On Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’ : A Free Reflex of Spirit — part thirty six.
‘The monstrous sea’
by Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930)
The monstrous sea, with melancholy war,
Moateth about our castled shore,
His worldwide elemental moan,
Girdeth our lives with tragic zone.
Awhile to the wind he awakes: his seething ridges go
Following, following, row on row,
Lashed with hail and withering snow,
And ever dauntless hearts outride
The orphaning waters, wild and wide.
But when the winds, out-tired or fled,
Have left the drooping barks unsped,
Gently in calm his waves he swayeth,
And with the gentle moonlight playeth,
And all his mighty Music deep,
Whispers among the heapèd shells,
And tinkles softly with the bells
Of the clowns’ unfolded sheep.
In the twinkling smile of his boundless slumber,
To the rhythm of oars,
When the wild herds of his freedom outnumber
The sands of his shores,
When they toss their manes with delight,
O’er the unpasturing field of the flood,
When the waters have glowed with blood,
And hearts have laughed in the fight.
Return, O Muse! return!
In the old sea songs of renown,
In the noise of battle and victory,
By the mighty life and the changeful voice,
Of the world-encircling sea;
We have called,
O Muse of our isle, to thee.
====
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831). ‘Philosophy of Nature’. ‘Physics’.
The Physical Elements in Nature. In the ‘Philosophy of Nature’ Hegel sets about articulating the sensible experience of nature as elemental by giving a central function in the composition of the natural world to the elements (die Elemente) giving a description of these elements while attributing to each of them the same basic characteristics that they have in sensibility but extending and developing his analysis of these characteristics. In addition the manner by which these elements become qualities belonging to all natural bodies yet continually undermining their distinctness is outlined, its impelling such bodies to modify their elemental qualities in increasingly outlandish ways in the struggle to preserve some individuation. In sum, the determinations of the senses have an earlier existence as attributes of bodies and still more freely as elements:
‘The concrete nature of mind involves for the observer the peculiar difficulty that the particular stages and determinations of the development of its concept do not also remain behind as particular existences in contrast to its deeper formations. It is otherwise in external nature. There, matter and movement have a free existence of their own in the solar system; the determinations of the senses also have a retrospective existence as properties of bodies, and still more freely as the elements, etc. The determinations and stages of the mind, by contrast, are essentially only moments, states, determinations in the higher stages of development. As a consequence of this, a lower and more abstract determination of the mind reveals the presence in it, even empirically, of a higher phase. In sensation, for example, we can find all the higher phases of the mind as its content or determinacy. And so sensation, which is just an abstract form, may to the superficial glance seem to be the essential seat and even the root of that higher content, the religious, the ethical, and so on; and it may seem necessary to consider the determinations of this content as particular species of sensation. But all the same, when lower stages are under consideration, it becomes necessary, in order to draw attention to them in their empirical existence, to refer to higher stages in which they are present only as forms. In this way we need at times to introduce, by anticipation, a content which presents itself only later in the development (e.g. in dealing with natural waking from sleep we speak, by anticipation, of consciousness, in dealing with mental derangement we speak of intellect, etc.)’.
– ‘Philosophy of Mind’.
By this means the conception of the place of the elements in the ‘Philosophy of Nature’ articulates sensible experience into a conceptual, coherently integrated, theory of natural development and the elements in the second main stage of natural development, the ‘Physics’, are introduced. In particular the elements belong in the first phase of physical development, the physics of universal individuality in the text’s first edition merely referred to as elemental physics. During this phase various physical qualities that are not yet attached to individual bodies as properties are described, but they are connected to the planet earth as a whole remaining amorphous and indeterminate, these are the immediate, free, physical qualities.
‘Physics has as its content:
A. The universal individuality of immediate, free, physical qualities.
B. The particular individuality of the relation of form, as a physical determination, to gravity,
and of the determination of gravity by this form.
C. Total or free individuality’.
– ‘Philosophy of Nature’
__________________________________________________
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.
- ‘Exodus’, 16.11–24.
__________________________________________________
Such amorphous qualities are equated with the physical elements that make up the terrestrial atmosphere and following tradition, Hegel numbers four such elements, air, fire, water, and earth, and considering air first he assigns it the same character it had in sensibility whereby it is an insidious power of destruction eating away all bodies.
‘Addition. (a) The inner self of the individual body is the bond of its individuality or the reciprocal relation of its moments. This self-like nature, considered by itself as free and devoid of all posited individualization, is air. Nevertheless, this element contains the implicit determination of being-for-self, or puncticity. Air is the universal as posited in relation to subjectivity, to infinite self-relating negativity, to being-for-self, and is therefore the universal as a subordinate moment in the determination of relativity. Air is indeterminate and absolutely determinable; it is not yet determined within itself, but is merely determinable through its other; this other is light, because light is the free universal. Air is thus related to light; to light it is absolute transparency, it is passive light; in general, it is the universal posited as passivity. In the same way, the good, as the universal, is also passive, for it is first actualized through subjectivity, and does not activate itself. Light is also implicitly passive, but is not posited as such. As it is merely implicit individuality; air is not dark but transparent; opacity first occurs in terrestrialness. (b) In its second determination, air is related to individuality as simple activity and effective identity, while light was merely abstract identity. The lighted object posits itself in another in a merely ideal manner: but air is this identity which is now among its equals, and relates itself to physical materials, which exist for one another and touch one another in accordance with their physical determinateness. The universality of air is consequently the effort which it makes to posit the real identity of the other to which it relates itself. The other which air posits as being identical with itself is however individualization and particularization in general. Yet air itself is mere universality, and consequently it does not come forth in its activity as an individual body having the power to decompose this individualization. Air is therefore purely corrosive, and is hostile to the individual, which it posits as a universal element. Nevertheless, the destruction is not apparent; it is motionless, and does not manifest itself as violence. It slinks in everywhere, without any connection with air: like reason, it insinuates itself into the individual and dissolves it. Consequently, it is the air which gives rise to odours, for odour is merely this invisible and ceaseless process between individual being and air. Everything evaporates and disperses into its parts, and the residue is odourless’.
– ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Fire and water have to be understood as modifications of air. The corrosive, destructive, character of air must realize itself fully at which point air transforms into fire, fire is air posited as negative universality or self-relating negativity.
‘Fire is existent being-for-self, which is negativity as such. It is not however the negativity of another, but negation of the negative which results in universality and sameness. Primary universality is lifeless affirmation; fire is the true affirmation. Not-being is posited within it as being, and vice versa, so that fire is time. Fire is simply conditioned as one of the moments, and like air, exists only in relation to particularized matter. It is activity which is only in opposition, it is not the activity of spirit. In order to consume, it must have something to consume, and if it has no material, it disappears. The life process is also the process of fire, for it also consists of the consumption of particularities, although it is ceaselessly reproducing its material. That which is consumed by fire is sometimes concrete, and sometimes in opposition. To consume concrete being is to bring it into opposition, to animate or ignite it. The oxidation in the causticity of an acid works in this way. This is how concrete being is brought to the extreme point of consuming itself, and so into a state of tension with another. The other aspect of this process is that the determinate, differentiated, and individualized particularity which is present in all concrete being, is reduced to the unity and indeterminateness of neutrality. This is why every chemical process will produce water and give rise to opposition. Fire is air posited with a difference, it is negated unity, and an opposition which is however also reduced to neutrality. The natural element into which fire subsides, and by which it is extinguished, is water. The manifest unity of the triumph of ideal identity to which particularized being is brought, is abstract, the selfhood of light. Since terrestrialness remains over as the foundation of the process, and it is here that all the elements make their appearance’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Having once acknowledged its ferocity air-become-fire sinks back into a relatively neutral and passive state becoming water.
‘Water is the element of selfless opposition, it is passive being-for-other, while fire is active being-for-other. Water has existence as being-for-other therefore. In itself, and throughout its being, it exhibits neither cohesion, odour, taste, nor shape; its determination consists in its not yet being anything in particular. It is abstract neutrality, not individualized neutrality like salt; since very early times it has therefore been called, ‘the mother of everything particular’. Like the air it is fluid, but this is not an elastic fluidity which expands on all sides. It is more terrestrial than air, and tends towards a centre of gravity. It comes close to attaining individuality, because in itself it is concrete neutrality, although it is not yet posited as such. Air, on the other hand, is not even implicitly concrete. Water is therefore the real possibility of difference, although this does not yet exist within it. As it has no centre of gravity within itself, it is merely subject to the direction of gravity, and since it lacks cohesion, each point is pressed in the vertical, linear direction. As no part of it is able to offer resistance to this, water settles into horizontality. Consequently, mechanical pressure from without leaves no permanent mark upon it; the point brought under pressure is unable to maintain itself as such, but communicates itself to the others, which annul the pressure. Water is still transparent, but because it is more terrestrial, it is no longer so transparent as air. As it is neutral, it is the dissolvent of salts and acids. Whatever is dissolved in water, loses its shape; its mechanical relationship is sublated, and only its chemical relationship remains. Water is indifferent to varieties of shape, and a possibility with regard to its elastic fluidity as steam, its liquidity in drops, and its rigidity as ice. The whole of this is merely a state, and a formal transition however. In that they are merely produced externally by a change of temperature, these states depend upon a condition independent of water itself. This is the first consequence of the passivity of water’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Air endlessly becomes fire and water before returning to existence as air, obeying a transformative cycle which Hegel identifies with meteorological processes. The fourth element, earth, is different from the other three in virtue of it not being a modification of air, rather, earth, or more exactly earthiness, Erdigkeit, is the element of developed difference and individual determination.
‘Summarizing the character of the three elements under consideration, it must be said that air constitutes the universal ideality of everything alien to it; that it is the universal in relation to its other, and that it effaces all opposing particularity. Fire is the same universality, but it appears as such, and therefore has the form of being-for-self, it is existent ideality therefore, or the nature of air which has passed into existence; by appearing, it reduces its other to an appearance. The third element is passive neutrality. These are the necessary thought-determinations of these elements. The individual element (Earth). Primarily, the element of developed difference, and its individual determination, is terrestrialness as such. In its distinctness from the other moments, this element is as yet indeterminate; as the totality which holds together the variety of these moments in individual unity however, it is the power which kindles and sustains their process’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Earthiness seemingly is a quality that embodies the general nature of individuation and separateness and light is not included among these four elements since light is classified not as a physical element but an immediate physical quality, a still more primitive form diffused throughout the entire universe, light being understood as the quality within the cosmos that manifests the identity of all bodies through its perfect homogeneity and self-identity. Nonetheless light must in addition be considered in relation to the darkness of the individual planets to which it is opposed and within the context of this relationship light assumes the different guise of a quality that penetrates the darkness of the earth, rendering it manifest. So light has become air, for air is just what seeps through bodies to break down their self-containment and render them accessible, air is a transformation of light, the element of undifferentiated simplicity that is air is no longer the positive identity with self, the self-manifestation, which light as such is, it is merely negative universality, air is directly active against the individual, is active and effective identity, whereas light was only abstract identity.
