The below comes from an essay in THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO
HEGEL by Frederick Beiser: "Introduction: Hegel and the problem of
metaphysics".

The view presented below agrees almost completely with the view
expressed in the Gurdjieff system, as set forth in G.'s 'Diagram of
Everything Living' - the diagram of what eats what. The diagram
presents eleven levels of matter, from least to most subtle, from
Absolute to Absolute. The nine intermediate levels are: metals,
minerals, plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, man, angel, archangel,
and eternal-unchanging. I mention this because John Landon
expressed an interest in this chart in post 1923.

Beiser writes:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his early Jena years, and indeed throughout his career, Hegel saw
the purpose of philosophy as the rational knowledge of the absolute.

According to Schelling, the absolute is that which does not depend
upon anything else in order to exist or be conceived. Both in its
existence and essence, the absolute is independent of, or
unconditioned by, all other things. In other words, the absolute is
causi sui, that whose essence necessarily involves existence.

Schelling and Hegel did not hesitate to draw Spinozistic conclusions
from this definition of substance. Like Spinoza, they argued that
only one thing can satisfy this definition: the universe as a whole.
Since the universe as a whole contains everything, there will be
nothing outside it to depend upon; for anything less than the
universe as a whole, however, there will be something outside
it in relation to which it must be conceived. Schelling wrote: 'The
absolute is not the cause of the universe but the universe itself.'


But contrary to Spinoza's rigidly mechanical conception of the
universe, Schelling conceived of the single infinite substance in
vitalistic and teleological terms. Schelling saw substance as living
force. According to Schelling, all of nature is a hierarchic
manifestation of this force, beginning with its lower degrees of
organization and development in minerals, plants, and animals, and
ending with its highest degree of organization and development
in human self-consciousness. The absolute is not simply a machine,
then, but an organization, a self-generating and self-organizing
whole.

According to Schelling, the mind and body are not distinct kinds of
entity, but simply different degrees of organization and development
of living force. Mind is the most organized and developed form of
matter, and matter is the least organized and developed form of mind.

Hegel began to have serious doubts about some of Schelling's
formulations of the nature of the absolute.

Since Schelling's absolute excluded its modes, which determine the
specific characteristics of a thing, Hegel likened it to 'a night when
all cows are black'. If we are to remain true to its definition, Hegel
argued, then it is necessary to conceive of the absolute as the
whole of substance and its modes, as the unity of the infinite and
finite. Since the absolute must include all the flux of finitude and
appearance within itself, Hegel called it 'a Bacchanalian revel in
which no member is not drunken'.

Because of their conception of the absolute, Schelling and Hegel
believed they were justified in exempting their philosophy from
much of Kant's critique of metaphysics. The target of Kant's
critique was the old metaphysics of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school.
But this metaphysics was in the service of a deistic theology,
which conceived of the absolute as a supernatural entity
existing beyond the sphere of nature. Schelling and Hegel
happily agreed with Kant that metaphysics in this sense is
indeed impossible. They had, however, a different diagnosis of
its impossibility: it is not because the supernatural is unknowable,
as Kant thought, but because the supernatural does not exist.
All of Kant's worries about the unknowability of the noumenal
world were, in Schelling's and Hegel's view, simply the result of
hypostasis, of conceiving of the absolute as if it were only a
specific thing. If we conceive of the absolute in naturalistic
terms, Schelling and Hegel argue, then metaphysics does not
require the transcendent knowledge condemned by Kant. All
that we then need to know is nature herself, which is given
to our experience.

Seen in its proper historical perspective, Schelling's and Hegel's
metaphysics should be placed within the tradition of vitalistic
materialism, which goes back to Bruno and the early free-thinkers
of seventeenth-century England. This tradition attempted to
banish the realm of the supernatural, yet it was not atheistic.
Rather, it conceived of God as the whole of nature. Although it
held that nature consists in matter alone, it conceives of matter
in vitalistic rather than mechanistic terms. Matter was seen as
dynamic, having self-generating and self-organizing powers. The
similarities with Schelling's and Hegel's metaphysics are apparent.
But Schelling and Hegel should also be placed within this tradition
because they shared some of its underlying moral and political
values: a commitment to egalitarianism, republicanism, religious
tolerance, and political liberty. If it seems strange to regard
Hegel as a materialist, given all his talk about 'spirit', then we
must lay aside the usual mechanistic picture of materialism. We
also must not forget that for Hegel, spirit is only the highest
degree of organization and development of the organic powers
within nature.

