The Cunning of Geist

It is estimated that over 2 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy have planets orbiting them that could sustain life.  Are we on planet Earth a lottery winner, a one in 2 billion chance for establishing life and intelligent beings?  The odds suggest life exists elsewhere.  

However, although it took billions of years to life on Earth to evolve to where we are today,  there are stars are much older that our own sun.  Several billion years older in fact.  Why no evidence of extraterrestrial life?  No radio signals, no unmanned probes, no hard evidence of visitations.  Why not?  Could we be alone?

Hegel teaches that rationality and Spirit is paramount, what is real. If so, it most be universal, across the cosmos.  Are we the only place where it has actualized?  This episode explores.  

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"Creation ex nihlilo (creation out of nothing) or "Ex nihilo nihil fit" (from nothing comes from nothing)?

The notion of a creator God is fundamental to Western religions.  But is it true?  The opening of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, studied so long and hard by the Kabbalists suggests so, and the Big Bang theory gave reason for many to believe the cosmological argument for God (everything that began to exist has a cause). But the newest scientific data suggests something preceded the Big Bang.  And in our secular age, many prefer to follow the science, rightly so.

Planet Earth, the sun, our galaxy, and the universe itself, like all of us, is headed for the graveyard.  But cycles of nature appear everywhere. Could this also be true of the universe itself?  Does the universe resurrect? This episode explores the question in detail.  

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Hegel's "triad" of Being, Nothing, and Becoming are central to his ontology.  And it can also be used as a framework for personal achievement.  This episode explains how. 

The Being/Nothing/Becoming dialectic comes first in Hegel's Science of Logic, but it also presents the pattern for his overall project of Mind (Idea), Nature, and Spirit (Geist).  And it is just this framework that one must use in pushing to new heights of success in life.   

The basic approach is goal setting (Mind), assessing the path to take, including the obstacles to overcome (Nature), and boldly embarking on one's action plan in the world (Spirit).   

The correspondence of Hegel's triad  to real life achievement is the subject of this episode. 

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Hegel famously said  in his Phenomenology of Spirit, "Everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not as Substance, but equally as Subject." (Miiler trans., ¶17).  That the true - truth - is equally substance and subject.  

He makes this explicitly clear in the following statement, “What seems to take place outside it, to be an activity directed against it, is its own doing, its own activity; and substance shows that it is in reality subject” (Ibid, ¶37).

Meaningful coincidences, Jung's synchronicity, are a demonstration of this truth.  And the mediation of the mental and material takes place in the immediacy of the present moment.  As Hegel said, "There is nothing, nothing in heaven, or in nature or in mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation" (Science of Logic, Miller trans., pg. 68).

Episode 78 explores this important notion.

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Does Spirit evolve?  

How about God?

And what exactly does the term panentheism mean?

This episode takes a deep dive into process philosophy, process theology, and the evolutionary nature of "becoming."  

The pioneer work of Charles Hartshorne, Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Sanders Peirce, and of course Hegel, all in a way process philosophers, is addressed. 

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Wittgenstein is often mention as the most influential philosopher of the 20th century.  His focus on the meaning of words became an integral part of the so-called "Analytic" branch of the discipline.   

The later Wittgenstein contended that words are but tools, defined by their use within the context of the “language game” of the arena they are used, which is societally based and can evolve.  One of these sandboxes is philosophy, as well as science and religion.  And the language of one space does not necessarily hold water in another.  That there is not one underlying true meaning of the word beneath all of the different areas;  only how a word or phrase is used in context of the realm of "game" in which it is being used.

But cannot words be used to point outside of the realm in which they are used to Spirit, a higher power and purpose, and to the truly infinite?  And isn't this the purpose of art, religion and philosophy?  This episode explores.   

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Is philosophy just mental masturbation?  Nothing but air?

Many today see no value in philosophy because there seems to be little agreement among philosophers on anything, and much of what they say seems to have little or no impact on one's life, or society in general.  Is this the case?

An examination of the major pillars upon which society stands - political systems, the law, science, and its moral base - shows just the opposite.  Holding each of these institutions up is a philosophical position.  In most cases, these are stances that have been analyzed for over two thousand years by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Hegel. 

As the 20th century demonstrated, the philosophy that nations choose to embrace can lead to the death of millions. And as citizens of the world, we do not have to blindly accept the doctrines that are handed us. We can, as Steve Job said, "change it, influence it, mold it."  

This episode shows the major impact philosophy has had on all aspects of life.  

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The behaviorism of B.F. Skinner took the psychology world by storm.  His 1971 book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" was hailed as the most important psychological publication of the 20th century.  And this was from someone who denied mind and free will. 

It was an attempt to dignify psychology as a hard science, based on experiments and what can be observed, rather than what people think or feel, a direct contradiction to the root meaning of word psychology - "a study of mind."  He claimed that reason, values, concepts,  judgment, and purpose simply do not exist.  To him, all actions are based on conditioning. 

Hegel laid the groundwork for the unconscious, calling it soul, and saying it is from what consciousness itself comes.  Famed psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung built on this with their brilliant conceptions - the reality of the unconscious mind on Freud's part and the collective unconscious from Jung.  

This episode discusses all this as well as Novak's personal interactions with Skinnerism in the university setting of the early 1970s. 

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Developing one's own philosophy of life can be one of the most rewarding experiences. ll can serve as the basis for a productive and happy experience in this world.  

What many don’t realize is that our beliefs, values, and actions are based on a grounding in a particular philosophy, whether we understand it or not. Examining the underpinnings of our concept of self and the world can be a fruitful exercise. It is better to actively choose one's philosophy of life rather than have it handed to us by others, or by unconsciously absorbing it from the environment of family and friends.  The default position often produces conflicting and random direction, which can lead to doubt, frustration, a lack of fulfillment, and loss of meaning in one's life. 

This podcast episode demonstrates how we are handed a philosophical outlook starting in childhood, continuing through our education, and examines the current paradigms upon which this pedagogy is based. It discusses key philosophical questions that should be actively pondered, and dives into current topics such as sexual orientation, political affiliation, identity groups, and individualism vs. collectivism. Lastly it is shown how many of the casual cliches we use in speaking are actually statements of profound philosophical positions.

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This episode explores psychologist Carl Jung's conception of the psyche, from the ego and the persona it shows to the world, down through the personal  and collective shadow, finally reaching the two core archetypes of the collective unconscious - the anima and the animus.  

This fundamental polarity is seen in myths and narratives throughout the ages, including the yin/yang symbol, heaven and earth of the Bible, Hegel's being and nothing, and even the left and right brain hemispheres, with it two distinct approaches to thinking.

While this polarity is often expressed as masculine/feminine, it is not dependent on the body, but on a host of psychological attributes that differ in their application.  The anima is more receptive, social, and connecting, whereas the animus is more divisive and abstract.   The aspects we identify with and put forward mean their opposites are kept below in the unconscious.  But both sides exist in all of us, whether implicit or explicit.  

This episode explores the collective unconscious from several standpoints, including the mystical tree of life from the Kabbalah.  

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