Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
The arrangement of the sciences is the least significant part of the work
_De augmentis scientiarum_. It was by its criticism that its value was
established and its effect produced, as also by the number of instructive
remarks contained in it; all this was at that time lacking in the
particular varieties of learning and modes of discipline, especially in
as far as the methods hitherto adopted were faulty, and unsuitable to the
ends in view: in them the Aristotelian conceptions of the schools were
spun out by the understanding as though they were realities. As it was
with the Schoolmen and with the ancients, this classification is still
the mode adopted in the sciences, in which the nature of knowledge is
unknown. In them the idea of the science is advanced beforehand, and to
this idea a principle foreign to it is added, as a basis of division,
just as here is added the distinction between memory, imagination and
reason. The true method of division is found in the self-division of the
Notion, its separating itself from itself. In knowledge the moment of
self-consciousness is undoubtedly found, and the real self-consciousness
has in it the moments of memory, imagination and reason. But this
division is certainly not taken from the Notion of self-consciousness,
but from experience, in which self-consciousness finds itself possessed
of these capacities.
2. The other remarkable feature in Bacon is that in his second work,
his _Organon_, he sought at great length to establish a new method in
learning; in this regard his name is still held greatly in honour by
many. What chiefly distinguishes his system is his polemical attitude
towards scholastic methods as they had hitherto existed, towards
syllogistic forms. He calls these methods _anticipationes naturæ_; in
them men begin with presuppositions, definitions, accepted ideas, with a
scholastic abstraction, and reason further from these without regarding
that which is present in actuality. Thus regarding God and His methods
of operating in nature, regarding devils, &c., they make use of passages
from the Bible, such as “Sun, stand thou still,” in order to deduce
therefrom certain metaphysical propositions from which they go further
still. It was against this _a priori_ method that Bacon directed his
polemic; as against these anticipations of nature he called attention
to the explanation, the interpretation of nature.[100] “The same action
of mind,” he says, “which discovers a thing in question, judges it;
and the operation is not performed by the help of any middle term, but
directly, almost in the same manner as by the sense. For the sense in
its primary objects at once apprehends the appearance of the object, and
consents to the truth thereof.”[101] The syllogism is altogether rejected
by Bacon. As a matter of fact, this Aristotelian deduction is not a
knowledge through itself in accordance with its content: it requires a
foreign universal as its basis, and for that reason its movement is in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account