Hegel in 4 words

 

Hegel in 4 words: the critique of romanticism.  (Maybe we can cut it down to 3 if we get rid of the "the".)

Hegel in 5 words: the immanent critique of romanticism.  This is equivalent to the 4 word version, because for Hegel, critique is immanent critique.  Anything less than the immanent fails to rise to the level of critique.

In other words, Hegel does for romanticism what Jesus did for Judaism: he fulfills it by transcending it.  Or at least, that's what Hegel was going for - that's what Hegel thought we should do, and by "we," I mean philosophers - that's what philosophers should do, or perhaps better yet, that's what philosophy should do.  And Hegel actually uses the term "science" - so, in his mind, that's what scientists should do, or what science should do.  For Hegel, science should do for romanticism what Jesus has already accomplished for the Jewish law: fulfill its fundamental motivating force by liberating itself from it - which entails the recognition that what the fundamental motivation behind the law had always aimed at was our very liberation.

That's Hegel in a nutshell - a huge nutshell.

Entailed in this is what I would call a drive towards ipsissimosity, or a feeling for the liberation of details.  Not a liberation from details, but a liberation of details - a feeling that details are, themselves, liberating.  Romanticism is, in its deepest essence, a negation.  At its highest, most spiritual level, romanticism is one with apophatic theology.  It cannot express what is, but only what isn't.  At its pinnacle, it achieves what Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite called "divine silence, darkness, and unknowing."  For Hegel, this was the night in which all sheep are black.  His goal is to negate this negation, and return to the fullness, the abundance of the world, and to embrace this world in a glorious affirmation, as it is, in all of its richness and complexity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Against Curtis Yarvin, a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug

Image
Since 2007, there has been a tiny, marginal movement on the internet, or several overlapping movements, started by a person named Curtis Yarvin, better known by his assumed name, "Mencius Moldbug."  (I'll use that name; it's less obscure.)  Spreading out from Silicon Valley, where it first became trendy, the movement(s) have been known by various names.  Moldbug originally called his political philosophy "formalism" - at that time, he was advocating for the government being run in the style of a corporation - especially a Silicon Valley startup - with a powerful CEO.  But that never caught on, and he abandoned it in favor of "neo-cameralism."  But this turned out not to capture anyone's imagination either, and so other names appeared: the Dark Enlightenment, neo-monarchism, and most famous of all, the "NeoReactionary movement" - NRx for short.  Are all these terms equivalent, or are there subtle distinctions between them?  And what ex...
Read more

Why Sam Harris is Wrong About Free Will

Image
  "Free Will" vs. "Determinism" What does it mean to have "solved" a philosophical problem?  This is, in itself, a philosophical problem.  I don't feel comfortable saying I've solved any philosophical problems, but what if I propose a notion of having "minimally solved" a problem - that is, not necessary coming up with the right answer, let alone an answer that will end the debate for everyone, but coming up with the general shape or framework (perhaps missing some important specifics) of an answer that satisfies me , at least to the point where the problem doesn't endlessly torture me and keep me up at night?  If, by "solved," we mean "minimally solved," then I think I have solved the problem that is usually called the debate between "free will" and "determinism".  Not that my answer is particularly original.  Actually, not I, but modern neuroscience solved this puzzle.  And all I mean is tha...
Read more

Why Capitalism is Ending

Image
THE PRODUCTIVITY BOMB Sorry, Ray Kurzweil , there will be no singularity.  As much as Moore’s Law has become a cliche, it has also become a cliche to point out that exponential growth has no "knee" - that is to say, that an exponential growth curve has no inflection point.  It goes up faster and faster, so that not only is the value rising but the derivative of the value is also rising (that is, the rate of increase is itself increasing) yet at any given point it is still a gradual increase.  Growth that gets indefinitely huger as it approaches a specific point of time, a limit known as a singularity, is not exponential growth but rather hyperbolic growth .  There’s no evidence that technology is growing hyperbolically; it is “only” growing exponentially.  Gordon Moore himself has stated that he doesn't believe in the singularity, or even in the continuation of Moore's Law.   (And Moore's Law is starting to fail, anyway ... ) ...
Read more