work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3313,Mind and Body,Reading Curtius European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (302),2005-04-24 00:00:00 UTC,"All the things which man expresses freely and naturally are life relations; now, the Arab is as intimately connected with camel and horse as is body with soul; nothing can happen to him which does not at the same time affect these creatures and vitally connect their existence and activity with his own.
",,8580,"","The ""Arab is as intimately connected with camel and horse as is body with soul""","",2009-09-14 19:33:39 UTC,""
6077,"",Reading for Philosophy and Literature group,2003-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"Instead of the inner life and self-movement of its existence, this kind of simple determinateness of intuition--which means here sense-knowledge--is predicated in accordance with a superficial analogy, and this external, empty application of the formula is called a 'construction'. This formalism is just like any other. What a dullard a man must be who could not be taught in a quarter of an hour the theory that there are asthenic, sthenic, and indirectly asthenic diseases, and as many modes of treatment; and, since till quite recently such instruction sufficed, who could not hope to be transformed in this short space of time from an empirical into a theoretical physician? The formalism of such a 'Philosophy of Nature' teaches, say, that the Understanding is Electricity, or the Animal is Nitrogen, or that they are the equivalent of the South or North Pole, etc., or represent it--whether all this is expressed as baldly as here or even concocted with more terminology--and confronted with such a power which brings together things that appear to lie far apart, and with the violence suffered by the passive things of sense through such association, and which imparts to them the Notion's semblance but saves itself the trouble of doing the main thing, viz. expressing the Notion itself or the meaning of the sensuous representation--confronted with all this, the untutored mind may be filled with admiration and astonishment, and may venerate in it the profound work of genius. It may be delighted, too, with the clarity of such characterizations, since these replace the abstract Notion with something that can be intuitively apprehended, and so made more pleasing; and it may congratulate itself on feeling a kinship of soul with such a splendid performance. The knack of this kind of wisdom is as quickly learned as it is easy to practise; once familiar, the repetition of it becomes as insufferable as the repetition of a conjuring trick already seen through. The instrument of this monotonous formalism is no more difficult to handle than a painter's palette having only two colours, say red and green, the one for colouring the surface when a historical scene is wanted, the other for landscapes. It would be hard to decide which is greater in all this, the casual ease with which everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth is coated with this broth of colour, or the conceit regarding the excellence of this universal recipe: each supports the other. What results from this method of labelling all that is in heaven and earth with the few determinations of the general schema, and pigeonholing everything in this way, is nothing less than a 'report clear as noonday' on the universe as an organism, viz. a synoptic table like a skeleton with scraps of paper stuck all over it, or like the rows of closed and labelled boxes in a grocer's stall. It is as easy to read off as either of these; and just as all the flesh and blood has been stripped from this skeleton, and the no longer living 'essence' [Sache] has been packed away in the boxes, so in the report the living essence of the matter [Wesen der Sache] has been stripped away or boxed up dead. We have already remarked that this way of thinking at the same time culminates in a style of painting that is absolutely monochromatic; for it is ashamed of its schematic distinctions, these products of reflection, and submerges them all in the void of the Absolute, from which pure identity, formless whiteness, is produced. This monochromatic character of the schema and its lifeless determinations, this absolute identity, and the transition from one to the other, are all equally products of the lifeless Understanding and external cognition.
