Peter Singer on Hegel and Marx (1987)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 พ.ย. 2015
- In this program, world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and contemporary philosopher Peter Singer discuss rational Hegelian philosophy, and the historicism and organicism at its root. Hegel’s theories of absolute idealism and of a dialectic emphasize history in their development of a model of reality. His concept of this reality as ultimately spiritual, and of philosophy as organic and constantly changing, is examined. The theories of Karl Marx are discussed as essentially Hegelian, but with a practical, economic spin. A BBC Production. Part of the series Great Philosophers.
Imagine how cool it could be if someone who regularly makes philosophy videos on TH-cam today used the same format and presentation style to make a video interviewing guests today. It would definitely be very fun to watch for at least those of us who are fans of this vintage Bryan Magee show.
Back when Television was educational, maybe our understanding of television today requires a need to look at what preceded it and what led to this catastrophe of what television is today.
I see your point, but the internet has made television more or less redundant. People interested in philosophy can now seek out the content independent of a broadcaster. Or is your point more that this content should be on television irrespective of its availability on the internet?
I think his point is an important and good one still. You make an interesting point about the internet replacing television, but the fact remains that, whether by default or for some good reason, hundreds of millions of people still watch television on a nightly basis. Television still has a massive viewership and the average person takes in hours upon hours of television every day/week/lifetime.
Thus it seems that the fact that much of the content of television is so unbelievably stupid, facile, even misleading and seemingly "mentally toxic" if I might be allowed to say that, I think is a valid cause for concern.
Our children, and our friends and neighbors, are subjected to endlessly stupid and toxic programs on a daily basis. I do think that it would do a great service to us all if there was still some worthwhile content shown on television.
Thomas W Yes I believe educational content should be available free for all, I am happy that projects like the Creative Commons are gaining popularity. But the problem with the internet/TV today is; not how much knowledge you have, but if you know how to find that knowledge. The superfluous content needs to be screened throughly before you can find something useful. Which is why I believe books are still the most useful means of learning available, which is what lead me to philosophy. It's not an easy problem to solve but a good solution would facilitate many more inquisitive minds.
@Max Cooper Even the Discovery Channel has turned into a massive reality TV show, Its Content is just pathetic.
I love this video. Groucho Marx's impersonation of Peter Singer is spot on.
Couldn't see Singer with a cigar.
Thank you for the lecture on Hegel's philosophy; theology, history, dialect, economics and politics.
Absolutely amazing interview! Thank you for uploading.
This episode is concise and just awesome!
Thanks for the upload!
I remember seeing this program when it came on UK tv in 1987. I remembered the Hegel guy as being an Australian teaching in Melbourne. More recently I've seen singer and read his books. Only now seeing this after all these years do I realize its the same guy!
Bit of a leap from German Idealism to bioethics.
🎉
Very very helpful. Thank You both.
다른 것도 한글 자막 달리면 너무 좋을 것 같은데 안타깝네요. 이런 좋은 자료를 접할 수 있게 해주셔서 정말 감사합니다.
That was great. Thanks for sharing.
Really enjoyed that and learned a lot, big up
This was so fascinating. I am currently reading The Flight of the Eagle by Krishnamurti and I see so many parallels between Krishnamurti and Hegel. I imagine that Hegel influenced K but I also see a similar world/historical world view presented by other Eastern spiritual leaders - namely an acceptance of reality as a way for personal liberation. What a great introduction to Hegel.
What a great interviewer! 👍👍👍
singer is a fucking baller
Thanks alot, you guys 😁. Very Nobel DIscussion and i enjoy trully. Now is almost the Year 2023, which means 36 years later than the time of Interview. We're now in a so called " Post Modern Ara ". Hegel is gone(191 years ago) and Kant is gone ( 218 years ago ). What remains, is Gratitude, Appreciation and SELF RESPECT in the Mirror of Time , just for a second 🙏. Cheers🍻
This is awesome !
Yeah, exactly! This is Hegel his fans know!
"There is a faulty view of human nature. There is an attempt to show a greater unity than really exists between human beings. With Marx, the idea that if you change economic competition, you will change human nature and we will overcome our divisions.
In fact what happens, once people no longer compete for wealth, they compete for status, or power, or something of that sort. And thats no better. Marx was mistaken in thinking human nature would change" - Peter Singer
Don't mind me, but it's really funny to see that even the smartest bourgeois philosophers nowadays cannot refute Marx without resorting to this sloppy argument about the "human nature".
