From: Mustafa Cemal

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997

Dear Alex,

I agree with your words, and share your questions:

"If the finite is limited/transitory while the infinite/notion is the principle of all life in which the finite is a constituent stage, and philosophy is knowledge through notions, then Hegel seems to be talking about priority of notion in teleology or organic functions. The purpose/notion of a seed is to grow into a plant, it develops leaves, roots etc. that have different functions in order to fulfill that purpose.

Therefore, I found Hegel's idealistic position uncertain. Perhaps, Hegel, who regards his philosophy as the culminating point of all previous philosophies and he himself as the person who has attained the Absolute Idea wants all major principles in philosophy combined in his own. It may be that his idealism is multi-dimensional operating at different levels and with different expressions but I'm not sure."

Here, I will try to show Hegel's objective idealism.

As you have done, to understand Hegel's idealism we should first define the concept of idealism. According to your narrow definition, idealism assumes the priority of concept over matter. Matter, objectivity, particular, and similarly, idea, subjectivity, universal can be used equivalently, but we should choose the best one for our purposes. I think these should be particular and universal. Then, idealism means the priority of universal over particular. As is obvious this is not the idea of Hegel.

Every concept (universal) for Understanding is defined by its limit, i.e., to define is to put limit or to negate. It is the limit that makes Understanding so powerful, but at the same time so weak that it is merciless whenever you try to grasp movement. Everything is determined and obvious inside the limit, but over the limit vagueness and indeterminacy prevail. Reality, therefore, "must be taken as limitless, i.e. undefined."

I think, Hegel's theory of logic is in fact theory of limit, that is, the theory of the logic of vagueness.

"In comparison with an unalloyed (einfache) identity, every defining term as such seems to the understanding to be only a limit (Schranke) and a negation: every reality accordingly must be taken as limitless, i.e. undefined (unbestimmt)." (SH, §49)

In order to be able to order universal and particular as prior and secondary, we must differentiate them according to some criteria. This might be done by the concept of objectivity. One might say, only particulars are objective, and refuse to claim any objectivity to universal; or might say only universal are objective, particulars are transitory, contingent, limited and finite. Subjective idealism asserts that the real only exists in individual human thought. Empiricism or materialism, on the other, claims that we generalize or universalize or find laws by induction and and there is no meaning to assign any objectivity to them.

"This doctrine (empiricism) when systematically carried out produces what has been latterly termed Materialism. Materialism of this stamp looks upon matter, qua matter, as the genuine objective world. But with matter we are at once introduced to an abstraction, which as such cannot be perceived, and it may be maintained that there is no matter, because, as it exists, it is always something definite and concrete." ? "Empiricism therefore labours under a delusion, if it supposes that, while analysing the objects, it leaves them as they were: it really transforms the concrete into an abstract. And as a consequence of this change the living thing is killed: life can exist only in the concrete and one." (SL, Remark §38)

For empiricism, the only source of knowledge is experience, but the knowledge obtained from experience as generalisations, have not correspondent in experiment. Hegel writes,

"To say that species are nothing in themselves, that the universal is not the essential reality of nature, that its implicit existence is not the object of thought, is tantamount to saying that we do not know real existence" (HP, 309)

If we do not deny the objectivity of both universal and particular, then we should say, either we know universal by way of particular or particular by way of universal. However, in the processes of knowledge, this either-or logic is impossible. This is the idea of Hegel. For him, there is no possible way of giving priority neither to particular nor to universal.

Plato might represent the third way. He seems to claim that universals not only independent of the subjectivity, but exist independently of objects too. The objectivity of universals is multiply applicable. Blueness, for example, as an objective entity exists in many individuals (pencil, shirt, table etc.) at once. Universal is identity existing in a diversity of objects. He distinguishes blue as a quality perceived individual and blueness in general. He assumes a difference between blue of this pencil and the blue of sky, where blue of sky is the exemplification of blueness as universality, so that universal as ideality constitutes ideal transcentend world. Plato, consequently, asserts that 'learning is just a recollection of what we already possess." The reason of why he has reached such a conclusion for Hegel is that "Plato propounds the true Notion that consciousness in itself is the content of knowledge." (HP, 34)

So, what kind of idealist may Hegel be that Marx and Engels accused? My first response is that he might be a kind of objective idealist as Andy put it to your answer. Once objectivity of universals is assumed, since universals can only be appercepted by mind, then the difference between actual and thought becomes ambiguous. More correctly, what is actual should be rational, and what is rational should be actual.

