German Idealism: Schelling & Hegel

excerpts from my class yesterday.

[prestonbryant]

You are such a brilliant lecturer, Matt. Always such a joy to listen to you.

[TheYoungIdealist]

This is a great lecture. I think it's focused, clear, and concise; and allows the viewer to easily follow your thought. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a general overview of German Idealism.

[fadiabudeeb]

This is an EXCELLENT and very enjoyable lecture. Thank you!

[andrewswanlund]

I suspect part of the reason why people are attracted to learning about Idealism (and early Romanticism) is we're still working on wrapping our brains around their contributions. Things that at one time went in one ear and out the other are now sticking and ressonating, even though I feel many of us are still carrying imperfect understanding. Even people who've studied and are articulate about the topic still keep finding new useful insights to think about and synthesize with other understandings. It has a glow of relevance.

Especially relevant for people who're working on developing better sense making skills.  

Pretty sure there's a lot of projection in this.

[williamkoscielniak]

That was just.... wow. You're an extraordinary teacher!

[Mart-Bro]

I love how the bit around 45mins about how you can start from the ego or start from nature and both reach the Absolute points towards the idea of non-duality as the synthesis of that opposition

[waynemcmillan]

Matt please keep writing and producing these videos, you are unique in your approach to metaphysics.

[angelahiebert]

One reason I have recently been drawn to Schelling is that he is recommended by Iain McGilchrist, a philosopher I learn much from; another reason is that the idea of seeing the universe as the original divinity often arises with psychedelic use. In fact, it's common.

[cpnlsn]

Your lectures are a great introduction to German Idealism. They have helped me greatly. I think your style of thinking while speaking is somewhat how Hegel writes and if you have this in mind reading him is a little easier to engage with.

[spiritpeacefulrevolution]

Great talk. I just want to mention at the end when you talk about Hegel and the State that you say that Hegel does not declare who is included in this and that he wasn’t a traditional democracy supported. I just read in his Lectures On The Philosophy Of Spirit that he expressly declares that the ideal state looks after all and every citizen. No one is left behind particularly the vulnerable. This is due to him determining that self-consciousness is infinitely valuable. I know you may be trying to point out a limitation in Hegel but it is hard to do when he saw all the extremes and sides in the arguments he chose to write about. His system is incredible and you did a great job exploring everyone in this video

[cpnlsn]

Great to hear someone range across Fichte, Schelling and Hegel.

[okra]

Great lecture, Matt! Thanks for sharing.

[simonstatic]

At the end, you seem to be assuming that "democracy" is the desired form that a political system and group pf people must take on and that monarchy or a stable state structure could be 'terrifying' if one is not a member. However, people foreign to that particular state would belong to another state that could be similar. If they are not fortunate enough, it doesn't follow that monarchy is wrong or 'fascist' and that a people should not organise in this way'. Anyway, I enjoyed the lecture very much.

[peterclaassen]

Could you do something on Hegel and Scientific Pluralism? Hasok Chang has written very interesting things on Scientific Realism. Specifically in his book "Is Water H20?" I think you would be very interested in it.

However in general I think what you yourself might not emphasise enough at times is that though Hegel is very much a rationalist he is at times very skeptical towards science for its faulty metaphysics. More so I think than the somewhat empiricist Whitehead and Schelling. It might be interesting then to read the Philosophy of Nature by Hegel as a kind of proto Scientific Pluralism, that ultiumately wants to center empirical science upon the study of objects. A kind of object orientated science that mediates the demand for the recognition of nature as a real thing, with empirical science's advances.

[johndavis]

I wished to hear the student's response.. Although I always appreciate Matt's ideas., it would flow better if other voices were included. Thanks for sharing.

[oyinbocele]

I don't know if you wanted to suggest that when Schelling insists on that no matter what mythological background somebody comes from in the end he has to acknowlededge Christ means that he must come to Christianity. But Christ and Christianity are not the same, not for Schelling and it was even not in medevial times. Christ is not just the narrative of Jesus, Christ is the Logos. Christ is everything that is reasonable and in this sense it is not relevant in which philosophical or religious form reason is expressed. I think idolatry enters the scene where myths and rites are no longer instruments of the revelation of truth, but claim to be the truth itself. In this respect, Christianity itself can also be idolatrous, which is revealed, for example, in Hegel's radical critique of Catholicism.

[michaelrahnfeld]

Das Wesen des Lebens aber besteht überhaupt nicht in einer Kraft, sondern in einem freien Spiel von Kräften, das durch irgendeinen äußeren Einfluss kontinuierlich unterhalten wird. 1798 /Weltseele

[Jersey-towncrier]

What if WE OURSELVES as knowers ARE the knowledge of the noumenal? Even if we are restricted to experiencing the phenomenal, doesn't such experience take place within the domain ourselves as an object whether for ourselves, but most especially for others. I guess implies this point when he mentions the idea that we in a sense know beyond the limit the moment we imagine such a limit. We sense that there must be something more than what we experience, and we know that this must apply to ourselves for others, and thus we ourselves must to some extent have a sense of thing-in-themselves, since are a thing-in-itself.

[janmuller]

The e in Hegel is long. More like Heegel and not Heggle

[himathsiriniwasa]

41:45 The 'Kantian' interpretation that you attribute to Bohr is slightly inaccurate. The Copenhagen interpretation of QM can be viewed as having coming in a Kantian and a Hegelian flavour. The Kantian understanding, as you mentioned, emphasises the epistemic limits of our mind in grasping the nature of reality. This is espoused by Heisenberg. Bohr is more of a Hegelian in that he holds that reality itself is contradictory/incomplete, irrespective of subjective mediation.