What Is Hegel's Tragic Fate Rational?

Thomas Nagel states that human beings have a “natural expression” for the sense that life is absurd (Nagel 29). In his essay, simply titled “The Absurd”, Nagel argues that this natural presumption is true, but not for the reasons commonly given: the smallness and brevity of our lives. Instead, our lives are absurd because they feature an inevitable conflict between our feeling that life lacks justification and our inability to disengage with life despite this feeling. I argue that Nagel mistakenly includes awareness in his philosophical definition of absurdity. Nonetheless, his essay is an insightful read about the nature of human life.

Hegel's philosophy of History, on of the greatest in the philosophy cannon, is the great philosophers greatest body of work. The philosophy of History is based on such ideals as the idea that Reason rules history. George Hegel used Immanuel Kant's system of

German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) have traditionally been viewed as polar opposites in terms of their philosophy. Hegel has been dubbed an idealist and a systematic philosopher who identified various different types of History, theoretical entities and concepts. Nietzsche, on the other hand, is seen to be a counter-Enlightenment and counter-systematic philosopher who penned the well-known text, ‘Genealogy of Morals’. In this essay, I aim to bring to light the underlying similarities between the two thinkers that have previously been overlooked, as well as to identify the differences in Hegel and Nietzsche’s ideologies and presuppositions.

In the play “Antigone” written by Sophocles, many issues come to light regarding morality and virtue. While there may be many interpretations regarding whether Antigone is correct in her views or Creon is, the German philosopher Hegel argues that both are right to some extent. When the argument is analyzed from both point of views it is evident that they both have some moral reasoning leading to both cases being correct; however, since neither side is willing to put themselves “in the other persons shoes” to have a clearer view of the situation, it causes Creon and Antigone to be wrong at the same time. Both Antigone’s and Creon’s judgement is clouded because of their inability to understand the argument from the other person’s point of view,

A tragedy isn’t a narrative, but rather an action-filled drama. A tragedy consists of many incidents which mainly arouse the emotions of pity and fear. Having pity towards a character, according to Aristotle and Nussbaum, means there’s the belief that the person is indeed suffering, and it is of extreme importance. But the more we feed on those emotions of pity, the further away we move from practical rationality. This suffering can be divided into two categories: painful and injurious things and substantial damages caused by luck. Throughout the tragedy of The House of Sand and Fog, the young woman travels away from rationality, and more towards the state of insanity. Not believing she had the ability to change her own future, her fear of losing everything she had eventually led to her own destruction and the demise of those around her.

Initially, the idea of tragedy is foreshadowed when the author states the reason why the

When we think of the tragedy, we think of something bad happening to someone. This cannot be a tragedy. To know what tragedy is we have to take a look at what Arthur Miller thinks of as tragic.

When hearing the word Tragedy, it would not be surprising if several different individuals would immediately think of several unique examples of the word. Perhaps one is an opera enthusiast who immediately thinks of Puccini’s La Boheme. Another is a war enthusiast that thinks about History Channel’s new episode highlighting the harshest and bloodiest battles of World War One. Even a third one obsessed with Greek mythology could generate a handful of examples of tragedy. Tragedy, like love or comedy is a universal theme that can be used to entertain, enlighten and excite its audiences. William Shakespeare, a world renown writer, was a master of this genre writing works, including Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet. Another lesser known

Tragic heroes, according to Miller, actively and entirely commits themselves in a hopeless attempt to attain or regain their personal dignity. Miller states, “the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing--his sense of personal dignity” (144). This statement emphasizes the absence of “personal dignity” that the character seeks to gain or regain, and it

Hegel’s critique of Kant’s philosophy is quite prevalent throughout the unfolding of Hegel’s own dialectical philosophy. Several of Hegel’s critiques of Kant’s work can especially be seen in one of his earlier works, “The Phenomenology of Spirit.” This is particularly established once Hegel begins to undertake the developing of Spirit within his Phenomenology. Here, Hegel makes several attacks on Kantian philosophy principles, and at some of the foundations of Kant’s use of pure reason in philosophy. There are several passages within the section where Hegel gives criticism of Kant’s work; critiques that strike at the very heart of what Hegel himself is trying to elucidate through his own dialectic, while discounting one of the greatest German philosophers.

Generally, the paradox of tragedy discusses “how we can (not irrationally or absurdly) respond emotionally to a work of art all, given that we do not really believe the events or charters depicted in it are real.” While, in Pleasures of Tragedies, Feagin takes a more specific approach which aims at figuring out the possible explanation of the pleasures obtained from the tragedy.

    By definition, a tragedy is a story that details the downfall of a protagonist. Most often, the protagonist (tragic hero) is a member of high society who is faced with an oppositional force, be it internal or external. In his Poetics, Aristotle states that "tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions themselves, and these- thought and character- are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions, again all success or failure depends...." This quote illustrates an aspect of tragedy upon which many works are based, including

The word ‘tragedy’ is a common in the modern world, and it is often associated with a “sad or unhappy ending”. Accordingly, every time there is misfortune in a work, it is classified as a ‘tragedy’. Arthur Miller offers the observation that a tragedy is something that is more than just sad. Miller argues that tragedy is not a ‘pessimistic’ view on an event, but it allows for “the reinforcement of the onlookers brightest opinions of the human animal”. Since humans are not in control of his/her own fate, unfortunate things are bound to happen. However, the human spirit that is able to withstand catastrophe allows for hope. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare presents his tragic hero, Hamlet, as a noble figure who is to be admired because he

As presented in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the aim of Life is to free itself from confinement "in-itself" and to become "for-itself." Not only does Hegel place this unfolding of Life at the very beginning of the dialectical development of self-consciousness, but he characterizes self-consciousness itself as a form of Life and points to the advancement of self-consciousness in the Master/Slave dialectic as the development of Life becoming "for-itself." This paper seeks to delineate this often overlooked thread of dialectical insight as it unfolds in the Master/Slave dialectic. Hegel articulates a vision of the place of human self-consciousness in the process of Life as a whole and throws light on the role of death as an essential

Hegel uses his triadic theory of dialectic, which came from an accumulation of ideas from his predecessors, to construct the ideas of his philosophies. This theory contained three parts: the thesis was the first stage or affirmation, the antithesis was the contradiction or denial, and the synthesis was the final stage which overcame both the thesis and antithesis to emerge a higher, more rational idea.