Section 68 (last update 4.16.2021)
#14- Logic represents ethical actions- determination.
Dialectic
The notion of the dialectic is ordinarily understood in this following way: thesis in contradiction to antithesis gives rise to synthesis. This shallow understanding of the dialectic reduces the notion to a fixed maxim expressing a general rule of conduct of human dialogue. Hegel famously proposed the concept of the dialectic. It is true that Hegel appropriated the term from the Ancient Greek way of dialogue, specially found in the dialogues of Plato. The Ancient Greek dialogues are the most crude and natural style of human discourse whereby an argument is proposed only to be contradicted by another argument, and the tensions between the opposing arguments gives rise to a resolution that is in its turn a whole new argument different then the opposing two that gave rise to it. Hegel however took this natural way of human discourse and extended it to the natural operations of substance in the world. For Hegel, the natural substance of the universe is constituted by a logical process that is exactly synonymous to the dialectical method. In fact, the reason why the dialectical method is the most natural way for human discourse, is precisely because the dialectic is the universal rational process of nature.
The dialectic however is not as shallow as to denote a thesis, antithesis, synthesis, because such principles of it only express abstractions of the process, and at the same time, such abstractions are taken in a chronological ordering that is in no way expressible of the actual infinite nature of the dialectic. The antithesis for example is not altogether something external or outside of the thesis, likewise, the so-called synthesis does not come only once the thesis and antithesis contradict each other.
(Define determination)
The laws of thought are the fundamental principles of the dialectic. In the dialectic, the nature of the thesis, or more appropriately, the principle of identity, inherently presupposes with it the antithesis determination of externality. The antithesis is the very integral and inherent nature of the thesis that makes it the distinctive property that it is.. (Explain how each principle presupposes the other). The snythesis, or equally, the principles of opposition (non-excluded middle) is actually present prior, or is the fundamental principle, that enables the thesis and antithesis possess their respective places. The opposition is the only similarity that the thesis and antithesis share, and it is this difference between the two that keeps them together, and this is the necessary and prior nature.
Give modus ponens as example to show how the demonstration against the opposite affirms each.
In mathematics, the basic operators are first and foremost principles of relations. When addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are taken as functions, they are operating under the principles of “transposed quantity” in that they presupposes a set of limitations to see whether certain results follow as true. In this sense, each function can be taken as a separate operating system that produces a certain result with any set of numbers. In fact the very most fundamental use of the transposed quantity is to make each mathematical operating function separate from each other. However this is only hypothetical. When such mathematical functions are evoked under logical scrutiny, we find that in fact each function must exists in totality with the others. This however is inefficient for the purpose of mathematical derivation. But nevertheless, the efficient operations of such function as separate operating system can only be granted ipso facto the logical presupposition that they constitute a totality. For example: if we take the infinite series
…1, 1.1, 1.11, 1.111, 1.1111, 1.11111…
We see that first, every number acts as a least and greatest number, least because the numbers after are greater and greater because the number before are least. In this way, each number after is the culmination of all numbers before. However a difficulty arises. This serves ops an infinitely divisible series. Divisible because all numbers after 1 are just many 1’s. So the number 1 is dividing itself into many 1’s. The question of concern is: how is it that each least greatest number in the series is the culmination (or rather addition) of all previous, yet at the same time that number which is the culmination is but a division from the previous?
This shows that in infinite numbers, addition presupposes division and division supposes multiplication. And multiplication supposes supstraction because each greatest number is taking away from the least by being greatest.
Hegel- Thesis, antithesis synthesis
It is mistaken to think that the synthesis is the combination between thesis and antithesis. This is why Hegel never used this kind of misleading way to demonstrate his logic. This kind of thinking about the logic obscures how the dialectic actually develops as the process of evolution. The term synthesis suggests that two separate things are made into a unity, in the world, the finite is the combinations of particular in the infinite dualism between particulars objects. This however is fallacious thinking because how can objects combine so as to make one object, if every object is already one object? With this thinking there is never really one object as that is just made from further objects and also there is no such thing as one objects taking on their own separate existence, both statement must however be true insofar as is in the universe objects that are whole and parts- each part itself being a whole. With this kind of thinking the dialectic is ill applied producing erroneous results in conceiving its true course in nature.