@@turtlecraft7996 It's funny how this is one of the much more informative videos on Hegel's relationship to Marx, yet when it comes to putting these ideas into practice (Lenin/Stalin and the USSR) they're unable to see through the propaganda that counter-revolutionary forces use to distort the truth behind Marx's contributions. They must've not realized that Marx was the first philosopher who wanted to change the world, and not just interpret it as Hegel did.
@@turtlecraft7996 yeah what a shitty note to end the program on
And Peter Singer is completely wrong. Human nature doesn't exist. It's a concept not a thing.
@@kirklandday Or all of the Ontotheologists of the Greco-Roman/Christian tradition did.
Wish i can talk to these great minds myself, that would be so inspiring
Be very still. Your Genius's Voice but awaits invitation
Damn his moustache
Amazing!!!!!!!
Peter Singer gives a lively and engaging treatment of Hegel. In the past couple of decades, he has steered clear of abstract philosophical debate, at least in his public talks, though he clearly enjoys it. I can't help but wonder if that is due to his own utilitarian calculation that performing conceptual gymnastics in the public eye would in some way undermine his practical agenda. Or it could simply be that he doesn't have the time.
Speaking of analysing philosophical motivations, how loopy is Hegel?? The world, ie the universe and god as a whole, reaches it's apotheosis in the act of Hegel the man penning his opus. I'm all for philosophical chutzpah but that's a god complex too far.
+Joseph Cape possibly either, very sad though that even in this age of net streaming that there are no shows that are comparable to Magee's beautiful show
Some great podcasts tho. And YT channels...
Though he may not have been right in some of his investigations and conclusions, you don't exactly have the privilege to belittle Hegel.
You need to read Zizek and his Hegel w/ Lacan. Or watch Rick Roderick’s lecture on Hegel here.
Singer hasn't actually "steered clear of abstract philosophical debate" in the last couple decades at all. He has always engaged in both ethical theory-meta-ethics and normative ethics-and applied ethics at the same time.
He notably co-authored a widely discussed paper in meta-ethics with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek titled "The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason" (2012) three years before you wrote this comment. This was followed up two years later by the book-length "The Point of View of the Universe" (2014). There are also other theoretical paper scattered throughout the 90s and 2000s.
Nor has this been limited to publications. You can find several examples of public talks and video segments on ethical theory Singer has held in the last 20 years. For example, search the following on TH-cam: "Happiness and Ultimate Good" and "The Point of View of the Universe." That's not even touching on all the public talks about religion, which I assume count as "philosophical debate."
Beautiful dialectic's of a tie and a "membersonly" flying jacket
Haha
Not one comment and in such a high intellectual talk?
When talking about the "Geist".
It reminds a lot about Eastern Philosophy.
Is there any obvious connection?
Yes, I notice these elements a lot.
Although new to Hegels work, but not unfamiliar.
I'm curious if there is an actual direct correlation between Eastern philosophy and his ideas.
Something a bit more obvious than us noticing it.
ALSO as a sidenote, why the hell aren't there any TV shows like this anymore?
This and "Thinking Allowed". I'm surprised that the interviewers actually know their stuff!
Geist is a common way to refer to mind, sole or gost but can be very useful in philosophy as "essence", requiring definition and hyphenation translations hardly keep... I recommend "dict.cc" for German words you encounter out of context.
@@TakinErEasyHere No evidence of that whatsoever.
What is the music in the beginning?
Transformative.
Why does it look like a Monthy Python sketch? lol
That’s just how British people are
Objectivity is subjective and subjectivity is objective?
Phillip Yang how meta
Well, yes. Both idea contains the other. The dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity is thus a false dichotomy.
IDK, you may have to disprove the Euthyphro dilemma to disprove that its a false dichotomy, especially as the dilemma shows that subjective moral theories are circular.
It's funny how Singer doesn't take his coat off. With his moustache and coat, he reminds me of Commissioner Gordon.
Well, I dare say it was a most agreeable lecture, haw haw.
Hegel was convinced that the ubiquitous nature of 'unity of opposites', will lead to an explanation of everything, not knowing it will provide the foundation to modern science like discovery of anti-gravity, anti-matter etc.
Every time the horizon of our knowledge is expanded and we discover dark matter and dark energy they unconditionally turn out to have' opposite' properties of attraction and repulsion. What happened before the big bang is likewise explainable, by oppositely charged branes in the string theory.
There is a very subtle oppositeness that comes out in excellent literature, film, and visual art apart from conscious constructions of say, the antagonist-protagonist concept in books- that I've begun seeing and writing about in recent years. It may be my masterpiece someday.
