The Cunning of Geist

Hegel was clear: history is a slaughter-bench.  Depressing?  Of course.  But does history also allow the increase of rationality and freedom?  Indeed it does. 

This is often accomplished by world historical figures who inspired great battle victories such as Alexander, Washington, Lincoln, and Churchill.  And it was often unknown to themselves just what great forward progress they enabled.

This episode discusses war from the standpoint of conflict resolution resulting in a better outcome. The opposite being a regression, not a progression. .

Freedom is not something to just shout from the mountain tops,  It must be earned, fought for.  And those cultures that embraced it often had the upper hand in warfare, starting with the Athenians at Marathon.  They had a purpose - a reason - not just an order.  

Support the show

The tragic events in Ukraine have brought to the surface many old quandaries of war.  The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused some to believe that a new world order had arrived.  A few scholars even claimed it to be the "end of history." 

Francis Fukuyama published his book "The End of History and the Last Man," in 1992, where he presents the thesis that humanity had reached "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." (National Interest, #16).  His work his based largely on Hegel's philosophy. 

Fukuyama has since backed down from this claim, given the rise of identity groups fueled by the Internet.  And it appears that  the WWII-style invasion of Ukraine by Russia is the final nail in the coffin of this theory.  

This episode explores the philosophy of war with a review of Clausewitz's work, a contempory of Hegel, as well as an analysis of how Hegel actually viewed war.  

Support the show

"Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? . . . The Shadow knows" began a famous U.S. radio show from the 1930s and 40s.  The Shadow is also a psychological term used by Carl Jung to describe those parts of us  that we do not want to recognize in ourselves and in effect, bury.  While it is most associated with our baser instincts and unattractive parts of our personality, we can repress worthy aspects as well.  This can lead to projection of these traits on to others.  

The notion of the Shadow involves an unconscious part of our mind.  Jung held that a process of "individuation" would benefit individuals by bringing some of these unconscious elements to light and intergrating them in one's personality.  He felt this would allow personal growth of the individual psychologically.  

In a way this is similar to Hegel's account of sublation, where notions are negated, and then transformed by bringing the notion and its negation together on a higher level.  From a broader perspective, this is occurring in history, as conscious humans strive, within unconscious Nature, for greater freedom, consciousness, and rationality.  

This episode explores the Shadow from personality theory, the collective unconscious, projection, and Hegel's Lordship/Bondage dialectic.  

Support the show

Hegel foresaw a problem with the advanced liberal democracies of his day.  It is when the self interests of groups within the nation become more important than the principles that uphold the state itself.  He called it a "knot" that will need to worked out in the future.

Well the future has arrived and the problem remains. In fact it is much worse than in Hegel's day.  The Internet has fostered a return to tribalistic identity groups that threaten the very concept of the nation-state.

Media scholar Marshall McLuhan also saw this trend occurring, as the individual of the print age loses out to the group-think of the electronic age.  This episode explores how and why this is occurring, and what we can do about.  

Support the show

Does Hegel have in mind a systematic procedure, technique, process, or plan underlying his philosophy?  Some say yes, others say no.

It is my belief that there is in fact a method; and it is the movement, the life, the evolution of thought itself.  Hegel referred to this as dialectics.  And his important notion of sublation plays a crucial role in dialectical thinking.  

Some say Hegel's method develops as his logic unfolds, but that at the beginning of his Science of Logic  Hegel's philosophy is presuppositionless.  While this is true in a certain sense this beginning is also the result of a sublation of immediate  consciousness and reason.  So the dialectic is there at the beginning.  If there is a "method" in Hegel's philosophy it is this.

This episode explores what Hegel has to say about this in detail. 

Support the show

This episode explores three elements of Charles Peirce's philosophy and how it relates to Hegelianism.

Peirce held that Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are core functions of the Cosmos itself, three "worlds" if you will.  This has obvious parallels to Hegel's triadic approach of Logic, Nature, and Spirit.

Peirce's notion of Tychism is also examined, that the universe contains a degree of pure randomness, foreshadowing the findings of quantum physics. How this relates specifically to Hegel's core concept of Freedom is covered.

And lastly, Peirce's Evolutionary Love is discussed, which teaches that the universe is one continuous whole, and in addtion to rationality, also contain love or Agapism as he calls it, as a fundamental aspect.  This is similar in respect to Hegel's famous dictum, "Subject is Substance." 

Support the show

Philosophers and scientists speak of the "hard problem of consciousness." But what exactly is the problem?  The issue seems to be more with the narrow view of naturalistic materialism, that excludes "everything mental - consciousness, meaning, intent or purpose" (Nagel). 

At the center of the disagreement is what is now termed "qualia" (a variation of this term was first used by Charles Peirce). This is the experience of seeing the color red, hearing a robin sing, or tasting a glass of wine. This actual quality is difficult for the pure physicalist to explain, when they have removed "mind" from their paradigm.

But some contemporary philosophers beg to differ with the materialistic conception, including Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers, and John Searle. And of course, before them there was Hegel, who puts subjectivity right at the core of being, with his famous expression, "substance is subject." This episode explores.  

Support the show

As author Og Mandino states, Paul the Apostle was perhaps the "Greatest Salesmen in the World" in bringing the "good news" to Jew and Gentile alike.  And what is very interesting is that Paul's views correspond in several respects to Hegel's unique take on Christianity.

This episode discusses one of the "New Perspective of Paul" interpretations by Pauline scholar N.T. Wright.  And that both St. Paul and Hegel recognized that Spirit's work is to be done here on Earth, and not in some separate domain.   

To round out the episode, the unique symbolism of the Christmas holiday is analyzed as well.

Support the show

Hedge fund head Ray Dalio, in his book "Principles" states, "To be 'good,' something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything." Dalio is not a trained philosopher but has plenty of street smarts.  And street smarts should never be discounted.  

American pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce put evolution at the core of his philosphy. Regarding Peirce and Hegel, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, "These thinkers, of course, all have a single theme in common: evolution.  . . both Hegel and Peirce make the whole evolutionary interpretation of the evolving phaneron (world of appearances) to be a process that is said to be logical, the 'action' of logic itself.” 

Peirce had access to Darwinian evolution which Hegel did not. And importantly, Peirce incorporates Darwinism in his theory of evolution and yet goes beyond. Hence his philosophy is an update of sorts of Hegelianism, particularly regarding Nature. This episode explores.  

Support the show

Once again Hegel's "true infinity" is the focus an episode.  This time, there is new attention paid to several areas, including:
- a better definition of "bad infinity,"
- how true infinity corresponds to right-brain reasoning, 
- how bad infinity corresponds to left-brain understanding, 
- how true infinity relates to societal issues at large,
- how business innovation develops through true infinity,
- how gratitude can serve as a lever for true infinity.

Also covered in this episode are "Hilbert's Hotel," an exercise in bad infinity, the creative mind versus the competitive mind, Mcluhan's view on communism, how tech billionaires may be channeling the cunning of geist, and how gratitude can lead to greater attunement with Spirit. 

Support the show