/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15194072]

Why are almost all academic philosophers writing on Hegel espousing a non-metaphysical/secular interpretation?

[Anonymous No.15194083]

>>15194072
I think its pretty obvious. There a large amount of marxists writers, so they enevitably take the marxist materialist interpretation of Hegel due to liniage.

[Anonymous No.15194116]

>>15194083
liberal writers like Pinkard and Brandom do it too.

[Anonymous No.15194176]

>>15194072
because Hegel was operating under radically different assumptions than (post)modern philosophers.

[Anonymous No.15194220]

>>15194072
Few academics are well read in the hermetic texts and have a soul.

[Anonymous No.15194337]

The real answer is that it was briefly trendy in the 1980s to do so. The basic layout is this: In post-war Germany there was a desire to get away from German idealism, hermeneutics, and historicism, because it was considered inherently fascist or "romantic nationalist." The post-war generation of German intellectuals wanted to show what good liberal post-national boys they were, so aside from revitalizing Marxism and puffing up native pre-war traditions like the Frankfurt School (sometimes into rigid orthodoxy), they imported a lot of outside ideas - especially British logic and American pragmatism, two things that should be surprising if you know the Germans. There is a whole post-war generation of students-of-students-of-Heidegger, like Tugendhat, who try to fuse their German heritage of hermeneutics with pragmatism and/or the analytic tradition, to create some kind of twisted nu-Germanic philosophy and prevent 1848 + Weimar's collapse from happening again.

In this atmosphere you get a lot of weird shit, most of it throwaway and already forgotten garbage. One of these throwaway thinkers was Klaus Hartmann, a non-metaphysical reader of Hegel and a name you will never hear anymore because he stinks. He argued quite literally that Hegel was non-metaphysical, and he inspired a little school of "look at the neat things I can do with Hegel, trendy because swimming in the same slurry as the recent pragmatic/analytic vogue, and denuded of icky German elements like decent historical context and hermeneutic reflexivity :^)" graduate students. These people then assimilated the (also mostly forgotten) atmosphere of Habermasian liberal nu-hermeneutics (AKA "bad hermeneutics"; cf. the Gadamer/Habermas debate where Gadamer obliterates Habermas), and either wittingly or unwittingly trimmed their ahistorical non-Hegelian interpretation of Hegel to fit that mold.

In the 1970s, it also became vogue to study Hegel again, partly as a result of Charles Taylor's big book Hegel (which was a thoroughly metaphysical and historically well-contextualized reading of Hegel, and worth reading) making it okay again, partly as a result of academia's natural tendency to churn itself and think "uhhh what's due for a revival? what's been out of vogue for a few decades, so we can seem avant garde by reclaiming it?"

[Anonymous No.15194349]

>>15194337
Put these all together, and you get is a bunch of Americans who completed their PhDs in or around the 1980s, writing under the very literal "Hegel was non-metaphysical" orthodoxy of Hartmann types and their successors, being very literal that Hegel was non-metaphysical in their own PhDs, becoming a trend (partly just because "non-metaphysical Hegelians" juts seems like it ought to be a "thing" to academics looking for new trends to get in on), and then as actually good philosophers and historians go "uhhh no, Hegel is thoroughly metaphysical..", strategically reducing their commitment to the literal "Hegel was non-metaphysical" line and increasingly affecting postmodern "ahh, but isn't it a good reading of Hegel anyway :^)" to seem like they never intended to be taken literally, even though there are 100% straightforward literal assertions in all of their dissertations and early work that "Hegel was non-metaphysical."

Absolutely embarrassing shit too, like just saying "how could Hegel be metaphysical after Kant?! No one could REALLY be metaphysical after Kant, I mean, c'mon! That would be 'pre-critical'!!" Stuff that anybody who read even casually in the period, at an undergraduate level, would know is fucking bullshit. This is the kind of thing they gradually stop doing, they gradually emphasize their pragmatism more and more and imply (by omission) that they are reading Hegel "creatively" or "reappropriating" Hegel or something, but make no mistake, these pieces of shit were just sucked into a bad reading of Hegel in the '80s, used their momentary flash of trendiness to get jobs, and got stuck defending shit positions they don't even care about anymore. Most of them don't even care about Hegel, they are just neo-pragmatist communicative rationalists who are now forced to speak through Hegel because it's what they're known for.

At least analytic Marxism was sort of a thing, like that was an actual group of people with an intent who tried to carry out that intent. Non-metaphysical Hegelianism is shockingly bad, it's astonishing how cynical it is if you're capable of tracing its development, aka its brief moment of plausibility followed by its being allowed to slowly rot, only still standing through the precarious mutual stabilization of its various institutionalized elements.

[Anonymous No.15194376]

>>15194349
I forgot to mention one other sin of these people. As I said, they only imply by omission that they are playful postmodern readers of Hegel, uninterested in the historical Hegel. They will never say this outright unless compelled, and then they'll hedge. The idea is that only a few people notice just how horrid their reading is and will attack them for it, and only a few people who witness this attack will understand it, so most people watching will simply assume "this guy studies Hegel, I'm learning about Hegel right now."

