DAVID R. LAW
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263364
- eISBN:
- 9780191682506
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263364.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter examines to what extent apophatic motifs are present in the basic structure of Søren Kierkegaard's thought, particularly in his dialectics. It analyses the dialectical structure of ...
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This chapter examines to what extent apophatic motifs are present in the basic structure of Søren Kierkegaard's thought, particularly in his dialectics. It analyses the dialectical structure of Kierkegaard's works and the form of dialectics he used to analyse existential and philosophical problems and suggests that apophatic motifs can be found in the very foundations upon which Kierkegaard's thought is based. Though there are many different interpretations of Kierkegaard's dialectics there is a general agreement that he has transposed Hegelian dialectics from the essential to the existential.Less
This chapter examines to what extent apophatic motifs are present in the basic structure of Søren Kierkegaard's thought, particularly in his dialectics. It analyses the dialectical structure of Kierkegaard's works and the form of dialectics he used to analyse existential and philosophical problems and suggests that apophatic motifs can be found in the very foundations upon which Kierkegaard's thought is based. Though there are many different interpretations of Kierkegaard's dialectics there is a general agreement that he has transposed Hegelian dialectics from the essential to the existential.
Nicholas Griffin
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198244530
- eISBN:
- 9780191680786
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198244530.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Russell's modern analytic philosophy was born around the turn of the century, largely through Bertrand Russell's and G. E. Moore's reaction against the neo-Hegelianism which dominated British ...
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Russell's modern analytic philosophy was born around the turn of the century, largely through Bertrand Russell's and G. E. Moore's reaction against the neo-Hegelianism which dominated British philosophy in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It is well known that Russell had himself been a neo-Hegelian, but hitherto little has been known about his work during that period. Yet this work was important, not only for Russell's development as a philosopher, but also for the development of analytic philosophy. Based mainly on unpublished papers held in the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University, this book is the first detailed study of this early period of Russell's philosophical career. The first three chapters are concerned with Russell's philosophical education at Cambridge in the early 1890s and his conversion to neo-Hegelianism. The remaining chapters outline his ambitious plans for a neo-Hegelian dialectic of the sciences, and the problems which ultimately led him to reject it.Less
Russell's modern analytic philosophy was born around the turn of the century, largely through Bertrand Russell's and G. E. Moore's reaction against the neo-Hegelianism which dominated British philosophy in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It is well known that Russell had himself been a neo-Hegelian, but hitherto little has been known about his work during that period. Yet this work was important, not only for Russell's development as a philosopher, but also for the development of analytic philosophy. Based mainly on unpublished papers held in the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University, this book is the first detailed study of this early period of Russell's philosophical career. The first three chapters are concerned with Russell's philosophical education at Cambridge in the early 1890s and his conversion to neo-Hegelianism. The remaining chapters outline his ambitious plans for a neo-Hegelian dialectic of the sciences, and the problems which ultimately led him to reject it.
Andrew Cole
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226135397
- eISBN:
- 9780226135564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226135564.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Nietzsche does not despise the dialectic, as so many of his readers assume. Rather, as this chapter shows, Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy, goes to great lengths to avoid simplifying dialectical ...
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Nietzsche does not despise the dialectic, as so many of his readers assume. Rather, as this chapter shows, Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy, goes to great lengths to avoid simplifying dialectical thinking by distinguishing between kinds of dialectic—Socratic and Hegelian. He shows that the former is non-dialectical and thus responsible for the death of tragedy and that the latter, in the guise of abstract identity/difference and abstract determination, generates the identity of the tragic artist. In this careful and energetic work, Nietzsche reveals a deep understanding of complex dialectical habits of thought. He also supplies an object lesson for us, and for the procedures in the subsequent chapters of The Birth of Theory: he shows us that even the mistiest of logical abstractions, such as identity/difference, can be historicized, assigned a time, a place, a point of origin (contra Foucault’s criticism of origins), and he demonstrates that not all dialectic is reducible to the expected ancient sources or to anti-dialectical, anti-Hegelian clichés, which readers like Deleuze project into Nietzsche’s work.Less
Nietzsche does not despise the dialectic, as so many of his readers assume. Rather, as this chapter shows, Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy, goes to great lengths to avoid simplifying dialectical thinking by distinguishing between kinds of dialectic—Socratic and Hegelian. He shows that the former is non-dialectical and thus responsible for the death of tragedy and that the latter, in the guise of abstract identity/difference and abstract determination, generates the identity of the tragic artist. In this careful and energetic work, Nietzsche reveals a deep understanding of complex dialectical habits of thought. He also supplies an object lesson for us, and for the procedures in the subsequent chapters of The Birth of Theory: he shows us that even the mistiest of logical abstractions, such as identity/difference, can be historicized, assigned a time, a place, a point of origin (contra Foucault’s criticism of origins), and he demonstrates that not all dialectic is reducible to the expected ancient sources or to anti-dialectical, anti-Hegelian clichés, which readers like Deleuze project into Nietzsche’s work.
Daniel Brown
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183532
- eISBN:
- 9780191674051
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183532.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter examines English poet Gerald Manley Hopkins' conception of the ‘the Idea’. It suggests that though his concept was based on the Hegelian dialectic, it is not tied to the progressive ...
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This chapter examines English poet Gerald Manley Hopkins' conception of the ‘the Idea’. It suggests that though his concept was based on the Hegelian dialectic, it is not tied to the progressive historicism that is integral to Hegel's principle. In his Oxford essay The Probable Future of Metaphysics, Hopkins even rejected Hegel's developmentalism and his philosophy of development in time. This chapter suggests that Hopkins' concession to developmentalism was influenced by his mentor Benjamin Jowett, who believes that the history of thought describes a progressive clarification of the ultimate nature of truth.Less
This chapter examines English poet Gerald Manley Hopkins' conception of the ‘the Idea’. It suggests that though his concept was based on the Hegelian dialectic, it is not tied to the progressive historicism that is integral to Hegel's principle. In his Oxford essay The Probable Future of Metaphysics, Hopkins even rejected Hegel's developmentalism and his philosophy of development in time. This chapter suggests that Hopkins' concession to developmentalism was influenced by his mentor Benjamin Jowett, who believes that the history of thought describes a progressive clarification of the ultimate nature of truth.
Edward M. Hundert
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198248965
- eISBN:
- 9780191681165
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198248965.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter is devoted to examining how recent neuroscientific research sheds light on the Hegelian dialectic within this synthesis of perspectives. Since the nervous system is the organ humans use ...
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This chapter is devoted to examining how recent neuroscientific research sheds light on the Hegelian dialectic within this synthesis of perspectives. Since the nervous system is the organ humans use to interact with the environment, this chapter continues the Hegelian programme by exploring the contributions of the environment to the nervous system. Furthermore, there is a focus on the ‘content’ of experience and the discovery that our brains are shaped by features of the world such as ‘lines in various orientations’, ‘motion in different directions’, and the like. Just as a non-‘object’-containing world of coalescing mercury droplets would not provide the structure needed for minds to construct experience according to the concept of ‘object’, so a non-‘horizontal line’ containing world would not provide the content needed for brains to construct experience according to horizontal features of the world.Less
This chapter is devoted to examining how recent neuroscientific research sheds light on the Hegelian dialectic within this synthesis of perspectives. Since the nervous system is the organ humans use to interact with the environment, this chapter continues the Hegelian programme by exploring the contributions of the environment to the nervous system. Furthermore, there is a focus on the ‘content’ of experience and the discovery that our brains are shaped by features of the world such as ‘lines in various orientations’, ‘motion in different directions’, and the like. Just as a non-‘object’-containing world of coalescing mercury droplets would not provide the structure needed for minds to construct experience according to the concept of ‘object’, so a non-‘horizontal line’ containing world would not provide the content needed for brains to construct experience according to horizontal features of the world.
Pierre Macherey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677405
- eISBN:
- 9781452947570
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677405.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines Hegel’s use of the phrase “alle Bestimmheit ist Negation Negation” as an almost magical formula that summarizes the entire framework of Spinozism. It seeks to understand what ...
