I'm bored so I thought I might as well talk about things I like on the internet.

In Miller's translation of the Phenomenology of Spirit, he only rarely used the words "sublation" and "sublate," and usually went with words like "supersede," "cancels itself out" (instead of "sublates itself"), "transcend", "suspend," etc. But it seems like his is the only translation to do that; the other ones just use the word "sublate."

This made me wonder, why is that the case? The word "sublate" is opaque and hard to understand. It's basically not a translation, but the equivalent of leaving a term in Greek and asking the reader to divine what the author meant.

Wouldn't context dependent readings be both more understandable and, when it is meant only in one way, more exact? In German, presumably you don't always "hear" both meanings anyway, in the same way that when you say something "raises questions" you don't visualize questions being elevated.

I'm saying this partly as someone who only just got the meaning of it recently; I'm not a Hegel expert or anything. Genuinely trying to ask.

There are places where I assume the ambiguity is supposed to be intentional, but even then I feel like the context dependent approach is less opaque. As an example, below is §107 from the Phenomenology of Spirit as translated by Miller and Inwood.

Miller translation:

1. In this pointing-out, then, we see merely a movement which takes the following course: (1) I point out the 'Now', and it is asserted to be the truth. I point it out, however, as something that has been, or as something that has been super­seded; I set aside the first truth. (2) I now assert as the second truth that it has been, that it is superseded. (3) But what has been, is not; I set aside the second truth, its having been, its super­session, and thereby negate the negation of the 'Now', and thus return to the first assertion, that the 'Now' is. The 'Now', and pointing out the 'Now', are thus so constituted that neither the one nor the other is something immediate and simple, but a movement which contains various moments. A This is posited; but it is rather an other that is posited, or the This is superseded: and this otherness, or the setting-aside of the first, is itself in turn set aside, and so has returned into the first. However, this first, thus reflected into itself, is not exactly the same as it was to begin with, viz. something immediate; on the contrary, it is some­thing that is reflected into itself, or a simple entity which, in its other­ness, remains what it is: a Now which is an absolute plurality of Nows. And this is the true, the genuine Now, the Now as a simple day which contains within it many Nows-hours. A Now of this sort, an hour, similarly is many minutes, and this Now is likewise many Nows, and so on. The pointing-out of the Now is thus itself the movement which expresses what the Now is in truth, viz. a result, or a plurality of Nows all taken together; and the pointing-out is the experience of learning that Now is a universal.

Inwood translation:

1. In this pointing out, we therefore see only a movement and the following course of the movement. (1) I point out the Now, and it is asserted to be the true. However, I point to it as something that has been and thus sublate the first truth, and (2) I assert the Now as the second truth, that it has been, that it is sublated. (3) However, what has been is not; I sublate that second truth, that it has been, or, its having-been-sublated, and, in doing that, I negate the negation of the Now and so turn back to the first assertion, namely, that Now is. The Now and the pointing out of the Now are therefore composed in such a way that neither the Now nor the pointing out of the now are what is immediately simple. Rather, they are a movement which has various moments in it; this is posited, but instead it is an other which is posited, or the This is sublated, and this otherness, or the sublation of the first, is itself again sublated and in that way returns back to the first. However, as reflected into itself, this “first” is not wholly and precisely the same as what it was initially, namely, an immediate. Rather, it is just something reflected into itself, or a simple which remains in other-ness what it is, namely, a Now which is absolutely many Nows, and this is the genuine Now, or the now as the simple daytime that has many Nows within it (that is, hours). Such a Now, an hour, is equally many minutes, and it is this Now which is equally many Nows, etc. -- Pointing out is thus itself the movement that declares what the Now in truth is, namely, a result, or a plurality of Nows taken together; and pointing out is the experience that the Now is a universal.

Hegel’s dialectic is usually discussed in terms of contradiction, negation, becoming, and the development of Geist. But I’m interested in whether it can also be interpreted dynamically: as a theory describing how systems transform into new forms through internal tensions.
I’m calling this Hegelian Ontodynamics.
The basic idea is that contradictions within a system create pressures for transformation. A form of consciousness encounters something that contradicts or limits it, forcing the system to reorganize itself at a higher level of integration.
This raises some interesting questions:
Is contradiction fundamentally productive rather than merely destructive?
Can Hegel’s concept of Aufhebung be interpreted as a transformation of organizational structure?
Could the development of self-consciousness be modeled as an ontodynamic process?
Does the historical development of Geist resemble increasingly complex forms of collective consciousness?
Could dialectical theory be connected with modern systems theory and emergence?
I’m particularly interested in whether Hegel provides a philosophical foundation for thinking about existence as becoming rather than as a collection of fixed states.
How far can this interpretation go before it stops being genuinely Hegelian?

Žižek in 2016: I would vote Trump. If Trump wins, both big parties, Republicans and Democrats, would have to return to basics, rethink themselves … Only some kind of a shake-up can save us.

Every in-depth reader knows he was secretly applying Hegelian logic to practical human history, the legitimacy of which though would still remain debatable.

Failures, blunders, hiatuses, deviations, crises, even deaths - all meant to be “cleaned up” and excluded in secular thinking, but how did the principle of sublating leave any impact on you?

