Hegel Dialectic “Love means generally the consciousness of my unity with an other, so that I am not isolated by myself, but rather gain my self-consciousness only by giving up my being-for-self (Fürsichseins) and by knowing myself in unity with the other and the other in unity with me…” (Williams, pp. 183-184) The interpretation of Hegel from Robert Williams’ book Recognition was not my easiest read and it was great to see that at the very end I was able to find a passage that explained his concepts of recognition and understanding of the “self”. While referencing love, this quote made me think of how the three phases formulate and reach that final self (the actual or concrete self). TextMap L03: Recognition also reinforced my understanding …show more content…
A fight of intersubjectivity and cogito. If you noticed the part, “I am not isolated”, we can see that Hegel is refusing Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum and announcing that we actually need the “other”. The same “other” that Descartes claimed doesn’t exist. Love cannot exist with a cogito foundation of existence. I understand this to be the first phase of recognition and when we realize that our pre-self is not all that exists. This happens when we are presented with another pre-self. If I follow the quote, I see a succinct summary of the second and third phases. I can visualize Hegel’s next step of recognition although not specifically referenced. This would be the “duke” between the two pre-selves. When we first encounter the other, according to Hegel, we must go through this battle. In the end, we realize that there can be only one reciprocally rewarding outcome, phase three. I insert a snippet here to touch on master/slave. My understanding of this dynamic did a one-eighty after discussion with my class and instructor. I originally thought that with the master/slave that we had chosen for our consciousness to “die”. I have now learned that this dynamic is a singularly beneficial interaction, but does provide recognition of the other. Meaning we do “live” in consciousness. It also is not a deeply rewarding position to be the master as we are not truly recognized and appreciated. Rather, the recipient of “forced/ordered”
In sections 190-193 of Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Sprit, Hegel looks into the relationship between the lord and the bondsman. In this examination of the relationship, Hegel makes the move to find out what both the lord and bondsman offer to each other in terms of existence and or identity. The formulation that Hegel made in the selected sections is that the bondsman had more to gain in terms of intellectual growth than his lord who becomes intellectually dormant due to the bondsman acting in the likeness of his lord.
Philosophers believe that Hegel’s historicism has inherent conflicts that surprisingly fall in same dialectic argument that Hegel promotes, which somehow nullifies his philosophy. Originated and influenced by his Dialectic thought process of “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis”, Hegel believes that all societal and more importantly all human activities including culture, language, science, art, and even philosophy are defined by their past and the heart of these activities can be understood by studying their history. Hegel argues that the history of societal activity is a cumulative reaction to the events that has happened in the past. His famous “Philosophy is the history of philosophy" quote essentially summarizes his thoughts. Hegel believes history is a progressive and directional relation between human activities and society. He argues that in order to understand an individual, he must be studied in a society where in turn the same society can be understood by evaluating th...
love in the context of being a device that is used to protect and to care for people
...is an account of the birth of self-consciousness through intersubjectivity or the integration within culture. It is a dialectical interpretation that acts, for Hegel, as a form for perceiving the way in which the self comes to know itself through the other and through historical processes. The master/slave dialectic is an early account of intersubjectivity and also a lack of intersubjectivity because it is not based on equal recognition. Self-consciousness, for Hegel, is attained only through the recognition by another independent self. The human world is a world based on recognition, and the human being has within themselves the desire for recognition from other human beings. Hegel proposes that one cannot become a self-conscious individual without seeing oneself in another, and that each individual bases their existence on a world that is founded upon recognition.
To Hegel, the history of the developing self-conscious mind was the same as the history of philosophy. Through out time, conflicting theories have laid claim to their one exclusive form of truth. Hegel implies that we should not focus on these conflicted ideals but view each as “elements of an organic unity”. This places Hegel as part of a progression of philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, and Kant) who can generally by described as Idealists, whom regarded freedom or self-determination as real and being important for the soul or mind or divinity.
