Hegel’s End of Art

Notes on Hegel's Aesthetik

Heidegger absolutely correct when he says that in Hegel's opinion the end of art means not that the art will stop developing, but that its role in the pursuit of spirit will be over:
…besteht das Nach der Kunst darin, dass dem Geist das Beduerfnisse inwohnt sich nur in seinem eigenen Innern als der wahren Form fuer die Wahrheit zu befriedigen. (v1, p 142)

The Amazing Goal of Philosophy

Now it comes as a complete surprise but the question: what is philosophy really for (I mean really?) is not only not as obvious as it would seem, but is also very hard to understand once the answer is knows. It is quite amusing to think about why that is, but it seems to be the nature of human thinking.


So, what is the goal of philosophy? The goal of philosophy is to uncover the Truth. And as simple as this answer seems, it is just as baffling for some reason. For what is the Truth? The Truth, as Kant has defined it, is thinking that corresponds to reality. And that of course means we need to first determine what reality is, i.e. answer the ontological question, but also answer knowledge-theoretical questions related to whether it is even possible for us to think according to reality. In any event it appears that the endeavor is not quite trivial. Can we really learn how to swim before stepping into the water?


The incredibly difficult thing here is transcending our everyday view of philosophy. And it would be interesting to question "professional" philosophers to find out how many of them actually hold of this every day view. In common parlance we often hear things like: "My work philosphy is..." or just simply "My philosophy here is..." So any (unsophisticated) thought process is called "philosophy". This transfers to scholastic circles and philosophy simply becomes some way of conducting thought experiments, which of course is completely alien to the nature of true philosophy.


The very different nature of philosophical thinking had been bothering philosophers from Plato to Heidegger. Plato wanted to think according to the Idea. The old metaphysics made the whole world conform to the thought. Kant wanted to know how pure synthesis is possible. Hegel wanted the infinite thinking. Heidegger was concerned that (after all this!) today we are still not thinking at all.


In "What Is Called Thinking", he notes that he is not going to answer this question any more than a mother calling her son and yelling to him that she would show him how to obey the grown-ups. She does not mean that she is going to give him a definition or show some examples, rather, it is a promise that after she is done with him, the concept is going to become the boy's nature. We can say the same about philosophical thinking. We cannot teach it or give a definition. Rather, somewhere in the middle of philosophical studies, we can hope to achieve the almost intuitive way of approaching the state, where we stop treating philosophy as a way to excercise our mind and start trying to think according to reality.

The Base of all metaphysics

My esteemed philosopher,

In response to the writing of Dostoyevsky, you wrote in your last post,
"Artificially trying to stop this pursuit and be happy with an achieved state is a reactionary position not worthy of philosopher, for whom exploration never stops as he discovers new depths (Socrates’ famous assertion about not knowing anything)."

A philosopher should always question what he or she knows and seek the always greater perspective. But I believe Dostoyevsky keeps coming back to an elemental truth that brotherhood and cameraderie are ultimately more beatiful than experiments of thought. This point seems to me what much of his writing, especially Crime and Punishment leaves me with. Some thought experiments and systems are exorcises in masturbation, and I think it is those he rejects. I found an echo of the theme in this poem by Walt Whitman.

The Base of All Metaphysics

And now gentleman,
A word I give to remainin your memories and minds,
As base and finale too for all metaphysics.

(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and German systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated,
Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.


- What do you think of this sentiment? Do you think this could be the truth in Dostoyevsky's philosophy that is being overlooked? I tend to think so, but i am curious what you think.

