The
beginning of class on Tuesday kind of blew my mind in a way that nothing else
in college really has. It had never really occurred to me before that maybe
what is the truest is what cannot be expressed in words. At the same time,
however, I think some variation of this idea is really what I’ve believed all
my life or at least the last few years. When I’m frustrated about some feeling
I have about the present in regards to the past, I commonly say something along
the lines of “No one understands.” It seems that no matter how much I try to
explain something about myself and my life and no matter what details I
include, I can never fully get my point across to people; I can’t express it
fully in words in a way that is comprehendible. Nevertheless, I still
throughout these situations continue to feel like what I feel is valid. Even
though I can’t communicate it, I still believe it. For this reason, our
discussion at the beginning of class was amazing to me. It gave words
(ironically) to something I think I’ve thought for a long time.
As
I said in class, this all makes sense with regards to sense-certainty. An exact
moment may not be able to be captured with just words alone. The experience of being there really is different from
hearing about something. For example, if one heard about the nature of a sunset
at a particular time and place, no matter what words were used, the words can’t
fully reproduce the sunset. Hearing about it is necessarily different from
experiencing it in that hearing about it can’t fully give one understanding of
it. Furthermore, as Dr. J pointed out, even if one experiences something at the
same time as another, his or her experience of it might be different than that
of the other person by virtue of them being different people. Because different
people are different, they may experience the same thing in different ways.
This
was all pretty interesting to me because I actually saw an interesting parallel
with Hegel’s notion that the truth is the whole. To refresh, in Hegel’s
preface, he writes, “The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than
the essence consummating itself through its development” (11). At this point
and a few other points throughout the preface, Hegel makes the point that the
truth of anything is not just its ending or a summary of the ending; it is the
whole thing or the whole process. This idea fits in with what I’ve just
discussed. A moment is possible inexpressible in words because that moment is
related to everything around it and moments that came before it; words can’t
gather the full development leading up to the moment. The parallel, however, is
notably clearer when thinking about the ways in which different people perceive
things. As I said before, two different people may see the same thing
differently. This is because of their different personalities or their
different previous experiences. The individual people have developed through
their lives in a way that makes a certain moment take a certain form of truth.
For this reason, a description of the moment in general terms may not yield truth;
the truth of the moment might really flow continuously from everything in a
person’s life before that moment. The truth of that moment is determined by the
development of the person’s life that came before it. In other words, the truth
is not purely a description of the moment but everything within a person
leading up to that moment. It follows that this would be difficult or
impossible to express in words. With this in mind, I think that even though
Kierkegaard and Hegel diverge from the point of sense-certainty, this general
idea of Hegel’s actually fits in well with Kierkegaard’s idea of what is the
truest.
Rochelle,
ReplyDeleteI see what you are trying to say, but I think you overlooked one important aspect of Hegel's conception of the Whole as Truth. This aspect does not allow reconciliation of Hegel's Whole as Truth with Kierkegaard's presentation of the singular as Truth.
The process by which the Whole comes about in Hegel's "Phenomenology," (i.e. sublation in Hegel's sense) requires the use of the universal. The process occurs when two opposing ideas are mediated into a synthesis which then is approached by another opposing idea and these are then mediated into a synthesis which is then approached by another opposing idea and so on... Mediation can only occur in the universal, since by mediating we are reconciling two concepts and ever laboring towards the Concept. Concepts or ideas only exist in the universal. The process is supposed to lead to the point at which the experience of consciousness (what it comes to know the object to be, the being-for-consciousness) no longer exceeds what consciousness initially takes its object to be (the being-in-itself for consciousness), but instead coincides with it. This process requires appeal to the universal.
Kierkegaard's view is that the universal is not the Truth. Instead, the universal is what most of us have to settle for. I think Kierkegaard makes this distinction in a way that is not intended to claim that the universal is bad, just that it is not the best. The singular in the sense of the religious is placed higher than the universal. The singular in the sense of the religious cannot be mediated (i.e. it cannot be annulled via Hegelian processes to get towards the universal; it cannot be put into language which is inherently connected to the universal i.e. words represent concepts which exist in the universal). The religious singular cannot participate in the Hegelian process towards the Whole by virtue of its definition (the important part of the definition is its absolute separation from the universal). So, the Hegelian Whole does follow along the same lines as Kierkegaard’s religious singular.
Though I think your point that the Truth is not comprehensible (with regard to Hegel's system), at least in a complete or Absolute sense, when the Whole is not considered still stands.
