Philosophy Request Line: Why, "Plato was a jerk"

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The Materialistic View of Science and Knowledge

You look at the sun. It appears as a small yellow-orange circle in the sky. But in fact, we know that it is a gigantic, hot ball, millions of times larger than the Earth. Why do we see it differently? Because our eyes are imperfect. They were created by selection, the factors of which did not include the creation of celestial mechanics. But does this mean that the sun does not exist, or that its true nature is impossible to know?

Of course not. We have learned to overcome the imperfections of our senses: we have invented telescopes, microscopes, sensors, and mathematics that allow us to look where the eye cannot penetrate. We know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, although it seems to us as if the Sun were floating on the firmament. We have discovered atoms, although they cannot be touched. We have figured out that diseases are caused by microbes and viruses, not evil spirits and curses.

But why do many scientists and philosophers today say that objective truth does not exist? That science is just a convenient model, not a reflection of reality? That the laws of nature are not discoveries, but agreements between scientists?

This is not just a dispute about words. This is a struggle between two worldviews - materialism and idealism. Class struggle!

Truth is a weapon in the hands of the proletariat

The Church burned Giordano Bruno for insisting that the stars were distant suns and that they could have planets around them. The Inquisition forced Galileo to renounce Copernicus's teachings because they destroyed the biblical picture of the world. Power is always afraid of the truth if the truth threatens its dominion.

Today, capitalism does the same thing, only more cunningly. It does not burn scientists at the stake - it corrupts science, turning it into a servant of business. Why is this necessary? Because if there is no objective truth, then it is impossible to prove that capitalism leads humanity to destruction . If there are no laws of history, then it is impossible to predict the victory of communism. If everything is relative, then any injustice can be justified: hunger, wars, inequality.

The main means of deception and rejection of dialectical physics is the concept of inevitable and fatal distortions of observation. In quantum physics, there is an idea that the very fact of measurement changes the behavior of particles. This has been turned into a philosophical myth: man cannot know the world because his knowledge is subjective. Devices influence the microworld, but this does not cancel its objective laws. Subjectivity can and, in the case of science, must be identical to objectivity .

If you measure the temperature of water with a thermometer, it heats it up a little. But does that mean heat doesn't exist? If there are idiotic concepts of history and social development, does that mean there can't be true ones?

The world exists independently of our consciousness . The sun would shine without people. We can know its laws. The criterion of truth is the entire socio-historical practice of mankind . Not faith, not beauty, not convenience, but what is (facts) and what has been done (experiments and recording of processes). If you build a bridge according to science, it will stand. If you organize society according to science, it will prosper. How the USSR prospered until the government abandoned science (Perestroika). How China prospers today. How North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba prosper, adjusted for the complexity of conditions and the scarcity of resources.

Once upon a time, people thought that lightning was the wrath of Zeus. Then science discovered electricity. Once, capitalists said that communism was impossible. But it won in Russia, China, Cuba and many other countries. The truth, despite lies, fear and those who want people to remain ignorant, makes its way.

What to do?

First , study and study communism. Read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, study Hegel's dialectic. Become a dialectician in this way. Think with your own head and do not believe the false authorities who insist that everything is complicated and nothing is clear.

Secondly , fight. True science is not for the quiet of offices - it is for changing the world.

As Lenin said:

"When we often hear attacks on the old school, both among representatives of the youth and among some defenders of the new education, that the old school was a school of cramming, we tell them that we must take what was good in the old school. We must not take from the old school that which burdened the memory of a young person with an immeasurable amount of knowledge, nine-tenths unnecessary and one-tenth distorted, but this does not mean that we can limit ourselves to communist conclusions and learn only communist slogans. Communism cannot be created this way. One can become a communist only when one enriches one's memory with knowledge of all the riches that humanity has produced."

So, start cramming!

Truth is on the side of progress and the class that will bring it to life with its calloused hands.

Cognition plays an important role in the formation of the communist worldview, i.e. the scientific worldview.

Imagine sitting down to put together a puzzle. At first, there are just a handful of disparate pieces on the table, and you have no idea what the result should be. But then you find a few key fragments — corners, borders, central elements — and the picture begins to come together. Then you realize that some pieces should probably be blue, because it’s the sky, or green, because it’s grass. And then, when the overall picture is already clear, you easily fit in even the smallest and most non-obvious details.

The formation of a worldview happens absolutely differently! Even in the exact opposite way.

Consciousness, in its basic settings, presupposes a certain picture of the surrounding world. Society, in which consciousness is formed, with its social consciousness and the influence of social existence, expands the picture of the surrounding world from everyday perception to the real scale of the world, right up to the infinity of the universe. The quality of this picture of the world in the head is the parameter that separates ignorance from truth, the unscientific from the scientific.

The quality of a worldview has at least three aspects: the relationship between objective truths (scientific knowledge itself) and errors (idealism of various kinds), knowledge and adequacy of the assessment of scientific hypotheses, and mastery of the process of scientific research.

When all of them are at their best, we can talk about a scientific worldview - a holistic picture of the world based on an understanding of the essence of phenomena and the essence of the universe itself, in which there is no place for superstition, mysticism and lies .

Scientific truths, as stated in Lenin's quote, form the basis, the foundation of a worldview. People once thought that the Earth was flat and stood on three whales. Then science proved that it was round and revolved around the Sun. It was once believed that diseases were sent by evil spirits. Now we know about viruses and bacteria. Scientific truths are not just facts, they are knowledge about the essence of phenomena, and not just about their external side.

We see: an apple falls to the ground. But the truth is in the law of gravity. We see that some people are rich, while others are poor. But the truth is in the laws of capitalist exploitation. Without this knowledge, a person is like a blind man in the forest. He stumbles upon phenomena, but does not understand their causes and effects. He believes in chance where in reality laws operate.

For example, if a worker does not know the theory of surplus value, he may be angry at the “greedy boss” for years, but he will not understand that the problem lies in the wage labor system itself.

If there are no ready answers, if science has not yet discovered the truth, then hypotheses appear – scientific assumptions that will be tested in practice. For example, Darwin assumed that species change through natural selection, and then collected evidence. Marx assumed that capitalism would fall because of its contradictions – and history confirmed his rightness. Hypotheses are a bridge to new truths. But they must be based on already known laws, not fantasies.

But Einstein put forward the theory of relativity, but rejected materialism - and ultimately reached a dead end with “curved space” and the “twin paradox”.

What is more important: ready-made knowledge or the ability to obtain it? - it's like asking what is more necessary to build a house: bricks or the ability to lay walls? Without knowledge, a researcher will mark time, "discovering" what is already known. Without a methodology, he will make mistakes, even if he accidentally stumbles upon the truth. Modern physicists have discovered quantum effects, but because of idealism, they have agreed to the point of absurdity that a particle exists only when it is looked at, universes multiply with each choice, etc. This is not science, but mysticism - because scientists have rejected materialism.

The average person believes that "the market will regulate everything." The empirical scientist collects data on crises, but does not understand their causes. The Marxist scientist reveals the laws of capitalism and predicts its collapse.

Therefore, without a revolutionary theory there will be no revolution.

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement” (Lenin).

Capitalism fears the scientific worldview because it leads to communism. Schools teach fragmentary facts, but not dialectical mathematics. Science encourages narrow specialists who do not see the whole. In philosophy, agnosticism is imposed - there is no objective truth, think what you want.

The working class will have to master Marxist theory to understand what to fight for and how. If conscientious scientists are against pseudoscience, they will have to arm themselves with materialism. Everyone must learn scientific thinking to distinguish truth from bourgeois propaganda.

Knowledge is a weapon . And it must be in the hands of those who change the world.

Gubelman
06/30/2025

https://prorivists.org/106_epistemology/

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A Thought Experiment on Thinking

According to modern concepts of neurophysiology, the human brain has not changed significantly over the past 40-50 thousand years. The biological evolution of the brain, therefore, ended a long time ago, in the cave era.

A “paradox” arises: how did man with such an ancient, caveman brain create and manage a modern civilization?

At the same time, we naturally understand that nature is not God. Evolution, including the brain, was a selection : for millions of years, individuals with the brains most adapted to the survival of the population left their offspring. The rest died either without offspring or together with their offspring. 40-50 thousand years ago, changes in the brain ceased to play a role in selection. Strictly speaking, natural selection ceased to play a significant role in human development. But if some sense organs, limbs and other human organs are good enough for living conditions that have not changed fundamentally over this time, then the intellectual tasks of 50 thousand years ago and today have become many times more complicated. Neurophysiologists even believe that it is not capitalism that gives rise to schizophrenics, neurotics and hysterics, but the complexity of life (too much information), which our poor, primitive brain, which was formed by selection for the tasks of the Stone Age, cannot cope with. Evolution fixes changes only for current conditions; in the course of evolution, no reserve, reserve or margin of safety arises. Evolution has no goal setting, it is not an absolute idea.

Let's conduct a thought experiment: throw a baby born today into the Stone Age. What will happen? There is no doubt that he will become a full-fledged member of ancient society. Modern origin will not add anything to him and will not take anything away from him. He will not miss the Internet, he will not become the smartest. Schizophrenia will not occur.

Then we take a baby from the Stone Age and transfer him to a modern family. Will someone born 40 thousand years ago become a normal person today? Of course, he will, his origins will not add or subtract anything here. He will not miss the cave, he will not become the bravest and strongest. No special neuroses will arise.

If anyone has any doubts, there are many examples of adoption of babies from wild tribes. They become ordinary people.

The only thing that can have any special effect in both experiments is the external dissimilarity of the objects to their fellow tribesmen. But even without that, there are many albinos or children with physical deformities who are born and nothing terrible happens to them, they socialize and live a full life.

Now let's put these two babies, instead of their natural habitat, that is, instead of society, into a house with robots that will nurse them, feed them, and water them. Will they then become people? Will they learn to walk, talk, and think? Of course not. They will remain inferior humanoid creatures until they get to people. Moreover, practice shows that children who are cut off from society in the first years of life are socialized very hard, slowly, and often remain mentally retarded for life.

What does the thought experiment tell us?

Firstly , it refutes the common misconception in the biological environment that the brain thinks. Man thinks through the brain, but thinking itself is a property of society, not of an individual biological being.

Secondly , it confirms the Marxist thesis that thinking is the highest form of reflection. Thinking is a process of reflection, transfer in concepts and images of objective reality, surrounding conditions, primarily social ones.

Thirdly , the human organism was formed through selection many thousands of years ago, but man became man through labor. He brought the methods and means of adaptation to external conditions to labor, creating complex tools and gradually moving from appropriating to producing activity. The core of any, even the most primitive production is thinking, not instinct.

Redin
07/24/2025

https://prorivists.org/107_thinking/

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| German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 1831

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel facts for kids
Originally published: Kiddle on 2025 by Kids Encyclopedia Facts Staff (more by Kiddle) (Posted Jul 24, 2025)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (born August 27, 1770—died November 14, 1831) was an important German philosopher. He is known as one of the main thinkers in German idealism and a key person in modern Western philosophy. His ideas have had a huge impact on many areas of philosophy. These include how we understand reality (metaphysics), how we know things (epistemology), and ideas about government, history, art, and religion.

Hegel was born in Stuttgart during a time of big changes in Europe. He lived through the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which greatly influenced his thinking. His most famous books are The Phenomenology of Spirit and The Science of Logic. He also gave many lectures at the University of Berlin.

Hegel tried to fix problems in modern philosophy, especially the idea of a separate mind and body. He often looked back to ancient philosophy, like the ideas of Aristotle. Hegel believed that reason and freedom are things we achieve over time, not something we are just born with. He thought that ideas should be judged by their own rules, and that we can only trust truths that have been tested by experience.

Hegel believed that being able to make our own choices (self-determination) is what makes us human. He said that logic, nature, and spirit are all connected. His ideas continue to influence many different types of philosophy today.

Hegel’s Life Story
Early Years and Education
Growing Up in Stuttgart (1770—1800)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on August 27, 1770, in Stuttgart, Germany. His family called him Wilhelm. His father, Georg Ludwig, worked for the local government. His mother, Maria Magdalena Louisa, was the daughter of a lawyer. She passed away when Hegel was thirteen from a serious illness. Hegel and his father also got sick but survived.

Hegel had a sister, Christiane Luise, and a brother, Georg Ludwig. His brother later died as an officer during Napoleon’s war in Russia in 1812. Hegel started school at age three. By age five, he was learning Latin, taught by his mother. In 1776, he went to a high school called Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium. He loved to read and copied many parts of books into his diary. He read poets and thinkers from the Age of Enlightenment, like Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. His education focused on Enlightenment ideas and classical ancient studies.

College Days in Tübingen
At eighteen, Hegel went to the Tübinger Stift, a Protestant seminary (a school for religious studies) connected to the University of Tübingen. He shared a room with two future famous thinkers: the poet Friedrich Hölderlin and the philosopher Friedrich Schelling. They became close friends and influenced each other’s ideas. They didn’t like the strict rules of the seminary. Hegel likely went there because it was funded by the state, even though he didn’t want to become a minister.

All three friends admired ancient Greek culture. Hegel also read Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lessing. They were excited about the French Revolution. Even though the violence of the 1793 Reign of Terror worried Hegel, he still supported the ideas of the revolution. He even toasted the storming of the Bastille every July 14th. While Schelling and Hölderlin discussed Kant’s philosophy, Hegel was more interested in making philosophical ideas easy for everyone to understand. He didn’t start deeply studying Kant’s ideas until 1800.

Working as a Tutor (1793—1800)
After finishing seminary, Hegel worked as a private tutor (called Hofmeister) for a rich family in Berne from 1793 to 1796. During this time, he wrote texts like Life of Jesus. His relationship with his employers became difficult. So, with help from Hölderlin, he found a similar job with a wine merchant’s family in Frankfurt in 1797.

In Frankfurt, Hölderlin had a big impact on Hegel. In Berne, Hegel had criticized traditional Christianity. But in Frankfurt, he explored the idea of love as the true meaning of religion. An important, unsigned paper called “The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism” was written around this time. It might have been written by Hegel, Schelling, or Hölderlin. Hegel also wrote essays like “Fragments on Religion and Love” and “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate.”

Career and Major Works
Jena, Bamberg, and Nürnberg (1801—1816)
In 1801, Hegel moved to Jena because his friend Schelling was a professor there. Hegel became an unsalaried lecturer at the University of Jena. He wrote a paper called De Orbitis Planetarum. He also completed his essay The Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy. He taught classes on logic and metaphysics.

In 1802, Schelling and Hegel started a journal called Kritische Journal der Philosophie. They both wrote for it until Schelling left in 1803. In 1805, the university made Hegel an unsalaried extraordinary professor. He had to write a letter to the famous poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to protest another philosopher getting promoted before him.

