Hegel’s ideas on the relationship between the self and the other, whether another individual or society itself, are extremely complicated. Both relations, however, boil down to humanity's interdependence on each other. The most essential thing that defines humanity and the societies that it creates is the interaction of the individual with the other. We absolutely must interact with some otherness to be able to realize ourselves. In regards to interaction with the sate, we are most free when we are actively participating within society in a constructive manner. “Particular ends cannot be attained without the help of the universal” (Philosophy of Right, sect 184) While it may seem like being as individualistic and selfish as possible will benefit each of us the most, this notion is simply untrue. Not only must we participate within the system, we must also work to uphold what is currently in place. It is important to note that we do not work to uphold society simply for the benefit of society, but rather because that is what in turn benefits us. Hegel uses the example of Plato’s Republic as an argument against a state in which individual desires are downplayed. Within that ideal state people do whatever possible to uphold the state without regard for their own personal needs. When this situation occurs there becomes a disconnect between the individuals and the state. We cannot escape our individual desires. This is why Plato’s perfect state is only hypothetical and can never become real. Desire is integral to a successful society, as well as to the well being of each individual. They are the primary motivating force for action. It is also however bad to have unlimited freedom with which to act upon desire. We must at the same time be allowed to have infinite selfish desire, and to be restricted from attaining it by a powerful state. When this state occurs we will begin to see that the easiest way to achieve our own personal desires is to play our role within society and to support the state.

Next Group Assignment

Please complete the following assignment by class on Wednesday (11/3). As with previous posts, one group member responds, others must comment in the thread.

The question:
What does Hegel have to say about the individual's relationship either (a) to other individuals, or (b) to institutions? (Pick one (a) or (b))

Please respond (250 ish words) as if your reader knew nothing of Hegel, had never read his writing, and needed the answer explained in an "un-Hegel-ish" terms as possible.

Final Paper Assignment (fall term)

For your final paper in the fall term, please revisit the questions of the class:

What is power? What is the difference between social and personal power? In what ways does society create structures of power over groups of individuals? Is there a just way to disseminate power throughout society?

Due: Thursday, November 11 by the end of the school day in your folder on Elise's desk
Length: 4-6 pages

You must cite: Plato, Kant, and Hegel
Please use other thinkers as you feel appropriate to support a thoughtful argument.

Hegel on Wall Street

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/hegel-on-wall-street/?hp

Philosophy in the Age of New Media

For those who are interested:

(http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/10/22/new-kelly-people-dreyfus/)

Sean D. Kelly, chair of Harvard’s philosophy department, believes philosophers ought to pose the question of how to live a good life to people who “are busy living”—not just to those reading Friedrich Nietzsche in the Ivory Tower.

“From the freshmen who come into the Gen Ed course I teach, to the surgeon in the middle of his career, I think that almost everyone faces questions about what they ought to be aspiring to,” Kelly says. “It’s one characteristic of the secular age. We’re faced with these questions in a way that people living in other ages weren’t.”

According to Kelly, during the “secular age” public discourse has been infused with nihilism, which maintains that life is devoid of meaning and purpose.

In order to challenge this nihilism, Kelly and his former dissertation advisor, Hubert L. Dreyfus ’51 of the University of California at Berkeley, have co-written a book to be released in January 2011, “All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age.”

CAN TECHNOLOGY OVERCOME NIHILISM?

The book, to be published by Simon & Schuster’s Free Press imprint, is not intended to be an academic title with a limited press run. According to Kelly, he and Dreyfus wrote it with a mass audience in mind because they are concerned that the idea that life is meaningless has spread widely in contemporary culture.

“This [book] is really meant to combat that development from within by revealing to people the meanings that are already in their lives that they’re covering up,” Kelly says. “The project needs mass appeal because if not, the nihilistic stuff could become the seed around which the understanding of our age could grow.”

Dreyfus says that he and Kelly chose to explore philosophical themes in literature from Homer to Herman Melville to David Foster Wallace to “help rediscover a way of life in which things really do matter, in which people take risks and really do commit themselves.”

