I have been on another journey lately. I have always balked at the philosophical traditions of Empiricism, and, its later cousin, Positivism.
It dawned on me, however, that the standard story that one is taught about Positivism by my greatest intellectual influence, Western Marxism, is more complicated than many are willing to admit.
It seems to me that one can just as easily be a Rationalist as a Materialist, as easily an Empiricist as, also, an Idealist. The way the philosophical divisions are usually drawn (according to the Young Lukacs, as well as by Sarte and the Frankfurt School) are that Rationalism begets Idealism, Empiricism begets Materialism.
This pattern of thought seemed to dislodge my previous philosophical worldview.
My PhD thesis was, in the end, an exercise in blending Idealism with Naturalism. I approved of both the ideas of Naturalism and Idealism. What made up the universe was to be consistent with the natural sciences, as well as informed and inspired by them. But, fundamentally, I argued that any attempt to reduce, eliminate, or make 'supervene' philosophical thought on top of the natural sciences was an activity of extreme unhappiness.
It seems to me that the fabric of the universe does accommodate objects and processes that allow humans to be right about moral judgements. If that makes me an Idealist, I admit it. It is true. The lesson I received from my education is that Idealism of any form is to be abhorred and hurriedly disavowed. But is not, as Hegel says, every philosophy an Idealism? Take Deterministic Materialism--the Natural Scientist pictures in her mind the particles of the world like the mechanical elements of a clock. If only her capacity for prediction of the world's mechanical iterms were more powerful! If she was successful in reproducing Hari Seldon's imaginary Psycho-History, wouldn't that make her God?
I have had impressed onto me many times to sit at the feet of Locke, or Hume, and not protest. To me anyway the Lockeans have a more favourable impression. I think it sensible to say there are Primary and Secondary Qualities.
Interestingly my flag has never ever been tied to Descartes. It seems many of those interested in philosophy in Perth have. Perhaps this is indeed my Empirical Streak--having been forced through the British Empiricists over and over again, I know of nothing else.
Humdrum Hume. Over and over again. It was as if anything I wanted to say was mere daydreaming, to be promptly and ignorantly stamped out.
I spent some time meandering back through Bishop Berkeley again. To be
honest, he seemed to me to be the most sensible of all of the Idealists. Why shouldn't there be some active, perceptive essence to the universe? The problem, as I have had repeated to me many times, lay in thinking that was 'one or the other'.
But frankly I do not care about 'one or the other thinking'. Doesn't rejecting Capitalism entail a selection and inhabitation within a _particular_ side?
There is a famous text by Hegel. It is called “Who Thinks Abstractly”. In it, Hegel is the famous rationalist. And I rather think he is right.
~~I have attached a copy of the little pamphlet for your convenience. It now seems very difficult to find...~~
He says: Why is not the supposed “concreteness” of empirical thought abstract? In its closeness to the senses, it is unprocessed thought. This is a lesson from Kant: up filters information about the world through the _Faculty of Sensibility_, into the _Faculty of the Understanding_, where categorical thinking is made possible. As the famous addage goes:
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.
In order to have rational judgements make sense, therefore, we must submit judgements to what W. V. O. Quine called the 'tribunal of experience'. Sense data cannot simply 'be', it is always required to stand for assessment as to whether it is coherent, given the collection of other elements our worldview.
Conversely: Why isn't the 'Totality' of our worldview considered what is actually Concrete? Kant with his Transcendental Idealism seems happy to limit and proscribe much of the operation of the _Faculty of Reason_ within what he calls the limits of a 'possible experience'. To go further would lead to strange and dangerous types of judgements.
- efficient causation: a cliche.
- we should always look deeper than the most famous aspects of a philosopher
- bundle theory of consciousness: more important
- john mcdowell refers to Hume as a 'projectivist' about normative relations.
“Who Thinks Abstractly?”
In the nineteenth-century edition of Hegel’s Werke, this article (Wer
denkt abstrakt?) appears in volume XVII, 400-5. Rosen- kranz discusses
it briefly (355 f.) and says that it shows “how much Hegel
. . . entered into the Berlin manner.”
Glockner reprints it in his edition of the Werke in vol. XX (1930),
which is entitled: Vermischte Schriften aus der Berliner Zeit.' He
includes it among “four feuilletons that Hegel wrote for local papers
during the later years of his Berlin period.” But Glock- ner admits:
“The exact place of publication is unfortunately un- known to me”
(xix).
Hoffmeister, whose critical edition of Hegel’s Berliner Schriften:
1818-1831 (1956) is much more comprehensive than Glockner’s (800 pages
versus 550), does not include this article. In a footnote he says that
it belongs to Hegel’s “Jena period (1807/08)” (xiii). This is an
uncharacteristic slip: at the beginning of 1807 Hegel went to Bamberg,
in 1808 to Niirnberg; and in the first weeks of 1807, before he left
Jena, he certainly lacked the time and peace of mind to write this
article.
