Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ever

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The Voice of Time
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:The mistake you make there is a common one. The fallacy of 'appeal to authority' is when the 'authority' is not an authority on the topic at hand. It would be like asking an authority on Plato for an opinion about Audi automobile engines.
Now you're just throwing garbage to defend yourself, I don't believe for a second that such an ignorant can have studied philosophy, especially when has to ask "what does the phenomenology of spirit mean?". "Appeal to authority" is not a fallacy depending on whether a person is an authority or not and it's preposterous and clearly a spontaneous fiction of yours... if you know what fallacies are for, you should know that they are about whether or not something is an argument, and whether it is a legitimate argument to make.

Let me teach you the "appeal to authority" fallacy by example, since you obviously don't know it. To say that you are right because you have a particular position of authority, is wrong, because right does not follow from having a particular position (except where your position is equal to the origin of laws and rules), instead it follows from the rules of the context in question, this context being about language and philosophers.

In example A, a king says that it is right that he should be with every woman he desires, because he is the king.

Now if he is an absolute king, the (actual) complete sentence should be "an absolute king says..." and he would be right because in absolute monarchies the king is the law. However, if he was a king in a constitutional monarchy, he would be wrong because he is not the origin of law, even if he is a participant in the constitutional making, he is not the origin of the rules of the context, the sum of constitutional makers are those and they are probably bound by additional rules. So "appeal to authority" is usually a fallacy unless the authority at its own free will makes the rules for what's right, and you do not make the rules of the German, nor the English language, you are not the origin of the rules of what's right, you are not an origin of what's true or not, you are simply a student, and can be as wrong as any student can be.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:But that is not the context we are discussing here.
We are discussing the book and the right translation of "Geist", so yes we are discussing that context.
Melchior wrote:The expression 'spirit of the age' is quite old, and I do not believe it comes from Hegel
Your link did not contain an explanation of the term but instead reference to a book written in 1824 which is 17 years after the publication of The Phenomenology of Spirit, at a time Hegel was extremely famous and 7 years later he died.

But this does not really matter, because my point (and neither did I say so) was not that Hegel had made the term, but that it practically had the same meaning. That the "spirit of the age" practically meant "zeitgeist", perhaps with a few adjustments as "zeitgeist" is a more flexible term than "spirit of the age".
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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The Voice of Time wrote:
Melchior wrote:The mistake you make there is a common one. The fallacy of 'appeal to authority' is when the 'authority' is not an authority on the topic at hand. It would be like asking an authority on Plato for an opinion about Audi automobile engines.
Now you're just throwing garbage to defend yourself, I don't believe for a second that such an ignorant can have studied philosophy, especially when has to ask "what does the phenomenology of spirit mean?".
What I meant by asking "what does the phenomenology of spirit mean?" was not that I didn't have any knowledge of the work or of Hegel. I was asking on behalf on the English speaker who does not have such a familiarity.
"Appeal to authority" is not a fallacy depending on whether a person is an authority or not and it's preposterous and clearly a spontaneous fiction of yours... if you know what fallacies are for, you should know that they are about whether or not something is an argument, and whether it is a legitimate argument to make.
I seldom lose arguments. Just telling you before you waste any more of your time. I know all the tricks. Philosophy professors know the fallacies inside and out, and often employ them to confuse the members of the general public who cannot always recognize the moves. I do. I don't trust philosophy professors. I know from first-hand experience how they work.
Let me teach you the "appeal to authority" fallacy by example, since you obviously don't know it. To say that you are right because you have a particular position of authority, is wrong, because right does not follow from having a particular position (except where your position is equal to the origin of laws and rules), instead it follows from the rules of the context in question, this context being about language and philosophers.
There is no higher authority on English usage than the native English speaker. None. There is nothing else to say. No Swede, German, Chinaman, Japanese, Bengali, or French speaker has any business telling a native English speaker how to speak English.

