Here is Hegel on two basic things he thinks any particular philosophy should be able to explain: understanding and reason. Why pick these two phenomena? First, these are the two most uprooted by Kant, so they have a particularly impending character for any philosopher of his time. Second, these phenomena correspond to quite clear potentials of our existence that we engage in every day: they seem tied up with our essence as things that exist. To elaborate, we might say that understanding and reason are constituted and accessed in every age in which man exists (no matter even whether we view reason and understanding as ahistorical like Kant or not). Third, and most importantly these phenomena together unite the ancient world's conception of itself with the modern world's conception of itself: in essence, they are the two main tendencies of philosophy's comportment towards itself and its world that have been present since philosophy's inception. Let's explain this last point.
For indeed, if the "modern" was present in ancient times, this would seem to be nonsensical. But no: Hegel, mostly through his reading of Aristotle (indeed, it is obvious he held Aristotle to be the greatest and most useful of all philosophers) felt that philosophy from its inception held both a tendency to explain itself and its world in terms of understanding, of nous, as well as a tendency to explain itself in terms of something more wide ranging than nous, whether it be the Idea, being, the good, doxa, the law, or something else. In the modern times this second something has become "reason"--and as reason gets at the heart of all these various other terms (i.e. Idea, being, etc.). Understanding is more subjective, reason more lawlike, more objective. Nous is more like an individual event of apprehension, reason is more like a universal principle, embracing all entities. Now, the combination these two tendencies together happens constantly in philosophy, but usually only by a picking of one over the other: that is, they only combine such that one is particularly suborrdinate to the other. Thus in ancient philosophies, reason was less dominant and the thinking of nous characterized most thought in some way. The reverse is true for modern times. The two philosophers who have accomplished most thoroughly the combination of the two, the suspension of both in a playful and productive tension are Aristotle and Kant: both address the understanding and bring it into relation with reason, and vice versa. However, neither, Hegel thinks, have adequately developed a philosophy that comprehended and explicated the unity of these two poles: it is his task to do so.
With this in mind, he says the following, which we will explicate a different time.
The understanding determines, and holds the determinations fixed; reason is negative and dialectical , because it resolves the determinations of the understanding into nothing; it is positive because it generates the the universal and comprehends the particular therein.
-Science of Logic, Preface to the First Edition, 28.
Notice how both the understanding, as a phenomenon that determines in its apprehension, is brought into a unity with its opposite, reason, which undoes these determinations or fixing-acts. It is in perceiving this unity that Hegel is truly revolutionary, and at the same time adequately addresses modes of thought that are ancient and modern with a respect for their findings and orientations. With Hegel begins a way of philosophizing that unifies all the rest of philosophy, and thus articulates its development not as a series of arguments disproved by the coming on the scene of a newer philosophy, but as a genuine history of the development of basic concepts that only get renamed and refined over the years. In other words, with Hegel, suddenly philosophy is also a historicism.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Heidegger and truth: a clue
Here is a great passage from Being and Time on truth that I will use as a clue to Heidegger's view on truth, which I will make explicit later sometime (in a clearer fashion than the sketch below):
In anticipation Dasein can first make certain of its ownmost Being in its totality--a totality which is not to be outstripped. Therefore the evidential character whcih belongs to the immediate givenness of Experiences, of the "I," or of consciousness, must necessarily lag behind the certainty which anticipation includes. Yet this is not because the way in which these [i.e. certainties, evidences] are grasped would not be a rigorous one, but because in principle such a way of grasping them cannot hold for true (disclosed) something which at bottom it [i.e. the way of experience, of the "I," of consciousness, etc.] insists upon "having there" as true: namely, Dasein itself, which I myself am, and which, as a potentiality-for-Being, I can be authentically only by anticipation.
-Being and Time, ¶ 54, 310.
For now, notice the difference between presence (holding for true, disclosing, which is not in the present but in the future through anticipation) and the present ("having there" as true). Because Dasein thrusts itself forward into the future, any attempt to access itself must also thrust itself in front of this thrusting, must anticipate it. In other words, Dasein must anticipate itself, or else it lags behind itself, since it is a potentiality-for-Being (i.e. a future-directed, possibility-oriented being). Furthermore, any truth it accesses about itself or its world will lag behind its authentic truth. A truth might be present to Dasein now, but because Dasein is forward-oriented, it lacks the ability to be a genuine presence for it. In other words, I might have access to a truth, but because I have not accessed this truth through anticipation of myself and my possibilities, it is already something that does not apply. As soon as it is there for me--i.e. present--it loses precisely its "there-ness," its ability to be grasped as applicable to my existence, its presence. This is why Heidegger goes on to say that "the ownmost possibility... is indefinite as regards its certainty:" whatever is a presence that is not present must be indefinitely grasped (for it is not present).
