Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 22:43:32 +0300 (EET DST)
From: j laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi>
Subject: M-TH: re: Hegel's idealism


Greetings

Either Manfred Frank or Dieter Henrich said somewhere that Hegel was
the last of 'pre-moderns', or traditional philosophers. Such
philosophers (and this is my characterization) made sometimes fine
general outlines, as philosophers should, but lacked the conceptual
schemes that modern ones have developed. Therefore it's somehow
unjustified to 'criticise' Hegel of some of traits in his thinking.
However, there's one main issue that must be taken on table again and
again: his idealism. Because it's him who's used as a vehicle to
smuggle idealism even into marxist, marxian and marxisand discussions.
It's naturally evident that such a critique is beyond my capabilities,
but I try to show at least one reason little bit later..

Justin wrote (about Hegel):

" Well, I think he takes off from Kant's claim that we cannot know the
world as it is in itself. He wants to dent this and show that absolute
knowledge of things as they are in themselves is possible. But the
issue of the material world is only incidental for Hegel. Moreover,
unlike Kant and the Cartesian and Empiricist traditions, epistemology
in the usual sense id not Hegel's starting point, except as something
to be surmounted. "

Perhaps so? There was also a question of 'beginning', and this is
related to Hegel's disagreement with Schelling about that beginning.
More of that later.


" Uh, Descartes is the prototypcal scientific realist. But I'm not
constructing a strawman. I was just arguing that Lenin's attack on
neophenomenalist views isn't much help in dealing with a Hegelian
idealism and that it's a whole different project from what Marx
thought he was taking on in a critique of idealism, which has nothing
to do with What There Is or How We Know It. "

OK, you're not constructing a strawman. My question, however, was
about idealism and 'external' reality. Like Descartes, one can be both
an idealist and scientific realist. 'God' as 'spiritual substance'
(whatever) guaranteeing reality means metaphysical idealism.


" I think he agrees with Kant that we cannot, except as an an exercise
in philosophical abstraction, conceive or indeed perceive objects
otherwise than that way, except through the lense of Phenomenology. "

means

" Kant argues that to perceive something as an object is to perceive
it in space, i.e., apart from our minds, and time, which has an
objective order necessarily distinct from the subjective ordering of
mental states. This is a very short version of the Transcendental
Deduction and the Refutation of Idealism in the Critique of Pure
Reason. Hegel doesn't reject this argument, His notion of an Objekt
owes a lot to Kant.

Fine. I asked that because I was wondering you were saying that we
perceive objects only as an exercise in phil abstraction.


" More recent forms of antirealism include the neopragmatist arguments
of Quine, Goodman, etc., to the effect that whether we want to treat
the world as material or science as true is a matter of pragmatic
convenience, or Kuhn and Feyerabend's argument that what there is is
determined by our conceptions of it. I could go on. Nietzsche's
perspectivism is a form of antirealism. All of these writers but
Nietzsche think that knowledge is possible, it's just not knowledge of
a mind-independent reality. Reality for them is mind-dependent. I
don't understand Heidegger, but I think he's wacky sort of realist.
Husserl is clearly a realist, although like Heidegger not a scientific
one. "

Good. Though I've never understood Nietzsche *denying* the possibility
of *knowledge*, only that of non-interested objective knowledge:
knowledge in a sense is necessary for living one's life, but one's own
specific 'interests' lead his or her cognition. I truly don't know
what he thought about the possibility of *scientific* knowledge
(though makes me wonder what was his point about 'physiology' and
such..). I don't pretend to know Heildegger so I count on your
conception. 'Dasein' as 'being-in-the-world' seems to be quite close
Marx's 'praxis', so probably he really is a realist?


" Marx never really says that he's not interested in epistemology. But
he says very little about it. I conclude that he's not interested in
it. His methodological comments are largely directed to the
understanding of social reality and the construction of a social
theory. "

OK. I once read in one article (written by some U.S. American
philosopher to U.S. audience) that in "continental tradition"
'methodology' includes 'epistemological' questions. I conclude you
Americans don't think so. On that basis I understand you're
differentiating methodology drastically from epistemology. I'm used to
do so with methodical issues, not with methodological ones.


" You slide from "determines" to"constitutes." There's a big
difference. Marx's claim that social being determines thinking is not
an ontological claim about what Social Being Is or indeed what
Thinking Is. "

(1) I slide because I'm not certain how to talk about it in English.
He uses 'determine' and 'determination' often in a sense which means
determinations of concept, as in 'walls and roof are determinations of
house', where 'roof' is (one) determination of 'house'. Conceptual,
not causal, determination. Surely Marx isn't saying that 'Being'
causes thinking in its every nuance. That much he has learned from
idealists.

