Hegel's Logic

[fyodor]

I spent quite good time to read and understand Hegel's 'Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences' and it was almost for nothing. The language is really hard to understand. But Hegel is a must to understand Marx for me. Let's read this book together and share our thoughts. What do you say?

[KC]

You don't really need to read Hegel as, when Marx discusses Hegel, he outlines his philosophy.

[fyodor]

it's not that simple. An outline is an outline not a book, but never mind. I've changed my mind. If this is the only reply to my post, then I have nobody to read the book and discuss it.

[KC]

I would, but I have a MASSIVE reading list as it is. Haha I'll add it to my list, though! I was planning on studying Hegel eventually.

[Monty Cantsin]

this might or might not help but i've been working on an essay and a section has to do with Hegel's philosophy.

as follows-
On Hegel’s philosophy of history.

"World history exhibits nothing other than the plan of providence."
(Hegel, ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’)

Hegel philosophy developed through a time of great change – the French revolution and Napoleonic wars. His philosophy was a reaction and reconciliation with the events of his time, concluding that the events of history were moments in the advancement of freedom typified in achievement of the modern (early 1800’s Prussian) state. This was deterministic theory of history were the general course of history was lead by the Absolute Geist, the providence. To elucidate Hegel’s philosophy of history we will start with the whole working through the fractional elements.

At the heart of Hegel’s philosophical enterprise was the idea of the whole which according to Hegel is the true. The whole is the totality of particulars or fractional elements which are only partially true and therefore partially untrue. To illustrate the notions of totality and particular we shall give an example. Each individual person deals with finding their individuality and their own social group; this is a division of a notion, the notion of identity. Human Identity is split into particularity and universality, we have to define ourselves as separate from the universal and show particularity. But at the same moment our particularity is only a particular form of the universal and the universal is just the general form of particularities. To put this in non-Hegelian language our identity (the whole concept of individuality and social being) is contracted out of our relationship between the collective group (the universal) and our relative autonomy from the group as an individual (a particularity). So what this example shows us is that the notion of identity is based upon conceptually divvied but interrelated parts which through there struggle lead towards the whole our self-conscious notion of identity. This process of divided, interrelated and conflicting parts leading towards a totality is in the Hegelian scheme the basic process of history but it also includes in this dialectical process the notion of sublation (Aufhebung) and negation.

Hegel is providing the logic of history as one particularly manifestation of this logic an affront to classical logic. Classical logic was the logic of Aristotle which reigned for two thousand years, the argument was known as the syllogism stating the logical identity principle of A=A or A is not non A. This classical logic is a static logic categorising objects as they appear as in isolation which doesn’t recognise the dynamic and interrelated nature of objects. Applying this logic to history implies that modernity or the modern totality is an unfinished project developing constantly towards a new totality. But the old moments are not lost in this process but preserved in the new totality this contradiction of negating and preserving is what Hegel called Aufhebung normally translated as ‘sublation’ (which mean’s to take away or rapture in traditional usage). History illustrates this for example The Versailles Treaty of June 28, 1919 lead to the weak nature of the Weimar republic and the weak nature of the republic lead to the rise of Hitler and world war two. Now the creation of the Versailles treaty didn’t directly bring about world war two but it lead to a situation within Germany that the Nazis took advantage of. The Nazis became a negating force of the Versailles treaty and the Weimar republic but at the same preserving them as the bastard consequences of the negated.

Though we can very well see Hegel’s dialectical process of history as explained thus far, it is only half the picture. Hegel had a driving force of this dialectical process and that prime mover was the plan of the absolute Geist, also a construct of dialectical logic. Hegel was a self-described Christian and as such gave a theological explanation of history but also an idealist one. The idealism of Hegel was not in the vain of Berkeley’s empiricist idealism or Immaterialism which is subjective idealism declaring "everyone has their own reality" or rather that there is no reality outside individual subjectivity. Differing quite dramatically Hegel’s idealism sees an objective reality outside of human subjectivity but a reality still controlled by the absolute geist thus a consciousness greater then the human individual. Hegel saw the totality as made up of sprit and matter (both dialectical constructs) the former totality dominating the other in human affairs as Hegel explains :–

“Anaxagoras is praised as the man who first declared that Nous, thought, is the principle of the world, that the essence of the world is to be defined as thought. In so doing he laid the foundation for an intellectual view of the universe, the pure form of which must be logic.

What we are dealing with in logic is not a thinking about something which exists independently as a base for our thinking and apart from it, nor forms which are supposed to provide mere signs or distinguishing marks of truth; on the contrary, the necessary forms and self-consciousness of thought are the content and the ultimate truth itself.” (Hegel’s Science of Logic, aphorism § 54)

So for Hegel the study of dialectical logic is a study of the fundamental structure of reality and thus truth. Human history is driven by the developing self-consciousness of the absolute. The development of the intellectual dance of thesis, antithesis and synthesis which our history reflects starts with art. Art according to Hegel always transcends the Subject/Object dichotomy and realises an underlying unity and moves the subjective spirits (the human individual’s thought, the study of being phycology) to a greater awareness of the absolute. Religion according to Hegel was the next stage of awareness of the absolute in an abstract notion of the divine being, the grand synthesis of human culture is philosophy which is conscious of the absolute in literal terms. Furthermore for Hegel “it may be held the highest and final aim of philosophic science to bring about, through the ascertainment of this harmony, a reconciliation of the self-conscious reason with the reason which is in the world — in other words, with actuality”( Hegel’s ‘Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part one aphorism § 6’). Hegel’s philosophy, the system of sciences was for Hegel the highest synthesis of human culture and intellectual advancement and thus the highest understanding of the absolute.

Under the Hegelian theory of history the unfolding of moments lead towards the whole necessarily follows the Patten of dialectical logic. Thus world history is determined logically. The ethical/political process starts with the concept of Freedom; the individual has the right to act in their own self-interest. The antithesis of the abstract right is moral laws which impose upon the unrestricted liberty of the individual a notion of duty. The synthesis and realisation of the two concepts leads to “the ethical life”. The political order of a nation start in the family, were the ethical life starts with individuals take their liberty and fulfil their duty along with the mutual feeling and emotional connection. The next stage is the larger social organisation of individual families into civil societies, with laws and formal modes of organisations devoid of emotional connection. The synthesis of the two is the state which is a civil society with emotional connection. The state represents the national sprit (Völkergeist), the self-consciousness and actualisation of the unity between individual interest and collective fate. The process of world history for Hegel is rational, progressive and linear concluding as Hegel declares in his ‘Preface to The Philosophy of Right’:-

“What is rational is real;
And what is real is rational.”

[Axel1917]

I have read his Shorter Logic, part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and it helped me understand dialectics better. The only thing is that Hegel wrote in a manner of which is hard to understand. It will take some time to understand what he wrote about, but perseverance (Sp?) will prevail in the end. As Marx stated, there is no royal road to science, and we can only get there if we do not dread the fatiguing (sp?0 climb to the summits.

I would also recommend Reason in Revolt: Dialectical Philosophy and Modern Science by Alan Woods and Ted Grant. It shows how a lot of science confirms dialectical materialism.

[Monty Cantsin]

Why does one need to find a correlation between Modern science and dialectical materialism?

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Monty [email protected] 22 2005, 02:27 PM
Why does one need to find a correlation between Modern science and dialectical materialism?
The work also helps explain how dialectical materialism works as well. It uses modern science to back its points. I feel that the work I mentioned is great for beginners.