316: 6 - part 2
Summary
TLDRThe speaker delves into philosophical concepts, particularly focusing on the ideas of form, content, and actuality in relation to philosophy. Drawing on Hegel's philosophy, the discussion highlights the interdependence of concept and actualization, emphasizing that philosophy is about grasping the essence of reality, not abstract theorizing. The speaker stresses that philosophy seeks the 'substantial essence' of things through historical understanding and that laws, states, and institutions must be analyzed both in their concepts and real-world manifestations. The aim is to uncover the objective purpose behind these phenomena.
Takeaways
- 🧐 Philosophy seeks to reconcile with actuality and understand the world as it is, not just in abstract terms.
- 🤔 True philosophers are driven by an inner voice to comprehend the substantial essence of reality.
- 📚 The union of form (conceptual knowing) and content (substantial essence of actuality) is essential to philosophy.
- 💡 Philosophy focuses on understanding the 'idea' of things, which involves both the concept and its actualization.
- 🔍 To understand concepts, philosophers must start with real, concrete things, not empty abstractions.
- 🗝️ The objective concept of something, like law or the state, is not merely what people think but its underlying purpose and essence.
- 📜 Historical process plays a crucial role in understanding concepts like the state or legal systems, as their development reveals their purpose.
- 🛑 Not every aspect of law or institutions is rational—philosophy distinguishes between substantial and contingent elements.
- ⚖️ The purpose of concepts like law is tied to freedom, which is the core of many legal and societal structures.
- 👁️ Philosophy aims to grasp the objective, rational purpose behind things, even when that purpose is not immediately clear.
Q & A
What is philosophy concerned with according to the transcript?
-Philosophy is concerned with the unity of form and content, where form represents conceptual knowing and content represents reason as the substantial essence of actuality.
How does the transcript define the relationship between form and content in philosophy?
-Form is associated with conceptual knowing, while content is reason as the substantial essence of actuality. They are interconnected, and philosophy aims to understand both in a unified manner.
Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of actualization in understanding a concept?
-Actualization is necessary to grasp the full meaning of a concept. Without actualization, focusing solely on the concept leads to 'empty abstraction,' disconnected from reality.
What role does history play in understanding philosophical concepts according to the speaker?
-History is essential for understanding philosophical concepts because the shapes that a concept assumes over time are indispensable for knowing the concept itself. It involves looking at the historical unfolding of ideas like the state or legal systems.
How does the speaker compare the relationship between form and content to body and soul?
-The speaker likens the unity of form and content to the relationship between body and soul, where both are distinct yet interdependent, forming a complete whole. Just as a soul without a body or a body without a soul would not be alive, form and content must be united.
What is meant by 'the idea of right' in the transcript?
-The 'idea of right' refers to the concept of right combined with its actualization. Understanding the idea of right requires grasping both its form (concept) and its content (actualization).
Why does the speaker reject focusing on what 'ought to be' instead of what 'is'?
-The speaker argues that philosophy should focus on understanding what actually exists ('what is') rather than imagining or hypothesizing about an ideal future ('what ought to be'). To focus on hypothetical ideals is to enter a realm of fantasy, disconnected from reality.
What is the role of 'objective concept' in philosophy according to the transcript?
-The 'objective concept' refers to the underlying rational purpose of something, which can be abstracted through thought from its actualization. It is not based on subjective feelings or popular opinion but on the rational essence of the thing being studied.
How does the speaker describe the relationship between the concept of the state and freedom?
-The concept of the state, according to the speaker, is deeply connected to freedom. The purpose of the state, as understood in Hegelian philosophy, is to actualize freedom in a spiritual sense.
What is the significance of understanding historical unfolding in relation to institutions like law and the state?
-To truly understand institutions like law or the state, one must examine their historical development. This unfolding reveals the concept and purpose behind these institutions, helping to distinguish between what is essential and what is contingent or temporary.
Outlines
📚 Philosophy: Reconciling Form and Content
This paragraph delves into the core purpose of philosophy, which is to reconcile oneself with actuality and comprehend it through form and content. The speaker references page 15 of a philosophical text, explaining that form is reason as conceptual knowing, while content is reason as the substantial essence of actuality. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding form and content in relation to reality, particularly in philosophical inquiry. They also address how philosophy seeks to grasp the idea behind concepts like justice, freedom, and good, highlighting that form and content are interdependent.
🧠 The Actuality of Concepts
The focus here is on the relationship between the concept (form) and its actualization (content). The speaker argues that the concept alone, without actualization, is incomplete and abstract. Philosophy seeks to understand concepts through their actualization in reality, emphasizing that anything outside of this is considered ephemeral or illusory. Historical development is also important for understanding concepts in their full context. This forms part of a Hegelian philosophical approach where understanding the union of form and content is essential.
