Hegel's Science of Logic: Lectures by Stephen Houlgate (2 of 18)

In these lectures, Professor Stephen Houlgate offers elucidating and helpful guidance into the notoriously difficult philosophical text The Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik), written by the 19th Century German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel. The Science of Logic (also known as the Greater Logic) seeks to provide a systematic examination to the question of what it means to be. To be anything at all and what it means to be something specifically. What is it to be something at all? What is existence? What is a quality? What is it to be finite? Does the thought of limitations not suggest that thinking is somehow already beyond those? What is infinity? These are only a sample of the questions that Professor Houlgate investigates in Hegel’s formidable treatise in the course of these lectures.
These lectures will focus primarily from the beginning of the book up to the section called “The One and the Many” in the Doctrine of Being.
There are two widely used English translations of The Science of Logic. One by A.V. Miller and one by George di Giovanni. The latter is more recent and is perhaps becoming more frequent. Both, however, work well for this course.
The Hegel book -
(trans. Di Giovanni) www.amazon.co.uk/dp/110749963...
(trans. Miller)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/157392280...
Stephen Houlgate is a professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick. He has published numerous books and articles on Hegel, Kant, Brandom, McDowell, and others. Notable publications include ‘The Opening of Hegel's Logic. From Being to Infinity’ (Purdue University Press, 2006), ‘An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History, 2nd edition’ (Blackwell, 2005) and ‘Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. A Reader's Guide’ (Bloomsbury, 2013). He has edited several essay collections, such as ‘A Companion to Hegel’ (with M.Baur, Blackwell, 2011), ‘Hegel and the Philosophy of Nature’ (SUNY, 1998) and ‘Hegel and the Arts’ (Northwestern University Press, 2007).
These lectures were delivered during Autumn 2017 at the University of Warwick.
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[@PhilosophyPortal]

3 major take away for me: I love the idea that "logic must be ontology, ontology without an object", that is such a clear explanation of the formula that "being couldn't possibly be different from thought". I also appreciated how clearly Houlgate described the necessity of the Phenomenology, i.e. "We need the Phenomenology because of ordinary consciousness, ordinary consciousness will see "being as thought" as just another assumption of consciousness". Finally, it was very clear how Houlgate describes Hegel's method, not as thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but the activity required for thinking to be passive, to let the idea unfold in its own truth, for the categories to be derived from an originally presuppositionless or indeterminate state of being.

[@shawntillis7910]

Thinking therefore Being. By my math, it's Thinking therefore Activity. I'd be interested to see as I continue to read how being unfolds from Activity...i.e. 'Something Presently Going On'. Consciousness and the Ego seems to be posited in immediate reflection.

[@Philiopantheon82]

Stephen Houlgate is a very close reader and authentic trustee on Hegel's text, I would pretty much suggest these lectures along with his book(Hegel's reader) to anyone interested in Hegel

[@robbibittybob20]

I was in these lectures and it is brilliant that someone uploaded their recordings to youtube. Thank you so much :)

[@9340Steve]

I'm at 10:26 of this, the scond lecture. Does he ever discuss the introduction or the two prefaces? Also, which translation is he using? I own a copy of the Miller.

[@restoftheworld7200]

This is Hegel read through the lens of Heidegger and Husserl. It doesn't incorporate the ideas present in the Phenomenology of Spirit and deviates from Hegel's actual method as apparent from his other works.

[@bradspitt3896]

Wouldn't thinking any concept and stopping there as you would "Being" pass over into nothing? Therefore the dialectic could begin with any thing. Any thing is indeterminate if you don't determine it. If you start with Being or any thing, you've already determined it.

[@restoftheworld7200]

"Method may appear at first as the mere manner peculiar to the process of cognition and as a matter of fact it has the nature of such. But the peculiar manner, as method, is not merely a modality of being determined in and for itself; it is a modality of cognition, and as such is posited as determined by the Notion and as form." --1784

[@2tehnik]

Tbh I don't think Parmenides has to be read as contraposing Being and nothing (in the sense that to be being in some sense means to not be nothing). As Stephen admits, he ultimately says you can't speak nor think of nothing. Indeed, the start of the poem establishes this, and then moves on to the metaphysics.

[@ruvstof]

Hegel is for believers!

[@restoftheworld7200]

How on earth do you think of pure being without presuppositions when precisely it assumes there is such a substance as being which has the quality of being pure? This is a failed thought experiment to begin with. I do not think that there is any chance in hell Hegel believes that is possible or that was his intent. It is impossible to think of nothing, because that nothing is something. Some kind of thing-like category must exist. How all the post-grad students just go along with this is just sad. I don't think they have a bone of critical thinking in them.

[@jAmadagnya]

There is no "assumption"about pure being here. Pure Being as Hegel clearly says is simple immediacy without any determinations. The student of Hegel must be ready to go into "Silence" where in Hegel's words, "the interests which run the lives of nations and individuals are hushed". Hegel's logic is an exercise in Deep Meditation and Contemplation of the kind done by Mystics.

[@restoftheworld7200]

@@jAmadagnya Who says Hegel is some weird ass meditation freak?

[@jAmadagnya]

@@restoftheworld7200 Try to think of "Pure Being" as Hegel lays out in the Logic and you will say that yourself. It's not for nothing that the Logic has been called the densest book ever written. Hegel demands a lot.

[@donniecarpenter2662]

@@restoftheworld7200 “weird ass meditation freak”

[@Voivode.of.Hirsir]

You didn't listen to the lecture

[@robbibittybob20]

I was in these lectures and it is brilliant that someone uploaded their recordings to youtube. Thank you so much :)