'Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.' |
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| Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses | |
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individualized Tower
Posts : 5737 ᚠ : 6982 Join date : 2011-11-03 Location : The Stars
| Subject: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:47 pm | |
| From Phenomenology of Spirit, section on Reason, "Individuality which takes itself to be Real In and For Itself". This is what we need to be reading now... we need the genetics. To improve on Heidegger: "Only the genetics (of philosophy) can save us." Pure.... fucking.... depth. Nothing else interests me anymore. a: Self-Contained Individuals Associated as a Community of Animals, & the Deception thence arising: The Real Fact (1)
1. The Notion of Individuality as Real
Φ 398. The conception of this individuality, as it takes itself as such to be all reality, is in the first instance a mere result: its own movement and reality are not yet set forth; it is here in its immediacy as something purely and simply implicit. Negativity, however, which is the same as what appears as movement and process, is inherent in this implicit state as a determinate quality; and being, i.e. the simple implicit state, comes to be a determinate compass or range of being. Individuality confronts us, therefore, as an original determinate nature: original, in virtue of its being implicit: originally determinate, in virtue of the negative moment lying in that implicitness, which negative element is thereby a quality. This limitation cannot, however, limit the action of consciousness, for this consists at the present stage in thorough and complete relation of itself to itself: relation to what is other than itself, which its limitation would involve, is now overcome. The character inherent originally by nature is thus merely an undefined (simple) principle, a transparent universal element in which individuality finds itself free and at one with itself, as well as unfolds its diversity without restraint, and in realizing itself is simply in reciprocal relation with itself. We have here something similar to what we find in the case of indeterminate animal life: this breathes the breath of life, let us say, into water as its element, or air or earth, and within these again into still more determinate conditions: every aspect of its life is affected by the specific element, and yet animal life still keeps these aspects within its power and itself a unity in spite of the limitations of the element, and remains qua the given particular organization animal life throughout, the same general fact of animal life.
Φ 399. This determinate original nature of consciousness, in which it finds itself freely and wholly, appears as the immediate and only proper content of the purpose of the individual. That content is indeed a definite content, but is only content so far as we take the implicit nature in isolation. In truth, however, it is reality (Realität) permeated by individuality: actuality (Wirklichkeit) in the way consciousness qua individual contains this within itself, and is to begin with taken as existing, but not yet as acting. So far as action is concerned, however, that determinateness is, in one respect, not a limitation it wants to overcome; for, looked at as an existent quality, that determinateness is simply the colour of the element where it moves: in another respect, however, the negativity is determinateness merely in the case of what “exists”. But acting is nothing else than negativity. Hence when individuality acts, its specific determinateness is dissipated into the general process of negation, into the sum and substance of all determinateness.
Φ 400. The simple “original nature” now breaks up, in action and the consciousness of action, into the distinction which action implies. To begin with, action is here an object, an object, too, still belonging to consciousness; it is present as a purpose, and thus opposed to a given reality. The other moment is the process of this statically presented purpose, the process of actualization of the purpose, bringing the purpose to bear on the entirely formal reality, and hence is the idea of the transition itself. In other words, this second moment is the “means”. The third moment is, finally, the object, no longer as immediately and subjectively presented purpose, but as brought to light and established as something other than and external to the acting subject.
These various aspects must be viewed in the light of the general principle of this sphere of consciousness. The content throughout remains the same, without any difference, whether between individuality and existence in general, or between purpose as against individuality in the sense of an “original nature”, or between purpose and the given reality: or between the means and that reality as absolute purpose: or finally between the reality moulded by the agent as against the purpose, the “original nature”, of the means.
Φ 401. At the outset, then, the nature of individuality in its original determinate form, its immediate essence, is not yet affirmed as active; and in this shape is called special capacity, talent, character, and so on. This peculiar colouring of mind must be looked at as the only content of its purpose, and as the sole and only reality. If we thought of consciousness as going beyond that, as seeking to bring into reality another content, then we should think of it as a nothing working away towards nothing.
This original nature is, moreover, not merely the substance of its purpose, but implicitly the reality as well, which otherwise assumes the appearance of being a given material on which to act, of being found ready at hand for action to work up into some determinate form. That is to say, acting is simply transferring from a state not yet explicitly expressed to one fully expressed; the inherent being of that reality opposed to consciousness has sunk to the level of a mere empty appearance, a mere seeming. This mode of consciousness, by determining itself to act, thereby refuses to be led astray by the semblance of reality on the part of what is presented to it; and has likewise to abandon its dealings with idle thoughts and purposes, and keep its hold on the original content of its own nature. No doubt this content first exists as a fact for consciousness, when it has made that content actual; but the distinction between something which while for consciousness is only inside itself, and a reality outside consciousness existing in itself, has broken down. Consciousness must act solely that what it inherently and implicitly is, may be for it explicitly; or, acting is just the process of mind coming to be qua consciousness. What it is implicitly, therefore, it knows from its actual reality. Hence it is that an individual cannot know what he is till he has made himself real by action.
Consciousness, however, seems on this view to be unable to determine the purpose of its action before action has taken place; but before action occurs it must, in virtue of being consciousness, have the act in front of itself as entirely its own, i.e. as a purpose. The individual, therefore, who is going to act seems to find himself in a circle, where each moment already presupposes the others, and hence seems unable to find a beginning, because it only gets to know its own original nature, the nature which is to be its purpose by first acting, while in order to act it must have that purpose beforehand. But just for that reason it has to start straight away and, whatever the circumstances are, without troubling further about beginning, means, or end, proceed to action at once. For its essential and implicit (ansichseyende) nature is beginning, means, and end all in one. As beginning, it is found in the circumstances of the action; and the interest which the individual finds in. something is just the answer to the question, “whether he should act and what is to be done in a given case”. For what seems to be a reality confronting him is implicitly his own original fundamental nature, which has merely the appearance of an objective being — an appearance which lies in the notion of action involving as this does self-diremption, but which expressly shows itself to be his own original nature by the interest the individual finds therein. Similarly the how, the means, is determined as it stands (an und für sich). Talent is likewise nothing but individuality with a definite original constitution looked at as the subjective internal means, or transition of purpose into actuality. The actual means, however and the real transition are the unity of talent with the nature of the fact as present in the interest felt. The former [talent] expresses that aspect of the means which concerns action, the latter [the fact found of interest] that which concerns content: both are individuality itself, as a fused whole of acting and existing. What we find, then, is first circumstances given ready to hand, which are implicitly the original nature of the individual; next the interest which affirms them as its own or as its purpose; and finally the connexion and sublation of these opposite elements in the means. This connexion itself still falls within consciousness, and the whole just considered is one side of an opposition. This appearance of opposition which still remains is removed by the transition, i.e. by the means. For the means is a unity of inner and outer, the antithesis of the determinate character it has qua inner means (viz. talent): it therefore abolishes this character, and makes itself — this unity of action and existence — equally an outer, viz.: the actually realized individuality, i.e. individuality which is established for individuality itself as the objectively existent. The entire act in this way does not go beyond itself, either as circumstances, or as purpose, or means, or as work performed.
Φ 402. In this notion of work, however, the distinction which lay within the original nature seems to enter. The work done is something determinate, like the original nature it expresses, because being cut loose by the process of acting and become an existing reality, the negation implied in this process remains in it as a quality. Consciousness, however, as against the work, is specifically that in which this quality is to be found as a general process of negation, as acting. It is thus the universal as opposed to the specific determinateness of the work performed; it can therefore compare one kind of work with another, and can thence apprehend individualities themselves as different; it can, e.g. regard an individual who is of wider compass in his work as possessing stronger energy of will or a richer nature, i.e. a nature whose original constitution (Bestimmtheit) is less limited; another again as a weaker and a poorer nature.
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| | | individualized Tower
Posts : 5737 ᚠ : 6982 Join date : 2011-11-03 Location : The Stars
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:51 pm | |
| 2. Actual Fact and Individuality
Φ 403. In contrast with this purely quantitative difference, which is not an essential difference, “good” and “bad” would express an absolute difference; but this is not in place here. Whether taken in one way or another, action is equally carried on; there is a process of displaying and expressing an individuality, and for that reason it is all good: it would, properly speaking, be impossible to say what “bad” is to be here. What would be called a bad work is the individual life of a certain specific nature, which is therein realized. It would only be degraded into a bad work by a reflective comparison, which, however, is quite empty and futile, since this goes beyond the essential meaning and nature of work (which is a self-expression of individuality, and then seeks to find and demand from it heaven knows what else.
