Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Benson bravely reads a difficult book (by Catherine Malabou) about a difficult philosopher (G.W.F. Hegel).

https://philosophynow.org/issues/54/The ... ne_Malabou

I prefer the indirect references and interpretations of Hegel since he lacks readability without unusual care to the details. As such, I agree with the end of this article's comment on Catherine's take on the issue. I don't value his religious interpretations but on the logic of accepting contradiction as a cause to motivate change. But I don't need to delve further into his particular views now anyways since I've reformulated what I draw as sufficiently significant about him with regards to contradiction alone.

So I don't think I'll bother investing in reading Catherine Malabou's book unless I've got a lot of free time on my hands to entertain it.

This book, as determined from the review, deals with the flaky bits of Hegel. So it is appropriate that is was prefaced by a flake, Jacques Derrida. It also dismisses the political side of Hegel.

Politics is the crux or crust of the matter. But many Hegelian scholars disdain politics because not only are they ignorant of it but they view it as a subject not worthy of them. That is why so many of these same scholars have problems with Fukuyama's "The End Of History".

what exactly do you mean by flake?

-Imp

I'm told understanding Hegel requires, well, a degree in understanding Hegel.

spike wrote:This book, as determined from the review, deals with the flaky bits of Hegel.

Are you trying to suggest that there are bits of Hegel that are NOT flaky. The official apologist to the Prussian court was a charlatan and nothing more. He manages to obscure this fact by observing the honourable German tradition of ensuring that his philosophy is unreadable but if you put enough effort into trying to understand him you'll eventually realise that you've wasted your time.

Dalek Prime wrote:I'm told understanding Hegel requires, well, a degree in understanding Hegel.

Believe it. But trust me, Leo is the real flake here. On YouTube there is a series by Greg Sandler taking on his Phenomenology of Spirit a paragraph at a time. Fascinating stuff.

Obvious Leo wrote:

spike wrote:This book, as determined from the review, deals with the flaky bits of Hegel.

Are you trying to suggest that there are bits of Hegel that are NOT flaky. The official apologist to the Prussian court was a charlatan and nothing more. He manages to obscure this fact by observing the honourable German tradition of ensuring that his philosophy is unreadable but if you put enough effort into trying to understand him you'll eventually realise that you've wasted your time.

Hey, if Slovaj Zizek likes him, there must be something to Hegel. He says his Hegel collection is his prized possession. But then, I only like Zizek because he's an antinatalist and a hilarious curmudgeon.

The Inglorious One wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote:I'm told understanding Hegel requires, well, a degree in understanding Hegel.

Believe it. But trust me, Leo is the real flake here. On YouTube there is a series by Greg Sandler taking on his Phenomenology of Spirit a paragraph at a time. Fascinating stuff.

I don't believe for one second Leo to be a flake. Having said that, I will look at the series on youtube. I'd like to get a feel for Hegel (if for no other reason than it may make me look smarter than I actually am lol!)

Man, so much to read, and so little time, eh?

Dalek Prime wrote: Man, so much to read, and so little time, eh?

Youth is wasted on the young. My problem is now that I have the time, I can't focus my mind like I could 30 years ago.

Sadler uploads one video a week. There are 65 in the series so far and that takes in 165 paragraphs out of 808 paragraphs in all. That's okay by me because it takes me about a week to absorb 1 video. Also, I just started reading Hegel's Philosophy of Reality, Freedom and God.

And yes: Leo is a flake. There is a resurgence of interest in Hegel's philosophy notwithstanding Leo's ad hominem attacks.

However:

The late Brand Blanshard, a philosopher by no means unsympathetic to Hegelian thought, devised a system to rank clarity in writing which he illustrated with the following example: "Swift, Macaulay, and Shaw would say that André was hanged. Bradley would say that he was killed. Bosanquet would say that he died. Kant would say that his mortal existence reached its termination. Hegel would say that a finite determination of infinity had been further determined by its own negation"

The Inglorious One wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote: Man, so much to read, and so little time, eh?

Youth is wasted on the young. My problem is now that I have the time, I can't focus my mind like I could 30 years ago.

Sadler uploads one video a week. There are 65 in the series so far and that takes in 165 paragraphs out of 808 paragraphs in all. That's okay by me because it takes me about a week to absorb 1 video. Also, I just started reading Hegel's Philosophy of Reality, Freedom and God.

And yes: Leo is a flake. There is a resurgence of interest in Hegel's philosophy notwithstanding Leo's ad hominem attacks.

However:

The late Brand Blanshard, a philosopher by no means unsympathetic to Hegelian thought, devised a system to rank clarity in writing which he illustrated with the following example: "Swift, Macaulay, and Shaw would say that André was hanged. Bradley would say that he was killed. Bosanquet would say that he died. Kant would say that his mortal existence reached its termination. Hegel would say that a finite determination of infinity had been further determined by its own negation"

Youth is certainly wasted on the young, agreed. I wish my mind could hold what I read now. Perhaps it does, but the mental filing cabinets are getting rusty upon retrieval.

Btw, Blanshard missed one; André needn't have existed, and has returned to the void that shouldn't have been disturbed in the first place. That's my antinatalist view.

[quote="The Inglorious One"]. Hegel would say that a finite determination of infinity had been further determined by its own negation"[/quote

I rest my case. What a fucking wanker. If he were to set foot in my local pub he'd be shown the door forthwith. Hegel is the sort of arsehole who gives philosophy a bad name.

Obvious Leo wrote:

The Inglorious One wrote:. Hegel would say that a finite determination of infinity had been further determined by its own negation"[/quote

I rest my case. What a fucking wanker. If he were to set foot in my local pub he'd be shown the door forthwith. Hegel is the sort of arsehole who gives philosophy a bad name.

Ah, the local pub. Figures.

The Inglorious One wrote:Ah, the local pub. Figures.

I'll have you know that my local boozer is an intellectual hothouse when it comes to the philosophical discourse. If you think that only political sycophants educated within a stifling and cloistered conceptual world can make meaningful statements on philosophy then you and Hegel deserve each other. I wouldn't value his opinion on any question of consequence in the modern world and anybody who would do so needs to get out more.

Speaking of flakes, there are a number of them on this forum.

In this review there is no mention of what Hegel was most famous for, for something he observed about humankind and how it advances, the idea of the dialectic. Nor is there any mention of the two major driving forces of humankind and Civilization Hegel discovered, that of the individual struggle for freedom/recognition and that things always change.

Instead, authors like Catherine Malabou and Charles Taylor, whose first names both start with"C" (C for change), just write about Hegel's ideas on religion, spirits and God. It is time for Hegelian scholars to move on and stop being sticks in the mud.