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Quote by William Desmond

“The claim that Hegel represents the culmination of metaphysics has had disastrous consequences, not because Hegel is a disaster, but because the reiteration of this claim has stood in the way of rethinking metaphysics. It is like a mesmerizing fetish whose bewitching spell we cannot break. Why are we in its spell? Precisely because of Hegel's greatness, and the great difficulty of thinking philosophically at a level comparable to Hegel's. We cannot surpass Hegel because Hegel surpasses us, and the seeming comprehensive system freezes us, or exhausts us, instead of freeing us. It does not have to be so.”

Quote by William Desmond

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William Desmond

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“Tamamen medenileşmiş insanların devlet sistemlerinin sınırları içinde yaşadığı ve öyle olmayanların (elbette bunlar Avrupa dışında yaşıyordu) aşağı derecedeki "insanımsı(!)" olan "kabile" toplumlarına ait oldukları kanaati, bütün Avrupa'da yaygındı. Bu inanç çeşitli biçimler aldı; hatta onlardan biri olan Hegelci düşünce o kadar ileri gitti ki adeta devleti mitleştirdi ve ona dört bir yana sirayet eden ahlaki bir yapı vasfı kazandırdı.”

“A ‘system’ is always something finite, limited, transitory, a too narrow framework for the infinite dialectical movement of the world, and even in the case of the great philosophies it was always their ‘system’ which most quickly became out of date; what remained of them was always the dialectical content which was often hidden in their work in spite of the ‘system’.”