Re: AUT: Negri, Hegel, etc

["cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Bananaman,

> Chris, thanks for your reply. I find a lot of what you
> say quite hard to grasp, so just a couple of questions
> to clarify:

And vice-versa for me.  I'm gonna give a try at 1 and 3 together and then
come back to 2.

> Did Hegel conceive of his philosophy as having a
> telos?

This question and the third question are not disconnected, IMO.  The
structure of the smaller Logic is what I am basing part of my response on.
In "The Three Attitudes Towards Objectivity", Hegel moves in a way which
does not indicate a teleological position (first pointed out by Raya
Dunayevskaya, I believe.)  That does not mean that Hegel does not succumb to
telelogical positions at points.  I would argue that it is a contradiction
internal to a theistic dialectic.

Rather, I would argue that (following Cyril Smith's recent work) Hegel works
from within the mystical tradition, found in the Gnostic philosophers,
Sufism, Cabbala, etc.  For Hegel, God is not about creation as an
accomplished fact, but about continuous self-creation, a self-creation which
takes place through human self-consciousness.  As such, there is the aspect
of Hegel which is about negation as the movement of self-creation
(dialectic), but its alienated form through the idea of Theistic
self-creation and dialectic as finding resolution in consciousness, rather
than in sensuous human social practice, which includes thought, hence Marx's
comment on "practical-critical" in the Theses on Feuerbach.

In that sense, your argument about the Encyclopedia being about ontology is
only correct, IMO, in so far as Hegel is concerned to refute the
Enlightenment attachment to ontology, to God as about "being and
nothingness", rather than as about self-creation.  Hegel is at pains in the
whole text to refute ontological claims, and in that sense is consciously
concerned with ontology.

At the same time, having alienated self-creation onto God, he runs into the
contradictions Marx points out.  But, IMO, Marx is focussed exactly on the
dialectic as the part worth salvaging, if we re-read it through the lense of
HUMAN self-creation, which is truly a massive inversion.  In the process,
Marx critiques and dispenses with the aspects of Hegel which are not
consistent to the dialectic because the dialectic is a dialectic of
alienated practice.  The forays into teleology are critiqued in this move,
since there can be no teleologies or closed systems within human practice.

Even so, it is no accident that Marx, in the Theses on Feuerbach, critiques
materialism for its contemplative attitude and credits idealism with having
manifested all of the active aspects.  That one point already subsumes
Hegel's critique of the Enlightenment's ontological stance in favor of life
as self-creation, without denying the richness of Hegel's critique.

> Do you think Hegel would share your dismissal of the
> identity of thought and being?

This is a complicated question.  I am leery to get into a terminology
dispute, but in so far as I would say that for Hegel, thought involves the
active process of becoming, not of 'being', I would say yes.  Thought is not
separated from practice, but practice is in part reduced to thought as the
realm in which the dialectic could resolve itself (philosophy), ie unlike
Marx, self-creation is not human, social self-creation.  And I have a kind
of tick that goes off when someone proposes the 'identity' of thought and
anything in reference to Hegel.  For Hegel, spirit is self-creating and
self-realizing through non-identity, through contradiction and antagonism.
But that non-identity does not mean that existence and essence are separate
spheres (dualism), since Spirit realizes itself through human activity.
Spirit cannot 'exist' separately from human activity.  But Hegel's concern
is with Spirit's self-realization, not human self-realization as its own
end.  This certainly is achieved through human activity, however; through
philosophy.

At least, this is how I understand it at this point.  I am hoping that my
re-reading will unencumber me of all kinds of misconceptions, which I fear I
all-too-readily express in my reply.

> Does the shorter logic, in your view, help to answer
> these questions?

Just one point.  I am now engaged with re-reading what I read of Hegel
(which is NOT everything, btw), from the perspective laid out by Cyril Smith
of Hegel's (and Marx's) linneage with radical mysticism, rather than the
Enlightenment.  That means also grappling with Hegel's History of Philosophy
and History of Religion, and the smaller Logic and the Philosophy of Mind.
Hegel has to be grasped in his totality, and with the seemingly bizarre
insight that his religious mysticism is very important to his working out of
dialectic.

I hope this adds some clarity rather than further muddying the waters.

Cheers,
Chris




     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---