[lbo-talk] Query on Hegel

[Carrol Cox]

Mike, that thesis is most illuminating in this context if you see it as an
epistemological proposition (as in one way or another are all the Theses on
Feuerebach. Mao's vulgarization of it is a useful pointer: "If you want to
know what a pear tastes like, you have to change the world by biting into
it." Though this distorts, it also underlines the epistemological force. If
you want to interpret the world, you must enter into the collective effort
to _change_ it. Knowledge is grounded in human activity. And the 'first
movement' of thought must be to grasp that activity from which it has
emerged. And then it is a leap, though not all that much of one, to grasp
_in_ that activity the possibility of transforming it - and from the new
perspective that leap enables to deepen, perhaps  even radically transform,
understanding of the original activity. 

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Mike Ballard
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 8:42 PM
To: lbo lbo
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Query on Hegel

"Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought
to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late.
Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has
completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus
corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of
reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the
real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom.
When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old,
and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of
Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering."
Pappa Hegel

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the
point is to change it."  K.M. speaking at the Left Hegelian Gun Club
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http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/

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