Philosophy, like science, here on our side of time, from the advent of Modernity to this very moment, cannot accept the supernatural or magic as part of itself. Magic is precisely where thinking fails. It is precisely where science is not. To call anything like that philosophy, or science, or rational discourse, would amount to a scandal of the worst kind. Hegel wanted, in his later periods, to comprehend religion and redeem it, as it were, beyond the scandal of magical thinking and primitive representationalism. He seethes with derision when mentioning it (and always had, right from the start) — including in the Lectures.

Wil

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Ponikvar ponikvaraj@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
To: hegel <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 29, 2016 4:41 pm
Subject: Re: [hegel] Hegel's Problem and "The Real Issue"

 

Yes it is by those on this site. It is unfortunate that the theologically-minded on this site are argument adverse.

But that is not the case with everyone who takes these passages as Hegel's considered view. There are some - again not on this site - who recognize that these odd passages have to be related to an argument that shows how they fit with some conception of a Hegelian metaphysics.

Moreover, in either case, negligence is not a very convincing counter-claim.

- Alan

On Apr 29, 2016, at 11:41 AM, vascojoao2003@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

I think you are confusing the address of a supernatural notion of spirit with a supernatural address of the notion of spirit. If the notion of spirit has in its history an intimacy with the notion of the supernatural this must be taken into account.I do not reject this. What I reject is that this accounting for the supernatural is itself set as supernatural.

João.

---In hegel@yahoogroups.com, <ponikvaraj@

Because there might be a better explanation than negligence to explain these odd assertions. 

It is also important to keep in mind that there are serious scholars who develop a metaphysical reading of Hegel in sympathy with these odd assertions. 

Scholars who read Hegel nonmetaphysically tend simply to mock the notion that there is some supernatural spirit grinding the gears of the Hegelian dynamic. But few follow the mocking with a more sober account of why Hegel could not embrace a supernatural conception of spirit even though these odd passages seem to suggest that he does.

Part of the problem I believe is that the nonmetaphysical reading in killing the supernatural notion of spirit also tends to kill its speculative kernel. They not only want to reject what seems supernatural, they also want without knowing it to do away with much of what what is speculative in Hegel.

The same people who mock a metaphysical reading also tend to mock the notion that Hegel might be in violation of the basic laws of thought. 

Now I will admit that the theologically-minded on this site are not really interested in what we have to say which is why this is really about how the rest of us in talking among ourselves should deal with these passages. 

This has nothing to do with countering Paul. It has to do with recognizing that there are some people who actually can make an argument and not just quote - some people whose philosophic ability you might actually respect - who might fold these passages into their argument. For such people you will have to bring more to the discussion.

- Alan

On Apr 29, 2016, at 3:00 AM, vascojoao2003@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

I have added a point to my thoughts where I state that statements like those can be objects of philosophical thinking and therefore I am in agreement with your first idea.

I don't agree however that I should mediate my positions with the worry of what Paul or what he represents in terms of Hegel studies might think. For me it is Paul's - and his line of study's - loss that he keeps the direction he has taken. Why wouldn't I think that Hegel's thinking was negligent when it came up with unjustified, undeveloped and simple assertions like that.

Regards,

João.

---In hegel@yahoogroups.com, <ponikvaraj@...> wrote :

But philosophy is not a face value enterprise. It is not for us to accept or reject what are clearly outrageous remarks in the context of Hegel's philosophy. It is for us to find a way to make sense of these remarks.

In this respect our task is no different than when we try to make sense of the multitude of seemingly counter-intuitive passages throughout Hegel's philosophy.

We should not assume that with these remarks Hegel has temporarily lost his mind. If you take this position it becomes easy for Paul to make you look ridiculous when you claim that a great philosopher has made philosophically improper remarks. 

All Paul as to do is take the moderate position that Hegel means what he says. 

My response has been first to notice where such passages show up and where they do not show up. Where they do not show up is in the scientific expositions. As I then indicate in my post, it becomes an easy matter to offer a more plausible reading of these passages.

There might be a better or more subtle explanation of what Hegel is actually up to than I have offered. But when a thinker says something that is seemingly out of character we should see this as the challenge that it is. 

In the end, in the worst case we might have to conclude that these remarks are simply contrary to what we find in the scientific expositions and indicate an unexplainable inconsistency. 

But Hegel I believe gives us enough indications of what he is actually up to so that we can read them as I believe they were meant to be read, as assurances to distract the faithful from the implicit anti-theistic character of his thought.