‘In its second determination, air is related to individuality as simple activity and effective identity, while light was merely abstract identity. The lighted object posits itself in another in a merely ideal manner: but air is this identity which is now among its equals, and relates itself to physical materials, which exist for one another and touch one another in accordance with their physical determinateness. The universality of air is consequently the effort which it makes to posit the real identity of the other to which it relates itself. The other which air posits as being identical with itself is however individualization and particularization in general. Yet air itself is mere universality, and consequently it does not come forth in its activity as an individual body having the power to decompose this individualization. Air is therefore purely corrosive, and is hostile to the individual, which it posits as a universal element. Nevertheless, the destruction is not apparent; it is motionless, and does not manifest itself as violence. It slinks in everywhere, without any connection with air: like reason, it insinuates itself into the individual and dissolves it. Consequently, it is the air which gives rise to odours, for odour is merely this invisible and ceaseless process between individual being and air. Everything evaporates and disperses into its parts, and the residue is odourless. Organic being also comes into conflict with the air through respiration, the elements in general being in a state of conflict with it. A wound, for example, only becomes dangerous through exposure to the air. Only organic life has the determination of perpetually restoring itself in the process of its destruction. Inorganic being, which cannot endure this conflict, must decay, and although that which is of greater consistency conserves itself, it is ceaselessly attacked by the air. Animal forms which are no longer alive, may be preserved from decay if they are removed from contact with the air. This destruction can be mediated however, as when humidity brings the process to a certain product. This is only mediation however, for it is still the air as such which destroys. As the universal, the air is pure, but it is not an inert purity, for that which evaporates into the air does not preserve itself there, but is reduced to simple universality’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
__________________________________________________
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.
- ‘Exodus’, 15.1–13
__________________________________________________
Light becomes air when it enters into a hostile relationship with individual bodies and since light is so close to air one can after all talk about it as though it were one element among the others, for example light kindles the process of the elements, stimulates it, governing it in general.
‘So far we have looked at nature in general, and seen the cosmic forces as independent and objective corporealities which nevertheless remain fIxed in their connections. We now pass over to a consideration of these bodies as moments of individuality. It is precisely individuality which brings their existence into a fuller truth. Light, as positing the identical, is not confirmed soIely to the illumination of dark matter, but subsequently advances into real activity. The particularized matters are not merely mutually apparent, so that each remains what it is, but they change themselves into one another. This positing of themselves as identical and of an ideal nature is also the activity of light. Light kindles, stimulates, and generally governs the elemental process. This process belongs to the individual Earth, which is at first however, still the abstract universal individuality, and which has to solidify to a much greater extent in order to become true individuality. Here the subjective principle of individuality, which is an infinite self-relation, is still exterior to the universal individuality which is not yet reflected into itself, i.e. to the stimulating and animating principle of light. Here we have anticipated the occurrence of this relation, but before we consider the elemental process, we shall have to consider the nature of its individualized differences as they are by themselves. It was only by us that the body of individuality was determined as having the moments of the solar system within it; in its further determination as such, it is autonomous. In the planet, the bodies of the solar system are no longer independent, but are predicates of a subject. There are now four of these elements, and their order is as follows. The air corresponds to light, for it is passive light which has sunk to the level of a moment. The elements of opposition are fire and water. Rigidity, which is the lunar principle, is no longer indifferent being-for-self, but as an element entering into relation with something other than itself, i.e. individuality, it is the full process of active and restless being-for-self, and is therefore liberated negativity, or fire. The third element, water, corresponds to the cometary principle. The fourth is earth once again. The history of philosophy makes it clear that the main importance of Empedocles consists in his having been the first definitely to have grasped and distinguished these basic forms in their physical universality’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Is this depiction of the physical elements mere arcana? Not in the least, he is endeavouring to find above all else a means to articulate what he views as the sensible experience of the elements. John Burbidge concurs that ‘in analysing the universal forms of individuating [the elements] he [Hegel] was not talking about science, but about the most general characteristics of our experience of the world’. Hegel aspires to accommodate humanity’s basic sense that light renders individual objects manifest, that air corrodes their separateness, and that earthiness marks things out as still self-contained, and to accommodate the sense that these all-pervasive elements are not themselves objects with clear boundaries but rather are indeterminate and nebulous physical qualities. Such a concern to articulate sensibility informs his account of how the elements come to pervade and structure all natural bodies that occupies the remainder of the ‘Physics’. The elements are not only diffused throughout the atmosphere but also become qualities of each individual body.
‘In the first instance, gravity is the Notion of matter, and deploys its moments as independent but elemental realities, so that the Earth is the abstract ground of individuality. In its process, the Earth posits itself as the negative unity of juxtaposed and abstract elements, and therefore as real individuality. Addition. The Earth exhibits its real nature in this selfhood, and so distinguishes itself from gravity. Whereas previously we had only the general determinations of weighted matter, we now have qualities which differentiate themselves from it. Weighted matter now relates itself to determinateness therefore; previously it did not do so. This selfhood of light, which was formerly opposed by weighted corporeality, is now the selfhood of matter itself This infinite ideality is now the nature of matter itself, and a relationship is therefore posited between this ideality and the subdued being-in-self of gravity. The physical elements are therefore no longer mere moments of a single subject; the principle of individuality is pervasive, and is therefore the same at all points of this physicality. Instead of one general individuality, we therefore have a multiplication of individualities which also partake of the form of the whole, for each has the form of the whole within it. It is these into which the Earth individualizes itself, and which have to be considered in the second part of the physics’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
This paves the way for a process of the reconstruction and transformation of the physical elements through individuality. The individual body, that which is earthy, is the unity of air, light, fire, water; and the way in which they are in it constitutes the specification of individuality.
