Hegel & Marx - Bryan Magee & Peter Singer (1987)

Peter Singer discusses the thought of Hegel and Marx in this episode of the 1987 series on the Great Philosophers with Bryan Magee. Hegel was an important and influential 19th century German philosopher, best known for his dialectic, absolute idealism, and historicism, among various other things. The Hegelian dialectic is the process in which everything changes, based on the triad: thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Hegel's idealism rejected the Kantian notion of the thing-in-itself and instead embraced a monistic vision of the world in which everything forms an organic, interconnected, rational whole. Nothing is true or real except the whole. Not only a thinker of totality, Hegel was a historicist thinker who rejected the notion that ideas are static and fixed (e.g. the concepts of human nature and morality, as well as the concept of reason itself). Things can only be understood by understanding their historical context, which, for Hegel, is a process which changes and develops, having an underlying meaning or significance. So not only is there history in reason, but there is reason in history. For Hegel, history progresses towards its endpoint of ever greater freedom, driven by constant conflict and struggle for such freedom via the dialectical process. Like Hegel, Marx also was an influential German thinker. As a young or left Hegelian, he adopted much of Hegel's system, but substituted a kind of materialism for Hegel's idealism. This meant that rather than ideas underlying everything and driving historical change, it was the material and economic conditions which determine one's ideas, culture, and historical development. (My Description)

00:00 Introduction
03:15 Philosophy of History
05:17 Dialectical Process
09:20 Geist
14:03 Alienation
16:11 Goal of the Dialectic
18:03 Self-Knowledge & Freedom
20:10 Society & Freedom
26:14 Hegel's Logic
27:51 His Central Concept
29:26 Hegel's Obscurity & Influence
31:58 Left vs Right Hegelians
33:57 Marx vs Hegel
36:31 Contributions
39:44 Totalitarianism

#philosophy #hegel #bryanmagee #marx

[Philosophy_Overdose]

Yes, this is a reupload. I wanted a version with higher audio quality. I’ll still leave the previous video up, but as unlisted, so as to not break any external links with it. Sorry about any inconvenience!

[msq]

I love how slowly and clearly Magee speaks

[Jabranalibabry]

What a mature discussion; enjoyable to the max

[pppppppppwwww]

This is a gem, thank you for uploading!

[EdwardAveyard]

This was an intense discussion. Peter Singer got so deep in thought that he forgot to take his coat off.

[JohnSmith-efrn]

I really enjoyed this, and I think peter singer gives an excellent and easy to understand overview of Hegel.
I don’t much care for Hegel though. I don’t think his “geist” or world spirit or “World Mind” or whatever you want to call it is particularly rational. It is, in my view, inescapably spiritual, and I don’t do spiritual.

[philosophy_schilling]

Peter Singer misses an opportunity to discuss the connection of Hegel's ideas to various spiritual traditions by interpreting Magee's question about "spirituality/religion" to mean only Christianity. But interesting discussion!

I like the idea of not destroying/starting over, but working with what you have as a foundation and evolving from that. It's a kinder way to look at self-development as well. You might want to "start over" and go back in time and do things again in an individual life, but you would be giving up the wisdom gained from life-as-it-has-been.

[artlessons]

Thanks. It was a good breakdown of concepts. Around 13:24, Singer feels it is best not to look at Hegel as religious ( though he was, as was he using philosophically remixing the religious term spirit ). That is like saying I wouldn't look at Marx as once being a Helgalian, as that might confuse you!
If anything, Marx negated Hegel in quest of a new synthesis as the application of the concept.

[capgrid]

Hegel's ultimate geist is the awakened, non-duel state of mind, and/or minds of human societies collectively

[williametheridge]

Two great quotes, together.
Both dead right.
BM: now why wasn't he clear when it's possible to be clear about his ideas as you indeed in your book have shown
PS: some of his less charitable critics thought that he was deliberately obscure in order to appear more profound in order to cover what they took to be the shallowness of his ideas.

[eggsess]

Thanks for the upload, but lord do they butcher Marx 😭😭 the influence of Hegel is way overstated, no excuse for academics to pedal this

[suhailmu]

I appreciate the introduction to Hegel. I am surprised that an introduction to Marx did not get to class consciousness. The closest was the mention of “servility” — which is a far cry from “exploitation.”

[keb]

If he says reality is only the mind, what existed before humans? What would exist afterward? Does his conception of the history of nature begin with human life? What about other life forms? What about after we’re extinct?

[williametheridge]

Bryan Magee is GOLD!! Politely, ever so, reminding us Hegel was a garrulous, wordy monumental scribe dispensing the bleeding obvious [life is change, we can learn from history] but then draping it with the absurd she'll be right, neo-Christian teleological notion of inevitable Progress of Geist through dialectical resolution of warring contradictions, masters / slaves, thesis / antithesis, alienation, towards harmony and freedom. When all shall be one and all manner of things shall be one. TSE?
Which model is not just nonsense but dangerous because it excuses all kinds of extremist authoritarian platforms.
And condones all kinds of immoral excess and repression because, no worries, we get there in the end, arrive at Utopia..

[williametheridge]

No! It’s black or white. Religious or not. But for H of course it’s religious, the D word.
His whole purposed, agential model is neo-Christian.
PS: “I think.. it is immensely valuable to try and interpret Hegel as if he were not religious because then you find that you can make good sense of a large part of hegel's philosophy in a non-religious way just interpreting him as talking about mind and the common element in mind being our common ability to reason…… but I think I have to admit that though
you can push that a long way you don't really make 100% sense of how you got in that way
the last 10 % perhaps has to assume that there is some religious or crazy religious view of of mind or spirit that lies behind what he's saying”.

[dougcane]

At 26:15 the right 'answer' is that people should be informed that they are being manipulated- but capitalism makes sure that you are not only NOT informed, you are deliberately deceived, because capitalism profits by selling illusions.

[mitchconner]

Anyone who is a fan of Hegel or Marx is someone I wouldn’t trust. Cultists are sketchy and yes that’s exactly what they were. Cultists.

[mugsofmirth]

As this video demonstrates, Hegel's legacy is, for better or worse, inextricably tied to Marx, and will thus forever be held in infamy.

[TheBINIBALL]

A lot of pseudo intellectuals in these comments.

[ThisIsNotaUniversity]

Hegel and Marx in 45 minutes. What a dog's breakfast