Dreyfus fears that these themes are being lost in the age of new media. “The main point,” he says, “is that nothing is supporting serious commitments, whereas all sorts of things like Facebook have taken the seriousness and aliveness out of people’s interaction.”

The phenomenon of texting also poses a challenge to the meaningful life, Dreyfus says. “I’m amazed at how young people prefer texting to talking,” he says. “Why are they texting? Again, lack of commitment—when you’re texting, you don’t have to make a spontaneous response. When [communication] is ‘safe,’ it becomes meaningless and boring and sad and so forth.”

Despite the effects of technology has on human interaction, Kelly and Dreyfus both acknowledge its potential to expand their audience and convey their message.

Their book deal grew out of a series of Dreyfus’s podcasted lectures, which introduced his ideas to an untapped global market of people interested in philosophy. He says that Alaskan fishermen and trans-continental truck drivers called to request the syllabi from his courses in order to follow along with the podcasts.

Eventually, Hilary Redmon, senior editor at Simon & Schuster, suggested that Kelly and Dreyfus turn these lectures into a book.

“We’re not an academic publisher,” she says, “but I do think it’s important to publish books that are speaking not just to interscholastic debates but are speaking intelligently and articulately about questions that anyone on the street could have.”

Pointing to the recent successes of books by authors Alain de Botton and Yale’s Harold Bloom, Redmon argued that there is a market for philosophical writing.

NEW MEDIA, NEW ACCESSIBILITY

But others, such as The New School’s Simon Critchley, who moderates The New York Times philosophy blog “The Stone,” maintain that this craving for popular philosophy is better satisfied by new media rather than books.

“There’s a hunger for serious intellectual discussion, but done in a non-technical way,” Critchley says. “People aren’t necessarily going to go to a bookstore and buy a book anymore, but they can read a 1,000-word column.”

Of the top 20 most e-mailed New York Times op-ed pieces in the last six months, Critchley said that five or six have come from The Stone. He said that one explanation is the “dialogic” interactive capacity of new media that allows readers to participate in the conversation.

“It means for professional philosophers that there’s a huge interest in what they do, but that there’s also little toleration for the abstruseness of most academic discussions,” he says.

Still, Critchley shares Kelly’s and Dreyfus’ concern with the tendency of new media to promote the idea that modern life is void of meaning.

“The problem that Kelly and Dreyfus have identified is exactly the right one,” he says, “and Homer and Melville are exactly what need to be gone back to.”

For Critchley, new media forms are thus “a double-edged sword” that make it rare for people to read entire novels but that also make public conversations possible. Ultimately, though, he says these innovations are good for philosophy.

Kelly, who plans to begin contributing to “The Stone,” says that, in the age of new media, philosophers must rise to the challenge of communicating in a more accessible way.

“There’s an audience for people who are thinking seriously about philosophical questions related to living a life,” he says.

“That encourages philosophers to write in such a way that’s not laden with technical terms. That’s a totally legitimate challenge for our generation.”

-Staff Writer James K. McAuley can be reached at mcauley12@college.harvard.edu.

In letting go of immaturity, the individual becomes enlightened. In the age of enlightenment that Kant mentions, men will become more mature in that they can use their intellect as a guiding force on its own without relying on others to help them think. As Kant puts it, “it is so convenient to be immature!” (Enlightenment, 54) In this world are so many options to do the work of the individual: the book will understand for him (Enlightenment, 54), so that he need not ever think for himself. In an ideal enlightened age, men could use “their own understanding confidently and well… without outside guidance” (Enlightenment, 58), thereby overthrowing self-incurred immaturity.

It is the power of the intellectual to give his voice to others in a constructive way, to address issues publicly, and to voice concerns. The difficult part for Kant is that no man can do so at all times. One can enjoy freedom of speech but only under certain circumstances; the intellectual can voice his thoughts but only at appropriate times. Kant gives the example of the clergyman (Enlightenment, 56), who must be the mouthpiece of the church at work and say only what the church wants him to teach, but outside of that he is free to voice opinions and speak freely.

