Glenn Magee is unfortunately leaving the academy, at least for the
nonce, but he is I believe finishing up a manuscript -- I think a short
book -- on Swedenborg and Kant. He gave a chapter of it at the ASE last
June in Davis.
Chris Lehrich
Alan Pritchard wrote:
> There is a book on 'Hegel and the Hermetic tradition' by Magee
> (Cornell UP, 2001). I haven't managed to see it yet, but the
> description sounds as though it would cover this area:
>
> Glenn Alexander Magee's controversial book argues that Hegel was
> decisively influenced by the Hermetic tradition, a body of thought
> with roots in Greco-Roman Egypt. In the middle ages and modern period,
> the Hermetic tradition became entwined with such mystical strands of
> thought as alchemy, Kabbalism, Millenarianism, Rosicrucianism, and
> theosophy. Recent scholarship has drawn connections between the
> Hermetic "counter-tradition" and many modern thinkers, including
> Leibniz and Newton.
>
> Magee contends that Hegel accepted the central Hermetic teaching that
> God is complete only when he becomes known by the Hermetic adept.
> Magee traces the influence on Hegel of such Hermetic thinkers as
> Baader, Böhme, Bruno, and Paracelsus, and shows that he shared their
> entire range of interests, including a fascination with occult and
> paranormal phenomena.
>
> Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition covers Hegel's entire philosophical
> corpus, showing that his engagement with Hermeticism lasted throughout
> his entire career and intensified during his final years in Berlin.
> Viewing Hegel as a Hermetic thinker has implications for a more
> complete understanding of the modern philosophical tradition, and
> German idealism in particular.
>
> Quite a bit on Leibniz.
>
> Best wishes
> Alan Pritchard MPhil FCLIP MBCS
>
> ALCHEMY: a bibliography of English-language writings
> 2nd (Internet) edition at
> http://www.cix.co.uk/~apritchard <http://www.cix.co.uk/%7Eapritchard>
> On 4/17/07, *Brian Morton* <[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Oh, I guess I should introduce myself
> I'm Brian Morton a professor of philosophy from Indiana State
> University, with some interests in what magic and philosophy have
> to say
> to each other.
>
> Hegel scholars often point to the influence of Jacob Boehme on Hegel.
> Boehme wrote often of the three principles of alchemy, so its not
> impossible that Hegel was influenced by the alchemical tradition
> through
> Boehme on this. Likewise, a lot of Hegel's heretical protestant stuff
> about the role of geist in history, looks like Boehme or the earlier
> Joachim of Fiore. The idea in these guys is that the Hebrew's lived
> mostly under the shadow of God the Father, the early/medieval
> Christians
> under the shadow of God the Son, but that in the near future
> (Fiore), or
> present (Boehme/Hegel), the 3rd person, God the Holy Spirit will
> be the
> primary engine of history. Its certainly a mystical view of history,
> but magical? maybe. Right after Hegel, his follower Marx, took the
> dialectic and turned it into the Material Dialectic. Its pretty
> hard to
> look at Hegel these days without the shadow of Marx getting in the
> way.
> Likewise, Hegel was popular in late 19th century Britain, but 20th
> century British philosophy was built on rejecting him. In
> philosophy he
> might be beginning to re-emerge from Marx's shadow again a little
> (as in
> the thought of Brandom, McDowell, or Singer). Fukayama had a very
> Hegel
> influenced (and very neo-conservative) book a few years ago, but I
> haven't seen a lot of other history that was particularly Hegelian,
> (unless it was also relatively Marx-influenced) recently. Have any of
> you?
>
> >>> Mandrake of Oxford <[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> 4/17/2007 12:52 PM
> >>>
> Sebastian
>
> Welcome - interesting thoughts - my main encounter with Hegel is
> through
> Borchardt's 'Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy' - which i
> believe is
> a Hegelian view of history with much talk of the Geist - i wonder
> whether
> this view of history in terms of 'spirit of an age' is also quite a
> 'magical' view - and how this sits with modern history writing??
>
> mogg
>
>
>
> : ) .....................................: )
> Mandrake.uk.net <http://Mandrake.uk.net>
> Publishers
> PO Box 250, Oxford, OX1 1AP
> +44 1865 243671
> homepage: <http://www.mandrake.uk.net>
> Blogs =
> http://www.mogg-morgan.blogspot.com
> <http://www.mogg-morgan.blogspot.com>
> http://mandox.blogspot.com
> secure page for credit card <http://www.mandrake.uk.net/books.htm>
> paypal
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>]On Behalf Of Sebastian
> Alexis
> Ghelerman
> Sent: 17 April 2007 14:51
> To: [log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] magic and logic
>
>
> Hello everyone. Ím new on the list. Ím a social anthropologyst
> from
> Argentina. Ím really interested in magic and its development along
> history.
