File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0209, message 81


From: "Phil Walden" <phil-AT-pwalden.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: BHA: FW: [scilogic_hegel] Re: Excursus IV: Comparison between Kant's and  Hegel's philosophy (logic)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 06:27:06 +0100


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-----Original Message-----
From: Beat Greuter [mailto:greuterb-AT-bluewin.ch]
Sent: 16 September 2002 21:13
To: scilogic_hegel-AT-yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [scilogic_hegel] Re: Excursus IV: Comparison between Kant's and
Hegel's philosophy (logic)


Paul Healey wrote:
  Beat Greuter <greuterb-AT-bluewin.ch>, you wrote:
  >If you want to say that Hegel would reject the medieval readings
  >(syllogistic schemata) of Aristotle since "they took faith and not
  >reason as their epistemological starting
  >point" I do not agree. The connection between the content of faith and
  >the rational syllogistic form is exactly what marks the beginning of
  >grasping the infinity with help
  >of rational arguments, an important point for a philosopher who wanted
  >to derive a new objectivity sublating thereby Kant's mere subjective
  >finite appearance. So, for
  >Hegel the medieval scholastic ontological proof of the existence of God
  >(i.e. by Anselm of Canterbury) is very important, and he refers to it
  >several times in his Science
  >of Logic. It is the question of the difference between concept and
  >being. In connection with "Being" and "Nothing" Hegel writes in § 146
  >"Remark 1: The Opposition of
  >Being and Nothing in Ordinary Thinking":
  <Snip>

  On reflection, it would of been better to say I believe Hegel would
  reject the majority of modern introductory text books to logic i.e.,
  Mitchell, David. 1962. An Introduction to Logic., because of the
  formalistic way in which they interpret the medieval readings of
  Aristotle (I have to confess though that I cannot comment on the
  original works, as I do not read Latin and so would not trust there
  judgements over Hegel's) --- their use of 4 figures and the schemata of
  the moods. That is, understanding (I presume) Hegel's ontological
  arguments (even his comments on Anselm's deduction) is far more
  difficult then accepting something like Barbara.

You are right, it is the wrong form of thought for deriving the infinity,
God. And the problem I think is that there is (i.e. in the case of Anselm's
ontological proof of the existence of God) - even for the atheist - a given
concept of God. So, for Anselm who had a strong education in logic it was
easy to undermine the atheistic attitude. But for Hegel there is no fixed
concept of God which can be simply predicated. The deeper problem is not
merely - as Kant stated - that 'the existence' cannot be a given predicate
of a concept and has to be added separately (the narrative of the 100
dollars is only related to finite things), but that there is a movement
between God as the infinite subject and His objectivity, His being: The
proposition "God is the Being" destroys the fixed subject of God, and in the
movement or mediation between the subject and the predicate the essence of
God is revealed (Phenomenology of Spirit, § 62 of Miller's translation).
This revelation is the purpose and content of Hegel's Logic with the
consequence that it cannot begin with God, the fulfiled absolute, but the
concept of God is its result, the whole of the categorical determiantions of
thought (concept) and being. Nicolai Hartmann writes in his book on "Die
Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus", Vol. II: "Hegel", p.33 ff of the
original edition (my translation):
"What is more than such a word [God], the transition even merely to a
proposition [God is the being], means a becoming-an-other which has to be
withdraw, that is, means a mediation. Therefore one is afraid of the
exposition of the absolute in its categories - as it would not include the
richness of the predicates in itself which indicate the determination of all
what comes later and is relative. The task, however, is to develop this
predicate, that is, to liberate the concept of the absolute from its
abstractness, to get its true essence, to reveal the system of the
categories of the absolute."


  I, and Errol E.
  Harris agreed with me on this, believe Hegel's philosophy of logic can
  be formalised (in that its principles and truths can be deduced), but
  not by the reasoning of the so called Formalists following Kant e.g.,
  Hilbert. And this is even true of more contemporary mathematical
  logicians like Quine: if they, had had a better philosophical training
  or reading, they might of realised that Hegel defeated empiricism and
  this should not be lost on Kant's Transcendentalism (particularly its
  abstract notion of identity).
Do you think that to deduce the principles of a philosophy is the same as to
formalize them? I think Errol E. Harris means with 'to deduce" that Hegel's
philosophy and Logic is transparent in its course and intention. There are
interpreters who deny this.
Kant may not be so abstract as you mean. It was Schelling who has postulated
the philosophy of identity as the indifference of the subjective and
objective against Kant's and Fichte's dualism. Hegel then criticized this
abstract identity of the 'intellectual intuition' or 'pure intellectuality'
being supposed before the activity of consiousness and grasping thinking as
their ground which itself cannot be grasped. In the Preface of the PhdG he
says (§ 16, translated by J. B. Baillie):

"To pit this single assertion, that "in the Absolute all is one", against
the organized whole of determinate and complete knowledge, or of knowledge
which at least aims at and demands complete development - to give out its
Absolute as the night in which, as we say, all cows are black - that is the
very naïveté of emptiness of knowledge."