In 1807, Hegel had a son, Georg Ludwig Friedrich Fischer. His finances were tight, and he was working hard to finish his book, The Phenomenology of Spirit. He was putting the final touches on it when Napoleon‘s troops fought the Prussian army in the Battle of Jena—Auerstedt on October 14, 1806. Napoleon himself entered Jena the day before the battle.

Hegel wrote to his friend Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer about seeing Napoleon. He felt that Napoleon represented a “world-soul” or a great historical force. Even though the university was mostly saved, few students returned after the battle, making Hegel’s money problems worse. He tried to get another professorship but couldn’t find a permanent job.

In 1807, Hegel moved to Bamberg because he needed money to support his son Ludwig. He became the editor of a local newspaper, Bamberger Zeitung [de], which supported the French. He wrote articles praising Napoleon. Hegel enjoyed the social life in Bamberg but disliked what he saw as “old Bavaria.”

In 1808, Hegel was investigated for publishing French troop movements. He asked Niethammer, who was now a high official, for help getting a teaching job. With Niethammer’s help, Hegel became the headmaster of a high school (gymnasium) in Nuremberg in November 1808. He stayed there until 1816. In Nuremberg, he taught a class called “Introduction to Knowledge of the Universal Coherence of the Sciences.”

In 1811, Hegel married Marie Helena Susanna von Tucher. They had two sons, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm and Immanuel Thomas Christian. During this time, Hegel published his second major work, the Science of Logic (in three parts, 1812, 1813, and 1816).

Heidelberg and Berlin (1816—1831)
Hegel received job offers from several universities and chose Heidelberg in 1816. His son Ludwig Fischer, who had been in an orphanage after his mother passed away, joined the Hegel family in 1817. In 1817, Hegel published The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline, which summarized his philosophy for his students. He also started lecturing on the philosophy of art.

In 1818, Hegel accepted a job offer to become the philosophy professor at the University of Berlin. This position had been empty since the death of Johann Gottlieb Fichte in 1814. In Berlin, Hegel published his Philosophy of Right (1821). He spent most of his time giving lectures. His lectures on art, religion, history, and the history of philosophy were published after his death using notes from his students. Even though he wasn’t a great speaker, his fame grew, and students came from all over to hear him.

Hegel and his students faced some harassment and surveillance from government officials who were against reform. He traveled to Weimar (where he met Goethe), Brussels, Leipzig, Vienna, Prague, and Paris. In his last ten years, Hegel didn’t publish new books but revised his Encyclopedia (second edition in 1827, third in 1830). He also criticized a book that said laws weren’t necessary.

Hegel became the university’s Rector (head) in October 1829, serving until September 1830. He was upset by the riots for reform in Berlin that year. In 1831, King Frederick William III gave him an award for his service to the Prussian state.

In August 1831, a cholera epidemic reached Berlin. Hegel left the city but returned in October, thinking the illness had mostly gone away. On November 14, 1831, Hegel passed away. Doctors said he died from cholera, but it might have been another stomach illness. He was buried on November 16 in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery, next to Fichte.

Hegel’s son, Ludwig Fischer, had died shortly before in Batavia while serving in the Dutch army, but Hegel never received the news. His sister Christiane died the next year. Hegel’s other two sons, Karl (who became a historian) and Immanuel (who studied theology), lived long lives and protected their father’s writings and letters.

Who Influenced Hegel?
When Hegel started seminary in 1788, he was a typical product of the German Enlightenment. He loved reading Rousseau and Lessing. He knew about Kant‘s ideas, but he was perhaps more interested in ancient Greek writers. In his early life, the Greeks, especially Plato, were most important to him.

Even though he later valued Aristotle more than Plato, Hegel always loved ancient philosophy. Its influence can be seen throughout his work. Hegel was also influenced by early German romanticism. He was concerned with how different cultures (Jewish, Greek, medieval, and modern) were united. He and his generation used the phrase “unity of life” to describe the highest good. This meant being united “with oneself, with others, and with nature.” The biggest threat to this unity was division or separation.

Hegel was especially interested in love as a way to achieve “unity-in-difference.” He saw this in Plato’s ancient ideas and in the Christian idea of agape (selfless love). This interest, along with his religious training, continued to shape his thinking.

Hegel’s philosophical system, especially its three-part structure, was also influenced by the hermetic tradition, particularly the work of Jakob Böhme. He also read widely and was influenced by Adam Smith and other thinkers on political economy.

Kant‘s “Critical Philosophy” showed the divisions that Hegel wanted to overcome. This led Hegel to engage with the ideas of Fichte and Schelling, as well as Spinoza. However, the influence of Johann Gottfried von Herder led Hegel to question the idea that Kant’s ideas were universal. Instead, Hegel thought that reason was shaped by culture, language, and history.

Hegel’s Philosophical System
Hegel’s philosophy is divided into three main parts:

The science of logic
The philosophy of nature
The philosophy of spirit (which includes the philosophy of nature)
This structure is similar to ancient Greek ideas and the Christian idea of the Trinity. Hegel started developing this system around 1805, but he didn’t publish it completely until his 1817 Encyclopedia.

Hegel believed that the universal (general ideas) always comes first in explaining things, even if specific things come first in reality. The logic part of his system provides these universal ideas. The “logical idea” is timeless and doesn’t exist separately from how it shows up in nature and spirit. Asking “when” it divides into nature and spirit is like asking “when” 12 divides into 5 and 7—it’s a misunderstanding. The logic aims to show how nature and spirit are both connected and different, overcoming the idea of a separate subject and object.

Hegel’s Encyclopedia suggests that focusing on only one part of his system gives an incomplete picture. As he famously said, “The true is the whole.”

The Phenomenology of Spirit
Main article: The Phenomenology of Spirit
The Phenomenology of Spirit was published in 1807. In this book, Hegel, at age 36, first showed his unique way of looking at philosophical problems after Kant. However, many people at the time didn’t understand it well, and it received mostly negative reviews. Even today, the Phenomenology is known for being very complex, with difficult ideas and unusual words.

The fourth chapter of the Phenomenology includes Hegel’s famous idea of the lord-bondsman dialectic. This part has been very influential. It talks about how two people try to get recognition from each other. What they learn, but don’t realize yet, is that true recognition must be mutual. This means that if you don’t see someone as truly human, your recognition of them doesn’t count. Hegel also suggests that our self-awareness comes from how others see us, and our view of ourselves is shaped by others’ views.

Hegel described The Phenomenology as both an “introduction” to his philosophy and the “first part” of his system. However, its role has been debated, and Hegel’s own opinion on it changed over his life.

The book starts with simple “certainties of consciousness,” like knowing “I am conscious of this object, here and now.” Hegel then tries to show how these simple certainties lead to complex philosophical logic. This process is not like a story where a character learns. Instead, “we,” the readers, learn from Hegel’s logical explanation of how consciousness experiences things.

The journey through the book is long and difficult. Hegel called it a “path of despair” because consciousness keeps finding itself wrong. It’s like testing an idea of knowledge in real experience. If the idea isn’t good enough, consciousness “suffers this violence at its own hands.” Hegel said you can’t learn to swim without getting in the water. By testing its idea of knowledge, the Phenomenology tries to show how metaphysics (the study of reality) is built.

The Phenomenology tries to show that our thoughts always shape what we experience. It also shows that our social and mental world depends on people recognizing each other. When recognition fails, we need to look at the past to understand what we need to do now. For Hegel, this means rethinking religion as a way for modern society to reflect on what is most important to it. He believed this historical and social view helps us understand our “modern” way of thinking.

Another way to see this is that the Phenomenology continues Kant’s work of exploring what reason can do. But Hegel does it historically, not just based on pure thought. He believed that reason itself has a history, and what we consider reasonable changes over time.

Walter Kaufmann praised the Phenomenology, saying that a philosopher should not just look at ideas, but also understand the human reality behind them. It’s important to ask what kind of person would hold certain beliefs. Every viewpoint should be studied as a real way of existing, not just an academic idea.

The Phenomenology of Spirit teaches that looking for an outside way to find truth is pointless. The limits of knowledge are inside our own spirit. Even though our ideas can always be changed, this isn’t just an imaginary exercise. Claims to knowledge must always prove themselves in real historical experience.

Even though Hegel seemed to have left the Phenomenology behind in his later years, he was planning to revise and republish it before he died. This suggests he still thought it was an important project. However, scholars still debate the exact role of the Phenomenology in his overall system.

Science of Logic
Main article: Science of Logic
Hegel’s idea of “logic” is very different from the usual meaning. For him, logic is “the science of things understood through the thoughts that used to be seen as expressing the true nature of those things.” It’s a deeper kind of logic than just formal rules.

There are two versions of Hegel’s Logic. The first, The Science of Logic (published in parts from 1812 to 1816), is sometimes called the “Greater Logic.” The second is a shorter version in his Encyclopedia, known as the “Lesser Logic.” The Encyclopedia version was for students and was not meant to replace the longer book.

Hegel saw logic as a science that doesn’t assume anything. It explores the most basic ways of thinking, or “categories,” and forms the basis of philosophy. When you question something, you already use logic. So, logic is the only field that must always think about how it works. The Science of Logic is Hegel’s attempt to do this. He said that “logic is the same as metaphysics” (the study of reality).

Hegel’s metaphysics is not about guessing things beyond our experience. He agreed with Kant that any future study of reality must be open to criticism. Scholars say Hegel’s way of developing and criticizing ideas from within is unique in history.

The Logic tries to show that the ideas of logic cannot be judged by anything outside of thought itself. It argues that “thought… is not a mirror of nature.” But this doesn’t mean these ideas are random. Hegel’s categories are built into life itself and define what it means to be an “object in general.”

The Logic has three main parts: “Being,” “Essence,” and “the Concept.” The first two, “Being” and “Essence,” make up the Objective Logic, which deals with overcoming old ideas about reality. The third part, “the Concept,” brings these ideas together into a complete understanding of reality.

Simply put, “Being” describes ideas as they appear. “Essence” tries to explain them by looking at other forces. “The Concept” explains and unites both by looking at their inner purpose. The ideas in “Being” flow into each other. The ideas in “Essence” reflect each other. Finally, in “the Concept,” thought becomes fully self-aware, and its ideas naturally grow from one to the next.

Hegel’s “concept” (Begriff) is not a psychological idea. When he talks about “the Concept,” he means the understandable structure of reality. When he uses “concepts” in the plural, it’s closer to the everyday meaning.

Hegel’s study of thought looks at how pure ideas (logical categories) differ from each other and how they depend on each other. For example, in the beginning of the Logic, Hegel says that the idea of “being, pure being—without anything else” is the same as the idea of nothing. This movement between being and nothing creates the idea of becoming.

The final idea in the Logic is “the idea.” For Hegel, this term is not psychological. Following Kant, Hegel’s use of “idea” goes back to Plato‘s concept of a perfect and universal “form.” Hegel’s “Idea” tries to combine the study of reality, knowledge, and values into one set of ideas.

The Logic understands that there are things in nature and spirit that cannot be known beforehand. It realizes itself only in nature and spirit, where it is “verified.” This is why the Science of Logic ends with “the idea freely letting itself go” into “objectivity and external life,” leading to the next part of his system, the Realphilosophie.

Philosophy of Reality (Realphilosophie)
The second part of Hegel’s system, the Philosophy of Nature and of Spirit, is an ongoing historical project. He said it is “its own time understood in thoughts.”

This might sound like philosophy can’t change things, but it also means that philosophy is always ready to understand what is happening. Hegel believed that reality is always developing and never truly finished.

Hegel explained the connection between the logical and real parts of his system: “If philosophy does not stand above its time in content, it does so in form, because, as the thought and knowledge of that which is the substantial spirit of its time, it makes that spirit its object.” This means that the philosophy of reality is “scientific” because it finds a logical, consistent form in natural and historical events.

The Philosophy of Nature
See also: Naturphilosophie
The philosophy of nature organizes the facts of natural sciences in a systematic way. It doesn’t tell nature what it should be like. Some people have questioned Hegel’s understanding of science, but recent studies have shown he was well-informed for his time.

One way the philosophy of nature can help science is by fighting against explanations that are too simple. For example, it would argue against trying to explain life only in chemical terms, because life is more complex.

Hegel and other “nature philosophers” wanted to bring back the idea of purpose in nature. But they said their idea of purpose was “limited to the ends observable within nature itself.” This means it doesn’t break Kant’s rules. They argued that only by assuming there is an “organism” can we explain how the subjective (our minds) and objective (the world) interact.

A modern scholar, Dieter Wandschneider, says that today’s philosophy of science has forgotten about the question of whether nature itself has laws. He suggests that philosophers of science should look back to Hegel for guidance.

Some recent scholars also believe that Hegel’s ideas about nature can help us understand and deal with modern environmental problems. They point to his ideas about how nature and spirit are connected.

The Philosophy of Spirit
The German word Geist means many things. In Hegel’s philosophy, Geist usually refers to the human mind and what it creates, as opposed to nature or pure logical ideas. (Some older translations use “mind” instead of “spirit.”)

Hegel’s idea of spirit is like Aristotle‘s idea of energeia (being-at-work). Spirit is not something separate from nature. It is the “highest organization and development” of nature’s powers.

Hegel believed that the “essence of spirit is freedom.” The Encyclopedia Philosophy of Spirit shows how this freedom develops until spirit fulfills the ancient Greek saying, “Know thyself.”

Hegel’s idea of freedom is not just about making random choices. It means that something, especially a person, is free if it is independent and decides for itself, not controlled by something else. It’s about what Isaiah Berlin later called positive liberty.

Subjective Spirit
The Philosophy of Subjective Spirit looks at the individual human mind and what it needs for social interaction. It explores the basic nature of the human individual and the mental and practical things needed for people to interact.

This section contains some comments that we now see as racist, though they were common in Hegel’s time. Hegel believed that climate, not race, was the main factor. He thought that the weather conditions where people lived limited or allowed their freedom. He was not a ““scientific” racist” because he believed that any group could improve their situation by moving to different climates. However, the racist implications of these remarks are still debated today.

Hegel divides his philosophy of subjective spirit into three parts: anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. Anthropology deals with the “soul,” which is spirit still connected to nature. Phenomenology looks at how consciousness relates to objects and how people become rational together. Psychology discusses things like attention, memory, imagination, and judgment.

Hegel used Aristotle‘s ideas to understand the mind-body problem. He believed that the mind doesn’t act on the body like a cause and effect. Instead, the mind acts on itself as an embodied living being. It develops itself, becoming more and more self-determined. The final part, Free Spirit, develops the idea of “free will,” which is key to Hegel’s philosophy of right.