It may be that in reality, a less bloody 'survival of the fittest' is the force of change; perhaps it is all simply opposite forces that grind upon one another- strengthening and honing each time like the sword upon the grindstone.
He evokes Geist (Spirit) and the camera blips out; miss those old magnetic cameras; they pick up what is there, always felt but by the impotent, but seen seldom....
28:28
Peter Singer channeling Tobias Funke here
Peter Singer has been kind to animals, his chosen diction to describe Hegelian ideas thus, are generous despite the atrocities arisen from this evilious thought, not only rested on Germany who started WWII, but also to those people whose country is communized, by the doctrine of Marxism and his accomplice Lenin, the left Heglians.
Overall pretty great, but I’m not so sure the end bit is something anyone unaware of Marx’s work should take as gospel, or even accurate. I think one should really interrogate the last five minutes or so, ask whether or not it makes sense to move from “some error in Marx’s idea of human nature” (generously assuming his view of human nature is accurately portrayed), to, “X error(s) can be said to have lead to the horrors of Stalinism” (and so on, etc). One ought to historicize and further contextualize this conversation, and why it might have ended this way, and not simply whether or not this ending implication makes sense, or not. There are Russian nesting doll layers of context to examine, and it’s not to imply that Peter and XXXX are dishonest, I don’t think so, but rather to historicize the conversation, examine the platform, it’s funding, and whether or not these things could play any role in how this very good conversation ended (in a sort of lazy, pretty wildly overgeneralized way).
One ought to interrogate the notion that human nature is what it is implied to be in the closing moments here, or at least whether or not it definitely can’t be influenced by changes in society. It’s really a very indirect way of getting at the nature or nurture question, and the implication seems to be, “Marx and Hegel thought nurture was it, but it appears that this was ultimately, unfortunately incorrect”, which at least implies that “the competition for hierarchical status” is an intrinsic part of human nature, and attempts to alter this just *might* end with Stalin, or Hitler. None of this is explicit, but if you are paying close attention, it’s absolutely implicit, and I do think one ought to ask of this implication is intentional, if so, then why, and if this actually makes sense and is fair.
Obviously, one ought to also ask what is the actual fact of human nature, and not just for purposes of supporting their political preferences, but to try and get at what is actually true. Obviously, philosophy and politics aren’t going to be enough to get you that answer, and while I think people ought to read the biological, anthropological, sociological, and psychological scientific literature on these things, I will say that we know categorically that it’s both nature and nurture working together.. The answer, to bring it back to Hegel and Marx, is that it’s dialectical: that nature (biology/genes) and nurture (environmental factors, socialization) work together synergistically, and are completely bound up in one another, and that you really can’t understand why human beings are what/how they are, without understanding this. Why does that matter for this? Well, the point is human being are complicated, and the answers given quite swiftly and effortlessly at the ending of this are not enough to actually be able to know if what is being said is accurate, as useful, and convenient, and even comforting, as those answers might be.
For sake of time/length, I won’t get deep into it, but it’s also worth realizing that the framing of “Marxist society leads to X kinds of competition, which aren’t any better”, VS, “Our/liberal society leads to Y competition, namely for wealth, might be better, or certainly isn’t worse”, is flawed in numerous ways, and should be questioned from numerous angles.. One might start with the obvious question: is this the most accurate and fair way to be framing these different societies? Again, it’s not explicitly stated that way, nor is it explored, BUT, it absolutely implies quite a bit, and one ought to interrogate it..
I’m going on too long. I apologize. Again, this is/was a great conversation, I’m just not a fan of the end of it, and it’s NOT simply bc I’m a Marxist (and I am, cards on the table), but because I value philosophy, and serious skepticism, and careful, critical analysis, and I think it’s worth spreading that “Geist”.. so question those closing conclusions, and question them thoroughly, and maybe you’ll still end up thinking Marxism is BS, but at least you’ll hopefully have developed stronger criticisms than the lazy (far more irrelevant than it seems on the surface), “he thought nurture > nature”, and maybe you’ll even come to find that’s a misrepresentation in the first place..✌️
nice comment. As a sociology student i found nurture is more important than nature. Because the social structure and socialization process affect individual action (Structural perspective). But i have some question. How can i develop critical thinking? i have been reading sociology text but i cant quite criticize properly or apply it to everyday world.
The flesh itself is the spirit. The earth itself is the spirit world. We split these hairs as we splinter ourselves through anguish of mind unto insanity. But it sure is fun to be curious and destroy each image not made by us. Nothing changes but our perception. We are just the witnesses. No control can exist.
Singer looks like he's just been playing Radio Caroline in his Triumph Dolomite while smoking a packet of John Player Specials.