Nicolai Hartmann says that "it is at this point where Hegel's Logic enters"
("Die Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus", Vol. II: "Hegel", p. 33).

In my opinion it was Hegel's insight into the dead end of Schelling's
philosophy of identity that made him go back to Kant, and this happened at
the very beginning of their collaboration in Jena in Hegel's writing "Faith
and Knowledge" (1802). It is the insight that duality cannot be merely
exluded from the indifference of the subjective and objective otherwise the
identity itself becomes finite and abstract against its other and dualism
returns again. In "Faith and Knowledg" Hegel cites Kant's "CRITIQUE OF PURE
REASON, SECTION II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of the
Understanding, Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception", B 135:

"For the ego, as a simple representation, presents us with no manifold
content;"

[The whole passage runs as follow:

"This fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is indeed
an identical, and therefore analytical, proposition; but it nevertheless
explains the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold given in an
intuition, without which the identity of self-consciousness would be
incogitable. For the ego, as a simple representation, presents us with no
manifold content; only in intuition, which is quite different from the
representation ego, can it be given us, and by means of conjunction it is
cogitated in one self-consciousness. An understanding, in which all the
manifold should be given by means of consciousness itself, would be
intuitive; our understanding can only think and must look for its intuition
to sense. I am, therefore, conscious of my identical self, in relation to
all the variety of representations given to me in an intuition, because I
call all of them my representations. In other words, I am conscious myself
of a necessary a priori synthesis of my representations, which is called the
original synthetical unity of apperception, under which rank all the
representations presented to me, but that only by means of a synthesis."
(translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn)]

Hegel continues some lines later (since I do not have the translation by
H.S. Harris and W Cerf: (Albany: State University of New York, 1977): "G. W.
F. Hegel, Faith and Knowledge (1802)" I try my own summary translation of
this passage in "A. Kantian Philosophy"):

"One can nothing understand of the whole 'Transcendental Deduction' both,
the forms of the intuition [space, time] as well as of the category
altogether without
(1) making a difference between the [abstract and absolute] I as the subject
which only accompanies all representations on the one side, and the ability
of 'the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception' on the other side, and
(2) ceasing to take this 'Synthetical Unity of Apperception' as a middle
term which first would have to be inserted between an absolute abstract
subject and the existing absolute world; and instead, taking it as the First
and the Original out of which then the subjective I as well as the objective
world will separate into the necessary bipartite appearance and product,
recognizing it alone as the in-itself [Ansich]."

With this Hegel describes exactly the beginning of his Logic, the 'Pure
Being'. The 'Synthetical Unity of Apperception' has to be taken neither as
pure identity (Schelling) which remains as mere ground before the activity
of consiousness and thought, nor merely as a middle term which leaves its
extremes of the subjective I (concepts a priori independent of experiences)
and the objective world as an abstract oppostion outside itself (false
interpretation of Kant's 'Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception').
So, Hegel means that Kant had the key for a real transcendental logic of the
identity in which this abstract opposition is sublated (negated and
preserved), but would have thrown it away remaining in this dualism. It is
very important to recognize that the proof for Hegel's beginning can only be
the Logic itself as a whole, that is, the explication of the categories as
the explication of the merely implicit 'Pure Being', of the real in-itself
(Ansich). Schelling did not carry out this since he wantet to stay within an
infinite intellectual unity as the base for the sciences, the arts etc. Kant
also did not make it since he never left his philosophy as a doctrine of
method and therefore never wrote his 'System of Reason'.

In this sense you are right that it was Hegel who really "defeated
empiricism" and experience. At the International Hegel Congress in Jena on
"Faith and Knowledge" (08-28-02 - 09-01-02). Sally Sedgwick said in her
paper on "The emptiness of the I: Kant's transcendental deduction in 'Faith
and Knowledge' " (my translation):

"For Kant the categories are the universal and necessary presuppositions of
the cognition as concepts a priori independent of all experiences. According
to Hegel, however, the nature of categories cannot be hold true as
determinated from the beginning since for him thought has not the extent of
self-determination as Kant has given to it. Even our most enduring concepts
are not given in advance, also those concepts are on the way of
development."