The comparison could have to do only with the distinction above mentioned. But this, being a distinction of quantity, is in itself not an essential one; and here in particular is unessential because what are to be compared together are different works and individualities. But these do not affect one another; each is concerned simply with itself. The original nature is alone the essential fact, or what could be used as an ultimate standard of judgment regarding the work; and conversely. Both, however, correspond to each other: there is nothing for, individuality which is not obtained through it: or there is no reality which is not its nature and its action, and no action nor inherent substance of individuality which is not real. And only these moments are to be compared.
Φ 404. There is, therefore, in general, no ground for feeling elevated or for lamenting or repenting: all that sort of thing arises from a reflection which imagines another content and another inner nature than is to be found in the original nature of the individual and the actual carrying of it out in reality. Whatever it is that the individual does, and whatever happens to him, that the individual has done, and is that himself. He can only have the consciousness of the mere transference of his self from the darkness of possibility to the daylight of the present, from a state abstract and implicit to the significance of actual being, and can have only the certainty that what seems to him in the second state is nothing else than what lay dormant in the former. The consciousness of this unity is no doubt likewise a comparison, but what is compared is just a mere appearance of opposition, a formal appearance which for reason, qua self-conscious and aware that individuality is inherently actuality, is nothing more than seeming. The individual, therefore, knowing that he can find in his objective actuality nothing but its unity with himself or can find only the certainty of himself in its very truth, and knowing that he thus always attains his purpose — can experience only a sense of joy in himself.
Φ 405. That, then, is the conception consciousness has of itself when it is sure of its being an absolute identification, a complete permeation, of individuality and existence. Let us see whether this notion is confirmed and supported by its experience, and whether its reality agrees with this notion.
The work produced is the reality which consciousness gives itself. It is there that the individual becomes consciously what he is implicitly, and in such wise that the consciousness which becomes aware of the individual in the work performed is not the particular consciousness but universal consciousness. He has placed himself by his work quite outside in the element of universality, in the characterless, qualityless region of existence. The consciousness which withdraws from its work is in point of fact universal-because it becomes, in this opposition between work and consciousness, absolute negativity, the process of action-and stands over against its work, which is determinate and particular. It thus goes beyond itself qua work, and is itself the indeterminate region which its work still leaves void and unfilled. If their unity was in the above notion still preserved, this took place just through the work being cancelled qua objectively existing product. But it has to be, and we have to see how individuality will retain its universality in the existence of the work, and will know how to get satisfaction.
To begin with we have to consider by itself the work which has come into being. It has received within it the entire nature of the individual. Its existence is therefore itself an action, in which all distinctions interpenetrate and are resolved. The work is thus thrown out into a subsisting form where the specific character of the original nature does in fact come out as against other determinate natures, encroaches on them, just as these in their turn encroach on it, and is lost as a vanishing moment in this general process. Although in the conception of individuality as here dealt with, the various moments (circumstances, purpose, means, and realization) are all alike, and the original specific nature stands for no more than a universal element, on the other hand, when this element takes on an objective existence, its determinate character as such comes to light in the work done, and obtains its truth in its dissolution. Looked at more closely, this dissolution is such that in this specific character the individual, qua this individual, has become consciously real; but the specific character is not merely the content of reality, but its form as well; or this reality as such is as a whole just this specific character, viz. being opposed to self-consciousness. On this view this reality is seen to be a reality which has disappeared out of the notion, and is merely found given as an alien reality. The work is, i.e. it is for other individuals, and for them it is an external, an alien reality, in whose place they have to put their own, in order to get by their action consciousness of their unity with reality. In other words, the interest which they take in that work owing to their original constitution is other than the peculiar interest of this work, which thereby is turned into something different. The work is, thus, in general something transitory, which is extinguished by the counter-action of other powers and interests, and displays the reality of individuality in a transitory form rather than as fulfilled and accomplished.
Φ 406. Consciousness, then, by doing work becomes aware of that contrast between being and acting, which in the earlier forms of consciousness was at, the same time the beginning of action, and is here merely a result. This contrast, however, was in fact likewise the ultimate principle involved when consciousness proceeded to act as an implicitly real individuality; for action presupposed the determinate original nature as the ultimate implicit element, and the mere process of performing the act for the sake of this performance took that nature as its content. Mere action is, however, the self-identical form, with which, consequently, the specific determinateness of the original nature does not agree. It is a matter of indifference here, as elsewhere, which of the two is called notion and which reality. The original nature is the thought element, the implicit factor as against the action, in which it first gets its reality; or, again, the original nature is the existence both of individuality as such and of individuality in the form of work; while action is the original notion as pure and simple transition, as the process of becoming. This lack of correspondence between idea and reality, which lies in its essence, consciousness learns in its work; in work, therefore, consciousness becomes aware of itself as it in truth is, and its empty notion of itself disappears.
Φ 407. In this fundamental contradiction characteristic of work — which contains the truth of this individuality that takes itself to be inherently real — all the aspects of individuality thus appear again as contradictory. That is to say, in the work (done) the content of the entire individuality is put forth out of the process of doing (it), which is the negative unity holding fast all the moments of that content, into (objective) existence. So transferred and set forth, the work (done) lets the moments now go free; and in the element of factual subsistence they become indifferent to one another. The notion and its reality are thus separated into purpose and the original essential nature (Wesenheit). It is an accident that the purpose should have a true being, or that the implicit inherent nature should be made a purpose. Similarly, again, notion and reality fall apart as transition to actuality and as purpose; in other words, it is an accident that the means expressing the purpose should actually be chosen. While, finally, these inner moments taken together (whether they have some intrinsic unity or not) — i.e. the action of the individual — are again accidentally related to actuality in general: fortune decides equally in favour of a badly determined purpose and badly selected means, as well as against them.
Φ 408. If, now, consciousness hereby becomes aware in its work of the opposition between willing and performance, between purpose and means, and again between this inward nature, taken all together, and actual reality — an opposition which as a whole shows the fortuitous character of the action of consciousness-still the unity and the necessity of this action are just as much present too. This latter aspect transcends the former, and experience of the fortuitousness of the action is itself only a fortuitous experience. The necessity of the action consists in this, that purpose is directly related to actuality, and the unity of these is the very notion of action: the act takes place because action is per se and of itself the essence of actuality. In the work there is no doubt comes out the fortuitousness which characterizes accomplishment when contrasted with willing and the process of performing; and this experience, which seems as if it must be the truth, contradicts that notion of the act. Still, if we look at the content of this experience taken in its completeness, that content is seen to be the transitory work. What persists is not the transitoriness; rather this is itself actual and is bound up with the work, and vanishes with it; the negative falls away along with the positive whose negation it is.
Φ 409. The very notion of substantially and inherently real individuality contains within it this transience of transitoriness (Verschwinden des Verschwindens). For that wherein the work disappears, or what disappears in the work, is the objective reality; and this same reality was to give experience, as it was called, its supremacy over the notion which individuality has about itself. Objective reality, however, is a moment which itself has no longer independent truth in this mode of consciousness; it (i.e. the truth) consists solely in the unity of this consciousness with action, and the true work is only that unity of action and existence, of willing and performance. Because of the certainty fundamental to its actions, consciousness takes the actual reality opposed to that conscious certainty to be something which itself is only for consciousness. The opposition cannot any longer occur for consciousness in this form of its self-existence in contrast to reality, when consciousness is self-consciousness returned into itself and with all opposition gone. On the contrary, the opposition and the negativity manifested in the case of work then affect not only the content of the work or the content of consciousness as well, but the reality as such, and hence affect.the opposition present merely in virtue of that reality and in it, and the disappearance of the work. In this way consciousness turns from its transitory work back upon itself, and asserts its own notion and its certainty to be what is permanent and abidino, as opposed to the experience of the fortuitousness of action. In point of fact it comes to know its essential principle or notion, in which the reality is only a moment, something for consciousness, not something in and for itself; it finds that reality to be a passing moment, of significance therefore merely as being in general, whose universality is one and the same with action. This unity, this identity is the true work; it is the real intent, the fact of the matter (die Sache selbst), which asserts itself at all costs and is felt to be the lasting element, independent of “fact” which is the accident of an individual action as such, the accident of circumstances, means, and actuality.
