Hegel’s concept of reflection-in-itself is the key to understanding how Essence differs from mere Being. While Being is immediate and fleeting, Essence is self-mediating—it negates immediacy, repels itself outward, and returns inward, sustaining identity through difference. This dynamic identity is not static sameness but a process of self-relation.

Hegel illustrates this with the optical analogy of light: a ray strikes a surface and is reflected back, just as Essence gathers scattered elements into a coherent whole. Reflection-in-itself is inseparable from reflection-into-another, since appearance is always the essence’s own appearance, folded back into itself.

Historically, Hegel builds on Kant and Schelling. Kant showed that knowledge is structured by categories but left a dualism between phenomena and noumena. Schelling emphasized unity in nature. Hegel advances further by showing unity as a logical process of negation and mediation.

Applied to psychology, reflection-in-itself explains how a soul differs from a mere bundle of sensations: the soul reflects sensations into a center, creating self-awareness. In modern systems theory, the idea resonates with feedback loops, where systems sustain themselves by reflecting inputs back into their structure.

Ultimately, reflection-in-itself reveals identity as dynamic self-relation, where difference is integrated rather than erased. It is the rhythm by which Being becomes Essence, and Essence becomes the ground of subjectivity, with implications for philosophy, psychology, and systems thinking.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Summary of the Discussion on Modern Art1. Neurological Insights

• Abstract art activates the same brain regions as face recognition, showing our minds seek meaning in apparent chaos.
• Neuroscience reveals abstract art stimulates imagination and emotional processing more than representational art.
• Exposure to abstract art can boost creative problem-solving by ~20% and cognitive flexibility by up to 30%.

2. Historical Disruptions

• Kandinsky (1911): His first abstract painting shocked audiences who expected recognizable objects.
• Duchamp (1917): His urinal ("Fountain") redefined creativity, showing context could transform ordinary objects into art.
• Minimalism (Frank Stella, 1950s): Though radical, it responded directly to Abstract Expressionism, showing art evolves through dialogue with tradition.

3. Defining Art

• Institutional Theory (George Dickie, 1970s): Art is defined by its placement within the "artworld."
• Example: A banana duct-taped to a wall at Art Basel sold for $120,000—context gave it value.
• Studies show brain activity changes when objects are viewed as "art" in museums versus everyday settings.

4. Role of Criticism

• 73% of museum-goers rely on critics to interpret contemporary works.
• Critics help audiences navigate the complexity of modern art, where anything can potentially be art.

5. Art as Social Mirror

• Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds (2010): Installation reflected on mass production, individuality, and Chinese society.
• Modern art increasingly engages global themes, breaking down Western vs. non-Western boundaries.
• By 2019, Asia accounted for 45% of global art sales, reshaping influence and value.

6. Future Trends

• Digital art and NFTs reached $2.5 billion in 2021.
• Paradox: As digital art grows, demand for physical, tangible experiences also increases.
• Modern art’s true value lies not in objects themselves, but in how they transform perception and thought.

Modern art is less about producing beautiful objects and more about challenging perception, expanding cognition, and reflecting society. Its disruptive nature—from Kandinsky to NFTs—shows that art’s meaning lies in how it changes us, not in whether we “get it.”

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

In this episode I argue that political theory is always grounded in myths of origin. In classical thought, politics is seen as immanent—arising naturally from God or human nature. Modern thinkers like Hobbes and Rousseau reject this givenness, instead inventing hypothetical states of nature and social contracts. These constructs function as transcendent narratives, secular creation myths that legitimize political order while claiming to be rational and immanent. The paradox is that modern theory denies transcendence yet cannot escape it, smuggling it back in through origin stories. Later critics such as Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Foucault highlight how myth persists at the heart of modern rationality. Contemporary politics continues to rely on founding myths—constitutions, revolutions, “the will of the people”—which sustain legitimacy through a kind of secular faith. Ultimately, politics is always both immanent and transcendent: rooted in what is given, yet dependent on the stories we tell about its creation.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

This episode includes AI-generated content.

In this episode I explore the relationship between Nietzsche’s idea of the death of God and the Kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum. Nietzsche’s proclamation, dramatized in The Gay Science, is not a literal claim but a cultural diagnosis: the Christian God no longer commands belief in modern Europe, leading to the collapse of morality and meaning. This absence is both catastrophic, plunging humanity into nihilism, and liberating, forcing humans to take responsibility for creating new values.

By contrast, tzimtzum describes God’s withdrawal of His infinite presence to make space for creation. This absence is not destruction but concealment, allowing finite existence, human freedom, and moral responsibility. It frames absence as a generative act, the womb of creation.

