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.<\/p>\n
Enlightenment as an attempt to amalgamate two views: man as generator of objectivity, and (thence) man as subject of nature – nb. tension.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
“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).<\/p>\n
“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).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That also explains their attraction to (their perception) the Ancient Greek polis and its life.<\/p>\n
Nb. tension btw Kant’s theory and expr. since the former seems to require a diremption within oneself (e.g. reason vs inclination).<\/p>\n
Despite the Terror, there was a feeling that transformation was imminent and urgent.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
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]).<\/p>\n
– 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.<\/p>\n
and basic account of nature and why it is as it is. (2) Reciprocally, we must\u00a0develop a notion of what it is for man to be the vehicle of Geist which is not\u00a0incompatible with his vocation to rational autonomy.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
aspirations – to expressive unity and to radical autonomy – have remained\u00a0central preoccupations of modern men; and the hope to combine them cannot\u00a0but recur in one form or another, be it in Marxism or integral anarchism,\u00a0technological Utopianism or the return to nature” p49<\/p>\n
————-<\/p>\n
“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).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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}.<\/p>\n
——————–<\/p>\n
That is why Hegel holds that the ordinary viewpoint of identity has to be\u00a0abandoned in philosophy in favour of a way of thinking which can be called\u00a0dialectical in that it presents us with something which cannot be grasped in a single proposition or series of propositions, which does not violate the\u00a0principle of non-contradiction: – (p. -p). The minimum cluster which can\u00a0really do justice to reality is three propositions, that A is A, that A is also\u00a0-A; and that -A shows itself to be after all A.” p80<\/p>\n
“out of original identity, opposition necessarily grows; and this opposition itself leads\u00a0to a higher unity, which is founded on a recognition of the inevitability and\u00a0rational necessity of this opposition” p87<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“There is something in Hegel’s philosophy which is irresistibly reminiscent of\u00a0Baron M Munchhausen. The baron , it will be remembered, after falling from his\u00a0horse in a swamp, extricated himself by seizing his own hair and heaving\u00a0himself back on his horse.” p101<\/p>\n
{btw}<\/p>\n
“Hegel says in a famous passage ( {Science of Logic}, II, 58) that contradiction is as essential\u00a0to reality as identity . Indeed, if he had to choose between these two as to which\u00a0was more important, he would choose contradiction, for it is the source of all\u00a0life and movement.” p105<\/p>\n
{Another def. NEGATIVITY} {It is me who is presenting it as 3 defs}<\/p>\n
{…Missing…}<\/p>\n
{3} “for instance, with\u00a0the early institutions of human history which will later become the law-state\u00a0based on reason. At this point their ‘ reality ‘ can be contrasted to their\u00a0‘ concept’ in the sense of the plan of their fully developed form. ‘ Concept’ here\u00a0is thus the formula of their full-fledged stage, towards which they are headed,\u00a0this is what is only implicit in ‘ concept’ as germ, and which can be contrasted to\u00a0the raw unformed reality of the present stage.” p111<\/p>\n
“like the concept, the universal can take on a different aspect in relation\u00a0to the different stages of developmelit. As a concept underlying external\u00a0reality, but taken on its own outside of, or ‘ before ‘ this reality, the universal is\u00a0‘ abstract’. It is rather like the traditional idea of the universal as a common\u00a0formula of a given type of thing, arrived at by abstraction from the particular\u00a0properties of its instances.” p113<\/p>\n
“the concrete universal, the concept embodied in external reality which is there\u00a0to realize it, to express the idea involved.” p113<\/p>\n
“The\u00a0concrete universal is the expressed universal or thought. It should not be seen\u00a0as united indifferently with just any particular features, but these latter should\u00a0be seen as deployed in order to instantiate it.” p113<\/p>\n