(§51, pp. 30-1)",,16086,"• Hegel takes shots at Schelling's Naturphilosophie. Note that Hegel doesn't call this metaphor, as I would. It's ""superficial analogy.""","""The formalism of such a 'Philosophy of Nature' teaches, say, that the Understanding is Electricity, or the Animal is Nitrogen, or that they are the equivalent of the South or North Pole, etc., or represent it.""","",2011-06-10 15:44:03 UTC,Preface
6077,Mind's Eye,Past Masters; Reading for Philosophy and Literature group,2003-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"The task of leading the individual from his uneducated standpoint to knowledge had to be seen in its universal sense, just as it was the universal individual, self-conscious Spirit, whose formative education had to be studied. As regards the relation between them, every moment, as it gains concrete form and a shape of its own, displays itself in the universal individual. The single individual is incomplete Spirit, a concrete shape in whose whole existence one determinateness predominates, the others being present only in blurred outline. In a Spirit that is more advanced than another, the lower concrete existence has been reduced to an inconspicuous moment; what used to be the important thing is now but a trace; its pattern is shrouded to become a mere shadowy outline. The individual whose substance is the more advanced Spirit runs through this past just as one who takes up a higher science goes through the preparatory studies he has long since absorbed, in order to bring their content to mind: he recalls them to the inward eye, but has no lasting interest in them. The single individual must also pass through the formative stages of universal Spirit so far as their content is concerned, but as shapes which Spirit has already left behind, as stages on a way that has been made level with toil. Thus, as far as factual information is concerned, we find that what in former ages engaged the attention of men of mature mind, has been reduced to the level of facts, exercises, and even games for children; and, in the child's progress through school, we shall recognize the history of the cultural development of the world traced, as it were, in a silhouette. This past existence is the already acquired property of universal Spirit which constitutes the Substance of the individual, and hence appears externally to him as his inorganic nature. In this respect formative education, regarded from the side of the individual, consists in his acquiring what thus lies at hand, devouring his inorganic nature, and taking possession of it for himself. But, regarded from the side of universal Spirit as substance, this is nothing but its own acquisition of self-consciousness, the bringing-about of its own becoming and reflection into itself.
(§28, pp. 16-17)",2011-06-10,16087,Spirit runs through its past as a student reviews fundamentals before ascending to a higher discipline,"""The individual whose substance is the more advanced Spirit runs through this past just as one who takes up a higher science goes through the preparatory studies he has long since absorbed, in order to bring their content to mind: he recalls them to the inward eye, but has no lasting interest in them.""",Eye,2013-06-11 21:09:36 UTC,Preface
6267,"",Past Masters,2003-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"If we consider mind more closely, we find that its primary and simplest determination is the 'I'. The 'I' is something perfectly simple, universal. When we say 'I', we mean, to be sure, an individual; but since everyone is 'I', when we say 'I', we only say something quite universal. The universality of the 'I' enables it to abstract from everything, even from its life. But mind is not merely this abstractly simple being equivalent to light, which was how it was considered when the simplicity of the soul in contrast to the composite nature of the body was under discussion; on the contrary, mind in spite of its simplicity is distinguished within itself; for the 'I' sets itself over against itself, makes itself its own object and returns from this difference, which is, of course, only abstract, not yet concrete, into unity with itself. This being-with-itself of the 'I' in its difference from itself is the 'I's infinitude or ideality. But this ideality is first authenticated in the relation of the 'I' to the infinitely manifold material confronting it. This material, in being seized by the 'I', is at the same time poisoned and transfigured by the latter's universality; it loses its isolated, independent existence and receives a spiritual one. So far, therefore, is mind from being forced out of its simplicity, its being-with-itself, by the endless multiplicity of its images and ideas, into a spatial asunderness, that, on the contrary, its simple self, in undimmed clarity, pervades this multiplicity through and through and does not let it reach an independent existence.
(§381, p. 11)",,16575,"•REVISIT. I'm leaving off here. It is too packed up with ""mind."" I need to check a hard copy out of the library.","""But mind is not merely this abstractly simple being equivalent to light, which was how it was considered when the simplicity of the soul in contrast to the composite nature of the body was under discussion.""","",2009-12-17 04:55:48 UTC,Introduction: What Mind (or Spirit) Is
6273,"","Reading John Milfull's essay ""Notes from Underground: of Moles, Metros, and Messiahs."" Australian Humanities Review. Issue 37. 2005. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-December-2005/milfull.html",2006-05-22 00:00:00 UTC,"To this point the World-spirit has come, and each stage has its own form in the true system of Philosophy; nothing is lost, all principles are preserved, since Philosophy in its final aspect is the totality of forms. This concrete idea is the result of the strivings of spirit during almost twenty-five centuries of earnest work to become objective to itself, to know itself:
Tantæ molis erat, se ipsam cognoscere mentem.
