THE SOCRATICS
In connection with the sophisms about
the “heap” and “bald,” Hegel repeats the
transition of quantity into quality and vice
versa: dialectics. (Pp. 139-140)
143-144: At length about the fact that
“language in essence expresses only
the universal; what is meant, however,
is the special, the particular. Hence
what is meant cannot be said in speech.”
(“It”? The most universal word of all.)
NB
in language
there is only
the
universal
Who is
it
?
I
. Every person is an I.
Das
Sinnliche?
[21]
It is a
univer-
sa1
, etc., etc. “This”?? Everyone
is “this.”
Why can the particular not be
named? One of the objects of a given
kind (tables) is distinguished by some-
thing from the rest.
“That the universal should in philosophy
be given a place of such importance that
only the universal can be expressed, and
the ‘it’ which is meant, cannot, indicates
a state of consciousness and thought which
the philosophical culture of our time has
not yet reached.”
Hegel includes here “the scepticism of
our times” (143)—
[
Kant’s?
]
and those who
assert that “sensuous certainty is the truth.”
(143)
For das Sinnliche “is a universal.” (143)
Thereby Hegel hits every materialism
except
dialectical materialism.      
		    NB
NB
To call by name?—but the name is a
contingent symbol and does not express
Sache selbst
[22]
(how can the partic-
ular be expressed?) (144)
Hegel seriously “believed,” thought,
that materialism as a philosophy was
impossible, for philosophy is the science
of thinking, of the
universal
, but the
universal is a thought. Here he repeated
the error of the same subjective ideal-
ism that he always called “bad” ideal-
ism. Objective (and still more, abso-
lute) idealism came
very close
to ma-
terialism by a zig-zag (and a somersault),
even partially
became transformed into it
.
Hegel
and
dialectical
materialism
The Cyrenaics
[23]
held sensation for the
truth, “the truth is not
what
is in sensation,
the content, but is itself sensation.” (151)
sensation
in the theory
of knowledge
of the
Cyrenaics...
“The main principle of the Cyrenaic
school, therefore, is sensation, which
should form the real criterion of the true
and the good....” (153)
“Sensation is the indeterminate unit”
(154), but if thinking is added, then the
universal appears and “simple subjectivity”
disappears.
(Phenomenologists à la Mach & Co.
inevitably
become idealists on the
question of the
universal
, “law,” “ne-
cessity,” etc.)
NB
[24]
the Cyrenaics
and Mach
and Co.
Another Cyrenaic, Hegesias, “recognised”
“this incongruity between sensation and
universality....” (155)
They confuse sensation as a principle
of the theory of knowledge and a prin-
ciple of ethics. This NB. But Hegel
separated
the theory of knowledge.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO
In regard to Plato’s plan by which
philosophers ought to rule the state:
...“The territory of history is different
from that of philosophy....”
...“We must recognise that action repre-
sents at the same time the endeavours of
the subject as such for particular ends....All
those particular ends are really only means
for bringing forth the Idea, because
it
is the absolute power.” (193)
Particular
ends in
history create
the “Idea”
(the law of
history)
Concerning Plato’s doctrine on ideas:
...“because sensuous perception shows
nothing purely, or as it is in itself” (
Pha-
edo
)—p. 213—therefore the body is a
hindrance to the soul.
“purity”
(= lifeless-
ness?) of
universal
conceptions
The significance of the
universal
is
contradictory: it is dead, impure, in-
complete, etc., etc., but it alone is
a
stage
towards knowledge of the
concrete
, for we can never know
the concrete completely. The
infinite
sum of general conceptions, laws, etc.,
gives the
concrete
in its completeness.
NB
the dialec-
tics of
cognition
NB
↓
The movement of cognition
to
the
object can always only proceed dia-
lectically: to retreat in order to hit
←
more surely—reculer pour mieux sauter
(savoir?).
[25]
Converging and diverging
lines: circles which touch one another.
Knotenpunkt
[26]
= the practice of man-
kind and of human history.
(
Practice = the criterion of the coin-
cidence of one of the infinite aspects
of the real.