It is also the power of the intellectual to “argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey! (Enlightenment, 59) The ruler in an enlightened age who is enlightened himself will allow the “his subjects to make public use of their own reason” (Enlightenment, 59) because he will realize that it is for his own benefit as a ruler that he should allow his people to speak. The individual may now voice his thoughts and think freely, the greatest privilege a man can have. In the freedom of thought allowed by an enlightened ruler, the intellectual has the power to think and speak freely without self-incurred immaturity. The power of the intellectual will influence the whole people into a state of free-thinking citizens.

The intellectual enjoys “the courage to use [his] own understanding!” (Enlightenment, 54) The enlightenment of the entire public will occur when each person thinks for himself and frees himself from immaturity.

The power of the intellectual to influence society is both positive and negative.

An enlightened individual is an intellectual, somebody who has freed himself from immaturity. “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another,” (Enlightenment, 54).

One would think that the intellectual’s influence on society could only be positive, especially with Kant’s disgust with immaturity, because an enlightened individual is one who thinks for himself, but Kant sets up two sides to this idea.

On the one hand with the existence of intellectuals new ideas are formed, and old ideas debated on their usefulness. On the other hand some people suffer from “self-incurred immaturity” and use the existence of intellectuals as an excuse not to think.

“If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me,” (Enlightenment, 54).

The existence of intellectuals is a double-edged sword. For without the existence of intellectuals’ society could not move forward (as is necessary, and is the right of the people). But also with this existence of intellectuals people become lazy and simply utilize the many services available to them instead of thinking for themselves.

But it is not so simple as saying that it is the fault of the intellectuals for sharing their knowledge, but the government’s for creating an idea that without the influence of others that men could do nothing, this is once again the idea of immaturity.

Kant believes that men are convinced, through the example and explanation of the leaders of their states that not only would the attempt to move from simply accepting what others tell them to thinking for themselves would be dangerous. And so, if for some reason they were freed of the rule of others, they would not know what to do with themselves simply because they had never had the chance to walk unaided. “And if anyone did throw them off, he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind,” (Enlightenment, 55).

To reach enlightenment, for those unable to simply throw off their immaturity, for an individual, is through a free society where a monarch “can otherwise leave his subjects to do whatever they find necessary for their salvation, which is none of his business,” (Enlightenment, 58). In a free society there would still be a higher authority, and if instructed an individual would have to comply with preaching what was required of him. But to further advance the society, should that individual disagree, he could offer his own opinions on how to run the church better, or the government as a whole better. A true society that wished to become enlightened would accept these ideas, and perhaps even work with some of them. An enlightened society would find logic and thought in the individual legitimate, and useful, and the influence of the intellectuals would be wholly positive in moving the society forward.

The Power of the Intellect

Although man is more than a machine, governments often treat him as one, without due respect. The power of the intellectual is that through his enlightenment, he can think freely, act freely, and by his example others will begin to do the same. Kant proposes that “eventually, it even influences the principles of governments, which find that they can themselves profit by treating man… in a manner appropriate to his dignity” (Kant, 60). The intellectual is responsible for not creating a revolution, but living a life of free thinking, so that others may become truly enlightened in a way that the government will be forced to respect them as individuals.

According to Kant, an intellectual is one who is enlightened, or able to use their “own understanding without guidance of another” (Kant, 54). This ability to think freely allows the intellectual the ability to be both logical and creative, but also gives him the freedom to disrupt society completely. It is the responsibility, then, for the intellectual to continue to do his duties, such as paying his taxes, but is allowed to argue against injustice as long as he continues to obey the laws. The enforcement of this obedience, or lack of civil freedom, actually grants an individual a higher amount of intellectual freedom, as both the intellectual and those around him are required to behave well so they can focus their energy on thinking.

