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Ideas of Georg W.F.Hegel, by Text

[German, 1770 - 1831, Born in Stuttgart. University of Heidelberg 1816. Professor in Berlin, 1818 till his death.]

1796	Oldest System Prog. of German Idealism

	p.130	7083	Highest reason is aesthetic, and truth and good are subordinate to beauty
			Full Idea: I am now convinced that the highest act of reason, which embraces all ideas, is an aesthetic act, and that truth and goodness are brothers only in beauty.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Oldest System Prog. of German Idealism [1796]), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Append
			A reaction: This seems to be the distinctive value framework of the romantic movement and the nineteenth century, where art is destined to replace religion. However, Plato in the Symposium is an interesting ally. Aim for beauty, and the rest follows?

1807	Phenomenology of Spirit

	p.13	21987	History is the progress of the consciousness of freedom
			Full Idea: The History of the World is none other than than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 2
			A reaction: [no ref given] Presumably there is an evolutionary view implicit in this. Presumably also later generations are hereby superior to previous generations. Since no one still has this view of history, does that invalidate Hegel?

	p.23	20741	Consciousness is shaped dialectically, by opposing forces and concepts
			Full Idea: In 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' Hegel offers a panoptic account of Western consciousness as a dialectical process shaped by opposing principles - such as subject/object, freedom/determinism, temporal/eternal, and particular/universal.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Subjective'
			A reaction: A helpful pointer, for us poor analytic philosophers, who stare in bewilderment at Hegel's stuff, despite its apparent importance. At moment it is the politics that strikes me as most interesting in Hegel. This is cultured consciousness, pre-Marx.

	p.34	6915	Hegel made the last attempt to restore Christianity, which philosophy had destroyed
			Full Idea: The Hegelian philosophy is the last magnificent attempt to restore Christianity, which was lost and wrecked, through philosophy, and to restore Christianity (as usual in the modern era) by identifying it with the negation of Christianity.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Ludwig Feuerbach - Principles of Philosophy of the Future §21
			A reaction: What is meant by the 'negation' of Christianity needs some untangling, but I suspect that a lot of 'continental' philosophy 1750-1950 is to do with Christianity, unlike British empiricism, which is intrinsically atheistic.

	p.36	6917	God is the essence of thought, abstracted from the thinker
			Full Idea: In Hegel the essence of God is actually nothing other than the essence of thought, or thought abstracted from the ego, that is, from the one who thinks.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Ludwig Feuerbach - Principles of Philosophy of the Future §23
			A reaction: Presumably Descartes' Cogito is the origin for this train of thought. This is Feuerbach's reading of Hegel, but the former was keen on the idea of God as idealised humanity.

	p.61	21773	Experience is immediacy, unity, forces, self-awareness, reason, culture, absolute being
			Full Idea: Experience moves from 1) immediacy, to 2) united objects with properties, 3) its forces and laws, 4) self-consciousness in the process, 5) seeing a rational realm, 6) seeing a cultural realm, 7) seeing the absolute being of consciousness.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'From certainty'
			A reaction: [My summary of Houlgate's summary of the key sequence of ideas in The Phenomenology of Spirit]. I stare at it with bewilderment, but cannot decide whether or not Hegel is pursuing a worthwhile project. [also Houlgate p.77 and 102]

	p.78	21774	Genuine idealism is seeing the ideal structure of the world
			Full Idea: Genuine (as opposed to subjective) idealism, for Hegel, is the point of view that knows the world to have a rational, and therefore 'ideal', structure.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 04 'The Unhappy'
			A reaction: Compare Leibniz, whose monad theory is said to be a sort of idealism, because it places ideas at the heart of reality. Is Plato also this sort of 'genuine' idealism? Do we need different terms for 'genuine' and 'subjective' idealism? And 'transcendental'?

	p.104	21776	Philosophy aims to reveal the necessity and rationality of the categories of nature and spirit
			Full Idea: For Hegel, philosophy's principal task is to disclose the enduring necessity and rationality of the categories and forms of nature and spirit that it examines.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 4 'Phenomenology'
			A reaction: The idea that a miserable little evolved and transient mammal on a tiny planet has direct insight into the necessities and categories of nature and spirit looks a shade optimistic to me. You have to admire the ambition, though.

	p.142	15611	I develop philosophical science from the simplest appearance of immediate consciousness
			Full Idea: In my 'Phenomenology of Spirit' the procedure adopted was to begin from the first and simplest appearance of the spirit, from immediate consciousness, and to develop the dialectic right up to the standpoint of philosophical science.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Logic (Encyclopedia I) §25 Rem
			A reaction: I take metaphysics to be either Parmenidean (starting from Being) or Cartesian (starting from mind), and this (surprisingly, given his lengthy talk of Being) shows Hegel to be a quintessentially Cartesian philosopher. Aristotle is the great Parmenidean.

	p.177	5647	Hegel claims knowledge of self presupposes desire, and hence objects
			Full Idea: Hegel seems to argue that the immediate knowledge of self (the Cartesian premise) presupposes the activity that constitutes the self, and this presupposes desire, and hence the knowledge of objects.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12
			A reaction: This hardly amounts to an argument, but I find it quite sympathetic as a claim. It fits comfortably with modern externalist accounts of thought. While solipsism seems a logical possibility, it hardly amounts to a coherent account of mental life.

	p.177	5648	For Hegel knowledge of self presupposes objects, and also a public and moral social world
			Full Idea: Hegel tries to show that knowledge of self as subject presupposes not just knowledge of objects, but knowledge of a public social world, in which there is moral order and civic trust.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12
			A reaction: This is not far off Wittgenstein's private language argument. It is also Popper's 'World Three', of society and language. Human reality is incomprehensible without some recognition of the culture in which we immerse, like fish in water.

	p.224	22033	Hegel tried to avoid Kant's dualism of neutral intuitions and imposed concepts
			Full Idea: Hegel tried to avoid the untenable Kantian dualism between concepts and intuitions, and the Kantian mechanism of the 'imposition' of concepts on sensibility entailed by that dualism (with intuition having neutral content).
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09
			A reaction: [Pinker is describing the opening of Phenomenology] In modern discussions this concerns the idea of The Given, which is wholly uninterpreted raw experience. Sellars and MacDowell. Kant seems to split an agent into two (Master/Slave).

	p.242	22034	Modern life needs individuality, but must recognise that human agency is social
			Full Idea: Hegel argued that the modern world necessarily had to make space for individuals and their inviolable conscience, while not becoming so individualistic that it failed to acknowledge the deep sociality of human agency. ...Subjectivity became a right.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09
			A reaction: [at the end of the chapter on the history of Geist in the Phenomenology] Conservatives, revolutionaries and communitarians all claim Hegel as their own. The sociality is a matter of mutual law-giving, as in the Master/Slave.

	p.249	22035	The structure of reason is a social and historical achievement
			Full Idea: The lesson of Hegel's Phenomenology was that the structure of reason was social, and was therefore a historical achievement.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 10
			A reaction: This must be one of the most influential ideas to have filtered into the modern world. It is a predecessor of Marxist sociology. The idea that stands against it is Frege's platonist view of logic, making it necessary, despite being historical.

p.052	p.52	21770	Consciousness is both of objects, and of itself
			Full Idea: Consciousness is, on the one hand, consciousness of the object, and on the other, consciousness of itself.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], p.052), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'The Method'
			A reaction: Hume challenges whether there is any knowledge of consciousness purely in itself. Schopenhauer flatly disagreed (Idea 4166) - but then he would, wouldn't he?

p.053	p.53	21771	Consciousness derives its criterion of knowledge from direct knowledge of its own being
			Full Idea: In what consciousness affirms from within itself as being-in-itself or the True we have the standard which consciousness itself sets up by which to measure what it knows.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], p.053), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'The Method'
			A reaction: This seems to be a very close relation of Descartes' 'clear and distinct conceptions'. This certainly places Hegel in the Rationalist camp.

p.28	p.100	22082	Truth does not appear by asserting reasons and then counter-reasons
			Full Idea: It is not difficult to see that the way of asserting a proposition, adducing reasons for it, and in the same way refuting its opposite by reasons, is not the form in which truth can appear.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], p.28), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.100
			A reaction: This is a pretty good description of the way Plato and Aristotle do philosophy, so this idea, which must be a founding idea for the 'continental school', is extremely radical. Personally I identify rationality with believing things for good reasons.

p.461	p.100	21775	The God of revealed religion can only be understood through pure speculative knowledge
			Full Idea: God is attainable in pure speculative knowledge alone and is only in that knowledge, and is only that knowledge itself, for He is Spirit; and this speculative knowledge is the knowledge of revealed religion.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], p.461), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 04 'Absolute'
			A reaction: If you were hoping to find out why Hegel believed in God, I fear this is the best evidence available. He is evidently opposed to natural theology. Hegel's language makes it very hard to grasp how we sees the nature of God.

Pref 01	p.1	8927	Philosophy moves essentially in the element of universality
			Full Idea: Philosophy moves essentially in the element of universality.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 01)
			A reaction: I would take this to be uncontroversially correct. An interesting test case is applied ethics, which seems embedded in current cultural practices. I would always take it to be searching for what is universal in each situation.

Pref 06	p.4	8928	The Absolute is not supposed to be comprehended, but felt and intuited
			Full Idea: The Absolute is not supposed to be comprehended, it is to be felt and intuited.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 06)
			A reaction: Hegel was a rather romantic philosopher. Where does the 'supposed' come from? If the Absolute is only felt and intuited, can the resulting apprehensions be reported to others? Is this, in fact, mysticism?

Pref 16	p.9	8929	In the Absolute everything is the same
			Full Idea: In the Absolute everything is the same.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 16)
			A reaction: This is indistinguishable from the great spherical reality of Parmenides. It is not unreasonable to enquire about the epistemology of this claim. Is Hegel a seer, or can we all intuit this insight into reality?

Pref 20	p.11	7077	The true is the whole
			Full Idea: The true is the whole.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 20)
			A reaction: This is the full idealist coherence view of truth, that one only approaches the Truth (capital T) as one builds up a more and more coherent picture. It makes truth unattainable, and that strikes me as a bit silly.

Pref 26	p.15	8930	The in-itself must become for-itself, which requires self-consciousness
			Full Idea: The in-itself has to express itself outwardly and become for itself, and this means simply that it has to posit self-consciousness as one with itself.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 26)
			A reaction: This famous distinction seems to be at the core of idealism, but also to be the germ of existentialism (prior to Kierkegaard), which builds on this view of what it means to exist as an individual. Self-consciousness in nature is inevitable?

