Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, 1831, Oil on canvas, Berlin State Museums
That Old Black Magic
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Hegel Via AI
John Fraim
I’ve undertaken a project exploring the work of Hegel and Marx using DeepSeek AI. Starting using DeepSeek around the beginning of 2025 when I heard about in the news. DeepSeek is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot by the Chinese company Deep Seek. Released on 20 January 2025, DeepSeek-R1 surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded freeware app on the iOS App Store. in the United States by January 27th of 2025. DeepSeek’s success against larger and more established rivals has been described as “upending AI” and initiating “a global AI space race.
After playing around with DeepSeek for a few months, asking it all types of questions, I started focusing on understanding one of the grandest philosophies, ideolgies out there: Marxism. I started asking questions (probes) to DeepSeek at first. The original focus was on Marx but I soon realized that you needed to first go to Hegel to understand Marx.
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It’s been a fascinating time. DeepSeek has operated as a faithful assistant who answers questions I have in about 30 seconds. Much more straight forward without the bias of “experts” in academic or professional scholarship. The so-called “experts” and final words on defining things like Hegel and Marx for all of us.
Yet this study has not been undertaken by an “expert” in Hegel and Marx but by someone who has a basic understanding of them but little more. I recall a college class on philosophy. Still, it is by someone who has always been interested in the big questions of philosophy. The type of questions common in during the years of German Idealism from circa 1800 – 1850.
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The answers come from DeepSeek. But first, the questions from me.
So far, 22,000 words words in Notes on Hegel and now an outline of the Notes is completed. Ready to be put into some form. The task is to capture some of the narrative and drama of these years. A dual biography of two people behind a revolutionary idea that has changed history.
Will keep all in the loop.