Peter Singer on Hegel and Marx: Section 5

[inar921]

(cont.)which lack any significant sexual impulse, and is driven by the bliss in the idea of knowledge. the rest of the populace who always have a big majority, before and now, and who spend their time enjoying the immidiate pleasure dispensible to them are condemned to follow, whatever the thinking lot dictate to them , before and now.

[inar921]

f you are old(22+) and romancing with this idea since your teenage, you must break this inertia for your ideas are base and lack any intellectual merit.

much of the scientific development which has changed the socal and political appearence of our society and is gradually transforming the culture towards an unknown modernity( with constant rate of growing sterility) is the result of scientific researches and philosophical inquiries



[chrlsnewsom5]

I am around the odd portion of Youtube once again.

[inar921]

(contd.2) and perpetuating one self or the human race has become the converging point of science and the financers of the most scientific research.

[inar921]

(in cont.)and among the aleits , who dont have any of what marx says as the problems of people

or society, women or sexual lust is still a far less significant driving force to do something or compete with somebody for. the obsession there is to expand and control as much possible. sexual attraction is a temporary thing which has an alternative. you must have heard of people describing certain activity better than sex, but looking at the trend we can gauge that the lust for controling nature

[LooksAeterna]

@inar921 "sexual lust is still a far less significant driving force to do something or compete with somebody for. the obsession there is to expand and control as much possible."

Control for the sake of securing oneself access to sex.

"sexual attraction is a temporary"

OMG how naive !! For the same woman yes ! But that's not what men are interested in. Men want to control because when they are 90 years old, they still want to fuck another 19 year old every week. Their wives ???hahaha

[inar921]

you've made a foolish a foolish abstraction of the things and solutions of problems left by hegel and marx. probably you don't know that in a large part of the world women are just objects in passive conformity with the dictats of the patriarchal society.

[LooksAeterna]

@inar921 "probably you don't know"

Large discussion, but I certainly do know. It is you who seems to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that "patriarchal society" is a code word for male powerlessness.

If you keep on confusing power and violence, please abstain from further interaction with me.

[MelDundee2]

@IrminC, most property , by that i mean land, in the west has been historically taken by force or indeed connivance as is occurring currently with foreclosures.

[BlueFrog83]

Magee asks: "what is it about the ideas" in marxism that lead to totalitarism. Is a normal misconseption. Its a idealistic way of looking at marx theories and that is missing the point. Its like try to understand medicin as magic. Its the wrong framework. The right one is to look at motion of society as a hole, the economic and political changes and how people relate to them.

[sanmatteo12341]

The book of the series, (First Published 1987 by BBC Books,...Oxford University Press paperback Edition 1988,...Reissued 2000.) gives a slightly fuller version of this conversation....I think you have to admit this dialogue at least makes Hegel's ideas more accessible to non students.

[Elphadyre]

It's interesting how he mentioned competition as if it were inherent in human nature. I don't believe it is.

[IrminC]

Karl Marx, a man who advocated violent revolution and the dissolution of property rights believed in freedom.

lol.

[TheSerendipway]

@IrminC That is exactly what he believed in...revolution in action is the freedom to change, destroying property is also a type of freedom; being a slave to the material word, having the weighty shackles of ownership hang about you is not freedom at all...

lol.



[IrminC]

@TheSerendipway Funny critique of materialism since Marx was a materialist. The only freedom inherent in revolution is the freedom you deny others. Property rights is an extension of self-ownership. Owning ones self is ultimate self-emancipation from the collective.

[bahareh8]

parfait!



[adshenshall]

thanks very much for uploading these 5. thoroughly enjoyed them! yet again singer proves adept at putting complex theories and ideas into easy to comprehend packages. wonderful series of videos.

[Atrocitas6]

As an American, it's really refreshing to see Communist ideas discussed rationally, not filtered through fear and propaganda.

[IrminC]

@Atrocitas6 Rather filtered through rose colored glasses and gross generalization. They didn't discuss Communism but Marx's take on dialectics and materialism.

[LooksAeterna]

They weren't going to the cause which leads men to compete: it's sexual capitalism. Men compete because women offer pussy for winners. If all women suddenly were no longer to be had sexually except to the thoughtful, self-effacing, silent, non-assertive lovers of truth w/o (!) central status as some sort of guru or obvious leader, the change could occur.

