The paradigm whereby rationality = vision of cosmic order = self-presence, Taylor calls an “inarticulate limit of thought”, insofar as it was presupposed, and preceded the possibility of consideration in itself.
Enlightenment as an attempt to amalgamate two views: man as generator of objectivity, and (thence) man as subject of nature – nb. tension.
The desacralizing efforts of Calvinism et al. assisted the German movement towards eschewing the perception of the world as a “locus of meaning in relation to which man has to define himself” (p9).
“Each man has his own measure, as if it were an accord peculiar to him of all his feelings to each other” (quoting Herder, p16-17).
“See the whole of nature, behold the great analogy of creation. Everything feels itself and its like, life reverberates to life” (quoting Herder, p25). This expresses the idea that my life exists as part of the “great current of life that flows across it” (p25).
Story of German Idealism begins with the spread of the Enlightenment, albeit of a German variety, including the forces of Pietism. One outcome of this mixture is the Sturm und Drang movement, which redefines language, art, and personhood via (what Taylor names, inspired by Berlin) expressivism, which aims at unity, freedom, communion with man, and with nature.
That also explains their attraction to (their perception) the Ancient Greek polis and its life.
Nb. tension btw Kant’s theory and expr. since the former seems to require a diremption within oneself (e.g. reason vs inclination).
Despite the Terror, there was a feeling that transformation was imminent and urgent.
Fichte (first as a disciple of Kant) took up this challenge, but needed to get rid of the “thing in itself”; subjectivity is the final and only basis of everything. His goal was to provide the ultimate empowerment to the Kantian moral subject. However (says Taylor) this also remained in the realm of what ought to be, and thence an unreachable goal.
Quoting Schiller: “Man only plays when he is human in the fullest sense of the word, and he is only fully human when he plays” (from 15th letter of the Letters..; p38). This is in terms of his attempt to unify (sense and form) via beauty and via its comprehending “play drive”. They are unified not just by agreement, but by being fused, thus unifying the receptive and the spontaneous in us. As Taylor summarizes it, “Realized humanity would live entirely in the creation and love of beauty” (p38).
Taylor defines this task as the goal of the Romantic generation in the 1790s (e.g. to synthesise Fichte/Goethe per Schlegel or Kant/Spinoza per Schleiermacher) (also: to bring man into unity with himself/nature without giving up spiritual achievements, incl. consciousness and moral freedom – thus it must be the case that the “underlying natural reality is a spiritual principle striving to realize itself” p39). Thus arrives Schelling, for whom the unconscious subjectivity in nature seeks to unite itself to full subjectivity, which in turn, moves (i.e. too) towards its objective counterpart. This is achieved in art. Nb. “nature as slumbering spirit” (p42). Taylor notes that a parallel historical trend which fed into this was a sort of religious mysticism, including the concept of a spiral vision of history (e.g. divided into ages of the father/son/ghost or paradise/fall/redemption). The Romantics were aware of these parallels and made of use of them as they believed that “an important transformation was at hand” (p42). And in this respect, Hegel was (Taylor says) “at one with the Romantics” although he “cannot be called a Romantic” (p42).
The Romantics sought to find/produce a meeting of finite and cosmic spirit, in which the expression of the former is part of the latter’s, but which was troubled because it could never be completed (cf. same ‘problem’ for Fichte) – Hegel calls this “bad infinity” – a sort of liminal subconscious zone. This might explain (says Taylor) why many major Romantics reverted to the Christian religion. Furthermore, they gave up their autonomy when they eschewed rationality, preferring unity via pure intuition (which is “to lose oneself in the great current of life” [p47]).
– this is what the R’s tried towards, and which Schelling wanted to define in his notion of the ID btw creative life in nature and creative force of thought. It is also what H reached in his Geist.
and basic account of nature and why it is as it is. (2) Reciprocally, we must develop a notion of what it is for man to be the vehicle of Geist which is not incompatible with his vocation to rational autonomy.”