All this time was required to produce the philosophy of our day; so tardily and slowly did the World-spirit work to reach this goal. What we pass in rapid review when we recall it, stretched itself out in reality to this great length of time. For in this lengthened period, the Notion of Spirit, invested with its entire concrete development, its external subsistence, its wealth, is striving to bring spirit to perfection, to make progress itself and to develop from spirit. It goes ever on and on, because spirit is progress alone. Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward (as when Hamlet says of the ghost of his father, ""Well said, old mole! canst work i' the ground so fast?"") until grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth which divided it from the sun, its Notion, so that the earth crumbles away. At such a time, when the encircling crust, like a soulless decaying tenement, crumbles away, and spirit displays itself arrayed in new youth, the seven league boots are at length adopted. This work of the spirit to know itself, this activity to find itself, is the life of the spirit and the spirit itself. Its result is the Notion which it takes up of itself; the history of philosophy is a revelation of what has been the aim of spirit throughout its history; it is therefore the world's history in its innermost signification. This work of the human spirit in the recesses of thought is parallel with all the stages of reality; and therefore no philosophy oversteps its own time. The importance which the determinations of thought possessed is another matter, which does not belong to the history of Philosophy. These Notions are the simplest revelation of the World spirit: in their more concrete form they are history.",,16610,"","""Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward (as when Hamlet says of the ghost of his father, 'Well said, old mole! canst work i' the ground so fast?') until grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth which divided it from the sun, its Notion, so that the earth crumbles away.""","",2009-09-14 19:47:26 UTC,Section III. Recent German Philosophy. E. Final Result.
6273,"",Reading ,2006-05-22 00:00:00 UTC,"To this point the World-spirit has come, and each stage has its own form in the true system of Philosophy; nothing is lost, all principles are preserved, since Philosophy in its final aspect is the totality of forms. This concrete idea is the result of the strivings of spirit during almost twenty-five centuries of earnest work to become objective to itself, to know itself:
Tantæ molis erat, se ipsam cognoscere mentem.
All this time was required to produce the philosophy of our day; so tardily and slowly did the World-spirit work to reach this goal. What we pass in rapid review when we recall it, stretched itself out in reality to this great length of time. For in this lengthened period, the Notion of Spirit, invested with its entire concrete development, its external subsistence, its wealth, is striving to bring spirit to perfection, to make progress itself and to develop from spirit. It goes ever on and on, because spirit is progress alone. Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward (as when Hamlet says of the ghost of his father, ""Well said, old mole! canst work i' the ground so fast?"") until grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth which divided it from the sun, its Notion, so that the earth crumbles away. At such a time, when the encircling crust, like a soulless decaying tenement, crumbles away, and spirit displays itself arrayed in new youth, the seven league boots are at length adopted. This work of the spirit to know itself, this activity to find itself, is the life of the spirit and the spirit itself. Its result is the Notion which it takes up of itself; the history of philosophy is a revelation of what has been the aim of spirit throughout its history; it is therefore the world's history in its innermost signification. This work of the human spirit in the recesses of thought is parallel with all the stages of reality; and therefore no philosophy oversteps its own time. The importance which the determinations of thought possessed is another matter, which does not belong to the history of Philosophy. These Notions are the simplest revelation of the World spirit: in their more concrete form they are history.",,16611,"","""At such a time, when the encircling crust, like a soulless decaying tenement, crumbles away, and spirit displays itself arrayed in new youth, the seven league boots are at length adopted""","",2009-09-14 19:47:26 UTC,Section III. Recent German Philosophy. E. Final Result.