1st step: all men AND women must finance ALL children (not only their own), not the fathers.

[LooksAeterna]

(contd.)

Most important literature:

"Manipulated Man" (Esther Vilar - a woman ! Men are not allowed to speak about this sociological core truth unless a woman says it first)

"The Myth of Male Power" (Warren Farrell)

google: Farrell Myth excerpts

[JerseyFinch]

@LooksAeterna

So gender inequality is the root of all evil? Explain.

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch I thought my commentary DID explain it. What is unclear about it ?

I am not advocating some abstract equality - whatever that is. I am merely pointing out that young men - their bodies tortured with testosterone - are statistically going to shape themselves in accordance with strategies that lead to sexual relief. And as long as women are attracted to status and success regardless of its moral nature, men will be immoral because success is easier immorally.

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch "Oddly, men don't have a responsibility by your picture, they merely follow a hypothetical imperative: "If I want x, then I should be y.""

They do have that responsibility but it consists in nothing less than having to yogically overcome their sex drive altogether on the level of a Jesus or a Buddha. I consider this to be unrealistic for the next couple of millennia, so we cannot wait that long. In the meantime we need a more symptom oriented treatment. (contd. "man")

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch (final for now)

And don't tell me you didn't know that women were just fainting with lust en masse for this ugly boyish Hitler and that fat Mao was regularly rewarded with orgies and that Kissinger considers "power" (really violence) the ultimate aphrodisiac.

And so it should be obvious what this whole diabolic show of world history is really driven by. It is OK for women to be horny after masculine qualities - IF these are primary and cannot be violently ACHIEVED.

[JerseyFinch]

@LooksAeterna

This is rather perplexing as you're talking social science (achieved/ascribed status : primary/secondary qualities) and I'm talking ethics (responsibility). Nevertheless, I will assume it is a responsibility to achieve one's status - and this specific, yogic status - for reasons you've explained from the outset. Is this, then, your ideal picture?: Men overcome their sex drive, while women limit themselves only to men who do this.

[JerseyFinch]

@JerseyFinch

The process itself looks funny. It looks like an ontological and ironic/counterintuitive process for men, and an epistemological sorting process for women. It looks like, in this new picture, women are dependent on men again. And we both predict men will fail. Back to the drawing board?

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch read the literature, discussion makes no sense otherwise. Women dependent again ? No way ! I am not saiying MOTHERS will be supported. Their CHILDREN will be ecomonically supported by all, not the men, by the women too.

So I am suggesting a real adult status for women - which they statistically abhor because it brings with it equal responsibility, not just rights, it is the end of their priviledged luxury existence through acceptable forms of prostitution.

[JerseyFinch]

@LooksAeterna

Another curiosity surfaces. How is immoral success easier? Is it because social structures allow for its relative ease? Or is it because it was relatively easy to begin with, hence said structures? (Chicken or the egg.) If the former, then what is the cause of this? If the latter, then why?

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch "How is immoral success easier?"

Oh come on: the less conditions you have to fulfill, the easier the task gets for logical reasons. It is easier to accomplish A than A-under-condition-B. Especially though since success is obviously frequently at the cost of others and unfair. All great wealth - especially usury is bloody. In short the whole system of competition based economy is immoral. And it is so because women don't give a f whether their lover is moral elswhere.

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch "are you saying that it should be the case that women responsibly choose moral types to break this cycle, and that it will follow that men simply react to this and become moral for sexual incentive?"

I hold it to be obvious that young men would not be interested in pursuing inhumane and reckless workoholism wearing ties (uniform) if women would give sex only to harmless yogis without any money or fame.

The root problem is any connection between sex and wealth. (contd)

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch (contd.) In the Ur-Gesellschaft, the primeval society, men hunted in conjunction, so there was no way of large economic differences that could affect a woman's decision for a sex partner.

The problem took up speed with large animal-driven agriculture with surplus production and ensuing trade when men were sexually rewarded for secondary qualities and immoral competition over other men and against nature. (contd. 2)

[LooksAeterna]

@JerseyFinch (contd. 2) Suddenly woman had a husband and "man for life" (useful idiot) on the one side and a lover (the one she really wants) on the other. As long as women still choose a man that - because of non-sexual advantages - is different from the man she really would want to fuck if they were alone in paradise, we will not be in paradise.

