which philo book has influenced your views the most?

[MorganFreemanlives]

It's funny: when I took a Hegel seminar, the professor explicitly told us not to read Pinkard, Pippin, or Brandom as they "systematically misinterpret Hegel for the purpose of spoon-feeding Americans." 

 

I did not enjoy that class. 

and yet thats exactly my thoughts. always be skeptical of analytic philosophers trying to mold spooky metaphysician to a more naturalist friendly proposition filled work.  spinoza is to a lesser degree a common victim as well. Joachim's spinoza> curley spinoza any day.

[dgswaim]

It's funny: when I took a Hegel seminar, the professor explicitly told us not to read Pinkard, Pippin, or Brandom as they "systematically misinterpret Hegel for the purpose of spoon-feeding Americans." 

 

I did not enjoy that class. 

 

He's not alone in that opinion; it just so happens, however, that I find this approach is quite incorrect. My experience was the following: I took a seminar on Hegel's Phenomenology, and the two texts we used were the Phenomenology itself, and Hyppolite's commentary. Hyppolite was totally unhelpful to me as someone coming up in a mostly analytic environment. Most of what happened in that class was utterly impenetrable to me. Some months later, I decided I really did want to develop at least a fundamental (if not detailed) understanding of the text, so I read through Pinkard's text, and having cleared up some conceptual issues, my second read through the Phenomenology was much more productive. I suppose one might call that spoon-feeding, but to my mind Pinkard's text just helped me to approach the Phenomenology with the right set of concepts in mind so as to not get taken down too many rabbit trails.

 

and yet thats exactly my thoughts. always be skeptical of analytic philosophers trying to mold spooky metaphysician to a more naturalist friendly proposition filled work.  spinoza is to a lesser degree a common victim as well. Joachim's spinoza> curley spinoza any day.

 

This is a silly comment. It's probably not right, in the first place, to refer to either Pinkard or Pippin as "analytic" philosophers. They just write clearly. Writing about metaphysics does not entail writing in veiled, nebulous, quasi-mystical prose.

[MorganFreemanlives]

He's not alone in that opinion; it just so happens, however, that I find this approach is quite incorrect. My experience was the following: I took a seminar on Hegel's Phenomenology, and the two texts we used were the Phenomenology itself, and Hyppolite's commentary. Hyppolite was totally unhelpful to me as someone coming up in a mostly analytic environment. Most of what happened in that class was utterly impenetrable to me. Some months later, I decided I really did want to develop at least a fundamental (if not detailed) understanding of the text, so I read through Pinkard's text, and having cleared up some conceptual issues, my second read through the Phenomenology was much more productive. I suppose one might call that spoon-feeding, but to my mind Pinkard's text just helped me to approach the Phenomenology with the right set of concepts in mind so as to not get taken down too many rabbit trails.

 

 

This is a silly comment. It's probably not right, in the first place, to refer to either Pinkard or Pippin as "analytic" philosophers. They just write clearly. Writing about metaphysics does not entail writing in veiled, nebulous, quasi-mystical prose.

perhaps we can agree that our notions of the term analytic will wildly differ although  even i will acknowledge he is certtaintly not the most "analytically " one. .  pinkard clearly wrote far more eloquently and coherently than anything hegel wrote but that does not imply he interpreted hegel appropriately.

 

although there is one correct hegel, namely hegel himself, his obscure style has created contrary interpretations, for example, zizek has a very Heraclitus like intepretation of hegel while others like british hegelians had an interpretation akin to Parmenides. a lot of commentary and re-interpretations of hegel and i believe pinkard is guilty of this, emphasize the sanitized version of hegel at the expense of the spooky  absolute.