In example A, a king says that it is right that he should be with every woman he desires, because he is the king.
Not what we are talking about, my friend.
Now if he is an absolute king, the (actual) complete sentence should be "an absolute king says..." and he would be right because in absolute monarchies the king is the law. However, if he was a king in a constitutional monarchy, he would be wrong because he is not the origin of law, even if he is a participant in the constitutional making, he is not the origin of the rules of the context, the sum of constitutional makers are those and they are probably bound by additional rules. So "appeal to authority" is usually a fallacy unless the authority at its own free will makes the rules for what's right, and you do not make the rules of the German, nor the English language, you are not the origin of the rules of what's right, you are not an origin of what's true or not, you are simply a student, and can be as wrong as any student can be.
I am 64 years old and have been speaking English since I could speak at all. You?
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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I'm 21, and are you now gonna tell me that your age equals that your mouth flows with truth? Because then you are seriously committing the appeal to authority fallacy, heavily, again.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:I seldom lose arguments. Just telling you before you waste any more of your time.
Undeterred. People proclaim themselves winners of arguments, you might as well tell me how much of an ego you have ^^

I seldom lose arguments myself, because most people don't have the intellectual capacity to deal with what I throw at them so they usually end up rage quitting the conversation, or blaming me for making things complex and then silently shuffling out of the conversation, which is really just a way of saying "you are a mountain too tall to climb", with it sometimes becoming direct acts of anti-intellectualism.

I've met people who have used fallacies where they are not interesting instruments to find truth, but on a philosophy forum I can hardly think of a better place to use them. Fallacies are the tools of philosophy to be used in philosophical conversations, the time you start discarding them you are shooting the knee of your own credibility and legitimacy.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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The Voice of Time wrote:I'm 21, and are you now gonna tell me that your age equals that your mouth flows with truth? Because then you are seriously committing the appeal to authority fallacy, heavily, again.
No, I am merely stating that I know more than you on the topics under discussion, and probably many other things. That's all. I know all the fallacies and am not easily fooled. I also know more about English and translation, which I have studied and practiced extensively.

Furthermore, I hardly think that proclaiming something "Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ever" shows much intellectual maturity. It sounds like something a teenager would say about a Superman comic book.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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You don't know that, that is a discriminatory assumption you make to get away easily. Also, "more" is not really what we need here. To know "more" about a subject doesn't mean you know the "right" things. For instance, even if you memorized all the text of a few selected books of Hegel, and they accounted for a greater body of work than the Phenomenology of Spirit, then you might know "more" than me, but if I know the Phenomenology of Spirit, then it's irrelevant that you know all these other books, because I know the subject in question better.

In the same way, I meet old people all the time who think they have a clue about the world when they really just live 50 years behind everyone else in a delusional nostalgic fantasy world... age is absolutely no guarantee for you knowing better than me... I agree, you most definitely know "more" than me, but I also think that most of what you know I have no interest of knowing as it will only fill my head with the most useless things of the past that have failed to be updated and synchronized with new times and given appropriate relevance. In fact, I'm looking forward to not have to know what you know, but get to familiarize myself with an ever-developing new world ahead of me and the great substance it has in comparison.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:Furthermore, I hardly think that proclaiming something "Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ever" shows much intellectual maturity. It sounds like something a teenager would say about a Superman comic book.
It is meant as an exclamation of enthusiasm, so that people might share in a positive emotion. This is a pessimists criticism. "Intellectual maturity" has nothing to do with it. A dry title does not mean more intellectual prowess, on the contrary, it means you were unable to take an opportunity to be emotional and human and invite people into the subject and instead would ruin the moment with cold dead language.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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The Voice of Time wrote:I'm 21
Seems I was lying unintentionally, I just turned 22 over the night x)
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:Repeat after me; the native speaker is always right. Always.
It really depends on what you mean as 'right'. Language is fluid and changing and in one respect English is simply the language spoken by the English at any given time, hence English English speakers are always right, but given the range of dialects within even our borders, the idea that there is a single correct English is nonsensical. Without getting all Acedemie Francais about it, to ensure there is at least some hope of understanding each other, there are 'rules' to English. These are not rigorously taught, much less enforced, but for a foreigner to literally qualify as an English speaker they have to know them. My father was Dutch, his English was technically flawless, because he was taught the rules of English; it would amuse him occasionally to correct someone English's English.
As for the meaning of words, well, it's all in the nuance, that's French for nuance. If you believe that the native speaker is always right, Melchior, why don't you ask a German what geist means, but even then, how will you know that the word they choose is entirely appropriate, given that they are not a native English speaker?
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:"Appeal to non-authorities

