Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel []
1770-1831 Hegel’s “Absolute Idealism” - holds that reality is essentially “rational” [It’s not at all clear what that could mean: (a) that reality is capable of being understood (b) that reality is somehow itself a bunch of ideas instead of what it appears to be - a bunch of more or less solid objects in space, as well as animals etc. (c) that reality somehow proceeds on a “rational plan” Hegel appears to be saying (b), rather often. He certainly affirms (c) And most of us think (a), more or less... Hegel may have thought that (a) and (c) are true because (b) is true’ It is not clear that (b) makes any sense at all. Can there be ideas which are not about anything? That isn’t what our ideas are like! [we hope!] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - 1770-1831 []
The “Dialectic” - all Hegelians say that this “method” is basic to everything he does - even though that’s not obvious in our selections What it is (supposed to) say: ‘Everything” is “constituted by” a process of affirmation, contradiction, and the resolution of contradiction (more familiarly known as “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis” 1. The idea is that something or other happens and is (amounts to?) a sort of “assertion” or “thesis” 2. this collides with something, which is the “antithesis” or “contradiction” 3. then somehow a “higher” synthesis fixes it up (for the moment; however, this new thing hen becomes in turn the occasion for another contradiction and that brings on another synthesis, etc. * the “everything” in question is reality - not our beliefs or statements about it
