/lit/ - Literature

>>16116424
maybe he should have drawn a diagram

>>16116424


Hegel was thought to be one of the most profound thinkers of Europe. He was not. His profundity was based on his linguistic jugglery. He was a juggler. He was playing with words and making such complicated sentences that nobody was able to make any sense out of them. And people are such that if they can't make any sense out of something they think it must be profound.

In fact, truth is very simple. It is so simple that it can even be communicated by silence. In fact, it can be communicated only by silence.

Letters and speeches come from the artificial, complicated mind. Both in the material and immaterial world a person stays or goes, sits or lies down, and moves innocently, or, it can be said, in the natural, simple mind.

To be simple means to be nonverbal, nonlinguistic. Your approach toward reality should not be through language. But we have become so mechanically accustomed of language that the moment you see a rose, immediately your mind says, "What a beautiful flower." Is it needed? Does it in any way help you to appreciate the rose? Why repeat this in the mind? Can't you simply see the beauty of the rose and absorb it and drink of it? Is language needed?

It happened_

A man used to go for a morning walk with Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu said to the man, "Remember one thing - no talking. Then you can come with me."

The man knew Lao Tzu, and when he said something he meant it, so he kept quiet. Many times he would have liked to say something about the weather and the sunrise and the beautiful flowers and the birds, but he repressed.

One day a guest was staying with the man and the guest was also interested to come along, just to accompany Lao Tzu. He had heard much about the man. So they both accompanied Lao Tzu.

The guest was unaware of what the condition was, and his host had not told him. He had completely forgotten to tell him. For hours they went silently into the hills. Then the sunrise, and the guest said, "What a beautiful sunrise."

Lao Tzu stopped then and there and said to his neighbor, "Finished! No more coming with me. Take your guest away immediately. He talks too much."

After three hours of walking, just one sentence: "What a beautiful morning. What a beautiful sunrise."

And Lao Tzu says that he talks too much and that it is absolutely unnecessary: "I have eyes, I can see the beauty, I can feel the sunrise. Why should he say it? Does he think I am blind? This is very insulting!"

And Lao Tzu is right. What is the need? Can't you simply feel the warmth of the sun rising? Have you to say something?

Even if you are alone you go on talking to yourself. You can't stop this constantly chattering mind. And it has to be stopped, otherwise it won't allow you to see things as they are.

>>16116424
Hegel is a visionary thinker. I mean that in a literal sense. His philosophy is very spatial.

>>16116424
>not itself by being itself in its manifestation of not being itself, but rather, what it is
The rather is for the first or second not?

>>16116553
>In fact, truth is very simple. It is so simple that it can even be communicated by silence. In fact, it can be communicated only by silence.

shut the fuck up then damn

>>16116424
>Because the thing-in-itself is not the absolute, but rather that which makes the absolute possible, that is to say, the-absolute-as-a-thing-in-itself
fairly straightforward
>therefore, the possibility of self-consciousness, of attaining a grounding for all possible and impossible knowledge, is not in actuality a possibility grounded in the knowledge of the absolute
because the absolute itself is grounded
>but in the negation of the grounding of this negation
picture it like this:
- negation of possibility of self-consciousness grounded in the knowledge of the absolute
- the grounding of this negation
- the negation of the grounding
>into that which is not itself by being itself in its manifestation of not being itself, but rather, what it is
think of the essence of something, a necessary condition for that thing to "be". he's not talking about something that is the negation of itself by embodying its negation, but something that is the negation of itself by being what it is, by embodying its essence. this would be a contradiction in classical logic but not in Hegel's dialectical system.

>>16116424

The particular is not the absolute but rather the-absolute-as-a-particular. The foundation of the particular is not the absolute but the particular's relation to the absolute as the absolute-as-a-particular. The relationship is positive and negative. It's self-evident but only the mind is self-distinguishing.

Self-evidence is what is. Distinguish is the negative.

>>16117432
good post

>>16117432
Why isn't Hegel's dialectic bound by what you call classical logic?

>>16116424
>Because the thing-in-itself is not the absolute, but rather that which makes the absolute possible, that is to say, the-absolute-as-a-thing-in-itself; therefore, the possibility of self-consciousness of attaining a grounding...
Uh huh, sure thing gramps. It's time to get in the van now, let me help you....

>>16117432
Take your meds.

