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Ideas for 'Logic (Encyclopedia I)', 'Lectures on Ethics' and 'Thought and Responsibility'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
True philosophy aims at absolute unity, while our understanding sees only separation [Hegel]
     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.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 6. Hopes for Philosophy
Free thinking has no presuppositions [Hegel]
     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.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
The ideal of reason is the unification of abstract identity (or 'concept') and being [Hegel]
     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.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics
Older metaphysics naively assumed that thought grasped things in themselves [Hegel]
     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.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
Logic is metaphysics, the science of things grasped in thoughts [Hegel]
     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.
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
We must break up the rigidity that our understanding has imposed [Hegel]
     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'.