Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

The problem with Hegel is that his work not only doesn't resonate with modern audiences (as you would say), but it didn't back then either. He was incredibly wrong even for his time. Even Pascal's Wager is approachable today because it deals with probability.

Reading Pascal leaves you with the impression that indeed, this was an intelligent man. Reading Hegel does the opposite, and he was born a whole 100 years later.

Pascal's writings are so comprehensible and consistent, it's a joy to read and we can easily put things into the context of his time.

Pascal did question the Church and Christianity, and his commentary was sanctioned for a period. So did Kant a century later, and although there is disagreement as to whether Kant was an atheist, he didn't write of God in the superstitial terms Hegel later used. It's possible Hegel was commissioned to discredit Kant after he (K) had discredited all proofs of God's existence. Schopenhauer saw Hegel as an agent of the Prussian state, which Hegel regarded as the ultimate model and a representation of God in the contemporary world.

Hegel's discredit of Newton whose undeniably significant work took place more than a century before his birth, appears to me as childish screaming for the "throne of the wisest" or plain stupidity.

Gauss, a true man of reason, had to say this about Hegel:

> "Noah got drunk only one time, to become then, according to the Scriptures, a judicious man, while the insanities of Hegel in the Doctoral Dissertation, where he criticizes Newton and questions the utility of a search for new planets are still wisdom if one compares them with his later remarks."

Unlike Pascal, who I must admit I am a big fan of, every attempt of Hegel to engage in maths was laughable. Although he mastered sophistry, his maths were not just wrong, he displayed complete ignorance on the subject.

The current discussions in philosophy surrounding Hegel is almost always centered on what Hegel did intend to say and what he didn't. On on one side, we have those who want to paint a better picture of the man, on the other those who see it as it is. It reminds of the discussions surrounding the Quran today.

Hegel is no more than a scholar who blindly followed the discredited Greek idea of explaining the world from pure thought with many unfortunate consequences because he excelled at sophistry, a quality some find attractive enough that it justifies putting their own reason to sleep.

Unfortunately, Hegel's absolutism is a sad legacy that still pollutes the minds of some wise philosophers who could otherwise have engaged in a more meaningful use of their minds.

This is what Schopenhauer had to say about Hegel:

> "Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who thus joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation."

Hegel deserves to be discredited and distanced from philosophy or it will further damage it. If Hegel is to serve as something, it's as the ultimate example of a scholar too powerful to destroy whose influence is negative. Maybe Chomsky in regard to his linguistic work could be the contemporary equivalent of a scholar who puts to a halt an entire field, although he isn't half as bad.

Many people have trouble thinking about the category of evil laws. It's not what they learned in junior high school! It's helpful to inspire thinking about categories that asymptotically approach the categories that are difficult to conceptualize directly.

>Marxism is bad. Like Hegel, Marx wrote without any substance, and his work has been refuted long ago. Its legacy is undeniably bad. Nobody sane discusses Marxism itself, other than it's historical place. To me, Marx and Hegel are prophets and enemies of reason.

I have to say I disagree with this; Marx wrote with very much substance, though he was a flowery writer, and he employed a certain method which he and Engels admitted was rather obscure and unfamiliar to the thinkers of their new time - but there's plenty of content there, such that many have been inspired by his work to take it in new theoretical directions.

The "refutations" of Marx come from everywhere, even from Marxists, their validity however is still up for question. For every refutation there is usually a Marxian counter-refutation lurking in the background. If you don't believe me, just look at the modern argument between the anarchists and Marxists and the economical argument that still rages to this day between the understandings of Marx's value theory and tendency of the rate of profit to fall, like Kilman's TSSI, Okishio, Samuelson, Morishima, Cockshott etc.

I understand that the subject of Philosophy by itself should be neutral (as it is dealing with abstract categories). However it inhibits me greatly from delving deeper into it (beyond some very shallow grasp) when considering that its main use is to talk to power (either by bowing to it or by opposing it).

Even the philosophy of language is used to justify the rule of our species over the animal kingdom. The word of Marx taken as gospel was used to oppress and murder a lot of people, the use of Nietzsche taken as gospel was used to justify the murder of Jews and others, the practical application of the whole subject is soaked in blood up to a point where I am asking myself: has any good ever come out of it?

You're making a silly assumption here in my opinion if I understand your correctly, namely that because X's contribution to field Y was 'bad' all subsequent attempts at engaging with it are bad, therefore X's work must be expunged from the tradition and no longer engaged with.

Hm, so sure, we'll say Hegel was a horrible, illiterate, idiotic sophist. In that case you still have to admit his work was valuable to the field in that it provides a good example as to what constitutes sophistry. So, even if you want to interpret Hegel's work as worthless, intellectual dung-water you could argue that it's valuable in helping shape the philosophical field in a negative sense in that it provides an instance out of which a normative rule can be developed--namely Hegel's work is what philosophy shouldn't be.

