Meeting Transcript, Meeting 1 (Lectures on History of Philosophy)

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Andre Ye 00:00:02 Right? Well. I don’t want to do this. Yeah. And you can pretty much be anything I can talk. you know. And but I also want to see. Like. yeah. So you got, you know, like. we can start with you guys. those are kind of those are. Those are a big general. No. I didn’t really get intended to tell them the actual stuff that I’m ready to. We can start with that. or we can start with general stuff, or we need to match. So yeah. yes. yeah, sounds good. I guess. Yeah. I mean, I guess we can get right right into it. So yes, in the in the text, yeah. At the beginning I was kind of like following along. So he’s saying, You know, history of philosophy. we can’t consider to be a lineage of opinions, otherwise it has no in a certain like, it’s not me, at least pretty hard on that world of you. Yeah. But for me, I never really had a moment where it was like, okay. But then he saying that the issue of philosophy actually is. like, what do you think it actually is? And he talks about like the idea, capital idea and what not. And it’s like. Then it kind of seems a little bit too speculative for me, especially if I just want to do a science. And so I can’t do like parcels 2 together. Okay, so Then he talks about the development of the idea. and you know how the idea sort of almost in a dialogical way like it has its own contradictions, maybe within itself. And yeah, and therefore that all these differences that we see across the history of lawsuit aren’t mere opinions that we can’t say anything about like it. I’m more right than you or what not, but altogether they’re part of a broader, like big idea, somehow that progresses. But to me then, like you know, when some people will say like. it’ll be like relativism, and they’ll say the only truth is relativism. It’s like, well, then, this kind of devalue. What truth means. I’m having trouble seeing where he goes beyond that or I guess simple question, what is truth. Yeah. this okay. So one this thing. it’s something to folks, don’t. It’s our main number. Sorry you have to think everything is on. In some sense. it’s organic. And of course, like. yes. So another. My. yeah, yeah. good. It is okay to say it develops over time sounds like a meeting. I don’t know if you guys saw that. yeah. and but so, but if you just take a you know whatever the plans oh. and you know. Oh, Angle wants us to know, because that yeah. over time, East. you know, from a certain perspective, actually, what it’ll say is, for example. I was just this in class. But you know they’ll say, like Walt. just to go, for you know that far. So what of what you’re saying just in general sense is that that’s what they, through philosophy constitutes. Which is to say, there. There are these apparent differences and emergencies. Okay for you. So is that unity, then pure form, or like, what’s the the concrete? Well, I mean. that must be good. soft. But he has a definition of concrete. Did you see that it’s actually, interestingly. that’s on. Sorry about it. It’s 23 notion of the I don’t really understand this. You know what that’s actually. that’s actually okay for the for this introduction. Okay? Essentially, like, like, I’m I’m gonna skip over a few things. But I’m but like. give you what I think is a part of the broad our, at least this first part of the introduction that we’re looking at one. I think you guys have gotten, which is that he is describing initially what he is, what he considers to be an inadequate view of the history of Floss, which is to say. a and and thus of the history of the mind. because history of, as we’re going to see. The whole point of the history of philosophy is the history of the mind coming in to me. And so what he is saying is that you have nevertheless views on the history of philosophy that failed to capture, that fail to recognize, recognize that. And so what, in other words, what ends up happening is that they look at the history of philosophy as a mere succession, haphazard in succession of mutually exclusive contradictory positions. And of course. that well, as a matter of fact, whether it could or couldn’t otherwise, but as a matter of fact yields the view that the history of philosophy is a is is futile, that philosophy is futile. but there’s no way to resolve these differences. and that the selection of one philosophy over another is more or less arbitrary. and because all, all the contract, all the philosophy, seem to contradict each other. and that quote that you, you know, referenced. just leaves this corpses, this, this a battlefield of courses. Yeah. And just so, we’re clear like that is like I would say, I don’t I? I’m not exactly sure how many, but I’ve had enough students kind of come up on their own and tell me like, Oh, yeah, this is a nice enough class. But what’s the answer? Because and they’re like. because and I’m like, Well, I I can’t. You know I can’t. I’m not. I can’t just tell you the answer for a variety of reasons. and then the their response, or if they’ to the point, maybe they just come out and say, like, I would be interested in a philosophy. But it’s just they’re always contradicting one. Yeah. well, okay, so and on that note, I mean, this is further, further factor in modernity that has intensified that criticism. Okay, so actually, back up very quickly. If you guys remember from We talked about this when we got into in the ancient epoch was the practice of stepping back and refusing to judge specifically amongst the various philosophies withholding judgment, because the ancient skeptics. And by the way, Hegel’s first published work was skepticism. and how you actually preferred ancient skepticism over modern a skepticism you can talk about. Why, that is the case. and just just as a little side note, if you like. if you want to this is generally completely misunderstood. I’m just gonna I’m gonna let this in some stuff it around then, but it’s pretty much. I’m totally misunderstood, like Hegel’s relation both to ancient skepticism and to someone like you, Sarah. And how they actually. because we’ll, for one thing, who Serrell himself, perhaps, was culpable on this because he he was. didn’t really study. Hegel didn’t thought this. He was kind of of the school, or of the kind of disposition that it’s just Mumbo Jumbo, like cause I was like Hey goal. probably more than anyone drove the analytic Continental split because and the night late nineteenth, early twentieth century, especially in in England, but elsewhere elsewhere. In, like, you know, Oxford and Cambridge you had. There was actually they were called the British and Aliens. So late nineteenth, early twentieth century. They were Healian tab at Oxford and Cambridge, I think more at Cambridge. I can’t remember, anyway. the the and they were they had come to promise. but it was Russell and Vickenstein later, and a few others came in later on, and they just or found some an asthma and cast them out into the outer door. Okay? And but that that I mean there’s the whole history to that. I don’t want to hope for some play, but that was maybe one of the most decisive moments in that break in that break. It’s the casting out in the and anyway, who ser all, even though he obviously was. What was he is from? Well, not Moldovan. Yeah, yeah, whatever that was. Well, Mark Mark gave me Arabian, was he? I think he might have been Arabian. Yeah, anyway, whatever it doesn’t matter. He he there was still cause like that. Obviously picture sign comes from Vienna circle, Austria. Right? And there is. There is a kind of analytic core there to you. and who Sarah wasn’t because he was in dialogue with them like people like Fred, and so on. It doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter. But the point is that there was this kind of analytic key element to who’s Who ser all, at least with respect to someone like Hegel. even though phenomenology is still considered to be continental tradition. Anyway, there’s still this kind of bias from because it mathematicians start with right? And it’s kind of like it’s a Galen Mumbo Jumbo. And that got pushed into the kind of the Continental realm, anyway, doesn’t that doesn’t really matter. But there’s actually a lot of sympathy between who Serre and higher or Hegel, that needs to be worked out, and people have tried to do it. They’ve been put some books written on this nice suck. but so just a quick note here this is in the the preface of introduction. the introduction of the phenomenology. Don’t worry so we’ll get to this later. But lost it just a little. It’s a very thing. It’s very famous. But I I said, I don’t think you quite understand what I’m saying. It’s a lot someone’s that’s fine. Again, they said the door select? Oh, really. I don’t know. Yeah. Hey, there, we have someone coming out to get you. Oh, no. His audience. Okay. yeah. Hey? There.

