Thank you, Levi, for taking so much time with this.

So the conclusion is that "there is no transcendent beyond the appearances, and that being is absolutely immanent."

Is that what Hegel is saying?

It's like the old Zen saying: first mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; then mountains aren't mountains and rivers aren't rivers; and finally mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers - or something like that.

It is a shame, though, to throw all of ancient and medieval philosophy into the trash. Unfortunately, if we do that, no one, really, will even notice.

John

----- Original Message -----
From: Levi R. Bryant
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 6:32 PM
Subject: Re: [hegel] Re: Hegel and the Thing-in-itself


Dear John,

As Kant argues, the understanding alone is incapable of knowing anything. The central thesis of Kant's critical philosophy is that concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. For Kant, of course, concepts belong to the spontaneity of the understanding, whereas intuition belongs to the receptivity of intuition. Consequently, in a Kantian framework, it's quite besides the point to claim that the understanding cannot know thing-in-themselves. Of course it can't because knowledge, for Kant, requires both concepts (understanding) and intuitions (sensibility). In fact, one can go one step further and argue that for Kant there is no real knowledge without the agency of reason. Where the understanding separates and distinguishes, thus thinking things independently of one another, it falls to the vocation of reason to organize, synthesize and unify the disparate. It is only with reason the systematic knowledge is established and that relationships are
drawn between the various syntheses established by the understanding and intuition. Kant treats this dimension of knowledge in the second half of the first Critique when he discusses the Ideas of Reason.

In claiming that we know the thing-in-itself I do not believe that Hegel is appealing to some sort of intellectual or divine intuition as you suggest. Hegel arrives at this thesis on the basis of an immanent development or unfolding of the concept of the in-itself. When we think through the actual claims that Kant makes about things-in-themselves we quickly discover that the concept falls into contradiction. On the one hand, Kant wishes to say that the in-itself is completely unknowable insofar as it is transcendent to all experience. So far so good. According to this thesis we only have knowledge of appearances or phenomena. Yet on the other hand, Kant wishes to claim that things-in-themselves cause or affect the faculty of sensibility providing us with the manifold sensible diversity synthesized by the understanding. And this is the problem: According to Kant, the categories of the understanding (among which we find cause and effect) only have a legitimate employment with
respect to appearances. In Kant's view, the moment we suggest that time and space characterize things-in-themselves or that we seek to apply the categories directly to things themselves we fall into irresoveable paradoxes or antinomies. Nonetheless, Kant finds himself unable to avoid attributing causation to things-in-themselves. This logically entails that we do in fact have knowledge of things-in-themselves and that the category of the thing-in-itself is a contradictory or illegitimate category for Kant. In fact, given that Kant claims that we can only know appearances, how could this category not be illegitimate from the perspective of Critical philosophy, insofar as it posits an absolute transcendence beyond all appearances? Hegel merely things through the implications of Kant's own assertions and demonstrates how he says something quite other than what he thinks.

Hopefully you'll concede that Hegel is not here appealing to some sort of intellectual or divine intuition. He has merely taken Kant at his word and drawn the inferences that follow from Kant's own theses about the in-itself. Unlike Kant who remains Platonist in his assertion of a transcendence beyond the world of appearances, Hegel truly accomplishes the Critical philosophy in that he demonstrates that there is no transcendent beyond to appearances and that being is absolutely immanent. This is exactly what Kant called for in the first Critique without himself accomplishing it.

Kind Regards,

Levi

jgbardis <jgbardis@...> wrote:
That's a nice argument, Levi.

But the understanding can't know the thing-in-itself, right?

In Medieval philosophy, and to some extent in ancient philosophy,
they talk about discursive reason which would be about the
equivalent to understanding, and then also they talk about the
intellect. They talk about the passive intellect, which may be like
speculative reason, and they talk about the active intellect, which
might be like Absolute Reason.

But of course Hegel goes through all sorts of different ways of
knowing in the PHENOMONOLOGY.

But of course ultimately the active intellect would be God - just as
for Hegel Absolute Reason is God. And really that's what allows us
to know the thing-in-itself. It seems to me that Hegel's position is
just a restatement of the Medieval position - but with an eye to
Kant.

But you strike me as a modern man, and probably you don't believe
anything of the sort. But then there is no ontological difference
between the understanding and dialectical reason. It's more like
smart people are dialectical and stupid people aren't. But then how
would that be anything more than arrogance? You might think you know
the thing-in-itself, but really perhaps you have only established
the possibility of knowing it - and even Kant recognizes such a
possibility.

