[Seruzawa]

One of the fathers of modern evil. Another lifelong academic who wouldn’t know what real life was, spouting nonsensical hogwash. A progenitor of Marx and his evil “scientific” view of history. Also another lifelong academic/parasite.

Hegel said that there couldn’t be more than 7 planets because 7 is the “prefect number”. Sorry, Neptune. You aren’t there.

[ClearCase_guy]

[I want the USA back]

The father of dialectical materialism.

[Billthedrill]

Ah, Hegel, one of those philosophers who was influential quite beyond my comprehension, and that isn't the only part that's beyond my comprehension. Bertrand Russell states "Even if (as I myself believe) almost all Hegel's doctrines are false, he still retains an importance which is not merely historical, as the best representative of a certain kind of philosophy which, in others, is less coherent and less comprehensive." Here Russell meant his Communist acolytes, only then making inroads into academia. It didn't get any better from then (1945). Nor did it get a great deal more comprehensible in Hegel's own work. Russell quotes him (History of Western Philosophy, Ch XXII):

The Absolute Idea. The Idea, as unity of the Subjective and Objective Idea, is the notion of the Idea - a notion whose object (Gegenstand) is the Idea as such, and for which the objective (Objekt) is Idea - an Object which embraces all characteristics in its unity."

Russell goes on to comment, "The original German is even more difficult." Past all the word salad and definitional spaghetti-tossing, we have two useful notions IMHO: the concept of God as zeitgeist taken over in greater detail by Nietzsche, and the model (for that's what it is) of progress in history as thesis/antithesis/synthesis, a model described by one of my philosophy professors as "artillery style" - one shot short, one long, fire for effect. (Army veteran, could you tell?) The assumption here is that thesis/antithesis encompasses the entirety of reality between, and it's not a good assumption.

Still, it's heady stuff it you like that sort of squirrel-cage approach to philosophy.

Where Hegel is most attractive to the Left in general is his explanation of the State and the individual's relation to it - yes, it is unremittingly collectivist and authoritarian.

The State is the reality of the moral idea - the moral spirit, as the visible substantial will, evident to itself, which thinks and knows itself, and fulfils what it knows in so far as it knows it. - Philosophy of Law

The individual is what he or she is by virtue of his or her relationship to the State. It is a philosophy of ants. I'll let Russell have the final word: "This illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise."

[dsc]

Years ago a former cow-orker quoted me a saying about Hegel. Can’t remember the exact wording, and can’t find it on the interweb thingy.

Something like, (a particular type of person) has heard of Hegel, (another type of person) has read Hegel, and (the third type of person) understands Hegel. Ring a bell?