Hobbes and principles (Questions that I have to answer, for practicing philosophy)

Hobbes makes clear that all philosophy has to connect to first principles or shared definitions. Now the question becomes very urgent: Where do the principles come from?

According to Hobbes: Principles do not come from anything. We can only agree on the ground of our contingent nature. Agreement is the nature of human discourse. 

However, do we follow ideas of agreement? What does make a good agreement? What is the foundation for an agreement? 

I would like to argue that we in our contingent nature have to follow something more then contingent facts in order to give reason. So, for example, we rather follow some principle, instead of claiming nothing to be our principle.

Of course, a principle seems also to be the right of the strongest as a kind of intuitive, bodily lived impulse, but society is a game changer. If we want to agree in societies on something, we must at least agree on a rule that transcends the individuals desires for power. A rule relates to reason, since it has to be followed more than once. Even though we might not be able to demonstrate a constitutive rule for reason, there have to be rules and this is not something we agree upon, but that we simply live by necessity of agreement.

Do we live for ourselves?

The opposite of such a ruled living would be something that cannot be represented in mind, since it follows nothing that can be thought. 

I claim therefore: We desire for principles and what else could we call this deep desire? The desire for society is a desire for the opposite of the desire, a community where we leave our desires for a moment of shared worlds. Humans share worlds as they share ideas and as the share in the same world.

Nevertheless, where does the break come from that breaks our rules that desire for murder?

Rules are only broken by new rules. What is the time in between? I talk explicitely about the moment, when a rule is substituted by a new rule. Is it a continuity, so that both rules are connected, so that they are not distinct? Is there a superrule that connects all minor rules? Or are the rules rather unconnected? But if they are unconnected what is the space in between? A space without rules?

If there is a superrule, then all rules must be one rule. Is this right?

The philosophy that I develope - Truth and Desire

During my life I realize more and more that the desire for systematicity shapes my knowledge. Thank God, Spinoza has brought me to these insights.

Short note on Spinoza:
Spinoza points out that the idea of reason is guiding all our understanding. But it does not guide our idea in terms of causes, but in terms of their real cause. I associate real causes with reason.

Truth and Desire
In other words, it is all a question of what we desire to be true and this is structuring the systematicity of our knowledge. If there were no desire for knowledge, there would be no endeauvors into figuring out anything.

However, the desire for knowledge is not freefloating, but structured in itself with regard to its goal, namely to be true desire. True desire is repelled by mediocre truths that shift their status in history. However, true desire does not know whether true knowledge can be achieved, therefore it only guides our systematizing.

Structures of Desires

Desire wants itself, so it is a desire for an eternity that might not exist. Nevertheless the idea of an infinite self that posseses truth is more than only a fiction. It is the truth of a desire. If I am desire this seems to be the ground for all that there is. So all comes down to the question of how infinity is possible at all, even though this infinity might not exist.

So I will order all philosophies with regard to the project of truth and desire.

Different from Heidegger this does not lay out "Time" as the horizon of Being, but the being of true desire, is what is structuring our temporality.

More fragments have to be integrated is the notion of the world and holism.

Why even god follows causes - Leibniz and his argument about God in the debate on sufficient reason.

The posttitle promises too much. I rather discuss technically some issues between Leibniz and Clark with respect to the idea of the principle of sufficient reason.

The discussion with Clarke, and Leibniz main argument

So Clarke's main assumption in the debate regarding sufficient reason can be expressed this way:

The sufficient reason for the being-so of the being-that is only the will of god, namely that it is this way. In other words, their is no foundation, but the essence of God. The essential being of the world is not reasonable, but merely an essence. 

I cannot think essentialism different from irrationalism.

Leibniz counterargument speaks therefore in the voice of reason which is the voice God: If the world is grounded on God's pure will, this would imply that God would want something that is unreasonable, namely that something is without sufficient reason.

If there were something without sufficient reason, then there would be no absolute necessity. This would leave us with the question when it is enough reason, since it might turn out that all of our endeavors are only contingent.

