Re: Spinoza

[Scott Marshall <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:14 PM 2/23/96 -0500, you wrote:
>On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
>>
>> I hate to be a pedant, Chris, but didn't Hegel maintain that there was
>> something called absolute knowledge, and suggest that he had it?
>>
>> --Justin
>
>I think there are many interpretations of this Justin... but truthfully,
>I think that this is precisely what is UNdialectical about Hegel, and in
>some respects, a materialist theory of history -- the kind of
>intellectual hubris that assumes that one can have knowledge of the
>ultimate goals of human history.

Here I go where angels etc. My understanding of Hegel's theory of knowledge,
maintained by Marxism - is that while he aknowledges something called
absolute truth (that all is knowable to put it another way) he also
maintains that we will never get there because for every problem we solve
and 'know' others are opened up expanding the universe of what is knowable -
thus we never finally arrive at the truth - but we can know truth in big
though limited ways. Hegel never put it quite this way but in essence...its
been a long time since I cracked Hegel.

Scott



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