Hegel's image that understanding of an era or an action arrives only in retrospect, after it is over, never while it unfolds.
In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.
Understanding is retrospective: Hegel's owl of Minerva "spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk." What anything meant becomes clear only afterward, never in advance.
Put simply Hegel: we understand things only by looking back. His image: the owl of Minerva "spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk." What anything meant becomes clear afterward, never in advance.
Where to read it Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface, closing paragraphs.
Hegel rejects Kant's intention-centered morality as inadequate: acts usually have consequences far beyond what anyone meant, so their meaning can be judged only in hindsight.
Put simply Hegel rejects Kant's view that an act is judged by the intention behind it. Acts usually have effects far beyond what anyone meant, so what they mean can be judged only looking back.
Hegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect.
Put simply Hegel's slogan "the true is the whole": everything depends on everything else and makes sense only together. A whole can be seen only from its end, so meaning comes only looking back.
Where to read it Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface §20.
Links from these claims to others in the course. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
HegelHegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect. L4 · 46:56
ShoreWhat seduces people in Hegel, Shore judges, is wholeness itself: the promise that unity can finally be achieved and everything be seen as interwoven. L4 · 47:55
Shore's judgment that Hegel's seduction is the seduction of wholeness rests directly on Hegel's own slogan that the true is the whole.
HegelHegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect. L4 · 46:56
ArendtFor Arendt, Hegel's philosophy was Western thought's last attempt to reunite being and thought, subject and object; whether it housed reality or imprisoned it, nobody could say. L4 · 47:34
Arendt questions whether achieving Hegel's totality is a home for reality or a prison, casting doubt on the value of the whole.
HegelHegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect. L4 · 46:56
LukácsMarxism, for Lukács, stands or falls on totality: revolution comes only from a standpoint that sees the social whole, and trade-unionism plainly fails that test. L8 · 32:46
Makes Hegel's "the true is the whole" the test of revolutionary class consciousnessOur inference
KantFor Kant, acting morally means acting from duty, not from whatever one feels like doing; acts are judged by their intentions, never by consequences nobody can control. L3 · 31:51
HegelHegel rejects Kant's intention-centered morality as inadequate: acts usually have consequences far beyond what anyone meant, so their meaning can be judged only in hindsight. L4 · 29:14
Intentions are not enough; actions are judged by consequences that exceed them
HegelHegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect. L4 · 46:56
ShoreStructuralists meet Hegelians on totality: a sign means something only within a whole that holds everything in place, so faint echoes of Hegel persist even on the synchronic plane. L19 · 21:24
Shore hears vague echoes of Hegel's "the true is the whole" in Saussure's holistic system and says structuralists and Hegelians converge on totality.
HegelHegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect. L4 · 46:56
LyotardThe postmodern, in Lyotard's famous 1979 formula, is "incredulity toward meta-narratives": a refusal to believe any single grand story could gather everything up and make it cohere. L22 · 17:41
Incredulity toward any grand story claiming to hold the whole togetherOur inference
HegelHegel's slogan "the true is the whole" means everything is interdependent and intelligible only together; since a totality shows itself only from its end, meaning arrives in retrospect. L4 · 46:56
PatočkaPatočka and Michalski shared a conviction: in the 1970s communist bloc Heidegger could counteract Hegel, showing meaning need not require wholeness, nor some kind of truth an inevitable destination. L25 · 42:24
Uses Heidegger to show meaning without wholeness and truth without a preordained end
Throughlines that pass through one of these claims.
Terms that appear in the same claims.