No reason
It is enough and we can call it day. As we usually asume there has to be an end of reasoning and the children have to be send to bed. Essentialism, the asylum of ignorants, escapes the marter of infinite analysis. It does not oblige itself to reason.

However, is there an essential will without motife, without having something in mind that it could be reason of? Well, I do not think that we can want to be a random individual that makes no sense. This would be someway destructive. We have to oblige ourselves to reason, otherwise there would be not very much to be justified.

Essentialism which is an irrationalism cannot be justified, since all justification would put on reasonable grounds. But what is it then?

In the words of Leibniz it sounds this way: "ein einfacher Wille ohne irgendein Motiv (ein bloßer Wille)" eine Fiktion sei", auch Handlungen sich also auf ihre Gründe, sprich Motive, hin befragen lassen müssen. (18)

(nach Leibniz und Kant: Erkenntnistheoretische Studien  von Jürgen Mittelstraß Walter de Gruyter, 27.07.2011 S. 18)

Notes on: Lecture 1 Heidegger, M. The Principle of Reason translated by Reginald Lilly, Indiana University Press 1991, Lectures held in 1955-1956,

[The principle of sufficient reason is considered to be one of the foundational principles of our thinking. Even thought the principle of identity, of the excluded middle, and of non-contradiction were discovered earlier, the principle of sufficient reason is on of the main grounding principles. With respect to its foundational position we can ask different questions:

1. Is the principle of sufficient reason equiprimordial (gleichursrpruenglich) to the other principles or has it a higher status?
2. Is the principle of sufficent reason a merely logical principal or a synthetic a priori?

We will discuss the first question with regard to Heidegger's first lecture on the principle of sufficient reason.]

Heidegger Notes

[Logic as the foundation of all our thoughts is hidden within us; as Heidegger will call it later as an abyssal structure that provides the realm of our thinking. We can say that the principles of logic need attention to be formulated and that there sentence structure is not what they are.]

Heidegger writes: "Centuries were needed for the principle to be stated as a principle" In German he emphasizes that it took 2000 years "für das Setzen des Satzes" and he answers it: "Answer: because our relation to the ovious is always dull and dumb. The path to what lies  under our nose is always the furthest and hence the most difficult path for humans." (5) So what is ontologically most important is usually considered to be furthest. An so he asks: "What reason is there for the principle of reason?"

[In other lectures Heidegger pointed out that the foundational principle is a principle in itself: Der Grundsatz des Denkens ist selbst ein Satz (7)] Heidegger points out the puzzling structure of this principle: "What the principle of reason posits, and how it posits it - the manner in which it is, strictly speaking, a principle - is what makes it incomparable to all other sentences." (7)  So the principle of reason has a significant role among all sentences.

Remarks on the principle of identity: Heidegger points out that the principle of identity should not be confused with the formulation A=A. Saying that something ist identical means not that it "is being equal to itself" (8). [Moreover it seems that the equation expresses a relation that cannot be there, if it were identical.]

Heidegger says it more precisely:
"In identity, the same plays the role of a reason or basis for belonging-together. In identity reason shows itself to be the basis upon which and in which the belonging- together of distinct things rests. (8)

So the principle of identity demonstrates an internal belonging to each other. [vgl. Hegel's analysis of the Wesen and Unwesen - With respect to Hegel we pointed out that there are severe problems with atomism in a common representationalism. The Hegelian question is directed toward the object that is many in one. How can different properties be regarded as being One?]

[We can take the first lecture as the questioning of what we are going to analyze.]

So Heidegger first analyzes the sentence in which a principle is usually uttered. Moreover, Heidegger sees the German connotation of Satz = Setzen (principle --> positing). He says:

"It is indeed equally necessary to clarify what a sentence [Satz] is. According to grammar, a simple sentence consists of the connection of the subject of a sentence with a predicate. The predicate is to agree with the subject and is predicated of the subject. But what is meant by "subject"? . . . "that which is  lies present as the ground for statements about something."

[Therefore we need a clarification of Reason before in order to grasp what it means to have an underlying structure that cannot be taken away].