(2) Hmm? I've understood 'ontology' a bit differently, so can't always
follow your reasoning. In your replies to James, Ralph, and me, you
used several times expressions like "what there is":

" ... that economic and social events are explanatorily primary with
respect to ideology and still think that *What There Is* is ideas in
the mind (...) "

" I quite carefully didn't specify the sense in which I think that
Hegel is an idealist beyond saying that he thinks *what there is* is,
or becomes Geistlich, which isn't too informative unless I say, as I
didn't, what that means. "

and finally

" ... an ontological view about *what there is* or an epistemological
view about how wee know it ... "

Nothing against such determinations in general, but I'm afraid that
somehow specific meaning of ontology gets lost. Namely, 'what is the
nature of being that is', or more generally, 'what is the nature of
Being'. And again, Marx surely didn't wrote pamphlets about it. Yet,
such questions are to be found in his writings and manuscripts. For
sure, he was too careless with his words, but he was writing to
audience that (if ever read his writings) knew and understood his
points very well, not to 20th century marxologists and marxists of
different breed.

Another thing, related to previous. You wrote in your reply to Ralph:

" And outside of Hegel scholarship I'm not sure that the refutation of
Hegel's idealism is an important project, since it is not a living
alternative anyone takes seriously. "

You really think so? In these 'postmodern times', when talk about
societal issues is hush-hush and only chat about Values and Culture
and Rights is accepted? You could fill several concert halls with more
or less hegelian social scientists only. Today, when empiricism has
incarnated as postmodernism and most 'non-pomos' seem to concentrate
around Hegel and idealism in general, it surely isn't insignificant to
concentrate on problems of idealism in its most powerful form. To put
it bluntly: I'm afraid that hegelian idealism, in slightly modified
form though (as in hermeneutics), is rapidly becoming the only
significant alternative to 'pomo'.

Now, back to business:

" Marx's claim that social being determines thinking is not an
ontological claim about what Social Being Is or indeed what Thinking
Is. "

Right, it isn't an ontological claim of what Thinking Is. But if it
isn't a claim of social ontology, then I surely can't grasp your
reasoning at all.


" Marx thought that the priority of social being or thinking was the
main differentiation between himself and Hegel. As Ralph explains in a
previous post, this is an error. Hegel knows that social being is
prior to the thought of individuals. The "consciousness" that Hegel is
on about is the social embodied perspective of Geist. "

Social being or thinking? Don't understand that sentence. Secondly,
the point is not what H knew, but what he made of it (in his 'System')
- a self-generating automaton.


" This is a canard on Hegel. Reread Herrschaft und Knecht and tell me
with a straight face that Hegel downplays the significance of human
activity in the world. "

With a straight face: he truly does so. My point doesn't concern that
one  particular instance in Ph. The point is that H concentrates
exclusively on 'activity of Spirit' (see above). Therefore his
'System' presents it as creating both itself and reality. Of course
one can find several particular instances that - taken abstractly -
can be truthfully interpreted as you insist. And though 'The System'
consists of remarks several of them are fully acceptable as such (I
can accept several of Hitler's claims, for example if he claims world
to be real) it still is the case that 'in toto' his thinking is
unacceptable. Due to the direction and emphasis it has - 'Spirit'
isn't even a problem.

In somehow different words; point is that what is left unsaid also
counts. If I define 'human being' by intelligence, reason, emotion,
and self-consciousness, but drop the bodily dimension, then I'm an
idealist despite I've succeeded to give some of its correct
determinations. If H concentrates only on activity of Spirit and, say,
fails to make an account of its real genesis, then I will call him an
idealist. It's simple as that.

Schelling was first major figure to criticise H's thinking. Their
disagreement had to do with the 'beginning' of the 'system' and how
Absolute is finally arrived at. Also the question of identity between
thought and nature is at issue. H's stance is well known: we must
begin with that what appears to be simply given, self-conscious
thinking. No 'mystical depths' here. But somehow it happens that he
ends up with quasi-mystical Spirit. 'Absolute.' On the other hand,
Schelling claims that H never ends up with the identity of thought and
nature because he forgets nature from his account right from the
start. Unfortunately Schelling proceeds to some weird emanation theory
beginning with the Absolute as Original Unity - which is Unconscious
as long as it finally somehow Differentiates Itself into two, nature
and thought, and its the latter that, after dialectical development in
interaction with Nature, finally becomes Self-Conscious and Conscious
of Identity of Itself and Nature that is The Absolute... 'Wacky'?

However weird the means, Schelling managed to throw onto the table the
crucial question: how this supposedly self-generating spirit manages
to come to terms with reality? I still think - whatever his
shortcomings - Marx (after Kant and Schelling) was able to give better
philosophical (both ontological and epistemological) guidelines than
Hegel. What's the value of Hegel, I'd say, is in dialectics.

Yours, Jukka L




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