The synthesis is rather understood by what what Hegel calls “sublation”, which has two inclusive meanings: first, it means to maintain or keep and second, it means to discard or forsaken. This term alone however still does not tell us the connection between maintaining something and forsaking it. The actual relation of the dialectic follows as such: first, the thesis; which in this case is a mere axiom for the first activity, or proposition for expressing Reason, divides itself into the antithesis; which is the axiom for everything that is the thesis and because everything that is the thesis is distinguished we have opposing elements that constitute the Reason as our thesis. The antithesis is then everything that is Reason which is the Logic. The synthesis is the axiom that explains how this division of itself is resolved. And it’s resolution is simply the form that this division takes, which in the course of evolution, the division of Reason is diversity.
This diversity is however not in quantity because we already have the infinity of quantities in the outset of our antithesis. The synthesis is the return of that diversity to Reason, which is the quality produced from its consciousness of itself. This transition between the whole and parts is a mistaken distinction, instead the whole and parts difference is simply the fluctuation of the becoming of the same being. All the diversity we see is the same being becoming- both are positives equal to another positive, which is the infinity of positive as equal with itself= this is the very equation of creativity in the world. Diversity in evolution creates and discards with each transition we have anew making of itself as a greater being. We return back again to this ratio taking on an exponential rate.
(Add to the problems with understanding dialectic) Hegel encyclopedia part 1
Limitation in the dialectic is not the limit of things externally on each other, like an object standing in the way of an other, but “its own nature is the cause of its abrogation and that by its own act it passes into its counterpart” (4:05:40) limit is the means of the same substance changing determinations. for example death is not caused merely by the external circumstances of the organism only like being eaten alive by another organism, die of old age, etc, “but the true view of the matter is that life as life involves the germ of death and that the finite being radically self-contradictory involves its own self suppression” organisms do not just “die”, in other words, they are not victims of death,
Hegel science of logic 4:06:18 dialectic is not sophistry (rhetoric). 129 “the dialectic is not to be confused with mere sophistry, whose essence consists precisely in making one-sided and abstract determinations valid in their isolation, each on its own account, in accord with the individual’s interest of the moment and his particular situation […] The dialectic diverges essentiaIly from that procedure, since it is concerned precisely with considering things [as they are] in and for them selves, so that the finitude of the one-sided determinations of the understanding comes evident.”
(4;7:20) The simplification that dialectic consists of thesis, antithesis and synthesis is derived from a simple reading of the Socratic method. Hegel explains
Part I of the Enclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences 129 (in phone books)
“Besides, the dialectic is not a new thing in philosophy. Among the Ancients, Plato is caIled the inventor of the dialectic,IIO and that is qUite correct in that it is in the Platonic philosophy that dialectic first occurs in a form which is freely scien c, and hence also objective. With Socrates, dialectical thinking still has a pre dominantly subjective shape, consistent with the general character of his phi losophising, namely, that of irony. Socrates directed his dialectic rst against ordinary consciousness in general, and then, more particularly, against the So p sts. He was accustomed to pretend in his conversations that he wanted to be ins ucted more precisely about the matter under discussion; and in this connec on he raised all manner of questions, so that the people with whom he conversed were led on to say the opposite of what had appeared to them at the beginning to be correct. When the Sophists called themselves teachers, for instance, Socrates, by a series of questions, brought the Sophist Protagoras111 to the point where he had to admit that alI learning is merely recollection.”
