[HELP] Reading Hegel's Philosophy of History

[gorski]

I see.

FWIW, I think you're projecting a lot of your own failings onto others. I came here making two points: first, that your turn of phrase wasn't very welcoming, and second that your view of the notion of IQ was outdated. Quite how that's "nasty" etc or lacking in fairness is baffling. However, you carry on. I'm sure you will.

Yeah, I get that a lot in the UK. Pompous and empty formalistic rubbish about manners, whereby they mean THEIR manners and LANGUAGE, which means THEIR WAY OF EXPRESSING THEMSELVES OUGHT TO BE EVERYBODY'S WAY OF EXPRESSING THEMSELVES....

Just so they don't have to make ANY FUCKING EFFORT to understand what was actually said, if it was said by a foreigner, who may be from a very different culture, so then "let's teach him some manners" follows in earnest. Fuck off and learn to read with some humility and elementary understanding! I really had enough of this imperial bullshit, whereby the English are teaching everybody how to behave!!!

Grow up, son!!!

If you really wanted to be considerate and mindful [which is what you are criticising me for] you could have seen THE WHOLE OF MY POST AND TAKE IT ALL into CONSIDERATION!!!! As it happens, it is you who is INCONSIDERATE and HAVE NO REAL, SUBSTANTIVE MANNERS and are only PLAYING POWER GAMES, trying to force me to take over the prevailing mannerisms of the English, who are really careful to be MILD in LANGUAGE, so as "not to unduly offend" but REALLY HARSH IN IMPOSING THEIR RULES OF CONDUCT, EVEN THE MANNERS and MORES...

FFS!! Talk about the cultural bias and bullshit!!!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Post 60 is a good response to the OP.

The rest of gorski's posts on this thread – why bother?

 

[danny la rouge]

FFS!! Talk about the cultural bias and bullshit!!!

Right, well, as LBJ says, your post no. 60 was a reasonable response to the thread. So you can do it.

I would like to snip that one wee bit from your next post, though. You bring up cultural bias. It's a topic that has interested me for a long time, and is one of the areas of criticism levelled at the notion of IQ. It's been discussed on here before, I'm sure you'd find it interesting.

 

[gorski]

'Cause they're honest and as truthful as I can muster, LBJ...

 

[gorski]

Right, well, as LBJ says, your post no. 60 was a reasonable response to the thread. So you can do it.

I would like to snip that one wee bit from your next post, though. You bring up cultural bias. It's a topic that has interested me for a long time, and is one of the areas of criticism levelled at the notion of IQ. It's been discussed on here before, I'm sure you'd find it interesting.

Funnily enough I wrote about it on here a few times, as it's a pet hate of mine and I do know a few things about it. But you're missing the point yet again. Never mind, eh...

Especially as I have written many a times in a non-jargon manner, only to get bullshit for answers or no answers at all. So, either way, especially when it comes to Philosophy, unfortunately, with most of Brits, thanx to the "cultural bias" - it's a waste of time...

 

[danny la rouge]

I know it was a general remark, and not particularly aimed at anyone, but for cultural reasons I prefer not to be called a 'Brit'. Just for future reference.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I know it was a general remark, and not particularly aimed at anyone, but for cultural reasons I prefer not to be called a 'Brit'. Just for future reference.

You're Scottish. I'm Welsh. How would we be referred to collectively by a Serb?

 

[gorski]

Twats! Yugoslav!

 

[danny la rouge]

You're Scottish. I'm Welsh. How would we be referred to collectively by a Serb?

If collective referring were needed and "residents of the British Isles" was too long-winded, British (even Britons) would be better. Because I'm not just Scottish, but of Scots-Irish descent, the term 'Brit' carries resonances I still recoil from.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If collective referring were needed and "residents of the British Isles" was too long-winded, British would be better. Because I'm not just Scottish, but of Scots-Irish descent, the term 'Brit' carries resonances I still recoil from.

Fair enough. I'm not massively keen on the term Brit either, but more for its Tabloidy feel than anything more profound.

At least he didn't say 'English'!

 

[goldenecitrone]

Yeah, I get that a lot in the UK. Pompous and empty formalistic rubbish about manners, whereby they mean THEIR manners and LANGUAGE, which means THEIR WAY OF EXPRESSING THEMSELVES OUGHT TO BE EVERYBODY'S WAY OF EXPRESSING THEMSELVES....

Just so they don't have to make ANY FUCKING EFFORT to understand what was actually said, if it was said by a foreigner, who may be from a very different culture, so then "let's teach him some manners" follows in earnest. Fuck off and learn to read with some humility and elementary understanding! I really had enough of this imperial bullshit, whereby the English are teaching everybody how to behave!!!

Grow up, son!!!

