I read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and found it quite insightful, but I read it with the purpose of reading Hegel. I've heard such fanciful statements as "All philosophy is now a response to Hegel," "Marxism descends from Hegel," etc. I figured I needed to know about Hegel's thought to understand all of this.
So I get to Phenomenology of Spirit. It literally just seems he says, "Assume Cognition is the Absolute (ie. It's True)." He then follows his famous path from sense-certainty, to perception, to understanding, to self-consciousness, to Reason, in order to show that the only way Cognition is the Absolute is when it is knowing itself. Then halfway into the book he comes to the not so surprising conclusion that Cognition (Reason) is Absolute, that knowledge is Reason getting to know itself.
Is this it? How is it that anyone saw Kant mild scepticism which results from assuming that cognition is imperfect, saw how reasonable it's results were, compared this with Hegel's "Cognition is always right, thus Knowledge is Reason getting to know itself," and picked Hegel. Am I missing something? Is it all just a big fucking meme and now I'm stuck reading Hegel because philosophers think its funny?
well the thing is kant is a liberal faggot, I'm not going to let your fucking faggotry stand and just agree to disagree, see logic isn't fucking formal speech it's actually the real external productive developments of humanity, from the perspective of the self development of conciousness, for hegel, history was moving towards a systamatic end... but marx demonstrated that we must leave, and return, to ourselves in creating alien forces that mystify and dominate us, it's absoultly necessary to reconstruct this to see the changing conceptual categories that orient our activity, phenomenology isn't the process its a reconstruction of the logic of the process essiently serving as a postscript to humanity of sorts
Liam Hall
I guess you are so intelligent you have transcended punctuation.
Xavier Price
I think you might be a little off on why cognition is absolute and what that really means.
>The universal finitude of Cognition, which lies in the one judgment, the presupposition of the contrast (§ 224) — a presupposition in contradiction of which its own act lodges protest — specialises itself more precisely on the face of its own idea. The result of that specialisation is that its two elements receive the aspect of being diverse from each other, and, as they are at least complete, they take up the relation of ‘reflection’, not of ‘notion’, to one another...The truth which such Cognition can reach will therefore be only finite: the infinite truth (of the notion) is isolated and made transcendent, an inaccessible goal in a world of its own. Still in its external action cognition stands under the guidance of the notion, and notional principles form the secret clue to its movement. -Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences
It's absolute because cognition is the only way we can interact with the world. Without cognition, we would be no better than rocks at engaging with the dialectic. It's only through that subjective aspect of cognition that opens the possibility for us to discover any objective truths. He doesn't presuppose ones cognition is "always right", cognition alone cannot comprehend infinite truth.
Liam Myers
Well, part of it is the claim that Kant's epistemological project fails which was a notion picked on heavily by Jacobi, Fichte, Saloman Maimon, Schelling and consequently Hegel.
That is, as according to Kant's account, appearances conform to a priori categories, phenomena/sensible and noumena/intelligible and such, which I am sure you are familiar with. The problem other thought Kant had on his hands however is that he had is that, if Kant held that we know nothing beyond our experiences, how could be possibly know, or postulate, the reality of things-in-themselves? While Kant himself saw his view as moderate, many actually charged him with nihilsim.
Also, Hegel does not think cognition is always right, but thinks that self-consciousness and intersubjectivity can be demonstrated by the principle of sufficient reason as employed by Kant.
Henry Ortiz
>we know nothing beyond our experiences so how could be possibly know, or postulate, the reality of things-in-themselves? Causality. We also know things a priori.
Elijah Williams
Yes, but the issue Kant's critics took to be at hand is the possibility for the knowledge of reality; how do we take these principles as actually expressing something beyond our circle of consciousness and avoid a solipsistic conclusion?
To expand a bit, because I think I worded it poorly,
(1) According to Kant's principle of subject-object identity, the self knows a priori only of objects that it creates or produces according to its intrinsic laws. (2) A priori activity being the condition of all knowledge, the self can only know of things generated by itself and not as reality exists in-itself as it would prior to the self deploying this activity.
and if this is the case, as critics charged, we only know our own mental creations, and not true knowledge of the world.
Also worth mentioning as something Hegel said, is that Kant's divide of noumenal and phenomenal things presupposes knowledge, as to claim there to be a criterion of knowledge simultaneously is a knowledge claim.
