystko, co dzieje się � co dzieje się wiecznie � […] co dokonuje się w wymiarze czasu, zmierza tylko do tego, żeby duch poznał siebie, uczynił siebie dla siebie samego czymś przedmiotowym, odnalazł się, stał się czymś istniejącym dla siebie samego, połączył się z sobą" (50-51).
"Ruch ten, jako konkretny, jest szeregiem procesów rozwojowych, którego nie należy sobie wyobrażać jako linii prostej ciągnącej się od jakiegoś punktu wyjścia w abstrakcyjną nieskończoność, lecz jako koło, jako powrót do siebie samego. Koło to ma za obwód wielką mnogość kół. Całość jest wielkim, zakrzywiającym się ku sobie na powrót, ciągiem procesów rozwojowych" (56).
"Zadaniem, z którym ma się uporać świat, jest w ogóle pojednanie się z duchem, rozpoznanie w nim siebie" (153).
"Jest to krąg, który zamyka się w sobie, ale to jego zamknięcie się w sobie jest tak samo przechodzeniem w pewien inny krąg - jest to wir, którego punkt środkowy, do którego się zwraca, leży bezpośrednio na obwodzie pewnego wyższego kręgu, który go w siebie wplata" (488).
### A POZA TYM ###
Historia filozofii
"Historia, którą mamy przed sobą, jest historią odnajdywania siebie samej przez myśl" (27). "Historia filozofii sama ma charakter naukowy, a nawet, w aspekcie tego, co stanowi jej sedno, sama staje się nauką filozofii" (30). "Dorobek myślenia [...] stanowi sam byt ducha. Dlatego właśnie poznanie go nie jest uczonością - znajomością tego, co umarło, zostało pochowane i minęło. Historia filozofii ma do czynienia właśnie z tym, co się nie starzeje, co aktualnie żywe" (70). "Historia filozofii żadną miarą nie może być uprawiana przez historyka, który chciałby się powstrzymywać od wydawania sądu" (166).
Filozofia
"Pierwszym warunkiem filozofii jest niezłomne umiłowanie prawdy, wiara w moc ducha. Człowiek, z racji tego, że jest duchem, ma prawo i obowiązek uważać siebie samego za godnego rzeczy najwyższych. [...] Jeśli ktoś będzie miał wiarę, to nie znajdzie się nic niedostępnego i trudnego, co by się przed nim nie otworzyło. Ukryta zrazu i zamknięta istota wszechświata nie jest w stanie stawić oporu niezłomnej woli poznania , przed którą musi się otworzyć, wystawiając na widok i oferując wszystkie swoje bogactwa i głębie" (18).
"Czegóż to nie nazywano filozofią i filozofowaniem!" (30).
"Filozofia zamierza poznać to, co niezmienne, wieczne, istniejące samo w sobie i dla siebie" (31).
"Filozofia jest obiektywną nauką o prawdzie, nauką o jej konieczności, pojęciowym poznawaniem - a nie żadnym mniemaniem i wysuwaniem mniemań" (38).
"Filozofia nie jest somnambulizmem, tylko raczej najbardziej przytomną świadomością" (70).
"Nieokreślona jeszcze i bezpośrednia ogólność (Bóg), byt, obiektywna myśl, która w swej niestrudzonej aktywności niczemu nie pozwala istnieć w trwały sposób obok siebie, jest substancjalną podstawą wszelkiej filozofii [...]" (149).
"Filozofia chce osiągnąć błogostan dzięki myśleniu; religia - poprzez medytacyjne skupienie (Andacht)" (183).
Sokrates (część tycząca się Sokratesa jest bardzo zajmująca):
"Sokrates nie wyrósł nagle jak grzyb z ziemi. [...] Jest on nie tylko nadzwyczaj ważną figurą w historii filozofii - najbardziej interesującą w filozofii starożytności - lecz jest osobistością o znaczeniu powszechnodziejowym. Jest on głównym punktem zwrotnym ducha w jego skierowaniu się ku sobie samemu" (537).
"U Sokratesa, jak u Protagorasa, istotą jest myśl; również u Sokratesa mamy tę sytuację, że samowiedna myśl zniosła wszystko to, co określone, ale w taki sposób, że od razu ujęła ona w myśleniu to, co spoczywające, stałe. Ten stały grunt myśli, substancja, to, co istniejące samo w sobie i dla siebie, to, co bezwzględnie się utrzymujące, określone zostało jako cel, a bliżej jako prawda, dobro" (539).
"Występuje tu pewna różnica w stosunku do świadomości sofistów: ta mianowicie, że zakładanie i wytwarzanie dokonujące się w sferze myśli jest wytwarzaniem i zakładaniem czegoś takiego, co nie jest założone, co istnieje samo w sobie i dla siebie - [jako] to, co obiektywne, stojące ponad partykularnością interesów, skłonności, stanowiące moc panującą nad wszystkim, co partykularne. [...] z drugiej strony jest to w równym stopniu istniejące samo sobie i dla siebie to, co obiektywne, nie obiektywność zewnętrzna, lecz ogólność duchowa" (541).
"W swym przeciwieństwie względem sofistów nie stoją oni [Sokrates i Platon] na stanowisku starowiernych, zgodnie z którym - w interesie greckiej obyczajowości, religii, starodawnych obyczajów - skazani zostali Anaksagoras i Protagoras. Wprost przeciwnie. Refleksja, oddanie decydującego głosu świadomości jest im wspólne z sofistami" (539-540).
"Zasadą Sokratesa jest, że człowiek ma sam z siebie znaleźć to, co jest dla niego przeznaczeniem, co jest jego celem, ostatecznym celem świata, prawdą, tym, co istnieje samo w sobie i dla siebie - że musi on dotrzeć do prawdy o własnych siłach. Jest to powrót świadomości do siebie, który jednak określony jest jako wydobycie się ze swojej szczegółowej subiektywności; zawarte w tym jest właśnie to, że usunięte zostają przypadkowość świadomości, pomysł, arbitralność, partykularność - ażeby w tym, co wewnętrzne, mieć do wydobycie się, to, co istniejące samo w sobie i dla siebie. Obiektywność ma tu sens obiektywności, która istnieje samo w sobie i dla siebie, a nie obiektywności zewnętrznej" (540).
"Ze względu na to, że w ten sposób Sokrates zapoczątkował filozofie moralną (to, że ją uprawiał, sprawiło, że stała się ona popularna), cała późniejsza gadanina moralna i popularna filozofia uznała go za swego patrona i świętego i wyniosła do roli usprawiedliwiającego płaszczyka wszelkiej nie-filozofii; a miary dopełniło to jeszcze, że u lubiącej się wzruszać publiczności zyskała mu popularność i wzbudziła zainteresowanie jego śmierć, jako poniesione niewinnie cierpienie. Cyceron, który z jednej strony jest w swym myśleniu zwrócony ku teraźniejszości, a z drugiej strony ma taką świadomość, że filozofia powinna się dostosować, i nie zdobył dla niej żadnej nowej treści, chwalił u Sokratesa (co się dość często po nim powtarza) jako jego właściwą zasługę i to, co było u niego najszczytniejsze, że 'sprowadził filozofię z nieba na ziemię, do miast, a nawet do domów' (przeniósł ją na grunt ludzkiego codziennego życia). To jest sedno tego, o czym była mowa. Toteż potem jest to często rozumiane tak (tak to wygląda), jak gdyby w rezultacie najlepsza i najprawdziwszą filozofią była filozofia domowa i kuchenna (jak gdyby stała się ona środkiem domowym, pod każdym względem dostosowanym do zwykłych ludzkich wyobrażeń, w której widzimy przyjaciół i ludzi rozmawiających o prawości itd. i o tym, co można znać na tej ziemi, co jest prawdą w codziennym życiu bez zapuszczania się w głębiny nieba - albo raczej w głębiny świadomości; lecz mniemają oni, że właśnie najpierw było to, że Sokrates się na to odważył. Ale też Sokratesowi to dojście do praktycznej filozofii nie było dane za darmo; przedtem przemyślał gruntownie wszelkie spekulacje ówczesnej filozofii, aby zejść do wnętrza świadomości, myślenia. To właśnie [wnętrze] jest ogólnym momentem [jego] zasady" (543-544).
"Najwyższą pięknością jest najzupełniejsze ukształtowanie wszystkich stron indywidualności wedle jednej wewnętrznej zasady" (551).
"Stoi on przed nami jako jedna z owych wielkich posągowych natur, wykutych w całości z jednej bryły [...] - jako doskonałe dzieło sztuki, które samo siebie wyniosło na wyżyny" (551).
"Hipokryzja jest największa ironią" (561).
"We wszystko należy wątpić, należy zrezygnować ze wszystkich z góry przyjętych założeń, aby otrzymać je na powrót jako coś wytworzonego przez pojęcie" (568).
"W ogóle człowiek nie może niczego otrzymać, przyjąć jako czegoś danego z zewnątrz, tak jak przyjmuje formę wosk; lecz wszystko to tkwi w duszy człowieka i tylko wydaje się, że on czegoś się uczy. [...] Wszystko, co ma dla człowieka wartość [...] zawarte jest w samym człowieku, ma się rozwijać z niego samego. [...] To coś zewnętrznego przychodzi wprawdzie w doświadczeniu, ale to, co w tym ogólne, należy do myślenia - [...] jest czymś rzeczywiście ogólnym" (574).
"Przypadkowej, partykularnej wewnętrzności przeciwstawił Sokrates ową ogólną, prawdziwą wewnętrzność myśli" (575).
"Ale nie byłoby tu na miejscu rozplątywanie całego mnóstwa opacznych wyobrażeń i przeciwieństw właściwej naszej naturze" (579).
"W tej świadomości wznosił Sokrates obyczajność na poziom zrozumienia", moralności (580).
"Wyszydzanie tego, co jest godne czci, jest czymś nędznym i płaskim" (588).
Powrót świadomości do siebie samej wystąpił po raz pierwszy u Sokratesa.
"Poznaj samego siebie. Nie jest to poznanie przez człowieka własnych partykularności; poznanie siebie jest prawem ducha. [...] Jest on herosem, który na miejsce delfickiego boga wyniósł zasadę, że człowiek w sobie samym wie, co jest prawdziwe, że musi on patrzeć w siebie" (611-612).
"Sokrates jest herosem dlatego, że swoją świadomością poznał i wyraził wyższą zasadę ducha" (625).
"Sokrates został określony jako punkt zwrotny filozoficznego ducha (myślenia). Wysunął on [jako zasadę] poznanie i to, co ogólne. Wraz z nim począwszy od niego widzimy, jak pojawia się wiedza, świat wznosi się do królestwa świadomej myśli, królestwo to staje się przedmiotem" (628).
"Główną zasługą, główną zasadą działania nauczyciela jest udzielanie potężnego bodźca, wprawianie w stan podniecenia" (630).
###
"Wiadomo, że tak zwany rozum doszedł [w naszym zachodnim świecie] do znaczenia, odrzucił autorytet wiary, uczynił chrześcijaństwo rozumnym w tym sensie, że to uznania czegokolwiek miałoby mnie zobowiązywać tylko własne zrozumienie, własne całkowite przekonanie. Ale dziwnym sposobem to obstawanie przy prawie rozumu przechodzi dziwną metamorfozę, rezultatem której jest wniosek, że rozum nie może poznać niczego prawdziwego. Ten tak zwany rozum zwalcza, z jednej strony, wiarę religijną w imię myślącego rozumu i przy jego pomocy - ale jednocześnie zwraca się też przeciw rozumowi, jest wrogiem rozumu. Wbrew niemu obstaje przy wewnętrznym przeczuciu, uczuciu, i w rezultacie miarą tego, co ma obowiązywać, czyni stronę subiektywną - własne przekonanie, takie, jakie każdy tworzy sobie we własnej subiektywności, sam z siebie i w sobie samym" (38-39).
O kosmogonii Anaksymandra: "Kosmogonia ta nie jest gorsza od hipotezy geologicznej, w myśl której miałaby ulec rozerwaniu skorupa ziemska albo od hipotezy eksplozji Słońca. Autorem tej ostatniej jest Buffon, który, na odwrót, zaczyna od słońca i każe planetom powstawać z niego jako żużel" (256).