[Remark: Also Kant runs into this reasonable structure when he searches for the highest identity. As a result it comes to the question whether we are dealing with a completed identity as, for example, Kant assumed it for the I-think as the underlying structure of everything.

This also leads us to the question whether everything is reasonable grounded.

Conceptual Realism - Brandom's project in the light of Hegel's theory

Brandom's goal is to present a holistic semantic that according to his Hegel interpretation cannot be based on the construction of a faculty-model. In his first chapter of "A Spirit of Trust" Brandom argues for this position. (Link)

Brandom follows roughly the line of thought that Hegel already had in mind, so he starts out with rejecting the absurdity to split represtings from representing. 

However, does this lead to a structuralism, because only the way we represent stands in the middle of our investigation? On the other hand, if the representings are our representing, isn't this a mere materialism?

It seems it is nothing of them, since the representing and the representings have to be projected into one unity. This unity is mysteriously called holism.

Brandom's goal is to distinguish Hegel from the former projects of Kant and Descartes that includes a reformulation of the truth theory of adquacy. He tries to avoid the epic split of object and subject. 

How can this be don as a non-psychological project that is not merely an investigation of what we perceive? It mus be based on the concept, the Begriff.

This characterizes Brandom's conceptual realism.

Hegel on perception - his introduction of essence (Wesen und Unwesen)

Perception

Let's come to the details of our journey in Holism now. This means, we are going to investigate the two moments of perception. On the one hand, the object that falls apart in many sensations, on the other hand the unifying tendency that brings all of these sensations together. However, this process is much more complex and will include an analysis of all human, social constructions. All of them support the constitution of one single object, but before we reach this realm of absolute knowing, Hegel writes:

"Der Gegenstand ist dem Wesen nach dasselbe, was die Bewegung ist, sie die Entfaltung und Unterscheidung der Momente, er das Zusammengefaßtsein derselben."

What Hegel will introduce here is a more complete notion of Wesen (essence) than it has been in the Greek philosophies. We will come to this in a minute. First we have to see that there is just one movement that relates itself to an (Gegenstand) object that stands against. This Gegenstand is not the simple sensation, it is already more. If we take an object that is in front of our eyes and analyze the many properties, we will not find the essence of the Object as a Gegenstand. There is something that holds the object together, so that it does not fall apart.

We need to keep in mind, that we are not talking about a mysterious, real existing energy, but something that brings the object to us as it is in our perception.

Hegel assumes now that the differentiation of the moments of sensation is the same as their unification, even though both of them are oposed to each other: The simple sensations and the unification of properties.

As Hegel states these two moments, sensation and unification, are opposed in their characteristics of the Wesen, of the essence of the outstanding object (Gegenstand). This means the unification of all sensations that are given is ESSENTIALLY different from the sensations. However, both of them belong to the Wesen of the object. In other words, we could not imagine the object without singular sensations, but also not as a unification of these sensations.

Nevertheless, Hegel also remarks: If there is a Wesen than there must be something in this process that is not theWesen. Hegel calls this the Unwesen. However, the Unwesen as the central part of this process is at the same time all what is the foundation for the Wesen, since these moments can just be differentiated if they are with regard to their unification.

This means the Unwesen belongs to the Wesen.

A more concrete analysis of this relation between Wesen and Unwesen has to follow. However, we see here that there is no presupposed substance, but a Wesen that is at the same time its opposite. The unification is at the same time differentiation into sensations. Are they equiprimordial, or has one of them priority?

What has happened so far (Rejection of the Given, no representationalist theory, a holism)

Was bisher geschah (what has happened so far): We tried to grasp the object of our knowledge. Nevertheless, we rejected a two-fold epistemological strategy, namely presupposing that the object is, on the one hand, known in our mind and, on the other hand, independent from our processes of knowledge. In a line with Robert Brandom's semantic reading of Hegel we develope a holistic, inferential approach in order to describe what is given to us or rather to describe what we produce.

