Srivats, I gave the wrong impression if I suggested "a simple indifferent and random diversity." I thought I was giving the textual evidence for the order that is in the text with respect to Hegel's use of I and we in this chapter. I think there isn't much interest here in actually looking at what the text says.

 

So, yes, the Introduction says there is a need for a standard. It also says the experience of consciousness is the application of the implicit standard. SC, as a shape of consciousness, has such an experience. In my view, the we isn't artificial and the I isn't constructed by Hegel here.. Is there any textual support for such an interpretation? Even a small acknowledgement by Hegel that he's doing such a thing?

 

Bill

"(Recall the story by Raymond Roussel of his discovery, in a dusty provincial museum, under glass, of the skull of Voltaire as a child.)" (Fredric Jameson)

 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2018 7:44:59 PM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hegel] Sense Certainty

 

 

Bill,

 

I agree with you entirely that there is a whole flood of ways in which Hegel uses the term 'we' in Sense Certainty (and perhaps elsewhere too in the PhS).  However, I do think that this multitude of ways is not a simple indifferent and random diversity.  It is a flexibility, plasticity of thought if you will, that arises from an organic/speculative comprehension of the moment of the 'we' in the Absolute as process that takes place in the relationship between consciousness and self consciousness.

 

As far as the 'I' goes, it is far more straightforward to me.  Either it is a naive I, which now turns to a tree or a house or writes Night; Or it is 'the I' which is the ultimate indexical.

 

It is to my mind a Catch 22 situation for Sense Certainty to 'examine itself'.  To examine is to mediate, to frame, to measure against a criterion or standard of truth.  While the Introduction sets this measurement against a criterion as the goal of the PhS, the problem with Sense Certainty as Hegel caricatures its use by philosophers before him who used the term or its aliases to describe the process of direct unmediated absorption of the Truth (in all its senses) is that it implies what I call an emaciated or evacuated observer with no frame of reference.  In such an artificial situation, the Sense Certain consciousness has no resources to conduct the examination.  It is for this purpose that an artificial 'we' or naive 'I' is constructed to enter the picture.

 

Srivats

 

On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 8:53 PM bill.hord bill.hord@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats, as an interim observation and response ...

 

Hegel's use of "we" and "I" in this chapter have to be examined. Hegel uses these pronouns in a variety of ways throughout the Phenomenology. The standard view is that, In the PoS, "we" refers to the phenomenological observer, the guide, or this guide and his readers. However, we can easily spot exceptions to this rule in Chapter 1. 

 

One explanation for this is that Hegel seems to easily slip into something like "erlebte rede": in writing about a shape of consciousness he adopts the POV and language of that shape, without warning.

 

90. We and our here refer to the guide and his readers.

91. In the first sentence, Hegel describes SC experience apparently from the POV of SC and he uses we: "either when we reach out into space and time in which it is dispersed, or when we take a bit of this wealth, and by division enter into it."

91b. Later in 91 Hegel switches to I when he speaks from the SC POV: "Consciousness, for its part, is in this certainty only as a pure 'I'; or I am in it only as a pure 'This’ and the object similarly only as a pure 'This', I, this particular I, am certain of this particular thing, not because I, qua consciousness, in knowing it have developed myself or thought about it in various ways."

92. We refers to the guide. In 92-94 the guide reminds us how SC experience should look to us; and directs us to observe SC knowing itself.

95. This is where you raise your question, and I think you take we and us in this section to refer to the guide. I suggest that after 92-94 Hegel here switches to the POV of SC and uses we and us to refer to that POV: "To the question: 'What is Now?', let us answer, e....g. 'Now is Night.'" My response to you is that this "we" is the voice of sense certain knowing.

95b. Later, Hegel writes, "We write down this truth ..." It sounds like the we of the guide. But there also emerges here a sort of indirect free dialogue with SC. So, this we suggests a cooperative activity of the guide and SC. (Later, in 104-105, SC refuses to continue with this dialogue (because it has stubbornly sunk into its own consciousness) and the guide decides to explicitly take over its role in the dialogue.

96. Appears to be thoughts from the guide.

97. We appears as an ambiguity: "we do not strictly say what in this sense-certainty we mean to say." It is SC who holds the opposite view, presumably. If this is a general truth for all of us, we seem to have a vanishing of the different points of view into a truth.

99.... Appears to be summary of insights by the guide, but the we is ambiguous at least: "consequently, it is not what we mean by 'being" but is 'being' defined as an abstraction, or as the pure universal." This experience seems to be a summary of the guide's views, from the POV of SC.

100. We refers to the guide and his readers. But also note that SC responds: :Sense-certainty, then, though indeed expelled from the object, is not yet thereby overcome, but only driven back into the 'I', We have now to see what experience shows us about its reality in the 'I'."

101. A clear example of erlebte rede (free indirect discourse): "the vanishing of the single Now and Here that we mean is prevented by the fact that I hold them fast." The we is the guide, and the I in mid-sentence becomes SC. 

101b. There is also an important transition here in this sentence: "in this relationship sense-certainty experiences the same dialectic acting upon itself as in the previous one." Hegel states that SC is aware of its own experience. Hegel continues in this vein, SC's experience for a bit.

102. In a way this paragraph looks like a mish-mash. After 101, there's a suggestion that we're getting SC's experience -- its own efforts to come to grips with the dialectial vanishing of particulars (my POV). For example: "I can no more say what I mean in the case of 'I' than I can in the case of 'Now' and "Here'."

103. Opens with a summary of SC experience, but that uses I for SC: "Sense-certainty thus comes to know by experience that its essence is neither in the object nor in the 'I', and that its immediacy is neither an immediacy of the one nor of the other; for in both, what I mean is rather something unessential, and the object and the 'I' are universals in which that 'Now' and 'Here' and 'I' which I mean do not have a continuing being, or are not."

103b. We as the guide, but to summarize universal experience: "we reach the stage where we have to posit the whole of sense-certainty itself as its essence."

103c. I only include this because it describes SC as actively responding to its experience (with the guide): "Thus it is only sense-certainty as a whole which stands firm within itself as immediacy and by so doing excludes from itself all the opposition which has hitherto obtained."

105. SC refusing to cooperate (it must recognize the untenability of its position), the guide takes over as we. 105 describes this move.

106-109. The guide explicitly assumes both roles as we examine SC experience. The result of the axamination, however, is that SC and the guide must agree: "And what consciousness will learn from experience in all sense-certainty is, in truth, only what we have seen viz. the This as a universal, the very opposite of what that assertion affirmed to be universal experience."

109b. 

 

Bill

"(Recall the story by Raymond Roussel of his discovery, in a dusty provincial museum, under glass, of the skull of Voltaire as a child.)" (Fredric Jameson)

 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, November 5, 2018 8:38:28 PM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hegel] Sense Certainty

 

 

Bill

 

Thanks again for pushing this.  I am not here trying to contradict you or argue against you.

 

To me, the frame's double is mediation. So if as in the first line in sense certainty, its truth is immediate and 'we' must approach it as such, it means that we try to see sense certainty as it would see itself.  Now here, there is already a sleight of hand (or mind!).  The moment we see or approach sense certainty as it is, we introduce an element of mediation, framing.  We, picture our eye here, try to approach Sense Certainty as it is -- now that third position is already a framing or mediation.  We try to keep it minimal by simply registering a change.

 

***

There is a speculative progression of what the object is  in this section, perhaps as in other sections, that leads to a slipperiness of the text......  It is never exactly clear what the object of the investigation is, what Hegel is trying to prove and why he is going through this maze of (counterfactual?) constructions.  It seems almost like the mathematical constructs he is so sarcastic about in the preface. Perhaps a later re-reading will make it clearer.

***

 

For example, when 'we' ask in para 95 what sense certainty sees as 'the this', we are asking what it means.  But note the progression:

 

quote

It is, then, sense-certainty itself that must be asked: 'What is the This?' If we take the 'This' in the twofold shape of its being, as 'Now' and as 'Here', the dialectic it has in it will receive a form as intelligible as the 'This' itself is.

end quote

 

We ask sense certainty what is the this, but WE TAKE the this to be in its twofold shape of Now and Here.  Why does this occur?  Why is the question not answered by Sense Certainty? Or 'we' mimic sense certainty's answer by 'taking the this to be...'

 

I think this is because Sense Certainty, unless it sees itself as an example of itself, cannot answer it without becoming a mediation itself -- it cannot express itself without language without a world that makes sense in its expression; if it does it 'immediately' becomes mediate -- goes beyond mere Sense Certainty.  The point seems to be that Hegel is avoiding this complication at this stage and skirting it ever so closely to give us a glimpse of it.  That Sense Certainty is an impossible concept that immediately mediates itself -- in other words, Sense Certainty is not a simple mode:  in its very insistence in philosophical discourse (prior to Hegel even) it is already a mediation -- Spirit.

 

Srivats

 

On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 8:43 PM bill.hord bill.hord@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

I don't know what "a consciousness evacuated of a frame" would be like; a consciousness that knows, however poorly, at least has the frame of knowing to work with immediately.

 

Briefly, Hegel's dialectic is in everything, including sense certain knowing. That means, in this section, there is a dialectic of the object, a dialectic of consciousness, and -- less important, since the section isn't mainly about indexicals -- a dialectic of indexicals. The most prominent dialectic in the chapter (and the Phenomenology) is that of the subject-object -- consciousness has an object, this is the minimum structure of consciousness.

 

"since the object was a being in itself, it's conceptual progress could occur only outside it at this 'primitive' - as in structurally emaciated - stage"

 

I don't follow this. If the object is a being in itself -- it is -- it's conceptual progress develops in itself (Hegel says the concept is in everything). This is true for consciousness as well, also an in itself, with its conceptual progress in itself until with self-consciousness it becomes for itself as well (it doesn't stop being in itself).

 

Only Being and Nothing are "structurally emaciated," since they lack determination -- or even they have a determination in their truth, Becoming, as determinate indeterminations.

 

Bill 

 

"Recall the story by Raymond Roussel of his discovery, in a dusty provincial museum, under glass, of the skull of Voltaire as a child." (Fredric Jameson)

 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 2, 2018 8:17:15 PM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hegel] Sense Certainty

 

 

Bill

 

Thanks for this reprise.

 

I wasn't imagining the point and grunt when I questioned the possibility of a dialectic in SC.  In fact, I didn't accept Paul's characterization explicitly.

 

My point was that when sense certainty is modelled as a consciousness evacuated of a frame there aren't any resources left for a dialectic, by which I meant processual movement not shuttling, to occur.

 

If a dialectic had to occur, it would have to be with us stepping in. Which Alan pointed out, and occurs subtly in one of the later paragraphs.

 

What I then suggested was that since the object was a being in itself, it's conceptual progress could occur only outside it at this 'primitive' - as in structurally emaciated - stage.

 

Srivats

 

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018, 8:55 PM bill.hord bill.hord@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

[Catching up, sort of, not sure if this is still of interest.)

 

 Srivats, one aspect of the problem you propose [why is there dialectic in self-certainty?] is the assumption (stated by Paul) that sense certain consciousness is a kind of primitive consciousness, the "point and grunt kind." Such a primitive consciousness may still be with us, buried in the base of our brains, but we're far beyond such savage consciousness.

 

I think the assumption is that, since sense certainty (SC) is so rudimentary as consciousness -- and as knowing -- it barely deserves either name. And as such a rudimentary thing, there's no dialectic in it. (How could a simple hydrogen atom become a complex carbohydrate?)

 

But Hegel tells us (the reader) right away that this is not what he is considering:

 

"Because of its concrete content, sense-certainty immediately appears as the richest kind of knowledge, indeed a knowledge of infinite wealth for which no bounds can be found, either when we reach out into space and time in which it is dispersed, or when we take a bit of this wealth, and by division enter into it. Moreover, sense-certainty appears to be the truest knowledge; for it has not as yet omitted anything from the object, but has the object before it in its perfect entirety." (91)

 

Pointing and grunting isn't a knowledge of infinite wealth, either for us or for such a consciousness -- and especially when "we" (those who experience this kind of consciousness) reach out into space and time to grasp the multitude of particulars that are, or when we dive into any particular by division, such as the insides of a body, or the insides of a cell. There is always a multitude of particulars that overwhelms us. We simply can't grasp all the particulars. Or even one, as such.

 

This knowing certainly appears immediately as the richest kind. It appears to know a multitude of beings just as they are, as particular beings, and (believes it) knows each one in its entirety if it is known at all. All it takes is to look.

 

The "point and grunt" interpretation may come from this sentence: "All that it says about what it knows is just that it is; and its truth contains nothing but the sheer being of the thing [Sache]." Does this mean that SC consciousness only knows the empty thing without qualities, or does it mean that this consciousness grasps every thing in its full particularity, with all its color, shape, size, etc.? I think the latter, because of what Hegel has already said about the ability to divide these particulars, and because at this point why would all the "divisions" not be included in the "the object before it in its perfect entirety"?

 

However, to sense certainty each of these singular particulars is grasped as such, immediately as a whole. In this simple moment, unnoticed, SC recollects unknowingly 

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