Φ 410. The main concern (die Sache selbst) stands opposed to these moments only so far as they claim to have a value in isolation, but is essentially their unity, because identifying, fusing, actuality with individuality. It is, too, an action, and, qua action, pure action in general, and thereby just as much action of this individual; and this action, because still appertaining to the individual in opposition to actuality, has the sense of a purpose. Similarly it is the transition from this specific character to the opposite: and finally it is a reality which is present objectively for consciousness. The main intent thus expresses the essential spiritual substance in which all these moments as independently valid are cancelled and transcended and so hold good only as universal; and in which the certainty consciousness has regarding itself is a “fact” — a real object before consciousness, an object born of self-consciousness as its own, without ceasing to be a free independent object in the proper sense. The “thing”, found at the stage of sense-certainty and perception, now gets its significance through self-consciousness, and through it alone. On this rests the distinction between a thing (Ding) and a fact (Sache). A process is gone through here corresponding to what we find in the case of sense-experience and perception.
Φ 411. Self-consciousness, then, has attained its true conception of itself when this stage of the real intent is reached; it is the interpenetration of individuality and objectivity: an interpenetration which has become objective. In it self-consciousness has arrived at a consciousness of its own substance. At the same time, as we find self-consciousness here, it is a consciousness of its substance which has just arisen, and hence is immediate; and this is the specific way in which we find spirit at the present stage: it has not yet reached its truly real substance. The objectified intent takes in this immediate consciousness the form of bare and simple essence (einfachen Wesen), which being universal, contains all its various moments in itself and belongs to them, but, again, is also indifferent towards them taken as specific moments, and is independent by itself ; and, as this free and objective simple abstract “fact”, passes for the essentially real (Wesen). The various moments of the original determinateness, the moments of the “fact” of this particular individual, his purpose, means, action, and actual reality, are, on the one hand, particular moments for this consciousness, which it can abandon and give up for the objectified intent; on the other hand, however, they all have this object as their essential nature, but only in such a way that it, being their abstract universal, can find itself in each of these different moments and be their predicate. The objectified intent is not yet subject; but those moments stand for subject, because they belong to the aspect of individualness, while the object in mind is only at this stage bare universality. It is the genus which finds itself in all these moments as species of itself, and is equally independent of them.
Φ 412. Consciousness is called “honest”, when it has on the one hand attained this idealization (Idealismus), which objectified intent expresses, and on the other possesses the truth in it qua this formal universality. Consciousness when so characterized is solely concerned with intended object, and hence occupies itself with its various moments or species. And when it does not reach this fact in one of these moments, does not find the real intent in one meaning, it just on that account lays hold of the fact in another; and consequently always really secures that satisfaction which should belong to this mode of consciousness by its very nature (seinem Begriffe nach). However things turn out, it achieves and secures the objectified intent, for the latter, being this universal genus of those moments, is the predicate of all.
Φ 413. Should it not bring a purpose into reality, it has at least willed the purpose, i.e. turns purpose qua purpose, mere doing which does nothing, into the real intent, and can therefore maintain and feel consoled that at least there has always been something attempted, something done. Since the universal contains within it even the negative or the transitoriness, this too, the self-annihilation of the work, is itself its doing. It has stimulated others towards this, and still finds satisfaction in the disappearance of its reality, just as bad boys enjoy a personal pleasure in getting their ears boxed because they are the cause of its being done. Or, again, suppose it has not so much as tried to carry out the real intent and done nothing at all, then it has not cared; the objectified intent is for it just the unity of its decision with reality; it asserts that the reality would be nothing else than its own wish in the matter (sein Mögen). Finally, suppose something of interest has come its way entirely without its help, then for it this reality is the real intent just by the interest which it finds therein, although that reality has not been produced by its doing. If it is a piece of good luck, which has befallen the individual personally, he reckons it his own act and his own desert; if it is, on the other hand, a mere event in the world, which does not concern him further, he makes it likewise his own, and an interest, where he has done nothing, is held as a party interest which he has taken up and defended or maintained, for or against. | |
| | | individualized Tower
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:53 pm | |
| 3. Mutual Deception and Spiritual Substance
Φ 414. The “Honesty”, or “Honourableness”, of this mode of consciousness, as well as the satisfaction which it meets with at every point, really consists, as the above makes clear, in this, that it does not bring together its ideas regarding the objectified intent. Its own affair (seine Sache), no work at all, or mere action and bare purpose, or again a reality involving no action at all — all and every one of these are equally the real intent: it makes one meaning after another the subject of this predicate, and forgets one after the other. By its having merely willed or, again, in not having cared, the real intent has now the meaning of empty purpose, and of the merely ideal thought-unity of willing and performance. The consolation for the annihilation of the purpose which was at all events willed or at all events simply done, as well as the satisfaction of having given others something to do, makes simple doing, or entirely bad work, the essential reality; for that must be called a bad work which is no work at all. Finally, in the case of finding through good luck the reality at hand, this existence without any act becomes the real intent.
Φ 415. The true meaning of this “Honesty”, however, lies in not being so honest as it seems. For it cannot be so unintelligent as to let these various moments fall apart in that way; it must have an immediate consciousness regarding their opposition, because they are absolutely related to one another. Bare action is essentially action of this individual, and this action is likewise essentially an actuality or a “fact”. Conversely, actuality essentially is only as his own action, and as action in general as well; and just as his own action is action in general, so it is only reality in general. While, then, he thinks he has only to do with the objectified intent as abstract reality, there is also present this idea that he has to do with it as his own doing. But precisely so far as it is only a matter of being busy about doing something, he is not really in earnest in the matter, but rather is dealing with a “fact”, and with fact as his own. Since, finally, he seems to will merely his own "fact” and his own action, it is again a matter of dealing with “fact” in general or actuality substantial and abiding (an und für sich bleibende).
Φ 416. Just as the real intent and its moments appear at this stage as content, they are likewise necessary also as forms in consciousness. They come forward as content merely to pass away again, each making room for the other. They have therefore to be present in the character of cancelled and sublated forms: so taken, however, they are aspects of consciousness itself. The real intent is present as the inherent nature or reflexion of consciousness into self; the ousting of the moments by each other there finds expression, however, in their being established in consciousness, not per se, but only for another consciousness. One of the moments of the content is exposed by it to the light, and presented as an object for others. Consciousness, however, is at the same time reflected therefrom back upon itself, and the opposite is thus equally present within it, is retained for itself as its own. There is, too, not one of them which could be merely and solely put outside, and another merely retained within; rather, consciousness operates alternately with them, for it has to make one as well as another essential for itself and for others. The whole is the moving process of permeating individuality with the universal. In that this consciousness finds this whole, however, to be merely the simple ultimate nature (Wesen) and thus the abstraction of the real intent, the moments of this whole appear as distinct outside that object and outside one another. As a single whole it is only exhaustively exhibited by the process of alternately exposing its elements to view and keeping them within itself. Since in this alternation consciousness has in its process of reflexion one moment for itself and keeps it as essential, while another is merely externally implied or is for others, there thus enters a play of individualities with one another, where they both deceive and find deceived themselves and one another reciprocally.
Φ 417. An individuality, then, sets to work to carry out something; by so doing it seems to have made something into an “actual fact”. It acts; by so doing it comes out before others, and seems to be concerned to secure the reality of something. Others, therefore, take its action to be an interest in the “fact” as such, and take the end of the act to be the carrying out of the “fact” per se, regardless of whether this is done by the former individuality or by them. When on this account they point out that this “fact” has been already brought about by themselves, or, if not, offer and actually furnish their assistance, then they see that consciousness has rather left the position where they think it to be; it is its own action and effort, which arouses its interest in the “fact”, and when they come to know that this was the real intent, the fact of the matter, they feel themselves deceived. In reality, however, their haste to render assistance was itself nothing else than their desire to see and manifest their own action and not the objectified intent, i.e. they wanted to deceive the other individual just in the way they complain of having been deceived. Since there has now been brought to light that its own action and effort, the play of its powers, is taken for the real intent, consciousness seems to be occupied in its own way on its own account and not on that of others, and only to be troubled about action qua its own action, and not about action qua an action of others, and hence seems to let the others in their turn keep to their own “fact” But they go wrong again; that consciousness has already left the point where they thought it was. It is not concerned with the matter in hand as “fact” in the sense of this its own particular fact, but as fact qua fact, qua something universal, which is for all. Hence it interferes in the action and work of others; and if consciousness can no longer take their work out of their hands, it is at least interested in the matter, and shows this by its concern to pass judgment. When it stamps the result with the mark of its approval and praise, this is meant to imply that in the work it does not merely praise the work itself, but at the same time its own generosity and moderation in not having destroyed the work as work nor spoiled it by finding fault. Since it shows an interest in the work, it enjoys its own self therein; and in the same way the work which it found fault with is welcomed for just this enjoyment of its own action which is thereby procured. Those, however, who regard themselves as, or profess to be, deceived by this interference from others wanted really themselves to deceive in the same way. They give out their efforts and doings as something only for themselves, in which they merely have themselves and their own nature in view. But since they do something, and thus express their nature, bring themselves to the light of day, they directly contradict by their deed the pretence of wanting to exclude the daylight, i.e. to exclude the publicity of universal consciousness, and participation by every one. Actualization is, on the contrary, an exposing of what is one's own in a universal element, where it comes to be and has to be “fact” for every one.
Φ 418. There is, then, as much deception of itself as of others, if it is pretended that the “bare fact” is one's sole concern. A consciousness that lays open a “fact” soon learns that others hurry to the spot and want to make themselves busy there, like flies to milk newly put out; and they in their turn find out in its case that it is not dealing with “fact” qua object, but with fact as “its own”. On the other hand, if only action itself, the use of powers and capacities, or the expression of a given individuality, is to be the essential thing, they reciprocally learn that all are on the alert and consider themselves invited to deal with the matter, and that instead of a mere abstract action, or a single peculiar action, something has been elicited and exposed which was equally well for others or is a real intent. In both cases the same thing happens; and only appears to have a different significance by contrast with that which was accepted and assumed to hold on the matter. Consciousness finds both sides to be equally essential moments, and thereby learns what the nature of the “fact of the matter”, the real intent, is, viz. that it is neither merely “fact”, which is opposed to action in general and to individual action, nor action which is opposed to permanence and is the genus independent of these moments as its species. Rather it is an essential reality whose existence means the action of the single individual and of all individuals, and whose action is immediately for others, or is a “fact”, and is only “fact” in the sense of an action of each and all — the essential reality which is the essence of all beings (We-sen), which is spiritual essence. Consciousness learns that no one of these moments is subject, but rather gets dissolved in the universal objectified intent. The moments of individuality, which were taken as subject one after another by this unreflective incoherent stage of consciousness, coalesce and concentrate into simple individuality, which qua this, is no less immediately universal. The real intent thereby ceases to stand in the relation of a predicate, loses the characteristic of lifeless abstract universality: it is substance permeated by individuality: it is subject, wherein is individuality just as much qua individual, or qua this, as qua all individuals: and it is the universal, which has an existence only as being this action of each and all, and gets an actual reality in that this consciousness knows it to be its own individual reality, and the reality of all. Pure objectified intent is what was characterized above as the “category” — being which is the ego, or ego which is being, but in the sense of thought, which is still distinguished from actual self-consciousness. Here, however, the moments of actual self-consciousness — both so far as we call them its content (purpose, action, and reality), and also in so far as we call them its form (being-for-self and being-for-another) — are made identical with the bare and simple category itself, and the category is thereby at the same time the entire content.
------- [In reference to the title, "Self-Contained Individuals Associated as a Community of Animals, & the Deception thence arising: The Real Fact"] 1. It is difficult to find a current English equivalent for this term (die Sache Selbst). “Fact itself” or “actual fact” does not seem to convey much meaning. It seems best to try to bring out the significance implied, even though at the sacrifice of literal translation. | |
| | | individualized Tower
Posts : 5737 ᚠ : 6982 Join date : 2011-11-03 Location : The Stars
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:53 pm | |
| b. Reason as Law-Giver
Φ 419. SPIRITUAL essential reality is, in its bare existence, pure consciousness, and also this self-consciousness. The originally determinate nature of the individual has lost its positive significance of being inherently the element and purpose of his activity; it is merely a superseded moment, while the individual is a self in the sense of a universal self. Conversely the formal “real intent” gets its filling from active self-differentiating individuality; for the distinctions within individuality compose the content of that universal. The category is implicit (an sich) as the universal of pure consciousness; it is also explicit (für sich), for the self of consciousness is likewise its moment. It is absolute being, for that universality is the bare self-identity of being.
Φ 420. Thus what is object for consciousness has (now) the significance of being the true; it is and it holds good, in the sense of being and holding good by itself as an independent entity (an und für sich selbst). It is the “absolute fact”, which no longer suffers from the opposition of certainty and its truth, between universal and individual, between purpose and its reality, but whose existence is the reality and action of self-consciousness. This “fact” is therefore the ethical substance; and consciousness of it is ethical consciousness. Its object is likewise taken to be the truth, for it combines self-consciousness and being in a single unity. It stands for what is absolute, for self-consciousness cannot and will not again go beyond this object because it is there at home with itself: it cannot, for the object is all power, and all being: it will not, because the object is its self, or the will of this self. It is the real object inherently as object, for it contains and involves the distinction which consciousness implies. It divides itself into areas or spheres (Massen) which are the determinate laws of the absolute reality [viz. the ethical substance]. These spheres, however, do not obscure the notion, for the moments (being, bare consciousness and self) are kept contained within it — a unity which constitutes the inner nature of these spheres, and no longer lets these moments in this distinction fall apart from one another.
Φ 421. These laws or spheres (Massen) of the substance of ethical life are directly recognized and acknowledged. We cannot ask for their origin and justification, nor is there something else to search for as their warrant; for something other than this independent self-subsistent reality (an und für sich seyendes Wesen) could only be self-consciousness itself. But self-consciousness is nothing else than this reality, for itself is the self-existence of this reality, which is the truth just because it is as much the self of consciousness as its inherent nature (sein Ansich), or pure consciousness.
Φ 422. Since self-consciousness knows itself to be a moment of this substance, the moment of self-existence (of independence and self-determination), it expresses the existence of the law within itself in the form: “the healthy natural reason knows immediately what is right and good”. As healthy reason knows the law immediately, so the law is valid for it also immediately, and it says directly: “this is right and good”. The emphasis is on "this": there are determinate specific laws; there is the “fact itself “ with a concrete filling and content.
Φ 423. What is thus given immediately must likewise be accepted and regarded as immediate. As in the case of the immediacy of sense-experience, so here we have also to consider the nature of the existence to which this immediate certainty in ethical experience gives expression — to analyse the constitution of the immediately existing areas (Massen) of ethical reality. Examples of some such laws will show what we want to know; and since we take them in the form of declarations of the healthy reason knowing them, we, have not, in this connexion, to introduce the moment which has to be made good in their case when looked at as immediate ethical laws.