Pref 34	p.20	8931	The movement of pure essences constitutes the nature of scientific method
			Full Idea: The movement of pure essences constitutes the nature of scientific method in general.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 34)
			A reaction: This would appear to be precisely the idea of scientific essentialism - if he is saying that science seeks to understand the movement (or power) of essences as they occur in nature.

Pref 48	p.28	8932	Truth does not come from giving reasons for and against propositions
			Full Idea: The way of asserting a proposition, adducing reasons for it, and in the same way refuting its opposite by reasons, is not the form in which truth can appear.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 48)
			A reaction: I can't see Plato or Aristotle agreeing with this. It is obviously the prelude to Hegel's dialectical account of reasoning. However, if we don't believe things because we have good reason to, I'm not sure where we shoud start.

Pref 53	p.32	8933	Science confronts the inner necessities of objects
			Full Idea: Scientific cognition demands surrender to the life of the object, or, what amounts to the same thing, confronting and expressing its inner necessity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 53)
			A reaction: This strikes me as being a much better account of what science tries to do than all the modern talk about laws and theories.

Pref 54	p.33	8934	Being is Thought
			Full Idea: Being is Thought.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 54)
			A reaction: You won't find a more succinct slogan for idealism than that. Speaking as what Tim Williamson (referring to himself) calls a 'rottweiler realist', I can't quite get the hang of Hegel's claim. What does he think thought is, if it isn't about the world?

Pref 67	p.41	8935	Without philosophy, science is barren and futile
			Full Idea: Let other sciences try to argue as much as they like without philosophy - without it they can have in them neither life, Spirit, nor truth.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 67)
			A reaction: To be pinned up in every physics laboratory in the world. On the whole I agree with this. My slogan is 'science is the servant of philosophy'. An unphilosophical scientist is just a technologist, an artisan.

Pref 69	p.43	8936	Human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds
			Full Idea: Human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit [1807], Pref 69)
			A reaction: A lovely slogan, that makes Hegel the father of the communitarian movement. The politics of Hegel can, of course, be sinister, so one must proceed with care, and study history to see where it can all go wrong.

1812

works

	p.3	3301	On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel
			Full Idea: In continental Europe it is widely believed that the metaphysical game was played out in Hegel.
			From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Intro

	p.6	21755	For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history
			Full Idea: For Hegel, the categories of thought are not fixed, eternal forms that remain unchanged throughout history, but are concepts that alter their meaning in history.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
			A reaction: This results from a critique of Kant's rather rigid view of categories. This idea is very influential, and certainly counts among Hegel's better ideas.

	p.6	21754	Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world
			Full Idea: For Hegel, the structure of our concepts and categories is identical with, and thus discloses, the structure of the world itself, because we ourselves are born into and so share the character of the world we encounter.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
			A reaction: This is a reasonable speculation, but it makes more sense in the context of natural selection, and an empiricist theory of concepts.

	p.17	21758	Humans have no fixed identity, but produce and reveal their shifting identity in history
			Full Idea: For Hegel, the absolute truth of humanity is that human beings have no fixed, given identity, but rather determine and produce their own identity and their world in history, and that they gradually come to the recognition of this fact in history.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
			A reaction: This quintessentially existentialist idea, most obvious in Sartre, seems to have originated with this view of Hegel's.

	p.64	8215	Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book
			Full Idea: Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Jacques Derrida - Positions p.64
			A reaction: Reference to 'the Book' connects this to the great religions which rely on one holy text. The implication is that Hegel was proposing one big solution to all problems. It is doubtful if many philosophers before Hegel dreamt of that either.

	p.69	9225	Hegel reputedly claimed to know a priori that there are five planets
			Full Idea: Hegel is reputed to have claimed to have deduced on a priori grounds that the number of planets is exactly five.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Hartry Field - Recent Debates on the A Priori 1
			A reaction: Even if this is a wicked travesty of Hegel, it will do nicely to represent the extremes of claims to a priori synthetic knowledge. Field doesn't offer any evidence. I would love it to be true.

	p.72	6686	Hegel said he was offering an encyclopaedic rationalisation of Christianity
			Full Idea: Hegel claimed that his philosophy was nothing less than an encyclopaedic rationalisation of the Christian religion.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.5
			A reaction: Why did he pick Christianity to rationalise? How can you reason properly if you start with a dogma?

	p.77	20414	Hegel's Absolute Spirit is the union of human rational activity at a moment, and whatever that sustains
			Full Idea: We may take Hegel's Absolute Spirit to be the union of collective, human rational activity at a historical moment with its proper object, the forms of social and individual life that the rational activity is devoted to understanding and sustaining.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics) 1
			A reaction: From this formulation it sounds as if the whole human race might have momentary union, but presumably it is more local 'peoples' that can exhibit this.

	p.83	5433	For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature
			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.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy Ch.14
			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.

	p.84	20952	Rather than in three stages, Hegel presented his dialectic as 'negation of the negation'
			Full Idea: Hegel's 'dialectic' is often characterised in terms of the triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This is, however, not the way he presents it. The core of the dialectic is rather what Hegel terms the 'negation of the negation'.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy
			A reaction: Interestingly, this connects it to debates about intuitionist logic, which denies that double-negation necessarily makes a positive. Presumably Marx emphasised the first reading.

	p.95	22079	Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era
			Full Idea: Hegel's disagreement with Kant is that categories are not unambiguously universal forms of human understanding, but are conceived in subtly different ways in different cultures and in different historical epochs.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95
			A reaction: This may be Hegel's most influential idea. Though he hoped that categories would contain truth, by arising untrammelled from reason, and thereby matching reality. His successors seem to have given up on that hope, and settled for relativism.

	p.100	16011	Hegel doesn't storm the heavens like the giants, but works his way up by syllogisms
			Full Idea: Hegel is a Johannes Climacus who does not storm the heavens, like the giants, by putting mountain upon mountain, but climbs aboard them by way of his syllogisms.
			From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Søren Kierkegaard - The Journals of Kierkegaard 2A
			A reaction: [Idea from SY] This appears to be an attempt at insulting Hegel for his timidity, but it seems to be describing the cautious approach which most modern philosophers take to be correct. [PG]

	p.105	4347	When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural
			Full Idea: When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]), quoted by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.4
			A reaction: Sounds good, though I'm not sure what it means. The application of the word 'natural' seems a bit arbitrary to me. No objective joint exists between the natural and unnatural. The default position has to be that everything is natural.

	p.124	21777	Negation of negation doubles back into a self-relationship
			Full Idea: For Hegel, the 'negation of negation' is negation that, as it were, doubles back on itself and 'relates itself to itself'.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 6 'Space'
			A reaction: [ref VNP 1823 p.108] Glad we've cleared that one up.

	p.150	19635	Hegel produced modern optimism; he failed to grasp that consciousness never progresses
			Full Idea: Hegel is chiefly responsible for modern optimism. How could he have failed to see that consciousness changes only its forms and modalities, but never progresses.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by E.M. Cioran - A Short History of Decay 5

	p.170	5645	The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming
			Full Idea: The concept of being contains within itself it own negation - nothing - and the dialectical opposition between these two concepts is resolved only in the passage to a new concept, becoming, which contains the truth of the passage from nothing to being.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12
			A reaction: The idea that one concept 'contains' another, or that an opposition could be 'resolved' by a new concept, sounds doubtful to me. For most analytical philosophers, and for Aristotle, oppositions are contradictions, and cannot and should not be 'resolved'.

	p.171	5646	Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything
			Full Idea: It would not be unfair to say that Hegel's metaphysics consists of an ontological proof of the existence of everything.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12
			A reaction: This is so gloriously far from David Hume that we must all find some appeal in it. The next question would be whether necessary existence has been proved. If so, given death, decay and entropy, what is it that has to exist? 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?

	p.268	4188	Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof
			Full Idea: Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof.
			From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Arthur Schopenhauer - Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' Ch.II
			A reaction: All massive a priori metaphysics is summed up in this argument, which is right at the core of philosophy.

	p.417	3909	Society isn’t founded on a contract, since contracts presuppose a society
			Full Idea: For Hegel, society cannot be founded on a contract, since contracts have no reality until society is in place.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 28.2
			A reaction: Interesting, and reminiscent of the private language argument, but contracts surely start as deals between individuals (on a desert island?).

3	p.71	19661	Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction
			Full Idea: Hegel saw that the absolutization of the principle of sufficient reason (which marked the culmination of the belief in the necessity of what is) required the devaluation of the principle of non-contradiction.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812], 3) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 3
			A reaction: I pass this on without understanding it, though a joint study of my collection of ideas on sufficient reason and non-contradiction might make it clear. [Let me know if you can explain it!]

1816	Science of Logic

	p.32	21760	Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking
			Full Idea: Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking. Thought that suspends all its presuppositions and so ends up thinking of nothing determinate still remains thought, albeit utterly indeterminate and inchoate thought.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate'
			A reaction: This is the very starting point of Hegel's dialectical inferences in his 'Logic'. It is hard to entirely disagree, though I wonder whether the exercise is actually possible. What are you aware of if you have a thought with no content?

	p.34	21761	If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair
			Full Idea: Presuppositionless thinking which begins by thinking pure, indeterminate being must therefore come to think being and nothing in terms of one another.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate'
			A reaction: In Houlgate's account this seems to be the key Hegelian thought. Simply by confronting nothingness he gets the idea that one concept can lead to an alternative, and that the two can then be grasped together, which is his dialectic.

	p.35	21762	To grasp an existence, we must consider its non-existence
			Full Idea: It is only to the extent that we can say that something is not, that we can say what it actually is.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate'
			A reaction: A key idea for Hegel, but it leaves me flat. Thinking about the non-being of something throws no light at all for me on the inexpressible actuality of its existence.

	p.38	21765	The ground of a thing is not another thing, but the first thing's substance or rational concept
			Full Idea: Hegel's logic reveals that the true ground of something is not something other than it is, but the substance of that thing itself, or the rational concept that makes the thing what it is.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method'
			A reaction: This seems to be classic Aristotelian essentialism, though Aristotle was also interested in dependence relations.

	p.38	21766	Dialectic is the instability of thoughts generating their opposite, and then new more complex thoughts
			Full Idea: The dialectical principle, for Hegel, is the principle whereby apparently stable thoughts reveal their inherent instability by turning into their opposites and then into new, more complex thoughts (as being turns to nothing, and then becoming).
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method'
			A reaction: Houlgate says this is unique to Hegel, and is NOT the familiar thesis-antithesis-synthesis idea of dialectic, found in Kant and Engels. Hegelian idea shares the Greek idea of insights arising from oppositions.

