On Monday, August 5, 2019, 11:14:09 AM CDT, bill.hord bill.hord@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Mary, I'm just trying to follow Hegel's thought.

When Hegel wrote of inner teleology, I don't think he had theodicy in mind -- I don't know why he would have. Similarly, it is theodicy that would want the whole to explain evil's place within history. My contention has been that evil, as such, doesn't have a place in history; this doesn't mean that one or more good could not come from evil. It's just not from evil as such. Actions (even evil ones) have unintended consequences. Also responses to evil can be rational or not; perhaps attempts to rationally understand evil have their roots here. 

"Functional teleology" has to do with biology -- the purpose of hearts is to pump blood, for example. That's their function. You can use them for other things, but that's their proper function (Millikan).

I would say, yes, surpasses our understanding -- and that's why Hegel emphasizes Reason. But he also emphasizes freedom and its false twin, choice. If choices can be rational or irrational, then mutatis mutandis actions informed by those choices can be irrational. I view it simply as a mistake to think (at least for Hegel, and I'm tagging along) that all everything that happens is rational (or for that matter, part of God's plan).

Bill 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of Mary Malo reading_for_meaning@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2019 11:07:12 AM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [hegel] 'What is real is rational and what is rational is real.'

 

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Bill, in your comments to Bob F. you wrote:

"The more rational, the more real or actual." This is my view of Hegel, which I think I stated. I think where I differ from almost everyone involved in the discussion, if not everyone, is that I take rationality and real, for Hegel, to apply everywhere, including the domain (purported to be) independent of humans. (I also think that for Hegel there is one universe or whole, and humans are a part of it; but that the connection that relates the parts and moments of this whole isn't our thought, but the functional teleology that arises from the Idea and is expressed immediately through the Concept. Reason is our true subjectivity.)

Isn't your "functional teleology" similar to what Adorno, I think, compared to a theodicy? Are you claiming that evil "appears" but is unreal, irrational because it's only a moment in which evil is undeveloped Concept? The whole will ultimately explain evil's place within history? How is this not the same as a theodicy? How is our thought separate from being "expressed immediately through the Concept"? It seems you are the one claiming independence of domains!

Perhaps I misunderstand you, or even Hegel's Appearance and Actuality. I don't see any difference between arguments for theodicy and teleology, if we must wait until the "end" for clarity for the non-actuality of evil. Idea/God is manifesting Itself to Itself, or making Itself objective. I don't believe the negativizing dialectic means any of Its moments are less real but that they're necessary for It and us, this Whole. 

A suffering, redemptive God demonstrates the real is rational, uniting what's implied in both theodicy and a secular teleology of the whole. Namely there is one Spirit, with Its impossibility of futility or waste in its becoming. Its "history" is ever present, moments of Its process notwithstanding.

Best regards, 

Mary

On Thursday, July 25, 2019, 10:34:25 AM CDT, bill.hord bill.hord@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Mary, it's very possible I misunderstood you. However, even if Zizek says the Holocaust was more real because of its apparent irrationality (I suppose I missed this in your earlier post), I don't believe it would be Hegel's view. I don't think he thought that about slavery, for example. To me that really is to stand Hegel on his head, with injury anticipated.

Bill 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of Mary Malo reading_for_meaning@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 9:44:02 AM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: Chris Fanelli <fanellichris@...>; Joe&Anne <josephcol@...>
Subject: Re: [hegel] 'What is real is rational and what is rational is real.'

 

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Bill,

In my brief presentation of Zizek's thought about the Holocaust being more real because of its apparent irrationality did I suggest either providence in the traditional sense or political expediency. His tarrying with the negative for common understanding points to how actual providence may work, e.g. through a movement of infinite diremption and reconciliation, not through temporal predestination. I'm not naive about Zizek's politics, nor am I averse to perceiving nuance among our group members' contributions. I agree with your contention that evil is unreal but probably not with your argument. 

Mary

On Thursday, July 25, 2019, 09:15:25 AM CDT, bill.hord bill.hord@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Bob, a number of your points are good ones, but I draw different conclusions from the same premises.

To clarify: I don't deny that the Holocaust (and many other genocides and crimes against humanity) occurred....... But I think the sense of "real" in the Doppelsatz is a distinctive Hegelian sense.

You quote Hegel: "The rational is synonymous with the idea, because in realizing itself it passes into external existence. It thus appears in an endless wealth of forms, figures and phenomena. It wraps its kernel round with a robe of many colors, in which consciousness finds itself at home."

You maybe take this to mean that because the rational is described as "an endless wealth of forms, figures and phenomena," ALL forms, figures, and phenomena must be rational. (To the same degree?)

