All best, 

--Paul

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 4:07 PM, 'Stephen Cowley' stephen.cowley@... [hegel]

<hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

[Continued. I have looked again at the chapter on Self-consciousness of which the passage on the Unhappy consciousness is the concluding part. There is a parallel with the first section on Consciousness, which begins with the observation of a tree and a house (a natural object and a human artefact), but in which there is a certain incursion of scientific material by the end of the chapter on Force and the Understanding. The equivalent to science in dealing with self-consciousness is history and hence we might anticipate similar incursions of historical material into the concluding portions of the self-consciousness chapter. Whilst the imposition of order by the sword could happen anywhere, the terms Stoicism and Skepticism have an ambiguity: they are both names, behind which lie historical individuals (Seneca, Sextus Empiricus), but also general modes of thought. Montaigne was a skeptic and Schulze was a skeptical contemporary of Hegel, for example; while the the French revolutionaries were often stoical in outlook. Both chapters then, function as transcendental deductions concerned with the possibility of experience in general, but as experience is always particular, they include scientific and historical material in their latter sections, as we move from the generality of immediate experience to more mediated and conceptual material. – SC]

 

The Unhappy Consciousness in Christianity (Miller, 213-18)

 

Again, I share my own notes before turning to Wahl’s interpretation. 213. The unhappy consciousness changes its focus from the Unchangeable, accompanied by its own self-abnegation, to the embodiment of the Unchangeable. We wish to identify ourselves with (the cause of) Christ. Hegel introduces an equivalent term here: das entzweite Bewußtsein. In Miller, this is “divided consciousness”, but entzweite also has the sense of broken (in two, like a twig). This sheds some light on the nature of the unhappiness, or misfortune, of the unhappy consciousness. 214. This movement towards embodiment is itself threefold, corresponding to:

• Pure consciousness
• Desire and Work
• Self-awareness.

215. Christ may be present to pure consciousness, but his presence is not realised. 216. Even here, there is an advance of sorts on Stoicism and Skepticism (though Hegel is not clear on what it is). However, he adds, the unhappy consciousness does not know that its own object is its own self, i.e. that its idea of Christ is its own self. [Because it is not, one might reply. The objects of a mind are not necessarily themselves within the mind. ] 217... This first attitude then, is devotion (Andacht). Hegel famously says: “Its thinking as such remains the formless chiming of bells, or a warm fog of incense, a musical thinking...” Hegel finds a reason for the failure of the Crusades in the fact that the physical grave of Christ is something inessential. 218. The world of desire and work (the economy, in other words) impinges on consciousness by its own thinking of itself. It approaches with a kind of self-certainty, but is still lacking due knowledge of its own significance.

 

[It seems odd to me to contrast two pagan philosophies with early Christian religious observance. Admittedly, both are shapes of consciousness that aim to project a unitary character on experience. However, Stoicism was primarily an ethical stance, skepticism a method of intellectual inquiry, and Christianity a form of piety. For the Greeks and Romans, Christianity also involved turning to an independent and (initially) foreign literature for inspiration. Seen more broadly though, both the former were responses to the breakdown of an earlier civic religion, while the latter is a seeking for a new religion, that only later (through desire and work, as Hegel puts it) colors the rest of life. The thread of the narrative, in other words, ranges through quite different fields: political conflict, science, economic life, personal and public forms of piety. It is possible though, that they may become in turn the central concern of a social development (the Schwerpunkt, in Herder’s terminology).

 

