I mostly agree with you except of course it isn’t the objects let alone the whole jumble of objects in the world which is rational. “Rational” describes the relations between the objects as those are perceived and more and more understood from the point of view of a particular being, ourselves in this case. But to think we can ever explain the universe or the cosmos as a whole? We can learn more and more but ever understand everything in such depth and completeness that we can explain everything? Don’t think so. Why would it even matter? It would be better to understand what we are and what really should matter to us but we have no way to discover that as a fact. If we ever do approach that goal we will not possess the answers as settled facts. Hopefully we’ll get better at recognizing where we can rely on our explanations and where we must proceed with less certainty.
Just my $.02’s worth of course but I can’t see why understanding what we can would ever be a waste of our time.
Thank you! That’s exactly the word I needed … so close, but I couldn’t get the lightning to strike.
My curiosity is piqued. I don’t know much of Hegel - I think Penner mentions him somewhere. Usually when I hear references to him it’s seemed unfavorable. Will have to see how he influences Kierkegaard and through him, Penner & Co.
Me too. Just a casual perusal of Hegel on Wikipedia shows a whole lot more than I’m prepared to delve into - which I guess isn’t surprising, regarding a philosopher of his status. It’s interesting that he gets praise from such a diverse cast of characters from Karl Barth to Marx and Nietzsche. But maybe this paragraph is revealing:
Hegel’s influence was immense in philosophy and other sciences. Throughout the 19th century, many chairs of philosophy around Europe were held by Hegelians and Søren Kierkegaard, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—among many others—were deeply influenced by, but also strongly opposed to many of Hegel’s central philosophical themes. Scholars continue to point out Hegelian influences in a range of theoretical and/or learned works, such as Carl von Clausewitz’s book on strategic thought, After less than a generation, Hegel’s philosophy was banned by the Prussian right-wing and was firmly rejected by the left-wing in multiple official writings.
Kierkegaard got engaged to Regine Olsen in Sept. 1840, then immediately regretted it, had 2nd thoughts, and went through inner turmoil until he finally gave Regine the engagement ring back, in August 1841 Copenhagen gossip filled the air, and he went to Berlin and attended the University.
Friedrich Scheller was a professor there and lectured on Hegel (who had died in 1831). Kierkegaard attended the lectures. [Karl Marx also attended the lectures; “diallectic” is a big word in Marx’s philosophy.]
Hegel was “a powerful influence on all European intellectual life at the time.”
One of my best friends in the dorm in Munich was a Yugoslavian Marxist, studying physics. He introduced me to this semi-Hegelian dialectical formulation (in German, of course):
These => Antithese => Prothese
My impression is that Hegel was a prolific “genius”, to use Kierkegaard’s term in a pejorative way:
Lectures on Aesthetics
Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Lectures on the History of Philosophy
Lectures on Logic
Of Hegel’s philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: “If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right.”
Hegel’s quote was a response to his detractors.
P.S. In 1947, Bertrand Russell wrote: "Hegel’s philosophy is so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get sane men to accept it, but he did. He set it out with so much obscurity that people thought it must be profound. It can quite easily be expounded lucidly in words of one syllable, but then its absurdity becomes obvious.
Terry! I wish I had been aware of Schopenhauer’s and Russel’s evaluations of Hegel’s work. They would have saved me a great deal of time, trying to decide how to comment on some of my Freshman Comp students’ papers back in ‘92/‘93.
You deserve an award for putting it out there like that. Good background for understanding where you are coming from. And I was pleasantly surprised to learn online discussions are new for you. I would have guessed otherwise. It helps that the forum here is full of thoughtful participants and judicial moderators.
I particularly enjoyed Schopenhauer’s quote about the cuttlefish:
“May Hegel’s philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare’s words: “Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not,” or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus.”
As an undergrad, I heard Douglas Wilson preaching a sermon on the Trinity. One of his main points was about how unity and diversity are ultimately real in the Trinity.
Shortly after I was in a class on Marxism, and something was being said about Marx’s dialectical materialism, and I thought it was something how the coequal nature of unity and diversity short circuits the whole dialectical metaphysic of being and nonbeing and becoming.
If they are ultimate, then there is no contradiction or antagonism between the two, and no need for a synthesis.
I might well do, but am unfamliar with the terminology as you employ it.
As far as my surface level understanding of “coequal status of unity and diversity in the history of thought,” I would direct you to any non-dominant group of thinkers for a very different take on “coequal status.”
I think I’ve mentioned most of this before around here, but maybe not in a thread you’ve been reading. So, more about ME!
Have a strong background in English-language, multi-cultural literature and a broad overview of critical theory, particularly associated with literature, all of which I completed before 1998. My undergrad major was German language, so I have a undergrad’s level background in German literature (completed in the dark ages), but that part of my education did not include critical theory (came before it). Critical theory leans heavily on philosophy, so one becomes acquainted with names and broad generalizations, but a deep dive in philosophy was not part of my work. All of the lit and theory were actually part of my advanced teacher training. It was an unusal direction in teacher preparation that I have found more valuable in life as a human(particularly since I eventually left teaching) than I would have found methods courses.
The kinds of literature I worked with (and sometimes still do) strongly reinforced and undergirded my understanding of postmodernism. I’ve handled many taboos that don’t fit well with my traditional Baptist theological background. I value them highly. But they can make church life rather uncomfortable at times.
I believe Penner is just illustrating how daunting the arguments against belief in God or gods can be to answer when he writes this toward the beginning of chapter two at the end of p78:
When, for example, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow tell
us “M-theory is the only model that has all the properties we think
the final theory [i.e., ‘the ultimate theory of everything’] ought to
have,” and M-theory in turn answers all the questions of creation so
belief in God is irrelevant, how many of us, really, are in a position
to disagree (or agree, for that matter)?
It is obtuse to speak of a hypothetical theory of every-thing. What classes of things, qualities, concepts and notions qualify as ‘things’ which would be relevant in a theory proposed by physicists? Would physics be qualified to rule on what may or may not be be the significance of a character mentioned in the Bible? If quarks exist then Poe’s raven cannot?
Unfortunately the seemingly deliberate attempt to intimidate and coerce beliefs of the religious by embedding the criticism within highly technical aspects from an entirely unrelated field seems to have inspired the hired gun apologists to frequently attempt to do the same, another example of secularity corrupting Christian practice.
I’m not following whether you understand the concepts or you are directing me someplace else for a different understanding.
As this is very significant to my understanding of philosophy and as a means of witness, I am interested to see what others have to say about coequals.
Even in political philosophy, I found the coequal status of fairness and desert to be wildly revolutionary to understanding justice.
Edit: Regarding the first paragraph, I’m not sure if I should explain the terms or you think I’ve not adequately understood coequality.
