Life takes some interesting twists and turns. Some exciting. Some tragic. Some anxiety-provoking. Some challenging...Some deadening...
When push comes to shove, economics still rules philosophy. Sometimes economics distorts philosophy. Sometimes economics suppresses and oppresses philosophy. Sometimes economics simply pushes philosophy to the background as more pressing 'matters of survival' take precedence.
I can't afford to sit around writing philosophy all day, all morning, and/or any other part of a day, if my personal income and economics isn't stable. Money -- and/or the lack of it -- changes everything.
This is not a complaint (Well, maybe it at least partly is). But more so, it is a fact of life that one just has to deal with. No time to sit around crying about spilt milk. Move on, man. Move on... We all must answer life's newest and toughest challenges...or get left behind or swept overboard...or under the boat if we don't move our hands and legs -- and swim!
Hegel's Hotel ceases to be constructed -- or at least continues to be constructed but at a much slower rate.
My time and energy have been diverted elsewhere -- like many, many others out there -- as I/we do everything in my/our personal power to survive the economic crunch of a serious recession.
So I ask my readers to be patient with me as I work my way through this latest 'twist' in my life.
I know I am not alone on this boat -- even if it often feels like it.
The entertainment business, the restaurant business, the hotel business, the airline business, the taxi business, the limo business -- all have taken a serious 'hit' -- and in my line of business (driving a limo at this point in time), similarly to the taxi business, it is not unusual for drivers to wait hours on end between customer calls. Some days are better than others, but compared to five or ten years ago, even 25 years ago, most days and nights are bad.
I have a good five or ten essays that are churning around in my head -- demanding to be written.
My favorite quote from my mom (she didn't write it of course but it was her who told it to me when I was a lot younger) was:
'Within every gray (or black) cloud lies a silver lining.'
I can think of a few different 'pieces of silver lining' in my recent switchover from dispatcher to driving. I am meeting a lot of new, very interesting people, drivers out there who I used to dispatch and who individually and collectively have let it be known to me that they were very upset about my having left their taxi cab firm -- I was very touched by a driver who approached me the other day and said that he and all the drivers he had talked to believed that I was one of the few people in the previous organization who actually cared about each and every drivers' personal well-being in a period of 'very harsh economic times'. He said what he said with enough personal emphasis and feeling that I believed that he truly meant what he was saying. That was a 'silver lining'.
Some of the customers I have met driving to the airport have engaged me (or I have engaged them) in some very interesting conversations. I talked to a woman from China about 'globalization'. We both agreed that China and North America needed to find 'win-win' solutions in their business relationships with each other. Sometimes this is easier said than done -- although first and foremost -- a serious effort needs to be made in this direction. I met a 'Union Representative' who had flown in from Vancouver for a union meeting. We talked about economics -- mainly, he talked and I listened because he knew a lot more about economics than I did. I just followed along, listened, and tried to understand -- wishing that I had more time to learn from him but alas, we had reached the airport.
I have more time to read in my car as I am waiting for calls. Two books that have captured most of my attention recently are: 'Introducing Hegel' by Lloyd Spencer (1996, 2006); and Hegel's one and only masterpiece: 'The Phenomenology of Mind' (1807).
I don't like the translation of the title. I prefer the translationg -- 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- 'Geist' is a German word that has been translated either as 'Mind' or as 'Spirit'. Often I will write: 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)'.
If I was writing the book myself in my own unique way, I would have called it: 'The Phenomenology of The Human Mind and Spirit'.
I would start with my latest -- more reduced -- model of 'The Human Mind and Spirit', incorporating elements of what I wrote in my Honors Thesis in psychology in 1979 and integrating it with all of my present work...and this, in effect, would be 'Hegel's Hotel'. Another alternative title might follow in the footsteps of Arthur Schopenhauer's masterpiece -- although, like Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- I would write Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation' much differently. To begin with, I would probably entitle it: 'The Mind As Representation, Evaluation, Spirit, and Willpower'.
The model of the mind I would be working with would look very much like models I have presented elsewhere in the past, only a little further reduced for the sake of simplicity and lack of redundancy:
01. The Nurturing Topdog
02. The Narcissistic-Dionysian (Pleasure-Seeking) Topdog
03. The Righteous (Orthodox-Establishment)-Apollonian Topdog
04. The Central (Mediating, Executive) Ego
05. The Approval-Seeking Underdog
06. The Narcissistic-Dionysian (Pleasure-Seeking) Underdog
07. The Righteous-Rebellious (Deconstructionist, Unorthodox) Underdog
08. The Dynamic, Creative (Dream-Making) Unconscious
09. The Structural, Learned Unconscious and Transference-Memory Template
10. The Structural, Genetic Unconscious and Mythological Archetype Template
11. The Unconsious Blueprint-Template of The Self (Our Potential Essence, Spirit or Soul)
That was simple.
Now all I have to do is write it. Will I ever?
Before I do, I want to write at least one more critique of Hegel's theory of 'Absolute Knowledge' which he wrote very quickly in the last part of 'The Phenomenology' with a deadline of October 18th, 1806 set by his publisher if Hegel wanted to get paid for his work (Hegel was having money problems at the time too and didn't want to miss this deadline!) -- and Napoleon all set to invade the city he was writing in, Jena, which used to be a part of the Prussian empire and now is a part of Germany. With these two major factors pressing upon Hegel, he hurriedly finished his manuscript on October 13th, 1806 (Napoleon invaded the next morning).
I think Hegel's theory of 'Absolute Knowledge' and his general 'Absolute Idealism' have been more criticized than any other parts of his work. It seemed to have been a major dividing point for Schopenhauer who wrote a counter-thesis, his own masterpiece, already mentioned above: 'The World as Will and Representation'. It was a dividing point for Marx who went on to write his own masterpiece: 'Capital'. It was a dividing point for Kierkegaard who went on to create the first 'Existential Philosophy' of 'concrete experience and existence' as opposed to Hegel's 'Absolute Knowledge, Idealism, and Abstractionism'. And it was a dividing point for Nietzsche who followed along Kierkegaard's path in developing his own unique brand of Existential Philosophy.
This is why I often refer to the concept of 'multi-dialectics' as opposed to simply 'the dialectic'. For any one theory that is espoused such as Hegel's Dialectic Theory and/or his theory of 'Absolute Knowledge', there are potentially numerous other 'bi-polar oppposite theories' out there that may deserve equal respect and attention.
Sometimes life requires 'either/or' answers...
Other times, life's best answer, man's best answer, our individual best answer, may lie in the meeting ground of one, two, and/or numerous polar opposite theories and/or philosophies that may intersect with each other in any of a countless number of possible ways.
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy is one of them.
And that is enough for tonight.
-- dgbn, October 31st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
More Comments On The Similarities and Differences Between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy
Just finished, Oct. 25th, 2009.
A friend of mine asked me to put together an essay aimed at capturing the main energy, focus, and driving force of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
This, I have aimed to do in other introductory essays in the past, coming at the 'wholistic' issue from different angles, but given the fact that it has been a while now, I do believe, since I have written an 'all-encompassing' essay of this sort that aims to link everything I have written, and want to write, about together in one clear, readable package, and due to the fact that my writing has been more sporadic and without much seeming direction and/or overall vision lately -- I would agree that such an essay is once again in order. Even my Table of Contents is outdated and again needs a 'renewal' that reflects the clarity of vision of Hegel's Hotel.
So let me start by stating as clearly as possible what Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy has aimed to do in the essays that I have written, and is still aiming to do, in the remaining essays I would like to write:
1. Firstly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... is an 'open philosophical system or treatise or forum' that continues to change and evolve from day to day, as its author changes and evolves -- that's me -- and it will continue to change and evolve until the day I die. Nothing is written in stone here. As life changes, and particularly as life changes for the main author who is writing Hegel's Hotel (again, that's me), I will continue to have something to write about as I continue to process other books and authors who I have read, and/or will continue to read, and as I continue to process my own life experiences in the context of those who I will continue to come into contact with, both good and bad, and as I continue to play 'the fitting game' as Fritz Perls used to call it, which can be both good in bad as we try to 'classify' and 'label' the life structures and processes we see around us, and in my case here, aim to compare and contrast the good with the bad, the right from the wrong, and the real with the ideal...
2. Secondly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...looks upon its main mentor, G.W. Hegel, and his main philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit', 1807, as the centrepiece -- as the philosophical 'Bible' if you will -- upon which everything I write gravitates from like the planets around the sun, or like ripples or waves of water that spread outward from a rock or stone that has just landed at some point and time in the middle of a large body of water -- call this, if you will, the main centrepoint, mind-body and 'multiple-bipolarity' of 'life', 'death', 'structure', 'process', 'evolution', 'non-evolution', and everything that runs in between....
3. Just because I call Hegel's classic philosophical work my 'philosophical Bible', does not mean that I treat it as a 'perfect philosophical work' nor do I view it as being like the closest thing to 'God' that any philosopher has ever written, and/or will ever write. I do not even view the Bible this way. I view the Bible in the same manner that Spinoza did, as something that was written by humans, as a philosophical/mythological treatise that has some messages that are important to read about life, man, and how we should behave, but not something that should be treated as a 'perfect treatise from God'. Both The Bible -- and Hegel's classic philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' -- are worthy of great respect in certain areas of endeavor, but this does not mean that either of them is beyond human criticism in those areas that these human works could/can be better...Even the Bible is nnot always 'humanistic'. Just read the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac meeting on the mountain in an intended or 'pseudo-intended' human sacrifice. Just because God 'called off Abraham at the last minute' doesn't make the story any less 'barbaric'. Nor does Abraham sacrificing a ggoat instead of his son Isaac alleviate the story in any less sadistic manner. If I was Isaac, I would be wanting to 'sacrifice' both Abraham (i.e., his father) -- and God who played the ultimate 'sadist' in this twisted series of events. Perhaps, if anything, the ultimate 'humanistic-existential' message here was for Abraham and for all of us to know when and where to separate from authoritarian orders regardless of when and where they come from -- in the name of 'humanism' when humanism separates itself from God, or God's purported 'message of authority'. This is the humanistic-existential message that DGB Philosophy takes from the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac...
4. One of the most important words in the title of Hegel's most famous philosophical work is the word 'Geist' which in German can be -- and has been -- translated into English as either 'Mind' or 'Spirit'. I usually translate the German word 'Geist' (not that I know any German) as meaning both -- i.e., like this -- 'Mind/Spirit'. To leave out the word 'Spirit' -- and its intended meaning -- in my opinion, is a grave mistake. Hegel's own high degree of both 'Abstractionism' and 'Rationalism' partly contradicts the intent of his own philosophy which I believe is to blend 'Humanistic Enlightenment' Philosophy and 'Humanistic Romantic' Philosophy in the same philosophical work -- in his classic 'dialectic triadic style': 1. thesis: Enlightenment Philosophy in the context of German Idealism'; 2. anti-thesis: Romantic Philosophy in the context of German Idealism; 3. synthesis: Classic Hegelian Philosophy in the context of German Idealism.
Now, personally, I think that Schelling did a better job of handling 'the romantic-idealistic side' of 'dialectic idealism' than Hegel did. Hegel, as a whole, functioned more from 'the neck up' in his 'rational' dialectic philosophy whereas Schelling came closer to the 'romantic idealism and wholism' of Spinoza in the direction that Schelling took 'dialectic idealism'. The primary difference between Spinoza and Schelling is Schelling's 'dialectic romanticism and pantheism' vs. Spinoza's 'monistic' version of romanticism and pantheism. I prefer Schelling's dialectic-romantic-pantheistic philosophy over Spinoza's monistic version. I have not read much of Schelling's work -- from what I have read, it lacks the comprehensive, organizational structure of Hegel's more 'rational' dialectic philosophy. But it seems that Schelling was much clearer on the full extent of his dialectic-romantic-pantheistic-spiritual vision. On this level, I give Schelling full credit and perhaps even influencing Hegel more than Hegel influenced Schelling.
In this same respect, I am critically hardest on Hegel because Hegel's dialectic romanticism and pantheism, for the most part, gets buried beneath his high degree of abstractionism and rationalism -- even to the point where his so-called 'rationalism' is not rational -- or even humanistic -- in any sense that I believe in the word 'rational' or 'humanistic' should mean. Something like God on the mountain with Abraham and Isaac. From Hegel's 'deterministic-historical-rational' point of view, the so-called rational can be 'barbaric' and visa versa (following a very controversial and much contested Hegelian quote: 'The rational is real and the real is rational.') -- the idea here being that even when the 'rational' is seemingly 'irrational', the dialectic always leads to a 'rational self-correction' that could not and/or would not have happened without the historical context of the preceding 'irrational event' that made the following 'rational-dialectic-self-correction' possible based on historical 'hindsight'.
This is the alleged 'underlying rationality' of the dialectic engagement between human irrationality and rationality eventually correcting itself in human rationality. I can partly see Hegel's 'brand of dialectic logic' at work here but still, this point of view, I strongly take issue with as I aim to see such 'impending irrationalities 'ahead of time' -- or as they are happening -- in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
Likewise, with Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute'. Absolute barbarism -- in any historical context of the dialectic in evolutionary process -- still does not constitute any form of either 'rationalism' or 'humanism' in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. Nor does DGB Philosophy, in any way, support -- as Hegel did -- the barbaric 'will to power' of Napoleon (especially against his own Prussian-pre-German State').
Actually, I should modify that last statement. None of us is either totally good or totally bad. And likewise with Napoleon. Napoleon stabilized France from/after 'The Reign of Terror'. Napoleon also abolished serfdom and emancipated the Jews when he conquered Prussia. (Introducing Hegel, Lloyd Spencer, 1996, 2006, p. 10. Napoleon then, can fit under one of those: 'Does the end justify the means?' questions. And Napoleon might be one of those examples that Hegel was referring to where 'Napoleon's brutal behavior actually led to some 'rationality' after he was finished 'conquering' different countries. I don't support Hegel's support of Napoleon's barbaric war actions anymore than I support the overcompensatory measures taken afterwards by Prussia, pre-Germany, and Germany towards 'German Nationalism, Arrogance, Superiority -- and its own evolutionary 'National Will to Power' over 'non-German States and ethnic groups. Germany, in essence, became worse than its main pre-German national victimizer (i.e., Napoleon) who seems to have been used as a 'Subconscious, National Idealistic Role Model'. This is an example of what I call 'National Transference and Identification With The Aggressor'...
...........................................................................From the internet...
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry, where this is not to be expected. Thus, some philosophers may hold that the Universe is really just one thing, despite its many appearances and diversities; or theology may support the view that there is one God, with many manifestations in different religions.
.................................................................................................................................................
Let me use the rest of this essay -- as I have also done in other essays but new material keeps coming into the forefront of my consciousness faster than I can process it all -- to compare and contrast some of the main similarities and differences between DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy with Classic Hegelian Philosophy.
Put most simply, DGB Philosophy does not share Hegel's (or Fichte's, or Schelling's) enthrallment with the idea of 'The Absolute'. As much as I don't like Schopenhauer -- neither the person nor the one-sidedness of his overall 'cosmic, pessimistic, narcissistic' philosophy -- still, Schopenhauer's narcissisticly based philosophy cannot be overlooked, because everywhere we look around, we can see it exemplified in the many injustices, corruption, and wars that we see in the world today, and indeed, throughout most, if not all, of human history.
Man's perpetual greed, selfishness, and one-sided righteousness cannot be overlooked, no matter how much we indulge in the idea of 'The Absolute' or 'Absolute Knowledge' or 'Absolute Being'. Maybe these ideas are useful human ideals, maybe the dialectic -- and 'dialectic logic' -- can at different points, move us closer to these absolute ideals, but still, the dialectic just as often moves us away from these ideals as it moves us closer because the human dialectic process is fraught with individual and group 'power pushes' or 'wills to power' that are just as often, if not more often, aimed at one-sided outcomes of selfishness, greed, money, property, power, revenge, sex, and righteousness -- all of which I capture under the term 'human narcissism' than it is aimed at anything we might call 'human balance, harmony, unity, justice, democracy, equality, freedom, integrity, character, fairness, wholeness...
In short, there will always be a perpetual ongoing conflict between man's striving for balance, justice, equality, and democracy on the one hand vs. his more one-sided striving for all of the things that I have labelled above as human narcissism on the other side. This perpetual ongoing conflict -- and the dialectic process that continues to negotiate these two different sides of human nature and behavior -- will never take us to anything that we can remotely call 'The Absolute' -- unless, along Schopenhauer's line of thinking -- we call this 'Absolute Narcissism, Chaos, Corruption, and Self-Destruction'.
I am sorry to say this but 50 plus years of living on this earth have dulled my 'Enlightenment and Classic Hegelian Idealism' to the point where it is at least equally countered -- probably greater countered - by my perception of the realism of Schopenhaurian pessimism, whether we call that 'cosmic' or 'the darker side of being human'. (I remember reading Freud when he said very much the same thing.)
Thus, probably the main difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and Classic Hegelian Idealism is my basic, overall rejection of his concept of 'The Absolute'.
Now, this does not mean that we need to start jumping out of windows or take on an attitude of 'perpetual despair' -- a type of Schopenhaurian philosophical bleakness, and/or 'Lord of The Flies' mentality.
I read in a quote the other day -- and I am paraphrasing -- that no monument has every been erected of a 'pessimist'. I wonder if this is true. Are there no statues of 'The Sceptics', 'The Cynics', Thomas Hobbes, and/or Arthur Schopenhauer out there? Most certainly, there are monuments or statues or paintings of Sigmund Freud -- and by the end of his career at least -- Sigmund Freud was very much a 'pessimist' in terms of his not having much faith in the future of mankind. Freud had seen and experienced two World Wars.
I am looking around me in the world today at Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan...I think of AIG and a collapsing Wall Street. I think of CEO's abandoning their bankrupt companies -- or managing government-funded bankrupt companies -- and either running away with Golden Parachute Contracts, or continuing to manage a government funded bankrupt company like they should be paid like the wealthiest man on earth, I think of government and corporate lobbyism, and the human narcissism and corruption behind all levels of corporate and government politics -- and it is hard not to be pessimistic, even cynical.
Hegel's Hotel is still being built to foster and worship a particular type of human 'spirit' -- call this Hegel's 'Phenomenology of The Human Spirit' if you wish -- a particular type of Enlightenment integrity and idealism built around the ideals of reason, rationality, justice, fairness, equality, democracy, truth...in combination with a particular type of Romantic Human Idealism that can be captured in art, mythology, music, and even a Religious-Spiritual-Pantheist Idealism that embraces Humanism -- not the type of institutionalized and/or extremist-righteous religion that seeks to eliminate and destroy all of those people who are 'non-believers'...
Hegel's Hotel trumpets Hegel's main driving spirit of 'Enlightenment-Romanticism' and/or 'Humanistic-Existentialism' as developed before Hegel by such noted Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke, Adam Smith, Diderot, Montesquieu, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Rousseau, and after Hegel by the likes of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre and complemented by 'Constructive Deconstructionists' like Socrates, Sir Francis Bacon, David Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche at his best when he wasn't going off the deep end, Foucault, and significant elements of Derrida....
Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'Dialectic Pantheism' of philosophers and/or philosophies like Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Daoism, Schelling, even the 'Mono-Wholistic-Pantheism' of Spinoza....
Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'pessimistic' evolutionary wisdom and understanding of the significance of 'human narcissism', 'freedom', 'alienation', and 'the will to power' as passed through the many years to us by such noted ancient and more recent philosophers as Anaxamander, Diogenes, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...
And throughout all of this Hegel's Hotel strives for its own 'idealistic-realistic', 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential balance....
DGB Philosophy, in the spirit of Hegel and his masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' views the dialectic as the ultimate, central, driving, both uniting and separating, force of nature and evolution.
The dialectic is a self-correcting mechanism. But it is also a self-destructing mechanism. It is both a life and a death force at the same time. It is like the contradiction of oxygen -- which acts as both the breath of life on the one hand, and the ultimate destruction of life on the other hand (through the side-effect of oxidation.)
Indeed, at least in part, the dialectic might be viewed as the ultimate contradiction, the ultimate paradox of life. Hegel has stated that any theory, any perspective, any characteristic, taken to the limit -- will ultimately self-destruct in its own self-contradiction. We use the term 'bipolarity disorder' to describe a certain biochemical and psychological illness that we used to call 'manic-depression'. And yet everything we do in life is connected to the idea of 'bipolarity'. Indeed, 'health' and 'illness' is a bipolarity. And every bipolarity is connected by a dialectic process and/or alienated by the absence of a dialectic process.
Indeed, the dialectic might be viewed as being even more fundamental to life and evolution than oxygen (air) as well as water, earth, and fire. This argument goes back to some of the earliest arguments of the Pre-Socratic, Greek philosophers (and hundreds or thousands of miles away -- I don't know my geographical distance here too well -- to philosophers like Lao Tsu and Confucius in ancient China. They were working on the same types of philosophical problems -- i.e., the origin and dynamics of the world -- and coming up with similar answers.)
While monistic philosophers like Thales, Anaxamenes, and Heralclitus each trumpeted what they believed to be the original essence of life -- i.e., water, air, or fire respectively, Anaxamander -- in a much more metaphysical but more philosophically important manner -- trumpeted the beginning of 'dialectic philosophy' -- talking about 'The Apeiron' which might be translated as either 'Chaos' or 'The Wholistic, Preorganized Universe', before 'life is split into polar opposites which compete with each other for their very existence, or at least their primary, dominant existence (for the winner) and a return to 'The Shadows' of The Apeiron (for the loser to re-group, re-energize, and re-fight another war for supremacy with its more dominant polar opposite. In such a fashion, in Anaxamander's ancient Greek thinking, day dominates while night recedes back into the Apeiron. Then night overtakes and dominates day, and day retreats back into the Shadows of the Apeiron.
As primitive as Anaxamander's argument may seem, given the example cited above, this line of thinking became the essence of Hegelian thinking which still has a dominant place in philosophy, psychology, politics, biology and evolution theory today, and indeed can be incorporated into every aspect of human thinking, behavior, and culture. This continuation of Anaxamander's thinking -- through Heraclitus, through Lao Tse (in the start of Daoism), through Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, through Schopenhauer, Marx, and Kierkegaard, through, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, through Freud, Adler, Jung, and Fritz Perls -- is the direction of philosophical movement -- the evolution of the dialectic phenomenon and concept in both Western and Eastern Philosophy -- that Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy is both striving to historically trace and to continue to advance along its more idealistic 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential' path
In this last context, I will return to the German word 'Geist' which I will translate here as 'Spirit'.
Without the best of the human spirit implicit its every evolutionary development, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- becomes Spiritless. Lifeless. Dead. It becomes just another form of the type of 'alienation' that Hegel introduced to the many profound philosophers who he most influenced -- even as many rebelled against him, and more specifically, his 'over-abstractionism' and 'over-rationalism'.
And similarly too this is probably the most important area where I do indeed follow -- and elaborate on -- Hegel's intended German 'Dialectical-Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential' Idealism.
Because the same thing can be said for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Without the best of the intended human spirit implicit in its every driving force, its every driving essay, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy becomes just another philosophical treatise. Indeed, worse than just another philosophical treatise. It becomes spiritless, lifeless, alienated, humanistically and existentially -- dead.
In most of my philosophical essays I write about the need for 'homeostatic' or 'dialectic-democratic' balance between opposite, bi-polar forces and perspectives. I write about the potential and real scourge of unbridled human narcissism -- gone mad and out of control.
But in this essay, I am writing about the need to choose one human bi-polarity over another.
I am writing about the need for the soaring of the human essence and spirit -- in dialectic contact and embracement with our and each and every day existence -- over the alternative: a lifeless, spiritless, humanistic-existential death.
As I just heard coming fresh out of the mouth of another limousine driver who I work with each and every day, we chase the supposed idealism of Capitalism as we are taught it in Western Society: more individualism, more freedom, more money, more time, more commodities, more human spirit...
And paradoxically, again coming out of the mouth of the fellow driver I was talking to just yesterday, we see all around us people chasing a dream that doesn't seem to have either a happy process and/or a happy ending -- we see an American-Canadian dream that, for many or most of us, is definitely heading down the wrong life path.
We see people working more hours, some putting in 50, 60, and 70 hour work weeks, spending less time with their families, spending less time with their loved ones, we see less human spirit, we see more and more human alienation, less freedom, less time, less energy, less money, less commodities, less individualism -- except in the most alienated and negative respect of individuals being more and more lonely even in the throngs of more and more people that they connect -- but don't really connect with -- in their day to day existence.
And this is where our so-called American-Canadian Dream seems to stand right now.
Hegel's Hotel wants to take this dream down a different path.
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy wants to help re-create 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- with an elaborated Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential component -- in man.
That is where Hegel's Hotel stands today as it moves forward in its both its construction and its evolution...
-- dgb, Oct. 25th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
....................................................................
A friend of mine asked me to put together an essay aimed at capturing the main energy, focus, and driving force of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
This, I have aimed to do in other introductory essays in the past, coming at the 'wholistic' issue from different angles, but given the fact that it has been a while now, I do believe, since I have written an 'all-encompassing' essay of this sort that aims to link everything I have written, and want to write, about together in one clear, readable package, and due to the fact that my writing has been more sporadic and without much seeming direction and/or overall vision lately -- I would agree that such an essay is once again in order. Even my Table of Contents is outdated and again needs a 'renewal' that reflects the clarity of vision of Hegel's Hotel.
So let me start by stating as clearly as possible what Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy has aimed to do in the essays that I have written, and is still aiming to do, in the remaining essays I would like to write:
1. Firstly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... is an 'open philosophical system or treatise or forum' that continues to change and evolve from day to day, as its author changes and evolves -- that's me -- and it will continue to change and evolve until the day I die. Nothing is written in stone here. As life changes, and particularly as life changes for the main author who is writing Hegel's Hotel (again, that's me), I will continue to have something to write about as I continue to process other books and authors who I have read, and/or will continue to read, and as I continue to process my own life experiences in the context of those who I will continue to come into contact with, both good and bad, and as I continue to play 'the fitting game' as Fritz Perls used to call it, which can be both good in bad as we try to 'classify' and 'label' the life structures and processes we see around us, and in my case here, aim to compare and contrast the good with the bad, the right from the wrong, and the real with the ideal...
2. Secondly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...looks upon its main mentor, G.W. Hegel, and his main philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit', 1807, as the centrepiece -- as the philosophical 'Bible' if you will -- upon which everything I write gravitates from like the planets around the sun, or like ripples or waves of water that spread outward from a rock or stone that has just landed at some point and time in the middle of a large body of water -- call this, if you will, the main centrepoint, mind-body and 'multiple-bipolarity' of 'life', 'death', 'structure', 'process', 'evolution', 'non-evolution', and everything that runs in between....
3. Just because I call Hegel's classic philosophical work my 'philosophical Bible', does not mean that I treat it as a 'perfect philosophical work' nor do I view it as being like the closest thing to 'God' that any philosopher has ever written, and/or will ever write. I do not even view the Bible this way. I view the Bible in the same manner that Spinoza did, as something that was written by humans, as a philosophical/mythological treatise that has some messages that are important to read about life, man, and how we should behave, but not something that should be treated as a 'perfect treatise from God'. Both The Bible -- and Hegel's classic philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' -- are worthy of great respect in certain areas of endeavor, but this does not mean that either of them is beyond human criticism in those areas that these human works could/can be better...Even the Bible is nnot always 'humanistic'. Just read the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac meeting on the mountain in an intended or 'pseudo-intended' human sacrifice. Just because God 'called off Abraham at the last minute' doesn't make the story any less 'barbaric'. Nor does Abraham sacrificing a ggoat instead of his son Isaac alleviate the story in any less sadistic manner. If I was Isaac, I would be wanting to 'sacrifice' both Abraham (i.e., his father) -- and God who played the ultimate 'sadist' in this twisted series of events. Perhaps, if anything, the ultimate 'humanistic-existential' message here was for Abraham and for all of us to know when and where to separate from authoritarian orders regardless of when and where they come from -- in the name of 'humanism' when humanism separates itself from God, or God's purported 'message of authority'. This is the humanistic-existential message that DGB Philosophy takes from the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac...
4. One of the most important words in the title of Hegel's most famous philosophical work is the word 'Geist' which in German can be -- and has been -- translated into English as either 'Mind' or 'Spirit'. I usually translate the German word 'Geist' (not that I know any German) as meaning both -- i.e., like this -- 'Mind/Spirit'. To leave out the word 'Spirit' -- and its intended meaning -- in my opinion, is a grave mistake. Hegel's own high degree of both 'Abstractionism' and 'Rationalism' partly contradicts the intent of his own philosophy which I believe is to blend 'Humanistic Enlightenment' Philosophy and 'Humanistic Romantic' Philosophy in the same philosophical work -- in his classic 'dialectic triadic style': 1. thesis: Enlightenment Philosophy in the context of German Idealism'; 2. anti-thesis: Romantic Philosophy in the context of German Idealism; 3. synthesis: Classic Hegelian Philosophy in the context of German Idealism.
Now, personally, I think that Schelling did a better job of handling 'the romantic-idealistic side' of 'dialectic idealism' than Hegel did. Hegel, as a whole, functioned more from 'the neck up' in his 'rational' dialectic philosophy whereas Schelling came closer to the 'romantic idealism and wholism' of Spinoza in the direction that Schelling took 'dialectic idealism'. The primary difference between Spinoza and Schelling is Schelling's 'dialectic romanticism and pantheism' vs. Spinoza's 'monistic' version of romanticism and pantheism. I prefer Schelling's dialectic-romantic-pantheistic philosophy over Spinoza's monistic version. I have not read much of Schelling's work -- from what I have read, it lacks the comprehensive, organizational structure of Hegel's more 'rational' dialectic philosophy. But it seems that Schelling was much clearer on the full extent of his dialectic-romantic-pantheistic-spiritual vision. On this level, I give Schelling full credit and perhaps even influencing Hegel more than Hegel influenced Schelling.
In this same respect, I am critically hardest on Hegel because Hegel's dialectic romanticism and pantheism, for the most part, gets buried beneath his high degree of abstractionism and rationalism -- even to the point where his so-called 'rationalism' is not rational -- or even humanistic -- in any sense that I believe in the word 'rational' or 'humanistic' should mean. Something like God on the mountain with Abraham and Isaac. From Hegel's 'deterministic-historical-rational' point of view, the so-called rational can be 'barbaric' and visa versa (following a very controversial and much contested Hegelian quote: 'The rational is real and the real is rational.') -- the idea here being that even when the 'rational' is seemingly 'irrational', the dialectic always leads to a 'rational self-correction' that could not and/or would not have happened without the historical context of the preceding 'irrational event' that made the following 'rational-dialectic-self-correction' possible based on historical 'hindsight'.
This is the alleged 'underlying rationality' of the dialectic engagement between human irrationality and rationality eventually correcting itself in human rationality. I can partly see Hegel's 'brand of dialectic logic' at work here but still, this point of view, I strongly take issue with as I aim to see such 'impending irrationalities 'ahead of time' -- or as they are happening -- in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
Likewise, with Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute'. Absolute barbarism -- in any historical context of the dialectic in evolutionary process -- still does not constitute any form of either 'rationalism' or 'humanism' in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. Nor does DGB Philosophy, in any way, support -- as Hegel did -- the barbaric 'will to power' of Napoleon (especially against his own Prussian-pre-German State').
Actually, I should modify that last statement. None of us is either totally good or totally bad. And likewise with Napoleon. Napoleon stabilized France from/after 'The Reign of Terror'. Napoleon also abolished serfdom and emancipated the Jews when he conquered Prussia. (Introducing Hegel, Lloyd Spencer, 1996, 2006, p. 10. Napoleon then, can fit under one of those: 'Does the end justify the means?' questions. And Napoleon might be one of those examples that Hegel was referring to where 'Napoleon's brutal behavior actually led to some 'rationality' after he was finished 'conquering' different countries. I don't support Hegel's support of Napoleon's barbaric war actions anymore than I support the overcompensatory measures taken afterwards by Prussia, pre-Germany, and Germany towards 'German Nationalism, Arrogance, Superiority -- and its own evolutionary 'National Will to Power' over 'non-German States and ethnic groups. Germany, in essence, became worse than its main pre-German national victimizer (i.e., Napoleon) who seems to have been used as a 'Subconscious, National Idealistic Role Model'. This is an example of what I call 'National Transference and Identification With The Aggressor'...
...........................................................................From the internet...
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry, where this is not to be expected. Thus, some philosophers may hold that the Universe is really just one thing, despite its many appearances and diversities; or theology may support the view that there is one God, with many manifestations in different religions.
.................................................................................................................................................
Let me use the rest of this essay -- as I have also done in other essays but new material keeps coming into the forefront of my consciousness faster than I can process it all -- to compare and contrast some of the main similarities and differences between DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy with Classic Hegelian Philosophy.
Put most simply, DGB Philosophy does not share Hegel's (or Fichte's, or Schelling's) enthrallment with the idea of 'The Absolute'. As much as I don't like Schopenhauer -- neither the person nor the one-sidedness of his overall 'cosmic, pessimistic, narcissistic' philosophy -- still, Schopenhauer's narcissisticly based philosophy cannot be overlooked, because everywhere we look around, we can see it exemplified in the many injustices, corruption, and wars that we see in the world today, and indeed, throughout most, if not all, of human history.
Man's perpetual greed, selfishness, and one-sided righteousness cannot be overlooked, no matter how much we indulge in the idea of 'The Absolute' or 'Absolute Knowledge' or 'Absolute Being'. Maybe these ideas are useful human ideals, maybe the dialectic -- and 'dialectic logic' -- can at different points, move us closer to these absolute ideals, but still, the dialectic just as often moves us away from these ideals as it moves us closer because the human dialectic process is fraught with individual and group 'power pushes' or 'wills to power' that are just as often, if not more often, aimed at one-sided outcomes of selfishness, greed, money, property, power, revenge, sex, and righteousness -- all of which I capture under the term 'human narcissism' than it is aimed at anything we might call 'human balance, harmony, unity, justice, democracy, equality, freedom, integrity, character, fairness, wholeness...
In short, there will always be a perpetual ongoing conflict between man's striving for balance, justice, equality, and democracy on the one hand vs. his more one-sided striving for all of the things that I have labelled above as human narcissism on the other side. This perpetual ongoing conflict -- and the dialectic process that continues to negotiate these two different sides of human nature and behavior -- will never take us to anything that we can remotely call 'The Absolute' -- unless, along Schopenhauer's line of thinking -- we call this 'Absolute Narcissism, Chaos, Corruption, and Self-Destruction'.
I am sorry to say this but 50 plus years of living on this earth have dulled my 'Enlightenment and Classic Hegelian Idealism' to the point where it is at least equally countered -- probably greater countered - by my perception of the realism of Schopenhaurian pessimism, whether we call that 'cosmic' or 'the darker side of being human'. (I remember reading Freud when he said very much the same thing.)
Thus, probably the main difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and Classic Hegelian Idealism is my basic, overall rejection of his concept of 'The Absolute'.
Now, this does not mean that we need to start jumping out of windows or take on an attitude of 'perpetual despair' -- a type of Schopenhaurian philosophical bleakness, and/or 'Lord of The Flies' mentality.
I read in a quote the other day -- and I am paraphrasing -- that no monument has every been erected of a 'pessimist'. I wonder if this is true. Are there no statues of 'The Sceptics', 'The Cynics', Thomas Hobbes, and/or Arthur Schopenhauer out there? Most certainly, there are monuments or statues or paintings of Sigmund Freud -- and by the end of his career at least -- Sigmund Freud was very much a 'pessimist' in terms of his not having much faith in the future of mankind. Freud had seen and experienced two World Wars.
I am looking around me in the world today at Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan...I think of AIG and a collapsing Wall Street. I think of CEO's abandoning their bankrupt companies -- or managing government-funded bankrupt companies -- and either running away with Golden Parachute Contracts, or continuing to manage a government funded bankrupt company like they should be paid like the wealthiest man on earth, I think of government and corporate lobbyism, and the human narcissism and corruption behind all levels of corporate and government politics -- and it is hard not to be pessimistic, even cynical.
Hegel's Hotel is still being built to foster and worship a particular type of human 'spirit' -- call this Hegel's 'Phenomenology of The Human Spirit' if you wish -- a particular type of Enlightenment integrity and idealism built around the ideals of reason, rationality, justice, fairness, equality, democracy, truth...in combination with a particular type of Romantic Human Idealism that can be captured in art, mythology, music, and even a Religious-Spiritual-Pantheist Idealism that embraces Humanism -- not the type of institutionalized and/or extremist-righteous religion that seeks to eliminate and destroy all of those people who are 'non-believers'...
Hegel's Hotel trumpets Hegel's main driving spirit of 'Enlightenment-Romanticism' and/or 'Humanistic-Existentialism' as developed before Hegel by such noted Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke, Adam Smith, Diderot, Montesquieu, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Rousseau, and after Hegel by the likes of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre and complemented by 'Constructive Deconstructionists' like Socrates, Sir Francis Bacon, David Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche at his best when he wasn't going off the deep end, Foucault, and significant elements of Derrida....
Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'Dialectic Pantheism' of philosophers and/or philosophies like Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Daoism, Schelling, even the 'Mono-Wholistic-Pantheism' of Spinoza....
Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'pessimistic' evolutionary wisdom and understanding of the significance of 'human narcissism', 'freedom', 'alienation', and 'the will to power' as passed through the many years to us by such noted ancient and more recent philosophers as Anaxamander, Diogenes, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...
And throughout all of this Hegel's Hotel strives for its own 'idealistic-realistic', 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential balance....
DGB Philosophy, in the spirit of Hegel and his masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' views the dialectic as the ultimate, central, driving, both uniting and separating, force of nature and evolution.
The dialectic is a self-correcting mechanism. But it is also a self-destructing mechanism. It is both a life and a death force at the same time. It is like the contradiction of oxygen -- which acts as both the breath of life on the one hand, and the ultimate destruction of life on the other hand (through the side-effect of oxidation.)
Indeed, at least in part, the dialectic might be viewed as the ultimate contradiction, the ultimate paradox of life. Hegel has stated that any theory, any perspective, any characteristic, taken to the limit -- will ultimately self-destruct in its own self-contradiction. We use the term 'bipolarity disorder' to describe a certain biochemical and psychological illness that we used to call 'manic-depression'. And yet everything we do in life is connected to the idea of 'bipolarity'. Indeed, 'health' and 'illness' is a bipolarity. And every bipolarity is connected by a dialectic process and/or alienated by the absence of a dialectic process.