Now some people might say that sensibility gives us all what we need: "What you see, is what you get." It might be obscure to them that philosophers still search for the real relation of a presupposed real objects and objects within the mind, but as Hegel analyzes, the concept of something that is simply sensed, in other words, merely given must lead to the curious result that our thoughts about it are empty. Since a merely given can include no information of what is given to the mind, there must be another approach to order our sensations. Even the most bottom concepts "this" and "now" cannot build a universal explanation of what is given to us.

We take this as an indication that a bottom-up-approach cannot work.

Since we have abandoned a mere sensibility, we are seeking for something that grasps the empirical object on a higher level. This means, the empirical given has to be higher than being merely an atomistic fact. This idea also expressed by Robert Brandom's is the idea that reality is in fact much more complex and not reducable to a mere atomism of sensation. What is known has to be thought in its spiritual construction. This includes a holism of how we approach the object as a species being. We are rather investigating the process of empirical grasping than investigating what the object is. This strategy will finally merge content and form into one knowable object which is identical with our way of how we know (I am overoptimistic here). The starting point for all conceptions of reality will therefore turn out to be a completed self-consciousness.

Leibnizproject: Researchplan for the principle of sufficient reason with regard to expressions

Overall Research plan:

My plan is to investigate the relation of identities, expressions and perceptions. With regard to this it seems to me the principle principle of sufficient reason expresses the ontological relation between an expression and something necessary, namely identities. Nevertheless, this relation is still very unclear to me (also because the term expression and perception are a little confused in my mind). 

Brandom and Heidegger on this topic

Here, is a further point that I have to bring to clarity. While Brandom only focuses on the idea of inferences that achieve the many in one (probably in terms of his conceptual realism that assumes the world has the same structure like the subject, so that he basically only asks about semantics), Heidegger puts emphasize on the principe grande, the mighty principle that emphasizes the ontological difference. According to Heidegger there is something that resists its decomposition into identities. 

Study Plan:

I will study parts of the selection of the Garber book of Leibniz: 5. Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas, 6. Contingency, 7. Primary Truths, 8. Discourse on Metaphysics. All of these texts give good indications. I also have a small book of Nicholas Rescher. Moreover, I probably include the differentiation between absolute and hypothetical necessity from the Letters to Arnauld and Leibniz ideas of how miracles can be understood in terms of reason. 

Suggestions?

Hegel Perception: Or the thing and deception - Perception as a result of Sense-Certainty and the necessary moments of Perception

In the Chapter Perception: Or the thing and deception Hegel discusses how the negations of sense-certainty can become one object in the empirical world.

1. Introductory Considerations regarding the negating activity of sense-perception
The question is how do we unify all the different sense-perceptions that are given by our negating activity. This negating activity takes different spatio-temporal moments as negations of other moments. Hegel puts a lot of emphasize on the flux of our negating activity and clearly relates to the Spinozist doctrine that all determination is negation (Omnis determinatio est negatio). However, the question is whether the content can be only negation or whether there has to be assumed a last constituent that makes the negating relations possible. We have to keep this question in mind with regard to our reconstruction. I do not see it immediately answered. Nevertheless, I regard an answer to this question as the root for different Hegel-interpretations that might develope.

2. Perception in contrast to sense-certainty

While immediate certainty simply wants to grasp the "this", perception steps beyond and tries to grasp the being which is universal. My assumption is that Hegel means the being of an individual thing as it is also revealed later one. However, before we will run through different steps that are necessary for this, namely the definition of essence, anti-essence, properties, thinghood, and things.

First Hegel analyzes the moments of the perception that unifies the different negating moments of sense-certainty. The moments of perception are both universal, namely the universal I and the object as general. Both are necessarily related.

(Remark on Terminology: "Necessary" since Kant stands in opposition to "Contingent". "Contingent" might be related to Experience (Erfahrung), while necessary is a derived analytical truth that is given with the concept itself namely with perception)
(Remark on Brandom's realism: It is noteworthy that Brandom is going to develope an understanding of reality as conceptual, so that he actually diminishes the role of contingency dramatically. If I am correct he rejects the idea of contingency).