John



--- In hegel@yahoogroups.com, "Levi R. Bryant" <lprbryant@y...>
wrote:
> Hi Bob,
>
> The thing-in-itself is knowable insofar as it is *distinguished*
or *opposed* to phenomena. To draw a distinction between two things
is already to know both sides of the distinction. This is the
difference between a dialectical opposition or distinction and a
merely empirical opposition. In the case of an empirical opposition
or distinction, the two entities, qualities or domains distinguished
are independent of one another. Thus, if I assert the
proposition "the ball is *not* black", thereby distinguishing the
color of the ball from the quality of the black, then only inference
I can make from this proposition is that the ball is not black. I
am not entitled to draw any other inference besides the fact that
the ball is some *other* color. I am not, for instance, entitled to
draw the inferance that *because* the ball is *not* black, the ball
must be *white*. Thus the nature of an empirical distinction or
opposition is such that the terms distinguished are independent and
> external to one another, such that I cannot infer the one from
the other.
>
> In this regard, Kant, and those who follow Kant on this point,
conceives the distinction or opposition between phenomena and the
thing-in-itself as an *empirical* distinction insofar as the claim
that I cannot know the in-itself on the basis of my relationship to
phenomena or appearances implies that the two, while related, are
independent of one another and external to each other. Kant's point
is that I cannot make inferences as to the nature of the in-itself
on the basis of appearances. Put otherwise, Kant's claim is that I
am not warranted in assuming that the in-itself shares any
resemblance to phenomena.
>
> Where an empirical distinction or opposition conceives the terms
distinguished as being independent and external to one another and
therefore only contingently related, a dialectical distinction or
opposition conceives the related terms as being internally dependent
on one another such that each term, quality or domain distinguished
implies the other term. Put in very simplistic terms, a dialectical
structure of argumentation therefore shows how one term of an
opposition or determination *necessarily* passes over into its other
term and vice versa. In demonstrating this passage, a dialectical
argument thereby shows that the two terms are interdependent such
that the two cannot be thought apart or that they maintain a
dialectical identity with one another. Rather than being externally
related and independent, they are internally related in such a way
that knowing one entails knowing the other. Thus, for instance, in
a psychotherapeutic context the relationship of a patient to his
> symptom is a dialectical relation in that the patient
progressively moves from seeing that the symptom isn't simply some
external inhibition or inconvenience that plagues his life, but the
very essence of his unconscious desire.
>
> It is in this spirit that we ought, I think, approach Hegel's
argument that we can know the thing-in-itself. Hegel's point is
that the thing-in-itself cannot be thought independently of
phenomena and is therefore already known from the point of view of
phenomenal knowledge. Kant's mistake was to conceive the in-itself
as being externally related to phenomena, as being merely
empirically distinguished from phenomena, rather than seeing the
manner in which it is internally related to the very essence of
phenomena. If Kant is led to assert that we do not know the in-
itself, then this is because he believed the in-itself to be
externally related to phenomena. Thus Kant conceived the in-itself
in relation to phenomena in a manner similar to the way in which non-
dialectical logic conceives negation. A non-dialectical logical
negation allows me to make no inferences about the content of the
proposition.
>
> If I simply left the argument here, then you would be right not to
be convinced in that I would simply be externally applying the
requirements of dialectical argumentation to Kant's philosophy in a
normative fashion, rather than actually *demonstrating* that
phenomenal knowledge leads us to a knowledge of the in-itself.
Rather, it must be asked whether Kant himself falls into dialectical
logic when he's led to conceive the in-itself. And indeed, we do
find Kant falling into a dialectical relationship between the in-
itself and phenomena, despite his best efforts to conceive them as
being indepedent of one another. This is evident in the *causal*
relationship Kant draws between the in-itself and phenomena.
Throughout the first Critique there is an obscure relationship
between phenomena and the in-itself such that the in-itself somehow
*causes* phenomena. However, by the lights of Kant's own argument,
this thesis is dogmatic and illegimate since causality is a category
of the
> understanding, and the categories of the understanding are
applicable only to appearances. Yet Kant is unable to avoid
applying the category of cause and effect to the things themselves
in thematizing the relationship between the phenomenal world and the
world as it is in-itself. Thus, despite his best efforts, Kant does
in fact posit a knowledge of the in-itself and also a relationship
of the in-itself to phenomena. In other words, we cannot
consistently draw this distinction in the way that Kant would like.
This *contradiction* was almost immediately recognized by post-
Kantian philosophers such as Solomon Maimon, and was a launching
board for the critique of transcendental idealism. Hegel does
nothing more than maximize on this contradiction, showing how
knowledge of phenomena already implies knowledge of the in-itself.
He develops this analysis in the chapter on force and understanding
in the Phenomenology, where he shows how our understanding of
phenomena is organized
> around the positing of forces that render the phenomena
intelligible at the level of the in-itself. For instance, we posit
the force of gravity to explain all the instances of objects falling
that we experience in day to day life. In short, all Hegel does is
draw out the implications of what Kant was already asserting about
the causal relationship between phenomena and the in-itself. What
Hegel ultimately demonstrates is thus that the in-itself is
internally related to the phenomenon as its soul, such that we
cannot think the one without the other (we cannot think phenomena
without the in-itself), and thus that the in-itself is not some
absolute transcendence which we can never know. While our knowledge
of the in-itself is indeed mediated by appearances (Hegel's famous
theses about the relationship between appearance and essence) it is
a knowledge nonetheless.
>
> It seems to me that Hegel's arguments are pretty strong in this
point. I cannot say that I've seen a case where one is able to
consistently draw an opposition between appearance and reality,
phenomenality and the in-itself that Plato or Kant. In this regard,
I think Hegel's move towards immanence is superior to the sort of
residual Platonism we find in Kant.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Levi R. Bryant, Ph.D.
>
>
> robertfanelli002@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 12/30/2003 3:25:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> petrejo@e... writes:
>
> > Nobody is being dogmatic about Hegel. Yet on a Hegel List the
> > first order of business should be to know what he said. Then
> > the next order of business should be to *ensure* that there are
> > no misunderstandings. Only then would a debate about Hegel have
> > any meaning at all.
> >
>
> Agreed. Once we pass from understanding the text and its
translation to
> general agreement of its meaning, the next step is to validate the
dialectic
> argument.
>
> So far, no one has validated the argument that 'the thing in
itself' is
> knowable. You may cite Hegelian text, but to offer proof of such
a thing is not a
> fait accompli thus far. Therefore to say that the thing in itself
is knowable
> is dogmatic. But to say that the thing in itself is knowable once
we extract
> from the Hegelian philosophy an exact way of proving this, then
dogma
> disappears. This, it seems to me is one of the reasons why most
of us are interested
> in Hegel.
>
> Happy New Year,
>
> Bob Fanelli
>
> PS Not all Kantians are dogmatic.




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