Fallacious arguments from authority often are the result of citing a non-authority as an authority.[3] First, when the inference refers to an inexpert authority, it is an appeal to inappropriate authority, which occurs when an inference relies upon a person or a group without relevant expertise or knowledge of the subject matter under discussion.[4][9]"
That paragraph was a diversion from the rest of the article, if you didn't notice. In the same way that an article about Karl Marx has sections dedicated to his works, even though his works is not his person and are hence not talking about Karl Marx the person. Maybe you should've kept yourself to the top of the wiki-article:

"Fallacious examples of using the appeal include any appeal to authority used in the context of deductive reasoning, and appealing to the position of an authority or authorities to dismiss evidence"

Which means you can never deduce from your position that you are right, without committing the fallacy of "appeal to authority", as it never automatically follows (least you are the origin of the contextual rules) that your position of authority gives you right.

Stop these false diversions of yours, and start to do some real discussing!
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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uwot wrote:
Melchior wrote:Repeat after me; the native speaker is always right. Always.
It really depends on what you mean as 'right'. Language is fluid and changing and in one respect English is simply the language spoken by the English at any given time, hence English English speakers are always right, but given the range of dialects within even our borders, the idea that there is a single correct English is nonsensical. Without getting all Acedemie Francais about it, to ensure there is at least some hope of understanding each other, there are 'rules' to English. These are not rigorously taught, much less enforced, but for a foreigner to literally qualify as an English speaker they have to know them. My father was Dutch, his English was technically flawless, because he was taught the rules of English; it would amuse him occasionally to correct someone English's English.
As for the meaning of words, well, it's all in the nuance, that's French for nuance. If you believe that the native speaker is always right, Melchior, why don't you ask a German what geist means, but even then, how will you know that the word they choose is entirely appropriate, given that they are not a native English speaker?

My point is that a native speaker of English will have a far more perfect grasp of the meaning of 'spirit' (an English word) than a non-native. When I tell you that 'phenomenology of spirit' is meaningless gibberish (because English speakers don't use 'spirit' that way), you can take that to the bank.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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Melchior wrote:When I tell you that 'phenomenology of spirit' is meaningless gibberish (because English speakers don't use 'spirit' that way), you can take that to the bank.
But Hegel does! And philosophers, as I told you, play around with words much more that ordinary people. You can't expect a philosopher to use words in the same way ordinary people do.

Take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenom ... _of_Spirit

1 out of 10 books (the last book not using either) use the title of "spirit", now are you gonna say that none of those are native English translators? Because if they are native English translators then there are certainly a lot of English people who use the word that way, including the large part of the world who uses it that way and virtually nobody ever says "phenomenology of mind", so you should be dead wrong about English people not using the word "spirit" that way.

