Dear Alan et al Thanks for that - sounds interesting - although I sometimes think its a shame about the term 'greco-roman egypt' which gives the impression that the greek and roman influence is more significant than the egyptian - whilst imo it should really be the other way round - maybe something like 'post pharaonic magick' ?? Makes a difference in that its notable that Magee's book description mentions nearly everything apart from magick - Brian Morton questioned the connection between mysticism (as in Hegel) with magick. There are some theorists who in the past have tried to drive a wedge between the two but i think thats becoming increasingly untenable - seems to me that a great many (although perhaps not the majority) of magicians see mysticism as part of the 'theoretical' or 'religious' componant of the tradition. 'love and do what you will' mogg 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 On 4/17/07, Brian Morton <[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]> 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 Publishers PO Box 250, Oxford, OX1 1AP +44 1865 243671 homepage: <http://www.mandrake.uk.net> Blogs = 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]]On Behalf Of Sebastian Alexis Ghelerman Sent: 17 April 2007 14:51 To: [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]> 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]> 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] 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.