Rather than being heterogeneous substances or faculties,
subject and object will be only different degrees of organization
and development of a single living force. The self-consciousness
of the subject will be only the highest degree of organization
and development of all the powers of nature, and inert matter
will be only the lowest degree of organization and development
of all the powers of the mind.

------------------------------------------


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

My remarks are not casual. I focus in on the point at issue: what moves the
Logic?

Most struggles with the text are struggles over this issue. So when someone
writes a book meaning to explain the beginning of the Logic there is going
to be a great deal of interest to see if finally someone is going to make it
clear how the Logic moves.

So how does the Logic move? According to Houlgate, the moves are 'logically
necessitated."

I do not find this helpful in the least.

His general approach is very familiar to me as I heard it all through my
years at grad school. There have been some things I have read by Houlgate
that I found helpful. But as I have been arguing for quite some time now, I
am not impressed by the arguments about the presuppositionless beginning of
the Logic. I do not mind discussing them. Randall and I got into an extended
discussion about this issue. Randall did about as a good job of defending
this argument as anyone I have encountered.

But I have followed the literature long enough to know that if someone
starts with this argument then they probably have little if any appreciation
for the speculative dimension of Hegel's thinking.

Speculative reason turns everything on its head including the nature of the
problems to be solved. In my view, the problem of a presuppositionless
beginning is not a speculative but a skeptical problem. These are two very
different philosophical world views.

So my comment about Houlgate is harsh because I want to stir things up. I
want to say what I think rather than what one should say in polite company.

I have been consistent about this from the start. My basic view is that the
level of scholarship worldwide on Hegel is extremely poor.

But we are fortunate to have Zizek whose work I find to be exceptional. I
should also say that there are some new young voices that also show promise.
So I am hopeful about the near future.

- Alan



From: <eupraxis@...>
Reply-To: <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 20:33:15 -0400 (EDT)
To: <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [hegel] Re: The problem of metaphysics








Alan,

I think that your position against Houlgate is unfortunate. I find it hard
to take seriously when you allege that Houlgate doesn't know what he is
talking about, especially with regards to one of the better books on Hegel's
philosophy (Introduction to Hegel, Freedom, Truth and History, Blackwell
2005, 2nd edition). I recommend this book highly -- and incidentally this
the only place that I know of where Houlgate writes at length on Hegel and
religion (although I must admit that I skimmed that part of the book).

The excerpt that appears on the marxism site I think stands as it it is, but
you might wish to know that it is only the introductory paragraph of the
essay, "Reason in Nature".

Wil


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Ponikvar <ponikvaraj@... <mailto:ponikvaraj%40gmail.com> >
To: hegel <hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com> >
Sent: Wed, Nov 2, 2011 12:02 am
Subject: Re: [hegel] Re: The problem of metaphysics

I think this is a useful reference as it highlights the problem we face: how
to make sense of what seems to be an illicit and unmotivated transition from
the Logic to the Philosophy of Nature.
I would like to focus my attention on one paragraph from Houlgate's piece:
"Hegel¹s account of the transition to the philosophy of nature is to be
found at the end of both the Science of Logic and the Encyclopaedia Logic,
and the formidable complexity and brevity of his arguments have led to
widely differing interpretations of this crucial logical move. In my view,
however, the core of Hegel¹s argument is clear. Reason does not transform
itself into nature gradually over time, nor does it precede nature in time
and bring nature into being through a creative act. Rather, absolute reason
discloses itself actually to be nature itself by proving logically to be
immediately self-relating being. Note that absolute reason can be said to be
the creative Œground¹ of nature, in so far as it makes nature necessary.
(This is the core of truth in the religious Vorstellung of Œdivine
creation¹). Yet reason Œgrounds¹ nature in a highly unusual manner: not by
preceding it in time, but by proving itself logically to be nothing less
than nature itself."
Houlgate gathers the relevant points. But is his account convincing? Well,
he begins with a big misstep claiming that "the core of Hegel's argument is
clear." As you know, as I read Hegel, clarity is for the understanding.
Speculative thought only arises when matters become most unclear or become
dialectical.
So, what is clear to Houlgate? Well, "absolute reason discloses itself
actually to be nature itself by proving logically to be immediately
self-relating being." He ends by repeating this claim: "reason Œgrounds¹
nature in a highly unusual manner: not by preceding it in time, but by
proving itself logically to be nothing less than nature itself."
So why is this, in fact, not clear? It is not clear because "proving
logically" is a meaningless phrase employed to bully a reader into accepting
something ­ this is made evident with the use of italics - that has not in
any sense been "proven logically". Houlgate does this all the time in his
book on the beginning of the Logic. He uses this meaningless phrase because
he really does not know what he is talking about, a common affliction of
Hegelian scholars. It is his way of thinking along with Hegel without
getting what this thinking along could possibly be about.
So what might it mean for absolute reason to disclose itself to be nature
itself? As Houlgate notes, there is a clear affinity with the notion of
divine creation. So is Hegel saying that existence ­ the brute stuff out
there - is created out of reason? Is he thinking along with god so as to
create as does god?
No. The truth is both more prosaic and more interesting then that. What we
get with every transition, wherever we are within a Hegelian exposition, is
a traversing of the divide internal to the absolute itself between the
articulation of the self-gathering whole and the articulation of this whole
as gathered.
This is what is prosaic. The attention shift between thinking a coherent
dialectic and recollecting the dialectic as coherent is all that happens
with the transition into nature. In other words, "proving logically" when
cashed out means the move from an involved to an observing attention to a
dialectical identity in difference. The logical move unique to Hegel is
available to Hegel because a movement can be either experienced or observed.
This distinction is not available in formal logic since thoughts don't move
for it.
So here is the problem: how is thought related to existence? Does brute
stuff emerge directly from reason? The problem is that this question is
posed within the frame of the natural assumption which distinguishes thought
and existence. What it does not do is respect the Hegelian achievement of
having thought inhabit the absolute which in turn changes what is at issue.
The absolute as inhabited is not about relating one thing to another. It is
about thought itself as capable of being self-alienated. Externality or the
brute stuff of existence is not for Hegel something sitting there waiting
for thought to dress it up. The thought of brute existence itself exhibits
absolute form when it comes to be thought. So in Perception in the
Phenomenology the attempt to think the Lockean thing ­ brute existence -
ends up with our thinking an absolute identity in difference that Hegel
calls the unconditioned universal.
So this is what is more interesting. Hegel is showing that pure externality
is itself a thought and is in fact in-itself or implicitly absolute. Nature
as there and the totality that ends the Logic are implicitly the same
thought. But as the externality of the absolute idea nature is this thought
in an alienated guise.
Now when I say that externality is a thought I do not mean to deny an
independent reality. Such a reality is what empirical sciences investigate
when what is is given. There is no sense that Hegel means to spin what
actually is the case out of his philosophy. What he does mean to do is show
that there is no mannequin for philosophy to dress up. Thought does not
dress nonthought. Nonthought itself is a thought and eventually shows itself
as such. So what Hegel wants to get rid of is Kant's thing in itself,
something that becomes the issue here with this transition into nature.
Philosophy is one thing. Empirical science is something else again. These
are two ways of investigating reality. For the latter, the truth is about
what is given. For the former ­ at least as Hegel sees it ­ truth is about
what is absolute without remainder. What this means then is that creation
itself is free to become a topic for empirical science. The metaphysical
distinction between reality and its emergence does not exist for Hegel.
Instead, there is the speculative distinction between emergence within
thought as absolute and emergence as just another thing for the scientist to
investigate.
So the problem of thought's relation to existence often gets confused with
the old metaphysical notion that the cause of the realm of causal relations
cannot itself be yet another cause within the realm. Curiously enough modern
physics is vindicating Hegel. What we might want to believe is something
external ­ since it looks external - proves to internal. This Hegelian
paradoxical thought actually indicates that science can investigate how the
universe began. We do not have to become metaphysicians to engage in such an
investigation. Philosophy and empirical science are simply two ways of
looking at the same thing. Philosophy's justification of empirical science
actually is nothing more than giving it free reign to investigate existence
right up to its limits.
In other words, by remaining true to speculative reason Hegel has given
reason for why the metaphysical puzzles about the limit of our universe
point to a seemingly irrational solution that is in fact truth: the external
is internal, or ultimate causes are just another cause we can investigate.
- Alan
From: vascojoao2003 <vascojoao2003@...
<mailto:vascojoao2003%40yahoo.com> >
Reply-To: <hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:57:19 -0000
To: <hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: [hegel] Re: The problem of metaphysics