"A ile jest w tym wszystkim sensu, tego nie wie ani ten, kto to mówi, ani ten, kto stara się zrozumieć, co to wszystko ma znaczyć. Im mętniejsze stają się myśli, tym wydają się głębsze" (265). "W rezultacie dzieło to jest wielkim balastem [dla umysłu]" (162). "Ciemny i wątpliwej wartości wytwór mętnych i płaskich umysłów" (266).
"[...] Platon w jednym ze swoich dialogów każe grać główną rolę Parmenidesowi i wkłada mu w usta najznakomitszą dialektykę, jak kiedykolwiek istniała [...]" (350).
"Co złego zdarzyło się na świecie od czasów Adama, usprawiedliwione jest dobrymi racjami" (517).
przeczucie zawierające treść myślową - gedankenvolle ahnungen
słowa - czczą formułą do mechanicznego klepania - eine leere Formel der Lippen
szturmowanie nieba - ein Schlagen ins Blaue
### PRZYPISY NOWICKIEGO ###
"Wyjaśnia to bliżej naturę Heglowskiego aprioryzmu. Mimo że podmiotowość jest sama w sobie rezerwuarem wszelkiej prawdziwej treści, nie może jej ona jednak sama z siebie wysnuć, musi ją niejako dopiero wyzwolić z niej zewnętrzny, ale odpowiednio do niej 'dostrojony' impuls. Oczywiście ten 'instrument', jakim jest podmiotowość, kształtuje się historycznie i dużo trzeba czasu, aby jego 'brzmienie' stało się odpowiednio 'czyste'" (698, przyp. do stron 107). "Ów oddźwięk zostaje wzbudzony [za sprawą czegoś zewnętrznego] w podmiotowej głębi, wydobywając z niej coś, co przedtem było przed świadomością zakryte, a zatem wydobyło się z ukrycia, zostało wydane na świat, dopiero w wyniku tego oddźwięku [wzbudzonego we wnętrzu przez coś zewnętrznego]. Sytuacja jest więc dialektyczna. [...] Duch płodzi sam siebie, zaświadcza sam o sobie itd. [...] Żaden z tych momentów nie jest rzeczywisty w oderwaniu jeden od drugiego" (701-702, przyp. do s. 113).
Nader ciekawy w 'Wykładach' jest sam 'Wstęp do historii filozofii'. Można w nim znaleźć sporo całkiem ciekawych uogólnień. Jest to część stanowiąca w gruncie rzeczy samodzielną całość. Potem sytuacja się komplikuje.
Ujęcie filozofii wschodniej jest nieobiektywne, europocentryczne i w sumie żenujące. Z drugiej wszakże strony intelektualna bezczelność Hegla jest czymś ujmującym, erotycznie zgoła uwznioślającym (w rozumieniu platońskim). Trzeba ją docenić.
Omówienie myśli Talesa jest nadinterpretacją, co uderza tym bardziej, że w rzeczonym 'Wstępie...' Hegel przestrzega przed ahistorycznością filozoficznej egzegezy.
Do plusów trzeba zaliczyć szczegółową analizę paradoksów Zenona i bardzo ciekawą eksplikację Heraklita. W rzeczy samej Hegel odkrywa się jako heraklitejczyk. Mówi o Heraklicie: "od niego trzeba datować początek istnienia filozofii" (411). A wcześniej - że Heraklita można nazywać nauczycielem Platona. Są to wielce znaczące słowa. "Bardzo wielkie i ważne słowa!" (416), cytując samego Hegla.
Najlepszą partią książki jest część dotycząca Sokratesa. Hegel zachwyca w niej błyskotliwością uwag.
Interpretacja sokratyków jest pośpieszna. Zapewne nazbyt pośpieszna.
Z historii jednej intelekcji - idącego psim swędem oglądu (proszę mi wybaczyć nonszalancję):
Hegel interpretuje historię filozofii tak, by pasowała do jego filozofii jako samorozwoju Ducha. Przytaczany przez niego zarzut, który Arystoteles kieruje w stronę pitagorejczyków, tyczy się, niewątpliwie, samego Hegla. A brzmi on: "jeżeli gdzieś powstała luka [w systemie pitagorejczyków] szybko ją oni wypełniali, ażeby tylko całą teorię uczynić spójną" (318). Hegel czyni tak samo. Jest to częstokroć wręcz irytujące, kiedy ociera się on o inercyjną dezinterpretację, czy wręcz świadomie się jej dopuszcza, gwoli programowo systematycznemu ujęciu (sic!) rozwoju myśli filozoficznej. W każdym razie, trzeba uważać, by całości jego wykładni nie brać bezkrytycznie jako po prostu wykładni historii filozofii - bez świadomości wiary Hegla w autentyczność postępu ducha w dziejach myśli; wiary w faktyczność systematycznego rozwoju doktryn filozoficznych w kierunku myślenia spekulatywnego i stopniowego w nich uświadamiania siebie samego sobie samemu przez Ducha jako ich podmiotu i przedmiotu zarazem. Poza tym, stosując swój żargon, Hegel czasami ociera się o bełkot, co ma to też, oczywiście, dobre strony. Trzeba pochwalić odwagę pozwalającą mu na tak ekscentryczną interpretację historii myśli filozoficznej. "Wykłady' czynią poniekąd usprawiedliwionym każdy ekscentryzm interpretacyjny. Hegel cenił przede wszystkim Arystotelesa, bardziej nawet od Platona, co zrazu może zaskakiwać. Jest to w tej książce widoczne w dwójnasób. 'Wykłady' zawierają pochwały Stagiryty, implicytne i nawet eksplicytne. Hegel korzysta z jego krytyki starożytnych myślicieli, jakby nie było go stać na własną. Cytuje go w sposób nieprzyzwoicie obszerny. Ale i sama forma 'Wykładów', ten nonszalancki sposób, w jaki je prowadzi, jest iście arystotelejski. Zachowane pisma Stagiryty to, jak wiadomo, notatki z wykładów, które powstawały pośpiesznie, na gorąco, jako materiał mnemotechniczny, z definicji więc niejako nieukończony i nie wymagający ukończenia, w efekcie czego widać w nich nieścisłość, chaotyczność, 'połebkowość' etc. To samo tyczy się 'Wykładów' Hegla, który właśnie z tego powodu wydaje się być następcą Arystotelesa.
Tutaj piękna platońska metafora Hegla:
"Trzeźwe myślenie odznacza się takim szczególnym talentem, ma taką dziwną zdolność, że jego stan bycia na czczo nie prowadzi do głodu ani pragnienia, lecz towarzyszy mu stałe uczucie sytości. W rezultacie myślenie, którem mówi takim językiem, [rezonerstwo] demaskuje się jako martwy [zdrowy] rozsądek, ponieważ tylko to, co martwe, będąc ma czczo, jest i pozostaje zarazem syte. Ale to, co żywe, zarówno w sensie fizyczny, jak i duchowym, nie pozostaje w byciu na czczo zaspokojone, lecz budzi się w nim popęd, zaczyna odczuwać głód i żądzę prawdy, jej poznania, domaga się zaspokojenia tego popędu i nie daje się nakarmić i nasycić tego rodzaju refleksjami, jakimi darzy nas trzeźwość myślenia" (44-45).
Tutaj pięknie, klasycznie idealistycznie, by tak rzec, wypowiada się Hegel o Pitagorasie i pitagorejczykach:
"Sam Pitagoras był pewnym dopracowanym w najmniejszych szczegółach dziełem sztuki, dostojną posągową naturą (plastiche Natur). [...] W trakcie tego nowicjatu [pitagorejskiego], który był czasem przeznaczonym na naukę, nakazane było milczenie. Można powiedzieć [...] że jest to istotny warunek wszelkiego wykształcenia. W kształceniu człowiek rozszerza i bierze w posiadanie swoją wewnętrzność. W wyniku tego, że trzyma się samego siebie, w milczeniu, człowiek nie staje się bynajmniej uboższy w myśli, w żywą treść ducha. Uczy się on przez to zdolności pojmowania i dochodzenia do zrozumienia tego, że jego pomysły, obiekcje, nie są nic warte. Dzięki wzrastającemu zrozumieniu tego, że takie pomysły [poglądy, przekonania] nie są nic warte, odzwyczaja się on w końcu od tego, żeby je mieć. [...] Prawdziwa kultura nie polega na tym, by zwracać zbytnią uwagę na samego siebie, zajmować się sobą jako jednostką - to bowiem jest próżność - ale na tym, by zapomnieć o sobie, zagłębić się w rzeczy, w tym, co ogólne - polega więc na samozapomnieniu" (276-277, 280).
I nawet klasyka Heglowska:
"To, dla czego istnieje inne, jest tym samym, co Inne. Tylko dzięki temu duch w swoim Innym jest u siebie samego. Rozwój ducha jest wychodzeniem z wewnętrzności, eksponowaniem na zewnątrz swoich momentów jako oddzielonych od siebie i zarazem dochodzeniem do siebie. Bo bycie u siebie ducha, to jego dochodzenie do siebie samego, może być określone jako jego najwyższy, absolutny cel. Chce on tylko tego i niczego innego. Wszystko, co dzieje się � co dzieje się wiecznie � […] co dokonuje się w wymiarze czasu, zmierza tylko do tego, żeby duch poznał siebie, uczynił siebie dla siebie samego czymś przedmiotowym, odnalazł się, stał się czymś istniejącym dla siebie samego, połączył się z sobą" (50-51).
"Ruch ten, jako konkretny, jest szeregiem procesów rozwojowych, którego nie należy sobie wyobrażać jako linii prostej ciągnącej się od jakiegoś punktu wyjścia w abstrakcyjną nieskończoność, lecz jako koło, jako powrót do siebie samego. Koło to ma za obwód wielką mnogość kół. Całość jest wielkim, zakrzywiającym się ku sobie na powrót, ciągiem procesów rozwojowych" (56).
"Zadaniem, z którym ma się uporać świat, jest w ogóle pojednanie się z duchem, rozpoznanie w nim siebie" (153).
"Jest to krąg, który zamyka się w sobie, ale to jego zamknięcie się w sobie jest tak samo przechodzeniem w pewien inny krąg - jest to wir, którego punkt środkowy, do którego się zwraca, leży bezpośrednio na obwodzie pewnego wyższego kręgu, który go w siebie wplata" (488).
### A POZA TYM ###
Historia filozofii
"Historia, którą mamy przed sobą, jest historią odnajdywania siebie samej przez myśl" (27). "Historia filozofii sama ma charakter naukowy, a nawet, w aspekcie tego, co stanowi jej sedno, sama staje się nauką filozofii" (30). "Dorobek myślenia [...] stanowi sam byt ducha. Dlatego właśnie poznanie go nie jest uczonością - znajomością tego, co umarło, zostało pochowane i minęło. Historia filozofii ma do czynienia właśnie z tym, co się nie starzeje, co aktualnie żywe" (70). "Historia filozofii żadną miarą nie może być uprawiana przez historyka, który chciałby się powstrzymywać od wydawania sądu" (166).
Filozofia
"Pierwszym warunkiem filozofii jest niezłomne umiłowanie prawdy, wiara w moc ducha. Człowiek, z racji tego, że jest duchem, ma prawo i obowiązek uważać siebie samego za godnego rzeczy najwyższych. [...] Jeśli ktoś będzie miał wiarę, to nie znajdzie się nic niedostępnego i trudnego, co by się przed nim nie otworzyło. Ukryta zrazu i zamknięta istota wszechświata nie jest w stanie stawić oporu niezłomnej woli poznania , przed którą musi się otworzyć, wystawiając na widok i oferując wszystkie swoje bogactwa i głębie" (18).
"Czegóż to nie nazywano filozofią i filozofowaniem!" (30).
"Filozofia zamierza poznać to, co niezmienne, wieczne, istniejące samo w sobie i dla siebie" (31).
"Filozofia jest obiektywną nauką o prawdzie, nauką o jej konieczności, pojęciowym poznawaniem - a nie żadnym mniemaniem i wysuwaniem mniemań" (38).
"Filozofia nie jest somnambulizmem, tylko raczej najbardziej przytomną świadomością" (70).
"Nieokreślona jeszcze i bezpośrednia ogólność (Bóg), byt, obiektywna myśl, która w swej niestrudzonej aktywności niczemu nie pozwala istnieć w trwały sposób obok siebie, jest substancjalną podstawą wszelkiej filozofii [...]" (149).
