Hegel Today(aeon.co)
aeon.co
Hegel Today
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-anglophone-world-is-rediscovering-hegels-philosophy
52 comments
Reminds me of the Foucault quote
"Truly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes that we are aware of the extent to which Hegel, insidiously perhaps, is close to us; it implies a knowledge, in that which permits us to think against Hegel, of that which remains Hegelian. We have to determine the extent to which our anti-Hegelianism is possibly one of his tricks directed against us, at the end of which he stands, motionless, waiting for us"
A another engineer / not-trained philosopher I was also surprised how intuitive Hegel's ideas were when I started to read philosophy on my own, having had the idea in my head that he's not understandable at all. (Of course that's not to say he isn't actually difficult at a higher level that probably went over my head)
"Truly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes that we are aware of the extent to which Hegel, insidiously perhaps, is close to us; it implies a knowledge, in that which permits us to think against Hegel, of that which remains Hegelian. We have to determine the extent to which our anti-Hegelianism is possibly one of his tricks directed against us, at the end of which he stands, motionless, waiting for us"
A another engineer / not-trained philosopher I was also surprised how intuitive Hegel's ideas were when I started to read philosophy on my own, having had the idea in my head that he's not understandable at all. (Of course that's not to say he isn't actually difficult at a higher level that probably went over my head)
Of all people, I wouldn't quote Foucault to make sense out of anything.
Why?
Focoult moved into poststructuralism, a school of thought which was sceptical of clear explainations (they had very valid reasons for this in my eyes).
This means poststructuralist texts can be extremely hard to read and understand, especially to non-philosophically trained people or those hoping to get a logical theory about the world instead of a multi-facetted view onto some phenomenom within it. That doesn't mean you cannot pull a lot of interesting stuff from those texts, it just means it is very hard and never clearcut. Critics and people who failed to parse such a book dislike poststructuralists for this.
Focoult however wasn't a typical poststructuralist anyways and many of his books are very well observed and describe power relationships within society on the base of some other phenomena. As any philosopher with a precise language his books stand and fall with the quality of translation. I liked the German translations better than the English ones, because English as a language doesn't really lend itself to auch thinking..
This means poststructuralist texts can be extremely hard to read and understand, especially to non-philosophically trained people or those hoping to get a logical theory about the world instead of a multi-facetted view onto some phenomenom within it. That doesn't mean you cannot pull a lot of interesting stuff from those texts, it just means it is very hard and never clearcut. Critics and people who failed to parse such a book dislike poststructuralists for this.
Focoult however wasn't a typical poststructuralist anyways and many of his books are very well observed and describe power relationships within society on the base of some other phenomena. As any philosopher with a precise language his books stand and fall with the quality of translation. I liked the German translations better than the English ones, because English as a language doesn't really lend itself to auch thinking..
Even as a native French speaker who is used to read obtuse political books from French intellectuals of the last century I find him absolutely abhorrent to read.
My main complain is that he ascribed to the notion that it is more important to have the "right" political impact than to seek the truth. That and the fact that he was a pedophile, but I digress.
My main complain is that he ascribed to the notion that it is more important to have the "right" political impact than to seek the truth. That and the fact that he was a pedophile, but I digress.
No offence but I was asking the OP. I know Foucault and actually like his writings. His work is highly opinionated and I don't agree with everything but IMHO reading his work is generally worth the time.
Foucault has acquired a bad reputation in some circles as a nonsense-peddler but in my opinion it's not really deserved. Anyone interested in getting a sense of his thought should check out the transcripts of the lectures he gave at the College De France [1]. You can find a pdf of the anthology "Society Must be Defended" [2] online and this is not a bad place to start. Whether you agree or disagree with the content, you should find the lectures fairly lucid and not expressing the kind of internally inconsistent anti-reality skepticism and relativism you may expect.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_lectures_at_the_C...
[2] http://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/2288168/a517f61536...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_lectures_at_the_C...
[2] http://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/2288168/a517f61536...
Standard Hegel joke, last seen from Nicholas Gruen on twitter: a man broke into my car which had two volumes of Hegel on the back seat, now I have four volumes.
Yes! Also, plug for my Hegel blog: http://hegelsbagels.net/
I was wondering who had been printing these out and posting them on telephone poles around Portland.
You caught me!
To the uninformed, why David Icke?