Woman - even for her own happiness - must be stripped from deriving any other advantage from having sex with a man than having sex.

[jackseneca]

Human will compete with each other in whatever. Is that a social conditioning?

[tellyontellyon]

I don't think that what happened in the soviet union was a fair test of Marx's ideas. The economic situation under Stalin was dire.

If early Bolshevism had not had to contend with war, extreme want and poverty, and therefore been able to develop into a truly equal society economically, then we might have seen a more equal society in terms of 'human nature'.

Marx had thought socialism would develop in the most advanced countries first, but Russia was a 3rd world economy in 1917.

[cris750]

@pedricolas, currently government is doing this unjustly. Rather,there should be an influx of new technology into society. The reason for my previous comment was to control its misuse. My argument was for the role of the state. Karl Marx in his final vision called for the end of the state in which "Gemeinwesen"(communal being) was realized by the citizen. The intro of new (high)technology actually makes Karl Marx vision for a new society more closer to being realized and formed.

[sevnstrings]

@cris750 Precisely. He intended it for the capitalist societies of Germany, France and England. Not the agrarian/undeveloped societies in Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba etc. etc.

[pedricolas]

This was a new insight for me. "Once the State makes it dificult to compite for wealth, then humans compite for status, power or other things" Marx was mistaken.

[nambypamby34]

For sure "miss imbodied"

[tyler021]

Peter Singer can't justifiably make the criticism he levies on Marx at the end of the video simply because there has never been a true manifestation of the communist paradise which Marx envisioned. The paradise of which Marx idealized was an essentially stateless entity, ruled by a dictatorship of the proletariat. Such previous examples in history (read: Iroquois Nation) have shown that such classless societies do in fact cause a dissolution of the greed which capitalists consider human nature.

[froezel]

Very interesting ending, where Singer states that if we remove economic competition people will compete for other means, such as status, prestige and power (of distribution). In this competition for other means, people are still conflicting on the level of the geist, i.e., people have not exceeded everyday forms of alienation to the world to live harmoniusly. What Singer is implicitly assuming is that both material and ideal competition need to work simultaneously towards "pure organic reason".

[pedricolas]

@froezel I've got the same insight from the ending, however you wrote it much more eloquently. But I did not get the implication that material and ideal competition need to work simultaneously towards pure organic reason.

[andyx1205]

What people forget are these very important words spoken by Karl Marx.

"An end which requires unjustified means is no justifiable end." - Karl Marx, On Freedom of the Press, May 15th 1842, Rheinische Zeitung No. 135.

Leon Trotsky's reply to this was:

"Dialectic materialism does not know dualism between means and end. The end flows naturally from the historical movement. Organically the means are subordinated to the end."

Notice the difference. Leninism is not Marxism.

[cris750]

"Human" nature vs. High Technology is the true conflict rather than class distinctions. There will always be a leadership class or a leader. The main importance is (the social contract = Laws) between the leader and the lead which will control "human" nature and control the rate of high technology being introduced into society. Innovation will always be the drive and part of human nature and therefore a just state has to exist. If the state is unjust then progress will not be achieved.

[pedricolas]

@cris750 Human nature produce technology. Leaders or the government should control the rate that technology is introduced into society? I don't get it. why?

[tommyk77]

Nice bit of Shostakovich's 8th, movement3 at the end there

[Burdell22000]

@Rico8458

The synthesis is the modern world

[transpondency]

@Rico8458 synthesis? duh, Obama! :)

[sweetsweetchimera]

@Rico8458

Oh come on, please go read a book, will you? and ask your mum how to spell names correctly.

[noel0083]

Marxism has been simplified grotesquely by bourgeois and Bolshevik party lines in order to maintain their domination over their respective societies. I'm surprised that these guys ignored the fact that sophisticated capitalist socio- economic conditions for a properly functioning socialist society did not exist in Russia before the revolution or any other "communist" state of the 20th century.

[Diosibundo]

@noel0083

Wow noel. I was just about to write something very similar to what you just wrote.

Well said.

