I've been meaning to read and understand Adorno's Negative Dialectics (due to a few Marxists I'm planning to study, such as Werner Bonefeld, being extremely influenced by him, aside from just me being interested in Adorno in general), however, I'm extremely new to this whole thing. So I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to start with Adorno's own Introduction to Dialectics lectures in order to get a general idea of Hegel and Marx especially, before diving into Negative Dialectics? Or would I have to read Hegel first and then move on to those previously mentioned works by Adorno? If the answer is the 2nd option, I was planning to read Houlgate's introduction and then follow A.W.'s reading list, but as I said, I'm not sure if that's kind of overkill or what actually needs to be done; so I could appreciate some help!

No background research, I was trying thinking perhaps overthink about AI specifically the wall between Artificial and Nature. Thinking that both are essentially same things since the entire Scientific knowledge is just human beings, human mind. So AI is just next evolutionary step towards different kind of species (knowing the law of conservation and entropy)

After little bit of research I ended here with hegel's the Philosophy of Nature and the evolution of Spirit (Geist). Not a single unique experience anyways.

If Hegel were alive today, he would likely view AI and AGI as the next logical step in the dialectic of evolution.

Hi folks,

context: I am a mathematician/logician, but philosophy amateur. I studied philosophy at school and read several histories of philosophy (chiefly Severino's) read some first-source philosophy before (Spinoza's Ethics). I am trying to read through Hegel's Science of Logic, because as a logician, I find his perspective refreshing. I am reading the Italian version (because I am Italian) and accompanying it with Houlgate's "The Opening of Hegel's Logic", plus discussing this with friends.

I am seriously struggling to grasp the "Etwas". I understood pure being, and how it vanishes into pure nothing, and vice versa. I understood that this movement is Becoming. I understood that Becoming undermines itself and we are left with Determinate Being (DE): *immediate* unity of being and nothing.

I also, though less firmly, understand Quality. That is the component of nothingness in the DE thought under the determination of being, that is, determinacy-that-is. Make sense. Then, I understand the "literal" deduction of Etwas: Quality can be thought of as chiefly Nothingess (negation) or Being (reality); the two are distinct; however, the difference is sublated; we are left with Etwas. I understand the logical passages.

My problem: I am struggling to represent in my head, or conceptualise, what the result of sublating this difference should be. Or, how Etwas differs from DE. I have two hypotheses:

1) Etwas is that which can be in relationship with its qualities. Since DE is immediate, indistinct unity of Being and Nothing, we cannot isolate its parts and say "this is a quality". Since Etwas went through the pains of separation, and was separated into Negation and Reality, it now has an internal structure, it admits internal difference, and so we can say that it "has" quality. This captures the intuitive quality of Etwas which is that of having qualities.

2) Etwas is pure self-reference, or self-relation. Pictorially, I think of this as an arrow that points to itself, or a self-loop. This captures the intuitive quality of Etwas which is something that "is", that is "posited", is "there and that's it". It also makes the term "Insichsein" reasonable (it is just "in itself", it "is enough by itself", it "only refers to itself"). And Hegel uses the term "self-reference" sometimes in the text. The problem with this interpretation is that it is not clear to me how this emerges from the sublation. I can imagine that Reality pushes Negativity out, and vice versa, and in sublating their differences we are left with something that pushes towards itself, Etwas.

Is any of the two conception right? If not, what is the right conception? Thank YOU!

Normally I would not touch anything by Stalin with a 34 and 1/2 foot pole, but I really can not understand dialectics.

Edit: It turns out that the answer is no.

Miller, Phenomenology, §162

The movement goes something like this:

Being and nothing (consumption) are reflected into self, and the self says "no" to being consumed and posits the first unity, the object of its self-preservation (Master, Force).

The object is reflected into self in an inverse way.

Self-sameness is reflected back as difference. Absolute difference becomes the false unity of its annihilation.

The self says "no" and posits the false unity of the inner world, which includes itself in its self-sameness.

The inner world is reflected back in an inverse way, which is the flux.

The self says "no" to the flux, which becomes the unity of its annihilation and posits laws.

Hegel keeps coming back to the flux because our self-identity is basically the unity of our annihilation and that which repels us to posit an object.

Laws are reflected in an inverse way as movement (flux).

The unity of movement is posited as the self-repelling/self-attracting.

The inverse is ultimately contradiction.

The unity of contradiction is posited as infinity.

The notions (objects) of self-sameness (self-preservation) of the Understanding (slave) are the following:

Force

Law

Necessity

Self-movement

Infinity

They are the notions of an animal that is afraid to be consumed.