Objective Spirit
Main article: Elements of the Philosophy of Right
See also: Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Hegel’s philosophy of objective spirit is his social philosophy. It explains how human spirit shows itself in social and historical activities. In other words, it’s about how freedom becomes part of our institutions. Scholars agree that freedom is the most important idea in Hegel’s political theory. This is because it is the basis of law, the essence of spirit, and the goal of history.

This part of Hegel’s philosophy is found in his 1817 Encyclopedia and more fully in his 1821 Elements of the Philosophy of Right. He also lectured on it, especially the philosophy of world history.

Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right has been debated since it was published. It is not a simple defense of the absolute rule of the Prussian state. Instead, it defends “Prussia as it was meant to become under [proposed] reforms.”

The German word Recht in Hegel’s title doesn’t have a direct English translation. It can mean a right, justice, or the law. Hegel’s theory tries to bring back the idea of natural law while considering criticisms of the historical school. He argued against social contract theory and emphasized the deeper foundations of his philosophy of right.

Kenneth R. Westphal explains the structure of the Philosophy of Right:

“Abstract Right” deals with property, its transfer, and wrongs against property.
“Morality” deals with the rights of individuals, responsibility for actions, and theories of right based on pure reason.
“Ethical Life” analyzes the principles and institutions of rational social life, including the family, civil society, and the state(government).
Hegel described the constitutional monarchy of his time as having three cooperating parts: democracy (rule of many in lawmaking), aristocracy (rule of few who apply laws), and monarchy (rule of one who leads all). This is like what Aristotle called a “mixed” government, designed to include the best parts of each form. The separation of powers prevents any one power from dominating others. Hegel wanted the monarch to be bound by the constitution, with limited power.

Hegel’s relationship with modern liberalism is complex. He saw liberalism as important for the modern world but also thought it could harm its own values. He believed that individual goals should be measured by a larger, shared good. While he is seen as a supporter of positive liberty (freedom to achieve one’s potential), he also strongly defended negative liberty (freedom from interference).

Hegel’s ideal ruler was weaker than typical monarchs of his time. His democratic element was also weaker than in today’s democracies. He believed in public participation but limited voting rights and followed the English two-house system, where only the lower house was elected. Nobles in the upper house, like the monarch, inherited their positions.

The final part of the Philosophy of Objective Spirit is “World History.” Hegel argued that history shows a steady increase in people’s ability to make their own choices (“freedom”) and understand themselves (“self-knowing”). In his words: “World history is progress in the consciousness of freedom—a progress that we must comprehend conceptually.”

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Hegel divided human history into three periods. In the “Oriental” world, one person (like a pharaoh) was free. In the Greco-Roman world, some people (citizens with money) were free. In the “Germanic” world (Christian Europe), all people are free.

Hegel discussed slavery in the ancient world. He said slavery happened in a “transitional phase” between a natural human existence and a truly ethical one. However, he clearly stated that slavery is wrong and goes against the idea of a rational state and the essential freedom of every person.

Some thinkers, like Alexandre Kojève and Francis Fukuyama, have interpreted Hegel to mean that history is finished once a universal idea of freedom is achieved. However, others argue that freedom can still expand in its scope (who is included) and content (what freedom means). Since Hegel’s time, we have expanded freedom to include women, formerly enslaved people, and others. The International Bill of Human Rights also expands the idea of freedom beyond what Hegel wrote. Scholars also note that while Hegel’s historical narratives often go from East to West, this prejudice is not central to his philosophy. They point out that freedom can move back to the East, as seen in countries like India and South Africa.

Absolute Spirit
Hegel’s use of the word “absolute” can be confusing. It comes from the Latin absolutus, meaning “not dependent on anything else; self-contained, perfect, complete.” For Hegel, “absolute knowing” means that the thing being known and the person knowing it are the same. The only thing that is truly absolute is something that is completely self-made. According to Hegel, this happens when spirit understands itself. The last part of his Philosophy of Spirit shows three ways of this absolute knowing: art, religion, and philosophy.

Hegel explained that these three ways of knowing are different based on how we understand them: through intuition (art), representation (religion), and comprehending thinking (philosophy). Art shows absolute truth through what we see and feel. Religion shows it through stories and symbols. Philosophy shows it through clear concepts.

These areas are ordered by how clear their concepts are, but this doesn’t mean one is better than the others. Even though Hegel’s discussion of absolute spirit in the Encyclopedia is short, he explained it in detail in his lectures on the philosophy of fine art, the philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy.

Philosophy of Art
Main article: Lectures on Aesthetics
In his early works, Hegel discussed art only as it related to the “Art-Religion” of the ancient Greeks. But in 1818, he started lecturing on the philosophy of art as its own separate topic.

Hegel’s lectures were titled Lectures on Aesthetics, but he made it clear his topic was “art, or, rather, fine art,” not the broader idea of beauty. Some critics have wrongly said that Hegel believed art was “dead.” Hegel never said this. Instead, he said that “art no longer serves our highest aims,” meaning it doesn’t fulfill the same role it once did in society.

Hegel’s detailed study of different art forms led Ernst Gombrich to call him “the father of art history.” Until recently, philosophers often ignored Hegel’s lectures on art, but literary critics and art historians paid more attention.

The main goal of his philosophy of art was to explain and defend the “autonomy of art,” meaning art has its own special value and unique qualities.

Hegel believed that “artistic beauty reveals absolute truth through perception.” He thought that the best art gives us deep knowledge by showing us what is truly real through our senses. However, he also believed that art’s sensory forms can never fully express what is completely beyond our senses. This is why art is only one of three ways of understanding absolute spirit, along with religion and philosophy.

Christianity and Hegel
Hegel was a Lutheran his whole life, and his understanding of Christianity changed over time. He always deeply appreciated the Christian idea that every person has worth and freedom.

Early Writings on Religion
Hegel’s first writings on Christianity are from 1783 to 1800. He was still developing his ideas then. He was unhappy with the strict rules and traditions of Christianity and preferred the spontaneous religion of the Greeks. In The Spirit of Christianity, he tried to combine the universal moral ideas of Kant with the teachings of Jesus. He saw love as the core moral principle of the Gospel, combining Greek ideas with Kant’s moral reason. Even though he didn’t stick to this exact idea, uniting Greek and Christian thought remained important to him.

Christianity in The Phenomenology of Spirit
Religion is a big theme in the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit. It appears in discussions of the “unhappiness” of the Augustinian consciousness and the struggle between the Church and the Enlightenment thinkers.

Hegel’s main discussion of Christianity is in the section called “The Revelatory Religion.” He used philosophical explanations of Christian ideas like the Incarnation (God becoming human) and Resurrection (Jesus rising from the dead). He claimed to show the deeper truth of Christianity, making clear what was only vaguely understood before.

The core of Hegel’s interpretation of Christianity is in his view of the Trinity (God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). He believed that God the Father had to become human (the Son), and the Son’s death revealed God’s true nature as Spirit. Hegel thought his own philosophical idea of spirit made the Christian idea of the Trinity clear. This, he argued, showed the philosophical truth of religion.

According to Hegel’s philosophical view, Christianity doesn’t require belief in ideas that can’t be justified by reason. What remains is the religious community, which helps individuals and celebrates the absolute freedom of spirit.

Christianity in the Berlin Lectures
Main article: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Hegel’s Encyclopedia has a short section on Revealed Religion. But in his Berlin Lectures, he gave a more detailed presentation of Christianity. He called it the “consummate,” “absolute,” or “revelatory” religion. Transcripts of his lectures show him constantly adjusting his ideas. However, his interpretation of Christianity was still similar to what he presented in the Phenomenology, but now he could explain it more clearly.

History: Political and Philosophical
“History,” according to Frederick Beiser, “is central to Hegel’s idea of philosophy.” Philosophy is only possible if it is historical, meaning the philosopher understands the origins, context, and development of ideas. Beiser called this a “revolution in the history of philosophy.”

Hegel was more interested in the philosophy of history than in just proving history is a science. He believed that history itself has a telos (a goal or purpose), which is the growth of freedom. The more a culture understands this essential freedom of spirit, the more advanced Hegel believed it to be.

Because freedom is the essence of spirit, its growing self-awareness is a development in truth and in political life. Thinking assumes a belief in truth. The history of philosophy, as Hegel told it, is a series of developing ideas about truth.

The importance of history in Hegel’s philosophy cannot be denied. German has two words for “history”: Historie (narrative of facts) and Geschichte (the underlying logic of events). Hegel used the latter, focusing on a universal or philosophical history. He believed humans are historical because we internalize events, making them part of who we are. This is why the history of philosophy is part of philosophy itself. Later philosophers can understand things more deeply because of the work of those who came before them. For example, the idea of personhood now clearly includes everyone, making it contradictory to exclude anyone.

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Hegel simplified human history into three periods:

In the “Oriental” world, one person was free (like a pharaoh).
In the Greco-Roman world, some people (wealthy citizens) were free.
In the “Germanic” world (Christian Europe), all people are free.
Hegel discussed slavery in the ancient world. He said it was a necessary stage between a natural human existence and a truly ethical one. However, Hegel was clear that slavery is morally wrong and goes against a rational state and the essential freedom of every individual.

Some scholars, like Alexandre Kojève and Francis Fukuyama, have interpreted Hegel to mean that history ends once a universal idea of freedom is achieved. However, others argue that freedom can still expand in its scope (who is included) and content (what freedom means). Since Hegel’s time, we have expanded freedom to include women, formerly enslaved people, and others. The International Bill of Human Rights also expands the concept of freedom beyond what Hegel himself wrote.

Dialectics, Speculation, and Idealism
Dialectics and Speculation
Hegel is often associated with a “dialectical method.” However, he actually called his philosophy “speculative” (spekulativ) and used “dialectical” only rarely. This is because “dialectical” often refers to the negative side of reason, where ideas show their own limits.

Hegel described correct thinking as having three parts:

(a) abstract and intellectual (understanding things separately)
(b) dialectical or negatively rational (seeing how ideas contradict themselves)
(c) speculative or positively rational (finding a higher unity that includes the contradictions)
For example, “self-consciousness” is a speculative idea. It means the mind is both the subject (the one knowing) and the object (what is being known) at the same time.

Hegel’s “method” is more like an “anti-method.” He believed that you must understand the “self-organization” of the topic itself, its “inner necessity” and “inherent movement.” He rejected outside methods that could be “applied” to any subject.

Sublation
Main article: Aufheben
The “dialectical” nature of Hegel’s thinking often makes his views hard to explain. Instead of directly answering a question, he often rephrased it. He would show that the opposing ideas in a debate are actually false, and that parts of both ideas can be combined. This process, where true parts of opposing ideas are kept and raised to a higher level, is what Hegel called “sublation.”

To “sublate” (aufheben) has three main meanings:

‘to raise, to hold up’
‘to cancel, abolish, destroy’
‘to keep, save, preserve’
Hegel generally used the term with all three meanings, especially the last two. This is how apparent contradictions are overcome. His word for what is sublated is “moment” (das Moment). This means an important feature of a whole system or a key phase in a developing process. When Hegel called something “contradictory,” he meant it couldn’t stand on its own. It could only be understood as part of a larger whole.

Hegel believed that to think of something limited as a “moment” of the whole, rather than as a separate thing, is to see it as “idealized.” Idealism, then, is the idea that limited things depend on a larger, self-sustaining whole for their existence.

Idealism
The terms “moment,” “sublate,” and “idealize” are key to understanding Hegel’s idealism. They describe stages of thought where an object is first vaguely present, then understood in its context, and finally stands completely on its own. This is different from Kant’s idealism or Berkeley’s idea that reality is only in the mind. Hegel’s idealism is compatible with realism (the belief that reality exists independently of our minds) and naturalism (the belief that everything can be explained by natural causes). He rejected the idea that all knowledge comes from experience alone. Hegel’s main point, which he claimed to prove, is that being itself is rational.

While it’s not wrong to call Hegel’s philosophy “absolute idealism,” this term was more connected with Schelling at the time. Hegel himself used it only a few times to describe his own work.

Hegel believed that “every philosophy is essentially idealism.” This is because he thought that thinking is present at all levels of knowledge. To deny this would lead to total skepticism. So, Hegel’s idealism is a form of “conceptual realism,” meaning he believed that concepts are part of the structure of reality itself.

Impact and Criticisms
Hegel’s ideas have had a huge impact on philosophy. In England in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a group called British idealism developed a version of absolute idealism based on Hegel’s writings. Important members included J. M. E. McTaggart and R. G. Collingwood.

Other philosophers, like Marx, Dewey, and Derrida, used some of Hegel’s ideas in their own philosophies. Others developed their ideas in opposition to Hegel, such as Kierkegaard and Russell. In theology, Hegel influenced thinkers like Karl Barth. Many other important figures have engaged with Hegel’s philosophy.

“Right” vs. “Left” Hegelianism
Some historians divide Hegel’s followers into two groups: “Right Hegelians” and “Left Hegelians.” The Right Hegelians were said to be Hegel’s direct students in Berlin. They supported traditional Protestant religion and the conservative politics of the time. The Left Hegelians, also known as the Young Hegelians, interpreted Hegel in a more revolutionary way. They supported atheism in religion and liberal democracy in politics. However, recent studies have questioned this simple division.

The Right Hegelians were quickly forgotten. The Left Hegelians, however, included some of the most important thinkers of the period. They focused on practical change and remained very influential, especially through the Marxist tradition.

Marxism
See also: Marxist philosophy § Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Among the first to criticize Hegel’s system were the 19th-century German group known as the Young Hegelians. This group included Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels. Their main criticism is summed up in Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach”: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”

Even though some think Hegel’s influence on Marx was only in his early writings, evidence shows that Hegel’s ideas also shaped the structure of Marx’s later work, Capital.

In the 20th century, this interpretation was further developed by critical theorists of the Frankfurt School. This happened because Hegel was seen as a possible philosophical ancestor of Marxism. Also, there was a renewed interest in Hegel’s historical perspective and his dialectical method. György Lukács‘ book History and Class Consciousness (1923) helped bring Hegel back into Marxist studies.

Claims of Authoritarianism
Karl Popper claimed in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) that Hegel’s philosophy was a hidden way to justify the absolute rule of King Frederick William III. Popper also said that Hegel’s idea of history’s goal was to reach a state similar to Prussia in the 1830s. Popper further suggested that Hegel’s philosophy inspired the communist and fascist governments of the 20th century. However, scholars like Kaufmann and Shlomo Avineri have criticized Popper’s ideas about Hegel.

Benedetto Croce said that Giovanni Gentile, a noted Italian Fascist, was “the most rigorous neo-Hegelian” but also had the “dishonor of having been the official philosopher of Fascism in Italy.”

Isaiah Berlin listed Hegel as one of six thinkers who helped create modern authoritarianism and undermined liberal democracy.