[noel0083]

thanks :-)

[redshiftexperiment]

"if you change the economic circumstances you will change human nature and then overcome the divisions between one and another. .. this has been proven false." This is a great summary of the problem!

[mdarkin]

Pause it when Singer says "Things that we create do control us, and we instead must control them". Singer speaks of technology that in my case provides me with a chance to comment on this dialogue.

Goodbye

[ElectroMagnetiX]

Those five videos were great! A great upload indeed.

[takethisusernamebitc]

thank you so much for putting this up, i feel greatly confirmed in my understanding of hegel in particular. i do find it interesting that singer would make the human nature claim in the way that he did at the end, but then again he did get cut off which was hilarious

[Questfortruth86]

No, Marx wanted it. He called for the extermination of "parasites" early in his career, as well as the mass genocide of the Serbians and the Polish, for example.

[ArgueEverything]

Where exactly did Marx call for the mass genocide of Serbs and Poles?

He never did, you liar.

[Questfortruth86]

The truth hurts, doesn't it? Marx hated the poor, just like the so-called American "liberals." Which is why they keep them trapped in poverty.

[ArgueEverything]

You seem incapable of answering a very simple question! You said Marx called for "the mass genocide of the Serbians and the Polish". Where EXACTLY did Marx call for this? Please quote the passage.

I bet you can't find any such passage. Do you know why? Because Marx never said any such thing. You are a liar.

[Questfortruth86]

Are you asking me to find the 1849 article from Rheinische Zeitung where Marx explicitly calls for their extermination? Your ideology is truly blinding, and quite pathetic. Here you go, google:

1. "Marx & Friends in their own words"

2. "THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF NAZISM" (go down to part D, "Marxism."

[ArgueEverything]

Neither of those articles you cited have any reference to MARX calling for the extermination of Slavs and Poles.

Hilariously, the one passage you actually quote was not even written by Marx, but Engels! You should have read your own article more carefully - it clearly says of that Rheinische Zeitung article: "It is most likely that Engels wrote them".

So let's try again (3rd time lucky?). Where did MARX call for the "mass genocide of the Serbians and the Polish"?

[Questfortruth86]

That quote, right below this comment, comes directly from Marx, and can be found in the article I gave you, titled "THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF NAZISM."

[ArgueEverything]

No, YOUR article (the one titled "The Anti-Christian Roots of Nazism) actually says this: "These articles were included in a book of the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin published in Germany during 1902 and again in 1913. IT IS MOST LIKELY THAT ENGELS WROTE THEM." (my emphasis).

So according to your own source, that quote was probably not even written by Marx! Try again.

[Questfortruth86]

Nope, it comes from Karl Marx. I found another article which I will send to you directly. Here's another one though:

"The classes and races too weak to master the new conditions of life must give way.... They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust." -Karl Marx (Marx People's Paper, April 16, 1856, Journal of the history of idea, 1981)

This is a real opportunity for you. You can continue on this insane muddled path, or you can educate yourself.

[ArgueEverything]

This is hilarious - the very article you cited says that "it is most likely that Engels wrote" those words, yet you insist on attributing them to Marx! Looks like someone can't handle the truth, huh? ;)

Now you are throwing all sorts of new quotes into the fray. Which is fine, but let me remind you that you still haven't proven your original assertion - that Marx called for the genocide of Slavs and Poles.

[Questfortruth86]

Google: solitude- cncs (just like that). Not like it matters though, it's clear that you're entirely hopeless.

[Questfortruth86]

watch?v=P3uFUxMwA1w&feature=pl­ayer_embedded

[ArgueEverything]

You're getting way ahead of yourself. You don't even know what my political affiliations are. Just because I don't like people misquoting Marx, doesn't make me a Marxist. It certainly doesn't mean I support Stalinism.

[Questfortruth86]

How can one directly quote and "misquote" at the same time, in the same respect?

[ArgueEverything]

Because your so-called quotes are bogus. What you attribute to Marx either actually comes from Engels (you amusingly scored an own-goal here, because your own articles showed disproved your own assertion!), or it is completely made up. For example, Marx never ever wrote the phrase "they must perish in the revolutionary holocaust" - that is entirely fabricated. You won't find it anywhere on the internet, other than unreliable propaganda sites.