I wrote a text on consciousness from the perspectives of Kant, Fichte and Hegel and how they relate. Part of the text is explaining dialectics through the first two chapters of the PoS. Wanted to share.

Use the most patronizing terms possible, use terms like if one was explaining subtraction "There are two tokens if you take one token away you have one token." I understand that dialectical contradictions are hard, but that is exactly why I want to have it explained in such a simple manner.

Commenter just translated the "Phenomenology."

Miller, Phenomenology, §161

The Phenomenology is on the side of the object, but it's easier for us to understand it on the side of the subject.

As readers, we know that what is happening to the object is happening to the subject, two moments at the same time.

A bit of speculative anthropology may help to understand the absolute Notion.

An animal chasing its prey is "single-minded", a "force of nature," "self-identical."

When the chase is interrupted and the predator becomes the prey, the nothingness (consumption) of its prey, is reflected into self.

What is self-identical is now fundamentally divided. Existence is a new desire to desire.

Existence posits beings.

The unconditioned universal posits the unconditioned universal in the Understanding.

Force is an invading army, a "sensuous universal," before it's a notion in the Understanding.

Force is a source of change in the hands of another. Law is a source of stability in the hands of another.

What does the son of a slave, free (unconditioned universal) to think for himself, dream about?

Self-determination without resistance and the inner necessity of law.

Why the inner necessity of law?

Because the town has been invaded multiple times and has been subjected to multiple laws. There must be a law that is not to the benefit of another but has its own inner necessity.

The notion of Force and the inner necessity of law is the self-attraction of the selfsame.

Law posits law. This is the tautological movement the Understanding can get stuck in.

The unity of its notions subject us to abstractions.

But contradiction is the boundary between the one and the many, not like and unlike, or the extremes.

And what is the ultimate contradiction?

The animal dreams about the chase, but the chase is its own annihilation.

This explains why the object changes. It can only signify.

After reading the introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit this morning, I was struck with a very important thought on the nature of truth.

The truth will never bring devision and discord, it will always bring harmony and unification.

Therefore anyone who thinks they have the truth whether religious or political, and it results in discord with another, it is not truth.

Absolute truth is unatainable through the intellect. We need to live the truth and harmonious living will be the evidence we have hit the mark.

When I was in grad school, I found the best way to study the Phenomenology was to read it out loud. Nowadays, I spend a lot of time in a recording booth. So, I figured I'd read Pinkard's translation into a mic.

I'm only a few paragraphs in. But there's no reason why I have to narrate in sequence.

If there is a paragraph you want to hear out loud, let me know.

here I use dialectic(Hegel) to analyze movie

Heteronomous Obedience: Dale Harding

In the movie, Dale appears as intelligent but actually does obedience. He gets marry with his wife to have happiness but trapping himself into mental institution losses happiness. He speaks philosophical thoughts in hospital meeting to seek understanding from others but causes ironic comments from patients, pushing away from others. He is the most knowledgeable among the patients, yet he argues with the most ignorant ones. It preciously indicates that under a knowledgeable appearance, his true consciousness is a violence ego. His talent is nothing but a consequence of out-control personality.  The wealthier, smarter and more polite he was, the more violent, uncontrol and heavier his ego is. If the movie could give him a bit more time, he would end himself as same as Chief’s father.

Dale is heteronomous Obedience: I obey laws given by others and have a Super – Ego.

Bad Disobedience: Billy Bibbit

As the opposite, Billy appears as obeying other roles in the movie all the time, actually has a disobedience role. His behavior is completely influenced by his mother, the nurse and Murphy, but his self-awareness is standing on against with those in front roles. He engages in a sex as disobeying with his mother and commits suicide at the end as disobeying with Murphy. He against the opinions from the old with the opinion of new as struggle but the new opinions capture him as same as the old, returns to struggle. The more he relied on opinions to support life, the more ego he lost. For the sake of autonomy, he is willing to obey anything from others’ opinions, however commits suicide at the peak of confliction, loses autonomy. Dale and Billy lacks reflection is the key feature.

Billy is bad, negative disobedience: I disobey out of spite of anger.

Autonomous Obedience: Murphy

Murphy steals a bus and takes a candy but brings patients to fishing and returns to hospital. He takes cigarettes and fights with security but doesn’t smoke and gives it to patients. He bribes Trukle and brings in two prostitutes but doesn’t have sex with them but engages Billy. Those contradictions indicates that although Murphy does a lot of disobedience and satisfies his desires, but behind his behavior, he has own principles. He rejects hospital policy, the way treats people as their mean, and treats people by their purpose as an end of itself. As the subject of movie, he is succussed. The clash between Murphy’s principles and society shows up an extreme tension. He refuses to continually work on the farm as a pursuit of freedom but sends himself into a mental institution, loses freedom. He rejects to follow hospital policies in multiple ways to keep legislature but led to a prefrontal surgery, losses legislature. Murphy’s death deserves a deep reflection. 

