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> Kai, you take for granted that this concept of the Idea is not
only
> legitimate, but can be extended _ad infinitum_.
What problem do you see?
May be it depends on what you understand by "concept of Idea". In
my understanding it is the one which includes all. Our understanding of the
absolute will change as we are going to discover more and more, including in it
more and more concepts (as it happens all the time in science).
> Anyone is free to construct any system they like,
> but surely the great achievement of Hegel is that he summed up
> the real movement of the human spirit up to his day.
A system is better then another if it explains/includes all of the other
system plus more. So when Hegel includes/explains all the other explain/include
and more, he is in that way superior.
Also, Hegel's system also includes much more as the current sciences as it
also tries to explain what science is, what we do when we explain, examine the
categories by which we think and judge etc. Hegel also explains in his system
what he does and why he does it. So in that sense I find him relevant and I also
want to expand him.
For other goals, other systems might be interesting as well. I'm interested
in other systems especially when they show a limitation of Hegel's system so
that we can complete him.
> I think the history of the past 150 years allows us not only to
> simply *add on* more to the Idea, but in fact to see the
> limitations of this concept of truth.
I agree with you that the past 150 years will not only be added to the system
but also change the whole system (similar as Hegel not only added to Aristotle, Plato
etc, but also changed them a lot in order to include all what is new).
It is okay to bring these new developments in, and I'd like to make this
process as easy as possible, so I'll try to speak in as simple words as possible
(my English is not that good anyway) and try to keep a friendly, open
atmosphere, were anyone is invited to contribute, no need to be a Hegel expert
or any such "power play".
But OTOH, we will need to examine Hegel's System and what he says. For
example, his system is deeply interrelated. You will always not only need to
look at the part of the system were he discusses the subject itself, but in the
other parts of the system also. These parts explain each other.
So for example, Marxists have often taken Hegel's critique of moral reasoning
as Hegel's last word on ethic, but you have to take the whole picture, meaning,
the whole objective spirit, the subjective spirit, arts and religion and
especially the logic into account to get a complete picture. In that case it
clearly becomes available that Hegel *does* have some concepts to judge human behavior, he has en ethic.
> (1) It seemed reasonable in his time that science would
> develop along the lines of the Unified Theory to which Physics,
> at least, aspired well into this century. The Unified Theory not
> only eludes physics, but seems no closer from any standpoint.
I don't get your point here? What I see is that in science people do try to follow
the same principle as I said (include as much as possible), not very surprising
as Hegel explains the principles of good science (in a letter to his friend
Niethammer, he writes that the universities are our (protestant) churches). I
can't see anything bad in that concept. What's the problem?
I'm not that much into Physics to give the "Unified Theory" a fair
treatment (that is one goal I'd like to attain, to involve here people from all
kind of theoretic backgrounds so that such a fruitful dialog can make more
meaning, were we all do learn something new), but:
- Either they reach that goal: great. Maybe still, that similar to the
"end of Physics" around 1900, we will come to new facts, new
theories which will need a new revolution, may be a new "unified
theory" and so on.
- Or they don't. So what? May be there is no more unification possible,
Nature is the way it is. Or may be their approach is wrong, may be we need
to know too little about nature to make the unification now. May be we
will find some more forces or aspects which will then generate a new
revolution which may make it then much easier to find a unification.
- From Hegel's philosophy of Nature, who determines Nature as the
other of the spirit, we may both expect to find something common in Nature
as well as something divided. So I'm open to either result. However, it is
clear that being scientists, we will try to find as much in common, as
much system in all, so also in Nature, as we can.
> (2) The benign constitutional monarch had some basis in
> Hegel's Europe, and to this day, elements of this conception
> (minus the royal line of descent) are still to be found in
> the modern state.
The monarch is not important for our days. But despite Hegel making a big
show out of the monarch in his lectures and his book, he is not the most central
place in the PoR, and logically the arguments Hegel brings don't need to apply
for a monarchy but may also be applied for several other forms.
Always look at Hegel's arguments. He does not apply for more truth then by
the arguments he gives. I suspect that he knew that when he argued for monarchy,
his educated readers would notice that from the arguments he gave he was in no
sense excluding anything else then monarchy.
Also, we always need to check an argumentation given in any place of the
system with the other corresponding places of the system to see how good it fits
and to see it's relevance.
> (3) The concept of the market as a "magic hand", or in Hegel's
words:
> political economy as "thought working upon the endless mass
> of details which confront it at the outset and extracting there
> from the simple principles of the thing, the *Understanding effective
> in the thing and directing it*. It is to find reconciliation here to
> discover in the sphere of needs this *show of rationality* lying in
> the thing and effective there"
Hegel is always interested in what way sense, rationality is finding it's way
in the world, how it is becoming real, expressing itself. So that's probably one
reason why he was fascinated by the Scottish school of economy.
But we also know from Rosenkranz (a close follower of Hegel, and his first biographer. He also discovered and made available the
Nürnberg lectures of Hegel
and wrote a book "Aesthetic of the ugly" in Hegelian spirit), that
Hegel wrote a descent critique of Riccardo (unfortunately it is no more
available. According to an article in "Hegel-Studien", the Hegel
family gave lot of Hegel's manuscripts to a paper mill after Hegel's
death).
And we also know that Hegel was also a critique of the capitalist economy,
that he saw it's production of poors etc (the best place is his lecture on PoR
of 1818/19, published by Henrich at Suhrkamp, were he goes into big details on
this subject).
So Hegel sees both the needs for some regulation within the capitalist
society and he sees the need for the state as something above of families and
economy, only within the limitations of the state can such an economy make
sense.
> cannot stand up
> today when the global economy exhibits behavior which is definitively
> *irrational*.
When we examine the last paragraphs of Hegel's PoR, before he comes to world
history, he speaks of the relations of the different nations. We find again many
concepts we found on the way thru the system before, e.g. recognition, family,
moral judgment, system of needs and the like.
So probably, when we would give a lecture on the system of relations between
the states, in many aspects, we could reuse the PoR, what we see there in
respect of one person, we can see in similar (but also different - dialectic is
a lot about seeing similarities in those things which look different and
differences in the things which look similar) fashion in respect to states. So
what is needed is also something above them.
This will probably be something different than it was in the inner right, as
we are now one step above. May be it will be an association of states governed
by the same principles, acting in tune due to the same economic interests (this
will need another economy).
At least as long as this is not going to happen, we will have world history
with war. Hegel was very skeptic about any such a relation to be achieved among
states or any kind of paradise in the real world.
You can achieve progress all the time, work for progress, but *absolute*
freedom has it's reality in the absolute spirit
(arts/religion/science-philosophy). But you can try to make the world better,
more rational. Similar as you can try to achieve more and more truth.
> I think these three aspects of the development of culture
> since Hegel's death demonstrate
As you see, I'm not convinced yet <g>...
> that as a great a concept as Hegel's Idea may be,
But so far, we have not really looked at Hegel, only spoken about his ideas
the way we talk about someone in a tv show. We need to really look (=think) into
him, to examine him. Then we will see by thinking him, how good or bad he is,
what is good and what should be changed.
> it is necessary to go beyond it,
Sure.
> and that DOES NOT mean simply absorbing more and
> more generalized conceptions under its heading
Well, but a concept like the idea is not like a bag, an abstraction in which
you can place anything without any consequences. That is not the way it works.
The absolute has to include all, and that means that it reflects all, so when it
includes more/other ideas, it will change. There is a big difference between an
abstraction and a Hegelian "concept".
In the ordinary abstraction, you leave out all the properties which the
things which you want to place in your set, bag don't have in common. So the
more things you place in your "bag", the fewer properties they have in
common, it gets less and less rich. That's what people think of when they hear
abstract.
But for Hegel, when you make a concept, you have to make it that way, that
you concentrate in it all what is meaningful, like a see of a plant. e.g. you
may define a chair the way you want, say something with 4 feet (like an
elephant? <g>) but the concept of a chair is probably to be a sitting
furniture, so that you can get out of this concept as much as possible (e.g. you
may get different chairs due to different situations in which you sit,
etc).
The concept of "all including" is in that way a problem, it seems
to be something very abstract, were you *can't' get the world out of it.
So at the beginning of the system, Hegel defines it as the logic, as
everything which is ever subject to our thoughts, especially to systematic
thought, science, will be a concept, described by categories etc (even when we
argue against it we are within it as long as we argue and think).
And the absolute is simply the summary of the system, itself, so you get only
a shadow of it when you look at the absolute without looking at the
system.
Kai | 