Essence itself appears as a moment of essence, or absolute knowing itself appears as a moment of absolute knowing.

 

In this way, essence is essential difference or what is absolute manifests an absolute difference where “absolute” attached to difference means an inner or self-generated difference.

 

That essence mediates being is marked in the Phenomenology when appearance qua appearance is identified as the inner being of things. But it also marks the moment repeated throughout when the fluid negative movement of the dialectic gives way to the absolute form as the positive take on the dialectic. This maps the identity of Schein and essence noted in the Logic.

 

That essence mediates the concept in the Phenomenology marks a levels-shift in that essential wholes are taken as essential moments of a more comprehensive whole. This duality of the narrow and broad view is at work throughout with the broad view being noted by Hegel in the introductions to each of the main chapter heads. The concept as the broad view becomes the only view when we arrive at the end and take up Absolute Knowing as a cognitive standpoint.

 

The irony of the conceptual view being the only view at the end is that in suppressing the inner difference between the narrow and the broad, the comprehensive truth that is absolute knowing is itself one-sided.

 

It is for this reason that there is a transition to the Logic where what is missing in absolute knowing is freely released and becomes the self-recovery of what is missing or the self-recovery of the narrow as it manifests itself in the realm of self-thinking.

 

So, the development because calling for a double perspective of whatever is in view at any moment is not a simple matter.

 

At the end you offer an understanding of what we who read know that is in line with how the reader is understood by most commentators.

 

In contrast, I am offering an account that claims that precisely because we are in the middle of absolute knowing we have no access to the comprehensive truth that only appears once we are able to reconceive the opposition of consciousness as an inner difference of our own absolute knowing.

 

On my reading, we are not in the knowing. We proceed ignorant of the true import of the exposition.

 

Another way to put this is that while we have early one the ability to apprehend the concept as the truth of consciousness – explaining how it is that we have this ability is itself somewhat involved – what we do not have until the end is the ability to apprehend the concept as concrete or as idea until we gain insight into the true import of the exposition.

 

The main thing we only learn at the end is that in observing natural consciousness we have been observing a self-alienated manifestation of our own absolute knowing. Once we come to understand this, everything that has happened needs to be reconceived in light of this insight.

 

That is, necessarily there has to be a second reading.. This second reading is guided by an understanding of the telos of the progression, an understanding unavailable to a first reading.

 

• Alan

 

 

 

From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2018 11:38 AM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hegel] perception

 

 

"The key is Appearance, which is the opposite of Essence."

 

Appearance is a moment of Essence. Essence appears. The Concept appears through the negative "also," Essence; Essence is essential difference. Essence mediates Being and Concept. This unity is invoked repeatedly in the Phenomenology.

 

The entire development presented in the Phenomenology depends on this simple matter. Because knowing appears to us immediately, we have access to its mediating essence. (And because we have access to essence, we have access to the concept.

 

Bill

Everything speaks in its own way. (Bloom)

 

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From: hegel@yahoogroups.com <hegel@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of Paul Trejo petrejo@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2018 5:13:10 PM
To: hegel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hegel] perception

 

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Alan Ponikvar wrote:

 

> Hegel tells us that his Phenomenology is to 

> be an exposition of knowledge as it appears.

> 

> The problem is that this straightforward statement 

> of intent was a disguise and as a result the statement 

> is consistently misinterpreted by scholars. 

 

Well, Alan, you claim here that Hegel was being dishonest, writing these words as a "disguise" for some other meaning -- and then you claim to know that actual meaning, so that you can tell that other scholars "misinterpret" his statement.

 

That is typical mystification and and obvious effort of obscurantism.

 

Actually, Hegel's words are EASILY understood by first admitting that Hegel is entirely honest in his expressions.  Secondly, one needs only examine the medieval scholarship that distinguishes between Noumena and Phenomena -- as both Kant and Hegel read it. 

 

Noumena is the world of Essential, Eternal Ideas -- Phenomena is the world of Appearances.   This is Neo-Platonism, pure and simple -- very well-known and obvious.

 

This is why Hegel says that his Phenomenology is "an exposition of knowledge as it appears."    The key is Appearance, which is the opposite of Essence.

 

It has nothing whatever to do with the 20th century usage of the term by Husserl -- which you should know -- which every student of Philosophy should know.    It is basic.

 

There is nothing "forced" or "awkward" or any "disguise" to Hegel's phrase.  It is borrowed from Neo-Platonism, and Hegel will now apply his three-valued dialectical logic to illuminating the Noumena beyond anything that Kant dreamed possible.

 

> ...Second, I do recognize that there is a theological 

> aspect to Hegel’s thought. The death of god narrative

> is central to Hegel’s speculative deflation of metaphysical 

> notions.

 

Well, Alan, here you are conflating Hegel with Nietzsche..   You've no idea how to read Hegel's narrative of the Cross of Christ as the Death of God in Lutheran hymnology, as expressed in the PhG (1807).

 

Your interpretation of Hegel remains lost in the 20th century miasma of Marx and Nietzsche.  So obvious. 

 

You object to my quoting passages from Hegel -- but this is a Hegel List, and is the most appropriate place on Earth for quoting Hegel.   One key flaw in your teaching about Hegel is that you pontificate on what he "really meant to say" without quoting him.. 

 

As for the Truth about how to Interpret Hegel as Hegel intended to be interpreted --  you fall again into the miasma of the 20th century, especially the postmodernism of Derrida and Zizek -- this double-speak of Marx and Nietzsche poured into and out of a Waring Blender..

 

Once again I say, Alan, that I am appalled that anybody would ever imagine that you could teach students about Hegel.   Admit that you can teach postmodern writers -- but also admit that you fail to grasp Hegel's Metaphysical reply to Kant.   

 

Admit it.

--Paul Trejo, MA

Cal State U., Dominguez Hills (1989)

.