Henry Alonzo Myers (1906 - 1955) schreef The #Spinoza-Hegel Paradox [10]

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. 1/3^e 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: