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Being and Idea: Development of Some Themes in Spinoza and Hegel
185 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1813
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July 27, 2022
Armour proposes a reconciliation of Spinoza and Hegel. Some of the details require further elaboration, but I am pleased to report that the reconciliation is essentially plausible. There's plenty to quibble about but I will avoid nitpicking. One of the most promising aspects of this book is that its development of a coherent theory of the Absolute is useful in domains outside philosophy, including but not limited to the study of literature, the history of science and the study of politics. I think I'm not alone in saying that I hope we see a lot more Spinozist-Hegelian transdisciplinarity of the kind Armour defends.
The following passage is striking and gives a sense of the whole:
"It is not a matter of emotion against reason, to the necessary and ultimate detriment of reason. Emotions, too, give us knowledge. Love and anger are both clues to the nature of the world even if they are misleading if their nature is not properly understood. Though the process is difficult, knowledge, as Spinoza says, takes us out of our limited and immediate selves and reveals the objective nature of a reality which, in itself, transcends the merely temporal, even though the temporal is, itself, a genuine aspect of reality."
Armour is clear: it doesn't matter if we call this system monism, idealism, materialism. What matters is the peculiar conceptual discipline required for speculative work. The bad news is that we don't have a final solution that will give us permanent access to the Absolute. The good news is that investigating evil isn't a dead-end. The book ends on a stirringly optimistic note:
"If, then evil is a negation, positive being and knowledge of it is always a step, if a very small one, towards the good and away from evil. If the reality of all beings extends beyond what it can perceive, then it is plausible to believe that all human beings are capable of greater good than anything we can imagine."
Man isn't a kingdom within a kingdom. Nature is more than enough to ground our normative life. A Kantian kingdom of heaven isn't guaranteed, but Armour suggests that a Spinozist-Hegelian is justified in making the wager.
The following passage is striking and gives a sense of the whole:
"It is not a matter of emotion against reason, to the necessary and ultimate detriment of reason. Emotions, too, give us knowledge. Love and anger are both clues to the nature of the world even if they are misleading if their nature is not properly understood. Though the process is difficult, knowledge, as Spinoza says, takes us out of our limited and immediate selves and reveals the objective nature of a reality which, in itself, transcends the merely temporal, even though the temporal is, itself, a genuine aspect of reality."
Armour is clear: it doesn't matter if we call this system monism, idealism, materialism. What matters is the peculiar conceptual discipline required for speculative work. The bad news is that we don't have a final solution that will give us permanent access to the Absolute. The good news is that investigating evil isn't a dead-end. The book ends on a stirringly optimistic note:
"If, then evil is a negation, positive being and knowledge of it is always a step, if a very small one, towards the good and away from evil. If the reality of all beings extends beyond what it can perceive, then it is plausible to believe that all human beings are capable of greater good than anything we can imagine."
Man isn't a kingdom within a kingdom. Nature is more than enough to ground our normative life. A Kantian kingdom of heaven isn't guaranteed, but Armour suggests that a Spinozist-Hegelian is justified in making the wager.
Displaying 1 of 1 review