/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20432137]

What the fuck is Hegel talking about? I can't even find any books talking about the triangle analogy.

>The Greek world developed thought as far as to the Idea; the Christian Teutonic world, on the contrary, has comprehended Thought as Spirit; Idea and Spirit are thus the distinguishing features. More particularly the facts are as follows. Because God, the still undetermined and immediate Universal, Being, or objective Thought, jealously allowing nothing to exist beside Him, is the substantial groundwork of all Philosophy, which never alters, but ever sinks more deeply within itself, and through the development of determinations manifests itself and brings to consciousness, we may designate the particular character of the development in the first period of Philosophy by saying that this development is a simple process of determinations, figurations, abstract qualities, issuing from the one ground that potentially already contains the whole.

>The second stage in this universal principle is the gathering up of the determinations manifested thus, into ideal, concrete unity, in the mode of subjectivity. The first determinations as immediate, were still abstractions, but now the Absolute, as the endlessly self-determining Universal, must furthermore be comprehended as active Thought, and not as the Universal in this determinate character. Hence it is manifested as the totality of determinations and as concrete individuality. Thus, with the nous of Anaxagoras, and still more with Socrates, there commences a subjective totality in which Thought grasps itself, and thinking activity is the fundamental principle.

>The third stage, then, is that this totality, which is at first abstract, in that it becomes realized through the active, determining, distinguishing thought, sets itself forth even in the separated determinations, which, as ideal, belong to it. Since these determinations are contained unseparated in the unity, and thus each in it is also the other, these opposed moments are raised into totalities. The quite general forms of opposition are the universal and the particular, or, in another form, Thought as such, external reality, feeling or perception. The Notion is the identity of universal and particular; because each of these is thus set forth as concrete in itself, the universal is in itself at once the unity of universality and particularity, and the same holds good of particularity. Unity is thus posited in both forms, and the abstract moments can be made complete through this unity alone; thus it has come to pass that the differences themselves are each raised up to a system of totality, which respectively confront one another as the Philosophy of Stoicism and of Epicureanism. The whole concrete universal is now Mind; and the whole concrete individual, Nature.

[Anonymous No.20432138]

>In Stoicism pure Thought develops into a totality; if we make the other side from Mind-natural being or feeling-into a totality, Epicureanism is the result. Each determination is formed into a totality of thought, and, in accordance with the simple mode which characterizes this sphere, these principles seem to be for themselves and independent, like two antagonistic systems of Philosophy. Implicitly both are identical, but they themselves take up their position as conflicting, and the Idea is also, as it is apprehended, in a one-sided determinateness.

>The higher stage is the union of these differences. This may occur in annihilation, in scepticism; but the higher point of view is the affirmative, the Idea in relation to the Notion. If the Notion is, then, the universal-that which determines itself further within itself, but yet remains there in its unity and in the ideality and transparency of its determinations which do not become independent-the further step is, on the other hand, the reality of the Notion in which the differences are themselves brought to totalities. Thus the fourth stage is the union of the Idea, in which all these differences, as totalities, are yet at the same time blended into one concrete unity of Notion. This comprehension first takes place without constraint, since the ideal is itself only apprehended in the element of universality.

>The Greek world got as far as this Idea, since they formed an ideal intellectual world; and this was done by the Alexandrian Philosophy, in which the Greek Philosophy perfected itself and reached its end. If we wish to represent this process figuratively,

>A. Thought, is (a) speaking generally abstract, as in universal or absolute space, by which empty space is often understood; (b) then the most simple space determinations appear, in which we commence with the point in order that we may arrive at the line and angle; (c) what comes third is their union into the triangle, that which is indeed concrete, but which is still retained in this abstract element of surface, and thus is only the first and still formal totality and limitation which corresponds to the nous.

>B. The next point is, that since we allow each of the enclosing lines of the triangle to be again surface, each forms itself into the totality of the triangle and into the whole figure to which it belongs; that is the realization of the whole in the sides as we see it in Scepticism or Stoicism.

