Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
Hence the next necessity
in Philosophy is that the whole extent of what is known must appear as
one organization of the Notion; that in this way the manifold reality
may be related to that Idea as the universal, and thereby determined.
This is the standpoint which we find in this second period.
A systematic philosophy such as this becomes in the first place
dogmatism, in antagonism to which, because of its one-sided character,
scepticism immediately arises. In the same way the French call
what is dogmatic _systématique_, and _système_ that in which all
the conceptions must consistently proceed from one determination;
hence to them _systématique_ is synonymous with one-sided. But the
philosophies that ensue are one-sided, because in them it was only the
necessity of one principle that was recognized, without their meanwhile
developing from themselves, as might well have come to pass in and
for itself, the Idea as the real universal, and thus comprehending
the world in such a way that the content is only grasped as the
determination of the self-reflective thought. Hence this principle
stands up formally and abstractly, and the particular is not yet
deduced from it, for the universal is only applied to the particular
and the rules for this application sought out. In Aristotle the Idea
is at least implicitly concrete, as the consciousness of the unity of
subjective and objective, and therefore it is not one-sided. Should
the Idea be truly concrete, the particular must be developed from
it. The other relation would be the mere bringing of the particular
under the universal, so that both should be mutually distinguished;
in such a case the universal is only a formal principle, and such a
philosophy is therefore one-sided. But the true difficulty is that the
two endeavours, the development of the particular from the Idea, and
the bringing of the particular under the universal, collide with one
another. The manifestations of the physical and spiritual world must
first, from their respective sides, be prepared for and worked into the
Notion, so that the other sciences can form therefrom universal laws
and principles. Then for the first time can speculative reason present
itself in determinate thoughts, and bring perfectly to consciousness
the inwardly existing connection between them. As dogmatic, however,
those philosophies, it may be further said, are assertive likewise,
because in such a method the principle is only asserted and is not
truly proved. For a principle is demanded under which everything is
subsumed; thus it is only pre-supposed as the first principle. Before
this we have had abstract principles such as pure Being, but here the
particular, with which begins the distinction from what is different,
became posited as the purely negative. That necessity, on the other
hand, makes for a universal which must likewise be in the particular,
so that this should not be set aside, but should have its determinate
character through the universal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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