Thesis—Antithesis—Synthesis
Further information: Hegelian dialectic
The terms “thesis—antithesis—synthesis” were mainly developed by Fichte and spread by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus in descriptions of Hegel’s philosophy. However, these descriptions have largely been shown to be incorrect.

Some scholars say this account is “only a partial understanding that needs correction.” It is true that, for Hegel, “truth emerges from error” in history, and partial truths are corrected. But this description is only possible after the process has happened. The “thesis” and “antithesis” are not completely separate. If there is a “dialectical method,” it’s not an external one that can be “applied” to a subject.

Similarly, Stephen Houlgate argues that Hegel’s “method” is strictly internal. It comes from deeply understanding the subject itself. If this leads to dialectics, it’s because there’s a contradiction within the object, not because of an outside method.

American Pragmatism
Hegel’s influence on American Pragmatism can be seen in three periods: the late 1800s, the mid-1900s, and today. In the early days, it appeared in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Later, major figures like John Dewey, Charles Pierce, and William James were influenced by Hegel.

Dewey himself said that Hegel’s ideas appealed to him because they “supplied a demand for unification that was doubtless an intense emotional craving.” Dewey accepted much of Hegel’s ideas about history and society but rejected his (likely incorrect) understanding of Hegel’s “absolute knowing.”

Two philosophers, John McDowell and Robert Brandom (sometimes called the “Pittsburgh Hegelians”), represent the third period of Hegel’s influence on pragmatism. They openly admit Hegel’s influence but don’t claim to explain his views exactly as he understood them. They are also influenced by Wilfrid Sellars. McDowell is interested in challenging the idea of “the given” (the separation between concepts and intuition). Brandom focuses on developing Hegel’s social view of reason and rules. These are some of the “non-metaphysical” interpretations of Hegel’s thought.

Publications and Other Writings
Brackets indicate title supplied by editor; published articles are in quotes; book titles are italicized.

Bern, 1793—96

1793—94: [Fragments on Folk Religion and Christianity]
1795—96: [The Positivity of the Christian Religion]
1796—97: [The Oldest System-Program of German Idealism] (authorship disputed)
Frankfurt am Main, 1797—1800

1797—98: [Drafts on Religion and Love]
1798: Confidential Letters on the prior constitutional relations of the Wadtlandes (Pays de Vaud) to the City of Bern. A complete Disclosure of the previous Oligarchy of the Bern Estates. Translated from the French of a deceased Swiss [Jean Jacques Cart], with Commentary. Frankfurt am Main, Jäger. (Hegel’s translation is published anonymously)
1798—1800: [The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate]
1800—02: The Constitution of Germany (draft)
Jena, 1801—07

1801: De orbitis planetarum; ‘The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy’
1802: ‘On the Essence of Philosophical Critique in general and its relation to the present state of Philosophy in particular’ (Introduction to the Critical Journal of Philosophy, edited by Schelling and Hegel)
1802: ‘How Commonsense takes Philosophy, Illustrated by the Works of Mr. Krug’
1802 ‘The Relation of Scepticism to Philosophy. Presentation of its various Modifications and Comparison of the latest with the ancient’
1802: ‘Faith and Knowledge, or the Reflective Philosophy of Subjectivity in the Completeness of its forms as Kantian, Jacobian and Fichtean Philosophy’
1802—03: [System of Ethical Life]
1803: ‘On the Scientific Approaches to Natural Law, its Role within Practical Philosophy and its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law’
1803—04: [First Philosophy of Spirit (Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803/4)]
1807: The Phenomenology of Spirit
Bamberg, 1807—08

1807: ‘Preface: On Scientific Cognition’ (Preface to his Philosophical System, published with the Phenomenology)
Nürnberg, 1808—16

1808—16: [Philosophical Propaedeutic]
Heidelberg, 1816—18

1812—13: Science of Logic, Part 1 (Books 1, 2)
1816: Science of Logic, Part 2 (Book 3)
1817: ‘Review of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Works, Volume Three’
1817: ‘Assessment of the Proceedings of Estates Assembly of the Duchy of Württemberg in 1815 and 1816’
1817: Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, 1st edition
Berlin, 1818—31

1820: The Philosophy of Right, or Natural Law and Political Science in Outline
1827: Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, 2nd rev. edn.
1831: Science of Logic, 2nd edn, with extensive revisions to Book 1 (published in 1832)
1831: Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, 3rd rev. edn
Berlin Lecture Series
Logic 1818—31: annually
Philosophy of Nature: 1819—20, 1821—22, 1823—24, 1825—26, 1828, 1830
Philosophy of Subjective Spirit: 1820, 1822, 1825, 1827—28, 1829—30
Philosophy of Right: 1818—19, 1819—20, 1821—22, 1822—23, 1824—25, 1831
Philosophy of World History: 1822—23, 1824—25, 1826—27, 1828—29, 1830—31
Philosophy of Art: 1820—21, 1823, 1826, 1828—29
Philosophy of Religion: 1821, 1824, 1827, 1831
History of Philosophy: 1819, 1820—21, 1823—24, 1825—26, 1827—28, 1829—30, 1831

https://mronline.org/2025/07/24/georg-w ... -for-kids/

[blindpig]

Let's All Feel Good
No, we Kant.
Aurelien
Aug 13, 2025

<snip>

When I was young, I carried a guitar. Alone or with others, I sang for my supper, and sometimes more than my supper, in church halls and community centres, in schools and universities, in folk clubs and semi-professional venues.

In those days—roughly the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s—there was a corpus of acoustic songs that most people more or less knew, If you could strum three chords (OK, four at a pinch) and manage to hold a tune, then you could probably sing most of them, and your audience would join in the chorus. Even if I was already a purist in those days, more interested in the modal music of the English tradition, these were songs that I somehow assimilated, and could probably sing if asked to do so. If you ever had a vinyl LP of Joan Baez or Peter, Paul and Mary, or have seen one since, you’ll know the kind of thing I mean. And of course there was a lot of early Dylan and ersatz Dylan mixed in with it.

Much of this music was, well, lyrically and musically not very sophisticated, but that was part of the point, because most of it was protest music of one kind or another, linked to current popular political causes and intended to be sung with gusto by large groups, in the hope of changing the world. (Tom Lehrer, who memorably eviscerated the whole movement in The Folk Song Army, remarked that “the thing about a protest song is it makes you feel so good.”) But OK, people always want to feel good, and that was an age when it almost seemed like a human right.

Most of these songs were about conflict and war in some sense, and their lyrics generally said that war, violence, repression, hatred and discrimination were bad, and peace, tolerance and justice were good. Hard to argue with any of that I suppose, especially when you are eighteen or nineteen years old. Most of all, and importantly for this essay, they encouraged the belief that beneficial changes in the world could be brought about by moral force and mass movements of ordinary people. Thus, in Lehrer’s words you could “feel good” by singing Where have all the flowers gone? but you could also feel that in some sense you, personally, were helping to bring peace to the world. And this was not altogether unfair: the Civil Rights movement in the US, which was the inspiration for many of the songs, had been about largely peaceful mass political action, and the songs about trades unions and the rights of workers did reflect genuine popular struggles. (Even rock music got in on the act: the recent death of Mr Ozzy Osbourne reminds me of friends of mine banging their heads against the wall, while listening to War Pigs at full volume.)

But the wider message of the popular culture of the time, of which I’m discussing only one manifestation here, was an Idealist one: that the world could be changed by moral force alone, and that once the battle of ideas was won, war, conflict and poverty would necessarily fade away. Thus, for example, the New Age guru Werner Erhard founded the Hunger Project in 1977, with the aim of abolishing world hunger in twenty years. He gained the support of many celebrities, including the singer John Denver, for “an idea whose time has come,”and a program that concentrated on advocacy and changing minds, rather than actually feeding people.

So it did seem almost as though war and conflict could be laughed and mocked into oblivion, and in certain circles an interest in a military career was treated as a kind of mental illness. Thus, Monty Python’s Flying Circus mocked the military mercilessly. The popular BBC TV series Dr Who in those days featured a UN military force intended to keep the world safe from aliens, commanded by a typically stupid Brigadier, whose men always had to be rescued by the Doctor’s superior skills. It was the era of Joan Littlewood’s (and Richard Attenborough’s) Oh What a Lovely War!, of Richard Lester’s How I Won the War with John Lennon, and of course Altman’s M*A*S*H, and many other films. For many young men, wearing Army surplus uniforms bought in Carnaby Street in London was a gesture against something or other. At a somewhat different intellectual level, it was the era when revisionist writing about the Second World began to gain momentum, leading ultimately to today’s fashionable assertions of moral equivalence between the Western Allies and Nazi Germany.

Or maybe War was perhaps just something that would fade away as humanity evolved. Arthur Koestler, in one of his last books, tried to give scientific cover to the idea that wars were the result of individual human aggressiveness, and proposed adding calming psychiatric medicines to urban water supplies. On a more popular level, the 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit, based on a BBC TV series, postulated that wars and aggression were caused by unseen Martians who had colonised the planet at some time in the past. At the end of the film, with the Martians defeated, a new era of world peace seemed possible. The underlying conspiratorial idea of the film was the latest incarnation of the meme of shadowy manipulators of the world (Templars, Freemasons, Jews, Bankers, Communists) and of course is alive and kicking today in endless accusations of shadowy groups behind contemporary wars and revolutions. Dylan’s Masters of War gave a new lease of life to the “arms dealers cause wars” trope, which I see still has its adherents. But the key point was that any such monocausal theory made the causes of war and conflict easy to understand, and the solution correspondingly simple. And above all, it made it very easy to strike poses of moral purity and superiority, without actually needing to know anything about anything.

This was the Indian Summer of the post-war world, when 1939-45 had become history, and there was a cautious belief that, as my parents’ generation said, “at least you won’t have to fight in a war like we did.” It’s always dangerous to romanticise the past, but I think it’s unarguable that in much of the western world people actually felt safer then, than they do now. In my youth, for example, you could wander into public buildings freely, watch debates in Parliament by standing in a queue, and have your photograph taken outside 10 Downing Street next to the long-suffering policeman guarding the door. There were wars but they were a long way away, and, as in the Six-Day War of 1967, they seemed romantic adventures more than anything serious. Pundits assured those interested that once the last few colonial states had become independent, wars would start to become meaningless because there would be nothing to fight about. We did not realise that autumn was almost there.

Now in some ways this complacency may seem strange. After all, the world was divided into antagonistic blocs, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. In theory, we could all wake up radioactive crisps the next morning, and there were occasional moments when it looked as though we might. But it was also an age of détente. The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 did not start a war. The SALT 1 and the ABM treaties were signed, the US finally recognised Beijing as the capital of China, and at the very end of the period the Helsinki Final Acts were signed as well. It did seem as though the Great Powers were finally getting something of a grip on the course of world history.

Of course, during the same period there was a massive war taking place in Vietnam, but in a sense this was assimilated into the same general picture. There was a lot of opposition to that war, but in Europe at least, it was performative. It was about songs, marches, “demos,” petitions, student union motions and angry editorials in small-circulation newspapers. The International Union of Students, based in Prague, thoughtfully provided as many posters declaring solidarity with the anti-imperialist struggle of the Vietnamese people as anyone might need.

But this behaviour was of a piece with the overall thinking of the period. In what was evidently a watered-down and banalised interpretation of Liberal International Relations theory, war and conflict were considered fundamentally mistakes, that could be rectified if national leaders only behaved sensibly, and heeded the moral teachings of young people with guitars. In the words of one especially facile song, of the time nations could just “agree to put an end to war.” They could sign peace treaties and bring universal peace tomorrow, if only they would get their acts together. I have a vague memory of being shown a Superman comic of the era in which the eponymous hero brought peace to the world by carrying off and destroying the weapons of all the nations. This was, roughly, the level of analysis current at the time.

In essence, war and conflict were problems that could be solved by abolishing them, just as laws were being passed at the time to abolish discrimination on the basis of race and sex. The idea that wars might have causes, that peace treaties might not bring peace, or that people might have genuine reasons for violent resistance, were too difficult to assimilate, except in one case that I’ll return to.

Essentially, this is how Vietnam was viewed. For understandable reasons, the conflict was reported in the newspapers and the evening news as an almost entirely American affair, whatever the sympathies of the journalists. The Vietnamese themselves seldom appeared, except as targets or victims according to political sympathies. For many guitar-strummers and their audiences, though, the issue was even simpler: the US was attacking and occupying Vietnam, and once its troops left, the fighting would be over and peace would break out. The then-popular singer and songwriter Tom Paxton, whose lyrical and musical gifts were not matched by his political acumen, would tell his audience that the Viet Cong were actually just the government of South Vietnam, fighting the US invaders in disguise. When the war continued after 1972, the country was unified by force in 1975, and subsequently the “boat people” began to flee the country, the result was a kind of numb silence. It didn’t compute. Nor did the revelations of the horrors perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge, who some, especially in France, had supported because they were fighting the “American imperialists,” nor indeed the violent overthrow of that regime by the Vietnamese. It was difficult to write songs about all that.

Now to be fair, the wild over-simplifications of the guitar-strumming community were no more extreme than, and in a sense the mirror-image of, all the anti-Communist propaganda of the day. For that school of thought, every questionable development in the world, from the Beatles and long hair, to the wars in the Middle East to, well, the war in Vietnam, was blamed unhesitatingly on the machinations of the Soviet Union and its attempts to build and maintain a global empire. Although this discourse didn’t go unchallenged, it was popular with the kind of people who clung to monocausal explanations because the reality was too complicated. To get an idea of its popularity if you weren’t around then, imagine the writings of your favourite Internet site today, but with all the references to “America” changed to “Soviet Union” and “CIA” to “KGB.” In many cases, literally the same people moved at the end of the Cold War from seeing the source of all evil in Moscow to seeing the source of all evil in Washington, because complexity was simply beyond them. Some, you will have noticed, have now moved back again.

The competing monocausal explanations of Left and Right were obviously superficial, as indeed was all of the thinking of the time about conflict and peace. There was no interest in complex explanations and historical causes, rather, it was important to identify guilty individuals who were promoting war and needed to be stopped. (Thus, several generations later, the obsession with “Putin” as the source of all evil.) Both Left and Right, though, accepted the Liberal dogma that everything, in the end, could be settled by negotiation, and that fighting was pointless because ultimately conflict was not really “about” anything, and in many cases was just caused by the other side’s meddling. In some cases, public pressure, including demonstrations, might be required to force governments to realise this, but the opening of negotiations and the signing of treaties were regarded as inherently desirable objectives, and achievements in themselves.