Φ 424. “Every one ought to speak the truth.” In this duty, as expressed unconditionally, the condition will at once be granted, viz. if he knows the truth. The command will therefore now run: everyone should speak the truth, at all times according to his knowledge and conviction about it. The healthy reason, this very ethical consciousness which knows immediately what is right and good, will explain that this condition had all the while been so bound up with that universal maxim that it meant the command to be taken in that sense. It thereby admits, however, in point of fact, that in the very expression of the maxim it eo ipso really violated it. The healthy reason said: “each should speak the truth”; it intended, however: “he must speak the truth according to his knowledge and conviction”. That is to say, it spoke otherwise than it intended, and to speak otherwise than one intends means not speaking the truth. The improved untruth, or inaptitude now takes the form: “each must speak the truth according to his knowledge and conviction about it on each occasion”. Thereby, however, what was universally necessary and absolutely valid (and this the proposition wanted to express) has turned round into what is really a complete contingency. For speaking the truth is left to the chance whether I know it and can convince myself of it; and there is nothing more in the statement than that truth and falsehood are to be spoken, just as anyone happens to know, intend, and understand. This contingency in the content has universality merely in the propositional form of the expression; but as an ethical maxim the proposition promises a universal and necessary content, and thus contradicts itself by the content being contingent. Finally, if the maxim were to be improved by saying that the contingency of the knowledge and the conviction as to the truth should be dropped, and that the truth, too, “ought” to be known, then this would be a command which contradicts straightway what we started from. Healthy reason was at first assumed to have the immediate capacity of expressing the truth; now, however, we are saying that it “ought” to know the truth, i.e. that it does not immediately know how to express the truth. Looking at the content, this has dropped out in the demand that we “should” know the truth; for this demand refers to knowing in general — “we ought to know”. What is demanded is, therefore, strictly speaking, something independent of every specific content. But here the whole point of the statement concerned a definite content, a distinction involved in the substance of the ethical life. Yet this immediate determination of that substance is a content of such a kind as turned out really to be a complete contingency; and when we try to get the required universality and necessity by making the law refer to the knowledge [instead of to the content], then the content really disappears altogether.
Φ 425. Another celebrated command runs: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is directed to an individual standing in relation to another individual, and asserts this law as a relation of a particular individual to a particular individual, i.e. a relation of sentiment or feeling (Empfindung). Active love — for an inactive love has no existence, and is therefore doubtless not intended here (1) — aims at removing evil from someone and bringing him good. To do this we have to distinguish what the evil is, what is the appropriate good to meet this evil, and what in general his well-being consists in; i.e. we have to love him intelligently. Unintelligent love will do him harm perhaps more than hatred.
Intelligent, veritable (wesentlich) well-doing is, however, in its richest and most important form the intelligent universal action of the state — an action compared with which the action of a particular individual as such is something altogether so trifling that it is hardly worth talking about. The action of the state is in this connexion of such great weight and strength that if the action of the individual were to oppose it, and either sought to be straightway and deliberately (für sich) criminal, or out of love for another wanted to cheat the universal out of the right and claim which it has upon him, such action would be useless and would inevitably be annihilated. Hence all that well-doing, which lies in sentiment and feeling, can mean is an action wholly and solely particular, a help at need, which is as contingent as it is momentary. Chance determines not merely its occasion, but also whether it is a “work” at all, whether it is not at once dissipated again, and whether it does not itself really turn to evil. Thus this sort of action for the good of others, which is given out as necessary, is so constituted that it may just as likely not exist as exist; is such that if the occasion by chance arises, it may possibly be a “work”, may possibly be good, but just as likely may not. This law, therefore, has as little of a universal content as the first above considered, and fails to express anything substantial, something objectively real per se (an und für sich), which it should do if it is to be an absolute ethical law. In other words, such laws never get further than the "ought to be”, they have no actual reality; they are not laws, but merely commands.
Φ 426. It is, however, in point of fact, clear from the very nature of the case that we must renounce all claim to an absolute universal content. For every specific determination which the simple substance (and its very nature consists in being simple) might obtain is inadequate to its nature. The command itself in its simple absoluteness expresses immediate ethical existence; the distinction appearing in it is a specific determinate element, and thus a content standing under the absolute universality of this simple existence. Since, then, an absolute content must thus be renounced, formal universality is the only kind that is possible and suitable, and this means merely that it is not to contradict itself. For universality devoid of content is formal; and an absolute content amounts to a distinction which is no distinction, i.e. means absence of content.(2)
Φ 427. In default of all content there is thus nothing left with which to make a law but the bare form of universality, in fact, the mere tautology of consciousness, a tautology which stands over against the content, and consists in a knowledge, not of the content actually existing, the content proper, but of its ultimate essence only, a knowledge of its self-identity.
Φ 428. The ethical inner essence is consequently not itself ipso facto a content, but only a standard for deciding whether a content is capable of being a law or not, i.e. whether the content does not contradict itself. Reason as law-giver is reduced to being reason as criterion; instead of laying down laws reason now only tests what is laid down.
------- 1. Cf. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals: Sect. 1 Critique of Practical Reason: Analytic c. 3.
2. The above criticism applies to Kant's “categorical imperative”.
c. Reason as Test of Laws
Φ 429. A DIFFERENCE within the bare and simple ethical substance is for it an accident, which, in the case of determinate commands, as we saw, appeared as contingency in the knowledge of the circumstances and contingency in action. The comparison of that simple existence with the determinateness which was inadequate to its nature took place in us; and the simple substance was then seen to be formal universality or pure consciousness which holds itself free from and in opposition to the content, and is a knowledge of that content as something determinate. The universality in this way remains the same as what the objectified intent was. But in consciousness this universality is something different; it is no longer the genus, inert and void of thought, but is related to the particular and valid as its force and truth.
This consciousness at first seems the same process of testing which formerly we carried on, and its action seems unable to be anything else than has already taken place — a comparison of the universal with the determinate particular which would yield as formerly their mutual incongruity. But the relation of content to universal is different here, since this universal has got another significance. It is formal universality, of which the specific consent is capable; for in that universality the content is considered merely in relation to itself. When we were applying the test, the universal solid substance stood over against that specificity, which proved to be a contingent element of the consciousness into which the substance entered. Here one term of the comparison has vanished; the universal is no longer the existing substance with a value all its own, is no longer substantive right per se, but simple knowledge or form, which compares a content merely with itself, and looks at it to see if it is a tautology. Laws are no longer given, but examined and tested; and for that consciousness which applies the test the laws are already given. It picks up their content as simply there, without going into the consideration (as was done before) of the particularity and contingency attaching to its reality; instead of this it takes its stand by the command as command, and takes up an attitude towards this command just as direct and simple as [the fact of] its being a standard and criterion for criticizing it.
Φ 430. For that reason, however, this process of testing does not get very far. Just because the standard is a tautology and indifferent to the content, it accepts one content just as readily as the opposite. Suppose the question is: — ought it to be a law without qualification (an und für sich) that there should be property? Without qualification, and not because of utility for other ends: — the essential ethical truth consists just in the fact that the law should be merely a self-consistent whole (sich selbst gleiche), and through being identical with itself have its ground in its own essential nature, and not be something conditioned. Property per se does not contradict itself. It is a specifically determinate isolated element, or merely self-identical (sich selbst gleich). Absence of property, absence of ownership of things, or again, community of goods, contradicts itself just as little. That something belong to nobody at all, or to the first best man who puts himself in possession, or, again, to all together, and to each according to his need or in equal portions — that is a simple characteristic, a formal thought, like its opposite, property.
If indeed no one is master of a thing and it is looked at as a necessary object for human requirement, then it is necessary that it should become the possession of some particular individual; and the contradiction would rather lie in making a law out of the freedom of the thing. By the thing being without an owner is meant, however, not absolute freedom from ownership, but that it shall come into someone's possession according to the need of the individual, and, moreover, not in order to be kept but directly to be used. But to make provision for need in such an entirely haphazard manner is contradictory to the nature of the conscious being, with whom alone we have here to do. For such a being has to think of his need in a universal way, to look to his existence in its entirety, and procure himself a permanent lasting good. This being so, the idea that a thing is to become by chance the possession of the first self-conscious individual (Leben) who happens to need it, is inconsistent with itself.
In a communistic society, where provision would be made in a way which is universal and permanent, either each comes to have as much as he requires — in which case there is a contradiction between this inequality and the essential nature — of consciousness, whose principle is the equality of individuals-or, acting on this last principle, there is an equal division of goods, and in this case the share each gets has no relation to his needs, and yet this is solely what “share”, i.e. fair share, really means.
Φ 431. But if when taken in this way absence of property seems contradictory, this is only because it has not been left in the form of a simple determinate characteristic. The same result is found in the case of property if this is resolved into separate moments. The particular thing which is my property has by being so the value of something universal, established, and permanent. This, how. ever, contradicts its nature, which consists in its being used and passing away. At the same time its value lies in being mine, which all others acknowledge and keep themselves away from. But just in my being acknow- ledged lies rather my equality, my identify, with every one — the opposite of exclusion.
