The points of contention are slowly coming into focus. We each are
presenting aspects of our contrasting conceptions of Hegel's absolute. So at
this early stage there will be the unavoidable misunderstandings. But I
think I am beginning to understand where you are coming from.

I will divide my comments and only respond in this post to the first half of
what you have written. Sometime tomorrow or the next day I will respond to
the second half.

Before I get started just two comments:

First, I do not subscribe to Pinkard's reading of Hegel nor would he
subscribe to mine if he were ever to become aware of it. I do not know how
this alters the complex structure of your remarks. But I am only able - as
you note - to count to two. Three is too many and certainly a community of
humans is way too many.

And second, I see this discussion is motivated for you by an interest in how
Hegel's absolute might relate to mathematics. I have and for now will
continue to speak of Hegel's absolute without any reference to such an
interest.

I will begin with some comments about your argument from grammar.

In Hegel, this will always be a bad place from which to start. As is well
known, Hegel had a fondness for words with equivocal or opposed meanings.
But the problem goes even deeper. Hegel draws a distinction between common
and speculative reason. One consequence of this distinction is that words
have distinct common and speculative senses. The common senses you will find
in dictionaries. The speculative sense you will not.

But it is even more complicated than this. The speculative sense emerges at
the point where the common sense breaks down. So they are not contending or
conflicting senses. They never really share the stage at once. The
speculative emerges as a reconception of the breakdown of what is commonly
meant.

So, for instance, identity can be either abstract (A = A) r concrete which
means speculative n which case an identity is always an identity in
difference. Likewise, there is an abstract and concrete sense of concept and
countless other terms. And for our purposes there are two distinct senses of
self or subject. The speculative sense emerges at the point when the
commonly conceived intentional subject ceases to be intentional, being
caught in a dialectical impasse of its own making. There is in effect a loss
of self which in exhibiting absolute form inadvertently brings into being
the non-intentional self I have been speaking about.

We see this in the transition rom the Understanding to Self-Cnsciousness.
The infinite movement that follows upon the discussion of the inverted world
exhibits the shape of self but is not itself a self. With the transition to
the next shape we get an inversion; the static conception of this infinite
movement is posited as the truth that is self-consciousness, the common
conception of self.

So for Hegel, the equivocation would only be afallacy for an intellect
guided y common reason. Speculative reason only expresses truths that
appear as nothing but equivocations to a common intellect. As you note, I
take paradox to be the site of speculative truth.

In any case, my first suggestion is that you will have to put away your
dictionary if you wish to comprehend the speculative sense of the common
terms Hegel employs.

You go on to note, and I quote:

"Alan describes that "comes on the scene" which ambiguously implies that the
Absolute existed prior to coming on the scene; for nothing 'comes' anyhere
without having first been existing somewhere else. This is important because
it will contradct the non-metaphysical emergentist account of the Absolute
that Alan afterwards presents."

You claim that nothing comes anywhere without having first been existing
somewhere else. And given we are speaking about Hegel's absolute this would
seem to imply that the absolute exists "somewhere else" waiting to be
discovered by us. But that is not what happens.

For those who believe there is but one universal form of reason rather than
two species of reason the dialectical impasse only means one thing: we can
conclude that the knowing subject has failed to grasp the truth of the
matter of interest. Nothing else is in the offing other than this skeptical
result. This failure certainly would seem to have no baring on any interest
we might havein attaining knowledge of the absolute other than to suggest
that such an interest is futile.

The Phenomenology is often read as a series of skeptical refutations of
various forms of consciousness. What I am suggesting is that there is a
second point of view upon the dialectic. Both this point of view and what
with insight immediately comes into view is only available for someone who
has been educated to the standpoint of science.

In effect, a first reading, being guided by our natural assumption that
reason is simply common will be a frustrating reading. The text will not
make much sense. In particular, the truth that comes on the scene as Hegel
presents it on first reading will frustrate any reader seeking the reason
for this emergence.

Only later after we have puzzled over the strangeness of this speculative
exposition might we come to appreciate what Hegel tells us about a truth
that is only for us and not for consciousness. Only after we have learned
how to take up what is before us with new eyes will the truth come on the
scene. And this truth does not come from somewhere else. It is the same
dialectic that frustrates any attempt at comprehension from the point of
view of common reason. All that changes is our point of view.

Natural consciousness seeks to know a self-standing truth. We, in contrast,
are challenged to insightfully bring into being the truth already in view.
What appears as nonsense to the common intellect appears as a newfound sense
when viewed speculatively.

So you say:

"When Alan describes the Absolute as "infinite or unconditioned" that may
"come on the scene" "by means of an insight" by the speculative philosopher
he appears to imply that the philosopher generates the Absolute where there
was none before. Is this what Alan means? If not, then how does the Absolute
exist before insight of the speculative philosopher?"

And to this I say, Hegel offers a playful hint that I believe he means in
all seriousness in the Introduction to the Phenomenology when he says that
the absolute is always with us. This, in effect, is to be our education.

We are to take to heart this truth: the absolute as it will develop and
unfold is not to be found anywhere other than where there is a beating human
heart. In fact, we can say two things right off about Hegel's absolute.
First, it lies dormant as the contradiction inherent in all that is. And
second, it is articulated at the very point when the finite subject comes to
a dialectical impasse and ceases to function as an intentional subject.

What this means is that we have been naturally looking in the wrong place in
the wrong way for the absolute.

It is not some absolute presence. It certainly is not a divine presence. As
it relates to humans it emerges at those points when the finite subject
proves lacking, not because he has failed to turn his attention to the
heavens but because he has attempted this misguided turn that proves in
practice to be futile. The futility of finite thought guided by common
reason opens a hole which with insight can be viewed as absolute form. The
void or lack of subjectivity is where the absolute as Hegel conceives it may
be thought.

As for its being, quantum physics has been helpful, something Hegel
obviously could not know. Where do we find the ontic expression of the
absolute if not in some ultimate grand conception? We find it concealed as
the inconsistency of matter itself when we probe deeply enough. This
inconsistency has effects. And these effects are the realities of which we
are familiar. The absolute that spins off these realities is the split or
inconsistency inherent to these supposed realities. It is not a divine being
as creator but matter's inner truth, its inherent divide.

To become familiar with the absolute and its workings we have to get closer
to both to what is lying about and to our own selves when we are pushed to
our own limits. What we certainly do not need to do if we are interested in
Hegel's absolute is turn our gaze to the skies. So when I call Hegel's
absolute prosaic what I mean by this is that it is to be found not in
something majestic but in what is commonplace. As thought, the absolute
comes on the scene only when our common conceptions fail us.