>
> A hint regarding this topic:
>
> Have you considered that the hegelian dialectic has much in common
> with
> some philosophical bases of the alchemy?. For e.g: the process
> Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis uses the same logic pattern as the "Solve
> et
> Coagula", where "Solve" is the dissolution of the prime matter, "et"
> is
> related to the purification process of the stone and "Coagula" is the
> solidification of the result of the other two. My thought, and it́s
> only an
> hypothesis, is that during medieval times and beyond, as other author
> describe, the philosophical abstraction was integrated with the
> religious
> contents and magical "thought" and it́s only through Bacon, Newton,
> Descartes and so on, that the science as an abstracted system of
> thought was
> set appart from the "illussion" of the other ways of seeing the
> universe.
> Hegel, is "victim of the spirit of his times", which was the time of
> progress and rational thought.
>
> It́s a nice discussion.
>
> See you.
>
> Sebastian
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 4/16/07, Brian Morton <[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> Actually the story of Medieval Logic is pretty cool.
>
> Dialectic was the Platonic form of logic, and that of the Stoics
> and
> the Skeptics and most other Greek and Hellenistics, but Aristotle
> and
> Euclid, used very monological styles even in the Ancient world.
>
> Right before the collapse of Rome, there was a form of heresy
> called
> Arianism, that became a big threat to the authorities in Rome, and
> Arians loved using Aristotle, so Clement of Alexandria decided to
> make
> it a policy to teach all Christian priests just enough
> Aristotlean
> logic
> to be able to oppose the Arians. When Rome fell, the Stoic and
> Skeptical arts of dialectic were mostly lost, and what survived
> was
> Aristotelian logic, and a fair bit of Plato (via Boethius).
>
> The medievals rebuilt a style of dialogue based argumentation on
> their
> own, that had little to do with the older dialectic forms (it was
> probably partly based on Roman legal practices). This medieval
> "dialectic" was the 2nd part of the trivium, and part of the
> education
> off all educated medievals. Aquinas, and the other philosophers
> and
> theologians, are intensely dialectical in their style, but not at
> all in
> the way the Stoics were. And it had lots of interesting
> developments
> (see http://www.pvspade.com/Logic/ for lots of detailed
> downloadables
> on medieval dialectics). Also the medieval faux-dialogues, are
> often
> edited versions of real dialogues called quodlibets, that were
> ancestors
> to the modern thesis defense, rather than hypothetical dialogues.
> The
> Black Plague killed off this stuff, and later humanists developed
> Topical logics, and then Term logics that were quite different.
> From
> 1350-1800's European logics are not very dialectical.
>
> Kant re-introduces the notion of the dialectic, which for him
> means
> "a
> logic of appearances" rather than a logic of how things actually
> are
> (related to Aristotle's grudging use). Hegel, knows enough
> history
> of
> logic to recognize the Kantian, Medieval, and Platonic notions
> and
> try
> to play with them all. He's drawing on Christian stuff (both
> mystical
> types like Boehm, and non-mystics like Ockham) and Deist stuff
> like
> Kant, and older pagan stuff like Socrates or Plato (but probably
> not
> folks like Sextus or Chrysippus).
>
> >>> Sharon Stravaigne <[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> 4/14/2007 11:06
> AM
> >>>
>
> In a message dated 4/14/2007 7:59:12 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
> Presumably the Hegelian dialectic is part of that classical
> (pagan)
> tradition -??
> i'm assuming that 'dialectic' was not such
> a strong part of the christian tradition??
>
> bb
>
> mogg
>
>
>
>
> Both styles seem to have been in use in early Christian
> times,
> though
> in one case it may have been an actual conversation
> recalled,
> they
> weren't much on fiction until later.
>
> The monograph style dominated later I think, but there is
> something
> I noticed which may be a kind of hybrid, or you could view
> it
> as left
> over from dialog style. This is where in a monograph, the
> speaker
> says, "but if someone should say blah blah, then I would
> answer
> blah blah." This is almost like a dialogue but one that is
> obviously
> hypothetical instead of presented as if real like in a
> play,
> and then
> of course you have the arguments between people writing
> letters
> and yelling at each other in debates.
>
> I haven't read all of it, I glanced at Aquinas years ago,
> and
> I
> recall
> that in his presentation of all the arguments pro and con
> on
> every
> conceivable matter, which was tedious, I suppose you could
> say
> that he dialectized on both sides.
>
> Sharon
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at
> http://www.aol.com.
>
>
>
>
--
Christopher I. Lehrich
Assistant Professor of Religion
Associate Director, Division of Religious and Theological Studies
Boston University
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