"Filozofia chce osiągnąć błogostan dzięki myśleniu; religia - poprzez medytacyjne skupienie (Andacht)" (183).
Sokrates (część tycząca się Sokratesa jest bardzo zajmująca):
"Sokrates nie wyrósł nagle jak grzyb z ziemi. [...] Jest on nie tylko nadzwyczaj ważną figurą w historii filozofii - najbardziej interesującą w filozofii starożytności - lecz jest osobistością o znaczeniu powszechnodziejowym. Jest on głównym punktem zwrotnym ducha w jego skierowaniu się ku sobie samemu" (537).
"U Sokratesa, jak u Protagorasa, istotą jest myśl; również u Sokratesa mamy tę sytuację, że samowiedna myśl zniosła wszystko to, co określone, ale w taki sposób, że od razu ujęła ona w myśleniu to, co spoczywające, stałe. Ten stały grunt myśli, substancja, to, co istniejące samo w sobie i dla siebie, to, co bezwzględnie się utrzymujące, określone zostało jako cel, a bliżej jako prawda, dobro" (539).
"Występuje tu pewna różnica w stosunku do świadomości sofistów: ta mianowicie, że zakładanie i wytwarzanie dokonujące się w sferze myśli jest wytwarzaniem i zakładaniem czegoś takiego, co nie jest założone, co istnieje samo w sobie i dla siebie - [jako] to, co obiektywne, stojące ponad partykularnością interesów, skłonności, stanowiące moc panującą nad wszystkim, co partykularne. [...] z drugiej strony jest to w równym stopniu istniejące samo sobie i dla siebie to, co obiektywne, nie obiektywność zewnętrzna, lecz ogólność duchowa" (541).
"W swym przeciwieństwie względem sofistów nie stoją oni [Sokrates i Platon] na stanowisku starowiernych, zgodnie z którym - w interesie greckiej obyczajowości, religii, starodawnych obyczajów - skazani zostali Anaksagoras i Protagoras. Wprost przeciwnie. Refleksja, oddanie decydującego głosu świadomości jest im wspólne z sofistami" (539-540).
"Zasadą Sokratesa jest, że człowiek ma sam z siebie znaleźć to, co jest dla niego przeznaczeniem, co jest jego celem, ostatecznym celem świata, prawdą, tym, co istnieje samo w sobie i dla siebie - że musi on dotrzeć do prawdy o własnych siłach. Jest to powrót świadomości do siebie, który jednak określony jest jako wydobycie się ze swojej szczegółowej subiektywności; zawarte w tym jest właśnie to, że usunięte zostają przypadkowość świadomości, pomysł, arbitralność, partykularność - ażeby w tym, co wewnętrzne, mieć do wydobycie się, to, co istniejące samo w sobie i dla siebie. Obiektywność ma tu sens obiektywności, która istnieje samo w sobie i dla siebie, a nie obiektywności zewnętrznej" (540).
"Ze względu na to, że w ten sposób Sokrates zapoczątkował filozofie moralną (to, że ją uprawiał, sprawiło, że stała się ona popularna), cała późniejsza gadanina moralna i popularna filozofia uznała go za swego patrona i świętego i wyniosła do roli usprawiedliwiającego płaszczyka wszelkiej nie-filozofii; a miary dopełniło to jeszcze, że u lubiącej się wzruszać publiczności zyskała mu popularność i wzbudziła zainteresowanie jego śmierć, jako poniesione niewinnie cierpienie. Cyceron, który z jednej strony jest w swym myśleniu zwrócony ku teraźniejszości, a z drugiej strony ma taką świadomość, że filozofia powinna się dostosować, i nie zdobył dla niej żadnej nowej treści, chwalił u Sokratesa (co się dość często po nim powtarza) jako jego właściwą zasługę i to, co było u niego najszczytniejsze, że 'sprowadził filozofię z nieba na ziemię, do miast, a nawet do domów' (przeniósł ją na grunt ludzkiego codziennego życia). To jest sedno tego, o czym była mowa. Toteż potem jest to często rozumiane tak (tak to wygląda), jak gdyby w rezultacie najlepsza i najprawdziwszą filozofią była filozofia domowa i kuchenna (jak gdyby stała się ona środkiem domowym, pod każdym względem dostosowanym do zwykłych ludzkich wyobrażeń, w której widzimy przyjaciół i ludzi rozmawiających o prawości itd. i o tym, co można znać na tej ziemi, co jest prawdą w codziennym życiu bez zapuszczania się w głębiny nieba - albo raczej w głębiny świadomości; lecz mniemają oni, że właśnie najpierw było to, że Sokrates się na to odważył. Ale też Sokratesowi to dojście do praktycznej filozofii nie było dane za darmo; przedtem przemyślał gruntownie wszelkie spekulacje ówczesnej filozofii, aby zejść do wnętrza świadomości, myślenia. To właśnie [wnętrze] jest ogólnym momentem [jego] zasady" (543-544).
"Najwyższą pięknością jest najzupełniejsze ukształtowanie wszystkich stron indywidualności wedle jednej wewnętrznej zasady" (551).
"Stoi on przed nami jako jedna z owych wielkich posągowych natur, wykutych w całości z jednej bryły [...] - jako doskonałe dzieło sztuki, które samo siebie wyniosło na wyżyny" (551).
"Hipokryzja jest największa ironią" (561).
"We wszystko należy wątpić, należy zrezygnować ze wszystkich z góry przyjętych założeń, aby otrzymać je na powrót jako coś wytworzonego przez pojęcie" (568).
"W ogóle człowiek nie może niczego otrzymać, przyjąć jako czegoś danego z zewnątrz, tak jak przyjmuje formę wosk; lecz wszystko to tkwi w duszy człowieka i tylko wydaje się, że on czegoś się uczy. [...] Wszystko, co ma dla człowieka wartość [...] zawarte jest w samym człowieku, ma się rozwijać z niego samego. [...] To coś zewnętrznego przychodzi wprawdzie w doświadczeniu, ale to, co w tym ogólne, należy do myślenia - [...] jest czymś rzeczywiście ogólnym" (574).
"Przypadkowej, partykularnej wewnętrzności przeciwstawił Sokrates ową ogólną, prawdziwą wewnętrzność myśli" (575).
"Ale nie byłoby tu na miejscu rozplątywanie całego mnóstwa opacznych wyobrażeń i przeciwieństw właściwej naszej naturze" (579).
"W tej świadomości wznosił Sokrates obyczajność na poziom zrozumienia", moralności (580).
"Wyszydzanie tego, co jest godne czci, jest czymś nędznym i płaskim" (588).
Powrót świadomości do siebie samej wystąpił po raz pierwszy u Sokratesa.
"Poznaj samego siebie. Nie jest to poznanie przez człowieka własnych partykularności; poznanie siebie jest prawem ducha. [...] Jest on herosem, który na miejsce delfickiego boga wyniósł zasadę, że człowiek w sobie samym wie, co jest prawdziwe, że musi on patrzeć w siebie" (611-612).
"Sokrates jest herosem dlatego, że swoją świadomością poznał i wyraził wyższą zasadę ducha" (625).
"Sokrates został określony jako punkt zwrotny filozoficznego ducha (myślenia). Wysunął on [jako zasadę] poznanie i to, co ogólne. Wraz z nim począwszy od niego widzimy, jak pojawia się wiedza, świat wznosi się do królestwa świadomej myśli, królestwo to staje się przedmiotem" (628).
"Główną zasługą, główną zasadą działania nauczyciela jest udzielanie potężnego bodźca, wprawianie w stan podniecenia" (630).
###
"Wiadomo, że tak zwany rozum doszedł [w naszym zachodnim świecie] do znaczenia, odrzucił autorytet wiary, uczynił chrześcijaństwo rozumnym w tym sensie, że to uznania czegokolwiek miałoby mnie zobowiązywać tylko własne zrozumienie, własne całkowite przekonanie. Ale dziwnym sposobem to obstawanie przy prawie rozumu przechodzi dziwną metamorfozę, rezultatem której jest wniosek, że rozum nie może poznać niczego prawdziwego. Ten tak zwany rozum zwalcza, z jednej strony, wiarę religijną w imię myślącego rozumu i przy jego pomocy - ale jednocześnie zwraca się też przeciw rozumowi, jest wrogiem rozumu. Wbrew niemu obstaje przy wewnętrznym przeczuciu, uczuciu, i w rezultacie miarą tego, co ma obowiązywać, czyni stronę subiektywną - własne przekonanie, takie, jakie każdy tworzy sobie we własnej subiektywności, sam z siebie i w sobie samym" (38-39).
O kosmogonii Anaksymandra: "Kosmogonia ta nie jest gorsza od hipotezy geologicznej, w myśl której miałaby ulec rozerwaniu skorupa ziemska albo od hipotezy eksplozji Słońca. Autorem tej ostatniej jest Buffon, który, na odwrót, zaczyna od słońca i każe planetom powstawać z niego jako żużel" (256).
"A ile jest w tym wszystkim sensu, tego nie wie ani ten, kto to mówi, ani ten, kto stara się zrozumieć, co to wszystko ma znaczyć. Im mętniejsze stają się myśli, tym wydają się głębsze" (265). "W rezultacie dzieło to jest wielkim balastem [dla umysłu]" (162). "Ciemny i wątpliwej wartości wytwór mętnych i płaskich umysłów" (266).
"[...] Platon w jednym ze swoich dialogów każe grać główną rolę Parmenidesowi i wkłada mu w usta najznakomitszą dialektykę, jak kiedykolwiek istniała [...]" (350).
"Co złego zdarzyło się na świecie od czasów Adama, usprawiedliwione jest dobrymi racjami" (517).
przeczucie zawierające treść myślową - gedankenvolle ahnungen
słowa - czczą formułą do mechanicznego klepania - eine leere Formel der Lippen
szturmowanie nieba - ein Schlagen ins Blaue
### PRZYPISY NOWICKIEGO ###
"Wyjaśnia to bliżej naturę Heglowskiego aprioryzmu. Mimo że podmiotowość jest sama w sobie rezerwuarem wszelkiej prawdziwej treści, nie może jej ona jednak sama z siebie wysnuć, musi ją niejako dopiero wyzwolić z niej zewnętrzny, ale odpowiednio do niej 'dostrojony' impuls. Oczywiście ten 'instrument', jakim jest podmiotowość, kształtuje się historycznie i dużo trzeba czasu, aby jego 'brzmienie' stało się odpowiednio 'czyste'" (698, przyp. do stron 107). "Ów oddźwięk zostaje wzbudzony [za sprawą czegoś zewnętrznego] w podmiotowej głębi, wydobywając z niej coś, co przedtem było przed świadomością zakryte, a zatem wydobyło się z ukrycia, zostało wydane na świat, dopiero w wyniku tego oddźwięku [wzbudzonego we wnętrzu przez coś zewnętrznego]. Sytuacja jest więc dialektyczna. [...] Duch płodzi sam siebie, zaświadcza sam o sobie itd. [...] Żaden z tych momentów nie jest rzeczywisty w oderwaniu jeden od drugiego" (701-702, przyp. do s. 113).
January 2, 2019
Hegel'e muhtemelen en iyi başlangıç kitabı. Yine de zor, zor. Adamın en basit bir femoneni dahi ele alışı öyle derin ve detaylı ki... Bir yerden sonra atlaya zıplaya okuduğumu söylemeliyim. Güzel olan şu, bu kitap sayesinde Diogenes Laertios'un "Ünlü Filozofların Yaşamları ve Öğretileri" eserinin farkına vardım ; şimdi onu okuyorum. Çok daha eğlenceli. Öte yandan, felsefeyle derinlemesine ilgilenen bir insan Hegel'in kitabına zaman ve emek verdiğinde çok yararlanacaktır, özellikle temel felsefe tartışmalarıyla ilgili. Bana o kısımlar ağır geldi. Hegel'in 'episteme'yi 'bilim' kelimesiyle karşılaması ilginç.
Alıntılar ve notlar :
Önümüzde duran tarih düşüncenin kendini bulma tarihidir.
Potentia : Kendinde varlık
Energia : Kendi için varlık. Edimsellik.
Arke'yi kullanan ilk kişi Thales değil Anaksimandros'tur.