Again, what I possess is a thing, i.e. an existence, which is there for others in general, quite universally and without any condition that it is for me alone. That I possess it contradicts the general nature of its thinghood. Property therefore contradicts itself on all hands just as much as absence of property; each has within it both these opposite and self-contradictory moments, universality and particularity.
But each of these determinate characteristics, presented simply as property or absence of property without further developing its implications, is as simple as the other, i.e. is not self-contradictory. The standard of law which reason has within itself therefore fits every case in the same way, and is in point of fact no standard at all. It would, too, turn out rather strange, if tautology, the principle of contradiction, which is allowed to be merely a formal criterion for knowledge of theoretical truth, i.e. something which is quite indifferent to truth and untruth alike, were to be more than this for knowledge of practical truth.
Φ 432. In both the above moments of what fills up the previous emptiness of spiritual reality (geistigen Wesen) the attempt to establish immediate determinate characteristics within the substance of the ethical life, and then to know whether these determinations are laws, has cancelled itself. The outcome, then, seems to be that neither determinate laws nor a knowledge of these can be obtained. But the substance in question is the consciousness of itself as absolute essentiality (Wesenheit), a consciousness therefore which can give up neither the difference falling within that substance, nor the knowledge of this difference. That giving laws and testing laws have turned out futile indicates that both, taken individually and in isolation, are merely unstable moments of the ethical consciousness; and the process in which they appear has the formal significance, that the substance of ethical life thereby expresses itself as consciousness.
Φ 433. So far as both these moments are more precise determinations of the consciousness of the real intent (Sache selbst) they can be looked on as forms of that honesty of nature (Ehrlichkeit) which now, as always with its formal moments, is much occupied with a content which “ought to be” good and right, and with testing definite fixed truth of this sort, and supposes itself to possess in healthy reason and intelligent insight the force and validity of ethical commands.
Φ 434. Without this honesty of nature, however, laws do not have validity as essential realities of consciousness, and the process of testing likewise does not hold good as an activity inside consciousness. Rather, these moments, when they appear directly as a reality each by itself, express in the one case an invalid establishment and mere de facto existence of actual laws, and in the other an equally invalid detachment from them. The law as determinate has an accidental content: this means here that it is a law made by a particular individual conscious of an arbitrary content. To legislate immediately in that way is thus tyrannical insolence and wickedness, which makes caprice into a law, and morality into obedience to such caprice — obedience to laws which are merely laws and not at the same time commands. So, too, the second process, testing the laws, so far as it is taken by itself, means moving the immovable, and the insolence of knowledge, which treats absolute laws in a spirit of intellectual detachment, and takes them for a caprice that is alien and external to it.
Φ 435. In both forms these moments are negative in relation to the ethical substance, to the real spiritual nature. In other words, the substance does not find in them its reality: but instead consciousness contains the substance still in the form of its own immediacy; and the substance is, as yet, only a process of willing and knowing on the part of this individual, or the ought” of an unreal command and a knowledge of formal universality. But since these modes were cancelled, consciousness has passed back into the universal and those oppositions have vanished. The spiritual reality is actual substance precisely through these modes not holding good individually, but merely as cancelled and transcended; and the unity where they are merely moments is the self of consciousness which is henceforth established within the spiritual reality, and makes that spirit concrete, actual, and self-conscious.
Φ 436. Spiritual reality (das geistige Wesen) is thus, in the first place, for self-consciousness in the shape of a law implicitly existing. The universality present in the process of testing, which was of a formal kind and not inherently existent, is transcended. The law is, too, an eternal law, which does not have its ground in the will of a given individual, but has a being all its own (an und für sich), the pure and absolute will of all which takes the form of immediate existence. This will is, again, not a command which merely ought to be; it is and has validity; it is the universal ego of the category, ego which is immediately reality, and the world is only this reality. Since, however, this existing law is absolutely valid, the obedience given by self-consciousness is not service rendered to a master, whose orders are mere caprice and in which it does not recognize its own nature. On the contrary, the laws are thoughts of its own absolute consciousness, thoughts which are its own immediate possession. Moreover, it does not believe in them, for belief, while it no doubt sees the essential nature, still gazes at an alien essence — not its own. The ethical self-consciousness is directly at one with the essential reality, in virtue of the universality of its own self. Belief, on the other hand, begins with an individual consciousness; it is a process in which this consciousness is always approaching this unity, without ever being able to find itself at home with its essential nature. The above consciousness, on the other hand, has transcended itself as individual, this mediating process is completed, and only because of this, is it immediate self-consciousness of ethical substance.
Φ 437. The distinction, then, of self-consciousness from the essential nature (Wesen) is completely transparent. Because of this the distinctions found within that nature itself are not accidental characteristics. On the contrary, because of the unity of the essence with self-consciousness (from which alone discordance, incongruity, might have come), they are articulated groups (Massen) of the unity permeated by its own life, unsundered spirits transparent to themselves, stainless forms and shapes of heaven, that preserve amidst their differences the untarnished innocence and concord of their essential nature.
Self-consciousness, again, stands likewise in a simple and clear relation to those different laws. They are, and nothing more — this is what constitutes the consciousness of its relation to them. Thus, Antigone takes them for the unwritten and unerring laws of the god —
"Not now, indeed, nor yesterday, but for aye It lives, and no man knows what time it came.” (1)
They are. If I ask for their origin, and confine them to the point whence they arose, that puts me beyond them, for it is I who am now the universal, while they are the conditioned and limited. If they are to get the sanction of my insight, I have already shaken their immovable nature, their inherent constancy, and regard them as something which is perhaps true, but possibly may also be not true, so far as I am concerned. True ethical sentiment consists just in holding fast and unshaken by what is right, and abstaining altogether from what would move or shake it or derive it. Suppose a deposit has been made over to me on trust, it is the property of another, and I recognize it because it is so, and remain immovable in this relation towards it. But if I keep the deposit for myself, then, according to the principle I use in testing laws — tautology — I undoubtedly do not commit a contradiction; for in that case I do not regard it any longer as the property of another. To keep anything which I do not look on as the property, of some one else is perfectly consistent. Changing the point of view is not contradiction; for what we have to do with is not the point of view, but the object and content, which is not to contradict itself. Just as I can — as I do, when I give something away in a present — alter the view that something is mine into the view that it is the property of another, without being thereby guilty of a contradiction, so too I can proceed the other way about. It is not, then, because I find something not contradicting itself that it is right; but it is right because it is the right. That something is the property of another, this lies at the basis of what I do. I have not to “reason why”, nor to seek out or hit upon thoughts of all kinds, connexions, aspects; I have to think neither of giving laws nor of testing them. By all such thought-processes on my part I should stultify that relation, since in point of fact I could, if I liked, make the opposite suit my indeterminate tautological knowledge just as well, and make that the law. But whether this or the opposite determination is the right, that is settled just as it stands (an und für sich). I might, for my own part, have made the law whichever I wanted, and neither of them just as well, and am, by my beginning to test them, thereby already on an immoral track. That the right is there for me just as it stands — this places me within the substance of ethical reality: and in this way that substance is the essence of self-consciousness. But self-consciousness, again is its actualization and its existence, its self, and its will.
------- 1. Sophocles, Antigone
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| | | individualized Tower
Posts : 5737 ᚠ : 6982 Join date : 2011-11-03 Location : The Stars
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Sun Oct 02, 2016 10:04 pm | |
| By the way the translation I have in book form is different from this one I am posting here; mine is A.V. Miller trans., I do not know which one this is that I am posting here but it is from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]I much prefer the book translation that I have. I recommend picking up that copy for anyone not fluent in German. In that book, the above texts span pages 236 - 262. | |
| | | Parodites Tower
Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Mon Oct 03, 2016 5:38 am | |
| " But acting is nothing else than negativity. Hence when individuality acts, its specific determinateness is dissipated into the general process of negation, into the sum and substance of all determinateness."
I re-read Hegel often. One must understand one's enemies better than one's friends, to philosophize the love your enemy thing from Christianity.
Yes, the Hegelian premise is that Being appears imperfectly, and from this seed of imperfection or negativity there is originated the first movement of Being- the dialectic, and the specific determination of that Being is lost, dissipated, into its own movement, the antithesis to Being or Nonbeing, forming the synthesis, or substance of all determination. This same process describes all lesser being(s) rather it's a human or consciousness or a rock. It is this basic Hegelian premise that I reject.
