On the concept of a metaphysics of plural subjectivity
On YouTube: https://youtu.be/AbMXf12R95U
German with English subtitles
Sunday, May 21, 2023
In this introductory lecture I try to expose, in which way the idea of plurality changes the basic construction of the metaphysics of spirit and therein primarily the concept of subjectivity. This is done here out of the pure necessity, that I think about myself and my mind in a metaphysical way, and therefore there is little else what could appear before me, but precisely to find a certain meaning and understanding out of this and with this way of thinking and understanding. The purpose of this exposition is twice fold: on the one side, to fix the level of thought, on which one can reasonably reflect on the question of the conditions of reality and essence of plural spiritedness, and on the other side, to lay with this the ground to further historical investigations. The ultimate horizon is a concept of subjectivity, that is at once everything and something, and in this general-specific double form can take in itself properties (like gender or age) as, at the same time, a general horizon of understanding, and therefore as an abstract quality, and as a specific criterion of differentiation to other minds, and to hypostate this difference into the further differentiation of internal and external differences (differences between alters vs. differences to other systems etc.). Further goals, or how they could be reached, is however always open at the beginning, for better and worse; and here it is true what Hegel once said (in the very beginning of Phänomenlogie), that for a philosophical text, and too for a lecture, a previous description of its content, of direction and result, is not just superfluous, but too unfitting and misdirected against its purpose. Precisely because of that, it must show itself within this content, if this lecture can hold its promise; or if at the end, after going through all that, what I was able to lay before myself as a working-through of the material tendencies of spirit, it's something empty what remains - or something splendid and of the question than worth, to view it anew and underlie it another historical reckoning, if it be something new at all or only appearing as such.