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- Oct 1 4:41 PMI can take some time to revisit what in a rush I said this morning.Pure thought thinking itself is not something that simply happens while we observe. One reason why we know this is that if we forget Hegel for the moment and just offer the observation that pure being is nothing we can then ask what comes next. From this simple observation nothing comes next by which I mean there is no next. Thought immediately grounds to a halt. Being is nothing, full stop.This is what happens if thought functions in the usual manner. It is the point of Pippin's problem. If someone tells me that being is nothing and then challenges me to derive in some logical sense what comes next what everyone who is not Hegel will say is that there is nothing that in any recognizable sense logically comes next.For one thing all we have is a single proposition. If something is to come next from such a proposition it can be nothing more than a teasing out of the implications of what has been said.So if I were to follow the metaphysical tradition and say pure being is being beyond determination I might then go on to argue that what we have is the implicit beginnings of the conception of a divine being.But this cannot be what Hegel is doing when he has "nothing is" follow directly after the assertion that "being is nothing". The latter does not in any recognizable sense follow from the former.What Hegel shows us with "nothing is" is an inverted version of "being is nothing". So what motivates the inversion? How has this become the appropriate logical move?Saying that thought is thinking itself does not enable us to answer this question. And noting that this is what Hegel says is not an explanation.So if you are not educated so that you can recognize what makes reason speculative then you cannot get beyond the initial observation that being is nothing.The reason why most readers of Hegel remain unconvinced by his account is because they cannot see the logic that is supposed to account for his moves.So my claim remains the same: if one does not comprehend the distinctive nature of speculation upon entry into the Logic - if one has not been educated to the standpoint of science - then one cannot get from being to nothing in the Logic. The words on the page do not in any way show the logic of this move.Moving on ...The common logic is formal because as both you and Hegel note it abstracts from all content. But there is nothing wrong with formal logic as such. It is the way we reason about most matters. It is the way we reason about matters that are not self-reflective.When reason is self-reflective it means to function as both form and content. But it only does so if this togetherness of form and content manifests a contradiction. So unless there is some reason to believe that a there is a logic of contradiction that can be shown to be intelligible and relevant there is no reason to take the togetherness of form and content as anything more than nonsense.For some reason that is beyond me you say that I find this unity of form and content incomprehensible. What I do find is that you show no noticeable ability to comprehend what this unity is about.So to say that a basic distinction between formal and speculative logic is about whether the content is distinct from or one with the form is true but unhelpful since it says nothing about the difference between a simple and speculative unity of these two.At bottom it is contrasting takes on the basic law of thought - the law of noncontradiction - that is the fundamental difference. Moreover, it is a distinction that cries out for an explanation unlike your limp employment of the form/content unity, a unity that conceals its speculative sense if taken as a simple togetherness of the two.So why the separation of form and content might bar entry into philosophy is noted but left unexplained.This is your basic problem. You quote Hegel. Your glosses then simply repeat what he says as if such repetition might actually be an explanation. But it never is. And yet this is all you ever do. You offer quotes as if they explain themselves when in truth they cry out for a proper explanation.So you offer a quote from Hegel that you say explains why there is a second species of reason. But it does not. Instead, it is a description of basic features of speculation that need to be explained. Yes, thinking does not go beyond itself. But what precisely does this mean and why is this an appropriate way to express the truth? Doesn't this simply show thought to be solipsistic?You are willing to settle for the text as is, without explanation. I want to actually explain why Hegel says what he says. This is probably the greatest difference between your reading and mine.So yes. Speculative logic as you say embraces contradiction. But you don't explain why this is a good thing for thought to do.The quote about Jacobi asking how is about Jacobi asking by what measure. I am not asking for a measure. I am not asking for a particular category.What I am asking is what happens to reason when it ceases to abide by the law of noncontradiction.One thing I see that you do not is that when thought does abide by this law then there is an absolute divide between an unessential knowing and an essential truth whereas when thought does not abide by this law then both knowing and truth are equally essential and unessential.This difference is evident in our respective stances on the role of the reader in the Logic.You presuppose the absolute divide of the understanding which makes those of us who read the Logic mere observers of an unfolding truth. We passively watch as reason moves itself. We are unessential to the unfolding essential truth of reason.I do not impose the essential/unessential distinction which means I am open to attending to something I see happening - the role of our active thinking in the development of what is being thought - that you presuppose cannot be happening. You impose a rule that prevents you from seeing how the truth actually does unfold with our help, with our active involvement.The problem then is with what you presuppose and I do not: you return to the natural attitude and presuppose the opposition of conscious as in force for those of us who read the Logic.As you have said often enough, our role is to line our thought up with what the text makes evident. It goes a long way in explaining why you desperately attempt to show that the text gives us all we need to comprehend the development.You make a final claim "My position is that there isn't a reason behind the move from being to nothing and vice versa, instead it is Reason moving itself."If there is no reason for the move then there actually is a reason for the move.That reason is