Grek felsefesine ilişkin Aristotheles'in Metafizik kitabının ilk cildini incelemekten daha iyi bir şey yapamayız.
Sextus Empirikos.
İlineksel : Accidental. Aristotelesçi mantık açısından bir töze yüklenebilecek gelip geçici özelliktir. Bu nedenle ilinek sayılan özellikler o tözün olmazsa olmaz bir özelliği değildirler. Örneğin bir karenin kenarlarının olması "olmazsa olmaz" bir özelliktir, oysa kenarlarının 1 metre olması ilineksel bir özelliktir.
Edimsel : Performative
Eleacılık sonradan Sofistlerde devam etmiştir.
Pisagor bu bilimlere “insan bilgisinin tümünü kuşatan� anlamında “matemata”lar adını vermişti ki, bilindiği gibi, matematik sözcüğü bu terimden doğmuştur.
Pythagoras Doğa adlı eserine şu sözle başlıyor: "Soluduğum hava adına, içtiğim su adına, bu eserimle ilgili herhangi bir yergiye katlanamayacağım."
Pisagor ünlü teoremini ispatladığında öyle sevinmiş ki onlarca öküz kestirip dağıtmış.
Anlak : Understanding
Hegel Herakleitos'tan çok etkilenmiştir. Onda spekülatif form içindeki felsefi ideayla karşılaştığımızı söyler. Karşıtların birliği üzerinden...
Kavram : The notion
Herakleitos Platon'un öğretmeni olarak görülebilir.
Being : Varlık
Bilgeleştirenler : Sofizein
enson : ultimate
Implicit being : Kendine varlık
dolayımlanmış : mediated
olumsal : contingent. masanın üzerinde toplam 12 nesne var diyelim. bu olumsaldır. zira masanın üzerinde 18 nesne de olabilirdi, 234 de. (ama masanın üzerinde hem 12 hem 18 nesne olmaması zorunludur.)
Platon'un resmi adı : Aristokles. (less)
Alıntılar ve notlar :
Önümüzde duran tarih düşüncenin kendini bulma tarihidir.
Potentia : Kendinde varlık
Energia : Kendi için varlık. Edimsellik.
Arke'yi kullanan ilk kişi Thales değil Anaksimandros'tur.
Grek felsefesine ilişkin Aristotheles'in Metafizik kitabının ilk cildini incelemekten daha iyi bir şey yapamayız.
Sextus Empirikos.
İlineksel : Accidental. Aristotelesçi mantık açısından bir töze yüklenebilecek gelip geçici özelliktir. Bu nedenle ilinek sayılan özellikler o tözün olmazsa olmaz bir özelliği değildirler. Örneğin bir karenin kenarlarının olması "olmazsa olmaz" bir özelliktir, oysa kenarlarının 1 metre olması ilineksel bir özelliktir.
Edimsel : Performative
Eleacılık sonradan Sofistlerde devam etmiştir.
Pisagor bu bilimlere “insan bilgisinin tümünü kuşatan� anlamında “matemata”lar adını vermişti ki, bilindiği gibi, matematik sözcüğü bu terimden doğmuştur.
Pythagoras Doğa adlı eserine şu sözle başlıyor: "Soluduğum hava adına, içtiğim su adına, bu eserimle ilgili herhangi bir yergiye katlanamayacağım."
Pisagor ünlü teoremini ispatladığında öyle sevinmiş ki onlarca öküz kestirip dağıtmış.
Anlak : Understanding
Hegel Herakleitos'tan çok etkilenmiştir. Onda spekülatif form içindeki felsefi ideayla karşılaştığımızı söyler. Karşıtların birliği üzerinden...
Kavram : The notion
Herakleitos Platon'un öğretmeni olarak görülebilir.
Being : Varlık
Bilgeleştirenler : Sofizein
enson : ultimate
Implicit being : Kendine varlık
dolayımlanmış : mediated
olumsal : contingent. masanın üzerinde toplam 12 nesne var diyelim. bu olumsaldır. zira masanın üzerinde 18 nesne de olabilirdi, 234 de. (ama masanın üzerinde hem 12 hem 18 nesne olmaması zorunludur.)
Platon'un resmi adı : Aristokles. (less)
March 10, 2013
(It seems that old Yugoslavian edition (1st volume) is only from Thales to Anaxagoras. Maybe Goodreed's editions are not compatible with that one I read; anyway I decided to write review as they are the same and I will end up with Anaxagoras.)
After reading many overviews about history of philosophy, I find Hegel's as the most interesting of them all. It is extensive, complete and very deep. Many brilliant observations, too. Even if he is idealist, Hegel's philosophy contains more realistic moments then some non-idealistic philosophy. Many other histories of philosophy are merely chronological, shallow and are trying to be popular. However, Hegel's version is unique, as it functions purely as - philosophy of philosophy. There is an absolute correlation between all individual philosophies, and everything, of course, leads to Hegelian Logic. I have nothing against it. As I said, even this old book has more interesting insights then those ordinary and modern (which are great at informing, but are often senseless when considering totality). Hegel's style is pretty accessible here, but it still doesn't mean that material is easy to follow and understand. It is even harder if you set a task to read stuff Hegel doesn't explicitly say. To achieve higher levels of interpretation you really need to read between the lines and from today's point of view. In many cases you must not allow Hegel do deceive you with his stances. For example, Milesian school, Hegel is very brief with them; then Pythagoras's "measure" (reason) is less important for him (mind) (keep in eye those and similar kinds of dualities). Because he lacks scientific spirit, he is unjustly very rude on Democritus , etc... You just need to be aware of his sidedness, exaggeration and inaccuracies (especially on "dialectics of Nature"). But even those are great provocation to force you to practice dialogs and independent thinking. On the other hand, with this book you will be awarded with excellent introduction sections and those dedicated to Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras... Just this grateful book finally helped me to become really familiar with Pre-socratic philosophy. For the end of review I will say on more thing: Don't think metaphysics parts are useless - everything leads to dialectics! Now, I am going to see how good are other two volumes.
After reading many overviews about history of philosophy, I find Hegel's as the most interesting of them all. It is extensive, complete and very deep. Many brilliant observations, too. Even if he is idealist, Hegel's philosophy contains more realistic moments then some non-idealistic philosophy. Many other histories of philosophy are merely chronological, shallow and are trying to be popular. However, Hegel's version is unique, as it functions purely as - philosophy of philosophy. There is an absolute correlation between all individual philosophies, and everything, of course, leads to Hegelian Logic. I have nothing against it. As I said, even this old book has more interesting insights then those ordinary and modern (which are great at informing, but are often senseless when considering totality). Hegel's style is pretty accessible here, but it still doesn't mean that material is easy to follow and understand. It is even harder if you set a task to read stuff Hegel doesn't explicitly say. To achieve higher levels of interpretation you really need to read between the lines and from today's point of view. In many cases you must not allow Hegel do deceive you with his stances. For example, Milesian school, Hegel is very brief with them; then Pythagoras's "measure" (reason) is less important for him (mind) (keep in eye those and similar kinds of dualities). Because he lacks scientific spirit, he is unjustly very rude on Democritus , etc... You just need to be aware of his sidedness, exaggeration and inaccuracies (especially on "dialectics of Nature"). But even those are great provocation to force you to practice dialogs and independent thinking. On the other hand, with this book you will be awarded with excellent introduction sections and those dedicated to Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras... Just this grateful book finally helped me to become really familiar with Pre-socratic philosophy. For the end of review I will say on more thing: Don't think metaphysics parts are useless - everything leads to dialectics! Now, I am going to see how good are other two volumes.
March 2, 2018
I may have put off reading Hegel’s History of Philosophy too long, regarding it (along with his Philosophy of History) as minor works derived from lecture notes rather than actual published works. I think his History of Philosophy is a great contribution to his conception of philosophy, complementing and even explaining discussions in his major works, especially the Phenomenology of Spirit.
That said, this is definitely not the place to start a reading of Hegel’s work. As tough as it is, I would still start with the Phenomenology. This plays a much better complementary role than a starting point.
The translation is Elizabeth S. Haldane’s 1892 translation. It would be nice to get a newer translation, reflecting other newer translations of Hegel’s work. Frederick Beiser’s 1995 Introduction is helpful.
I think Hegel’s greatest contribution to our understanding of philosophy may be his historicism � his insistence that every philosopher is the embodiment of the self-consciousness of his own age. Often histories of philosophy are just a relatively unordered collection of attempts and themes � rationalists, empiricists, idealists, . . . . Or as Hegel says here, “histories of Philosophy in which the succession of its systems are represented simply as a number of opinions, errors, and freaks of thought.�
By contrast, Hegel’s history of philosophy follows the path of “reason in history� that he has laid out elsewhere. A minimal version of “reason in history� is only a matter of how we make sense of things. A history of philosophy as just a random sequence of theories and ideas would be like a random collection of animals with no rhyme or reason behind it. Just as we make sense of the relationships among species we make sense of the relationship among philosophical thoughts. Intelligibility requires it.
Hegel’s stronger claim to have reached the culmination of this history, such that it all leads up to his own philosophy, seems a bit presumptuous, but I think both his historicism itself and his thoughts on the philosophers discussed here are extractable from that claim.
This volume begins with a quick discussion of “oriental philosophy� and then turns to the western tradition, beginning with Thales and running up to the post-Socratic Cynics. His dismissal of “oriental philosophy� is only interesting for his reasoning � his knowledge of Indian and Chinese philosophy was certainly limited.
His reasoning is that philosophy begins when knowledge truly begins, which requires that the knowing subject comprehend its object as itself. This is a transformed Kantianism � so long as the object of knowledge (let’s call it “nature�) is regarded as simply other than the knowing subject, we have an inadequate working conception of knowledge � we do not see the intelligible structure of the world as our own.
Philosophy itself starts, for Hegel as traditionally, with Thales. Thales famously posits water as the basis of all things. What is remarkable in Thales� thought, for Hegel, is that, for the first time, the world of things is imbued with an intelligibility contributed by thought. The objects of the world are not obviously water, or made of water. Thales makes the distinctively philosophical move of making the world intelligible to us by positing the world itself to contain its intelligibility � we understand the world by discerning the principle behind it, in Thales� instance, that all things are in some way a modification of water or wetness. We understand life as coming from moisture, we understand air as a rarefaction of water. Hegel says, “The simple proposition of Thales therefore, is Philosophy, because in it water, though sensuous, is not looked at in the particularly as opposed to other natural things, but as Thought in which everything is resolved and comprehended.� (p. 179)
What Thales does in distinct from myths, in which gods or other characters create the world or determine events � those are actors and forces outside of us. We are at best witnesses and at worst victims. Nor is it like a simply practical knowledge of the world, like Thale’s own supposed prediction of eclipses. It goes beyond observation and noting of regularities to the principle behind it all, the “universal� in Hegel’s terms.
Equally as interesting is Hegel’s insistence that philosophy requires a social/political context in which to arise. Freedom is required for the knowing subject to see its own thought imbuing the world around it. The connection is central to Hegel’s thought in general � knowledge is historical, in that the form that it takes is dependent upon the world, political and social, in which it arises and thrives. In the despotic world that Hegel placed in history (including the “oriental� world) before the time of the Greeks, philosophical knowledge, discerning the intelligibility of the world in terms of our own thought about it, could not happen. That was a world in which social and political reality was imposed upon the knower. In that context, the knower could know only something entirely outside of himself, or something entirely inside of himself, never the imbuing of the one with the other.
Although Hegel says that philosophy begins with Thales, he distinguishes “Philosophy proper� as beginning only with Parmenides. “Since in this an advance into the region of the ideal is observable, Parmenides begins Philosophy proper. A man now constitutes himself free from all ideas and opinions, denies their truth, and says necessity alone, Being, is the truth.� This is freedom of thought, untethered to a given in the empirical world, as water was still in Thales� thought.
Heraclitus stands out as well in Hegel’s history. Parmenides and the other Eleatics had articulated the opposition of Being and Non-Being, and ordained Being as truth and Non-Being as untruth. Heraclitus squares the circle by uniting the two in Becoming. Hegel credits Heraclitus as a strong influence on his own thinking � the very same movement is at the foundations of his own Logic. Hegel says of Heraclitus� s thought, “Here we see land; there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic.�
Hegel discusses and doesn’t deny that Socrates was the first to conceive moral philosophy. And Socrates fits Hegel’s reconstruction of the history of philosophy well, as thought turns to social and political life in enacting itself in reality. Socrates is appropriately presaged by the Sophists, who, in Hegel’s positive portrayal, taught “culture� to the Greek people.