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This chapter examines Hegel’s use of the phrase “alle Bestimmheit ist Negation Negation” as an almost magical formula that summarizes the entire framework of Spinozism. It seeks to understand what kind of logic leads Hegel to attribute this phrase to Spinoza, making it the principal marker of their distinction. According to Hegel, one philosophy is necessarily superior because it follows another and nourishes itself on the previous one’s failure, prompting him to categorize philosophies according to the principle of a negative rationality. In Hegel’s view, the philosophy of Spinoza is necessarily insufficient therefore it must be interpreted. However, the chapter argues that Hegel does not properly understand Spinoza, and that it was Spinoza who understood Hegel and refuted his dialectic.Less
This chapter examines Hegel’s use of the phrase “alle Bestimmheit ist Negation Negation” as an almost magical formula that summarizes the entire framework of Spinozism. It seeks to understand what kind of logic leads Hegel to attribute this phrase to Spinoza, making it the principal marker of their distinction. According to Hegel, one philosophy is necessarily superior because it follows another and nourishes itself on the previous one’s failure, prompting him to categorize philosophies according to the principle of a negative rationality. In Hegel’s view, the philosophy of Spinoza is necessarily insufficient therefore it must be interpreted. However, the chapter argues that Hegel does not properly understand Spinoza, and that it was Spinoza who understood Hegel and refuted his dialectic.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226472478
- eISBN:
- 9780226472492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226472492.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter explores how Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's early theological writings deal with the question of reason through a dialogue with Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn. Hegel's most ...
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This chapter explores how Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's early theological writings deal with the question of reason through a dialogue with Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn. Hegel's most sustained analysis of the essence of Judaism can be found in the so-called Berne and Frankfurt essays, which he wrote in the 1790s. Writing against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Hegel investigates the moral and political identities of Judaism and Christianity by placing an opposition between Greeks and Jews. This Greek/Jew antithesis is central to the origin of Hegelian dialectics that ultimately find their expression in his 1798–1799 essay “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate” in a comparison between Greek and Jewish tragedy. The chapter also explores Hegel's early preoccupation with tragedy and compares it to Friedrich Nietzsche's own discussion of Greeks and Jews in the Birth of Tragedy. Finally, it shows how the genealogy of Greeks, Jews, and Christians emerges as an important consideration in Hegel's conceptualization of the philosophy of history.Less
This chapter explores how Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's early theological writings deal with the question of reason through a dialogue with Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn. Hegel's most sustained analysis of the essence of Judaism can be found in the so-called Berne and Frankfurt essays, which he wrote in the 1790s. Writing against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Hegel investigates the moral and political identities of Judaism and Christianity by placing an opposition between Greeks and Jews. This Greek/Jew antithesis is central to the origin of Hegelian dialectics that ultimately find their expression in his 1798–1799 essay “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate” in a comparison between Greek and Jewish tragedy. The chapter also explores Hegel's early preoccupation with tragedy and compares it to Friedrich Nietzsche's own discussion of Greeks and Jews in the Birth of Tragedy. Finally, it shows how the genealogy of Greeks, Jews, and Christians emerges as an important consideration in Hegel's conceptualization of the philosophy of history.
Dean Keith Simonton
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195373585
- eISBN:
- 9780199893263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373585.003.0031
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology
This chapter examines positive psychology from a combined historical and philosophical perspective. In other words, it examines the movement from the standpoint of the philosophy of history—the ...
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This chapter examines positive psychology from a combined historical and philosophical perspective. In other words, it examines the movement from the standpoint of the philosophy of history—the scholarly discipline that examines the source of change in the course of human events. Scholars in this discipline endeavor to tease out the “laws” or “lessons” of history, that is, the abstract principles or regularities that govern the phenomenon. The chapter discusses the long-term impact of intellectual extremism, the Hegelian dialectic underlying the history of ideas, and the Comtian hierarchy of the sciences. In each case empirical findings are reviewed and how those findings might be applied to positive psychology are discussed.Less
This chapter examines positive psychology from a combined historical and philosophical perspective. In other words, it examines the movement from the standpoint of the philosophy of history—the scholarly discipline that examines the source of change in the course of human events. Scholars in this discipline endeavor to tease out the “laws” or “lessons” of history, that is, the abstract principles or regularities that govern the phenomenon. The chapter discusses the long-term impact of intellectual extremism, the Hegelian dialectic underlying the history of ideas, and the Comtian hierarchy of the sciences. In each case empirical findings are reviewed and how those findings might be applied to positive psychology are discussed.
Andrew Cole
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226135397
- eISBN:
- 9780226135564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226135564.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Modern theory needs a history lesson. Neither Marx nor Nietzsche first gave us theory. Hegel did. To support this contention, The Birth of Theory presents a refreshingly clear and lively account of ...