>C. The last stage of all is, that these surfaces or sides of the triangle join themselves into a body or a totality: the body is for the first time the perfect spatial determination, and that is a reduplication of the triangle. But in as far as the triangle which forms the basis is outside of the pyramid, this simile does not hold good.

[Anonymous No.20432940]

>>20432137
Semiotic triangle

[Anonymous No.20433277]

bump

[Anonymous No.20433398]

>>20432137
He’s trying to secularize Christianity.

[Anonymous No.20433485]

OP if you had started with the Greeks and read the complete works of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Plutarch, Proclus, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, and Shelling, then you would understand this

[Anonymous No.20433489]

>>20433485
That's extremely optimistic.

[Anonymous No.20434727]

He was just schizoposting

[Anonymous No.20434937]

>>20432137
Isn't this basically just him describing what he believed to be the historical evolution of philosophy and what he believes to be the future of it in the manner of dialectics?
A series of contradicting concepts that have to be/will be unified together in a synthesis. Greek idealism + Christian spirituality. Subjectivitiy and universality. Stoicism and Epicureanism. Etc.

I have no idea what the fuck he's saying about the triangle. Its some kind of imagery he used personally and is shit at describing to others.
Generally, to spitball, he's describing things as a progression. First you start with purely abstract thought. Then you start making more solid conclusions and propositions about the world. Then you loop back around to once again fall into the abstract again, this time with more concrete foundations.
Then this individual process for one branch of philosophy (here he talked about Greek), then becomes part of a larger loop of intellectual thought. Which you could imagine as looking like a pyramid of different schools of philosophy. Which is in line with dialectical ideas of the world.

[Anonymous No.20435105]

>>20434937
You forgot one major theme—the emergence of the substance of rational freedom, and the evolution of said substance as it migrates from east to west in a series of epochs that are fulfilled by world historical individuals. First, it is realized among the despots of Asia, then it is realized among the oligarchs and the limited democrats of Greece, before it finally migrates into the Germanic nations within the vehicle of Christianity. This process is destined to happen thanks to the logical necessity of creation, the geographic constraints of the world, etc. America ends up being the final location where rational freedom for all beings is realized, in accordance with Hegel’s rationalization of history.

As >>20434727 pointed out, Hegel has the tendency to characterize each epoch as following a certain defining literary plot. e.g. Greek civilization is defined by the Iliad and Achilles’s bargain (short life but lots of honor), fulfilled by Alexander the Great. It’s like how Plato treats poets as divinely inspired, but clueless. Hegel’s approach secularizes and downplays divine revelation by emphasizing humanity’s ability to know what God intended and thus to take over the reins of the world (as opposed to Aquinas who argues that creation wasn’t inevitable). God is not in control, but rather some kind of procreated logos, mind, the Absolute, etc.

Also, if our world is following the plot of our current epoch, the Christian one, well… take a look at Revelations and brace yourselves for impact. It will get worse before it gets better. And it definitely doesn’t resolve the problem of divine revelation. It just sidesteps it. If you’re devoutly religious, you’d laugh at the attempt by humanity rationally control the world via the usual critique of the Enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.20435108]

>>20435105
Shit, I meant to quote >>20433398, not the schizoposting on the tangent of epochs.

[Anonymous No.20435117]

>>20435105
primordial*, not procreated. It’s worth looking into Averroes, Spinoza, etc., as interesting forebears prior to Hegel.

[Anonymous No.20435137]

>>20434937
>>20435105
can you guys explain what hegel means by abstract and concrete? why do things start out more abstract and end up concrete?

[Anonymous No.20435383]

>>20435137
>what is the purpose of life
That's pretty much the most basic question of any individual. And is extremely abstract and open. Even young children ask about that.
>how should I live in my society
That's a very concrete question and philosophical problem. Its rooted in obvious material reality and is developed and considered by people and a society with more intellectual development. It takes more understanding of your surroundings and their constructed natural and all of that.

These are just examples and do not fully encapsulate everything that falls into one category or the other of course.
Regardless, then by the end one loops back to that abstract thought, only now with the experience of the concrete educating your thinking and ideas in the abstract.