Tying up loose ends

Retrospective rational reconstruction (Part 3)

In my first two posts, I provided a brief personal introduction, which hinted at the meaning of the broad theme of the endeavor I’m embarking on, here (that of “retrospective rational reconstruction”), and I offered a glance at what I take, following Hegel, to be the proper introductory paths to philosophy, introductions that systematically eliminate their own introductory role (phenomenology and radical self-criticism). Of course, what I’ve put forward so far is lacking, since there’s still much to be said, and there are likely many questions left unanswered—my wife expressed one such difficulty concerning our ability to conceptualize the resulting condition of such introductions, the condition of unity between knowing and its object, between thinking and being, or presuppositionlessness; this is a perfectly valid concern that many of you likely experienced, and it’s one that I will have to address in time. For now, however, I want to try to tie up some loose ends, to explain what I have in mind when I use the phrase “retrospective rational reconstruction,” or “thinking things through,” given my perspective on philosophical beginnings.

As I hinted at in my first piece, one aspect of retrospective rational reconstruction has to do with learning to see things with a unifying vision; that is, looking back on life’s happenings with an eye to connect seemingly disparate and random constituents, witnessing their inherent rhyme, or understanding, and reason (Verstand und Vernunft). That probably sounds quite abstract, and it might seem impossible to see everything in one’s past, and in history more broadly, with such an eye. How, for example, could one ‘rationalize’ the horrific events that took place in the early twentieth century? —This is, in fact, one point of contention that Hegelians often face, because people tend to read Hegel as a straightforwardly teleological thinker, as if he believed that history had arrived at its rational pinnacle in Germany (what was Prussia at that time) in the late nineteenth century, and that all that was left to be done was for that rational spirit to spread to the rest of the world.— But, there is much more to the idea of retrospective rational reconstruction, or thinking things through, than simply looking back on events to ‘rationalize’ them in whatever way seems fitting for the individual engaged in the act of looking. Indeed, the work is quite specific and becomes quite concrete (as opposed to being abstract) in the process of doing philosophy from the point of departure—that is, having departed from any point whatsoever—proposed in my last piece. As I’d like to explain in the rest of the current writing, the whole process of philosophizing from this presuppositionless beginning is just the work of retrospectively rationally reconstructing what it means to think being, or to be thinking.

From the Hegelian perspective, to be a bit more precise, the initial work of philosophizing is the work of logic, i.e., the derivation of the categories of thought and being (remember, there is no division between these elementals, and there is no principled reason to make such a distinction, here—I only retain the two separate terms in order to bear in mind that we have not slipped into doing either epistemology or ontology as first philosophy). Importantly, this inaugural logic I’m making mention of is not the ‘logic’ that likely pops into your head when you read the word. As I’ve already noted, logic—what I’ll refer to as “speculative logic” from now on—is the work of deriving the categories by which we think, what Hegel called “thought determinations.” The latter phrasing helps indicate the major difference between speculative logic and the more familiar ‘logic’ that you might have in mind, because it tells us what’s happening throughout the process that is speculative logic; namely, indeterminate and immediate being (thinking) shows forth in all of its determinacy, in all of its various figurations (being, nothing, becoming, etc.). By contrast, the ‘logic’ we study in college courses, like all other disciplines besides philosophy (as I’m presenting it), begins with a given method, and a given subject matter. That is, we start with a series of independent definitions, lists of rules and forms, etc., and we apply those definitions, rules and forms to propositions about our experiences.

For example, we might say something like, “Socrates is mortal.” I haven’t met Socrates, so how do I know that he’s mortal? Well, I reason from my general experience, using inference. I say: “Every person I know of is mortal, so Socrates must have been mortal, too, given that he was a person.” Now, we can test the validity of such reasoning by organizing the proposition into a syllogistic form. “All human beings are mortal (major premise); Socrates is a human being (minor premise); therefore, Socrates is mortal (conclusion).” Here, we have a proposition that’s structured in such a way that we can say that the conclusion is necessarily true if the major and minor premises are true. This is called a deductive form. But, at this point, we’ve merely asserted that deduction and inference are valid modes of reasoning without having justified our use of them or their necessity. We’ve also taken for granted that experience can be generalized, and that the contents of experience have some validity of their own. Please note that I’m not, here, denying that all of these things might be true, but merely pointing out that they are assumptions, and that they ought to be addressed if we are to show that reasoning in this way is in fact valid.