)
NB
These Knotenpunkte represent
a unity of contradictions, when Be-
ing and not-Being, as vanishing
moments, coincide for a moment,
in the given moments of the move-
ment (= of technique, of history,
etc.)
In analysing Plato’s dialectics, Hegel
once again tries to show the difference
between subjective, sophistic dialectics and
objective dialectics:
“That everything is one, we say of each
thing: ‘it is one and at the same time we
show also that it is many, its many parts
“empty
dialectics”
in Hegel
and properties’—but it is thereby said:
‘it is one in quite another respect from
that in which it is many’—we do not
bring these thoughts together. Thus the
conception and the words merely go back-
NB
wards and forwards from the one to the
other. If this passing to and fro is performed
with consciousness, it is empty dialectics,
which does not unite the opposites and
does not come to unity.” (232)
“empty
dialectics”
P l a t o
in the “Sophistes”:
“The point of difficulty, and what we
ought to aim at, is to show that what
is other is the same, and what is the same
is other, and indeed in the same regard
and from the same point of view.” (233)
NB
“But we must be conscious of the fact
that the Notion is neither merely the im-
mediate in truth, although it is the sim
ple—but it is of spiritual simplicity,
essentially the thought which has re-
turned into itself (immediately is only
this red, etc.); nor that it is only that
which reflects itself in itself, the thing
of consciousness; but is also in itself, i.e.,
it is objective essence....” (245)
NB
objectivism
The concept is not something imme-
diate (although the concept is a “simple”
thing, but this simplicity is “spiritual,”
the simplicity of the Idea)—what is im-
mediate is only the sensation of “red”
(“this is red”), etc. The concept is not
“merely the thing of consciousness”; but
is the
essence of the object
(ge-
genständliches Wesen), it is something
an sich, “in itself.”
...“This conviction of the nature of the
Notion, Plato did not ixpress so defi-
nitely....” (245)
Hegel dilates at length on Plato’s
“Philosophy of Nature,” the ultra-non-
sensical mysticism of ideas, such as that
“triangles form the essence of sensuous
things” (265), and such mystical non-
sense. That is highly characteristic! The
mystic-idealist-spiritualist Hegel (like
all official, clerical-idealist philosophy
of our day) extols and expatiates on
mysticism, idealism in the history of
philosophy, while ignoring and slight-
ing materialism. Cf. Hegel on Democ-
ritus—nil!! On Plato a huge mass
of mystical slush.
idealism and
mysticism in
Hegel
(and
in Plato)
Speaking of Plato’s republic and of the
current opinion that it is a chimera, Hegel
repeats his favourite saying:
...“What is real is rational. But one must
know, distinguish, exactly what is real;
in common life all is real, but there is
a difference between the phenomenal world
and reality....” (274)
what is real
is rational
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE
Incorrect, says Hegel, is the generally
held opinion that the philosophy of Aristotle
is “
realism
” (299), (id. p. 311 “empiricism”)
in contrast to the
idealism
of Plato. ((Here
again, Hegel clearly squeezes in a great
deal
under
idealism.))
In presenting Aristotle’s polemic against
Plato’s doctrine on ideas, Hegel
sup-
presses
its materialistic features. (Cf.
322-323
and others.)
NB
NB
He has let the cat out of the bag:
“The
elevation of Alexander” (Alexander of Mac-
((merely
edon, Aristotle’s pupil) “... into ... a god
is ... not matter for surprise ... God and
invert it))
precisely!
man are not at all so very wide asunder....”
(305)
Hegel perceives the idealism of Aris-
totle in his idea of god. (326) ((Of
course, it is idealism, but more ob-
jective and
further removed, more
general
than the idealism of Plato,
hence in the philosophy of nature more
frequently = materialism.))
Hegel has
made a com-
plete mess of
the critic-
ism of Plato’s
“ideas” in
Aristotle
Aristotle’s criticism of
Plato’s “ideas” is a criticism
of
idealism
as ideal-
ism in general:
for
whence concepts, abstrac-
tions, are derived, thence
come also “law” and “ne-
cessity,” etc. The idealist
Hegel in cowardly fashion
fought shy of the under-
mining of the
foundations
of idealism by Aristotle
(in his criticism of Plato’s
ideas).