We have Socrates second sailing. We are to turn away from gazing at the
heavens and turn our attention to the human things, or matters close at
hand. Wisdom is not where the natural philosophers have been looking. Wisdom
comes when we learn about our own ignorance. As Hegel tells us, what we most
need to do is free ourselves from our natural assumptions. If we do not do
this then we have little chance of comprehending what is distinctive about
Hegel's absolute.

The next point of interest is the following remark:

"The difference between how I interpret Alan and how I interpret Hegel is
that I understand Alan to be presenting a two-stage dialectic that
culminates in the negative moment which effaces all logical-identity and
obliterates all ontological subsistence (both (a) and (b) of which are
crucial to any hypothesized founding of mathematics upon the Absolute),
while I understand Hegel to reconcile the negative and positive moments in a
synthesis which preserves both positivity and negativity is a self-moving
concept."

You have been careful in your remarks, but here you have left something out.
The second point of view on the dialectic is not a mere recognition of the
negative movement. It is a recognition that because this movement cycles it
is coherent. It subsists as an identity in difference. It is only the ideal
moments of this cycle that do not subsist. So rather than dismissing the
dialectic as nonsense as does the common intellect we who view speculatively
have insight into what coheres. This is the positive moment that you will
soon say is missing from my account.

In speaking of your understanding you speak of "a synthesis" and "a
self-moving concept". What I have placed in quotes are metaphors that have
to be cashed out. The primary failing of almost all readings of Hegel is
that they fail to cash out Hegel's metaphors. And thus they fail to explain
how we move from one thought to another thought. I explain the movement and
emergence of new thoughts by introducing the crucial role of perspective
shifts that are employed continually without comment by Hegel. The textual
markers – also employed but not explained – for perspective shifts are the
terms "immediate" and "mediate" and their derivatives. Each determination
can be viewed as either an immediate or mediated expression.

So keep this in mind. What might be your way of explaining the synthesis and
self-movement? How does Hegel's thought actually move?

I will stop here as I am about half way through your post.

- Alan

From: Ryan Haecker <rhryanhaecker@...>
Reply-To: <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:28 AM
To: <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [hegel] Russell's Paradox: A problem for Hegelians?






Hello Alan,

Thank you for providing this detailed response on how you interpret Hegel's
Absolute. Before I address the points which you raise, I wish to briefly
preface this discussion with a summary of the questions surrounding my
hypothesis at he present. The hypothesis thatI had presented was that
the homology between the anti-foundationalism of Hegel's Absolute and the
lack of a foundation in mathematics suggested the possibility of a Hegelian
analysis of the problem of the foundation of mathematics, in which
mathematics could be categorized as a formal domain of thought that is
abstracted from, opposed to, and united with Hegel's system of philosophy
as it united within the difference of the Absolute. I wrote (colored blue):
"I
argue that, because mathematics is not founded upon itself, it must be
founded upon something other-than-itself; and that the most plausible
candidate is the self-subsistent Hegelian Absolute..." To establish this
thesis requires, from the standpoint of the Absolute, a deduction of the
abstract domain of mathematics from Hegel's Logic; and from the standpoint
of mathematics, a demonstration of the impossibility of a foundation to
mathematics; which I proposed might be the consequence of Bertrand
Russell's Paradox as it was re-employed in Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness
Theorem. Assuming an agreement on the nature of the Absolute and the
anti-foundationalism of mathematics, this hypothesis requires a definite
description within and through the speculative dialectic, of the mediating
relation between the Absolute and all mathematics.

I observe definite structure to the present dispute, concerning my
hypothesis and the objections: (A) my hypothesis proposes to describe the
(M) mediating relation between (S) the Absolute and (P) all mathematics to
account for the absence of a foundation within mathematics, e.g. S-M-P
(which can be understood as the self-mediation and self-identity of
mathematics; e.g. Mathematics - Mediation - Mathematics; mathematics
predicated of itself, or S = S ), which can alternatively be understood,
from the standpoint of mathematics, as an explanation of the foundation of
mathematics in the Absolute, e.g. Mathematics - Mediation - Absolute,
P-M-S. The objection of Alan concerns, not the (A) mediation relation, but
only the nature of thesubject term of the Absolute withinthis syllogistic
relation. (B) Bill and Alan objected to my characterization of Hegel's
Absolute in the admittedly Fichtean terms as the Absolute Ego. Alan
elaborated to say that the Absolute was neither (a) self-identical, (b)
self-subsistent or (c) subjective and intentional. As the hypothesis of the
(A) mediation relation of the Absolute to Mathematics (e.g. S-M-P) is a
composite of the constituent conceptual terms of the Absolute and
mathematics, the (B) objection to a definite nature of the subject term of
the Absolute jeopardizes the consistency of my hypothesis. The three
objections can be further distinguished as (a) logical, (b) ontological,
and (c) epistemological. Observe further that in the order of being (*ordo
esse*), from the standpoint of the Absolute, the latter is derived from the
former; something is only (c) thinking if it is (b) self-subsistent; and
something is only (b) self-subsistent if it is (a) self-identical. Hence,
the question of whether or not the Absolute is (c) subjective and
intentional will depend on its (b) self-subsistence, which further depends
on (a) its self-identity. This means also that the self-identity and
self-subsistence of the Absolute do not (abstractly for the understanding)
depend on (c) the subjectivity and intentionality of the Absolute. For
this reason, I proposed that my hypothesis of the (1) mediating relation of
the Absolute to Mathematics might be consistent even without disputing the
theological question of the (c) subjectivity and intentionality of the
Absolute, which is simply the personhood and self-consciousness of God.
Although I admit that these distinctions and relations of dependency (1 &
2, and 'a → b → c') reduces the speculative Absolute to the categories of
finite understanding, I expect that this mode of thinking and writing may
nonetheless be helpful to frame and adjudicate the present dispute.

In response to Alan's objection to characterizing the Absolute as subject,
self-conscious and intentional, I replied with an *argument from
grammar*that contended that Alan was inconsistent in characterizing
the Absolute as
an "Absolute form" of "self-reflective subjectivity" for there can be no
self-reflection without a self and no subjectivity without a subject: both
terms 'self-reflective' and 'subjectivity' refer to either an adjective or
a verb form of a composite term of self and subject. To deny that the
Absolute is self or is subject is, simply grammatically, to deny that it
can be composed further to have self-reflection and or subjectivity:

"The biggest objection that I have to this interpretation is that I do not
understand how thought can be self-reflective and subjective in any way
without a self, an Ego, and a subject of thought. It seems a flat
contradiction to say that the Absolute is "self-reflective subjectivity"
and yet the Absolute has no self. This problem, I expect, requires Hegelian
interpreters to either affirm that the Absolute is, simpy by its essence,
or in virtue of some other particular thing, a self-reflective Ego."

"intentionality is the determinative intellective activity of a subject, a
self, and an Ego; if the Absolute is subject, self and Ego then it has
intentional relations towards objects of its consciousness."