Hegel finds Socrates� daemon especially critical. He says that, up until the time of Socrates, Greek morality was “natural�, that is, unreflective. The great contribution of Socrates is to bring morality into the province of the minds of the Greek citizens, as morally self-determining. Self-determination though must be universal, not up to the whims of individual interests and passions. But when we test universal morality (e.g., a universal principle of not deceiving others), you run up against circumstances in which the universal really doesn’t appear to work (e.g., deceiving in order to benefit the person you are deceiving).
Socrates then turns to his daemon for judgment. In Hegel’s account, Socrates� daemon is an odd in-between in the development of self-determination. What preceded it was the oracle, an external handing down of law. The daemon is not external to Socrates, but it isn’t his own mind either � it’s an “other� speaking to him internally. Self-determination then isn’t complete with Socrates, in so far as it is still dependent, in judgement, on something other than his own mind, working from universal principles.
Hegel also gives a detailed analysis of Socrates� judgment and punishment. He sees Socrates, not only his thought but his life, as a “turning point� � a turn from unreflective “natural� morality to reflective morality, in which the self-legislation of the rational person rises in opposition to the prevailing moral culture. He defends, on those grounds (internal to the historical Athens), Socrates� conviction. But his death is “tragic�, in a technical sense, of embodying an historical clash of justified standpoints. Socrates is the future colliding with the present.
The intelligibility of the history that Hegel describes is this movement toward thought imbuing reality with itself � his idealism has always been a peculiar idealism, one that is post-Kantian in that it doesn’t deny the metaphysical reality of the objective world, but only finds it “real� in a sense in which it is infused with thought. His history of philosophy, at least in this first volume, contributes substantially to telling that story.
That said, this is definitely not the place to start a reading of Hegel’s work. As tough as it is, I would still start with the Phenomenology. This plays a much better complementary role than a starting point.
The translation is Elizabeth S. Haldane’s 1892 translation. It would be nice to get a newer translation, reflecting other newer translations of Hegel’s work. Frederick Beiser’s 1995 Introduction is helpful.
I think Hegel’s greatest contribution to our understanding of philosophy may be his historicism � his insistence that every philosopher is the embodiment of the self-consciousness of his own age. Often histories of philosophy are just a relatively unordered collection of attempts and themes � rationalists, empiricists, idealists, . . . . Or as Hegel says here, “histories of Philosophy in which the succession of its systems are represented simply as a number of opinions, errors, and freaks of thought.�
By contrast, Hegel’s history of philosophy follows the path of “reason in history� that he has laid out elsewhere. A minimal version of “reason in history� is only a matter of how we make sense of things. A history of philosophy as just a random sequence of theories and ideas would be like a random collection of animals with no rhyme or reason behind it. Just as we make sense of the relationships among species we make sense of the relationship among philosophical thoughts. Intelligibility requires it.
Hegel’s stronger claim to have reached the culmination of this history, such that it all leads up to his own philosophy, seems a bit presumptuous, but I think both his historicism itself and his thoughts on the philosophers discussed here are extractable from that claim.
This volume begins with a quick discussion of “oriental philosophy� and then turns to the western tradition, beginning with Thales and running up to the post-Socratic Cynics. His dismissal of “oriental philosophy� is only interesting for his reasoning � his knowledge of Indian and Chinese philosophy was certainly limited.
His reasoning is that philosophy begins when knowledge truly begins, which requires that the knowing subject comprehend its object as itself. This is a transformed Kantianism � so long as the object of knowledge (let’s call it “nature�) is regarded as simply other than the knowing subject, we have an inadequate working conception of knowledge � we do not see the intelligible structure of the world as our own.
Philosophy itself starts, for Hegel as traditionally, with Thales. Thales famously posits water as the basis of all things. What is remarkable in Thales� thought, for Hegel, is that, for the first time, the world of things is imbued with an intelligibility contributed by thought. The objects of the world are not obviously water, or made of water. Thales makes the distinctively philosophical move of making the world intelligible to us by positing the world itself to contain its intelligibility � we understand the world by discerning the principle behind it, in Thales� instance, that all things are in some way a modification of water or wetness. We understand life as coming from moisture, we understand air as a rarefaction of water. Hegel says, “The simple proposition of Thales therefore, is Philosophy, because in it water, though sensuous, is not looked at in the particularly as opposed to other natural things, but as Thought in which everything is resolved and comprehended.� (p. 179)
What Thales does in distinct from myths, in which gods or other characters create the world or determine events � those are actors and forces outside of us. We are at best witnesses and at worst victims. Nor is it like a simply practical knowledge of the world, like Thale’s own supposed prediction of eclipses. It goes beyond observation and noting of regularities to the principle behind it all, the “universal� in Hegel’s terms.
Equally as interesting is Hegel’s insistence that philosophy requires a social/political context in which to arise. Freedom is required for the knowing subject to see its own thought imbuing the world around it. The connection is central to Hegel’s thought in general � knowledge is historical, in that the form that it takes is dependent upon the world, political and social, in which it arises and thrives. In the despotic world that Hegel placed in history (including the “oriental� world) before the time of the Greeks, philosophical knowledge, discerning the intelligibility of the world in terms of our own thought about it, could not happen. That was a world in which social and political reality was imposed upon the knower. In that context, the knower could know only something entirely outside of himself, or something entirely inside of himself, never the imbuing of the one with the other.
Although Hegel says that philosophy begins with Thales, he distinguishes “Philosophy proper� as beginning only with Parmenides. “Since in this an advance into the region of the ideal is observable, Parmenides begins Philosophy proper. A man now constitutes himself free from all ideas and opinions, denies their truth, and says necessity alone, Being, is the truth.� This is freedom of thought, untethered to a given in the empirical world, as water was still in Thales� thought.
Heraclitus stands out as well in Hegel’s history. Parmenides and the other Eleatics had articulated the opposition of Being and Non-Being, and ordained Being as truth and Non-Being as untruth. Heraclitus squares the circle by uniting the two in Becoming. Hegel credits Heraclitus as a strong influence on his own thinking � the very same movement is at the foundations of his own Logic. Hegel says of Heraclitus� s thought, “Here we see land; there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic.�
Hegel discusses and doesn’t deny that Socrates was the first to conceive moral philosophy. And Socrates fits Hegel’s reconstruction of the history of philosophy well, as thought turns to social and political life in enacting itself in reality. Socrates is appropriately presaged by the Sophists, who, in Hegel’s positive portrayal, taught “culture� to the Greek people.
Hegel finds Socrates� daemon especially critical. He says that, up until the time of Socrates, Greek morality was “natural�, that is, unreflective. The great contribution of Socrates is to bring morality into the province of the minds of the Greek citizens, as morally self-determining. Self-determination though must be universal, not up to the whims of individual interests and passions. But when we test universal morality (e.g., a universal principle of not deceiving others), you run up against circumstances in which the universal really doesn’t appear to work (e.g., deceiving in order to benefit the person you are deceiving).
Socrates then turns to his daemon for judgment. In Hegel’s account, Socrates� daemon is an odd in-between in the development of self-determination. What preceded it was the oracle, an external handing down of law. The daemon is not external to Socrates, but it isn’t his own mind either � it’s an “other� speaking to him internally. Self-determination then isn’t complete with Socrates, in so far as it is still dependent, in judgement, on something other than his own mind, working from universal principles.
Hegel also gives a detailed analysis of Socrates� judgment and punishment. He sees Socrates, not only his thought but his life, as a “turning point� � a turn from unreflective “natural� morality to reflective morality, in which the self-legislation of the rational person rises in opposition to the prevailing moral culture. He defends, on those grounds (internal to the historical Athens), Socrates� conviction. But his death is “tragic�, in a technical sense, of embodying an historical clash of justified standpoints. Socrates is the future colliding with the present.
The intelligibility of the history that Hegel describes is this movement toward thought imbuing reality with itself � his idealism has always been a peculiar idealism, one that is post-Kantian in that it doesn’t deny the metaphysical reality of the objective world, but only finds it “real� in a sense in which it is infused with thought. His history of philosophy, at least in this first volume, contributes substantially to telling that story.
January 13, 2022
I have read quite a number of histories of Greek philosophy. Each one has given me a different perspective. An academic is likely to rehearse this material many times over years and even decades. A general reader needs histories like this one to help build the dense network of associations necessary for understanding. I found this one lucid and informative, bringing many figures to life in a way that was new for me.
I thought its most attractive feature was something that others have complained about � which is the extent to which this history is written from Hegel’s point of view. This leads to complaints that it is biased and bears the arrogant implication that the history of philosophy was from the outset following a teleological path that leads to Hegel at its culmination. I don’t read it that way at all.
This is Hegel’s history of Greek philosophy. and it avoids the risk of being tediously abstract (and by God the Greeks can be tediously abstract) by giving us a dog in the fight, a reason to care about where this history might be taking us. When I ploughed through even some of the minor thinkers, expecting to be unimpressed, I have been struck instead by surprisingly interesting observations, relevant to my own interests, because Hegel is continually relating their work not only to the unfolding story of ancient Greek thought, but also to the ongoing, active concerns of Hegel’s own time, and sometimes a minor thinker turns out to provoke a superb observation. In any event, it becomes apparent � and Hegel often explicitly points out the connections � that Hegel’s own philosophical system is built on Greek foundations and that he is keen to show the genealogy of his ideas. To my mind this history helps to give a lot more resonance to Hegel’s own terminology and language generally. In an important sense, by explaining how his own thinking emerges from his engagement with the history of Philosophy, Hegel not only make the Greeks more relevant but also makes Hegel himself more relevant for us; their problems are our problems and their arguments are still heard today. It’s important to not only expose the provenance of these arguments but also to be briefed on the possible answers, some of which the Greeks never did find, so that Hegel’s interventions are often helpful, when he explains where the Greeks might have failed and how their failings might be remedied. [There are lots of examples. For example, in discussing the heirs to Aristotle and Plato, Hegel provides a helpful discussion of different ways to interpret scepticism as a philosophical strategy or position that cannot be evaded and so must be addressed.]
It is worth explaining that I was able to read this history at the following web site, which offers a whole online library of resources for students of Hegel. I may continue reading to cover Hegel’s account of mediaeval and modern philosophy but I am taking a break for a while.
It is also worth noting that, in addition to reading this book, I have been listening to episodes of Half Hour Hegel on YouTube, with a line by line reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, though in that case I have indulged myself with an attractive hardback edition to accompany the videos. (The half hour is a trap: there are hundreds of videos in the series.]
Being new to Hegel, I have to remark that the history has been surprisingly helpful for the Phenomenology, , as also was the fact that I have only recently been reading Aristotle. I’m not sure what I would make of Hegel without these aids.
Quotes:
This is one reason why many turn from the study of Plato’s works unsatisfied. When we commence a Dialogue, we find, in the free Platonic method of composition, beautiful scenes in nature, a superb introduction that promises to lead us through flowery fields into Philosophy � and that the highest Philosophy, the Platonic. We meet with elevated thoughts, which are responded to more specially by youth, but these soon disappear. If at first we have allowed ourselves to be carried away by these bright scenes, they must now be all renounced, and as we have come to the real dialectic, and truly speculative, we must keep to the wearisome path, and allow ourselves to be pricked by the thorns and thistles of metaphysics. For behold, we then come to what is best and highest, to investigations respecting the one and many, Being and nothing; this was not what was anticipated, and men go quietly away, only wondering that Plato should seek knowledge here.
-------------------------------
Aristotle then says of the value of Philosophy, “Men have begun to philosophize through wonder,� for in it the knowledge of something higher is at least anticipated. “Thus since man, to escape from ignorance, began to philosophize, it is clear that for the sake of knowledge he followed after knowledge, and not for any utility which it might possess for him. This is also made evident by the whole course of its external history. For it was after men had done with all their absolute requirements, and with what concerns their comfort, that they first began to seek this philosophic knowledge. We hence seek it not for the sake of any outside utility that it may have. And thus as we say that a free man is he who exists on his own account and not for another, Philosophy is the only science that is free, because it alone exists for itself � it is knowledge on account of knowledge.