NB
When
one
idealist
criticises the founda-
tions of idealism of
another
idealist,
ma-
terialism
is always the
gainer thereby. Cf.
Aristotle versus Plato,
etc., Hegel versus
Kant, etc.
“Leucippus and Plato accordingly say
that motion has always existed, but they
give no reason for the assertion.” (Aristot-
le,
Metaphysik
, XII, 6 and 7.) p. 328
Aristotle
thus
pitifully brings
forward god
against
the material-
ist Leucippus and the idealist Plato.
There is eclecticism in Aristotle
here. But Hegel
conceals
the
weakness for the sake of
mysticism
!
Hegel, the supporter of dialectics,
could not understand the
dialec-
tical
transition
from
matter
to
motion,
from
matter
to
con-
sciousness—especially the second.
Marx corrected the error (or weak-
ness?) of the mystic.
NB
Not only is
the transition
from matter
to conscious-
ness dialecti-
cal, but also
that from
sensation to
thought, etc.
What distinguishes the dialectical tran-
sition from the undialectical transition?
The leap. The contradiction. The inter-
ruption of gradualness. The unity (iden-
tity) of Being and not-Being.
The following passage shows especially
clearly how Hegel conceals the weakness
of Aristotle’s idealism:
“Aristotle makes objects into thoughts;
hence, in being thoughts, they exist in
truth; that is their ούσία.
[27]
“The meaning of this is not, however,
that natural objects have themselves the
power of thinking, but as they are subjec-
tively thought by me, my thought is thus
also the Notion of the thing, which there-
fore constitutes its substance. But in na-
ture the Notion does not exist as thought
in this freedom, but has flesh and blood;
yet it has a soul, and this is its Notion.
Aristotle recognises what things in and
naïve!!
for themselves are; and that is their ούσία.
The Notion does not exist for itself, but it
is stunted by externality. The ordinary def
inition of truth is: ‘truth is the harmony
of the conception with the object.’ But
the conception itself is only a conception,
I am still not at all in harmony with my
conception (with its content); for when
I represent to myself a house, a beam, and
so on, I am by no means this content—
‘I’ is something other than the conception
of house. It is only in thought that there is
present a true harmony between objective
and subjective;
that constitutes me
(Hegel’s
italics). Aristotle therefore finds himself
at the most advanced standpoint; nothing
more profound can one desire to know.”
(332-333)
“In nature” concepts do not exist “in
this freedom” (in the freedom of thought
and the fantasy of
man!!
). “In nature”
they (concepts) have “flesh and blood.”—
That is excellent! But it is materialism.
Human concepts are the
soul
of nature
—this is only a mystical way of saying
that in human concepts nature is reflect-
ed
in a distinctive way
(this NB: in
a
distinctive
and
dialectical
way!!).
Pp. 318-337
solely
on the Meta-
physics of Aristotle!! Everything essen-
tial that he has to say against Plato’s
idealism is
suppressed
!! In particu-
lar, there is suppressed the question of
existence
outside
man and humani-
ty!!! = the question of materialism!
Aristotle is an empiricist, but a
think-
ing
one. (340) “
The empirical, comprehend-
ed in its synthesis, is the speculative No-
tion
....” (341) (Hegel’s italics.)
cf.
Feuer-
bach
: To
read the
gospel of
senses in
interconnec-
tion = to
think
[28]
The coincidence of concepts with
“synthesis,” with the sum, summing up
of empiricism, sensations, the senses,
is
indubitable
for the philosophers of
all
trends.
Whence
this coincidence?
From God (I, the idea, thought, etc., etc.)
or from (out of) nature? Engels was right
in his formulation of the question.
[29]
NB
...“The subjective form constitutes the
essence of the Kantian philosophy....” (341)
Kant
On the teleology of Aristotle.
...“Nature has its means in itself and
these means are also end. This end in
nature is its λόγοζ,
[30]
the truly rational.”
(349)
“end” and
cause, law,
connection,
reason
...“Understanding is not only thinking
with consciousness. There is contained in
it also the whole, true, profound Notion
of nature, of life....” (348)
Reason (understanding), thought,
consciousness,
without nature
, not
in correspondence with nature is
falsity = materialism!