>>16116424
Wernicke's Aphasia is an illness, not a philosophical program.

>>16118170
Because logic isn't the absolute
Read the Platonists

>>16118198
I didn't mean to disparage Hegel or anything, I would just like to understand how it works out. Which Platonists and which passages in particular?

all these filtered pseuds itt

>>16118170
That's what I would say is one of the enduring contributions of Hegel outlined in his Science of Logic. I can't really explain all of it here, so I will just explain how Hegel repackages one of the classical logical laws (the law of identity) into his dialectical system. The classical law of identity cannot give us an explanation of how consciousness contemplates itself, giving rise to self-consciousness. It can only give us a proposition like "consciousness = consciousness" without giving us the developmemt of consciousness unto itself. This becomes increasingly problematic with regards to consciousness in other people. Since consciousness is identical to itself, something like the lordship and bondage dialectic becomes nonsensical, it would just be a self-contained "A" interacting with another "A", ultimately being equivalent and ultimately coming into conflict with only itself. Under Hegel's conception, there is self-consciousness, there is the "Other", and there is the recognition of and from the Other. These principles, while not negating the law of identity, give rise to a dialectic that cannot be conveyed with a classical system of logic.
See pic related for another explanation if mine is inadequate. Also for more information on dialectics feel free to visit this link:
https://empyreantrail.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/dialectics-an-introduction/

>>16117432
based
>>16118188
cringe

>>16117432
>is the negation of itself by being what it is
How can it be so?

>>16118250
I don't know the full context of the quote above, but I think this would be an intermediary stage in the evolution of Spirit where the abstract is equivalent to its negation in the course of history before its sublation or integration into the idea as a whole. You could think of this as contradictory principles in a given period of history that haven't been sublated, giving rise to contradictions which seem apparent to us now after development/evolution. My use of essence in that post was careless and I mostly meant to use it as an illustrative point. It's not essence as in the essence of God is existence or that the essence of a married bachelor is non-existence, because this again implies identity relations that subsist throughout time. It's more of a contradictory dialectic "moment", something that fuels change through negations.

>>16118239
The law of identity has nothing to do with "consciousness". What a load of pseud horseshit.

>>16118219
>>16118239
alternatively to use provocative language you could imagine a classical logic conception as equivalent to an autistic abstraction, something like game theory or praxeology that deals with axiomatics and rational agents, call it "analytic philosophy".
Hegel's dialectic system takes into account the historical contingencies of Ideas and the complexities of consciousness and its own web of ideas. not only that, but it places consciousness into a social context with issues of recognition and self-actualization. call it "continental philosophy"

>>16118223
Could you describe filtered and non filtered people for me anon?

>>16118289
The law of identity has to do with everything since it's a universal logical law. But we see that it's inadequate in explaining somethings; it oversimplifies or straight up misleads. You can not care and that's all well and good, but people who do realize it's first and foremost an abstraction and there is a "beyond" to it.

>>16118289

>>16117339
Bruuuuuuutal

>>16118311
>universal logical law
No, it's just the definition of a dyadic relation that connects two labels for the same thing. Nothing at all to do with "consciousness".

>>16116553
And people are such that if they can't make any sense out of something they think it must not be profound.
what if like tao is... not actually tao... woah dude that's deep

Who's talking? The man that made a cult out of a town? Poisoning and brainwashing his people?

>>16118406
>has no idea what he's talking about
Why are you in a Hegel thread anon? Are you lost?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gottlieb_Fichte#Central_theory

>>16118493
Pure gibberish.

>>16118508
Off you go

>>16118508
Don't worry, anon, it's not your fault you're retarded.

>>16116814
I score in the top 1% of the general population on WAIS POI subtests (visuo-spatial reasoning) and I can't tell what the fuck Hegel is talking about.

>>16118515
>>16118535
Pseud brainlet says what?

>>16118541
you have to read him probably to get familiar or have read around him (german idealists), just one quote in his line of thought can seem as arcane as anything

>>16118541
you have to read him probably to get familiar or have read around him (german idealists), just one quote out of context of his line of thought can seem as arcane as anyone's

>>16118541
>top 1%
thats borderline retarded

>>16118561
"Pseud brainlet says what?"

>>16118541
>I score in the top 1% of the general population on WAIS POI subtests (visuo-spatial reasoning)
lmao don't care

>>16116424
ah yes, hegel my favourite german idealist. i have never read any of his books.

