My philosophy is highly influenced by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Medieval Scholasticism, but I'd like to do some research into Hegel, Giovanni Gentile, and potentially Lassalle as my understanding of Hegelianism is mostly filtered through Marxian dialectical materialism. Does anyone know any good resources I can use to get a better understanding of Hegelian philosophy for somewhat of a beginner? I doubt I have the time or effort to read through the entirety of The Phenomenology of Spirit, nor do I think it is the best place to begin based on what I've seen.
I am interested in reading more about scholasticism, could you go more into detail about it & what you've read regarding the philosophy?
@cheshiremachin I've mostly just read Plato's dialogues and done external research on the Christian interpretations of it. If I were to summarise the scholastic view, all things that exist derive their existence and attributes from the Good (later identified as God), and their natural end (telos) is oriented towards obtaining the maximal degree of participation in the Good according to their own natural constraints. This is interpreted as going to heaven, or Theosis if you want it to sound smart, in which the purpose of the individual is reconciliation with God, and a life of sin is one oriented away from its telos, which leads to eternal separation from God, known as Hell.
In Phaedo, Plato argued through his dialogue with Socrates that rational creatures have an innate recognition of perfection, as when we recognise that something is lacking in perfection we establish the quality it is being deprived of. His example is with sticks and stones. If we see two sticks that look almost entirely equal, yet are not exactly the same, we know that they are lacking in the highest degree of equality. He uses this to argue that our recognition of perfect equality we gained before we were born, which was also taught by Origen, but later condemned as a heresy. Nonetheless it is pretty important in establishing the Realm of Forms, which is interpreted as existing within the mind of God, God the Son (the Logos) specifically. I would recommend reading Plato's dialogues first, and then doing some research into St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was more of an Aristotelian but his works are pretty foundational in Western Christianity. St. Augustine is also highly important, but I've done less research into his Platonism and more into his teachings on Original Sin.
@teuton ah I see. I've read some of the works of the Early Church Fathers & Thomas Aquinas as well, and those same ideas from Aristotle and Plato are expanded upon theologically but I hadn't recognized them as I haven't yet familiarized myself with the original works. I've been wanting to read both Plato and St. Augustine, so I should start there, thank you.
In my experience with Orthodox dialogues, that innate recognition of perfection or goodness is described as the "eye of the heart," which is also called the Nous, & is essentially the inner eye/mind of the soul that is able see goodness (God) and subsequently enables theosis. I believe this originates with St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Gregory of Nyssa as they were both Neoplatonists. Absolutely recommend reading them if you haven't
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The absolute best introduction to these subjects are Theory of the Mind as Pure Act by Gentile and Hegel's Philosophy of World History
i wouldn't call marxism hegelian doebeit since dialectical materialism and most of the young hegelians and left-hegelian ideas are just the inverse of Hegelian philosophy
world war two was basically a civil war between right/left-hegelianism as the former (think: pretty much all of third positionism birthed from maurras, sorel, gentile, rivera so on so forth) and the latter (bolshevism, marxist inversions) were dialectical opposites directly at war with each other
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