In 1806, nearly two hundred years before Fukuyama’s audacious historical stance, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel declared the end of history. Hegel bases his claim in that the Napoleonic Code, a preliminary, yet revolutionary replacement of previous feudal laws, was being promulgated and slowly implemented throughout Napoleon’s empire . Hegel believes, however, that the adoption of a particular code or set of standards for a civil society, like the Napoleonic Code or the Constitution of the United States, is stipulated on the rational evolution or progression of peoples towards the realization that they are free or equal. In short, a constitution that guarantees your freedom means nothing to those who do not possess the self-consciousness
Kierkegaard suggests that Hegel, at his core, does not understand that the nature of man, or at the very least the nature of faith, which is in a constant state of moral uncertainty. He illustrates the state of man with various analogies on Abraham's sacrifice of Issac in “Fear and Trembling,” suggesting that Abraham should either be considered a murder because he would have killed his son, or a man of faith because of he obeyed God unwaveringly. Kierkegaard wirtes, “I return, however, to Abraham. Before the result, either Abraham was every minute a murderer, or we are confronted by a paradox which is higher than all mediation” (Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 51). He makes the claim that while the ethical is universal, the individual who has a personal relationship with God takes on a higher importance than one would with Gies...
Kung, Hans. The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought As Prolegomena to a Future Christology. T&T Clark, 2001. hard cover.
Contrasting the view of the Relational self is the view of the Atomistic Self. In this view, the core of a person, is independent of others and self-contained. Descartes states that to truly understand one’s “real” self can only be achieved by
As presented in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the aim of Life is to free itself from confinement "in-itself" and to become "for-itself." Not only does Hegel place this unfolding of Life at the very beginning of the dialectical development of self-consciousness, but he characterizes self-consciousness itself as a form of Life and points to the advancement of self-consciousness in the Master/Slave dialectic as the development of Life becoming "for-itself." This paper seeks to delineate this often overlooked thread of dialectical insight as it unfolds in the Master/Slave dialectic. Hegel articulates a vision of the place of human self-consciousness in the process of Life as a whole and throws light on the role of death as an essential ingredient in the epic drama of life's struggle and Spirit's birth.
That "the idea pays the ransom of existence and transience—not out of its own pocket, but with the passions of individuals" is an idea with categorizes what Hegel calls "the Cunning of Reason" (35). It is in this way that Hegel describes universal Reason, a force which ensures the end of history in its own self-consciousness. Like Kant, Hegel develops a teleological history which moves toward a specific end, and similar to Kant, this end involves the actualization of Reason within human events. However, the path that history takes, according to the two, differs greatly. While both men envision a dichotomous struggle, Kant finds the struggle within mankind while Hegel sees it everyone, even within Reason itself. The Kantian struggle between man's sensuous and rational sides seems almost pacific compared to the divided kingdom of Hegel's. The "cunning of reason" is simply the representation of one of those dichotomies—between human intention and human outcome. "[Men] fulfill their own interests, but something further is thereby bro...
Hegel was influenced by developing biological fundamentals in that organisms were interdependent upon each other and their environment making them all part of a hierarchy in life. He related this to society and human reason by believing that nothing could function in isolation and that everything and everyone was part of a larger whole: the Nation-State. He asserted that an individual’s moral ideas would be identical to that of the Nation-State. Hegel believed in the assimilation of one’s moral ideas and social ethics to the government’s because it incorporated all political, economic, and social aspects of an individual’s culture. Hegel’s philosophy opposed rationalism in that instead of celebrating the independent, individual person, he believed that people had the need to become part of something larger beyond themselves.
Hegel’s philosophy of history is idealist, which means that reality is depended on the mind or spirit. His philosophy is based on the concepts of idealism, spirit and unity. Hegel philosophy is based on absolute idealism; God is a spiritual entity that realizes itself and is the origin of all material things (Hegel 22). Thus, philosophy is the self-knowledge of the spirit. In particular, he developed the concept that history occurs through a dialectic or clash of opposing forces. Some of these opposing forces are nature vs. spirit and transcendence vs. immanence. He believed that ideas can be the motive force for world development. Hegel places ultimate reality in ideas rather than in material things.
What is love? A question many have pondered on for ages. As children we believe one day our true love will come on a white horse sweeping us off of our feet, and then we will live happily ever after. Then as we grow older and realize the world isn’t full of happily ever afters, but instead the world is real, not a fairy tale. Often times we think of love as just that, only in the sense of a significant other. In “Those Winter Sundays” Robert Hayden shows us a love other than the usual form of love of a man and women. He shows us love in the sense of family and selflessness. William Shakespeare also gives us a picture of love in the sense of a relationship in “Let me not to the marriage of true minds.”
What is love? Love is a very special and meaningful word to each human being. Each human being has his/her own thoughts about love to guide himself/herself to land safely and smoothly into the kingdom of Love. Without this preconceived idea of love, people would be acting like a blind person searching for the light with thousand of obstacles in front of him.