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That picture is incomplete, part left out
Sep. 7th, 2006 11:59 pm
High today, here: 23. Dewpoint then: 14. High dewpoint: 14.
High today in TO: 24. Dewpoint then: 13. High dewpoint: 15.
One of the Toronto weather gerbils said tonight that it'll be "muggy" tomorrow--it'll "feel like 33". Well, sure--remember what it felt like when it was 33? It felt like 45! That'll be muggy, all right.
Back to Kojève; halfway through. Again, as with so many texts, the doubts glimmer out at me: just in passing, he says that to confirm that Hegel is right and history has ended, either the end of history would have to be evident--and it is not; the French revolution has yet to be universalized--or Hegel's system would have to be consistent and irrefutable--and it is not. Just in passing.
The chapter I've just finished is on the relation between thought and time--surprisingly, it's the most interesting one since the long discussion of Lordship and Bondage (which does keep coming back anyway); surprisingly because my eyes basically always glaze over when philosophers start talking about Time (which is one of the several reasons I'm unlikely to ever be, really, a Heideggerian). But all "time" means, here, anyway, (well, most of the time; like a lot of terms in this book, it does seem to float around) is the totality of temporal existence. So, Kojève says there are four basic ways to conceive that relationship: thought relates to eternity; thought relates to time; thought is eternity; thought is time. The first is Plato (thought occurs in time but relates to the eternal), the third is Parmenides (whatever is is eternal and is identical to thought), and the fourth is Hegel (whatever is is temporal and is identical to thought). The second is some kind of relativism (thought occurs in time and relates to time but is not identical to it, and therefore can never coincide with it, such that thought can never reach a conclusion)--I'd call it radical historicism--and Kojève says he won't discuss it because it renders philosophy meaningless.
Now, Kojève, as a matter of fact, gives up philosophy after he gives these lectures in the '30s (such that they're left to others to assemble and publish); he becomes a European bureaucrat, helping to form the EEC. The story goes, as I was reading it somewhere recently (in Fukuyama, maybe), that Kojève figured that, since history was over, philosophy was also over, and so there was no point carrying on with it--all there is to do is realize that it's over, and once you've realized it, and said so, and why, there's nothing left to do. But there's another alternative: he came to the conclusion that, since Hegel failed in the only viable attempt to demonstrate a final coincidence between thought and temporal reality, philosophy was not completed but exhausted.
Actually, there's another alternative still: he found he could get on better in actual politics than he figured he could carry on in philosophy.
There are a lot of dead patches in the book, a lot of obscurity and repetition (as you'd expect from unrevised lectures), and also a lot of pretty dodgy-sounding interpretation of political history through a Kojèvian-Hegelian lens, but bits of life keep snapping through:
The Philosopher is essentially a discontented man (which does not necessarily mean an unhappy man); and he is discontented, as Philosopher, by the sole fact of not knowing that he is satisfied. If we want to be nasty, we can say that the Philosopher is discontented just because he does not know what he wants. But if we want to be just, we must say that he is discontented because he does not know what he wants. He has desires, like everyone. But the satisfaction of his desires does not satisfy him, as Philosopher, as long as he does not understand them, that is, as long as he does not fit them into the coherent whole of his discourse that reveals his existence--that is, as long as he does not justify them (generally, but not necessarily, this justification takes the form of a so-called 'moral' justification).... The simple fact of not understanding his well-being, his pleasure, his joy, or his happiness, or even his 'ecstasy,' would suffice to make him discontented, unsatisfied.
Of course, I just like that because it flatters me. And:
The real which disappears into the Past preserves itself (as nonreal) in the Present in the form of the Word-Concept. The Universe of Discourse (the World of Ideas) is the permanent rainbow which forms above a waterfall: and the waterfall is the temporal real which is annihilated in the nothingness of the Past.
High today in TO: 24. Dewpoint then: 13. High dewpoint: 15.
One of the Toronto weather gerbils said tonight that it'll be "muggy" tomorrow--it'll "feel like 33". Well, sure--remember what it felt like when it was 33? It felt like 45! That'll be muggy, all right.
Back to Kojève; halfway through. Again, as with so many texts, the doubts glimmer out at me: just in passing, he says that to confirm that Hegel is right and history has ended, either the end of history would have to be evident--and it is not; the French revolution has yet to be universalized--or Hegel's system would have to be consistent and irrefutable--and it is not. Just in passing.
The chapter I've just finished is on the relation between thought and time--surprisingly, it's the most interesting one since the long discussion of Lordship and Bondage (which does keep coming back anyway); surprisingly because my eyes basically always glaze over when philosophers start talking about Time (which is one of the several reasons I'm unlikely to ever be, really, a Heideggerian). But all "time" means, here, anyway, (well, most of the time; like a lot of terms in this book, it does seem to float around) is the totality of temporal existence. So, Kojève says there are four basic ways to conceive that relationship: thought relates to eternity; thought relates to time; thought is eternity; thought is time. The first is Plato (thought occurs in time but relates to the eternal), the third is Parmenides (whatever is is eternal and is identical to thought), and the fourth is Hegel (whatever is is temporal and is identical to thought). The second is some kind of relativism (thought occurs in time and relates to time but is not identical to it, and therefore can never coincide with it, such that thought can never reach a conclusion)--I'd call it radical historicism--and Kojève says he won't discuss it because it renders philosophy meaningless.
Now, Kojève, as a matter of fact, gives up philosophy after he gives these lectures in the '30s (such that they're left to others to assemble and publish); he becomes a European bureaucrat, helping to form the EEC. The story goes, as I was reading it somewhere recently (in Fukuyama, maybe), that Kojève figured that, since history was over, philosophy was also over, and so there was no point carrying on with it--all there is to do is realize that it's over, and once you've realized it, and said so, and why, there's nothing left to do. But there's another alternative: he came to the conclusion that, since Hegel failed in the only viable attempt to demonstrate a final coincidence between thought and temporal reality, philosophy was not completed but exhausted.
Actually, there's another alternative still: he found he could get on better in actual politics than he figured he could carry on in philosophy.
There are a lot of dead patches in the book, a lot of obscurity and repetition (as you'd expect from unrevised lectures), and also a lot of pretty dodgy-sounding interpretation of political history through a Kojèvian-Hegelian lens, but bits of life keep snapping through:
The Philosopher is essentially a discontented man (which does not necessarily mean an unhappy man); and he is discontented, as Philosopher, by the sole fact of not knowing that he is satisfied. If we want to be nasty, we can say that the Philosopher is discontented just because he does not know what he wants. But if we want to be just, we must say that he is discontented because he does not know what he wants. He has desires, like everyone. But the satisfaction of his desires does not satisfy him, as Philosopher, as long as he does not understand them, that is, as long as he does not fit them into the coherent whole of his discourse that reveals his existence--that is, as long as he does not justify them (generally, but not necessarily, this justification takes the form of a so-called 'moral' justification).... The simple fact of not understanding his well-being, his pleasure, his joy, or his happiness, or even his 'ecstasy,' would suffice to make him discontented, unsatisfied.
Of course, I just like that because it flatters me. And:
The real which disappears into the Past preserves itself (as nonreal) in the Present in the form of the Word-Concept. The Universe of Discourse (the World of Ideas) is the permanent rainbow which forms above a waterfall: and the waterfall is the temporal real which is annihilated in the nothingness of the Past.
