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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic
“Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. In short, our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. This will take some explaining, so we’re doing another two-discussion series here, this time just taking on the introductory part of his account. We talk a lot about how Hegel is reacting to and and building on Kant: how Kant said that due to the structure of the mind-world relation, we can’t really know anything about the world and so can’t do metaphysics at all. Hegel denies this, saying that we can reach “absolute knowledge” through rigorous thought, which is a matter of analyzing the internal contents of our various concepts and philosophical theories to see how they break down and so lead to improved versions of themselves.
This recording features Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Amogh Sahu of the Symptomatic Redness podcast.
Recommended prerequisites: Ep. 19 on Kant’s epistemology, ep. 35 on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, ep. 89 on Berkeley’s idealism. Interesting points of comparison are ep. 131 Aristotle on “nous” and ep. 34 Frege on “Thoughts.” Hegel’s position in the Logic was the basis for British Hegelianism, which in turn was exactly what the logical atomism of Russell and early Wittgenstein (episode 7) was a reaction to.
Consideration of this book continues on ep. 135, and then on the Aftershow, which you need to be a PEL Citizen to listen to. Please support PEL.
End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Download the whole album for free. Listen to Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.
Have you checked out Mark’s new podcast Nakedly Examined Music yet?
Hegel picture by Corey Mohler.
Hi, my name is Bruna and I am a brazilian woman. I just want to say that I enjoyed your podcast until the episode 131, where you talked about why you dont have any woman as a constant participant on your show. Since that day, I started to wonder how much things you’ve lost on your podcast – how many points of view – because you dont have a person from a diverse gender on your show. You said that 80% of your audience is male. Well, you have a reason for that. It would be wonderful if you do some effort to make the table of constant participants more diverse. It is a good show and I really enjoy learning from it, but I am sure that there are many things missing, in a gender point of view. I will be glad to listen to your show again when you decide to include a woman. Until then, I wont be able to listen to you again.
Hi Bruna
The discussion was probably not as nuanced as it should have been. Basically we were trying to say that we do what we do b/c of who we are, our relationships, our network and our interests. We are open to including others but we aren’t going to create a campaign specifically to address deficiencies in the representation of viewpoints in the history of philosophy.
You are welcome to boycott us until we have a regular female participant, in which case you will most likely never listen again. More constructively, you could volunteer suggestions for people or topics we could cover, particularly if you can help facilitate.
Seth
As I said, you have a motive for having 80% of your audience composed by men. Hope you will be able to diversify this one day. Unfortunately I don’t have contacts to give to you. I thought that you had, since you have a podcast in the philosophy area.
Bruna…. Let it go. You seem smart,
Beijinhos.
That was an excellent episode as usual. This great podcast is in its prime years. Great chemistry, great reference and reading of the texts. Such a beautiful episode. Thanks guys!
For a thorough understanding of the Logic and Phenomenology, i’d recommend reading Herbert Marcuse’ 1933 dissertation entitled Hegel’s ontology and theory of historicity:
http://monoskop.org/images/9/9e/Marcuse_Herbert_Hegels_Ontology_and_Theory_of_Historicity.pdf