sharloo75 <sharloo75@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
First let me introduce myself - -I am Bob Hauge =i majored in philosophy in
college many years ago and have returned to its study again recently Mostly
concentrating on Hegel -I of course am familiar with Plato but am interested in
Plotinus and neo platonism=Could you rec commend any introductory texts? I
am also reading contemporay European philosophy[Derrida, Nancy]===On
perception I have been interested in its subjective intrasubjectivity recently== in
viewing another human self one is conscious in percieving another self and
also conscious of the object percieving you and you have some sort of image of
oneself and do not know if the recognition of the other self corresponds to you
and conversely the same as the others perception of you=-Any
observations?--Best regards Bob
Dear Mr. Bob Hauge and any and everyone else,
To cut to the real chase, since you first mention Hegel I assume that is the area of your primary concern. Neoplatonism by and large is totally boring unless you can relate it to immediate living concerns. If you can get hold of Hegel's history of philosophy covering that era that would be the best approach because his whole intent is to integrate what is worthwhile in former philsophers into his own up to date philosophy. The one place I have found it on line for free only really starts, other than some introductory materials, start with Descartes. If you can pull up http://www.hegel.net/ maybe you can get it there. Otherwise, by subscribing to Questia on line at about $30 a year your can get it whole I think. http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp?CRID=georg_wilhelm_friedrich_hegel&OFFID=se1&KEY=hegel_s
Introductory texts are going to mainly deal with Neoplatonism in a Neoplatonist context, that is, essentially go around in explanatory circles, not relating to your present reality. However, Sara Rappe's READING NEOPLATONISM: Non-Discursive Tinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius, Cambridge, 2000 (hopefully out in paperback now) is absolutely superb because, though she does no comparison to modern philosophers, she reads Neoplatonism from the current point of view in plain language without being caught up in meaningless, self-refering terminology as most Deconstructionists and Postmodernists are.
It should be noted that Damascius' main importance is a recent discovery. His important texts really only became available in the last hundred and fifty years and have not been widely studied. If you read Rappe's book you will see parallels to Heidegger and Derrida plainly. Damascius is far more interesting than any other Neoplatonist.
ALSO go to the files on this sight. My partial translation, needing much revision, of Marie-Claire Galperine's book DES PREMIERS PRINCIPLES: Apories et Resolutions, Verdier, 1987,also shows this plainly.
As to perception, to take a page from Lenin, one should go back and read the real major texts of philosophy first. Lenin emphasizes Berkeley (since he is a pure and consistent Idealist, even more pure than Hegel). People who do not go back to the original texts seriously as Lenin did endlessly repeat problems already long ago solved. Lenin slights Hume, but I think reading Hume's TREATISE ON HUMAN NATURE endlessly illuminates all of twentieth century philosophy precisely from the real ground of what is actually happening when perception actually perceives in real life with all of its real connections to emotion and morality which almost no scholar has the nerve to relate together as Hume actually did. Norman Kemp Smith did demonstrate that Hume first wrote Part II on emotion and Part III on morality first before Part I on epistemology but did not fully follow up the implications and tremendous problems of that. Hume said plainly that all reason is determined by passion. Honestly
approached, that proposes an insurmountable problem, just like in Marx, that we are "always already" DETERMINED in our historical situation, but since we are WITHIN that determination, and cannot study it from any 'outside' objective viewpoint, "passion" tells us we are free to act because we "feel" free and it is utterly ridiculous to "feel" any other way. Reason is merely a tool. Reason is NOT philosophy as such. "Philosophy as such" is determined by passion as is morality. We can use reason as a tool to examine our passions and our morality -- mainly to discover inconsistencies and work out some consistency in life -- but our individual historical situation from which we must work is materialistically determined, a materialism as seem from INSIDE materialistic determination. Jean-Paul Sartre's CRITIQUE OF DIALECTICAL REASON is absolutely excellent in this regard. No one can escape being a materialist. When the donation plate is passed around in church, it prooves beyond a shadow
of a doubt that all Christians must always eventually be grounded as reluctant or subliminating materialists. But materialism is not somewhere "over there" being examined as an object. Materialism is me, and you are a materialist subjunction of me. Sartre fully works out this problematic. As Lenin fully shows all idealism is philosophical solipsism, and solipsism as a philosophy is ridiculous. But he also shows that Hegel's idealism set materialism upon a sophisticated and systematic basis. Marx did the same but Lenin hammers the point relentlessly home. So there can be no philosophical materialism without the help of Hegel's "impure" idealism.
But Hegel's primary problem is that he wants philosophy, history, and specifically the history of philosophy to have a purpose, a point. This is pure theological "providence". Nothing that historically happens has a point or a purpose. History just makes accumulations. And all accumulations must take on a form as a growing accumation. And people can make useful things from this form of accumulation. But accumulations can also always be destroyed. Their forms can always be deliberately perverted temporarily. Any individual viewpoint, decision, and action is "always already" immediately out of the hands of any individual and is being formed by the historical situation it is in in such a way the individual can only obscurely see what is happening in reality if at all. It is interesting and profitable to note both Hume and Marx started out as philosophers but became much more deeply involved in history, politics, and economics. Hume's HISTORY OF ENGLAND and ESSAYS are excellent in this
regard. Hegel complains that Hume shows that there is no purpose to philosophy. Hegel considers this a deficiency. Actually it is Hume's whole point. History as an "absolute" (which Lenin says he rejects but does he?) simply is nonsense.
The same problem that exists with dialectical materialism exists with perception as such -- You are within it and there is absolutely no reason to presuppose an 'other side'. This is actually a self-defining and singularly established point. There is no viewpoint but a materialist viewpoint. All dualism and spirituality is purely defined in materialist terms from start to finish. There is no viewpoint but a determined viewpoint precisely because you do all thinking for a "purpose" as Hegel desires, and "purpose" translates realistically into PASSION. And you can literally see every moment the material and social context you act within determining the whole context you make your "free" decision within. In other words, for perception, there is always and only a "within" and nothing else. No opposite of an "other" or "without". Sartre concides this in BEING AND NOTHINGNESS. Heidegger calls it "existential solipsism". You cannot help having this viewpoint. it is physiologically
determined.
Remember Derrida is a Marxist and, to be made understandible and relevant, can only be read, like Sartre, as a Marxist. Derrida constantly demonstrates the material and social determinates that form one's solipsistic perception. He just doesn't call it that.
I hope all of you find this of interest, Bob, Jud, Richard, John, and all Marxist at the Heidegger lists. Now let us see if this damn letter gets actually sent.
'Sincerely'
Gary C. Moore
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