the infinite would be other than and hence bounded by the finite. The infinite\u00a0would have something outside of it, the finite, and hence would not be truly\u00a0infinite.” p114<\/p>\n
‘ bad infinite’. Rather than being a valid model of the infinite, this is rather a\u00a0nightmarish perpetuation of the finite.” …<\/p>\n
“The proper image of infinity for Hegel is thus not a straight line indefinitely\u00a0prolonged, but a circle. […] More, the finite turns itself into the infinite; for we have seen that if we start\u00a0with any partial reality we are referred beyond it, ultimately to the whole\u00a0system. The finite as a whole is thus one with the infinite; and the infinite finds\u00a0its only expression in the ordered whole of the finite.” …<\/p>\n
{And linked to SCIENCE} “Because reality is a circle, which can only present itself in its true form as the\u00a0result of a process of development, which process is itself seen as posited by\u00a0what results from it, we can only present the truth about the absolute in a\u00a0system. Science itself must be a circle which reflects and gives an adequate\u00a0account of the linked levels of being which are essential to the whole.” …<\/p>\n
“We can only\u00a0come close to the truth by seeing how both affirmation and negation fit\u00a0together and are necessary to each other. Science can only be a system.” p116<\/p>\n
“The type of thought which underlies this form of science Hegel calls ‘reason’\u00a0( Vernunft); this is the thinking which follows reality in its contradictions, and\u00a0therefore can see how each level turns into the next one. Reason in this sense\u00a0is contrasted to understanding ( Verstand) which is the habit common to most,\u00a0of holding fast to the principle of identity.” …<\/p>\n
{Next subsection gets into summing up how Hegel has achieved his various goals}<\/p>\n
“We overcome the dualism between subject and world,\u00a0between knowing man and nature, in seeing the world as the necessary\u00a0expression of thought, or rational necessity, while we see ourselves as the necessary vehicles of this thought, as the point where it becomes conscious.” p117<\/p>\n
“The\u00a0PhG is thus a kind of itinerary of our conceptions of ourselves, or perhaps more\u00a0accurately, a struggle by Hegel to wrench his own conception of Geist out of\u00a0those of his contemporaries, views which arise of necessity in the course of\u00a0man’s spiritual itinerary, but which now have to be set aside and which must be\u00a0combatted with polemical force. The PhG is above all a work of self-clarification\u00a0and is shot through with a powerful inner tension, and this is what\u00a0gives it its extraordinary forcefulness and fascination.” p124<\/p>\n
————————<\/p>\n
– – 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.<\/p>\n
“We overcome the dualism between subject and world,\u00a0between knowing man and nature, in seeing the world as the necessary\u00a0expression of thought, or rational necessity, while we see ourselves as the necessary vehicles of this thought, as the point where it becomes conscious.\u00a0(And become conscious it must, for the rationally necessary order of things\u00a0includes the necessity that this rationally necessary order appears to itself.) \/\/<\/p>\n
This means that we come to see ourselves not just as finite subjects, with our\u00a0own thoughts as it were, but as the vehicles of a thought which is more than just\u00a0ours, that is in a sense the thought of the universe as a whole, or in Hegel’s\u00a0terms, of God. \/\/<\/p>\n
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. \/\/<\/p>\n
Rather Hegel solves the problem of uniting finite to infinite spirit without\u00a0loss of freedom through his notion of reason. […] The rational agent loses none\u00a0of his freedom in coming to accept his vocation as a vehicle of cosmic necessity.” p117<\/p>\n
{viz. a cosmic necessity that is rational too, i.e. the subject being an aspect of it}<\/p>\n
“Nor does this union with cosmic spirit only accommodate us as subjects of\u00a0rational thought at the expense of our lower, empirical, desiring nature; for\u00a0this too is part of the necessary order of things.” p117-8<\/p>\n
“Hence nothing of us is abandoned when we come to assume our full role as\u00a0vehicles of Geist. Because the order of which we are a part is deployed by a spirit\u00a0whose nature is an unadulterated rational necessity, and because this spirit\u00a0necessarily posits us as finite subjects, we can identify with it without remainder.” p118<\/p>\n
unity retains the difference within it.” p118<\/p>\n
“Secondly, the Absolute must be understood in concepts […] and not in feeling and intuition” p118<\/p>\n