self-evidence. Reason as self-evident is reason in no need of a reason.So is the inversion that marks the move from "being is nothing" to "nothing is" self-evidentially true? Does this move and all other moves in the Logic have this character? If so then the Logic is only one of the most difficult of all philosophic texts because we have difficulty grasping what is self-evidently true.I doubt that you would want to defend such a claim. Is there some other way of saying we can comprehend a self-moving reason without reason? Maybe blind acceptance of what Hegel says. But this is not much better.Reason that moves itself is something that we do as we interact with Hegel's text. This is all one need bring to the text to avoid the absurdity of a reason that moves without reason. It is reason alert to the need to traverse its own inner difference so as to recollect what it has enacted. Only from within reason can we think such a reason.To understand that this is how we as readers need to orient ourselves to the text is another way of saying this is what the education to the standpoint of science means to accomplish.- Alan[Alan]> My issue has always been: what is the logic of the moves?> Are you asking for a reason outside of the science itself? This seems> to be the case because it is the first move of the Science, which is> supposed to have its own reason as its content. You are asking for> the determinate reason behind the move that moves from pure> indeterminacy to another pure indeterminacy.[Alan]> What I am saying is that in a logic what we are doing is accounting> for the movement of thought.What the Logic is supposed to be is "pure thought thinking itself", not us accounting for the movement of pure thought.[Alan]> In a formal logic the rules of inference account for the movement. In> speculative logic thought moves without reference to these formal rules.> But thought does move.What you seem to suggest is that the movement of the logic points to the rules of inference.[Alan]> Formal logic is a logic that hones to the law of noncontradiction. Speculative logic> is the logic of contradiction. So we have a number of questions that need to be> answered.Above you seem to frame speculative logic as similar to a "formal logic" with the only distinction being that it references a "logic of contradiction" instead of a "logic of noncontradiction".But Hegel's argument is that Formal logic is merely formal:-----------[Hegel] SL: Intro------------"When logic is taken as the science of thinking in general, it is understood that this thinking constitutes the mere form of a cognition, that logic abstracts from all content and that the so called second constituent belonging to cognition, namely its matter must come from elsewhere; and that since this matter is absolutely independent of logic, this latter can provide only the formal conditions of genuine cognition and cannot in its own self contain any real truth, nor even be the pathway to real truth because just that which is essential in truth, its content, lies outside logic.But in the first place, it is quite inept to say that logic abstracts from all content, that it teaches only the rules of thinking without any reference to what is thought or without being able to consider its nature. For thinking and the rules of thinking are supposed to be the subject matter of logic, these directly constitute its peculiar content; in them, logic has that second constituent, a matter, about the nature of which it is concerned." (SL p. 44-45)---------------All of the above argument points to the need for the unity of form and content. It's an argument that you find incomprehensible.You then ask:[Alan]> Why is there a need for a second species of logic and how does this second species> relate to the first?Well, what characterizes formal logic is the separation between form and content, and this separation, as Hegel says…"bars the entrance to philosophy" (see p.45)Why? Well Hegel provides an explanation:-----------[Hegel] SL: Intro------------"…each is regarded as divorced from the other. Thinking therefore in its reception and formation of material does not go outside itself; its reception of the material and the conforming of itself to it remains a modification of its own self, if does not result in thought becoming the other of itself; and self-conscious determining moreover belongs only thinking. In its relation to the object, therefore, thinking does not go out of itself to the object; this, as a thing-in-itself, remains a sheer beyond of thought." (SL p. 45)----------Hegel clearly draws out the limitations of formal logic…- In its "reception" formal thinking does not go outside of itself.- The self-conscious determining of formal thinking belongs only to its thinking.- The "reception" of the content remains a modification of its own itself.- The content remains a sheer beyond.Formal logic is fundamentally in conflict with itself.[Alan]> Precisely when is speculative rather than formal logic the appropriate way> that thought moves?The above conflict inherent with Formal logic is actually a demonstration of the sequential movement of speculative logic itself. An abstract fixity is established with clear distinctions, but then subsequently falls into contradiction.Hegel always introduces this move as "the great negative step" (see SL p. 46) from the understanding to reason in the context of Kant's antinomies.So, technically speculative logic moves through the fixity of the characterizations of the Understanding, and also the conflict of Dialectic logic, where fixity passes into its opposite or contradiction (see EL para 80-82).------------------[Hegel] EL: Second Attitude to Objectivity-----------------The principles of the metaphysical philosophy gave rise to the belief that, when cognition lapsed into contradictions, it was a mere accidental aberration, due to some subjective mistake in argument and inference. According to Kant, however, thought has a natural tendency to issue in contradictions or antinomies, whenever it seeks to apprehend the infinite. We have in the latter part of the above paragraph referred to the philosophical importance of the antinomies of reason, and shown how the recognition of their existence helped largely to get rid of the rigid dogmatism of the metaphysic of understanding, and to direct attention to the Dialectical movement of thought.But here too Kant, as we must add, never got beyond the negative result that the thing-in-itself is unknowable, and never penetrated to the discovery of what the antinomies really and positively mean. That true and positive meaning of the antinomies is this: that every actual thing involves a coexistence of opposed elements. Consequently to know, or, in other words, to comprehend an object is equivalent to being conscious of it as a concrete unity of opposed determinations. The old metaphysic, as we have already seen, when it studied the objects of which it sought a metaphysical knowledge, went to work by applying categories abstractly and to the exclusion of their opposites. (EL para. 48, p. 78)-----------------Hegel suggests above that traditional metaphysics attempted to maintain the fixity of its abstractions, essentially ignoring the fact that they were equally their opposites, by dismissing falling into contradiction as errant thought.But Hegel's speculative logic embraces this movement into contradictions.So, for example in the opening moves of the SL, there is the immediate fixity of being is. But this fixity immediately vanishes into the nothing that is, which in turn vanishes. Parmenides is an example of trying to isolated the fixity of being from its contradiction.