It is repulsive to read how Hegel extols
Aristotle for his “true speculative notions”
(373 of the “soul,” and much more besides),
clearly spinning a tale of idealistic (= mys-
tical) nonsense.
Suppressed are
all
the points on which
Aristotle
wavers
between idealism and ma-
terialism!!!
Regarding Aristotle’s views on the “soul,”
Hegel writes:
“All that is universal is in fact real,
as particular, individual, existing for anoth-
er” (375)—in other words, the soul.
lets the cat
out of the
bag in regard
to “realism”
Aristotle.
De anima
, II, 5:
“The difference” (between Empfinden and
Erkennen
[31]
) “is: that which causes the
sensation is external. The cause of this is
that perceptive activity is directed on the
particular, while knowledge has as its
object the universal; but the universal is,
to a certain extent, in the soul itself as
substance. Everyone can therefore think
if he wishes but sense-perception does not
depend on him, since the necessary con-
dition is that the object perceived be pres-
ent.” (377)
sense-percep-
tion and
cognition
Aristotle
comes very
close to
materialism
The crux here—“außen ist”
[32]
—
outside
man, independent of him.
That is materialism. And this founda-
tion, basis, kernel of materialism,
Hegel begins wegschwatzen
[33]
:
“This is an entirely correct view of sense-
perception,” writes Hegel, and he goes on
to explain that there is undoubtedly “pas-
sivity” in sense—perception: “it is a matter
of indifference whether subjectively or
objectively; in both there is contained
the moment of passivity.... With this mo-
ment of passivity, Aristotle does not fall
NB!!
short of idealism, sense-perception is al-
ways in one aspect passive. That is, how-
ever, a bad idealism which thinks that
the passivity and spontaneity of the mind
depend on whether the determination given
is from within or from without, as if there
the idealist
is caught!
were freedom in sense-perception; the lat-
ter is a sphere of limitation”!!... (377-378)
((The idealist stops up the gap leading
to materialism. No, it is not gleich-
	  gültig
[34]
whether
from without
or
from within
. This is precisely the
point! “
From without
”—that is mat-
terialism. “From within” = idealism.
And with the word “
passivity
,” while
keeping silent about the term (
“from
without”
) in Aristotle, Hegel descri-
bed in a different way the same
from without
.
Passivity means
precisely from without!! Hegel re-
places the idealism of
sense-percep-
tion
by the idealism of
thought
, but
equally by idealism
.))
NB
...“Subjective idealism declares that there
are no external things, they are a determi-
nation of our Self. This must be admitted
in respect to sense-perception. I am passive
in sense-perception, sense-perception is
subjective; it is existence, a state, a deter-
mination in me, not freedom. Whether
the sense-perception is external or in me,
is a matter of indifference, it
exists
....”(378)
NB
an evasion
of
mate-
rialism
Then follows the famous analogy of the
soul with wax, causing Hegel to twist and
turn like the devil confronted with holy
water, and to cry out about it having “so
often occasioned misapprehension.” (378-
379)
Aristotle says (
De anima
, II, 12):
"Sense-perception is the receiving of sen-
sible forms without matter” ... “as wax
receives only the impress of the golden
signet ring, not the gold itself, but merely
its form.”
NB
Soul =
Wax
NB
Hegel
writes: ...“In sense-perception
only the form reaches us, without matter.
It is otherwise in practical life—in eating
and drinking. In the practical sphere in
general we behave as single individuals,
“otherwise”
in practice
and as single individuals in a determinate
Being, even a material determinate Being,
we behave towards matter in a material
way. Only insofar as we are of a material
a cowardly
evasion of
materialism
nature, are we able to behave in such a
way; the point is that our material exist-
ence comes into play:” (379)
((A close approach to materialism—and
equivocation.))
Hegel gets angry and scolds on account
of the “wax,” saying: “everyone can under-
stand it” (380), “we do not get beyond the
crude aspect of the analogy,” (379) etc.
“The soul should by no means be pas-
sive wax or receive determinations from
without....” (380)
ha-ha!
...“It” (die Seele
[35]
) “changes the form of
the external body into its own....” (381)
Aristotle, De anima
, III, 2:
...“The effect of being perceived and of
sense-perception is exactly one and the
same; but their existence is not the same....”
(381)
Aristotle
And Hegel comments:
...“There is a body which sounds and a
subject which hears: their existence is
twofold....” (382)
Hegel con-
ceals the
weaknesses
of idealism
But he leaves aside the question of
Being
outside
man!!! A sophistical dodge
from
materialism!
Speaking about thinking, and about rea-
son (νουζ), Aristotle (
De anima
, III, 4) says:
...“There is no sense-perception inde-
pendent of the body, but νουζ is separable
from it....” (385) “νουζ is like a book upon
whose pages nothing is actually written”
tabula rasa
(386)—and Hegel again becomes irate:
“another much-decried illustration” (386),
the very opposite of what he means is
ascribed to Aristotle, etc., etc.
((
and the
ha-ha!
question of Being
independent
of
mind and of man is suppressed!!
))
—all that
for the sake of proving “Aristotle is there-
fore not a realist.” (389)
ha-ha! he’s
afraid!!
Aristotle
:
“In this way he who perceives nothing
by his senses learns nothing and under-
stands nothing when he discerns anything
(ΰεωρή
[36]
) he must necessarily discern it
as a pictorial conception, for such con-
ceptions are like sense-perceptions, only
Aristotle
and
material-
ism
without matter....” (389)
...“Whether the understanding
thinks actual objects when it is abs-
tracted from all matter requires spe-
cial investigation....” (389) And Hegel
scrapes
out of Aristotle that ostens-
ibly “νουζ
[37]
and νοητόν
[38]
are one
and the same” (390), etc. A model
example of the idealistic misrepresen-
tations of an idealist!! Distorting Aris-
totle
into
an idealist of the eighteenth-
nineteenth century!!
distortion
of
Aristotle
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE STOICS
[39]
In regard to the “criterion of truth” of
the
Stoics
—“the conception that is laid
hold of” (444-446)—Hegel says that con-
sciousness only compares conception with
conception (
not
with the object
—(446):
“truth ... is the harmony of object and
consciousness” = “the celebrated definition
of the truth”) and, consequently, the whole
question is one of the “objective logos, the
rationality of the world.” (446)
“Thought yields nothing but the form
of universality and identity with itself;
...hence everything may harmonise with
my thought.” (449)
Hegel against
the Stoics
and their
criterion
“Reasons, however, prove to be a hum-
bug; for there are good reasons for every-
thing....” (469) “Which reasons should be
esteemed as good thereby depends on the
end and interest....” (ibidem)
there are
“reasons” for
everything
THE PHILOSOPHY OF EPICURUS
Speaking of Epicurus (342-271 B. C.),
Hegel
immediately
(before describ-
ing his views) adopts a hostile attitude
to materialism and declares:
“It is already (!!) self-evident (!!) that
if sense-perceived Being is regarded as
the truth, the necessity for the Notion is
altogether abrogated, in the absence of
Slander
against
materialism
Why??
speculative interest everything falls apart,
and, on the contrary, the vulgar view
of things prevails; in point of fact it does
not go beyond the view of ordinary human
understanding, or rather, everything is
lowered to the level of ordinary human
understanding”!! (473-474)
Slander
against materialism!! “Ne-
cessity for the Notion” is not in the
slightest “abrogated” by the theory
of the
source
of cognition and
the concept!! Disagreement with
“common sense” is the foul quirk
of an idealist.
NB
Epicurus gave the name of
Canonic
[40]
to the theory of knowledge and the crite-
rion of truth. After a brief exposition of
it, Hegel writes:
“It is so simple that nothing can well
be simpler—it is abstract, but also very
trivial; more or less on the level of ordi-
nary consciousness that begins to reflect.
It consists of ordinary psychological con-
ceptions; they are quite correct. Out of
sense-perceptions we make conceptions as
the universal; thanks to which it becomes
lasting. The conceptions themselves (bei
!!!!
der δόξα, Meinung
[41]
) are tested by means
of sensations, as to whether they are last-
ing, whether they repeat themselves. That
is quite correct on the whole, but quite
superficial; it is the first beginning, the
!!!
mechanics of conception with respect to
the first sense-perceptions....” (483)
The “first beginning” is forgotten
and distorted by idealism.