He says things you can't say in the academy.
Can anyone recommend a book that makes Hegel actually legible and not completely bonkers to extract what he's saying? I think it's possible he needs to be read in German. Reading and breaking down The Phenomenology of Spirit should be used as a torture method.
Here is just one random passage of The Phenomenology of Spirit, it's all like this:
The distinction which was made between actual Spirit and Spirit that knows itself as Spirit, or between itself, qua conscionsness, and qua self-consciousness, is superseded in the Spirit that knows itself in its truth; its consciousness and its self"con~sdousnessare on the same level. But, as religion here is, to begin with, immediate, this distinction has not yet returned into Spirit. What is posited is only the Notion of religion; in this the essence is self .. consciousness, which is conscious of being all truth and contains all reality within that truth.
Arthur Schopenhauer criticized Phenomenology of Spirit as being characteristic of the vacuous verbiage he attributed to Hegel: "I do not think that it is difficult to see that whoever puts forward anything like this is a shameless charlatan who wants to fool simpletons and observes that he has found his people in the Germans of the nineteenth century.
Here is just one random passage of The Phenomenology of Spirit, it's all like this:
The distinction which was made between actual Spirit and Spirit that knows itself as Spirit, or between itself, qua conscionsness, and qua self-consciousness, is superseded in the Spirit that knows itself in its truth; its consciousness and its self"con~sdousnessare on the same level. But, as religion here is, to begin with, immediate, this distinction has not yet returned into Spirit. What is posited is only the Notion of religion; in this the essence is self .. consciousness, which is conscious of being all truth and contains all reality within that truth.
Arthur Schopenhauer criticized Phenomenology of Spirit as being characteristic of the vacuous verbiage he attributed to Hegel: "I do not think that it is difficult to see that whoever puts forward anything like this is a shameless charlatan who wants to fool simpletons and observes that he has found his people in the Germans of the nineteenth century.
Take a look at Frederick Beiser's works on Hegel & German Idealism overall, as he's very clear and competent about this whole period of German philosophy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_C._Beiser#Works
Also, it's much easier to start with Hegel's lectures (on aesthetics, history, religion etc.) and just go read the Phenomenology & Science of Logic after one has a sense of his style and general philosophy. It's foolish to start by the most difficult texts.
And don't take Schopenhauer's criticisms of Hegel too seriously, as they are mostly due to personal misgivings and envy (Sch. couldn't stand Hegel's popularity, while Sch. barely managed to get any students for his classes).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_C._Beiser#Works
Also, it's much easier to start with Hegel's lectures (on aesthetics, history, religion etc.) and just go read the Phenomenology & Science of Logic after one has a sense of his style and general philosophy. It's foolish to start by the most difficult texts.
And don't take Schopenhauer's criticisms of Hegel too seriously, as they are mostly due to personal misgivings and envy (Sch. couldn't stand Hegel's popularity, while Sch. barely managed to get any students for his classes).
Thank you for the rec I'll check them out. It's true Schopenhauer didn't have as many students at his lectures because Hegel was a celebrity at the time. That doesn't take away from his criticisms I still think they stand.
I don't believe in bombastic word vomit, especially when that person deliberately chose to make his prose more incomprehensible.
I don't believe in bombastic word vomit, especially when that person deliberately chose to make his prose more incomprehensible.
> Thus, not only was Hegel’s system grandiose metaphysics, it was grandiose theology as well.
Modern theology is a lot more fun than the stuff they worked with in Aquinas' time. Dangerous, too.
> And last, the obscurity of Hegel’s writing made rejecting Hegelian philosophy all the easier. After all, who could tell what he was actually saying?
But then interpreting the prophet is probably a more secure job ...
> Unravelling his turgid prose turns out to be worth the effort, affording us glimpses of how things ‘hang together’ that others miss.
On the other hand, Schopenhauer (as anti-Hegel as they come) hit quite a few good points writing clear and elegant prose, even tossing out witty essays as a sort of topping.
Modern theology is a lot more fun than the stuff they worked with in Aquinas' time. Dangerous, too.
> And last, the obscurity of Hegel’s writing made rejecting Hegelian philosophy all the easier. After all, who could tell what he was actually saying?
But then interpreting the prophet is probably a more secure job ...