‘In crystal, infinite form has only established itself within weighted matter in a spatial manner, and still lacks the specification of difference. Now however, the determinations of form themselves have to appear as differentiated matter, and so constitute the reconstruction and recomposition of the physical elements through individuality. The individual body or the element of earth is the unity of air, light, fire and water; and it is the way in which these elements exist in earth which constitutes the specification of individuality. Light corresponds to air, and the light which is individualized by the darkness of the body is the specific obscuration of a colour. In so far as the combustible and igneous principle is a moment of the individual body, it constitutes its smell. It is the continuous but insensible course of its consumption, it is not what is called its oxidization or combustion in a chemical sense however, it is the individualization of the air in the simplicity of its specific process. As individualized neutrality, water is salt and acid etc., and constitutes the body’s taste. Its neutrality is already an indication of the solubility of the body, or of its real relationship with something else, which constitutes the chemical process. Colour, odour, and taste are properties of individual bodies; they do not exist independently for themselves, but are inherent within a substratum. In the first instance, they are only held within an immediate individuality, and they are therefore mutually indifferent; the properties are therefore material, as is the case with pigments for example. Individuality is still weak, and is unable to retain its hold upon the properties; the unifying power of life is not yet present here as it is in organic being. As particular existences these properties also have the general significance of preserving their connection with that from which they originate: colour is related to light, by which it is bleached; odour is a process involving air; and taste, likewise, keeps up a relation with its abstract element, which is water’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature;
As qualities of individual bodies the elements assume a form different from that which they had as diffuse atmospheric forces, individual bodies are inherently dark hence the quality of transparency or illumination that they assume gets darkened into a colour. The airiness which these bodies take on gradually dissipates them, giving them smell and taste and bodies in addition adopt the quality of earthiness as the embodiment of their individuation. Albeit the elements are modified in becoming properties of bodies they retain their initial indeterminacy and thus undermine the discreteness of the bodies to which they belong and such determinations for instance colour and smell as properties of bodies directly relate to the universal elements and this is the beginning of their dissolution, the power of the universal is an oppositionless penetration and infection (as I said in a previous article I like to slip in a joke now and then to see if my reader is paying attention but I shall resist this obvious opportunity here).
‘Colour, odour, and taste are the three determinations of the particularization of the individual body. With taste, the body passes over into the reality of the chemical process, although this transition is by no means reached as yet. Here, in the first instance, these determinations are still related to the universal elements as the properties of bodies, and it is this which constitutes their incipient volatilization. The penetration and infection of the power of the universal meets no opposition, because the universal is itself the essence of the particular, and is already implicitly contained within it. In organic being, it is by means of the inner universality of the genus that the annihilation of the individual is brought about. We shall discover the same bodies in the chemical process, but there they will be independent entities in process with one another (see § 320 Add. 10 II. I59, 3I), they will no longer be in process with the elements. This begins already in electricity, and it is to this therefore that we have to make our transition. As individualities, these properties are of course also related to one another. As we posit their relation by comparing them, the matter appears at first to concern us alone; it has a further factor however, for the individual corporealities relate themselves to others precisely because they are particulars. Initially therefore, the individualized bodies do not merely subsist in a state of indifference, as in the immediate totality of the crystal, nor do they merely constitute physical differences as differentiations of the elements, for they also have a double relationship to one another. In the first instance, these particularizations are only superficially inter-related, and preserve their independence; as such, they therefore constitute that electric state, which appears throughout the totality of a body. The real relation is the passing of these bodies into one another however; it is this which constitutes the chemical process, and which expresses the deeper aspect of this relationship’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
The elements introduce homogeneity among bodies in response to which they reassert their separateness by further altering and qualifying their elemental properties empirically via chemical processes, and the consequence overall is that bodies differentiate themselves increasingly sharply against their elemental backgrounds by investing their qualities with peculiar characteristics up to the point whereupon these bodies at last attain the form of fully individuated organisms. The elements do not now disappear from the ‘Philosophy of Nature’ but they remain operative within life in only a subordinate manner and this entire account of nature, and in particular of its central physical stage is structured to articulate our sensible experience that the physical elements compose an unstable environment in which bodies are situated. Hegelian descriptions of elemental properties recall sensibility [sinnliche Empfindung] for they denote not simple physical properties belonging objectively to bodies but also subjectivity namely the being of these properties for the subjective sense [Sinn].
‘The mere names of the properties which are about to be discussed bring sensation to mind; this is particularly true in the case of smell and taste, for the physical properties belonging to the body are not merely objective, but also designate the subjectivity of their existence for the subjective senses. Consequently, as these elementary determinatenesses come forth within the sphere of individuality, their relationship with the senses also has to be noticed. This immediately gives rise to two questions. Firstly, why is it that the relationship between the body and the subjective sense occurs at this particular juncture? Secondly, to which objective properties do our five senses correspond? Colour, odour and taste have just been mentioned, but they only constitute the three which corresponds to the senses of sight, smell, and taste. Hearing and touch do not occur here, so that one might well ask where these other two senses have their corresponding objective properties’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Hence the account of the place of the elements in nature is intended to retain this coherence with sensible experience, the claim is that the objective elements always point back to sensibility recalling Goethe’s ‘Farbenlehre’. Goethe first inquires into what he names physiological colours, colours which are ‘wholly, or largely, a property of the observer, of the eye’ — these include, for example, after-images and experiential effects of adaptation to light or darkness. Goethe goes on to study colours as present in external objects but avers that the physiological colours remain the ‘basis for [his] entire theory’. By examining external colours in relation to physiological colors and crystallizing the same principles from both sets of phenomena Goethe aims for a theory of external colours that stays attuned to sensible experience.
And what of Hegel’s objective to articulate sensibility in light of his commitment to theorizing nature using a robust a priori method? In accordance with such a method discussions of light, air, and earth have to be included within his overall picture of nature only insofar as he can construe them as the empirical analogues of forms that he has deduced a priori and described in correspondingly sui generis terms. For example in accordance with such a method light has to be included simply because it is identical to a form previously deduced and described in sui generis terms as a completely homogeneous quality manifesting the identity of all bodies. Likewise air is to be included merely upon interpreting it as identical to a quality that actively opposes itself to individuated materials, the elements are frequently included on this merely interpretive and hence provisional basis, for instance the element of undifferentiated simplicity is a fluidity which penetrates everything, — air.
‘Only organic life has the determination of perpetually restoring itself in the process of its destruction. Inorganic being, which cannot endure this conflict, must decay, and although that which is of greater consistency conserves itself, it is ceaselessly attacked by the air. Animal forms which are no longer alive, may be preserved from decay if they are removed from contact with the air. This destruction can be mediated however, as when humidity brings the process to a certain product. This is only mediation however, for it is still the air as such which destroys. As the universal, the air is pure, but it is not an inert purity, for that which evaporates into the air does not preserve itself there, but is reduced to simple universality. In mechanical physics it is supposed that when such a body has been dissolved, fine particles of it continue to float about in the air, and can no longer be smelt simply because they have been so finely dispersed. Physicists are in fact reluctant to allow these bodies to disintegrate, but we ought not to feel so much compassion for matter, for it is only in the understanding’s system of identity that it has permanence. Air purifies itself and converts everything into air; it is not a mish-mash of matters, and neither odorousness nor chemical investigation suggests that it is. The understanding employs the expedient of tenuity of course, and has an overriding prejudice against the word ‘transmute’, but empirical physics has no right to assert the existence of that which is not given by perception. If it wishes to proceed purely empirically, it has to admit that this body passes away’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
The elements of opposition are, first, being-for-self .posited as a moment of individuality, as its unrest existing for itself, — fire.
‘Primarily, the elements of opposition are being-for-self, not however the indifferent being-for-self of rigidity, but a moment posited within individuality as the being-For-self of its restlessness, i.e. fire In itself air is fire, and it shows this when it is compressed. It is posited in fire as negative universality or self-relating negativity. Fire is materialized time, or selfhood in which light is identical with heat. In its simple restlessness and destruction, into which, as in friction for example, the self-consumption of a body breaks forth, and in the converse but identical activity, by which it penetrates into a body and destroys it from without, fire is the consumption of another which simultaneously consumes itself, and as such passes over into neutrality’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
In both these cases a unique description of the form before affirming its identity with air or fire as described in empirical manner is introduced.
__________________________________________________
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
- 1. Kings 19.1–12
__________________________________________________
May the elements albeit they cannot feature in Hegel’s basic theory can simply be contingent, eliminable, accretions to that theory? But then the theory of nature cannot be said to articulate the sensible experience of it as elemental because that theory refers to the elements only contingently and not essentially. However, although Hegel includes the elements in his account on an interpretive basis they are not eliminable from the text as are the other empirically described forms that enter into his picture of nature. The elements have special status in virtue of the experience of nature as elemental being inherent in all sensible awareness as the most basic pattern structuring any external awareness. In contrast all the other empirical materials featuring in the ‘Philosophy of Nature’ are scientific descriptions and hypotheses that are subject to continual revision and amelioration with the outcome that those materials can merely be incorporated provisionally whereas the sensible experience of elemental nature being invariant has to be incorporated on a final basis. For example insofar as light can be interpreted as identical to pure manifestation this interpretation must be the final say in the matter for the sensible experience of light will never change or be revised. Hence light and the other elements feature necessarily not contingently within Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’ such that reference to sensible experience is an ineliminable aspect of his account of nature.
And so the robust a priori method does not contradict the claim to provide a theory of nature that is phenomenologically adequate, by virtue of the phenomenological coherence of the theory it is more adequate than competing scientific accounts as he emphasises in assessing the modern scientific view that the physical elements are reducible to more basic chemical components. Why does Hegel choose to reinstate the ancient idea of the four elements since this was already quickly becoming anachronistic in his own time? Tthe period 1770–1831 saw the classification of most of the basic chemical elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, and potassium but Hegel purposively rejects the view that the physical elements can be broken down into chemical components for in dealing with the physical elements the concern is not with elements in the chemical sense, the chemical standpoint is by no means not the only one but only a particular sphere with no special privilege to extend itself to other forms as if it were their essence.
‘… in its attempt to attain simplicity, chemistry destroys individuality. If that which is individual is neutral, as a salt is, chemistry will be able to exhibit its distinct aspects, for chemical analysis will only destroy the merely formal unity of its differences. If an organism is broken down however, it is not only the unity which is destroyed, but also the organism one is attempting to understand. In dealing with the physical elements, we are not in the least concerned with elements in the chemical sense. The chemical standpoint is certainly not the only one, it is merely one particular sphere, with no right whatever to impose itself upon other forms, as if it were their essence. It is merely the becoming of individuality that we have before us here, and at first, only the universal individual, the Earth. The elements are the diverse matters, which constitute the moments of this becoming of the universal individual. In short: we must not confuse the standpoint of chemistry with that of the still wholly universal individuality. The chemical elements exhibit no order whatever, and are quite heterogeneous as regards one another. The physical elements on the contrary are universal matters, particularized solely in conformity with the moments of the Notion. There are consequently only four of them. The ancients certainly asserted that everything is composed of these four elements, but they only had the abstract thought of this truth before them’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
The advantage of the view that the four physical elements are more fundamental than the elements revealed in chemical analysis is that this remains continuous with our basic, sensible, experience of things as permeated by light, air, and earth, whereas a chemical analysis of things breaks with this experience, and the concept of a physical element is the concept of a real matter not yet dissipated into a chemical abstraction.
‘The determinations of the elemental totality, which are, by themselves, an immediacy of freely independent bodies, are contained in the body of individuality as subordinate moments. As such, they constitute its universal physical elements. Remark. In recent times, chemical simplicity has been arbitrarily accepted as the definition of an element. This definition has nothing to do with the Notion of a physical element, which is a real matter, and is not yet volatilized into chemical abstraction’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
The idea of the physical elements remains continuous with the real matter of concrete sensible experience,unlike the idea of basic chemical elements that is abstracted, artificially separated, from experience. In 1823–1824, Hegel especially objects to how empirical science generates universals that is to say conceptions of natural forms which abstract from how natural phenomena are present in sensible intuition (sinnliche Anschauung) (Vorlesung über Naturphilosophie Berlin 1823/24. The conclusion is that the theory of nature is unique in the way it articulates sensible experience and that this makes it more adequate than any competing theory, in particular the theory of nature is taken to be more adequate than modern scientific theories that regard the physical elements as reducible to chemical constituents and within this perspective scientific theories disconnect with sensible experience rendering themselves inadequate since scientific theories are compelled to disconnect with experience by their underlying metaphysics according to which natural forms are bare things and conversely it is a presupposition of Hegelian rationalism that permits the theory to apprehend nature’s elemental character and upon looking into how nature is theorized as fundamentally elemental the next stage is to inquire into how a rationalist metaphysics of nature enables him a construction of the theory.