To this nothing has to be add.

Kind regards,

Beat Greuter
      Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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HTML VERSION:

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Beat Greuter [mailto:greuterb-AT-bluewin.ch]
Sent: 16 September 2002 21:13
To: scilogic_hegel-AT-yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [scilogic_hegel] Re: Excursus IV: Comparison between Kant's and Hegel's philosophy (logic)

Paul Healey wrote:
Beat Greuter <greuterb-AT-bluewin.ch>, you wrote:

>If you want to say that Hegel would reject the medieval readings
>(syllogistic schemata) of Aristotle since "they took faith and not
>reason as their epistemological starting
>point" I do not agree. The connection between the content of faith and
>the rational syllogistic form is exactly what marks the beginning of
>grasping the infinity with help
>of rational arguments, an important point for a philosopher who wanted
>to derive a new objectivity sublating thereby Kant's mere subjective
>finite appearance. So, for
>Hegel the medieval scholastic ontological proof of the existence of God
>(i.e. by Anselm of Canterbury) is very important, and he refers to it
>several times in his Science
>of Logic. It is the question of the difference between concept and
>being. In connection with "Being" and "Nothing" Hegel writes in =A7 146
>"Remark 1: The Opposition of
>Being and Nothing in Ordinary Thinking":
<Snip>

On reflection, it would of been better to say I believe Hegel would
reject the majority of modern introductory text books to logic i.e.,
Mitchell, David. 1962. An Introduction to Logic., because of the
formalistic way in which they interpret the medieval readings of
Aristotle (I have to confess though that I cannot comment on the
original works, as I do not read Latin and so would not trust there
judgements over Hegel's) --- their use of 4 figures and the schemata of
the moods. That is, understanding (I presume) Hegel's ontological
arguments (even his comments on Anselm's deduction) is far more
difficult then accepting something like Barbara.

You are right, it is the wrong form of thought for deriving the infinity, God. And the problem I think is that there is (i.e. in the case of Anselm's ontological proof of the existence of God) - even for the atheist - a given concept of God. So, for Anselm who had a strong education in logic it was easy to undermine the atheistic attitude. But for Hegel there is no fixed concept of God which can be simply predicated. The deeper problem is not merely - as Kant stated - that 'the existence' cannot be a given predicate of a concept and has to be added separately (the narrative of the 100 dollars is only related to finite things), but that there is a movement between God as the infinite subject and His objectivity, His being: The proposition "God is the Being" destroys the fixed subject of God, and in the movement or mediation between the subject and the predicate the essence of God is revealed (Phenomenology of Spirit, =A7 62 of Miller's translation). This revelation is the purpose and content of Hegel's Logic with the consequence that it cannot begin with God, the fulfiled absolute, but the concept of God is its result, the whole of the categorical determiantions of thought (concept) and being. Nicolai Hartmann writes in his book on "Die Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus", Vol. II: "Hegel", p.33 ff of the original edition (my translation):

"What is more than such a word [God], the transition even merely to a proposition [God is the being], means a becoming-an-other which has to be withdraw, that is, means a mediation. Therefore one is afraid of the exposition of the absolute in its categories - as it would not include the richness of the predicates in itself which indicate the determination of all what comes later and is relative. The task, however, is to develop this predicate, that is, to liberate the concept of the absolute from its abstractness, to get its true essence, to reveal the system of the categories of the absolute."
 

I, and Errol E.
Harris agreed with me on this, believe Hegel's philosophy of logic can
be formalised (in that its principles and truths can be deduced), but
not by the reasoning of the so called Formalists following Kant e.g.,
Hilbert. And this is even true of more contemporary mathematical
logicians like Quine: if they, had had a better philosophical training
or reading, they might of realised that Hegel defeated empiricism and
this should not be lost on Kant's Transcendentalism (particularly its
abstract notion of identity).
Do you think that to deduce the principles of a philosophy is the same as to formalize them? I think Errol E. Harris means with 'to deduce" that Hegel's philosophy and Logic is transparent in its course and intention. There are interpreters who deny this.