Indeed, the dialectic might be viewed as being even more fundamental to life and evolution than oxygen (air) as well as water, earth, and fire. This argument goes back to some of the earliest arguments of the Pre-Socratic, Greek philosophers (and hundreds or thousands of miles away -- I don't know my geographical distance here too well -- to philosophers like Lao Tsu and Confucius in ancient China. They were working on the same types of philosophical problems -- i.e., the origin and dynamics of the world -- and coming up with similar answers.)
While monistic philosophers like Thales, Anaxamenes, and Heralclitus each trumpeted what they believed to be the original essence of life -- i.e., water, air, or fire respectively, Anaxamander -- in a much more metaphysical but more philosophically important manner -- trumpeted the beginning of 'dialectic philosophy' -- talking about 'The Apeiron' which might be translated as either 'Chaos' or 'The Wholistic, Preorganized Universe', before 'life is split into polar opposites which compete with each other for their very existence, or at least their primary, dominant existence (for the winner) and a return to 'The Shadows' of The Apeiron (for the loser to re-group, re-energize, and re-fight another war for supremacy with its more dominant polar opposite. In such a fashion, in Anaxamander's ancient Greek thinking, day dominates while night recedes back into the Apeiron. Then night overtakes and dominates day, and day retreats back into the Shadows of the Apeiron.
As primitive as Anaxamander's argument may seem, given the example cited above, this line of thinking became the essence of Hegelian thinking which still has a dominant place in philosophy, psychology, politics, biology and evolution theory today, and indeed can be incorporated into every aspect of human thinking, behavior, and culture. This continuation of Anaxamander's thinking -- through Heraclitus, through Lao Tse (in the start of Daoism), through Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, through Schopenhauer, Marx, and Kierkegaard, through, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, through Freud, Adler, Jung, and Fritz Perls -- is the direction of philosophical movement -- the evolution of the dialectic phenomenon and concept in both Western and Eastern Philosophy -- that Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy is both striving to historically trace and to continue to advance along its more idealistic 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential' path
In this last context, I will return to the German word 'Geist' which I will translate here as 'Spirit'.
Without the best of the human spirit implicit its every evolutionary development, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- becomes Spiritless. Lifeless. Dead. It becomes just another form of the type of 'alienation' that Hegel introduced to the many profound philosophers who he most influenced -- even as many rebelled against him, and more specifically, his 'over-abstractionism' and 'over-rationalism'.
And similarly too this is probably the most important area where I do indeed follow -- and elaborate on -- Hegel's intended German 'Dialectical-Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential' Idealism.
Because the same thing can be said for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Without the best of the intended human spirit implicit in its every driving force, its every driving essay, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy becomes just another philosophical treatise. Indeed, worse than just another philosophical treatise. It becomes spiritless, lifeless, alienated, humanistically and existentially -- dead.
In most of my philosophical essays I write about the need for 'homeostatic' or 'dialectic-democratic' balance between opposite, bi-polar forces and perspectives. I write about the potential and real scourge of unbridled human narcissism -- gone mad and out of control.
But in this essay, I am writing about the need to choose one human bi-polarity over another.
I am writing about the need for the soaring of the human essence and spirit -- in dialectic contact and embracement with our and each and every day existence -- over the alternative: a lifeless, spiritless, humanistic-existential death.
As I just heard coming fresh out of the mouth of another limousine driver who I work with each and every day, we chase the supposed idealism of Capitalism as we are taught it in Western Society: more individualism, more freedom, more money, more time, more commodities, more human spirit...
And paradoxically, again coming out of the mouth of the fellow driver I was talking to just yesterday, we see all around us people chasing a dream that doesn't seem to have either a happy process and/or a happy ending -- we see an American-Canadian dream that, for many or most of us, is definitely heading down the wrong life path.
We see people working more hours, some putting in 50, 60, and 70 hour work weeks, spending less time with their families, spending less time with their loved ones, we see less human spirit, we see more and more human alienation, less freedom, less time, less energy, less money, less commodities, less individualism -- except in the most alienated and negative respect of individuals being more and more lonely even in the throngs of more and more people that they connect -- but don't really connect with -- in their day to day existence.
And this is where our so-called American-Canadian Dream seems to stand right now.
Hegel's Hotel wants to take this dream down a different path.
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy wants to help re-create 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- with an elaborated Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential component -- in man.
That is where Hegel's Hotel stands today as it moves forward in its both its construction and its evolution...
-- dgb, Oct. 25th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
....................................................................
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Reach Out, Let's Cocoon
Reach out, let’s cocoon
In the warmth of another
Spin truth back and forth
As we talk to each other
Escape all our troubles
Shed weakness, discover
Tear protection aside
Emerge and uncover
Touch our new comfort
Restrictions, suspend
Nurture the process
Transform and ascend
Embrace each new stage
Spread the wings of connection
Let the wind pick us up
As we share that affection
Reach out and connect
Without motive to reform,
Offer each other shelter
When life blows in storms.
-- Author Unknown
http://gap-dgbnphilosophy-altruism.blogspot.com/
In the warmth of another
Spin truth back and forth
As we talk to each other
Escape all our troubles
Shed weakness, discover
Tear protection aside
Emerge and uncover
Touch our new comfort
Restrictions, suspend
Nurture the process
Transform and ascend
Embrace each new stage
Spread the wings of connection
Let the wind pick us up
As we share that affection
Reach out and connect
Without motive to reform,
Offer each other shelter
When life blows in storms.
-- Author Unknown
http://gap-dgbnphilosophy-altruism.blogspot.com/
No Greater Gift
Warm breezes blow today,
The chill has gone;
The morning is filled with
the robin's song.
Give me your hand my love,
Come walk with me,
In the sun, with the birds,
and a tranquil sea.
A shawl full of diamonds,
Around us the mist,
For me there could be
No greater gift.
-- Gordon William Bain, Oct. 20th, 2009.
http://gap-dgbnphilosophy-altruism.blogspot.com/
The chill has gone;
The morning is filled with
the robin's song.
Give me your hand my love,
Come walk with me,
In the sun, with the birds,
and a tranquil sea.
A shawl full of diamonds,
Around us the mist,
For me there could be
No greater gift.
-- Gordon William Bain, Oct. 20th, 2009.
http://gap-dgbnphilosophy-altruism.blogspot.com/
Sunday, October 18, 2009
On Ontology and Teleology (Being and Becoming), Towards The Absolute -- And God
Ontology is the study of being. So this is an essay on ontology -- the study of being. Teleology, in contrast, is the study of becoming -- of behaving with a purpose towards a planned end goal. Thus, being and becoming, ontology and teleology, are dialectically connected in the dance of life.
Being and not being, becoming and not becoming, are also dialectically connected but in a different way. 'Being' is connected with 'self-contact'; in contrast, 'not being' is connected with 'self-alienation'. Both are connected to our 'essence'. When we 'touch' our essence, we have 'self-contact'. The more we steer away from our essence, the more we have 'self-alienation'. When we have good contact with another person, then we generally have good self-contact as well. Both include each other. When we have 'bad conatact with another person', when we are 'alienated' from this person, then we are not making good contact with ourself either. We have put up an 'Existential Wall'. We are hiding our 'Existential Essence' behind our existential -- or alienated/alienating -- wall.
Some people view God as our 'Creator'. We call these people 'religious'.
Other people believe in no such God. We call these people 'athiests'.
If we want to stick inside the parameters, the boundaries, of 'Aristolean, either/or logic', then this is where we stop. You are either religious or you are not. You are either an athiest or you are not.
But some philosophers -- most notably Heraclitus, Spinoza, and Hegel in unique but similar ways -- chose a different type of logic and a different 'spiritual' route.
This was the logic and the route of 'pantheism' and two types can be distinguished from each other: 'dialectic, integrative wholism and pantheism' (Lao Tse, Heralclitus Hegel) -- the idea of 'opposite polarities coming together in dialectic unity, wholism, and harmony'; vs. 'mono-wholistic or mono-thesistic pantheism'(Spinoza) -- which states that everything is wholistically connected (without the 'opposite polarity and dialectic unity' component that we get in Lao Tse, Heraclitus, and Hegel.
The 'spiritual, romantic, and/or religious component' of pantheism is connected to the idea of 'God being not the Creator (or not only the Creator)' but also being 'the Creative Process' -- in the idea that 'God is in everything' and everything is important because it is connected to God, a part of God'.
It has just been recently that I have read an intepreter of Hegel -- or maybe a few -- that have added this pantheistic element to Hegel. Before these latest interpretations, I assumed Hegel was an 'orthodox Lutheran' but maybe also, he was looking for integrations between the two.
Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute' is confusing, many of rejected it, as have I in previous essays. However, now I am getting new interpretations of what it means.
Previously, I believed that it was some fancy 'unrealistic epistemological and/or ontological ideal' where, at the end of our individual life (if we are a brilliant enough philosopher), and/or at the end of the evolutionary life of civilization, we encounter 'God' in the form of 'Perfect Knowledge' and/or a 'Perfect Existence'. Is there anyone amongst us who be so bold as to believe that he or she may some day encounter either Perfect Knowledge (The Epistemological Absolute) and/or Perfect Existence (The Ontological Absolute).
Maybe in these two regards, the concept of 'The Absolute' has some idealistic value -- but I am 100 percent sure that I will never get there. In fact, I am 100 percent sure that no one will ever even come up with a 100 percent 'Absolutely Epistemologically Right' interpretation of Hegel and Hegelian Philosophy. But that certainly will not stop generations of philosophers from still trying.
That is one of the reasons I like to be referred to as a 'Post-Hegelian' rather than a 'Hegelian' philosopher. Although fully acknowledging Hegel's hugely important direct and indirect influence on my philosophical work, at the same time, I still do not want to be boxed in by some wholely or partly right Hegelian stereotype based on what other astute or not astute philosophers believe Hegel to have said and/or meant in any part of one of his abstractive monstrosities.
Was Hegel religious? An atheist? Or a pantheist? Or partly all three? Hegel's philosophy was not a 'black or white', 'either/or' philosophy which often complicates biographical and historical interpretations of what he wrote and meant. Philosophically, politically, and religiously engaged in his famous 'dialectic logic' as opposed to the more 'Aristolean either/or, black or white, right or wrong logic' that we are all much more intimately familiar with. Thus, on the religious front, You will get a whole host of different interpretative variations relative to what and what not Hegel believed about God.
The most recent interpretation of Hegel that I am now working from comes from an essay by Alfred Weber, called 'The History of Philosophy'. You can find a short biography on Weber under this link....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Weber...and you can read the essay I have been reading by googling...Hegel, Alfred Weber, History of Philosophy...Here is a shorter excerpt:
....................................................................................
History of Philosophy
by
Alfred Weber
Table of Contents
§ 66. Hegel (1)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart, 1770, and died as a professor in the University of Berlin,1831. Like his friend Schelling, he attended the theological seminary at Tübingen. Jena, where he renewed and then dissolved the friendship with his fellow-countryman, who was five years his junior, Nuremberg, where he had charge of the Gymnasium, Heidelberg, and the Prussian capital, mark the different stages in his academic career. We mention the following works: (1) Phänomenologie des Geistes (2) (1807); (2) Wissenschaft der Logik, (3) in three volumes (1812-1816); (3) Encyclopedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften (4) (1817); (4) Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (5)(1821); also, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, (6) Vorlesungen über die Æsthetik, (7) Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, (8) Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, (9) published after his death.
According to Fichte, the thing-in-itself (the absolute) is the ego itself, which produces the phenomenal world by an unconscious and involuntary creation, and then overcomes it by a free and conscious effort. According to Schelling, the absolute is neither the ego nor the non-ego, but their common root, in which the opposition between a thinking subject and a thought object disappears in a perfect indifference; it is the neutral principle, anterior and superior to all contrasts, the identity of contraries. Fichte's absolute is one of the terms of the opposition, that of Schelling is the transcendent, mysterious, impenetrable source of the same. Fichte's conception errs in reducing the absolute to what is but one of its aspects: the absolute of Fichte is the ego limited by a theoretically inexplicable non-ego; it is a prisoner, it is not really the absolute. Schelling's absolute is a transcendent entity, which does not explain anything, since we do not know either how or why to deduce from it the oppositions constituting the real world. The absolute indifference, far from being the highest and most concrete reality, is, at bottom, nothing but an abstraction.
According to Hegel, the common source of the ego and of nature does not transcend reality; it is immanent in it. Mind and nature are not aspects of the absolute, or a kind of screen, behind which an indifferent and lifeless God lies concealed, but its successive modes. The absolute is not immovable, but active; it is not the principle of nature and of mind, but is itself successively nature and mind. This succession, this process, this perpetual generation of things, is the absolute itself. In Schelling, things proceed from the absolute, which, for that very reason, remains outside of them. In Hegel, the absolute is the process itself; it does not produce movement and life, it is movement and life. It does not exceed the things, but is wholly in them; nor does it, in any way, exceed the intellectual capacity of man. If we mean by God the being transcending human reason, then Hegel is the most atheistic of philosophers, since no one is more emphatic in affirming the immanency and perfect knowableness of the absolute. Spinoza himself, the philosopher of immanency, does not seem to go so far; for, although be concedes that the intellect has an adequate idea of God, he assumes that the Substance has infinite attributes.
.......................................................................................
From this excerpt, you get Weber's short opinion on Hegel's view of 'God'. And you also get an idea of Weber's interpretation of Hegel's 'The Absolute' as 'the essential dialectic evolutionary process' -- not as the 'end goal and product' of this same process.
This is ripe with the potential for contradictory confusion unless we view this as a 'dialectical paradoxical playoff' as well. Either Hegel is viewing God in an orthodox manner as 'The Essential Creator of Man and Life on Earth'. Or Hegel is viewing God in a more 'pantheistic' way (like Spinoza) as The Process and Product of Creation itself (meaning that 'God is in everything and every creative process). Indeed, according to Weber -- and this is different than what I believed previously -- it looks like Hegel may have even viewed the Absolute -- and God -- in a 'dialectical pantheist way' (like Heraclitus) based on the idea of 'the integrative multi-bi-polar balancing playoff' between opposing and contradicting elements in both Nature and in Man. Perhaps evolving towards The Absolute and God -- which was my previous interpretation of what Hegel meant by the Absolute. So take your pick. God as The Absolute as revealed to man through the evolution of the dialectic process. Or God as the dialectic process itself evolving towards its -- and God's -- own self-revelation. Or both.
Scratch your head over that one for a while.
And I will come back to you shortly.
-- dgb, October, 18th, 2009.
...To be continued...
Being and not being, becoming and not becoming, are also dialectically connected but in a different way. 'Being' is connected with 'self-contact'; in contrast, 'not being' is connected with 'self-alienation'. Both are connected to our 'essence'. When we 'touch' our essence, we have 'self-contact'. The more we steer away from our essence, the more we have 'self-alienation'. When we have good contact with another person, then we generally have good self-contact as well. Both include each other. When we have 'bad conatact with another person', when we are 'alienated' from this person, then we are not making good contact with ourself either. We have put up an 'Existential Wall'. We are hiding our 'Existential Essence' behind our existential -- or alienated/alienating -- wall.
Some people view God as our 'Creator'. We call these people 'religious'.
Other people believe in no such God. We call these people 'athiests'.
If we want to stick inside the parameters, the boundaries, of 'Aristolean, either/or logic', then this is where we stop. You are either religious or you are not. You are either an athiest or you are not.
But some philosophers -- most notably Heraclitus, Spinoza, and Hegel in unique but similar ways -- chose a different type of logic and a different 'spiritual' route.
This was the logic and the route of 'pantheism' and two types can be distinguished from each other: 'dialectic, integrative wholism and pantheism' (Lao Tse, Heralclitus Hegel) -- the idea of 'opposite polarities coming together in dialectic unity, wholism, and harmony'; vs. 'mono-wholistic or mono-thesistic pantheism'(Spinoza) -- which states that everything is wholistically connected (without the 'opposite polarity and dialectic unity' component that we get in Lao Tse, Heraclitus, and Hegel.
The 'spiritual, romantic, and/or religious component' of pantheism is connected to the idea of 'God being not the Creator (or not only the Creator)' but also being 'the Creative Process' -- in the idea that 'God is in everything' and everything is important because it is connected to God, a part of God'.
It has just been recently that I have read an intepreter of Hegel -- or maybe a few -- that have added this pantheistic element to Hegel. Before these latest interpretations, I assumed Hegel was an 'orthodox Lutheran' but maybe also, he was looking for integrations between the two.
Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute' is confusing, many of rejected it, as have I in previous essays. However, now I am getting new interpretations of what it means.
Previously, I believed that it was some fancy 'unrealistic epistemological and/or ontological ideal' where, at the end of our individual life (if we are a brilliant enough philosopher), and/or at the end of the evolutionary life of civilization, we encounter 'God' in the form of 'Perfect Knowledge' and/or a 'Perfect Existence'. Is there anyone amongst us who be so bold as to believe that he or she may some day encounter either Perfect Knowledge (The Epistemological Absolute) and/or Perfect Existence (The Ontological Absolute).
Maybe in these two regards, the concept of 'The Absolute' has some idealistic value -- but I am 100 percent sure that I will never get there. In fact, I am 100 percent sure that no one will ever even come up with a 100 percent 'Absolutely Epistemologically Right' interpretation of Hegel and Hegelian Philosophy. But that certainly will not stop generations of philosophers from still trying.
That is one of the reasons I like to be referred to as a 'Post-Hegelian' rather than a 'Hegelian' philosopher. Although fully acknowledging Hegel's hugely important direct and indirect influence on my philosophical work, at the same time, I still do not want to be boxed in by some wholely or partly right Hegelian stereotype based on what other astute or not astute philosophers believe Hegel to have said and/or meant in any part of one of his abstractive monstrosities.
Was Hegel religious? An atheist? Or a pantheist? Or partly all three? Hegel's philosophy was not a 'black or white', 'either/or' philosophy which often complicates biographical and historical interpretations of what he wrote and meant. Philosophically, politically, and religiously engaged in his famous 'dialectic logic' as opposed to the more 'Aristolean either/or, black or white, right or wrong logic' that we are all much more intimately familiar with. Thus, on the religious front, You will get a whole host of different interpretative variations relative to what and what not Hegel believed about God.
The most recent interpretation of Hegel that I am now working from comes from an essay by Alfred Weber, called 'The History of Philosophy'. You can find a short biography on Weber under this link....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Weber...and you can read the essay I have been reading by googling...Hegel, Alfred Weber, History of Philosophy...Here is a shorter excerpt:
....................................................................................
History of Philosophy
by
Alfred Weber
Table of Contents
§ 66. Hegel (1)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart, 1770, and died as a professor in the University of Berlin,1831. Like his friend Schelling, he attended the theological seminary at Tübingen. Jena, where he renewed and then dissolved the friendship with his fellow-countryman, who was five years his junior, Nuremberg, where he had charge of the Gymnasium, Heidelberg, and the Prussian capital, mark the different stages in his academic career. We mention the following works: (1) Phänomenologie des Geistes (2) (1807); (2) Wissenschaft der Logik, (3) in three volumes (1812-1816); (3) Encyclopedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften (4) (1817); (4) Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (5)(1821); also, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, (6) Vorlesungen über die Æsthetik, (7) Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, (8) Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, (9) published after his death.