	p.38	21764	Thought about being leads to a string of other concepts, like becoming, quantity, specificity, causality...
			Full Idea: In the course of (Hegel's) logic, we come to understand that to think being is to think becoming, quality, quantity, specificity, essence and existence, substance and causality, and, ultimately, self-determining reason itself.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method'
			A reaction: Extraordinary! Houlgate spells out nicely what some commentators seem to gloss over, the huge a priori ambitions of Hegel's thought. I find his entire programme utterly implausible.

	p.38	21763	When we explicate the category of being, we watch a new category emerge
			Full Idea: For Hegel, by explicating the indeterminate category of being, we do not merely restate in different words what is obviously 'contained' in it; we watch a new category emerge.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method'
			A reaction: This is obviously a response to Kant's view of analyticity, as merely explicating the contents of the subject of the sentence, without advancing knowledge or conceptual resources. A key idea of Hegel's, which I find unconvincing.

	p.46	22058	Hegel's 'absolute idea' is the interdependence of all truths to justify any of them
			Full Idea: Hegel's system culminates in the 'absolute idea', the explanation of why all particular truths depend on the relationship to other truths for their justification.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3
			A reaction: The 'hyper-coherence' theory of justification. The normal claim is that there must be considerable local coherence to provide decent support. Hegel's picture sounds like part of the Enlightenment Dream. Is the idea of 'all truths' coherent?

	p.49	22059	Kant's thing-in-itself is just an abstraction from our knowledge; things only exist for us
			Full Idea: For Hegel there is no thing-in-itself, because the thing only becomes a something by being for us. Kant's thing-in-itself is the result of abstracting from the thing everything we know about it.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3
			A reaction: This seems to pinpoint why Hegel is an idealist philosopher. Frege objected to abstraction for similar reasons. I don't understand how the tree outside my window can only exist 'for me'. I have a much better theory about the tree.

	p.90	20954	The 'absolute idea' is when all the contradictions are exhausted
			Full Idea: The point in philosophy at which the contradictions are exhausted is what Hegel means by the 'absolute idea'.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 4 'Questions'
			A reaction: {Can't think of a response to this one)

	p.90	20953	Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not
			Full Idea: Hegel relies on the claim that every concept depends for its determinacy upon its relation to other concepts which it is not (so that even the concept of being depends, for example, upon the concept of nothing).
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 4 'Questions'
			A reaction: How does he know this? A question I keep asking about continental philosophers. The negation concepts must be entirely non-conscious. Which negation concepts are relevant to the concept 'tree'?

	p.101	22083	Hegel believe that the genuine categories reveal things in themselves
			Full Idea: Hegel believed, unlike Kant, that the categories of the understanding, when properly understood, disclose the nature of things in themselves and not just the character of things as they appear to us.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.101
			A reaction: 'Properly understood' sounds like 'no true Scotsman'. This is thoroughgoing idealism, because reality is determined by the activity of the mind, and not from outside. The Hegel story makes more sense if you see the categories as evolutionary.

	p.165	21972	Hegel, unlike Kant, said how things appear is the same as how things are
			Full Idea: Hegel rejected the fundamental Kantian distinction between how things knowably appear and how they unknowably are in themselves. This was anathema to him. For Hegel how things knowably appear is how they manifestly are.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.2
			A reaction: We shouldn't assume that Hegel was therefore a realist, because Berkeley would agree with this idea. Hegel rejected transcendental idealism for this reason. Hegel wanted to get rid of the immanent/transcendent distinction

	p.262	22038	Hegel's non-subjective idealism is the unity of subjective and objective viewpoints
			Full Idea: The unity of the two points of view (subjective and objective) constitutes Hegel's idealism. ...He kept emphasising that it was not 'subjective' idealism.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 10
			A reaction: Subjective idealism denies the objective point of view. [**20th June 2019, 10:49 am. This is the 20,000th idea in the database. The project was begun in 1997, as organised notes to help with teaching. For the last ten years today has been my target**].

	p.320	22044	Hegel claimed his system was about the world, but it only mapped conceptual interdependence
			Full Idea: In the view of the later Schelling, although Hegel's system only really laid out the ways in which the senses of various concepts depended on each other, it claimed to be a system about the world itself.
			From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860
			A reaction: I'm no expert, but I'm inclined to agree with Schelling. Since I am suspicious of the idea that each concept generates its own negation, I also doubt the accuracy of Hegel's map. I'm a hopeless case.

	p.336	21464	The Absolute is the primitive system of concepts which are actualised
			Full Idea: In Hegel the Absolute is the exhaustive, unconditioned and self-grounding system of concepts made concrete in actuality, the world of experience.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Sebastian Gardner - Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason 10 'Absolute'
			A reaction: If I collect multiple attempts to explain what the Absolute is, I may one day drift toward a hazy understanding of it. Right now this idea means nothing to me, but I pass it on. His notion of 'concept' seems a long way from the normal modern one.

Intro	p.258	22037	Objectivity is not by correspondence, but by the historical determined necessity of Geist
			Full Idea: What gives objectivity to a judgment about an object is not correspondence, but the way in which a judgement is located within a pattern of reasonng that is determined by the way in which Geist is historically determined as necessarily taking the object.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], Intro) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860
			A reaction: I quote this, but I'm blowed if I can make sense of how objectivity could be achieved in such a way. How can a historical process create a necessary judgement? Sorry, I'm fairly new to Hegel. Pinker says it is the practice of giving reasons.

I.i.i.1C p.82,74	p.182	21983	Being and nothing are the same and not the same, which is the identity of identity and non-identity
			Full Idea: Pure being and pure nothing are the same, ...but on the contrary they are not the same ...they are absolutely distinct. ...This is the identity of identity and non-identity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.1C p.82,74), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
			A reaction: Even Moore, who is very patient with Hegel, gets cross at this point, describing such talk as 'shocking'. He's not wrong. Moore later says that the reason in reality tolerates contradictions, but human understanding can't.

I.i.i.C(c) p.150	p.173	21978	Hegel's dialectic is not thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but usually negation of negation of the negation
			Full Idea: The dialectic is often described in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis - though this is not a Hegelian way of speaking. Hegel himself sometimes describes it in terms of negation and negation of the negation.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.C(c) p.150) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4
			A reaction: A footnote says the first form of description only occurs once in Hegel's work. I am guessing that Marx is responsible for the standard misrepresentation.

I.i.i.C.1 Rem 3 p.101	p.172	21977	Nothing exists, as thinkable and expressible
			Full Idea: Nothing can be thought of, imagined, spoken of, and therefore it is.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.C.1 Rem 3 p.101), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4
			A reaction: This sounds like Meinong on circular squares. Does this mean that the negation of every truth also somehow exists? I struggle with this idea. Lewis Carroll nailed it.

I.i.ii.2C(b)	p.185	21985	The so-called world is filled with contradiction
			Full Idea: The so-called world is never and nowhere without contradiction. (...but it is unable to endure it)
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.ii.2C(b)), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
			A reaction: [Second bit in Ency I §11] To clarify this one would need to understand 'so-called'. Note that his claim is not that the world contains occasional contradictions, but that the whole of reality is contradictory. I think this idea is nonsense.

II.iii.3 p.824	p.170	21975	The absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and all truth
			Full Idea: The absolute idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth. ....All else is error, confusion, opinion, endeavour, caprice, and transitoriness.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], II.iii.3 p.824), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4
			A reaction: Hegel sounding a bit too much like an over-excited preacher here. The absolute idea seems to be the unified totality of all truths about reality. For Hegel human self-awareness is a big part of that. The idea is being because there is only one substance.

II.iii.3 p.825	p.170	21976	The absolute idea is the great unity of the infinite system of concepts
			Full Idea: We can think of the absolute idea roughly as the entire infinite system of interrelated concepts, in their indissoluble unity, as exercised in the self-consciousness towards which the process [of thought] leads. It is the 'telos' of the process.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], II.iii.3 p.825) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4
			A reaction: This expounds the quotation in Idea 21975. Moore emphasises concepts, where Hegel emphasises the truth. The connection is in Idea 5644.

p.125	p.99	22080	The nature of each category relates itself to another
			Full Idea: In the categories, something through its own nature relates itself to the other.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.125), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.99
			A reaction: This is the doctrine of internal relations rejected by Moore and Russell, and also the key idea in Hegel's logic - that ideas give rise to other ideas, without contribution by the thinker.

p.45	p.101	22084	Authentic thinking and reality have the same content
			Full Idea: Thinking in its immanent determination and the true nature of things form one and the same content.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.45), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.101
			A reaction: This is not much use unless we have a crystal clear idea of 'immanent determination', because we need to eliminate errors.

p.49	p.64	21772	In absolute knowing, the gap between object and oneself closes, producing certainty
			Full Idea: In absolute knowing ...the separation of the object from the certainty of oneself is completely eliminated: truth is now equated with certainty and this certainty with truth.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.49), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'Absolute'
			A reaction: I don't understand this, but I note it because Hegel is evidently not a fallibilist about knowledge. I take this idea to be Descartes' 'clear and distinct ideas', wearing a grand rhetorical uniform.

p.70	p.49	21769	We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being
			Full Idea: The beginning must be an absolute - an abstract beginning; and so it may not presuppose anything, must not be mediated by anything or have a ground; rather it is itself to be the ground of the entire science. ...The beginning therefore is pure being.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.70), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'Logic'
			A reaction: This is the 'presuppositionless' beginning of Hegel's metaphysics, which Houlgate emphasises. Hegel's logic is very obviously a direct descendent of Descartes' Cogito. But it is pure thought, with no mention of a Self.

1817	Logic (Encyclopedia I)

	p.168	5644	In Hegel's logic it is concepts (rather than judgements or propositions) which are true or false
			Full Idea: The terms of Hegel's logic are not judgements or propositions, but rather concepts: and it is concepts, in this view, that are true or false.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12
			A reaction: Quite alien to normal studies of logic, but I can make sense of a correspondence theory of truth for concepts, which might be more interesting than normal propositional or predicate logic. Does the concept of, say, a 'natural law' correspond to anything?