Dia-
lectical
materialism alone
linked
the “beginning” with the
continuation and the end.
NB: p.
481
—on the significance of
words
according to Epicurus:
“Everything has its evidence, energy,
distinctness, in the name first conferred
on it” (Epicurus:
Diogenes Laertius, X,
§ 33). And Hegel: “The name is something
universal, belongs to thinking, makes the
manifold simple.” (481)
“On the objective manner in general
in which the images of external things
enter into us, and on our relation to exter-
nal things, by which conceptions arise—
Epicurus:
objects
outside us
Epicurus has evolved the following met-
aphysical explanation:
“From the surfaces of things there passes
off a constant stream, which cannot be
detected by our senses ... and this be-
cause, by reason of the counteracting re-
plenishment, the thing itself in its solid-
ity long preserves the same arrangement
and disposition of the atoms; and the mo-
tion through the air of these surfaces which
detach themselves is of the utmost rapidity,
because it is not necessary that what is
detached should have any thickness.” “The
sensation does not contradict such an idea,
when we consider” (zusehe) “how images
produce their effects; they bring us a cor-
respondence, a sympathetic link with ex-
ternal things. Therefore something passes
out from them which within us is like
something external.” “And since the ema-
nation passes into us, we know of the def-
initeness of a sensation; the definite lies
in the object and thus flows into us”
(pp. 484-485,
Diogenes Laertius
, X,
§ 48-49).
NB
theory of
knowledge of
Epicurus...
The genius of Epicurus’ conjecture (300
B.C., i.e., more than 2,000 years before
Hegel), e.g., on light and its velocity.
Hegel completely
concealed
(NB)
the
main thing
: (
NB
) the existence
of things
outside
the consciousness
of man and
independent
of it
—all that Hegel
suppresses
and merely
says:
...“This is a very trivial way of repre-
senting sense-perception. Epicurus elected
to take the easiest criterion of the truth—a
criterion still in use—inasmuch as it is not
apprehended by sight, namely: that it does
not contradict what we see or hear. For in
truth such matters of thought as atoms, the
detachment of surfaces, and so forth, are
beyond our powers of sight and hearing;
[
cer-
tainly we manage to see and to hear some-
thing different
]
[42]
but there is abundance of
room for what is seen and what is conceived
or imagined to exist alongside of one anoth-
er. If the two are allowed to fall apart, they
do not contradict each other; for it is not
until we relate them that the contradic-
tion becomes apparent....” (485-486)
A model of
distortion
and slander
against
materialism
by an ideal-
ist
Hegel has
avoided
Epicurus’ theory
of cognition and begun to speak of
some-
thing else
, which Epicurus does not
touch on
here
and
which is com-
patible
with materialism!!
P. (486):
Error, according to Epicurus, proceeds
from an
interruption
in movement (in
the movement from the object to us, to
sense-perception or to conception?).
“It is impossible,” Hegel writes, “to have a
more meagre (theory of knowledge).” (486)
Everything becomes
dürftig
,
[43]
if it is distorted and despoiled.
The soul, according to Epicurus, is a
“certain” arrangement of atoms. “This is
what Locke also (!!!) said.... These are
empty words ...“ (489) ((no, they are the
guess-work of genius and
signposts for
science
, but not for clericalism)).
This,
auch
,
[44]
is
wonderful!!!!
Epicurus
(341-
270 B.C.),
Locke
(
1632-
1704
). Dif-
ferenz
[45]
= 
		2,000 years
NB.
NB.
(489), id. (490):
Epicurus ascribes to the atoms a
“
krummlinigte”
Bewegung
,
[46]
this according to Hegel is “most arbitrary
and
electrons?
and wearisome” (489) in Epicurus.—
((and the “God” of the idealists???)).
“Or else Epicurus altogether denies No-
tion and the Universal as the essential...”