According to Fichte, the thing-in-itself (the absolute) is the ego itself, which produces the phenomenal world by an unconscious and involuntary creation, and then overcomes it by a free and conscious effort. According to Schelling, the absolute is neither the ego nor the non-ego, but their common root, in which the opposition between a thinking subject and a thought object disappears in a perfect indifference; it is the neutral principle, anterior and superior to all contrasts, the identity of contraries. Fichte's absolute is one of the terms of the opposition, that of Schelling is the transcendent, mysterious, impenetrable source of the same. Fichte's conception errs in reducing the absolute to what is but one of its aspects: the absolute of Fichte is the ego limited by a theoretically inexplicable non-ego; it is a prisoner, it is not really the absolute. Schelling's absolute is a transcendent entity, which does not explain anything, since we do not know either how or why to deduce from it the oppositions constituting the real world. The absolute indifference, far from being the highest and most concrete reality, is, at bottom, nothing but an abstraction.
According to Hegel, the common source of the ego and of nature does not transcend reality; it is immanent in it. Mind and nature are not aspects of the absolute, or a kind of screen, behind which an indifferent and lifeless God lies concealed, but its successive modes. The absolute is not immovable, but active; it is not the principle of nature and of mind, but is itself successively nature and mind. This succession, this process, this perpetual generation of things, is the absolute itself. In Schelling, things proceed from the absolute, which, for that very reason, remains outside of them. In Hegel, the absolute is the process itself; it does not produce movement and life, it is movement and life. It does not exceed the things, but is wholly in them; nor does it, in any way, exceed the intellectual capacity of man. If we mean by God the being transcending human reason, then Hegel is the most atheistic of philosophers, since no one is more emphatic in affirming the immanency and perfect knowableness of the absolute. Spinoza himself, the philosopher of immanency, does not seem to go so far; for, although be concedes that the intellect has an adequate idea of God, he assumes that the Substance has infinite attributes.
.......................................................................................
From this excerpt, you get Weber's short opinion on Hegel's view of 'God'. And you also get an idea of Weber's interpretation of Hegel's 'The Absolute' as 'the essential dialectic evolutionary process' -- not as the 'end goal and product' of this same process.
This is ripe with the potential for contradictory confusion unless we view this as a 'dialectical paradoxical playoff' as well. Either Hegel is viewing God in an orthodox manner as 'The Essential Creator of Man and Life on Earth'. Or Hegel is viewing God in a more 'pantheistic' way (like Spinoza) as The Process and Product of Creation itself (meaning that 'God is in everything and every creative process). Indeed, according to Weber -- and this is different than what I believed previously -- it looks like Hegel may have even viewed the Absolute -- and God -- in a 'dialectical pantheist way' (like Heraclitus) based on the idea of 'the integrative multi-bi-polar balancing playoff' between opposing and contradicting elements in both Nature and in Man. Perhaps evolving towards The Absolute and God -- which was my previous interpretation of what Hegel meant by the Absolute. So take your pick. God as The Absolute as revealed to man through the evolution of the dialectic process. Or God as the dialectic process itself evolving towards its -- and God's -- own self-revelation. Or both.
Scratch your head over that one for a while.
And I will come back to you shortly.
-- dgb, October, 18th, 2009.
...To be continued...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A DGB Perspective on The Relationship Between Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Existentialism and Ontology: Two Different Classification Systems and Different Ways for Understanding and Investigating 'Ontology'
Yes, I know. I have just bombarded you with some of the most abstract and confusing terms in the study of philosophy. Please bear with me and/or follow with me if you are academically so inclined. From a philosophical perspective, the distinctions to be made here are important.
Let me say something quickly about words and meaning here first.
..............................................................................
All words are defined, first and foremost, by their personal author. This is the 'narcissistic' meaning of a word.
All words are defined, secondly, within a social context and/or a range of different social, cultural, and/or sub-cultural contexts, with more generalized, socially shared meanings, applicable to each and every one of these similar and/or different social contexts. This is the social meaning of a word, of which there are quite likely to be a myriad of self-social disagreements -- and based on this -- self-social misunderstandings.
Thus, all words have both a 'narcissistic (self-centered, self-functional) meaning' as well as a more generalized, socially accepted and/or disagreed upon meaning -- the latter of which can present a myriad of opportunities for social misunderstanding.
............................................................................................
The following list of 'definitions' and/or 'descriptions' of the meaning of the main philosophical words listed in the title of this essay can thus be described as my own 'narcissistic' understandings of the meaning of these words which may or may not fit very well with their 'more traditional definitions and descriptions' which you can look up on the internet and/or in a standard philosophy book.
The reason for my writing this essay is that I have found there to be two main -- and quite different -- understandings of the philosophical term 'ontology'. The first of these understandings tends to be much more 'metaphysical' in its nature asking such questions as the 'brain-teasing' question: 'What is existence'?
The second of these understandings -- which is the avenue that I generally tend to prefer to explore -- is more 'phenomenological' and 'existential' in nature and revolves around such questions as: 'How are you choosing to be in the world right now'? Are you a thinker or a feeler or a doer? Is your thinking, feeling, and doing all wholistically connected? Or do you feel that your thinking is disconnected from either your feeling and/or your doing? And if so, what is the nature of this 'disconnection' or 'dissociation' or 'alienated' of thinking, feeling, and/or doing?
The first avenue of investigation tends to ask very, very abstract questions that revolve around mainly 'invisible, metaphysical questions, assumptions, and theoretical propositions'?
The second avenue of investigation tends to be much more concretely aimed at capturing the 'phenomenological' and 'existential' details about how we choose to live our life each and every minute of our life, or at one particular 'moment' of our life, and/or in a 'series of moments' of our life which might be viewed as a 'small but perhaps enlightening cross-section' of our life. This is what a Gestalt therapist will do with you in a Gestalt Therapy session.
The first avenue of investigation revolves around a very abstract discussion of 'existence', 'being', 'becoming', 'universals', 'particulars', all of which comprise the basic subject matter of 'ontology'.
The second avenue of investigation explores a much more personal, intimate discussion of 'our own personal choice -- and myriad of sub-choices -- that comprise our own 'existence' or 'ontology'.
I will use the terms 'metaphysical ontology' vs. 'existential ontology' to differentiate the two different avenues of philosophical and/or psychological investigation that I hope I have clarified here.
In earlier and/or later discussions about Hegel and how Hegel has influenced the subject of 'evolution', we thus need to differentiate between how Hegel influenced the study of: 1. the 'evolution of human consciousness' (i.e., the study of the evolution of awareness and/or self-awareness; 2. the study of the 'evolution of human epistemology' (i.e., the study of knowledge); and/or 3. the study of the 'evolution of life' itself and/or the 'evolution of human life', the latter of which we might also call the study of the 'evolution of existential ontology' as opposed to the study of 'the evolution of metaphysical and/or epistemological ontology' (which was mentioned above and which relates to such abstract questions as: 'What is existence?'
I hope I have created more philosophical clarification here than confusion.
-- dgb, Oct. 15th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
...............................................................................
Ontology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (May 2009)
This article is about ontology in philosophy. For the concept in information science, see ontology (information science).
Parmenides was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of reality.
Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being (neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
1.1 Some fundamental questions
1.2 Concepts
2 History of ontology
2.1 Etymology
2.2 Origins
2.2.1 Parmenides and Monism
2.2.2 Ontological pluralism
2.2.3 Plato
2.2.4 Aristotle
3 Other ontological topics
3.1 Ontological and epistemological certainty
3.2 Body and environment
4 Prominent ontologists
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
Overview
Students of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) first used the word 'metaphysica' (literally "after the physical") to refer to what their teacher described as "the science of being qua being" - later known as ontology. 'Qua' means 'in the capacity of'. Hence, ontology is inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into being in general, beyond any particular thing which is or exists; and the study of beings insofar as they exist, and not insofar as, for instance, particular facts obtained about them or particular properties relating to them. More specifically, ontology concerns determining whether some categories of being are fundamental, and asks in what sense the items in those categories can be said to "be".
Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all nouns (including abstract nouns) refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, but that some provide a kind of shorthand for reference to a collection of either objects or events. In this latter view, mind, instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of mental events experienced by a person; society refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and geometry refers to a collection of a specific kind of intellectual activity.[1] Between these poles of realism and nominalism, there are also a variety of other positions; but any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result. When one applies this process to nouns such as electrons, energy, contract, happiness, space, time, truth, causality, and God, ontology becomes fundamental to many branches of philosophy.
Some fundamental questions
The principal questions of ontology are "What can be said to exist?" and "Into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things?" Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions.
One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called categories. Of course, such lists of categories differ widely from one another, and it is through the co-ordination of different categorial schemes that ontology relates to such fields as library science and artificial intelligence.
Further examples of ontological questions include:
What is existence?
Is existence a property?
Which entities, if any, are fundamental?
How do the properties of an object relate to the object itself?
What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object?
How many levels of existence or ontological levels are there?
What is a physical object?
Can one give an account of what it means to say that a physical object exists?
Can one give an account of what it means to say that a non-physical entity exists?
What constitutes the identity of an object?
When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing?
Concepts
Quintessential ontological concepts include:
Universals and Particulars
Substance and Accident
Abstract and Concrete objects
Essence and Existence
Determinism and Indeterminism
Let me say something quickly about words and meaning here first.
..............................................................................
All words are defined, first and foremost, by their personal author. This is the 'narcissistic' meaning of a word.
All words are defined, secondly, within a social context and/or a range of different social, cultural, and/or sub-cultural contexts, with more generalized, socially shared meanings, applicable to each and every one of these similar and/or different social contexts. This is the social meaning of a word, of which there are quite likely to be a myriad of self-social disagreements -- and based on this -- self-social misunderstandings.
Thus, all words have both a 'narcissistic (self-centered, self-functional) meaning' as well as a more generalized, socially accepted and/or disagreed upon meaning -- the latter of which can present a myriad of opportunities for social misunderstanding.
............................................................................................
The following list of 'definitions' and/or 'descriptions' of the meaning of the main philosophical words listed in the title of this essay can thus be described as my own 'narcissistic' understandings of the meaning of these words which may or may not fit very well with their 'more traditional definitions and descriptions' which you can look up on the internet and/or in a standard philosophy book.
The reason for my writing this essay is that I have found there to be two main -- and quite different -- understandings of the philosophical term 'ontology'. The first of these understandings tends to be much more 'metaphysical' in its nature asking such questions as the 'brain-teasing' question: 'What is existence'?
The second of these understandings -- which is the avenue that I generally tend to prefer to explore -- is more 'phenomenological' and 'existential' in nature and revolves around such questions as: 'How are you choosing to be in the world right now'? Are you a thinker or a feeler or a doer? Is your thinking, feeling, and doing all wholistically connected? Or do you feel that your thinking is disconnected from either your feeling and/or your doing? And if so, what is the nature of this 'disconnection' or 'dissociation' or 'alienated' of thinking, feeling, and/or doing?
The first avenue of investigation tends to ask very, very abstract questions that revolve around mainly 'invisible, metaphysical questions, assumptions, and theoretical propositions'?
The second avenue of investigation tends to be much more concretely aimed at capturing the 'phenomenological' and 'existential' details about how we choose to live our life each and every minute of our life, or at one particular 'moment' of our life, and/or in a 'series of moments' of our life which might be viewed as a 'small but perhaps enlightening cross-section' of our life. This is what a Gestalt therapist will do with you in a Gestalt Therapy session.
The first avenue of investigation revolves around a very abstract discussion of 'existence', 'being', 'becoming', 'universals', 'particulars', all of which comprise the basic subject matter of 'ontology'.
The second avenue of investigation explores a much more personal, intimate discussion of 'our own personal choice -- and myriad of sub-choices -- that comprise our own 'existence' or 'ontology'.
I will use the terms 'metaphysical ontology' vs. 'existential ontology' to differentiate the two different avenues of philosophical and/or psychological investigation that I hope I have clarified here.
In earlier and/or later discussions about Hegel and how Hegel has influenced the subject of 'evolution', we thus need to differentiate between how Hegel influenced the study of: 1. the 'evolution of human consciousness' (i.e., the study of the evolution of awareness and/or self-awareness; 2. the study of the 'evolution of human epistemology' (i.e., the study of knowledge); and/or 3. the study of the 'evolution of life' itself and/or the 'evolution of human life', the latter of which we might also call the study of the 'evolution of existential ontology' as opposed to the study of 'the evolution of metaphysical and/or epistemological ontology' (which was mentioned above and which relates to such abstract questions as: 'What is existence?'
I hope I have created more philosophical clarification here than confusion.
-- dgb, Oct. 15th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
...............................................................................
Ontology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (May 2009)
This article is about ontology in philosophy. For the concept in information science, see ontology (information science).
Parmenides was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of reality.
Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being (neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
1.1 Some fundamental questions
1.2 Concepts
2 History of ontology
2.1 Etymology
2.2 Origins
2.2.1 Parmenides and Monism
2.2.2 Ontological pluralism
2.2.3 Plato
2.2.4 Aristotle
3 Other ontological topics
3.1 Ontological and epistemological certainty
3.2 Body and environment
4 Prominent ontologists
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
Overview
Students of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) first used the word 'metaphysica' (literally "after the physical") to refer to what their teacher described as "the science of being qua being" - later known as ontology. 'Qua' means 'in the capacity of'. Hence, ontology is inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into being in general, beyond any particular thing which is or exists; and the study of beings insofar as they exist, and not insofar as, for instance, particular facts obtained about them or particular properties relating to them. More specifically, ontology concerns determining whether some categories of being are fundamental, and asks in what sense the items in those categories can be said to "be".
Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all nouns (including abstract nouns) refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, but that some provide a kind of shorthand for reference to a collection of either objects or events. In this latter view, mind, instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of mental events experienced by a person; society refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and geometry refers to a collection of a specific kind of intellectual activity.[1] Between these poles of realism and nominalism, there are also a variety of other positions; but any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result. When one applies this process to nouns such as electrons, energy, contract, happiness, space, time, truth, causality, and God, ontology becomes fundamental to many branches of philosophy.
Some fundamental questions
The principal questions of ontology are "What can be said to exist?" and "Into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things?" Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions.
One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called categories. Of course, such lists of categories differ widely from one another, and it is through the co-ordination of different categorial schemes that ontology relates to such fields as library science and artificial intelligence.
Further examples of ontological questions include:
What is existence?
Is existence a property?
Which entities, if any, are fundamental?
How do the properties of an object relate to the object itself?
What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object?
How many levels of existence or ontological levels are there?
What is a physical object?
Can one give an account of what it means to say that a physical object exists?
Can one give an account of what it means to say that a non-physical entity exists?
What constitutes the identity of an object?
When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing?
Concepts
Quintessential ontological concepts include:
Universals and Particulars
Substance and Accident
Abstract and Concrete objects
Essence and Existence
Determinism and Indeterminism
Monday, October 12, 2009
DGB Philosophy vs. Anti-Communitarianism (Part 3): A Critique of Two Anti-Communitarian Essays (Updated and expanded, July 3rd, 5th, 9th, 10th, Oct. 13th, 2009)
Reconstructed...Oct. 12th, 2009.
I don't trumpet Hegel in all aspects of his philosophy because, quite frankly, I don't like all aspects of his philosophy.
It is important that writers don't get caught up in 'over-idealizing' their favorite philosophers and/or in 'over-trashing' their most 'disagreed with' philosophers -- lumping ideas together that shouldn't be lumped together, stereotyping philosophers positively or negatively in a way that oversimplifies, over-idealizes, and/or over-vilifies the philosopher and his or her work.
I too can be guilty of this practice -- it is is easier to oversimplify, over-idealize, and/or over-vilify a philosopher than it is to take the extra time required to more seriously investigate the intricacies of a complicated philosopher's work -- and analyze it properly.
Without spending a lifetime studying one and only one philosopher.
Hegel is a very difficult philosopher to read, and interpretations of his work are many, and greatly varied. Just the fact alone that Hegel's students became divided between 'Left' Hegelians, 'Central' Hegelians, and 'Right' Hegelians underlies the fact that 'the living, breathing, existential and evolutionary dialect' was taking on a life of its own even outside of, and independent of, Hegel's own attempt to control the 'essence' of his own philosophical system.
The dialectic should be viewed upon as a living, breathing organism, like a beating heart. The dialectic starts with the principle of engagement -- a dialectic engagement between two people -- or two groups of people -- who are trying to sort out and/or sort through their interpretive and/or evaluative differences in perspective and opinion.
There exists the potential and the reality for as many different 'types of dialectics' as there are different types of engagements...from the dominating and controlling to the manipulating and conniving to the persuasive and rhetorical to the 'idealistically egalitarian and democratic', the latter of which in itself can probably be divided into many, many more different types of dialectic types of engagement and resolution depending on what our 'pragmatic, empirical definitions and practical extensions' of 'democracy' are, and what we believe is the best way to go about 'democratically resolving conflicts'..
This essay was inspired and prompted by my main living, breathing philosophical 'blogsite' adversary out there in 'cyberspace' -- Ms. Niki Raapana. Her main blogsite/website is called 'Living Outside the Dialectic' -- an ideal that she aspires to which I say is both inherently and existentially impossible to do or achieve. Nobody can 'live outside the dialectic' because the dialectic is an essential and existential mandatory process of evolution. So much so that I refer to evolution as 'dialectic evolution' or alternatively, 'associative-differential evolution.
The reason Ms Raapana aspires to 'live outside the dialectic' -- or so I interpret from her writings -- is because she 'conflates' (falsely associates) and confuses 'Communitarianism' with 'the dialectic'. The two are totally different: the dialectic is an 'evolutionary process' which probably happens 'billions of times a day' whereas 'Communitarianism' is a 'Utopian political and social ideal' for some philosophers, Ms. Raapana obviously not included as she trumpets the 'anti-thesis' of Communitarianism which she labels as 'Anti-Communitarianism'.
For Ms. Raapana to conflate and confuse 'Communitarianism' with 'the dialectic' is essentially no different than if she were to conflate and confuse the dialectic with 'Republicanism' or 'Democraticism' or 'Roman Catholocism' or 'Protestantism' or 'Marxism' or 'Socialism' or 'Capitalism' or 'Elitism' or 'Liberatarianism' or any of a hundred or a thousand other possible political, social, economic, and/or religious philosophical ideals.
The dialectic is a process of evolutionary engagement that underlies each and everyone of these different 'isms' that both 'define us and divide us'.
What divides us defines us.
What defines us divides us.
What defines and philosophically divides us does not have to evaluatively and existentially divide us if we believe in a spirit of 'free thought' and 'freedom of speech' and 'freedom of philosophical, political, economic, and religious differences'. What is most essential here is a healthy degree of tolerance and acceptance for other people having different philosophical viewpoints than our own. (Which is not to stop us from 'rhetorically crushing them' if we believe strong enough that they are sufficiently interpretively, semantically, evaluatively, and/or ethically wrong in what they are saying and/or doing. And if our philosophical adversaries are going around preaching and/or practising such things as racism, prejudice, violence, killing, genocide...then this is something that every government at every level needs to take a very strong stand against beyond the level of simply 'rhetoric'. Which to be absolutely clear, is not the kind of stuff that I associate with anything I have read from my own philosophical adversary's website/blogsite. She is simply stating a different philosophical opinion that I strongly disagree with on its most abstract 'Hegelian' levels.)