The *argument from grammar* would ordinarily defeat the contention, that a
self-reflective Absolute has no self, simply because the former predicate
cannot be applied while the latter is denied, without equivocation.
However, because we are disputing Hegel's Absolute, Alan can possibly
wiggle out of what amounts to the *equivocal fallacy* by appealing in some
imaginative way to the infinite dialectical movement of speculative reason.
Thus, Alan (colored red) responds with two counter-claims:

"I would like to make two claims that seem inconsistent. (1) First, as you
note,
the true may be both taken as substance as well as subject but it is not a
self-subsistent substance nor an actual subject. And (2) second, the
absolute
only emerges within the orb of finite subjectivity."

1) "With the first point I wish to indicate that we can employ the absolute
without buying into the notion that the absolute is some ultimate substance
or some actual infinite spirit that has intention."

Alan appears to agrees with my revious claim that, because we can
perhaps "employ
the absolute without... (c) intentions" then the (A) mediating relation
between the Absolute and mathematics can be true without attributing (c)
self-consciousness, subjectivity and intentionality to the Absolute. I
wish to note that, according to my argument above for the independence of
(a) self-identity and (b) self-subsistence from (c) subjectivity and
intentionality, this means that Alan agrees that my hypothesis could be
sound even in spite of his criticisms.

2) "With the second point I provide the reason for the first point. There
is nothing grand about the absolute – either with respect to substance or
subject – because the absolute first comes on the scene as the form that
finite thought takes when this thought is brought to a dialectical impasse."

Here Alan first defines how the (2) second point provides the justification
for the (1) first (e.g. 1 iff 2, or 2 <=> 1). Thus, both points are
defeasible if the (2) second point is defeated. Alan describes that "comes
on the scene" which ambiguously implies that the Absolute existed prior to
coming on the scene; for nothing 'comes' anywhere without having first been
existing somewhere else. This is important because it will contradict the
non-metaphysical emergentist account of the Absolute that Alan afterwards
presents; in which the Absolute is a form of the thought of an
inter-subjective human community which emerges as the "form that finite
thought takes" is "brought to a dialectical impasses", namely the
contradictory impasses of the Kantian antinomies.

Alan explains:

"Only if there is frustrated finite thought is there a dialectic. And only
if
there is a dialectic is there absolute form. All truths for Hegel manifest
this absolute form that is the identity in difference of dynamic, idealized
moments. As infinite or unconditioned the absolute form comes on the scene
by means of an insight by the speculative philosopher who attends to what
happens to finite thinking at this moment of frustration."

According to Alan's description there is little possibility of discerning
the central question of our dispute, namely the essence of the Absolute as
subjective and intentional, because Alan carefully conceals any commitment
a realist definition of the Absolute that pre-exists human thought, or an
anti-realist idealist definition of the Absolute that emerges only with
human thought. When Alan describes the Absolute as

"infinite or unconditioned" that may "come on the scene" "by means of an
insight" by the speculative philosopher he appears to imply that the
philosopher generates the Absolute where there was none before. Is this
what Alan means? If not, then how does the Absolute exist before insight
of the speculative philosopher? One answer that Alan might give is to
affirm that the Absolute exists intellectually by knowing itself
in-and-through its own intentional subjectivity. Another answer is that the
Absolute exists in an inchoate and unrealized nascent form among the
inter-subjective thinking of historical human communities. The former is
the so-called transcendentist, metaphysical, and theological interpretation
of the Absolute as the subjective self-conscious and intentional God of
Christianity, while the latter is the so-called immanentist,
non-metaphysical, and humanist interpretation of the Absolute as the
self-understanding of historical human communities. Alan affirms the latter
and deny the former, even as he sometimes employs ambiguous language that
seems to suggest the former. Previously, Alan and I had apparently
disagreed upon the ontological status of the Absolute. I wrote:

" I believe that our disagreement pertains rather to the ontic status of
this becoming, specifically the question of whether it may essentially
possess the power to be self-subsistent and provide the foundation of
mathematics that mathematics does not provide for itself: I want to affirm
greater ontology and power of self-subsistence while you wish to deny these
to Hegel's Absolute."

At the end of Alan's reply, he apparently agrees with me that the Absolute
can be interpreted ontologically, as either self-subsisting or implicitly
ontologically divided within itself:

"what this shows is that Hegel's absolute has ontological import."

Yet Alan still wants to disagree on the nature of this "ontological
import." Alan writes:

Hegel's absolute is not theological but prosaic in the extreme. It comes
into being and inverts due to the way it reflects thought's ability to
shift perspective... Thought and being are one, but not as a simple
identity."

When Alan describes Hegel's Absolute as "prosaic in the extreme" he means
to ontologically reduce the ontological divisions intrinsic within the
Absolute even after he has affirmed that the Absolute is in some sense
ontological; for 'prosaic' means the absence of any definite features, in
the manner of free-prose, and is thus opposed to real ontological divisions
(such as any equivocal division between subject and object, creator and
creatures) within the unity of the Absolute. In my previous reply I
objected to the ostensible contradiction of Alan affirming that the
Absolute is self-reflective while denying to the Absolute a self; unless
perhaps if the self could, in some way, be a historical human community of
inter-subjective thinking:

"I interpret you, on the other hand, to understand the 'self' Hegel's
self-reflective Absolute to be like Pinkard's absolutization of the
inter-subjective
self-reflective thought of historical human communities. The initial
objection re-emerges with this answer: where in a historical community of
inter-subjective thinking is there any 'self' to which the Absolute
subjectively may reflect upon?"

Of course, this careful concealment of ontological commitment is just the
trick that Hegel relies upon to work through the different stages in the
dialectic. Alan is similarly presenting a dialectic of stages of
dialectical thought in his speculative reply to my objections. The
difference between how I interpret Alan and how I interpret Hegel is that I
understand Alan to be presenting a two-stage dialectic that culminates in
the negative moment which effaces all logical-identity and obliterates all
ontological subsistence (both (a) and (b) of which are crucial to any
hypothesized founding of mathematics uponthe Absolute), while I understand
Hegel to reconcile the negative and positive moments in a synthesis which
preserves both positivity and negativity is a self-moving concept. In
short, I envisage Alan's dialectic to never advance beyond tarrying with
the negative in a bad infinite of negating the positive moment. I invite
Alan to correct me if he observes that I am misepresenting his position.
As evidence, observe how Alan writes:

The dialectic itself arises at that point when thought attempts to complete
itself as a self-concern. Hegel's Logic is about this self-thinking
thought... The problem is that thought does not complete itself by
providing this final comprehensive insight that totalizes its
self-thining. Instead, at this culminating point thought breaks down. It
ceases to make sense. It exhibits an inconsistent thought or antinomy in
keeping with the attempt to think frame as simultaneously also item
framed... this is where Hegel thinks the paradoxical thought: the inability
to think the final ultimate thought IS the final ultimate thought. The
dialectic that exhibits the impasse of finite thinking also exhibits the
coherent absolute form of this impsse.