§03 Rem	p.135	15607	We don't think with concepts - we think the concepts
			Full Idea: There is a saying that, when we have grasped a concept, we still do not know what to think with it. But there is nothing to be thought with a concept save the concept itself.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §03 Rem)
			A reaction: Analytic philosophers should read Hegel on concepts, because he approaches the matter so very differently, and seems to be the root of the continental approach to such things. He seems to me to talk more sense than Frege on the subject.

§20	p.139	15608	The act of thinking is the bringing forth of universals
			Full Idea: Thinking as an activity is the active universal, and indeed the self-actuating universal, since the act, or what is brought forth, is precisely the universal.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §20)
			A reaction: One should contemplate animal thought in the light of this remark. Thought requires the recognition of types of things, and resemblances, and repetitions, and patterns. Language consists almost entirely of universals.

§20 Rem	p.140	15609	The sensible is distinguished from thought by being about singular things
			Full Idea: The distinction of the sensible from thought is to be located in that fact that the determination of the sensible is singularity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §20 Rem)
			A reaction: Compare Idea 15608, where we find that thought concerns universals. What a very clear thinker Hegel was!

§21	p.141	15610	Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it
			Full Idea: When thinking is taken as active with regard to ob-jects, as the thinking-over of something, then the universal - as the product of the activity - contains the value of the matter, what is essential, inner, true.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §21)
			A reaction: I prefer to talk of 'general terms' rather than 'universals'. If 'tiger' is coined for the first one, but must be applicable to subsequent tigers, it has to generalise what they all have in common. Locke's 'nominal' essence, I would say.

§213	p.276	19070	Superficial truth is knowing how something is, which is consciousness of bare correctness
			Full Idea: Truth is at first taken to mean that I know how something is. This is truth, however, only in reference to consciousness; it is formal truth, bare correctness.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213)
			A reaction: I would translate this idea as saying that bare correctness is conscious awareness of the truthmaker for some statement. Hegel then offers a 'deeper' account of the nature of truth. I would say awareness is quite separate from the concept of truth.

§213	p.276	19072	In the deeper sense of truth, to be untrue resembles being bad; badness is untrue to a thing's nature
			Full Idea: When truth is viewed in the deeper sense, to be untrue means much the same as to be bad. A bad man is an untrue man, and man who does not behave as his notion or his vocation requires.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213)
			A reaction: See Idea 19071 for the 'deeper sense'. This seems to confirm that Hegel's deeper concept of truth resembles authenticity. I guess it will be something fulfilling the essence of the thing. Doctors must be proper doctors. Gold must be true gold?

§213	p.276	19071	The deeper sense of truth is a thing matching the idea of what it ought to be
			Full Idea: Truth in the deeper sense is the identity between objectivity and the notion. It is in this deeper sense of truth that we speak of a true state or work of art. These are true if they are as they ought to be (their reality corresponds to their notion).
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213)
			A reaction: This seems to be a correspondence theory, but not as we know it, Jim. He seems to have a value built into truth, which sounds to me like existentialist 'authenticity'. I like what he is saying, but I would analyse it into two or more components.

§213	p.276	19073	True philosophy aims at absolute unity, while our understanding sees only separation
			Full Idea: Everything deserving the name of philosophy has constantly been based on the consciousness of an absolute unity, where the understanding sees and accepts only separation.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213)
			A reaction: Puzzled by the role of 'understanding' here. I tend to cite that as the highest aspiration of philosophy. Hegel seems to offer a higher understanding of unity, and a weaker analytic understanding, which is part of our limited psychology.

§24	p.44	21768	Logic is metaphysics, the science of things grasped in thoughts
			Full Idea: Logic coincides with metaphysics, with the science of things grasped in thoughts.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §24), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'Logic'
			A reaction: Not a very clear definition, given that thinking about a table appears to be a 'thing grasped in thought'. Presumably it refers to things which can only be grasped in thought, which seems to make it entirely a priori.

§24 Add 2	p.100	22081	Let thought follow its own course, and don't interfere
			Full Idea: Let thought follow its own course; and I think badly whenever I add something of my own.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §24 Add 2), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.100
			A reaction: The idea that reason has a course of its own is a mega-assumption, which I would only accept after a lot of persuasion, which I doubt that Hegel can provide. The modern analytic idea of metaphysics as logic has a similar basis.

§246 Add	p.95	22078	Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories
			Full Idea: Categories, like 'being', or 'individuality', are already mingled into every proposition, even when it has a completely sensible content, such as "this leaf is green".
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §246 Add), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95
			A reaction: This is the source of the idea that observation is theory-laden (which tracks back to Kant). Not Duhem, who gets the credit among analytic philosophers. Quine obviously never read Hegel. But the idea is overrated.

§28 Add	p.144	15612	Older metaphysics naively assumed that thought grasped things in themselves
			Full Idea: The older metaphysics has the naïve presupposition that thinking grasps what things are in-themselves, that things only are what they genuinely are when they are captured in thought.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §28 Add)
			A reaction: His 'older' metaphysics is prior to Kant's critique. The less naïve version is more aware of antinomies and dialectical conflicts within thought.

§28 Add	p.145	15613	Real cognition grasps a thing from within itself, and is not satisfied with mere predicates
			Full Idea: In genuine cognition ...an object determines itself from within itself, and does not acquire its predicates in an external way. If we proceed by way of predication, the spirit gets the feeling that the predicates cannot exhaust what they are attached to.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §28 Add)
			A reaction: I take this to be a glimpse of Hegel's notoriously difficult account of essence. Place this alongside Locke's distinction between Nominal and Real essences. Once we have the predicates, we want to grasp their source.

§28 Add	p.145	15614	Old metaphysics tried to grasp eternal truths through causal events, which is impossible
			Full Idea: When finite things are grasped according to the determinations of cause and effect they are known in their finitude. But objects of reason cannot be determined through such finite predicates, and the attempt to do this was the defect of older metaphysics.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §28 Add)
			A reaction: This sounds the launching point for a grand philosophical system which makes scientifically inclined philosophers feel very nervous indeed. I think I prefer the old (pre-Kantian) metaphysics.

§32	p.147	15615	Older metaphysics became dogmatic, by assuming opposed assertions must be true and false
			Full Idea: The older metaphysics became dogmatism because, given the nature of finite determinations, it had to assume that of two opposed assertions (of the kind that those propositions were) one must be true and the other false.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §32)
			A reaction: While dialethism in logic looks very dubious to me, I have every sympathy with Hegel when it comes to the reasonings of ordinary language. There it is much harder to know whether you are addressing truly opposed assertions.

§33 Rem	p.148	15616	If truth is just non-contradiction, we must take care that our basic concepts aren't contradictory
			Full Idea: If truth were nothing more than lack of contradiction, one would have to examine first of all, with regard to each concept, whether it does not on its own account, contain an inner contradiction.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §33 Rem)
			A reaction: This is a very nice thought, which modern analytic philosophers, steeped in logic, should think about. It is always presumed that a contradiction is between a proposition and its negation, not some inner feature.

§35 Add	p.149	15617	In abstraction, beyond finitude, freedom and necessity must exist together
			Full Idea: Considered as abstractly confronting one another, freedom and necessity pertain to finitude only and are valid only on its soil. A freedom with no necessity in it, and a mere necessity without freedom, are determinations that are abstract and thus untrue.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §35 Add)
			A reaction: This is, presumably, the Hegelian dialectical nature of things, that contradictories are bound together. We must struggle hard to undestand a freedom bound by necessity, and a necessity which contains freedom. (Good luck).

§36 Add	p.150	15618	If God is the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God is a mere Beyond, and unknowable
			Full Idea: When the concept of God is apprehended merely as that of the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God becomes for us a mere Beyond, and there can be no further talk of the cognition of God.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §36 Add)

§37	p.151	15619	Empiricism made particular knowledge possible, and blocked wild claims
			Full Idea: Empiricism resulted from a need for concrete content, as opposed to abstract theories that cannot advance from universal generalizations to the particular, and for a firm hold against the possibility of proving any claim at all in the field.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §37)
			A reaction: That sounds about right, and makes you wonder why Hegel wasn't an empiricist.

§38 Rem	p.151	15620	Empiricism contains the important idea that we should see knowledge for ourselves, and be part of it
			Full Idea: We must recognise the important principle of freedom that lies in Empiricism; namely, that what ought to count in our human knowing, we ought to see for ourselves, and to know ourselves as present in it.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §38 Rem)
			A reaction: Like Idea 15619, this is an interesting and perceptive remark, from a philosopher who seems a long way from empiricism. I presume he will be thinking mainly of Hume, via Kant. Personally I prefer Locke.

§38 Rem	p.151	15622	Empiricism unknowingly contains and uses a metaphysic, which underlies its categories
			Full Idea: Empiricism operates without knowing that it contains a metaphysics and is engaged in it, and that it is using categories and their connections in a totally uncritical and unconscious manner.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §38 Rem)
			A reaction: I doubt whether this is true of modern empiricists, who have been challenged so often from within their own ranks on so many things. I'm not even sure that it is true of Locke and Hume, apart from the way in which all philosophers are unaware of things.

§38 Rem	p.151	15621	Empiricism of the finite denies the supersensible, and can only think with formal abstraction
			Full Idea: Inasmuch as Empiricism restricts itself to what is finite, the consistent carrying through of its programme denies the supersensible altogether, ..and it leaves thinking with abstraction only, [i.e.] with formal universality and identity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §38 Rem)
			A reaction: I'm not clear how a denial of empiricism allows you (with intellectual integrity) to embrace 'the supersensible'. The set theoretic account of higher levels of infinity looks like a nice test case.

§39 Rem	p.152	15623	Humean scepticism, unlike ancient Greek scepticism, accepts the truth of experience as basic
			Full Idea: Humean scepticism should be very carefully distinguished from Greek scepticism. In Humean scepticism, the truth of the empirical, the truth of feeling and intuition is taken as basic. ..Greek scepticism turned itself against the sensible.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §39 Rem)
			A reaction: This seems right, and Hume himself was quite contemptuous of the sort of scepticism found in the ideas of Sextus Empiricus.

§41 Add1	p.153	15624	Free thinking has no presuppositions
			Full Idea: Thinking that is free is without presuppositions.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §41 Add1)
			A reaction: Fat chance, I would have thought. Hegel's project was indeed to try to get right to the bottom of the presuppositions. My picture is always of holding one thing presupposed while you examine another, and then switching to other presuppositions.

