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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Natural Faculties' and 'Logic (Encyclopedia I)'

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7 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
The sensible is distinguished from thought by being about singular things [Hegel]
     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!
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Sense perception is secondary and dependent, while thought is independent and primitive [Hegel]
     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.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Empiricism made particular knowledge possible, and blocked wild claims [Hegel]
     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.
Empiricism contains the important idea that we should see knowledge for ourselves, and be part of it [Hegel]
     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.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
Empiricism unknowingly contains and uses a metaphysic, which underlies its categories [Hegel]
     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.
Empiricism of the finite denies the supersensible, and can only think with formal abstraction [Hegel]
     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.
The Humean view stops us thinking about perception, and finding universals and necessities in it [Hegel]
     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.