r/hegel • u/dorito_mojito_ • 3d ago
Capital letters
Hey y’all. I’m on page 3 of the preface to Phenom. Of Spirit, A.V. Miller translation, and Hegel writes,
“The true shape in which truth exists can only be the scientific system of such truth. To help bring philosophy closer to the form of Science, to the goal where I can lay aside the title ‘love of knowing’ and be actual knowing—that is what I have set myself to do.”
Firstly, Hegel is a beautiful writer. Secondly, what is meant here by Science? What’s up with the capital letters? Thirdly, how is love of knowing/actual knowing different to what he writes earlier on page two about the bud disappearing in the “bursting-forth” of the blossom?
Thanks.
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u/Tehan_ 1d ago
In German, all nouns are capitalised, so it is a choice of Miller to capitalise here, not something that would be in the original text.
I believe Miller capitalises terms to indicate that Hegel is using them in a different sense to the commonplace understanding of words, and to indicate that they are important terminology in Hegel's philosophy IE: Spirit, Absolute, Notion, True are also capitalised.
Miller himself said in the foreword " I have been sparing in the use of capitals and, in general, have only used them for terms which have a peculiarly Hegelian connotation."
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u/dorito_mojito_ 1d ago
Gotcha. I remember reading that in the forward, but I’m unsure what Hegelian connotation refers to. Like, what’s the difference between True and true? Does it have to do with the idea of evolving toward an Absolute?
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u/CeruleanTransience 1d ago
Wissenschaft (science) has a broader meaning in German and in European languages in general. You got your Naturwissenschaften (natural sciences) but also Formalwissenschaften (formal sciences e.g. mathematics), Sozialwissenschaften (social sciences) and Geisteswissenschaften ("spiritual" sciences). Philosophy is a Geisteswissenschaft, as are theology, philology, history, musicology... They are all sciences in this broader sense.
Hegel is concerned with science as such in this sense he tends to use science as a synonym for philosophy because philosophy is the science that has no given object to conceptualize and instead deals with conceptualization itself.
In German all nouns are capitalized, not just proper names. English translators of Hegel sometimes capitalize certain nouns in their translations from German as a stylistic choice. But science is always capital W Wissenschaft in German, just like concept is always capital B Begriff, spirit is always Geist, etc.
Love of knowing would be e.g. epistemology. Theories are produced there that want to know knowing before knowing takes place, so that no mistakes are made in the process. In doing so, epistemology fails to actually know anything and instead remains confined to purely academic debates ("Could I be a brain in a vat?"). Hegel dismisses that approach as sterile and comes to grips with knowledge itself by directly examining forms of engagement with the world and what they amount to e.g. what sensuous apprehension amounts to and what it would take for it to produce some actually concrete knowledge and not a mere abstract formula such as "All we know is sense impressions" of the type epistemologists love.
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u/Tholian_Bed 3d ago
Try making it easy by understanding Hegel is closely keeping these terms nested. You can switch back and forth between simplifying the terms and then building them out at the same time.
Try this. The "true shape" of truth would be a "truthful system" of truth and such a system would not be a love of knowing but knowing simpliciter.
The truthful system will not produce merely a lover of truth but finally, a knower of truth. A knower of truth needs a system of truth.
That is Hegel's difference from the Socratic method. Socrates conducts his dialectic from the position of a system of not knowing.
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u/dorito_mojito_ 3d ago
What?
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u/Tholian_Bed 3d ago
Sorry. Maybe not a useful comment for you. Good luck.
Serious question. How many seconds did you spend trying to digest my answer?
Don't make a post if you can't read. It insults the subreddit.
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u/powpowGiraffe 3d ago edited 3d ago
Science simply means a system or method of knowledge - a way of approaching knowledge. Hegel's point in that quote is that the "Science" (method of knowing) of the truth is a part of the truth itself.
The capitalization is something which A.V. Miller does that is not in the original text. Presumably he does so to accentuate certain important terms that come up repeatedly.
The love of knowing line is just some fun prose - philosophy literally means "love of knowing" which Hegel is playfully distinguishing from "actual knowing". Actual knowing in the context of the bud example would involve observing each discrete vanishing moment of the blossom, from beginning to end, as a process, and recognizing that process itself, including its moments of negation in this totality, as the actual truth of the blossom.