§41 Add2	p.154	15625	Sense perception is secondary and dependent, while thought is independent and primitive
			Full Idea: What can be perceived by the senses is really secondary and not self-standing, while thoughts, on the contrary, are what is genuinely independent and primitive.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §41 Add2)
			A reaction: Although this is post-Kant, it strikes me as a perfect slogan for rationalism. Personally I would say that such a dichotomy is becoming a historical relic, in the light of modern understanding of the brain. Experience and thought are inextricable.

§43-4	p.156	15626	Categories create objective experience, but are too conditioned by things to actually grasp them
			Full Idea: It is the categories that elevate mere perception into objectivity, into experience; but these concepts ...are conditioned by the given material. ...Hence the understanding, or cognition through categories, cannot become cognizant of things-in-themselves.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §43-4)
			A reaction: As one often fears with Hegel, this sounds like a deep insight, but is less persuasive when translated into simpler English (if I've got it right!). Being 'conditioned by the material' strikes me as just what is needed for good categories.

§48	p.159	15628	The idea that contradiction is essential to rational understanding is a key modern idea
			Full Idea: The thought that the contradiction which is posited by the determinations of the understanding in what is rational is essential and necessary, has to be considered one of the most important and profound advances of the philosophy of modern times.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §48)
			A reaction: This is the aspect of Kant's philosophy which launched the whole career of Hegel. Hegel is the philosopher of the antinomies. Graham Priest is his current representative on earth.

§48 Rem	p.159	15629	Tenderness for the world solves the antinomies; contradiction is in our reason, not in the essence of the world
			Full Idea: The solution to the antinomies is as trivial as they are profound; it consists merely in a tenderness for the things of this world. The stain of contradiction ought not to be in the essence of what is in the world; it must belong only to thinking reason.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §48 Rem)
			A reaction: A rather Wittgensteinian remark. I love his 'tenderness for the things of this world'! I'm not clear why our thinking should be considered to be inescapably riddled with basic contradictions, as Hegel seems to imply. Just make more effort.

§48 Rem	p.160	15630	Antinomies are not just in four objects, but in all objects, all representations, all objects and all ideas
			Full Idea: The main point that has to be made is that antinomy is found not only in Kant's four particular objects taken from cosmology, but rather in all objects of all kinds, in all representations, concepts and ideas.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §48 Rem)
			A reaction: I suppose Heraclitus and Empedocles, with their oppositional accounts of reality, are the ancestors of this worldview. I just don't feel that sudden flood of insight from this idea of Hegel that comes from some of the other great philsophical theories.

§49	p.161	15631	The ideal of reason is the unification of abstract identity (or 'concept') and being
			Full Idea: Abstract identity (which is what here is also called 'concept') and being are the two moments that reason seeks to unify; this unification is the Ideal of reason.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §49)
			A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I connect it to Aristotle's approach to the problem of being, which was to abandon the head-on approach, and aim to understand the identities of particulars and kinds.

§50	p.161	15632	The Humean view stops us thinking about perception, and finding universals and necessities in it
			Full Idea: The Humean standpoint proclaims the thinking of our perceptions to be inadmissible; i.e. the eliciting of the universal and necessary out of those perceptions.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §50)
			A reaction: Obviously Hume permits 'relations of ideas', but presumably the point is that his approach only legitimates a rather passive abstraction from experience, rather than an active application of a priori concepts to it. A fair criticism. See Bonjour.

§51	p.161	15633	We establish unification of the Ideal by the ontological proof, deriving being from abstraction of thinking
			Full Idea: One unification through which the Ideal is to be established starts from the abstraction of thinking and goes on to the determination for which being alone remains; this is the ontological proof that God is there.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §51)
			A reaction: It should come as no surprise that a philosopher who so passionately endorses pure thinking, in opposition to empiricism, should end up endorsing the highly implausible ontological argument for God's existence. Jacquette gets existence from reason.

§62	p.163	15634	Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories
			Full Idea: As an activity of the particular, thinking has the categories as its only product and content.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §62)
			A reaction: There seems to be an interesting implication in this remark (taken in isolation!) that one can somehow transcend the categories when one begins to think about the universal. Are the universal and the categories not connected?

§62 Rem	p.163	15635	The older conception of God was emptied of human features, to make it worthy of the Infinite
			Full Idea: In earlier times, every type of so-called anthropomorphic representation was banished from God as finite, and hence unworthy of the Infinite; and as a result he had already grown into something remarkably empty.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §62 Rem)
			A reaction: Hegel favoured Christianity, because of its human aspect. His description fits Islam, where indeed the concept of God seems so drain of particularity that there is little in it to doubt, which might explain the durability of that religion.

§64 Rem	p.165	15636	The Cogito is at the very centre of the entire concern of modern philosophy
			Full Idea: The proposition 'Cogito Ergo Sum' stands at the very centre, so to speak, of the entire concern of modern philosophy.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §64 Rem)
			A reaction: I distinguish two approaches to philosophy: the Parmenidean (which starts from the nature of being), and the Cartesian (which starts from the fact of consciousness). This remark confirms that Hegel is firmly in the latter school.

§65	p.166	15637	Essence is the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation
			Full Idea: The entire second part of the 'Logic', the doctrine of Essence, deals with the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §65)
			A reaction: He is referring to his book 'Science of Logic'. I don't really understand this, but that essence 'posits' the unity of a thing catches my attention.

§81	p.39	21767	Dialectic is seen in popular proverbs like 'pride comes before a fall'
			Full Idea: In the domain of individual ethics, we find the consciousness of dialectic in those universally familiar proverbs 'pride goes before a fall' and 'too much wit outwits itself'. ...Joy relieves itself in tears, and melancholy can be revealed in a smile.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method'
			A reaction: 'Too clever by half' is the English version. Hegel's dialectic suggests that each concept somehow implies its opposite, rather than a mere mercurial drift from one extreme to the other. Most pride doesn't lead to a fall.

§81	p.171	15638	Dialectic is the moving soul of scientific progression, the principle which binds science together
			Full Idea: The dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression, and it is the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science. ..[Add 1] It is the principle of all motion, of all life.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81)

§81 Add1	p.171	15639	Socratic dialectic is subjective, but Plato made it freely scientific and objective
			Full Idea: It is in the Platonic philosophy that dialectic first occurs in a form which is freely scientific, and hence also objective. With Socrates, dialectical thinking still has a predominantly subjective shape, consistent with his irony.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81 Add1)
			A reaction: I don't understand how dialectic can be 'objective', given that it is a method rather than a belief. Plato certainly seems to elevate dialectic into something almost mystical, because of what is said to be within its power.

I §151Z p.214	p.179	21980	God is the absolute thing, and also the absolute person
			Full Idea: It is true that God ...is the absolute thing: he is however no less the absolute person. That he is the absolute person however is a point which the philosophy of Spinoza never reached.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §151Z p.214), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.6
			A reaction: Moore says Hegel was a Spinozist, in his commitment to a single substance, but his idea of God is very different, presumably because consciousness and concepts are so important to Hegel. Hegel needs a Lockean abstract notion of 'person' here.

I §151Z p.215	p.181	21981	The one substance is formless without the mediation of dialectical concepts
			Full Idea: As intuitively accepted by Spinoza without a previous mediation by dialectic, substance is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which engulfs all definite content as radically null, and produces from itself nothing that has a positive substance of its own.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §151Z p.215), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.6
			A reaction: This seems to be an expression of idealism, since only what is conceptualised can exist.

I §60Z	p.188	21986	Hegel's system has a vast number of basic concepts
			Full Idea: For Hegel the full system of concepts ...contains many more than Kant's twelve.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §60Z) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
			A reaction: This offers some sort of conceptual scheme, but not the structured one that Kant proposes. The sequence of dialectical mediation imposes some sort of shape on the concepts.

I §80Z p.115	p.185	21984	We must break up the rigidity that our understanding has imposed
			Full Idea: The battle of reason is the struggle to break up the rigidity to which the understanding has reduced everything.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §80Z p.115), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
			A reaction: This sounds like a combination of Nietzsche and later Wittgenstein, and may be one of the ideas that launches 'continental' philosophy. Recent French thinkers talk continually of 'liberation'.

p.172	p.35	21595	Excluded middle is the maxim of definite understanding, but just produces contradictions
			Full Idea: The law of excluded middle is ...the maxim of the definite understanding, which would fain avoid contradiction, but in doing so falls into it.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], p.172), quoted by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 1.5
			A reaction: Not sure how this works, but he would say this, wouldn't he?

p.235 (1892)	p.151	22300	Existence is just a set of relationships
			Full Idea: Everything that exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the veritable nature of existence.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], p.235 (1892)), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs'

1817	Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III)

	p.278	22039	Geist is distinct from nature, not as a substance, but because of its normativity
			Full Idea: Hegel argued that it was the impossibility of a naturalistic account of normativity that distinguished Geist from nature, not Geist's being any kind of metaphysical substance.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III) [1817]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
			A reaction: Hegel always seems to want to have his cake and eat it. Without a mental substance, how can Geist not be part of nature? What is Geist made of? Is his view functionalist? But that is usually naturalistic. Is normativity magic?

§382, Zusatz	p.284	22040	Freedom is produced by the activity of the mind, and is not intrinsically given
			Full Idea: Actual freedom is not something immediately existent in mindedness, but is something to be produced by the mind's own activity. It is thus as the producer of its freedom that we have to consider mindedness in philosophy.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III) [1817], §382, Zusatz), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
			A reaction: Pinkard glosses this as an agent being free by being the centre of a group of social responsibilities. Hence I presume small children have no freedom. Presumably we could deprive citizens of all responsibility, and hence of metaphysical freedom.

1817	Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II)

§246	p.7	21756	All revolutions result from spirit changing its categories, to achieve a deeper understanding
			Full Idea: All revolutions ...originate solely from the fact that spirit, in order to understand and comprehend itself with a view to possessing itself, has changed its categories, comprehending itself more truly, more deeply, more intimately in unity with itself.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §246), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
			A reaction: Some Hegelian waffle here, but it focuses on what seems important, which is how societal thinking has shifted, so that what was previously tolerated now triggers a revolution.

§3	p.95	22077	Metaphysics is the lattice which makes incoming material intelligible
			Full Idea: Metaphysics means nothing other than the range of general determinations of thought, the diamond lattice, as it were, into which we bring all material and thereby first make it intelligible.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §3), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95
			A reaction: This sounds to me like a perfect summary of Kant's transcendental view. Metaphysics is the a priori deconstruction of our conceptual scheme. But for Kant it is fixed, and for Hegel it is dynamic.

