Directions: find a source and explain how it helps you in your understanding of Hegel
Hegel website sourceWhen reading this writing on Hegel it made some ideas of Hegel clearer to me. As described in the reading, Hegel's idea of how ideas such as cause and effect connect to each other is compared to a collection of organs in an organism. A cause and its effect depend on each other just as the heart and lungs depend on each other. In doing so they contribute to the overall function and operation of the whole body, or in this case Hegelian philosophy. This explains how Hegel's ideas largely build on each other. In creating a logic that is made of cause and effects, Hegel as made a base for his further studies which also argue the connection and dependence of ideas. In understanding that Hegel's work is mostly a compilation of things that depend on each other, it makes sense now how Hegel connects his ideas of logic, consciousness, and politics (master slave relationship).
I also found that Hegel's philosophy is centered around his goal of finding absolute knowledge and absolute ideas. This explains why Hegel spends so much time trying to articulate his ideas on desire and how these ideas lead to the negation of the desire for self consciousness. As we discussed in class, mutual recognition is what Hegel believes will bring absolute knowledge. According to Stephen Houlgate, who we studied in class, the idea of absolute knowing is what actually comes from total mutual recognition of every person in the world. After reading this article on Hegel I have now discovered one of Hegel's important points: true mutual recognition of everyone in the world is what leads to true absolute knowledge and understanding. Also, when ideas are connected they help form one, all inclusive, absolute idea.
In the article, it discusses how Hegel's cause and effect logic works, with positivity, negation, and finally synthesis, which can be applied to essentially every area of human history or creation. I had never thought about the synthesis aspect before, as so much of human's lives nowadays are based on some form of conflict, or negation, and thus when initially reading Hegel by Stephen Houlgate, this concept of synthesis didn't becomes clear to me. The article also talks about how each culture has some sort of philosophical contribution to the absolute truth of the universe, which begs the question, what does our modern, technologically advanced society have to offer, if anything at all? Great post!
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