__________________________________________________
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves.
- Ezekiel 37.1–13
__________________________________________________
Divertimento 3: Preface to the Phenomenology.
An occasional diversion upon some central features of Hegelian philosophy that makes it distinctive and that must continually be borne in mind if we are to properly understand what is going on.
Faux philosophies, if I may so call them, are methods seemingly philosophical while falling short of the actual practice of philosophy, for in the preface to the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ Hegel goes further than simply critiquing rival positions within philosophy as might be supposed but exposing methodological tendencies that ditch the task that unites the philosophical tradition from Thales unto the present day, tendencies that Hegel refers to as ‘forms [of thought] that, in their familiarity, are an obstacle to philosophical knowing’. Such forms of thought are familiar to us as philosophy but are in actual fact obstacles to it…. familiarity is an obstacle, the very things we take to be to be philosophical can prove for that very reason,to be obstacles to genuine inquiry.
The faux philosophical tendencies Hegel highlights are associated with texts from accepted philosophers, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and so on, rather audacious on his part one might suppose but his critique does not concern Kant’s work or Schelling’s work as a whole but only certain tendencies discovered there, problem raising and questionable tendencies frequently exacerbated in the work of their followers and students. Rather than continuing with the genuine aim of philosophy to think freely and to start their inquiry again without presuppositions such followers frequently assumed the truth of a principle or dogma from their teachers and then applied it to all manner of content. hence Hegel directs his criticisms in the direction of the formulations in his contemporaries’ work that had become doorways to dogmatism and scepticism.
Hegel’s preface may be compared with the dialogues of Plato that expose sophistry and eristic while only hinting at the form of philosophy proper, and as addressed in Plato’s work, sophistry is not just another point of view within philosophy but a different practice with different ends. Consider Plato’s view of the Sophist:
‘And now, having got him in a corner of the dialectical net, let us divide and subdivide until we catch him. Of image-making there are two kinds, — the art of making likenesses, and the art of making appearances. The latter may be illustrated by sculpture and painting, which often use illusions, and alter the proportions of figures, in order to adapt their works to the eye. And the Sophist also uses illusions, and his imitations are apparent and not real. But how can anything be an appearance only? Here arises a difficulty which has always beset the subject of appearances. For the argument is asserting the existence of not-being. And this is what the great Parmenides was all his life denying in prose and also in verse. ‘You will never find,’ he says, ‘that not-being is.’ And the words prove themselves! Not-being cannot be attributed to any being; for how can any being be wholly abstracted from being? Again, in every predication there is an attribution of singular or plural. But number is the most real of all things, and cannot be attributed to not-being. Therefore not-being cannot be predicated or expressed; for how can we say ‘is,’ ‘are not,’ without number?’
‘And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If not-being is inconceivable, how can not-being be refuted? And am I not contradicting myself at this moment, in speaking either in the singular or the plural of that to which I deny both plurality and unity? You, Theaetetus, have the might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if you can, to find an expression for not-being which does not imply being and number. ‘But I cannot.’ Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. We may call him an image-maker if we please, but he will only say, ‘And pray, what is an image?’ And we shall reply, ‘A reflection in the water, or in a mirror’; and he will say, ‘Let us shut our eyes and open our minds; what is the common notion of all images?’ ‘I should answer, Such another, made in the likeness of the true.’ Real or not real? ‘Not real; at least, not in a true sense.’ And the real ‘is,’ and the not-real ‘is not’? ‘Yes.’ Then a likeness is really unreal, and essentially not. Here is a pretty complication of being and not-being, in which the many-headed Sophist has entangled us. He will at once point out that he is compelling us to contradict ourselves, by affirming being of not-being. I think that we must cease to look for him in the class of imitators’.
- ‘Sophist’
See my articles On Plato’s ‘Meno’: the Paradox of Inquiry and On Plato’s ‘Sophist’: the Image Makers.
Aristotle later observes that philosophy is turned toward being and sophistry is turned in the opposite direction toward non-being.
‘It is evident, then, that it belongs to one science to be able to give an account of these concepts as well as of substance (this was one of the questions in our book of problems), and that it is the function of the philosopher to be able to investigate all things. For if it is not the function of the philosopher, who is it who will inquire whether Socrates and Socrates seated are the same thing, or whether one thing has one contrary, or what contrariety is, or how many meanings it has? And similarly with all other such questions. Since, then, these are essential modifications of unity qua unity and of being qua being, not qua numbers or lines or fire, it is clear that it belongs to this science to investigate both the essence of these concepts and their properties. And those who study these properties err not by leaving the sphere of philosophy, but by forgetting that substance, of which they have no correct idea, is prior to these other things. For number qua number has peculiar attributes, such as oddness and evenness, commensurability and equality, excess and defect, and these belong to numbers either in themselves or in relation to one another. And similarly the solid and the motionless and that which is in motion and the weightless and that which has weight have other peculiar properties. So too there are certain properties peculiar to being as such, and it is about these that the philosopher has to investigate the truth.-An indication of this may be mentioned: dialecticians and sophists assume the same guise as the philosopher, for sophistic is Wisdom which exists only in semblance, and dialecticians embrace all things in their dialectic, and being is common to all things; but evidently their dialectic embraces these subjects because these are proper to philosophy.-For sophistic and dialectic turn on the same class of things as philosophy, but this differs from dialectic in the nature of the faculty required and from sophistic in respect of the purpose of the philosophic life. Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know, and sophistic is what appears to be philosophy but is not’.
