Tag: philosophy

It would not be fair to compare Hegel to Heidegger. If there are similarities in form, they are limited to form: Heidegger is, in my benevolent days, the unparalleled model of an intellectual swindler. There is nothing impostor-like about Hegel: his defect, to tell the truth, is this German mania for wanting to scrutinize everything down to the last detail, this incapacity for powerful synthesis. It is a pity that The Phenomenology of the Spirit is three times longer than it should be: but there are undoubtedly many pages in it that are worthy of attention.

I go through the opening chapters of The Phenomenology of the Spirit imagining how much fun Hegel must have had while erecting his logical monument. It must really be a fun mental exercise to put all that reasoning together. For my part, however, if I ever set out to construct prose in this way with the intention of publishing it under my name, I promise not to do so without first burning everything I have published.

Conviviality is a wicked lady who forcibly corrupts morals and indoctrinates into vice. The one who coexists buys this lady using his own freedom as currency. He becomes someone worse, for sure. In this, modern psychology is infallible: there is a veiled convivial agreement that implies actions which, if not fulfilled, generate individual and collective discomfort. Moral evolution requires a break from this agreement, because it consists of a reaction to worldly instinct. Virtue, although practiced in the world, can only be conceived in solitude.

It seems necessary to the man who effectively overcomes the weaknesses of the flesh to support himself in a higher conception of existence, that is, to believe—and this is the word—in something that transcends concrete reality. Acting in this way, simple reason points to a scale of values that should serve as a guide, and by guiding on it, it is possible to act against the instincts—giving them their due importance.