6273,"",Reading,2011-06-10 15:31:20 UTC,"Kant further remarks in this regard, (1) ""Space is no empirical Notion which has been derived from outward experiences."" But the Notion is never really anything empiric: it is in barbarous forms like this that Kant, however, always expresses himself: ""For in order that I may relate my sensations to something outside of me, I must presuppose space."" Of time Kant speaks in similar terms: ""In order that something outside of me may be represented in separate space or time, the conception of space and time must come first, or it cannot be derived from experience, for experience first becomes possible through this antecedent conception."" That is to say, time and space which may appear as objective, since their particular filling in certainly belongs to subjective feeling, are not empirical; for consciousness has time and space first of all in itself."" (2) ""Space is a necessary conception which lies at the basis of all external perceptions. Space and time are conceptions a priori, because we cannot represent things without space and time. Time is a necessary basis for all phenomena."" As a priori, space and time are universal and necessary, that is to say we find this to be the case; but it does not follow that they must be previously present as conceptions. They are fundamental indeed, but they are likewise an external universal. Kant however places the matter somewhat in this fashion: there are things-in-themselves outside, but devoid of time and space; consciousness now comes, and it has time and space beforehand present in it as the possibility of experience, just as in order to eat it has mouth and teeth, &c., as conditions necessary for eating. The things which are eaten have not the mouth and teeth, and as eating is brought to bear on things, so space and time are also brought to bear on them; just as things are placed in the mouth and between the teeth, so is it with space and time. (3) ""Space and time are not general Notions of the relations of things, but pure intuitive perceptions. For we can only represent to ourselves one space; there are not different component parts of space."" The same is the case with time. The abstract conception tree, for example, is in its actuality a number of individual and separate trees, but spaces are not such particulars, nor are they parts; for one immediate continuity remains, and hence a simple unity. Ordinary perception has always something individual before it; space or time are always however one only, and therefore a priori. It might however be replied to Kant: The nature of space and time undoubtedly involves their being an abstract universal; but there is in like manner only one blue. (4) ""Each Notion or conception certainly comprises an infinite number of conceptions under itself, but not within itself; nevertheless this last is the case in space and time, and they are therefore intuitive perceptions and not Notions or conceptions."" Space and time, then, are certainly not thought-determinations, if no thoughts are there present, but a Notion, so soon as we have a Notion of them.",,18646,"","""Kant however places the matter somewhat in this fashion: there are things-in-themselves outside, but devoid of time and space; consciousness now comes, and it has time and space beforehand present in it as the possibility of experience, just as in order to eat it has mouth and teeth, &c., as conditions necessary for eating. The things which are eaten have not the mouth and teeth, and as eating is brought to bear on things, so space and time are also brought to bear on them; just as things are placed in the mouth and between the teeth, so is it with space and time.""","",2011-06-10 15:31:20 UTC,"Section III, B. Kant"
6273,"",Reading,2011-06-10 15:33:06 UTC,"The transition of the category to the empiric is made in the following way: ""Pure conceptions of the understanding are quite of a different nature from empiric, indeed from any sensuous perceptions;"" we have thus ""to show how pure conceptions of the understanding can be applied to Phenomena."" This is dealt with by the transcendental faculty of judgment. For Kant says that in the mind, in self-consciousness, there are pure conceptions of the understanding and pure sensuous perceptions; now it is the schematism of the pure understanding, the transcendental faculty of the imagination, which determines the pure sensuous perception in conformity with the category and thus constitutes the transition to experience. The connection of these two is again one of the most attractive sides of the Kantian philosophy, whereby pure sensuousness and pure understanding, which were formerly expressed as absolute opposites, are now united. There is thus here present a perceptive understanding or an understanding perception; but Kant does not see this, he does not bring these thoughts together: he does not grasp the fact that he has here brought both sides of knowledge into one, and has thereby expressed their implicitude. Knowledge itself is in fact the unity and truth of both moments; but with Kant the thinking understanding and sensuousness are both something particular, and they are only united in an external, superficial way, just as a piece of wood and a leg might be bound together by a cord. Thus, for example, the conception of substance in the schema becomes permanent in time, i.e. the pure conception of the understanding, the pure category, is brought into unity with the form of pure sensuous perception.",,18647,"","""Knowledge itself is in fact the unity and truth of both moments; but with Kant the thinking understanding and sensuousness are both something particular, and they are only united in an external, superficial way, just as a piece of wood and a leg might be bound together by a cord.""","",2011-06-10 15:33:06 UTC,"Section III, B. Kant"
6267,"","Reading Katrin Pahl, Tropes of Transport: Hegel and Emotion (Northwestern UP, 2012), 41. Text from Past Masters.",2013-04-22 16:13:22 UTC,"(2) The image is of itself transient, and intelligence itself is as attention its time and also its place, its when and where. But intelligence is not only consciousness and actual existence, but qua intelligence is the subject and the potentiality of its own specializations. The image when thus kept in mind is no longer existent, but stored up out of consciousness.