Any Hegel interpreter that rises to the self-criticism of modern
philosophy, especially the skeptical phenomenalism ofHume and
transcendental criticism of Kant, must admit that classical realism,
represented by the positive moment in Hegel's dialectic, to be untenable
from the standpoint of human knowing (*ordo episteme*). This is not
disputed. Wht will be disputed is whether there is real self-subsistence
in the Absolute, in the order of being (rder esse), from the standpoint of
the Absolute. The question that I wish to raise for Alan is whether or not
there is a negative moment, in which thought "breaks down" and "ceases to
make sense" by exhibiting an "inconsistent thoght or antinomy" is the
final moment in Hegel's dialectic. As I read Hegel, his dialectic does not
ultimately conclude in the thinking of the "paradoxical thought"bility
to think the final ultimate thought" as a "coherent absolute form", but
rather both the positive moment of realism and this negative momnt which
opposes realism are joined together in a mutually enriching third synthetic
moment: the negation of the paradox does not simply nullify positive
reality through its opposition, but rather the ositive reality and the
opposition of the negative criticism are altogether taken upon into a
self-moving conceptual synthesis that unites and preserves the alternation
of positing and negating in their mutual opposition. is how I
described our dispute in the previous reply:

"I understand Hegel to interpret the synthetic moment as the truth and
concrete reality of the prior conceptual moments. If Becoming emerges from
the dialectic of Beng and Non-Being, then it must possess some being of
the former moments, of Being and Non-Being; simply because for nothing
emerges from nothing and without possessing some being. This is why I
interpret Hegel's dialectic as both logical and ontological. An emergence
of something is an addition of being viz. the emergence. Hence I interpret
the concrete synthetic moment of Hegel's dialectic as both an increase in
truth and reality over the previous abstract moments. "

Further, I described how this interpretation onceptually subsumed the
ultimate-ness of the negative moment of paradox n what I interpret to be
Alan's negative dialectic:

" I would contend that the negative momet of the dialectic, that negates
the being of what is posited, is not itelf ultimate but is rather combined
with the posited being in such a way tat ontologically enriches the
synthesis of the previous moments: e.g. beingfor-self is contradicted by
being-for-others and becomes being-for-self-and-thers, or
being-in-and-for-itself. Thus, I interpret the ontologicall robust
conception of Hegel's Absolute to be the result rather than the refus of
critical speculation."

To explain away the equivocal fallacy and to dialectically narrate his
definition of the Absolute as not a subject, self or self-consciousneswith any intentionaliy, Alan presents his long-awaited negative inversion
of the realism of theAbsolute, in a manner consisent with (P) his
Pinkardian non-metaphysical interpretation and with his (Z) Zizekian
emphasis on paradox:

"Finite thinking seeks to comprehend wh is self-identical or a
self-standing content, meant in this way to be absolute content. The
dialectic subverts this intention. [i.e. subvets the intention to be
self-stading] The infinite then appears as what is not intended: the form
of this failure to grasp content. Thus the absolute comes on the scene by
way of cunning behind the back of the thought of an intentionally directed
finite subject. But this absolute is not itself a subject. It simply is
thought that as self-reflexive
exhibits subjective form."

Alan describes how the cunning of reason moves "behind the back of thought
of an intentionally directed finite subject" to the dialectic of thought
that "is not itself a subject" but simply exhibits "thought that as
self-reflexive exhibits subjective form." Who or what is the thinker that
thinks the reason that moves "behind the back" of the thought of the
"intentionally
directed finite subject"? If it is not the subjective, intentional
self-consciousness of the Absolute and is also not the finite thinking of
the speculative philosopher, then there is only one other option; which is
the mediation between (PhG, C.CC) religious consciousness and (PhG, B)
finite individual understanding; the (PhG, C.AA & C.BB) Spirit of the
inter-subjective historical human community. Thus, the rejection of the
theological interpretation of the Absolute as an intentional subject, even
as thought is described to act independently of the finite speculative
philosopher, means, as a consequence of the limited sets of thinking
thinkers, that Alan must adopt the (P) Pinkardian interpretation of the
Absolute as the inter-subjectivity of a human community; for some thinking
could only subvert some thinking if these thinking activities were
distinct; and were the distinction not between a man and the Absolute then
it must be between the mankind and a man, between the collective and the
individual.

Alan supports his Pinkardian reading of Hegel's dialectic by describing how
any attempt to conceive of or apprehend the Absolute results in a reduction
of the dynamic self-moving Spirit of the Absolute to a static image that
may be analyzed according to the finite categories of the Understanding, or
'common reason' to use Alan's term. Alan writes:

The absolute immediately inverts when thought. It becomes a static or
abstract version of the exhibited dynamic... Finite thinking caught in the
endless cycle of the transiting of being/nothing gives way by means of a
perspective shift. What motivates the shift marks a divide between common
and speculative thinking... there are no realities that persist thus there
is nothing for us to think. Speculative reason in contrast embraces the
evident paradox: there are no realities to think, only ideal moments that
vanish into one another, this then is what we will think. In this way,
thought is a self-concern.

Alan contends that because thought "immediately inverts" the dynamism of
the Absolute, to become a static abstraction of common reason and
understanding, finite thinking (i.e. common reason) is caught in a bad
infinite "cycle of transiting" from the positive moment of being to the
negative moment of non-being. This is the (Z) Zizekian paradox that Alan
interprets Hegel to have dialectically generated from the "impasse" of the
Kantian antinomies for common reason. For Alan, the bad infinite of the
"cycle
of transiting" resulting from the Kantian antinomies produces a "perspective
shift" in which "there are no realities that persist" and "there is
nothing for us to think" unless we, as speculative reasoners, follow Alan
in embracing the interpretation of the conclusion of the negative moment as
a paradox, in which "ideal moments vanish into one another" as a totally
immanent "self-concern" of historical human communities. Hence according to
Alan the non-metaphysical (P) Pinkardian interpretation depends upon the
(Z) Zizekian dialectic of paradox.

