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Felt cocky, so i tried reading Hegel
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this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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philosophy
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Other philosophy communities have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. [ x ]
"I thunk it so I dunk it." - Descartes
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Oh of course, can't forget that!
Aside from the idea that every moment destroys our consciousness and then it reforms slightly changed only to instantly be destroyed again (and that is how we are able to consciously perceive time passing and change), I think that part is my favorite, because there is so much build up to it, only for it to fall flat on it's ass.
Yea, I'll admit I only read some minor works and excerpt of Hegel so I'm unfamiliar with the explanation for perceiving time passing, but that sounds entirely up Hegel's alley.
I had to read half of 'Phenomenology of the Spirit' for my Metaphysics II class. And I read the other half on a combo of Adderall and Acid.
And other people interprete that section differently, I am only going off of what the class consensus was about what the fuck he was talking about.
It's basically a retread of the old Ship of Thesius problem. If your mind can change, and ideas can change, are you still really you? And by what mechanism can these ideas of self change, when you are dealing with a paradigm of Platonic ideals? After all, previously Kant proved that even if they do exist, we can only have limited access to them through logic, but if we assume they do exist in a platonic form, then how do they appear to change?
Marx just turns the whole thing upside down and says, this is silly, ideas clearly change over time and do not exist in some platonic vacuum somewhere, and they change because they are directly influenced by the material conditions that we, as the makers and keepers of ideas, experience. It is extremely refreshing to read Marx after Hegel, because he is extremely clear-cut in comparison.
Yep, I've only read Hegel through small Red Sails articles, so reading the Phenomenology of Spirit is way above my philosophical weight class. Marx is far more accessible, and that's because, as he says, the point is to understand the world so as to change it.