Henry 00:15:15 Hi, hey? Sorry about that. We got we got someone coming out. No worries, thank you.

Andre Ye 00:15:29 I see. it’s really not that important. It’s he says the skepticism that is directed against the of the skepticism. the whole range of phenomenal of phenomenal consciousness. That’s what that’s what hey? That was frozen. Okay, and what that like, I said, that’s kind of a start that we can deal with that later. the point nearly, for now that, of course, these ancient skepticism are there? They are kind of the first of the

Unknown Speaker 00:16:28 okay and

Andre Ye 00:16:31 go ahead. So oh, yes, what I was gonna say is that That has only been intensified that for taking the utility of philosophy has only been intensified. It’s always clear it was well formed by the spectators. It’s not another. but it’s only been intensified in the during the because of slack modern science which appears to system. Add up in the let’s start discipline the overcome, those that’s just intensified. This problem that seems to say, like, philosophy is doubly. we just have to get get rid of it, because all these problems can be stopped. I mean, this is what Stephen Hawking said in this last book. philosophy is useless. We don’t need it anymore. Yes, science now. And the central critique there is because you don’t make any progress. You don’t go anywhere. We’re again asking the same question. Send questions like that. They don’t seem to have any kind of resolution. And now don’t worry if you want to. We can get into a discussion of how about? That’s not what science. That’s not actually the history of science. Okay, in fact. so you guys. I’ll try to avoid just chasing down rabbit hole. But yeah. I mean. the question is. okay. So structure of the revolutions right? And the history and the fact that you, you have these and the relation between the paradigms for sure. is one of the inventor ability. It’s a wordless to like. you know. for example, logically. the news they top and sign in that is to say what they mean, for example, by matter or mass force. So for it to be fundamentally different. Oh. and And how we go about reconciling those differences. It’s what I said. You can say that that science is making progress rather than just going under undergoing fundamental revolutions which you’re essentially starting a new each time. That’s its own thing. And in fact, this is one of those. This is one of the things that Hegel gets wrong in the introduction to the his lectures on his well, science no longer has much of a history. It’s history it’s over. It’s it’s finished. Same with mathematics. And of course, what he didn’t really, it should have been more alien to the realized. No, actually, these are fully in historical transition all the time. and they continue to be. But that’s that’s you know. He just yeah. He had a kind of he kind of looked down on the actual science, and he he broke his access dissertation with On you to it was a on astronomy. and it was, you know, the German education system. and so like. you know, and and couldn’t famously at the end of this is going somewhere and like, what is there like, and also like, what is the and that’s always. That’s that’s a serious question without. Okay? So for Hegel, there is a unity. but it’s a it’s a dialectical organic. And then the first question is, this cannot be applied industry science here, that’s another store. So I’m not sure that, I’m not even getting to the core of the issue. But I that’s part of where that where we would start dealing with that problem because otherwise, of course, you’re just left with the coffee and conflicting that mutually contradictory. And what? And that seems to be again the various utility of that seems to be even more manifest by the emergence of modern science, which appears to move from that initial state to just going to consensus over time. And

