Hegel’s Triangular System and a touch on the Speculative Consciousness

Beginning with paragraph 42, Hegel begins to mathematically discuss his philosophy. Right-angled triangles, he says, are merely lines placed together such that their relation to one another constitutes what we see as a whole object. As we discussed in class last week, Hegel’s system works in the same way that Euclid’s triangles do; they both consist of individual parts that make up an entire system, which can only then be known as the truth of the system (or, the true triangle made of particular lines).



Here in this picture, Hegel’s triangular representation of truth shows how the truth of all things is made up of smaller truths which are made up of smaller truths. So in essence, the truth of all consists of smaller components of truths, which, like the triangle, is made up of components that, alone and in no relation to its surrounding components, cannot be known.



Similarly, as Mark has already pointed out, Hegel’s speculative consciousness is composed of a thesis, antithesis, and a synthesis. In the above picture, we see a visual representation of how this might work in order to find truth in a system. In step 1, you have a particular view or stance on a topic. In between steps 1 and 2 (antithesis, here “imagination”) you have a negation of the view. After the negation occurs, imagination occurs and an antithesis is formed. Perhaps imagination is used here to denote some sort of bringing in of outside information in order to negate you thesis (in other words, an opposing view). Next, a negation of the negation occurs (or sublation) in which both arguments are destroyed yet preserved at the same time in order to create a synthesis of information, thus step 3, synthesis (here “thinking”). Once all three of these steps have occurred, as the image suggests, you have the truth of intelligence on the particular subject at hand. But, like the triangle itself, without a step in the process (or one of the three lines) you have no truth and no triangle.

There’s really no smooth transition here, but as I was 48 minutes into watching President Obama’s State of the Union Address, Obama began to talk about “deeply entrenched” divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties. He said that “on some issues, there are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways…they’re the very essence of our democracy.” He soon after said about Republicans that “just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.” These political differences in a way remind me of the Hegelian idea that two conflicting ideas without a negation of the negation will not lead to any synthesis of new, equally agreed-upon solutions. But again to refer to Mark’s post, can these two political parties every be absolutely certain of themselves in such a way that there can be no synthesis? If so, is there even a truth to democracy according to Hegel?