Without Hegel’s realization of the necessity of reason for man qua vehicle of cosmic spirit and retainer of autonomy, the “Romantics either fell into the despair of exile in a God-forsaken world, or recovered unity with nature and God only in the twilight zone of intuition and fantasy” (p48). Nb. I’m not sure but feel like “exile” and “God-forsaken” are reference statements – they were used separately earlier too.
aspirations – to expressive unity and to radical autonomy – have remained central preoccupations of modern men; and the hope to combine them cannot but recur in one form or another, be it in Marxism or integral anarchism, technological Utopianism or the return to nature” p49
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“Hen Kai Pan” (meaning “One and all”) was coined by Holderin and given currency by Lessing’s use. It “expressed the great current of life flowing through all beings with whom men was be reunited” (p52).
Young Hegel was moved by three poles: expressivism, Enlightenment (represented first by Mendelssohn and Lessing, then Kant), and Christian theology (which he worked against but did not ultimately oppose, except at some times). He sought (and expected) German regeneration.
Jews objectified nature. Then Jesus tried to provide an expressivist religion but failed due to his constituencies. Kant’s morality divides man within himself, and thus enslaves himself to reason (against inclination), no different than the Jewish god. {Ugh, with H it is so obvious that he contorts his mind to suit his desires. Through him, I realize that this must be true of all generations and their thinkers. Perhaps he offends me most for other reasons, including his prose, including what feels with him to be prominent intellectual trickery – this at various levels}.
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That is why Hegel holds that the ordinary viewpoint of identity has to be abandoned in philosophy in favour of a way of thinking which can be called dialectical in that it presents us with something which cannot be grasped in a single proposition or series of propositions, which does not violate the principle of non-contradiction: – (p. -p). The minimum cluster which can really do justice to reality is three propositions, that A is A, that A is also -A; and that -A shows itself to be after all A.” p80
“out of original identity, opposition necessarily grows; and this opposition itself leads to a higher unity, which is founded on a recognition of the inevitability and rational necessity of this opposition” p87
Since this dichotomy is essential to man, and since man is a subject, and since the universe is a subject (like Spinoza’s substance), therefore this philosophical law (aka dialectic) can be employed universally. The universe is the embodiment of Geist, just as my body is mine. Neither can be separated from their embodiment. Nb. two understandings of embodiment, (1) like Aristotle, i.e. a life’s form; (2) the expression of thought which requires a medium. They come together in a mode of living THIS PARTICULAR life. Note however that some aspects of man are only understood via one of these understandings, e.g. digestion for the former; some cultural expressions for the latter (although Freud and Marx would disagree re. this exclusivity); marriage customs, modes of production for both. With Geist however the two coincide perfectly, and this marks off an infinite spirit from a finite one.
“There is something in Hegel’s philosophy which is irresistibly reminiscent of Baron M Munchhausen. The baron , it will be remembered, after falling from his horse in a swamp, extricated himself by seizing his own hair and heaving himself back on his horse.” p101
{btw}
“Hegel says in a famous passage ( {Science of Logic}, II, 58) that contradiction is as essential to reality as identity . Indeed, if he had to choose between these two as to which was more important, he would choose contradiction, for it is the source of all life and movement.” p105
{Another def. NEGATIVITY} {It is me who is presenting it as 3 defs}
{…Missing…}
{3} “for instance, with the early institutions of human history which will later become the law-state based on reason. At this point their ‘ reality ‘ can be contrasted to their ‘ concept’ in the sense of the plan of their fully developed form. ‘ Concept’ here is thus the formula of their full-fledged stage, towards which they are headed, this is what is only implicit in ‘ concept’ as germ, and which can be contrasted to the raw unformed reality of the present stage.” p111
“like the concept, the universal can take on a different aspect in relation to the different stages of developmelit. As a concept underlying external reality, but taken on its own outside of, or ‘ before ‘ this reality, the universal is ‘ abstract’. It is rather like the traditional idea of the universal as a common formula of a given type of thing, arrived at by abstraction from the particular properties of its instances.” p113
“the concrete universal, the concept embodied in external reality which is there to realize it, to express the idea involved.” p113
“The concrete universal is the expressed universal or thought. It should not be seen as united indifferently with just any particular features, but these latter should be seen as deployed in order to instantiate it.” p113
the infinite would be other than and hence bounded by the finite. The infinite would have something outside of it, the finite, and hence would not be truly infinite.” p114
‘ bad infinite’. Rather than being a valid model of the infinite, this is rather a nightmarish perpetuation of the finite.” …
“The proper image of infinity for Hegel is thus not a straight line indefinitely prolonged, but a circle. […] More, the finite turns itself into the infinite; for we have seen that if we start with any partial reality we are referred beyond it, ultimately to the whole system. The finite as a whole is thus one with the infinite; and the infinite finds its only expression in the ordered whole of the finite.” …
{And linked to SCIENCE} “Because reality is a circle, which can only present itself in its true form as the result of a process of development, which process is itself seen as posited by what results from it, we can only present the truth about the absolute in a system. Science itself must be a circle which reflects and gives an adequate account of the linked levels of being which are essential to the whole.” …
“We can only come close to the truth by seeing how both affirmation and negation fit together and are necessary to each other. Science can only be a system.” p116
“The type of thought which underlies this form of science Hegel calls ‘reason’ ( Vernunft); this is the thinking which follows reality in its contradictions, and therefore can see how each level turns into the next one. Reason in this sense is contrasted to understanding ( Verstand) which is the habit common to most, of holding fast to the principle of identity.” …
{Next subsection gets into summing up how Hegel has achieved his various goals}
“We overcome the dualism between subject and world, between knowing man and nature, in seeing the world as the necessary expression of thought, or rational necessity, while we see ourselves as the necessary vehicles of this thought, as the point where it becomes conscious.” p117
“The PhG is thus a kind of itinerary of our conceptions of ourselves, or perhaps more accurately, a struggle by Hegel to wrench his own conception of Geist out of those of his contemporaries, views which arise of necessity in the course of man’s spiritual itinerary, but which now have to be set aside and which must be combatted with polemical force. The PhG is above all a work of self-clarification and is shot through with a powerful inner tension, and this is what gives it its extraordinary forcefulness and fascination.” p124
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– – Since our knowledge comes to be Geist’s self-knowledge: we discover that reality is posited by thought (and not beyond thought), i.e. reality is a manifestation of rational necessity.
“We overcome the dualism between subject and world, between knowing man and nature, in seeing the world as the necessary expression of thought, or rational necessity, while we see ourselves as the necessary vehicles of this thought, as the point where it becomes conscious. (And become conscious it must, for the rationally necessary order of things includes the necessity that this rationally necessary order appears to itself.) //
This means that we come to see ourselves not just as finite subjects, with our own thoughts as it were, but as the vehicles of a thought which is more than just ours, that is in a sense the thought of the universe as a whole, or in Hegel’s terms, of God. //
Hegel’s answer to the Kantian doctrine of the Ding-an-sich is thus to throw down the barrier between man and the world in having the knowledge of finite subjects culminate in the self-knowledge of infinite subject. But he does not break through the barrier by a Romantic abandonment in which subject and object are felt ultimately to coincide in a kind of ineffable intuition of unity. //
Rather Hegel solves the problem of uniting finite to infinite spirit without loss of freedom through his notion of reason. […] The rational agent loses none of his freedom in coming to accept his vocation as a vehicle of cosmic necessity.” p117
{viz. a cosmic necessity that is rational too, i.e. the subject being an aspect of it}
“Nor does this union with cosmic spirit only accommodate us as subjects of rational thought at the expense of our lower, empirical, desiring nature; for this too is part of the necessary order of things.” p117-8
“Hence nothing of us is abandoned when we come to assume our full role as vehicles of Geist. Because the order of which we are a part is deployed by a spirit whose nature is an unadulterated rational necessity, and because this spirit necessarily posits us as finite subjects, we can identify with it without remainder.” p118
unity retains the difference within it.” p118
“Secondly, the Absolute must be understood in concepts […] and not in feeling and intuition” p118