 

Im glad analytic philosophy has finally welcomed hegel as worthy of analysis and i consider myself more on the analytic spectrum  but lets not kid ourselves that sometimes the specific demands that analytic philosophy as a professional discipline with its specific style dont often tarnish some philosophers. Whitehead is perhaps an even better example of this. Unlike hegel, analytic philosophy for the longest considered him one of their due to his coauthorship of Principia but the amount of misinterpretations of Whitehead to make him fit more neatly in the puzzle solving canon is appalling.

[dgswaim]

perhaps we can agree that our notions of the term analytic will wildly differ although  even i will acknowledge he is certtaintly not the most "analytically " one. .  pinkard clearly wrote far more eloquently and coherently than anything hegel wrote but that does not imply he interpreted hegel appropriately.

 

although there is one correct hegel, namely hegel himself, his obscure style has created contrary interpretations, for example, zizek has a very Heraclitus like intepretation of hegel while others like british hegelians had an interpretation akin to Parmenides. a lot of commentary and re-interpretations of hegel and i believe pinkard is guilty of this, emphasize the sanitized version of hegel at the expense of the spooky  absolute.

 

Im glad analytic philosophy has finally welcomed hegel as worthy of analysis and i consider myself more on the analytic spectrum  but lets not kid ourselves that sometimes the specific demands that analytic philosophy as a professional discipline with its specific style dont often tarnish some philosophers. Whitehead is perhaps an even better example of this. Unlike hegel, analytic philosophy for the longest considered him one of their due to his coauthorship of Principia but the amount of misinterpretations of Whitehead to make him fit more neatly in the puzzle solving canon is appalling.

I think we just have a difference of opinion on this. The whole point of the work from people like Terry Pinkard, Catherine Malabou, Peter Wake, Robert Pippin and others is that to think of the Absolute in "spooky" terms is precisely the wrong way to think about it. I tend to agree. Hegel's system as onto-theology, I think, is not a good reading of Hegel. His ideas are, I believe, far more subtle than that.

Edited August 24, 2014 by dgswaim

[Establishment]

I think we just have a difference of opinion on this. The whole point of the work from people like Terry Pinkard, Catherine Malabou, Peter Wake, Robert Pippin and others is that to think of the Absolute in "spooky" terms is precisely the wrong way to think about it. I tend to agree. Hegel's system as onto-theology, I think, is not a good reading of Hegel. His ideas are, I believe, far more subtle than that.

 

I've always appreciated the Hegel scholarship which has been upfront in saying: Look, Hegel probably was crazy as shit, and probably did think of his work as an onto-theology or some other abstract nonsense. But that's not our concern. We're to to rehabilitate his work into something coherent and useful in contemporary analytic discussions. It might then be wrong to call this result Hegel, or Hegelian, but we will do so anyways.

 

Heidegger is apparently becoming appropriated into analytic philosophy, but I haven't seen any scholarship yet be as upfront as I have seen some Hegel scholarship do.

 

EDIT: I mean, it's a historical matter of fact whether Hegel's own intentions were as sophisticated as we'd like to think or not. The attitude that I've sort of hyperbolized above is merely the attitude of: Look, we ultimately aren't concerned with Hegel's intentions. Either his intentions match the sophistication we'd like or it doesn't. Either way, we're not going to bother with entering into debates on the historical matter of fact, and instead focus purely on our normative concerns.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Establishment

[dgswaim]

I've always appreciated the Hegel scholarship which has been upfront in saying: Look, Hegel probably was crazy as shit, and probably did think of his work as an onto-theology or some other abstract nonsense. But that's not our concern. We're to to rehabilitate his work into something coherent and useful in contemporary analytic discussions. It might then be wrong to call this result Hegel, or Hegelian, but we will do so anyways.

 

Heidegger is apparently becoming appropriated into analytic philosophy, but I haven't seen any scholarship yet be as upfront as I have seen some Hegel scholarship do.

 

EDIT: I mean, it's a historical matter of fact whether Hegel's own intentions were as sophisticated as we'd like to think or not. The attitude that I've sort of hyperbolized above is merely the attitude of: Look, we ultimately aren't concerned with Hegel's intentions. Either his intentions match the sophistication we'd like or it doesn't. Either way, we're not going to bother with entering into debates on the historical matter of fact, and instead focus purely on our normative concerns.