Of Glockner’s “four feuilletons” Hoffmeister retains only one, and
that is really a letter to a newspaper, protesting their review of a
new play. Hoffmeister gives no reasons for dating this article so much
earlier than Rosenkranz and Glockner did. Possibly, the dis- paraging
remark about Kotzebue (a German playwright, 1761- 1819) suggests a
date before Kotzebue was stabbed to death by a German theology
student. That the piece was written in Jena seems
1“Diverse Writings of the Berlin Period.”
Translation 461
most unlikely: it is so very different from the articles—and the
Phenomenology—that Hegel wrote during his harassed and un- happy years
in that city. But Hoffmeister could be right that it was written in
1807 or 1808.
WHO THINKS ABSTRACTLY?
TRANSLATION
Think? Abstractly?—Sauve qui peut! Let those who can save themselves!
Even now I can hear a traitor, bought by the enemy, exclaim these
words, denouncing this essay because it will plainly deal with
metaphysics. For metaphysics is a word, no less than abstract, and
almost thinking as well, from which everybody more or less runs away
as from a man who has caught the plague.
But the intention here really is not so wicked, as if the meaning of
thinking and of abstract were to be explained here. There is nothing
the beautiful world finds as intolerable as explanations. I, too, find
it terrible when somebody begins to explain, for when worst comes to
worst I understand everything myself. Here the explana- tion of
thinking and abstract would in any case be entirely super- fluous; for
it is only because the beautiful world knows what it means to be
abstract that it runs away. Just as one does not desire what one does
not know, one also cannot hate it. Nor is it my intent to try craftily
to reconcile the beautiful world with thinking or with the abstract as
if, under the semblance of small talk, thinking and the abstract were
to be put over till in the end they had found their way into society
incognito, without having aroused any disgust; even as if they were to
be adopted imperceptibly by society, or, as the Swabians say,
hereingezdéunselt, before the author of this com- plication suddenly
exposed this strange guest, namely the abstract, whom the whole party
had long treated and recognized under a different title as if he were
a good old acquaintance. Such scenes of recognition which are meant to
instruct the world against its will have the inexcusable fault that
they simultaneously humiliate, and the wirepuller tries with his
artifice to gain a little fame; but this humiliation and this vanity
destroy the effect, for they push away again an instruction gained at
such a price.
462 “WHO THINKS ABSTRACTLY?”
In any case, such a plan would be ruined from the start, for it would
require that the crucial word of the riddle is not spoken at the
outset. But this has already happened in the title. If this essay
toyed with such craftiness, these words should not have been allowed
to enter right in the beginning; but like the cabinet member in a
comedy, they should have been required to walk around during the
entire play in their overcoat, unbuttoning it only in the last scene,
disclosing the flashing star of wisdom. The unbuttoning of the meta-
physical overcoat would be less effective, to be sure, than the un-
buttoning of the minister’s: it would bring to light no more than a
couple of words, and the best part of the joke ought to be that it is
shown that society has long been in possession of the matter itself;
so what they would gain in the end would be the mere name, while the
minister’s star signifies something real—a bag of money.
That everybody present should know what thinking is and what is
abstract is presupposed in good society, and we certainly are in good
society. The question is merely who thinks abstractly. The intent, as
already mentioned, is not to reconcile society with these things, to
expect it to deal with something difficult, to appeal to its
conscience not frivolously to neglect such a matter that befits the
rank and status of beings gifted with reason. Rather it is my intent
to reconcile the beautiful world with itself, although it does not
seem to have a bad conscience about this neglect; still, at least deep
down, it has a certain respect for abstract thinking as something
exalted, and it looks the other way not because it seems too lowly but
be- cause it appears too exalted, not because it seems too mean but
rather too noble, or conversely because it seems an Espèce, some-
thing special; it seems something that does not lend one distinction
in general society, like new clothes, but rather something that—like
wretched clothes, or rich ones if they are decorated with precious
stones in ancient mounts or embroidery that, be it ever so rich, has
long become quasi-Chinese—excludes one from society or makes one
ridiculous in it.
Who thinks abstractly? The uneducated, not the educated. Good society
does not think abstractly because it is too easy, because it is too
lowly (not referring to the external status)—not from an empty
affectation of nobility that would place itself above that of which it
is not capable, but on account of the inward inferiority of the
matter.
The prejudice and respect for abstract thinking are so great that
sensitive nostrils will begin to smell some satire or irony at this
point;
Translation 463
but since they read the morning paper they know that there is a prize
to be had for satires and that I should therefore sooner earn it by
competing for it than give up here without further ado.
I have only to adduce examples for my proposition: everybody will
grant that they confirm it. A murderer is led to the place of
execution. For the common populace he is nothing but a murderer.