Connor Scott
I'll be back to respond to this thread after work this es relevant
Xavier Green
Continental philosophy is fucking retarded. >Dude lets just keeep doing metaphysics even though Kant proved it was impossible in the 18th century LMaO
Evan White
Not even remotely what Kant did. Wittgenstein, maybe, but not Kant.
Cameron Watson
>we only know our own mental creations, and not true knowledge of the world. That's why we call them noumena. But phenomena map to noumena in a consistent manner. The mind cannot know what is outside of it directly but it can know what is inside of it directly.
Doesn't Kant claim just the opposite though? He claims that the existence of other things is necessary, and that "I" is insufficient to explain why we experience phenomena
Anthony Reed
*conclusively proves metaphysics is possible*
pssh...nothing personal...kant
Anthony Green
Yet in the same breath Hegel says Conciousness is the infinite in that there is nothing outside of it, that the Absolute is true, and that what is actual is what is true. He finds fault in our modes of cognition, and instead of claiming that perdhaps our cognitions are faulty, he claims that all that is actual is the Absolute is our Cognition. Yet all of this is avoided if one simply admits that perhaps cognition itself is faulty, and that even Hegel'a self-conciousness is a theoretical more than an actual. Can we truly create a perfect replica of our consciousness to observe, or to consider in being self-concious. If all other modes of cognition fail why not this one?
Aaron Cook
I don't see a problem with this what am I missingI just wanna ride the wave of monism doug
Ethan Lopez
The issue is that Hegel rejects things which cognition does not comprehend as untrue. However cognition, as Hegel shows many times, contains implicit errors within itself, thus it is faulty. Hegel says that if something is comprehended via Reason it is true. But if Reason is faulty, it can comprehend something and that thing be possibly false. Taking the contrapositive, we can then say What is necessarily true can be uncomprehended, thus we arrive at the necessity of true things outside of conciousness, like Kant posits
Andrew Davis
Pose yourself this question: if you know truth, how do you truly know that you know?
It would take an >absolute< knowing to know what it knows, how it knows it, and that it knows how it knows that it knows it. This is all the absolute implies: that if I truly knew, I would have to know absolutely, and this would be a form of self-knowing by necessity.
No form of cognition below Absolute Knowing is effectively absolute, hence their failures. The very fact that we ever knew they were failures to begin with, however, is proof that absolute knowing was there from the beginning. Hegel's major point is that we have in fact always known absolutely even though we are unaware of this. The reality of self-correcting and self-constructing reason is the tell of the existence of an absolute knowing which is fully latent but not yet actual.
If Kant knew the limits of cognition it was only because he had a cognition which surpassed finite cognition of objects. This was a simple critique leveled early on: if we know that cognition is limited this is an oxymoron, for to know a limit is to surpass the limit to be able to tell. The proof is that no one who is truly stupid can ever comprehend that they are stupid.
The stuff on reason and consciousness is stuff you're severely misinterpreting if you don't understand how it relates to absolute knowing's self-reflexivity and movement. Cognition is not always right, in fact it's never right—absolute cognition is the only one that can be 'true' in proper sense.
Wut.
Jace Watson
>Anno Domini 2017 >asymmetric subject-oriented ontologies ISHYGDDT
Zachary Baker
Good post.
Kayden Russell
THE MAN THE LEGEND
Isaiah Jones
Good post as always AW but do you really need to reply to yourself every time
Carter Taylor
>Hegel's major point is that we have in fact always known absolutely even though we are unaware of this. The reality of self-correcting and self-constructing reason is the tell of the existence of an absolute knowing which is fully latent but not yet actual. That's what Kant's whole a priori thing is about.
Adrian Bell
You're going to have to expand on this, because I have no idea what you mean by such a broad term as 'a priori'.
Jackson Morris
Well, sorry is I came out sounding assured or something. I am not an expert or anything like that. I just wanted to know what the major difference between Kant and Hegel is so I depended that you would know better than me what I'm talking about. First, a posteriori knowledge can never be absolute, knowledge that applies universally must necessarily be a priori. Second, in order to know something we need to apply to it criteria of knowledge that are a priori. This much is what Kant says too, right? What is the problem with that? Then about being latent, Kant also says that we don't "know" a priori but rather that a priori principles reflect the underlying structure of our mind and that we only come to "know" them by applying them i.e. the mind cognizes itself. Is this the hazy point? It seems to me that Kant and Hegel are saying the exact same thing. Where precisely is the difference?
