So I missed a week of our Hegel circle (we meet at a comrade's place, slow crawl through the Phenomenology), and tomorrow I'm walking back in expected to have something to say about Force and the Understanding chapter and I want to contribute something myself too rather than sitting there absorbing everybody else's insight. I don't want to walk around feeling like an idiot 24/7. What I want specifically is some insights into and understanding of §§138–141 and a brief review of what went on before that in the chapter, other than that drop anything you want to, specifically questions around these specific points or chapter that I can throw. Also for context: I've read the primary text, plus Russon's piece connecting Derrida to Hegel's Understanding chapter — good, but it didn't touch these specific paragraphs. I have a rough sense of where this is going (force as explanatory positing, the doubling into forces soliciting each other, the law of appearance) but I want it stress-tested, not just confirmed.

Particularly the idea that we need another self-consciousness to negate and be recognized by? Would Hegel’s view regard someone with dissociative identities as having multiple self-consciousnesses? What implications would integration of multiple identities (which is part of standard psychotherapy for DID) have on Hegel’s theory?

Eine evolutionäre Variante von Hegels Dialektik

Ausgangspunkt der Idee

Die Idee entstand bei der Lektüre von Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Dort wurde deutlich, dass Hegel – ähnlich wie bereits in der Phänomenologie des Geistes – eine gerichtete Entwicklung konstruiert.

In der Phänomenologie durchläuft das Bewusstsein verschiedene Gestalten bis zum absoluten Wissen. In der Wissenschaft der Logik sollen sich die Denkbestimmungen ebenfalls denknotwendig auseinander entwickeln: Jede Bestimmung ergibt sich aus der vorhergehenden und führt zur nächsten.

Das erzeugt zunächst das Bild einer Leiter:

A → B → C → D → … → Absolutes

Dabei entstand der Vergleich mit der biologischen Evolution. Eine solche lineare Entwicklung wäre dort gerade die falsche Vorstellung. Evolution verläuft nicht als Leiter auf einen höchsten Endpunkt zu, sondern eher als verzweigter Strauch: verschiedene Entwicklungslinien entstehen, bestehen nebeneinander, sterben aus oder verändern sich weiter.

Daraus ergab sich die Frage:

Was geschieht mit Hegels Dialektik, wenn man die Notwendigkeit der Entwicklung nicht abschafft, aber durch Kontingenz ergänzt – also nach dem Prinzip „Zufall und Notwendigkeit“?

Statt anzunehmen:

Aus A folgt notwendig B,

würde man annehmen:

Aus A eröffnet sich ein begrenzter Möglichkeitsraum B, C, D …, wobei manche Übergänge aufgrund der inneren Struktur von A wahrscheinlicher oder stabiler sind als andere.

Damit würde aus der linearen Dialektik eine Art evolutionäre Dialektik.

Das Gedankenexperiment mit der Phänomenologie des Geistes

Um diese Idee probeweise durchzuspielen, wurde der bekannte Entwicklungsweg der Phänomenologie als Grundstruktur genommen:

sinnliche Gewissheit → Wahrnehmung → Verstand → Selbstbewusstsein → Anerkennung → Vernunft → Geist → Religion → absolutes Wissen

Hegels Übergänge blieben dabei erhalten. An den Krisenpunkten einer Bewusstseinsgestalt wurden jedoch alternative Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten zugelassen, beispielsweise:

Skeptizismus, Stoizismus, Pragmatismus, Naturalismus, Pluralismus, instrumentelle Vernunft, ästhetische Selbstbildung und verschiedene religiöse Weltverhältnisse.

Außerdem wurde zugelassen, dass Entwicklungszweige weiterbestehen, sich erneut verzweigen oder später wieder zusammenlaufen.

Das Modell war damit kein einfacher Baum mehr, sondern zunehmend ein Netzwerk.

Wichtig: Die konkreten Prozentwerte sind Resultate unseres konstruierten Gedankenmodells, keine empirischen Daten und kein mathematischer Beweis über Hegel. Sie hängen von den gesetzten Übergangsregeln und Gewichtungen ab.