--- In hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com>; , William Yate
<willyate@...> wrote:

>
> Hi John,
>
> I'm a little confused about the distinctions you are making here. In talking

to João, you classify the concept in terms of subjectivity and epistemology,
and
(the philosophy of) nature in terms of objectivity and ontology. This res
cogitans/res extensa type of distinction maps quite neatly onto your
classification of Fichte and Schelling: "Fichte begins everything with the
ego.
Schelling begins everything with "nature"--not nature as product, but nature
as
pure production or process." But then you follow this by saying that "I
suppose
one could say that Hegel begins everything with being." This confuses me
because
you seem to want to distinguish Hegel from Schelling, but it's not clear to
me
how nature as you describe it is different from being.

>
> At any rate, my confusion about the transition from Logic to Nature stems from

my crude understanding (I have not yet read the Logic) of these books as
being
about concepts and stuff that actually exists, respectively. The problem for
me,
then, is that it seems crazy to say that a concept, once it becomes perfect
or
absolute or whatever it becomes, thinks itself into existence. Basically I
think
my objection to this transition is the same as Kant's objection to the
ontological argument for the existence of God as a paralogism, an illicit
inference from logic to being.

Hi Will,

As to your concern with the transition from Logic to Nature you may find
this text interesting, I mean, I am not saying that it has the problem
solved or that it doesn't - I haven't dealt directly with Hegel's writtings
on this - but that it adresses the issue directly:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/houlgate2.htm

About the notion qua notion and the philosophy of nature I think you miss
interpreted John, but it is better to wait for is reply on this.

Regards,
João.

>
> Best,
> Will
>
>
>
> On Oct 21, 2011, at 12:02 PM, john wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > --- In hegel@yahoogroups.com <mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com>

<mailto:hegel%40yahoogroups.com>; , William Yate
<willyate@> wrote:

> > >
> > > Hi John,
> > >
> > > I look forward to your Beiser quotes and discussion, as I found his

"German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism" to be the single best
book
I have ever read on Kant and post-Kantian idealism. It's such a satisfying
read
after you've struggle through the three Critiques.

> > >
> > > I haven't yet reached Observing Reason, but I'm interested in what you are

saying about the unity of nature and concept, and about the transition from
Fichte to Schelling, because this seems to dovetail with my concern about
the
transition in the Encyclopedia from the Logic to the Philosophy of Nature.
To my
mundane, non-speculative mind this appears to be nothing other than a cheap
piece of prestidigitation. I recall also hearing somewhere (I think perhaps
a
Zizek lecture on youtube), that this transition is the focus of one of the
later
Schelling's major attacks on Hegel. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how
this
transition fits in with what you're discussing with João, if in fact it
does.

> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Will
> >
> > Dear Wil,
> >
> > The so-called transition from logic to nature in Hegel's system was indeed a

topic of scorn for late Schelling. I personally find all that Schelling says
about Hegel, and all the Hegel says about Schelling, to be quite
uninteresting.

> >
> > Undoubtedly there is a connection here with Hegel's "transition" from logic

to nature. Fichte begins everything with the ego. Schelling begins
everything
with "nature"--not nature as product, but nature as pure production or
process.
I suppose one could say that Hegel begins everything with being--if the
logic is
the beginning. If the Phenomenology is the beginning, then he begins with
consciousness. But Hegel really doesn't make such a big deal about the
beginning. Obviously you have to begin somewhere. Obviously some places make
better beginnings than others. But you could almost begin anywhere you like,
with the whole thing going around in a circle.

> >
> > John
> >
> >
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

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