1990, Thesis on Hegel: Memory of an Education

"A dry soul is wisest ...and noblest."

Heraclitus, Fragment 230 (Kirk, Raven & Schofield, with my adaptation)

"If it's wrong to think on this
To hold the dead past - to hold the dead past in your fist
Why were we - why were we given memories?
Let's lose our minds
Be set free!

Sometimes I wonder who am I
The world seeming to pass me by
A younger man now getting old
I have to wonder what the rest of life will hold"

--Lou Reed "Who am I" (Tripitena's Song)(2003)

Before it turns to dust, I would like to present what remains of my college thesis on Hegel. It is a matter of recording memories before they are swept neatly away with the dust. This experiment, and therefore it is fraught with considerable danger of being unreadable, a demonstration of sentiment only, unable to contribute anything aside from this damp sentiment. That is part of the need for the admonition of Heraclitus, a request for the dryness of spirit and of wit to liberate us from the valley of this "anima-attachment" to an essay of questionable merit.

Hegel: I believe that Deleuze found Hegel to be a philosopher of the state, and therefore unreadable, un-redeemable, unlike his memorable essays on Kant, and Spinoza, where he freely engaged in a discussion within this discourse called the history of the philosophy.

My friend, Dr J. P. Oppermann, found it in himself to present several essays on Hegel. As I recall his senior thesis was on Hegel's political philosophy. In addition, in 2004 Dr. Oppermann wrote his series of Eight Hegel Meditations. The series of essays was meditative in that it stood on a phenomenology of images and experiences related to Hegel, both past, and, at that time, present. I mention Dr. Oppermann's work because he found it relevant to speak at length about Hegel. Dr. Oppermann has been a profound influence on my thinking throughout the years preceding and extending far beyond this thesis, all the way to my doctoral dissertation on research. I can say that if Dr. Oppermann found relevance in Hegel's work, then it continues to behoove me to carry some respect for Hegel as well.

In order to honor Dr. Oppermann's influence in later thinking, I will note a lengthy passage from his Seventh Hegel Meditation: Dr. Oppermann presents a subliminal reading of Hegel's "Science of Logic" shadowed with Goethe's "Elective Affinities."

Concerning the “chemical process” Hegel states (p. 430):

“Er beginnt mit der Voraussetzung, daß die gespannten Objekte, sosehr sie es gegen sich selbst, es zunächst eben damit gegeneinander sind, - ein Verhältnis, welches ihreVerwandschaft heißt. Indem jedes durch seinen Begriff im Widerspruch gegen die eigene Einseitigkeit seiner Existenz steht, somit diese aufzuheben strebt, ist darin unmittelbar das Streben gesetzt, die Einseitigkeit des anderen aufzuheben und durch diese gegenseitige Ausgleichung und Verbindung die Realität dem Begriffe, der beide Momente enthält, gemäß zu setzen.“

„It begins with the presupposition that the objects in the state of tension, as much as they are strained against themselves, are first precisely strained against each other,- a relation which is called its affinity. Insofar as each stands in contradiction to its own onesidedness of its existence by virtue of its concept, it strives to sublate [aufheben] just this onesidedness. This immediately posits the striving to sublate [aufheben] the onesidedness of the other, and, by way of this mutual equalization and connection, posit reality to the concept that contains both moments.”

There is still neither desire nor time here - but there is at least an intimation that this particular employment of Aufhebung is driven by an „existential“ striving (or pull) which seeks to go beyond the limitation of individual elements towards an equalization through elective affinity movement. This is as far as Hegel will go, to be sure, and yet it is an intimation of the phenomenon of time’s slippage, of time’s rising outside of Being.

Oppermann's essay shows the working of desire through the apparently overly dry text of Hegel's logic. Once again, if we consider Heraclitus "dry soul" we might say that the "Science of Logic" has taken this to it's extreme and in many senses become insufferable, or at the least, almost unreadable. And yet a favorite topic in Oppermann's essay is the theme of desire, he relentlessly pursues desire to its extreme in his essays. The topic of Goethe's "Elective Affinities" shows desire taken to the point of venturing into a prolonged nightmare: the earnest (possibly overly-earnest) intentions of the individuals becomes blemished by experience: two couples meet and exchange partners, but something is lost of the singular passion that brought them together, it reflects a sad state of soul, awash with a wearyness, a displacement of love in its "end."

Equally challenging are the daunting words at the end of this excerpt from Oppermann's 7th Hegel meditation, mentioning the idea of "time's rising outside of Being." This is a philosophic statement, and a Heideggerian one to boot. It may come from the notion that I may have to recover from Dr. Harvey Rabbin at the time of my Hegel thesis presented here: it was Dr. Rabbin who mentioned the line of Shakespeare in terms of dealing with Hegel's philosophic system: "time is out of joint." That is to say that time itself is changing, the sense of time is changing through time. It rises outside of Being. Oppermann may be referring to a line, whose origin escapes me, concerning "time just slips." Equally he may be referring to Bob Dylan, "Time is slipping away," from his song "Not Dark Yet." But this is not slipping and descending, it is "time's rising." Such rising and arousal may be attributable to Jean-Luc Nancy's philosophy, which takes as it's departure a sort of closure -- round the notion of the exteriority of Being. Thus time circumscribes Being. Not merely the being of beings, but the unknowable, receding, obscure Being spoken of in Heidegger's writings. I am tempted to link this sense of Being to another of Heraclitus sayings, to "Nature," (and to the shy but brilliant nature spirit, Pan) though undoubtedly Heidegger might call "nature" or "phusis" a "concealment," "Nature loves to hide."

Let me say for my own case of reading Hegel: in the perennial defense of Hegel's work: that Hegel introduces time into the discussion of philosophy, and creates a dynamic movement in the best moments of his thinking. In the worst moments of his writing, Hegel produces a logical still-birth, a forced birth of a resolution according to "historical necessity" that kills the vital spirit. In this case the process is **too dry, and needs to return to the particular in order to replenish itself in the life-giving sustenance of matter and mother alike. Too patriarchal, and a philosophy will lack soul, and that is the threat of Hegel's work. Carl Jung found much of Hegel's writing too forced,

"A philosophy like Hegel's is a self-revelation of the psychic background and, philosophically, a presumption. Psychologically it ammounts to an invasion by the unconscious. The peculiar high-flown language Hegel uses bears out this view: it is reminiscent of the megalomaniac language of schizophrenics, who use terrific spellbinding words to reduce the transcendent to subjective form, to give banalities the charm of novelty, or pass off commonplaces as searching wisdom." (Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, CW vol. 8, para. 360)

Perhaps Jung was a little reactive to Hegel's work, and was not in a position to offer a real opinion on the influence of Hegel on the Marxist and post-marxist philosophies of the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer and Adorno, for example. These philosophies, influenced by Hegel, originator of a phenomenological method, had profound influence in many aspects of critical theory and remain an important stepping stone of modern thought. Jung by comparison seems to hide in his white doctor's jacket and seems a bit of a philosophic reactionary, intensely wise as a psychologist, but out of his depth when dismissing Hegel with these words. I note equally Jung's prejudice when dealing with James Joyce in his essay on Joyce, there seems to be a philosophic and literary coarseness and rigidity in Jung that writers like Deleuze, Guattari, Sloterdijk, Adorno and others will have the finesse and gentility of heart and spirit to write beyond.

A note must be made to the patina of these pages, which in whatever manner I have contrived, through the use of photo-editing, I have in some reflects amplified. This is because, once again, it is the patina, the tain of the mirror of memory that brings riches and soulful memory to this otherwise arid thought construct, an emblem of academia that I ultimately was repudiated by and ultimately repudiated me. I cannot be correct in my writing here, I can only love the soul of the decaying work as it plunges into oblivion.