It should be clear that it is only because truth is determined not by what exists but by existence in accordance with the essence of time as the movement of presencing without present that all this is the case--this is why time is so important for Heidegger, why he consistently calls it the "horizon of Being."
In anticipation Dasein can first make certain of its ownmost Being in its totality--a totality which is not to be outstripped. Therefore the evidential character whcih belongs to the immediate givenness of Experiences, of the "I," or of consciousness, must necessarily lag behind the certainty which anticipation includes. Yet this is not because the way in which these [i.e. certainties, evidences] are grasped would not be a rigorous one, but because in principle such a way of grasping them cannot hold for true (disclosed) something which at bottom it [i.e. the way of experience, of the "I," of consciousness, etc.] insists upon "having there" as true: namely, Dasein itself, which I myself am, and which, as a potentiality-for-Being, I can be authentically only by anticipation.
-Being and Time, ¶ 54, 310.
For now, notice the difference between presence (holding for true, disclosing, which is not in the present but in the future through anticipation) and the present ("having there" as true). Because Dasein thrusts itself forward into the future, any attempt to access itself must also thrust itself in front of this thrusting, must anticipate it. In other words, Dasein must anticipate itself, or else it lags behind itself, since it is a potentiality-for-Being (i.e. a future-directed, possibility-oriented being). Furthermore, any truth it accesses about itself or its world will lag behind its authentic truth. A truth might be present to Dasein now, but because Dasein is forward-oriented, it lacks the ability to be a genuine presence for it. In other words, I might have access to a truth, but because I have not accessed this truth through anticipation of myself and my possibilities, it is already something that does not apply. As soon as it is there for me--i.e. present--it loses precisely its "there-ness," its ability to be grasped as applicable to my existence, its presence. This is why Heidegger goes on to say that "the ownmost possibility... is indefinite as regards its certainty:" whatever is a presence that is not present must be indefinitely grasped (for it is not present).
It should be clear that it is only because truth is determined not by what exists but by existence in accordance with the essence of time as the movement of presencing without present that all this is the case--this is why time is so important for Heidegger, why he consistently calls it the "horizon of Being."
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Dread in Kierkegaard continued, continued
Let's finish this up already.
We are taking the following passage relating the story of Adam's fall in Kierkegaard as indicative of a structure of dread:
The prohibition ["do not eat of the tree of knowledge"] alarms Adam [or induces a state of dread] because the prohibition awakens in him the possibility of freedom... [And yet this freedom] is a nothing, the alarming possibility of being able... Thus innocence is brought to its last extremity.
-The Concept of Dread, in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, 103-104.
As we have established, Kierkegaard's structure of dread looks like this:
innocence → dread (occuring in ignorance) → guilt
One is brought into guilt ignorantly, and therefore--in a supreme paradox--innocently. We've also established that dread itself has a structure like this:
dread → what is dreaded
↓
what is "really" dreaded
which, because there is nothing actually being dreaded, essentially looks like this:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
reality of ignorance
We said that this "reality of ignorance" that is produced by the dread of nothing--the bare fact of one's ignorance as to what is being dreaded, made infinitely more real and more "factual" through dread--points to what Kierkegaard calls possibility and freedom. If the structure of dread is as we said it was (i.e. innocence → dread (occuring in ignorance) → guilt) then it will be this access to freedom that brings one into guilt ignorantly and thus innocently.
How, then, is "possibility" accessed by one's ignorance as to what is dreaded? Well, it is clear that if something comes before someone that is and remains a nothing to them (like, in the example of Adam, the voice of God telling one something that they cannot understand), their constancy in confronting this nothing, in remaining ignorant in the face of it, gets proven. In other words, something is made explicit; something is disclosed and developed, such that it gets loosened from the realm of facts that we take for granted and becomes a fact that we can grasp. It is this disclosing that is possibility.
Let's be a little clearer about what we mean by this. When someone dreads nothing, they slowly begin to revolve around this nothing, obsessing over it in their being. In other words, they do not let go of what they dread: the thing dreaded has a particular hold over them such that it sucks them futher in to the process of dreading. Now, because the thing that is dreaded is really nothing, any attempt in one's being to get a handle on what is dreaded, to get it to be determinate, fails (we might remark that this is what Kierkegaard means when he speaks of the subject "grasping at finiteness to sustain itself"). The reality of one's inability to get a handle on this thing is brought to the fore constantly as, in fact, the only thing that remains in the face of this nothing. That is, completely sucked up into this confrontation with nothingness, with that in front of which one stands ignorant, our ability to remain unable constantly confronts us also. This ability--the last of our abilities in the face of our ignorance--shows itself most clearly. Thus it is disclosed to us, proven as that which is more real even than our what we think are our most powerful abilities--all of which crumble in the face of this thing of which we are ignorant.