With regard to the necessary relation between the I and the general object Hegel points out:
"In the essence the object is the same as the movement: the movement is the unfolding and differentiation of the two moments, and the object is the apprehended togetherness of the moments." (Hegel, §111) 

If we take the I as the central carrier of the movement and the object as the unfolding of the movement both can be thought as the same.

(Note on Kant: Already Kant postulated such an identity between the noumenon and the I-think in his deduction, since the I-think as the unity of the categories has to apply the categories to something that shall be experienced. Hegel who develops a different path distinguishes himself from Kant by not positing to stems of cogntion that are ontologically different. This idea supports Brandom's idea of a conceptual realism)

The identity between the movement through the two moments, namely the moment of indicating (Aufzeigen) and the moment of perception (Wahrnehmen) as the object (Gegenstand) has to be discussed in more detail:

3. The moments of perception

Einleitung zur Pittsburghschool - Ablehnung des Mythos des Gegebenen

http://www.academia.edu/440130/Praxis_und_Objektivitat?login=&email_was_taken=true

Mitschriften zu Praxis und Objektivit - Anmerkungen zu Robert Brandoms postanalytischer Hegel-Interpretation (Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus)

Dreiteilung des Texts:

I. Was bedeutet es für die Pittsburghschool die analytische Philosophie aus ihrem Kantischen Stadium in das Hegelianische zu überführen.
II. Brandoms historisches Verständnis von Rationalität als sozialer Erkenntnis
III. Wie absolutes Wissen ist für Brandom die Grundlage zur Bestimmung von Objektivität als ein strukturelles Moment von Konzepten (Begriffen) (vgl. Auinger, Th.)

I. Die Brandomsche Aufbereitung einer Tradition bereitet einigen Hegelkennern bekannlich Kopfzerbrechen:

„Traditions are lived forward but understood backward.“ (Brandom, 2002, p. 45, zitiert nach Auinger)

Das Gelebte dieser Tradition könnte in einer Überbetonung doch die eigentlichen Konzeptionen Hegels verfälschen und viele sehen die Gefahr, dass, wie es Tom Rockmore ausdrückt, wenn sich der Staub legt am Ende nicht eine Verbindung zwischen analytischer und kontinentaler Philosophie zum Vorschein komme, sondern eben nur analytische Philosophie bleibe.

Das Pittsburgher Projekt einer analytischen Reformulierung Hegels formulierte dabei schon Sellars. Es gehe darum, die analytische Philosophie von ihrer Kantischen Verfassung in eine Hegelianische zu überführen, welche nach Auinger bedeute, die "positivistische Zuversicht von Philosophen wie Russell oder Carnap einer entschiedenen Relativierung" zu unterziehen. Doch selbst schon Rorty (selbst Brandoms Doktorvater) war hier skeptisch, dass dies den Analytikern gelang: 

„For this school holds that analytic philosophy still must pass over from its Kantian to its Hegelian moment.“ (Rorty, 1998, p. 124, zitiert nach Auinger)

Worum geht es aber konkret? 

Nach McDowells Einschätzung (Brandoms "geschätzter" Kollege) ginge es nach Sellars darum, sogar die basalste Perzeption als begrifflich gebunden nachzuweisen, was in dieser Art immer eine Kenntnis von Sprache voraussetze. Begriffliche Vermittlung weist intuitive Fundamente zurück; in der Pittsburghschool geht es nicht um substantielles Wissen. (vgl. McDowell, 2003, 76, zitiert nach Auinger) Was ganz einer pragmatischen Tradition entspricht.

Hierum geht es auch Brandom: Wissen kann nur sein, wenn diesem Wissen ein "spezifischer Ort im logischen Raum der Gründe zugewiesen werden" kann (vgl. Auinger, 3). Tun wir dies nicht, so würden wir zurückfallen in das, was Sellars noch als den "Mythos des Gegebenen" klassifizierte, wir hätten es mit "mystifizierten Quasi-Entitäten, über deren Existenz wir jenseits aller Rechtfertigungsmöglichkeiten nicht einmal Mutmaßungen anstellen können. 