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Modern theory needs a history lesson. Neither Marx nor Nietzsche first gave us theory. Hegel did. To support this contention, The Birth of Theory presents a refreshingly clear and lively account of the origins and legacy of Hegel’s dialectic as theory. It begins with the untold story about Hegel, who boldly broke from modern philosophy when he adopted medieval dialectical habits of thought to fashion his dialectic. While his contemporaries rejected premodern dialectic as outdated dogma, Hegel embraced both its emphasis on language as thought and its fascination with the categories of identity and difference, creating what we now recognize as theory as distinct from systematic philosophy. Not content merely to change philosophy, Hegel also used this dialectic to expose the persistent archaism of modern life itself, establishing a method of social analysis that has influenced everyone from Marx and the nineteenth-century Hegelians, to Nietzsche and Bakhtin, all the way to Deleuze and Jameson. By uncovering these theoretical filiations across time, The Birth of Theory will not only change the way we read Hegel, but also the way we think about the histories of theory. With chapters that reanimate the overly familiar topics of ideology, commodity fetishism, and political economy, along with a powerful reinterpretation of Hegel’s famous master/slave dialectic, The Birth of Theory places the disciplines of philosophy, literature, and history in conversation with one another in an unprecedented way. Daring to reconcile the sworn enemies of Hegelianism and Deleuzianism, this timely book revitalizes dialectics for the twenty-first century.Less
Modern theory needs a history lesson. Neither Marx nor Nietzsche first gave us theory. Hegel did. To support this contention, The Birth of Theory presents a refreshingly clear and lively account of the origins and legacy of Hegel’s dialectic as theory. It begins with the untold story about Hegel, who boldly broke from modern philosophy when he adopted medieval dialectical habits of thought to fashion his dialectic. While his contemporaries rejected premodern dialectic as outdated dogma, Hegel embraced both its emphasis on language as thought and its fascination with the categories of identity and difference, creating what we now recognize as theory as distinct from systematic philosophy. Not content merely to change philosophy, Hegel also used this dialectic to expose the persistent archaism of modern life itself, establishing a method of social analysis that has influenced everyone from Marx and the nineteenth-century Hegelians, to Nietzsche and Bakhtin, all the way to Deleuze and Jameson. By uncovering these theoretical filiations across time, The Birth of Theory will not only change the way we read Hegel, but also the way we think about the histories of theory. With chapters that reanimate the overly familiar topics of ideology, commodity fetishism, and political economy, along with a powerful reinterpretation of Hegel’s famous master/slave dialectic, The Birth of Theory places the disciplines of philosophy, literature, and history in conversation with one another in an unprecedented way. Daring to reconcile the sworn enemies of Hegelianism and Deleuzianism, this timely book revitalizes dialectics for the twenty-first century.
Roby Rajan
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199499069
- eISBN:
- 9780190990428
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199499069.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, Indian History
In this chapter Rajan contends that it is not enough to oppose modern universalism by positing a culture’s specificity in contradistinction to it. Universalism can only be countered by universalism, ...
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In this chapter Rajan contends that it is not enough to oppose modern universalism by positing a culture’s specificity in contradistinction to it. Universalism can only be countered by universalism, asserts Rajan, and argues that the underlying logic of ‘progress’ in today’s global ideology is still broadly Hegelian. The central question raised in the paper is: is this the only universal story that can be told? Rajan answers this question with a resounding NO! by pointing to an unlikely source: the meta-philosophical logic of the autonomous development of Indian philosophy which emerges when the Indian dialectician T.R.V. Murti and the Japanese philosopher Gadjin Nagao are read together. Rajan christens the unfolding of this logic in a social landscape of intercommunality as ‘backwater ecsatsis’, and argues that it is only in such ecstasis that an alternative to the failed Hegelian conception of the state as the crowning accomplishment of human community is to be found.Less
In this chapter Rajan contends that it is not enough to oppose modern universalism by positing a culture’s specificity in contradistinction to it. Universalism can only be countered by universalism, asserts Rajan, and argues that the underlying logic of ‘progress’ in today’s global ideology is still broadly Hegelian. The central question raised in the paper is: is this the only universal story that can be told? Rajan answers this question with a resounding NO! by pointing to an unlikely source: the meta-philosophical logic of the autonomous development of Indian philosophy which emerges when the Indian dialectician T.R.V. Murti and the Japanese philosopher Gadjin Nagao are read together. Rajan christens the unfolding of this logic in a social landscape of intercommunality as ‘backwater ecsatsis’, and argues that it is only in such ecstasis that an alternative to the failed Hegelian conception of the state as the crowning accomplishment of human community is to be found.