Ladies perhaps remark that he is a strong, handsome, interesting
man. The populace finds this remark terrible: What? A murderer
handsome? How can one think so wickedly and call a murderer handsome;
no doubt, you yourselves are something not much bet- ter! This is the
corruption of morals that is prevalent in the upper classes, a priest
may add, knowing the bottom of things and human hearts.
One who knows men traces the development of the criminal’s mind: he
finds in his history, in his education, a bad family relation- ship
between his father and mother, some tremendous harshness after this
human being had done some minor wrong, so he became em- bittered
against the social order—a first reaction to this that in effect
expelled him and henceforth did not make it possible for him to
preserve himself except through crime.—There may be people who will
say when they hear such things: he wants to excuse this mur- derer!
After all I remember how in my youth I heard a mayor lament that
writers of books were going too far and sought to extir- pate
Christianity and righteousness altogether; somebody had writ- ten a
defense of suicide; terrible, really too terrible!—Further ques- tions
revealed that The Sufferings of Werther [by Goethe, 1774] were meant.
This is abstract thinking: to see nothing in the murderer except the
abstract fact that he is a murderer, and to annul all other human
essence in him with this simple quality.
It is quite different in refined, sentimental circles—in Leipzig.
There they strewed and bound flowers on the wheel and on the criminal
who was tied to it—But this again is the opposite abstrac- tion. The
Christians may indeed trifle with Rosicrucianism, or rather
cross-rosism, and wreathe roses around the cross. The cross is the
gallows and wheel that have long been hallowed. It has lost its
one-sided significance of being the instrument of dishonorable pun-
ishment and, on the contrary, suggests the notion of the highest pain
and the deepest rejection together with the most joyous rapture and
divine honor. The wheel in Leipzig, on the other hand, wreathed
464 “WHO THINKS ABSTRACTLY?”
with violets and poppies, is a reconciliation 4 la Kotzebue, a kind of
slovenly sociability between sentimentality and badness.
In quite a different manner I once heard a common old woman who worked
in a hospital kill the abstraction of the murderer and bring him to
life for honor. The severed head had been placed on the scaffold, and
the sun was shining. How beautifully, she said, the sun of God’s grace
shines on Binder’s head!—You are not worthy of having the sun shine on
you, one says to a rascal with whom one is angry. This woman saw that
the murderer’s head was struck by the sunshine and thus was still
worthy of it. She raised it from the punishment of the scaffold into
the sunny grace of God, and instead of accomplishing the
reconciliation with violets and sentimental van- ity, saw him accepted
in grace in the higher sun.
Old woman, your eggs are rotten! the maid says to the market
woman. What? she replies, my eggs rotten? You may be rotten! You say
that about my eggs? You? Did not lice eat your father on the highways?
Didn’t your mother run away with the French, and didn’t your
grandmother die in a public hospital? Let her get a whole shirt
instead of that flimsy scarf; we know well where she got that scarf
and her hats: if it were not for those officers, many wouldn’t be
decked out like that these days, and if their ladyships paid more
attention to their households, many would be in jail right now. Let
her mend the holes in her stockings!—In brief, she does not leave one
whole thread on her. She thinks abstractly and subsumes the other
woman—-scarf, hat, shirt, etc., as well as her fingers and other parts
of her, and her father and whole family, too—solely under the crime
that she has found the eggs rotten. Everything about her is colored
through and through by these rotten eggs, while those officers of
which the market woman spoke—if, as one may seriously doubt, there is
anything to that—may have got to see very different things.
To move from the maid to a servant, no servant is worse off than one
who works for a man of low class and low income; and he is better off
the nobler his master is. The common man again thinks more abstractly,
he gives himself noble airs vis-à-vis the servant and relates himself
to the other man merely as to a servant; he clings to this one
predicate. The servant is best off among the French. The nobleman is
familiar with his servant, the Frenchman is his friend. When they are
alone, the servant does the talking: see Diderot’s Jacques et son
maitre; the master does nothing but take snuff and
Translation 465
see what time it is and lets the servant take care of everything else.
The nobleman knows that the servant is not merely a servant, but also
knows the latest city news, the girls, and harbors good sug- gestions;
he asks him about these matters, and the servant may say what he knows
about these questions. With a French master, the servant may not only
do this; he may also broach a subject, have his own opinions and
insist on them; and when the master wants some- thing, it is not done
with an order but he has to argue and convince the servant of his
opinion and add a good word to make sure that this opinion retains the
upper hand. ;
In the army we encounter the same difference. Among the Aus- trians a
soldier may be beaten, he is canaille; for whatever has the passive
right to be beaten is canaille. Thus the common soldier is for the
officer this abstractum of a beatable subject with whom a gentleman
who has a uniform and port d’epée must trouble him- self—and that
could drive one to make a pact with the devil.