On what was then reasonably called “The Left,” the dominant mood is best described as a superficial and largely frivolous anti-militarism. (OK, the Left in France was different: it always had been.) To be more precise, it was a dislike and distrust of western militaries and their activities, because they seemed to represent the detested western “establishment” in its purest form, they spent lots of money, and some of them had been associated with colonial wars. The Left in most of Europe was utterly uninterested in defence issues anyway, and wore this ignorance as a badge of pride: it didn’t know much, but it knew what it didn’t like. However, this dislike didn’t necessarily extend to other militaries, so long as they were fighting the West. The classic case of course was Vietnam, where the Viet Cong and the regular NVA were somehow conflated into a single, glorious, unconquerable fighting force. (The incorrigible Ewan McColl even wrote a song in praise of them which I am not linking to because it’s too awful.) On some parts of the Left, at least, there was also sympathy for the Israeli Army, as well as tolerance, if not admiration, for the fighting qualities of “anti-colonialist” fighters everywhere. Thus, Lindsay Anderson’s 1969 film If, set in an English public school, fiercely mocks the British military, and was asserted to have a pacifist message, even while the main character played by Malcolm McDowell gushes over a photograph of an African guerrilla fighter. And a decade later left-wing western intellectuals went gooey-eyed over the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the Russians. It all depends who’s holding the gun, I suppose.

Although such people described themselves as pacifists, in my experience they weren’t: they just disliked and despised the armed forces of their own country and its allies, and transferred their need to admire courage and virility to other more deserving organisations, as I explained some essays ago. The end of the Cold War thus discombobulated them as much as it did the Right, although for different reasons. After the initial shock, many of these movements found themselves ideologically stranded. The Cold War had ended, but not in the way they expected, and, whilst disarmament agreements had been negotiated, there would still be plenty of weapons around. And with sickening rapidity, it emerged that the unfreezing of the Cold War had simply allowed past conflicts to resurface. All the purveyors of monocausal explanations of Right and Left were stunned to see that new conflicts did not obey the assumptions about conflict they had grown up with.

Some, at least, were rescued by the fighting in the former Yugoslavia, and especially in Bosnia. It wasn’t obvious that such extreme passions would be aroused by the fate of a country scarcely known in the West except as a holiday destination, and indeed even the fiercest partisans of “intervention” had never visited the country, nor took the trouble to learn anything about it. (Those who did know the country were, in my experience, the most sceptical about the value of any kind of intervention.) But just as with the Iraq War for the Right, so for parts of the Left Bosnia was a useful receptacle for the surplus moral energy slopping around after 1989. Bosnia became a Cause because a Cause had to be found. Unsurprisingly, many supporters of the Iraq War opposed deployments to Bosnia, just as many enthusiasts for invading Bosnia opposed the Iraq War. It was the same western military: it all depended on who the enemy was.

Because Bosnia was a Cause, it was not subject to the usual rules of logic and reality. The “duty” to intervene, as it was put, was independent of practical considerations. Its proponents were the same groups who had sniffily refused to learn anything about military issues earlier, and in 1992 they did not see why they should be expected to know anything about such boring questions as force generation, logistics or operational military planning. To the question “what do you want us to do then?” the answer was “stop the violence!” To the question “how do we stop the violence?” the only coherent answer, apart from “that’s your department,” was “with more violence.” Moral force would ensure victory, after all, even if this time with guns rather than guitars.

Unfortunately, the crisis erupted just as western nations were beginning to transition away from Cold War structures. European countries had overwhelmingly conscript armies with limited training, and were often legally prevented from deploying conscripts outside the country. The US was not interested in participating, and the British and French, the only nations with sizeable professional forces, were not keen on deploying their soldiers to be targets. There was a consensus at the time that even to bring an temporary halt to the fighting would require a force of 100,000 troops deployed throughout the country (if you’ve ever flown over it in a helicopter you’ll understand why), to be followed by another 100,000 troops six months later, and so on until the Force eventually left, when the fighting would no doubt resume. Such resources did not remotely exist in Europe (and indeed don’t now) even if a coherent military plan with an objective could somehow have been scraped together.

Although it wasn’t my professional responsibility, thankfully, to deal with these sorts of issues directly, I did make a few attempts to educate people I came across about some of these realities. I soon gave up, because the response was always snarling contempt and lessons in morality (“you’re all cowards: you could if you wanted to.”) Western governments had a moral duty and they were failing in it: some female critics were clearly the granddaughters of the women who in 1914 had handed white feathers to British men reluctant to enlist in the War. An overwhelming moral duty to go off and kill people could not, by definition, tolerate any dissent or even questioning, and practical problems could not be allowed to become an obstacle.

Even in those days, scarcely anyone studied philosophy in Britain, but it’s not hard to see in these sorts of inflamed attitudes a pale echo of that most destructive of philosophical concepts: the Kantian Categorical Imperative, picked up from some lecture somewhere. The great thing about the Categorical Imperative is precisely its very universality and automaticity: if I can impose one on you, you have no choice but to act as I suggest, and no counter-argument is acceptable. As Alasdair MacIntyre (to be fair, no fan of Kant) describes it, for Kant the rules of morality are rational, like arithmetic, and not derived from religion or other systems of thought? They are thus binding on everyone, just as the rules of arithmetic are. Experience is by definition irrelevant if such rules are pre-emptively universal. Thus: ”the contingent ability … to carry them out must be unimportant—what is important is (the) will to carry them out. The project of discovering a rational justification of morality therefore simply is the project of discovering a rational test which will discriminate those maxims with are a genuine expression of the moral law from those maxims which are not …”

Kant was quite sure in his own mind what these rules of morality were (happily, they were precisely those that his parents had inculcated in him) and he thought that ordinary people, after a little rational reflection, would arrive at the same list. The problem, of course, is that anyone can use such a line of (let’s be generous) reasoning to reach any maxim they like. No doubt Kant would have been disturbed to discover a maxim such as “kill all those who are violating the human rights of Muslims in Bosnia,” but it meets his criterion of a moral maxim that can be universalised.

The similarities between the crude moral posturing of “interventionists”, from Bosnia to Rwanda to Kosovo to Darfur to Libya to Syria, and Kant’s specious logic are too exact to be a coincidence. That doesn’t mean that the interventionists all read and reflected on Kant (though some may have done so) but rather that, conversely, Kant’s doctrine represents a systematised, intellectual-sounding rationalisation of something we all instinctively feel and would like to be true. Wouldn’t it be nice, after all, if we could identify moral obligations and force others to carry them out? It would enable us to feel morally superior to those others, morally intolerant of their failings, and yet would absolve us from the need to argue any logical case, or even know anything about the subject. And if it all goes wrong it’s not our fault.

Thus, the self-styled pacifists of the 1970s and 1980s put away their guitars and were converted into the raving militarists of the 1990s by a very simple adaptation of universal moral laws. After all, there’s no real difference between “violence is wrong when I disapprove of it,” and “violence is right when I approve of it.” The development of Humanitarian Interventionism (or as I prefer to call it Humanitarian Fascism) up to the present day can therefore be seen as a logical development of a long-standing absolutist mindset that knows it’s right, and consequently seeks to impose duties on others, to whom it feels morally superior. (For decades the British government had received moral lectures from anti-nuclear groups who didn’t know much about nuclear weapons, but knew what they didn’t like.) Ironically, the West is now on the receiving end of a very similar absolutist mindset, but we’ll get to that later.

It’s this, I think, that helps to explain the incoherence and the lack of even basic understanding so evident in the “debate” about Ukraine. It applies to the “rights and wrongs” of the conflict, since support for one side or the other is a moral duty, not a question of the interpretation of facts and history. It’s easy enough to devise competing Categorical Imperatives capable of universalisation: “support all western-friendly countries when in conflict with others,” versus “support all countries the West dislikes when in conflict with others.” (Ironically, those who quite correctly decry “my country right or wrong,” are often prepared to support somebody else’s country right or wrong.) There’s no need to know anything about anything, because you are evoking a universal moral principle (even if in practice some of us feel awkward if we don’t at least make an attempt to learn a little bit about the situation.)

Much the same applies to all the endless reams of commentary on the military situation, on weapons technologies, on military plans and operations and on diplomatic and political strategy, which infest the Internet. Occasionally, you can find people who know what they are talking about, but the sad fact is that most people don’t actually want to read articles or watch videos by people who know what they are talking about, in case they hear things that must be morally wrong. Throughout the Internet and in the comments sections of any number of sites, you can find confident pronouncements about Russian strategy or western weaponry by people who once saw a war film. This becomes understandable when you realise that the judgements they are making are not technical, or even political, but are based purely on moral imperatives. “We must believe everything Moscow says,” versus “we must believe nothing Moscow says,” for example.

Since the end of the Cold War, with its endless moral compromises and its need to placate the Soviet Union to some degree, the West has been free to practice this way of thinking as much as it likes, and its leaders and their servants have been able to persuade themselves of the most extraordinary things. For all that popular culture likes to seek out moustache-twirling villains, in my experience most people working in government like to feel comfortable with themselves, and consider that they are working for what they, at least, see as a worthy cause. So in 1991, I saw lots of intelligent western government officials wearing badges that said FREE KUWAIT (I made myself unpopular by asking if I could have some.) The War itself was an orgy of moral luxury, when political leaders and their advisers could revel in the sense of acting virtuously, in pursuit of the moral axiom that “internationally recognised borders should be inviolate.” For all the persistent, tedious, clever arguments about financial and resource motivations affecting government actions in crises, the fact is that, at least in my experience, decision-makers like to think of themselves as moral actors: the world would be a considerably safer place if they didn’t. (If your personal experience is different, do let me know in comments.)

In many ways all this is not surprising. Kant’s belief that moral imperatives can be rationally deduced out of nothing fits entirely with the Liberal mode of reasoning that I have so often criticised. Liberalism has no origin, no foundation other than abstract rationalism and its precepts such as they are, are essentially to be accepted a priori. By definition, Liberalism cannot persuade, it can only assert and bully. It’s natural then, that uncontrolled Liberalism such as we have known over the last generation or so would adopt Kantian-style arguments of moral blackmail, even if its practitioners had only the remotest idea who Kant was. Liberalism’s only argument is Because I Say So, and that includes trying to load moral duties onto the shoulders of others.

Experience in life, as Kant emphasised, counts for nothing, and practicability is beside the point. When you read stories of the “failure” of western policies in the Balkans or Rwanda in the 1990s, therefore, it’s important to understand that this is not failure as you and I understand it. It doesn’t mean that things were tried and didn’t work or that they turned out in the end to be impossible, it means that the West failed in its moral duty, as defined by those whose self-elected role is to define moral duties for others. Likewise today, the West is proudly “carrying out” its moral duty to Ukraine, which explains in large part the puffed-up preening of its leaders and the their cheerleaders in the media. It’s doing the Right Thing, no matter how much destruction is caused. Anyway, as Kant said, you’re obliged to do things even if you can’t actually carry the obligation out. So everybody’s happy.

Well, not altogether. Everything goes in cycles, and traditional political factors of national advantage, economic benefit and just plain common sense are starting to muscle their way back into the argument, from which they should never have been excluded. After all, can there be a a greater Categorical Imperative for political leaders than “look after the interests of your nation and its people?” What else would you suggest? Yet western leaders think nothing of lecturing their people that their interests must be subordinated to foreign policy adventures and the care and maintenance of trafficked immigrants. But it does look as though among the least-regretted casualties of Ukraine will be the popularity of Humanitarian Intervention, especially as no-one has been able to explain why a similar moral obligation to intervene does not apply in Gaza. (The reasons for that are complicated, contradictory and counter-intuitive and I’ll come back to that subject in a week or two.) In the meantime, there are signs that the dead hand of the assumptions of Liberal International Relations Theory is losing its grip and is starting to slip away.

And not before time. After all, one of the basic assumptions of the last generation was that the West could and should intervene everywhere, and that there would be no costs associated with doing so: the costs, if any, would be borne by others. As I noted last week, after Ukraine that’s not true any longer. But one of its consequences is that the world is coming to us, in ways that we cannot control. Already, we have seen how the Liberal international order has facilitated Transnational Organised Crime, and even turned some European countries (Belgium and the Netherlands for example) into incipient narco-states, as foreign organised crime groups take hold.

But sometimes the threat is more direct and murderous, as with militant Islamist groups. Now recall that both Kant and modern Liberalism sought to replace traditional ethics based on religion with new forms of ethics based on logic and reason. Unfortunately, in attempting the first, they failed at the second. But other cultures have not followed ours. Political Islam is not new in itself: it dates back a century to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, which started as a reaction against the modernising and liberalising tendencies introduced by the British and French colonial powers. But it remained a political movement until the 1980s, when the first networks for sending jihadist fighters to Afghanistan were established, with funding from the Gulf States. The same thing happened in Bosnia a little later, in the formation of the 7th Muslim Brigade of the Sarajevo Army, again with Gulf financing. But in both cases, the militants involved could claim that they were defending fellow-muslims from persecution. The idea that the fight should be taken to the unbelievers, and that this was a moral obligation, was new and highly controversial. (But of course the original Categorical Imperatives were those issued by God, so there.)

The neoconservative/neoliberal fantasy of creating a solid arc of democratic, liberal, western-oriented states in the Middle East has failed more completely and more disastrously than any comparable project in history: even the Third Reich was better planned. But the consequence of the destruction of Iraq, and then of plunging gleefully into the civil war in Syria, was to revive a tendency that was almost dead by 2003, but in a newer, more populist and much more violent guise than the old Al-Qaida. We won’t go into the history once more here, but it’s enough to say that the Islamic State operates on impeccably Kantian principles. True, it draws its theoretical inspiration from the Koran and the Hadiths, but in reality most jihadists have a very limited understanding of Islam, and the rulings by modern Imams that justify their murderous rampages are often a result of Imam-shopping until they find the opinion they want.

Just as with Kant, any number can play at Categorical Imperatives, and a Hadith not just permitting, but requiring the killing of all Shia can be had for the asking. As with the Liberal concept of law (and Islam is highly legalistic) you can find a justification for anything if you look hard enough. So western states find themselves confronted, not just abroad but now at home, with combatants who want to die, who will blow themselves up rather than surrender, and for whom young unmarried couples enjoying rock music or football matches are sinners worthy of immediate execution. As with Kant, all exterior considerations of contingency, practicability or even ethics are excluded. There’s a Categorical Imperative for you.

Typically, Liberalism finds itself completely lost here, and copes with something it doesn’t understand, as usual, by ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Liberalism’s main preoccupation at the moment is with ensuring that Muslim communities in the West are not “stigmatised” by association with groups who actually want to wipe them out because they are committing the sin of living in a non-Muslim state. No, I don’t understand that either. And we begin to understand that not all Categorical Imperatives are equal. Maybe we feel obliged morally to employ people to fight their way into other countries and kill their inhabitants until they do what we want, but there’s nothing in the small print about them hitting us back, and us having to be prepared to fight for what we believe in, assuming we know that is. Nobody is going to die for Ursula von den Leyen, or the Eurovision Song Contest or the right to use this or that toilet. But lots of people are prepared to die to do what they see as the will of Allah, and at the moment we have no idea how to stop them.