Pierce,
DeleteI think you might have misinterpreted what I said. In this post, I was not discussing the nature of the Hegelian whole or really even Kierkegaard's religious singular. Instead, I was dealing with the broad idea that what can't be expressed in words is potentially more true. More importantly, I was not dealing with what the nature of the whole is for Hegel regarding things like the universal and the singular. I was not quite that deep. Instead, I was just saying that not Kierkegaard's whole idea and philosophy but its basis is compatible with the idea that the truth of something is not just a result but the whole development or process towards that result. That is all I was saying. I did not address what you claimed I overlooked simply because that's not what I was talking about at all. When I referred to "The truth in the whole" in this post and said that it seems compatible in this regard, all I meant was that the truth solidifies through development, not what that development actually entails for either Hegel or Kierkegaard.
**Edit**
ReplyDeleteThe Hegelian whole does NOT follow along the same lines as Kierkegaard's religious singular.
I think I understood. I'm saying the general idea isn't compatible with Kierkegaard at all. Hegel works toward the universal i.e. the ethical as telos; Kierkegaard claims there is higher telos in the religious. These ideas are not entirely opposed, but they are not readily compatible.
ReplyDeleteI know you didn't address the issue I brought up and that's exactly why I brought it up. I don't think you can just ignore it if you are going to claim a parallel between Hegel and the idea that words can't express the Truth (i.e. that the universal or the ethical is not the truth, that the singular--of which words are not a part--is more accurately the Truth than is the universal... this is essentially what Kierkegaard presents to us).
I think the confusion may be coming in with the idea that not everything is expressible in words and the different conceptions of Truth between Hegel and Kierkegaard. Now, I could totally be wrong about this, but the following is my understanding.
Words partake in the universal since they represent ideas or concepts and therefore must be universals. Kierkegaard would agree that words (i.e. universals) would not not contain the entire Truth, but he would be hesitant to make the comparison to Hegel because Hegel advocates for the universal i.e. the ethical as the most True. I was trying to point out this distinction: that Kierkegaard advocates for the singular and Hegel for the universal. Hegel believes the Truth is in the universal. So even if there are some things that may be missing in the universal (or in words... which just have to be edited via Hegelian processes until they represent his conception of the Truth or it is possible that words are not the most universal are inherently deficient--however this deficiency is different from the one Kierkegaard proposes), I think Hegel would claim those things as either (1) our misunderstandings or (2) that they are not actually part of the Truth. What Hegel and Kierkegaard take as the most True are different things.
Pierce,
DeleteI see your point and basically agree with you, but it's still not what I was talking about at all. Hegel's idea of Truth as it can be expressed by words has nothing to do with my point. In fact, I think it would be somewhat obvious that Kierkegaard and Hegel would digress there. That isn't what I was talking about at all. I apologize if my post wasn't clear and if I unintentionally implied claims I wasn't intending to make, but you're not responding to what my actual point was at all. Of course, Hegel and Kierkegaard disagree with each other on the nature of Truth, the universal, etc. That's basically Kierkegaard and Hegel 101, and I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is that before Hegel goes into any of that, when he implies that the truth is the whole process, that seems compatible with the idea that words can't express the full truth of experience. That is it. There's nothing deeper there.
Well I'll give it one last attempt, and if we still aren't on the same page after that then we can just agree to not understand one another.
ReplyDeleteMy logic is as follows:
Hegel's Truth implies the Truth as Whole implies the universal implies a contradiction with Kierkegaard implies incompatibility.
I'll quote from your passage: "this general idea of Hegel’s actually fits in well with Kierkegaard’s idea of what is the truest." That was your concluding statement. I am taking the "general idea" to be Hegel's idea of Truth as Whole, and unless you are digressing from Hegel's idea of the Truth as Whole, then I think my logic follows.
I take it that you are not digressing from this idea because of your quotation from Hegel's preface which I am providing here: “The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development” (11). Here, I think you are, intentionally or not, admitting of the Hegelian idea of the Truth as Whole in its entirety. Remember that the preface was written after the "Phenomenology" so it is likely that Hegel is indicating the fully developed idea of the Whole here. I think this becomes apparent in the second statement of the quotation which includes that the whole occurs via "development" a.k.a. Hegelian processes and these include Hegelian dialectic.
If you meant to take the truth as the whole process in sense different or less than than the above, I did not see anything that indicated that.
I agree with everything you say in this post. A point that has struck a chord with me from Kierkegaard's writings is the idea he puts forth of the differences of human experience. Your post got me thinking about a tradition that we have in Rhodes Singers before every concert. Before each performance, the choir stands around a circle and members articulate what they want the performance to mean - to the choir as a whole, to themselves, and to the audience. Then, each member of the choir reaches out with one hand and "grabs the moment." Then, we all open our hands and let that moment go. We acknowledge with this tradition that time passes and that little moments do matter within the grand scheme of our college experience. The moment that we grab together means something different to each of us, even though it is an experience that we share with each other.
ReplyDelete