A Dostoyevsky Rant (conclusion)

Going back to the initial thought driving all this stream of consciousness, i.e. Dostoyevsky’s statement about “Truth and Christ”, we can try to understand it better in view of Hegelian philosophy and its main accomplishment. It would take too long to talk about what “Self” (Selbst) means by Hegel and I would never be able to finish what I have started. So I would have to limit myself by saying that Hegelian history of the Spirit ended in the Spirit knowing itself through (Hegelian) philosophy. The important point here is that unlike by Fichte, where the Spirit is left split into its finite and infinite “components” without any hope of reconciliation, or by Schelling, where it sought this reconciliation in art, religion and absolute idealism, but in all those cases remained unaware of itself trying to come to self-awareness, in Hegel’s philosophy this self-awareness had been reached. In all cases the Spirit moves up in its development (not a time-based development, but a stage based, evidently), however, only by Hegel it reaches the knowledge of itself developing.

Dostoyevsky’s statement about Truth and Christ shows the throwback from Hegel back to Schelling. In this sense, Dostoyevsky is a devout Slavophil for whom the most that could possibly happen in the ascent towards Knowledge is Schelling’s kind of absolute religion. The Spirit never bridges the gap it has created while developing: the gap between the finite Reflexion (the Truth) and the infinite Absolute Vision (Christ). This is a very strange position to take, in my opinion. The destiny of philosophy has always been in pushing the boundaries of human thought. Philosophy is, in a sense, “an extreme” world view. It allows human beings to get in touch with their spiritual component where we are all rooted and which eludes us all the time. Artificially trying to stop this pursuit and be happy with an achieved state is a reactionary position not worthy of philosopher, for whom exploration never stops as he discovers new depths (Socrates’ famous assertion about not knowing anything).

A Dostoyevsky Rant (I).

I think the biggest problem of Russian philosophy and "moral thought" in general is it having its root in Dostoyevsky. After finishing The Science of Logic by Hegel, I have revisited my views and thoughts on this philosopher. Can we even call him a "philosopher"? Apparently we have to, because we surely cannot call him a writer. Let's look at the Dostoyevsky Universe. The view is pretty grim. Unlike that of Tolstoy's, where we do see real people, only Schemas and Ideas concocted by the writer populate this sad locale. His characters are bleak, even the passionate ones, because they are so "un-alive". Each one fulfils a certain function assigned to him by the author and so Dostoyevsky's novels are actually thought experiments. Russia did not have a philosophical tradition of Germany, and so its primary philosopher expressed himself writing literature. If we examine the ideas themselves, what do we find? Crime and Punishment with its research of whether everything is permitted to an Ueber-mensch (same echoed in the Karamazov Brothers). Enough to look at the Antic literature to convince ourselves that the problem has been tackled and resolved thousands of years ago. The Legend of the Great Inquisitor is supposed to inspire us? But has the humanity not fought with religion overflowing its borders of Absolute Spirit and succumbing to the Devil? It is enough to look at the New Testament, to see that the Apostles have been struggling with this problem all over the sacred text! What is more baffling, though are the famous statements like "Красота спасет мир" (Beauty will save the World), or the still less comprehensible one about Truth and Christ, that even if someone were "to prove to me with mathematical precision that Truth is separate from Christ, I would still be with Christ, giving up Truth". How are we to understand it? Taking this literally makes no sense, even if Truth is separate from Christ, the latter cannot be the opposite of Truth, i.e. a Lie, so it has to be also Truth! Actually this statement is testimony to the purity of the uniquely Russian spirit of Dostoyevsky. Without diving deep into the whole issue, we can say with certainty, that the entire "Slavophil" movement of the early 19th century Russia (that later on was identified as purely nationalistic, but definitely was not so at inception), was rooted in German Idealism, more precisely - that of Schelling's. (It is enough to mention, that Richard Kroner calls the founders of the movement "Russische Schellingianer"). I don't think Boris Paramonov is correct when he calls attention to Schelling's romantic connections in this regard. I think we should definitely consider the issue in terms of his Absolute Idealism. However, it is undeniable, that Schelling's view of religion stems from Schleiermacher's article, and thus can be shown to have a Romantic source.