----------------------------
... the function of Scepticism is wrongly termed the inculcation of proneness to doubt; nor can we translate skeyiς by Doubt, if Scepticism was also called by Sextus (Pyrrh. Hyp. 1. 3, § 7) ephectic (efektikh) because one of its chief points was that judgment must be suspended. Doubt, however, is only uncertainty, irresolution, indecision, the thought which is opposed to something held to be valid. Doubt proceeds from the fact of there being two; it is a passing to and fro between two or more points of view, so that we neither rest at the one nor the other � and yet we ought to remain at one point or another. Thus doubt in man is quite likely to involve a rending asunder of mind and spirit; it gives unrest and brings unhappiness with it; doubts, for instance, arise respecting the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. Forty years ago, much was written about this; in poetry, too, we found the situation of the doubter was a subject of the greatest interest; the unhappiness of doubt being depicted to us as in the “Messias.� This supposes a deep interest in a content, and the desire of the mind that this content should either be established in it or not, because it desires to find its rest either in the one or the other. Such doubt is said to betoken a keen and sharp-witted thinker, but it is only vanity and simple verbiage, or a feebleness that can never arrive at anything. This Scepticism has nowadays entered into our life, and it thus makes itself of account as this universal negativity. But the older Scepticism does not doubt, being certain of untruth, and indifferent to the one as to the other; it does not only flit to and fro with thoughts that leave the possibility that something may still be true, but it proves with certainty the untruth of all. Or its doubt to it is certainty which has not the intention of attaining to truth, nor does it leave this matter undecided, for it is completely at a point, and perfectly decided, although this decision is not truth to it. This certainty of itself thus has as result the rest and security of the mind in itself, which is not touched with any grief, and of which doubt is the direct opposite. This is the standpoint of the imperturbability of Scepticism.
-----------------------------------
By the spirit of Philosophy the Jews were compelled to seek in their sacred books, as the heathen sought in Homer and in the popular religion, a deeper speculative meaning, and to represent their religious writings as a perfect system of divine wisdom. That is the character of the time, in consequence of which all that appealed to the finite understanding in popular conceptions has not endured. The important point, then, is that on the one hand the popular conception is here still allied with the forms of reality; but as, on the other hand, what these forms express only immediately is no longer sufficient, the desire arises to understand them in a deeper sense. Although in the external histories of the Jewish and heathen religions men had the authority and starting-point of truth, they yet grasped the thought that truth cannot be given externally. Therefore, men read deep thoughts into history, as the expression is, or they read them out of it, and this latter is the true conception. For in the case of the Divine Book, whose author is the Spirit, it cannot be said that this spirituality is absent. The point of importance comes to be, whether this spirituality lies deeper down or nearer to the surface; therefore, even if the man who wrote the book had not the thoughts, they are implicitly contained in the inward nature of the relation.
-------------------------------------------
What we here consider so dry and abstract is concrete. “Such rubbish,� it is said, “as we consider when in our study we see philosophers dispute and argue, and settle things this way and that at will, are verbal abstractions only.� No, no; they are the deeds of the world-spirit, gentlemen, and therefore of fate. The philosophers are in so doing nearer to God than those nurtured upon spiritual crumbs; they read or write the orders as they receive them in the original. they are obliged to continue writing on. Philosophers are the initiated ones � those who have taken part in the advance which has been made into the inmost sanctuary; others have their particular interests � this dominion, these riches, this girl. Hundreds and thousands of years are required by the world-spirit to reach the point which we attain more quickly, because we have the advantage of having objects which are past and of dealing with abstraction.
I thought its most attractive feature was something that others have complained about � which is the extent to which this history is written from Hegel’s point of view. This leads to complaints that it is biased and bears the arrogant implication that the history of philosophy was from the outset following a teleological path that leads to Hegel at its culmination. I don’t read it that way at all.
This is Hegel’s history of Greek philosophy. and it avoids the risk of being tediously abstract (and by God the Greeks can be tediously abstract) by giving us a dog in the fight, a reason to care about where this history might be taking us. When I ploughed through even some of the minor thinkers, expecting to be unimpressed, I have been struck instead by surprisingly interesting observations, relevant to my own interests, because Hegel is continually relating their work not only to the unfolding story of ancient Greek thought, but also to the ongoing, active concerns of Hegel’s own time, and sometimes a minor thinker turns out to provoke a superb observation. In any event, it becomes apparent � and Hegel often explicitly points out the connections � that Hegel’s own philosophical system is built on Greek foundations and that he is keen to show the genealogy of his ideas. To my mind this history helps to give a lot more resonance to Hegel’s own terminology and language generally. In an important sense, by explaining how his own thinking emerges from his engagement with the history of Philosophy, Hegel not only make the Greeks more relevant but also makes Hegel himself more relevant for us; their problems are our problems and their arguments are still heard today. It’s important to not only expose the provenance of these arguments but also to be briefed on the possible answers, some of which the Greeks never did find, so that Hegel’s interventions are often helpful, when he explains where the Greeks might have failed and how their failings might be remedied. [There are lots of examples. For example, in discussing the heirs to Aristotle and Plato, Hegel provides a helpful discussion of different ways to interpret scepticism as a philosophical strategy or position that cannot be evaded and so must be addressed.]
It is worth explaining that I was able to read this history at the following web site, which offers a whole online library of resources for students of Hegel. I may continue reading to cover Hegel’s account of mediaeval and modern philosophy but I am taking a break for a while.
It is also worth noting that, in addition to reading this book, I have been listening to episodes of Half Hour Hegel on YouTube, with a line by line reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, though in that case I have indulged myself with an attractive hardback edition to accompany the videos. (The half hour is a trap: there are hundreds of videos in the series.]
Being new to Hegel, I have to remark that the history has been surprisingly helpful for the Phenomenology, , as also was the fact that I have only recently been reading Aristotle. I’m not sure what I would make of Hegel without these aids.
Quotes:
This is one reason why many turn from the study of Plato’s works unsatisfied. When we commence a Dialogue, we find, in the free Platonic method of composition, beautiful scenes in nature, a superb introduction that promises to lead us through flowery fields into Philosophy � and that the highest Philosophy, the Platonic. We meet with elevated thoughts, which are responded to more specially by youth, but these soon disappear. If at first we have allowed ourselves to be carried away by these bright scenes, they must now be all renounced, and as we have come to the real dialectic, and truly speculative, we must keep to the wearisome path, and allow ourselves to be pricked by the thorns and thistles of metaphysics. For behold, we then come to what is best and highest, to investigations respecting the one and many, Being and nothing; this was not what was anticipated, and men go quietly away, only wondering that Plato should seek knowledge here.
-------------------------------
Aristotle then says of the value of Philosophy, “Men have begun to philosophize through wonder,� for in it the knowledge of something higher is at least anticipated. “Thus since man, to escape from ignorance, began to philosophize, it is clear that for the sake of knowledge he followed after knowledge, and not for any utility which it might possess for him. This is also made evident by the whole course of its external history. For it was after men had done with all their absolute requirements, and with what concerns their comfort, that they first began to seek this philosophic knowledge. We hence seek it not for the sake of any outside utility that it may have. And thus as we say that a free man is he who exists on his own account and not for another, Philosophy is the only science that is free, because it alone exists for itself � it is knowledge on account of knowledge.
----------------------------
... the function of Scepticism is wrongly termed the inculcation of proneness to doubt; nor can we translate skeyiς by Doubt, if Scepticism was also called by Sextus (Pyrrh. Hyp. 1. 3, § 7) ephectic (efektikh) because one of its chief points was that judgment must be suspended. Doubt, however, is only uncertainty, irresolution, indecision, the thought which is opposed to something held to be valid. Doubt proceeds from the fact of there being two; it is a passing to and fro between two or more points of view, so that we neither rest at the one nor the other � and yet we ought to remain at one point or another. Thus doubt in man is quite likely to involve a rending asunder of mind and spirit; it gives unrest and brings unhappiness with it; doubts, for instance, arise respecting the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. Forty years ago, much was written about this; in poetry, too, we found the situation of the doubter was a subject of the greatest interest; the unhappiness of doubt being depicted to us as in the “Messias.� This supposes a deep interest in a content, and the desire of the mind that this content should either be established in it or not, because it desires to find its rest either in the one or the other. Such doubt is said to betoken a keen and sharp-witted thinker, but it is only vanity and simple verbiage, or a feebleness that can never arrive at anything. This Scepticism has nowadays entered into our life, and it thus makes itself of account as this universal negativity. But the older Scepticism does not doubt, being certain of untruth, and indifferent to the one as to the other; it does not only flit to and fro with thoughts that leave the possibility that something may still be true, but it proves with certainty the untruth of all. Or its doubt to it is certainty which has not the intention of attaining to truth, nor does it leave this matter undecided, for it is completely at a point, and perfectly decided, although this decision is not truth to it. This certainty of itself thus has as result the rest and security of the mind in itself, which is not touched with any grief, and of which doubt is the direct opposite. This is the standpoint of the imperturbability of Scepticism.
-----------------------------------
By the spirit of Philosophy the Jews were compelled to seek in their sacred books, as the heathen sought in Homer and in the popular religion, a deeper speculative meaning, and to represent their religious writings as a perfect system of divine wisdom. That is the character of the time, in consequence of which all that appealed to the finite understanding in popular conceptions has not endured. The important point, then, is that on the one hand the popular conception is here still allied with the forms of reality; but as, on the other hand, what these forms express only immediately is no longer sufficient, the desire arises to understand them in a deeper sense. Although in the external histories of the Jewish and heathen religions men had the authority and starting-point of truth, they yet grasped the thought that truth cannot be given externally. Therefore, men read deep thoughts into history, as the expression is, or they read them out of it, and this latter is the true conception. For in the case of the Divine Book, whose author is the Spirit, it cannot be said that this spirituality is absent. The point of importance comes to be, whether this spirituality lies deeper down or nearer to the surface; therefore, even if the man who wrote the book had not the thoughts, they are implicitly contained in the inward nature of the relation.
-------------------------------------------
What we here consider so dry and abstract is concrete. “Such rubbish,� it is said, “as we consider when in our study we see philosophers dispute and argue, and settle things this way and that at will, are verbal abstractions only.� No, no; they are the deeds of the world-spirit, gentlemen, and therefore of fate. The philosophers are in so doing nearer to God than those nurtured upon spiritual crumbs; they read or write the orders as they receive them in the original. they are obliged to continue writing on. Philosophers are the initiated ones � those who have taken part in the advance which has been made into the inmost sanctuary; others have their particular interests � this dominion, these riches, this girl. Hundreds and thousands of years are required by the world-spirit to reach the point which we attain more quickly, because we have the advantage of having objects which are past and of dealing with abstraction.
July 17, 2021
Hegel is a lot to take. Your would think that 'the Idea' had been figured out circa 1830 or so, when Hegel was at his peak, and the 'science' of philosophy had been settled all those many years ago. The rest is history, right?
Well. But this is only one facet of Hegel, which includes a lot of great stuff, as highlighted in Zizek's Hegel-inflected psychoanalysis. I have read a lot of Zizek and recognize this. Of course Zizek is a lot to take too, but at this point you can see that reading Hegel means you'll encounter a somewhat mixed bag. He can't be dismissed outright, and should not be.
Heck, Hegel may even make you realize why you are a materialist, but at the same time, you must see, what is materialism without its difference with idealism? Clearly nothing; the stuff of contingency, you might say, and so on. So there's that.
There are, however, several things that recommend his History of Philosophy. One is his adherence to the doctrine of Historicism, which was to examine history on its own terms, and see events in their own context. Another is Hegel's belief that any philosopher worth their salt is self-critical and should examine their own positions, which includes knowing their own specific context: the history of ideas their philosophy has grown upon.
Hegel makes good on these reasons in this first volume. I'm undecided if I should read the two other volumes though. The unfolding of Hegel's History is the unfolding of his philosophy, and is an engrossing read: the two are read better together. I am truly compelled to read on, but like I said, Hegel is a lot to take. So in the end I guess all I can say is we shall see.
