30 ideas
19635 | Hegel produced modern optimism; he failed to grasp that consciousness never progresses [Hegel, by Cioran] |
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 |
8215 | Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book [Hegel, by Derrida] |
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. |
16011 | Hegel doesn't storm the heavens like the giants, but works his way up by syllogisms [Kierkegaard on Hegel] |
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] |
5433 | For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature [Hegel, by Russell] |
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. |
3301 | On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel [Benardete,JA on 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 |
19661 | Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction [Hegel, by Meillassoux] |
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!] |
20952 | Rather than in three stages, Hegel presented his dialectic as 'negation of the negation' [Hegel, by Bowie] |
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. |
21777 | Negation of negation doubles back into a self-relationship [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
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. |
5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
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'. |
5646 | Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton] |
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? |
21755 | For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
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. |
21754 | Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
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. |
22079 | Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
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. |
9225 | Hegel reputedly claimed to know a priori that there are five planets [Hegel, by Field,H] |
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. |
8790 | The 'doctrine of the given' is correct; some beliefs or statements are self-justifying [Chisholm] |
Full Idea: In my opinion, the 'doctrine of the given' is correct in saying that there are some beliefs or statements which are 'self-justifying' and that among such beliefs are statements some of which concern appearances or 'ways of being appeared to'. | |
From: Roderick Chisholm (The Myth of the Given [1964], §12) | |
A reaction: To boldly assert that they are 'self-justifying' invites a landslide of criticisms, pointing at a regress. It might be better to say they are self-evident, or intuitively known, or primitive, or true by the natural light of reason. |
23438 | Full rationality must include morality [Foot] |
Full Idea: You haven't got a full idea of rationality until you've got morality within it. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.35) | |
A reaction: Does this mean that mathematical proofs are not rational, or that they are moral? |
23437 | Practical reason is goodness in choosing actions [Foot] |
Full Idea: Practical rationality is goodness in respect of reason for actions, just as rationality of thinking is goodness in respect of beliefs. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.35) | |
A reaction: It is very Greek to think that rationality involves goodness. There seems to be a purely instrumental form of practical reason that just gets from A to B, as when giving accurate street directions to someone. |
23436 | It is an odd Humean view to think a reason to act must always involve caring [Foot] |
Full Idea: One would need a very special, very Humean, view about reasons for actions to think a man doesn't have a reason unless he cares. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.34-5) | |
A reaction: She says she used to believe this, but was wrong. It is hard to imagine acting for reasons if they don't care about anything at all (even that it's their job). But then people just do care about things. |
23431 | Human defects are just like plant or animal defects [Foot] |
Full Idea: We describe defects in human beings in the same way as we do defects in plants and animals. …You cannot talk about a river as being defective. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
A reaction: This is a much clearer commitment to naturalistic ethics than I have found in her more academic writings. My opinion of Foot (which was already high) went up when I read this interview. …She says vice is a defect of the will. |
23433 | Humans need courage like a plant needs roots [Foot] |
Full Idea: A plant needs strong roots in the same way human beings need courage. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
A reaction: I'm not quite convince by the analogy, but I strongly agree with her basic approach. |
23432 | Concepts such as function, welfare, flourishing and interests only apply to living things [Foot] |
Full Idea: There are concepts which apply only to living things, considered in their own right, which would include function, welfare, flourishing, interests and the good of something. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
A reaction: This is a very Aristotelian view, with which I entirely agree. The central concept is function. |
23434 | There is no fact-value gap in 'owls should see in the dark' [Foot] |
Full Idea: If you say 'an owl should be able to see in the dark' …you're not going to think that there's a gap between facts and evaluation. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a major and fundamental idea, which pinpoints the failure of Humeans to understand the world correctly. There is always total nihilism, of course, but that is a sort of blindness to how things are. Demanding 'proof' of values is crazy. |
23439 | Principles are not ultimate, but arise from the necessities of human life [Foot] |
Full Idea: I don't believe in ultimate principles that must be simply affirmed or denied, but rather in an appeal to the necessities of human life. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.37) | |
A reaction: I agree. Humans have a strong tendency to elevate anything which they consider important into an absolute (such as the value of life, or freedom). |
23435 | If you demonstrate the reason to act, there is no further question of 'why should I?' [Foot] |
Full Idea: You lose the sense of 'should' if you go on saying 'why should I?' when you've finished the argument about what is rational to do, what you've got reason to do. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], P.34) | |
A reaction: Some people reify the concept of duty, so that they do what is required without caring about the reason. I suppose that would wither if they were shown that no reason exists. |
21758 | Humans have no fixed identity, but produce and reveal their shifting identity in history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
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. |
20414 | Hegel's Absolute Spirit is the union of human rational activity at a moment, and whatever that sustains [Hegel, by Eldridge] |
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. |
3909 | Society isn’t founded on a contract, since contracts presuppose a society [Hegel, by Scruton] |
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?). |
4347 | When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural [Hegel] |
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. |
4188 | Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof [Schopenhauer on Hegel] |
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. |
6686 | Hegel said he was offering an encyclopaedic rationalisation of Christianity [Hegel, by Graham] |
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? |