⚖️ Philosophy, Law, and Purpose
The paragraph discusses the importance of understanding the purpose behind concrete systems like the law. Using the Canadian criminal code as an example, the speaker explains that to fully grasp a law, one must recognize its underlying purpose, which may not always be clear or understood by those who created it. Philosophy aims to reveal this deeper concept or 'blueprint' behind laws. The speaker cautions against creating theories disconnected from reality and instead encourages starting with real, actual manifestations to develop philosophical understanding.
🏛️ State and Freedom: Philosophy of Right
The speaker shifts focus to the state and its purpose, which, according to Hegel, is freedom. Philosophy must begin with the actuality of the state to uncover its underlying concept. They emphasize that philosophers should not speculate about hypothetical futures but instead focus on understanding what truly exists. By doing so, philosophy can grasp the objective purpose behind institutions like the state, revealing freedom as a central theme. Philosophy is thus seen as a tool to uncover the substantial essence of actual systems, separating what is essential from what is contingent.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Philosophy
💡Form and Content
💡Substantial Essence
💡Conceptual Knowing
💡Actualization
💡The Idea
💡Freedom
💡Objective Concept
💡Historical Process
💡Ephemeral Existence
Highlights
Philosophy is about reconciling oneself with actuality and understanding the substantial essence of reality.
True philosophers are driven by an inner voice to comprehend and seek understanding.
Form and content are integral in philosophy: form represents reason as conceptual knowing, and content is reason as the substantial essence of actuality.
The unity of form and content, or the idea, is central to philosophical understanding and is described as interdependent.
Philosophy must grasp both the concept (form) and the actualization (content) of ideas like justice and freedom.
Philosophy does not focus on ephemeral, external contingency or illusion, but seeks the substantial essence of actuality.
The understanding of a concept, such as law, requires knowledge of its actualization in history and its purpose, not just its conceptual form.
Objective concepts are derived from the actualization of things, not just subjective feelings or opinions.
Philosophy aims to comprehend reality as it is, not as it should be, by starting with actual things and their historical context.
Philosophy’s purpose is to understand the state and institutions like law and marriage through their historical unfolding.
The philosopher's role is to discern between what is substantial and essential, and what is contingent and fleeting in actual laws and institutions.
Philosophy’s concern with the state and legal systems involves understanding their rational purpose, which in Hegel's view is ultimately tied to freedom.
An institution like marriage cannot be fully understood without recognizing its historical evolution and purpose.
Laws and institutions contain both essential, necessary elements and contingent, arbitrary aspects, which philosophy seeks to distinguish.
Understanding the substantial essence of actualities involves seeing their historical necessity and separating that from mere external contingency.
Transcripts
okay so everyone there all of you that
just came on the zoom will never know
about the rosac croan and we talked
about secret societies esoteric
information yeah okay back to page 15
then so
philosophy is about reconciling yourself
with actuality and it's about
comprehending th there are those of us
who in us have an inner voice bidding us
to under want to comprehend want to
understand we are the true
philosophers okay then on page 15 last
paragraph there it is this too which
constitutes the more concrete meaning
and this is important this part here the
more concrete meaning of what was
described above rather abstractly as the
unity of form and
content for form in its most concrete
signification is reason as conceptual
knowing so not this Association of form
with conceptual knowing and content is
reason as the substantial essence of
actuality now note that term not just
actuality now but the substantial
essence of actuality I'm going to
clarify this to you
uh so he philosophy is concerned with
form and content the form is our concept
of
something the something of which the
concept is a concept is the actuality
that's the content for Content but it's
not simply the actuality as like bare
existence is that it's that in actuality
which is essential
the content is reason as the substantial
essence of actuality this is going to
bear on the question of whether he's
concerned with just justifying status
quo well it depends on what you're
looking at and calling status quo is the
substantial essence of the actual or not
because it could be just accidental
contingency that you're looking
at the conscious identity of these two
form and content is the philosophical
idea note here how IDE is
capitalized because IDE is a technical
term in here philosophy is about
grasping the idea
of the idea of like the b in German this
is well he uses Ed in too but the idea
of something in that's the task of
philosophy like the idea of good for
example or the idea of re the idea of
Justice the idea of freedom but in but
grasping the idea of something in has
two aspects it's the concept of that
thing and it's the actualization of that
thing and these things are
interdependent you can't have one
without the other if you do if you try
to go to for the concept understand the
idea of something by just looking at the
concept without the actualization you're
going to go into Cloud cand empty
abstraction you need the actual the real
the given an actual an actional criminal
codee you need that in order to from it
abstract the
concept now let's jump to the