Well. But this is only one facet of Hegel, which includes a lot of great stuff, as highlighted in Zizek's Hegel-inflected psychoanalysis. I have read a lot of Zizek and recognize this. Of course Zizek is a lot to take too, but at this point you can see that reading Hegel means you'll encounter a somewhat mixed bag. He can't be dismissed outright, and should not be.
Heck, Hegel may even make you realize why you are a materialist, but at the same time, you must see, what is materialism without its difference with idealism? Clearly nothing; the stuff of contingency, you might say, and so on. So there's that.
There are, however, several things that recommend his History of Philosophy. One is his adherence to the doctrine of Historicism, which was to examine history on its own terms, and see events in their own context. Another is Hegel's belief that any philosopher worth their salt is self-critical and should examine their own positions, which includes knowing their own specific context: the history of ideas their philosophy has grown upon.
Hegel makes good on these reasons in this first volume. I'm undecided if I should read the two other volumes though. The unfolding of Hegel's History is the unfolding of his philosophy, and is an engrossing read: the two are read better together. I am truly compelled to read on, but like I said, Hegel is a lot to take. So in the end I guess all I can say is we shall see.
May 18, 2022
The Owl of Minerva sets flight at the Twilight of the Enlightenment
In his 1937 The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell mentions the influence of Hegel in the Socio-Political world he walks in: "As for the philosophic side of Marxism, the pea-and-thimble trick with those three mysterious entities, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis [The Hegelian Dialectic of Historical Progress]. I have never met a working man who had the faintest interest in it." Later, he identifies the Marxist reinterpretation of Hegel's Master-Slave Dialectic as one of the faulty pillars of his early thinking: "I had reduced everything to the simple theory that the oppressed are always right and the oppressors are always wrong: a mistaken theory, but the natural result of being one of the oppressors yourself." Orwell is looking backwards across the early 20th century, and realizing the calamitous error of Marx's Dialectical Materialism, which Marx created from a deliberate misreading of Hegel. Orwell understood that philosophy can only describe what has happened, and can only provide simple sketches of what the future holds. Philosophers observe social reality, but struggle to change current realities:
Minerva is the Roman name of the Greek deity of wisdom, Athena. The 'owl of wisdom' can only set flight after the day is over, for "Philosophy is then the reconciliation of the ruin that thought has begun. Philosophy begins with the decline of a real world." The eon which Hegel is retroactively describing is the Enlightenment, and he warns about the future chaos that can result from pure Cartesian Rationality which ignores the reality of Geist. For Hegel, world history itself is a movement of philosophy- towards a knowledge of the concrete. And Orwell does the exact same analysis of the past, while warning of future genocides that will be caused by Social Equity religions utilizing a de-mythologized metaphysic.
The Inevitability of both Philosophy and Ritualistic Religion
Hegel cycles through hundreds of religious philosophies and analyzes them Phenomenologically in relation to Self-Consciousness. He starts with Persian sages such as Ahriman and Ormuzd. moving to Chinese philosophies found within Buddhism, Hinduism and the "Lamic Religion" (Tibetan Buddhism, but he treats it as fundamentally different from the Buddhism of Siddhartha), the Taoism of Confucius, Lao-Tse, Tao-te and others. From there he breaks out the movements of the Indian Gymnosophists (a Greek name for Indian Ascetics) and philosophers including Samkhja, Gotama and Kanade, scriptural documents like the Ramajana and the Wedas to semi-religious myths like the Ancient Vikramaditya stories. But he sees pure, self-aware philosophy as beginning with the Greeks. Hegel breaks out Philosophy into three broad Eras: The Greek era stemming from ancient Oriental Philosophy moving from Thales (600BC) to Plotinus (300 AD), The Scholastic period including Arab medieval thinkers, the Philosophy of the "New Age" starting from the Thirty Years' War with Bacon, Böhme and Descartes. Descartes Hegel identifies as the "true initiator of modern Philosophy" and we are still under his sway.
Seeing Philosophy as nested within religious a priori assumptions, Hegel explores the symbolic gravity between mystery-religions (Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Roman cults) and knowledge-religions and philosophies, and notes that dwelling in mystery is not anti-knowledge, but necessary to move to higher forms of knowing:
He is critical of religious leaders who scoff at Philosophic knowledge as inferior, because “religion has a common content with philosophy, and only the forms are different... Philosophy has often been wronged when it is accused of being opposed to religion, but it has also often been wronged when it is accused of being opposed to religion from the standpoint of religion.� By the same token, he criticises the Cartesian idea of mere life philosophy is enough for one to live well and morally. Hegel states bluntly "man should adopt a religion", but not because man can choose otherwise, to be religionless, but because there is no other option. For if a human does not consciously pursue a relation to reality (i.e. a religion), a religion will choose him and possess him unknowingly. Religion is a dialectical movement towards Self-Consciousness of the Ego.
While Hegel agrees we need to resurrect Platonism in the Aristotelian-infused west, he argues that this needs to be done carefully and dialectically. New and improved versions need to be created, because it is impossible and foolish to try to merely resurrect ancient philosophies in their original form, or try to portray them as living philosophies that can govern one's life:
Historical Telos: We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence
Hegel represents a tectonic ideological shift to a focus on the end state of history. The intrinsic potentiality of the Weltgeist predestines a telos for humanity; every age has a zeitgeist that moves towards a goal. Tolstoy would appropriate this Hegelian sweeping, oceanic view of a united Weltgeist organizing all human activities across all of history: "We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence", although his Russian Orthodox roots rejected Hegel's understanding of Rational Dialectal history, as did Dostoevsky. Marxism and Utopian Socialism took this myopic focus on rational history and fully secularized it into an "Atheistic Eschatology" by applying a de-mythicized Hegelian rational historical dialectic (Dialectic Materialism). The Hegelian view of history is a type of rational, non-religious attempt at Eschatology. As Kant was a Christian Ethicist, who rationalized and sanitized Christian moral teachings to be in line with the principles of the Enlightenment, so Hegel stripped out Eschatology from the Apocalypse of St. John and made it respectable to a materialist metaphysic. But both Kant and Hegel realized at points that this Rationalization came at a cost- the cost of the Dionysian. They both criticized and contributed to a demythologized, rationalistic, legalistic and materialized European style of Christianity. Hegel is at the tail end of the enlightenment and is mourning its destructive influence. He is trying to rescue the good fragments for future posterity while resurrecting a mystical mode of Being to halt the inevitable advent of Nihilism created by Cartesian Epistemology. He is paradoxically perfecting the rationality of Christianity as he recognizes that Christianity cannot be a purely rational substance. In this way, Hegel built the philosophical foundations of the western world and profoundly influenced philosophy and religion, the secular and the sacred.
Hegel developed a new approach to the doctrine of Creatio Nova; the apotheosis, ultimate judgment, and resolution of all things. German Idealism helped create new Teleological varieties of Eschatology within Protestantism- Dispensationalism of the Radical Reformation for instance, and subsequently the Progressive "de-constructivist" Evangelicalism. These are all entirely built upon this shift in Theology from Aion to Chronos; from a cyclical understanding of time (and thus, revelation) to a dialectal, periodized understanding. Derrida's Postmodern Deconstructivism which still lives today in the Social Justice Warriors of the Intersectional-Identarian Religion (Feminism, Intersectionality, Freudian gender theories, the novel race theories, etc) is a crypto-Hegelian "End of History" philosophy. Ever since Hegel, every socio-political movement has viewed itself as the capstone of history; ahistorical and self-righteous in its collectivist dogmatism, utterly incapable of self-introspection, self-awareness, or self-criticism.
Hegelian Welt:
1. Jenaer Schriften/ Jena Writings (1801-1806):
2. Phänomenologie des Geistes/ The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807):
3. Wissenschaft der logik/ The Science of Logic (1812):
4. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse/ Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817):
5. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts/ Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820):
6. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte Lectures on the Philosophy of world-history (1770�1831) :
7. Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik/ Lectures on Aesthetics (1818 -1829):
8. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion/ Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1821-1831):
9. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie/ Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1805-1831):
In his 1937 The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell mentions the influence of Hegel in the Socio-Political world he walks in: "As for the philosophic side of Marxism, the pea-and-thimble trick with those three mysterious entities, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis [The Hegelian Dialectic of Historical Progress]. I have never met a working man who had the faintest interest in it." Later, he identifies the Marxist reinterpretation of Hegel's Master-Slave Dialectic as one of the faulty pillars of his early thinking: "I had reduced everything to the simple theory that the oppressed are always right and the oppressors are always wrong: a mistaken theory, but the natural result of being one of the oppressors yourself." Orwell is looking backwards across the early 20th century, and realizing the calamitous error of Marx's Dialectical Materialism, which Marx created from a deliberate misreading of Hegel. Orwell understood that philosophy can only describe what has happened, and can only provide simple sketches of what the future holds. Philosophers observe social reality, but struggle to change current realities:
Wenn die Philosophie ihr Grau in Grau malt, dann ist eine Gestalt des Lebens alt geworden, und mit Grau in Grau läßt sie sich nicht verjüngen, sondern nur erkennen; die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.
//
When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then a figure of life has grown old, and with grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized; the owl of Minerva only sets flight at the falling of dusk.
Minerva is the Roman name of the Greek deity of wisdom, Athena. The 'owl of wisdom' can only set flight after the day is over, for "Philosophy is then the reconciliation of the ruin that thought has begun. Philosophy begins with the decline of a real world." The eon which Hegel is retroactively describing is the Enlightenment, and he warns about the future chaos that can result from pure Cartesian Rationality which ignores the reality of Geist. For Hegel, world history itself is a movement of philosophy- towards a knowledge of the concrete. And Orwell does the exact same analysis of the past, while warning of future genocides that will be caused by Social Equity religions utilizing a de-mythologized metaphysic.
The Inevitability of both Philosophy and Ritualistic Religion
Hegel cycles through hundreds of religious philosophies and analyzes them Phenomenologically in relation to Self-Consciousness. He starts with Persian sages such as Ahriman and Ormuzd. moving to Chinese philosophies found within Buddhism, Hinduism and the "Lamic Religion" (Tibetan Buddhism, but he treats it as fundamentally different from the Buddhism of Siddhartha), the Taoism of Confucius, Lao-Tse, Tao-te and others. From there he breaks out the movements of the Indian Gymnosophists (a Greek name for Indian Ascetics) and philosophers including Samkhja, Gotama and Kanade, scriptural documents like the Ramajana and the Wedas to semi-religious myths like the Ancient Vikramaditya stories. But he sees pure, self-aware philosophy as beginning with the Greeks. Hegel breaks out Philosophy into three broad Eras: The Greek era stemming from ancient Oriental Philosophy moving from Thales (600BC) to Plotinus (300 AD), The Scholastic period including Arab medieval thinkers, the Philosophy of the "New Age" starting from the Thirty Years' War with Bacon, Böhme and Descartes. Descartes Hegel identifies as the "true initiator of modern Philosophy" and we are still under his sway.
Seeing Philosophy as nested within religious a priori assumptions, Hegel explores the symbolic gravity between mystery-religions (Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Roman cults) and knowledge-religions and philosophies, and notes that dwelling in mystery is not anti-knowledge, but necessary to move to higher forms of knowing:
In the Eleusinian Mysteries there was nothing unknown� In the Christian religion the dogmas are called mysteries; they are what is known of the nature of God. This is also nothing secret� the mysteries are by their nature, as speculative content, secret for the intellect, not for reason; they are precisely the sensible in the sense of the speculative. The understanding does not grasp the speculative, this concrete; the understanding holds the differences par excellence separately. The mystery also contains their contradiction, but it is at the same time also the dissolution of it.
He is critical of religious leaders who scoff at Philosophic knowledge as inferior, because “religion has a common content with philosophy, and only the forms are different... Philosophy has often been wronged when it is accused of being opposed to religion, but it has also often been wronged when it is accused of being opposed to religion from the standpoint of religion.� By the same token, he criticises the Cartesian idea of mere life philosophy is enough for one to live well and morally. Hegel states bluntly "man should adopt a religion", but not because man can choose otherwise, to be religionless, but because there is no other option. For if a human does not consciously pursue a relation to reality (i.e. a religion), a religion will choose him and possess him unknowingly. Religion is a dialectical movement towards Self-Consciousness of the Ego.
