#dialectic thinking

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) published „Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse“ in 1821. In the preface he describes the idea of justice, the term of right and it's realization. The concepts of free will and freedom are interlinked to underline the theory, that the free will can only realize itself in a (reasonable) legal system. Hegel defines “right” [Recht] as the existence of the free will in the world (PR §29). So a philosophy of right is necessarily a philosophy of freedom that seeks to comprehend freedom actualized in how we relate to each other and construct social and political institutions.

“Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.”

During the last few years I have repeatedly come across Hegel and his dialectics. In the philosophy class we dealt with his dialectics in order to better comprehend Marx's understanding of history and historical materialism. To quote Lenin: "It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic." However, their approaches differ in certain respects, especially in their differing versions of the relation between consciousness and life. While Hegel formulates, that consciousness determines life, Marx, on the contrary, states "(...) life determines consciousness". So this is not only a central question of cognitive ability from an ontological point of view, but to truly understand the hierarchical opposition or relation of consciousness to the human being, vice versa. When I was devouring Schopenhauer three years ago, I often thought of Hegel, who was giving his lectures at the same time, which were attended far more frequently. When I was dealing with the biography of the poet Hölderlin, I found out that Hegel, Schelling and Hölderlin shared a room in the Tübinger Stift. Imaging how these three high spirits inspired and strengthened each other. During my studies I encountered Hegel again in the philosophy of law and in criminal law. The spark jumped with the statement, that the criminal must be be honoured as a reasonable man, because

„Denn in seiner [des Verbrechers] als eines Vernünftigen Handlung liegt, daß sie etwas Allgemeines, daß durch sie ein Gesetz aufgestellt ist, das er in ihr für sich anerkannt hat, unter welches er also als unter sein Recht subsumiert werden darf." In brief: The "reasonable" criminal is breaking a rule, but at the same time, he is forming a new, possible right.

„Daß die Strafe darin als sein eigenes Recht enthaltend angesehen wird, darin wird der Verbrecher als Vernünftiges geehrt. – Diese Ehre wird ihm nicht zuteil, wenn aus seiner Tat selbst nicht der Begriff und der Maßstab seiner Strafe genommen wird; – ebensowenig auch, wenn er nur als schädliches Tier betrachtet wird, das unschädlich zu machen sei, oder in den Zwecken der Abschreckung und Besserung.“ Speaking of crime as an "evil" and punishment as a form of compensating "evil" falls too short and tempts to focus too much on the intention of the criminal and thus leads to "recharge" the punishment morally and psychologically, which has no fruitful function. Again for better understanding:

It is not the criminal who can question the law, but only Society that recognizes infringement as a new right. It therefore requires one clarification that the (new) law set by the criminal does not apply if it should not be recognised. Penal Theories are deffining penalty purposes, aspects of justice (cf. ius talionis "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") and are also considering the soundness of mind and how crimes can be prevented. Hegel was a representative of Absolute Penal Theories like Kant, both advocated death penalty [!] and the central aspect "restoring justice", could not explain, why penalty is needed. Also the Absolute Penal Theory is forbidding considerations of utility and meaning of the punishment (e.g. therapeutic offers), explaining this view with incompatible with the "dignity and freedom of men". Continues in the second part.

Depicted are Ernst Bloch's interpretation of Hegel's dialectic "Objekt - Subjekt" (1951) and Hegel's "Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences", originally published 1817, this version if from 1870.

"Nature is, in itself a living whole. The movement of its idea through its sequence of stages is more precisely this: the idea posits itself as that which it is in itself; or, what is the same thing, it goes into itself out of that immediacy and externality which is death in order to go into itself; yet further, it suspends this determinacy of the idea, in which it is only life, and becomes spirit, which is its truth." [Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences: The Philosophy of Nature, §195]

Similar to Marx, I came into contact with Hegel during my studies and I couldn't avoid delving deeper into his works, so I got myself a good guide and interpreter to start with, namely the work of Bloch. Bloch does not claim to write a book about Hegel "rather one about him, with him, through him." Mentioning the problem of access, Bloch was also aware of this and devoted himself extensively to Hegel's artificial language in the first part. Is it an unnecessary complication or does it serve a systematic purpose?