>>16116424
He's an obscurantist retard.

>>16118239
But I was aking about the law of non-contradiction, not the law of identity? Also this seems very well written for Hegel, what translation is this?

>>16118828
>Why isn't Hegel's dialectic bound by what you call classical logic?
this was your original question. you can apply the same logic to the law of noncontradiction, the law of excluded middle, etc. etc. they are all interrelated.
>Also this seems very well written for Hegel, what translation is this?
This is William James. "The Varieties of Religious Experience"

>>16118992
Hegel never questioned the law of noncintradiction though, he explicitly states it multiple times in science of logic.

>>16119016
He never questioned any of the logical laws. I wrote this in my post:
>These principles, while not negating the law of identity, give rise to a dialectic that cannot be conveyed with a classical system of logic.
You can't question the ground of the logical laws because that would be nonsensical. What you can do is go beyond them or think outside the rigid consequences implicit in them.

>>16116553
T. Read one sentence in the middle of the phenomenology and gave up

>>16118992
>they are all interrelated
I'm willing to try to understand but this is meaningless and you should feel bad

>>16119041
what is so confusing about it? the law of noncontradiction is logically equivalent to the law of excluded middle, and both presuppose the notion of identity (A cannot be notA because A's identity differs from A)

>>16116424
Sophistry.

>>16119053
differs from notA, sorry

>>16119053
>the law of noncontradiction is logically equivalent to the law of excluded middle
This is embarrassing.

>>16117432
>he's not talking about something that is the negation of itself by embodying its negation, but something that is the negation of itself by being what it is, by embodying its essence
That makes sense, but why didn't he phrase it like you did?
Why did he have to say "into that which is not itself by being itself in its manifestation of not being itself, but rather, what it is"?

>>16116553
wtf no wei

>>16119080
how?
>>16119083
idk, it's more concise.

>>16119080
>>16119099
~(p ^ ~p) = p v ~p
I guess you have to assume DeMorgan's laws, but how is it incorrect?

>>16119083
also in my explanation there are a lot of loaded terms: "essence" "embody" "negation" (he uses negation in very specific contexts). you would be justified in asking what exactly I meant by those terms, and my answer is 'nothing special'. in Hegel's explanation he uses very simple terms like "is" "not" "itself", with the only loaded word being "manifestation".

>>16116814
i got that feeling when i was reading kojeve

>>16119099
>>16119129
you fucking son of a bitch nigger not not p = p is the excluded middle howfucking dense are you

>>16119277
that's the law of double negation lmao...
excluded middle needs an "or" clause or needs to be constructed from something like Peirce's law. pray tell, where is the excluded middle in not(notp)=p?

>>16119096
>16119096
>>16119040
>>16118407
>>16117339
copes stuck in the prison of language

>>16119322
cope

>>16116424
Where's the quote from?

>>16116553
Maybe you'd (have to) say something if you had something worth saying, unlike this googly-eyed piece of shit.

>>16119302
Lmao, of course he stopped responding
What a slam dunk

>>16119970
>>16119302
Sorry I was busy fucking your mother. If I made a mistake I'm sorry, not not p = p is what we call excluded middle in mathematics. Maybe it's an affair of nomenclature on my part. But on yours it's an affair of being fucking stupid. You say that excluded middle follows directly from non contradiction and then you suddenly something else that you call double negation? You think we're as dumb as you are?

>>16120000
need

Holy fucking shit now I don't know who is talking shit, who's taking seriously what was in the OP, or whatever. I have never read a line from the Phenomenology and I jus wrote what I thought possible to write in a hegelian's fashion. I did not think this post would get 60~ replies.
Fuck Hegel

>>16116424
If you cant express an idea simply it is because you dont understand it yourself.

>>16116553
holy shit talking is like doing soiface

I'm gonna be honest I have no idea what the fuck this guy is on about but I want to understand. It just seems like he's really intent on developing this really complex conceptial framework woth fairly vague language, or at least vague to me, when it would be a lot simpler to tackle whatever problems it's supposed to solve directly. Maybe this is a direct approach. I don't know. Please help.

>>16116424
give me a page number because this quote sounds hella fake

>>16116553
Extremely based post.

Fuck Hegelians, only the eternal tao shall remain.

>>16116424
>Hey, Hegel!