It is imperative that none of us should hold on irrationally and unconditionally to ideas that have become outdated and archaic just because they belong to our favorite philosopher (or psychologist) or alternatively use our least favorite philosopher as our own 'private whipping post' so that we can let all of our individual frustrations and 'transferences' loose on this particular philosopher until we have effectively 'beat a dead horse'.
Life evolves and what may or may not have been 'true' for what Hegel believed in 1806 must certainly be differentiated from what I believe in 2009 -- even though, with the greatest of respect, I call myself a 'post-Hegelian'. But a 'post-Hegelian' does not mean a 'clone-Hegelian' -- and even Hegel's thought process was constantly evolving.
The same goes with my interpretation of Hegel's philosophy. Particular issues and questions surrounding Hegel's philosophy that have become 're-opened' and relevant to our discussion here, have necessitated me going back into the literature, re-reading some of Hegel's interpreters (the best one and easiest one to understand, I have found, is Lloyd Spencer, 'Introducing Hegel', 1996 although I have found another interesting one this morning on the internet called, 'History of Philosophy' by Alfred Weber). What I have read this morning has caused me to re-think Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute' which I will probably address in a later essay, if not in my reconstructed version of this one (Oct. 13th, 2009).
Incidently, there is profound significance to the date, October 13th. Back aon this date in 1806 both world history and philosophical history were being made simultaneously at the same time -- I would even say partly humourously -- as upstairs and/or inside his room, Hegel was working frantically to finish the last few pages of his philosophical masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)' while outside Napoleon's army was just about to start battling the Prussian army in The Battle of Jena. (Depending on the interpreter, the battle started on either the 13th or 14th -- the website I am looking at now under 'The Battle of Jena' says October 14th -- but regardless, it seems that Napoleon's army won the battle on October 14th, Prussia losing, which probably was a very significant factor in the evolution and escalation of the German army over tthe next 140 years. Prussia in 1806 largely consisted of a great number of 'smaller unintegrated, un-united states and an un-united army'. Later, an un-united Prussia would become a very united and nationalistic Germany, the latter compensating -- indeed, overcompensating -- for it 'national humiliation' at the hands of the French, Napoleon army which the much more united Germany would take every possible step to make sure that nothing like that every happened again -- consequently, the later rise of German militarism.
...........................................................................
The unified Germany which arose under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1871 was called in German Deutsches Reich. Deutsches Reich remained the official name of Germany until 1945, although these years saw three very different political systems more commonly referred to in English as: "the German Empire" (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933; the term is a postwar coinage not used at the time), and Nazi Germany (the Third Reich) (1933–1945).
...........................................................................
Returning to the issue of 'conflation', no two philosophies and/or philosophers should be viewed as exactly the same any more than two politicians or two priests should be viewed as exactly the same, or sharing the exact same beliefs.
We should all understand that, for example, Psychoanalysis isn't
being practiced exactly the same way today as it was 100 or 115 years ago, although some of the most 'anal-retentive' -- 'I can't let go of Freud' -- analysts might try to. Maybe there is something to the fact that 'analyst' starts with 'anal' as in 'anal-retentive' with no 'common sense flexibility' to move away from an idea that just, plain and simple, isn't working.
Similarly, not all 'Hegelian thinkers' or 'post-Hegelian thinkers' think exactly today the same way that Hegel thought in 1806.
Indeed, no two thinkers ever think or feel exactly alike. When a group of thinkers are claiming that they think exactly like their leader -- and follow that leader 100 per cent to the alter and/to the grave -- they are quite likely lying of faking 'group unity' for the sake of 'social perception' and not wanting to appear that they are presenting ideas that are coming from a 'dialectically divided house'.
Sometimes there is real unity but my experience tells me that this is more the exception than the rule.
Indeed, even labeling yourself as a 'Hegelian philosopher' can become a conceptual and historical trap; better to label yourself as a 'post-Hegelian' philosopher and give yourself some freedom to move with certain particular Hegelian ideas staying on the table but other Hegelian ideas being thrown off the table. To be sure, this post-Hegelian philosopher doesn't want to get locked inside a 'Hegelian jail cell'.
My friends -- and/or philosophical adversaries -- over at 'The Anti-Communitarian: Living Outside The Dialectic' blog site make this particular paper that I am writing here -- and the type of distinctions I am making here -- absolutely necessary.
What divides us defines us and what defines us divides us -- at least philosophically speaking.
Let us start with these easy distinctions here.
1. DGB Philosophy is not Classic Hegelian Philosophy most notably in that it is more 'teleological' and 'humanistically-existential' as opposed to 'historically deterministic'. Also at issue here, are some of Hegel's ideas about the role of the individual and the State, freedom, collectivism, communitarianism (depending on how communitarianism is defined) and 'The Absolute'. I need to do more research here and am not in a position to properly tackle all these issue in this essay here today.
2. My brand of 'post-Hegelian' philosophy might be elongated and called: 'DGB Post-Hegelian, Multi-Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Evolutionary Philosophy'.
3. DGB Philosophy is not Communitarianism in any sense of the word as I have read it being described and/or defined by 'The Anti-Communitarians'. Which is not to say that 'Communitarianism' might not be defined and described in a different way that I might find much more pallatable to endorse such as if it was defined as a 'an ideal homeostatic-ethical balance between individual and community rights'.
4. DGB Philosophy is not Anti-Communitarianism in any sense of the way that it is defined by the Anti-Communitarians except in its desired protection of individual rights and lifestyles. Beyond this, DGB Philosophy rejects any and all of the Anti-Communitarian attacks on Hegel and particularly on Hegelian Dialectic Theory which has nothing to do with 'Communitarianism' except as an underlying evolutionary process to the way Communitarianism might be ideally and/or pathologically defined.'. Evolution is not necessarily 'humanistically right' -- indeed, human evolution might be described as an evolutionary and existential playoff between 'humanistic' and 'anti-humanistic-narcissistic' forces, the latter of which overtly or covertly trumpets human greed and selfishness over humanistic compassion and empathy for the lives and evolution of 'marginalized' people of every race, sex, type and class.
Below are some examples of how the Anti-Communitarians have 'conflated' different Hegelian concepts together in a way that doesn't make sense in 2009 -- and probably doesn't even make any sense going back to 1806 whether we are talking about what Hegel had in mind or whether we are talking about the rather 'unique interpretation' of what the Anti-Communitarians think Hegel had in mind.
Incidentally, I have to thank the Anti-Communitarians for introducing me to the word 'conflation' which can be defined in the following manner:
...........................................................................
Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflation
..........................................................................
Here are some of my 'antithesis' ideas to the 'thesis' ideas that the Anti-Communitarians hold against Hegel and the Hegelian dialectic:
1. 'The Dialectic' does not equal in any manner the idea of 'Collectivism' or 'Nationalism' except in a possible 'dialectic process' of negotiating collectivism and nationalism against their opposite concepts -- for example, either 'individualism' and/or 'internationalism'.
2. 'The Dialectic' does not equal in any manner any sort of 'behind the scenes conspiracy theory and/or puppetmaster show' except to the extent that someone or some group is trying to manipulate and pathologize the sincerity, the integrity, and the existential immediacy of the dialectic for purposes of either 'pseudo-democratic illusion' and/or 'ulterior hidden narcissistic gain'.
3. 'The Dialectic' does not equal in any manner any definition of 'Communitarianism' unless the definition of 'Communitarianism' is so 'fluidly mobile and changing' that it in fact has no definition.
Let me spend the duration of this essay to once again clarify some of my main differences of opinion with Hegel, and once these differences of opinion are clarified, address the main complaints that are leveled against Hegel by the 'Anti-Communitarians' who seem to confuse and conflate Hegel's dialectic theory with his 'Nationalism/Collectivism' stance relative to political philosophy when the two are totally different and should not be treated as being the same or necessarily linked at all.
My main counter-argument against the Anti-Communitarians is that there are literally millions upon millions of 'dialectic conflicts and/or conflict resolutions' that are being worked on each and every day by different individuals and different groups of individuals so to steretype and blackball each and every type of dialectic process as being exactly the same in that each and every one of them is 'contrived', 'pre-ordained', 'manipulated', 'orchestrated by powerful players behind the scenes to a pre-engineered conclusion' -- the result of some 'massive idealistic and/or narcissistic world-wide conspiracy theory' is stretching things just a little bit past the point of 'normal believability'.
I am not saying that conspiracy theories can't or don't happen -- I am just saying that they don't happen all the time and it is important to make some critical distinctions here between different types of dialectic conflict processes and confict resolutions as opposed to lumping each and every dialectic process into one gigantic 'Sucker Bag' where we all -- meaning all of us not in the 'elite controlling circle' -- play the role of 'pawns on a chessboard' being 'sacrificed for the good of the more powerful pieces' and for the good of the 'elite few' who are the actual controlling players in this chess game.
If nothing else, we need to distinguish between 'real dialectic conflict processes' where the outcome of the conflict is highly volatile and unpredictable during the whole process; vs. the type of 'contrived, manipulated, collusion-based, dog and pony show, smoke and mirrors, dialectic conflict' that the Anti-Communitarians are obsessing about and against.
Anyways -- let us start with 2009 DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy vs. 'Classic and/or Archaic' 1807 'Phenomenology of Spirit'-based Hegelian Philosophy.
Firstly, I do not like Hegel's heavy-duty abstractionism although, to confess, I can go off the abstractionism deep end just as many other serious philosophy writers can and do -- much depends on the degree of the philosophical sophistication of the reader we are writing to and/or whether, as a writer, our main purpose is to delve into the most complicated technicalities and convolutions of whatever the issue is we are writing about -- or whether we just want to cover and utilize or modify the main pragmatic implications and/or applications of the philosophical idea that is under discussion. In general, the more abstract a philosopher-writer is, the more likely he or she is of being misunderstood and/or being interpreted in many entirely different ways, and the more likely he or she is going to 'confuse and conflate' things by associating and linking things and/or processes together that are different and should not be treated as being the same or similar. This problem applies equally to Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' 1807) and also to my philosophical adversaries over there at the 'Anti-Communitarian Club' who still seem to be caught in a 'Hegelian Time and Abstraction Warp'. And at times, it applies to me when I stereotype certain ideas that need to be probed more deeply such as Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute' which may become the goal of another paper.
Secondly, I do not like Hegel's 'nationalist-collectivist political stance' as I presently understand it (which may be a false stereotype) which as I presently understand it seems to advocate the suppression and marginalization of certain individual civil rights. I will say no more on this particular issue until I re-investigate the issue more deeply.
We have to distinguish first and foremost between two types of dialectics:
1. An 'Imperialistic-Narcissistic-Darwinian-Survival-of-the-Fittest-Winner-Takes-All-Power Dialectic'; vs.
2. A 'Civil-Egalitarian-Looking-For-That-Ideal-Win-Win-Will-to-Humanistically-and-Yet-Assertively-Negotiate-and-Compromise' Dialectic.
The first is 'unilaterally assertive, aggressive, narcissistic (self-centered) and authoritarian' in its approach. 'Might is right.' This is what I call a 'Power-Dialectic'.
The second is 'empathic, socially sensitive, compromising, conciliatory and yet still assertive' in its approach. This is what I call a 'Humanistic-Existential-Democratic-Dialectic'. There are numerous different types of democratic-dialectics (some of which are more democratic than others, or simply 'differently democratic') such as: a) 'Negotiating to Consensus'; b) 'Public Voting'; c) 'Parliament or Senate Representative Voting'; d) 'Autocratic Representation'; e) 'Autocratic Unrepresentation'; f) 'Representative Negotiating to Consensus'...
There are other different types of dialectics, some of which I will list and briefly describe below:
1. A 'Market-Place' Dialectic where, for example, you are trying to sell me a house and I want to buy one, and you are trying to get your best price possible and I am trying to get my best price possible and if we can find that 'magic price' somewhere in the middle that we can both agree on, then we have a 'marketplace deal' -- a 'marketplace dialectic conflict resolution';
2. A 'Righteous vs. Rebellious' Dialectic where one side of a dialectic conflict ('The Anti-Establishment Underdog') is rhetorically -- or elsewise -- poking holes and sabotaging the 'Establishment Dialectic' Law/Rule') that is under 'deconstructive attack';
3. A 'Covert, Sneaky Rebellious' Dialectic where a particular person or party is trying to get his or her own way by covert, sneaky, underhanded means;
4. A 'Fraudulent, Manipulative' type of dialectic where everything is about presenting a particular 'face' or 'perception' that is entirely different than the underlying 'substance' or 'essence' of what is really happening. This is a more extreme extension of the 'sneaky' dialectic described above. This is the 'Dog-and-Pony-Show-Smoke-and-Mirrors Type of Dialectic' -- the type that tells you 'that you have won a million dollars with the intent of getting into your most private identification information particulars and your bank account information in order to steal your identity and as much money as they can get from you.
5. A 'Alienated Impasse' Type of Dialectic where the dialectic transaction or potential dialectic transaction breaks down into an impasse with one side or both sides not willing to negotiate any further...the result being that the two people and/or parties become detached, separated, alienated, schizoid from each other...
6. A 'Submissive-Masochistic-Approval-Seeking' Dialectic where one side will 'cave easily' from what he or she wants in a negotiation out of fear of intimidation, threat, or loss of approval/acceptance...
7. A 'Seductive-Manipulative' Dialectic where one side uses attractiveness, intellect, beauty, seductiveness, narcissistic vanity...to get what he or she wants in the dialectic transaction.
These are some of the main types of dialectic transactions that we can see in everyday action that are designed in their own way to get goods, services, need-fulfillment, power, revenge, approval, sex, drugs, alcohol, money, cigarettes, love, and/or any of the other 101 (1001?) things that people want and/or obsessively and addictively crave for in their everyday lives...
Now from an egalitarian-fairness point of view, what people tend to idealistically want in a 'democratic-dialectic society' is an 'equally or homeostatically balanced' dialectic transaction/relationship where both people or parties get what they want out of the transaction/relationship --and everybody goes home happy.
But then, when you factor in all of the other 'mainly darker, more narcissistic, sides' of human motivation , then we get all of the other narcissistic dialectic possibilities -- and realities -- briefly mentioned above.
This is just a starting-point of later discussion.
Hegel's philosophy of 'alienation' was extremely important -- almost as important as his philosophy of the dialectic. Hegel most certainly created the 'creative mix' in this regard from which 'Existentialism' was shortly thereafter born through the combined intellect of Schelling, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche...and others...
It is important for critics of Hegelian Philosophy to realize that all Hegelian theorists and philosophers are not the same, and in this regard, it is important, indeed imperative, to understand that not all of the Hegelian Philosophy that is being theorized and applied today is the same as the 'Classic' -- some might say 'Archaic' -- Hegelian Philosophy that Hegel was writing about and applying 203 years ago.
DGB Philosophy in particular has made some significant adjustments and modifications to Classic Hegelian Philosophy which is why I call DGB Philosophy a 'Post-Hegelian-Humanistic-Existential-Democratic-Dialectic' Philosophy.
Any brand of 'Collectivist' or 'National' or 'Communitarian' Philosophy where individual civil rights are seriously suppressed and/or marginalized is not a 'democratic-dialectic' philosophy that is paying any serious attention to the 'founding fathers' of The United States of America (Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson...) and/or their French and English Enlightenment brethrin (Locke, Smith, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, etc.)
Regarding the essential importance of the Enlightenment philosophers and particularly the founders of The American Constitution, I fully agree with the Anti-Communitarians -- it is just that I shake my head every time that they take these massive negative generalizations and then villify Hegel as 'the ultimate architect of everthing that is bad in the world today' -- the ultimate bad philosopher behind a hundred thousand manipulating and contriving politicians today who supposedly all have the same ultimate goal which is the ultimate 'Hegelian goal' of 'Communitarianism'. Or so this is what they keep seeming to argue over and over again, ad nauseum in ttheir blogsite/website.
And they say they are 'living outside of the dialectic'.
As long as they are 'engaged with other people and philosophers who disagree with them, the Anti-Communitarians are living fully inside the dialectic -- not outside of it like a group of hermits who have no contact with the outside world. If they want to live 'outside of the dialectic', then they should give up their website/blogsite which of course they would not want to do anymore than I would -- thus, whether you like it or not, Ms. Raapani, you are 'dialectically engaged' (if not enraged) with me as we each espouse our particular differences in philosophy and opinion.
Please read Ms. Raapana yourself as she gets revved up on one of her passionate 'anti-Hegelian' rhetorical speeches...and tell me if she isn't taking a whole host of what might be considered very real, legitimate problems in the political and social world today -- and then 'hanging Hegel in effagy as if he is the ultimate Anti-Christ of all of these different bad things that are happening in the world today' (that I equate with unbalanced, unbridled human narcissism out of control).
According to Spencer and/or Marx (Introducing Hegel, pg. 110), Hegel himself in 'The Philosophy of Right' describes the social consequences of the unfettered pursuit of private self-interest. Self-interest, exploitation, industrialization, and the division of labour all contribute to the alienation of modern society -- its individualist social fragmentation. (Now that could be Marx talking more than Hegel. I will have to get a hold of a copy of 'The Philosophy of Right' to check to see how much of these classic Marxian ideas Marx was getting from Hegel as opposed to from other sources and/or his own interpretation and evaluation process.)
But back to Ms. Raapana...
...........................................................................
Niki Raapana writes:
“Hegel’s dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels’ grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can’t be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. The Marxist’s global agenda is moving along at breakneck speed. The only way to stop land grabs, privacy invasions, expanded domestic police powers, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. Only then can we be released from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.”
For the past few weeks I have been battling with the this “frenzied circular pattern.” It has felt irrational, neurotic and wasteful to preoccupy myself with the signatures behind the frame of our current society and its various social wars of memes and ideology. I have mostly felt a sense of deja vu standing at the gateway of our world’s next “transformation”; that I had been here before, that this very experiment in the world’s labratory had been conducted many times over.
What it is or isn’t leading to is something I believe all of us should have concern about, as it calls into question all of our deepest beliefs and doubts about society; whether this is the next step on our evolutionary crusade or if this whole Frankenstein manipulation of our culture by the “elite” behind the scenes is compatible with our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would argue that all these matters should be discarded from our existence if we have no objection to the next “paradigm shift”; but if we do have objection, as I am certain most of us would if we had access to all the information we would need in order to decide for ourselves who should be setting the agenda for our lives, then now is the time to educate ourselves and recognize the many ways our lives are being systemically controlled for a purpose not consistent with our individual or collective desire.
Google...Living Outside The Dialectic...or....
http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/
...............................................................................
THE ANTI COMMUNITARIAN MANIFESTO
by Niki F. Raapana and Nordica M. Friedrich
Free online edition since 2003
NEW on April 1, 2008: ABSTRACT of the Anti Communitarian Manifesto. Comments welcome.
HARDCOPY: The first ACL Books' edition of the Manifesto is available now for $20 USD. 5 x 8 inch spiral bound, 140 pages, includes additional materials, references and commentary while leaving the original online thesis intact. Email for ordering details or go to the 2020 book order page and replace the word 2020 with Manifesto.
PART ONE:
What is the Hegelian Dialectic?
December 25, 2002
Poll : What prompted you to search for the Hegelian dialectic?
Introduction : Why study Hegel?