It is striking that Hegel uses certain words differently. The word predicate, for example, has a special meaning in Hegel's philosophy. It refers to the properties or characteristics that can be attributed to an object. Hegel uses the word predicate in his logic to describe the relationship between a subject and its properties. Bloch states: "The reader must familiarize himself with the objective contradiction in all things that Hegel's conceptual language incessantly reflects." Similiar to Christian Wolff and Thomasius, Hegel wanted "to teach philosophy the German language" and some of his terms (Weltgeist, Zeitgeist, ...) are regularly integrated into philosophical systems. The basic ideas of Hegel's philosophy would be the grasping of being, not the draft of an ought (cf. criticizing Kant). Showing the reasonable in the real contradictions and dialectically resolving them. The thesis of Hegel's dialectic describes, that there is just one substance, therefore object and subject are two sides of one and the same substance. Difference within itself is constituve attribute of the substance. Hegel is critizising the monism and dualism here: Substances, which are identical within themselves, can not exist, more precisely, they are empty. "Nichts, das reine Nichts; es ist einfache Gleichheit mit sich selbst, vollkommene Leerheit, Bestimmungs- und Inhaltslosigkeit; Unentschiedenheit in ihm selbst." "Sein, reines Sein, - ohne alle weitere Bestimmung. In seiner unbestimmten Unmittelbarkeit ist es nur sich selbst gleich und auch nicht ungleich gegen anderes, hat keine Verschiedenheit innerhalb seiner noch nach außen." So in the Hegelian system, substance = subject. The impossibility of the subject to grasp the subject in its entirety is the impossibility of the one substance to grasp itself in its entirety. Unlike Kant, Hegel is seing the question of the first substance and the dimensions of epistemology in an ontological level, the impossibility of true perception is not grounded in epistemological issues, but in the substance. The task is to develop a new unity of the term using the dialectical method: I. Immediate unity of the term (Stage of abstract mind - simple thesis) II. Opposition of the term to itself (Stage of negative rational reflection - antithesis) III. Reunification of the term with itself through the abolition of the opposition (Stage of positive rational mediation - negation of negation - synthesis)

Dialectic "burrowing like a mole" a la Hamlet's father spirit - Notes:

Mediation of thinking with the being, the ego and the non-ego

SUBJECT + OBJECT Subject is brought through the world, as subject + object are merging into each other "The subjectivity, according to which the organic is as an individual, develops into an objective organism."

The subject has experienced all of its alienations and objectifications until it empties itself of these alienations and has become comprehended history or absolute knowledge

We also find further dialectical systems in Socrates' postulate of not-knowing, likewise in the platonic-Socratic conversations. In his early years, Hegel was also influenced by mystics, with Eckart, Tauler and Baader forming "the divine triangle" for him (Hegel's triads appear again and again, the basis of his dialectic: -> bud - bursting blossom - fruit -> crime - punishment - justice ) Jakob Böhme significantly influenced Hegel through the "dialectically necessary reference" for example light to darkness, goodness to anger (dialectic of negation). Hugo of St. Viktor was the first to rationally grade the cognitive faculty (levels of intellectual activity), and Hegel also formulated an ascending cognitive faculty in his theory of levels: consciousness, self-confidence, reason, spirit, religion and finally absolute knowledge. „Draußen mag eine neue Welt in Anfahrt sein: Das absolute Wissen hat alles erinnernd hinter sich, erinnernd in sich. Nichts mehr ist zu tun, als die Lehrjahre des Bewusstseins, als die Faustfahrten des Subjekts in er Erinnerung zu wiederholen.“ Nicholas of Cusa also created a graduated system according to dialectical comprehension: Sensus, Ratio, Intellectus, Visio.

[...] The journey with Hegel just started and his dialectic is still relevant, discussed and even nowadays used by others philosophers, just to mention Slavoy Zizek, who is often emphasising the differences of Marx and Hegel, calling himself rather a Hegelian, than Marxist. The materialistic system of Marx is also not extensive and profound enough to find proper solutions, but which system and thought can be considered as flawless? There are many up-lifting points in Hegel's philosophy, I am sorry, that I can not present all those points, like... ... panlogism - hen kai pan "one and all" ; Idea of Logos, object + subject are communicating; alogical cause of world (cf. Schopenhauer), question of comprehension and comprehensibility, form of historical process = form of epistemological process, light of God + eye of the word (Weltauge) = recognisability (cf. Malebranche) ... art as the door to the absolute knowledge, healer of the impotence of nature and at the same time the business of illusions ... ethicosmic mindset found in the constant and deliberate oscillation between subject and object; Self-knowledge = World knowledge; Pan as spatial pathos of order; omnia ubique ~ "all is everywhere" (cf. Leibniz, Casanus) I would like to end with one of my favourite quotes of Hegel:

"If one begins to philosophize, one must first be a Spinozist; the soul must bathe in this ether of substance."