Re: The uneducated

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Thanks Andy, the URL was very helpful!

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Hi,
I am not sure why Hegel did not say "Rette sich wer kann," for this is both literal and good as translation. In English it would be something like "Find shelter those who can" or "Get away those who can". I think if you read the "uneducated" in the way you read Kultur, then you are too literal, at least today. I read it and meant it in my own writing as those who are not familiar with or have developed a close S-O relation through their agency. The more you get into a subject matter, the more concrete and palpable it becomes--vectors when you don't know them are abstract, out there, you can't do anything with them, they are but scratches on paper. To an advanced physics student or statistician, vectors are things that are as concrete as the veggies in my garden, you touch them, you do things with them, they respond to your moves. This changed knowledgeability with respect to vectors is indicative of a process of learning, of "education," of expanded room to maneuver.

It is dangerous to read the great works literally, we know this concerns the bible but also Hegel and others.

Michael

PS: I think it would be an interesting exercise to think through the problem of ascension from abstract to concrete in the context of mathematics where the movement appears to be from concrete to abstract . . .


On 2-May-05, at 9:24 PM, bb wrote:

Thanks Mike, for your reply.  A concrete response to these contradictions needs more than you.

bb




From: Mike Cole <lchcmike who-is-at gmail.com>
Date: May 2, 2005 8:42:43 PM PDT
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: The uneducated


Language dummy that I am,  I do not know the translation of sauve.  Nor do I know the source of the Hegel quote that is apparently out there in google land.   Blush .

However, I believe that the way "abstract" is being interpreted in the discussion of "rising to the concrete" is that abstractions are
empty until filled with appropriate content. in this sense, "Only those who know nothing"  would be an appropriate response to the
question "Who can think abstractly."  Given my long standing distrust of the notion of Kultur in the tradition that ranks people from without
culture to Kultured, this might be incorrect to the specific case, bb. But my interpretation would at least link the ideas under discussion in
a non-pejoritive way.
mike

On 5/2/05, bb <xmca-whoever who-is-at comcast.net> wrote:

>after saying in French "Sauve qui peut" answers his question, "Only the
>uneducated."

Interesting discursive move.  At once powerful and exclusive, and while unsituated, ironic.  So many levels of meaning that I'm wondering whether to embrace Hegel anymore.

Thanks for sharing!
bb

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