Schelling's philosophy of religion, later on extended by Hegel (again on the basis of the same groundbreaking article by Schleiermacher) regarded religion as a two-fold phenomenon. On one hand we have "esoteric" religions. This is essentially paganism, where godliness is concealed by forces of natures. Such religions have rich mythology where its deities are constantly present in the life of human beings and intervene through forces of nature. This is a so called "natural religion", Nature, the Universe itself is God. Such a religion is monotheistic, but only at its core. Monotheism is not "given", it is hidden, concealed, needs to be transcended to.

The other kind, the "ecsoteric", or "revealed" religion is a monotheistic religion where God reveals himself directly. Such religion is transcendence by nature and hence does not have mythology with miracles happening within the World Order.

Absolute religion is the fusion of both kinds; it is the philosophical religion that does not exist, according to Schelling. If it were to exist - we would have achieved the true religion of the Absolute Spirit. Christianity, according to this view, has come the closest, for while being the "revealed" religion it has preserved the elements of the "natural" one by creating the unity of spiritual and natural forces within a man. Catholicism is closer to this ideal than Protestantism because the heathen element of Christianity is not denied in it, the way it is in the latter. According to Dostoyevsky and the "Slavophiles", Russian Orthodoxy, with its emersion into Nature and Community should be even closer to the absolute ideal, and thus the movement was born out of Schelling's philosophy.

It would take a while to explain Hegel's philosophy of religion even briefly, as it is in general impossible to explain anything in Hegel's philosophy. Rather, it must be studied carefully and every nook and corner where it leads explored with utmost effort. One point, however, is relevant. Hegel's genius solved the problem that had no solution since the moment it was presented by Kant.

Both Fichte and Schelling tried but had to leave things as they were in their systems, with the main problem unsolved. The problem was to find unity between the Absolute and the finite thinking. (Endliche Reflexion). Fichte left an unbridgeable cleft between his "absolute" and "finite I", Schelling introduced the "absolute, or intellectual vision" (intellectuelle Anschauung), but it is not solving the main problem. In Schelling's absolute idealism, just like in Fichte's Wissenshaftlehre, the Absolute always needs the finite Reflexion to start thinking about it. But once this happens, the finite Reflexion runs away never to be reunited with Absolute, which, by definition cannot be anything else but a simple unity. Fichte and Schelling were forced to leave matters as they were, being unable to solve this problem.

We are switching to English on this Blog.

Hey, Boris,

Start writing in English so I can read what you are thinking about. I'm sure I will have opinions as I always do.

I am currently finishing up Proust's Swann's Way and will have some thoughts on it soon.

Я и мир объектов. Часть 2.

Невозможно суммировать в коротких фразах всю глубину гениальной филосфии. (Философия, как и поэзия, бывает исключительно гениальной или не существует вообще, не имеет права называться "философией" или "поэзией"). Понять мысль Бердяева, можно лишь прочтя всего Бердяева.


В "Я и мир объектов", сам Бердяев еще не до конца прослеживает свой философский фундамент последних лет. Это гораздо лучше позже, в "Опыте эсхатологической метафизики". Там он прямо говорит, о своих философских корнях:


"Основоположное философское открытие сделано Платоном и Кантом, которых нужно признать величайшими и наиболее оригинальными философами в истории человеческой мысли." (Эволюция философа! 30 лет назад, в сборнике "Судьба России", Бердяев отмахнулся от Канта, который "...построил духовные казармы". Судьба России, гл 3 "Души народов: Религия германизма"). В этой одной из самых поздних работ Бердяева, философ отдает долг великому мыслителю, хотя иногда и остается впечатление того, что делает он это против своей философской "музы".