If you really wanted to be considerate and mindful [which is what you are criticising me for] you could have seen THE WHOLE OF MY POST AND TAKE IT ALL into CONSIDERATION!!!! As it happens, it is you who is INCONSIDERATE and HAVE NO REAL, SUBSTANTIVE MANNERS and are only PLAYING POWER GAMES, trying to force me to take over the prevailing mannerisms of the English, who are really careful to be MILD in LANGUAGE, so as "not to unduly offend" but REALLY HARSH IN IMPOSING THEIR RULES OF CONDUCT, EVEN THE MANNERS and MORES...

FFS!! Talk about the cultural bias and bullshit!!!

Calm down love and have a slivovica.

 

[gorski]

Dark Rum, more like!

 

[Brainaddict]

Haha, this thread is hilarious

So I've been thinking lately that it's weird that lack of confidence is often considered a problematic condition worthy of treatment but that overconfidence is rarely considered something worth fighting. I find it weird because those who lack confidence often damage themselves, while the overconfident are at greater risk of damaging others. Much more pathological in the social sense.

Mind you, since the Gorski Show has been getting better and better lately I'm not sure I want it to stop quite yet...

 

[gorski]

Well, just look at my first post: I say, "there are many reasons why xyz...", someone says "so, everyone/me personally is/am [one of the reasons only]". A number of them take it as gospel... Swell!!!

Sometimes I despair...

 

[Knotted]

Have a look at this webpage as a guideline:
http://www.hegel.net/works/first.htm

I've also had a quick glance through History of Philosophy in the last couple of weeks, and I don't think its a good introduction to Hegel even if it is relatively accessible. Its too criptic for readers not used to Hegel's system and could end up giving entirely the wrong impression. Plus it shows Hegel at his worst - far too many crude generalisations. The more abstract the subject matter the more delicate Hegel gets.

 

[articul8]

Hegel's P of H

Everyone and everything plays their part in the grand scheme of things. So to project forward...eg. Auschwitz was necessary for the self-legitimation of the Israeli state, whose ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians was necessary for... etc. etc.

No horror, no futile gesture, nothing that doesn't have a part to play. The present wouldn't be as it is unless everything that has happened did indeed happen. Everything gets there in the end...etc.etc.etc.

The worst side of Hegel, indeed.

 

[kyser_soze]

So basically chaos theory matched with everything caused everything else.

Sorry, but if that's a fair approximation of his PofH it's not really that innovative/different to anyone who has made it past the 'Kings and Queens and Lords and Lady's made everything happen' mentality of history.

 

[articul8]

So basically chaos theory matched with everything caused everything else.

Sorry, but if that's a fair approximation of his PofH it's not really that innovative/different to anyone who has made it past the 'Kings and Queens and Lords and Lady's made everything happen' mentality of history.

not really. The key thing is not about matter (a butterfly flaps its wings...) but the progression of Geist/Spirit - this doesn't just happen through great personages, it happens through the totality of human consciousness. But every popular idea, no matter how aberrant, erroneous or perverse, has its place in the great unfolding.

eg a victim is never simply a victim, but always "a-victim-in-the-unstoppable-course-of-world-history".

 

[kyser_soze]

Yeah, I gets it now. Every event happens because of everything that came before it. Not predestination as such, because it's still possible for agents to affect change in the future (presumably), but that you can't isolate any chain of events to themselves.

 

[Knotted]

Everyone and everything plays their part in the grand scheme of things. So to project forward...eg. Auschwitz was necessary for the self-legitimation of the Israeli state, whose ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians was necessary for... etc. etc.

I think you've made it sound more Panglosian / deterministic than it really is. But your first sentence is definitely about right. Its about the unfolding of the spirit in history. There doesn't seem to be much about particular episodes in history, though. Its more about general categorisations of historical civilisations with respect to gradations of the spirit.

The worst thing for me is how all history seems to serve the conception of the spirit. It sucks the life out of history. Same problem with parts of the Phenomenolgy and with Philosophy of Right. Everything is about the logical categories rather than the logic being about the world. Its the problem with a logician studying humanity. I find Ilyenkov particularly insightful on this.

 

[kyser_soze]

So it's a holistic theory of existence, where nothing can be discounted when apprehending the now.

 

[Knotted]

Have a look at this:
http://www.hegel.net/en/faq.htm#1.7
Its so easy to misread Hegel. That's why I think Philosophy of History is a bad place to start. So many Hegelianisms and so little in the way of introducing them - its bound to create misconceptions.

 

[Knotted]

So it's a holistic theory of existence, where nothing can be discounted when apprehending the now.

In a sense that's almost a truism, but I wouldn't say that Hegel considers all details to be of great importance. P of H is pretty free of detailed history and pretty heavy on hand waving generalisations. There's an important distinction between existence and actual existence in Hegel that's bound up with the difference between contingency and necessity.

 

[kyser_soze]

In a sense that's almost a truism, but I wouldn't say that Hegel considers all details to be of great importance. P of H is pretty free of detailed history and pretty heavy on hand waving generalisations. There's an important distinction between existence and actual existence in Hegel that's bound up with the difference between contingency and necessity.