Who's this Heigl?
Who's asking? :).
@@kamoans Me :). Ive never heard of anyone named Heigl.
@@paulheinrichdietrich9518 what about Hegel?
As an introduction, I think this does more harm than good. Singer's praised clarity comes at the price of Making Hegel's philosophy like weak metaphorical foolishness, and this is what Hegel is esteemed as by most who never touch his books.
He dodges the question on what "the dialectic" is, and his example of a dialectic of harmony with Greece, personal conscience in Protestantism, and the synthesis of both in modernity is unhelpful and untrue to the method Hegel employs. Much of the rest is an old interpretation of Hegel that merely knew Hegel's results but not why he got them, and thus severely misunderstood them. Spirit is unexplained by Singer despite being actually quite easy to describe, and the idea that Hegel believes everything is mental in the end severely misunderstands the meaning of Spirit as well as what truth is for Hegel. His discussion on the rational state shows he wasn't aware of Hegel's treatment of economics in the Philosophy of Right as precisely the place to be capricious and try to actualize our individual irrational arbitrary desires. The bit on absolute knowledge is also misunderstanding what it is and what is actually meant for, it's not so that we can make the world rational but the realization of what knowing is.
As for why Hegel could not be clear like Singer? For one, Singer is far from clear here and just has time to make claims which are left unexplained with terms he fails to actually show. His book surely does more, but I doubt it really is even a fourth as clear as Hegel himself is once one knows how to read him. How Hegel thinks is more important at first than what he thinks. If you want to know what this method of thinking is check out my channel videos.
U mad bro
Peter Borat Sagdiev
don't make fun of people's biological features.
Yea, tech is over the proles are catching on that a website on browser is not worth 90 billion dollars.
I think Hegel would've had a ball watching Inception
You see that Dialectical Materialism? That s you that is!!
Slaves felt they were in harmony in Ancient Greece. Well said.
I find Singer's approval of Hegel's contention that inner conflict in the human individual arose as a historical accident so to speak, in Greek society, and that the problem hadn't existed prior to that, very frustrating, as Judaeo-Christian biblical tradition places the story of man's fall from grace at the beginning of its scripture, and that story understands human inner conflict not as a historical accident but as an essential potentiality of human being. This insight came from Hebrew or Jewish tradition rather than Greek tradition, which is important because in Western culture which Hegel belonged to the Jewish religious influence has been foundational while the Greek philosophical influence has been a secondary mediating influence. The traditional identity of the West is inconsistent with Hegel's historical accident view of human conflict, a fact that became pretty obvious in the Hegelian Marx's disastrous revolutionism that thrust the modern world into cataclysmic civil war for a century. I find it disconcerting how this conversation makes Marx seem respectable when his influence, and maybe Hegel's too, was so violent. One useful aspect of Singer's presentation is that it allows us to recognise the family likeness in Marxism and Nazi fascism. They both dreamt of realising their respective heavens on earth, and Hegel's historical accident view of human inner conflict is undoubtedly one of the principal ideological roots of those utopianisms.
I agree with Schopenhauer in his attacks on Hegel.
Lol what an abrupt end
One cannot disagree with the accusations against the application of Hegel and Marx in practice, but it would be nice for once when talk goes on these paths to give the entire list of mass murder and devastation that has taken place even without their philosophy being around. Mr Magee, as a British subject, and Mr Singer, an Australian, certainly should have a thing or two in mind- as well as anyone who is a part of a group of people (state, nation, country, kigdom, empire) that has at some given moment held and practiced power. That the victims were "others" and not part of that specific group of people itself (as with Stalin for example) does not make it any less hideous or criminal..
Fivos Karalis actually the evidence suggest that the atrocities of communism have been heavily exaggerated
Jack Hagan Of course, but I'm not even going there. So much to balance for a fair discussion even before that.
Fivos Karalis id recommend reading marx so you can decipher more clearly between correlation and causation.
Harbinger X I am afraid it will be long, if ever, that I will arrive to your desired level of abstraction. Would you be so kind as to make a specific contribution to the discussion?
The atrocities of communism exaggerated?! That's absurd, I grew up under communist dictatorship and everyone was starving all the time! Look at China and how they treat life. You need to live under totalitarianism before you can glibly make these announcements.
I´m sry to say but Singer is pretty vague and sometimes even plain wrong... Stumbling across this (and other) sketchy schoolbook representations of Hegel might give you the illusion of understanding Hegel, - but it is just a violent act to his whole philosophy. An act which prevented me many years from engaging the original texts directly...
How do you know he is wrong without "engaging the original texts directly."?
