From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Feb 29 2004 - 21:42:31 GMT
Hi folks
You can see from the Pirsig quote the real problem with Hegel.
Hegel gives us his magnificent system, it is well worth it if
you have the five years you need to get to grips with it.
-Intellectual membership cards required. Instead Pirsig gives us
experience=value=quality. We all have a chance of grasping this.
But for those that are interested, Hegel is trying to do some of the
same things as Pirsig. The attacks on Hegel from the likes
of Nietzsche were about the lack of individual DQ recognised by Hegel.
Hegel draws a great picture of universal/absolute idealism marching through
history creatively laying down lots of SQ and levels, but where is the
individual,
where is individual freedom in this march? Now, this may be unfair on Hegel
read one way, but there is a fault of explanation and emphasis in Hegel.
Essentially, Hegel opposes absolute idealism to Kant's subjective idealism.
he does this because he feels that Kant''s idealism is full of dualisms.
From the Cambridge Companion To German Idealism ed. by K Ameriks
quoting Hegel's logic:
Objectivity of thought, in Kant's sense, is again to a certain sense
subjective.Thoughts, according to Kant, although universal and necessary
categories, are only our thoughts - separated by an impassable gulf from the
thing, as it exists apart from our knowledge. But the true objectivity of
thinking means that the thoughts, far from being merely ours, must at the
same time be the real essence of the things, and of whatever is an object to
us.
If you substitute DQ for imagination in the below (also from Ameriks' book)
I think you will see where Hegel is coming from:
the "imagination must not be understood as a middle term that is shoved in
between an existing absolute subject and an absolute existing world, but
must rather be understood as that which is first and original and out of
which the subjective I as well as the objective world first separate
themselves into a necessarily bipartite appearance and product."
Where Pirsig says SQ, Plato says forms, Hegel says ideas. Like Pirsig, Hegel
does not like Plato's eternal forms,
the key to history is clearly change for Hegel, to understand the creation
of the world of dualistic opposites one has
to grasp in the understanding what they have in common, what is the more
fundamental unity, this is the basis of Hegel's
dialectic, often misunderstood as synthesis, a word not seen in Hegel. For
Hegel the cosmos is therefore intelligible.
Since Hegel's passing we have ceased to aspire to such a unified form of
knowledge, we are generally Kantian's who
cannot see any way of reaching the thing-in-itself to know it. Hegel says
this thing-in-itself is just a concept, a projection
from consciousness implying an underlying unity. Of course, hegel goes on to
imply that this unity extends to consciouness
(you could say quality) as a whole. Hegel takes on the implications of this,
Pirsig only hints at it. If DQ is universal
where does that leave human individuality? Is individuality only a matter of
finite SQ? This is the implication the
anti-Hegelians take. But is that what Hegel was implying? What does Hegel
mean by the term infinite? Does it resemble
Pirsig's DQ in its openness? He certainly describes his philosophy as a
practical realisation of freedom. that will have to do for now. Perhaps
Matthew K can remind us what the rejecting of Hegelianism involved.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Platt Holden" <pholden@sc.rr.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: MD German Idealism
> DMB, DM:
>
> > dmb says:
> > David, I'm just saying yep, yep and here's a question. I can't locate
the
> > quote at the moment, but Pirsig puts some distance between the MOQ and
any
> > "Hegalian Absolutues". Maybe you know the one? Anyway, I've often
wondered
> > EXACTLY what that means. If you've spent 17 years on the Germans, surely
> > you're the man to ask aboout "Hegalian Absolutes". If you can provide a
> > clear and detailed explanation, I believe it would be a forum first. I
> > mean, I'd bet lots of people would like to read such a thing. Thanks.
>
> The quote is Chap. 29 of LIla:
>
> "It adds that this good is not a social code or some intellectualized
> Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience. Through this
> identification of pure value with pure experience, the Metaphysics of
> Quality paves the way for an enlarged way of looking at experience which
> can resolve all sorts of anomalies that traditional empiricism has not
> been able to cope with."
>
>
> >
> >
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