The main points that Wahl draws from the text are as follows: 213. We move from the Jewish law to the God of Christianity. We have our expectation of Christ. [But these are extended, altered and corrected by Scripture – SC] 214. Hegel emphasises the distance, even of the incarnate Christ. 215. We look first at pure consciousness. Wahl says: “It will be only later that one ill see that the attention lent to the Unchangeable by consciousness is at the same time an attention paid to consciousness by the Unchangeable.” (180) Wahl calls this “theological relativism” and “mystical monism”. [The relativist interpretation was that of Feuerbach and David Strauss. – SC] 216. Christ is a different figure from the gods of Olympus. Both can be thought of as amalgams of universal and particular, but Christ is a figure of a different order. 217. Piety at fist has the form of feeling. Wahl invokes Schleiermacher as an example. He writes: “Schleiermacher’s thought represents well both the thought of the disciples at the moment of Christ’s death and the thought of the Germanic world.” (184) Jacobi too feels such a longing (Sehnsucht). Wahl attributes a “painful consciousness” to the disciples. [This is overcome in the New Testament, e.g. Acts. – SC] The incarnate Christ is a This, subject to the dialectic of the world of sense (as expounded in Chapter 1 of the Phenomenology). Hence we find a tomb in place of the divine life we seek. Wahl attributes to Hegel the idea that (naive) piety is something to be surpassed. The disciple, the crusader, the romantic are cases in point. 218. The world of desire and work is to be sanctified. Wahl suggests that religion is to be subverted by the union of subjective and objective in absolute knowledge. The unhappy consciousness will reappear in the Phenomenology on the path to the spiritual daylight of the present.

 

Christianity renders the abstract oppositions of the previous world views concretely. Wahl summarises:

 

“Judaism [...] becomes the Christian unhappy consciousness and gives birth to the idea of the incarnation; and the succession of Kings gives birth to the son of God. [...] But Christianity, although it can, in contrast to Judaism the religion of the indeterminate beyond, be called the religion of the incarnate beyond, remains a religion of the beyond. It concludes a sensuous element that gives rise to a new opposition.” (189)

 

Thus we arrive, not at a synthesis, but at a point of contact that can become a synthesis only through enlargement. This realises itself through:

• Contact (the death of Christ, Crusades, romantic longing)
• Work and communion (Candide, Faust, the blessing of bread and wine)
• Asceticism (Cloisters, priesthood and laity).

Thereafter comes the Renaissance and Reformation.

 

Conclusion

 

One conclusion would be that Chapter 4 – Self-consciousness is essentially a transcendental deduction, with illustrations. Such a deduction is concerned with the limits of possible experience, with the presupposition of particular forms of experience. It proceeds from:

• Life (including primitive economic life), to
• Independence (and dependence), to
• Freedom (at first that of withdrawal, then that of a religious shaping of society).

Hence, a certain amount of actual experiential matter is appropriate, but only to guide the reader through an otherwise abstract presentation. There is an ambiguity as to whether Christianity is to be realised or transcended in the latter stage.

 

Wahl’s book made an impression in France. Subsequently, according to Jacques D’Hondt, Hegel’s name became better known through the surrealists. The curiosity this awakened was met first by Alexandre Kojève’s lectures in Paris in the 1930s, later published. Politics and the struggle for recognition was the primary theme in these. Then came the famous translation and commentary of Jean Hyppolite on the Phenomenology, completed in 1946. As a result, the Phenomenology for long remained the central text in the French – and French influenced - reception of Hegel. This was considerable in the heyday of existentialism, on which Wahl later wrote.

 

Wahl thought that the model of division and reunion of the unhappy consciousness was applicable more generally to experience, as perhaps to the theology of sin and redemption. This remains an alternative view to the common emphasis on social recognition, initiated by Kojève, as a key to Hegel...

 

(This concludes my remarks on Wahl.)

Stephen Cowley

 

 

From: 'Stephen Cowley' stephen.cowley@... [hegel]

Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2018 2:21 PM

To: hegel@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [hegel] Some thoughts on Jean Wahl

 

 

[Continued. In addition to pa previous comment of mine. There is indeed no passing reference in the first section to Judaism – a burning bush or something to match the bells and incense in the third section. Hence, one might doubt if Judaism is at stake at all. However, Judaism is adapted to the role in that there always was a universal aspect to its opposition to local idols and after the destruction of Solomon’s temple it was already alienated from its original homeland, as in a way was Abraham who left Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis 11). It is not a perfect match though, so the idea that the European reception of Judaism may be involved remains plausible to me. There was a messianic hope within Judaism, but the primary issue was t the receptivity of the Graeco-Roman world to Christ, which its meeting with the Jewish world allowed it to express and conceive. Hegel did discuss Judaism in his manuscripts, but not very successfully, so he left the material unpublished. Kojève sees reference to Judaism in his commentary. Judaism however, was not a unitary phenomenon in Christ’s time (nor since). ]

 

Christianity

 

On my reading of paras 210-12, we move from

• God as judge, to
• Relationship, to
• Reconciliation.