I'd be on your guard if you're reading Hegel, as Hegelianism is like a mental illness; in order to understand it, you have to subvert your own understanding of it, and become blind in a sense. Hegel's dialectic is itself subject to the dialectic, and transforms itself without your realizing it; it changes into its opposition and synthesizes.
So Being contains in itself the seed of negation from which nonbeing emerges in the dialectic and negates Being. That a thing always changes into the opposite that threatens to destabilize and annihilate it: that is the dialectic. In order for the dual annihilation of synthesis and antithesis within one another before the synthesis, the opposites Being and Nonbeing must actually co-exist; otherwise they could not logically struggle. Negation of the negation is the theoretical solution to this paradox.
So you have Being, non-being emerges from the seed of Being's opposition within it, that is the first negation, and then this negation is negated when Being enters into a dialectical movement toward keeping itself in existence. If you have a seed and drop it on the ground it germinates- it is negated, then a plant grows and you eat the plant, that's the second negation- the negation of the negation, and now you have a seed again- not one, but many this time. This negation of the negation does not just destroy like the first negation, it sublates; it both destroys and preserves- somehow. So we have answered the first Hegelian paradox with a second paradox.
The first negation originates from a destabilization within Being itself- from Being's own conceptual internal duality. The second negation originates in the external nonbeing struggling with Being, forming the dialectical movement. The first is from internal conceptual duality, the second from external duality. The first is Being's struggle with its own opposite, the seed of negation in its imperfection, the later Being is changing into its own opposite, into Nonbeing.
But: there is no process in the dialectic through which that internal conceptual opposition within Being becomes externalized as Nonbeing in order for it to confront and synthesize with it. How does the internal duality of Being become an external duality of being and nonbeing?
So for example, you're making a chair with wood. The wood must "struggle" externally with the chair it will become, whose seed is contained as an internal struggle within the wood. The wood must struggle with the chair in order to become a chair. The chair must already exist otherwise there could not be a struggle between it and the wood. But if the chair already exists then the wood cannot change into it- it already exists. But if the chair doesn't already exist, the wood cannot struggle with it. There is nothing to divide [the internal conceptual tension between chair and wood within the wood] from the [external opposition of chair and wood through which the wood must struggle in order to become a chair.] There is no Hegelian solution as to how the internal becomes external, how the inner becomes outer; how the internal conceptual tension capable of antithesis becomes an external conceptual tension capable of synthesis and transformation, and a solution to that is required in order to explain how Being becomes "opened up" to modification by its opposite, Nonbeing. The Hegelian Being as it is, without this solution, is entirely closed off to anything outside it and dialectical change is theoretically impossible.
The only way to derive a consistent philosophy is to not ascribe negativity to Being.
So how do we approach that? Instead of ascribing the imperfect core of Nonbeing to Being, its opposite: we ascribe everything to Being. Being contains, not the core of its own conceptual opposite or nonbeing, but the plenitude, the pure Affirmation. Then when it externalizes itself, this process, instead of producing the paradoxical negation of the negation, produces an infinitude of Being(s.) Being becomes surrounded on all sides by innumerable other(s), not just its own "conceptual opposite." Then two of these other(s) reify their conceptual tension through a stage of negative reflection, which destabilizes them by reincorporating the original affirmative Being: they reify Being in its otherness as a new term born of their negation, they internalize the externalization of Being's plenitude as otherness, for the other- as pure otherness- as consciousness or spirit, as humanity specifically: that is what human consciousness is. This is how the infinite God creates the finite consciousness of man in which he participates like one solitude within another solitude, ie. love, without ever diminishing the duality of god and man, of solitude and solitude. My process of reification describes not change, but generation; not transformation into something's opposite, but how Being in its pure affirmation, setting behind the universe and history, finds a way to constantly participate in that universe it is conceptually isolated from, participate in the very plentitude it itself generated; how the infinite Being of pure affirmation re-submerges itself in its universe and re-emerges within it through the reification as a guiding episteme to continue driving history forward, to continue generating the expressed plenitude of other being(s) we see around us. | |
| | | individualized Tower
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Tue Oct 04, 2016 3:05 pm | |
| I promise to try to reply specifically to these concerns about Hegel that you raise, I will be in more of a position to do so once I keep reading him. But from what I can already tell, Hegel is a philosopher of the pure depths: he isnr so great at creating concrete concepts, rather he is laying out the deep genetics of how all conception forms and operates in the first place, in general and specific. In terms of making and using specific concepts Nietzsche is superior to Hegel, and you (Parodites) are probably the unrivaled master at this level; yet Hegel goes deeper into the direct pure being and theory of what underlies concepts. It's pure being-as-logic. Hegel doesn't tell us WHAT to think but HOW to think. This is why the modern world has become defined precisely by Hegel himself, in response to him as either the Marxist dimension or the Nietzschean dimension. Note that both of those dimensions are actual concrete conceptual frameworks; Nietzsche in response to German idealism (Kant through Hegel, Hegel through Schopenhauer (negatively), Schelling of course) and of course on the other end Hegel through Marx and pretty much everyone else not-Nietzschean through Marx. These ideational frameworks still persist today, which is really remarkable.
My aim is to philosophize the genetics directly, and now I finally see that this was also Hegel's aim. There is simple reason why this approach is more powerful than philosophizing the concept directly: concepts appear and move around tectonically based on the genetics which underlie them. These genetics are pure being-logics, they are "content-less" precisely because of how they unfold from them all contents which could be built up anyway, like proteins folding into a molecular structure at the behest of genetic code.
From what I can see so far Hegel didn't really make that many great concepts, although I'm sure I will encounter some fantastic ones as I keep reading (when I do I will post them here). But he did something even more profound: he shows the origins of all concepts, both generally and specifically, and he outlines the spaces and rules in which concepts form, and why and how they form. Then a to the derivative levels of concepts in conflict he steps back and other philosophers enter to do that "practical work" of making concrete things (ideas, proteins and molecular structures) based on that deeper and more universal program. Zizek made the point that Hegel's importance and influence is established precisely because he cannot ever be instantiated perfectly or with total agreement, the many conflicting interpretations and misinterpretations that abound demonstrate this; the modern age post-Hegel is Hegelian precisely because it is "not Hegelian", which is a nicely Hegelian insight. | |
| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Tue Oct 04, 2016 6:35 pm | |
| Hegel wasn't wrong. He was just a brute.
The true game of philosophy: depth for its own sake. Its unspeakable power is also its puniness, and therefore it is the greatest of all things.
I agree that it is about the genetics. The truth of depth is unmovable except by the real truth of it: its dependence on the out. Thus, we can even see gods in its formation. But make no mistake, the question of who makes can only lead to the child. | |
| | | Fixed Cross Tower
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:03 pm | |
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| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:15 pm | |
| I'm sure love thinks that. Depth lets it, because it is a righteous muse. | |
| | | individualized Tower
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:47 pm | |
| - Pezer wrote:
- Hegel wasn't wrong. He was just a brute.
The true game of philosophy: depth for its own sake. Its unspeakable power is also its puniness, and therefore it is the greatest of all things.
