Hegel on Eriugena and Bruno

Summarize Hegel's thoughts on Eriugena and Bruno.

Add Jacob Bohme to the discussion and explain how Neoplatonism plays a role.

I'd like for this essay to deal with how these thinkers anticipated Hegel's specific ideas like his take on the Absolute.

Okay now revise the essay along those lines.

Can you incorporate material from Hegel's discussion of these thinkers in his writings on the history of philosophy

Here is an excerpt from Hegel's History of Philosophy on Bruno. Can you summarize this and incorporate it into the essay? Bruno, who asserts the final cause to be immediately operative, and the life immanent in the universe, asserts it also to be existent, as substance; he is therefore opposed to the conception of a merely extra-mundane understanding. To a certain extent Bruno distinguishes form and matter in substance, which itself, as the aforesaid activity of the Idea, is the unity of form and matter; thus matter has life in itself. The permanent element in the endless changes of existence is, he says, the first and absolute matter; although without form, it is nevertheless the mother of all forms, and receptive of all forms. Because matter is not without the first universal form, it is itself principle or in itself final cause. Form is immanent in matter; the one simply cannot exist without the other; thus matter itself brings about these changes of form, and the same matter runs through them all. What was at first seed becomes blade, then ear, then bread, chyle, blood, seed of animal, an embryo, a human being, a corpse, then once more earth, stone, or other substance; from sand and water frogs are produced. Here then we can perceive something which, although it transforms itself into all these things in turn, yet still in itself remains one and the same. This matter cannot be a body, for bodies have form; nor can it belong to the class which we term properties, attributes, or qualities, for these are liable to change. Thus nothing seems to be eternal and worthy of the name of a principle, except matter. Many have for this reason held matter to be the only reality, and all forms to be accidental. This error arises from the fact of their recognizing only a form of the second kind, and not that necessary first and eternal form, which is the form and source of all forms. In the same way the aforesaid matter, on account of its identity with the understanding which causes form beforehand, is itself intelligible, as the universal presupposition of all corporeality. Because it is everything in general, it is nothing in particular, neither air nor water, nor anything else, abstract or otherwise; it has no dimensions, in order to have all dimensions. The forms of matter are the inward power of matter itself; it is, as intelligible, the very totality of form. This system of Bruno’s is thus objective Spinozism, and nothing else; one can see how deeply he penetrated.

Here is another excerpt. Can you integrate a summary of this material into the essay? Bruno here asks the question: “But this first universal form and that first universal matter, how are they united, inseparable? Different — and yet one Being?” He answers by making use of the Aristotelian forms of dunamis and energeia: Matter is to be regarded as potentiality; in this way all possible forms of existence in a certain sense are included in the Notion of it. The passivity of matter must be regarded as pure and absolute. Now it is impossible to attribute existence to a thing which lacks the power to exist. Existence has, however, such an express reference to the active mode, that it is at once clear that the one cannot exist without the other, but that each of them pre-supposes the other. If therefore at all times a capacity of working, producing, creating, was there, so must there also have been at all times a capacity of being worked upon, produced, created. The perfect potentiality of the existence of things (matter) cannot precede their actual existence, and just as little can it remain after that is past. The first and most perfect principle includes all existence in itself, can be all things, and is all things. Active power and potentiality, possibility and actuality are therefore in it one undivided and indivisible principle. This simultaneousness of acting and being acted upon is a very important determination; matter is nothing without activity, form is therefore the power and inward life of matter. If matter were nothing but indeterminate potentiality, how would the determinate be arrived at? This simplicity of matter is itself only one moment of form: in wishing therefore to tear asunder matter and form, matter is at once established in one determination of form, but in so doing there is immediately established also the existence of the Other. Thus the Absolute is determined for Bruno: it is not so with other things, which may exist and also may not exist, and which may be determined in one way or in another way. In regard to finite things and in finite determinations of the understanding the distinction between form and matter is thus present. The individual man is at every moment what he may be at that moment, but not everything which he may be in general and with reference to substance. The things which appear to be different are only modifications of one single thing which includes in its existence all other existence. The universe, unbegotten Nature, is, however, everything which it can be in reality and at one time, because it includes in itself the whole of matter, as well as the eternal, unchangeable form of its changing forms. But in its developments from moment to moment, its particular parts, qualities, individual existences, in its externality as a whole, it is no more what it is and may be; but a part such as this is only a shadow of the image of the first principle. Thus Bruno wrote also a book, De umbris idearum.

