FT24017: Thought as Reality

    Aristotle viewed the reality as forms of inseparable matter that moves from one contrary to another. Potentiality exists and it actualizes itself from within its being. Much later we have carved out these changes and compose things as separable. German Idealist like Kant and Hegel go back to this way but not abandoning the science of separability. What they concoct is reality mediated by thoughts. This mediation is not the Aristotelian sense, but returning to that state from vantage point we know we lost this connectedness. 

    Language is seen as the glue that hold being together for Idealism. It is given that the world is seemingly atomized in the way it shows us, but as we ponder it we realize it's atomization is irrelevant in our conception of it and in a deeper way our conception of reality is also a mirror to what reality is. In this way it very much like glue and we few things as separated when we don't understand them. An example of this would be how we view the environment and our transportation as separate but knowing our transportation, I'm meaning cars here that use gas engines, take part in the environment by either polluting the air. In a naive way we see a car and a cloud as separate and we only see they relate by thinking more and conceptualizing the relatedness.  

    The car example is a simple one. Knowledge is gained by reason which seems to be empirically gathered. Empirical observations are isolated and disconnected. Reason sees the connection and makes concepts whole which returns back to Aristotle's philosophy of seeing being as stark boundaries that are internally unable to be broken apart.

FT240011: Space and Kant

    Space and mind have a similar arrangement for Kant. Our minds heavily analyze what's in space but Kant does want to distinguish that space is independent of our experiences and our on looking is all but contingent. In a way--a mind outside a mind.

    Space though is filled with concepts just as we have in our mind and we are attuned to it. This is also similar to Heidegger's idea of 'dwelling' in that we are not simply observing but making our observations our own. Another feature is space must be similar to our way of observing for this to work.  Hegel wants to nuance this familiarity as he sees our mind and the world as intimately combined but through a process of negation. 

    Hegel's negation means we recognized the phenomenal world is mind but outside of our mind. Is this different from Kant seeing Space and mind as fundamentally the same? Kant seems to limit our experiences in a way umpires do in the sense of calling balls and strikes but Hegel does not see so clear a separation. Kant sees limits between mind and the world while Hegel is persuaded that these limits are also a distinction the mind makes. Kant's view can explain the world as we observe it while Hegel may not grant this directness in observation and convinced we always observe from a distance and the world is ourselves that we make inverted by observation. 

    Hegel makes us work harder to fully understand existence making the content of phenomena. One reason to think this is he doesn't define space like Kant does. Kant views space as where phenomena happens and Hegel thinks this clearly defined place for events is problematic and the reason that Kant then quickly limits what space can ultimately be in terms of our understanding of it. Kant sees space as a mind we cannot fully fathom working independently from us. Our roll in observing makes little difference in its appearance and we lack a certain agency. 

    Kant's limitation separates us from connected whole we were part of in earlier philosophies and something Hegel responds to giving us back this connection setting a framework where Heidegger's idea of 'dwelling' can make sense where it would seem unimportant in Kant's framework.