“Hegel will not abandon the clear distinctions of thought. But he claims to have his cake and eat it through his new concept of reason. This is founded on the ontological thesis that these oppositions themselves proceed from and return to identity; so that the thought which marks the clearest distinction is also that which unites. The opposition itself, pushed to the limit, goes over into identity. Man separates from nature in the course of realizing his vocation as a rational being. But it is just this vocation fully realized, just the full development of rationality which shows him to himself as the vehicle of Geist and thus reconciles the opposition.” p118-9
[…] the opposition, pushed to its limit, leads to reconciliation. The moral agent who strives to act on the dictates of pure practical reason independent of inclination is finally forced by reason itself to a conception of himself as a vehicle of Geist and hence to a reconciliation with the nature of things, speculatively understood, which is also an expression of Geist. This reconciliation does not mean a return to original unity but preserves rational freedom.” p119
belonging to it the individual is already living beyond himself in some larger life; and as the state comes to its ‘ truth ‘ as an expression of universal reason in the form of law, it brings the individual with it toward his ultimate vocation. //
Thus in its more primitive forms, the state can be and is in opposition to man who aspires to be a free self-conscious individual. But this opposition is destined to be overcome. For the free individual must ultimately come to see himself as the vehicle of universal reason; and when the state comes to its full development as the embodiment of this reason, then the two are reconciled.” p120
“Freedom is only real when expressed in a form of life; and since man cannot live on his own, this must be a collective form of life; […] thus freedom must be embodied in the state.” p120
“We can endow human life with as much significance as we wish in considering man, the rational animal, as the vehicle of universal reason. […] But what about the absurdity of what just happens, including the greatest absurdity of all, death? How do we incorporate this in a meaningful whole? Or […] how do we justify the ways of God (laying on him the responsibility of fate) to man?” p120-1
“Man’s fate can be given a place in the skein of necessity just as well as his achievements. Death itself, the death of particular men, is necessary in the scheme of things” p121
has not met the difficulty.” p121
{Yet} “We can be reconciled with [individual fate] as well as with world history if we identify with what we essentially are, universal reason. If we really come to see ourselves as vehicles of universal reason, then death is no longer an ‘ other ‘; for it is part of the plan. We are in that sense already beyond death ; it is no longer a limit. It is incorporated in the life of reason which goes on beyond it.” …
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“The course of Geist’s development towards self-knowledge lies through the initial confusions, misconceptions and truncated visions of men. These cannot, therefore, lie outside the system. Rather this initial darkness reflects something essential about the absolute, viz., that it must grow through a struggle to self-knowledge. Hence there cannot easily be an introduction to the science of the absolute which is not also part of that science, no mere clearing of the ground which is not also a partial construction of the building.” p127
– – Method = judge things by the current standard, then measure how those things appear against that standard, thus will find a contradiction in that standard/viewpoint.
– – e.g. LOGIC, CONSCIOUSNESS
Since practice of knowledge cannot be divorced from conception of knowledge, therefore dialectic of theories of knowledge is connected to dialectic of historical forms of consciousness.
reality according to it. This is what brings out the conflict with the standard. So that reality is our third term.”
– – Although unlike a skeptical argument, a dlct leads to a specific next step (not leaving us in a void).
HOWEVER: “But this account may not make us very much more sanguine about the prospects of Hegel’s ascending dialectics. For it is not enough that we be able to look on something as the realization of an intrinsic goal, that this be one way we could look at things. Such a problematic starting point could yield by dialectical argument a view of things which might convince us by its plausibility, but it would not be a binding argument, it would not command our assent in all rigour. To do the work Hegel wants, this starting point has to be undeniable. And this seems a tall order. //
But it is one Hegel undertakes to fulfil. We shall see later that it is just the difficulty of sustaining this claim which undermines the whole system. Where his arguments do not work it is usually because they turn on a putative intrinsic purpose or standard which is not irrefutably established.” p134-5
Q- – “the test is not only a test of knowledge, but also of its standard” [PhG 73] !?!
– – If our notion of CoS fundamentally CANNOT take place, then it is a contradictory notion, and thus must undergo a dialectic. The most famous e.g. of this is the master-slave.