Unknown Speaker 00:22:03 so if you’ll see like a

Andre Ye 00:22:07 not to be utter marginalization. but like, continue to persist and just decline ever more. It has to. It has to explain. Okay, within, what sense is this? Not your. And, in fact, what some kind of we you can. We speak of? And of course Hegel says, yes. it’s it’s a. It’s a move from potency to act. By which. Okay, so what is progress? And for, if you remember from the introduction. progress is well. there’s a variety of ways in which to talk about it. But it but the comment, the the essence of it is self knowledge. Okay, that’s the that’s the goal of philosophy to know yourself. What is it now to all? So whatever the no, I saw. Yeah. So the history of philosophy. Our history is a successive attempt for the mind to know itself. and in it’s failing, it actually learns more about it. And but what but the problem is that if you’re here’s the thing, here’s one of the things that if you’re if you’re on a lower viewpoint. You think these 2 things are nearly as close. Yeah. so you have to. You have to elevate in some sense the image kind of breaks down. So you have to like and have it the whole. You see the basic. So these are contradictory. Here, I’ll give you one. This is actually I was probably is actually prior to like really doing any real philosophy. But it’s image that I kind of like. And they helped me. But I actually forgot about. But

Unknown Speaker 00:24:19 and then I was like, it’s kind of silly, but it’s

Andre Ye 00:24:21 I mean, not so silly, in a way. Okay, so it was. I think it was from this book called, You Guys ever heard of the dial of physics? It’s it’s about like, kind of. okay. I sorry I can. I can’t draw. Okay. it’s got the okay. So this is a two-dimensional plane. 3 dimensional donut 5 s. So from the viewpoint of the two-dimensional plane. these are 2 different things. It’s actually one. Yeah. But it doesn’t know that. Because if you were in a two-dimensional you wouldn’t be able to proceed. Okay, like I said, it’s kind. This is like when I was 2019 years old. But the point because that in some sense it’s it’s kind of what people would be saying is that we, we go through these developments. But one of the things that we only comes towards the end of the development to self knowledge is the discovery that these are not the so. Yeah, but the various.

Unknown Speaker 00:26:04 For which.

Andre Ye 00:26:06 And this is the thing. Okay, in the there’s the Cartesian that we saw from Serrell. Descartes is saying this constant disagreement on the we have to invent, but he just takes the disagreement, has given just the thing. It’s just there rather than understanding where it comes from. what generates the disagreement in the first place. And because and so like. That’s a moment in the history of philosophy itself. which is the demand for

Unknown Speaker 00:26:41 methodical

Andre Ye 00:26:43 precision.

Unknown Speaker 00:26:45 But

Andre Ye 00:26:46 it doesn’t. It doesn’t rise to the full knowledge of okay. we can. We can actually deal with the problem. But I don’t know. It’s like, so the relative is well. what Hegel is going to say as well. These are none of these are actually faults. They’re just one site. or they’re limited. So I used to be concrete. For example, yeah, so take like, let’s say, the ontology and the consequentials of yeah. So there’s kind of a disagreement that maybe the of the type the Hegel is talking about. So then in what sense might we reach a unity which is greater than just like the facade of you know, which is just that, like, maybe they’re different sides of. you know, ethical problems like, what’s the insight for that for that. And so well. Now, if you if you go to that. go to that section on the notion of development. So we we should. Okay. So the national development. And okay. notice what he said.

Unknown Speaker 00:29:30 Oh, 20.

Andre Ye 00:29:34 Okay. well, it’s actually just 3. It passes 3, or the idea of development is well known, but it is the special characteristic of philosophy to investigate such matters as we’re formerly held as now. What is dealt with with or made use of without consideration as an age to life, is certainly the unknown to man of us to be informed in velocity for the discussion of this, so, in order to comprehend what development is. what what may be called 2 different states must be distinguished. First is what is known as the capacity power. What I call being in itself sound familiar.

Unknown Speaker 00:30:19 alright

Andre Ye 00:30:24 origin of dynamic, but it’s in in hope this power. And the second principle is that of the October. Now, what Hegel is saying is that So this is just this stuff. You have this in. And then we. okay. okay. yeah.