In English spirit is all the time used to refer to the movement of conscious beings, most notably in the supernatural and the mystic, which is also likely why they use it for Hegel because to the uninitiated his texts do appear quite mystic. It's not a common word for people on the ground, because the ordinary person do not deal with such subjects, but the kind of word you use when you want to explain some way that things act that we don't normally perceive to act... that it acts as if it has spirit, a conscious ability to move. We use the word to express human lively behaviour for instance, does that not make you think of a greater "movement of a conscious being"? Compared to the non-spirited human who just sits in a corner barely moving... ? In virtually ever use of the word, it's going to refer to the movement of conscious beings, to signify that they are acting out, that they are "moving"... and in the supernatural and mystic, it's the personification of things that make them appear conscious.
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

Post by Melchior »

The Voice of Time wrote:
Melchior wrote:When I tell you that 'phenomenology of spirit' is meaningless gibberish (because English speakers don't use 'spirit' that way), you can take that to the bank.
But Hegel does! And philosophers, as I told you, play around with words much more that ordinary people. You can't expect a philosopher to use words in the same way ordinary people do.

Take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenom ... _of_Spirit

1 out of 10 books (the last book not using either) use the title of "spirit", now are you gonna say that none of those are native English translators? Because if they are native English translators then there are certainly a lot of English people who use the word that way, including the large part of the world who uses it that way and virtually nobody ever says "phenomenology of mind", so you should be dead wrong about English people not using the word "spirit" that way.

In English spirit is all the time used to refer to the movement of conscious beings, most notably in the supernatural and the mystic, which is also likely why they use it for Hegel because to the uninitiated his texts do appear quite mystic. It's not a common word for people on the ground, because the ordinary person do not deal with such subjects, but the kind of word you use when you want to explain some way that things act that we don't normally perceive to act... that it acts as if it has spirit, a conscious ability to move. We use the word to express human lively behaviour for instance, does that not make you think of a greater "movement of a conscious being"? Compared to the non-spirited human who just sits in a corner barely moving... ? In virtually ever use of the word, it's going to refer to the movement of conscious beings, to signify that they are acting out, that they are "moving"... and in the supernatural and mystic, it's the personification of things that make them appear conscious.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Phenomenology ... 0486432513

It is not necessary for philosophers to employ vague and mystical language. Hegel was among the worst offenders. Schopenhauer loathed him for that very reason:

http://fieldlines.org/2011/07/17/my-fav ... -hitchens/
Arthur Schopenhaeur always saw Georg Hegel as a charlatan who bewitched the people of his time, even criticizing Hegel while a student. When he attained a University position in Berlin with Hegel, he scheduled his lectures to occur at the same time. In this deliberate attempt to polarize the students, only a handful chose to hear him, while Hegel’s lectures continued to sell out.

Schopenhauer did not convince in his age, however his writings have remained a paragon for like-minded future critics of the Hegelian Dialectic.

“Now if for this purpose I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right.

If I were to say that this pseudo-philosophy has as its central idea an absurd notion grasped from thin air, that it dispenses with reasons and consequents, in other words, is demonstrated by nothing, and itself does not prove or explain anything, that it lacks originality and is a mere parody of scholastic realism and at the same time of Spinozism, and that the monster is also supposed to represent Christianity turned inside out, hence, ‘The face of a lion, the belly of a goat, the hindquarters of a dragon,’ again I should be right.

Further, if I were to say that this [Great Philosopher] of the Danish Academy scribbled nonsense quite unlike any mortal before him, so that whoever could read his most eulogized work, the so-called Phenomenology of the Mind, without feeling as if he were in a madhouse, would qualify as an inmate for Bedlam, I should be no less right.”

Schopenhauer, Arthur. (1839) “On the Basis of Morality” 1995 Translation, E.F.J. Payne ; introduction, David E. Cartwright

“Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who thus joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of an whole generation.”

Schopenhauer, Arthur. (1888) “Works” vol. V, p 103 [quoted in: Popper, K. R. "The Open Society and Its Enemies" Vol. 2, pp. 32-33]
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Re: Greatest Explanation of "The Phenomenology of Spirit" ev

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I know, that said Schopenhauer is not the kind of philosopher you take very seriously. He's a bit of an underdog in the history of philosophy in my opinion.
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