1. The origins of deductive and inductive reasoning
2. Webster's definition of the Hegelian dialectic
3. How the Hegelian dialectic changed the formula for deductive reasoning
4. Why it is almost impossible for a layman to understand the Hegelian dialectic
5. The communitarian purpose for the Hegelian dialectic
6. How we interpret the history of the Hegelian dialectic
7. The Anti Communitarian League's conclusion
8. Four examples of the power of the semantics in the dialectic
9. Four different impressions of the modern Hegelian dialectic theory
Poll : What prompted you to search for the Hegelian dialectic?
I'm writing a high school paper
I'm writing a college paper
I'm a high school teacher
I'm a college professor
I'm on a school review board
I work for a news publication
I just keep hearing the term
I was sent here
None of the above
free polls from Pollhost.com
---divider---
Introduction : Why study Hegel?
"... the State 'has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State... for the right of the world spirit is above all special priveleges.'"
-- Author/historian William Shirer, quoting Hegel in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959)
Hegel
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a 19th century German philosopher and theologist who wrote the Science of Logic in 1812. For many historians, Hegel is "perhaps the greatest of the German idealist philosophers."
In 1847 the London Communist League (Marx and Engels, pictured left) used Hegel's theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism. Now, in the 21st century, Hegelian-Marxist thinking affects our entire social and political structure.
The Hegelian dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a predetermined solution. If we do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic shapes our perceptions of the world, then we do not know how we are helping to implement the vision for the future.
Hegel's dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels' grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can't be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. The Marxist's global agenda is moving along at breakneck speed. The only way to stop land grabs, privacy invasions, expanded domestic police powers, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. Only then can we be released from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.
When we understand what motivated Hegel, we can see his influence on all of our destinies. Then we become real players in the very real game that has been going on for at least 224 years. Hegelian conflicts steer every political arena on the planet, from the United Nations to the major American political parties, all the way down to local school boards and community councils. Dialogues and consensus-building are primary tools of the dialectic, and terror and intimidation are also acceptable formats for obtaining the goal.
The ultimate Third Way agenda is world government. Once we get what's really going on, we can cut the strings and move our lives in original directions outside the confines of the dialectical madness. Focusing on Hegel's and Engel's ultimate agenda, and avoiding getting caught up in their impenetrable theories of social evolution, gives us the opportunity to think and act our way toward freedom, justice, and genuine liberty for all.
Today the dialectic is active in every political issue that encourages taking sides. We can see it in environmentalists instigating conflicts against private property owners, in democrats against republicans, in greens against libertarians, in communists against socialists, in neo-cons against traditional conservatives, in community activists against individuals, in pro-choice versus pro-life, in Christians against Muslims, in isolationists versus interventionists, in peace activists against war hawks.
No matter what the issue, the invisible dialectic aims to control both the conflict and the resolution of differences, and leads everyone involved into a new cycle of conflicts. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore.
....................................................................................
DGB Editorial Critique vs. Anti-Communitarianism (cont'd)
Three Different Types of Dialectics: A Critique of Living Outside The Dialectic; and The Global Money Scam and The Hegelian Dialectic
The 'Hegelian Dialectic' is not the 'evil monster' as the two essays above would suggest...there are numerous different ways of both interpreting and evaluating 'different types' of Hegelian Dialectics -- no two of which is ever going to be exactly the same. To stereotype 'all dialectics' as being the same is another example of 'Anti-Communitarianist Conflationism'. (I just invented a new word -- 'conflationism'.)
As the first writer (he doesn't give his name) has aptly stated at the top of his website, we have to 'question every precept' -- not negatively stereotype a given precept, set it up like a 'house of cards, straw, or sand -- and then delight in deconstructively knocking down what we built unstably in the first theory. You want to talk about 'preordained conspiracy theory' seem to be making a lifelong mission of 'building the dialectic up weakly and stereotyping all dialectics as being the same so that they can spend the rest of their gleeful energy knocking it down again.
This is not to say that 'preordained dialectics' can't and don't happen -- they do happen but these are 'manipulative, pathological' dialectics and not all dialectics are manipulative, pathological dialectics; most dialectics -- meaning conflict situations -- are totally 'existentially immediate and real' -- with existentially unpredictable and real outcomes on human behavior, relationships, history and evolution.
Let me give you a rather 'emotionally explosive' example from my own life. My sister and her husband had bought an 'investment' townhouse with the pre-established agreement that my son, brother, and I would move in and share the rental cost of the townhouse. My son was still in high school and prone to making impulsive self-centered (narcissistic) decisions that did not include those people around him who were also affected by the outcome of his impulsive decisions. Anyway, he found a girlfriend who started 'staying over' at the townhouse more and more often until she had effectively 'moved in'. Furthermore, the two of them went out and bought a dog -- not just any dog but a cross between a rottweiler, a boxer, and a doberman. It was just a pup but it was untrained and obviously going to get significantly bigger.
My sister and her husband eventually found out about these two 'additions' to the townhouse living situation, were notably upset about these two additions, and arranged a meeting in which a 'decision' was going to be made about what to do about the situation. Before we got to the day of the meeting, it became apparent that a 'decision' had already been made by my sister and her husband about what was going to be done: Mike's girlfriend and the dog were going to have to find a new place to live. This is what you can call a 'pre-ordained dialectic outcome'.
Now, in this regard, I am no different than my friend and/or philosophical adversary, Niki Raapana over at the 'Anti-Communitarian' site -- I don't like 'pre-ordained dialectics anymore than she does. Only, unlike her, I don't try to say that 'every dialectic and every dialectic outcome in the world is preordained by some puppetmaster behind the scenes'. I don't take kindly to being a 'puppet' anymore than Ms. Raapana does. Thus, getting back to my example here, something happened between the intended 'pre-ordained outcome' of the dialectic meeting at the townhouse -- and the actual meeting as it started to evolve. Simmering in the back of my head was the fact that I do not like to be 'excluded' or 'marginalized' from any decision that involves my life -- and in this case, my son's. Also, there was the fact that, over the period of a month or two, I had started to become very attached to the dog.
As the meeting started to take place, and as my sister laid out her 'pre-ordained decsion relative to my son's girlfriend and their dog leaving, an 'emotional volcano' was starting to well up inside myself. To repeat, I don't like 'pre-ordained, unilateral, behind the scenes decisions masked in a pseudo-democratic meeting' any more than Niki Raapana and the rest of the Anti-Communitarians do.
So I told my sister, 'That's fine, I will be leaving too.' The 'dialectic' at this moment had completely lost its 'pre-ordained characteristic' and instead had become very 'existentially real -- with real consequences, and real relationships at stake'. The 'pre-ordained factor' had just 'flown the coup'.
My sister immediately accused me of 'trying to control the meeting' -- that I was being a 'control freak' (as if she wasn't) and raw human emotions of anger and ethical outrage blew into the townhouse living room -- again, eliminating any semblance of 'pre-ordained determinism and predictability'.
The meeting finally came back to order, I suggested that my son and his girlfriend pay an extra $200 a month to cover extra townhouse utility and rental expenses. The dog -- 'Sammy' -- I can't remember what the final townhouse decision was on the dog. She stayed but her life was tragic and brief which still to this day leaves a hole in my heart. The entire story reads like a Sarah Palin family soap opera but the story was, and still is, very 'existentially real'. There was nothing pre-ordained about what happened that day -- or afterwards.
'Seek first to understand, then to be understood.' A very wise person said that (Steven Covey, 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People').
Don't paint Hegel's 'Dialectic Theory of Evolution' with an all encompassing black brush. It is not Hegel's Dialectic Theory of Evolution that is the problem with his 205 year old philosophy; rather it is other parts of his philosophy such as his unbridled abstractionism, his unrealistic idealism, and his Fichte-like 'German Nationalism and Collectivism' that did not steer Germany in a very good direction at all (like Fascism, Herdism, Anti-Semiticism, Nazism, and two brutal world wars...)
Thus, we have a combination of two problems today regarding the interpretation, extrapolation, and application of Hegel's 205 year old philosophy: 1. those who try conservatively and 'anal-retentively' to hold onto Hegel's philosophy as it exactly was 205 years ago; and 2. those critics of Hegel (read the 'Anti-Communitarians') who are still trying to criticize 'Classic-Archaic' Hegelian Philosophy even though it is 205 years outdated and most, or at least some, current day Post-Hegelian Philosophers (read, yours truly) who have read Classic Hegelian Theory know its inherent 'weaknesses' as well, or better, than its detractors and critics do -- and have made contemporary, compensatory adjustments while Hegel's contempory critics keep hammering away at crticisms that are getting extremely boring, they have been repeated so often.
If you are going to criticize Hegel, get with the current program all ye critics of Hegel! Don't keep repeating what is 205 years old! Most serious philosophers who have read Hegel, have also read enough of Marx, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, etc. to know what the 'classic Hegelian criticisms' are -- we don't need to keep reading yesterday's newspapers over and over and over again.
Let me repeat -- hopefully, for the last time. Hegel's brutal, unbridled abstractionism is well documented in the philosophical literature. If I want a lesson in brutal, unbridled abstractionism, I have two choices: 1. I can pick up Hegel's classic philosophical treatise: 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)' (1804). Or I can try reading an anti-Communitarian essay and see very quickly that the strongest proponents of Anti-Communitarianism seem to have learned very well from Hegel in this one regard -- everything written about in terms of 'single universals' such as one type of 'universal dialectic' that is 'pre-ordained' in terms of some underlying 'global conspiracy theory' when, in reality, there are literally millions of actual and potential 'dialectic conflicts and conflict resolutions' -- every last which one which is uniquely different from the one preceding it and the one following it depending on the issue, the context, the participants, the mood, the creativity and/or non-creativity in the problem-solving/conflict-resolving, who's trying to negotiate to a fair and just outcome vs. who is trying to intimidate and/or steamroll over top of his or her adversar's 'anti-thesis' and opposite wishes...
Regarding Hegel's 'Political Collectivism, Herdism, Nationalism' -- the Anti-Communitarians are preaching to the choir here. No argument, plain and simple. Most intelligent, independent-minded philosophers know the dangers of 'Extreme Collectivism, Nationalism, Group Herdism'...Just read Nietzsche's 'pre-Nazi' criticisms of Collectivist, Herdist, Nationalistic Germany...One can almost say that Nietzsche was warning pre-Nazi Germany of the dangers and the slippery slope of evolving Nazism.
I view Nazi Germany as an excellent albeit 'pathological' example of what I would call a 'cultural transference-reversal'. Napoleon invaded 'pre-Germany' and steamrolled over top of it because 'pre-Germany' was not united -- it was simply a collection of smaller 'regional states'. So after Napoleon was finally defeated, 'pre-Germany' became 'Nationalistic' and united into Germany with visions of what Napoleon had done to them still 'crashing around in their collective minds'. The 'compensatory, cultural transference' became to 'grow stronger as a country -- and as a united army' -- so that this type of national catastrophy -- and 'national humiliation' -- would never happen again. So German Nationalism, Collectivism, and Herdism was born. And the beginning of the evolution of Nazi Germany.
But not only did Germany grow their army, improve their national strength and power for purposes of self-defence. They also took something much more ominous and pathological from Napoleon. The idea of 'world dominance, German superiority, German arrogance, ethnic cleansing' -- and the idea of a 'Napoleon-like, pre-emptive strike towards world domination'. Nazi Germany had now reached it zenith of 'National Socio- and Psycho-Pathology'. 'Collectivism and Herdism' -- as initiated by Fichte and Hegel in a culture and a nation that was ready to hear what Fichte and Hegel had to say in this regard -- even though the direction of movment was rhetorically counter-argued over and over again by Nietzsche, a philosopher who was much more accurately attuned and intuitive to the place in Hell that this Socio-psycho-pathological was ultimately going to take Nationalistic Germany -- would ultimately rule the day, and at least three generations of Germans. Nationalism would take Germany to the top of the world cliff, the zenith of national military power with its potential for world power and destruction as it also looked over the threatening precipace of potential national self-destruction. Just like Napoleon before them. This is what I call a 'cultural or national transference re-creation and repetition complex and compulsion brought on by identification with the National Aggressor and Victimizer(Napoleon). What goes around comes around. The tragedy of negative transference both individual and collective. What starts out as an individual or national 'childhood traumacy and tragedy' (pre-Germany being brutally victimized by Napoleon's army) becomes deeply remembered as such, indeed, internalized into the national psyche of Germany -- and then 'replayed' generations later with Nazi Germany -- and Hitler -- playing the role of Napoleon, the world conquerer, who is ultimately defeated and destroyed by a stronger army (or coalition of armies) outsmarting him and overpowering him. Again, this is what I call 'National Transference Reversal'.
Such is the potential danger of Nationalism, Collectivism, Herdism...Group Think...gone mad...
There is no greater proponents of individualism -- in balance with the individualism of other individuals -- than this man, this philosopher, right here.
So let me get the message out there to all my readers and to the 'Anti-Communitarian' philosophical camp: Don't paint DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy with the all-encompassing black paintbrush of 'Nationalism, Collectivism, Herdism, Group Think -- and 'Communitarianism' in this pathological sense.
Hegelian philosophy 205 years ago is not DGB Post-Hegelian philosophy today. Recognize the difference.
Even to you Ms. Rapaani, I quote Votaire (Toleration and Other Essays, 1755):
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.
Criticize Hegel's 'nationalism' if you wish, his 'collectivism', and/or his own particular brand of 'communitarianism'....in the way that the 'Anti-Communitarians' have stereotyped '(Pathological) Communitarianism'.
However, there is an 'infinite potential for different types of 'Communitarianism' -- some healthier, some more pathological than others. And the same goes for a negatively stereotyped definition of 'the dialectic'.
Indeed, I will distinguish between three different types of dialectics:
1. The 'Narcissistic Power Dialectic': Winner takes all. (Until the 'marginalized' and the 'suppressed' start to compensate for their losing strategy, re-build themselves from the shadows, re-generate themselves, slowly re-gaining power until they can topple the dominant, the oppressive, and the suppressive. This is 'Anaxamander's Dialectic', this is Marx's Dialectic -- Power in the hands of The Proletariat (which has never happened...It certainly never happened under Mao Tse Tung, or Lenin, or Stalin. These were 'narcissistic Capitalist leaders trying to disguise themselves as 'humanistic socialists'. They weren't. Like in America -- all the money was collected, passed around, and used at the top.). Marx was a combination of humanist and narcissistic pit bull. The 'narcissistic pitbull' side of his character -- and his philosophy -- was pathological.
2. The 'Egalitarian-Democratic-Dialectic': A type of dialectic where two so-motivated individuals or groups of individuals are actually looking for a 'win-win solution, resolution, and/or compromise' knowing that 'two opposite polarities need each other and need to come together in dialectic unity, wholism, and harmony (at least for a short while, if not a long while, until dialectic disharmony resurrects itself and demands a new negotiation towards a 'different dialectic harmony'...This is 'Heraclitus' Dialectic', 'Lao Tse's Dialectic (yin meets yang in harmonious dialectic balance) Nietzsche's Dialectic (The Birth of Tragedy), Freud (The homeostatic balance of 'id' and 'superego'.), Jung (the homeostatic balance of 'personna' and 'shadow'), Cannon (The Wisdom -- and the Homeostatic Balance -- of The Body), Perls and Gestalt Therapy (the balance of 'topdog' and 'underdog'), Derrida (the balanced of the 'dominant' and the 'suppressed' through the philosophy of 'deconstruction)...
3. 'The Collusive, Manipulative, Dog and Pony, Smoke and Mirrors' Dialectic: This is the type of dialectic that you and your friend Niki describe as if it is the only type of dialectic that operates in the world....Yes, this is a 'pathological type of dialectic' but don't blame it on Hegel unless you want to blame it on his pathological Nationalism, his pathological Collectivism, his pathological brand of Communitarianism...But don't paint all types of 'the dialectic' with the same black paintbrush. Indeed, personally, I would argue that 'Nationalism', 'Collectivism', and 'No-Individual-Civil Rights' Communitarianism is 'anti-dialectic' in the 'egalitarian-democratic-homeostatic balance' sense. Rather it belongs to either and/or both brands of the other two -- pathological -- dialectics listed above.
In contrast, 'Healthy Communitarianism' demands a healthy homeostatic balance between individual civil rights and community rights. In this respect, it is my individual right to 'swing my right arm as often and as far as I want, as long as I don't swing it into your face'...Healthy Communitarianism does not contradict the values of individualism as laid out by America's founding fathers: Tom Paine, Jefferson...nor the French Enlightenment philosophers such as Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, Adam Smith, John Locke...and others...
But everything depends on the 'type' of dialectic we are talking about...
The type of collusive, behind the scenes, dog and pony show, smoke and mirrors show that you are writing about is only one type of dialectic -- and obviously a pathological one that has nothing to do with 'Ideal, Transparent, Win-Win Democracy'.
We must remember that no two Hegelian thinkers are exactly alike, any more than two Republican, Democrat, Liberal, and/or Conservative thinkers are exactly light.
And Hegelian thinking as it was theorized and applied some 205 years ago by Hegel is not the way that all 'post-Hegelian' thinkers and theorists are using the Hegelian Dialectic today.
Every Hegelian, post-Hegelian, and anti-Hegelian thinker has to be understood and evaluated in his or her own particular individual right and uniqueness -- including the two writers I have critiqued above...
dgb, July 1st-3rd, 2009, last update, Oct. 12., 2009.
David Gordon Bain,
Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are Still In Process...
Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...
...................................................
I don't trumpet Hegel in all aspects of his philosophy because, quite frankly, I don't like all aspects of his philosophy.
It is important that writers don't get caught up in 'over-idealizing' their favorite philosophers and/or in 'over-trashing' their most 'disagreed with' philosophers -- lumping ideas together that shouldn't be lumped together, stereotyping philosophers positively or negatively in a way that oversimplifies, over-idealizes, and/or over-vilifies the philosopher and his or her work.
I too can be guilty of this practice -- it is is easier to oversimplify, over-idealize, and/or over-vilify a philosopher than it is to take the extra time required to more seriously investigate the intricacies of a complicated philosopher's work -- and analyze it properly.
Without spending a lifetime studying one and only one philosopher.
Hegel is a very difficult philosopher to read, and interpretations of his work are many, and greatly varied. Just the fact alone that Hegel's students became divided between 'Left' Hegelians, 'Central' Hegelians, and 'Right' Hegelians underlies the fact that 'the living, breathing, existential and evolutionary dialect' was taking on a life of its own even outside of, and independent of, Hegel's own attempt to control the 'essence' of his own philosophical system.
The dialectic should be viewed upon as a living, breathing organism, like a beating heart. The dialectic starts with the principle of engagement -- a dialectic engagement between two people -- or two groups of people -- who are trying to sort out and/or sort through their interpretive and/or evaluative differences in perspective and opinion.
There exists the potential and the reality for as many different 'types of dialectics' as there are different types of engagements...from the dominating and controlling to the manipulating and conniving to the persuasive and rhetorical to the 'idealistically egalitarian and democratic', the latter of which in itself can probably be divided into many, many more different types of dialectic types of engagement and resolution depending on what our 'pragmatic, empirical definitions and practical extensions' of 'democracy' are, and what we believe is the best way to go about 'democratically resolving conflicts'..
This essay was inspired and prompted by my main living, breathing philosophical 'blogsite' adversary out there in 'cyberspace' -- Ms. Niki Raapana. Her main blogsite/website is called 'Living Outside the Dialectic' -- an ideal that she aspires to which I say is both inherently and existentially impossible to do or achieve. Nobody can 'live outside the dialectic' because the dialectic is an essential and existential mandatory process of evolution. So much so that I refer to evolution as 'dialectic evolution' or alternatively, 'associative-differential evolution.