introduction and then I'm just going to
read a few lines here and then I'm going
to explain some stuff on the board so in
the introduction he zooms right in on
these things and what we're talking
about now it's like Central it's
absolutely Central to the whole method
like this is not something to consider
it's just uh preliminary stuff like this
I'm putting the in this course like we
looking here I'm putting the emphasis on
this stuff because this is like the
general approach and then it's going to
apply this to all sorts of particular
things but this is like this General
hegelian approach the subject matter of
philosophical science of right is the
idea of
right IE the concept of right together
with the actualization of that concept
so what is the subject matter of
philosophy it's the idea that comprises
content and form if we're doing then
philosophy of right it is the idea of
right considered under two aspects form
and
content philosophy has to do with ideas
and therefore not with what are commonly
du M
Concepts on the contrary it exposes such
Concepts M Concepts as one-sided and
without truth while showing at the same
time that it is the concept alone the
begriff alone not the mere abstract
category of the understanding which we
often hear called by that name which has
actuality the concept alone has
actuality and further that it gives this
actuality to itself all else apart from
this actuality establishing the working
of the concept itself is ephemeral
existence external contingency opinion
unsubstantial appearance and truth
illusion and so forth now remember that
term we had in the preface philosophy
looks for the substantial essence of
actuality that which is not
substantial essence of reality falls
into this
category external contingency ephemeral
opinion unsubstantial appearance untruth
illusion so
forth the other stuff is like a fleeting
ephemeral soap
bubble the shapes which the concept
assumes in the course of its
actualization are indispensable for the
knowledge of the concept itself this is
why history is
important understand the state for
example the shapes which the concept
assumes in the course of its
actualization that's the unfolding of
world history are indispensable for the
knowledge of the concept itself they are
the second essential moment of the idea
in distinction from the first I.E from
its form from its mode of being as
concept
alone so philosophy is concerned with
form and content but the union of form
and content that I.E the idea so he
Likens this Union to Body and Soul it's
like if you want to understand the human
being you need to understand body and
you also need to understand soul but you
need to understand these in human
the concept and its existence are two
sides of the same thing distinct and
United like soul and body the body is
the same life as the soul and yet both
may be spoken of as lying outside one
another a soul without a body would not
be a living thing nor would a body
without a soul hence the determinate
existence of the concept is its body
while its body obeys the soul which
brought it into being inter dependence
the buds have the tree implicit it
within
them and contain the tree's whole
strength although they are not yet the
tree itself Tre is the actualization but
what is it that's actualized it's the
seed the tree corresponds in detail to
the simple image of the bud if the body
does not match the soul it is a poor
sort of thing the unity of determinate
existence and the concept of body and
soul is the idea the unity is not a mere
Harmony but rather a complete
interpenetration or
interdependence Nothing is alive which
is not in some way or other idea nothing
is nothing is real which is not in one
way or other idea and so the idea of
right is
freedom it's the
first place where he says that and this
is going to be the central Concepts if
you want to understand the Judiciary
according to heo what you need to
understand is
freedom because that is its purpose why
does he think that we're going to get to
that the idea of right is freedom and if
it is to be truly understood it must be
known both in its concept and in its
determinate existence of that
concept okay pause there now we get to
the part where I want to explain a few
things
so we
have philosophy is concerned with the
idea
IDE and the idea comprises two things we
have
Concepts and we have
actualization equ calls the concept for
Content no sorry
sorry concept is like the
form and the actualization
is like the
content the actualization is the
actualization of the
concept but the concept is understood
through the
actualization what does do this mean
concretely well you want to understand
for
example law a law so you look at the
Canadian criminal code
this code didn't just fall down from
heaven and it's not simply an accidental
collocation of atoms there is a there's
a plan here there's a thought behind it
there's a thought behind why there is a
criminal code this thought involves for
example knowing the Telos knowing the
purpose of
it you don't understand the criminal
code if you don't understand its
purpose now often times the purpose of
something is concealed it's not
necessarily right there at like striking
you
immediately it might be that the people
who even worked to put together the
criminal code throughout the centuries
were themselves not
clear about what the purpose was because
many things we we act purposefully
without always knowing what the purpose
of our purposeful action is so sometimes
it can be hard to understand what the
purpose is but there is a
purpose there is a purpose behind it
there's we could say a
blueprint so you look at the criminal
code this is an actual thing right an
actual
book every year the parliament of AA
publishes this new edition of this book
this is a concrete thing with actual
written down
laws but to understand it you need to
understand the underlying concept of a
criminal code and that's what philosophy