This allows them to continue selling books "on Hegel" and teaching "on Hegel," only revealing their hand to people who absolutely press for it. That's part of the benefit of not jettisoning the Hegel association. Like I said, the entire structure of their little movement is made up of things like this, cynical conveniences.

[Anonymous No.15194456]

>>15194349
wtf are you doing wasting your time effort-posting on /lit/? nobody here unironically reads books nor happens to be knowledgable about anything beyond a superficial level, not sure what kind of answers you're looking for

[Anonymous No.15195003]

>>15194072
Because they are social climbers and intellectual whores who will spout whatever the dominant consensus wants. In other words they are truly Hegel’s disciples.

[Anonymous No.15195082]

>>15194337
>>15194349
>>15194376
Thanks for posting all this. What's your take on Adorno's own writings on Hegel?

[Anonymous No.15195093]

>>15194116
Even still, they are influenced by the vein even if not accepting it wholeheartedly.

[Anonymous No.15195104]

>>15194337
That’s actually pretty interesting.

[Anonymous No.15195165]

>>15194337
>>15194349
>>15194376
This is some solid quality content hidden behind a veneer of trashy articulation. It’s like a teenage girl was giving a well thoughtout overview of Hegelian studies in post war academia in her schoolgirl vernacular. Ironically postmodern considering the content.

[Anonymous No.15195229]

>>15194456
Fuck off meme poster and let the good posting happen

[Anonymous No.15195230]

>>15194456
why are you projecting your own pseud unto that anon?

[Anonymous No.15195245]

>>15195229
>>15195230
that anon was probably jokingly self deprecating that /lit/ sucks

[Anonymous No.15195389]

>>15195165
better than tryhard incels

[Anonymous No.15195404]

>>15195165
He's just writing informally you pseud

[Anonymous No.15195445]

>>15195389
>>15195404
He betrays the gravity of the content by writing in that way. By expressing himself in that matter “informally”, he just demonstrates that his thought, when away from pretense or from being made open, is really of that depth. He has no right to criticize postmodern levity witn Hegel when he himself approaches philosophic discussion like a teenager choosing who’s cool and who’s lame. Do you really think Hegel would express himself like that when “informal”? Of course not. Neither would any legitimate or serious thinkers. If you think that manner of expression is acceptable it only reveals your low standards and the conventional “quality” or your own thinking.

[Anonymous No.15195462]

>>15195445
>it doesn't matter what you say, you have to say it in this particular way
You are the king of pseuds

[Anonymous No.15195469]

>>15195462
What a terirbly ironic thing to say in a thread about Hegel.

[Anonymous No.15195478]

>>15195445
t. non-metaphysical hegel grad student

cope, seethe, and dilate harder, sweaty

[Anonymous No.15195483]

>>15194337
>>15194349
>>15194376
great posts

[Anonymous No.15195489]

>>15195478
Now THIS is more like /lit/ material, carry on

[Anonymous No.15195498]

>>15195478
Is this the power of Hegelian thought? Maybe it’s for the best that nobody takes it seriously since clearly it’s own adherents treat it like nothing but a fandom.

[Anonymous No.15195513]

>>15195478
>monkey sounds

[Anonymous No.15195524]

>>15194072
Hegel was an illiterate hack who didn't know how to write a proper sentence but people thought he was onto something and continued taking him seriously like you would do with a child who has down syndrome.

Everything he has ever written should be burned.

t. Hegel scholar

[Anonymous No.15195550]

>>15195445
>he doesn’t understand the subject well enough to express any thoughts on the content informally and so he has convinced himself that those who are able to discuss hegel in a casual way are violating some made-up principle and are doing the work a disservice

i believe they call this “cope”

[Anonymous No.15195596]

>>15195550
From the quality of your responses it’s clear to me that whatever insights are present in those posts don’t actually belong to you. They are a paraphrase at the level of your own thinking from something an actual thinker arrived at. You got merely from exposure, either from a book or a lecture. You are doing not the work a disservice, but yourself. When the time comes where you will ask more of your thinking, it will fail you because you never bothered to exercise it beyond the minimal requirement. You posts frogs and use memes and speak like a child in order to look cool in 4chan. Do yourself a favor, and take yourself seriously. You will be glad you were “cringe” or a “try hard” or whtever other buzzword the children here use in order to justify their own mediocrity.

[Anonymous No.15195757]

>>15195524
Insightful.
>>15195596
You clearly don't belong here

[Anonymous No.15196100]

>>15195165
lol
>>15195445
alright bro you need to chill out. I concur in finding the style of those posts (especially the way that he represented the "quotations" from the various philosophers) "cringey," but herniating over it doesnt exactly make you the bigger man

[Anonymous No.15196885]

>>15195596
you're so deep in your own faggotry you can't see the irony. you want people not to sacrifice meaningful core content for a more ephemeral priority (acting silly or irreverent), but you obsess so much over this that you end up missing the content yourself. it makes me genuinely sad to wonder how many potential interlocutors you'll miss out on throughout your life because of this. i hope it's only youthful posturing, or you're going to end up thirtysomething and stranded in a room full of immaculately polished nothings, wondering why you feel so unfulfilled but unable to put your finger on it.