Тем не менее, уже в "Я и мир объектов", твердо заложен фундамент оформившихся в будущем взглядов. В учиненном Кантом перевороте видит он основу всей будущей философии, в том числе и экзистенциальной, которую (в своем определении этого слова) он и считает единственно возможным способом прибывания философа (т.е. свободной личности) в бытии. В "Я и мир объектов", Бердяев только небрежно проскальзывает по кантиантским идеям, как будто бы задумчиво или немножко рассеяно разглядывая их:


"Немецкий идеализм нанес удары объективизму греческой и схоластической философии, после которых он (объективизм - мое прим) не может оправиться." (гл. 2). "Кант был прав в различении явления и вещи в себе", однако "не прав был он только в том, что явлению он противополагал закрытую для опыта и познания вещь в себе, не прав в самом наименовании "вещь в себе".


Главная проблема состоит в том, что


"Немецкий идеализм подменил проблему человека, как познающего, проблемой субъекта, трансцендентального сознания (Кант), Я, не индивидуального и не человеческого Я (Фихте), мирового духа (Гегель). Поэтому познание перестало быть человеческим познанием, оно стало божественным познанием, познанием мирового разума или духа и познающий перестал быть человеком".


Тут забродило то, что окончательно оформилось в Опыте эсхатологической метафизики:


"Вся германская философия получила прививку от германской мистики, и в ней можно открыть подземное её действие. Кант от этого отталкивался, но Гегель это признает, давая высокую оценку Я. Бёме. Германская мистика внесла новизну в историю духа". Теперь становится яснее, откуда германский идеализм черпал силы для нанесения удара по схоластическому объективизму. Я. Бёме, у которого "была прививка Каббалы", один из неизменных столпов мировоззрения Н. А. Бердяева в течение всей его жизни.


В чем же теперь видит он главную тему германского идеализма? "Кант исходит из дуализма феномена и нумена, явления и вещи в себе и для новой эпохи мысли из дуализма природы и свободы. Этим была поставлена тема, которую развивали великие германские метафизики". Далее, весь немецкий идеализм впадает в "ложный монизм", пытаясь найти унифицирующую философию Вселенной: субъективной как и объективной. Дуализм Канта всегда оценивался как свидетельство того, что критическая философия оказалась неспособной создать такую систему, и потребовался весь путь от Канта до Гегеля, чтобы завершить это творение. Бердяев же видит в дуализме не беспомощность Канта, а его гениальное открытие:


"Утверждалось мнение, что Кант не был метафизиком, что он свел философию исключительно к теории познания и этике. Это требует решительной переоценки. Движущий мотив Канта был метафизический — защита мира свободы от власти феноменов


Дуализм Канта не может быть преодолен монистической идеей мирового развития духа. Дух (нумен) не раскрывается и не развивается в сплошном, непрерывном мировом и историческом процессе (феноменах), а лишь прорывается в феноменальный, «объективный» мир, и тогда свобода духа опрокидывает необходимость мира. Кант был противоречив, но по существу более прав, чем Фихте, Шеллинг и Гегель".


Такой взгляд на философию Канта делает его (Канта) бердяевским учителем. Главное различие между первой интуицией в "Я и мир объектов" и ее развитием в "Опыте эсхатологической метафизике" состоит в том, что в первой книге Бердяев только начинает размышлять над метафизическим содержанием немецкого идеализма. Там он еще считает это в основном философией познания, не видит его экзистенциального пафоса. То, что есть познание субъекта - не есть познание "человека", "личности", хотя мы уже к этому подошли, есть первые прозрения важности переворота, совершенного Кантом, еще нет его полного осмысления. В "Опыте" это осмысление дошло до полной адаптации в системе самого Бердяева. Гениальность Канта состояла, как мы видим из выше приведенного отрывка в том, что была четко определена сфера свободы, от которой и отталкивается вся "духовность", все человеческое "бытие". Уже не столь важны познавательные выкладки философии от Канта до Гегеля и совершенные ей (по мнению автора) ошибки. Важен пафос свободы противостоящей бытию, раскрывающийся в дуализме Канта. Это противостояние есть главная тема философии "Я и мир объектов".