Here's another excerpt. Let's keep improving the essay using this material. g. This is Bruno’s fundamental idea. He says: “To recognize this unity of form and matter in all things, is what reason is striving to attain to. But in order to penetrate to this unity, in order to investigate all the secrets of Nature, we must search into the opposed and contradictory extremes of things, the maximum and the minimum.” It is in these very extremes that they are intelligible, and become united in the Notion; and this union of them is infinite Nature. “To find the point of union is not the greatest matter; but to develop from the same its very opposite, this is the real and the deepest secret of the art.” It is saying much if we speak of knowing the development of the Idea as a necessity of determinations; we shall see later how Bruno proceeded to do this. He represents the original principle, which is elsewhere known as the form, under the Notion of the minimum, which is at the same time the maximum — One, which at the same time is All; the universe is this One in All. In the universe, he says, the body is not distinguished from the point, nor the centre from the circumference, nor the finite from the infinite, nor the maximum from the minimum. There is nothing but centre point; or the centre point is everywhere and in everything. The ancients expressed the same by saying of the Father of the gods., that he really had his dwelling-place in every point of the universe. It is the universe that first gives to things true reality; it is the substance of all things, the monad, the atom, the spirit poured out on all things, the innermost essence, the pure form.[1] b. The second object to which Bruno devoted himself was the so-called Lullian Art, which received its name from its first inventor, the Scholastic Raymundus Lullus (supra, pp. 92-94). Bruno adopted this and carried it to completion; he termed it also his ars combinatoria. This art is in some respects like what we met with in Aristotle under the name of the Topics (Vol. II. pp. 217, 218), seeing that both give an immense number of “places” and determinations which were fixed in the conception like a table with its divisions, in order that these headings might be applied to all that came to hand. But the Topics of Aristotle did this in order to apprehend and determine an object in its various aspects, while Bruno rather worked for the sake of lightening the task of memory. He thus really connected the Lullian Art with the art of mnemonics as practised by the ancients, which has come into notice again in recent times, and which will be found described in greater detail in the Auctor ad Herentium (Libr. III.c. 17, sqq.). To give an example: one establishes for oneself a certain number of different departments in the imagination, which are, to be chosen at pleasure; there may be perhaps twelve of these, arranged in sets of three, and indicated by certain words, such as Aaron, Abimelech, Achilles, Berg, Baum, Baruch, etc., into which divisions due inserts, as it were, what has to be learnt by heart, and forms it into a succession of pictures. In this way when we repeat it, we have not to say it from memory or out of our head, as we are accustomed to do, but we have only to read it off as if from a table. The only difficulty lies in making some ingenious connection between the content in question and the picture; that gives rise to the most unholy combinations, and the art is therefore not one to be commended. Bruno also soon abandoned it, since what had been a matter of memory became a matter of imagination; which was, of course, a descent. But since with Bruno the diagram is not only a picture of external images, but a system of universal determinations of thought, he certainly gave to this art a deeper inward meaning.[2] a. Bruno passes over to this art from universal ideas which are given. Since namely one life, one understanding is in all things, Bruno had the dim hope of apprehending this universal understanding in the totality of its determinations, and of subsuming all things under it — of setting up a logical philosophy by its means, and making it applicable in all directions .2 He says: The object of consideration therein is the universe in so far as it enters into the relation of the true, the knowable and the rational. Like Spinoza he distinguishes between the intelligible thing of reason and the actual thing: As metaphysics has for object the universal thing, which is divided into substance and accident, so the chief matter is that there is a single and more universal art which knits together and compasses round the thing of reason and the actual thing, and recognizes them both as harmonizing with one another, so that the many, be they of what kind they may, are led back to simple unity.

This discussion of the influence of Proclus in Hegel's book should help improve the essay. b. For Bruno the principle in all this is the understanding generally: None other than the understanding whose activity extends beyond itself, which brings into existence the sensuous world. It is related to the illumination of the spirit as the sun is related to the eye: it relates therefore to a phenomenal manifold, illuminating this, not itself. The Other is the active understanding in itself, which is related to the objects of thought in their various classes, as the eye is to things visible. The infinite form, the active understanding which dwells in reason, is the first, the principle, which develops; the process in some respects resembles what was met with in the Neo-Platonists. Bruno’s great endeavour is really now to apprehend and demonstrate the modes of organizing this active understanding. g. This is presented more in detail as follows: To the pure truth itself, the absolute light, man approaches only; his Being is not absolute Being itself, which alone is the One and First. He rests only under the shadow of the Idea, whose purity is the light, but which at the same time partakes of the darkness. The light of substance emanates from this pure First Light, the light of accident emanates from the light of substance. This we met with also in Proclus (supra, Vol. II. p. 446) as the third moment in the first triad. This absolute principle in its unity is for Bruno the first matter, and the first act of this principle he names the original light (actus primus lucis). But substances and accidents, which are many, cannot receive the full light, they are therefore only included in the shadow of the light; in like manner the ideas also are only shadows thereof. The development of Nature goes on from moment to moment; created things are only a shadow of the first principle, not the first principle itself. d. Bruno continues: From this super-essential (superessentiale) — an expression which is also met with in Proclus (supra, Vol. II. p. 441) — advance is made to the essences, from the essences to that which is, from that which is to their traces, images and shadows, and that in a double direction: both towards matter, in order to be produced within her (these shadows are then present in natural fashion), and also towards sensation and reason, in order to be known by means of these. Things withdraw themselves from the First Light towards the darkness. But since all things in the universe are in close connection, the lower with the middle, and those with the upper, the compound with the simple, the simple with those which are more simple, the material with the spiritual, in order that there may be one universe, one order and government of the same, one principle and aim, one first and last; so, following the sound of the lyre of the universal Apollo (an expression which we saw used by Heraclitus, Vol. I. pp. 284, 285), the lower can be led back step by step to the higher, as fire was condensed and transformed into air, air into water, water into earth. Thus One Being is in all. That process is the same as this return, and they form a circle. Nature within her limits .Can produce all from all, and so the understanding can also know all from all. e. The unity of opposites is explained more in detail as follows: The diversity of shadows is no real opposition. In the same conception the opposites are known, the beautiful and the ugly, the appropriate and the inappropriate, the perfect and the imperfect, the good and the evil. Imperfection, evil, ugliness, do not rest upon special ideas of their own; they become known in another conception, not in one peculiar to themselves, which is nothing. For this that is peculiarly theirs is the nonexistent in the existent, the defect in the effect. The first understanding is the original light; it streams its light out of the innermost to the outermost, and draws it again from the outermost to itself. Every Being can, according to its capacity, appropriate somewhat of this light.