Western foreign policy is now ideologically exhausted and bankrupt, and no foreign policy is possible without some underlying ideology, no matter how crude or materialistic. Having left religion-based ethics definitively behind, modern Liberalism has stumbled through shifting mixtures of anti-communism, western exceptionalism, soft liberalism, détente, aggressive liberalism and humanitarian fascism, to the point where now it hardly knows what it’s doing any more, or why, and its political representatives are reduced to mumbling meaningless platitudes at each other. Give War a Chance turns out to be no more of a considered programme than Give Peace a Chance was. It’s a good thing the international environment is so stable, or we might be in real trouble.

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/lets-all-feel-good

[blindpig]

Conversations about important things

Before we begin our conversation with WHAT WE ARE - and this is the natural beginning of any worldview - it is imperative to understand what the surrounding world is.

The thing is that humans, by universal standards, have not appeared that long ago. Not that long ago even by the standards of our planet's existence. The world existed, spun, twirled and seethed before humans gradually populated the planet.

Therefore, before thinking about who you are, why you are here and who needs you, what your meaning and purpose are, it would be good to understand the meaning of being itself (being is everything that is).

*
What is the world we live in?

It is easy to see that the universe, the stars, the cosmic and natural processes on our planet are deeply indifferent to the fate of humanity and the lives of individuals. There is no meaningfulness in the universe itself, its existence proceeds absolutely objectively ( = independently of consciousness, any! ), through the collision of various forces, opposing principles.

The simplest and most visual description of the external world is mechanical interaction: everything moves somewhere, collides, collapses, merges, energy is transferred from one body to another, complex bodies are formed from simple bodies ( complex means composed of simple things), complex ones disintegrate , etc., etc. And everything consists of each other, like a nesting doll.

Organisms disintegrate into various systems and life apparatuses, which disintegrate into complex substances, complex substances into simple substances, simple substances into molecules and atoms, molecules and atoms into lighter and simpler atoms, and these, in turn, into even smaller elements, and so on ad infinitum.

That is, everything complex and large is a certain organization of something simpler and smaller .

Moreover, each level of organization has its own specifics, its own laws and patterns, its own logic of things and processes.

Science currently identifies several levels of such organization.

1. Physical . It all starts with the microworld. This is a sphere of global scale. Space is an endless sea of ​​extremely fine gaseous matter filling all space, called ether. Streams of ether move in a spiral to the centers of galaxies. There they collide at great speed, and thus streams of protons, neutrons and radiation from the centers of galaxies to their outskirts are formed.

The movement of ether to the center of galaxies and from the center of galaxies in the form of protons, neutrons and radiation gives rise to all known phenomena of the microworld from gravity, light, electromagnetic radiation to the processes of formation of stars, planets and other cosmic bodies.

These are monstrously gigantic scales with huge time intervals. It takes billions of years for a galaxy to form.

The speed at which the ether moves is not yet known for certain, but protons and radiation from the center of the galaxy move at the speed of light. This is very fast for us and very slow relative to the distances of the galaxies themselves.

We see light at a distance of 14 billion light years. This means that the photons have been flying to us for 14 billion years. During this time, they are gradually destroyed by friction with the surrounding ether and the influence of other external forces.

The center of our galaxy, which is far from the largest, is almost 30 thousand light years away (that is, we now see the center of the Milky Way as it was at the time when people were just domesticating dogs).

It is clear that the speed of movement of protons, neutrons and radiations, from which stars, planets and all bodies are formed, is quite low compared to the scale of space. Therefore, transformation and changes in space occur very, very, very slowly. Although we on Earth are excited by the thought that light, heat and other rays from the Sun reach us in just eight minutes.

2. Chemical . This is a much more complex level of organization, when we are talking about substances, that is, about the combination of complex, large atoms and molecules. In space, there are very few substances as such, if we do not count stars and planets. Substances are formed on celestial bodies.

3. Biological . This is a super-complex level of organization, when organisms are born from the most complex organic substances, through their intricate interweaving, i.e. life appears. The essence of life is that living organisms exist through the exchange of substances with their environment.

4. Social . This humanity is a particularly complex form of life. That is why we thought about the meaning of existence.

For each more complex level of organization, the previous ones represent, firstly, the building material of which it consists, and secondly, the environment (conditions) of existence or habitation .

Thus,

1) for us, people in general, the plant and animal world is what we consist of and what we live in the environment of;

2) for us, humans as biological organisms, substances and their compounds are what we are made of and how and where we exist;

3) for us, people as a certain set of chemical apparatuses of life activity, the physical world and cosmic processes are what forms us, and the environment in which we exist.

It's all pretty simple to understand and extremely difficult to grasp. But it makes sense, right?

What has been said is not an opinion, not some model that approximately explains the observed, not a hypothesis or a guess, but a scientific conclusion from the entirety of social practice. From those thousands of years of human history that have given billions of facts, observations, experiments. First of all, from the practice of the reproduction of humanity itself, that is, the process of life and death, production and consumption of material and spiritual goods.

Scientific knowledge is distinguished from everything else by its adequacy , i.e. strict correspondence to objective reality. All this is verified by the very practice of humanity, production, discoveries, research, etc.

Note that scientific knowledge is the exact opposite of NOT ignorance, as it may seem, because scientific knowledge fully assumes that we may not yet know something. Scientific knowledge is the opposite of faith . If you believe in something, it definitely means only one thing - that you do not know (therefore believing is stupid).

It is impossible to believe in knowledge, because knowledge is confirmed in practice, therefore, there is no room for faith. If we do not know something yet, then we can assume, build hypotheses and guesses on the basis of the knowledge we already have. They must be completely scientific and also not connected with faith. Where there is faith, there can be no science. This is the most important axiom of knowledge.

I. The foundations of the universe
So, if we take a fresh look at the entire Matryoshka-like universe, in which the simple is combined into the complex, and the complex exists in the simple, we can discover several important conclusions, laws that are equally significant for all spheres of knowledge, for everything in general. They constitute the fundamental basis of a scientific, i.e. adequate, worldview and methodology of thinking.

People who think and live with mush in their heads instead of a worldview, do not see anything further than their noses. They reason exclusively within the framework of the ordinary, within the framework of everyday practice. They are afraid of the universal, they are afraid of methodology and any fundamental knowledge. Usually they try to explain everything beyond their immediate everyday experience mystically, relying on various mystical ideologies, for example, religion. Religion gives an anti-scientific, unreasonable, faith-based, i.e. illogical, explanation of the essence of the world. But the bourgeoisie and ordinary people usually do not even know the theoretical foundations of religion. They live with petty everyday questions, superstitions, signs and prayers are enough for them.

Most people turn into such people at your age, so you need to educate yourself, think and think, work with your head, work on yourself, study, study, study. There are social reasons for turning into a philistine, it is beneficial to certain social forces, because the dumber people are, the narrower their worldview, the easier it is to exploit, oppress and deceive them.

They say that the sleep of reason produces monsters. Total ignorance, especially in matters of social science, produces not only monsters like mass murderers, terrorists, sadists and psychopaths, but also a swamp of indifferent philistines.

Most of these people have a short memory for social events, because they perceive all information only in direct relation to the vector of their life. These people say: "Why do I need to know this?", "Physics will not be useful to me in life", "What benefit can I get from this?" etc. Their natural curiosity, which underlies a healthy need for knowledge, is dulled to the level of passive curiosity. Such people have enough rumors, gossip, memes, jokes, secrets, especially if they imply that other people are doing even worse and they are even bigger clowns and idiots. This is not only meaningless, but also morbid curiosity. However, in each of us, one way or another, there is curiosity and inquisitiveness. The problem is in the balance and dynamics of this balance.

There is nothing sadder than living a life full of emotions from curiosity, fashion, shopaholism, comfort and idleness. It is not only boring, pathetic and mentally unhealthy, but also undermines the very high title of man. Such a life is little like a human one. In general, theoretical activity is the most important form of human practice in general. If you want to be a real person, do not neglect scientific and theoretical activity, at least to fill your consciousness with adequate knowledge. And all these boring depressions and sick perversions are the usual swinishness of the philistine.

But it is important to understand the criticism of the philistine not in the form of contempt and hatred for others, for this is a superficial judgment in the style of the philistine. Curiosity differs from inquisitiveness primarily not in its subject, but in that the latter seeks to penetrate to the cause. As stated above, philistinism and ignorance have social roots, i.e. there are social forces that benefit from this, therefore they form the corresponding conditions, education, etc. Why in the information space around you there is 1% scientific knowledge and 99% garbage in the form of propaganda of egoism, exploitation of base instincts, mysticism and other nonsense? Moreover, the production of everything - from books, television and the Internet to the content of lessons and social events - is paid for by someone. Even if you buy it yourself, it was produced in advance with the purpose of forming a market and the illusion of choice. So think about it. And sooner or later you realize that mass ignorance is an integral element of society in the system of private property relations. And philistinism is just another form of ignorance. Without fools there can be no slavery, feudalism and capitalism. Therefore, the production of stupidity and fools is an important element in maintaining the economic and political system.

And this, by the way, is favored by the very structure of consciousness. The fact is that thinking arose as an objective necessity of adaptation of mankind to the environment. Thinking was initially active and was aimed at daily solution of specific problems of survival of an individual organism and a community of people. Consequently, with the development of society, division of labor, growth of technologies, change of life, etc., the daily need to think with the head ceased to be so urgent. Today, in order to “live normally” in an averagely developed country, it is possible to practically not think with the head at all. Because of this, firstly, the potential of thinking degrades, secondly, it is much more difficult for an individual to force himself to think. That is why it is necessary to constantly study, constantly think with the head and study theory.

So. how to approach the fundamental foundations of existence?

We should start with a simple reasoning.

We see a huge variety of phenomena and processes of space, nature, substances, animals (we will not include society here for now, since we are talking about the world around us, and not about us). All of them constitute the diversity of being. Therefore, they must have something in common at their core . Each and every one of them must be identical in what allows them to constitute the unity of being. .

So what is the unity of the world? Why is everything that exists, in this world and makes up this world?

This is a philosophical question, and the answer to it cannot be found by cutting up frogs, excavating, or traveling into outer space. It is derived logically, i.e., on the one hand, on the basis of a strict generalization of all the facts, on the other - the utmost conscientious adherence to the very laws of thinking: so that there are no foreign admixtures of ideas, one is derived from another, nothing contradicts each other. In general, scientific thinking is conscientious thinking, which excludes any faith, mysticism, stretching, emotions, passions, careerism and, most importantly, interests. A scientist has one need - to find out the truth. .

Thus, the unity of the world consists in its materiality. . The identity of all that exists consists in its materiality. Everything real, existing, having existed and will exist is material.

"Matter" is a word whose meaning is that something was, is, or will be in reality. Everything that exists is one or another form of matter of one or another level of organization.

Further, one cannot simply be content with the fact that matter exists . We must understand how exactly it exists.

The fact is that material objects and processes constantly arise and disappear , everything that exists has its beginning, its blossoming, its decay and its end. Existence is not only appearance, birth, but also disappearance. Life is replaced by death, and death by life. Life, some grimly joke, is only dying.

There is some movement in this , at least from the beginning to the end of each particular thing, which becomes the starting point for the birth of something new.

Further, material objects and processes do not exist in isolation. As we have found out, the unity of the world consists in its materiality and therefore unity is manifested in everything material. What is unity? It is the combination of the different , the opposite. All material objects are different from each other (there is nothing absolutely identical in the world!), but their identity consists at least in the fact that they are material objects. This means that they interact with each other (after all, we are talking about the CONNECTION of the different). Moreover, their interaction, mutual influence on each other, is the main factor in their movement from birth to disappearance and the birth of something new.

All material objects and processes can be considered as the mechanics of being, i.e. in everything real we will see movement, collision (interaction), influence on each other, connection and disintegration . Everything that exists can at least be considered from the point of view of mechanics.

From what has been said it follows that movement is the mode of existence of matter . Matter is always moving, rest is only relative. There is no absolute rest and there cannot be. Movement is the process of existence of matter, material forms and formations. Even your consciousness is a constant movement of thought, you cannot stop thinking for a second. Even when you sleep, your brain carries out thought work outside of awareness.

Moreover, each new level of organization of matter gives its own specific type of movement, in addition to simple displacement and collision.

Chemical motion is the qualitative changes that occur in the molecules of substances as a result of the movement of atoms .

Biological movement is those qualitative changes that arise as a result of the metabolism of the organism and the external environment (also movement).

And society has its own special form of social movement.

In short, everything that exists moves, and the measure of this movement is such a concept as energy .

Even this text is a form of material movement. The energy of the neurons of my brain not only formulates thoughts, but also sets the muscles of the body in motion, thus creating a text that you read through a similar apparatus of your body. If, as a result of assimilating the text of the letter, you commit certain actions, then it will also become a form of social movement, provided that their consequences are significant. It is unlikely that Pushkin, when he wrote "Eugene Onegin", could have imagined what kind of "social energy" the trivial story he told would have. And in fact, it has a major influence on young people's ideas about love, even if they have never read the work itself.

Further. We began to understand existence by fixing matter, the mode of existence of which is movement. Matter moves, thus all the diversity of its forms, elements exist through birth, blossoming, withering and death with a new birth, colliding, forming more complex forms from the simple and disintegrating into the simple from the complex .

But to say that everything that exists is material and moves is not enough. We need to go deeper. What exactly does materiality mean? How exactly does materiality manifest itself?

Everything material has a characteristic that gives us scientific categories of all forms of matter. Everything material has a material character.

1 . This means that all elements and "units" of matter have mass. "Mass" is a concept that expresses the amount of matter: how much or how little matter makes up an object or process. If we observe a real phenomenon but cannot record its mass, then we are dealing with a disturbance, a wave of the material environment. In a continuous environment, motion can be transmitted from one element to another without their significant displacement, like a wave in water.

In short, everything that exists has mass and nothing else. If someone claims that something has no mass, then they are trying to deceive you.

2 . The material nature of matter also means that everything is a whole for its constituent elements and a part of something greater. Everything has some structure, internal organization and is connected to everything else in a certain way. There are no bodies or phenomena that consist of themselves, are the first cause of themselves or are not connected to anything. If someone claims such a thing, you are being deceived.

3 . Further, the material nature of matter means that everything has form and content, i.e. its structure contains elements responsible for external boundaries (form, extent) and internal boundaries (content). When we say about something "what is it?", we mean its content. When we say about something "what is it like?", we mean its form. Form is always meaningful, and content is always somehow formed. Form and content correspond to each other. If the content changes, then the form will also change, but not immediately. If external forces change the form, the content will be forced to adapt to these changes. If someone claims that something has no form or no content, then they are trying to deceive you.