[Questfortruth86]

The truth hurts, I understand. Reality is something Marxists have a hard time dealing with. For example, when faced with his transformation problem, Marx blamed society. It wasn't that his theory on value was incorrect, but rather that society was incorrect!

[ArgueEverything]

This isn't about whether Marx was right or wrong, this is about you fabricating, misquoting and misattributing.

I note your unwillingness to engage on the child slavery question. Do you agree with Rothbard (famed disciple of your beloved Mises) that there should be a "flourishing free market in children"? Is this the natural extension of your free market ideology?

[Questfortruth86]

Why would I converse with someone who simply can't admit that he's wrong, even in the face of insurmountable evidence? Do you think I'm going to sit here and try to have a rational conversation with someone entirely irrational? You asked me to cite that quote, which I did directly. (Quote 1: Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 1849. Quote 2: Marx People's paper, April 16th, 1856). Have a nice day, and please take my advice seriously.

[ArgueEverything]

I've dealt with your so-called 'quotes' already -

Quote 1: Not written by Marx, but Engels. Your own source says that Engels wrote it, which is deeply embarassing for you! You probably realise this by now, but are too humiliated to admit it.

Quote 2: Fabricated. Marx never wrote the lines "they must perish in the revolutionary holocaust" which you attribute to him.

Presumably your silence means that you do, in fact, support the trade of children. And yet see fit to take the moral high ground.

[Questfortruth86]

I realize that the truth is devastating, but your ideology does not correspond to the facts, and has been forced upon you by hateful lunatics. The origins of communism are rooted in genocide and evil. The communist system is not an alternative, it does not destroy one system and replace it with another one; rather, it ends one and replaces it with nothing but starvation and atrocities. Don't stay ignorant forever. Read Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Eugene von Bohm-Bawerk, and others.

[ArgueEverything]

Ah, so you are a libertarian.

I presume you believe, then, like Rothbard (that famed disciple of Mises), that there should be a "flourishing free market in children"? That people should be able to buy and sell children as they please?

[Questfortruth86]

"Until its complete extermination or loss of national status, this racial trash always becomes the most fanatical bearer there is of counter-revolution, and it remains that. That is because its entire existence is nothing more than a protest against a great historical revolution... The next world war will cause not only reactionary classes and dynasties, but also entire reactionary peoples, to disappear from the earth. And that too is progress."

[Questfortruth86]

All the world's information is at your fingertips, and yet you remain entirely ignorant, either willfully or hopelessly. I don't know which one is worse.

[NullSpacio]

The Bolsheviks used the POPULARITY of Marx's ideas to form the USSR. Marxism was never practiced in the USSR. Singer is absolutely incorrect in saying that it was. The USSR was a totalitarian state which control the means of production. The workers/producers NEVER controlled the means of production. A historic example of Marxism was encountered during the Spanish Civil War amongst the anarchist trade unions.

[bigdoglttledog]

In SInger's defense the manifesto does talk of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. This was part of Marxist doctrine. Where it diverges was under Stalin, where the notion of 'permanent revolution' and 'socialism in one country' which were both conclusively refuted by Marx (for the former see "On the Jewish Question"). So Bolshevism started out following Marx but diverged from it radically only a few years down the line.

[Questfortruth86]

Marxism is impossible. Lenin took over the means of production and didn't give it to "society." What a shocker! Lenin is as close as you can possibly get, and the result of Leninism was well anticipated. See, Socialism by Ludwig von Mises.

[miceeatnicerice]

Marxism doesn't chime with human nature because it forgets it, or rather it sees past it. After all, what is my body except a big heap of reified relations, a lump of social value? It's an illusion, I'm just an ego seduced by a fake reality, I'm free of my bloody suppressive body!

Oh, wait a second, that doesn't appear to be quite right, does it? Bugger.

[jonwert]

WHY HASN'T AESOP ROCK SAMPLED THIS?

[takethisusernamebitc]

that is.... an interesting question.

[ddaly1]

I disagree about Marx having a mistaken view of human nature, I just think the circumstances that existed in Soviet Russia were far from conducive to the kind of society Marx envisioned. there were, however, other examples- Marx spoke very highly of the short-lived Paris commune... collectivist anarchism in spain would seem to me to be another society that Marx would have held in high regard (despite forgoing any socialist phase)

[DonVoghano]

Marx undoubtedly held a "blank slate" view of human nature, which is undoubtedly wrong. However part of his critique and part of his ideas were right on the money.