used to do the philosophy wants to
understand the crial code here with all
these laws and
so it wants to make its way to the
concepts like answer questions like what
is its purpose
what makes these laws
valid
what
makes it
valid how can it be valid in so like
under what conditions is it valid blah
blah blah all those
things are understanding the concept but
to understand the concept you have to
start with the real
thing if you were to like say I want
understand law I'm not going to look at
the actual
law I'm going to like disregard what
actually exists there and I'm going to
come with my own idea what are you
you're just
fantasizing he doesn't want to fantasize
that's the empty abstraction type of
philosophy he wants to he wants to
understand what actually exists right
the philosophy is about understand
reality it's not about like spinning a
theory out of your her head like a
spider spins a web out of its belly you
know that's his own metaphor he's like
he thinks that the philosophers that
don't start with the actual they're like
spiders they're spinning these big webs
out of their belly yes so his
interpretation of philosophy is that
it's basically looking at theual
manifestation of things in the world and
then
finding like theological function of
them or like the actual intention of the
thing even if that's not what the people
who things 100% 100 he's going to go on
and say this explicitly in the
introduction it's we when we're looking
for the concept of something say the
purpose we're not looking for what most
people think about
it we're looking for the objective
concept and that's crucial here this
concept for vle and he often uses this
term he's looking for the objective
concept and that is abstracted by
thought from the actualization of
it yeah so he doesn't want to know what
someone's feeling is about it and he
doesn't want to know simply what most
people think it is he has an optimism
here that there is such a thing as an
the objective concept where does that
optimism come from it comes from the
basic conviction that what is actual is
rational if it is rational there has to
be an objective purpose
there uh and so the same thing goes I'll
get to the question in a second the same
thing goes for the state if you want to
understand a state you have to look at
the actual State here here's a
building the actual
States from the ACT this actuality
you abstract then an understanding what
is its purpose you know what he's going
to say it purpose is freedom our freedom
the purpose of the whole re V is freedom
in a spiritual sense what that exactly
means we're we're we're going to get to
that but you have to start with the
actual thing now sfer might say I don't
I don't care what the student sent to
MEC once I don't care about what is I
want to know what ought to
be here we have like Canada 2024 I don't
care about like what I wanted like what
should we be at some point in the future
this is where heel says no one can
overleap their
age you want to understand something
that doesn't even
exist don't you see that you're digging
a hole in a world of fantasy this is
just
Cloud philosophy is an understanding of
what is real
there's a real philosophy has a real
subject matter our subject matter is not
some hypothesized something that someone
according to their subjective feeling
wants to be the case in the future we Le
to understand what actually exists
that's philosophy real serious subject
matter for here okay now um
so you understand this distinction now
to understand the concepts from its
actualization is to have the idea of
that so you want to have the idea of
right you need to get clear about the
concept but you cannot do that without
the actualization so you have to do sort
of two things at
once you have to look at the
actualization and that involves
process is a historical process here so
you cannot understand the concept of the
state for example or of the Judiciary
without looking at its
unfolding its historical
unfolding you can't just look at this
institution
statically as if it's always existed
this way that that won't provide you a
clue for seeing what the purpose is um
so for
example all these parts of the judici
say for example an institution like
marriage he's going to talk a lot about
that he's going to say you can't
understand it without looking at it
historically we look at the state you
can't understand it without looking at
it historically or the legal system you
can't understand it without looking at
it
historic however he
thinks
that when you look at him seriously and
historically you're able to see in what
is there some sort of
core and that is what he describes as
the substant substantial essence of the
action because you're going to see a lot
of things like you look at the criminal
code for example you're going to see
bogus laws look at the Canadian criminal
code you're going to see bogus laws and
you're going to see valid there is a
distinction he's not saying that every
law in the criminal code is rational
what he is saying that there are some
things here which is substantial
essential and there is other stuff which
is like a contingent soap
bubble the philosopher is to make the
distinction is to see the distinction
and that involves seeing what here is
necessary what has to be there are some
things in the criminal code the actual
thing that have to be that's what's real
the other stuff that is contingent
that's actually not
real Auto can make a law which according
to herle is a nothing doesn't exist you
know where it exists only in people's
minds because if it doesn't have this
necessity in it it doesn't have the
real uh it's not part of the essential
substantive essence of that concept
itself yeah anyway you get the picture
is this sort of getting bit clearer now
yeah okay good let this sink in we're
out of time you ask me some questions no
see you lat uh
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