Bertrand Russell on Hegel (1957)

A few clips of Bertrand Russell discussing Hegel and his journey away from the Hegelian commitments of his early years.

#Philosophy #BertrandRussell #Hegel

[Philosophy_Overdose]

It should be noted that Russell wasn't trying to explain Hegel or Hegelianism here or anything. This is just his response to having been asked what, if anything, he thought he had gotten wrong in philosophy in the past, and that's when he begins to say that he used to be a Hegelian but that he now thinks it is rubbish (nearly every professional philosopher thought that Hegel was rubbish at this time, so that should hardly be surprising). But putting all that aside, he still doesn't, as far as I can tell, say anything false about Hegel or Hegelianism...

[thomasweir]

Hegel gets fashionable, unfashionable, right, then wrong again, clear then obscure, profound and then trivial: all in a constant cycle every 30 or 40 years. The peaks and troughs of Hegelianism are pretty regular. I’ve always wondered about this.

[joshuatindall]

Russell sounds like somebody doing an impression of Russell

[edwardbackman]

Id recommended everyone reading this to Emil Fackenheim’s ‘The Religious Dimension of Hegel’s Thought.’ The first chapter after the intro contains a much better characterization of Hegel’s philosophy (especially related to the ‘unity of things’) and more importantly, a criticism of F.H. Bradley, Russell’s teacher at Cambridge! The former’s idea of Hegel is shown to be really unhegelian!

[christinemartin]

When you look at the world around you and even the everyday life you lead, Hegel makes sense: the interconnectedness, the conflicts between opposites, the movement towards progress, the cycles of historical change.

[andreassmith]

Russell was certainly entitled to say that Hegel was mistaken, but it just sounds silly saying that his work was rubbish. Many very great philosophers go against common sense (e.g. Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Heraclitus, Leibniz, Hume, Kant) without being 'rubbish'. If anyone thinks that Hume, for instance, is some paragon of common sense, as The Economist seemed to think a few years back, he or she hasn't paid much attention to what the Treatise of Human Nature actually says. Moreover, Russell's initial attraction to Hegel surely helped him towards his logical atomism through reaction. Hegel expresses something perennial in the human mind, which is why he still lives and has had such influence on later thinkers. What's more, might Hegel not have a point in thinking all truth is partial short of the Absolute? I have no idea, but the thought is fascinating.

[Israel..]

I plan on reading Hegel as a prerequisite to Marx's Capital. To this end does anyone have any recommendations for reading selections? [Edit: Specifically I mean selections from Hegel's work itself] On this topic I would also be interested in possible prerequisites to Hegel's thought in general, for example I'm currently under the impression that one should first grapple with Aristotle's Metaphysics and the western metaphysical tradition more broadly.

[dmboyett]

One man's Hegel is another man's Hegel.

[raphaelhudson]

Russell is giving a very odd reading of Hegel here, but maybe that is because the question he was looking at was very narrow, something to do with Hegel's metaphysics/ontology. It would be very hard to get on top of the scope of what Russell means here without reading his actual analysis. I am never really sure if this sort of metaphysics has much relevance to modern philosophy, the whole project seems to have largely collapsed, first with the analytical movement and then its self-immolation, and been eclipsed by scientific observations that were not available at the time. But if we step out of metaphysics and compare it to current theories about the actual empirical universe and the current theories of quantum physics, string theory, theory of relativity etc, then Hegel is looking a lot more correct than Russell on this particular point.

[rb]

0:40 "it all turns on whether a thing is constituted by its relations". Sounds like "dependent origination" of Buddhist philosophy. Check it out. Pratītyasamutpāda

[akbar-nrkc]

what accurate and clear take on hegel..love it

[languagegame]

we have to do HEGEL again soon, P.O... you know THIS!!!

[tommackling]

I lacked the intellectual temerity to read enough Hegel to actually understand anything worth repeating, but this very terse assessment by one of the heros of my youth, of which I was until now unaware of, has me regretting that I had not made myself more familiar with H's writings.

Ontologically speaking, I think we can say that we know that there exists both "that which I am" (or "all that I am", i.e. the extension of self) as well as "all that exists which is other than that which I am", or "(all) that which I am not". And finally, of course, there is the synthesis of "all that is, was and will be", which includes and subsumes both. What is most clear, is the "all that is".

The boundaries between "that which I am" and the complimentary "that which I am not" are somewhat unclear, but as regards consciousness, or the awareness of mind, both entities ought to be recognized to exist, although obviously not necessarily independent of one another. Indeed, it seems relatively to imagine "all that I am not" to exist even in the absense of "all that I am", although "all that is" seems to necessarily include the "all that I am". Religiously speaking, one should love the "all that I am not" as much as one loves the "all that I am", and one should love the "all that is" fully and completely.

[isaccabenchuchan]

Russell is coming from a neohegelian english tradition with Bradley and Bosanquet heading the movement. Russell simply was reacting to it.

[davidhewins]

William Rose Benet said it well: 'Those who know the secrets of Hegel have managed to keep them.' Hegel clearly denied the unity and integrity of Dasein (Being There), but I am surprised that Russell here affirms a kind of substantial thisness. I would add that British idealists like Bradley and Bosanquet were not aware of or simply ignored the role of #fate in Hegel. So it makes sense that logical positivism could posit a clear demarcation between an object and a relation. #philosophy

[thall]

Oof, this is why folks call analytics ahistorical. The entire tradition has its roots in the bad readings of those they reacted against.

[OmnivorousPancake]

Dear commentators, can you provide a good and most importantly comprehensive interpretation/explanation of Hegel philosophy? Almost every extracts I've read are incomprehensible and unreadable, and the ones I can grasp, like Russel's, are always treated as wrong and misinterpreted

[adude]

Hegel I have always kept at a comfortable distance. This is doubtless because I am English.

[adude]

As an englisman I must confess a certain dismay at the thought that there was a time when even Lord Russell was a Hegelian.

[andreab]

I don't see how a thing could be itself even without any relation at all.
You can conceive of that abstractly, but all things come to be depending on factors external to them. You don't have to be an idealist to acknowledge that.