Exam 1 Response for "Nietzsche Kierk Marx," taught by Dr. Miyasaki, Wright State University

October 1st, 2019

1b:

The order in the universe (Reason) guides how people’s ideas are put into action in the material world in a history that, like the progression of natural selection (with differences), ends up in greater freedom throughout time as people (and the world itself) become more aware of the order in the world.

Many would be confused when hearing that freedom can progress in consciousness of itself, so I will try my best to explain Hegel‘s concept of the world from the beginning of time. Like an apple tree, first 2 feet tall and later 15, the world slowly progresses until it produces the fruit of what he calls Spirit. Humans, and the nascent Spirit (also mind or intellect in German) coincides with the development of fruit on the tree. Like how fruit can only come about if a tree is mature in age, “the first traces of Spirit contain...the whole of [the World’s] history”.1 This Spirit is a collective human knowledge of the order of the world and is not emotional, which Hegel calls “only an accident of Nature” (78). Essentially, the physical world (or matter) goes from a beginning stage of infancy to an inevitable awareness or knowledge of itself.

What causes this? Reason. I might think of reason as a thought process, but Hegel thinks of it as an intrinsic organization to the universe that “reveals itself in the world” (76). This universe has two parts, the physical and psychical realms. Whereas dualism split the world into the physical and the mental, Hegel similarly makes the distinction between the two but intertwines them in the term “the World” (77) that can eventually know itself so completely that mind and reality are essentially one and the same (more on this later). This strange conclusion comes about because ideas first originate within an individual before they are acted upon and realized in the physical. So as knowledge of the human race increases, humans’ abilities to change the world to their whims increases (think of fat King Herod ordering servants to move furniture however he so pleases). Thus, “reason is the sovereign of the world” (and ‘calls the shots’) because it exists in Spirit, and Spirit can strangely be a spectator and learner of the structure in the universe that created it.

This happens in trial and error where a thesis (idea) is given forth, such as having arranged marriages, followed by an antithesis, such as the idea that lovers should choose who they marry. This culminates in a compromise (synthesis) of the two opposing ideas, such as the father approving the choice of his daughter (I’m thinking in terms of the Fiddler on the Roof). In a similar process through history, human freedom and the knowledge that humans are essentially alike (in Spirit) tends to increase (on average when this is repeated many times), which is important because an essential quality of the mind is Freedom since “all the qualities of Spirit exist only through Freedom” (77). There may be wars and relative dips in human freedom, but Hegel’s average graph of “all freedom everywhere” on the y axis and “time” on the x axis has a positive slope. The maximum on the graph is Absolute Spirit, where mind and matter merge in the sense that the mind would have an exact representation of reality in it (and be fully free to act on it how it chooses). Essentially, would you want an exact simulation of a computer within a program (the psychical nature, or mind) or would you want the computer itself (the physical world). In an analogy, reason is like the underlying “natural selection” in the process of evolution, and freedom is like fitness as they are both the end results (are selected and increase over time). The analogy needn’t be taken too far, since evolution is powered by random chance in genetic mutations while Hegel’s mover in the world is orderly, but the concept of progression is similar.

2d:

Interacting impersonally and overthinking, like someone with social anxiety, the way others will judge their actions leads to a sense of an equalizing monster called the public, the only escape of which is the individual religious life where all that matters is the eternal and how God views you.

Let me reflect (pun intended) on the meaning of Kierkegaard’s term for the root of all the world’s stasis: the state of reflection. This state of reflection is associated with being “sensible,” “devoid of passion,”2 and comfortable with the “stagnation” (96) of doing nothing in this overthinking. This is analogous to being an arm-chair philosopher who doesn’t vote in the election because she is too fond of making arguments with others for and against Trump or Hillary. Hegel, Kierkegaard’s nemesis, wouldn’t endorse indolence/idleness either (because ideas should be actualized through labor), but Kierkegaard would criticize Hegel’s step from idea to action. By the “mathematical equality…in all classes” (85) and the rejection of the individual, Kierkegaard says people will be frozen and unable to move to the next step—to act—because “what the individual fears more than death is reflection’s judgement upon him…to venture something as an individual” (85). This is like social anxiety, an obsession with what others think of you.

Therefore, the problem is two-fold. The individual cannot “tear himself out of the web of reflection” that is so alluring because he has no internal “passion” or emotion to take risk (69), and he is too afraid of others opinions of him (which is self-feeding into the first obstacle, because the risk is the judgement of others). This is what Kierkegaard means by a “prison” of “envy” (81), as envy requires another person and “establish[es] itself” by “levelling” (84). Leveling is like when I give one kid in my Sunday school class a piece of candy and everyone gets mad because they didn’t get one themselves. Thus, the child feels pressure to refuse my offer because he or she don’t want to rise above the rest, and so envy is a prison in how it restricts options otherwise you would take.

How does one live? Kierkegaard suggests the religious life, far from reflection’s guilt by negligence. This life allows for passionate decisions and commitments because the religious person realizes he “belong[s] to God…[and] to himself” (85) and not to the amorphous blob of the public opinion. This involves a “separateness” (86) from others, which could lead to an anonymous public which Kierkegaard says is created by “no strong communal life to give substance” (91). This does not happen, however, as Kierkegaard says the religious person “can “learn…to love all others as much as himself even though he is accused of arrogance and pride” (89). In other words, you learn to not be afraid of feeling and be okay with others not liking everything you do. You can get past the fear of being the outlier and of being labeled selfish “for not accepting [other’s] help” (89), which is the well-intentioned-yet-stagnation-provoking advice on what they think you should do. Leveling is no longer a problem because religion focuses on how everyone is equal “with respect to the eternal” (89) and can have eternal life through Jesus (in Christianity). This is not the here and now and invalidates the conglomeration of opinions in your lifetime. Though there is a “full sense of equality” (88) among people, which is similar to leveling, leveling is “impotent in respect to the eternal” (89). You can then “religiously develop” (89) or see others, not as the public, but as concrete people and “essentially human beings” (89). This is in contrast to the impersonality of the “phantom” public (90), and the individuality puts you “at ease before God” (92) and satisfied as an individual in the temporary.

Bibliography

1. G. W. F. Hegel, “Philosophical History,” in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Patrick Gardner (New York: The Free Press, 1969), p. 78.

2. Søren Kierkegaard, “The Present Age,” PHL 4010 Course Handout, p. 68.