“Hegel will not abandon the clear distinctions of thought. But he claims to\u00a0have his cake and eat it through his new concept of reason. This is founded on\u00a0the ontological thesis that these oppositions themselves proceed from and\u00a0return to identity; so that the thought which marks the clearest distinction is\u00a0also that which unites. The opposition itself, pushed to the limit, goes over into\u00a0identity. Man separates from nature in the course of realizing his vocation as a\u00a0rational being. But it is just this vocation fully realized, just the full development\u00a0of rationality which shows him to himself as the vehicle of Geist and thus\u00a0reconciles the opposition.” p118-9<\/p>\n
[…] the opposition, pushed to its limit, leads to reconciliation. The\u00a0moral agent who strives to act on the dictates of pure practical reason\u00a0independent of inclination is finally forced by reason itself to a conception of\u00a0himself as a vehicle of Geist and hence to a reconciliation with the nature of\u00a0things, speculatively understood, which is also an expression of Geist. This\u00a0reconciliation does not mean a return to original unity but preserves rational\u00a0freedom.” p119<\/p>\n
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\u00a0vocation. \/\/<\/p>\n
Thus in its more primitive forms, the state can be and is in opposition to man\u00a0who aspires to be a free self-conscious individual. But this opposition is\u00a0destined to be overcome. For the free individual must ultimately come to see\u00a0himself 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<\/p>\n
“Freedom is only real when expressed in\u00a0a form of life; and since man cannot live on his own, this must be a collective\u00a0form of life; […] thus freedom must be embodied in the state.” p120<\/p>\n
“We can endow human\u00a0life with as much significance as we wish in considering man, the rational\u00a0animal, as the vehicle of universal reason. […] But what about the absurdity of what just happens,\u00a0including the greatest absurdity of all, death? How do we incorporate this in a\u00a0meaningful whole? Or […] how do we justify the ways of\u00a0God (laying on him the responsibility of fate) to man?” p120-1<\/p>\n
“Man’s fate can be given a place in the skein of\u00a0necessity just as well as his achievements. Death itself, the death of particular\u00a0men, is necessary in the scheme of things” p121<\/p>\n
has not met the difficulty.” p121<\/p>\n
{Yet} “We can be reconciled with [individual fate] as well\u00a0as with world history if we identify with what we essentially are, universal\u00a0reason. If we really come to see ourselves as vehicles of universal reason, then\u00a0death is no longer an ‘ other ‘; for it is part of the plan. We are in that sense\u00a0already beyond death ; it is no longer a limit. It is incorporated in the life of\u00a0reason which goes on beyond it.” …<\/p>\n
—————————————————<\/p>\n
“The course of Geist’s development towards\u00a0self-knowledge lies through the initial confusions, misconceptions and truncated\u00a0visions of men. These cannot, therefore, lie outside the system. Rather\u00a0this initial darkness reflects something essential about the absolute, viz., that\u00a0it must grow through a struggle to self-knowledge. Hence there cannot easily\u00a0be an introduction to the science of the absolute which is not also part\u00a0of that science, no mere clearing of the ground which is not also a partial\u00a0construction of the building.” p127<\/p>\n
– – 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.<\/p>\n
– – e.g. LOGIC, CONSCIOUSNESS<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
reality according to it. This is what brings out the conflict with the standard. So\u00a0that reality is our third term.”<\/p>\n
– – Although unlike a skeptical argument, a dlct leads to a specific next step (not leaving us in a void).<\/p>\n
HOWEVER: “But this account may not make us very much more sanguine about the\u00a0prospects of Hegel’s ascending dialectics. For it is not enough that we be able to\u00a0look on something as the realization of an intrinsic goal, that this be one way we\u00a0could look at things. Such a problematic starting point could yield by dialectical\u00a0argument a view of things which might convince us by its plausibility, but\u00a0it would not be a binding argument, it would not command our assent in all\u00a0rigour. To do the work Hegel wants, this starting point has to be undeniable.\u00a0And this seems a tall order. \/\/<\/p>\n
