Intro to German Idealism (2/2)

an introduction to Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Goethe, Hegel

[culturalhegelianism]

You have one of the most exciting channels on Youtube ! Thanks for the great contents.

[give_me_hope]

Those who went to engineering etc can finally go beyond and learn philosophy now on YouTube . Thumbs up to young philosopher .

[youtubecustodian]

thx for monetizing this. you deserve the money

[john-swbu]

to elaborate on the guys explanation of expansion and contraction as it refers to 'all is leaf', the leaf is simultaneously expanding (pushing water to its tips) and contracting (sucking light from the sun and metabolizing it). In this way, the entire plant is absorbing and reforming through itself simultaneously. The mind seems to be operating in the same way. This is a transcendental take on the notion of 'all is leaf', based on the contribution from the class. This is my instinct as I heard this exchange in the video.

P.S, it seemed like at the end of the 3 hour marathon lecture, you could have used a piece of candy, or maybe a sandwich during the break to get you to the end! still an admirable length of lecturing. I quite enjoy all of your content.

Hoping all is well.
JC

[shezad]

I love your discussions. I wish I could take a class with you. Thank you for uploading this....

[hendrikstrauss]

Wow. What a joy. Even though the end has been abrupt, at least we got to absolute knowledge before :D
Thank you.

[SensemakingMartin]

Brilliant couple of lectures. Really great content!

[blablabla]

Gotta admit, "all is leaf" perplexed me too. Got me thinking... 


Goethe's "exact sensorial imagination" is key I think; if I understand correctly, it is the act of cultivating and growing an organ of perception which sees dynamic productivity of archetype in the foreground and final product "entity" in the background. This act captures Goethe's maxim, or better, de-maxim, "all is leaf, " since the leaf is a sort of aesthetic medium between seed embryo and eventual pollinated microspore-mitosis-embryo morphology. "All is spine, " likewise parallels the process, the middle of the story - not the conceptual origin of humankind or consciousness, not the fetus or ultimate goal or telos of an actualized soul or redeemed believer, the humble, generated/generative spine (which energizes the entire organism, much like a leaf).


But notice that the function of the leaf (as the prof in the audience noted), while certainly aesthetic, is also a catcher of sunshine energy, like the human eye in Goethe's eye-sun hybrid, whereby its leaf veins photosynthesize and transfer energy to the rest of the plant. A leaf is, thus, processual, relating to or involving processes rather than discrete events. And light itself, photons, are energetic 2d massless processes themselves! Therefore, leaf and light and eye are processes, mediums: yet light is the archetype of the leaf and eye. 


Also notice sensorial imagination is modified by "exact, " which feels like a heterodox nod to a creative process ontology - after all, imagination is defined by divergence, de-categorization, lateralized thinking, dissimulation.. Hardly exact!


According to Newtonian mechanics, a leaf is secondary, a byproduct of linear causal events, and thus not of primary importance; but what Goethe wants to say is, yes, it is secondary, tertiary, but this is exactly it: divergence is an asymmetric break that flourishes processual beauty and avoids the full enclosure of an austere deterministic cycle of seed-death-embryo, being both a part of it and separate line away from it (aporia). Unlike a Newtonian/Galilean universe, where causal events of beginning and end, telos, is emphasized, you have a medium middling that has function but also aesthetic beauty, and is not beholden to a full explanation but a poetic, disparate one. All is leaf. 


"All is leaf" is almost like a zen koan, or a Xeno-esque paradox, in that it creates a mathematical indeterminacy which cannot be resolved with pure logic and results in pesky infinities, which, immediately generates a mood of wonder, awe and curiosity. In a way, koans and paradoxes re-attitudinize dispassionate rigor and denuded logic, which are hallmarks of the mechanistic universe.


"All is leaf" is also, literally, a figure of speech, namely a synecdoche, where the part represents the whole. It is almost like a concession to Xeno and indeterminacy, that rigorous attempts to understand the universe fully with theory is not just impossible but, in a way, foolish and silly. The use of synecdoche is inherently ironic; not in the hipster pop sense of the term, but ironic in a more technical sense: it's like a defensive pose of ignorance in order to entice or reveal an absolutist response in order to then critique their burden of proof as logically unsound, similar to a jujitsu practitioner responding to an act of violence.

[mandys]

at 18:00, that story about Goethe is amazing...searching for the primal plant, but then experiencing Mt. Vesuvius...wow

[pinosantilli]

Keep up the good work. Look forward to hearing your videos...

[cpnlsn]

A great exploration. Really helpful to include Goethe.

[Hist_da_Musica]

Great lecture! The article on Hegel's possible interest in the Haitian Revolution is by Susan Buckmorss

[kentbye]

Are you planning to write a book of with your diagrams? I'm finding them to be very useful conceptual maps.

[DavidKolbSantosh]

I feel that the "leaf" is "what it is" everything else, the stem, the root, the bud or flower and the seed is either to generate, support or reproduce, the leaf!

[nicktash]

I am curious what work it is in that Schelling develops the idea of the Fall within God, and evil being a part of God? Would love to find that work.

[ruben]

What about Schopenhauer? Wouldn't he fit in here, too?

[xarchitecture]

Who is that commenting off camera from time to time? Not a student, right?