I've given you two, admittedly very basic, since we're limited to comments, arguments for why you might consider Hegel's work meaningful/useful: a. It's historical (accidental) impact. b. It's being an example of how not to proceed (for a scientific analogue: an experiment that was unsuccessful).

Neither of these positions need to explicitly agree with Hegel's theories to see them as valuable. in either case you can say that Hegel's contribution was 'meaningful' while upholding the idea that he was 'wrong' (in fact the second relies on this).

Okay fine. We'll discredit and distance Hegel because he was 'wrong'. Does that mean we also discredit and distance every lick of philosophical work that in some fashion engaged with his productions?

By today's standards and developing knowledge in the field of linguistics the logical positivists of the 20th century were also 'wrong'. Should they too be eliminated from the philosophical tradition? Are they too unimportant? I'd like you to go and convince an analytical philosopher that work of Frege, Russel, and Whitehead should be eliminated from the philosophical discourse because it was 'wrong'. Or to use your own example, Chomsky was arguably wrong in putting syntax on such a pedestal--but his work was still fundamental in directing the progress of the field of linguistics. Without Chomsky's contribution there's a whole wealth of linguistic inquiry that may have not been undertaken. Concerning yourself with whether or not a historical and terminated event was 'wrong' outside of moral domains is really senseless--I don't see the point. Once again I stress that the humanities are not mathematics. There's not an evident 'right' answer to the things we define. It's idiotic to say that a given political system is 'right' and another is 'wrong' as you're only expressing your own value judgments. It is the same with metaphysics, history, literature, art...etc. etc.

You know, you continue to disparage Hegel but you've yet to produce any analysis as to why he's such a so-called sophist. In your previous post you quoted some of his material but provided no argument; you assumed that it is interpretable as nonsense de facto. That is not the sign of an intellectual, honest, or reasoned approach to the content. Schopenhauer was an incredibly intelligent philosopher but that remark on Hegel is not a valid critique, it is only a contentless value-judgement, dismissal, and ascription--to put that forth as an argument for Hegel's being a sophist is an appeal to intellectual authority, which is an argumentative fallacy.

Here let me engage in a similar exercise with Pascal's wager since to you that sounds >"approachable today because it deals with probability"

Well, Voltaire said this of Pascal's little wager: [That it was] "indecent and childish" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager)(See: Criticism, Nature as Proof of the Existence of God).

Therefore we ought to just discredit and distance Pascal's wager from the philosophical/religious tradition.

Does this sound like solid reasoning/argumentation to you? No? That's because it isn't. And in fact Voltaire's little quotation was based on a misunderstanding of Pascal's wager. Dumb move if I'm trying to effectively and actually discredit Pascal right? Reconsider your position on Hegel and your little employment of Schopenhauer and Gauss.

I'm going to be nasty now because your unwillingness to have an actual conversation instead of spiting your preconceptions at me has annoyed me.

I understand that reading actual critical thought and analysis beyond name and dung tossing is hard work and that we're all lazy, but really, it may do you some good.

For someone who is constantly touting the value of reason you're not very good in exercising it in this case. I can tell you're passionately against Hegel, which appears to be clouding your judgement and has you reaching for ad hominem and value-laden terms like sophistry, stupidity, and childish which are all void of significant analytical content; it's fine to deploy these words, but only after you've done and provided the analytical work necessary to back up your use of them--otherwise it just makes you look childish. You seem to have such a great aversion to Hegelian thought that it "puts your reason to sleep" and prevents you from analyzing the work from a value-neutral position--to the extent it's possible to step back and approach something without looking to reconfirm what you already believe.

Once more you don't seem willing to reconsider your perspective. Notice how you're not asking any questions. Just making statements. I would prompt you for further explanation, but at this point you've made so many reductive claims, value judgements, appeals to intellectual authority, and laudations of maths and science that I highly doubt you have anything interesting to say.

Your language is still stewing with an underlying vitriol, and you'll never be able to coherently reason about Hegel's place in the philosophical tradition, nor convince anyone he really doesn't belong, until you've purged your passion from your arguments.

It's funny, I don't even like what little I've read of Hegel's work; I find it to be a bit flat and over-reliant on baroquism to give the impression of significance, which makes his concepts difficult to untangle. But I'll admit I haven't read Hegel's work in full--that's why you don't see me putting forth value-judgements or arguments about his content. I gave you two approaches to answering why the work is 'meaningful' that don't require a comprehension of the work itself, but only account for its potential pragmatic (example of sophistry) or historical (recognition in the tradition of philosophy) significance.

You began asking why the work was 'meaningful' or 'useful'--but really you just want to argue against Hegelian thought, why, who the hell knows. It seems like you have some personal vendetta. Many of the world religions do not mesh well with the operations of reason. Yet nearly all of them, if not all of them, are incredibly useful. You're a militant rationalist, and like all militant rationalists, deaf to more nuanced calls to reason and suspension of your belief, susceptible to dogmatism when particular words are thrown about, and, also symptomatic, you find value-laden, scathing terminology from recognized intellectuals more effective or significant than any well-formed argument or honest and open engagement with the work.