This is a good point, I think... but I really don't think Hegel was up to the sort of onto-theological work that Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and others seem to think. I think his reflection on the nature of Christianity in the Phenomenology and in his lectures on art and religion (not to mention his early theological work) bears this point out. But yeah. I think all of that stuff can be left aside and we can focus on more narrow questions like, "How does the section on 'Perception' relate to questions in contemporary epistemology?"

[MorganFreemanlives]

I've always appreciated the Hegel scholarship which has been upfront in saying: Look, Hegel probably was crazy as shit, and probably did think of his work as an onto-theology or some other abstract nonsense. But that's not our concern. We're to to rehabilitate his work into something coherent and useful in contemporary analytic discussions. It might then be wrong to call this result Hegel, or Hegelian, but we will do so anyways.

 

Heidegger is apparently becoming appropriated into analytic philosophy, but I haven't seen any scholarship yet be as upfront as I have seen some Hegel scholarship do.

 

EDIT: I mean, it's a historical matter of fact whether Hegel's own intentions were as sophisticated as we'd like to think or not. The attitude that I've sort of hyperbolized above is merely the attitude of: Look, we ultimately aren't concerned with Hegel's intentions. Either his intentions match the sophistication we'd like or it doesn't. Either way, we're not going to bother with entering into debates on the historical matter of fact, and instead focus purely on our normative concerns.

this attitude has never made sense to me. analytic philosophy should try to either 1. attempt to break down and clearly rework arguments of the historical greats in their historical context, to improve their understanding while doing justice to what they have to and wanted to say or 2. remain proudly anti-historical and march along, but unapologetically  making chimeras of important figures for our contemporary concern just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. my primary concern though is,  how far astray are we leading future scholars when their primary translations of important thinkers are "benign" misinterpretations ? or down the road,these abridged commentaries become treated as official canon for pedagogical purposes?

 

i think i will leave the topic be at that. too much hegel apologetic in one day for a "hegelhatinghegelian" lol.

 

on a totally unrelated sidenote, it seems the forum is now getting  lively with more people. im looking forward to the coming months.

[dgswaim]

this attitude has never made sense to me. analytic philosophy should try to either 1. attempt to break down and clearly rework arguments of the historical greats in their historical context, to improve their understanding while doing justice to what they have to and wanted to say or 2. remain proudly anti-historical and march along, but unapologetically  making chimeras of important figures for our contemporary concern just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. my primary concern though is,  how far astray are we leading future scholars when their primary translations of important thinkers are "benign" misinterpretations ? or down the road,these abridged commentaries become treated as official canon for pedagogical purposes?

 

i think i will leave the topic be at that. too much hegel apologetic in one day for a "hegelhatinghegelian" lol.

 

on a totally unrelated sidenote, it seems the forum is now getting  lively with more people. im looking forward to the coming months.

My whole point has been that they are not, in fact, "benign" misinterpretations... mainly because they're not misinterpretations. 

[NathanKellen]

Foundations of Arithmetic by Frege (basically everything by Frege is golden in my book)

 

I took a seminar this past semester on Frege/neo-logicism, which was quite fun. We spent almost 7 weeks on Grundlagen alone, and only finished up because we wanted to get to contemporary topics. In some sense it's really the dawn of a new era in philosophy.

[overoverover]

I took a seminar this past semester on Frege/neo-logicism, which was quite fun. We spent almost 7 weeks on Grundlagen alone, and only finished up because we wanted to get to contemporary topics. In some sense it's really the dawn of a new era in philosophy.

 

I'm currently prepping for an independent study on the Grundgesetze, which should be great. 

[aojfifjoaisjaiosdj]

Answered my own question

Edited August 25, 2014 by Chiki