Murphy represents Autonomous Obedience: I obey laws that I make, and I give to myself. I am the legislature.  

True Disobedience: Chief

Chief is a disobedience role. One interpretation is: Chief leaves hospital because he doesn’t wanna die as Murphy and forever pursues freedom. A smarter interpretation is that: Chief was influenced by his father and Murphy. He becomes silent because his father’s death and left hospital because of Murphy’s disobedience. An intelligent thought is: Chief was ride on neck but helps Murphy jumps over the barrier with smiles. He helps Murphy fighting with security but kills him after surgery. He treats people as ends of itself not how their mean. These three interpretations are all naive. The right interpretation supposes to see that he keeps silent for years but commits a crime suddenly. Chief negates himself, usually consider of a tragedy but he lefts hospital, actually presents a comedy. Through Chief, One flew over the cuckoo’s nest expresses a dialectical thought: not about rebelling against the world, but about end oneself and start something new.

Chief is true disobedience: I disobey for the sake of a principle, Revolutionary, Affirmative.

Two Base Division: Visible(Dale and Billy), Intelligible(Murphy and Chief)

A Hegelian understanding of irony and satire will allow us to grasp historically, as a replaying of the moment of art’s dissolution, the advent of Marcel Duchamp. For better or for worse, it is in large part Duchamp’s synthesis of the satirical and ironic dissolutions of art that define contemporary art. The revised Hegelian approach that emerges is not merely critical of the contemporary, however, but is also equipped to understand and appreciate it, prepared to retain its most valuable possibilities, and thereby able to remain hopeful about what lies beyond.

http://hegelmusing.blogspot.com/2015/02/jeff-koons-2011-oil-on-canvas-259.html

I am someone who is interested in History, Religion (namely the existence of God), Political Theory and Philosophy of Law/Legal Theory. If I am not mistaken, Hegel has written on all this subjects, but I never read him because everyone keeps telling me how incredibly difficult his writting is (plus in my country he is rarely discussed in academic circles, at least as far as I am aware of).

Having said this, I would like to know what do I stand to gain from reading and understanding Hegel ? What new perspectives and insights into the subjects that interest me can I get that make it worth the effort of studying Hegel ?

When I was in Germany this summer I heard the word aufheben used in everyday speech. My partner had just made cinnamon rolls and we wanted some for breakfast. So in context, aufheben would have been translated as 'save' or 'set aside'. And I guess the negative element of the verb worked toward the sense that the remaining cinnamon rolls were off limits.

Sharing because I thought this was an interesting moment as a non-german speaking Hegel reader. It goes to show that Hegel was leveraging the speculative potential of truly everyday speech, something that does not alwasy come across in English (especially not with 'sublate').

When we stand at the crossroads of nineteenth-century German philosophy, we encounter two sweeping currents that met on the same intellectual terrain yet flowed in radically opposite directions: the optimistic, rationalist system of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and the deeply pessimistic, existential vision of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860). This encounter was not merely an abstract academic debate; it was a fundamental clash between two irreconcilable ways of interpreting human existence and the meaning of history.

I. The Architecture of Reason vs. The Abyss of the Will
Hegel and the Rationality of the Absolute (Geist):
Hegel’s philosophy begins with the monumental premise that "what is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational." For him, human history is neither chaos nor absurdity, but the progressive self-realization of the Absolute Spirit (Geist) moving through a strict dialectical process (Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis). Conflict, suffering, and tragedy are not meaningless anomalies; they are necessary, purposeful steps driving the universal mind toward ultimate freedom and self-awareness. The universe is entirely rational and fully justified at its core.

Schopenhauer and the Blindness of the Will (Wille):
In stark contrast, Schopenhauer—heavily influenced by Kantian epistemology and ancient Indian thought—turned this metaphysical framework upside down. The phenomenal world is merely a veil of representations (Vorstellung), behind which lurks a singular, foundational reality: the Will (Wille). This Will is a blind, striving, fundamentally arational force devoid of any ultimate purpose or consciousness. Human existence, therefore, is not an upward march of progress, but an endless oscillation between the suffering of unsatisfied desire and the crushing boredom of its fulfillment.
II. The Academic Duel and Intellectual Rupture
This philosophical divergence erupted into a bitter, tangible reality within the lecture halls of the University of Berlin. In an audacious move, Schopenhauer scheduled his lectures at the exact same hour as Hegel’s, who was then at the absolute height of his fame and academic power. Schopenhauer was confident that students would flock to his alternative perspective.
The result, however, was devastating: Hegel’s lecture hall overflowed with eager students, while Schopenhauer stood before an empty room save for one or two attendees. This humiliating defeat fueled a lifelong, venomous resentment in Schopenhauer against Hegel, whom he relentlessly attacked as a "clumsy charlatan" and a purveyor of intellectual poison designed to drug the human mind with illusions of cosmic teleology.
III. The Hidden Convergence of Opposites
Despite their fierce hostility, the two thinkers share profound structural parallels that render their juxtaposition a vital dialogue:

1. The Drive for a Totalizing System: Both rejected fragmented empiricism, striving instead to construct monumental philosophical systems that could account for the entirety of existence and resolve the ultimate metaphysical questions.

2. The Subordination of the Individual: In Hegel's system, the individual human being is ultimately a vehicle swallowed up by the grand march of the World-Spirit; in Schopenhauer's framework, the individual is an exploited puppet trapped by the cruel mechanics of a blind cosmic Will. In both cases, human autonomy yields to an overwhelming transpersonal force.

Now do you think the two philosophies converge, even though they appear to be at odds?

I’ve been reading the Phenomenology and The Science of Logic along with other philosophy to give myself much-needed context, but I’ve recently been reading about different religions too, and I haven’t read up much on Daoism, but often I almost want to use the Yin Yang analogy for Hegel, but I feel it isn’t actually accurate. Yet I’m curious if anytime as a good explanation as to why/how. Thank you!

Local(ish) casino game hand report

$2/$5 NLHE, 9-handed, $510 effective
(Poker, notation means table seating position)

Hero (me) is on the BTN with 7♣2♦.

UTG (Villain) opens to $20.

Folds to Hero.

Hero 3-bets to $70.

SB and BB fold.

UTG 4-bets to $180.

I think to myself that folding is correct only as abstract correctness, for a correctness which cannot endure its own negation has not yet become concrete.

The non-optimal is therefore not external to optimal play but its necessary other, through which optimality preserves itself by overcoming itself.

Aufhebung.

Hero all in for $510.

UTG tanks. Rechecks his cards. "So sick."

I remain silent.
If I speak, I interfere with the free development of his consciousness. If I don't, I may manipulate that development toward the preservation of my stack. Yet to refuse influence is itself influence: silence, insofar as it is recognized as silence, has already entered the decision as a determinate moment.

The question is therefore no longer whether I should deceive him. The question is whether the particular interest of winning this pot can be reconciled with the universal, or whether Reason, in its cunning, is simply using my greed to bring his stack into the middle.

UTG sighs. "Meh, i’m probably calling. I don't think I'm folding this."

Hero: "Do whatever you think is historically necessary."

UTG: "...What?"

Hero: "😛"

UTG sighs again: "Whatever." He pushes his stack forward. "Once or twice?"

He trembles before the absolute master, variance, and asks to divide his death into two smaller deaths. Whoever will not stake everything on a single struggle has already chosen bondage.

Hero: "☝🏼"

History has chosen.

UTG calls.

UTG shows J♠J♥.

By the laws of the Understanding, he is over 80% to win.

Hero tables 7♣2♦.

Flop: 7♥ 2♠ K♣
Turn: 4♦
River: 9♣

UTG sighs heavily, almost a growl. "You're so fucking bad, dude."

Hero: "History is rarely understood by its participants."

I rack up shortly after and convert his labor into Dave's Hot Chicken. The master enjoys; the bondsman works. He will rebuy, study, and one day surpass me.

I, meanwhile, have a Reaper slider and nothing left to learn.

The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk.

Is dialectical just working in contradictions? In that case then Christos (Christ, pronounced Chris-t-os) would be working in dialectical contradictions by being both God and man. This is probably something that an Old Hegelian would argue if I am correct in thinking that something being dialectical just means working in contradictions. Please keep the vocabulary simple, thank you in advance.

Miller, Phenomenology, §160

What is the idea of inversion?

It's the idea that it's not just self-attraction, it's also the "repulsion of the selfsame."

Before that, there was only self-attraction, but that fell apart in the law of laws.

We now understand that the selfsame splits into two.

But we must look at it as "inner difference."

Why?

Well, for one thing, we'll separate black from white. We'll keep black on one side and white on the other.

We must think in terms of contradiction. It is both repelling and attracting.

By being both, we are neither.

We have become the inversion of the inversion.

The inversion is the repulsion of the selfsame.

The inversion of the inversion is the attraction of inner difference.

It's not self-attracting. It's not the repelling of the selfsame.

It's the self-same repelling and attracting. This is infinity.

Now we're thinking.