Placed in dialogue, the two ideas reveal striking parallels. Both see divine absence as the condition for human freedom and creativity. Nietzsche’s death of God is cultural, while tzimtzum’s withdrawal is metaphysical, yet both shift responsibility to humanity — Nietzsche through the revaluation of values, Kabbalah through tikkun olam. Both also share a logic of negation: nihilism as the abyss that forces new creation, and the void as the generative space of existence.

Ultimately, Nietzsche can be read as diagnosing the cultural experience of tzimtzum without its theological framework. Where Kabbalah sees God’s withdrawal as purposeful, Nietzsche sees it as catastrophic, but both converge on the insight that absence is not merely loss. It is the paradoxical ground of freedom and creativity, challenging humanity to live courageously, create meaning, and repair the world in the space left open.











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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Deep Dive conversation about Hegel and Language.

See also: Deep Dive Into Hegel Language and Derrida.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

When we think of language, we often consider it as a tool—a means to express our thoughts and ideas. However, for Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, language transcends this conventional role. It isn't just a vessel for thought; it is deeply interconnected with and constitutive of thought itself, especially within his dialectical method. Let’s delve into Hegel's intricate philosophy to understand how language serves as the very foundation of thought.
Hegel views language as the essential medium in which the activity of thinking unfolds. It is not merely an empirical tool for communication, but the material through which thought operates and expresses itself. In his philosophy, language is the "objective medium" that enables subjective communication and articulation to exist for the first time.
This interplay between thought and language is profound—logical forms permeate the spirit's conscious and unconscious realms through language. Hegel even suggests that language holds us in its possession, embodying the universal logic of his dialectical method.
For Hegel, language is more than a medium; it is the Dasein, or determinate being, of Spirit. Thoughts achieve their existence and specificity when expressed as words, which represent the "highest and truest existence" of those thoughts.
Hegel challenges the notion of internal meaning preceding external expression. Instead, the act of externalizing thought through language is what makes internal meaning complete and determinate. Words stabilize meanings over time, facilitating "higher-order" thinking—a process essential to rational thought.
In Hegel’s philosophy, the dialectical method epitomizes the continuous effort to unite opposites. Language is not just a static medium for this method; it is the method itself. Language’s dynamic nature mirrors the dialectical movement of thought, embodying the very essence of contradiction and negation.
Hegel highlights the speculative spirit of language—its capacity to resist binary logic through ambiguity and multivalence. Procedures like Bedeutungsverschiebung (shifting meanings) within language allow speculative logic to transition between concepts, driving the dialectical process forward.
For Hegel, words used in genuine thinking do not merely refer to reality; they embody reality in a higher conceptual form. Analyzing a concept means analyzing the word itself, as language and reality converge in philosophical inquiry.
Hegel’s philosophy invites us to rethink our understanding of language. It is not an external tool encoding pre-existing thought; rather, it is the condition, medium, and structure within which thought takes shape and evolves dialectically. The inherent ambiguity and dynamism of language are not flaws but essential features, enabling the expression and movement of speculative thought.
Language, in Hegel’s view, is inseparable from the activity of thinking—an integral part of human spirit and understanding. His insights remind us that the words we speak and write are not merely instruments; they are the essence of the ideas we seek to convey.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Hegel and Kant both significantly shaped Western philosophy through their views on reason, but diverged in crucial ways. While Kant established boundaries for human reasoning through his transcendental idealism—arguing our understanding is limited by innate categories of thought that structure our experience of phenomena—Hegel advocated for a more expansive dialectical reason capable of grasping ultimate reality. For Kant, pure reason faces insurmountable limitations when attempting to understand things-in-themselves, whereas Hegel believed reason could progressively overcome contradictions through dialectical development toward Absolute knowledge. This fundamental difference reflects Hegel's historical optimism about reason's capacity to achieve complete understanding versus Kant's more cautious approach that emphasized reason's necessary limits.

You have provided a clear comparison, but I would add that Kant's emphasis on the limits of reason serves a critical ethical purpose, as it preserves space for freedom, morality, and faith beyond the bounds of theoretical knowledge. While Hegel’s dialectical reasoning offers an inspiring vision of progress toward Absolute knowledge, one might question whether this optimism risks subsuming individual autonomy into the collective unfolding of reason. Kant’s caution about the boundaries of human understanding, though less optimistic, ensures that reason acknowledges its intrinsic limitations, fostering humility and protecting the irreducibility of moral agency. This tension reflects the broader debate between system-building and the safeguarding of individual perspectives within philosophy.