[Alan]> And then there is the question I have been asking: how does speculative> thought move? What prompts the movement?Here again Hegel has your answer in the remarks section…---------------[Hegel] SL: Being, remark 3--------------"Jacobi asks how does the pure vowel of the ego get its consonant, what brings determinateness into indeterminateness? The what would be easy to answer and has been answered by Kant in his own manner; but the question how means: in what peculiar manner, in what relationship, and so forth, and thus demands the statement of a particular category; but there can be no question here of a peculiar manner, of categories of the understanding. The very question how itself belongs to the bad habits of reflection, which demands comprehensibility, but at the same time presupposes its own fixed categories and consequently knows beforehand that it is armed against the answering of its own question." (SL p. 96)--------------Hegel suggests above that …- the question how asks "in what peculiar manner", but there can be no question here of a "peculiar manner".- It is essentially the understanding begging for comprehensibility.- the question how belongs to the fixed habits of the understanding.[Alan]> The question you ask is an evasion. Where we are to find this reason - either> inside or outside the science - can only be the beginning of an answer to these> questions. You seem to wish to suggest that if it is within the science then we> do not really have to answer these questions.Again, you are begging for the opening move to be comprehensible for the understanding. No that's not possible. Moreover your demand for comprehensibility imports its own set of categories from without.My position is that there isn't a reason behind the move from being to nothing and vice versa, instead it is Reason moving itself.RThe result is that you continue to struggle to make sense of Hegel's contradictory claims because you have the misimpression that a reason that functions as naive is not begging any questions when in fact naive reason is a reason of natural habits, the very habits from which an education to the standpoint of science means to free us.Joao and I attempted without any evident success to explain that there is no such thing as neutral thinking for Hegel. Reason is either with respect to a truth apart or with respect to a truth within. It either follows the law of noncontradiction or it does not. There is no neutral third position. One might suppose that a reason that neither does nor does not follow this law might be postulated. But this option is really one way to express the speculative option.So I am asking if you can account for the moves at the beginning of the Logic. You have described these puzzling moves that contradict the law of noncontradiction, but you have not explained what brings about the movement. You seem to believe that these moves account for themselves without any need - in direct contradiction to what Hegel says - for a reader with a point of view, for a reader who has been educated to the standpoint of science.This is no small matter since I believe the failings of the academic Hegelians to provide a convincing account of the Logic is due to the fact that they have no idea what it means to be educated to this standpoint.To begin without presuppositions is not what it means to be educated to the standpoint of science. This is the standpoint of the skeptic who like the understanding hones to the law of noncontradiction. Someone who begins this way has little that is useful to say about the first few pages of "With What Must the Science Begin?" This person's account comes after Hegel has already explained the speculatively motivated beginning; it comes at the point when Hegel speaks to those who have not been educated to the standpoint of science, in a language that they might understand, about the need for a presuppositionless beginning.So what is the basic feature of this speculative point of view?It is thought that unlike formal reason does not move while preserving truth along a string of propositions in accord with certain established rules. Instead, speculative thought constitutes its own determinations.How does it do this?It does this every time thought shifts its perspective from one of enacting to one of observing what thought has enacted.I have explained how this works countless times. But you just don't see it. You seem unwilling to consider how thought's own activity - in keeping with the absolute nature of thought - is the source for thought's content. Until you take this approach seriously you will continue to look for the sense of Hegel's discourse solely in the contradictory discourse as if this discourse of its own accord disambiguates itself.You approach Hegel with the same self-imposed blinders of someone who attempts to solve the six matchstick problem which asks for an arrangement of the sticks in such a way that four triangles are formed. The trick is to see that we have to arrange the sticks over three dimensions rather than just over a flat two dimensional plane.You are trying to make sense of Hegel by PRESUPPOSING that what we are doing as readers has no bearing on the truth of Hegel's account. You make the judgment that our thought is something unessential to the truth we are attempting to comprehend. This judgment is arbitrary. It cannot be defended.Moreover, it treats the truth as one thing and our thought as something apart from this truth. It reinstitutes the opposition between knowledge and truth. It fails to take thought itself as absolute.I am sure you believe that with your approach the wisdom of Hegel's thought will eventually manifest itself. But even if like Winfield you convince yourself that you have successfully made the journey through the Logic you will in the end still be unable to answer my questions.- Alan
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