“Hegel draws his net wider than we might think necessary. Many readers have been struck by the tendency in this, as in all of Hegel’s systematic works, to start as it might appear all over again at the bottom with each new section. This is one of the things which makes many of the Hegelian transitions difficult to follow and more questionable than they need be.” p139
“In order to make his demonstrations convincing therefore Hegel is led to cover all the angles; rather than proceeding on the shortest path to the goal, he is inclined to try to show that given any starting point one will get there.” …
“The image to represent Hegel’s system is not a single flow, but rather a river system; starting at the source he travels to the first tributary, then instead of continuing on the main stream he insists on exploring this arm from its headwaters, and so on down; until he can show that all the waters of the vast system flow into the estuary of absolute spirit.” p140
“But of course no work can be all-inclusive. There is always some principle of selection. And most readers have found the collection of subjects taken up in the PhG baffling, including as it does theories of knowledge and historical civilizations, visions of man of great formative importance to our civilization, like stoicism, and slightly absurd contemporary fads, like phrenology. Some have suggested that the principle of selection is an autobiographical one: these stages represent the theories, attitudes, aspirations or periods of history which Hegel adopted or reflected upon and which enabled him to win through to his ature vision. There is something in this, of course. But the autobiographical interpretation can easily be pushed too far. There is no evidence that Hegel was ever a believer in phrenology. And on the other side, the rich studies of Judaism and the life of Christ are absent from the PhG, leaving traces only in the theme of unhappy consciousness. //
A much more plausible interpretation would be that Hegel was influenced as to what to include by the currents, beliefs and aspirations of the time. This would make sense in a work designed to take people from where they were to the perspective of absolute science. And this would explain his preoccupation with certain Romantic positions and with the issue of Kantian moral theory.” p140
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impressions come our way, prior to any activity of the mind, in particular conceptual activity.” p141
– – “Hegel’s way of entering the dialectical movement here is to ask the subject of sensible certainty to say what it experiences. We can see here at work the same basic idea that Herder espoused, that human, reflective consciousness is necessarily linguistic consciousness, that it has to be expressed in signs. But if we are bringing to bear a thesis of this kind, are we not violating our method, and importing ideas, information, theories from outside ordinary consciousness? //
Hegel clearly does not think so here. Rather, he treats the ability to say as one of the criterial properties of knowing. And it is hard not to agree with him. For clearly implicit in knowing in the sense relevant here is a certain awareness of what is known.” p141
When the protagonist (of sensible certainty) refers to ‘this/here/now’ then these terms are inadequate since they could apply to anything, thus they are “unviersals”, and thus he is not knowing immediately, not knowing without general terms. And even if the protagonist specifies that it is the ‘here’ that ‘I’ is experiencing, then the ‘I’ too acts as a universal.
“We have to be shown [the object] ; for the truth of this immediate relation is the truth of this I, who restricts himself to one here and now. If we tried to take this truth in afterwards or from a distance, it would have no meaning; for we would do away with the immediacy which is essential to it.” [PhG 85] ?!?
Therefore there is no unmediated k. for sensiblecertainty. The pure particular is unreachable:
– Although this is not an unusual thesis, “the argument and its conclusion are presented by Hegel in a way that reflects certain major themes particular to his philosophy. Thus the unavailability of the bare particular is not just an epistemological truth; it reflects the ontological one that the particular is doomed by its very nature to disappear, that it is in principle mortal. What is permanent is the concept. So the u nsayability of the particular is simply the expression of its ontological status, as that which cannot remain, that which must pass. And reciprocally, external particular existence is impermanent because it cannot be expressed in concepts.” p144
– “our attempt to grasp things in knowledge first negates them as particulars; then, negating this negation, we recover them by grasping them through mediated conceptual consciousness. The immediate is negated, but it is retained in mediated form.” p144
{I too find the example of the Now that escapes into the past to be a poor one, e.g. not the same for This and Here; the best to make of it (T seems to be saying) is simply as illustrating the general form, i.e. the particular that can only be grasped by a universal, and the experience thereof}