"To reflect is a lesson which even the child has to learn. One of his first lessons is to join adjectives with substantives. This obliges him to attend and distinguish: he has to remember a rule and apply it to the particular case. This rule is nothing but a universal: and the child must see that the particular adapts itself to this universal. In life, again, we have ends to attain. And with regard to these we ponder which is the best way to secure them. The end here represents the universal or governing principle and we have means and instruments whose action we regulate in conformity to the end. In the same way reflection is active in questions of conduct. To reflect here means to recollect the right, the duty - the universal which serves as a fixed rule to guide our behaviour in the given case. Our particular act must imply and recognise the universal law. ? BUT MAN IS NOT CONTENT WITH A BARE ACQUAINTANCE, OR WITH THE FACT AS IT APPEARS TO THE SENSES; HE WOULD LIKE TO GET BEHIND THE SURFACE, to know what it is, and to comprehend it. This leads him to reflect: he seeks to find out the cause as something distinct from the mere phenomenon: he tries to know the inside in its distinction from the outside. HENCE THE PHENOMENON BECOMES DOUBLE, IT SPLITS INTO INSIDE AND OUTSIDE, INTO FORCE AND ITS MANIFESTATION, INTO CAUSE AND EFFECT. Once more we find the inside or the force identified with the universal and permanent: not this or that flash of lightning, this or that plant - but that which continues the same in them all. The sensible appearance is individual and evanescent: the permanent in it is discovered by reflection. ? From all these examples it may be gathered how REFLECTION IS ALWAYS SEEKING FOR SOMETHING FIXED AND PERMANENT, DEFINITE IN ITSELF AND GOVERNING THE PARTICULARS. This universal which cannot be apprehended by the senses counts as the true and essential. Thus, duties and rights are all-important in the matter of conduct; and an action is true when it conforms to those universal formulae." (SL, Remark21)

Reflection splits phenomenon as to "inside and outside, into force and its manifestation, into cause and effect," essence and illusory being. Thus there is a contradiction between universal, infinite and particular, finite, because fixed and permanent behind the surface govern what it is derived form.

"Experience, as distinct from mere single perception of single facts, there are two elements. The one is the matter, infinite in its multiplicity, and as it stands a mere set of singulars: the other is the form, the characteristics of universality and necessity. Mere experience no doubt offers many, perhaps innumerable, cases of similar perceptions: but, after all, no-multitude, however great, can be the same thing as UNIVERSALITY. Similarly, mere experience affords perceptions of changes succeeding each other and of objects in juxtaposition; but it presents no NECESSARY CONNECTION. If perception, therefore, is to maintain its claim to be the sole basis of what men hold for truth, universality and necessity appear something illegitimate: they become an accident of our minds, a mere custom, the content of which might be otherwise constituted than it is." (SL, §32)

For Hegel, things are differentiated between each other by their qualities; a thing stands in relation to another thing by way of one of its qualities. While no two things could have exactly the same qualities, every thing must have some quality in common with every other thing. Particular is the unity of being and non-being. Reality is made of individual objects and phenomena for the sensuous perception, but objects and phenomena are made of qualities, then we should say qualities too have objective existence. Qualities are not simply mind's classifications but have objective existence, then we must accept that activity of universals.

"The vulgar believe that the objects of perception which confront them, such as an individual animal, or a single star, are independent and permanent existences, compared with which thoughts are unsubstantial and dependent on something else. In fact however the perceptions of sense are the properly dependent and secondary feature, while THE THOUGHTS ARE REALLY INDEPENDENT AND PRIMARY. This being so, Kant gave the title objective to the intellectual factor, to the universal and necessary: and he was quite justified in so doing. Our sensations on the other hand are subjective; for sensations lack stability in their own nature, and are no less fleeting and evanescent than thought is permanent and self-subsisting." (SL, Remark §40).

Hegel severely criticises subjective idealism (Kant, Fichte). The thoughts that are independent and primary is not of individual. This is the point where from now on, he enters into idealism. He passes from individual thought to objective thought by the concept of "I".

"If we take our prima facie impression of thought, we find on examination first (a) that, in its usual subjective acceptation, thought is one out of many activities or faculties of the mind, coordinate with such others as sensation, perception, imagination, desire, volition, and the like. The product of this activity, the form or character peculiar to thought, is the universal, or, in general, the abstract. THOUGHT, REGARDED AS AN ACTIVITY, may be accordingly described as the active universal, and, since the deed, its product, is the universal once more, may be called the self-actualising universal. Thought conceived as a subject (agent) is a thinker, and the subject existing as a thinker is simply denoted by the term 'I'. (SH, §20)

Here Thought as an activity abstracted from individual thoughts, is being described as active universal. Similarly, when I say "I", I differentiate myself from all off you as singular. Every body is "I", therefore, there is universal "I". Then the Thought as active universal is the thought of this universal "I". Without developing further the reasoning of Hegel, I can say that the base of the idea of God is ready now. He says only God is the true unity of Notion and reality.

Belief in God, I think makes certain his idealism. For Marx the only mediation between thought and objectivity is the actions of individuals. I think Marx would agree with the worlds of Hegel that:

"Now, the animal, qua animal, cannot be shown; nothing can be pointed out excepting some special animal. Animal, qua animal, does not exist: it is merely the universal nature of the individual animals, while each existing animal is a more concretely defined and particularised thing. But to be an animal - the law of kind which is the universal in this case - is the property of the particular animal, and constitutes its definite essence.

Take away from the dog its animality, and it becomes impossible to say what it is. All things have a permanent inward nature, as well as an outward existence. They live and die, arise and pass away; but their essential and universal part is the kind; and this means much more than something common to them all." (SL, §24 n2)

But not with 'nous governs the world,' because the only way to make equal animality as an abstraction of individual mind with the animality as objectivity is to introduce God. I think "abstract labour" is the most beautiful example for the objectivity of universals.

Friendly,

Mustafa Cemal

cemal-at-mag.net.tr