130-131
Skepticism is not only doubt
“Scepticism should not be regarded merely as a doctrine of doubt; rather, it is completely certain about its central point,- i.e., the nullity of everything finite. The person who simply doubts still has the hope that his doubt can be resolved, and that one or other of the determinate [views] between which he wavers back and forth will turn out to be a firm and genuine one. Scepticism proper, on the contrary, is complete despair about everything that the understanding holds to be rm, and the disposition that results is imperturbability and inward repose. This is the high ancient scepticism, as we find it presented specifically in Sextus Em piricus,113 and as it was developed in the later Roman period as a complement to the dogmatic systems of the Stoics and the Epicureans. “
One important aspect of the dialectic is that the unity is still itself a particular distinct from the particulars making up the unity. Hegel says
“If, for example, we say that “the Absolute is the unity of the subjective and the objective,” that is certainly correct; but it is still one-sided, in that it expresses only the aspect of unity and puts the emphasis on that, whereas in fact, of course, the subjective and the objective are not only identical but also distinct. ” (132)
An example of thought fixated on its understanding is found in the notion of mysticism indulging in what is mysterious and incomprehensible, finding comfort in this thought without wanting to go further and achieve reason.
Mystical
133 “About this we must remark first that “the mystical” is certainly something mysterious, but only for the understand ing, and then only because abstract identity is the principle of the understanding. But when it is regarded as synonymous with the speculative, the mystical is the concrete unity of just those determinations that count as true for the understanding only in their separation and opposition. So if those who recognise the mystical as what is genuine say that it is something utterly mysterious, and just leave it at that, they are only declaring that for them, too, thinking has only the Signi cance of an abstract positing of identity, and that in order to attain the truth we must renounce thinking, or, as they frequently put it, that we must “take reason captive.” As we have seen, however, the abstract thinking of the understanding is so far from being something rm and ultimate that it proves itself, on the contrary, to be a constant sublating of itself and an overtu ing into its opposite, whereas the rational as such is rational precisely because it contains both of the opposites as ideal moments within itself. Thus, everything rational can equally be called “mystical”; but this only amounts to saying that it transcends the understanding. It does not at all imply that what is so spoken of must be considered inaccessible to thinking and incomprehensible. “
Locomotion is dialectic
“the dialectic also asserts itself in all the particular domains and formations of the natural and spiritual world. In the motion of the heavenly bodies, for example, a planet is now in this position, but it also has it in-itself to be in another position, and, through its motion, brings this, its otherness, into existence.” (130)
We take for granted the simple act of locomotion but even this movements presupposes that a body in one location must bring itself into being in another location. We do not think of changing locations as coming into being but in a state where the environment is identical with the active force distinguishable as part of it, like in the case of spacetime there is no space without time, the environment is as much coming into being as the activity of its force.
Analytical vs synthetical 10:41:00-10:43:00
(Add to how synthetical not only follows the analytical)
These modes are related to the form of the object.
(Add to the cosmological principle)
The edge of the universe consoles the movements forward of being. Where the universe is heading concerns the abstractive set which is the conception discloses the object is an on going forth process because when ever that conception is conceived as an object it is now conceived by that conception. The conception is the gap the space of the series that when filled in requires a filler for that filling. This is why in the dialectic the third which is normally taken as coming after the two is the aspect disclosing it.
(Add to the infinity of finites)
The principle that the limit of the infinite is that it is unlimited is specifically descriptive of the dialectic. The special feature of pure reason in the natural realm is that it finds absolute freedom which so far constitutes the basis of potentiality is unboundedly uncertain. This uncertainty does not concern what the principles of reason are but how they manifest as objects.
The potentiality of reason is it can become any possible thing and it is this capacity that is the limitation because to be all things is also simultaneously to be being a single thing. It becomes everything therefore by being each single thing. This fact of reason constitutes the phenomenology of dialectic. The experience of thought is found in its other aspect, its matter. The metaphysical question of the ontological sciences is not whether or not matter constitutes an essential part in the statues of thought as substance but rather how is matter identical with thought in process of being? Dialectic composite of form and matter is primarily the basic self-unity of the initial ability for determination. The infinite potentiality of thought as being all things must in the first place be expressed in a particular way. The way of expressing thought relates to the feature of a body, which serves as the arbitrary principle- something first has to be any kind of way in order to be a specific kind of way. The dialectic deals with how from standpoint of absolute freedom can substance with infinity potentiality express itself? Dialectic is fundamental form of self-proof which takes the form of communication as expression.
