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Single Idea 5433

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems ]

Full Idea

The basis of Hegel's system is that what is incomplete must not be self-subsistent, and needs the support of other things; whatever has relations to things outside itself must contain some reference to those outside things in its own nature.

Gist of Idea

For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature

Source

report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy Ch.14

Book Ref

Russell,Bertrand: 'The Problems of Philosophy' [OUP 1995], p.83


A Reaction

This leads to the idealist doctrine of 'internal relations'. It has some plausibility if you think about the physicist's definition of mass, which has to refer to forces etc. Presumably there is one essence for all of reality, instead of separate ones.


The 20 ideas from 'works'

Negation of negation doubles back into a self-relationship [Hegel, by Houlgate]
The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton]
Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton]
For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history [Hegel, by Houlgate]
Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate]
Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era [Hegel, by Houlgate]
Hegel reputedly claimed to know a priori that there are five planets [Hegel, by Field,H]
Humans have no fixed identity, but produce and reveal their shifting identity in history [Hegel, by Houlgate]
Hegel's Absolute Spirit is the union of human rational activity at a moment, and whatever that sustains [Hegel, by Eldridge]
Society isn’t founded on a contract, since contracts presuppose a society [Hegel, by Scruton]
When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural [Hegel]
Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof [Schopenhauer on Hegel]
Hegel said he was offering an encyclopaedic rationalisation of Christianity [Hegel, by Graham]
Hegel produced modern optimism; he failed to grasp that consciousness never progresses [Hegel, by Cioran]
Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book [Hegel, by Derrida]
Hegel doesn't storm the heavens like the giants, but works his way up by syllogisms [Kierkegaard on Hegel]
For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature [Hegel, by Russell]
On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel [Benardete,JA on Hegel]
Rather than in three stages, Hegel presented his dialectic as 'negation of the negation' [Hegel, by Bowie]
Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction [Hegel, by Meillassoux]