Unit 30 Affirmation and Negation, Spinoza and Hegel

[안재오]

Unit 30 the affirmation and the negation.hwp

40.00KB

The Voyage of Philosophy : Dr.Ahn’s Youtube Philosophy Classroom

Unit 30 : the affirmation and the negation – the comparison of the concept of the absolute by Spinoza and Hegel

1. Hegel’s strong self-assurance about his philosophy is well expressed in the Preface to his work “The Phenomenology of Spirit”. The theme of it is in a word the Absolute. The Absolute is in other expression‎ “the absolute knowledge”. Therefore the concept of the absolute by Hegel doesn’t connote a religious or personal meaning like superhero or the Savior. It means the absolute as the object of knowledge or philosophy. Therefore the meaning of the absolute is “true” or “as it really is”.

Consequently Hegel’s philosophy is the knowledge about the absolute, namely the absolute knowledge. However the content of this absolute knowledge is not different from the previous metaphysics.

The traditional metaphysics can be regarded as the fundamental and general knowledge about God, universe and man. In this regard Hegel would like to reform the traditional metaphysics not substantially but foramlly, methodologically.

Conclusively the methodological reform of philosophy is called the absolute knowledge by Hegel.

In order to specify the meaning of Hegel’s notion of the absolute we should consider the critical philosophy of I. Kant. He considered the previous metaphysics as dogmatism because it goes beyond the limit of human cognitive faculty. Kant called the entities of previous metaphysics as transcendent objects. He invalidated the reality of those objects.

In this regard Hegel’s assertion of the absolute (objects) refers to the reunification of subject and object, which Kant separated.

Even if Kant denied the possibility of traditional metaphysics, he affirmed the empirical, scientific knowledge. He investigated the condition of empirical science, which was called “transcendental philosophy”. Kant found the ground of experience finally in the synthetic unity of the manifold through the apperception (self-consciousness). Namely it is the function of transcendental consciousness which unifies the given, manifold, subjective, empirical material into the objective unity. This is called the supreme principle of cognition by Kant.

However the post-Kant philosophers asked the more fundamental question : How can the manifold change into the unity? Fichte was one who tried to solve such a problem. In his “Science of Knowledge” Fichte tried to deduce the categories of understanding from the activity of (absolute) ego.

Therefore the unity of one and many, the ego and the world, and the subject and the object may be called the absolute.

Hegel approached the problem of the absolute from various perspectives. He found a model of absolute philosophy in the philosophy of Spinoza. Spinoza’s book “Ethics” deals with the metaphysics, the philosophy of the absolute.

The hitherto Scholastic philosophy established the comrehensive system of God, world and man without going through the epistemological criticism, which leads to the dogmatism.

The principle of Descartes “I think, therefore I am” came to be the criterion of truth as the self-certainty. Anything without reference to the subject as “I” is to be doubted and denied.

However Spinoza tried to lay the foundation of metaphysics even if he knew well the thought of Descartes. Spinoza began his metaphysics with the concept of substance and he proceeded it with a mathematical way. In this regard Spinoza can be named the father of modern metaphysics.

Hegel who tried to overcome the dualism of Kant’s thought viz. that of thing-in-itself and appearance, received the philosophy of Spinoza as his model

: “Either Spinozism or no Philosophy”. There would be no philosophy except for the Spinozism.

writes further : “He who begins to philosophize, must bathe in the ether of the One Substance”.

The substance by Spinoza is what exists in itself and conceived through itself.

Normally the meaning of substance is what is invariable and identical in all its change and has its attributes. The matter is an important example of the substance. Namely the salt is white and salty. The salt is substance; whiteness and saltiness are attributes.

Furthermore the concept of substance is also the basically philosophical concept by Aristotle.

By the way what is most important by Spinoza is that his substance refers to God. I.e. the God alone exists for itself and the rest depend on the God in order to exist, they are derivative from God. These derivative beings are called the finite or modification by Spinoza. On the contrary the God is infinite.

The relevant thought of Spinoza regarding Hegel is that “God is infinite” and “God or the Substance is affirmative”. On the other hand the finite connotes the partial negation of its nature. The infinite being i.e. the substance is the absolute affirmation of its nature.

As finite existence involves a partial negation,

and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation

of the given nature. (Spinoza, Ethics)

This state of affairs can be easily verified through the experience of surroundings ; the birth of life runs toward its negation i.e. the death.

The sky is unlimited, infinite; among the visible things the sky is the most congruent with the concept of the infinite. Of course it is spatially infinite. Therefore the famous Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu said “The sky and the earth is infinite” 노자(老子) 왈 천장지구(天長地久).

Lao-tzu’s thought is however limited because we know that the earth is not infinite. The sky or the cosmos might not be unlimited according to the recent scientific research.

Spinoza thought that the infinite is in itself and for itself. It is invariable substance which never becomes or destroys. Therefore it is evident that the infinite has no negation of its nature.

Hegel and his acquaintances apprehended the substance of Spinoza as the absolute. The representative person of Hegels’ acquaintances was Jacobi, who found the absolute is not to be recognized. The absolute or God is the object of belief, not that of cognition.

2. substance, subject, negation

The concept of substance by Spinoza is represented as the affirmation of its nature as over said. However Hegel took the negation as the essence of his philosophy. This is another Copernican turn after Kant’s transcendental turn in the history of philosophy. In the Preface to his masterwork “Phenomenology of Spirit” it reads as follows : “The truth is thought and expressed not only as substance but also as subject”, “It is necessary to apprehend the absolute as subject.