An dieser Stelle aber nun, muss diese begriffliche Vermittlung tatsächlich auch eingelöst werden, andernfalls fallen wir nach Rorties Auffassung in den Skeptizismus zurück. 

Hegel - Phänomenologie des Geistes - Die Wahrnehmung (Teil 1)

0. Einleitende Strukturüberlegungen

Im Wahrnehmungskapitel geht es Hegel erstens um eine allgemeine Fortführung des Bedeutungs- bzw. Sinnproblems, das heißt die Frage, wie ein Gegenstand unserer Erfahrung Bedeutung haben kann bzw. für uns gegeben ist. Hegel führt führt hierfür folgende Begriffe ein:

Dinglichkeit
Ding
gleichgültige Eigenschaften (das gleichgültige auch); für die Dinglichkeit
ausschließende Eigenschaften; für das Ding
Wesen, als die Einheit
Unwesen
Wahrnehmung
Wahrgenommenes
Einheit
Eins
Dialektik der sinnlichen Gewissheit

Wir schauen mal, ob wir es schaffen, die Begriffe zu definieren. Als Übersicht ist das erstmal gut.

Es geht also um auch um die Erarbeitung eines Begriffsapparates, den Hegel auf Grundlage der Auseinandersetzung mit der Sinnlichkeit dialektisch gewinnt.

1. Vorraussetzung aus dem Kapitel zur Sinnlichkeit

Hegel will im Hinblick auf sinnliche Gewissheit zeigen, dass das All des Gegenwärtigen, also die Fülle des Seins, im Grunde eine Leere des Zeigens ist. Wie sich der Verweis auf das "Dieses" immer wieder in einem neuen Nichts verflüchtigt, weil wir auf etwas anderes zeigen, so ist die Folge des Zeigens nur als ein Warhnehmen zu verstehen, das heißt, wir sammeln Dies-Momente in uns, die stets nur die Negationen vorangegangener Negationen sind. Ein konkretes "Dieses" ist nur ein Meinen, dennoch sammeln wir, um später Eigenschaften derart in einem Ding zu vereinen, diese Negationen.

Im Sinne des Zusammennehmens verweist Hegel schließlich auf "die Dialektik der sinnlichen Gewißheit", die schließlich "die einfache Geschichte ihrer Bewegung oder ihrer Erfahrung" ist." Hegel schreibt:

"jedes Bewußtsein hebt eine solche Wahrheit, wie zum Beispiel: das Hier ist ein Baum, oder das Jetzt ist Mittag, selbst wieder auf und spricht das Gegenteil aus: das Hier ist nicht ein Baum, sondern ein Haus; und was in dieser die erste aufgebende." (73)

Doch wie ist schließlich das einfache Zusammen vieler Hier, genaugenommen ein Allgemeines möglich.

2. Perzeption

weitere Begriffe: absolute Wahrheit, empirische Erfahrung

Der Jäger und Sammler der sinnlichen Erfahrung erreicht schließlich, was Hegel eine "allgemeine Erfahrung" nennt und die er synonym mit der "absoluten Wahrheit" (71) setzt. Diese absolute Wahrheit spricht an, dass wir zwar auf ein Empirisches verweisen, aber doch ein Moment der Allgemeinheit diesen partikularen Momenten beimischen müssen, um sie überhaupt zu greifen. Es soll Wahrheit in dem Sinne sein, dass wir Subjekt (also Erfahrung) und Objekt (die Wahrheit der Erfahrung) in einer identischen Einheit denken.

4. Zusätzliche Überlegungen (Kriterion der Wahrnehmung)

Was für uns beim Prozess der Wissensaneignung eigentlich ein Kriterium ist, nennt Hegel ein Prinzip für die Wahrnehmung (73). Dieses Prinzip der Wahrnehmung soll beschreiben, nach welcher Art wir überhaupt nur einen allgemeinen Gegenstand gewinnen können.

Das, was bei Aristoteles noch die Substanz als Voraussetzung aller Eigenschaften war, ist bei Hegel das Wesen, das als Teil eines holistischen Prinzips nur in Negation der sinnlichen Gewissheit besteht (73)