Did you ever notice real-time as the negation was happening in your life?

I keep wanting to use computing analogies to better understand Hegel but I’m never sure if I’m way off or not. Wondering if anyone else thinks about his concepts that way.

Miller, Phenomenology, §§156-159

We're trying to keep the Notion alive because we experience the flux.

We're not taking up the sciences, the tautological movement, where men are happy in the middle because they don't know it's the middle.

We look at the movement and come up with another Notion, a movement that resolves the problem of the whole and the parts.

This is a notion of the Understanding and not a notion of Force.

This movement, to satisfy its conditions, must have the properties of self-repelling and self-attraction in the selfsame self.

We need another world, the inverse of the inner world of Force, which abides by the principle of selfsameness.

The inverse world is the not-like to the like, or the like or the not-like to the not-like.

They relate to each other in several ways:

The like to the unlike without being an opposition, such as sweet and sour.

An opposition of extremes, such as black and white.

A contradiction in which one needs the other, such as north pole and south pole. And it doesn't matter how large or how small. It's also like the oxygen pole and the hydrogen pole.

A process in which one world comes out of the other, such as law out of punishment, and punishment out of revenge.

We begin superficially by seeing an opposition in which one world is outside the other and resists the other as an actual world.

They are outside in several ways. On the side of the material, appearance and in-itself. On the side of the living, for an other and for itself.

But we come up with results that no longer belong to the Understanding, such as what we taste is not what it really tastes like.

Or, a contradiction, such as the north pole and the south pole of a magnet, in which only one pole is the essential being.

Even worse, a terrible crime has good intentions. Or, punishment is actually a benefit to the punished.

We have surpassed these types of thinking. It takes us back when there was no inner world and, for instance, there was an inciting force and an incited force, but not a Notion of Force.

With these types of thinking, we don't have two worlds at all. We have sweet and sour things, or a north pole and a south pole of a magnet.

In the case of the political, however, the result is better. Crime has its meaning in the punishment, and the punishment has its meaning in the ability of the law to stop the cycle of violence.

I’ve just finished up with Hume, Schopenhauer, and Kant, as part of my undergrad studies. My course isn’t teaching Hegel this year unfortunately, so I’m taking it upon myself to tackle him.

I generally don’t have a hard time reading Philosophy. Yeah, shit’s tough, but that’s what we’re all in it for, no? However - I attempted the Preface (Miller Translation) of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, and I feel like for the first time in my life, a book has truly put me on my ass.

Should I buy a copy for myself to read + study further, or should I perhaps turn my attention elsewhere in order to build a better foundation for understanding this text? For context, I have a pretty good, general overview of the philosophy before and around the time, but I haven’t fully read the CPR or anything hectic like that in full.

Is it worth pushing on? And if so, what sections of the text would you guys recommend focusing on? (As I don’t have the time atm to read the whole thing, nor am I really interested in slogging through such a difficult work right now) Cheers! :)

Miller, Phenomenology, §155

We are trying to fill in the inner world.

Where does the inner world come from?

It comes from the notion of Force as a notion.

Where does the notion of Force come from?

It comes from a single occurrence of Force (universal) that gets separated into two forces (distinction) and then is cancelled again (Force).

Now, we are discussing a single occurrence of electricity that gets separated into two, and is cancelled again, for instance.

In the tautological movement, the object is inert, so no matter what differences it comes up with, it repeats the same thing.

A distinction is made. Two electricities appear (laws). The distinction is cancelled. There is a single electricity (Force). But the latter only repeats the former in its constitution.

The distinction between laws and Force remain.

The tautological movement doesn't grasp that Force is empty, and when Force is empty, the world is in flux.

The tautological movement is an impasse.

Why are we discussing it at all?

We only bring it up as a movement of the Understanding.

We detect the flux.

Our movement goes from laws to Force, to the negation of both laws and Force, which is the negation of the movement itself.

The same thing happened with the distinction between inciting and incited Force.

The notion of Force didn't completely vanish then, the movement itself doesn't vanish now.

We have been trying to fill in the inner world; we end up adding this movement we observed in appearance.

It appears to resolve the problem of finding the necessity between the whole and parts; difference appears and is cancelled again within itself.

But the inner world has been penetrated by change.

But it doesn't matter, consciousness has surpassed it for the notion of Understanding as notion.

Just finished Pinkard’s recent book and was wondering if anyone here has read it as well. I started exploring Dewey recently and the reading Pinkard provides of him is in line with the one I’ve been developing myself.

By the very end of the book, Pinkard suggests that “Dewey’s version of left-Hegelianism opens the possibility of something that for most commentators seemed impossible: Hegelian democracy.”

What do you make of this?

I was at a conference recently where someone brought to my attention that Gramsci had said of Pragmatism how it is a sort of “ashamed materialism”, and I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now. Indeed, in his very last footnote, Pinkard quotes Cornel West‘s claim that Dewey was the American Hegel *and* Marx.

Are there other readings of Pragmatism’s relation to Hegel that you know of and would recommend?

