Hegel's Philosophy in Brief
Hegel's own pithy account of the nature of philosophy given in the "Preface" to his Elements of the Philosophy of Right captures a characteristic tension in his philosophical approach and, in particular, in his approach to the nature and limits of human cognition. "Philosophy", he says there, "is its own time raised to the level of thought".
On the one hand we can clearly see in the phrase "its own time" the suggestion of a historical or cultural conditionedness and variability which applies even to the highest form of human cognition, philosophy itself -- the contents of philosophical knowledge, we might suspect, will come from the historically changing contents of contemporary culture. On the other, there is the hint that with such contents being "raised" to some higher level, presumably higher than the more everyday levels of cognitive functioning -- those based in everyday perceptual experience, for example. This higher level takes the form of "thought" -- a type of cognition commonly taken as capable of having "eternal" contents (think of Plato and Frege, for example).
This antithetical combination within human cognition of the temporally-conditioned and the eternal, a combination which reflects a broader conception of the human being as what Hegel describes elsewhere as a "finite-infinite", has led to Hegel being regarded in different ways by different types of philosophical readers. For example, towards the end of our century, an
historically-minded " anti-realist" like Richard Rorty, distrustful of all claims or aspirations to the "God's-eye view", could praise Hegel as a philosopher who had introduced this historically reflective dimension into philosophy (and setting it on the characteristically "hermeneutic" path which has predominated in modern continental philosophy) but who had unfortunately still become bogged down in the remnants of the Platonistic idea of the search for ahistorical truths. Those adopting such an approach to Hegel tend to have in mind the (relatively) young author of the Phenomenology of Spirit and have tended to dismiss as "metaphysical" later and more systematic works like the Science of Logic. In
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...
...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.
...’ new elaboration on the deliberative model of its substantive force; once again confronting it with the Hegelian charge of emptiness and ineffectiveness.
...omprehensible knowledge of a particular sort. After derisively comparing those believers in sense-certainty's capabilities of Knowledge to animals and Eleusinian devotees, Hegel returns to his theme of Knowledge as communication through language, insisting that to make a claim about the knowledge contained in sense-certainty is: "not to know what one is saying, to be unaware that one is saying the opposite of what one wants to say" (Hegel, 109). Left with the thingness or being of sense-certainty as an undifferentiated, universal and unintelligible generality, Hegel concludes by abandoning sense-certainty in its own right and moving on to the next level of complexity, namely perception, or thingness as understood the properties that define it.
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.
According to Hegel, the conscious has certain knowledge of itself. It is certain of its own existence. This form of knowledge is immediate and intuitive to the spirit. The conscious spirit is aware of its moral duty. However, it still needs to be convinced of its duty which needs to be universalized and recognized. Moreover, it’s immediate knowing and willing need to be certified and or validated. This validation is only possible in the context of a community of other selves: other moral agents.
In today’s society, the mind is a set of cognitive elements which enables an individual’s consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory. In addition, without our minds and/or conscious experiences, a person would not be able to understand what makes them who they are. Similarly, in Thomas Nagel’s essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat,” Nagel claims that even though there is something it is like to be an organism, humans are not capable of fully knowing what it is like to be a bat. In addition, Nagel supports his claims through the importance of an organism’s conscious experiences, memories, and knowledge which allow an individual to identify themselves. Therefore, in this paper I will discuss Nagel’s argument which I believe
One of the most fundamental concerns throughout mankind have been the subject of a fully free emancipated humankind. Throughout history, philosophers have been in constant discussion in figuring out a way to respect human rights, while at the same time, preserve a well-ordered society. One of the schools of thought that demonstrate this type of society is liberalism. Liberalism is defined as “a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties” (Dictionary, 2017). Although most
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.
In his Phenomenology of Spirit, G.W.F. Hegel lays out a process by which one may come to know absolute truth. This process shows a gradual evolution from a state of "natural consciousness" (56) (1) to one of complete self-consciousness - which leads to an understanding of the "nature of absolute knowledge itself" (66). By understanding the relation between consciousness and truth, one may come to know the true nature of our existence. Hegel proposes to answer these questions in one bold stroke; he relates them in such a way as to make an infinitely complex and indiscernible universe a unitary whole. This process from a natural state to a kind of transcendence leads one from the chaos of the immediate to the sublimity of the universal.
Human beings have been struggling to learn the meaning of life since the first day. Ideologies are born as human’s interpretation of the world and belief system, also an endeavor to seek the truth of human nature. Ideologies emerge throughout the periods of great changes: the Enlightenment, the English “Glorious” Revolution, the American Revolution, etc. They have become the motivations, the standards, and the roots to modern political systems. Their roots are the philosophies developed by famous philosophers throughout the time. However, as each ideology is developed, its own contradiction also grows, takes place in the realm of actions. This, in turn, shows contradiction as human nature.
However, he did realize that no religion would be able to survive just based on the supposed experiences and ‘revelations’ of other people, which is what led him to understanding that it must be based on peoples understanding and personal interpretations of reality (Handout #1). Even though he did feel as though he was indebted to the Enlightenment, Hegel opposed many of its basic concepts even while protecting a lot of the developments that were brought by the Enlightenment (Handout #1). The views of religion that are offered by Hegel lean more positively to Christianity and religion in general since he does agree with the belief of God and he was Lutheran which is a sect of Christianity and also supports his acceptance of religion (Handout #1). He also frequently utilizes Christian terms in his writings, especially those of the Trinity which actually supports religion in general even though he thought that religion should be transformed into philosophy which proves that Hegel inspected and researched religion more as a philosophy which is more harmful to it since philosophies have never been proven. However, Hegel opposes a portion of orthodoxy because he believes that Evil was created by God and that humanity is nothing without the contrast between good and evil. Some of his views are also more harmful for Christianity because he
Moore, Brooke Noel., and Kenneth Bruder. "Chapter 6- The Rise of Metaphysics and Epistemology; Chapter 9- The Pragmatic and Analytic Traditions; Chapter 7- The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." Philosophy: the Power of Ideas. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.
“It was a new discovery to find that these stories were, after all, about our own lives, were not distant, that there was no past or future that all time is now-time, centred in the being.” (Pp39.)