Gilson on Hegel

[Doug Mounce]

Hope all is well with everyone,  Good to get Charles Tackney's Substack post in my email, although you have to search in Substack to find it.

In any case, here's a little essay on Being and Some Philosophers as Gilson's introduction to Hegel expands on an earlier comment I appreciated about how physicists and mathematicians tend to be Platonists whereas biologists and physicians recognize we live in a messy world.  Hegel introduces a dialectic on being with a similar idea in terms of logical concepts and real contradictions.  You'all know I like foundations and this combination of being and essence, Gilson says, is an "in itself" pregiven (Dasein).

Being, Gilson says, is so so all-inclusive (including even non-being) that a reference to being doesn't really reference anything in particular.  Of course, Lonergan has a similar description in the Halifax lectures about the completely interpenetrating nature of being, but he reportedly added that it is a structured notion.  Being, in most presentations, simply is all there is.  This means it tends not to mean anything in particular because it always means everything.  All-encompassing being, however, logically includes our concept of non-being, and this is where Hegel identifies a dialectic that leads to a new thing.  We both conceive of a pure world of logical concepts with its laws like non-contradiction, and we recognize that we live in the messy, real world with all its concrete complications..

"If we grant to Hegel his initial position of the philosophical
problem, we must also grant him this unusual conception of the
"real." What Hegel wanted was a reality made up of essences
both concrete and yet knowable through concepts. If the "abstract"
is the non-contradictory, then the "concrete" can be
nothing else than the contradictory. And here again philosophy
recapitulates history of philosophy. For, if philosophy began with
Parmenides, it continued with Heraclitus. And they have both
been right, for they have been two contradictory moments of the
same dialectical becoming.

"We have thus reached the first concrete object of thought,
that is, the unity of the reciprocal notion whereby thought is
constantly thinking of being as nothingness and nothingness as
being."

     (Being and Some Philosophers p. 138)

This becoming qua becoming is becoming itself- a "given" that is a to-be-there (Dasein).  Reality includes both our abstract conceptions and the concrete real things where what is given in being is also given in itself (possibly in a way that Rahner believes).  Whereas Lonergan finally arrives at a notion of being (and it is a structured notion), here we have being given as the first feature of our reality in a concept of the concrete.  It advances the history of philosophy that begins with Parmenides' divine truth subsequently contrasted by Heraclitus' denial of non-contradiction.

We'll see if Gilson later finds fault with Hegel's advance, but for now I like this combination of concept and concrete in itself that naturally grounds us in being.  We can enjoy our abstract conceptions in the logic of non-contradiction but the concrete real can't be denied.  Lonergan emphasizes our structured understanding while Gilson emphasizes the givenness of being - both agree that being is all-encompassing.  I'm inclined to investigate further the idea that if being includes non-being then the familiar set-theory paradox might be involved.  That may or may not be useful, but I do classify the "law" of non-contradiction as a tautology.

cheers, Doug

[John Raymaker]

Doug, thanks for your contribution re some of the over-arching dimensions of Lonergan's of Lonergan's thought. After reading your message, I happend to read a brief revies of Joseph Ogbonnaya's new book Under the Shade Tree: Reading the Bible in Africa. The review reads_

---

"World Christianity is concerned not with Christianity as a global cultural and theological monolith, but with local expressions of Christian faith around the globe. But Christianity's presence in and among the world's cultures is complex and contested. Evangelization has often been the religious arm of colonial expansion, and even authentically indigenous religious traditions have been swallowed up into linguistic and liturgical uniformity. Often neglected in the study of these phenomena is the meaning and role of the Bible and biblical interpretation in shaping local Christianities. Perhaps no modern expression of World Christianity more dramatically illustrates this neglect than African, especially sub-Saharan African Christianity. Under the Shade Tree investigates theologically and historically how the Bible was and is read in Africa and by Africans.

The European Enlightenment provided a framework of biblical hermeneutics that still predominates in much of Europe and North America. But is it applicable to African Christian hermeneutics? What contextual experiences shape the interpretation of the Bible in those parts of the world not directly influenced by the Enlightenment? Ogbonnaya engages various ways of reading the Bible in much of Africa, bearing in mind the diversities and complexities of the continent." End quoting the review.

I just want to share here and juxtapose your reflections with Obvonnaya's--which, briefly said, provide much room for reflection and commentaries,   John.    

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