It's that alright

Cheers for that link BTW, most helpful. Funny too, but only because I've obviously been a closet Hegelian in a lot of ways for a long time...

 

[Knotted]

But that has to be taken carefully and seriously, studied with passion, not dismissed out of hand because some bunch of philosophical wankers [mainly Anglo-American, as the case may be, sadly] said 'Hegel is rubbish'...

The clever Americans etc., btw, like Ch. S. Peirce, G. H. Mead etc. all studied the guy carefully before stating their own positions!!!

Oddly enough 100-150 years ago it was everybody but Anglo-American philosophers who though Hegel was rubbish.
http://www.hegel.net/en/hegelianism_in_uk.htm
Watch gorski's mind explode when he reads this:
"On the continent of Europe the direct influence of Hegelianism was comparatively short-lived. This was due among other causes to the direction of attention to the rising science of psychology, partly to the reaction against the speculative method. In England and Scotland it had another fate. Both in theory and practice it here seemed to supply precisely the counteractive to prevailing tendencies towards empiricism and individualism that was wanted."

Sorry, I've just discovered this website. Its pretty good. I'll shut up now.

 

[articul8]

It's all about political/historical context. The period after Hegelian in Europe period was initially dominated for the most part by a safely reformist professariat who found Neo-Kantianism (positivism plus moral do-goodery) more conducive for a mildly reformist politics and a safe academic tenure. The Anglo-American context was so empiricist in its assumptions that a non-critical, non-speculative Hegel (ie the bad bits are left!) could be defended in some quarters, without the least real understanding.

Ironically Gorski has essentially gone back to Kant via Habermas's retreat from post-Hegelian Frankfurt School theory.

 

[Knotted]

It's all about political/historical context. The period after Hegelian in Europe period was initially dominated for the most part by a safely reformist professariat who found Neo-Kantianism (positivism plus moral do-goodery) more conducive for a mildly reformist politics and a safe academic tenure. The Anglo-American context was so empiricist in its assumptions that a non-critical, non-speculative Hegel (ie the bad bits are left!) could be defended in some quarters, without the least real understanding.

I don't know about that. Did they leave out the speculative bits? Doesn't seem that way to me, if anything that was exactly what they emphasised. Was Hegel ever a critical philosopher? I don't think so, he hated critical philosophy. Was the Anglo-American context empiricist? To a degree. But there has always been an English tradition of neo-platonism and idealism. The reality is richer than the myth.

Ironically Gorski has essentially gone back to Kant via Habermas's retreat from post-Hegelian Frankfurt School theory.

Yes. Was the Frankfurt school ever post-Hegelian though? It strikes me as being Kantian anyway.

 

[gorski]

Errrmmm, no!

Actually none of it! Especially the [Neo-]Kantian bit about me [c*%&s! ]. He is but a part of Hegel/Marx development and my roots are there. Future as an open project. The fact I can't see a revolutionary subject any time soon doesn't mean you guys understood my position correctly!!! Well, you would like to be revolutionaries without the revolutionary subject - or nothing. I'd rather see it in a Hegelian manner, wihout croc tears and save the enthusiasm for the moment when the time is right but soberly do the best I can right here and now and give credit to the possible and actual, actually real, as it were...

Hegel's influence was huge in every respect, so the whole thing continued developing with him in the background and all of them, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and the rest - they all developed in relation to Hegel. [Even the aforementioned Neo-Kantians...]

Hegel is not justifying anything and everything. He does know of "rotten existence/actuality", as K mentioned. And he isn't crying over spilt milk. Rather, he comes after it and tries to make sense of it all.

So, he thinks that philosopher's job comes after the event, basically. And Marx comes and says "no" to that. Hence he rejects being a "philosopher" in a Hegelian sense and becomes a "thinker", as in "History making with consciousness". Hegel thought, argues Marx in his early works, nowt essentially new is possible and hence a struggle for the very meaning of our existence began. He worked a lot on that. With gusto and he was right!

Hegel should be attacked right there but again: carefully and intelligently! A's interpretation of how Hegel would see Auschwitz or Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by no means universally accepted. It's an interpretation. One has a few categories to play around in Hegel's modalities, so it's not necessarily that straight forward and one way, methinx...

Sorry, A8, I really have to defend the old bugger here, no hard feelings...

 

[kyser_soze]

And he isn't crying over spilt milk. Rather, he comes after it and tries to make sense of it all.

'We should not mourn the milk, rather understand how the totality of events preceeding this event came to make the milk spill'

(BTW G, I hope you like my change of tagline)

 

[gorski]

Yep, you're starting to get into it now... The main one, about the meaning of it all - its [the spilt milk event] "truth" coming in the next stage of historical developments or maybe it turns out to be one of those "rotten existence" dead ends in History - is yet to be seen on your part...

Not sure I understand the last sentence correctly, though...