None of this shit makes sense to me. In fact, I spent a decent amount of time on forums dedicated to discussing things like critical theory. This only confused me more, and the people who discuss these topics openly and often admit they don't know what the hell their theories mean. Moreover, everyone seems to have a different interpretation of everyone else.
Is this a tangible philosophy in the sense that it can be encompassing and intelligible or is this verbal masturbation for radical leftists?
>read the intro to phenomenology of spirit >go to read the wiki because wtf
I shit you not this is a real quote about Phenomonology of Spirit on the wiki: "Hegel's approach, referred to as the Hegelian method, consists of actually examining consciousness' experience of both itself and of its objects and eliciting the contradictions and dynamic movement that come to light in looking at this experience."
The more you try to reduce this the more absurd it becomes, and don't even get me fucking starting on the likes of Foucoult, Zizek, or Derrida. This is not to say that there might not be legitimacy to someone like Zizek or Hegel, but it is to say that some of their work is so inaccessible as to verge on horseshit.
Someone needs to explain this shit to me like I'm a 3 year old because I doubt more every day
I'm becoming convinced that academics that write about this garbage are just masturbating a la Sokal, being ever so careful to maintain ambiguous but similar themes.
a few points to make before this thread goes any further
1. the user has pretended to make an honest effort at understanding difficulty texts. don't be fooled though, because 2. he spends his times on forums instead of reading the difficult texts he wants to understand 3. he uses wikipedia to try and get a handle on hegel.
he's an idiot, and not worth more time than it takes to type the following sentence:
SPEND MORE TIME READING BOOKS, FAGGOT.
Adam Wright
i am about to go to sleep but would like to discuss this so i will check back tmrrw morning. if you want to talk 1on1 lmk and i'll make a burner email.
Matthew Wood
a few points before this thread goes any further
1. this user makes absolutely retarded assumptions based off limited information 2 he spends his time shitposting on forums instead of using the platform for substantive discussion
SPEND LESS TIME MOUTHBREATHING, user
Jonathan Hughes
pangaro.com/definition-cybernetics.html
in any case, read this. it seems unrelated. it is not.
Landon Sullivan
>I spent a decent amount of time on forums > This only confused me more
SPEND MORE TIME READING BOOKS, FAGGOT.
Grayson Nguyen
>read more books >no suggested books yea ok
Tyler Bailey
Well, if you want to understand Hegel read Hegel. If you want to understand Foucoult, read Foucoult. Are you retarded?
Mason Price
>If you want to understand Foucault, read Foucault
This is what leftists actually believe
post-structuralists are done kek
Oliver Lee
Better to read introductory texts tbph. The Oxford Very Short Introductions are probably a good place to start.
Jeremiah Jones
>Hegel's approach, referred to as the Hegelian method, consists of actually examining consciousness' experience of both itself and of its objects and eliciting the contradictions and dynamic movement that come to light in looking at this experience
Why's that hard? I don't recommend reading Wikipedia instead of actual books, but 1. Hegel examines how consciousness experiences itself 2. Hegel examines how consciousness experiences other things 3. Hegel brings out contradictions and movement that are revealed in the process of experiencing things
Robert Reyes
yo, reading comprehension is cool. OP is not talking about specific theorists. also i'm obviously not OP you fucking moron. pls read before you run your mouth
Dylan Butler
>I shit you not this is a real quote about Phenomonology of Spirit on the wiki: "Hegel's approach, referred to as the Hegelian method, consists of actually examining consciousness' experience of both itself and of its objects and eliciting the contradictions and dynamic movement that come to light in looking at this experience."
I'm not an expert but this is how I understand it (I'm either completely right or completely wrong about it).
First the title. Phenomenon are things which can be directly observed, they are things "out there" in the world. Phenomenology is the study of the observation of those things. The German word for 'spirit' is the same word for 'mind', so the title of the work could also be translated as Phenomenology of Mind. In other words the book's title means it is a study of how the spirit/mind experiences the world.
Hegel thinks this is so fundamental that it has to be understood before anything else can be understood.
Hegel argues that we don't merely experience phenomena through sensory data, but that we (our minds) pre-possess a 'conceptual apparatus' that must exist for us to make sense of that sensory data. So... "examining consciousness' experience of both itself and of its objects"
This moment of experience is where Hegel says his dialectic (dialogue) comes in. There are two elements in contradiction to each other: the concept in the mind and the sense data. They contradict because they are not the same and according to Hegel both of these things negate themselves because they are insufficient in themselves: concepts are just empty abstractions, while sense data are unreliable. What happens according to Hegel is they combine to negate each other's negation, producing a new higher concept (which is a fancy way of saying that by experiencing things our knowledge of them becomes more sophisticated, our concepts sharper and more true). He calls that sublation. So... "eliciting the contradictions and dynamic movement"
Hegel's method is to reason through this process from the very basics (starting with 'being' and 'nothing'), arriving through sublation to higher and higher, ever more true, knowledge, eventually to an apparent understanding of how consciousness experiences itself and how history has progressed.