Unknown Speaker 00:31:30 can you? Can

Andre Ye 00:31:39 you can start to that is okay. it’s like not to get ahead of ourselves. This is a circle. So it repeats. So the in and for itself becomes begin itself for another step. Yeah, that’s about We’ll maybe get to public it some sense that there And if you saw, I mean there are, you’ll see you’ll see. different This will correspond to different formulation sometimes, like, sometimes you see, position. Okay? So this is the dialectic of the negation or I mean, that’s the thing is here, he says. hoping to act. that’s also what this is a transformation of other things like. I mean, okay, we can go a while. This is this is the try you structure of the triad selected. Yeah. But this is also on. son, I’m not getting this. This is the background here. Of course, this is the phenomenology of spirit. Okay? But also this is.

Unknown Speaker 00:33:50 that’s good.

Andre Ye 00:33:54 Yeah, it’s like. and but immediate units is always on the stable. and reflection as a kind of you know it’s a where you get the distinction because there’s like anything, Sarah, this is reflecting the reflecting, but there’s a kind of that requires a distinction. But then you get a kind of reconciliation. I you can see. I mean there are different ways to do this. like cause. What cause? What happens on like, for example, is happening here is that on the father. the gates. God sorted immediate. Yes. because I’m I’m hesitating to. It’s got what you call like an abstract. And then within this. a particular that negates the on track. But then there’s also call that. So you get these words. Sorry. I okay, back to your question. Now, if you want to. So like I I didn’t use the the you gave. But I you can look at. And this is this is in. So this is in the actually, in the philosophy of right, which is Hail’s kind of what’s his philosophy of rights? Not exactly, is, I? I guess you call this ethics whatever. So what you could say is that okay of some version of that. What he’s saying is that yes. There is a sense in which, of course, libertarianism is right in so far as you have these inclinations that just spontaneously emerged. that that we don’t really even choose. And but for libertarianism. Freedom is just the expression of that just being able to do, to to follow on to to pursue unimpeded your immediate sort of individual preferences immediate you. This has immediately felt is the abstract. because he is both. He’s both one of the abstractes things. Let me hear that you get the concrete notice, and we also have to talk about the concrete. So this is concrete to calories. So you get an abstract, universal, abstract particular. Let me dates that. But in this case this is the reason why I hesitated to put here, because this one’s being, sometimes it’s get flipped like this is actually the abstracting of the left. But it’s it’s complicated, I mean, I don’t know. Overly complicated. but here, so you have. It’s kind of individual, natural, what we call natural inclinations. but you have to negate those in order to attain freedom, because if you’re just yielding, you’re dealing to your natural inclinations, you’re a slave to your. And so what? Hey? I don’t say. Yes, libertarianism expresses a partial truth, which is freedom. Will an ethical life will entail the pursuit of what you spontaneously want, but you have to go through this process of overcoming them as merely immediate. And then but then they this can be reconciled. And we’ll what it’s called okay. And we can’t go into that in any detail. But essentially. speaking of potentiality, actually, it does go back to Aristotle, because virtues okay. the virtues are acts. actuations of our nature by which we fully actualize ourselves as ethical beings and become 3. I don’t know if you heard that part stop by. Because what we’re talking about here is 3 different use of freedom. Okay? And so there’s libertarian freedom. Which is this kind of abstract, immediate freedom, just as has felt your your inclinations as you, as which is not wrong. It’s not false to have those inclinations. but they’re not. They’re and they point towards freedom. Freedom does have to include doing what you want. But what count demands is that? Well, these these desires have to be subordinated to a universal rule, that reason that we can rash, that to be rationalized. or at least reason, has to come out for itself rather than mirror nature. But of course, virtues are our second nature in which we do what is good, not because it’s our duty. but because we want to do it. So we’ve negated the negation. that is. and in some sense return to the beginning, but from a higher level. So that I mean, like, I said, that’s kind of that’s kind of like really rough and ready way. But that’s how you would start if you wanted to move into like ethical discussions. That’s that’s the a kind of entry way to see how that would work. I know it’s really pretty rough. But and then you have to think through like, okay. it’s like I said, this kind of repeats. and like, you know. and of course it may not all really work. But you. But it’s at least It’s an interesting first effort on Hegel’s part to kind of try to deal with these problems. Because, like, okay, we’re utilitarianism sitting here. Well. like. I actually, I’m interested. He talks about you till turn is quite a bit yeah, both in the phenomenology. And it’s and I think you even talked about it a little bit here in the introduction of what you the philosophy anyway. So that’s that’s that answer I know. And I’ve threw in a bunch of other stuff to kind of like show where we would need to go to fully deal with it. yeah. that makes sense. So that, for instance. So like. yeah. so I’m in the classic side of the pre- capitalist time for which is at a high level. Yeah. yeah. yeah, yeah, that would that would. That would basically work. You’d have to mess around with it a little bit. But that’s that’s that’s pretty good. There would be a there would be a spiral if we don’t just jump in. It’s not people. you know. there would be a kind of for something that for itself, and then another one on top of that. That’s the dialing of the history. So what? you know, Hegel talks about this pretty stuff in. Hang on kind of annoying stuff is that, yeah, we need, we need, we need the the stages in the history