On the day before
the battle, Napoleon entered the city of Jena. He recounted his impressions in
a letter to his friend Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer: I saw the Emperor—this
world-soul [Weltseele]—riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a
wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a
single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it. ~ the post is on a man, a great philosopher born this day – 250
years ago !
From the time
of Leibniz to the widespread adoption of Frege's logic in the 1930s, every
standard work on logic consisted of three divisions: doctrines of concept, judgment, and inference. Doctrines of concept address the systematic, hierarchical
relations of the most general classes of things. Doctrines of judgment
investigate relations of subject and predicate; and doctrines of inference lay
out the forms of syllogisms originally found in Aristotelian term logic.
Dialectic or
dialectics (Greek: related to dialogue), also known as the dialectical
method, is at base a discourse between two or more people holding different
points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through
reasoned methods of argumentation. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept
excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and the modern pejorative
sense of rhetoric. Dialectic may thus be contrasted with both the eristic,
which refers to argument that aims to successfully dispute another's argument
(rather than searching for truth), or the didactic method, wherein one side of
the conversation teaches the other. Dialectic is alternatively known as minor
logic, as opposed to major logic or critique. Within Hegelianism, the
word dialectic has the specialised meaning of a contradiction between ideas
that serves as the determining factor in their relationship. Dialectic
comprises three stages of development: first, the thesis, a statement of an
idea; second, the antithesis, a reaction that contradicts or negates the
thesis; and third, the synthesis, a statement through which the differences
between the two points are resolved.
Dialectic tends to imply a
process of evolution and so does not naturally fit within formal logic. “Dialectics” is a term used to describe a
method of philosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictory
process between opposing sides. In what is perhaps the most classic version of
“dialectics”, the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, for instance, presented his
philosophical argument as a back-and-forth dialogue or debate, generally
between the character of Socrates, on one side, and some person or group of
people to whom Socrates was talking (his interlocutors), on the other. In the
course of the dialogues, Socrates’ interlocutors propose definitions of philosophical
concepts or express views that Socrates challenges or opposes.
“Hegel’s dialectics” refers
to the particular dialectical method of argument employed by the 19th
Century German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel
which, like other “dialectical” methods, relies on a contradictory process
between opposing sides. Whereas Plato’s “opposing sides” were people (Socrates
and his interlocutors), however, what the “opposing sides” are in Hegel’s work
depends on the subject matter he discusses. In his work on logic, for instance,
the “opposing sides” are different definitions of logical concepts that are
opposed to one another.
The man, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (27.8.1770 – 14.11.1831) was a German philosopher and an
important figure in German idealism. He achieved recognition in his day
and—while primarily influential in the continental tradition of philosophy—has
become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. Hegel's
principal achievement was his development of a distinctive articulation of
idealism, sometimes termed absolute idealism, in which the dualisms of, for
instance, mind and nature and subject and object are overcome. His
master–slave dialectic has been influential, especially in 20th-century France.
Of special importance is his concept of
spirit (Geist, sometimes also translated as "mind") as the historical
manifestation of the logical concept – and the "sublation"
(Aufhebung, integration without elimination or reduction) – of seemingly contradictory
or opposing factors: examples include the apparent opposition between necessity
and freedom and between immanence and transcendence.
Hegel has influenced many
thinkers and writers whose own positions vary widely. Karl Barth described
Hegel as a "Protestant Aquinas" while Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote
that "all the great philosophical ideas of the past century—the
philosophies of Marx and Nietzsche, phenomenology, German existentialism, and
psychoanalysis—had their beginnings in Hegel”.
In 1801, Hegel came to Jena
at the encouragement of his old friend Schelling, who held the position of
Extraordinary Professor at the University of Jena. Hegel secured a position at
the University of Jena as a Privatdozent (unsalaried lecturer) after submitting
the inaugural dissertation De Orbitis Planetarum, in which he briefly
criticized arguments that assert—based on Bode's Law or other arbitrary choice
of mathematical series—there must exist a planet between Mars and Jupiter. Unbeknownst to Hegel, Giuseppe Piazzi had
discovered the minor planet Ceres within that orbit on January 1, 1801. Later in the year, Hegel's first book The
Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems of Philosophy was
completed. He lectured on "Logic and Metaphysics" and gave lectures
with Schelling on an "Introduction to the Idea and Limits of True
Philosophy" and facilitated a "philosophical disputorium".
Of his exalted works was – ‘Science
of Logic’ first published between 1812 and 1816, in which Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel outlined his vision of logic. For Hegel, the most important
achievement of German idealism, was the
argument that reality (being) is shaped through and through by thought and is,
in a strong sense, identical to thought. Thus ultimately the structures of
thought and being, subject and object, are identical. Since for Hegel the
underlying structure of all of reality is ultimately rational, logic is not
merely about reasoning or argument but rather is also the rational, structural
core of all of reality and every dimension of it.
The quote at the start is attributed to Hegel who recounted his impressions on Napoleon entering the city of Jena. Pinkard notes that Hegel's comment to Niethammer "is all the more striking since he had already composed the crucial section of the Phenomenology in which he remarked that the Revolution had now officially passed to another land (Germany) that would complete 'in thought' what the Revolution had only partially accomplished in practice". Although Napoleon chose not to close down Jena as he had other universities, the city was devastated and students deserted it in droves, making Hegel's financial prospects even worse.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
27.8.2020.
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