I agree that it is about the genetics. The truth of depth is unmovable except by the real truth of it: its dependence on the out. Thus, we can even see gods in its formation. But make no mistake, the question of who makes can only lead to the child. How was Hegel a brute? His treatment of philosophy is probably the most "gentle" and subtle/refined that I've ever seen. So much so that what he is saying is damn near invisible to most people, philosophers included. | |
| | | individualized Tower
Posts : 5737 ᚠ : 6982 Join date : 2011-11-03 Location : The Stars
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:48 pm | |
| Hegel is depth for its own sake. Not even Nietzsche gets there (and Nietzsche gets closer than most). | |
| | | individualized Tower
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:37 pm | |
| Parodites, I sense that your concept of of the intuition of the pure affirmation of Being is going to be critical in this topic. I need to understand this more in context of Hegel, or I need to understand Hegel more in context of this concept of yours. Moving this over from that other thread, then, I'm going to add a passage below from Phenomenology of Spirit that I think speaks directly to theee ideas that are being worked on: (From my A.V. Miller translation which I prefer over the one I used previously): - Quote :
- 438. Reason is Spirit when its certainty of being all reality has been raised to truth, and it is conscious of itself as its own world, and of the world as itself. The coming-to-be of Spirit was indicated in the immediately preceding movement in which the object of consciousness, the pure category, rose to be the Notion of Reason. In Reason as observer, this pure unity of the I and being, of being for itself and being in itself, is determined as the in-itself or as being, and the consciousness of Reason finds itself. But the truth of observation is rather that it leaves behind it this immediate instinct which merely finds Reason, this unconscious existence of Reason. The intuited category, the found Thing, enters consciousness as the being-for-self of the 'I', which is now aware of itself as the self in objective being. But this determination of the category, of being-for-self opposed to being-in-itself, is equally one-sided and is a moment that supersedes itself. The category is therefore determined for consciousness as it is in its universal truth, as a being that is in and for itself. This still abstract determination which constitutes the 'matter in hand' itself is at first only spiritual essence, and its consciousness [only] a formal knowing of it, which busies itself with all kinds of content of the essence. This consciousness, as a particular individual, is still in fact distinct from substance, and either makes arbitrary laws or fancies that in simply knowing laws it possesses them in their own absolute nature. Or, looked at from the side of substance, this is spiritual essence that is in and for itself, but which is not yet consciousness of itself. But essence that is in and for itself, and which is at the same time actual as consciousness and aware of itself, this is Spirit.
How would you draw together this idea he is developing here with your idea of the intuition of the pure affirmation of Being; specifically as regards the excess (as I was getting at in my last posts on this subject in the other thread). | |
| | | Pezer builder
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:52 pm | |
| If I read Hegel like I read Fixed Cross, as pure love of words, as doing with Spirit what Fixed Cross did with Value, then it suddenly seems... I dunno, tyrannical. | |
| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:56 pm | |
| I guess I've become too much of a hippie for Hegel. Free the people! and all that. | |
| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:58 pm | |
| I like philosophers that fertilize, give tools, not ones that try to define your breath for you. This is something only one lover could demand of another, an I do mean human lovers (not metaphysical ones). | |
| | | Fixed Cross Tower
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:02 pm | |
| - Pezer wrote:
- I'm sure love thinks that. Depth lets it, because it is a righteous muse.
Let me rephrase; There is no depth without love. love is the measure that binds the surface to the deep, can endure their difference. Without love, depth is just another surface. | |
| | | Pezer builder
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| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:03 pm | |
| The main thing at stake is science.
If we tyrannize people's spirit, we effectively kill science. | |
| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:07 pm | |
| Man gathers in courage and woman binds in love. | |
| | | Fixed Cross Tower
Posts : 7308 ᚠ : 8699 Join date : 2011-11-09 Location : Acrux
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:08 pm | |
| I see this as exact logic, since love is the most absolute valuing that we humans know. Love, valuing, is the framework in which we emote and perceive and think and conceptualize - to go to a great depth and to remain coherent with the place one departed from, means to hold these levels together in valuing, a self-valuing obviously, stretced out to encompass this distance from the surface to the depth.
An example; when a soldier who has killed ans seen much horror - who has been to depths of something - comes back, he is aloof - until he starts confronting his old love, his girl, his children. Then the depth becomes palpable as distance. Then, love is at place, it tyrannizes the ego that wishes to keep the states separate, and forces it to integrate the impossible, the unfeelable - love does this. It presses to feel what cannot be accepted. It is the bravest entity of all, and it makes brave men and tragic heroes - the philosopher is just one of those men it makes. | |
| | | Fixed Cross Tower
Posts : 7308 ᚠ : 8699 Join date : 2011-11-09 Location : Acrux
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:09 pm | |
| - Pezer wrote:
- The main thing at stake is science.
If we tyrannize people's spirit, we effectively kill science. I think you imagine too much control in our hands. We have zero control, and will never have control. My aim is that no one will make a real attempt again. What we can do, what I have done, what Capable as done, is to liberate science into philosophy. | |
| | | Fixed Cross Tower
Posts : 7308 ᚠ : 8699 Join date : 2011-11-09 Location : Acrux
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:15 pm | |
| I mean control over the human spirit.
If the West is proof of anything, it is that the Greeks did find the immortal, indestructible freedom, which is philosophy, or the taste for the intellectual conscience, itself.
Science and all beauties of the mind will thrive wherever there is lush nature. Right now we are being forced into the desert-psyche, because the desert holds all the oil, and our leaders have no spine, and they happily surrender all of us to the oil people. But this is only form; the necessity, the depth of valuing, that has been born into the world with the Greeks, that hid itself from itself in Christianity, and that is re emerging these centuries, is not concerned with the timespan in which this silly desert value-system can manage - it is only concerned with raising itself up as standard, for all that are worthy of it and require it. | |
| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:28 pm | |
| To bring it back to a local place, I see a lot of bad spirits holding sway in the Amazon. Bad in the sense of bad for the Greek. This does not at all mean bad for love.
Greece died when it reached the Amazon. But it died of beauty. | |
| | | Fixed Cross Tower
Posts : 7308 ᚠ : 8699 Join date : 2011-11-09 Location : Acrux
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:29 pm | |
| Id like to address this passage. - Quote :
- 438. Reason is Spirit when its certainty of being all reality has been raised to truth, and it is conscious of itself as its own world, and of the world as itself. The coming-to-be of Spirit was indicated in the immediately preceding movement in which the object of consciousness, the pure category, rose to be the Notion of Reason. In Reason as observer, this pure unity of the I and being, of being for itself and being in itself, is determined as the in-itself or as being, and the consciousness of Reason finds itself.
Here he describes simply thought becoming aware of itself, the ontic as it rises from the transcendent as a definite inner nature. He stands at the precipice of solipsism and is about to make his way through, or around it... the Thinker in his embryonic stage. - Quote :
- But the truth of observation is rather that it leaves behind it this immediate instinct which merely finds Reason, this unconscious existence of Reason. The intuited category, the found Thing, enters consciousness as the being-for-self of the 'I', which is now aware of itself as the self in objective being.
Erroneously so - it took a while longer for philosophy to develop that idea into a proper logic, rather than 'self', which does not exist, 'self-valuing'. That Hegel still figured a 'self', a discrete phenomenon to itself, is the ground of the destructive powers he unleashes. - Quote :
- But this determination of the category, of being-for-self opposed to being-in-itself, is equally one-sided and is a moment that supersedes itself. The category is therefore determined for consciousness as it is in its universal truth, as a being that is in and for itself. This still abstract determination which constitutes the 'matter in hand' itself is at first only spiritual essence,
here he goes into the mist. This is substance dualism. At no point can two identifications/forms/modi of being be categorically separated like this without breaking the integrity of the epistemic path. - Quote :
- and its consciousness [only] a formal knowing of it, which busies itself with all kinds of content of the essence. This consciousness, as a particular individual, is still in fact distinct from substance, and either makes arbitrary laws or fancies that in simply knowing laws it possesses them in their own absolute nature. Or, looked at from the side of substance, this is spiritual essence that is in and for itself, but which is not yet consciousness of itself. But essence that is in and for itself, and which is at the same time actual as consciousness and aware of itself, this is Spirit.
If it is not yet conscious of itself, it doesnt yet exist. The logic here presented is the trap into which all the New Age tracticers fall - the belief that one can reach this inner self, from a point that isnt yet completely it. The self-valuing integrity of consciousness, after which Hegel chased for a good whole without fulling losing sight, can not be built from parts of another, lesser thing - the consciousness of it is whole, that is its essence. How it overtakes a mind? Well that is the riddle we've been addressing the past 5 years. | |
| | | Pezer builder
Posts : 2191 ᚠ : 2592 Join date : 2011-11-15 Location : deep caverns in caves
| Subject: Re: Hegel: the ultimate Badass of all Badasses Wed Oct 05, 2016 1:44 pm | |
| Science is always slighty beyond love. This is why I consider it crucial, rather than set out "the definitive guideline" like Hegel tried, and Kant and all those guys (least guilty of all being Leibniz, who bragged most shortly but most proudly of his conversations with princesses), to help scientists develop taste. Taste is what binds love an what love yet doesn't know. | |
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