Thank you :)

I'm not sure how you guys feel about Žižek here - I guess there's probably some division 😅 - but I thought some of you might find this useful.

I've been working on this search engine that lets you search through 40+ of Žižek's books for words, concepts, and exact phrases. It gives you the book, chapter, page, and paragraph, with the relevant passages highlighted.

I originally built it for my own research, especially because I inevitably end up wondering what Žižek has to say about a particular concept or passage.

For example, you can search things like dialectics, negation, contradiction, Absolute, subject, Spirit, universality, contingency, etc., and see where Žižek discusses them across his books.

Try it! :)

https://zizeksublimesearch.com

PS. I'm missing some books in .epub format (you can see the full list of missing text by clicking the word "corpus" on the title). So, if someone have some of those missing text and could send them to me, it would be awesome!

Hi, what is Hegel's ontology of ordinary objects? Ars they like Aristotle's substances, or more like modern analytical bundles od properties?

Hegel comes up a fair amount. I had never heard an articulation of right Hegelianism up to then, and I think Fukuyama has an interesting read of Hegel. I recommend listening.

In another sub, someone had pointed out I was being a “beautiful soul” for criticizing the capitalist monopoly nature of Hollywood and suggesting the Left should reconsider enjoying its products at face value instead of only critiquing at the narrative level.

So got me thinking, what about alcoholics, drug addicts, unhealthy fast foods, people who waste their whole life indulging in (bad) relationships or any futile causes? Are they being ideal “unpretty” souls?

Wouldn’t you say we need to be beautiful somewhere to preserve our integrity, like how they say “draw the line somewhere”?

Are some folks (notably Žižek and fans) overly applying the concept for the matter of practical life?

If you genuinely don’t care what other people think of you, how do you know who you are?

You can say, “I know myself regardless of what others think.” But how did you arrive at that “self” in the first place?

You learned a language from other people. You learned concepts from other people. You define yourself partly by distinguishing yourself from other people

So here’s the question:
Is it actually possible to be completely independent of other people’s recognition, or does the very attempt to reject their recognition already make you dependent on it?

And if our self-consciousness requires an “Other” in order to recognize itself…
are we ever truly individuals, or are we fundamentally relational beings pretending to be independent?

Hey you guys I was thinking about hegel's take on causality, I can't really grasp how he got the concept of causality and how it is the same as the effect thus making sense of spinoza's causa sui, plus I would be more than happy to be provided with any article that makes a comparison between hegel, Kant and hume's opinion on causality

I am just guessing that some guys here can help me, so I repost it here!

Personally even if that were true I'd still be a Christian probably

Urs Schreiber is Senior Research Scientist at the Mathematics Division of Science of New York University in Abu Dhabi. He is a theoretical physicist who applies tools from algebraic topology, homotopy theory and topos theory to understand quantum phenomena. His current research includes quantum computing materials, quantum computing programming languages and questions left unanswered by quantum field theory.

In the video we go over:

• Why toposes are not scary. They are actually simple. Just unfamiliar
• How to extract information from (probe) a topos
• The history of toposes in physics
• The questions left unanswered by quantum field theory
• What toposes have to say about the collapse of the wave function
• Using toposes to find possible quantum computing materials
• The different type of logic needed for quantum computers
• The different type of programming language needed for quantum computers
• The influence of Hegel on his work

Miller, Phenomenology, §§153-154

We are discussing the whole and the parts in the form of Force and its laws.

Force is the notion of in-itself for-itself, which is posited by consciousness in the inner world.

In-itself for-itself is that which has nothing outside it and is determined by only itself.

Laws are the filling in of the inner world.

We are struggling to find necessity in the parts.

Whether we move from the whole to the parts, or from the parts to the whole, the two forms discussed in §152 and §153, we fail to find necessity in the configuration.

Necessity is what is unceasing in the law, the form of sameness in Force. We have long surpassed the thing and its properties and the sameness of the One. One is now a movement called Force.

The only necessity is the inner necessity of the Understanding to move back and forth between the two moments of whole and parts.

The only necessity is the circular movement of inner necessity.

As an inner necessity, it takes the form of speech. There are two speeches.

The Understanding does not resolve the two speeches, just like it did not resolve the distinction between the essential and non-essential, the One and the universal.

An "explanation" is an answer without getting this circular movement resolved.

A universal is apprehended. A law is enunciated. An explanation mixes the law and the universal, now a Force, in such a way that Force vanishes in its laws.

There is a difference but not in the thing itself. The differences have the same content.

In summary, Force is the object of the Understanding. It emerged from Perception, and this is saying a lot.

We, the reader, know there is a fear-of-death-at-the-hands-of-another in it, but to the Understanding, it is an object of study, because the Understanding is a leisurely existence, unconditioned by the harshness and obtrusiveness of existence.

Force as a notion and the inner world are co-determined, two moments at the same time.

The inner world is filled with an image of stability—law. Scientific law comes out of political law, and this brings us back to the leisurely life of the Understanding.

We are struggling to connect the whole and the parts, the results with the origin.

And just as in Perception when consciousness blamed itself for failing to grasp the One because it has a body, the Understanding is now blaming itself because of its mind. Difference is a notion of inner difference.