While Hegel agrees we need to resurrect Platonism in the Aristotelian-infused west, he argues that this needs to be done carefully and dialectically. New and improved versions need to be created, because it is impossible and foolish to try to merely resurrect ancient philosophies in their original form, or try to portray them as living philosophies that can govern one's life:
If the newest time is also called upon to return to the standpoint of an ancient philosophy, as Platonic philosophy in particular has been recommended for this purpose as a means of rescue from all the entanglements of the following times, then such a return is not that unbiased phenomenon of the first relearning; but this counsel of modesty has the same source as the request to educated society to return to the savages of the North American forests... On the one hand, in such regression there is no mistaking the longing for a beginning and fixed starting point; this alone is to be sought in thought and the idea itself, not [in] an authority-like form.... That is why the Platonic, Aristotelian, etc. philosophy, all philosophies, are always and presently alive in their principles; but philosophy is no longer in the form and level at which Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy was. We cannot stop with them, they cannot be resurrected. Therefore today there can be no more Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans. To reawaken them would be to want to bring the more educated, more introspective spirit back to an earlier stage.
Historical Telos: We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence
Hegel represents a tectonic ideological shift to a focus on the end state of history. The intrinsic potentiality of the Weltgeist predestines a telos for humanity; every age has a zeitgeist that moves towards a goal. Tolstoy would appropriate this Hegelian sweeping, oceanic view of a united Weltgeist organizing all human activities across all of history: "We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence", although his Russian Orthodox roots rejected Hegel's understanding of Rational Dialectal history, as did Dostoevsky. Marxism and Utopian Socialism took this myopic focus on rational history and fully secularized it into an "Atheistic Eschatology" by applying a de-mythicized Hegelian rational historical dialectic (Dialectic Materialism). The Hegelian view of history is a type of rational, non-religious attempt at Eschatology. As Kant was a Christian Ethicist, who rationalized and sanitized Christian moral teachings to be in line with the principles of the Enlightenment, so Hegel stripped out Eschatology from the Apocalypse of St. John and made it respectable to a materialist metaphysic. But both Kant and Hegel realized at points that this Rationalization came at a cost- the cost of the Dionysian. They both criticized and contributed to a demythologized, rationalistic, legalistic and materialized European style of Christianity. Hegel is at the tail end of the enlightenment and is mourning its destructive influence. He is trying to rescue the good fragments for future posterity while resurrecting a mystical mode of Being to halt the inevitable advent of Nihilism created by Cartesian Epistemology. He is paradoxically perfecting the rationality of Christianity as he recognizes that Christianity cannot be a purely rational substance. In this way, Hegel built the philosophical foundations of the western world and profoundly influenced philosophy and religion, the secular and the sacred.
Hegel developed a new approach to the doctrine of Creatio Nova; the apotheosis, ultimate judgment, and resolution of all things. German Idealism helped create new Teleological varieties of Eschatology within Protestantism- Dispensationalism of the Radical Reformation for instance, and subsequently the Progressive "de-constructivist" Evangelicalism. These are all entirely built upon this shift in Theology from Aion to Chronos; from a cyclical understanding of time (and thus, revelation) to a dialectal, periodized understanding. Derrida's Postmodern Deconstructivism which still lives today in the Social Justice Warriors of the Intersectional-Identarian Religion (Feminism, Intersectionality, Freudian gender theories, the novel race theories, etc) is a crypto-Hegelian "End of History" philosophy. Ever since Hegel, every socio-political movement has viewed itself as the capstone of history; ahistorical and self-righteous in its collectivist dogmatism, utterly incapable of self-introspection, self-awareness, or self-criticism.
Hegelian Welt:
1. Jenaer Schriften/ Jena Writings (1801-1806):
2. Phänomenologie des Geistes/ The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807):
3. Wissenschaft der logik/ The Science of Logic (1812):
4. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse/ Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817):
5. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts/ Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820):
6. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte Lectures on the Philosophy of world-history (1770�1831) :
7. Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik/ Lectures on Aesthetics (1818 -1829):
8. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion/ Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1821-1831):
9. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie/ Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1805-1831):
September 7, 2011
Some brilliant ideas and amazing insight but not at all light reading. Hegel also has a habit of repeating himself which can become tiring. Definitely worth reading though.
January 7, 2025
Como siempre Hegel es un gran analista de las corrientes filosóficas, y a pesar de que la lectura tiene un gran apego a mis gustos particulares, debo reconocer que se nota que este texto refleja los primeros pensamientos del expositor (Hegel) y aun no se configura cono el gran filosofo.
En este texto, parece un simple comentarista histórico con perspectiva filosófica, donde aún no impregna su característica exegesis sistémica integradora, algo que lo hace un gran racionalista de su época.
Sin embargo, el texto es muy bueno para comprender las distintas visiones a lo largo del tiempo y de una forma totalitaria. En este primer rubro se analiza desde las concepciones orientales y Tales de Mileto, hasta Empedocles, dejando al final un maravilloso capítulo del gran Anaxagoras.
Los amantes de la filosofía, de la historia del pensamiento o los simples analistas de las corrientes filosóficas, tienen aquí una lectura obligada, pues este libro no solo es una integración de perspectivas filosóficas, es un análisis profundo donde Hegel le añade su toque especial, a pesar de tener un prematuro concepto filosófico en ese momento.
En este texto, parece un simple comentarista histórico con perspectiva filosófica, donde aún no impregna su característica exegesis sistémica integradora, algo que lo hace un gran racionalista de su época.
Sin embargo, el texto es muy bueno para comprender las distintas visiones a lo largo del tiempo y de una forma totalitaria. En este primer rubro se analiza desde las concepciones orientales y Tales de Mileto, hasta Empedocles, dejando al final un maravilloso capítulo del gran Anaxagoras.
Los amantes de la filosofía, de la historia del pensamiento o los simples analistas de las corrientes filosóficas, tienen aquí una lectura obligada, pues este libro no solo es una integración de perspectivas filosóficas, es un análisis profundo donde Hegel le añade su toque especial, a pesar de tener un prematuro concepto filosófico en ese momento.
December 29, 2021
Excellent:
Ionians:
1) Thales (all water)
2)Anaximander (infinitude)
3) Anaximenes (all air)
Pythagoreans: Unity, Duality, Triads. Musical Octaves based on 1:2 ratio.
Eleatics:
1) Xenophanes: One God, the Absolute
2) Parmednides: Being is Existing
3) Zeno: How can one ever get to the finish line if they are infitintely cutting the distance between the line in half?
Heraclitus: Being and Nonbeing are united.
Leucippus, Democritus: Indivisible Atoms
Empedocles: Air is a separate substance
Anaxogoros: Existence? The Universal.
Sophists:
1) Protogoras: Everything is relative
2) Gorgias: Cannot be and not be.
Socrates: Birth of moral philosophy. I control what I believe. This is why he was convicted in Athens. Humans developed agency***
Socratics:
1) Megarcics: Good is God, the one true good. Euclides, Stilpo.
2) Cyrenaics: The good is subjective... we only need what we feel is necessary (Arstippus, Theodorus)
3) Cynics: The good is objective... we only need what is necessary. (Antisthenes, Diogenes)
Ionians:
1) Thales (all water)
2)Anaximander (infinitude)
3) Anaximenes (all air)
Pythagoreans: Unity, Duality, Triads. Musical Octaves based on 1:2 ratio.
Eleatics:
1) Xenophanes: One God, the Absolute
2) Parmednides: Being is Existing
3) Zeno: How can one ever get to the finish line if they are infitintely cutting the distance between the line in half?
Heraclitus: Being and Nonbeing are united.
Leucippus, Democritus: Indivisible Atoms
Empedocles: Air is a separate substance
Anaxogoros: Existence? The Universal.
Sophists:
1) Protogoras: Everything is relative
2) Gorgias: Cannot be and not be.
Socrates: Birth of moral philosophy. I control what I believe. This is why he was convicted in Athens. Humans developed agency***
Socratics:
1) Megarcics: Good is God, the one true good. Euclides, Stilpo.
2) Cyrenaics: The good is subjective... we only need what we feel is necessary (Arstippus, Theodorus)
3) Cynics: The good is objective... we only need what is necessary. (Antisthenes, Diogenes)
December 12, 2024
Ha sido mi primer acercamiento a Hegel (más allá de leer algunas cosas mucho más breves como la dialéctica del amo y el esclavo o quienes son los que piensan abstractamente), y siento que busca estimar los desarrollos del pensamiento en función de su propio sistema hegeliano. No lo sé, le doy 3 porque aún me falta leer mucho sobre Hegel y el resto de filósofos, pero dudo mucho que la conciencia se esté depurando constantemente con el fin de seguir "reconociendose", para mí eso es metafísica, y me preocupa aún más que esa metafísica hegeliana descubierta por Hegel sea el criterio de evaluación que el propio Hegel hace para estimar como se ha ido desarrollando el pensamiento en los distintos estados de desarrollo de la humanidad. Me parece soberbio.
February 25, 2023
Hegel does a thorough review and summary of all the pre-Socratic philosophers up to Plato, showing the progression and development of philosophy over time and the unfolding of World Spirit. He shows how each philosopher contributed foundationally to philosophy, such as contributing to the primitive understanding of metaphysics at the time, talks about philosophical misadventures like the Pythagoreans who believed numbers to be the in-itself of everything and about how each subsequent set of philosophers tried to rectify the problems of the last. The work covers pre-Socratics like Anaxagoras, Zeno of Elea, Parmenides and Heraclitus, the latter of which is most influential to Hegel's thought.
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September 25, 2021La introducción de este libro vale por si misma. Explicar qué es la historia, cómo abordarla y cuales son los desarrollos que provienen de ella es lucido, claro y didáctico. La exigencia esta en el que intente medirse ante la investigación de hechos solo como un observador.
El primer volumen además de la brillante introducción describe la filosofía de Grecia antigua. Pitágoras, Zenón, Parménides, Demócrito, Heráclito, Anaxágoras, etc, etc. Es como ir a un museo con un guía que solo enseña, sin interpretar, solo desarrolla sin interpretar. Arduo y grandioso trabajo el de Hegel.
El primer volumen además de la brillante introducción describe la filosofía de Grecia antigua. Pitágoras, Zenón, Parménides, Demócrito, Heráclito, Anaxágoras, etc, etc. Es como ir a un museo con un guía que solo enseña, sin interpretar, solo desarrolla sin interpretar. Arduo y grandioso trabajo el de Hegel.
May 29, 2021
I hate idealism and metaphysics... but Hegel is another story.
As the chief of philosophy in his time, he chops bit by bit all the pre-socratics and ends ups explaining, both historically and reasonably, all the details (from the life of the author and the general context to the philosophical systems).
The scientific compromise he shows made me forget he was talking of the spirit as an immaterial concept (he really is that good).
As the chief of philosophy in his time, he chops bit by bit all the pre-socratics and ends ups explaining, both historically and reasonably, all the details (from the life of the author and the general context to the philosophical systems).
The scientific compromise he shows made me forget he was talking of the spirit as an immaterial concept (he really is that good).
January 29, 2025
This is actually a sweet chronological intro to philosophy. I have tiptoed around Hegel for a while because of how difficult he’s been portrayed as, so I was surprised by how clear this was. Not to say I understood everything he was on about, but I chose to categorize that which I did not understand as poetry because Hegel is one poetic MF imo. This was really good. I hope to get to the other two volumes soon.
October 11, 2024
And so my first sustained encounter with Hegel’s writing (and speech, in this case) arrived in the form of his lectures on the history of philosophy. Working through it concurrently with Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution - a stunningly lucid exegesis of Hegel’s thought - has been immensely rewarding. (Reserving my more concrete judgements until I’ve finished the other two volumes)
January 26, 2019
El buen Hegel, es una historia sencilla, con las limitaciones de la época para discernir los textos auténticos aunque hace un gran recorrido de la filosofía y resume filosofía de otras culturas.
March 15, 2023
I only read Hegel’s views on Socrates from page 384 to 448 as part of my studies on Kierkegaard.
August 10, 2024
The English translations for this are not that good unfortunately. But I needed information about Hegel on the Presocratics and Sophists, and I'd rather read Fraktur than deal with shit English Hegel translators.
February 18, 2024
"El pensamiento produjo el pecado original, al morder el hombre el fruto del Árbol de la Ciencia del Bien y del Mal; pero, cura este mal, al mismo tiempo que lo produjo."
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