Hegel couldn’t give up the substance of Spinoza in order to build his system of philospphy. However his characteristic lied in that substance is regarded as subject. The subject is actually a kind of substance. All being is substance. Hegel said also : “The living substance is subject”.

Hegel’s concept of subject has however nothing to do with the personal, living God as the object of Christianity. I.e. Hegel’s concept of subject is different from the God as the theistic substance who has will and intelligence.

Hegel’s subject has rather relation with the Spinozistic theory of Substance and Attributes. The two important attributes of Substance are “thought and extension”.

He was not dissatisfied with the concept of Spinozistic substance. The problem with Spinoza’s philosophy consisted in the relation of substance with its () attributes. From Hegel’s standpoint the attributes don’t come from the concept of the substance.

Furthermore according to Spinoza the attributes are apprehended by the (finite, human) understanding. I.e. they are not conceived through themselves. Substance and Attributes are in the external relationship. Herein lies the problematic of Spinoza’s system.

From this viewpoint the modern metaphysics of Spinoza can be seen as an imperfect synthesis of traditional philosophy and Cartesian subjectivism. I.e. the thinking ego is not coherently connected with the concept of substance.

The difficulty originated from Spinoza’s transformation of two substances of Descartes i.e. res cogitans and res extensa into two attributes of One Substance.

In opposition to Spinoza the two substances of Descartes are finite: Only the divine substance (=God) is infinite.

Under these circumstances Hegel tried to transform the metaphysics of Spinoza into the subjectivism : the absolute not only as substance but also subject. In other words he made an effort to turn the objective metaphysics of Spinoza into the subjective metaphysics of Descartes as Fichte did it before.

3. the connection of Spinozism and Cartesianism through Fichte

The philosophy of the absolute is not different from the previous metaphysics. However it became more difficult to found a metaphysics in modern times. Further the metaphysics is not possible without taking into consideration of consciousness or ego. It was Fichte that firstly endeavored to found the ontology on the basis of ego. He named his new ontology “Science of Knowledge”, which means to lay foundation of all the knowledge including nature science.

The fundament of Fichte’s philosophy is a transformation of “thinking ego” by Descartes. Only the ego is not fixed, stationary but acting, moving. I.e. the ego transfer to his opposition namely non-ego. In this process the most important categories of ontology and metaphysics are developed : the categories of reality, substantiality and causality. However the actual process of “Science of Knowledge” is enormously complicated.

Fichte’s prime student, Schelling understood the mutual determination of the “ego and non-ego” as

the objectification of the absolute ego.

Hegel in his part represented Fichte’s acting ego as the subject. Therefore Hegel’s slogan “to apprehend substance as subject” or “to think of the absolute as subject” is revealed. In other words Hegel conceived the godly substance of Spinoza as acting subject or absolute subject. Furthermore he declared the activity of ego as negativity.

Here the meaning of negativity is not same as the usual meaning of it i.e. falsity or objection but opposition of itself. Logically saying “ego = non-ego”, “A = Not-A”. It is the violation of the law of non-contradiction. It’s the creation of dialectical logic. Therefore “the substance is subject and negativity”.

However the development of knowledge in the “Phenomenology of Spirit” not always consists of dialectic. As a matter of fact the great majority of presentation in the Phenomenology is represented as “trior and error” method. For example the 1 chapter of the Phenomenology is titled “sensuous certainty, the this and opinion”. This knowledge type is asserting the immediate, individual cognition of object. And the immediate cognition is truth.

However in this process the “sensuous certainty” comes to be aware of the incongruity of its first intention and the arrived reality. After bitter failure of cognition the consciousness alters the object of its knowledge : the knowledge refers to the universal.

During this process the type of knowledge changes too viz. from sensuous certainty to the perception.

Therefore this process is experimental and empirical rather than dialectical. This negativity Hegel calls the discrepancy between knowledge and its object or the ego and its object. “Dies Negative (zugleich) als Ungleich des Ichs zum Gegenstande”.

From this perspective is to be understood : “The True is 'the whole. But the whole is nothing other

than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is”. (Phenomenology of Spirit para. 20)

From the same viewpoint Hegel refers to the “way of despair” and the “self-consummating skepticism”. The reason is that as over mentioned in the beginning the knowledge doesn’t coincide with its object. The consciousness experiences always the failure of cognition. However the failure and despair brings not only negative but also positive result.

The positive side of discrepancy is the creation of new form of knowledge and its corresponding object. Finally the perfect identity of knowledge and its object is fully consumated. This way goes through science, art and religion. The last stage of cognition is the philosophy. This is the absolute knowledge.

4. conclusion

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit shows the way of scientific experience i.e. a kind of trial and error method. But the difference of Phenomenology of Spirit and trial and error is that the former experiences the change not only of subject but also of object as above in the case of “sensuous certainty”. Whereas trial and error is a problem solving method in which multiple attempts are made to reach a solution. I.e. in case of trial and error method the object is from the beginning determinate, constant.

This genuine method of Hegel’s philosophy consists of the dialectic. The whole process of dialectic is in other words “self-movement” of the substance.

This movement of substance is called subject or negativity.

Unlike Spinoza who at first confirm‎s the determination of substance and proceeds from the determination to the other problems, Hegel begins from the most empirical fact i.e. the sensuous certainty.

However the concept of experience is somewhat different from the normal use of it as above mentioned. The experience is that of development of subject and object. The subject and the object are represented as identical and then different. In his early thought Hegel spoke of the “identity of identity and non-identity”. This is represented in the Phenomenology as the subject or negativity.