of not just philosophy, but of society. are necessary to the North in order to fully get to it. So there has to be a stage at which. because, okay, here’s the thing. Hegel’s critique of Kant is that you become this becomes a mere master slave relationship. Okay? Where this is dominating. it’s a merely antagonistic relationship, where you’re rational. dominates your nature, your animal nature, your natural life. But there’s so this, okay, another way to see, and so forth. Open source. There’s also this happens on the level of the individual. But also historically, okay. So what I’m saying is that for Hegel. this is important. We need this moment. for reason crushes the animal nature and disciplines it. But it has to been reconciled, you know. overcome that that alienation. He’s the Marxist term. right? Correct reconciliation. But there also must be a stage in which there is actual slavery by which people are learn this kind of discipline. So there has to be a so in the history of, and this is but you can see it marks these. It’s there. It’s all in theesitarian and both Marks and Hegel. And so there has to be a slave society initially. because that’s that’s how historically, this is actually happened. That is this disciplining of desire. And but then there is a movement forward from that to feudalism where there’s more freedom, because, of course, the slave society. the slaves aren’t free. But they’re actually learning with freedom because they’re learning to discipline that because they have, they’re forced to. They have to restrain their immediate impulses and wait upon the the master. But that’s actually learning freedom. Well, that’s the thing. That’s what you’re learning eventually, that then becomes. you realize. and that’s actually what liberates you is that you realize, Real freedom comes through self master. But that would then apply to the master themselves, because, of course, they’re not being. They’re not mastering their own inclinations by enslaving you. They were just yielding to their own immediate impulses. But it’s in there, yielding to their immediate impulses to dominate. and the fact that you find yourself defeated. that forces you. and the first instance, against your will. to overcome your immediate will. But that’s not true freedom. So, but that’s for Hegel and Mar. It’s it’s a necessary stage, which then over, time will yield. and this doesn’t come to being until we get caught himself in the seventeenth, in the eighteenth century. That this freedom becomes this because it has to be articulated for itself. It’s only with the emergence starting to get with the capitalist modernity that we can start getting a new kind of freedom. But there’s even an in in your immediate plan, which is feudalism. which recognizes. which overcome, is mere slavery and recognizes a certain dignity of even the. but not the dignity of the modern self who has things like rights. okay, does that make sense? So there’s a kind of so one of the things. Is that? you know, I have this kind of as I said, yeah on on to me, recapitulates by launching I on tossing you. It’s a it’s a useful, hey? You anything to know if he doesn’t say it this way, but it’s what he says. I might say something, but so what you have to say. the genesis of the individual that is, your development recapitulates the development of the species for the final. Okay. But so, in other words. and you can do this, and in and in ways that Hegel wouldn’t even know about. But just to make sense for for yourself. Now we do start out initially as as single- organisms. which is where our ultimate file and goes back to right. And then, as you literally, as we develop in the at a certain point. Are we like indistinguishable from my tadpoles, or virtually, and then like from pigs? Even. Yeah, we have. We have tails and all that kind of stuff, right? And then, okay. And so, but that’s so this happens, it’s kind of happens on multiple levels, almost like, so culturally, there’s a kind of There’s a history of the development of the whole species. But then each individual has to go through these moments, too. but also, like, even in these developments, there’s a kind of spiral as it works. It’s like. there’s like cause, like one of the things is that okay, here’s another thing. this happens. This, all this is okay. This is how I’m just. It’s all on one by me happens in itself. Who makes this, for instance. and that we do. He’s made it. It’s just been. This is just been happening. He’s that he’s just expressing a moment for itself. He just thinks he’s doing philosophy just that making an argument. And if but what’s really happening in itself is a transition from being itself to the for itself. But that itself can become for itself. So that’s the thing is, then you can start to direct history. It’s just a clear phone. I about the self we’re talking about the the the. what is the self? Well, yeah, well, okay, all right, let’s do this. Okay. that’s actually the secret. It’s like, this is actually a Vinyl. It’s not a huge problem, what it’s like. It’s a but it’s it’s fine, it doesn’t really it up to mine much, if anything. But it’s worth knowing which it is. Okay. Those there’s there’s in a sense to. I’d say, 2 basic sense of this. It’s not even talking about like this. But just literally, they’re not always doing quite the same thing. which is to say. so like. there is a sense in which the for itself no, it would be like something like, so. okay, propose it. And so like. nice life, even you can. It would kind of take for granted. Okay, yeah, I am a view of a a certain biology that it’s I mean, this is called A, which the the organism is tending for it. It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s, it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s it’s it’s not. But notice, it’s it’s for. And but not for itself. It doesn’t know that it’s not okay, that’s another thing. It’s just, it is so correct. okay? Or as like this one. This would be like, I guess you could say matter

Unknown Speaker 00:52:08 whatever.

Andre Ye 00:52:11 and for or it’ll just be. And then, you know which is to say, it’s not. It’s just immediate being an insult. and I’ll felt correctly and don’t work, because, like. The thing is that of course you can it in matter? There is going to be a way in which it is directed.

