Reading Notes: December 29th, 2021

“The demand which rests at the basis of Descartes’ reasonings thus is that what is recognized as true should be able to maintain the position of having the thought therein at home with itself….The second proposition of the Cartesian philosophy is hence the immediate certainty of thought. Certainty is only knowledge as such in is pure form as self-relating, and this is thought; thus then the unyielding understanding makes its way on to the necessity of thought….Descartes begins, just as Fichte did later on, with the “I” as indubitably certain; I know that something is presented in me. By this Philosophy is at one stroke transplanted to quite another field and to quite another standpoint, namely to the sphere of subjectivity. Presuppositions in religion are given up; proof alone is sought for, and not the absolute content which disappears before abstract infinite subjectivity. To consider the content in itself is not the first matter; for I can abstract from all my conceptions, but not from the “I”. We think this and that, and hence it is—is to give the common would-be-wise argument of those incapable of grasping the matter in point; that a determinate content exists is exactly what we are forced to doubt—there is nothing absolutely fixed. Thought is entirely universal, but not merely because I can abstract, but because “I” is thus simple, self-identical. Thought consequently comes first; the next determination arrived at, in direct connection with it, is the determination of Being. The “I think” directly involves my Being; this, says Descartes, is the absolute basis of all Philosophy. The determination of Being is in my “I”; this connection is itself the first matter. Thought as Being and Being as thought—that is my certainty, “I”; in the celebrated Cogito, ergo sum we thus have Thought and Being inseparably bound together.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 226-228) 

“The thinking subject as the simple immediacy of being-at-home-with-me is the very same thing as what is called Being; and it is quite easy to perceive this identity. As universal, thought is contained in all that is particular, and thus is pure relation to itself, pure oneness with itself. We must not make the mistake of representing Being to ourselves as a concrete content, and hence it is the same immediate identity which thought likewise is. Immediacy is, however, a one-sided determination; thought does not contain it alone, but also the determination to mediate itself with itself, and thereby—by the mediation being at the same time the abrogation of the mediation—it is immediacy. In thought we thus have Being; Being is, however, a poor determination, it is the abstraction from the concrete of thought.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 229-230) 

“In its abstraction [Being] would be really only that return into itself, that simple equality with itself, which constitutes thought.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 257) 

“This Idea of Spinoza’s we must allow to be in the main true and well-grounded; absolute substance is the truth, but it is not the whole truth; in order to be this it must also be thought of as in itself active and living, and by that very means it must determine itself as mind. But substance with Spinoza is only the universal and consequently the abstract determination of mind; it may undoubtedly be said that this thought is the foundation of all true views—not, however, as their absolutely fixed and permanent basis, but as the abstract unity which mind is in itself. It is therefore worthy of note that thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy. For as we saw above, when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as true has disappeared; this negation of all that is particular, to which every philosopher must have come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute foundation.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 257-258) 

“For [the finite—according to Spinoza—comes] to an end, it is not there; what is there is something else. This something else must, however, be of like nature; for those things which are to limit each other must, in order to be able to limit each other, touch each other, and consequently have a relation to each other, that is to say they must be of one nature, stand on a like basis, and have a common sphere.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 259) 

“What cannot have a conception formed of it without the aid of something else, is not independent, but is dependent on that something else.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 259) 

“The great service of [Moore’s “Refutation of Idealism”] is to insist on the truism that when you perceive you perceive something, and that what you do perceive cannot be the same as the perception of it.” (Broad, Perception, Physics, and Reality, 5) 

“It just seems to me that no mental act is ever its own object, not even an act of awareness.” (Grossmann, Phenomenology and Existentialism, 53) 

“Just as one must distinguish between the perception and that which is perceived, on must distinguish between the introspection and that which is introspected….A mental state cannot be aware of itself, any more than a man can eat himself up….Intentionality…is characterized by a difference between the subject and the object of experience…” (Zahavi and Parnas, Models of the Self, 258-260)