I think it's bs.
Oliver Cook
Why is it that all over reaching, incoherent, unfalsifiable, and just plain stupid academic theories / areas viciously denounced unless they conform to the preferences of left wing critical theory lovers. Why can't people see that they're all charlatans?
I see topics trying to decipher Hegel and I don't know who's trolling who or if the posters are all low IQers. Rather than try to understand the internal logic of Hegel, why not treat it as a black box and ask its practitioners to make falsifiable predictions with it. I'm sure that's fucking easy for them since they never shut up about how Capeetal / History is explained by their theories. If they manage to predict things then we have a good sign that the theory isn't self referential nonsense.
Of course what I am describing is feasible yet I am humouring them because they'd never do it and I know right this second there are outraged people who will say I am stupid. They will say the theory shouldn't have to do anything. And then I will ask, "So why should your theory be given attention or government subsidies over the infinitely many possible other theories?" Then I will get no answer.
Literary theory and critical theory are two different things.
Chase Rogers
So this is the power of analytic philosophy....
Sebastian Russell
hardly
Zachary Cook
Social research is not a book, shaddap
Jordan Bennett
is right not by that much I dont know who ever gave you the impression philosophy is easy. Hegel is notoriously one of the hardest thinkers to get a hold on. The 'i dont understand it so its horseshit' is a common ego-defense technique that lets you get away with not facing your stupidity.
without being somewhat humble or being able to put in the work you literally might as well read /b/ to understand mathematics. fix your attitude and put in the work op
Justin Reyes
>analytic philosophy
wut
Hunter Martinez
Is this the autism containment thread? So what's the deal with you guys and avoiding other people's eyes or just staring endlessly if you're told to stop avoiding them? Just look at the eyes for a bit, then don't, then do it again.
Ayden Gutierrez
>thread claims Critical Theory/Post Structuralism is incoherent >cites Hegel, an Idealist, the guy who literally invented modernist philosophy
OP, if you want to understand PoMo, you shouldn't be reading Hegel.
Chase Thompson
That's a weird way to spell Kant
Angel Stewart
>I'm becoming convinced that academics that write about this garbage are just masturbating a la Sokal, being ever so careful to maintain ambiguous but similar themes. There's certainly no conspiracy going on but the Anglosphere worships third grade novelty philosophasts like Hegel Nietzsche and Heidegger for some reason. They shit out a thousand phd theses per year on them while ignoring e.g. Kant's preemptive rebuttal or more interesting philosophers from the respective time frames. This is really confusing for Germans. I think it comes down to language barriers and memes. Mostly memes. The point is to sound smart. American pragmatism boys, hallelujah.
Brandon Bailey
Kant's concepts of history certainly laid the groundwork for Hegel, but I think Hegel's theories on history are the essential "modernist" method of thinking (progress, world historic individuals, zeitgeist, dialectics, etc).
I get what you're saying though, Kant is thought of as the founder of modern philosophy, but when it comes to "Modernism" or "Modernist Thought", I think Hegel is the more important thinker.
Hunter Garcia
>thread about the obfuscation of critical theory by the sophists who espouse it >literally one person ITT makes an attempt to explain part of Hegel's theories >everyone else acts smug and says "read the books" as if they're the only super elite erudite people to try
Aren't you guys proving the point of post-structuralists being mere sophists by evading OP's want for an explanation entirely and smugly shitting about like a pigeon on a chessboard?
Jeremiah Jenkins
Read Frederick Copplestone's History of Philosophy - at least the last couple of volumes - and then Jonathan Cullers' On Deconstruction and you'll have a decent idea of what's going on in the field you're talking about.
Matthew Sullivan
>continental obscurantist shit Don't.
Parker Anderson
They're extreme people formulating extreme philosophies to justify the way they are The idea that science is oppressive is not totally controversial, in fact Nietsche said that the pursuit of knowledge is probably not what compels scientists to study things. But anyway to conclude that science only exists to oppress people and it can't be trusted is pretty insane It may not be perfect but its certainly the best we have
Joshua Walker
I thought Hegel was totally against the idea of innate biological frameworks