But it is one Hegel undertakes to fulfil. We shall see later that it is just the\u00a0difficulty of sustaining this claim which undermines the whole system. Where\u00a0his arguments do not work it is usually because they turn on a putative\u00a0intrinsic purpose or standard which is not irrefutably established.” p134-5<\/p>\n
Q- – “the test is not only a test of knowledge, but also of its standard” [PhG 73] !?!<\/p>\n
– – 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.<\/p>\n
“Hegel draws his net wider than we might think necessary.\u00a0Many readers have been struck by the tendency in this, as in all of Hegel’s\u00a0systematic works, to start as it might appear all over again at the bottom with\u00a0each new section. This is one of the things which makes many of the Hegelian\u00a0transitions difficult to follow and more questionable than they need be.” p139<\/p>\n
“In order to make his demonstrations convincing therefore Hegel is led to\u00a0cover all the angles; rather than proceeding on the shortest path to the goal, he\u00a0is inclined to try to show that given any starting point one will get there.” …<\/p>\n
“The image to represent Hegel’s system is not a single flow, but rather a river\u00a0system; starting at the source he travels to the first tributary, then instead of\u00a0continuing on the main stream he insists on exploring this arm from its\u00a0headwaters, and so on down; until he can show that all the waters of the vast\u00a0system flow into the estuary of absolute spirit.” p140<\/p>\n
“But of course no work can be all-inclusive. There is always some principle of\u00a0selection. And most readers have found the collection of subjects taken up in\u00a0the PhG baffling, including as it does theories of knowledge and historical\u00a0civilizations, visions of man of great formative importance to our civilization,\u00a0like stoicism, and slightly absurd contemporary fads, like phrenology. Some\u00a0have suggested that the principle of selection is an autobiographical one: these\u00a0stages 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\u00a0interpretation can easily be pushed too far. There is no evidence that Hegel\u00a0was ever a believer in phrenology. And on the other side, the rich studies\u00a0of Judaism and the life of Christ are absent from the PhG, leaving traces\u00a0only in the theme of unhappy consciousness. \/\/<\/p>\n
A much more plausible interpretation would be that Hegel was influenced as\u00a0to what to include by the currents, beliefs and aspirations of the time. This\u00a0would make sense in a work designed to take people from where they were to\u00a0the perspective of absolute science. And this would explain his preoccupation\u00a0with certain Romantic positions and with the issue of Kantian moral theory.” p140<\/p>\n
———–<\/p>\n
impressions come our way, prior to any activity of the mind, in particular\u00a0conceptual activity.” p141<\/p>\n
– – “Hegel’s way of entering the dialectical movement here is to ask the\u00a0subject of sensible certainty to say what it experiences. We can see here at work\u00a0the same basic idea that Herder espoused, that human, reflective consciousness\u00a0is necessarily linguistic consciousness, that it has to be expressed in signs.\u00a0But if we are bringing to bear a thesis of this kind, are we not violating our\u00a0method, and importing ideas, information, theories from outside ordinary\u00a0consciousness? \/\/<\/p>\n
Hegel clearly does not think so here. Rather, he treats the ability to say as one\u00a0of the criterial properties of knowing. And it is hard not to agree with him. For\u00a0clearly implicit in knowing in the sense relevant here is a certain awareness of\u00a0what is known.” p141<\/p>\n
“We have to be shown [the object] ; for the truth of this immediate relation is the truth of\u00a0this 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\u00a0immediacy which is essential to it.” [PhG 85] ?!?<\/p>\n
Therefore there is no unmediated k. for sensiblecertainty. The pure particular is unreachable:<\/p>\n
– Although this is not an unusual thesis, “the argument and its conclusion are presented\u00a0by Hegel in a way that reflects certain major themes particular to his\u00a0philosophy. Thus the unavailability of the bare particular is not just an\u00a0epistemological truth; it reflects the ontological one that the particular is\u00a0doomed by its very nature to disappear, that it is in principle mortal. What is\u00a0permanent is the concept. So the u nsayability of the particular is simply the\u00a0expression of its ontological status, as that which cannot remain, that which\u00a0must pass. And reciprocally, external particular existence is impermanent\u00a0because it cannot be expressed in concepts.” p144<\/p>\n