Expand on the influence of Proclus on Bruno using this excerpt: h. The main endeavour of Bruno was thus to represent the All and One, after the method of Lullus, as a system of classes of regular determinations. Hence in the manner of Proclus he specifies the three spheres: First, the original form (uperousia) as the originator of all forms; secondly, the physical world, which impresses the traces of the Ideas on the surface of matter, and multiplies the original picture in countless mirrors set face to face; thirdly, the form of the rational world, which individualizes numerically for the senses the shadows of the Ideas, brings them into one, and raises them to general conceptions for the understanding. The moments of the original form itself are termed Being, goodness (nature or life), and unity. (Something similar to this we also met with in Proclus, Vol. II. p. 445.) In the metaphysical world the original form is thing, good, principle of plurality (ante multa); in the physical world it manifests itself in things, goods, individuals; in the rational world of knowledge it is derived from things, goods and individuals. Unity is the agent that brings them back once more; and Bruno, while distinguishing the natural and metaphysical world, seeks to set up the system of the above determinations, in order to show at once how the same thing is in one way a natural appearance, and in another way an object existing for thought. Since Bruno sought to apprehend this connection more closely, he considers thinking as a subjective art and activity of the soul, representing inwardly and in accordance with the ordinary conception, as it were through an inward writing, what Nature represents externally, as it were, through an outward writing. Thinking, he says, is the capability both of receiving into one’s self this external writing of nature and of imagining and substantiating the inward writing in the outward. This art of thinking inwardly and organizing outwardly in accordance with the same, and the capacity to reverse the process — an art possessed by the soul of man — Bruno places in the closest connection with the art of the nature of the universe, with the energy of the absolute World-principle, by means of which all is formed and fashioned. It is one form which develops; it is the same world-principle which causes form in metals, plants and animals, and which in man thinks and organizes outside himself, only that it expresses itself in its operations in an endlessly varied manner throughout the entire world. Inwardly and outwardly there is consequently one and the same development of one and the same principle.

Here is an excerpt on Boehme. Integrate Hegel's thoughts on Boehme into the essay. WE now pass on from this English Lord Chancellor, the leader of the external, sensuous method in Philosophy, to the philosophus teutonicus, as he is called — to the German cobbler of Lusatia, of whom we have no reason to be ashamed. It was, in fact, through him that Philosophy first appeared in Germany with a character peculiar to itself: Boehme stands in exact antithesis to Bacon. He was also called theosophus teutonicus, just as even before this philosophia teutonica was the name given to mysticism.(1) This Jacob Boehme was for long forgotten and decried as being simply a pious visionary; the so-called period of enlightenment, more particularly, helped to render his public extremely limited. Leibnitz thought very highly of him, but it is in modern times that his profundity has for the first time been recognized, and that he has been once more restored to honour. It is certain, on the one hand, that he did not merit the disdain accorded him; on the other, however, he did not deserve the high honour into which he was elevated. To call him an enthusiast signifies nothing at all. For if we will, all philosophers may be so termed, even the Epicureans and Bacon; for they all have held that man finds his truth in something else than eating and drinking, or in the common-sense every-day life of wood-cutting, tailoring, trading, or other business, private or official. But Boehme has to attribute the high honour to which he was raised mainly to the garb of sensuous feeling and perception which he adopted; for ordinary sensuous perception and inward feeling, praying and yearning, and the pictorial element in thought, allegories and such like, are in some measure held to be essential in Philosophy. But it is only in the Notion, in thought, that Philosophy can find its truth, and that the Absolute can be expressed and likewise is as it is in itself. Looked at from this point of view, Boehme is a complete barbarian, and yet he is a man who, along with his rude method of presentation, possesses a deep, concrete heart. But because no method or order is to be found in him, it is difficult to give an account of his philosophy. Jacob Boehme was born in 1575 of poor parents, at Altseidenburg, near Görlitz, in Upper Lusatia. In his youth he was a peasant boy who tended the cattle. He was brought up as a Lutheran, and always remained such. The account of his life which is given with his works was drawn up by a clergyman who knew him personally, from information given by Boehme himself. Much is there related as to how he attained to more profound knowledge and wisdom by means of certain experiences through which he passed. Even when a herd tending the cattle, as he tells of himself, he had these wonderful manifestations. The first marvellous awakening that occurred to him took place in a thicket in which he saw a cavern and a vessel of gold. Startled by the splendour of this sight he was inwardly awakened from a dull stupor, but afterwards he found it was impossible for him to discover the objects of his vision. Subsequently he was bound apprentice to a shoemaker. More especially “was he spiritually awakened by the words: 'Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him' (Luke xi. 13), so that, desiring to come to a knowledge of the truth, and yet retaining the simplicity of his mind, he prayed and sought, and knocked, fervently and earnestly, until, while travelling about with his master, he was, through the influence of the Father in the Son, spiritually transported into the glorious pence and the Sabbath of the soul, and thus his request was granted. According to his own account, he was then surrounded with divine light, and for seven days he remained in the supremest divine contemplation and joy.” His master for this dismissed him, saying he could not keep in his service “house-prophets such as he was.” After that he lived at Görlitz. In 1594 he rose in his trade to be master, and married. Later on, “in the year 1600, and in the twenty-fifth year of his age, once more” the light broke upon him in a second vision of the same kind. He tells that he saw a brightly scoured pewter dish in the room, and “by the sudden sight of this shining metal with its brilliant radiance” he was brought (into a meditation and a breaking free of his astral mind) “into the central point of secret nature,” and into the light of divine essence. “He went out into the open air in order that he might rid his brain of this hallucination, and none the less did he continue all the more clearly as time went on to experience the vision in this way received. Thus by means of the signatures or figures, lineaments, and colours which were depicted, he could, so to speak, look into the heart and inmost nature of all creatures (in his book De signatura rerum this reason which was impressed upon him is found and fully explained); and for this he was overwhelmed with joy, thanked God, and went peacefully about his affairs.” Later on he wrote several works. He continued to pursue his handicraft at Görlitz, and died at the same place in 1624, being then a master shoemaker.(2) His works are especially popular with the Dutch, and for that reason most of the editions are issued from Amsterdam, though they were also surreptitiously printed in Hamburg. His first writing is the “Aurora” or “Morgenröthe im Aufgange,” and this was followed by others; the work “Von den drei Principien,” and another “Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen,” are, along with several others, the most noteworthy. Boehme constantly read the Bible, but what other works he read is not known. A number of passages in his works, however, prove that he read much — evidently mystical, theosophic, and alchemistic writings for the most part, and he must certainly have included in his reading the works of Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, a philosopher of a somewhat similar calibre, but much more confused, and without Boehme's profundity of mind. He met with much persecution at the hands of the clergy, but he aroused less attention in Germany than in Holland and England, where his writings have been often printed.(3) In reading his works we are struck with wonder, and one must be familiar with his ideas in order to discover the truth in this most confused method of expression. The matter of Jacob Boehme's philosophy is genuinely German; for what marks him out and makes him noteworthy is the Protestant principle already mentioned of placing the intellectual world within one's own mind and heart, and of experiencing and knowing and feeling in one's own self-consciousness all that formerly was conceived as a Beyond. Boehme's general conceptions thus on the one hand reveal themselves as both deep and sound, but on the other, with all his need for and struggle after determination and distinction in the development of his divine intuitions of the universe, he does not attain either to clearness or order. There is no systematic connection but the greatest confusion in his divisions — and this exists even in his tables,(4) in which three numbers are made use of. I. What God is beside nature and Creation. II. Separability God in Love Mysterium magnum The first Principium. God in Wrath. III. God in wrath and love. Here nothing definite to hold the moments asunder is shown, and we have the sense of merely doing it by effort; now these and now other distinctions are set forth, and as they are laid down disconnectedly, they again come into confusion. The manner and system which Boehme adopts must accordingly be termed barbarous; the expressions used in his works prove this, as when, for example, he speaks of the divine Salitter, Marcurius, &c. As Boehme places the life, the movement of absolute existence in the heart, so does he regard all conceptions as being in a condition of actuality; or he makes use of actuality as Notion, that is to say he forcibly takes natural things and sensuous qualities to express his ideas rather than the determinations of the Notion. For instance, sulphur and suchlike are not to him the things that we so name, but their essence; or the Notion has this form of actuality. Boehme's profoundest interest is in the Idea and he struggles hard to express it. The speculative truth which he desires to expound really requires, in order to be comprehended, thought and the form of thought. Only in thought can this unity be comprehended, in the central point of which his mind has its place; but it is just the form of thought that is lacking to him. The forms that he employs are really no longer determinations of the Notion at all. They are on the one hand sensuous, chemical determinations, such qualities as acid, sweet, sour, fierce; and, on the other, emotions such as wrath and love; and, further, tincture, essence, anguish, &c. For him these sensuous forms do not, however, possess the sensuous significance which belongs to them, but he uses them in order to find expression for his thought. It is, however, at once clear to us how the form of manifestation must necessarily appear forced, since thought alone is capable of unity. It thus appears strange to read of the bitterness of God, of the Flagrat, and of lightning; we first require to have the Idea, and then we certainly discern its presence here. But the other side is that Boehme utilizes the Christian form which lies nearest to him, and more especially that of the Trinity, as the form of the Idea: he intermingles the sensuous mode and the mode of popularly conceived religion, sensuous images and conceptions. However rude and barbarous this may on the one hand be, and however impossible it is to read Boehme continuously, or to take a firm grasp of his thoughts (for all these qualities, spirits and angels make one's head swim), we must on the other hand recognize that he speaks of everything as it is in its actuality, and that he does this from his heart. This solid, deep, German mind which has intercourse with what is most inward, thus really exercises an immense power and force in order to make use of actuality as Notion, and to have what takes place in heaven around and within it. Just as Hans Sachs represented God, Christ and the Holy Ghost, as well as patriarchs and angels, in his own particular manner and as ordinary people like himself, not looking upon them as past and historic, so was it with Boehme. To faith spirit has truth, but in this truth the moment of certainty of self is lacking. We have seen that the object of Christianity is the truth, the Spirit; it is given to faith as immediate truth. Faith possesses the truth, but unconsciously, without knowledge, without knowing it as its self-consciousness; and seeing that thought, the Notion, is necessarily in self-consciousness — the unity of opposites with Bruno — this unity is what is pre-eminently lacking to faith. Its moments as particular forms fall apart, more especially the highest moments — good and evil, or God and the Devil. God is, and the Devil likewise; both exist for themselves. But if God is absolute existence, the question may be asked, What absolute existence is this which has not all actuality, and more particularly evil within it? Boehme is hence on one side intent on leading the soul of man to the divine life, on inducing the soul to pay attention to the strife within itself, and make this the object of all its work and efforts; and then in respect of this content he strives to make out how evil is present in good — a question of the present day. But because Boehme does not possess the Notion and is so far back in intellectual culture, there ensues a most frightful and painful struggle between his mind and consciousness and his powers of expression, and the import of this struggle is the profoundest Idea of God which seeks to bring the most absolute opposites into unity, and to bind them together — but not for thinking reason. Thus if we would comprehend the matter, Boehme's great struggle has been — since to him God is everything — to grasp the negative, evil, the devil, in and from God, to grasp God as absolute; and this struggle characterizes all his writings and brings about the torture of his mind. It requires a great and severe mental effort to bring together in one what in shape and form lie so far asunder; with all the strength that he possesses Boehme brings the two together, and therein shatters all the immediate significance of actuality possessed by both. But when thus he grasps this movement, this essence of spirit in himself, in his inward nature, the determination of the moments simply approaches more nearly to the form of self-consciousness, to the formless, or to the Notion. In the background, indeed, there stands the purest speculative thought, but it does not attain to an adequate representation. Homely, popular modes of conception likewise appear, a free outspokenness which to us seems too familiar. With the devil, particularly, he has great dealings, and him he frequently addresses. “Come here,” he says, “thou black wretch, what dost thou want? I will give thee a potion.”(5) As Prospero in Shakespeare's “Tempest”(6) threatens Ariel that he will “rend an oak and peg him in his knotty entrails . . . twelve winters,” Boehme's great mind is confined in the hard knotty oak of the senses — in the gnarled concretion of the ordinary conception — and is not able to arrive at a free presentation of the Idea.

Now integrate this material. I shall shortly give Boehme's main conceptions, and then several particular forms which he in turn adopts; for he does not remain at one form, because neither the sensuous nor the religious can suffice. Now even though this brings about the result that he frequently repeats himself, the forms of his main conceptions are still in every respect very different, and he who would try to give a consistent explanation of Boehme's ideas, particularly when they pass into further developments, would only delude himself in making the attempt. Hence we must neither expect to find in Boehme a systematic presentation nor a true method of passing over into the individual. Of his thoughts we cannot say much without adopting his manner of expression, and quoting the particular passages themselves, for they cannot otherwise be expressed. The fundamental idea in Jacob Boehme is the effort to comprise everything in an absolute unity, for he desires to demonstrate the absolute divine unity and the union of all opposites in God. Boehme's chief, and one may even say, his only thought — the thought that permeates all his works — is that of perceiving the holy Trinity in everything, and recognizing everything as its revelation and manifestation, so that it is the universal principle in which and through which everything exists; in such a way, moreover, that all things have this divine Trinity in themselves, not as a Trinity pertaining to the ordinary conception, but as the real Trinity of the absolute Idea. Everything that exists is, according to Boehme, this three-fold alone, and this three-fold is everything.(7) To him the universe is thus one divine life and revelation of God in all things, so that when examined more closely, from the one reality of God, the sum and substance of all powers and qualities, the Son who shines forth from these powers is eternally born; the inward unity of this light with the substance of the powers is Spirit. Sometimes the presentation is vague, and then again it is clearer. What comes next is the explanation of this Trinity, and here the different forms which he uses to indicate the difference becoming evident in the same, more especially appear. In the Aurora, the “Root or Mother of Philosophy, Astrology and Theology,” he gives a method of division in which he places these sciences in proximity, and yet appears merely to pass from one to the other without any clear definition or determination.” (1) In Philosophy divine power is treated of, what God is, and how in the Being of God, nature, stars, and Elementa are constituted; whence all things have their origin, what is the nature of heaven and earth, as also of angels, men and devils, heaven and hell and all that is creaturely, likewise what the two qualities in nature are, and this is dealt with out of a right ground in the knowledge of spirit, by the impulse and motion of God. (2) In astrology the powers of nature, of the stars and elements, are treated of, and how all creatures proceed from them, how evil and good are through them effected in men and animals. (3) In theology the kingdom of Christ is dealt with, as also its nature, and how it is set in opposition to hell, and how in nature it wars with the kingdom of darkness.”(8) 1. What comes first is God the Father; this first is at once divided in itself and the unity of both its parts. “God is all,” he says, “He is the Darkness and the Light, Love and Anger, Fire and Light, but He calls Himself God only as to the light of His love. There is an eternal Contrarium between darkness and light; neither comprehends the other and neither is the other, and yet there is but one essence or substance, though separated by pain; it is likewise so with the will, and yet there is no separable essence. One single principle is divided in this way, that one is in the other as a nothing which yet exists; but it is not manifest in the property of that thing in which it is.”(9) By anguish is expressed that which we know as the absolute negativity — that is the self-conscious, self-experienced, the self-relating negativity which is therefore absolute affirmation. All Boehme's efforts were directed towards this point; the principle of the Notion is living in him, only he cannot express it in the form of thought. That is to say, all depends on thinking of the negative as simple, since it is at the same time an opposite; thus anguish [Qual] is the inward tearing asunder and yet likewise the simple. From this Boehme derives sources or springs [Quellen], a good play on the words. For pain [die Qual], this negativity, passes into life, activity, and thus lie likewise connects it with quality, [Qualität], which he makes into Quallity.(10) The absolute identity of difference is all through present to him. a. Boehme thus represents God not as the empty unity, but as this self-separating unity of absolute opposites; one must not, however, here expect a clearly defined distinction. The first, the one, the Father, has likewise the mode of natural existence; thus, like Proclus, he speaks of this God being simple essence. This simple essence he calls the hidden; and he therefore names it the Temperamentum, this unity of what is different, in which all is tempered. We find him also calling it the great Salitter — now the divine and now the natural Salitter — as well as Salniter. When he talks of this great salitter as of something known to us, we cannot first of all conceive what it means. But it is a vulgar corruption of the word sal nitri, saltpetre (which is still called salniter in Austria), i.e. just the neutral and in truth universal existence. The divine pomp and state is this, that in God a more glorious nature dwells, trees, plants, &c. “In the divine pomp or state two things have principally to be considered; salitter or the divine power, which brings forth all fruits, and marcurius or the sound.”(11) This great salitter is the unrevealed existence, just as the Neo-Platonic unity is without knowledge of itself and likewise unrecognized. b. This first substance contains all powers or qualities as not yet separated; thus this salitter likewise appears as the body of God, who embraces all qualities in Himself. Quality thus becomes an important conception, the first determination with Boehme; and he begins with qualities in his work “Morgenröthe im Aufgang.” He afterwards associates with this the conferring of quality, and in the same place says: “Quality is the mobility, boiling, springing, and driving of a thing.” These qualities he then tries to define, but the account he gives of them is vague. “As for example heat which burns, consumes and drives forth all whatsoever comes into it which is not of the same property; and again it enlightens and warms all cold, wet, and dark things; it compacts and hardens soft things. It contains likewise two other kinds in it, namely Light and Fierceness” (Negativity); “of which the light or the heart of the heat is in itself a pleasant, joyful glance or lustre, a power of life . . . and a source of the heavenly kingdom of joy. For it makes all things in this world living and moving; all flesh, trees, leaves, and grass grow in this world, as in the power of the light, and have their light therein, viz. in the good. Again, it contains also a fierceness or wrath which burns, consumes and spoils. This wrath or fierceness springs, drives, and elevates itself in the light, and makes the light movable. It wrestles and fights together in its two-fold source. The light subsists in God without heat, but it does not subsist so in nature. For all qualities in nature are one in another, in the same manner as God is all. For God” (the Father) “is the Heart.” On another occasion (Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen, chap. iv. § 68, p. 881) the Son is the heart of God; and yet again the Spirit is called the heart (Morgenröthe, chap. ii. § 13, p. 29) “or fountain of nature, and from Him comes all. Now heat reigns and predominates in all powers in nature and warms all, and is one source or spring in all. But the light in the heat gives power to all qualities, for that all grow pleasant and joyful.” Boehme goes over quite a list of qualities: cold, hot, bitter, sweet, fierce, acid, hard, dense, soft qualities, sound, etc. “The bitter quality is in God also, but not in that manner as the gall is in man, but it is an everlasting power, in an elevating, triumphing spring or source of joy. All the creatures are made from these qualities, and live therein as in their mother.”(12) “The virtues of the stars are nature itself. Everything in this world proceeds from the stars. That I shall prove to you if you are not a blockhead and have a little reason. If the whole Curriculum or the whole circumference of the stars is considered, we soon find that this is the mother of all things, or the nature from which all things have arisen and in which all things stand and live, and through which all things move. And all things are formed from these same powers and remain eternally therein.” Thus it is said that God is the reality of all realities. Boehme continues: “You must, however, elevate your mind in the Spirit, and consider how the whole of nature, with all the powers which are in nature, also extension, depth and height, also heaven and earth and all whatsoever is therein, and all that is above the heavens, is together the Body and Corporeity of God; and the powers of the stars are the fountain veins in the natural Body of God, in this world. You must not conceive that in the Body of the stars is the whole triumphing Holy Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But we must not so conceive as if God was not at all in the Corpus or Body of the stars, and in this world. . . . Here now the question is, From whence has heaven, or whence borrows it this power, that it causes such mobility in nature? Here you must lift up your eyes beyond nature into the light, holy, triumphing, divine power, into the unchangeable holy Trinity, which is a triumphing, springing, movable Being, and all powers are therein, as in nature: of this heaven, earth, stars, elements, devils, angels, men, beasts, and all have their Being; and therein all stands. When we nominate heaven and earth, stars and elements, and all that is therein, and all whatsoever is above the heaven, then thereby is nominated the total God, who has made Himself creaturely in these abovementioned” many “Beings, in His power which proceedeth forth from Him.”(13) c. Boehme further defines God the Father as follows: “When we consider the whole nature and its property, then we see the Father: when we behold heaven and the stars, then we behold His eternal power and wisdom. So many stars as stand in the whole heaven, which are innumerable, so manifold and various is the power and wisdom of God the Father. Every star differs in its quality.” But “you must not conceive here that every power which is in the Father stands in a peculiar severed or divided part and place in the Father, as the stars do in heaven. No, but the Spirit shows that all the powers in the Father,” as the fountainhead, “are one in another as one power.” This whole is the universal power which exists as God the Father, wherein all differences are united; “creaturely” it, however, exists as the totality of stars, and thus as separation into the different qualities. “You must not think that God who is in heaven and above the heaven does there stand and hover like a power and quality which has in it neither reason nor knowledge, as the sun which turns round in its circle and shoots forth from itself heat and light, whether it be for benefit or hurt to the earth and creatures. No, the Father is not so, but He is an All-mighty, All-wise, All-knowing, All-seeing, All-hearing, All-smelling, All-tasting God, who in Himself is meek, friendly, gracious, merciful, and full of joy, yea Joy itself.”(14) Since Boehme calls the Father all power, he again distinguishes these as the seven first originating spirits.(15) But there is a certain confusion in this and no thought-determination, no definite reason for there being exactly seven — such precision and certainty is not to be found in Boehme. These seven qualities are likewise the seven planets which move and work in the great Salitter of God; “the seven planets signify the seven spirits of God or the princes of the angels.” But they are in the Father as one unity, and this unity is an inward spring and fermentation. “In God all spirits triumph as one spirit, and a spirit ever calms and loves the others, and nothing exists excepting mere joy and rapture. One spirit does not stand alongside the others like stars in heaven, for all seven are contained within one another as one spirit. Each spirit in the seven spirits of God is pregnant with all seven spirits of God;” thus each is in God itself a totality. “One brings forth the other in and through itself;” this is the flashing forth of the life of all qualities.(16)

incorporate this excerpt from Hegel on Eriugena Scholastic philosophy is considered to begin with John Scotus Erigena who flourished about the year 860, and who must not be confused with the Duns Scotus of a later date. We do not quite know whether he belonged to Ireland or to Scotland, for Scotus points to Scotland, and Erigena to Ireland. With him true philosophy first begins, and his philosophy in the main coincides with the idealism of the Neo-Platonists. […] Scotus was also the author of some original works, which are not without depth and penetration, upon nature and its various orders (De naturæ divisione), &c. Dr. Hjort, of Copenhagen, published an epitome of the writings of Scotus Erigena, in 1823. Scotus Erigena sets to work philosophically, expressing himself in the manner of the Neo-Platonists, and not freely, and as from himself, Thus in the method of expression adopted by Plato, and also by Aristotle, we are rejoiced to find a new conception, and on bringing it to the test of philosophy, to find it both correct and profound; but here everything is ready to hand, cut and dry. Yet, with Scotus, theology is not yet built on exegesis, and on the authority of the Church; the Church in many cases rejected his writings. Thus Scotus is reproached by a Lyons church council […] Scotus Erigena hence even said: “The true Philosophy is the true Religion, and the true Religion is the true Philosophy. The separation came later on. Scotus then made a beginning, but properly he does not belong to the scholastics

Now rewrite the original essay taking into account all these excerpts

Can you incorporate Glen Magee's arguments from his book on Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition?

I didn't mean for you to make the whole essay about Glenn.

I'm not sure if Magee said exactly that about the Absolute. Here is an excerpt from his book. Integrate this into your discussion of Magee. Introduction God is God only so far as he knows himself. his self-knowledge is, further, a self-consciousness in man and man’s knowledge of God, which proceeds to man’s self-knowledge in God. — Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences 1. Hegel as Hermetic Thinker Hegel is not a philosopher. He is no lover or seeker of wisdom — he believes he has found it. Hegel writes in the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, “To help bring philosophy closer to the form of Science, to the goal where it can lay aside the title of ‘love of knowing’ and be actual knowledge — that is what I have set before me” (Miller, 3; PC, 3). By the end of the Phenomenology, Hegel claims to have arrived at Absolute Knowledge, which he identifies with wisdom. Hegel’s claim to have attained wisdom is completely contrary to the original Greek conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom, that is, the ongoing pursuit rather than the final possession of wisdom. His claim is, however, fully consistent with the ambitions of the Hermetic tradition, a current of thought that derives its name from the so-called Hermetica (or Corpus Hermeticum), a collection of Greek and Latin treatises and dialogues written in the first or second centuries A.D. and probably containing ideas that are far older. The legendary author of these works is Hermes Trismegistus (“Thrice-Greatest Hermes”). “Hermeticism” denotes a broad tradition of thought that grew out of the “writings of Hermes” and was expanded and developed through the infusion of various other traditions. Thus, alchemy, Kabbalism, Lullism, and the mysticism of Eckhart and Cusa — to name just a few examples — became intertwined with the Hermetic doctrines. (Indeed, Hermeticism is used by some authors simply to mean alchemy.) Hermeticism is also sometimes called theosophy, or esotericism; less precisely, it is often characterized as mysticism, or occultism. It is the thesis of this book that Hegel is a Hermetic thinker. I shall show that there are striking correspondences between Hegelian philosophy and Hermetic theosophy, and that these correspondences are not accidental. Hegel was actively interested in Hermeticism, he was influenced by its exponents from boyhood on, and he allied himself with Hermetic movements and thinkers throughout his life. I do not argue merely that we can understand Hegel as a Hermetic thinker, just as we can understand him as a German or a Swabian or an idealist thinker. Instead, I argue that we must understand Hegel as a Hermetic thinker, if we are to truly understand him at all. Hegel’s life and works offer ample evidence for this thesis. There are references throughout Hegel’s published and unpublished writings to many of the leading figures and movements of the Hermetic tradition. These references are in large measure approving. This is particularly the case with Hegel’s treatment of Eckhart, Bruno, Paracelsus, and Boehme. Boehme is the most striking case. Hegel accords him considerable space in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy — more space, in fact, than he devotes to many significant mainstream thinkers in the philosophic tradition. There are, furthermore, numerous Hermetic elements in Hegel’s writings. These include, in broad strokes, a Masonic subtext of “initiation mysticism” in the Phenomenology of Spirit; a Boehmean subtext to the Phenomenology’s famous preface; a Kabbalistic-Boehmean-Lullian influence on the Logic; alchemical-Paracelsian elements in the Philosophy of Nature; an influence of Kabbalistic and Joachimite millennialism on Hegel’s doctrine of Objective Spirit and theory of world history; alchemical and Rosicrucian images in the Philosophy of Right; an influence of the Hermetic tradition of pansophia on the system as a whole; an endorsement of the Hermetic belief in philosophia perennis; and the use of perennial Hermetic symbolic forms (such as the triangle, the circle, and the square) as structural, architectonic devices. Hegel’s library included Hermetic writings by Agrippa, Boehme, Bruno, and Paracelsus. He read widely on Mesmerism, psychic phenomenal dowsing, precognition, and sorcery. He publicly associated himself with known occultists, like Franz von Baader. He structured his philosophy in a manner identical to the Hermetic use of ‘Correspondences!’ He relied on histories of thought that discussed Hermes Trismegistus, Pico della Mirandola, Robert Fludd, and Knorr von Rosenroth alongside Plato, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. He stated in his lectures more than once that the term “speculative” means the same thing as “mystical.” He believed in an “Earth Spirit” and corresponded with colleagues about the nature of magic. He aligned himself, informally, with “Hermetic” societies such as the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. Even Hegel’s doodles were Hermetic, as we shall see in chapter 3 when I discuss the mysterious “triangle diagram”. There are four major periods in Hegel’s life during which he seems to have been strongly under the influence of Hermeticism, or to have actively pursued an interest in it. First, there is his boyhood in Stuttgart, from 1770 to 1788. As I shall discuss in detail in chapter 2, during this period Württemberg was a major center of Hermetic interest, with much of the Pietist movement influenced by Boehmeanism and Rosicrucianism (Württemberg was the spiritual center of the Rosicrucian movement). The leading exponents of Pietism, J. A. Bengel and, in particular, F. C. Oetinger were strongly influenced by German mysticism, Boehmean theosophy, and Kabbalism. Most Hegel scholars have not thought it necessary to consider the intellectual milieu of his boyhood. Hegel is almost universally understood simply within the context of the German philosophical tradition — as responding to Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Needless to say, the influence of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling was important, but it was not the only influence on Hegel. Part of the reason other sources of influence are missed or ignored is that few scholars are familiar with the complexities of religious life in eighteenth-century Germany. Those who are familiar are almost always from disciplines other than philosophy, and almost always German. (The study of German Pietism is almost exclusively the province of German-speaking scholars.) The religious and intellectual life of Württemberg is, however, the obvious place to begin to understand Hegel’s own intellectual origins, characteristic ideas, and aims. Hegel has to be understood in terms of the theosophical Pietist tradition of Württemberg — he cannot be seen simply as a critic of Kant. Indeed Hegel, as I will argue, was always a critic of Kant and never a wholehearted admirer precisely because he was “imprinted” early on by the tradition of pansophia, which was very much alive in Württemberg, and by Oetinger’s ideal of the truth as the Whole (see chapter 2). He could not accept Kant’s scepticism, nor could Schelling, and for identical reasons. Yet they both recognized the power of Kant’s thought and labored hard to move from his premises to their own conclusions, to circumvent his scepticism at all costs, in the name of the speculative ideal of their youth. From 1793 to 1801 Hegel worked as a private tutor, first at Berne, then at Frankfurt. As I shall discuss in chapter 3, Hegel’s biographer Karl Rosenkranz referred to this period as a “theosophical phase” in Hegel’s development. During this time, Hegel appears to have become conversant with the works of Boehme, as well as Eckhart and Johannes Tauler. Also during this period Hegel became involved in Masonic circles. In Jena (1801-7), Hegel’s interest in theosophy continued. He lectured at length, and approvingly, on Boehme and Bruno. He composed several pieces, which have only come down to us in fragmentary form, employing Hermetic language and symbolism (see chapters 3 and 4). His lectures on the Philosophy of Nature during this time reflect an ongoing interest in alchemy. It is likely that Schelling, who had come to Jena sometime earlier, introduced Hegel to his circle of friends, which included a number of Romantics who were heavily interested in Hermeticism. Schelling himself was an avid reader of Boehme and Oetinger, and likely encouraged Hegel’s interest. The final “Hermetic” period of Hegel’s life is his time in Berlin, from 1818 until his death on November 14, 1831. This is contrary to what one might expect. It might be assumed that Hegel’s “Hermeticism” was merely an aberration of youth, which the “arch rationalist” moved away from as he matured. Surprisingly, precisely the reverse seems to be the case. In Berlin, Hegel developed a friendship with Franz von Baader, the premiere occultist and mystic of the day. Together they studied Meister Eckhart. The preface to Hegel’s 1827 edition of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline makes prominent mention of Boehme and Baader. His revised 1832 edition of the Science of Logic corrects a passage so as to include a reference to Boehme. His preface to the 1821 Philosophy of Right includes alchemical and Rosicrucian imagery. His 1831 Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion show the influence of the mystic Joachim of Fiore, as well as certain structural correspondences to the thought of Boehme. In sum, all the evidence indicates that in the last period of his life, Hegel’s interest in the mystical and Hermetic traditions intensified, and that he became more bold about publicly aligning himself with Hermetic thinkers and movements. The divisions of Hegel’s philosophy follow a pattern that is typical of many forms of mystical and Hermetic philosophy. The Phenomenology represents an initial stage of “purification” of raising the mind above the level of the sensory and the mundane, a preparation for the reception of wisdom. The Logic is equivalent to the Hermetic “ascent” to the level of pure form, of the eternal, of “Universal Mind” (Absolute Idea). The Philosophy of Nature describes an “emanation"’ or “othering'’ of Universal Mind in the form of the spatio-temporal world. Its categories accomplish a transfiguration of the natural: we come to see the world as a reflection of Universal Mind. The Philosophy of Spirit accomplishes a “return of created nature to the Divine by means of man, who can rise above the merely natural and “actualize” God in the world through concrete forms of life (e.g., the state and religion) and through speculative philosophy.

I don't like the title. We aren't seeking insights from Eriugena and Boehme. We are trying to understand the influence of these thinkers on Hegel.

These titles are leaving out Bruno.

It's a bit awkward to name all three thinkers in the title. How about the influence of three neoplatonists on hegel

Now rewrite the essay to take this into account.

What happened to the section on Magee? Please insert that back into the essay.

I don't feel like the relationship between Neoplatonism and Hermeticism is clear enough.

The sections on Eriugena, Bruno, and Boehme are too short. Use more of the material from the excerpts I fed you above to expand those sections.

the conclusion is too short. summarize the contributions of each thinker to Hegel's understanding

I would also like you to expand the introduction, keeping in mind the excerpts

Okay, now revise the essay to include these new introduction and conclusion sections, but expand on the sections on Eriugena, Bruno and Boehme even further.

The sections on Bruno and Boehme are still too short. I gave you a lot of material in those excerpts that you haven't integrated yet.

Add a discussion of what Hegel thought about Bruno's use of Lullian techniques

"Hegel acknowledged the significance" is way too general. Can you integrate a summary of Hegel's specific remarks on Bruno's use of Lullian techniques from the excerpt I fed you

okay now integrate that into the essay

Okay now can you explain all this to the relevance of Hegel to Marxism