Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 10:41:51 +0800
From: Paul Bains <P.Bains-AT-murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: RE: dialectic


At 01:31 AM 1/6/99 -0000, Nathan wrote:

>...There is no thing-in-itself, therefore all things are nothing but their
>relations.  Hence Hegel says the logic of the atomistic thing gives way to
>relational forces -- just as Deleuze outlines in the opening pages of
>Nietzsche and Philosophy.

This seems like the crux of the matter.

(Note the reductionism involved in the statement 'nothing but'). There is a
distinction btwn the 'thing' related and the relation itself (this is the
'externality' of relations). 

'Things' (distinguished within the 'objects' of experience) are not 'nothing
but their relations' .

The things involved in relations are not relations, they are _relative_
beings. This distinction is easily occluded and seems to have been with
Nietzsche and pomo.


Hegel seems to get close to this but it gets lost in the complexities of his
own system. At least he recognized the mind indep. reality of relations (in
distinction to the essentially nominalist modern philosophies (with Kant as
their apotheosis). But he lacks a semiotic analysis of the common ground of
mind-indep and mind dependent relations, or their interrelation in
knowledge. The problem is to show how categorial schemes can be derived from
experience.

What is interesting is that there is a logic of relations that is discussed
throughout the latin west and it is truly monstrous to claim that Hume
develooped the first 'autonomous logic of relations.' BUt that's another
story......
Got to go, but i'll be bak.