– “our attempt to grasp things in knowledge first negates\u00a0them as particulars; then, negating this negation, we recover them by grasping\u00a0them through mediated conceptual consciousness. The immediate is\u00a0negated, but it is retained in mediated form.” p144<\/p>\n
{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}<\/p>\n
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,198,302,242,18,20],"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-2893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-book-review","category-classicalphilosophers","category-evernote-entries","category-hegel","category-philosophy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":184,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/24\/hegel-on-reason\/","url_meta":{"origin":2893,"position":0},"title":"Hegel on “Reason”","author":"Pala","date":"October 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A summary of Phenomenology of Spirit (by Hegel) on Reason. This chapter describes the ongoing evolution of a consciousness that knows that it itself and its experiences are both explicable by, and manifestations of, reason. This has existential and practical implications, and leads consciousness to prove its assumptions: testing science,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39953,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/11\/15\/hegel-on-spirit-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2893,"position":1},"title":"Hegel on “Spirit”","author":"Pala","date":"November 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 15\/11\/2014 I have been reading Charles Taylor's book \"Hegel\" and his discussion on\u00a0the Phenomenology of Spirit on \"Spirit\". What follows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":105,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/25\/taylor-reading-hegel-on-sense-certainty\/","url_meta":{"origin":2893,"position":2},"title":"Taylor Reading Hegel on “Sense-Certainty”","author":"Pala","date":"September 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Charles Taylor's reading of Hegel on \"sense-certainty\" is informed by his understanding of the intellectual ecosystem from which Hegel's philosophy grew, esp. the German Romantics. It can be simplified as a desire to provide an intellectual basis for human expression, and for a unity between man and nature. These ideas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":81,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/21\/contextualizing-hegels-philosophy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2893,"position":3},"title":"Contextualizing Hegel’s Philosophy","author":"Pala","date":"September 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Experiencing\u00a0the history of philosophy Reading \"Hegel\" by Charles Taylor, about the ideas, beliefs, opinions and motivations that flowed and ebbed in western Europe between the time of the Enlightenment and Hegel's philosophical career. As I read Taylor, and my mind emulates and empathizes with the various zeitgeists, I discover that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/11\/reading-hegel-part-2-on-desire\/","url_meta":{"origin":2893,"position":4},"title":"Reading Hegel [part 2] on “Desire”","author":"Pala","date":"September 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2190\u00a0As consciousness proceeds into self-consciousness, it is forced into contact with another ego. The mediation of this contact is apparently necessary. Something to do with infinity and dynamic unities and the law of inversion and life. I am not convinced. For the in-itself, or the universal result of the relation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39990,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/30\/reading-hegel-part-5-on-the-unhappy-consciousness-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2893,"position":5},"title":"Reading Hegel [part 5] on “The Unhappy Consciousness”","author":"Pala","date":"September 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading Hegel about a form of consciousness he calls \"unhappy\", because not only does it define itself as a dichotomy, but it divides and separates the aspect of itself that it feels to be unchangeable and essential. This leaves a self that sees itself as a changing transience, and that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-KF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2893"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=2893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}