- Alan

On Apr 29, 2016, at 1:17 AM, vascojoao2003@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

The fact is that those notions were placed and so at face value I personally reject them as being proper to a philosophical thinking.  

My ultimate point is that even if it was true (naturally true, in the sense of correspondence to an actual state of affairs) 

"that the truly Good -- the Universal Divine Reason -- is not a mere abstraction, but a vital principle capable of realizing itself. This Good, this Reason, in its most concrete form, is God" (Hegel, 1830, PoH, tr. Sibree, p. 36), 

this would still have a form improper of Philosophical thinking. Natural sciences also arrive at truths but that still does not make them philosophy. And I am not suggesting in any way they are inferior, they are just something other philosophy. And so are statements like those.

 

Regards,

João.

---In hegel@yahoogroups.com, <ponikvaraj@

Again, the fact that these type of statements always appear up front in the introductions to his lectures indicates their strategic placement. 

They appear where they can create a first impression on the reader, creating the impression that Hegel is not an ill-religious thinker without in any way affecting what is to follow in the body of his account.

Paul focuses on doubts about Hegel's religious conviction that came after his death. He ignores the scepticism voiced while he was still alive. He thus fails to read Hegel's over the top one-offs about god as an active agent within what could serve as the space of reasons that would make sense of these statements, reading them as a practical attempt to deflect the skepticism about his religious convictions.

It is not enough for Paul to simply stick with his tedious-when-not-bizarre reading of LPR. He enjoys his off-the-wall polemics directed against those of us who represent the dark forces on this site. It is the only way he seems able to talk to anyone who is not part of his little like-minded family.

- Alan

On Apr 28, 2016, at 11:32 PM, vascojoao2003@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

If Hegel had been reduced to the religious reading he would have been driven to a cul-de-sac of pseudo-philosophy. The Marxist interest in Hegel, insofar as it overtook the religious reading, saved Hegel from being driven by the altar people into an abject failure as a philosophy.

Those quotes from the Lectures on the Philosophy of History are at the level of opinion - they are unworthy of the Hegel of the PhG or the Science of Logic. 

João. 

---In hegel@yahoogroups.com, <eupraxis@

Paul,

This basically a straw man argument. "Kojève can't possibly be right, because he was Marxist, and because Marx was responsible for Stalin, in the next century (which he wasn't)." It is an unphilosophical argument.

And I hadn't quoted the Manifesto. It was M's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. All communists discuss that work, like Bob Wallace and Christopher Hitchens! Not!

Best,
Wil

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Trejo petrejo@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
To: hegel <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Apr 28, 2016 4:36 pm
Subject: Re: [hegel] Hegel's Problem and "The Real Issue"

 

Wil,
.
I solidly disagree. Alexandre Kojeve, author of "Introduction to the Reading of Hegel" (1947), was required reading back in 1987 at Cal State when I studied Hegel, and I was sorely disappointed in Kojeve's take on Hegel.
.
I realize that Kojeve is a guarded part of the 20th century canon, and a noted influence on Sartre, Derrida and most of the canon, nevertheless, it was Kojeve's strident Marxism that I perceived most strongly in his "Introduction".
.
One must first agree with Marxism in order to approve of the hatchet job that Kojeve worked upon Hegel's Idealism. But then, Wil, I remember that you quoted from Marx's CM just a few weeks ago. So, no surprise there..
.
The Master/Slave relationship, according to Hegel's PhG, starts in pre-history, and when Hegel was still alive (1831) there was *still* a predominance of the Master/Slave relationship -- completely legal -- in most nations of the world outside Europe.
.
Not only in China, in Asia generally, in the Middle East, in Africa and so on -- but even in the USA. Hegel wept.
.
So, Hegel's remarks upon the Master/Slave relationship far exceed the myopic Marxist model of the free-booter bourgeoisie that captured Kojeve.
.
Regards,
--Paul Trejo
.

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

On Thu, 4/28/16, eupraxis@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [hegel] Hegel's Problem and "The Real Issue"
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, April 28, 2016, 8:11 AM

There are, as we know, a plethora of takes on this question, but for me it is that dreaded Kojève who best unpacks the master/slave dialectic. I have a paper around here somewhere from my school days. Recognition and mutual inter-dependence and all that. The Phenomenology was written at a special time in history, of course. I go along with Pinkard that Hegel was essentially sympathetic with Jacobinism. And with Marx, say, that the external struggle is also the internal one, and vice versa.

Wil