> Unravelling his turgid prose turns out to be worth the effort, affording us glimpses of how things ‘hang together’ that others miss.
On the other hand, Schopenhauer (as anti-Hegel as they come) hit quite a few good points writing clear and elegant prose, even tossing out witty essays as a sort of topping.
Ah yes, the man who believed that the human struggle was a deterministic process of synthesis crashing into antithesis over and over again, with each new generation overturning the prior and then regressing back a bit, building from small tribes to modern civilization. A process of continual improvement that, according to Hegel, can be logically derived from first principles so that the arc of civilization just happens to culminate in the greatest accomplishment of reason understanding itself: the reformed Prussian state of 1807.
I’m not even sure where to start with this because it’s such a vulgar misreading of Hegel… Hegel generally rejected the “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” triad (which mostly comes from Fichte.) Dialectics, and his overall system of immanent critique, have considerably more subtlety and complexity than the determinism and teleology that you suggest. An even cursory reading of any of Hegel’s major works reveals how entirely misplaced most of your post is. I agree that a lot of Hegel’s political philosophy is marked by naivete, but this doesn’t mean his system can be rejected wholesale. That we should avoid this wholesale rejection in the face of apparent contradictions is actually one of Hegel’s basic points!
You must know you're advancing a recent idea about Hegel? I believe your viewpoint has about fifty years of age to it, and few observers made these claims prior. Now, as popular as this 'recovery' of hegel has been- it has been strongly argued against with very manifest arguments from the major hegelian works. I guess it could be that people misinterpreted hegel for a century and then we managed to figure him out correctly in the post war.... but what I am convinced actually happened is that Hegel was so popular and influential that after his dialectical methods became seen as silly, in order to preserve the myriad fields that had been founded by their use , a hasty revision was developed so that we didn't have to throw away all his ideas had spawned.
"vulgar" is a much classier insult than I'm used to here
Yes, utterly ridiculous - truly the Fukuyama of the reformed Prussian state of 1807!
There is an interesting link between Hegel and Category Theory: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2357569/can-you-exp...
here is an excellent archive of his works, including hypertext and diagrams of his logical system
Hegel by HyperText:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm
Visualiation of the Science of Logic:
http://autio.github.io/projects/scienceoflogic/
Hegel by HyperText:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm
Visualiation of the Science of Logic:
http://autio.github.io/projects/scienceoflogic/
Continental philosophy is making a comeback! The kids love Žižek
'Continental' philosophy never went anywhere, it was only sidelined among certain parts of the Anglophone academy. The analytic-continental distinction is nonsensical to begin with, given that one is a style, the other a geography.
"the me–you distinction is nonsensical to begin with, given that one is an experience, the other an organism"
[deleted]
I find him to be a bit of a character, and a lovable one at that, but can't bring myself to actually sit down and listen/read because of it - am I missing out?
I’m currently reading How to Read Lacan (which is basically how to read Zizek’s interpretation of Lacan), and am having an absolute blast. It’s short, full of witty jokes, and is still packed of insightful thinking. (And you’ll probably get something out of it even without any background on continental philsophy)
I'll give it a whirl, cheers :)
[deleted]
Align yourself with truth, not dialectics.
Down with Hegal.
Down with Hegal.
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Hegel's views on education seem to mirror policy (almost 1:1) in the U.S. Perhaps, if only because the Prussian education system was imported into our culture, by our Founding Robber Baron fathers.
Unfortunately, It'll be hard to go against his views, since they've been baked into almost every child's subconscious as "this is just how life is."
Unfortunately, It'll be hard to go against his views, since they've been baked into almost every child's subconscious as "this is just how life is."
Interesting. Could you give an example of education policy that can be traced to Hegel's views?
I cannot.
I can only make observations that Hegel's writings on education mirror the realities of U.S. public (and most private) schools -- if only because he was a teacher in the "Prussian System," (itself, a reactionary thing born of Frederick William III's loss of face from losing to Napoleon) and thus his views were molded by his culture and the time he lived in.
I don't think Hegel really had any say in the matter -- or was that popular (or even heard of) among policymakers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Only that he is a window into the soul (or rather its destruction) of his nation at the time.
I can only make observations that Hegel's writings on education mirror the realities of U.S. public (and most private) schools -- if only because he was a teacher in the "Prussian System," (itself, a reactionary thing born of Frederick William III's loss of face from losing to Napoleon) and thus his views were molded by his culture and the time he lived in.