This is what we meant last time in saying that what is made clear throughout dread is the constancy of one's ability to be--that is, to be ignorant. As such, we can understand it as what is synonymous with what we have been calling "the reality of our ignorance:" the reality of our ignorance as what is proven through dread is nothing over than our ability to be ignorant. We understand what we mean by "disclosing," or "becoming explicit" if we simply see that in this sentence, what was merely a process one went through before--ignorance--has become something that is not taken for granted, is a possibility--the ability to be ignorant. Expanding what we have diagramed above, then, dread looks like this:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
what is really dreaded, the reality of ignorance
↓
what is proved in "really dreading," the ability to be ignorant, the ability to be unable to grasp the nothing
If we understand this, then we understand what Kierkegaard means by "possibility," and we understand how ignorance can access it. This "possibility" is essentially this ability to be in such and such a way--in this case, ignorant. Fundamentally what happens is that one sees the unalterable fact of one's situation as a possibility, as something that can be changed because it is only one way of being.
Thus, the accessing of this ignorance as possibility shows us our freedom according to Kierkegaard. This freedom is really the essential fact lying within possibility: that whatever is the situation--i.e. dread--is only a way of being, a way that can in its being be different. Now we understand the passage. When Kierkegaard says, "the prohibition alarms Adam [or induces a state of dread] because the prohibition awakens in him the possibility of freedom," we know that he means that Adam, through dreading the nothing, sees his situation as a possibility, and thereby as one in which he possesses freedom--the freedom to engage it differently, as something that is not necessitated but possible. Thus, our diagram of dread extends downward one more final step:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
what is really dreaded, the reality of ignorance
↓
what is proved in "really dreading," the ability to be ignorant, the ability to be unable to grasp the nothing
↓
freedom as the essence of this ability
All this is done in the subject's complete ignorance as to what they dread, and indeed as to what is revealed or disclosed by the dread (reality, possibility, freedom). Suddenly they possess freedom. They do not know anything about where it came from--in fact it came from that which they had the least ability to know.
Now--and this is crucial--we have to also note that the passage shows us that this result--freedom--is precisely what becomes dreaded: Adam does not only dread and thereby access freedom, Adam dreads because he is free. That in the face of which one is ignorant (God, in this example) makes one access one's freedom and then dread precisely that. One's freedom is the nothing that one dreads--the nothing is essentially the necessity of the situation in which one exists, i.e. precisely non-necessity. In other words, what one cannot get a grip on is precisely the extent of one's own freedom within the situation. What we have split up again resolves itself into identity. In fact, it was never dirempted into a thing dreaded and a "real" thing dreaded in the first place. We'll show how this makes the subject guilty next time. In the meantime, it is clear that we will have to reorganize our diagram like this:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
what is really dreaded, the reality of ignorance
↓
what is proved in "really dreading," the ability to be ignorant, the ability to be unable to grasp the nothing
↓
freedom as the essence of this ability
↓
nothing, that of which one is ignorant
This identity--and we will elaborate more on this next time--this identity is only a function of the belongingness of that which is disclosed by dread to dread itself. That is, this identity exists because at each point in the disclosure of the essence of dread by having "what is really dreaded" become more and more determinate, what is dreaded becomes more and more indeterminate and the ignorance with which we confront what is dreaded becomes more and more concrete. That is, throughout the unfolding of the structure we have just outlined, dread itself only heightens. The disclosure that belongs to dread only serves to enhance dread--and therefore ignorance as to what exactly is dreaded and one's innocence. We'll clear this issue up next time.
We are taking the following passage relating the story of Adam's fall in Kierkegaard as indicative of a structure of dread:
The prohibition ["do not eat of the tree of knowledge"] alarms Adam [or induces a state of dread] because the prohibition awakens in him the possibility of freedom... [And yet this freedom] is a nothing, the alarming possibility of being able... Thus innocence is brought to its last extremity.
-The Concept of Dread, in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, 103-104.
As we have established, Kierkegaard's structure of dread looks like this:
innocence → dread (occuring in ignorance) → guilt
One is brought into guilt ignorantly, and therefore--in a supreme paradox--innocently. We've also established that dread itself has a structure like this:
dread → what is dreaded
↓
what is "really" dreaded
which, because there is nothing actually being dreaded, essentially looks like this:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
reality of ignorance
We said that this "reality of ignorance" that is produced by the dread of nothing--the bare fact of one's ignorance as to what is being dreaded, made infinitely more real and more "factual" through dread--points to what Kierkegaard calls possibility and freedom. If the structure of dread is as we said it was (i.e. innocence → dread (occuring in ignorance) → guilt) then it will be this access to freedom that brings one into guilt ignorantly and thus innocently.