So, even though the general conception of ‘logic’ as the “study of correct reasoning” (according to the infamous Wikipedia) aligns roughly with that of speculative logic—speculative logic is an attempt to think valid thinking—, the former is question begging insofar as it takes for granted just what “correct reasoning” is; ‘logic’ just sets out to show how the given method (e.g., deduction and inference) works when applied to given contents (of experience). Speculative logic is much more critical, then, since it refuses any grounding givens; speculative logic is a process through which an individual lets thinking itself show forth in its activity, one just lets thinking be and looks on to see what, if anything, comes forward. In other words, thinking valid thinking cannot take for granted what valid thinking is from the start, since that would beg the question and would relativize the validation; rather, such valid thinking must emerge through the process of its own self-revelation or self-determination. I know you are likely thinking that I’m being pedantic, but the point is absolutely crucial. Nevertheless, since I’ve already shared about how we might get above our assumptions in the previous post, I’ll pause on this point, here. My reason for bringing up this difference between speculative logic and the ‘logic’ taught in the universities, is—at least in part—to highlight another issue that was raised to me by a friend who read my last piece of writing.

The issue concerned what Hegel referred to as “the unintelligibility of philosophy.”¹ To put it differently, the problem concerns the seeming impossibility of answering philosophical questions. Or, to paraphrase my friend, “philosophy seems to be the practice of arguing about things that are impossible to prove.” The difficulty, here, concerns the concept of proof. It might seem that empirical sciences can ‘prove’ things (in a loose sense) through experimentation, that demonstrable proofs exist in mathematics, and that formal logic can provide certain argumentative outcomes, but philosophy is just the practice of arguing for the sake of arguing. This, however, is exactly wrong. It’s wrong, first, because all of the disciplines listed above work on the basis of assumptions that are by definition not susceptible to proof; second, it’s wrong because speculative philosophy is the only discipline that rigorously rejects all grounding presuppositions (i.e., those that would determine the course of thinking rather than letting it determine itself), and begins in such a way that does not require proof—it begins with indeterminate, immediate being, pure and simple (by contrast, any determinate starting point would require proof, it must be shown where that determinate content comes from, how it gets there, and why it’s valid). I could write a whole book on just this issue, but for now it should suffice to say that of all disciplines, the only one in the position to offer genuine proofs is philosophy, but this is only possible when we begin with pure being, and allow the implicit thought determinations to unfold from that indeterminate, immediate beginning through the work of speculative logic. The conflict, then, can be couched in a distinction between the ordinary practice of thinking over things, and that of thinking things through speculatively.

Moving on, I will not be able to provide the full list of categories that emerge from the work of speculative logic—maybe, if given the opportunity, I’ll develop a set of lectures to include later, after I get the Phenomenology lectures posted, here. But, you will see those categories, or thought determinations coming into play as I proceed to write on various topics that come up in my daily life (I will do my best to make them explicit for the reader). This is because those categories are inherent in our communities, in us as individuals, and in nature. It is from this perspective, then, that we can say that speculative logic is already a retrospective rational reconstruction, since those categories, which have already developed in us and around us, are brought to light and organized by starting over with pure thinking and letting it show itself in us, by repenting, if you will. Hence, as we reflect on the happenings of life, as we think things through, after having done the work of deriving the categories from pure being, we will begin to see those thought determinations everywhere at play—and, they do indeed play.

I hope to have made this experimental endeavor a little more clear by this point, but I understand that what I’ve brought up, here, is not easy to grasp. For that reason, I want to encourage the reader to pose questions, objections, and comments, so that I know what issues and concerns I can address to help keep you on board. As of now, though, I also want to request that you check out the oncoming writings I’m going to provide, to see if witnessing the process might help clarify what it is that I’ve been going on about, all just to get started.

Finally, on a slightly different note, my wife has offered to assist in this endeavor; she will be creating prints to go along with my writings. These prints will be sent to paid subscribers as a gift, once per month (and a special print will be sent to founding members). Beyond all of that, I just want to thank you all, once again, for following me down this admittedly difficult path. I look forward to our continued (spiritual) connection.

Sincerely,

Dc. Devon Rowell, PhD

1. GWF Hegel, The Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: Part 1: Logic, trans., Wallace & Findlay (North Clarendon, Oxford University Press: 1975), p., 6 (3).