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Ideas for 'Action', 'Logic (Encyclopedia I)' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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2 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories [Hegel]
     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?
Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories [Hegel]
     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.