Then you in my view contradict this: "The more rational, the more real or actual." This is my view of Hegel, which I think I stated. I think where I differ from almost everyone involved in the discussion, if not everyone, is that I take rationality and real, for Hegel, to apply everywhere, including the domain (purported to be) independent of humans. (I also think that for Hegel there is one universe or whole, and humans are a part of it; but that the connection that relates the parts and moments of this whole isn't our thought, but the functional teleology that arises from the Idea and is expressed immediately through the Concept. Reason is our true subjectivity.)

Evil can be said to arise as the undeveloped Concept, lacking in ways. But, importantly, it is not developed to coincide with the Concept. Humans go awry -- we have the freedom to organize ourselves in ways that lack any except the most attenuated connection to the idea or concept. This freedom is "providential," if you prefer that language, but what we do with it often isn't.

The part about the rational being "outside the domain of human behavior" is incomprehensible to me. How would that square with the Doppelsatz? Nothing inside the domain of human behavior (where we find the Holocaust) is real or rational? One could argue that nothing inside or outside the human domain is fully real or rational.

You also lose me when you write that Hegel's "reality is not the ovens of the Holocaust, rather the description of the ovens, the linguistic structures needed to describe such horrors." I think you get to this from the Idea. I believe it's mistaken to equate Hegel's Idea with linguistic structures (even if linguistic structures, like everything else, have some relation to the Idea). 

And I think it is also mistaken to claim that the real for Hegel is "the description of the ovens, the linguistic structures needed to describe such horrors." For example, in Observing Nature (this is what I've been reading), Hegel through a number of sections discusses sensibility, irritability, and reproduction as "properties" of the organic -- or that's the way it looks. He's actually criticizing Haller, Link, and Kielmeyer, who developed language and methods to examine quantitative relations between those three properties. It was in a strong sense a paradigm for biological science in that place and time. Now the basis of Hegel's criticism is that dealing merely with externals and the relations among them can't get to true understanding. For that, you have to approach the organic (and everything else, we can add) through the Concept -- because the Concept is the undeveloped real, and the undeveloped rational. Were Kielmeyer and the others irrational? No, says Hegel, because despite themselves they had an "instinct of Reason" (not fully developed reason, not absolute reason) that both moved them towards their inadequate ideas of external quantification as a way to grasp the organic, and kept them looking for something better. The point of this long, fascinating digression is that Kielmeyer, etc. has linguistic structures; and according to Hegel, these weren't fully rational. This is to say that there are degrees of rationality for Hegel, and that linguistic structures per se aren't fully rational for him. By the way, the instinct of reason also comes from the Concept.

When you (and others) say the Holocaust was rational inasmuch as we can understand it, you assume that we can understand it. John seems to think it made perfect economic sense (and adds that the Vichy government were somehow irrational not to participate fully, unless they had good economic reasons). Mary and Paul (and John) seem to think it was rational because it somehow served God's purposes -- the Holocaust was providential....... To me all this seems pretty repulsive. But we do live in a time when folks seem able to accept anything if it's politically expedient. When wasn't this true?

Bill 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of robert fanelli robertfanelli2001@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 6:06:13 PM
To: Hegel Hegel <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: Chris Fanelli <fanellichris@...>; Joe&Anne <josephcol@...>
Subject: [hegel] 'What is real is rational and what is rational is real.'

 

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Dear group,

Bill said:

 

·                         <It occurs to me that all the participants in this discussion so far assume that the Holocaust was real in Hegel's sense. I think not. >

 

<From Hegel's perspective (as evil as genocide truly is), such events are simply not real because they aren't rational. In more idiomatic English, there's no there there. It was a vacuous event that, because of its vacuity and scope, had overwhelming consequences. >

 

I offer:

 

I disagree.  The Holocaust was real and in order for us to understand it as well as possible, it was rational. 

 

Hegel said (PR, Preface):

" The rational is synonymous with the idea, because in realizing itself it passes into external existence. It thus appears in an endless wealth of forms, figures and phenomena. It wraps its kernel round with a robe of many colors, in which consciousness finds itself at home. "

I offer:

Here it is clearly stated that the rational is expressed as that which is described in 'an endless wealth of forms, figures and phenomena.' and such rational structures are the kingpin of cognitive understanding of reality.  The more rational, the more real or actual. It is not dealing with deeds, human behavior as to whether it is real in itself.  In other words the rational is outside the domain of human behavior.  Hegel places no examples of rational or ethical behavior at this point of his treatise

Hegel  said:

 

"Against the doctrine that the idea is a mere idea, figment or opinion, philosophy preserves the more profound view that nothing is real except the idea."

 

I offer:

 

The 'form' is the frame of reference as to what  is real and what is rational.  Hegel is referring only to the forms of cognitive understanding.  His reality is not the ovens of the Holocaust, rather the description of the ovens, the linguistic structures needed to describe such horrors.

Regards,

Bob Fanelli