John D. Caputo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823239924
- eISBN:
- 9780823239962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239924.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Where the first two chapters have offered a critical analysis of the model of subjectivity underpinning theoretical engagements with mysticism (Lacan, Irigaray, Hollywood) and also forms of modernist ...
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Where the first two chapters have offered a critical analysis of the model of subjectivity underpinning theoretical engagements with mysticism (Lacan, Irigaray, Hollywood) and also forms of modernist and postmodernist critical theory (Lyotard, Žižek, Derrida, Adorno), the third chapter starts elaborating a positive model of identity, building in particular on Heidegger's account of a fundamental human relatedness (Mitsein). Heidegger is contrasted with Sartre and Levinas, and parallels between phenomenology and recent cognitive neuroscience are explored. The chapter argues that Heidegger does not consistently follow through the theoretical innovation that the turn to Mitsein represents. Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler offer theoretical resources for a model of human relatedness that is less abstract than Heidegger's, and which avoids the tendency, evident in Being and Time, to invoke the ideal of an isolated, heroic male subject. At the same time, both Beauvoir and Butler are, at root, Hegelian thinkers for whom relations between human beings are conceived of as inherently antagonistic. The alternative model of interdependence and relatedness (as opposed to antagonism) is illustrated by a reading of Kafka's story “A little woman”.Less
Where the first two chapters have offered a critical analysis of the model of subjectivity underpinning theoretical engagements with mysticism (Lacan, Irigaray, Hollywood) and also forms of modernist and postmodernist critical theory (Lyotard, Žižek, Derrida, Adorno), the third chapter starts elaborating a positive model of identity, building in particular on Heidegger's account of a fundamental human relatedness (Mitsein). Heidegger is contrasted with Sartre and Levinas, and parallels between phenomenology and recent cognitive neuroscience are explored. The chapter argues that Heidegger does not consistently follow through the theoretical innovation that the turn to Mitsein represents. Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler offer theoretical resources for a model of human relatedness that is less abstract than Heidegger's, and which avoids the tendency, evident in Being and Time, to invoke the ideal of an isolated, heroic male subject. At the same time, both Beauvoir and Butler are, at root, Hegelian thinkers for whom relations between human beings are conceived of as inherently antagonistic. The alternative model of interdependence and relatedness (as opposed to antagonism) is illustrated by a reading of Kafka's story “A little woman”.
Irving Singer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262512732
- eISBN:
- 9780262315128
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262512732.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter discusses how the Hegelian dialectic is similar to the dialectical play within the thinking of the Middle Ages when it comes to the conflict between religious love and courtly love. If ...
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This chapter discusses how the Hegelian dialectic is similar to the dialectical play within the thinking of the Middle Ages when it comes to the conflict between religious love and courtly love. If the notion of self-transcendence, as proposed by Hegel, is used as an occasional tool, this conflict may be resolved in ways that cause both religious and courtly love to change. This double self-transcendence does not always occur, as it did not with either Aquinas or Andreas, but both antagonists changed significantly, as Hegel would have predicted. In a way, each destroys but also preserves the other, keeping one another alive so that they can regenerate in the future in better circumstances. In medieval philosophy, religious love was such a dominant force that it modified the courtly ideas of poets such as Petrarch, Dante, Cavalcanti, and other practitioners of the dolce stil nuovo.Less
This chapter discusses how the Hegelian dialectic is similar to the dialectical play within the thinking of the Middle Ages when it comes to the conflict between religious love and courtly love. If the notion of self-transcendence, as proposed by Hegel, is used as an occasional tool, this conflict may be resolved in ways that cause both religious and courtly love to change. This double self-transcendence does not always occur, as it did not with either Aquinas or Andreas, but both antagonists changed significantly, as Hegel would have predicted. In a way, each destroys but also preserves the other, keeping one another alive so that they can regenerate in the future in better circumstances. In medieval philosophy, religious love was such a dominant force that it modified the courtly ideas of poets such as Petrarch, Dante, Cavalcanti, and other practitioners of the dolce stil nuovo.