The examples that you stated, since all short lived or degenerated cannot offer any kind of workable model beyond the "what went wrong?" part of analysis.

Ultimately the anarchist ideal is the utopia we want to get to, but even a genius like Chomsky can offer very little in the way of a coherent strategically smart path to it.

[ddaly1]

Sure, and the fact that there isn't much offered in the way of a coherent, strategic paths can be very frustrating and discouraging... but you would at least agree that many of the developments in anarchist spain (ex.) present people w/ not only insight into what not to do, but also feasable/workable methods of social/economic/political organization that may have continued successfully & infdefinitely had it not been for the failures (corruption, compromise, overwhelmed by outside forces, etc.)

[DonVoghano]

Those precious experiments were sadly either weak or unstable (or both). Most dramatically, their inability to cope with violence is always the cause of their demise.

This is a very key point because it ultimately might jeopardize the very idea that an anarchist society or even any kind of stable society is possible: in human affairs those who hold the guns will -always- force their interests on others.

[jameshighmore]

Thanks so much for putting these videos up. Does anyone know the name of Magee's book of memoirs?

[Ontologistics]

'Confessions of a Philosopher'

A good read.

[chaniwie]

no i think the show was meant to end there..singer wasnt pissed at all.

[cris750]

Yes, Karl Marx was for individual freedom and small government. However, it was Lenin-Stalinism in Russia which changed the idea of Marx's communism. Today, the Leftist intelligencia would have to go back to the original intent of Marx. Hegel-Marxism (the new Left) with different forms it existing in different parts of the globe. New technologies and a new space race !!!

[AstoundedLava]

LOL then the lights go out and singer is still staring at him. Magee just looks around terrified. HAHAHA

[chaniwie]

thanks for the insight..its very philosophical..HAHAHAAHAHAHAHA

[WalrusLateralus]

The guy his speaking to seems to focus more on his voice then his thoughts. But yeah that stare at the end was classic.

[BlueFrog83]

@Lewclan It seems the program leader is a Marx hater.

[donnithedon]

Wow the ending is so dramatic!!! The musical score really hits you hard! haha

From 4:51

[bavandongen]

A rather too abrupt end to the conversation if you ask me. I reserve a little more faith in "human nature". There are at least some qualifications. For example: it is easier for "human nature" to exploit people who you consider somehow "Other" than your own family tribe, nation or class. I don't think the word "class" was ever spoken aloud even once during their whole conversation!

Thus this discussion is incomplete but perhaps we can call it a good start.

[hatchbx]

We need outlets for constructive competition within a system based on individual merit, but motivated by the collective good of humanity; competition that doesn't leave the "losers" and their families materially necessitous. Different aspects of human nature are tapped or supressed depending on socialization. In U.S. we're taught to value stark individualism & base competition as virtuous, & at most we're taught multicultural tolerance instead of addressing atomization vs. solidarity

[bavandongen]

hatchbx, I wonder if it's safe to call constructive competition "play"? But that makes it sound so childish. Nevertheless, my best work environments, my best conversations, my best educational experiences, my best relationships all involved not what I would call "competition" though the word "play" does fit quite well.

[TheDavid2222]

@bavandongen If you study Nietzsche the entirety of Marxist philosophy starts to look like a serious misunderstanding of human nature. What I do in order to explain why Marxism doesn't work is reduce the idea into a simple situation. If two people are competing for resources and there is only enough for one, then it is inevitable that one of them will exploit the other in order to ensure survival. This doesn't just pertain to this one situation. This idea of conflicting interests is universal

[diffidatio]

great interview. many thanks. one note: the thesis-antithesis-synthesis is Fichte's formulation, not Hegel's.

[jonko1986]

fichte formulated this idea, though, he did'nt think that objectivity and subjectivity can be reconciled, he remained Kantian in his views. Hegel felt that the antithesis was part of the greater whole. the human mind has not fully grasped reality, it only knows this much so far Re: historical development. Fichte, like Kant couldn't bridge the divide between subjectivity and objectivity and followed the Kantian line. it is our mind that create reality for us, it cant be verified

[mmu353]

Indeed.