Henry A. Myers
behaalde zijn Ph.D Philosophy aan de Cornell University in 1933. Member
faculty, Cornell, since 1935, Professor of English, since 1947, acting
department chairman English, 1952-1953, Chairman of Commission American
Studies, since 1950. Visiting professor dramatic literature, Stanford,
1945-1946, in humanities, 1953-1954, visiting professor American literature and
philosophy, Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, Salzburg, Austria, 1950.
First visiting professor American literature, U. London: King’s College,
1951-1952. [Cf.].
In
de tijd dat hij nog werkzaam was aan de afd. filosofie van de Cornell
University schreef hij:
Henry
Alonzo Myers, The Spinoza-Hegel Paradox:
A study of the choice between traditional idealism and systematic pluralism.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1944. Pp. xii+91 - Reprint New York: B.
Franklin, 1974 [cf.]
Hoewel
het een dun werkje is, kan ik er nergens op internet een pdf van vinden. Om een
indruk te krijgen, moet ik het dus doen met reviews, waarvan er wel enige te
vinden zijn en met overige literatuur.
[1] Zo schrijft Sholom J. Kahn in Science and Aesthetic Judgement: A Study in
Taine's Critical Method [Routledge, 1953, 2016 - books.google], om Hippolyte Taine's positie te verduidelijken, hoewel die - levend van 1828 - 1893 - dat
boek uit 1944 uiteraard niet bestudeerd kon hebben, over
Henry
Alonzo Myers' suggestive work on The
Spinoza—Hegel Paradox: A study of the choice between traditional idealism and
systematic pluralism, which is an analysis of 'the historical puzzle of two
philosophers who start with the same premises and come to diametrically opposed
conclusions.' Myers documents in some detail Hegel's indebtedness to Spinoza
and the large number of basic propositions on which the two agreed. But he also
distinguishes their differences [..]. The most essential antitheses between
Spinozism and Hegelianism are given as those (1) between formal and final
causes; (2) between contemplation and activity; and (3) between 'the eternal
concatenation of geometrical forms and the stages of organic growth'.
Vervolgens
citeert hij uit Myers boek:
“Hegel
felt that he had gone beyond Spinoza in three important ways: first, in the
realization of freedom in the notion, which is the truth of the necessity
appearing in the doctrine of essence; secondly, in the conception of the
concrete universal which over-came Spinoza's simple negation of the finite; and
thirdly, in the greater concreteness of the notion in respect to the doctrine
of essence."
[2] J.
M. Fritzman and Brianne Riley schrijven in hun “Not Only Sub Specie
Aeternitatis, but Equally Sub Specie Durationis: A Defense of Hegel's
Criticisms of Spinoza’s Philosophy” [in. The
Pluralist 4:3, Fall 2009, pages 76-97; PDF op Academia.edu]:
Myers
mistakenly assumes that the philosophies of Hegel and Spinoza are close, if not
basically identical. As a consequence he and others believe that Hegel’s
philosophy is close to Spinoza. […] Although
acknowledging that the systems of Spinoza and Hegel use different methods to generate
their results, Myers maintains that these methods are complementary. “In spite
of a surface antithesis of method,” he claims, “the beginning of Spinoza’s
system is seen to be an analogue of the end of Hegel’s.” [The
Spinoza-Hegel Paradox, page 15] Distinguishing between the methods
of analysis and synthesis, Myers urges that Hegel employs the former while
Spinoza adopts the latter. This allows him to argue that, considerations of
anachronism aside, there is a fundamental continuity between the philosophies
of Hegel and Spinoza. Myers writes:
In the analytic mode, the
demonstration proceeds from the starting point of the ordinary person to the
discovery of principles and axioms; in the synthetic mode, the demonstration
proceeds from the postulates and axioms to the more complicated propositions
which are their consequents. The Ethics of Spinoza is famous for its synthetic
mode of demonstration; and the Logic of Hegel, although it is not ordine
geometrico demonstrata, is the antithesis of the method of the Ethics in
that it is entirely in the analytic mode of demonstration.... On account of this
antithesis between the modes of demonstration, the beginning of the Ethics is,
roughly speaking, the end of the Logic. Nevertheless, the end of the Logic
is as much a presupposition of the whole of the Logic as the
beginning of the Ethics is of the entire Ethics. [The
Spinoza-Hegel Paradox, page 40]
The place
where Hegel’s system arrives is also the point from which Spinoza’s system
departs."
[3] Uit het
review van Charles Hartshorne [in: Ethics,
Vol. 55, No. 1 (Oct., 1944), pp. 71-72] citeer ik het begin – ca. 1/3e
deel:
This trenchant
little book, rich in ideas, clearly expressed, should be read, at least by all who
are interested in Spinoza or Hegel; for it contains original, ingenious, and, I
think, illu-minating interpretations of these philosophers. The book also
presents some theses about meta-physics in general which are important if
valid, and worthy of attention even if largely invalid.
The author finds
that Spinoza and Hegel are in deep antithesis to each other and yet share
identical convictions on no less than fifteen principal doctrines. The paradox
is resolved by distinguishing between the structure of knowl-edge- itself, upon
which Spinoza and Hegel are held to be in agreement, and the contrasting state
of knowledge in their respective periods. The author makes a good case for the
view that Hegel is closer to Spinoza than to Kant in his view of the structure
of knowledge. And the parallels indicated between the two former thinkers seem
helpful for the understanding of both.
The general thesis
is developed that truth is impersonal system and that there are many systems
(Spinoza's "attributes," Hegel's "cate-gories"), each
infinite and complete in its kind and incapable of inclusion in any ultimate
sys-tem of systems. Truth is systematic but irre-ducibly plural. (True, reality
itself is not plural in the same sense, but, according to the author, this is
because reality in its concreteness tran-scends systems and all abstractions,
as such.) Not to see the plurality of systems was the "wrong turning"
taken by idealism. Only by grading systems as more or less real or true can one
regard any one of them as the system. But such grading, we are told, is a
matter of value, and value, unlike truth, is not systematic but merely
personal. One man's meat is another's poison. The author here forgets, I
suggest, that this highly individualistic or atomistic theory of value is not
itself an impersonal truth but a highly personal opinion, (even though one
fairly fashionable just now. Of course, extrinsic or instrumental values are
relative to ends and needs, and diverse persons may have diverse ends and
needs. But this is entirely compatible with there being one end which all
rational beings, as such, will accept-some such end as the achievement of the
greatest possible total of realized ends in the universe. Thus there can be a
common good even though there are many partly conflicting private goods. I say
this, not in order to combat the author's contention that the idea of degrees
of reality must be abandoned, but rather to combat his overgeneralization of
value-relativity.
[4] Het korte review van T.M. Knox in Philosophy, Volume 20, Issue 75, April 1945, p.
92, haal ik hierna binnen:
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