How, then, is "possibility" accessed by one's ignorance as to what is dreaded? Well, it is clear that if something comes before someone that is and remains a nothing to them (like, in the example of Adam, the voice of God telling one something that they cannot understand), their constancy in confronting this nothing, in remaining ignorant in the face of it, gets proven. In other words, something is made explicit; something is disclosed and developed, such that it gets loosened from the realm of facts that we take for granted and becomes a fact that we can grasp. It is this disclosing that is possibility.
Let's be a little clearer about what we mean by this. When someone dreads nothing, they slowly begin to revolve around this nothing, obsessing over it in their being. In other words, they do not let go of what they dread: the thing dreaded has a particular hold over them such that it sucks them futher in to the process of dreading. Now, because the thing that is dreaded is really nothing, any attempt in one's being to get a handle on what is dreaded, to get it to be determinate, fails (we might remark that this is what Kierkegaard means when he speaks of the subject "grasping at finiteness to sustain itself"). The reality of one's inability to get a handle on this thing is brought to the fore constantly as, in fact, the only thing that remains in the face of this nothing. That is, completely sucked up into this confrontation with nothingness, with that in front of which one stands ignorant, our ability to remain unable constantly confronts us also. This ability--the last of our abilities in the face of our ignorance--shows itself most clearly. Thus it is disclosed to us, proven as that which is more real even than our what we think are our most powerful abilities--all of which crumble in the face of this thing of which we are ignorant.
This is what we meant last time in saying that what is made clear throughout dread is the constancy of one's ability to be--that is, to be ignorant. As such, we can understand it as what is synonymous with what we have been calling "the reality of our ignorance:" the reality of our ignorance as what is proven through dread is nothing over than our ability to be ignorant. We understand what we mean by "disclosing," or "becoming explicit" if we simply see that in this sentence, what was merely a process one went through before--ignorance--has become something that is not taken for granted, is a possibility--the ability to be ignorant. Expanding what we have diagramed above, then, dread looks like this:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
what is really dreaded, the reality of ignorance
↓
what is proved in "really dreading," the ability to be ignorant, the ability to be unable to grasp the nothing
If we understand this, then we understand what Kierkegaard means by "possibility," and we understand how ignorance can access it. This "possibility" is essentially this ability to be in such and such a way--in this case, ignorant. Fundamentally what happens is that one sees the unalterable fact of one's situation as a possibility, as something that can be changed because it is only one way of being.
Thus, the accessing of this ignorance as possibility shows us our freedom according to Kierkegaard. This freedom is really the essential fact lying within possibility: that whatever is the situation--i.e. dread--is only a way of being, a way that can in its being be different. Now we understand the passage. When Kierkegaard says, "the prohibition alarms Adam [or induces a state of dread] because the prohibition awakens in him the possibility of freedom," we know that he means that Adam, through dreading the nothing, sees his situation as a possibility, and thereby as one in which he possesses freedom--the freedom to engage it differently, as something that is not necessitated but possible. Thus, our diagram of dread extends downward one more final step:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
what is really dreaded, the reality of ignorance
↓
what is proved in "really dreading," the ability to be ignorant, the ability to be unable to grasp the nothing
↓
freedom as the essence of this ability
All this is done in the subject's complete ignorance as to what they dread, and indeed as to what is revealed or disclosed by the dread (reality, possibility, freedom). Suddenly they possess freedom. They do not know anything about where it came from--in fact it came from that which they had the least ability to know.
Now--and this is crucial--we have to also note that the passage shows us that this result--freedom--is precisely what becomes dreaded: Adam does not only dread and thereby access freedom, Adam dreads because he is free. That in the face of which one is ignorant (God, in this example) makes one access one's freedom and then dread precisely that. One's freedom is the nothing that one dreads--the nothing is essentially the necessity of the situation in which one exists, i.e. precisely non-necessity. In other words, what one cannot get a grip on is precisely the extent of one's own freedom within the situation. What we have split up again resolves itself into identity. In fact, it was never dirempted into a thing dreaded and a "real" thing dreaded in the first place. We'll show how this makes the subject guilty next time. In the meantime, it is clear that we will have to reorganize our diagram like this:
dread → nothing, that of which one is ignorant
↓
what is really dreaded, the reality of ignorance
↓
what is proved in "really dreading," the ability to be ignorant, the ability to be unable to grasp the nothing
↓
freedom as the essence of this ability
↓
nothing, that of which one is ignorant
This identity--and we will elaborate more on this next time--this identity is only a function of the belongingness of that which is disclosed by dread to dread itself. That is, this identity exists because at each point in the disclosure of the essence of dread by having "what is really dreaded" become more and more determinate, what is dreaded becomes more and more indeterminate and the ignorance with which we confront what is dreaded becomes more and more concrete. That is, throughout the unfolding of the structure we have just outlined, dread itself only heightens. The disclosure that belongs to dread only serves to enhance dread--and therefore ignorance as to what exactly is dreaded and one's innocence. We'll clear this issue up next time.
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