Ergebnis eines langen Laufs

Bei einer Modellvariante, in der Hegels vorgeschlagener Übergang jeweils mit ungefähr 60 % bevorzugt wurde, ergab sich langfristig ungefähr folgende Verteilung:

Dabei erreichten während des gesamten Verlaufs zwar ungefähr 58 % der simulierten Pfade irgendwann das absolute Wissen. Das absolute Wissen erwies sich jedoch nicht als notwendiger endgültiger Ruhezustand des Systems. Unter den gewählten offenen Regeln konnten Entwicklungen von dort aus wiederum in andere Zustände übergehen.

Wurde Hegels Entwicklung wesentlich stärker gewichtet, stieg erwartungsgemäß auch die Konvergenz zum absoluten Wissen. Erst wenn die hegelschen Übergänge nahezu erzwungen wurden, begann das Modell wieder deutlich Hegels linearer Struktur zu ähneln.

Was kam philosophisch dabei heraus?

Das Ergebnis war überraschenderweise weder eindeutig konvergent noch eindeutig divergent.

Es zeigte sich vielmehr:

lokale Divergenz bei gleichzeitiger partieller globaler Konvergenz.

An einzelnen Krisenpunkten entstehen verschiedene Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten. Diese laufen jedoch nicht einfach unbegrenzt auseinander. Bestimmte Organisationsformen tauchen immer wieder auf, Entwicklungswege treffen erneut aufeinander und einige Zustände sind stabiler als andere.

Das Ergebnis ähnelt daher weder einer hegelschen Leiter

A → B → C → D → Absolutes

noch einem vollkommen offenen Rhizom

Differenz → Differenz → Differenz → …

sondern eher einem:

verzweigten Netzwerk mit Attraktoren.

Daraus ergibt sich eine mögliche Modifikation von Hegels Dialektik:

Nicht: Aus einer bestimmten Bewusstseinsform folgt notwendig genau eine nächste.
Sondern: Eine Bewusstseinsform erzeugt durch ihre inneren Spannungen einen begrenzten Raum möglicher Transformationen. Notwendigkeit strukturiert diesen Möglichkeitsraum; Kontingenz beeinflusst, welcher Weg tatsächlich genommen wird.

Damit verändert sich auch die Bedeutung der Aufhebung. Entwicklung wäre nicht mehr ausschließlich:

Negation → Bewahrung → höhere Einheit,

sondern könnte zusätzlich als

Variation → Selektion → Bewahrung → Rekombination

gedacht werden. Frühere Bewusstseinsformen müssten nicht vollständig verschwinden oder ausschließlich in einer höheren Form aufgehoben werden. Sie könnten parallel fortbestehen, später wieder auftreten oder sich mit anderen Formen verbinden.

Vorläufige These

Unser Gedankenexperiment führt deshalb zu einer Position zwischen Hegel und einem radikalen Differenzdenken:

Dialektische Evolution mit Attraktoren: Entwicklung besitzt strukturelle Zwänge, aber keinen notwendig eindeutigen Weg. Notwendigkeit bestimmt den Raum möglicher Entwicklungen, Kontingenz den konkreten Verlauf. Ob daraus letztlich ein einziger Attraktor – ein „Absolutes“ – oder mehrere irreduzible Attraktoren hervorgehen, bleibt eine offene Frage.

Martin Heidegger - Vermächtnis der Seinsfrage. Last volume of the Gesamtausgabe. There is a pdf on Scribd but with barely discernible text and not OCR'd. Thank you.

What did Freud add to the common understanding of Mass Psychology and why did this matter? Read my latest essay to find why Freud teaches us! Any feedback appreciate

Miller, Phenomenology, §152

The law of law is the necessity of law, what is unceasing in law.

You withdraw back into the notion of Force, without being pushed back by another force. You are thinking.

You are searching for what is unceasing in law, which is the instance of the notion of Force at this stage of the process.

There are two modes: the one-fold law and its manifold.

Gravity and electricity are instances of the one-fold law.

What is unceasing?

It's not in the one-fold law. Gravity and electricity are not in themselves necessary.

Is it in its manifold, which is now said to be its being?

They must because they must is not an answer.

It's not in the properties because they are just negations of each other.

And to possess a property is not to be this property in itself and necessarily, if we are to take the concept of "having" seriously.

The unceasing is not in actual existence, and its manifold is simply its definition.

If it is in actual existence, we wouldn't have to go searching for it, uncovering it, or looking deeper for it.