To grasp intelligence as this night-like mine or pit in which is stored a world of infinitely many images and representations, yet without being in consciousness, is from the one point of view the universal postulate which bids us treat the notion as concrete, in the way we treat, for example, the germ as affirmatively containing, in virtual possibility, all the qualities that come into existence in the subsequent development of the tree. Inability to grasp a universal like this, which, though intrinsically concrete, still continues simple, is what has led people to talk about special fibres and areas as receptacles of particular ideas. It was felt that what was diverse should in the nature of things have a local habitation peculiar to itself. But whereas the reversion of the germ from its existing specializations to its simplicity in a purely potential existence takes place only in another germ—the germ of the fruit; intelligence qua intelligence shows the potential coming to free existence in its development, and yet at the same time collecting itself in its inwardness. Hence from the other point of view intelligence is to be conceived as this subconscious mine, i.e. as the existent universal in which the different has not yet been realized in its separations. And it is indeed this potentiality which is the first form of universality offered in mental representation.
(§ 453, p. 204)",,20132,Fascinating discussion of interiority in Pahl.,"""To grasp intelligence as this night-like mine or pit in which is stored a world of infinitely many images and representations, yet without being in consciousness, is from the one point of view the universal postulate which bids us treat the notion as concrete, in the way we treat, for example, the germ as affirmatively containing, in virtual possibility, all the qualities that come into existence in the subsequent development of the tree.""","",2013-04-22 16:13:22 UTC,"C. Psychology: Mind, (αa) Recollection, § 453"
8245,"","Reading Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia (London and New York: Verso, 2005), p. 153.",2017-12-15 14:35:56 UTC,"[Note, p. 358] The following remark may assist those for whom it is not too subtle to understand clearly that the individual is only the phenomenon, not the thing in itself. Every individual is, on the one hand, the subject of knowing, i.e., the complemental condition of the possibility of the whole objective world, and, on the other hand, a particular phenomenon of will, the same will which objectifies itself in everything. But this double nature of our being does not rest upon a self-existing unity, otherwise it would be possible for us to be conscious of ourselves in ourselves, and independent of the objects of knowledge and will. Now this is by no means possible, for as soon as we turn into ourselves to make the attempt, and seek for once to know ourselves fully by means of introspective reflection, we are lost in a bottomless void; we find ourselves like the hollow glass globe, from out of which a voice speaks whose cause is not to be found in it, and whereas we desired to comprehend ourselves, we find, with a shudder, nothing but a vanishing spectre.",,25111,"","""Now this is by no means possible, for as soon as we turn into ourselves to make the attempt, and seek for once to know ourselves fully by means of introspective reflection, we are lost in a bottomless void; we find ourselves like the hollow glass globe, from out of which a voice speaks whose cause is not to be found in it, and whereas we desired to comprehend ourselves, we find, with a shudder, nothing but a vanishing spectre.""","",2017-12-15 14:37:21 UTC,Book 4