Jason Watson
jesus how can you people read this shit. this is stuff me and my friend would think up on our own almost word for word sitting in a car eating mcdonalds at 3am as teenagers. i don't get how people can be captivated by 90% of philosophy, especially epistemology, as opposed to equally nonintuitive but tangible subjects such as physics and math
youve come to a rational conclusion, ok. what have usefulness have you received from it. fucking nothing.
Charles Edwards
Imagine someone saying something similar about history or literature user, that's how you sound. To me atleast this stuff is like art or religion. An important aspect of history because of how it evolves and interacts. Comparing it to physics is the complete wrong approach
Colton Carter
Imagine you bought 10 pounds of something for 10 dollars but then you went home and measured it it came out to be just 9 pounds? It's impossible to know something if you don't understand how the tools you use to measure it work.
Nicholas Russell
Who that?
Gavin Edwards
But this is retarded
Isaac Thompson
i guess i mean specifically studying it. not just engaging with it. as in, the history of it, how philosophers relate, and more specifically ontology and epistemology. they seem like utterly useless and even worse futile exercises in thought.
Jose Perez
Any idiot can say these things, but it takes a special kind of autist to realize that it takes 1000 pages to explain just what this actually means and entails.
Absolute knowing in abstract is nothing but a pittance. Real absolute knowing is a mind breaker, which is why people like you (the common moron who lacks the awareness that they're a moron) are all the more mad when you don't get it since, you know, it's literally beyond your capacity to cognize. If you can't transcend your feeble mind what do you want me to do about it?
By a priori it seems you're mixing the epistemic form with specific structures that are themself a priori, such as the categories. A priori knowledge is simply knowledge that requires no sense experience. Kant's major deal with that is proving synthetic, that is expansive, a priori knowledge was possible. Before him it was thought that a priori knowledge was merely analytic and could never be expanded beyond what it contained. Kant thought we could know the categories, but not know why they were as they were, only that we had them and used them.
Kant's knowing is "knowing of objects." Hegel's knowing is "knowing of knowing," where forms of knowing are the object to be known. They did not have the same object of knowledge, nor did they have the same considerations about what made knowledge legitimate.
Jace Perry
If you think what you typed is above my, or anyone's, ability to cognize you're beyond pretentious. What have you specifically created or achieved in your lifetime? What has your futile exercise given back to you?
Joshua Jackson
I rest my case.
Reiterating the autisitc futile thought exercises of those before you does not make you intelligent (although I don't deny that you are intelligent).
Ryan Smith
>losing your shit on a mongolian picture site just because someone called you a brainlet
I rest my case.
Andrew Thomas
>you're mixing the epistemic form with specific structures that are themself a priori, such as the categories The categories are also forms. They are also a priori. Something that is given a priori is not knowledge but form. Epistemic forms and categories are given at different levels of cognition but when they have in common is that they are forms. >A priori knowledge is simply knowledge that requires no sense experience I don't understand. We can't "know" something without experiencing it. >but not know why they were as they were, only that we had them and used them Isn't that implied by saying they are a priori? Did Hegel disagree with that?
>nor did they have the same considerations about what made knowledge legitimate What is their definition of knowledge then? Can we say that we come to know something by applying the a priori criteria of knowledge to it?
>Kant's knowing is "knowing of objects." Reason applies the criteria of knowledge to concepts of understanding to validate them as knowledge. In this case the concepts of understanding are the object. But reason can also observe itself. Then it is the object.
Or is it that merely applying the criteria is not enough for "knowledge" but that an essential part of knowledge is becoming aware that you have applied those criteria i.e. self-awareness?
Caleb Gutierrez
user, the basic principles of rocket science are not hard to understand. What is hard is actually building a rocket that works.
Landon Kelly
The Chinese have been doing it for at least a millennia, if not two. It's not exactly brain surgery.
Caleb Garcia
Very apt observation. Your understanding of epistemology compares to Kant's or Hegel's as fireworks compare to a NASA space shuttle.