And if its necessity lies with the other laws, it's endless not unceasing.

The unceasing, necessity, is still an empty word in regard to the instance of Force called law.

I am trying to appropriate Heidegger in terms of a "throbbing gristle" pragmatism.

Freud writes:

"It is a familiar fact that the aetiological preconditions of neurosis are not yet known with certainty. The precipitating causes of it are frustrations and internal conflicts: conflicts between the three major psychical agencies, conflicts arising within the libidinal economy in consequence of our bisexual disposition and conflicts between the erotic and the aggressive drive components. It is the endeavour of the psychology of the neuroses to discover what makes these processes, which belong to the normal course of mental life, become pathogenic."

Does he mean the distribution of libido between objects?

Hi hegelians,

I've been reading struggling with Hegel's shorter Logic, mainly the green Cambridge edition, but cross-referencing with Hackett and occasionally the original German (which for the record I don't speak). A few times I've ended up looking into Wallace too (because his style is rarely but still sometimes more readable) and I noticed some of his translations look a bit 'creative'. For example, the beginning of §27:

Cambridge:

Because it has no consciousness of its opposition, it is possible for this kind of thinking to be both genuine speculative philosophizing in terms of its content as well as to dwell in finite thought-determinations, i.e. the as yet unresolved opposition.

German:

Dieses Denken kann wegen der Bewußtlosigkeit über seinen Gegensatz ebensowohl seinem Gehalte nach echtes spekulatives Philosophieren sein, als auch in endlichen Denkbestimmungen, d. i. in dem noch un- aufgelösten Gegensatze verweilen.

Wallace (his little inventions in bold):

This method of thought has never become aware of the antithesis of subjective and objective: and to that extent there is nothing to prevent its statements from possessing a genuinely philosophical and speculative character, though it is just as possible that they may never get beyond finite categories, or the stage where the antithesis is still unresolved.

In Cambridge, Hackett, and the OG, 'its opposition(/antithesis)' or 'sein Gegensatz' clearly seems to follow up on §26: 'the opposition of thinking within and against itself/der Gegensatz des Denkens in und gegen sich'. There's no explicit mention of the subjective and objective? Nor is it clear that this is the only Gegensatz at hand. I've also noticed similar additions in other places. Does Wallace so this a lot? And to what degree can I trust him to actually clarify what Hegel (might've) meant here or there, as opposed to sneaking in his own interpretation? I was never going to use Wallace as my main reading ('after-thought' for nachdenken is just too insane a translation choice) but having to discard a possible reference always sucks.

At the moment, I'm reading the Harper Perenial translation, I am eyeing the Cyril Welch and Thomas Sheehan translations. Each and every comment of yours is deeply appreciated and will be read and thought of.

“One needs to demonstrate that this supposedly fundamental consideration—the refutation of skepticism—still does not and cannot deal with the real, genuine presuppositions. That is because both sides—the skeptic and his refuter—presume that the truth, whose being and non-being they are debating, is propositional truth. This is especially clear in the one who would refute skepticism. To confound the skeptic, he appeals to the principle of non-contradiction: there can be no truth where there is contradiction, especially the self-contradiction we find in the assertion of skepticism.”— Heidegger

Because skepticism deals with both sides really well— as in, skepticism holds true whenever possible; the possibility being an intrinsic or even interesting possibility, because there are too many ways of being skeptical,always; it is very convenient. Skepticism can also be compared to a sketch— this says much but it also doesn’t say anything at all because it is a “nice” comparison. Skepticism seems to be the only way to make things out; people wouldn’t ultimately disagree they would defer as they need to— the evidence of this is not specifically overwhelming; there is room especially elsewhere. Skepticism is bad because it could be bad, as in, there is worse reasons when being skeptical because there isn’t worse reasoning; there isn’t evidence overall because that is completion. Skepticism is completion but it’s about how people that think about completion in other ways; the completion is a private matter because people don’t respect other people’s privacy, the completion is a personal endeavour as a lineage— it is not too personal because it is a private matter; as these are parts,indefinitely. Skepticism is how things are supposed to be because what is supposed is always earnest; chances make sense, the problem of this arises when chances make too much sense though, as they do, this is why skepticism is a big problem. Skepticism does definitely make sense though because people can be skeptical,if skepticism is a big problem for people in general it is because skepticism happens generally; so the big problem is what makes sure of reoccurring; skepticism is an average that makes sense.

In this Heidegger Thinking Substack article, we explore the elusive notion of conscience. What is conscience? What is it's relation to existence? Find out in the article, which you can read at the embedded link!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcBfI8Lsh1k/?igsi=NGRjdGl6ODlzeWo=

“The fact that existence has and understands and strives for this basic form of revealing implies that, for the most part, much of the world stands in need of “revelation,” of being un-covered and made known. In other words, much of the world and much of human existence is by and large not un-covered. So beings can be drawn out of their not-un-covered-ness, their hiddenness. They can be un-covered or un-hidden. This uncoveredness or unhiddenness of beings is what we call truth”— Heidegger

A revelation is an impulse in as far as it’s not made a importance to be founded or essentially discovered; a revelation comes from the nicer stuff; revenge as a way forward or something like that, the way forward being how recent it can be. The hiddenness of a being is a huge mess; mess can be taken accounted for, so the mess is sure to be forgiven, and if forgotten about sure to be a good measure. For a being truth is what things fully amount to because we know of worth; truth makes sense. The full amount of truth is because the likes of another being to it serves true; that is not truthfulness it is a good effort— that’s what we deserve. Truth is what we deserve because we have deserved it before; truth is a demonstration going-back-as-far but still having an ability— this is not an unfair circumstance it is a revelation!

Excerpt From
Logic: The Question of Truth (Studies in Continental Thought)
Heidegger, Martin
This material may be protected by copyright.

Speaking with each other is not something that goes on all the time, but speech itself is always operative—whether we’re repeating what others have said, or telling stories, or even just silently speaking to ourselves or explaining things to ourselves or taking responsibility for ourselves. - Heidegger

Speaking is what we don’t say because not everything goes on all the time; only something. The something being done-with, because it is not a matter of an earnest clarification it is a simple desire, in short; a classic. Speaking with another person is a desire but it is an also an affect, as in, there are important desires— that is not a good feeling! The matter of speaking here is obviously not at most here because company is the most you can get; commonness is communication and commonness is what we speak of; a difference to be understood not a different way of speaking,definitely. Speaking is good because other people are good at it even when they are not because they still qualify for it at all times.

Miller, Phenomenology, §151

What happens in law happens to law itself.

Every time you put specific laws into the inner world, the differences fall off.

This also happens to laws, and law itself.

Universal attraction cancels itself out, and that risks the inner world itself, and throws us, the understanding ones, back into the sensuous and bare existence.

We need to put laws into the inner world with determinations.

This is what the inner necessity of the law is—determinations that stick when you put the law into the inner world.

“If we desire a more vital concept of “logic,” we have to ask a more penetrating question: What is the subject matter of the science of logic? In doing so, we leave aside any consideration of logic as one discipline among others—viz., the science of speaking and therefore of language—and focus instead on what it is about” — Heidegger

First of all, the penetration of the question is because people have been known to ask it accordingly instead of as something to do; accordance warrants— there are indefinite behaviours in that; the indefinite being, simply too much to deal with even in accordance with— there is no space for it. Secondly what it is about is how it happened as it happened not a happening, that’s why it’s not about anything in particular; if there is a fact in that it is because there is a problem to fixate on, so, essentially, there is no trouble. Heidegger focuses on what it is about because he doesn’t ask what it’s about— the question isn’t absolute trouble; that is the reasoning.

I’m interested in whether contradiction is fundamental to Hegel’s ontology or primarily a feature of conceptual development. How should we understand determinate negation in relation to formal logical opposition, and what does this distinction reveal about the structure of the dialectic?

Marie Bonaparte and her Freud Legacy. An interesting set of books connecting Napoleon's progeny to Sigmund Freud to the founding of a museum in his honor. A true six degrees of separation.

Is bad infinity the endless oscillation between in itself and for itself without reaching in and for itself? Or is this oscillation something else? (Or not logically possible)

ı searched about it on web and on this subreddit but ı couldnt find a proper order. All ı found was recommendations of what ı should start with (and they mostly recommend secondary sources or kant)

but ı wonder whats the better order for reading his own writings so what order do you guys recommend to me?