—————-(used section 1 may.23.19)
“in philosophy, “proving” amounts to exhibiting how the ob-ject makes itself what it is through and of itself.-[…] [truth comes only with the notion] Only the Concept is what is true, and, more precisely, it is the truth of Being and of Essence. [both of which when separately maintained in their isolation cannot but be untrue.] Being because it is still only what is immediate, and Essence because it is still only what is mediated. At this point, we could at once raise the question why, if that is the case, we should begin with what is untrue and why we do not straightaway begin with what is true. [To which we answer that “truth”, to deserve the name, must authenticate its own truth.] The answer is that the truth must, precisely as such, validate itself and here, within logical thinking itself, validation consists in the Concept’s showing itself to be what is mediated through and with itself, so that it shows itself to be at the same time the genuinely immediate.” (134)
To make “valid” in logic is a demonstration to show how variable components of mediate relation consisting of opposites is identical to proving how these opposites are unsubstantial elements of a self-identical immediate determinations. In other words logic shows how the detailed variability of an intricate system are all identically undifferentiated within the same conception.
Abstract thinking of the understanding is so far being limited and unstable shows a perceptual tendency to work its own dissolution and swing round to its opposite. Reasonableness on the contrary just consists of embracing these opposites as unsubstantial elements. (Add to consciousness going in and out of existence, forgets its idea only to rediscover it consisted its subsistence as consciousness, knowledge as recollection)
———
When we normally think of ordinary forms of communication we think of expression representing external circumstances shared by understanding. But we do not ask what is externally presented must be a form of expression itself so as to be communicable to the understanding. Our method of expression is derived from an external sense, we make art, we speak and write language, make hand singles and so on. But in a more fundamental stage the expression of a thought is simultaneously a body. Reason is an immediate substances takes its unsubstantial part the body which is its feature that only has a mediate reality can be shifted and shapes and moulded to express its thought.
Its potentiality from this standpoint is that it can become any expression, its limitation is that the expression of infinite potentiality must be mediated as particular thing like body and the finite circumstances that come along with it. Everything is still has to be somewhere.
In the domain of religion “[God who is the truth, is known by us, in his truth] i.e., as absolute spirit, only when we recognise that the world created by him-nature and finite spirit-is not true in its distinction from God.” (134)
The idea that the physical world being perishable and corruptible is sustained by the more fundamentally pure and spiritual world of god dominates all religious domains. The idea of an afterlife being the mediation between the physical and the spiritual (add to afterlife as evolutionary, animals becoming other animals, Buddha, Islam etc.)
(Reference Terrence) DMT
It is a common experience reported by most individuals who experiment with DMT- the “dimension drug”- that they witness “being” who express themselves on their bodies, they form their bodies into the conception of their thoughts. In this dimension the level of uncertainty is demonstrated by the very instability of matter to be spontaneously determined by thought. Even if we omit that such experiences of dmt users are illusions we still cannot escape from such a postulation we all instinctively can recognize- the possibility of what if thoughts can instantaneously be turned into bodies?
In contrast the limitation of man and particular organisms like him lies in the fact that we are given a particular body and certain circumstances that we cannot but have to dispense with, and only through these limits which are fixities of the finite, we find the freedom to act without being invariably transformed into those actions.
The dialectic is everything
The dialectic “must in no way be regarded as present only for philosophi cal consciousness; on the contrary, what is in question here is found already in all other forms of consciousness, too, and in everyone’s experience. Everything around us can be regarded an example of dialectic. For we know that, instead of being fixed and ultimate, everything finite is alterable and perishable, and this is nothing but the dialectic of the finite, through which the latter, being implicitly the other of itself, is driven beyond what it immediately is and overturns into its opposite.” 130
We ask why do some life forms exists like worms or maggots, why are some kids born with cancers, and before we judge those kinds of existences as random like in the case of the kid we account his cancer to his genetics as if that strips any moral reasons for the cause, or that maggots and worms play the role of decomposition in the environment or what not, we have to first see those forms of life as an instinct of Reason, or rather they are rational instincts of nature, the interplay of dialectic, the manifesting possibility of thought because no rational consideration escapes manifesting into a bodily expression of it. For this constitutes the limit of infinity, by shift and shaping its matter into every conception of its thought, it actually becomes each and every single of those conception. This is however a developmental process meaning that it is slowly working to achieve its infinite capacity it possess from the start in a single finite expression at the end.