(490) although his atoms “themselves have
this very nature of thought”... “the incon-
sistency ... which all empiricists are guil-
ty of....” (491)
nonsense!
lies!
slander!
NB
This
avoids
the essence of
materialism
and material-
ist dialectics.
“In Epicurus there is no ... final end in
the world, wisdom of a Creator; everything
consists of events, which are determined
by the chance (??) external (??) coming
together of configurations of atoms....” (491)
he pities
God!! the
idealistic
scoundrel!!
And Hegel simply
hurls abuse
at
Epicurus: “His thoughts on particular as-
pects of Nature are, however, in them-
selves feeble....” (492)
!!
And immediately afterwards is a
polemic
against the “Naturwissenschaft” heute,
[47]
which, like Epicurus, allegedly judges “by
analogy,” and “explains” (492)—e.g., light
as “vibrations of the ether....” “This is an
analogy quite in the manner of Epicu-
rus....” (493)
and the
“manner” of
natural
science!
and its
successes!!
((
Modern
natural science
ver-
sus Epicurus,—against (
NB
) Hegel.))
In Epicurus, “the kernel of the matter,
the principle, is nothing else than the
principle of our usual natural science....”
(495) ... “it is still the manner which lies
at the basis of our natural science....” (496)
Epicurus and
modern na-
tural science
Correct is only the reference to
the ignorance of dialectics in gen-
eral and of the dialectics of con-
cepts. But the criticism of
ma-
terialism
is schwach.
[48]
“Of this method (of Epicurean philosophy)
we may say in general that it likewise
has a side on which it possesses value.
!NB!
Aristotle and the more ancient philosophers
took their start in natural philosophy from
universal thought a priori, and from this
developed the Notion. This is the one side.
The other side is the necessary one that
experience should be worked up into uni-
versality, that laws should be determined;
that is to say, that the result which fol-
lows from the abstract Idea should coin-
cide with the general conception to which
experience and observation have led. The
NB!!
NB
NB
a priori is with Aristotle, for instance,
most excellent, but not sufficient, because
it lacks connection with and relation to
experience and observation. This develop-
NB
ment of the particular to the general is
the discovery of laws, natural forces and
so on. It may be said that Epicurus is the
inventor of empirical natural science, of
empirical psychology. In contrast to the
NB
Stoic ends, conceptions of the understand-
ing, is experience, the sensuous present.
There we have abstract, limited understand-
ing, without truth in itself, and therefore
without the presence and reality of nature;
here we have this sense of nature, which
is more true than these other hypotheses.”
(496-497)
NB
(THIS ALMOST COMPLETELY AP-
PROACHES DIALECTICAL MAT-
ERIALISM.)
NB
The importance of Epicurus—the strug-
gle against
Aberglauben
[49]
of the
Greeks and Romans (498)
—and
modern priests??
all this nonsense about whether a hare ran
across the path, etc. (and the good Lord?).
Hegel on
the pros of
materialism
“And from it” (the philosophy of Epi-
curus), “more than anything, those con-
ceptions which have altogether denied the
supersensuous have proceeded.” (498)
NB
||
But this is good only for “end-
lichen”
[50]
....
“With superstition there
also passed away self-dependent Con-
nection and the world of the Ideal.”
(499)
for what did
they (the
classics) val-
ue idealism??
This NOTA BENE.
P.
499:
Epicurus on the
soul
: the
finer
(NB) atoms, their more
rapid
(NB)
motion
, their
connection
(NB)
etc., etc., with the body (
Diogenes
Laertius
, X, § 66; 63-64)—very naïve
and good!—but Hegel becomes irate, he
hurls abuse:
“meaningless talk,” “empty
words,” “no thoughts.” (500)
for Hegel
the “soul”
is
also
a
prejudice
The Gods, according to Epicurus, are
“das Allgemeine”
[51]
(506) in general—“they
consist partly in number” as number,
i.e., abstraction from the sensuous....
“In part, they” (the gods) “are
the perfect-
ed type of man,
which, owing to the simi-
larity of the images, arises from the con-
tinuous confluence of like images on one
and the same subject.” (507)
NB
Gods
= the
perfected
type of man,
cf.
Feuer-
bach
[52]