>>16117432
this is how you spot the pseud. You post a fake Hegel quote, which doesn't make sense even at a cursory glance in regards Hegel's philosophy, and wait for this kind of moron to come and explain it.

>>16117339
You have to go through prison to break out of prison

>>16120000
>You say that excluded middle follows directly from non contradiction and then you suddenly something else that you call double negation?
I never said this. In fact I clarified that you need to assume DeMorgan's laws. All I said was that they were logically equivalent. Also double negation is an established logical theorem.

>>16121106
you got me lmao. was fun though.

>>16118239
>See pic related for another explanation if mine is inadequate. Also for more information on dialectics feel free to visit this link:
>https://empyreantrail.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/dialectics-an-introduction/

From the beginner's guide in your link:

>The Absolute is the object which we desire to know, but if such is possible, we require an absolute knowing, a method, to ensure that we acquire absolute knowledge.
The guy doesn't bother explaining what "Absolute" means or what counts as "absolute knowledge", but I read in the other guide that absolute knowledge is something like knowledge that is logically and materially independent from everything else. So "x=y" wouldn't be absolute knowledge because it's logically dependent on the values of x and y. An absolute method is then a method capable of arriving at absolute knowledge. So far it's a bit vague but generally intelligible.

>If there is an Absolute, only an absolute knowing could know it. Because of the nature of an Absolute,
So far so good.

>however, this knowing and knowledge have a peculiar appearance: they appear as a self-knowledge (the absolute refers to itself from within, and we likewise must think it from within) that structurally looks like identity just as much as non-identity:
Why does the knowing (the method) and the knowledge appear as self-knowledge? What the fuck does that even mean? How can "the absolute" refer to itself? What does it mean to "refer from within"? What does it mean to "think from within"?
This is the first paragraph of what is meant to be a beginner's introduction to Hegel's "method" and it's already plagued with vague language and illegitimate logical leaps to properties of this vague thing called "the Absolute".
It's entertaining. But nothing more than intellectual posturing.

>>16122144
that's not even the complicated part. that last quote basically means the Absolute gets to know itself through something called "immanent critique" which is explained in the intermediate guide, but it's basically self-contained critique. every contradiction introduced is within the historical processes and not outside. you can't think of the absolute outside of its previous forms or historical modes, you have to work within it. also read these links if you want to know the absolute, it's supposed to be vague but it's basically the "real" in "the rational alone is real". it's equivalent to God or maybe more accurately the mind of God and it's free from contradiction
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_(philosophy)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_idealism
>It's entertaining. But nothing more than intellectual posturing.
please don't say that man it gives me an existential crisis. it's like a scientist telling an astrologer that what they're doing is useless. is any of this even real?

>>16122326
>that last quote basically means the Absolute gets to know itself through something called "immanent critique"
>you can't think of the absolute outside of its previous forms or historical modes

So which is it? Does the absolute know itself, or do we humans know the absolute?
I don't know man, it's just baffling how a supposed beginner's guide is so obscure in the very first paragraph. I really want Hegel to not be a charlatan, but it's unreal how no one can explain him without sounding like Deepak Chopra or Lacan. This doesn't happen even with other difficult philosophers like Kant.

>>16122480
>So which is it? Does the absolute know itself, or do we humans know the absolute?
It's both, I don't see how they are mutually exclusive. there can be multiple knowers.
>I really want Hegel to not be a charlatan, but it's unreal how no one can explain him without sounding like Deepak Chopra or Lacan.
It's because there's a spiritual dimension to his philosophy. It's like reading Spinoza if he was a neoplatonist living in 200 AD. If you want his philosophy without the soul you could look into analytic hegelianism or british idealism.

>>16122108>>16122108
>you need to assume DeMorgan's laws. All I said was that they were logically equivalent.
This sentence contradicts itself fucking subhuman
>double negation is an established logical theorem
What the fuck no fucking hell get yourself a fucking education and stop talking shit in the meantime

>>16122668
>This sentence contradicts itself fucking subhuman
do you know what logical equivalence is?
>What the fuck no fucking hell get yourself a fucking education and stop talking shit in the meantime
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negation
I don't even know why I'm responding to bait. I'm bored.

>>16117339
>shut the fuck up then damn

One of the great logicians of our times, Ludwig Wittgenstein, has written a book on pure logic. He was a strange person, verging on the mystic side, but never saying anything about it. Only once in a while, writing about logic, he would give certain indications which show that he was aware that there is much more to existence than just logic. In this book, Tractatus, he says, "One should not say anything about something which is inexpressible."

I wrote him a letter. I was a student and I wrote him a letter saying, "If you are true, you should not have said this much even. You say, 'One should not say anything about the inexpressible' - but you are already saying something about it. You are saying, 'It is inexpressible.' You are already giving some indication."

My professor of logic said, "You have been torturing me, now you have started torturing faraway people. He lives in Germany, now_it is none of your business to harass people."

I said, "I am not harassing him, I am simply saying that if he really means it then he should remove this sentence."

He was one of the best minds. Even his own teacher, Bertrand Russell, had recognized him as a better logician than himself. But he never replied to me, because to reply to me would have meant he had to remove that sentence from the book. There is no logical defense about it. Whatever you say, you are saying something. Even if you say, "Nothing can be said about it," you are still saying something about it. So logic has its own subtleties.

>>16120050
something doesn't become wrong by being communicated through someone who doesn't understand the something

>>16123265
make your life simple. 1+1= 2.

hegel is like, if 1+1=2, where does 2 come from and if 2 is the anwser, why cant i have chicken?

>>16123020
>Haha! "Inexpressible" is technically an expression! Despite the fact that I completely understood the thought you were trying to convey, words can be interpreted in multiple ways, and I've pointed out that the words you've chosen to use can be interpreted in such a way that they seemingly make no sense!
Wasn't part of Wittgensteins philosophy about dismantling word games like this?

>>16123277
i can't help but think you're oversimplifying

>>16123020
This is just semantic trickery of the order that Witty was countering. Similar to the Liar's Paradox, the writer of the letter confuses symbology with substance and therefore inevitably errs. Responding to the letter would be pointless because the writer of the letter simply doesn't get it, becoming further entrenched in word games with him is already tacitly admitting that such games have value.

>>16123020
>"You can't express that the inexpressible is inexpressible because that itself is an expression."
Oh okay let's just delete the word 'inexpressible' from the dictionary and never use it again because we're not allowed to use it for the one thing it represents. It's like someone said "this sentence is false" and is waiting for everyone's mind to be blown.

>>16116424
>the negation of the grouding of this negation into that which is not itself by being itself in its manifestation of not being itself, but rather, what it is
god damn... SO fucking true

>>16116553
I thought about not replying to agree with your point, but I thougt it was nice

>>16118250
It cannot not be, because it is. It is because it is its own essence. If something is, it has to be. The reason Hegel's philosophy is compared to the Tao so often is that the idea of there being something that goes beyond the realm of existing and not existing is fundamental to taoist philosophy, and according to that same philosophy, it cannot be described, because it goes beyond words, it can merely be experienced in a sensory fashion. Hindu Philosophy has a similar idea. The Bhagavad Gita (As It Is) Talks about something called "Krshna Consciousness", which again is the idea of pure awareness. What Hegel is saying here, albeit in a very roundabout fashion, is that there is an absolute, which we can only experience on a sensory basis, and there are things that do not impact this absolute, which are things-in-themselves. Having knowledge of things-in-themselves has NOTHING to do with experiencing the absolute, as they are utterly separate from the absolute, which would still be completely whole without them.

It can be summed up in the following passage from Tao Te Ching:

The way is empty, yet use will not drain it.
Deep, it is like the ancestor of the myriad creatures.

Blunt the sharpness;
Untangle the knots;
Soften the glare;
Let your wheels move only along old ruts.

Darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there.
I know not whose son it is.
It images the forefather of God.

>>16116553
Sounds like some kind of coping for not understanding Hegel. Hegel can only be understood if you really dedicate yourself to him.

meaningless tautologies using concepts that dont accuretly describe reality to begin with. it being logical doesnt make it real. reality doesnt neccesarily go by logic. there is no guarantee ontologically that logic is the right tool. any fundamental claim made using logic can be discarded.

theres nothing about the hard problem here either. just academians who made money by being "technically" right about nothing. and now hundreds of years later, people are still eating it up because they made it into the canon, and "its important to know the philosophy of the past". no matter how much of an obvious respect grab it is.

actual demons

>>16124988
Hmm, I'm not sure that argument holds up.

>>16125015
hrrrrrr

how