Unknown Speaker 00:52:35 for

Andre Ye 00:52:36 that is right, but not on the way license. It doesn’t still work nice. Okay? And then and for its office. Well, I guess in some sense a kind of it would be kind of a direct at the end.

Unknown Speaker 00:53:11 The rest.

Andre Ye 00:53:12 like the or not, just don’t actually think anything new. But they’re that is perfect. Okay, so don’t worry. It doesn’t. I’m I’m getting something more. Which is another way which another fundamental like this is probably the most clear. So the for itself in one sense, for there are higher levels of self-driving animal is still correct, but not on the same level of the same reason.

Unknown Speaker 00:53:50 So

Andre Ye 00:53:54 that again that I I feel like. because in itself everything in yeah. but

Unknown Speaker 00:54:04 that that that’s the spiral that

Andre Ye 00:54:06 life is set up in a way that matters. but you could make the case that it is. But on the lower level we’re at, and then a higher level. And then, of course, you you don’t know life consciousness. It’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s it’s different and just the self, the organization of clients and on on and on. Of course, it talks about human. The human child has a certain it for itself, but it’s mostly can’t. So and then it once for itself. You know, it’s totally rational. Okay, anyway. But another another thing in itself has I didn’t say experience. And then this is for itself awesome. So that’s the same one. You may. when you become an object for yourself. have it. Okay? And so. because, of course, like. here’s the thing like, if you want to talk about marks the first thing that and labor labor is processing self. It’s an you don’t recognize yourself in it. or it’s alienated from you by the nature of modern work, and by the capital. They extract that from. Okay. But it is in itself you. And so there’s a further step that you have to make in and for itself. Yeah, or you appropriate it back to yourself. But that happens on a very prominent to that is to say, you can look at the products of your knowledge from the the natural attitude as just over there. But it’s actually you you’ve made. You’ve constituted those. but you can treat it as a world that’s just over there. And so you you have to make what is It does. You have to have a form of justification rather than just mute. These differentiation. So like this is, you might say, it’s like this, is the meeting differentiation reconciled? And there is a moment of 10 cause of objects. But the problem is not. The challenge is not to think of them as because actually, this is okay. This is one of the things here is that. you know, when the trip when the fruit falls from the tree. for for mere life. that is, on the mirror level of so that, level, as it were. These are now. They are separate. they are for different things. But when you posit an object of knowledge. it’s not outside. But you may not recognize that. and you’ll treat it as this alien, external thing, but an object over it. And so But that’s that’s you become. You’ve become for yourself in the sense you objectified yourself. because that’s what he was saying is that the history of knowledge is the history of the mind coming to know itself. Even science. Science has to do stuff in order for. but the minds know what it does. So philosophy comes after the mind does a lot of stuff for the line. That’s why play my air, so don’t show up until after you click. The mind does this stuff. It. It generates these objects where, where it is itself objectified. In some sense, of course not perfectly. But it’s it’s generated these things. but it doesn’t recognize itself in that. That’s quickly for the station. Well, unfortunately, even the lazy person am this. This question gets dealt with and starts last attempt to do you a big book. It’s called the critique of Dialectical Reasoning, because I want this. which is a considered to be a failure. Yeah. because well, let’s think about this. so yes. yeah, this is okay. This is the thing is that if you know, I mean for Hegel Serge as a content. it’s concept of freedoms content. In fact, if you look at the essay existential as a humanism. you can see the content, as I said it explicitly there with when you act. you know. It’s not that you act whenever you act as it were, for yourself. You’re always acting as if you were any. All people you’re treated in the human. But yes, which is, which is, which is the content, categorical, imperative. Okay? And cause what hang on was going to say is along with Aristotle. Is that no, actually. there are, as it were, objective conditions that must be met in order to be free. that a society has to be fundamentally transformed. so that you that you can actually be be free, that is to say, if you are living with a master whip in your back. Sorry you’re not free. And even if and even beyond that like. if you just don’t have like certain, even for like technologies and certain like institutions like a government that where you can do things like vote. you’re just not free. And so it’s necessary. This is the thing it’s like there has to be. And the transformation of the in itself by the for itself. so they can be reconciled. But that’s necessary for the for itself to be itself too. because and because this for Kant, or sorry for Hegel, start toing freedom is abstract. It’s not concrete. Yeah, please, please. I don’t know if I even fully answer your question with that. That’s the that’s kind of the direction. Yeah. it’s absolutely determined. And so I guess, sort of assuming that the identification of his freedom with abstraction, because it’s like from here. Nothing else. Yes, out of nothing. Totally abstract. Yeah. So in what sense? For he goes like a the teleologist of history right? So for him. if matter is always already progressive, why isn’t it always already kind of determined towards its future? I guess. Kind of it. Why? Why wouldn’t? Why wouldn’t it be? Or I guess? Well, it’s not yet it is. It is for itself, but not for itself. that is to say, because everything is in itself, everything in itself is for itself. But it’s not yet. for it hasn’t objected by him. Phone, for it stops so like a a plant is proposing to self-directed. but it hasn’t objectified itself as that which is that that can only happen with consciousness only only can happen with rationality. because we here we’re talking about yeah, the level of spirit level of knowledge. But there is an anticipation of that already into the plant. That kind of does objectify it. So it creates this thing. I mean. okay, let’s do this thing. Do what? Final notes so to wrap up. But that’s actually just. You know, we read this little passage because I use this so many times on our phone. I was request I might as well show you where I got from okay, so okay, you ready? sorry. Page 22. So, actually. okay, yeah. Yeah. Well.

Unknown Speaker 01:04:16 I want, I

Andre Ye 01:04:17 I’m gonna skip a racist part. it happens. yeah. Okay. Okay. So all sorry here, though, that all knowledge, this is one of the things I said earlier. All knowledge and learning. all knowledge and learning, science and even commerce. have no other object than to draw out what is inward. So that’s another way of thinking about in and so forth. So you’re drawing out what is potential making an actual okay? and that’s to become objective. because that which is implicit. So another way, another distinction between potency and actuality is implicit and explicit. That’s just a thing just to note and that happens over repeatedly in cycles. because that which is implicit comes into existence. it it certainly passes into change, it it remains one and the same, for the whole process is dominated by it. The plant, for example, does not lose itself and mere indefinite change. Right? So that’s what the history of philosophy could look like. Just mere indefinite. haphazard change from the germ Much is produced when at first nothing was to be seen but the whole of what is brought forth, if not developed, is yet hidden and ideally contained within itself. Okay? And so just so we’re clear. That goes all the way back to Aristotle, the he, the news, the mind, is potentially making creating all things or making and becoming all things. Yeah. because that’s it is everything in itself already the mind spirit. It’s spirit all the way down, by the way. So matter is already spirit. because matters are also potentially becoming all things and so and this is recapitulated again and again. So the the germ. The seed has the whole plant in it already potentially so. The principle of this projection into existence is that the germ cannot remain merely implicit, but is impelled towards development. since it presents the contradiction of being only implicit, and yet not desiring to be, that the whole thing wants to talk about desire. One other thing. So okay, here’s another another important extension. This is back to you. If you want, you can make this the basic structure of everything. Okay, so what? What? What’s happening? Okay, is that in concept. all humans are free. But in existence someone can exist in a state of contradiction to their concept. but that’s true over and over. So the the the plant in concept, the germ rather in concept is a fully existed tree, but it actually exists right now as a near German. And so for Hegel. desire. Desire is what contradiction feels like. That’s what contradiction feels like. because desire is the contradiction between how you currently exist and what your concept is. Okay? And so the the and I, as it already in concept idea, concept kind of the same thing for table. So it there is the plant already in the the. as he says in concept or an idea. but its existence doesn’t correspond to its concept. By the way, this is the definition of classical definition of truth. The correspondence between concept in reality and what Hegel is saying is truth merges over time. so that what he’s saying that the challenge is not for the mind to conform to the object. it’s for the mind to make the object confirmed to itself. But that’s already happening in prior to any actual knowledge for itself, at least in so far as biological development is the pausing of what is. and merely a concept to make itself what it is in concept. But, like, I said, that’s a whole thing. We can get into that more as whatever as things go. But that arguably, is the thing to understand every all this, too. If you get a hold of this, you’re in good shape. so the principle of this projection into it. But this coming with yeah. Okay, so it is impelled towards development, since it presents the contradiction of being only implicit and yet not desiring to be. But this coming with out itself has an end in view. It’s completion fully reached. and it’s pre previously determined, and is the fruit or the germ. so are the produce of adjourn which causes the return to the first condition. This thing that was adjourned. It’s a new one that shares its nature. And so it has. It’s, it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s, it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s, it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it this is. My head. he thinks he’s got some the germ will produce itself alone, and manifest what is contained within it, so that it may return to itself once more. thus to renew the unity. So there’s a media seat. Then there’s a kind of pseudo-reflection. because there’s a kind of differentiation in producing the the other germ. But then. and the thing is that nature, mere nature near your biological nature, cannot attain the perfect reconciliation. but it tries to So, as he says with nature. It certainly is true that the subject which commenced and the matter which forms the end are 2 separate units. So the Sunday which started I’m not an object, as it were. our 2 separate units. as in the case of seed and fruit. the doubling process is apparently the effect of separating into 2 things. that which in content is the same. Thus in animal life the parent and the young are different individuals. although their nature is the same in mind, it is otherwise. it is consciousness, and therefore it is free, uniting in itself the beginning, hand, the end. as with the germ, and nature. Mind, indeed, resolves itself back into unity after constituting itself another. But what is in itself it comes from mind. it comes from mind, unless arise at being for itself the fruit, and the seed newly contained within it, on the other hand, did not become for the original adjourn. although implicitly, it is but for us alone that is we now can see. That’s it. That’s what’s happening there, that there’s an anticipation of spirit’s own positing of itself for itself in nature. which becomes for us, just as the whole thing becomes for us right now. So we just just elevated a little bit I don’t know about. We’re partially out. We have like the stages in the cave. we might have turned around, and that we’re actually chained.

Unknown Speaker 01:12:17 In the case of mind.

Andre Ye 01:12:19 Both factors not only are implicit, this implicit, at least the same in character. But there is a being for the other, and at the same time of being for itself that for which the other is, is the same time it’s the same as that other. and this alone, mind is at home with itself, and it’s other. because when you pause it the object. It doesn’t leave your consciousness. whereas one that for tree process, the fruit, they’re now separate. They are 2 distinct beings. But so think of concept. Conceive, as he says, when animals conceive their young, they become separate individuals. When you conceive a concept, that is, they come to knowledge of something that remains with you. And so spirit is self-conceiving. which is what. classically it was said, at least in certain ways. If you look at Spinoza. how’s the suite self causing. That’s what God is. You remember that self-. So what Hegel is saying is, yes, but this is a historical thing. That’s why people really really don’t like it, because he’s saying God comes into existence from potency. So he we are. History is God coming to self- which is people really don’t The mountain of mind lies in the fact that it is going forth, and separation constitutes it’s coming to itself. This being at home with itself, or coming to self of mind may be described as the complete and highest end. It is this alone that desire, it desires, and nothing else. Everything that from eternity has happened in heaven and earth, the life of God and all the deeds of time simply are the struggles of mind to know itself, to make itself objective to itself, to find itself, be for itself, and finally unite to itself. It is alienated and divided, but only so that it be able thus to find and return to itself. So this is a the Odyssey, too, because one of the fundamental points of division, of course, is evil, so evil is necessary but because it serves the. And this is what Hegel is saying is that it’s only spirit. It’s only mine that can preserve itself in those differences. Mere animal live cannot.

Unknown Speaker 01:15:00 When the

Andre Ye 01:15:02 animal bears at junk they fall apart. Spirit preserved itself in those differences. Oh, yeah, last thing, here’s the thing. So only in this manner. So this is back to the start. Only in this manner does mind attain its freedom. for that which is free, for that is free, which is not connected with for dependent on another. And so what Hegel is saying is that and this guy, I think you guys were talking about this? Like. yeah.

Unknown Speaker 01:15:41 yeah.

Andre Ye 01:15:43 what do we do about like the boulder in our way? Can we just choose like for start? Can we just choose for that not to be there. And it seems like they’re. And what he would say is like. this is, this is where it’s why I’m okay, you guys, because you can start talking about, you guys know, like fully automated Webdree communism.

Unknown Speaker 01:16:09 how about that?

Andre Ye 01:16:10 Like, there’s the ultimate end of like the technological thing where we can just transform nature at our will. Fully automated luxury, communism. and so, like real freedom, is arguably, if I have that rock in front of me. I’ve got my star trek taser that can just move it. which is because out as opposed to what starts saying, well, that that only becomes an obstacle. And so far as I have this project, and I can choose to have another project. Yeah. But what if I don’t want to choose to have another project. Hmm! And so it seemed like the in itself, must be conformable to the for itself. That is this, and that’s what This is what Marx. That’s why Marx was not an environmentalist. He was ready to just destroy, you know, completely reshape the the face of the earth to make it conform to human nature. Okay? And that’s that’s I don’t know if that makes sense. But that’s kind of where they’re thinking to start is that for Hegel, freedom requires the transformation of the himself to make it correspond to the concept. Because for sorry, there’s just the in itself, it’s just this order. just this facticity. that can only hell as other people. And for he don’t know. Hell can be other people prior prior moment and development. But his spirit can transform itself since we all become reconciled. because now lost so lost is around that early 2,000, and I haven’t too much of a date. They’ll try to leave the island but they can’t leave until they hold the because we’re on this together. And your my freedom depends on your for you, and vice versa. Yeah. So anyway, any last I know there’s a lot that’s this is hang on anything. Questions lingering I don’t. How? How was this? It was good. It’s really helpful for me. I think I’ll go back. And so how should we do our meetings like with time? Wednesday? Do you want to do any other time? Thank you. Where are they here? What about Thursdays? But do you want to do twice a week? Yeah, I’m doing well, yeah, we went a little long today. Oh, for how many weeks? Well. the first day term gets over a couple of weeks. But I’m I’m fine as extended out a little bit. Few more weeks, you know. Maybe we can shoot for like 8 weeks. Total. Yeah, okay, how about? So what time on Thursday you wanted earlier. 4 30 is the yeah. Yeah. How about? Fourth, I was due Tuesday of Wednesday, Thursday at 4, 30, yeah. hopefully, we’ll see and all like Brandon and other people were. Maybe I need to get. I was just been kind of distracted. but I know Brandon. this one other person, I think, was saying, they want to do remote. but I don’t know. I don’t know what that is. I didn’t follow up, but I guess we can figure that out. Be able to. Don’t you? Talking about reporting anything? Sure, yeah, my voice can be out. That’ll be fine again.