Hegel

Where to begin? None of Hegel's books is easy to read or understand, but the ones listed below are probably the most accessible and are the ones with which to start (“Hegel for beginners”?):

CDnow

Twelve theses written by Hegel, August 1801:

Contradiction is the rule of what is true; non-contradiction, of what is false.

  • Syllogismus est principium Idealismi.

    • Syllogism is the basis of idealism.

  • Quadratum est lex naturae, triangulum mentis.

    • The square is the law of nature; the triangle, that of the mind.

  • In Arithmetica vera nec additioni nisi unitatis ad dyadem, nec subtractioni nisi dyadis a triade neque triadi ut summae, neque unitati ut differentiae est locus.

    • In arithmetic truth, there is no place for addition, unless by the unity into a pair; no place for subtraction, unless of a pair from a triad, nor for a triad as a sum, nor for a unity as a difference.

  • Ut magnes est vectis naturalis, ita gravitas planetarum in solem pendulum naturale.

    • Just as the magnet is a natural lever, so, too, the weight of the planets against the suspended sun is a natural pendulum.

  • Idea est synthesis infiniti et finiti et philosophia omnis est in ideis.

    • The idea is the synthesis of the infinite and the finite, and in ideas is all philosophy.

  • Philosophia critica caret ideis et imperfecta est Scepticismi forma.

    • Critical philosophy is without absolute truths and the general notion of skepticism is flawed.

  • Materia postulati rationis, quod philosophia critica exhibet, eam ipsam philosophiam destruit, et principium est Spinozismi.

    • The matter of postulating reason, which critical philosophy sets forth, destroys that very same philosophy, and is the basis of Spinozism.

  • Status naturae non est iniustus et eam ob causam ex illo exeundum.

    • The status of nature is not unjust and for that reason it must not be departed from.

  • Principium scientiae moralis est reverentia fato habenda.

    • The basis of moral science is that respect must be given to the spoken word.

  • Virtus innocentiam tum agendi tum patiendi excludit.

    • Virtue excludes the innocence both of acting and of being acted upon.

  • Moralitas omnibus numeris absoluta virtuti repugnat.

    • Morality stripped of all conditions is incompatible with goodness/virtue.

    .

    Notes on a lecture given by Frithjof Bergmann on October 15, 1985 at the University of Michigan on Hegel

    Hegel felt that the flaws of Roman civilization were so many and so serious that Christianity became necessary. One flaw of the Roman world was that the Natural Sphere had become empty, and the Supernatural Sphere had become full. With the Natural Sphere emptied, the Supernatural Sphere became full; Growing and Becoming in the Natural Sphere was therefore difficult for the Romans - and for 18th- and 19th-century Europe.

    Hegel wants to “patch up” three splits or dualisms:
    [a] emotion / reason
    [b] God / man
    [c] society / individual

    Hegel sees Kant as responsible for the split between reason and emotion; Kant's “categorical imperative” amounts to saying that “inclinations may not fuel moral acts” - Hegel says that this amounts to an unfair promotion of reason. Hegel sees himself as “down to earth” as opposed to Kant's equation of rationality and morality; Hegel denies (and sees Kant as asserting) that it is rationality which makes people good; Hegel says that morality is what makes people good, and that morality is not to be equated with rationality. Hegel strove to develop an ethics which was free of abstraction; Hegel is against ethics conceived as sets of rules “in outer space”, i.e., isolated from the concrete instantiation.

    Hegel's famous “Master and Bondsman” or “Lord and Slave” text is an effort to show that a self exists only by the fact that it exists for another consciousness. What makes a person a person is to be recognized as such. Hegel objects to the “social contract;” to view society as contractual is wrong - that is not the nature of human society. Individuals, he says, can not be prior to a society. The “social contract” assumes “ready-made” individuals to form a society. But from where did these pre-existing individuals come? The notion of freedom (and other notions here) are too abstract; Hegel wants freedom and other concepts to be very concrete. An individual, he says, is the result of social processes. But the story of the “social contract” is very attractive, and difficult to dispell. Is this because there is no alternative myth?

    Return to the Philosophy Page

    This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

    Buy Hegel's early theological essays.

    http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/5680/hegel.html