'The real is rational and the rational is real.'

Hi, everyone. This is just a theme that fascinates me lately. It may be a misreading of Hegel, but it's obviously inspired by one of his famous lines. To the degree that the OP calls the shots, I invite every kind of friendly discussion of these themes and any kind of tangential splintering. Basically let's have fun.

***

​

What does the philosopher as philosopher assume? That the essence of the real can be grasped in concepts. In other words, the real is rational. This is the positive commitment, the faith. But the philosopher is also critical. What, therefore, is real for the philosopher? Only that which is established through a rational discourse. So (only) the rational is real.

Where does the idealism come in? It does not come in as the 'mental' of some isolated subject. It comes in as language, which is essentially objective. I don't choose what the signs mean, and as a philosopher my goal is to have my signs recognized by others as being objective, as revealing the world-in-common. So the 'idealism' is already there in the assumption that reality is intelligible, puttable-into-language in its essence or structure. Consider also that 'private language' is an oxymoron. Thinking of idealism in terms of private mentality might be exactly the wrong way to go, especially if the lonely subject is largely a product of language. I learn to use the word 'I.' Do I ever know exactly what I mean by it? Is there anything hidden in this 'I'?

Where does the humanism come in? This comes with the eros of philosophy, its desire to be rational, to 'incarnate' rationality. What exists is rational and what is worthy of recognition in an individual is his rationality, that which makes him (from this perspective) truly human. Since philosophy subjects the gods and prophets to the test of their rationality, it put its own human reason above the gods. The rational community is its own ground, its own god, one might say. This is one way to draw the line between philosophy and theology, but we can just as easily describe humanism as a shade of theology that stresses the incarnation. Hegel is a theologian. Even Heidegger called himself a theologian. The word's meaning depends on context. The point here is a certain continuity of Christianity and humanism. Derrida jokes in 'The Ends of Man' that maybe we've never left the church. Can philosophy ever leave the church? Should it even want to?

​