The reason Ms Raapana aspires to 'live outside the dialectic' -- or so I interpret from her writings -- is because she 'conflates' (falsely associates) and confuses 'Communitarianism' with 'the dialectic'. The two are totally different: the dialectic is an 'evolutionary process' which probably happens 'billions of times a day' whereas 'Communitarianism' is a 'Utopian political and social ideal' for some philosophers, Ms. Raapana obviously not included as she trumpets the 'anti-thesis' of Communitarianism which she labels as 'Anti-Communitarianism'.
For Ms. Raapana to conflate and confuse 'Communitarianism' with 'the dialectic' is essentially no different than if she were to conflate and confuse the dialectic with 'Republicanism' or 'Democraticism' or 'Roman Catholocism' or 'Protestantism' or 'Marxism' or 'Socialism' or 'Capitalism' or 'Elitism' or 'Liberatarianism' or any of a hundred or a thousand other possible political, social, economic, and/or religious philosophical ideals.
The dialectic is a process of evolutionary engagement that underlies each and everyone of these different 'isms' that both 'define us and divide us'.
What divides us defines us.
What defines us divides us.
What defines and philosophically divides us does not have to evaluatively and existentially divide us if we believe in a spirit of 'free thought' and 'freedom of speech' and 'freedom of philosophical, political, economic, and religious differences'. What is most essential here is a healthy degree of tolerance and acceptance for other people having different philosophical viewpoints than our own. (Which is not to stop us from 'rhetorically crushing them' if we believe strong enough that they are sufficiently interpretively, semantically, evaluatively, and/or ethically wrong in what they are saying and/or doing. And if our philosophical adversaries are going around preaching and/or practising such things as racism, prejudice, violence, killing, genocide...then this is something that every government at every level needs to take a very strong stand against beyond the level of simply 'rhetoric'. Which to be absolutely clear, is not the kind of stuff that I associate with anything I have read from my own philosophical adversary's website/blogsite. She is simply stating a different philosophical opinion that I strongly disagree with on its most abstract 'Hegelian' levels.)
It is imperative that none of us should hold on irrationally and unconditionally to ideas that have become outdated and archaic just because they belong to our favorite philosopher (or psychologist) or alternatively use our least favorite philosopher as our own 'private whipping post' so that we can let all of our individual frustrations and 'transferences' loose on this particular philosopher until we have effectively 'beat a dead horse'.
Life evolves and what may or may not have been 'true' for what Hegel believed in 1806 must certainly be differentiated from what I believe in 2009 -- even though, with the greatest of respect, I call myself a 'post-Hegelian'. But a 'post-Hegelian' does not mean a 'clone-Hegelian' -- and even Hegel's thought process was constantly evolving.
The same goes with my interpretation of Hegel's philosophy. Particular issues and questions surrounding Hegel's philosophy that have become 're-opened' and relevant to our discussion here, have necessitated me going back into the literature, re-reading some of Hegel's interpreters (the best one and easiest one to understand, I have found, is Lloyd Spencer, 'Introducing Hegel', 1996 although I have found another interesting one this morning on the internet called, 'History of Philosophy' by Alfred Weber). What I have read this morning has caused me to re-think Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute' which I will probably address in a later essay, if not in my reconstructed version of this one (Oct. 13th, 2009).
Incidently, there is profound significance to the date, October 13th. Back aon this date in 1806 both world history and philosophical history were being made simultaneously at the same time -- I would even say partly humourously -- as upstairs and/or inside his room, Hegel was working frantically to finish the last few pages of his philosophical masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)' while outside Napoleon's army was just about to start battling the Prussian army in The Battle of Jena. (Depending on the interpreter, the battle started on either the 13th or 14th -- the website I am looking at now under 'The Battle of Jena' says October 14th -- but regardless, it seems that Napoleon's army won the battle on October 14th, Prussia losing, which probably was a very significant factor in the evolution and escalation of the German army over tthe next 140 years. Prussia in 1806 largely consisted of a great number of 'smaller unintegrated, un-united states and an un-united army'. Later, an un-united Prussia would become a very united and nationalistic Germany, the latter compensating -- indeed, overcompensating -- for it 'national humiliation' at the hands of the French, Napoleon army which the much more united Germany would take every possible step to make sure that nothing like that every happened again -- consequently, the later rise of German militarism.
...........................................................................
The unified Germany which arose under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1871 was called in German Deutsches Reich. Deutsches Reich remained the official name of Germany until 1945, although these years saw three very different political systems more commonly referred to in English as: "the German Empire" (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933; the term is a postwar coinage not used at the time), and Nazi Germany (the Third Reich) (1933–1945).
...........................................................................
Returning to the issue of 'conflation', no two philosophies and/or philosophers should be viewed as exactly the same any more than two politicians or two priests should be viewed as exactly the same, or sharing the exact same beliefs.
We should all understand that, for example, Psychoanalysis isn't
being practiced exactly the same way today as it was 100 or 115 years ago, although some of the most 'anal-retentive' -- 'I can't let go of Freud' -- analysts might try to. Maybe there is something to the fact that 'analyst' starts with 'anal' as in 'anal-retentive' with no 'common sense flexibility' to move away from an idea that just, plain and simple, isn't working.
Similarly, not all 'Hegelian thinkers' or 'post-Hegelian thinkers' think exactly today the same way that Hegel thought in 1806.
Indeed, no two thinkers ever think or feel exactly alike. When a group of thinkers are claiming that they think exactly like their leader -- and follow that leader 100 per cent to the alter and/to the grave -- they are quite likely lying of faking 'group unity' for the sake of 'social perception' and not wanting to appear that they are presenting ideas that are coming from a 'dialectically divided house'.
Sometimes there is real unity but my experience tells me that this is more the exception than the rule.
Indeed, even labeling yourself as a 'Hegelian philosopher' can become a conceptual and historical trap; better to label yourself as a 'post-Hegelian' philosopher and give yourself some freedom to move with certain particular Hegelian ideas staying on the table but other Hegelian ideas being thrown off the table. To be sure, this post-Hegelian philosopher doesn't want to get locked inside a 'Hegelian jail cell'.
My friends -- and/or philosophical adversaries -- over at 'The Anti-Communitarian: Living Outside The Dialectic' blog site make this particular paper that I am writing here -- and the type of distinctions I am making here -- absolutely necessary.
What divides us defines us and what defines us divides us -- at least philosophically speaking.
Let us start with these easy distinctions here.
1. DGB Philosophy is not Classic Hegelian Philosophy most notably in that it is more 'teleological' and 'humanistically-existential' as opposed to 'historically deterministic'. Also at issue here, are some of Hegel's ideas about the role of the individual and the State, freedom, collectivism, communitarianism (depending on how communitarianism is defined) and 'The Absolute'. I need to do more research here and am not in a position to properly tackle all these issue in this essay here today.
2. My brand of 'post-Hegelian' philosophy might be elongated and called: 'DGB Post-Hegelian, Multi-Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Evolutionary Philosophy'.
3. DGB Philosophy is not Communitarianism in any sense of the word as I have read it being described and/or defined by 'The Anti-Communitarians'. Which is not to say that 'Communitarianism' might not be defined and described in a different way that I might find much more pallatable to endorse such as if it was defined as a 'an ideal homeostatic-ethical balance between individual and community rights'.
4. DGB Philosophy is not Anti-Communitarianism in any sense of the way that it is defined by the Anti-Communitarians except in its desired protection of individual rights and lifestyles. Beyond this, DGB Philosophy rejects any and all of the Anti-Communitarian attacks on Hegel and particularly on Hegelian Dialectic Theory which has nothing to do with 'Communitarianism' except as an underlying evolutionary process to the way Communitarianism might be ideally and/or pathologically defined.'. Evolution is not necessarily 'humanistically right' -- indeed, human evolution might be described as an evolutionary and existential playoff between 'humanistic' and 'anti-humanistic-narcissistic' forces, the latter of which overtly or covertly trumpets human greed and selfishness over humanistic compassion and empathy for the lives and evolution of 'marginalized' people of every race, sex, type and class.
Below are some examples of how the Anti-Communitarians have 'conflated' different Hegelian concepts together in a way that doesn't make sense in 2009 -- and probably doesn't even make any sense going back to 1806 whether we are talking about what Hegel had in mind or whether we are talking about the rather 'unique interpretation' of what the Anti-Communitarians think Hegel had in mind.
Incidentally, I have to thank the Anti-Communitarians for introducing me to the word 'conflation' which can be defined in the following manner:
...........................................................................
Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflation
..........................................................................
Here are some of my 'antithesis' ideas to the 'thesis' ideas that the Anti-Communitarians hold against Hegel and the Hegelian dialectic:
1. 'The Dialectic' does not equal in any manner the idea of 'Collectivism' or 'Nationalism' except in a possible 'dialectic process' of negotiating collectivism and nationalism against their opposite concepts -- for example, either 'individualism' and/or 'internationalism'.
2. 'The Dialectic' does not equal in any manner any sort of 'behind the scenes conspiracy theory and/or puppetmaster show' except to the extent that someone or some group is trying to manipulate and pathologize the sincerity, the integrity, and the existential immediacy of the dialectic for purposes of either 'pseudo-democratic illusion' and/or 'ulterior hidden narcissistic gain'.
3. 'The Dialectic' does not equal in any manner any definition of 'Communitarianism' unless the definition of 'Communitarianism' is so 'fluidly mobile and changing' that it in fact has no definition.
Let me spend the duration of this essay to once again clarify some of my main differences of opinion with Hegel, and once these differences of opinion are clarified, address the main complaints that are leveled against Hegel by the 'Anti-Communitarians' who seem to confuse and conflate Hegel's dialectic theory with his 'Nationalism/Collectivism' stance relative to political philosophy when the two are totally different and should not be treated as being the same or necessarily linked at all.
My main counter-argument against the Anti-Communitarians is that there are literally millions upon millions of 'dialectic conflicts and/or conflict resolutions' that are being worked on each and every day by different individuals and different groups of individuals so to steretype and blackball each and every type of dialectic process as being exactly the same in that each and every one of them is 'contrived', 'pre-ordained', 'manipulated', 'orchestrated by powerful players behind the scenes to a pre-engineered conclusion' -- the result of some 'massive idealistic and/or narcissistic world-wide conspiracy theory' is stretching things just a little bit past the point of 'normal believability'.
I am not saying that conspiracy theories can't or don't happen -- I am just saying that they don't happen all the time and it is important to make some critical distinctions here between different types of dialectic conflict processes and confict resolutions as opposed to lumping each and every dialectic process into one gigantic 'Sucker Bag' where we all -- meaning all of us not in the 'elite controlling circle' -- play the role of 'pawns on a chessboard' being 'sacrificed for the good of the more powerful pieces' and for the good of the 'elite few' who are the actual controlling players in this chess game.
If nothing else, we need to distinguish between 'real dialectic conflict processes' where the outcome of the conflict is highly volatile and unpredictable during the whole process; vs. the type of 'contrived, manipulated, collusion-based, dog and pony show, smoke and mirrors, dialectic conflict' that the Anti-Communitarians are obsessing about and against.
Anyways -- let us start with 2009 DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy vs. 'Classic and/or Archaic' 1807 'Phenomenology of Spirit'-based Hegelian Philosophy.
Firstly, I do not like Hegel's heavy-duty abstractionism although, to confess, I can go off the abstractionism deep end just as many other serious philosophy writers can and do -- much depends on the degree of the philosophical sophistication of the reader we are writing to and/or whether, as a writer, our main purpose is to delve into the most complicated technicalities and convolutions of whatever the issue is we are writing about -- or whether we just want to cover and utilize or modify the main pragmatic implications and/or applications of the philosophical idea that is under discussion. In general, the more abstract a philosopher-writer is, the more likely he or she is of being misunderstood and/or being interpreted in many entirely different ways, and the more likely he or she is going to 'confuse and conflate' things by associating and linking things and/or processes together that are different and should not be treated as being the same or similar. This problem applies equally to Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' 1807) and also to my philosophical adversaries over there at the 'Anti-Communitarian Club' who still seem to be caught in a 'Hegelian Time and Abstraction Warp'. And at times, it applies to me when I stereotype certain ideas that need to be probed more deeply such as Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute' which may become the goal of another paper.
Secondly, I do not like Hegel's 'nationalist-collectivist political stance' as I presently understand it (which may be a false stereotype) which as I presently understand it seems to advocate the suppression and marginalization of certain individual civil rights. I will say no more on this particular issue until I re-investigate the issue more deeply.
We have to distinguish first and foremost between two types of dialectics:
1. An 'Imperialistic-Narcissistic-Darwinian-Survival-of-the-Fittest-Winner-Takes-All-Power Dialectic'; vs.
2. A 'Civil-Egalitarian-Looking-For-That-Ideal-Win-Win-Will-to-Humanistically-and-Yet-Assertively-Negotiate-and-Compromise' Dialectic.
The first is 'unilaterally assertive, aggressive, narcissistic (self-centered) and authoritarian' in its approach. 'Might is right.' This is what I call a 'Power-Dialectic'.
The second is 'empathic, socially sensitive, compromising, conciliatory and yet still assertive' in its approach. This is what I call a 'Humanistic-Existential-Democratic-Dialectic'. There are numerous different types of democratic-dialectics (some of which are more democratic than others, or simply 'differently democratic') such as: a) 'Negotiating to Consensus'; b) 'Public Voting'; c) 'Parliament or Senate Representative Voting'; d) 'Autocratic Representation'; e) 'Autocratic Unrepresentation'; f) 'Representative Negotiating to Consensus'...
There are other different types of dialectics, some of which I will list and briefly describe below:
1. A 'Market-Place' Dialectic where, for example, you are trying to sell me a house and I want to buy one, and you are trying to get your best price possible and I am trying to get my best price possible and if we can find that 'magic price' somewhere in the middle that we can both agree on, then we have a 'marketplace deal' -- a 'marketplace dialectic conflict resolution';
2. A 'Righteous vs. Rebellious' Dialectic where one side of a dialectic conflict ('The Anti-Establishment Underdog') is rhetorically -- or elsewise -- poking holes and sabotaging the 'Establishment Dialectic' Law/Rule') that is under 'deconstructive attack';
3. A 'Covert, Sneaky Rebellious' Dialectic where a particular person or party is trying to get his or her own way by covert, sneaky, underhanded means;
4. A 'Fraudulent, Manipulative' type of dialectic where everything is about presenting a particular 'face' or 'perception' that is entirely different than the underlying 'substance' or 'essence' of what is really happening. This is a more extreme extension of the 'sneaky' dialectic described above. This is the 'Dog-and-Pony-Show-Smoke-and-Mirrors Type of Dialectic' -- the type that tells you 'that you have won a million dollars with the intent of getting into your most private identification information particulars and your bank account information in order to steal your identity and as much money as they can get from you.
5. A 'Alienated Impasse' Type of Dialectic where the dialectic transaction or potential dialectic transaction breaks down into an impasse with one side or both sides not willing to negotiate any further...the result being that the two people and/or parties become detached, separated, alienated, schizoid from each other...
6. A 'Submissive-Masochistic-Approval-Seeking' Dialectic where one side will 'cave easily' from what he or she wants in a negotiation out of fear of intimidation, threat, or loss of approval/acceptance...
7. A 'Seductive-Manipulative' Dialectic where one side uses attractiveness, intellect, beauty, seductiveness, narcissistic vanity...to get what he or she wants in the dialectic transaction.
These are some of the main types of dialectic transactions that we can see in everyday action that are designed in their own way to get goods, services, need-fulfillment, power, revenge, approval, sex, drugs, alcohol, money, cigarettes, love, and/or any of the other 101 (1001?) things that people want and/or obsessively and addictively crave for in their everyday lives...
Now from an egalitarian-fairness point of view, what people tend to idealistically want in a 'democratic-dialectic society' is an 'equally or homeostatically balanced' dialectic transaction/relationship where both people or parties get what they want out of the transaction/relationship --and everybody goes home happy.
But then, when you factor in all of the other 'mainly darker, more narcissistic, sides' of human motivation , then we get all of the other narcissistic dialectic possibilities -- and realities -- briefly mentioned above.
This is just a starting-point of later discussion.
Hegel's philosophy of 'alienation' was extremely important -- almost as important as his philosophy of the dialectic. Hegel most certainly created the 'creative mix' in this regard from which 'Existentialism' was shortly thereafter born through the combined intellect of Schelling, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche...and others...
It is important for critics of Hegelian Philosophy to realize that all Hegelian theorists and philosophers are not the same, and in this regard, it is important, indeed imperative, to understand that not all of the Hegelian Philosophy that is being theorized and applied today is the same as the 'Classic' -- some might say 'Archaic' -- Hegelian Philosophy that Hegel was writing about and applying 203 years ago.
DGB Philosophy in particular has made some significant adjustments and modifications to Classic Hegelian Philosophy which is why I call DGB Philosophy a 'Post-Hegelian-Humanistic-Existential-Democratic-Dialectic' Philosophy.
Any brand of 'Collectivist' or 'National' or 'Communitarian' Philosophy where individual civil rights are seriously suppressed and/or marginalized is not a 'democratic-dialectic' philosophy that is paying any serious attention to the 'founding fathers' of The United States of America (Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson...) and/or their French and English Enlightenment brethrin (Locke, Smith, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, etc.)
Regarding the essential importance of the Enlightenment philosophers and particularly the founders of The American Constitution, I fully agree with the Anti-Communitarians -- it is just that I shake my head every time that they take these massive negative generalizations and then villify Hegel as 'the ultimate architect of everthing that is bad in the world today' -- the ultimate bad philosopher behind a hundred thousand manipulating and contriving politicians today who supposedly all have the same ultimate goal which is the ultimate 'Hegelian goal' of 'Communitarianism'. Or so this is what they keep seeming to argue over and over again, ad nauseum in ttheir blogsite/website.
And they say they are 'living outside of the dialectic'.
As long as they are 'engaged with other people and philosophers who disagree with them, the Anti-Communitarians are living fully inside the dialectic -- not outside of it like a group of hermits who have no contact with the outside world. If they want to live 'outside of the dialectic', then they should give up their website/blogsite which of course they would not want to do anymore than I would -- thus, whether you like it or not, Ms. Raapani, you are 'dialectically engaged' (if not enraged) with me as we each espouse our particular differences in philosophy and opinion.
Please read Ms. Raapana yourself as she gets revved up on one of her passionate 'anti-Hegelian' rhetorical speeches...and tell me if she isn't taking a whole host of what might be considered very real, legitimate problems in the political and social world today -- and then 'hanging Hegel in effagy as if he is the ultimate Anti-Christ of all of these different bad things that are happening in the world today' (that I equate with unbalanced, unbridled human narcissism out of control).
According to Spencer and/or Marx (Introducing Hegel, pg. 110), Hegel himself in 'The Philosophy of Right' describes the social consequences of the unfettered pursuit of private self-interest. Self-interest, exploitation, industrialization, and the division of labour all contribute to the alienation of modern society -- its individualist social fragmentation. (Now that could be Marx talking more than Hegel. I will have to get a hold of a copy of 'The Philosophy of Right' to check to see how much of these classic Marxian ideas Marx was getting from Hegel as opposed to from other sources and/or his own interpretation and evaluation process.)
But back to Ms. Raapana...
...........................................................................