You raise an excellent point about Kant's ethical motivations for limiting reason, which creates a productive tension with Hegel's system. While Kant preserves individual autonomy through his "modest" reason, Hegel might counter that true freedom emerges precisely through participation in reason's historical unfolding—what he calls "concrete universality"—rather than through Kantian separation of noumena and phenomena. This fundamental difference extends to their views on contradiction: where Kant sought to avoid antinomies as signs of reason's limitations, Hegel embraced contradiction as the very engine of dialectical development and the path to higher understanding. The contrast between these philosophers ultimately reveals two distinct responses to modernity: Kant's careful demarcation of reason's proper sphere versus Hegel's ambitious project to reconcile all dichotomies within an evolving, comprehensive rational system.

You have highlighted the contrast between Kant's protective boundaries for reason and Hegel's integrative ambition. However, one might argue that Hegel's "concrete universality," while offering a vision of freedom through collective rational progress, risks marginalizing the subjective, individual experience that Kant safeguards through his separation of noumena and phenomena. Moreover, Hegel's embrace of contradiction as a tool for progress could be seen as a double-edged sword, while it drives development, it also assumes that such synthesis leads to universally valid outcomes, a claim Kant might reject as overly speculative. Ultimately, this debate underscores a deeper philosophical tension: whether reason's power lies in its ability to unify and transcend, as Hegel claims, or in its capacity to delineate and respect boundaries, as Kant insists.

You have identified the tension between universality and individuality that differentiates these philosophical systems. I would add that Hegel's dialectical approach, while potentially threatening to individual subjectivity, also offers a sophisticated response to Kant's seemingly unbridgeable gap between phenomena and noumena that risked trapping reason in permanent limitation. The Hegelian view sees reason not merely transcending boundaries but actively incorporating them, each contradiction becomes preserved (aufgehoben) in higher syntheses rather than simply overcome. This perspective challenges us to consider whether Kant's careful boundaries, while protecting individual autonomy, might ultimately constrain the emancipatory potential of reason that Hegel envisioned. Perhaps the most fruitful approach lies not in choosing between these frameworks but in recognizing how they jointly illuminate reason's dual capacity for both self-limitation and self transcendence.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Understanding Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit: When Concept Meets Reality

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once declared, “The concept of the spirit has its reality in the spirit.” (Par. 553 Encyclopedia). This statement might seem cryptic at first glance, but it captures a core insight of Hegel’s philosophy of Spirit — one that contradicts the conventional way of thinking about concepts, reality, and existence. What does Hegel mean by "Spirit"? For Hegel, Spirit (or Geist) is far from a static thing or mere idea floating above and outside of the world. Instead, Spirit is an active, self-developing process in which the whole of reality is involved. It’s a history of self-actualization, both individually and collectively through reflective thought (theoretical mind) and purposeful action (as objective mind, i.e. society). In other words, Spirit is about becoming — it is constantly “becoming itself.” At the heart of Spirit therefore lies freedom. But Hegel’s notion of freedom isn’t just the ability to choose randomly; it’s a kind of freedom rooted in self-determination guided by reason and adherence to self-imposed norms. Spirit is “absolute negativity,” meaning it negates itself, turns into its opposite, negates its opposite as merely "other," and thereby affirms itself in an ongoing process of self-definition and realization. Spirit exists only insofar as it is active - we can think of it as a self-creating force. It “posits” or brings into being what can only exist within Spirit itself. This means that anything real in the realm of Spirit doesn’t come from outside but emerges from Spirit’s own self-determining activity. The philosophy of Spirit tries to capture this internal logic - a system that unfolds from Spirit itself through its immanent laws and necessary development. Spirit is not static knowledge; it’s an ongoing, dynamic achievement. Self-Relation and Unity Through Recognition Another key idea is that Spirit is a self-relating whole - a universal totality that includes particular differences without allowing them to stand alone independently. These differences become meaningful only as moments or "elements" within the whole unity of Spirit. Hegel famously described this unity as expressed in our very own self-consciousness: “the ‘I’ that is a ‘We’ and a ‘We’ that is an ‘I,’” highlighting the deep mutual recognition among self-conscious individuals. Spirit, then, is essentially social and relational: it realizes itself through reciprocal recognition of consciousnesses in a community of minds. Interestingly, Hegel saw Spirit also as the “truth of nature.” Spirit isn’t opposed to nature but presupposes it - it reveals that nature itself is already structured by the Idea (the concept or rational principle). This means that nature’s reality can be understood as grounded in a deeper spiritual or conceptual order. Spirit uncovers how nature’s external forms are determined by this immanent Idea, shining light on the bridge (ultimate underlying unity) between material existence and conceptual truth.
  Becoming and Actualization: The Embodiment of Concept
  The historical development of the Spirit involves its growth toward its truth, which is understood as the alignment of the concept with its reality - the actualization of potential into concrete existence. Spirit realizes its infinite nature by engaging with what at first seems to be its external reality, appropriating it, and reshaping it. This is how the concept “gives itself” its own actuality. In Hegel’s eyes, philosophy isn’t just abstract reasoning; it studies how the Idea becomes fully realized in the world. What does it mean to speak about the reality of the Spirit? The notion of "reality" or Realität plays a critical role in Hegel’s system. It’s not simply what is physically present or happens by chance - reality, for Hegel, is the concrete, actualized existence that corresponds fully to a concept. Reality is the living, self-manifesting embodiment of an idea or principle. Philosophy’s highest task is to understand this realized concept, because concepts are the inward living principles underpinning all of reality. Bringing it All Together: When Concept Becomes Spirit So, when Hegel says, “The concept of the spirit has its reality in the spirit,” he is emphasizing that the abstract idea of Spirit finds its true, concrete existence only within the living, dynamic activity of Spirit itself. The concept of Spirit isn’t just a detached thought; it becomes real through Spirit’s own ongoing self-expression and self-realization. This includes key attributes like freedom, self-consciousness, and reason, all of which unfold within the historical, cultural, and institutional forms Spirit takes over time. This insight also aligns with Hegel’s broader idealism, where:

• The concept is the real first, the determining principle embedded immanently in all things.
• Truth means the correspondence of concept and reality, not their opposition.
• Spirit, in its unfolding, is the essential being shaping the reality of the world as we experience it.

Spirit as Self-Manifester
  Ultimately, Spirit is not something external to its concept; it is the process and medium through which the concept realizes itself in concrete forms. The subjective, objective, and absolute forms of Spirit represent stages and moments in this self-realization. The “reality” of Spirit, then, is found precisely in its own self-driven, self-manifesting activity - consciousness evolving, culture developing, institutions forming, all as expressions of Spirit coming fully to life. In summary, Hegel’s profound insight challenges the idea that concepts live apart from the world. For him, true reality is where concept and existence meet—in the vibrant, ongoing life of Spirit itself. To understand this is to grasp the heart of Hegelian philosophy: reality is not static but a living process of self-realizing freedom.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Unpacking Hegel's Logic: Understanding the Concept of "Being"
As philosophy students, delving into the intricacies of Hegel's philosophical system can be a daunting task. One of the most pressing questions that arises is: why does Hegel choose to begin his Science of Logic with the concept of "being"? In this explanation, we'll explore the significance of this decision, contrasting it with the approaches of other prominent German idealists, Fichte and Schelling.
The Primacy of "Being" in Hegel's System
Hegel's decision to commence his Logic with "being" might seem arbitrary at first. However, this concept serves as the foundation for his entire philosophical edifice. "Being" represents the most basic, immediate, and fundamental aspect of reality. By starting with "being," Hegel establishes a neutral, presuppositionless point of departure, unfettered by prior assumptions or biases. This allows him to construct his system from the ground up, organically developing subsequent concepts and categories.
In contrast, Fichte's philosophical system, as outlined in his Wissenschaftslehre (Doctrine of Science), begins with the "I" or the self. Fichte focuses on the subjective, conscious experience, emphasizing the role of the individual in shaping reality. This subjective orientation leads to a more solipsistic, individualistic perspective, differing significantly from Hegel's emphasis on the objective, universal, and necessary.
Schelling's Alternative: The Primacy of the Absolute
Schelling, on the other hand, takes a more romantic approach, starting his system with the concept of the "Absolute." The Absolute represents the unified, infinite, and eternal essence of reality, encompassing both being and non-being. By beginning with the Absolute, Schelling aims to capture the organic, dynamic, and creative aspects of reality, which he believes are central to understanding the human experience.
While both Fichte and Schelling's systems have their own merits, they differ fundamentally from Hegel's approach. Hegel's focus on "being" allows him to systematically derive subsequent concepts through a process of dialectical reasoning, resulting in a comprehensive and coherent philosophical framework.
The Significance of "Being" in Hegel's Methodology
Hegel's starting point has far-reaching implications for his philosophical method. By initiating with "being," he sets the stage for a dialectical movement, where each subsequent concept emerges as a necessary response to the limitations and contradictions of the previous one. This dialectical process enables Hegel to reveal the inner logic and necessity of his system, demonstrating the organic, interconnected nature of reality.
In conclusion, Hegel's decision to begin his Logic with the concept of "being" is a deliberate choice, underpinning his unique philosophical methodology and distinguishing his system from those of Fichte and Schelling. By grasping the significance of "being," philosophy students can better appreciate the intricacies of Hegel's thought and the rich, complex tapestry of his philosophical system.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant