Review of the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit - part 6

Review of the Preface of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, part 6 On the Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit. 2009 © Robbert Veen The Test I want to express my thanks to the seven who boldy went where no one had gone before: to the test about the Preface on the WiZiQ system. One of them only gave his rank and serial number. One scored 8 out of 12 If you had 4 correct answers, you actually did well: that meant you had knowledge of Hegel on your own. 8 Questions were connected to the classes.  Phenomenology: - first part of science - the existence of the Spirit is at first imme­diacy - immediacy is characteristic of the Pheno­menology Immediacy = abstract, not expressing its necessary conditions or presuppositions, pragmatic contradiction.  "The mind's immediate existence, conscious life, has two aspects--cognition and objectivity which is opposed to or negative of the subjective function of knowing. Since it is in the medium of consciousness that mind is developed and brings out its various moments, this opposition between the factors of conscious life is found at each stage in the evolution of mind, and all the various moments appear as modes or forms (Gestalten) of consciousness." (Baillie, 36) Consciousness is the immediate existence of the Spirit It has two opposite moments or factors: (Their connection is both positive and negative: one is the subjective mode of the other, each are what the other is not. ) 1. Knowledge 2. Objectivity NB not: knowledge and its object!  The difference or mutual exclusion of these two factors is essential to consciousness. The Phenomenology is the archive of the development of the Spirit, in which these differences are continuously resolved. "The scientific statement of the course of this development is a science of the experience through which consciousness passes; the substance and its process are considered as the object of consciousness." (B, 36) The PhdG analyzes the experience of consciousness: Experience: · the way in which substance and its movement are the object of conscious­ness · the immediate or abstract loses its solidity and identity · and is alienated from itself · and returns to itself out of this alienation. For consciousness is, on the one hand, consciousness of the object, on the other, consciousness of itself; consciousness of what to it is true, and consciousness of its knowledge of that truth. Since both are for the same consciousness, it is itself their comparison; it is the same consciousness that decides and knows whether its knowledge of the object corresponds with this object or not. The object, it is true, appears only to be in such wise for consciousness as consciousness knows it. Consciousness does not seem able to get, so to say, behind it as it is, not for consciousness, but in itself, and consequently seems also unable to test knowledge by it. But just because consciousness has, in general, knowledge of an object, there is already present the distinction that the inherent nature, what the object is in itself, is one thing to consciousness, while knowledge, or the being of the object for consciousness, is another moment. Upon this distinction, which is present as a fact, the examination turns. (B, 85)  The structure of consciousness Every particular shape or figure of conscious­ness shows a specific connection of knowledge and objectivity.  The movements of expression Every consciousness expresses itself as a particular mode of objectivity. I.e. every consciousness finds its essence in the concept of what constitutes an object for it. In that sense every consciousness is an epistemology. Every concept of a mode of objectivity indirectly expresses a particular mode of subjectivity, but not as such.  · Subjectivity is active as the positing of the essential object. · In other words: in every consciousness the main focus lies on objectivity and subjectivity remains implicit. · The unity of consciousness, of the two factors, is implied. · The difference of the factors is explicit. · The object is the essence of any consciousness.  The experience of consciousness In the experience of consciousness the mode of objectivity changes when its presuppositions are made explicit. The implicit presuppositions and the explicit concept of the objects are contradictory in the sense of a practical contradiction. This contradiction is overcome by a change in the concept of the object. "This dialectic process which consciousness executes on itself-on its knowledge as well as on its object--in the sense that out of it the new and true object arises, is precisely, what is termed Experience. "In this connection, there is a moment in the process just mentioned which should be brought into more decided prominence, and by which a new light is cast on the scientific aspect of the following exposition. Consciousness knows something; this something is the essence or is per se. "This object, however, is also the per se, the inherent reality, for consciousness. Hence comes ambiguity of this truth. "Consciousness, as we see, has now two objects: one is the first per se, the second is the existence for consciousness of this per se. "The last object appears at first sight to be merely the reflection of consciousness into itself, i.e. an idea not of an object, but solely of its knowledge of that first object. But, as was already indicated, by that very process the first object is altered; it ceases to be what is per se, and becomes consciously something which is per se only for consciousness. Consequently, then, what this real per se is for consciousness is truth: which, however, means that this is the essential reality, or the object which consciousness has. This new object contains the nothingness of the first; the new object is the experience concerning that first object." (B, 86)  Example: The object of sensuous certainty is individual being here and now. This explicit concept of the object is correlative to the individual and immediate awareness of the presence. The expression of knowledge however involves the application of a universal: the immediate present as such. The abstract presupposition was, that the subject is able to point at the here and now, i.e. the here and now are univer­sals that are realized in particular moments. There is therefore a contradiction between the claim to an individual and unique objectivity, and the effective universal used by a subject to achieve the immediate awareness of an individual presence. In this experience consciousness needs to change the concept of its own objectivity: it is no longer about the immediate presence of the object, but rather its opposite, the immediate awareness itself and its activity. The subject is now taken as this individual awareness. But the subject turns out to be not just something individual absolute, but rather something universal in its own right: any subject can be this singular subject that experiences its object in this unique here and now.  Consciousness is at the same time a relation­ship of subject and object, i.e. of two different factors, and an undivided simple unity or iden­tity of being and knowing. The difference is constitutive for the form, but the identity is the ground of its effectiveness.  Why would we need a science of what will turn out to be false? The inequality between knowledge and its object is not simply falsity. Being an adult does not prove having been a child to be simply false. Nevertheless, one is either an adult or child.  Knowledge is not adequate to substance, so knowledge is incomplete. (non totaliter) Consciousness is this inadequacy, therefore knowledge is complete, even though it is still only immediate, i.e. consciousness. (totum) The inherent contradiction of consciousness is, that it aims at identity with its object, yet it is constituted by the difference of itself with its object.  Every truth involves difference or negativity. There is no falsity as such, there is only a certain level of immediacy, or implicitness. This specific relationship between truth and falsity within philosophy is the opposite of dogmatism. Dogmatism is a way of thinking in which truth consists in single propositions. The abstract negative of such propositions must then necessarily be false. I.e. if the proposition "God is Spirit" is true, then the proposition "God is not a Spirit" must be false. Truth does not consist in propositions, not even outside of philosophy: Historical truths dealing with particular existence without necessity need the labor of understanding universals, and are not simply expressed in single propositions.  Mathematical truths consist of theorems and their proofs. The simple knowledge of the contents of the theorems is not enough, only those who can construct a proof are considered to be mathe­maticians; knowledge of the proof however will not complete understanding, since it has no bearing on the contents but only on the external relationship with the knower.  In philosophical knowledge both the exis­tence and the nature or essence of reality are involved. The propositions within the Phenomenology of Spirit expresses consciousness in the form of recollected stages all of the developments of the real.  The various shapes of consciousness do not subsist, they have no independent existence. However, they are positive and necessary as remembered stages of an organic growth, as well as negative and transitory in so far as their claim to independence and finality must be rejected.