The responsibility of the intellectual is to obey and not create a revolution, which would not cause “true reform in the ways of thinking. Instead, new prejudices, like the ones they replaced, will serve as a leash to control the great unthinking masses” (Kant, 55). The power of the intellectual to influence society, then, comes from not a lack of physical obedience to laws, but a lack of mental boundaries, allowing the intellectual to think freely. This free thought, in turn, will become an example for others to live by, and as the free thinking trickles through a society; they begin to act freely as well.

This free action leads to a widespread disobedience of unjust laws, but not just laws. Individuals who are truly allowed to be intellectuals and think freely would find no reason to disobey just laws. The disobedience of unjust laws, however, would make it sensible for a government to treat individuals with respect and decency, and make just laws, which are sensible for all freethinking individuals to follow. Therefore, a government over a society of intellectuals is the fairest government, as it is impossible for an unjust government to maintain control over a society of freethinking, freely acting individuals.

Kant proposes that it is not the individual’s intellect which has an effect upon society, but his use of this faculty. Even more so, it is his duty to humanity to throw off the shackles of his “self-incurred immaturity” (54). The inability to utilize reason results in a gradual decline of civilization. It is not that the individual lacks intelligence; it is that he fails to use it and is led along blindly by his superiors. Even when man is perfectly able to rid himself of this immaturity, he finds it far easier to remain blind. “It is so convenient to be immature…I need not think so long as I can pay” (54). Men are then convinced by those above them that to take a step towards conviction would not only be difficult, but also highly treacherous. Thus man is prevented from ever attempting to remove himself from this dismal condition and continues to sink towards a complete state of laziness and cowardice. Yet it is vital that man remove his immaturity so that society as a whole can achieve a necessary state of enlightenment, as is their right.
In order for society to enter a state of enlightenment the individual must possess the courage to utilize his own reason without relying on others. Kant proposes that not only should we want to enter a state of enlightenment, but that it is one of the “sacred rights of mankind” (58) and therefore our duty. The best way for the individual to reach this state is through a free society. Meaning a society in which the public use of reason is legitimized, necessary, and valued. An individual must do his job as instructed by a higher authority, whether that may be a clergyman addressing his congregation, or a teacher addressing his students. Although the individual may disagree with what he preaches, it is impossible to prove that there is not truth in such discourse. Therefore it is necessary to provide the individual’s pupils with this knowledge. This does not, however, prevent this same individual from writing and publishing criticisms of modern education, politics, religion, or the like. In this instance he is only offering his own opinions to the masses to be judged and torn apart; not to be taken as absolute truth. This process is a necessary part of enlightenment as it brings both the scholar and those who explore his works away from a state of ignorance. Thus, for Kant, it is vital that public use of reason, meaning an individual questioning of the rights and wrongs of the state, become a centralized part of any society.
It follows then that an ideal government would consist of members who would promote criticism of their rule by the masses. Yet even in a state lacking civil freedom, once the process of enlightenment begins it will spread throughout the government. Once the individual begins to question and use his reason he becomes able to act freely. Eventually this will influence the government of the state to ensure the preservation of civil freedoms. It is also stated that “men will of their own accord gradually work their way out of barbarism” (59) so long as they are not prohibited by their leadership. Implying that in an ideal state, enlightenment would occur naturally, as it is the natural state of man. Kant also propose that lack of the utilization of human reason with regards to religion “is the most pernicious and dishonorable variety of all” (59). In Kant’s era the church and the political system were inextricably linked (as they often can be today) and therefore reformation of the church was a vital part of societal enlightenment. Kant’s principles, however, can move beyond the church to a society more like the U.S.A. In either social structure, change, conviction, and individual reason are vital to enlightenment. Ultimately, it is the intellectual’s duty to use his reason in order to move society towards a state of enlightenment: it is his power.

Next Assignment

By Tuesday (10/12) before class:

One person in each group needs to respond to this question (250-500 words) and other group members need to comment on their group's post. Use the blog to continue the intellectual conversation (feel free to comment multiple times or have a long string of comments to each other). You should feel free (but not obligated) to comment on other posts as well.

According to Kant what is the power of the intellectual to influence society?