All these are logical conclusions based on human experience, on active interaction with the surrounding world (production, experiments, observations) and within society itself. These are irrefutable, absolute truths.

If we dig even deeper than the material nature of matter, we will notice that the entire diversity of forms of matter, objects, processes appears in the form of qualitative and quantitative moments. In everything we can find 1) uniqueness, dissimilarity, distinctiveness from everything in general and 2) identity, similarity with this or that. The category of quality expresses the first, quantity - the second.

For example, the quality of you as a person is what distinguishes you from all people and from all things in the universe. And quantity is the connection of you into some identical groups. Let's say you are first of all a person, and there are almost 8 billion people today. You belong to the Russian culture, as do 250 million people, etc. But any quality can be broken down into a number of some constituent qualities. Let's say the quality of your personality is represented first of all by a certain number of correct and incorrect actions, good and evil done, decency and meanness. And so on. Likewise, your organism is a certain number of certain systems and apparatuses of life activity, limbs, bones, tissues, etc.

However, quality is primary , and quantity is always the similarity of some qualities . If you have ten plums on the table in front of you, then all these plums are different, but they are all plums.

The question arises, how and why do some things and processes collide and form something new, while others do not? Or, conversely, why does something, under the influence of external forces, disintegrate into simpler components ?

Quality is the certainty of things, processes . The result of this interaction depends on the interaction of different qualities.

For simplicity of logical illustration of these processes the following verbal explanation is offered: all qualities represent OPPOSITES relative to each other , and their collision, i.e. interaction (mutual reflection), is the UNITY that they constitute. If this unity during the collision links them together, then we have before us the formation of something new, more complex. If this unity during the collision does not link them, then their potentials and vectors simply change. Sometimes one destroys the other.

An example can be given not only from physics or chemistry, but also from everyday life. For example, you as an individual interact with another person. You are opposites. Your unity is manifested in interaction, in communication, but above all in common activities. Some friction occurs, "exchange of social energy", and the more of it, the wider and longer the practice, the more this clash becomes unity. As a result, either you become friends, i.e. form something new, a fellowship of two people, or someone will only somehow influence someone. Or maybe it will end in a conflict, a struggle of characters and even a fight. The same thing happens in the interaction of an individual and a group.

By the way, interaction in the universe is always a mutual reflection of things, processes, phenomena . The word "reflection" is used here because later, at higher levels of matter organization, interaction through collision plays a key role in the development of biological and social forms of matter.

Further. More questions arise: what is all matter, the entirety of the material world as a whole? Where is it located and relative to what does it change?

This is how we approach space and time.

The point is that matter does not simply exist through movement, it moves in space and changes in time. Space is, in fact, the receptacle of matter . It itself is immaterial and absolute, like time. Time is pure immaterial movement, relative to which all changes in the world occur .

If space and time are immaterial, insubstantial, how can we assert that they exist, that they constitute elements of being? Only indirectly through matter. Matter must move in something and change in motion relative to something absolute. Otherwise it is unthinkable. Moreover, space and time are infinite, that is, they have neither beginning nor end. Consequently, matter, which fills all space and exists in time, is infinite, has neither beginning nor end, and, therefore, is indestructible. The latter is clearly confirmed in practice by the law of conservation of energy. And the infinity of space and time confirms everything observed in general, if we approach it conscientiously and reasonably.

Some people say, "I can't imagine infinity." But if you think about it carefully, if you think hard, you'll realize that, on the contrary, it's impossible to imagine anything absolutely finite.

Here is something and now it is gone. And what is left? Emptiness? But there is no emptiness in nature, it is even unthinkable. Emptiness is imagined as an empty box or some kind of vacuum. Now there is something - a box or a vacuum, they at least have some boundaries and volume. Even mathematical "emptiness", i.e. zero, is already something. It is zero. It exists as a "mathematical reality", it has its own symbol "0", etc.

In short, the universe is infinite, space is infinite, time is infinite, and matter moving in space and existing in time is infinite. And therefore, the forms and varieties of matter are also infinite. The universe has no beginning and will have no end. All the concrete forms of matter that appear and disappear are finite .

From this, for example, follows the conclusion that there are no gods or higher powers, that somewhere in the universe there is necessarily life, including intelligent life. But the main thing: everything that will be, has already happened . But at the same time, everything that was, and everything that will be, has always happened and will happen in a unique form . Just as in the universe there are no two absolutely identical things, no two absolutely identical atoms, but all things are similar to one degree or another, identical. So all events, on the one hand, are unique, on the other - they repeat each other.

So.

Matter is infinite.

It's moving.

Moves in infinite space and changes in infinitely flowing time.

It is a thing, i.e. it has mass, form, content, is a whole and a part of something larger.

Material forms interact as opposites and sometimes form stable unities.

These are the main characteristics of material forms and their movement in space and time.

If you learn these axioms of materialism, comprehend their deep content, then you will receive in your worldview a logical "coordinate axis" for a quick, almost intuitive primary scientific examination of any theoretical calculations. If some ideas contradict the above, then they are anti-scientific, if not, then they are possibly true.

The time will come when these foundations will be studied from the earliest years of life. In a thousand years, it will be difficult for people to imagine that in our era we somehow lived without a scientific-materialistic worldview, just as it is surprising today to realize how ignorant the medieval masses were, applauding the burning of yet another witch or yet another Giordano Bruno.

II. Development
Having clarified the basic conclusions about the fundamental foundations of being, in order to move on to society, it is necessary to understand what development is .

In nature, everything is constantly moving, one might say, chaotically. The magnitude of movement in the universe is equal to infinity. Somewhere, something is destroyed, somewhere, something new is formed. And something new is always the addition of something simpler. And destruction is always the disintegration of something complex into something simple.

Therefore, development is also a movement, but not just a movement, but a movement from simple to complex, from primitive to more perfect. .

The key to understanding the essence of development is the formula of IDENTITY and UNITY OF OPPOSITES described above. described above . Everything complex is composed of the simple precisely as a unity of opposites that possess identity.

In general, all "units" of matter are identical at least as material objects. However, in a specific case, for their cohesion, i.e. stable unity, a higher level of identity is required. Roughly speaking, they need to fit each other. If you throw a brick at the Sun, it will simply burn and their "unity" will end almost instantly. The Sun will not even notice this, since the difference in their "potentials" is too great. But if another star approaches the Sun, they can form a pair, make up a unity of opposites, given their identity. The same is true for molecules and atoms, they connect with each other, but with certain qualitative characteristics. So it is with everything in the world.

When comprehending a specific phenomenon as a unity and identity of opposites, one should not fall into schematism. We are not talking about the direct connection of two things or processes, two "units" of matter. Unity is a kind of internal struggle, and opposites are a kind of two vectors, two forces within a phenomenon. These opposites themselves constitute a multitude of different elements within themselves. For example, a specific person can be imagined as the identity and unity of the biological and social, the physical and spiritual. Their identity is manifested in the fact that both the biological-physical and the social-spiritual are the human organism, the same apparatuses are responsible for hunger, thirst, instincts, and for thinking, love, empathy, talents and work. And their unity consists in the struggle of the so-called bodily vector and the spiritual, in the volitional overcoming of primitive semi-animal reflexes, instincts by consciousness, morality, some social functions, public duty, etc. In the unity and identity of opposites there is always a leading side, a leading opposite, which seems to win the struggle. In man, this is the spiritual side. If there is a man in whom biology, reflexes and instincts have taken over, then he writes himself out of the composition of people, returning to the world of animals.

When we take deeper definitions of a person, already within the framework of studying society, then in them the same identical opposites in unity will still be visible, but at a more complex level. Because they reflect the essential characteristics of a person.

Let me note in due course that in science, truths of a higher order always clarify previous truths. On the one hand, they make the previous understanding less significant, already too superficial, on the other hand, they repeat previous truths at a higher level, in more detail and concretely. In this sense, knowledge is spiral-shaped . Why? Because the development of material forms itself is spiral-shaped.

Everything complex and new is a repetition of the simple and old at a higher level . This truth is partially reflected in the proverb: "Everything new is well forgotten old." But the source of this proverb is even more philosophically accurate, a line from a poem by the now little-known poet Fofanov: "Ah, the wisdom of being is economical: everything new in it is sewn from old stuff."

Again, for the sake of simplicity of logical illustration, the spiral-shaped nature of development (and, consequently, knowledge) is described by the formula that development is the NEGATION OF NEGATIONS . One opposite negates another opposite, and their unity represents something new, i.e., the negation of this negation. This sounds rather complicated, but if you think about it carefully, it is perhaps impossible to formulate it more concisely.

The concept of development also relates to the main conclusions about the fundamental bases of existence, which in the system represent the laws of the universe . In other words, these are objective, internal, essential, stable and therefore recurring connections of the phenomena of the objective world. They cannot be changed, destroyed or bypassed, they can only be ignored or cognized and taken into account .

So, the development of matter gave birth to life on Earth.

The difference between non-living and living matter is not so insurmountable. There are many intermediate forms, for example viruses. They are seemingly non-living organisms, but their existence is very similar to the behavior of living organisms.

The development of life on Earth led to the emergence of human society - a social form of matter. There are also many examples of transitional forms, higher animals, which also live collectively, communicate, etc. In short, they vaguely resemble societies. Domesticated animals, especially those living directly with people, are significantly more developed than their natural counterparts. Some domestic dogs quite well display human emotions, communicate with their owners in a primitive way, experience simple experiences, etc. But all animals lack something to become conscious. Some lack arms, others - legs, others - the complexity of nervous tissue, etc. Only man was able to leave, to rise from the animal kingdom. This path was also not easy, and the concept of "homo sapiens" is generalized. There were different "branches" of anthropoid apes, and now there are people of different races, etc. But we all make up human society, we all became people.

So WHAT distinguishes man from animal? What made a humanoid ape into Man?

The most obvious: speech, culture, morality, ethics, etc. This is how religion and bad philosophy explained it: a person has a soul. But animals and plants do not have a soul. In the past, "civilized" Europeans believed that slaves and aborigines did not have a soul. But this is all an unscientific understanding, it only takes some individual elements of society and puts them in the center of the explanation in order to introduce the idea that God endowed man with his essence, humanity.

In reality, all living organisms exist through the struggle with external living conditions . Life arises in certain circumstances (atmosphere, water, mineral soil), appears from the development of inanimate nature and is distinguished by its specific form of movement - the exchange of substances with the natural environment. At first, the simplest, mainly single-celled, organisms, bacteria, appeared. Then they gradually developed, forming two main directions - plants and animals. Plants are more primitive because they do not move, while animals, including insects, have learned to move, navigate in space and get food for themselves at this expense.

The animal world evolved, more and more complex organisms appeared with more and more sophisticated life support systems, which allowed them to expand their habitat, food supply, and better adapt to changing environmental conditions. There were and are a great many different species, varieties, groups, and types of animals. Life is seething and goes on on all fronts. Some swim, others crawl, others fly, and others do a little bit of everything. Some feed on this, others on that, but they are all united by their metabolism with the external environment. This metabolism is the struggle for life. Or rather: life is the struggle .

Remember this expression, it makes sense in all possible aspects. Life is a struggle . They say: "Movement is life." This is true, but it is more accurate to say that life is a specific form of movement, namely, struggle. Now society is at such a low level of development that people do nothing but fight with each other. From competition, careerism and the "battle of the sexes" in relationships to terrorism, genocide and war. But this will pass, the time will come when the struggle of humanity will become joint, collective and will focus on the transformation of nature, including the conquest of outer space.

It is written above that matter, one might say, moves chaotically. But it only seems so to us, in fact, all movement of matter is lawful . The lawfulness of the movement of matter lies in the fact that movement is absolute . Matter exists through movement, and all material forms and formations move, collide, cling and fall apart. The vector and character of movement of each "particle" of matter is determined by its past state and interaction with other "particles". The movement of matter has no cause, no initial impulse, it has never begun and will never stop. Such a physical concept as inertia reflects the indestructibility of movement and the absence of absolute rest (only space itself can be called absolute rest).

From this movement it follows that in the world of inanimate matter everything collides with everything everywhere and this continuously causes the creation of new forms of matter. In the depths of the Earth, complex minerals are formed from simple substances, in outer space, stars and planets are formed from particle flows, etc. That is, the irresistibility of movement and the collision of material objects leads to the appearance of something new, albeit quantitatively, in terms of mass, this new is a mere trifle, it looks like an exception to the general flow of simple motion (ether, protons and light atoms).

This same law, but at a much more complex level, governs the evolution of living organisms, i.e. the appearance and disappearance of organisms and their methods of adaptation (adaptation, speciation, extinction).

A living organism is many times more complex than non-living substances. It has much more dynamic movement, it continuously renews itself, grows, changes many times faster than simple and complex substances. A living cell is a rather fragile system due to its complexity. The life cycle of a cell lasts from twenty minutes to, in rare cases, several years. An organism exists through renewal, division of cells (or one cell, if it is a single-celled organism), but its life cycle is not long compared to non-living matter. Renewal of cells always only approximately recreates their previous forms and content, just as children only approximately repeat the personalities of their parents and, in general, the “average personality” of the previous generation. Under the influence of various external factors, cells and cell structures that form the apparatus of the organism accumulate various changes. This process is called mutation.

Thus, a living organism in this sense is, as it were, an interaction of two principles: heredity , i.e., the repetition of cells and their structures during division (reproduction), and mutations , i.e., changes, differences of cells and their structures from the parental ones. Constant mutations lead to continuous changes in living organisms. Based on external conditions, organisms with the most successful mutations survive, which gradually become part of the heredity base. This is how the mechanism of natural selection works. And in it, naturally, the identity and unity of opposites is also manifested.

In other words, in this case, development is a movement from simple to complex as a way of survival, as a type of improvement of metabolism.

It should be understood that mutations do not always represent a complication. They can also be a simplification, the death of some apparatuses and systems of the organism. It is important to record the continuous movement in the biological form of matter, due to which adaptation to living conditions occurs.

In no case should evolution be presented as a process of optimal organization of beings. Nature does not know such categories as rationality, optimality, expediency. These are concepts of human thinking. The main thing in nature is movement, and not WHAT is destroyed or continues to exist in the course of this movement, helps or hinders survival, is rejected by adaptation. Moreover, as a result of "rejection" what remains is not the best, but sufficient for adaptation.

In fact, if you observe the leaps in the development of anything complex, you will find that the leap does not occur where the conditions are most ripe-overripe, but where they are ripe enough. The anthropoid ape from which humans evolved was not the most developed primate, but it was quite developed. Gifted children usually grow up to be mediocre individuals, and true geniuses were only talented enough in childhood. The first truly communist revolution took place not in the most industrially and socially developed country, but in a sufficiently developed one. Scientific discoveries are almost always made by people who were not considered the main stars and experts in the scientific and professional community.