Kant may not be so abstract as you mean. It was Schelling who has postulated the philosophy of identity as the indifference of the subjective and objective against Kant's and Fichte's dualism. Hegel then criticized this abstract identity of the 'intellectual intuition' or 'pure intellectuality' being supposed before the activity of consiousness and grasping thinking as their ground which itself cannot be grasped. In the Preface of the PhdG he says (=A7 16, translated by J. B. Baillie):

"To pit this single assertion, that "in the Absolute all is one", against the organized whole of determinate and complete knowledge, or of knowledge which at least aims at and demands complete development - to give out its Absolute as the night in which, as we say, all cows are black - that is the very na=EFveté of emptiness of knowledge."

Nicolai Hartmann says that "it is at this point where Hegel's Logic enters" ("Die Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus", Vol. II: "Hegel", p. 33).

In my opinion it was Hegel's insight into the dead end of Schelling's philosophy of identity that made him go back to Kant, and this happened at the very beginning of their collaboration in Jena in Hegel's writing "Faith and Knowledge" (1802). It is the insight that duality cannot be merely exluded from the indifference of the subjective and objective otherwise the identity itself becomes finite and abstract against its other and dualism returns again. In "Faith and Knowledg" Hegel cites Kant's "CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON, SECTION II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of the Understanding, Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception", B 135:

"For the ego, as a simple representation, presents us with no manifold content;"

[The whole passage runs as follow:

"This fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is indeed an identical, and therefore analytical, proposition; but it nevertheless explains the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold given in an intuition, without which the identity of self-consciousness would be incogitable. For the ego, as a simple representation, presents us with no manifold content; only in intuition, which is quite different from the representation ego, can it be given us, and by means of conjunction it is cogitated in one self-consciousness. An understanding, in which all the manifold should be given by means of consciousness itself, would be intuitive; our understanding can only think and must look for its intuition to sense. I am, therefore, conscious of my identical self, in relation to all the variety of representations given to me in an intuition, because I call all of them my representations. In other words, I am conscious myself of a necessary a priori synthesis of my representations, which is called the original synthetical unity of apperception, under which rank all the representations presented to me, but that only by means of a synthesis." (translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn)]

Hegel continues some lines later (since I do not have the translation by H.S. Harris and W Cerf: (Albany: State University of New York, 1977): "G. W. F. Hegel, Faith and Knowledge (1802)" I try my own summary translation of this passage in "A. Kantian Philosophy"):

"One can nothing understand of the whole 'Transcendental Deduction' both, the forms of the intuition [space, time] as well as of the category altogether without
(1) making a difference between the [abstract and absolute] I as the subject which only accompanies all representations on the one side, and the ability of 'the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception' on the other side, and
(2) ceasing to take this 'Synthetical Unity of Apperception' as a middle term which first would have to be inserted between an absolute abstract subject and the existing absolute world; and instead, taking it as the First and the Original out of which then the subjective I as well as the objective world will separate into the necessary bipartite appearance and product, recognizing it alone as the in-itself [Ansich]."

With this Hegel describes exactly the beginning of his Logic, the 'Pure Being'. The 'Synthetical Unity of Apperception' has to be taken neither as pure identity (Schelling) which remains as mere ground before the activity of consiousness and thought, nor merely as a middle term which leaves its extremes of the subjective I (concepts a priori independent of experiences) and the objective world as an abstract oppostion outside itself (false interpretation of Kant's 'Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception'). So, Hegel means that Kant had the key for a real transcendental logic of the identity in which this abstract opposition is sublated (negated and preserved), but would have thrown it away remaining in this dualism. It is very important to recognize that the proof for Hegel's beginning can only be the Logic itself as a whole, that is, the explication of the categories as the explication of the merely implicit 'Pure Being', of the real in-itself (Ansich). Schelling did not carry out this since he wantet to stay within an infinite intellectual unity as the base for the sciences, the arts etc. Kant also did not make it since he never left his philosophy as a doctrine of method and therefore never wrote his 'System of Reason'.

In this sense you are right that it was Hegel who really "defeated empiricism" and experience. At the International Hegel Congress in Jena on "Faith and Knowledge" (08-28-02 - 09-01-02). Sally Sedgwick said in her paper on "The emptiness of the I: Kant's transcendental deduction in 'Faith and Knowledge' " (my translation):

"For Kant the categories are the universal and necessary presuppositions of the cognition as concepts a priori independent of all experiences. According to Hegel, however, the nature of categories cannot be hold true as determinated from the beginning since for him thought has not the extent of self-determination as Kant has given to it. Even our most enduring concepts are not given in advance, also those concepts are on the way of development."

To this nothing has to be add.

Kind regards,

Beat Greuter
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
scilogic_hegel-unsubscribe-AT-yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

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