work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
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
6675,"","Reading Allen W. Wood's Kantian Ethics. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2007. p. 184.",2010-02-04 22:21:31 UTC,"Conscience is practical reason holding the human being's duty before him for his acquittal or condemnation in every case that comes under a law.
(MS 6:400)",,17698,"Note, Wood says Kant's court metaphor is not ""as metaphorical as it might seem"" (184).","""Conscience is practical reason holding the human being's duty before him for his acquittal or condemnation in every case that comes under a law.""","",2010-02-04 22:21:31 UTC,""
6675,"","Reading Allen Wood's Kantian Ethics. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2007. p. 184.",2010-02-04 22:24:13 UTC,"Every concept of duty involves objective constraint through a law (a moral imperative limiting our freedom) and belongs to a practical understanding, which provides a rule. But the internal imputation of a deed, as a case falling under a law (in meritum aut demeritum), belongs to the faculty of judgment (iudicium), which, as the subjective principle of imputing an action, judges with rightful force whether the action as a deed (an action coming under a law) has occurred or not. Upon it follows the conclusion of reason (the verdict), that is, the connecting of the rightful result with the action (condemnation or aquittal). All of this takes place before a judicial proceeding (forum). — Consciousness of an inner court in the human being (""before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another"") is conscience.
(MS 6:437-8)",,17699,"","""Consciousness of an inner court in the human being ('before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another') is conscience.""",Court,2010-02-04 22:24:38 UTC,""