Logically, this is explained by the fact that the moment of transition from an old quality to a new quality, the moment of a leap in development, represents, as it were, the MEASURE of what is necessary. They say: "In everything, one must know the measure." Although here we are not talking about a sense of measure, nevertheless, measure objectively exists in any movement from simple to complex, which is reflected in folk wisdom.

Therefore, you will often notice that perfectionists, i.e. people who strive for boundless improvement of something, if they do not find the strength to stop, then they are unable to either complete what they started or create something new. It is necessary to strive for perfection and improvement, but without becoming a hostage to this desire. This is one of the laws of any development - after reaching a certain level of quantitative growth, a leap in quality occurs.

III. Origin of society
The most important factor in the complication, higher level of development of animals, was collectivism . Some animals adapted over time to survive in communities. It is in the pre-social connection of relatively independent animals that the key to understanding the process of forming communication, high interaction, and the unification of efforts lies. The ancestors of people were such animals that survived collectively.

Here we see the influence not of mutation as such, although its role is also present, but of the development of forms of interaction within a species, a community. But the essence is the same: animals adapt, just in this case mainly by reproducing behavior (i.e. through the evolution of mental processes), and not by reproducing the body. An excellent example is ant families, their colonies and supercolonies.

That is, we see development already as a complication for the improvement of metabolism (to a lesser extent), and as a complication of mental processes that control behavior. And this is logical, the body has become more complex, has reached sufficient perfection (the skeleton, internal organs, nervous system, limbs, etc. have appeared), the process of deeper complication of behavior has begun , including interaction.

The successful configuration of the organism and animal collectivism made anthropoid apes capable of collective work. It was work that made a man out of an ape .

What is labor? It is, one might say, the highest form of metabolism with the external environment, which allows not only to obtain food and adapt individual external, superficial elements of the environment to one's needs, but to transform nature in the broadest and deepest sense. Man creates complex tools, learns about the surrounding reality, sets goals, plans, and changes and transforms it through joint efforts with his fellows. As a result, through collective labor, man creates a powerful material and spiritual culture, thus satisfying the need for his own existence and development.

In other words, labor is also a form of struggle for life with external, natural conditions, but mainly not through self-adaptation, but through the transformation of these conditions themselves. The content of the labor process is the transformation of nature, the essence of labor is the reproduction of society through the transformation of nature . That is, humanity, having moved from simple adaptation to external conditions to the transformation of nature, itself changes, develops, improving methods, ways of labor, obtaining ever better results. At the same time, the main characteristic of labor, one of the conditions for its possibility is the unification of people's efforts, collectivity.

Labor emerges as a social phenomenon and is carried out by society, not by an individual or a local collective. It is important to understand this because an individual may feel as if he or she is working as an isolated, self-sufficient subject. However, even if you are Robinson Crusoe, you can only survive due to the “social forces” of your personality (will, knowledge, skills, experience).

So, we move on to society, and now in it we will find the manifestation of all the same fundamental laws of existence. But it is time to say something about the individual, because man looks at society first and foremost through the eyes of the individual.

Contemporary liberal ideological attitudes about the relationship between the individual and society, the individual and the collective teach that the individual is valuable in himself, he is an independent figure, entering into a relationship with society (in the form of other individuals, their private and group interests). This directly contradicts the essence of society as it is understood by science, which has studied the process of the formation of society.

In general, one of the most important methods of scientific research is to consider the subject of research from the point of view of its genesis, i.e. origin . If you have something incomprehensible in front of you, then the first thing you need to do after the initial observation is to study how it came into being, the process of its formation. This provides the key to understanding. The presentation of the material can be analytical (i.e. move from the structure and constituent elements to the whole), but scientific research always begins with genesis, with an examination of how this “whole” was formed (therefore, analysis is not a scientific method, but a truly scientific method includes it as a moment). That is why, by the way, the scientific discovery of the role of labor in the transformation of anthropoid apes into people played a key role. That is why all idealists and preachers cling so tightly to the absurd ideas of the divine or other mystical origin of man, and fiercely fight precisely against scientific truth. After all, if man was not created by God, then most likely... man created God. For God, as a figure who has no influence on anything, is of no interest to the church.

IV. Man
Man is a manifestation of society , and nothing else. An individual is a product of society. What kind of society is, such are the people who make it up. An individual cannot exist outside of society. If a person is forcibly removed from society, he will perish as a miserable, good-for-nothing animal.

In short, society is primary in relation to the individual, dominates him, and he is its particular manifestation . Therefore, society is a social form of matter, and the individual is its moment . But not just some “cog” or component element: the individual is a reflection of society as a whole.

This truth is quite easy to think through. Take an individual. He seems to be absolutely free in his actions or inactions, guided by views, ideas, needs, interests, emotions, passions, free to act spontaneously, without thinking at all about what he is doing. He seems to be limited only by people like him, with similar input conditions. Therefore, the only limitation for him can be the will of other people and his own views, mental makeup.

But where do his views, ideas, passions, emotions come from? What are the grounds and conditions for their emergence? Why are they like this and not different? Why do they coincide in many people and large groups of people with identical dispositions are formed, but these identical dispositions of different groups are opposed to each other? Wouldn't it be more logical for all people to want the same thing and act rationally?

And man appears even more limited if we take into account THAT which he is incapable of changing. He is born into certain conditions of social life that do not depend on him, into the circumstances that were formed by previous generations. This concerns both material culture - cities, industry, technologies, etc. - and spiritual culture - language, science, art, ideologies, etc. He can only live in these circumstances, participate in their further development. Or... kill himself, thus taking away his talents from the total potential of society and orphaning his loved ones.

Take yourself personally. Look closely at the structure of your life and your consciousness and you will understand the following. You as a person are a product and manifestation of the society of the era in which we live. Everything that is meaningful in you: all your thoughts, experiences, ideas, talents, shortcomings, volitional impulses, needs, whims and caprices - all this is a private, individual refraction of the essence and specificity of social existence, which gave birth to you. Not only and not so much your parents, but the entire set of social relations.

There is no individual person, there is only society, which manifests itself in individuals. The idea of ​​the existence of an individual, which is the basis of liberalism, is the most harmful vulgarity and distortion of reality.

Theoretically, by studying an individual mentally healthy person, one can get to the bottom of everything social that gave birth to them. This is what psychology speculates on - one of the most unscientific, commercialized "sciences" of our time. Psychologists at best do people a disservice, inventing tricks on how to come to terms with certain circumstances, to adapt to them, and usually simply cripple people spiritually for the sake of making money. There is only one normal path to a healthy psyche: 1) awareness of what society is, what it is like, how to fight for its improvement, 2) goal-oriented, productive, socially useful practice. If we proceed from the principle of self-isolation of the individual from society, then nothing but a spiritual and moral invalid will result. Moreover, those who train and support a host of psychologists, mentors, coaches and other evil spirits benefit from fragmenting society, separating people and instilling capricious, painful egoism in their psyche. The powers that be need the average, ordinary person to be 1) a weak-willed executive worker, 2) a greedy, envious, insatiable consumer and 3) a self-sacrificing whiner.

(Much, much more at link, in Russian.)

https://prorivists.org/serious/#4

Google Translator

[blindpig]

You weren't there.

The mammalian and avian brains evolved in parallel, independently. Birds think based on a different neuroanatomical organization. But despite the differences in biological structure, their functions are more or less the same.

The eyes of chordates, mollusks, and, for example, annelids, also evolved independently. Moreover, the structure and operating principles of the eyes are remarkably similar, as is their functionality.

It seems that everyone is different, each person absolutely inimitable. But experience shows that practice makes individuals similar to one another to a very significant degree. No matter how "creative, free, and inventive" a person is, 15 years of working behind the wheel of a truck, behind the cash register at Pyaterochka, in the accounting department, or in a foundry will transform them into the typical driver, cashier, accountant, or factory worker. Their lifestyle, daily routine, habits, even tastes, and, ultimately, their way of thinking will change. This isn't about stereotypes or typical images, or whether these are good or bad. It's about the quantity and quality of experience determining everything.

When did people develop names? Clearly much later than the development of advanced communication, speech, and thought.

Is that how it was? The healthiest and bravest man in the community came out into the center and said, "Call me Ivan!"?

Or did names, nicknames, and appellations arise after the formation of an objective need for individual differentiation between members of a group?

Imagine this picture: a community with a primitive way of life and economy. There is a master craftsman who practices blacksmithing. He is a blacksmith. That's what they call him. He has a son. Who is he? The blacksmith's son. The blacksmith grows old and dies. Now his son takes his place. Who is he now? Now he is... a blacksmith. He has a son, and so on... This refined mental story, quite realistic, well illuminates the answer to a fashionable psychological problem: what is the self? In short, the "self" is the thing a person has done that should be done, and the thing they have not done that should be done. And... that's all. Moreover, the "ought" is determined objectively: by the demands of progress and the circumstances of a person's life.

Why is that?

Everything THAT is is what it is, and not something else, because it meets the external and internal conditions of its existence.

External conditions determine the form (structure, organization, etc.) and content (place, functionality, meaning, role, etc.), and internal conditions determine from what and how the formation will occur.

External conditions are the spatial orientation of any object or process and its infinite number of connections with all other objects and processes in the universe .

Internal conditions are the past of any object or process, the quantity and quality of matter and the quantity and quality of its movement, which constitute what an isolated object or process consists of .

Since the internal and external conditions of life on Earth are the same for all organisms, biological evolution, while following different paths, nevertheless produces not only similar structures but also analogous functionality. And this is true not only in the brain and eye, but throughout everything.

This, incidentally, suggests that intelligent life in the universe exists on the same or similar foundations: RNA/DNA/proteins. And that it exists is undeniable, for the universe is infinite. Moreover, it seems that life in its primitive forms exists, if not on every planet, then in many other places.

Since the internal and external conditions of social practice among people of the same professions are similar, they also become similar to each other.

This fundamental law between WHAT IS , WHAT WAS , and the CONDITIONS under which it was and is, allows us not only to predict the future, but also to know the past.

However, in order to apply it, it is necessary to clearly know and understand the internal and external conditions themselves, to distinguish the primary from the derivative, the main from the secondary, the essential from the attributes.

It's also important not to fall into contextualism, the probabilistic-causal approach, and other formalisms that surround agnosticism. Marxists and dialectical materialists always speak of objective reality, not simply of models, principles of perception, interpretations, and the like. Bourgeois philosophers can call our theory of knowledge one of a kind, a configurator of approximate models, and so on—that's their bread and butter. We proceed in everything from the axioms of dialectical materialism (dialectical materialism), so for us, knowledge has as its starting point matter moving in space and existing in time, and the result—either established truth or error.

Thus, with dialectical methodology and proper study, the historical past is nothing more than the study of the present . Today flows from yesterday, and yesterday from the day before yesterday, and so on ad infinitum, until the moment when what is today is represented in the past as a barely discernible potential for the future.

For example, our current Russian society is a consequence of the self-destruction of the USSR, the collapse of Soviet society—that's its most important feature. Meanwhile, serfdom, Peter the Great's reforms, and the Crimean War have virtually no significant consequences in modern times, nor have the local battles with the Polovtsians and Pechenegs.

So, those who say about history, "You weren't there, how do you know?" are gravely and fatally mistaken. Based on the laws of history and the recording of indisputable facts, Marxism reveals the fundamental, essential, and important factors that determined the social life of the past and became the material and causes of the social life of the present .

The point is also that historical truths, which constitute our system of knowledge about the past—both for humanity as a whole and for specific regions, countries, and peoples—are an important component of political practice. Revolution is an objective necessity of progress ; it is always concrete and specific; the conditions of its development, its strength, and its pace are determined by the circumstances and characteristics of a particular country or region. Communist revolution is man-made in the sense of leadership and organization, and therefore cannot ignore both the present and the past from which the present emerged. In essence, it is the practice of communist revolution that provides the criterion for the truth of social understanding, including historical understanding .

A. Redin
09/18/2025

https://prorivists.org/109_history/

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[blindpig]

About everyday thinking

Everyday thinking is a holistic view of the surrounding world, formed within the confines of a person's everyday life. Initially, everyday thinking develops spontaneously in children, but as a child grows up, learns, engages in activities that deepen, and expands their social connections, it is overcome, horizons expand, and consciousness emerges.

Everyday thinking, characteristic of ordinary people, is the direct opposite of consciousness.

Moreover, ordinary thinking is opposed to the point of antagonism to the innate curiosity, the desire for knowledge, experimentation, and, in general, talents inherent in man.

It happens that, having achieved a certain level of fulfillment in their talents, a person stops growing personally, hitting a ceiling of their abilities. This is primarily due to the fact that they remain a philistine.

With the correct formation of personality, the balance of primary and intellectual needs constantly shifts towards the latter precisely due to the increasing quality of thinking, new knowledge and awareness, primarily of the social essence of oneself and the surrounding processes.

In terms of conceptual content, everyday thinking is a hodgepodge of outdated notions, prejudices, superstitions, stereotypes, fashionable and fleeting trends. But methodologically, everyday thinking is fundamentally built on pragmatism.

Pragmatism can and should be fully revealed not in thinking per se, but in human behavior. Therefore, an important condition of everyday thinking is its crude objectivity, its everyday relevance, its direct connection to everyday practice and a person's material interests, often momentary.

A fish seeks the deepest waters, a person the best. All for the sake of the quiet comfort of a petty bourgeois existence and the well-being of the common man.

So, the most important characteristic of everyday thinking is its lack of principles. Not even in the sense of abandoning principles for profit, but rather their absence. Principles, systemic ideas, concepts, and beliefs are generally relegated by everyday thinking to so-called bare theory.

However, everyday thinking does contain a couple of principles. For example, adherence to pragmatism and self-interest can certainly be considered a principle. A key feature of everyday thinking is the gap between theory and practice, which is either consciously recognized as a principle, or as a complete misunderstanding of the connection between theory and practice.

A wonderful and widespread example of this principle is the schoolboy question: Why do I need to know this? How will this be useful in life?

As is well known, commodity-money relations, including wage labor relations, have a monstrous and pernicious impact on people's thinking, demotivating them from a very early age (when parents turn rewards into exchanges: do your homework, play computer games). Everyday thinking, like jelly, adapts to the prevailing bourgeois relations and becomes imbued with monetary and exchange principles. This affects people's psyches so deeply that they often find it difficult to explain love, friendship, duty, public interest, honor, and dignity. They begin to interpret all these phenomena in terms of approaches: you give to me, I give to you; take more, give less. Everyday thinking under capitalism is philistinism.

https://prorivists.org/109_philistine/

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