Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind & Dialectical Materialism
Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind
Tripartite Analysis of Human Behavior
- Subjective Spirit: Anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology.
- Objective Spirit: Law, morality, and ethics.
- Ethical Life: Family, civil society, and state.
- Maximum Triad: Art, religion, and philosophy.
Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical materialism involves the sudden oppositional movement between thesis and antithesis, governed by these laws:
- Law of reciprocal action of matter and universal connectivity.
- Universal law of change and constant development of matter.
- Law of qualitative change.
- Law of the struggle of opposites (the law of negation or overcoming dialectic).
“Everything real is constantly in motion, denying and affirming.”
Infrastructure and Superstructure
- Infrastructure: All essential material elements for a society’s functioning and evolution, primarily the economy.
- Superstructure: The set of ideas, beliefs, and social, political, religious, legal, and philosophical structures organized by human relationships; constituted by ideology.
“Everything rational is real, and what is real is rational.”
Production and Value
- Productive Forces: Human activity involved in production.
- Merchandise: Anything bought and sold.
- Use Value: An object’s inherent worth in satisfying human needs.
- Exchange Value: The price objects or activities acquire (law of supply and demand).
- Profit: Capitalist gain at the expense of workers.
“Disorder within order.”
Comte’s Positivism
Metaphysical Stage
The metaphysical stage is criticized for its conviction that essences do not match phenomena. Comte denies value to essences and affirms the sole reality of phenomena.
Positive Stage
In the positive stage, man forgets God and seeks the “how” of things instead of the “why.”
- Purpose: Positivism seeks social engineering (sociology) to understand the laws governing social phenomena and raise living standards. It aims to anticipate and provide.
Progress
Progress means reaching the essence of humanity and responding to human nature.
The “I think” does not think. Analyzing the proposition “I think” leads to assertions whose validity is difficult to determine.
Nietzsche’s Superman
“God is dead, Superman is born.” Nietzsche believes man is called to replace God as the Superman. Superman opposes both God and those considered below him, the vanquished. Advocates of the poor are the Christians.
Critical Philosophy and Husserl’s Phenomenology
Universal Critical Philosophy
This philosophy is based on universal reason, guiding humanity through various truth standards.
Theoretical Synthesis: Formation of concrete sciences, legalization of a universal theoretical model, and application of this model to empirical reality.
Husserl’s Phenomenological World
Husserl’s phenomenological world is the “life world,” where man lives elementarily. Phenomenology captures the essence of existence.
Phenomenological Encyclopedia
The phenomenological encyclopedia seeks the ideal of infinite truth, an essence always beyond human reach.
Spirit and Phenomenological Reduction
- Spirit: Autonomous and can only be treated rationally and scientifically.
- Phenomenon Reduction: Describing phenomena in their purity, seeing only what appears.
- Phenomenon: What appears to us as we think, regardless of properties that don’t seem to belong.
- Eidetic Reduction: Investigating and recording essential notes of the described, a description of essences.
Phenomenological description becomes a description of essences, both of the subject and the person describing.