Niki Raapana writes:
“Hegel’s dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels’ grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can’t be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. The Marxist’s global agenda is moving along at breakneck speed. The only way to stop land grabs, privacy invasions, expanded domestic police powers, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. Only then can we be released from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.”
For the past few weeks I have been battling with the this “frenzied circular pattern.” It has felt irrational, neurotic and wasteful to preoccupy myself with the signatures behind the frame of our current society and its various social wars of memes and ideology. I have mostly felt a sense of deja vu standing at the gateway of our world’s next “transformation”; that I had been here before, that this very experiment in the world’s labratory had been conducted many times over.
What it is or isn’t leading to is something I believe all of us should have concern about, as it calls into question all of our deepest beliefs and doubts about society; whether this is the next step on our evolutionary crusade or if this whole Frankenstein manipulation of our culture by the “elite” behind the scenes is compatible with our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would argue that all these matters should be discarded from our existence if we have no objection to the next “paradigm shift”; but if we do have objection, as I am certain most of us would if we had access to all the information we would need in order to decide for ourselves who should be setting the agenda for our lives, then now is the time to educate ourselves and recognize the many ways our lives are being systemically controlled for a purpose not consistent with our individual or collective desire.
Google...Living Outside The Dialectic...or....
http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/
...............................................................................
THE ANTI COMMUNITARIAN MANIFESTO
by Niki F. Raapana and Nordica M. Friedrich
Free online edition since 2003
NEW on April 1, 2008: ABSTRACT of the Anti Communitarian Manifesto. Comments welcome.
HARDCOPY: The first ACL Books' edition of the Manifesto is available now for $20 USD. 5 x 8 inch spiral bound, 140 pages, includes additional materials, references and commentary while leaving the original online thesis intact. Email for ordering details or go to the 2020 book order page and replace the word 2020 with Manifesto.
PART ONE:
What is the Hegelian Dialectic?
December 25, 2002
Poll : What prompted you to search for the Hegelian dialectic?
Introduction : Why study Hegel?
1. The origins of deductive and inductive reasoning
2. Webster's definition of the Hegelian dialectic
3. How the Hegelian dialectic changed the formula for deductive reasoning
4. Why it is almost impossible for a layman to understand the Hegelian dialectic
5. The communitarian purpose for the Hegelian dialectic
6. How we interpret the history of the Hegelian dialectic
7. The Anti Communitarian League's conclusion
8. Four examples of the power of the semantics in the dialectic
9. Four different impressions of the modern Hegelian dialectic theory
Poll : What prompted you to search for the Hegelian dialectic?
I'm writing a high school paper
I'm writing a college paper
I'm a high school teacher
I'm a college professor
I'm on a school review board
I work for a news publication
I just keep hearing the term
I was sent here
None of the above
free polls from Pollhost.com
---divider---
Introduction : Why study Hegel?
"... the State 'has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State... for the right of the world spirit is above all special priveleges.'"
-- Author/historian William Shirer, quoting Hegel in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959)
Hegel
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a 19th century German philosopher and theologist who wrote the Science of Logic in 1812. For many historians, Hegel is "perhaps the greatest of the German idealist philosophers."
In 1847 the London Communist League (Marx and Engels, pictured left) used Hegel's theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism. Now, in the 21st century, Hegelian-Marxist thinking affects our entire social and political structure.
The Hegelian dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a predetermined solution. If we do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic shapes our perceptions of the world, then we do not know how we are helping to implement the vision for the future.
Hegel's dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels' grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can't be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. The Marxist's global agenda is moving along at breakneck speed. The only way to stop land grabs, privacy invasions, expanded domestic police powers, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. Only then can we be released from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.
When we understand what motivated Hegel, we can see his influence on all of our destinies. Then we become real players in the very real game that has been going on for at least 224 years. Hegelian conflicts steer every political arena on the planet, from the United Nations to the major American political parties, all the way down to local school boards and community councils. Dialogues and consensus-building are primary tools of the dialectic, and terror and intimidation are also acceptable formats for obtaining the goal.
The ultimate Third Way agenda is world government. Once we get what's really going on, we can cut the strings and move our lives in original directions outside the confines of the dialectical madness. Focusing on Hegel's and Engel's ultimate agenda, and avoiding getting caught up in their impenetrable theories of social evolution, gives us the opportunity to think and act our way toward freedom, justice, and genuine liberty for all.
Today the dialectic is active in every political issue that encourages taking sides. We can see it in environmentalists instigating conflicts against private property owners, in democrats against republicans, in greens against libertarians, in communists against socialists, in neo-cons against traditional conservatives, in community activists against individuals, in pro-choice versus pro-life, in Christians against Muslims, in isolationists versus interventionists, in peace activists against war hawks.
No matter what the issue, the invisible dialectic aims to control both the conflict and the resolution of differences, and leads everyone involved into a new cycle of conflicts. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore.
....................................................................................
DGB Editorial Critique vs. Anti-Communitarianism (cont'd)
Three Different Types of Dialectics: A Critique of Living Outside The Dialectic; and The Global Money Scam and The Hegelian Dialectic
The 'Hegelian Dialectic' is not the 'evil monster' as the two essays above would suggest...there are numerous different ways of both interpreting and evaluating 'different types' of Hegelian Dialectics -- no two of which is ever going to be exactly the same. To stereotype 'all dialectics' as being the same is another example of 'Anti-Communitarianist Conflationism'. (I just invented a new word -- 'conflationism'.)
As the first writer (he doesn't give his name) has aptly stated at the top of his website, we have to 'question every precept' -- not negatively stereotype a given precept, set it up like a 'house of cards, straw, or sand -- and then delight in deconstructively knocking down what we built unstably in the first theory. You want to talk about 'preordained conspiracy theory' seem to be making a lifelong mission of 'building the dialectic up weakly and stereotyping all dialectics as being the same so that they can spend the rest of their gleeful energy knocking it down again.
This is not to say that 'preordained dialectics' can't and don't happen -- they do happen but these are 'manipulative, pathological' dialectics and not all dialectics are manipulative, pathological dialectics; most dialectics -- meaning conflict situations -- are totally 'existentially immediate and real' -- with existentially unpredictable and real outcomes on human behavior, relationships, history and evolution.
Let me give you a rather 'emotionally explosive' example from my own life. My sister and her husband had bought an 'investment' townhouse with the pre-established agreement that my son, brother, and I would move in and share the rental cost of the townhouse. My son was still in high school and prone to making impulsive self-centered (narcissistic) decisions that did not include those people around him who were also affected by the outcome of his impulsive decisions. Anyway, he found a girlfriend who started 'staying over' at the townhouse more and more often until she had effectively 'moved in'. Furthermore, the two of them went out and bought a dog -- not just any dog but a cross between a rottweiler, a boxer, and a doberman. It was just a pup but it was untrained and obviously going to get significantly bigger.
My sister and her husband eventually found out about these two 'additions' to the townhouse living situation, were notably upset about these two additions, and arranged a meeting in which a 'decision' was going to be made about what to do about the situation. Before we got to the day of the meeting, it became apparent that a 'decision' had already been made by my sister and her husband about what was going to be done: Mike's girlfriend and the dog were going to have to find a new place to live. This is what you can call a 'pre-ordained dialectic outcome'.
Now, in this regard, I am no different than my friend and/or philosophical adversary, Niki Raapana over at the 'Anti-Communitarian' site -- I don't like 'pre-ordained dialectics anymore than she does. Only, unlike her, I don't try to say that 'every dialectic and every dialectic outcome in the world is preordained by some puppetmaster behind the scenes'. I don't take kindly to being a 'puppet' anymore than Ms. Raapana does. Thus, getting back to my example here, something happened between the intended 'pre-ordained outcome' of the dialectic meeting at the townhouse -- and the actual meeting as it started to evolve. Simmering in the back of my head was the fact that I do not like to be 'excluded' or 'marginalized' from any decision that involves my life -- and in this case, my son's. Also, there was the fact that, over the period of a month or two, I had started to become very attached to the dog.
As the meeting started to take place, and as my sister laid out her 'pre-ordained decsion relative to my son's girlfriend and their dog leaving, an 'emotional volcano' was starting to well up inside myself. To repeat, I don't like 'pre-ordained, unilateral, behind the scenes decisions masked in a pseudo-democratic meeting' any more than Niki Raapana and the rest of the Anti-Communitarians do.
So I told my sister, 'That's fine, I will be leaving too.' The 'dialectic' at this moment had completely lost its 'pre-ordained characteristic' and instead had become very 'existentially real -- with real consequences, and real relationships at stake'. The 'pre-ordained factor' had just 'flown the coup'.
My sister immediately accused me of 'trying to control the meeting' -- that I was being a 'control freak' (as if she wasn't) and raw human emotions of anger and ethical outrage blew into the townhouse living room -- again, eliminating any semblance of 'pre-ordained determinism and predictability'.
The meeting finally came back to order, I suggested that my son and his girlfriend pay an extra $200 a month to cover extra townhouse utility and rental expenses. The dog -- 'Sammy' -- I can't remember what the final townhouse decision was on the dog. She stayed but her life was tragic and brief which still to this day leaves a hole in my heart. The entire story reads like a Sarah Palin family soap opera but the story was, and still is, very 'existentially real'. There was nothing pre-ordained about what happened that day -- or afterwards.
'Seek first to understand, then to be understood.' A very wise person said that (Steven Covey, 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People').
Don't paint Hegel's 'Dialectic Theory of Evolution' with an all encompassing black brush. It is not Hegel's Dialectic Theory of Evolution that is the problem with his 205 year old philosophy; rather it is other parts of his philosophy such as his unbridled abstractionism, his unrealistic idealism, and his Fichte-like 'German Nationalism and Collectivism' that did not steer Germany in a very good direction at all (like Fascism, Herdism, Anti-Semiticism, Nazism, and two brutal world wars...)
Thus, we have a combination of two problems today regarding the interpretation, extrapolation, and application of Hegel's 205 year old philosophy: 1. those who try conservatively and 'anal-retentively' to hold onto Hegel's philosophy as it exactly was 205 years ago; and 2. those critics of Hegel (read the 'Anti-Communitarians') who are still trying to criticize 'Classic-Archaic' Hegelian Philosophy even though it is 205 years outdated and most, or at least some, current day Post-Hegelian Philosophers (read, yours truly) who have read Classic Hegelian Theory know its inherent 'weaknesses' as well, or better, than its detractors and critics do -- and have made contemporary, compensatory adjustments while Hegel's contempory critics keep hammering away at crticisms that are getting extremely boring, they have been repeated so often.
If you are going to criticize Hegel, get with the current program all ye critics of Hegel! Don't keep repeating what is 205 years old! Most serious philosophers who have read Hegel, have also read enough of Marx, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, etc. to know what the 'classic Hegelian criticisms' are -- we don't need to keep reading yesterday's newspapers over and over and over again.
Let me repeat -- hopefully, for the last time. Hegel's brutal, unbridled abstractionism is well documented in the philosophical literature. If I want a lesson in brutal, unbridled abstractionism, I have two choices: 1. I can pick up Hegel's classic philosophical treatise: 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)' (1804). Or I can try reading an anti-Communitarian essay and see very quickly that the strongest proponents of Anti-Communitarianism seem to have learned very well from Hegel in this one regard -- everything written about in terms of 'single universals' such as one type of 'universal dialectic' that is 'pre-ordained' in terms of some underlying 'global conspiracy theory' when, in reality, there are literally millions of actual and potential 'dialectic conflicts and conflict resolutions' -- every last which one which is uniquely different from the one preceding it and the one following it depending on the issue, the context, the participants, the mood, the creativity and/or non-creativity in the problem-solving/conflict-resolving, who's trying to negotiate to a fair and just outcome vs. who is trying to intimidate and/or steamroll over top of his or her adversar's 'anti-thesis' and opposite wishes...
Regarding Hegel's 'Political Collectivism, Herdism, Nationalism' -- the Anti-Communitarians are preaching to the choir here. No argument, plain and simple. Most intelligent, independent-minded philosophers know the dangers of 'Extreme Collectivism, Nationalism, Group Herdism'...Just read Nietzsche's 'pre-Nazi' criticisms of Collectivist, Herdist, Nationalistic Germany...One can almost say that Nietzsche was warning pre-Nazi Germany of the dangers and the slippery slope of evolving Nazism.
I view Nazi Germany as an excellent albeit 'pathological' example of what I would call a 'cultural transference-reversal'. Napoleon invaded 'pre-Germany' and steamrolled over top of it because 'pre-Germany' was not united -- it was simply a collection of smaller 'regional states'. So after Napoleon was finally defeated, 'pre-Germany' became 'Nationalistic' and united into Germany with visions of what Napoleon had done to them still 'crashing around in their collective minds'. The 'compensatory, cultural transference' became to 'grow stronger as a country -- and as a united army' -- so that this type of national catastrophy -- and 'national humiliation' -- would never happen again. So German Nationalism, Collectivism, and Herdism was born. And the beginning of the evolution of Nazi Germany.
But not only did Germany grow their army, improve their national strength and power for purposes of self-defence. They also took something much more ominous and pathological from Napoleon. The idea of 'world dominance, German superiority, German arrogance, ethnic cleansing' -- and the idea of a 'Napoleon-like, pre-emptive strike towards world domination'. Nazi Germany had now reached it zenith of 'National Socio- and Psycho-Pathology'. 'Collectivism and Herdism' -- as initiated by Fichte and Hegel in a culture and a nation that was ready to hear what Fichte and Hegel had to say in this regard -- even though the direction of movment was rhetorically counter-argued over and over again by Nietzsche, a philosopher who was much more accurately attuned and intuitive to the place in Hell that this Socio-psycho-pathological was ultimately going to take Nationalistic Germany -- would ultimately rule the day, and at least three generations of Germans. Nationalism would take Germany to the top of the world cliff, the zenith of national military power with its potential for world power and destruction as it also looked over the threatening precipace of potential national self-destruction. Just like Napoleon before them. This is what I call a 'cultural or national transference re-creation and repetition complex and compulsion brought on by identification with the National Aggressor and Victimizer(Napoleon). What goes around comes around. The tragedy of negative transference both individual and collective. What starts out as an individual or national 'childhood traumacy and tragedy' (pre-Germany being brutally victimized by Napoleon's army) becomes deeply remembered as such, indeed, internalized into the national psyche of Germany -- and then 'replayed' generations later with Nazi Germany -- and Hitler -- playing the role of Napoleon, the world conquerer, who is ultimately defeated and destroyed by a stronger army (or coalition of armies) outsmarting him and overpowering him. Again, this is what I call 'National Transference Reversal'.
Such is the potential danger of Nationalism, Collectivism, Herdism...Group Think...gone mad...
There is no greater proponents of individualism -- in balance with the individualism of other individuals -- than this man, this philosopher, right here.
So let me get the message out there to all my readers and to the 'Anti-Communitarian' philosophical camp: Don't paint DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy with the all-encompassing black paintbrush of 'Nationalism, Collectivism, Herdism, Group Think -- and 'Communitarianism' in this pathological sense.
Hegelian philosophy 205 years ago is not DGB Post-Hegelian philosophy today. Recognize the difference.
Even to you Ms. Rapaani, I quote Votaire (Toleration and Other Essays, 1755):
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.
Criticize Hegel's 'nationalism' if you wish, his 'collectivism', and/or his own particular brand of 'communitarianism'....in the way that the 'Anti-Communitarians' have stereotyped '(Pathological) Communitarianism'.
However, there is an 'infinite potential for different types of 'Communitarianism' -- some healthier, some more pathological than others. And the same goes for a negatively stereotyped definition of 'the dialectic'.
Indeed, I will distinguish between three different types of dialectics:
1. The 'Narcissistic Power Dialectic': Winner takes all. (Until the 'marginalized' and the 'suppressed' start to compensate for their losing strategy, re-build themselves from the shadows, re-generate themselves, slowly re-gaining power until they can topple the dominant, the oppressive, and the suppressive. This is 'Anaxamander's Dialectic', this is Marx's Dialectic -- Power in the hands of The Proletariat (which has never happened...It certainly never happened under Mao Tse Tung, or Lenin, or Stalin. These were 'narcissistic Capitalist leaders trying to disguise themselves as 'humanistic socialists'. They weren't. Like in America -- all the money was collected, passed around, and used at the top.). Marx was a combination of humanist and narcissistic pit bull. The 'narcissistic pitbull' side of his character -- and his philosophy -- was pathological.
2. The 'Egalitarian-Democratic-Dialectic': A type of dialectic where two so-motivated individuals or groups of individuals are actually looking for a 'win-win solution, resolution, and/or compromise' knowing that 'two opposite polarities need each other and need to come together in dialectic unity, wholism, and harmony (at least for a short while, if not a long while, until dialectic disharmony resurrects itself and demands a new negotiation towards a 'different dialectic harmony'...This is 'Heraclitus' Dialectic', 'Lao Tse's Dialectic (yin meets yang in harmonious dialectic balance) Nietzsche's Dialectic (The Birth of Tragedy), Freud (The homeostatic balance of 'id' and 'superego'.), Jung (the homeostatic balance of 'personna' and 'shadow'), Cannon (The Wisdom -- and the Homeostatic Balance -- of The Body), Perls and Gestalt Therapy (the balance of 'topdog' and 'underdog'), Derrida (the balanced of the 'dominant' and the 'suppressed' through the philosophy of 'deconstruction)...
3. 'The Collusive, Manipulative, Dog and Pony, Smoke and Mirrors' Dialectic: This is the type of dialectic that you and your friend Niki describe as if it is the only type of dialectic that operates in the world....Yes, this is a 'pathological type of dialectic' but don't blame it on Hegel unless you want to blame it on his pathological Nationalism, his pathological Collectivism, his pathological brand of Communitarianism...But don't paint all types of 'the dialectic' with the same black paintbrush. Indeed, personally, I would argue that 'Nationalism', 'Collectivism', and 'No-Individual-Civil Rights' Communitarianism is 'anti-dialectic' in the 'egalitarian-democratic-homeostatic balance' sense. Rather it belongs to either and/or both brands of the other two -- pathological -- dialectics listed above.
In contrast, 'Healthy Communitarianism' demands a healthy homeostatic balance between individual civil rights and community rights. In this respect, it is my individual right to 'swing my right arm as often and as far as I want, as long as I don't swing it into your face'...Healthy Communitarianism does not contradict the values of individualism as laid out by America's founding fathers: Tom Paine, Jefferson...nor the French Enlightenment philosophers such as Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, Adam Smith, John Locke...and others...
But everything depends on the 'type' of dialectic we are talking about...
The type of collusive, behind the scenes, dog and pony show, smoke and mirrors show that you are writing about is only one type of dialectic -- and obviously a pathological one that has nothing to do with 'Ideal, Transparent, Win-Win Democracy'.
We must remember that no two Hegelian thinkers are exactly alike, any more than two Republican, Democrat, Liberal, and/or Conservative thinkers are exactly light.
And Hegelian thinking as it was theorized and applied some 205 years ago by Hegel is not the way that all 'post-Hegelian' thinkers and theorists are using the Hegelian Dialectic today.
Every Hegelian, post-Hegelian, and anti-Hegelian thinker has to be understood and evaluated in his or her own particular individual right and uniqueness -- including the two writers I have critiqued above...
dgb, July 1st-3rd, 2009, last update, Oct. 12., 2009.
David Gordon Bain,
Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are Still In Process...
Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...
...................................................
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)