- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Official: Joel is an Hegelian...

OK, from Hegel By Hypertext, je presente :

§Absolute and Relative
The absolute is relative and there is an absolute within the relative or, as Lenin says: "in (objective) dialectics the difference between the relative and the absolute is itself relative." Perception is relative to the observer, but the existence of an objective world is absolute . . . but there is no absolutely absolute.

Hegel says: "The different stages of the logical idea are to be treated as a series of definitions of the Absolute". [Shorter Logic § 160n]. In other words, in the history of thought and in the development of any specific theory or concept, at various stages or key points of development, an aspect of the truth is fixed upon and "elevated into an absolute"; but in the course of its own development, this absolute proves to be relative, and is overcome by a new concept. But what is absolute is retained and carried forward; the absolute is the whole movement, which is submerged in the notion, but is also contained in that relative concept which is a stage in the genesis of the notion. "The definition, which declares the Absolute to be the Idea, is itself absolute. All former definitions come back to this". [Shorter Logic, § 213]

§Empiricism
Doctrine that sense experience is the sole source of knowledge. The materialist trend: Bacon, Locke, recognises that the material world is the source of sensation, and that sense experience has objective content. Or the idealist trend: Berkeley and Hume. Hume drew from the rationalist, critique of Empiricism, the denial of any objective content for sense experience, limiting knowledge to the sum total of sense-experience.

According to Empiricism, Experience is the only source of knowledge; according to materialism, the source of experience is the external world, but for pre-Marxist materialism experience is the result of a passive perception of the external world. But Experience does not by itself give necessary and universal knowledge, but can only grasp the superficial external phenomena of the objective world. Experience must be supplemented by the activity of Reason (Rationalism) which only happens when experience arises from practice.

§Experimental Method
The method of experiment (which begins in its proper sense with Galileo rolling balls down a slope and timing them with an hour-glass) is the investigation of specific features of a phenomenon by actively influencing them, through creating special conditions in keeping with the investigator's purposes.
Experiment differs from Observation; in experiment, the observation is active - the subject deliberately influences the object. Thus, the investigator isolates the object from reality - but with the specific purpose of testing a theory. The deepening of the experimental method is the successive withdrawal of this isolation of the object from reality together with the enhancement of the direct influence of the subject, but this movement is possible only on the basis of a theory which is adequate to reality.
Thus, experiment is "embryonic practice" - active learning from experience. Comprehension of an experiment presupposes a correct understanding of the subject-object relation. The well-known "uncertainty principle" of quantum physics is an example of a wrong understanding of this relation which leads to subjective idealist conclusions. In modern physics, the "principle of correspondence" originated by Niels Bohr (the founder of the nucleus-electron theory of the atom) is a materialist solution of the subject-object relation in experimental quantum physics.

Well Joel, welcome to the Hegel club, enjoy your stay....

Follow Ups:

• A quick reply Joel Jacobson none USA March 19 1999 (2)
  • Quick Deap Eye. Red Deathy Socialist Party UK March 22 1999 (1)
    • Skippers Joel Jacobson The Fast Food Syndicate USA March 23 1999 (0)