I have two objections to Alan's narration of Hegel's dialectic as in this
negative fashion of a dialectic of paradox. Following Alan's example,
(Z.i) the first is dependent upon (Z.ii) the second. (Z.i) First, rather
than addressing the interpretation that I had proposed, in which Hegel's
dialectic should be interpreted as three logical moments in the familiar
triadic arrangement, Alan presents what appears to be a dialectic of only
two logical moments that concludes by affirming the ultimate-ness of the
negative moment, and rejoicing in its paradox. For example, Alan describes
how the negativity of the negative moment entirely obliterates all
intrinsic reason and substance of the positive moment when he describes how
afterwards "there are no realities that persist thus there is nothing for
us to think." If I am correct in interpreting Alan as thusly ejecting the
reason and substance of the positive moment, then Alan commits himself to
the sort of "bad skepticism" that Hegel describes (colored green) in the
Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit:

"To make this comprehensible we may remark, by way of preliminary, that the
exposition of untrue consciousness in its untruth is *not a merely negative
process*. Such a *one-sided view* of it is what the natural consciousness
generally adopts; and a knowledge, which makes this one-sidedness its
essence, is one of those shapes assumed by incomplete consciousness which
falls into the course of the inquiry itself and will come before us there.
For *this view is scepticism, which always sees in the result only pure
nothingness, and abstracts from the fact that this nothing is determinate,
is the nothing of that out of which it comes as a result.* Nothing,
however, is only, in fact, the true result, when taken as the nothing of
what it comes from; it is thus itself *a determinate nothing, and has a
content.* The scepticism which ends with the abstraction “nothing” or
“emptiness” *can advance from this not a step farther, but must wait and
see whether there is possibly anything new offered*, and what that is — in
order to *cast it into the same abysmal void.* When once, on the other
hand, the result is apprehended, as it truly is, *as determinate negation*,
*a new form has thereby immediately arisen*; and in the negation the
transition is made by which the progress through the complete succession of
forms comes about of itself." (PhG, §79, Miller Trans.)

I contend that Alan's negative dialectic of paradox, which emphasizes the
ultimate-ness of the negative moment as paradox, is simply the sort view of
skepticism that Hegel critiques in this section from the Phenomenology of
Spirit. For both Alan and the shape of incomplete consciousness of
Skepticism, the result of the dialectic is to only see "pure
nothingness"in which there is no reason, or substance, and "nothing
is determinate" and from this nothing Skepticism brings forth its result,
the result of paradox.

(Z.ii) Second, I object that, in just the same way as Skepticism can bring
forth no determinate content of thought as a result, Alan is mistaken to
hold that he can bring forth any determinate content of thought from the
annihilating negativity of a paradox in which "there are no realities that
persist thus there is nothing for us to think." To say, to the contrary,
that determinate thought come from nothing, Alan must violate Parmenides
prohibition and contend the impossible: that some determinate thing can
come from the indeterminateness of nothing! Blessed Plato writes:

"You see, then, that in our disobedience to Parmenides we have trespassed
far beyond the limits of his prohibition... He says you remember, ‘Never
shall this be proved that things that are not, are, but keep back thy
thought from this way of inquiry.’”

- Plato, the Sophist, 258c-d

Alan mentions his indebtedness to Zizek, but where did Zizek discover this
doctrine? Zizek found it buried in the Jena writings of none other than
F.J. Schelling! For Zizek, Alan and Schelling, there is no determinate way
of resolving the contradictions of thought in the Kantian antinomies. The
resolution is, thus, for Zizek to think through the paradox (which I
confess that I don't understand) just as it was for Schelling to have an
aesthetic intuition of the identity between ideality and reality, the
system of things thought and of things of extension. In either case we
have a empty nothingness in which nothing can emerge according to any
reasoning at all; for nothing less than a miracle can bring forth something
from nothing and miracles are totally inscrutable. Again Hegel criticizes
this doctrine of Schelling, in which determinate thought arises from
nothing, in a famous passage from the Phenomenology of Spirit:

"This monotonousness and *abstract universality are maintained to be the
Absolute*. This formalism insists that to be dissatisfied therewith argues
an incapacity to grasp the standpoint of the Absolute, and keep a firm hold
on it... we find here all the value ascribed to the general idea in this
*bare
form without concrete realisation*; and we see here, too, the style and
method of speculative contemplation identified with dissipating and,
resolving what is determinate and distinct, or rather with *hurling it
down*,
without more ado and without any justification, into *the abyss of vacuity*.
(PhG. §16, Baillie Trans.)

For Alan the "abstract universality" "maintained to be the Absolute" is
the cunning of reason that persists in the inter-subjective human
community "behind
the back of the thought of an intentionally directed finite subject." The
paradox of the Kantian antinomies may totally negate and obliterate all
reason and substance in the positive moment only because some reason and
substance of thought persists, behind the back of the finite subject, in
the activity of self-reflective thinking of the inter-subjective human
community.

If my interpretation is correct, Alan like Schelling holds that the
dialectic of self-reflective reasoning may persists, even in spite of
hurling down the determinate and distinct content of speculative
contemplation into the paradoxical "abyss of vacuity", because thought
subsists, not in "an intentionally directed finite subject", but "in the
abstract identity A = A" of the spiritual substance of the inter-subjective
human community; which is not thought but remains a "bare form without
concrete realization." The totally un-thought abstract identity of the
historical human community, which Zizek perhaps identifies with historical
materialism, is an empty notion with no rational content; it consists in
the positing that would "pit this single assertion, that “in the Absolute
all is one”, against the organized whole of determinate and complete
knowledge"; it is 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." (PhG. §16, Baillie Trans.) The (Z.i) first objection that Alan
performs the incomplete stage of conscious thought of "bad skepticism"
follows from (Z.ii) the second objection of the emptiness and impossibility
of the negative dialectic of paradox in which nothing comes from the "abyss
of vacuity."

To conclude, I distinguished the disputes into two questions: (A) the
mediating relation between the Absolute and mathematics (e.g. S-M-P), and
(B) the nature of the Absolute as the self-conscious and intentional being
which we call God. I distinguished three characteristics that had been
attributed to the Absolute; (a) self-identity, (b) self-subsistency, and
(c) self-conscious subjectivity and intentionality; and argued that (A) the
mediating relationship of my hypothesis minimally required (a)
self-identity and (b) self-subsistency but did not require (c)
self-conscious subjectivity and intentionality. I observed that Alan
agreed with my claim that the (A) mediating relation between the Absolute
could operate even without (c) the self-conscious subjectivity and
intentionality, but only with the (a) self-identity and (b)
self-subsistency of the Absolute. Because Alan only contests whether the
Absolute is (c) self-conscious, subject and intentional, and we both agree
that this property (c) is not required for the truth of (A) the mediating
relation between the Absolute and Mathematics, I judge that Alan admits the
possibility (A) that mathematics could be categorized as a formal domain of
thought that is abstracted from, opposed to, and united with Hegel's system
of philosophy as it united within the difference of the Absolute.

