Continuing from part one our close reading of The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 3, "Force and the Understanding." We start off with the dynamic between the expressed and merely stored up aspects of force and how this relates to the forcing and the forced entities in the interaction. Which of these is the "solicitor" and which is being solicited? Either one can be seen Continue Reading …
Ep. 277: Hegel on Our Understanding of Physics (Part One for Supporters)
On The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 3, "Force and the Understanding." What is "force" as physics describes it? And scientific law? Do these terms denote objects in the world, or models for how we describe the world? For Hegel, force is a way of talking about the metaphysical relation that one object has to other objects. Or taken from another perspective, it's the Continue Reading …
Ep. 276: Hegel on Perception (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 1 "Sense Certainty" and ch. 2 "Perception." After introducing Hegel's project in ep. 275, we now walk through the first two steps of his dialectic where he presents some basic theories of knowledge and shows why they're inaccurate. Sponsors: Continue Reading …
Ep. 276: Hegel on Perception (Part One for Supporters)
On The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 1 "Sense Certainty" and ch. 2 "Perception." After introducing Hegel's project in ep. 275, we now walk through the first two steps of his dialectic where he presents some basic theories of knowledge and shows why they're inaccurate. The first of these is direct realism, the idea that perception is a simple matter of being directly Continue Reading …
Ep. 275: Hegel’s Project in “The Phenomenology of Spirit” (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on the Introduction to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's big book (1807). We're up to section 81 now, getting more detail on what Hegel's goal in the book is and some of his basic terminology. He said that normally, we might think that in a philosophical investigation, there's some criteria for truth that is going to constitute the essence of that Continue Reading …
Ep. 275: Hegel’s Project in “The Phenomenology of Spirit” (Part One for Supporters)
On the Introduction to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's early opus (1807), featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. This is the first of three episodes on this very challenging book. It's a book that demands slow, close reading, and in fact we only had time to talk about just the Introduction (X pages) even though we also read the Preface (X pages). So what is this project? Continue Reading …
Ep. 274: Schelling on Self-Consciousness (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Parts 1 and 2. This continues from Ep. 273 and features Mark, Wes, and Seth. Sponsors: Visit Wondrium.com/PEL for a free month's access to the full Great Courses Plus library and more. Get free 30-day Continue Reading …
Ep. 274: Schelling on Self-Consciousness (Part Two for Supporters)
Concluding our treatment of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Parts 1 and 2. Start with part one. What sort of self is created in the singular act of self-consciousness that according to Schelling grounds all knowledge? It can't be your personality, or the thing that makes all of your various experiences uniquely yours, because Continue Reading …
Ep. 274: Schelling on Self-Consciousness (Part One for Supporters)
On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Parts 1 and 2. This continues from Ep. 273 and features Mark, Wes, and Seth. If you're an idealist, and so think that all existence is somehow in our minds, then the key to any knowledge whatsoever would have to be an understanding of the mind. Schelling thought in particular that in the act of Continue Reading …
Ep. 273: Friedrich Schelling’s Foundationalist Idealism (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on the introduction of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800). After a detour into psychologism, we're back to mind vs. world: The only thing that explains the apparent harmony between the world and our knowledge of it (and also our will and what we're able to enact in the world via it) is if they somehow come Continue Reading …
Ep. 273: Friedrich Schelling’s Foundationalist Idealism (Part One for Supporters)
On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), introduction, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What's the relationship between mind and world? Schelling, as a young acolyte of Fichte, thought that our minds produce the world, but also that the perceiver-world dichotomy comes to us as a single piece, and that "transcendental philosophy" Continue Reading …
Ep. 272: Fichte’s Idealist Theology (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. Continuing from ep. 271 to cover the rest (Books II and III) of The Vocation of Man (1799), featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What does idealism, the idea that what we take to be the external world is really just a part of the mind, entail that we do? It seems like we should just be Continue Reading …
Ep. 272: Fichte’s Idealist Theology (Part Two for Supporters)
Concluding our coverage of The Vocation of Man (1799), Books II and III. This discussion continues part one. We start out with a bit more wondering about how we build objects with our mind, in particular about whether this entirely uniform because we all have the same psychology as humans, or whether it might seriously vary according to your cultural group or individual Continue Reading …
Ep. 272: Fichte’s Idealist Theology (Part One for Supporters)
Continuing from ep. 271 to cover the rest (Books II and III) of The Vocation of Man (1799), featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What does idealism, the idea that what we take to be the external world is really just a part of the mind, entail that we do? It seems like we should just be solipsists and hence nihilists: Everything is just in my mind, and so none of the rest of Continue Reading …
Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte’s Transcendental Idealism (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On The Vocation of Man (1799), Books I and II, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What is reality? Fichte is known as a key interpreter of Immanuel Kant who removed the idea of the "thing-in-itself," i.e. reality apart from how we interpret it, from Kant's system. Kant had described how Continue Reading …
Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte’s Transcendental Idealism (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. Is Fichte trying to keep the notion of a "real world" beyond our experience or not? It's part of the progression of the text that while at first he assumes that there must be something real behind this experienced world we as individuals create, he gives up that notion in the middle of Book II. So how does he Continue Reading …
Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte’s Transcendental Idealism (Part One for Supporters)
On The Vocation of Man (1799), Books I and II, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What is reality? Fichte is known as a key interpreter of Immanuel Kant who removed the idea of the "thing-in-itself," i.e. reality apart from how we interpret it, from Kant's system. Kant had described how human faculties impose structural features like space, time, number, and causality on Continue Reading …
Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”)
On G.F.W. Hegel's The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 (i.e., the two prefaces and the introduction), plus The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25, which is supposed to dumb it down more so we can understand what's going on. "Logic" for Hegel isn't about symbolic logic; it's about how thought interacts with the world. In short, our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical Continue Reading …
Ep. 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”) (Citizen Edition)
On G.F.W. Hegel's The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 (i.e., the two prefaces and the introduction), plus The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25, which is supposed to dumb it down more so we can understand what's going on. "Logic" for Hegel isn't about symbolic logic; it's about how thought interacts with the world. In short, our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical Continue Reading …
Episode 114: Schopenhauer: “The World Is Will” (Citizen Edition)
On Arthur Schopenhauer's The World As Will and Representation (1818), book 2. Sure, we know from our senses and science what the world looks like to creatures like us, but if you buy Kant's view that this "world as appearance" is a construct of our minds, what's the reality behind the appearance? Schopenhauer thinks that we can know this: The world is what he calls Continue Reading …