- ‘Metaphysics’
As contraries philosophy and sophistry are too readily confused for philosophy and sophistry appear similar in their ability to tackle abstract questions and contents and yet they take those questions up in a different spirit and for a different purpose.
o this day, sophistry is often confused with philosophy, such a significant case of mistaken identity for Hegel to keep addressing it in every preface to every edition of every book he publishes thereby forcing him to overcome his oft stated aversion to prefaces. Hegel identifies numerous faux philosophical tendencies in the work of his contemporaries, a tendency to explain rather than present, a tendency to edify rather than seek insight, a tendency toward rigid formalism rather than organic development, a tendency toward mathematical demonstration rather than the observation of purposive activity, a tendency toward propositional atomism rather than linguistic holism, and a tendency to view thinking as the work of individuals rather than communities, and by bringing to light these tendencies Hegel describes in the prefaces how philosophy has been and should be practiced but mostly in a negative sense for an adequate understanding of philosophy emerges only from engagement with the concrete contents of philosophy itself, for example, being, quantity, syllogism, density, organism, soul, right, freedom, and God and hence cannot be described in advance.
Albeit Hegel is shifting the focus his critique of faux philosophy has not always been take with due seriousness or understanding .. familiar modes of thinking getting in the way I suppose. Scholars typically approach the 1807 preface to the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ as a general introduction to Hegel’s method as if the critical remarks were merely a means to put his own philosophical practice in relief but Hegel contends that all genuine philosophical thinking articulates itself slowly and laboriously through practice, and being aware of the length and difficulty of his own works he bears this in mind in the 1807 preface, see §16 quoted in the previous article, for in virtue of serious convictions about the need for full engagement with the actual content of philosophy Hegel’s positive remarks about method in the preface often indicate their own deficiency:
‘It might seem necessary at the outset to say more about the method of this movement, i,e. of Science. But its Notion is already to be found in what has been said, and its proper exposition belongs to Logic, or rather it is Logic. For the method is nothing but the structure set forth in its pure essentiality. We should realize, however, that the system of ideas concerning philosophical method is yet another set of current beliefs that belongs to a bygone culture. If this comment sounds boastful or revolutionary — . -. and I am far from adopting such a tone it should be noted that current opinion itself has already come to view the scientific regime bequeathed by mathematics as quite. old-fashioned-with its explanations, divisions, axioms, sets of theorems, its proofs, principles, deductions and conclusions from them. Even if its unfitness is not clearly understood, little or no use is any longer made of it; and though not actually condemned outright, no one likes it very much. And we should be sufficiently prejudiced in favour of what is excellent, to suppose that it will be put to use, and will find acceptance. But it is not difficult to see that the way of asserting- a proposition, adducing reasons for it and in the same way refuting its opposite by reasons, is not the form in which truth can appear. Truth is its own self-movement, whereas the method just described is the mode of cognition that remains eternal to its material. Hence it is peculiar to mathematics, and must he left· to that science, which, as we have noted, has for its principle the relationship of magnitude, a relationship alien to the Notion, and for its material dead space and the equally- lifeless numerical unit. This method, tool in a looser form, i.e. more blended with the arbitrary and the accidental, may retain its place, as in conversation, or in a piece of historical instruction designed rather to satisfy curiosity than to produce knowledge, which is about what a preface amounts to. In ordinary life, consciousness has for its content items of information, experiences, concrete objects of sense, thoughts, basic principles,-anything will do as a content, as long as it is ready to hand — or is accepted as a fixed and stable being or essence. Sometimes consciousness follows where this leads, sometimes it breaks the chain, and deals arbitrarily with its content, behaving as if it were determining and manipulating it from outside. It. refers the content back to some certainty or other, even if only to the sensation of the moment; and conviction is satisfied when a familiar resting-place is reached’.
- ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’
Albeit Hegel discusses his own philosophical practice in the preface any evaluation of such remarks are reliant upon familiarity with the specific movements of the determinate contents of his systematic presentations for example how finitude relates to infinity or how mechanism relates to teleology but Hegel’s critical remarks concerning faux philosophy are more self-sufficient in no need of the same demonstration through a systematic engagement with the specific contents of philosophy. The deficiencies in faux philosophical approaches can be observed by merely comparing what they claim to want with how they go about attaining it. For instance faux philosophical approaches claim to want an account of the whole yet they methodologically exclude certain parts or aspects of that whole from consideration and such a disconnect between the stated aims of philosophy and the limitations of faux philosophical methods can be assessed without detailed knowledge of the actual contents of philosophy.
And so not to put too fine a point on it it can be said that the prevailing approach to the 1807 preface has things backward for the primary concern is not with the positive task of accounting for his own practice but with the negative task of exposing faux philosophy and since the positive task presented in the preface depends upon and derives its determinate character from the negative task the critique of faux philosophy takes precedence and provides guidance on how to interpret the roughly sketched positive claims. As for the contemporary relevance of his seven prefaces Hegel addresses the current cultural context for his book which is the principle purpose of a preface and in advance of the public judging his book Hegel judges what state philosophy is in at the moment a discussion frequently taken by scholars to be historical in nature and in need of a careful dissection of Hegel’s possible references to his contemporaries, Fichte, Schelling, Reinhold, Jacobi, Fries, and so on, suggesting that the prefaces are primarily of historical interest but all the prefaces have a thematic continuity the cultural concerns observed being largely the same.