If, on the contrary, Alan intended to reverse this opinion and contend that
(c) self-conscious subjectivity and intentionality were essential to any
conception of (A) the Absolute that mediates and founds mathematics, then I
have further critiqued the basis of Alan's critique of the (c)
self-conscious subjectivity and intentionality of the Absolute. Alan's
critique of (c) was presented in two theses, in which (1) the first thesis,
that the Absolute "is not a self-subsistent substance nor an actual
subject" entirely depends upon (2) the second thesis, that "the absolute
only emerges within the orb of finite subjectivity." My arguments are
directed against the second thesis to, as a consequence of their
dependency, kill two birds with one stone. I argued from grammar that Alan
was inconsistent in characterizing the Absolute as an "Absolute form" of
"self-reflective subjectivity" while also denying that that the Absolute
possessed a self, subject and Ego. Alan suggests with the language of
"emerge" and "come on the scene" that the Absolute possesses subsists prior
to the finite thought of the intentional subject, but he neglects to
immediately disclose in what substance the Absolute subsists in. I propose
three domains of thinking in which the self-reflective thought of the
Absolute may subsist: (i) in the intentional subjectivity of the Absolute
which is what we call God; (ii) in the inter-subjective human community
which Hegel calls Spirit; or (iii) in the finite thinking of the
speculative philosopher, posited by what Fichte calls the Ego. I argued
that if Alan denied that the Absolute subsisted (i) in subjective
intentionality then it can only subsist in (ii) Pinkard's historical human
communities and in (iii) Fichte's posting. I had previously argued that
Alan was attempting to reduce the Ontological differentia of the Absolute
to an immanentist non-metaphysical interpretation by denying being, but now
Alan affirms that the Absolute possesses being, which he describes as
"ontological
import." I argued that Alan's two-stage dialectic that culminates in the
negative moment was intended to obliterate all (a) logical self-identity
and (b) ontological self-subsistence. I described how the real difference
in Alan and I's interpretation was that, while he identified the
transcendentist interpretation of the Absolute (possessing properties a, b,
and c) with the positive moment of naive realism, I contended that all of
the properties (a, b, and c) could be attributed to the Absolute through a
critical dialectic of speculative reason in a synthetic moment which
preserves both positivity and negativity is a self-moving concept. I
challenged Alan to defend the ultimate-ness of the negative moment of the
paradox.

Finally, I showed how the (P) Pinkardian interpretation which reduces the
(i) self-reflective subjectivity of the Absolute to the (ii)
inter-subjectivity of the historical human community crucially depends, for
the force of this negative reduction, upon the (Z) Zizekian dialectic of
paradox. Just as thesis (1) could be defeated by defeating thesis (2), so
could the (P) Pinkhardian sociological reduction be defeated by defeating
the (Z) Zizekian dialectic of paradox (e.g. 1 iff 2, P iff Z). I described
how the (Z) Zizekian dialectic of paradox was Hegel's triadic Trinitarian
dialectic but an incomplete skeptical negative dialectic which totally
ejected the reason and substance of the positive moment. Alan committed
himself to "bad skepticism" when he wrote: "there are no realities that
persist thus there is nothing for us to think." Just as it is impossible
for anything emerge from nothing, so is it impossible for determinate
thought to emerge from the annihilating negativity of the paradox. Alan
hurls all reason and substance into the empty notion of the abysmal vacuity
and seeks to pull them back out again. This may only be possible if reason
and substance subsist in (P) Pinkard's inter-subjective historical human
community. However, because the (P) Pinkardian interpretation of the
Absolute as the inter-subjectivity of the historical human community
depends upon the (Z) Zizekian dialectic of paradox, Alan cannot appeal to
(P) Pinkard to justify (Z) Zizek. Alan's Zizekian dialectic of paradox is
better as a rebuttal to the self-conscious subjectivity and intentionality
of the Absolute, than Schelling's conceptually vacuous aesthetic intuition
of the Absolute - the night in which all cows are black.

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Alan Ponikvar ponikvaraj@...
<mailto:ponikvaraj%40gmail.com> > wrote:

> **
>
>
> There is a lot here to discuss.
>
> It took me many years to come to appreciate the place of the absolute in
> Hegel's thinking. Early on in my study of Hegel I was influenced by what
> has
> come to be known as the nonmetaphysical reading of Hegel. For those who
> interpreted Hegel in this way the absolute was taken primarily as the point
> of absolution from certain epistemological assumptions. More than anything
> else they wanted to avoid any theological implications of the term. For
> them
> what mattered was the self-generation of determinations. There was an
> emphasis on immanence; they saw the absolute as suggestive of something
> transcendent. This they did not like.
>
> Early on I rejected this approach but did not have mastery over the
> alternative conception that I was groping towards. It was in this state of
> relative ignorance that I wrote my dissertation on Hegel. Over the past ten
> years or so I have filled out my conception of speculative philosophy. In
> this endeavor Zizek has been most helpful. There proved to be an accidental
> affinity of our approaches that we each came to in our own way. More than
> anything else Zizek was bold were I had been tentative. I have learned to
> push the envelop from my reading of Zizek.
>
> Let me approach your objections by first setting some markers.
>
> I would like to make two claims that seem inconsistent. First, as you note,
> the true may be both taken as substance as well as subject but it is not a
> self-subsistent substance nor an actual subject. And second, the absolute
> only emerges within the orb of finite subjectivity. With the first point I
> wish to indicate that we can employ the absolute without buying into the
> notion that the absolute is some ultimate substance or some actual infinite
> spirit that has intentions. With the second point I provide the reason for
> the first point. There is nothing grand about the absolute – either with
> respect to substance or subject – because the absolute first comes on the
> scene as the form that finite thought takes when this thought is brought to
> a dialectical impasse.
>
> Only if there is frustrated finite thought is there a dialectic. And only
> if
> there is a dialectic is there absolute form. All truths for Hegel manifest
> this absolute form that is the identity in difference of dynamic, idealized
> moments. As infinite or unconditioned the absolute form comes on the scene
> by means of an insight by the speculative philosopher who attends to what
> happens to finite thinking at this moment of frustration.
>
> The dialectic itself arises at that point when thought attempts to complete
> itself as a self-concern. Hegel's Logic is about this self-thinking
> thought.
> The antinomy arises when thought attempts to be both frame and item frame;
> it arises when thought attempts to be self-thinking and in this way be an
> unconditioned or absolute truth.
>
> The problem is that thought does not complete itself by providing this
> final
> comprehensive insight that totalizes its self-thinking. Instead, at this
> culminating point thought breaks down. It ceases to make sense. It exhibits
> an inconsistent thought or antinomy in keeping with the attempt to think
> frame as simultaneously also item framed.
>
> This is where Kant attempts to put limits on reason to avoid the scandal.
> And this is where Hegel thinks the paradoxical thought: the inability to
> think the final ultimate thought IS the final ultimate thought.The
> dialectic
> that exhibits the impasse of finite thinking also exhibits the coherent
> absolute form of this impasse.
>
> Reason has two species. There is common reason guided by the law of
> noncontradiction and then there is speculative reason that is actually the
> point where the common and speculative occupy the same site, the site where
> thought elicits a dialectic. So without a frustrated finite thinking there
> is no infinite alternative since the infinite alternative is nothing but a
> second look at what the finite thinking has brought about.
>
> So why the difference? Finite thinking seeks to comprehend what is
> self-identical or a self-standing content, meant in this way to be an
> absolute content. The dialectic subverts this intention. The infinite then
> appears as what is not intended: the form of this failure to grasp content.
> Thus the absolute comes on the scene by way of cunning behind the back of
> the thought of an intentionally directed finite subject. But this absolute
> is not itself a subject. It simply is thought that as self-reflexive
> exhibits subjective form.
>
> But we are merely at the beginning of Hegel's presentation of the absolute.
> The absolute as dynamic infinite form has this dynamic brought to a halt by
> means of the speculative insight. Thought directed to what is in view
> alters
> what is in view. The absolute immediately inverts when thought. It becomes
> a
> static or abstract version of the exhibited dynamic.
>
> So for instance, the speculative insight that lights upon the coherent form
> of the dialectic of being/nothing and tags this coherent form as becoming
> with this insight stops the dynamic. The dynamic as stopped is then posited
> as the next thought: Dasein.
>
> Finite thinking caught in the endless cycle of the transiting of
> being/nothing gives way by means of a perspective shift. What motivates the
> shift marks a divide between common and speculative thinking. Common reason
> sees the senseless dialectic and is ready to come to a skeptical
> conclusion:
> there are no realities that persist thus there is nothing for us to think.
> Speculative reason in contrast embraces the evident paradox: there are no
> realities to think, only ideal moments that vanish into one another, this
> then is what we will think. In this way, thought is a self-concern.
>
> Speculative reason does not limit truth to what is some self-standing
> content. So when such content ceases to be it is this ceasing to be that is
> thought.
>
> Another way to put this is that absolute subjectivity arises at the point
> when the finite thinking subject ceases to function. Self-thinking thought
> is not the activity of some actual subject; it is the form of the inability
> of thought to be self-knowing within the confines of common reason.
> Self-thinking thought is not some master thinker that thinks and knows all.
> It is what emerges to replace such a misconceived ultimate.
>
> Now to your point of the ontological sense of Hegel's absolute. I would
> contend that one reason that thought as absolute appears as a system is
> because speculative thought is not about the universal or transcendental
> conditions for the possibility both of objects and knowledge of objects.
> Speculative thought is about the emergence of what is actual. Thus, it is
> not an epistemology but more properly comprehended as an ontology, but with
> a twist.
>
> The identity in difference discourse seems nonsensical to common reason.
> What relevance does this discourse have to the real world within which we
> live. It certainly does not appear to provide universal norms. However, it
> does in an unexpected way. Rather than a master subject stepping back as
> would any epistemologist such as Kant to demonstrate mastery what we have
> is
> an achieved absolute that has two faces: one dynamic and the other static.
> The static face is the indifferent other that reflects ontically as it were
> the perspective shift that enables the insight that brings the dialectic to
> a coherent halt. The ontic sense of the coherent halt appears at Hegel's
> transitions when a dynamic conception gives way to a static conception of
> an
> achieved absolute.
>
> Thus the achieved absolute form is internally divided. One place to see
> this
> is in the Phenomenology with the transition from the infinite movement of
> the concept that ends Understanding and this same movement posited as
> abstract form as self-consciousness in the subsequent chapter.
>
> So, Hegel's absolute bleeds as it were the abstract conceptions of common
> life. These are one-sided thoughts because they are but one face of Hegel's
> absolute. But what this shows is that Hegel's absolute has ontological
> import.
>
> I hope I have in a roundabout way discussed the points you raised. Hegel's
> absolute is not theological but prosaic in the extreme. It comes into being
> and inverts due to the way it reflects thought's ability to shift
> perspective. This ability is reflected in the determinations because here
> we
> are speaking about thought as absolute. Thought and being are one, but not
> as a simple identity. There is a difference or delay that comes into play
> that creates the onward movement.
>
> This telling difference between thought and being becomes the difference of
> respect that brings sense back to what first appears as nonsense. But more
> would have to be said to clarify this point. I have already gone on too
> long.
>
>
> - Alan
>
> From: Ryan Haecker rhryanhaecker@... <mailto:rhryanhaecker%40gmail.com>
>
> Reply-To: hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Thursday, January 10, 2013 7:02 PM
>
> To: hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: Re: [hegel] Russell's Paradox: A problem for Hegelians?
>
> Alan,
>
> When I responded previously to inquire about the relevance of an
> intentional Absolute to my hypothesis I had overlooked how I had myself
> invoked this concept in my explanation. Here is what I wrote:
>
> "If mathematics is not founded upon its own formal demonstrations, then I
> surmise that mathematics, as a whole, cannot simply be a transcendent
> Platonic form. Rather, it would appear that mathematics must be