1819	Lectures on the Philosophy of Right

	p.293	22041	Representatives by region ignores whether they care about the national interest
			Full Idea: Selecting representatives on the basis of geography means selecting people without any regard to whether they represent the basic and important interests of the 'whole' of society.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
			A reaction: Proportional representation seems to get away from this, but that can still be arranged according to large regions. Some means is needed to prevent the whole nation from exploitation a regional minority (such as Welsh speakers).

p.127	p.186	21781	The absolute right is the right to have rights
			Full Idea: The absolute right is the right to have rights.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819], p.127), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
			A reaction: What a beautifully succinct and important idea! Does a foetus, or a dog, or a person in a vegetative state, or a slave, qualify?

p.78	p.187	21785	We are only free, with rights, if we claim our freedom, and there are no natural rights
			Full Idea: Hegel says we are only truly free, and so bearers of rights, in so far as we claim our freedom. ...So there are no merely natural rights, and animal's have no rights.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819], p.78) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
			A reaction: If there are no natural rights, then it is hard to see how claiming a right will create it. I can't create a right to drink the best champagne. It seems particularly unjust to deny rights to people so enslaved that freedom has never occurred to them.

1821	Elements of the Philosophy of Right

	p.14	21988	In the 1840s Hegel seemed to defend society being right as it is, as a manifestation of Mind
			Full Idea: In the 1840s the orthodox interpretation of Hegel was that since human society is the manifestation of Mind [Geist] in the world, everything is right and rational as it is.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Peter Singer - Marx 2
			A reaction: This orthodoxy provoked the rebellion of Marx and the Young Hegelians. Modern Communitarians like Hegel, but that view seems to hover between right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing egalitarianism.

	p.17	22051	The categorical imperative lacks roots in a historical culture
			Full Idea: Hegel criticised the categorical imperative for lacking any roots in the moral habits and practices which develop in actual historical communities.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1
			A reaction: This is the gist of Alasdair MacIntyre's defence of virtue theory, against rational Enlightenment ethics. Charles Taylor made the link to Hegel.

	p.102	22085	Freedom requires us to submit to a family, or a corporation, or a state
			Full Idea: Hegel thinks that political and social freedom involves letting one's actions be guided by those institutional structures (such as the family, corporations and the state) which secure rights, welfare, and mutual respect.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel 102
			A reaction: Since there are some hideous families, corporations and states, we will need more than that. He may have a point, though, that the rights we desire can only exist in healthy examples of such institutions. Popper loved institutions.

	p.194	21787	Evil enters a good will when we believe we are doing right, but allow no criticism of our choice
			Full Idea: The evil Hegel finds at the heart of the good will is not simply the criminal violation of rights, but the evil which lies in believing oneself to be doing what is truly good, while allowing no one but oneself to determine what the good actually is.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Problem'
			A reaction: That is not intellectualism, but the implication that intellectualism is a potential source of evil. The interesting thought is that Hegel is contributing a social dimension to the weakness of will problem.

	p.197	21790	Moral individuals become ethical when they see the social aspect of a matter
			Full Idea: The moral individual becomes an ethical individual when he recognises that his own voice need not always utter the last word on a given matter, but should be understood as participating in ongoing social and political practices.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom'
			A reaction: This is a key idea in Hegel, and is seen (by Charles Taylor etc) as the foundations of modern communitarianism.

	p.208	8030	For Hegel, the moral life can only be led within a certain type of community
			Full Idea: Hegel's final standpoint is that the moral life can only be led within a certain type of community.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.15
			A reaction: This (together with Aristotle) is the basis of modern communitarianism. There is the problem of saintly people who kept their integrity through the Nazi period. I agree with the proposal, in a loose sort of way.

	p.208	8029	You can't have a morality which is supplied by the individual, but is also genuinely universal
			Full Idea: Hegel attacks doctrines which are attempts by the individual to supply his own morality, and at one and the same time, to claim for it a genuine universality.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.15
			A reaction: Hegel clearly has Kant in mind. It is a penetrating criticism. Of course, there is no reason why a universal mathematical proof shouldn't be 'provided' by the individual. The Kantian seeks agreement. See Contractualism.

Pref	p.20	22766	Philosophy is exploration of the rational
			Full Idea: Philosophy is exploration of the rational.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], Pref)
			A reaction: The only problem is that Hegel (like the Stoics) thought that nature is rational all the way down, so philosophy becomes the study of everything.

Pref	p.21	22767	I aim to portray the state as a rational entity
			Full Idea: This treatise is an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], Pref)
			A reaction: Right now I see very little sign of that being the case. States contain many institutions which are fairly rational, because they focus efficiently on a clear object, but a state can only be rational if there is a wide consensus on its objective.

Pref p.13	p.174	21979	Wisdom emerges at the end of a process
			Full Idea: The Owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], Pref p.13), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4
			A reaction: Hegel explains that this means that wisdom is the product of historical maturity, as the ideal emerges, and illuminates what is real. I think.

005	p.183	21778	True liberal freedom is to pursue something, while being free to cease the pursuit
			Full Idea: The third moment of liberal freedom for Hegel is the unity of the first two - the freedom to engage in some specific pursuit, but in so doing to preserve the sense that one is not irrevocably committed to that pursuit.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 005) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Limits'
			A reaction: Not too surprising, but Hegel is interesting for thinking that we shouldn't just rabbit on about having 'freedom', but should investigate more closely what this is exactly supposed to mean.

015	p.184	21779	People assume they are free, but the options available are not under their control
			Full Idea: The ordinary man believes himself to be free ...to act as he wants, but this arbitrariness entails that he is not free, because what it is that he wills is not intrinsic to self-determining activity, ...and depends on a given content and material.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 015), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Limits'
			A reaction: [a bit compressed] I take this to be an extraordinarily influential idea (especially for Marx). Hitherto philosophers just wanted some vague metaphysical 'free will', making moral responsibility and pure reason possible. But who controls the options?

026 add	p.56	22768	Subjective and objective are not firmly opposed, but merge into one another
			Full Idea: It is usually believed that the subjective and objective are firmly opposed to one another. But this is not the case; they in fact pass over into one another.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 026 add)
			A reaction: I take this to mean that they are on a spectrum, rather than being binary opposites. This seems reasonable to me, since I take there to be degrees of objectivity.

027	p.57	22769	The concept of the will is the free will which wills its freedom
			Full Idea: The abstract concept of the Idea of the will is in general the free will which wills the free will.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 027)
			A reaction: Since Hegel thinks we only have free will because we will to have it, it makes sense that that will precedes the free will. But I don't understand how the will which wills that freedom is itself free. No doubt Hegelians understand this.

027	p.184	21780	A free will primarily wills its own freedoom
			Full Idea: For Hegel, the content or 'object' which any free will wills simply by virtue of being free is nothing other than its own freedom.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 027) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 8 'The Limits'
			A reaction: Personally I take the concept of a wholly 'free' will to be vacuous, but this is a very interesting idea. I would delete 'by virtue of being free', and say that what we mean by free will is the will's desperation to be as free as possible. Love it.

035 add	p.68	22770	A person is a being which is aware of its own self-directed and free subjectivity
			Full Idea: A person is a subject which is aware of its subjectivity, for as a person, I am completely for myself: the person is the individuality of freedom in pure being-for-itself.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 035 add)
			A reaction: Sartre's being 'pour-soi'. Presumably the freedom is for action as well as thought. He ignores Spinoza's claim that such freedom is just an illusion.

036	p.69	22771	Be a person, and respect other persons
			Full Idea: The commandment of right is: be a person, and respect other persons
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 036)
			A reaction: This seems to be presented as a categorical imperative. He implies that you can choose whether to be a person, which seems wrong. I love making 'respect other persons' the supreme command - but I prefer 'respect everything'.

039	p.70	22772	Personality overcomes subjective limitations and posits Dasein as its own
			Full Idea: Personality is that which overcomes the limitation of being merely subjective and gives itself reality - or, what amounts to the same thing, to posit that existence [Dasein] as its own.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 039)
			A reaction: This looks like the source for Heidegger's distinctive concept of Dasein. The emphasis in Hegel is on creating it out of subjectivity by an act of choice. For Heidegger Dasein seems to be a primitive concept.

044	p.186	21782	Man has an absolute right to appropriate things
			Full Idea: A person has as his substantive end the right of putting his will into any and every thing and thereby making it his ...This is the absolute right of appropriation which man has over all things.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 044), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
			A reaction: Houlgate shows this is not a defence of theft. Hegel thinks the right to property stems from our freedom, not from our natural needs. Did Hegel know Locke? It is not obvious that if I pocket a stone I thereby 'own' it. Do birds own their nests?

044 add	p.76	22773	Because only human beings can own property, everything else can become our property
			Full Idea: All things can become the property of human beings, because the human being is free will, and exists in and for himself, whereas that which confronts him does not have this quality.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 044 add)
			A reaction: Note that the human 'is' free will, rather than 'has' free will. He explicitly includes animals. From a modern ecological view this is a sinister idea. The default position is that if you own something you can do whatever you like with it.

046	p.78	22774	A community does not have the property-owning rights that a person has
			Full Idea: Many states have rightly dissolved the monasteries, because a community does not ultimately have the same right to property as a person does.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 046)
			A reaction: Trinity College, Cambridge, owns vast amounts of land. A lot of property seems to be owned by legal trusts. Hegel sees the basis of property ownership in a person's will. He allows some exceptions.

050	p.81	22775	The owner of a thing is obviously the first person to freely take possession of it
			Full Idea: That a thing belongs to a person who happens to be the first to take possession of it is immediately self-evident. …This is not because he is the first, but because he is a free will.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 050)
			A reaction: At this time they were very conscious of the native Americans. They seem to have lost their lands because they had no institution of private property, and had not asserted their ownership. I suspect Hegel of endorsing this.

057 add	p.88	22776	Slaves are partly responsible for their own condition
			Full Idea: If someone is a slave, his own will is responsible. The wrong of slavery is not only the fault of those who enslave people, but of the slaves themselves. …[66 add: The slave has an absolute right to free himself]
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 057 add)
			A reaction: He accepts that enslaving people is wrong. Are the slaves at fault for losing their struggle? Would Hegel approve of someone giving modern weapons to the slaves?

070 add	p.102	22777	Individuals must dedicate themselves to the ethical whole, and give their lives when asked
			Full Idea: The individual person is a subordinate entity who must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Consequently, if the state demands his life, the individual must surrender it.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 070 add)
			A reaction: The obvious problem is a war which is perceived to be unjust. Vietnam draft dodgers. We should always consider the common good, but 'dedicate himself to the ethical whole'? It depends whether the ethical whole is dedicated to us.

075 add	p.106	22778	Individuals can't leave the state, because they are natural citizens, and humans require a state
			Full Idea: The arbitrary will of individuals cannot break away from the state, because the individual is already by nature a citizen of it. It is the rational destiny of humans to live within a state, and if there is no state reason requires it to be established.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 075 add)
			A reaction: The Aristotelian view, in opposition to the social contract idea that individuals must choose to have a state. I agree with Hegel, but find his authoritarian tone disturbing. What else will I be told is my 'rational destiny'? We want liberal communiity.

129	p.157	22779	The good is realised freedom
			Full Idea: The good is realised freedom, the absolute and ultimate end of the world.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 129)
			A reaction: This remark could have been made by Sartre. On its own I find it baffling, and can make no sense of an account of ethics that gives no guidance on behaviour at all, other than that freedom should be asserted.

132	p.159	22780	It is a rejection of intellectual dignity to say that we cannot know the truth
			Full Idea: The assertion that human beings cannot know the truth, but have to do only with appearances …deprives the spirit of intellectual dignity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 132)
			A reaction: It is a relief to find Hegel making this assertion. His later followers seem to have slid into an extreme cultural relativism. I'm not sure that 'intellectual dignity' is a very secure foundation for his claim.

135 add	p.163	22781	The categorical imperative is fine if you already have a set of moral principles
			Full Idea: The proposition 'Consider whether your maxim can be asserted as a universal principle' would be all very well if we already had determinate principles concerning how to act.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 135 add)
			A reaction: Excellent! I have always taken this to be the overwhelming problem with Kant's theory. Kant's examples always presume a set of unquestioned conventional values. Kant offers a framework for moral thought, but values are what matter.

137	p.193	21786	Conscience is the right of the self to know what is right and obligatory, and thus make them true
			Full Idea: Conscience is the expression of the absolute title of subjective self-consciousness to know in itself and from within itself what is right and obligatory, to recognise only what it knows as good, and that what is thus known is right and obligatory.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 137), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Problem'
			A reaction: [compressed] This is the sort of rabbit-out-of-the-hat move that Hegel loves, and I find implausible. Mill made the key point about conscience.

147	p.191	22782	To have pagan beliefs and be a pagan are quite different
			Full Idea: To believe in pagan religion and to be a pagan are two different things.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 147)
			A reaction: A nice general truth about all religions, and one not often understood by atheists.

155	p.197	22783	Rights imply duties, and duties imply rights
			Full Idea: A human being has rights in so far as he has duties, and duties in so far as he has rights.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 155)
			A reaction: I would express this as 'why we should we be loyal to the state if the state is not loyal to us'. The state must not only provide us with nominal rights, but must also enforce them. Without that the citizens are alienated, and the sense of duty fades.

158 add	p.199	22784	Love is ethical life in its natural form
			Full Idea: Love is a feeling, that is, ethical life in its natural form.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 158 add)
			A reaction: For Hegel the less natural forms are more abstract - such as the categorical imperative. Does this imply that intellectual beings should extend the feeling of love into more abstract forms, such as virtues or principles or ideals?

166 add	p.207	22785	Even educated women are unsuited to science, philosophy, art and government
			Full Idea: Women may well be educated, but they are not made for the higher sciences, for philosophy and certain artistic productions which require a universal element. …When women are in charge of government the state is in danger.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 166 add)
			A reaction: This makes unpleasant reading. Women have recently played a leading role in creating the Covid vaccines which may well have saved millions of lives. There were plenty of good women novelists around in Hegel's time.

174 add	p.211	22786	Children need discipline, to break their self-will and eradicate sensuousness
			Full Idea: One of the chief moments in a child's upbringing is discipline, the purpose of which is to break the child's self-will in order to eradicate the merely sensuous and natural.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 174 add)
			A reaction: A standard view for his time, no doubt. No sensible parent doubts that children need to be civilised, and taught to recognise the needs of others. I hope the general aspiration in our society to 'break' a child's self-will has now faded away.

201 add	p.234	22787	The family is the first basis of the state, but estates are a necessary second
			Full Idea: While the family is the primary basis of the state, the estates are second. The latter are of special importance, because private persons, despite their selfishness, must have recourse to others.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 201 add)
			A reaction: He mentions agriculture as an estate. The implication is that interactions between families requires state institutions, but in simpler societies families can obviously interact and help one another directly. He wants the state to be indispensable.

207 add	p.239	22788	A human only become a somebody as a member of a social estate
			Full Idea: When we say that a human being must be somebody, we mean that he must belong to a particular estate. …A human being with no estate is merely a private person and does not possess universality.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 207 add)
			A reaction: The first rebellion in Europe against the rising individual liberalism which started with Descartes and was clarified in Kant. Hegel's idea is hugely influential, especially through Marx. I don't believe being a person is a wholly social matter.

238 add	p.263	22789	Society draws people, and requires their work, making them wholly dependent on it
			Full Idea: Civil society is the immense power which draws people to itself and requires them to work for it, to owe everything to it, and to do everything by its means.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 238 add)
			A reaction: This is the disturbing side of Hegel's quite attractive communitarian thinking. His general picture is of the state prescribing what is required of its citizens, with little scope for citizens to prescribe what they need from the state. See Popper.

244 add	p.266	22790	We cannot assert rights which are unnatural
			Full Idea: No one can assert a right against nature.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 244 add)
			A reaction: Although the existence of natural rights is dubious (or nonsense, for Bentham), this is a vague but sensible constraint on what can plausibly be asserted as a right. The rights we create in society must respond to natural needs.

258	p.279	22791	The state is the march of God in the world
			Full Idea: The state consists of the march of God in the world, and its basis is the power of reason actualising itself as will.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 258)
			A reaction: The most notorious sentence in the whole book. See Wiki article on it. The hair-raising aspect of it is that God won't tell us where the state is going, so those in charge will decide that for us. God gives their preferences maximum authority.

260	p.208	21791	Social groups must focus on the state, which must in turn respect their inclusion and their will
			Full Idea: The interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state, although the universal end cannot be advanced without the personal knowledge and will of its particular members, whose own rights must be maintained.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 260), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom'
			A reaction: Hegel's emphasis on the state has sometimes allowed him to be presented as a proto-fascist, so the second half of this is important - especially the remark about citizens having 'knowledge' of what is going on. Is citizen commitment conditional on this?

261	p.196	21789	Slaves have no duties because they have no rights
			Full Idea: Slaves have no duties because they have no rights.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 261), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom'
			A reaction: Does this correlation go all the way up society? Do I only have duties insofar as I have correlative rights? Monarchs seem to have maximum duties and maximum rights. Democratic leaders seem thereby to get a raw deal.

264	p.287	22792	Individuals attain their right by discovering their self-consciousness in institutions
			Full Idea: Individuals attain their essential right by discovering their essential self-consciousness in social institutions, as that universal aspect of their particular interests which has being in itself.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 264)
			A reaction: This is the source of the influential idea made famous by Marx. Hegel seems to have a rather rigid and deterministic view of society, which fixes self-consciousness. The modern view is that self-consciousness is endlessly malleable, by society.

270	p.291	22793	Some religions lead to harsh servitude and the debasement of human beings
			Full Idea: It should not be a forgotten that can take on a from which leads to the harshest servitude within the fetters of superstition, and to the debasement of human beings to a level below that of animals.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 270)
			A reaction: Hegel was a Christian, though a very unorthodox one. He cities ancient Egypt and India as examples. If you want to assess a religion, see how it behaves when it has political power.

270 add	p.302	22794	A fully developed state is conscious and knows what it wills
			Full Idea: An essential part of the fully developed state is consciousness or thought; the state accordingly knows what it wills and knows this an a object of thought.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 270 add)
			A reaction: The silliest idea by a famous philosopher anywhere in this database. I bet the criterion for being fully developed is being conscious, and the criterion for being conscious is being fully developed, whatever that means. General will run riot.

270 add	p.303	22795	People can achieve respect for their state by insight into its essence
			Full Idea: The best way for humans to achieve respect for the state as that whole of which they are branches is through philosophical insight into its essence.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 270 add)
			A reaction: Although Hegel on the state can be quite alarming, I rather approve of this Aristotelian thought. States do not, of course, have ready made essences awaiting the insights of philosophers, but discussion can converge on a concept of what the state is.

274 add	p.313	22796	A constitution embodies a nation's rights and condition
			Full Idea: The constitution of a nation must embody the nation's feeling for its rights and present condition.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 274 add)
			A reaction: Most constitutions also specify the institutions needed to maintain its principles and values. If it specifies its 'present' condition, that is a licence to change it from time to time. Hegel endorses such flexibility.

299	p.339	22798	Money is the best way to achieve just equality
			Full Idea: The justice of equality can be achieved most effectively by money.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 299)
			A reaction: There are also important equalities such as access to education and to superior jobs. Money is more tangible, but you can fob poor people off with quite small sums of money.

299 add	p.339	22797	In modern states an individual's actions should be their choice
			Full Idea: It is inherent in the principle of the modern state that all of an individual's actions should be mediated by his will.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 299 add)
			A reaction: This is the liberal side of Hegel's thinking. It is a corrective to his reverential attitude to the state. He criticise Plato for assigning citizens their jobs.

301	p.340	22799	The people do not have the ability to know the general will
			Full Idea: To know what one wills, and even more to know what reason wills, is the fruit of profound cognition and insight, and this the very thing which 'the people' lack.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 301)
			A reaction: This is obviously directed at Rousseau, and seems to be specifically anti-democratic. Hegel sees the general will as a mystical fact, only knowable to some elite intellectual priesthood.

309 add	p.348	22800	Majority rule means obligations can be imposed on me
			Full Idea: Majority decisions are at variance with the principle that I should be personally present in anything which imposes an obligation on me.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 309 add)
			A reaction: The big democratic problem of my time is sharp binary decisions made by a democracy, such as UK leaving the EU, or Scotland leaving the UK. A very large minority in such cases has their will entirely thwarted, whichever way it goes.

311	p.209	21792	The state should reflect all interests, and not just popular will, or a popular party
			Full Idea: The best guarantee of freedom is for the state to be organised in such a way that the legislature reflects all the substantial interests within civil society, and not just the 'will of the majority', or the parties which happen to find popular support.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 311) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom'
			A reaction: In our first-past-the-post system innumerable interests fail to be represented, and parliament is crushed by dull plodders with ossified views who smugly hang on to safe seats. IMHO.

