[Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action
Lplarry
lpscholar2@gmail.com
Sat Jul 15 22:19:22 PDT 2017
Greg, Andy,
As I am listening to your discourse from the margins I hear Andy saying (take activity) as the mono basic fundamental approach.
I will respond to how I understand this discourse:
Consciousness, matter, gravity, are concepts and as concepts are derivative from more basic activity which is primary.
Activity as the basic (substance) , concepts as derivative.
As substance, activity is NOT COMPOSED of other things.
Andy gives the example of the concept (chair) that is not a material object but is an activity. The (entire activity) is REPRESENTED in the concept of the chair.
Whatever artifact is considered, it is not the material object that is represented by the conceptual artifact, but the (entire activity) is represented in the conceptual artifact.
Mediating artifacts used by philosophers in their social practice are words.
Just as we are inclined to IDENTIFY the concepts of ordinary artifacts with the material object ITSELF (rather than the entire activity mediated by the artifact) we likewise are inclined to talk about the concept mediated by the word (such as the word ‘being’) AS IF the word were ITSELF the concept (therefore loosing awareness of the entire activity IDENTIFIED in the concept (being) as used by philosophers.
So, in Hegel’s time the concept (Spirit) expressed this entire activity, but today the entire activity is better understood as (activity). Both the concept Spirit in Hegel’s time and the concept Activity today, indicate the same phenomena (the entirety of activity).
Activity (the entirety of activity) is the one SUBSTANCE that cannot be decomposed into other things.
Matter, consciousness, gravity, can be understood as activity (the one substance) so these words represent concepts and concepts are NOT the words, concepts are the activity (the entirety of activity) and activity is more basic than consciousness or material.
Andy, not sure if I am taking (activity) as you intended, but is my response to listening to the discourse between you and Greg as I listen from the margins.
A tentative probe
Sent from my Windows 10 phone
From: Andy Blunden
Sent: July 15, 2017 6:03 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action
Communication is hard, isn't it? You have interpreted what I
have said in the exact 100% opposite of my meaning, Greg.
The European Rationalists and Empiricists of the
Enlightenment broke with the monism of the Catholic Church
and proposed that matter existed outside of and
independently of human consciousness but the nature of
matter could be known by the respective programs of
rationalism and empiricism. This is the view which guided
the development of philosophy and science in the West and
remains common sense to this day.
*Hegel proposed a viable alternative to this ontology*
But he did not do that by providing "new" definitions of
matter and consciousness. He proposed a new monist starting
point and reconstructed an entire world view beginning from
that single concept which, in the spirit of his own times,
he called "Spirit". I call it "Activity" and the article
shows that this interpretation is true to Hegel's intention.
So please, rather than imagining how matter and
consciousness could somehow get mixed up with one another
and we can discover psychokinesis and tell the future with
dreams, be open to taking Activity as the substance of a
world view.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
On 16/07/2017 4:45 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
> Andy,
>
> I must confess to being entirely confused by your
> suggestion that "matter is everything outside of
> consciousness". It sounds like you are starting the
> conversation by saying "there is matter on the one hand
> and there is consciousness on the other hand and never the
> twain shall meet." Perhaps that is an essential starting
> point for understanding activity, but I would at least
> like to imagine it could be otherwise.
>
> In my work I am trying to
> do this work of imagining
> how it could be otherwise. I'm trying to think of this
> another way
> , t
> o get a grip on things in some way that does not split the
> world in two
> right at the get-go
> .
>
> I assume that for you this is an ontological commitment.
> You start by assuming (asserting? realizing?) that there
> are two types of things in the world - matter and
> consciousness. I'd rather not start there. Because this
> involves a disagreement in our starting assumptions, I
> don't suspect we'll get very far with that conversation
> (and we've dabbled in that conversation before and indeed
> we haven't gotten anywhere).
>
> So I thought I would ask a slightly different question:
> what is the nature of gravity? Is it more like matter or
> more like consciousness (in that one could imagine gravity
> being something "outside" of matter in the sense that you
> are saying "consciousness" is outside of matter)? I know
> you are committed to non-dualism in some sense and I'm
> just trying to figure out how you reconcile all of this.
>
> In solidarity,
> -greg
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:11 AM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> No, it would be spreading confusion, Greg.
>
> "Matter" in this context is everything outside of my
> consciousness. "Activity" in this context is human,
> social practice. Moving attention to the sub-atomic
> level, a field where we have no common sense, sensuous
> knowledge, does not help.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
> On 15/07/2017 2:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>
> Andy,
> Just musing here but I'm wondering if "matter" is
> anything more than activity, particularly when
> considered at the sub-atomic level.
> At that level, matter seems a lot more like the
> holding of relations in some activity (not so
> different from the Notion?).
> Or would that be taking things too far?
> -greg
>
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 10:12 PM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
>
> Anyone who got interested in that material about
> "Hegel on Action", here is my contribution.
>
> https://www.academia.edu/33887830/Hegel_on_Action
> <https://www.academia.edu/33887830/Hegel_on_Action>
>
> <https://www.academia.edu/33887830/Hegel_on_Action
> <https://www.academia.edu/33887830/Hegel_on_Action>>
>
> Andy
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>
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