> conditioned by and founded upon something extrinsic to all mathematics.
> *This
>
> leads to the Fichtean doctrine that the Ego posits the pure forms of
> logic*... However,
>
> if Hegelians hold that Hegel showed Fichtean subjective idealism to be
> self-contradictory and surpassed this doctrine with Absolute Idealism in
> the Science of Logic, *then Hegelians must, it would seem, conclude that it
>
> is not the finite Fichtean Ego but *the Absolute Ego* that conditions and
> posits all of the pure forms of reason, mathematics and logic.* This
>
> would, I think, offer a tentative explanation of the impossibility of a
> foundation of mathematics, and, if it is correct, this explanatory power
> would lend credence to the system of Hegel contrary to analytic
> positivism."
>
> In response to this, I acknowledge that you and Bill were correct to raise
> the objection of a discrepancy between Fichte's Ego and Hegel's Absolute.
> The reasoning follows directly from my own presentation of this hypothesis:
> I argue that, because mathematics is not founded upon itself, it must be
> founded upon something other-than-itself; and that the most plausible
> candidate is the self-subsistent Hegelian Absolute, which I then conflated
> with Fichte's Absolute Ego; the absolutization of the Fichtean Ego. You
> objected to this inference in three ways: first, you rightly critiqued my
> over-hasty conflation of the Ficthean Absolute Ego and Hegel's Absolute;
> second, you critiqued the notion of the Absolute as self-subsistent with
> the argument that negativity annihilates all self-identity and hence
> eviscerates all self-subsistence; and third, you describe how Hegel's
> Absolute is not intentional. I grant that the argument for this hypothesis
> crucially depends upon the possibility of the self-subsistent Absolute
> 'founding' all mathematics in a way that mathematics apparently does not.
> Therefore, if your criticisms are sound and this crucial premise is
> unsound, then the inference of my hypothesis is invalid.
>
> In the first objection, you distinguish between the Fichtean Absolute Ego
> from the Hegelian Absolute by describing the Hegelian Absolute as the
> groundless, ultimate substance, that is self-reflective subjectivity, and
> "nothing other than subjective or absolute form."
>
> "I just want to focus in on one issue you raise: the distinction between
> the
> Fichtean Ego and Absolute Ego.
>
> The distinction is not between two conceptions of a grounding ego. It is
> between an ego that grounds and a *groundless* ego.
>
> The difference is between subject as the *ultimate substance* – Fichte's
> conception – and substance that is *nothing other than subjective or
> absolute
> form* what I take to be Hegel's conception.
>
>
> "But I was more interested in discussing absolute as an adjective with two
> distinct senses. Certainly the Fichtean ego is absolute in the sense of an
> absolute ground. The Hegelian absolute is not about a substantial ground
> but
> about a form that appears to take a shape very much like *self-reflective**
> subjectivity*."
>
>
> As a brief terminological objection, I find it difficult to conceive of
> how an "ultimate substance" could be anything other than a self-subsistent,
> a se, being that grounds itself. Of course the definition of "ultimate
> substance" will depend upon the meaning of substance for Hegel's Absolute.
>
> As I understand your description, you are describing Hegel's Absolute as a
> form of "self-reflective subjectivity," in which either a non-human
> self-reflective thought is absolutized in the manner of McTaggart, or the
> inter-subjective self-reflective thought of human communities is
> absolutized in the manner of Terry Pinkard's "non-metaphysical reading" of
> Hegel:
>
> "[Hegel's Absolute] is rather the network of self-conscious, articulate
> reflections by a community on who we essentially are, accomplished through
> the determinate historical practices of art, religion and
> philosophy."(Pinkard, Successor to Metaphysics,
>
> Monist, July 1991, Vol. 74, Issue 3)
>
> I believe that your interpretation is closer to the first even while it may
> assimilate the latter. The biggest objection that I have to this
> interpretation is that I do not understand how thought can be
> self-reflective and subjective in any way without a self, an Ego, and a
> subject of thought. It seems a flat contradiction to say that the Absolute
> is "self-reflective subjectivity" and yet the Absolute has no self. This
> problem, I expect, requires Hegelian interpreters to either affirm that the
> Absolute is, simply by its essence, or in virtue of some other particular
> thing, a self-reflective Ego. If I understand correctly, João
>
> appears to adopt the first option of affirming that the Absolute is a
> self-reflective Ego when he writes:
>
> "This negativity at this moment becomes a part of the substance's
> determination of its self-subsistence, that is to say, the opposition to
> self-subsistence becomes substance as self-determination."
>
> I interpret you, on the other hand, to understand the 'self' Hegel's
> self-reflective Absolute to be like Pinkard's absolutization of the
> inter-subjective
> self-reflective thought of historical human communities. The initial
> objection re-emerges with this answer: where in a historical community of
> intersubjective thinking is there any 'self' to which the Absolute
> subjectively may reflect upon? Whatever the answer may be it would seem to
> minimally require that it is united in self-identity, without which the
> reference of the term 'self' would be contradictory and, I think,
> unintelligible.
>
> "The difference between Kant and Hegel is that Kant's static antinomies
> have
> become Hegel's dynamic dialectic. But there is more. What for Kant is a
> scandal is for Hegel the thought site out of which a new truth emerges. We
> do not simply give up on being and nothing. We do not simply allow
> ourselves to be frustrated by our inability to hold on to either thought.
> The failure to hold on sets the stage and is necessary for the proper
> emergence of a new truth. We do not simply drop being and nothing and posit
> becoming as a better option. *Becoming is nothing other than what emerges
> by way of insight into what the dialectic of being and nothing reveals*.
>
> What frustrates the common intellect and also frustrated Kant is for Hegel
> the site where truth emerges."
>
> I thought this was a most helpful summary of Hegel's answer to Kant's
> antinomies. Your second criticism was to criticize the conception of
> substance as self-grounding.
>
> .... This might be one way of seeing the anti-foundational aspect of
> Hegel's
> philosophy. *There is no absolute unconditioned truth as absolute ground
> that
> founds all we know and all that is.* The absolute comes into being by means
>
> of cunning."
>
> I believe that you and I are in agreement on how Hegel responds to Kant's
> antinomies with a conception of truth and reality as a dynamic process of
> becoming. I believe that our disagreement pertains rather to the ontic
> status of this becoming, specifically the question of whether it may
> essentially possess the power to be self-subsistent and provide the
> foundation of mathematics that mathematics does not provide for itself: I
> want to affirm greater ontology and power of self-subsistence while you
> wish to deny these to Hegel's Absolute.
>
> One consideration which, I suspect, supports a more robust ontic
> interpretation of the Absolute is the identity of truth and reality in
> Hegel's system. Assuming this is a correct interpretation, I interpret you
> to hold two conceptions of this identty that are, if not contradictory,
> minimally in tension with one another: first you describe how becoming
> emerges from the "insight into what the dialectic of being and nothing
> reveals" and afterwards that "[t]here is no absolute unconditioned truth as
> absolute ground that founds all we know and all that is." I understand
> Hegel to interpret the synthetic moment as the truth and concrete reality
> of the prior conceptual moments. If Becoming emerges from the dialectic of
> Being and Non-Being, then it must possess some being of the former moments,
> of Being and Non-Being; simply because for nothing emerges from nothing and
> without possessing some being. This is why I interpret Hegel's dialectic as
> both logical and ontological. An emergence of something is an addition of
> being viz. the emergence. Hence I interpret the concrete synthetic moment
> of Hegel's dialectic as both an increase in truth and reality over the
> previous abstract moments.
>
> I anticipate that you will criticize such an ontologizing interpretation of
> Hegel's dialectic as a "non-speculative" or pre-critical realism of
> substance as 'being-for-self'. In response, I would contend that the
> negative moment of the dialectic, that negates the being of what is
> posited, is not itself ultimate but is rather combined with the posited
> being in such a way that ontologically enriches the synthesis of the
> previous moments: e.g. being-for-self is contradicted by being-for-others
> and becomes being-for-self-and-others, or being-in-and-for-itself. Thus, I
> interpret the ontologically robust conception of Hegel's Absolute to be the
> result rather than the refuse of critical speculation.
>
> Your third objection was that Hegel's Absolute is not and never becomes an
> intentional subject, with subjective intentional relations towards objects
> of consciousness.
>
> "The main point I wished to make is that *Hegel's absolute qua absolute
> never
> becomes an intentional subject.* Bill has just raised the point that
> Absol<br/><br/>(Message over 64 KB, truncated)