Peter Singer's name is similar to Pete Seger. But Pete Seger is a singer and Peter Singer isn't.
seeing peter singer with hair feels bizarre
I disagree with Singer. Marx _wasn't_ wrong about human nature being able to change. The process simply takes time. It happens in dialectical stages, perhaps lasting centuries. Marx himself recognizes this. You can't have a communist society overnight. The communist societies of the 20th century failed because they did too much, too fast.
I think this is the wrong way of framing it, in any case. Marx saw human nature as being essentially creative, and it's that creativity which he thought was stifled under capitalism and which could be channelled towards communism.
Marx had absolutely zip to do w/ Hegel who was dead before he was 13. Hegel was not a philosopher, he was a metaphysical Hermetic thinker politicized by students in universities known for radical politics like the one at Jena. The professor says Hegel is "not writing about individuals or societies" at 9:50 BULLSHIT! That's EXACTLY what he's writing about, and he selects certain societies and individuals as metaphysical high points on the mountain of Absolute Knowledge. The individual, through the society, rising up just enough to touch God - in fact to actualize God in a state of hyperconsciousness. The last words of Phenomenology of Spirit say this transcendental enlightenment can only occur via "the long procession of historical cultures and individuals." And Hegel does not just outline this cycle of great cultural nirvana leading to Absolute Knowledge, he says he has attained it right there in the monarchical, Christian Prussian state! Unlike a philosopher seeking wisdom, Hegel says I have attained it!
If you want to know the origins of Marxism, see Ralph Raico's video on the Classical Liberal Roots of Marxism. While in exile, Marx read these incredible French economists who were Laissez-faire capitalists who envisioned the replacement of govt by free markets (ANTI-MARXISM!)
Marx simply turned this on its head. Remember, Marx was no economist, his degree was in philosophy. He knew absolutely nothing about economics. Those French thinkers were the origin of Marxism but ironically, their worldview was 180 degrees to that of Marx. Let govt wreck everything, they said, then govt will wither on the vine and society will become a libertarian state of free markets.
you know nothing of marxism you idiot
One of the weakest interpretations of Hegel out there.
This
In my opinion its a good thing, if not even intentional, that its a weak interpretation.
@@jamesidoine4467 why's that?
In what way and what's a better an also easy one?
@@Jaredthedude1 he waters down all the controversial metaphysical aspects of Hegel, often interpreting Hegel in the opposite sense Hegel meant his philosophy to be understood. Jean Hyppolite's Genesis and Structure is a good place to break in to the Phenomenology. Anything by H.S. Harris is also quite good.
All these old geezer philosophers spoke in a way that probably wouldn't fly now adays. One unsupported, unproven, claim after another. And nobody challenges their claims.
Marx hated servility, yet couldn't see the inevitable conclusion of his philosophy.
elaborate
@@claws811 The modern American interpretation of Marxism is quite different than what Marx actually proposed. None the less, the success of a Marxist economic system has proven time and again throughout history to be limited by the size, culture and homogeneousness of a given population. A Marxist economic system in a modern western nation will inevitably lead to tyranny and collapse. Un-checked Capitalism is no better. However, Capitalism with adequate limitations and guidelines in place has proven to be the most advantageous economic system for the greatest number of people that our flawed and corruptible minds have been able to implement.
"the mind sees the world as itself and therefore finds ultimate freedom"-Hegal explained. i.e. finds ultimate freedom to commit genocide. what a horrible legacy from the Germans.....
This guy was a Labour M.P. Ffs.
Absolute nonsense at the end there
Che ?
True Capitalism has never been tried.
wat
Not that I am an expert, but from all I've seen and read, Hegel should be treated the same way we treat new age spirituality. It's a bunch of obscure crackpottery, large generalizations of what people are like, and simply incorrect facts about history.
Yes agree, you're not an expert.
His dialectical view of the process of history is brilliant.
The arrogance of philosophers is astounding
that is such a stupid analysis, that my preferences are always manipulated in a market economy. and since my so called preferences are manipulated they therefore aren't rational. that's absurd.
Hegal and Marx...Beavis and Butthead- uhhhhhhhh, like uhhh, 80 million dead murdered...ehhhhh
Bourgeois philosophy nowadays is thouroughly brain-dead indeed.
@@dennistheredmenace4537 Adam Smith was a bourgeois economist, but his work represented a real scientific progress at the time, marxists acknownledge that.
However Milton Friedman had not this excuse, his theories are a regression compared to Marx's, consciously written to defend capitalism: he is a scoundrel.
vegan tells us that human nature is unchangeable lol