I don't think Hegel really had any say in the matter -- or was that popular (or even heard of) among policymakers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Only that he is a window into the soul (or rather its destruction) of his nation at the time.
How are dialectics opposed to truth?
Seeing people getting excited about hegel is like seeing a kid learning physics and getting excited about newton's laws. Surely, it's a step forward to one's individual knowledge, it is a stepping stone, but the human intelect has gone beyond that and there are bigger problems to be solved.
So, when adressing an individual, props for discovering a great philosopher. When adressig a community of people/philosophers going back to hegel though... ouch... that's a regression...
My fear (for lack of a better word) is that people now portray hegel as something progressive. Whereas it should be more of those journeys we do as devs, where we take a closer look at some of the basic low level tools we use (eg read the docs of a language, or linux, or bash), learn them more in depth and then go back to doing more advanced stuff using that knowledge.
So, when adressing an individual, props for discovering a great philosopher. When adressig a community of people/philosophers going back to hegel though... ouch... that's a regression...
My fear (for lack of a better word) is that people now portray hegel as something progressive. Whereas it should be more of those journeys we do as devs, where we take a closer look at some of the basic low level tools we use (eg read the docs of a language, or linux, or bash), learn them more in depth and then go back to doing more advanced stuff using that knowledge.
I'm not a philosopher by any means but I do believe that philosophy is actually the history of philosophy (or a very close approximation of that), and for that reason Hegel or Thomas Aquinas or Epicurus are as contemporary now when it comes to philosophy as they were when they were alive.
Yes, there are ups and downs in their reception (for example the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas has had a long hiatus from public perception in the 1700s and the 1800s) but that only happened because of our different way to read/interpret the history of philosophy hence philosophy itself (the materialists in France and the empiricists in Britain weren't that fond of Aquinas).
Yes, there are ups and downs in their reception (for example the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas has had a long hiatus from public perception in the 1700s and the 1800s) but that only happened because of our different way to read/interpret the history of philosophy hence philosophy itself (the materialists in France and the empiricists in Britain weren't that fond of Aquinas).
There are a lot of useless detours, as well as survivorship bias and namedropping. Added to that is the deliberate obtuseness of certain so-called philosophers. I wish philosophy were as noble as what you seem to believe.
Interesting perspective, but Slavoj Žižek is one of the most influential contemporary philosophers and also a Hegelian.
Wonderfully useful insight, thanks, now I know exactly what I must do. I'll study the most recently launched programming language, operating system and shell. I'm sure they're better and far more useful than C, linux or bash, just look how old those things are!
You completely missed my point. I m am not even sure you read my comment, especially the last paragraph. I make an analogy of hegel as being one of the basic building blocks of philosophical knowledge.
Also, I do not subscribe to the latest philosophical trends as these are mostly rehashes/reskins of old ones. Similar to many modern programming languages
Also, I do not subscribe to the latest philosophical trends as these are mostly rehashes/reskins of old ones. Similar to many modern programming languages
Who or what superseded Hegel then?
Dialectic materialism by engels and marx. If you take their communist ideas out of the equation (because we may not agree on that), on their philosophical system, they took all the great dialectics of hegel, advanced it further and replaced hegel's idealism with materialism (very, very roughly speaking).
> If you take their communist ideas out of the equation
For crying out loud, that was the point of the whole ball of wax.
They came up with "scientific materialism" so they could "demonstrate" that the inexorable progress of history would lead from the original primitive communism to the final advanced communism.
(All other believers in communism that did not adhere to the doctrine were to be shunned because their "unscientific" approach would make them bad guides.)
For crying out loud, that was the point of the whole ball of wax.
They came up with "scientific materialism" so they could "demonstrate" that the inexorable progress of history would lead from the original primitive communism to the final advanced communism.
(All other believers in communism that did not adhere to the doctrine were to be shunned because their "unscientific" approach would make them bad guides.)
Nietzsche?
As a software engineer, I was surprised to see how some of Hegel's ideas describe dynamics I've observed in my career. His dialectical process resembles how software systems evolve over time, and his "Spirit" reminds me of the ferment of ideas and collaboration on the Internet. The beauty of Hegel's rich texts is that each generation of readers brings him back to life in a new way.