Knowing is taken up in two distinct and incompatible registers, on the one hand, knowledge is pursued as abstract reflection and on the other hand knowledge is pursued as immediate feeling, the former kind of knowing is led and governed by the natural sciences while the latter kind of knowing is understood alternately as religious faith, as common sense, or as artistic genius. While the representatives at the forefront of each camp change between 1807 and 1831, the epistemic camps themselves remain entrenched and in spite of their heterogeneity both abstract reflection and immediate feeling approach knowing as a kind of certainty, the former certainty derives its apodictic surety from completely impersonal mechanical necessity, a strict chain of efficient causation, the latter certainty derives its apodictic surety from the complete exclusion of all mechanical necessity, from its unassailably personal character as a feeling that cannot be known to anyone else. Both forms of certainty are at the root of the various forms of faux philosophy in the 1807 preface, the opposition of abstract reflection and immediate feeling is the primary knot [hauptsächlichste Knoten] in which modern attitudes toward knowledge have become entangled.
‘Science in its early stages, when it has attained neither to completeness of detail nor perfection .of form, is vulnerable to criticism. But it would be as unjust for such criticism to strike at the very heart of Science, as it is untenable to refuse to honour the demand for its further development. This polarization seems t.o be the Gordian knot with which scientific culture is at present struggling, and which it still does not properly understand. One side boasts .of its wealth of material and intelligibility, the other side at least scorns this intelligibility, and flaunts its immediate rationality and divinity. Even if the former side is reduced to silence, whether by the force of truth alone or by the blustering .of the other, and even i in respect of fundamentals, it fees itself outmatched, it is by no means satisfied regarding the said demands; for they are justified, but not fulfilled. Its silence stems .only half from the triumph of its opposite and half from the boredom and indifference which tend to result from the continual awakening of expectations through unfulfilled promises’.
- ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’
Such opposition within epistemic culture that Hegel observes did not merely remain constant from 1807 to 1831 it remains with us unto this day, the struggle goes on to find an alternative to the opposition between abstract reflection and immediate feeling while certainty continues to be mistaken for truth and the gripe continues that in the absence of certainty what remains is a void of relativism even as our daily life and behaviour attest to a host of complex habits, values, norms, motives, reasons, purposes, goals, and commitments. The epistemic knot of modernity is still in need of unentangling, though the response to the Hegelian contention has been mixed, inspiring enthusiastic laudation and dismissive contempt. Is the key to understanding the point a consequence of it being so widely ranging leaving much room for interpretation? Key stylistic and structural questions must be closely looked into. Scholars have read the preface as though its readership were philosophy professors and as if the value of philosophy could be presumed making the question not if philosophy has value but which philosophical approach is to be preferred, hence they consider it a defense of Hegel’s approach to philosophy and an introduction to his system specifically. But there is a much more fundamental problem at stake here, the imagined reader has doubts concerning philosophy itself not merely doubts concerning Hegel’s philosophical merit.
And furthermore the imagined reader is justified in having these more thoroughgoing doubts for Lady Philosophy has been shamelessly abused and degraded and to win her back we need to recognise this, she deserves better, much better. The 1807 preface presents a profound discussion of the problems associated with many of our customary ways of reading and writing philosophy and the results from the preface’s various arguments include (1) philosophy cannot be communicated in a preface (2) philosophy must be presented in a way that is necessary not ad hoc (3) philosophy should not be confused with edifying discourse (4) philosophy should not be confused with formalism (5) philosophy cannot have a preset method but should be presented in a way that allows the content to produce its own form spontaneously (6) philosophy should not be presented in a style that imitates mathematical proof (7) philosophy should not be written or read as if individual sentences had atomic truth value (8) philosophy should not be confused with argumentative rationalization [Räsonieren] (9) philosophical writing must be read again and again because it employs an unfamiliar style (10) philosophy should be presented in a way that is so complete that anyone not just an intuitive genius can learn the relation of its parts to each other (11) philosophy does not conform to the uncritical prejudices of common sense (12) philosophy is not the work of single individuals and should not be presented as if it were. So the chief concern is evident enough, it is not with the content of philosophy, the nature of being, the limits of knowledge, how we determine ethical norms, and son on, but the form philosophy takes to express any of its contents.
The 1807 preface raises the question as to how philosophical thinking can be presented in writing without becoming rigid and dogmatic on the one hand or loose and fanciful on the other and the predominance of abstract reflection and immediate feeling as modes of knowledge have directed us toward two unsatisfying forms of presentation, the dogmatic and the skeptical. To discover the proper form for a philosophical inquiry we must first free ourselves from these prejudices. For centuries thinkers have struggled to find the best written form for expressing philosophical inquiry, having tried hymn, dialogue, myth, treatise, disputation, commentary, meditation, geometrical demonstration, novel, poem, discourse, essay, and critique, to name but a few, and the insight motivating Hegel’s 1807 preface is that we cannot decide in advance on any particular presentational form for philosophy for philosophical content will discover a structure or form on its own and so the prevailing opinion that Hegel is presenting his own method up front in this preface is dare I say incorrect.
__________________________________________________
And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
- ‘Genesis’, 7. 12 -24
__________________________________________________
Dedicated to the One with love. And with love music and poetry are the most satisfying forms of presentation.
Eternal light. Eternal flame. Ner tamid, Hebrew: eternal light, a lamp that burns perpetually in Jewish synagogues before or near the ark of the Law, aron ha-qodesh.
__________________________________________________
Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling Do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Is this burning an eternal flame?
I believe it’s meant to be, darling I watch you when you are sleeping You belong with me Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Or is this burning (burning) an eternal flame?
Say my name Sun shines through the rain A whole life so lonely And then come and ease the pain I don’t want to lose this feeling, oh
Say my name Sun shines through the rain A whole life so lonely And then come and ease the pain I don’t want to lose this feeling, oh
Close your eyes, give me your hand Do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Or is this burning an eternal flame?
Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling Do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Is this burning an eternal flame?
Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling Do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Oh (an eternal flame)
Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling Do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Is this burning an eternal flame?
Close your eyes, give me your hand…
The Bangles, ‘Eternal Flame’:
====
Coming up next:
Rationality and dynamism in elemental nature.
It may stop but it never ends.
