Arquivo para June, 2022
Ontologic Dualism and Spirit in Hegel
02
Jun
In opposition to the classical ontology Being and Nothingness,
in Hegel they do not exclude each other in absolute affirmation or negation, they are integrated in him within a rational discourse, thus “being” can be totally empty and identifies itself with nothingness, thus its first determination. logic is Becoming.
Following this logic, which comes from Kant and further from Parmenides, Being is and not Being is not, creates the idea of absolute spirit which is identity eternally in itself, which knows by itself, and thus the infinite substance is one and universal, not as particular and finite, being divided by means of judgment in itself, in a knowledge in which it exists such.
For the sophists, knowledge must also be related to pleasures and the good life, the discourse is in Plato’s Philebus, which has the intervention of Socrates that will give meaning to Being.
For both art, religion and philosophy, for Hegel, they have different levels of reality, these correspond to the meanings of nature, spirit and idea, all are manifestations of the absolute spirit.
Just as classical idealism allows for the separation of subject and object, Hegel’s ontological idealism allows absolute spirit taken to the level of religion, which has nothing to do with classical religions, or with dialectical materialism, so the old and new were differentiated. Hegelians.
Religion in Hegel can be characterized as something that starts from the subject belonging to him, the absolute spirit, that is, his subjectivity, says in his work:
“The subjective consciousness of the absolute spirit is essentially, in itself, a process; whose immediate and substantial unity is faith in the witness of the spirit as the certainty of objective truth. Faith, which at the same time contains this immediate unity, this unity insofar as the relationship of those different determinations has passed into devotion, into implicit or explicit worship. For the process of suppressing [aufhebn] in spiritual liberation the opposition of confirming through this mediation that first certainty, and in gaining the concrete determination of that certainty, that is, the reconciliation, the effectiveness of the spirit”. (HEGEL, 1995, p.340).
For those who want a deeper understanding of religion in Hegel, which he called “absolute religion” in reference to absolute spirit, the work Phenomenology of Spirit is indicated.
HEGEL, G.W.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences In: Compendium. Translation in portuguese: Paulo Meneses and José Machado. 2nd ed. Brazil, São Paulo: Vozes, 1995.
* aufheben is used by Hegel to explain what happens when a thesis and antithesis interact, and in this sense it is mostly translated as “suprasumption”.
Spirit and dualistic ontology
01
Jun
Since the thought of Permenides and Heraclitus, Western 
philosophy oscillates between Being and Becoming, without either having a clear answer to the question of the spirit, or we fall into the subjectivism of the Soul that comes from Neoplatonists like Plotinus, who said that only the Soul is One, or we fall into a modern dialectical vision: thesis, synthesis and antithesis, which is the result of Becoming.
Among the authors who tried to break with this dualism is Bergson, who introduces the question of the spirit in his thought, trying to deconstruct the ontology outlined from the 20th century. XVII attacking the old theory of knowledge, which elaborates concepts and properties sustained in the denial of time and in the concept of duration linked to Ser.
Bergson’s thought, roughly speaking, is a traditional metaphysics starting from the pre-Socratics’ options between Being and Becoming, and he chooses substantiality (permanence) and idea (fixity) as pillars of his thought, so “search for the reality of things”. over time, beyond what moves” (Bergson, 1959, p. 1259) (see the cone in picture).
It can be said that the problem in Bergson’s reflection lies in the genetic analysis of representation, and this in turn is linked to the clash of dualism itself in the philosophical tradition, especially the modern one, that is, the critique of the opposition between “realism x idealism”.
After discussing the issue of Memory and Matter, the high point of his philosophy, he falls into the trap of Western thought defining the terms of the problem in terms of “images” (for some authors it would be the middle way between the thing and its perception in the “being”), and in this way, incapable of the excesses of the “material thing”, intends to “spiritual representation”.
Thus the image is a presence in the senses allowing the naive and direct description of the experience (or perception) of matter, it can be said that the new dualism is tied to the meaning of the spiritual representation, and thus one could break with the dualism body and soul (or mind).
The question of representation permeates his thought, so spirit is just a resource for it, in his Essay this is made clear by the division of the chapters: if the first deals with the “Selection” for representation, the second and third will analyze the “recognition” while the fourth will deal with the metaphysical conception of matter, by defining it as totality and extensive continuity (reminiscent of the Cartesian res-extensive) and presents it as a solution to the problem of dualism, the “delimitation and fixation of images”.
So Kant’s transcendence between subject and object is just put another way, so the question of Spirit is just an ingenious ruse, but it doesn’t resolve idealist dualism.
BERGSON, H. (1959) Oeuvres Edition du Centenaire. Paris: PUF.