“Truth to deserve the name must authenticate its own truth” 4:19:45
The one and the other 4:55:30
Atomism is first of all a metaphysical theory 5:13:30
5:13:40 “the only mere physicist are the animals for they alone do not think while man is a thinking being and a born metaphysician. The real question is not whether we should apply metaphysics but whether our metaphysics is of the right kind”
The dialectic is commonly characterized to consist of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, is ordinarily understood that out of two conflicting elements a third one arises. This simplification is a misapprehension of the much more difficult nature of the concept not because there is no adequate explanation but that the very nature of dialectic is complex because it is fundamentally as the Greeks describe it pertain to the nature of mind. As to the nature of mind dialectic is not limited to the logical nature of rhetoric or the modes of language concerning the representation of truth either by mathematical symbols or words.
Dialectic fundamentally concerns the nature of logical substance, the way reason is principle in the development of physical objects. The a proper understanding of dialectic asserts that the conceiving element of mind, its consciousness, is found identically in the logical structure of natural object. The most basic feature of mind dialectic states is the inconceivable aspect of reason wherein thought always breaches or transcends beyond itself such that whenever an idea is formulated the conception of that idea now discloses it as some other idea to which now it must conceive of. This aspect constitutes thought as the infinite feature of motion in nature.
The concept of the dialectic in the original view proposed by the Greeks and elaborated by Hegel, does not imply that a third, the synthesis, originates from the conflict between thesis and antithesis means that the synthesis is the mean, or the combination of the two extremes. The argument that the synthesis is a result by way of combing thesis and antithesis is mischaracterization because in what sense than is the third, synthesis different if it is merely the sum combined total of the two? Does the third concludes the two merely because it discloses them in relation, which does not tell us what pushes beyond that relation as making it a single thing. in what sense is it a result of them? The dialectic is not a methodology wherein opposing concepts can be applied and a third results from mere combination. For example in the opposition between “love” and “hate” what would be the synthesis? In such examples we find difficulty of a proper synthesis because the synthesis is not true a result coming after some relation. The true understanding of dialectic according to Hegel is that the so called synthesis or result is found in the beginning such that to discloses, contain implicitly within, the relation between the opposite which are said to be its cause.
Fun-ction
Law of mind, the events we experience seem as if they are the going forward of life, a continuity of the same duration. The law of mind challenges this notion by inquiring into the cause for the continuity of this duration. actually the recollection of going backward proving the conception. For example in mathematics a function presupposes a proof found in the equation. We think that an equation needs to be solved by revealing variables not found in its representation of a value. The resolution of an equation however involves the function. The fun-ction combines “fun” in the sense of freedom and “action” meaning activity, to be the aspect of the equation where the resolution does not necessarily follow in the order of coming after the proof.
The function makes the resolution presupposed in the beginning by requiring the proof to validate the equation by revealing every step that goes into structuring the variability of its value, which are all the possibilities presupposed by the variables forming the equation. The function concerns how a varying quantity depends on another quantity whereas an equation states that the values are equal. The resolution shows how values are equal by showing how quantities depend on each other.
representation the most efficient logical relation assumed by the function of the equation. In this way there are different ways of solving a mathematical equation but always a best way.
The function satisfies the resolution by merely stating that going through what is already presented confirms its existence.
The going backwards of mind keeps matter going forward intact.
In the previous section we discussed that Reason is the logic of the indivisible inverse relation- where any two variables are held apart as distinctive principles by the very similarity that they are different. That is to say, if any given principles, say P, exhibits a particular nature, it cannot be and not be at the same time (non-contradiction). And so this innermost contradiction supposed that the variable P, is opposed to its inverse ratio non-P. But it is this vary opposition that makes P a thing that is different than not P and vice versa. Without digressing too far into this already explained topic. Let us ask the very manifestation that reason exhibits itself.