318 add	p.355	22801	The great man of the ages is the one who reveals and accomplishes the will of his time
			Full Idea: He who expresses the will of his age, tells it what its will is, and accomplishes this will, is the great man of the age.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 318 add)
			A reaction: The great man of Hegel's age had obviously been Napoleon, who may have accomplished the will of part of the French people, but went massively against the will of the rest of Europe. For Hegel this seems to be the reality of the General Will.

324 add	p.652	22802	Wars add strength to a nation, and cure internal dissension
			Full Idea: Not only do peoples emerge from wars with added strength, but nations troubled by civil dissension gain internal peace as a result of wars with their external enemies.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 324 add)
			A reaction: I suspect that Hegel quite likes wars because they accelerate the development of history. I don't think he would have written nonsense like this after WW1 and WW2. Leaders facing internal dissent like small external wars.

1826	Lectures on Aesthetics

	p.43	20394	The purpose of art is to reveal to Spirit its own nature
			Full Idea: According to Hegel, the goal of art was to serve as a phase in a process by which Spirit would come to understand its own nature.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Stephen Davies - The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) 2.7
			A reaction: I try very hard to understand ideas like this. Really really hard. However, since I see little sign of 'Spirit' really understanding its own nature, I'm guessing that the project is not going well.

	p.77	20413	For Hegel the importance of art concerns the culture, not the individual
			Full Idea: Hegel locates the significance of art in its role in cultural life in general, not in relation to the psychological needs of individuals.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics) 1
			A reaction: I'm beginning to see that art is a wonderful focus and test case for political attitudes. Roughly, liberalism focuses on individual responses, but more societal views (from right and left) see it in terms of role in the community. Which are you?

	p.220	21794	The main purpose of art is to express the unity of human life
			Full Idea: Art's primary function, for Hegel, is to give expression to the unity and wholeness of life - especially human life - that the contingencies of everyday existence frequently conceal.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Beauty'
			A reaction: I don't find the view that human life is 'unified' and 'whole' vary illuminating, and I have no objection to art which reflects the fragmentary and unstable aspects of life. I suspect Hegel would just prefer it if life were a unity.

	p.297	22042	Natural beauty is unimportant, because it doesn't show human freedom
			Full Idea: Hegel thinks that natural beauty is of no real significance since it cannot display our freedom to us; nature per se is meaningless.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
			A reaction: Presumably freedom is in the creation, and so creativity is what matters in aesthetics. But what are the criteria of good creativity?

	p.299	22043	Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks
			Full Idea: Unlike his predecessors (including Kant), Hegel does not focus on aesthetic pleasure, nor on good taste, nor even on the nature and criteria for beauty. Instead he focuses on the meaning of artworks and their role in forming mankind's self-consciousness.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
			A reaction: Personally I dislike over-intellectualising art. The aim of a work of art is to give a certain experience, not to generate an ensuing sequence of theorising. I doubt whether Vermeer had any 'meaning' in mind in his obsessive work.

5	p.82	18549	Nineteenth century aesthetics focused on art rather than nature (thanks to Hegel)
			Full Idea: Only In the course of the nineteenth century, and in the wake of Hegel's posthumously published lectures on aesthetics, did the topic of art come to replace that of natural beauty as the core subject-matter of aesthetics.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], 5) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction

I: 97	p.244	21795	What I hold true must also be part of my feelings and character
			Full Idea: Whatever I hold as true, whatever ought to be valid for me, must also be in my feeling, must belong to my being and character.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], I: 97), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Philosophy'
			A reaction: I can see that truths do tend to become part of our character, but not that they ought to do so. I suppose I try to live my life enmeshed in the many truths which I have personally selected from the maelstrom of possibilities that engulf us.

I: 99	p.211	21793	Genuine truth is the resolution of the highest contradiction
			Full Idea: The highest truth, truth as such, is the resolution of the highest opposition and contradiction.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], I: 99), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Art'
			A reaction: Uneasy about the word 'highest', and the general Hegelian dream of 'resolving' contradictions, rather than just eliminating at least one component of them. No one else uses the word 'truth' like this. I suppose this Truth has a capital 'T'.

p.8	p.78	20415	Art forms a bridge between the sensuous world and the world of pure thought
			Full Idea: Spirit generates out of itself works of fine art as the first reconciling middle term between pure thought and what is merely external, sensuous and transient - between finite natural reality and the infinite freedom of conceptual thinking.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], p.8), quoted by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics)
			A reaction: This apparently says that there is necessarily an intellectual and conceptual component in art. This means little to me. Does he include portraits? Dutch domestic scenes? Would photography qualify?

1827	Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

III: 152	p.270	21798	To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity
			Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
			A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea.

III: 208	p.265	21797	Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal
			Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
			A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?

1830	Lectures on the History of Philosophy

p.25	p.9	21757	Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history
			Full Idea: Philosophy is the supreme blossom - the concept - of the entire shape of history, the consciousness and the spiritual essence of the whole situation, the spirit of the age as the spirit present and aware of itself in thought.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
			A reaction: This sees philosophy as intrinsically historical, which is a founding idea for 'continental' philosophy. Analysis is tied to science, in which the history of the subject is seen as irrelevant to its truth. Does this mean we can't go back to Aristotle?

1837	Lectures on the Philosophy of (World) History

Intro p.29	p.170	21974	The world seems rational to those who look at it rationally
			Full Idea: To him who looks at the world rationally, the world looks rationally back; the two exist in reciprocal relationship.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of (World) History [1837], Intro p.29), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4
			A reaction: This is a nice variation on the stoic idea that nature is essentially rational. If we are capable of rationality, then nature has made us that way. Romantics seem to prefer looking at nature less rationally, so what do they see in nature?

p.29	p.4	21753	If we look at the world rationally, the world assumes a rational aspect
			Full Idea: Whoever looks at the world rationally will find that it in turn assumes a rational aspect; the two exist in a reciprocal relationship.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of (World) History [1837], p.29), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
			A reaction: What happens when I look at irrationality rationally?

1840	Introduction to the Philosophy of History

	p.122	20109	Hegel inserted society and history between the God-world, man-nature, man-being binary pairs
			Full Idea: Before Hegel, people thought in binary oppositions of God and the world, man and nature, man and being. After Hegel an intervening world of society and history was inserted between these pairs.
			From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840]) by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 05
			A reaction: This is what Popper later called 'World Three'. This might be seen as the start of what we islanders call 'continental' philosophy, which we have largely ignored. Analytic philosophy only discovered this through philosophy of language.

2	p.13	23270	We should all agree that there is reason in history
			Full Idea: We ought to have the firm and unconquerable belief that there is reason in history.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 2)
			A reaction: This is a ridiculous but hugely influential idea, and I have no idea what makes Hegel believe it. It is the Stoic idea that nature is intrinsically rational, but extending it to human history is absurd. Human exceptionalism. Needs a dose of Darwin.

3	p.22	23271	The goal of the world is Spirit's consciousness and enactment of freedom
			Full Idea: The final goal of the world is Spirit's consciousness of its freedom, and hence also the actualisation of that very freedom.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3)
			A reaction: I have the impression that this ridiculous idea has been very influential in modern French philosophy, since they all seem to be dreaming of some perfect freedom at the end of the rainbow. Freedom is good, but this gives it a bad name.

3	p.23	23272	The human race matters, and individuals have little importance
			Full Idea: Individuals are of slight importance compared to the mass of the human race.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3)
			A reaction: A perfect statement of the anti-liberal viewpoint. Hegel is complex, but this is the strand that leads to ridiculous totalitarianism, where the highest ideal is to die for the glory of your nation. Importance can only start from individuals.

3	p.27	23273	In a good state the goal of the citizens and of the whole state are united
			Full Idea: A state is well constituted and internally strong if the private interest of the citizens is united in the universal goal of the state.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3)
			A reaction: The obvious question is who decides on the goals, and what to do with the citizens who don't accept them.

3	p.29	23274	World history has no room for happiness
			Full Idea: World history is not the place for happiness. Periods of happiness are empty pages in history.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3)
			A reaction: Clearly, Hegel thinks the progress of world history is much more important than happiness. This idea gives backing to those who don't care much about the casualties on either side in a major war.

3	p.43	23275	The state of nature is one of untamed brutality
			Full Idea: The 'state of nature' is not an ideal condition, but a condition of injustice, of violence, of untamed natural drives, inhuman acts and emotions.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3)
			A reaction: He agrees with Hobbes, and disagrees with Rousseau. Hobbes's solution is authoritarian monarchy, but Hegel's solution is the unified and focused state, in which freedom can be realised.

3	p.55	23276	The soul of the people is an organisation of its members which produces an essential unity
			Full Idea: The soul [of the people] exists only insofar as it is an organisation of its members, which - by taking itself together in its simple unity - produce the soul. Thus the people is one individuality in its essence.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3)
			A reaction: Hegel is seen (e.g. by Charles Taylor) as the ancestor of a rather attractive communitarianism, but I think Popper is more accurate in seeing him as the first stage of modern totalitarianism. The people seen as one individual terrifies me.

1840	The Philosophy of History

p.324	p.253	21796	Man is God if he raises himself, by denying his nature and finitude
			Full Idea: Man is only God in so far as he negates the natural existence and finitude of his spirit and raises himself to God.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (The Philosophy of History [1840], p.324), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'God'
			A reaction: I suspect that it was ideas like this which motivated Nietzsche - denial of what we are, in the name of some idle daydream. I personally have no idea how to negate my natural existence or my finitude.

p.98	p.187	21783	State slavery is a phase of education, moving towards a full culture
			Full Idea: Because slavery exists in states, it is a phase of advance from the merely isolated sensual existence - a phase of education - a mode of becoming participant in a higher morality and the culture connected with it.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (The Philosophy of History [1840], p.98), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
			A reaction: [He adds that slavery should be removed slowly, not suddenly] A nicely provocative thought. Is it better to participate in something grand (like pyramid building) as a slave, or drift in dull isolation? How long should this 'phase' last?

p.99	p.187	21784	Slavery is unjust, because humanity is essentially free
			Full Idea: Slavery is in and for itself an injustice, for the essence of humanity is freedom.
			From: Georg W.F.Hegel (The Philosophy of History [1840], p.99), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
			A reaction: This is a corrective to Idea 12783, which offers a defence of the reality of historical slavery. That seemed to depend on some notion that each phase of history is necessary, which is implausible.