These moves are experiences of self-consciousness in its misfortune. It involves relationship of the Immoveable to the individual, of individuals to each other and on their part to be one with him. The Immoveable must take on the form of something that happens, or has happened, to enter into relationship.... However, such presence brings with it contingency and chance. Hence the presence necessarily becomes conceived as having disappeared (in time) or as distant (in place). We are united to the Immoveable through Christ. [Hegel thus assimilates the Creator God of the Bible to the unmoved mover of Aristotle.]

 

Wahl sees in these passages something akin to the movement from being and nothing to becoming in the Logic. The unhappy consciousness sees itself as nothing faced with being. The Wisdom of Solomon must become embodied in a Son of David. He says: “Christianity is only the awakening [in] consciousness of this contact of the Immoveable and particular.” (170) He cites Abraham and Moses, David’s kingdom and the advent of Christ and continues:

 

“The fact is that Judaism could be defined as a Stoicism in reverse, or a Skepticism turned into theology, and that in any case it it opens the way definitively to the higher ideas of religion, while remaining all the while itself at a lower level.” (171)

 

It is the unhappy consciousness that produces the idea of the unity of universal and particular. The preconditions of this need to be rehearsed to generate piety and understanding. In history, a middle point between the blinding sun and the blinding cloud of dust is sought. The living Christ would be subject to the dialectic of the here and the now – so he is placed at a distance. The heavenly Jerusalem seems just as distant as the earthly one to the believer.

 

More to follow

Stephen Cowley

 

From: 'Stephen Cowley' stephen.cowley@... [hegel]

Sent: Friday, November 16, 2018 2:05 PM

To: hegel@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Fw: [hegel] Some thoughts on Jean Wahl

 

 

[This post concerns the commentary section of Wahl’s book. In answer to a previous question, Franz Baader wrote Revision der Philosopheme der Hegel’schen Schule bezüglich auf das Christentum (1839) – SC]

 

The Commentary on the Unhappy Consciousness

 

Wahl’s commentary covers only the first two thirds of the section on the Unhappy Consciousness. The paragraphs are 208-218 in Miller’s translation. The last section that is not covered uses the imagery of medieval monasticism.

 

There is an apparent conflict in that Wahl takes them to be a commentary on Judaism and early Christianity. Hegel however, says at the outset of the section: “In skepticism, consciousness truly experiences itself as internally contradictory. From this experience emerges a new form of consciousness which brings together the two thoughts which skepticism holds apart.” (para 208). The difficulty here is that Stoicism and Skepticism were not historical precursors of Judaism, which dates back to the time of Abraham. Hence the historical continuity of the chapter seems to break down. The historical imagery that later accrues to stoicism is that of the Roman temples, its Pantheon and public square. The solution to this seems to me to be that what Hegel is discussing is in part or principally the reception of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman world. There are distant analogies to stoicism in the Bible, but no positive vision of skepticism in it. Another potential solution would be to say that the chapter is a pure development of ideas. There is some truth in this, as the material is deliberately couched in abstract terms and the names “Stoicism” and “Skepticism” are universal dispositions as well as historical designations. However, this would be to eliminate the historical side of the book altogether, which Hegel himself affirms. Wahl himself comments that “It is no longer a matter of a purely logical dialectic, but of a historical dialectic of emotion and practice.” (158)

 

Wahl comments that Hegel employs imagery of polarity and duality. Division and duality are retained, being interwoven with the structure of consciousness. There is also a striving for unity. There is an unhappiness (dissatisfaction, misfortune, restlessness) already in Skepticism as the flux of thought never attains the unity of action and decision.

 

Judaism (Miller paras 208-12)

 

In this section, I male some points on my own account and then summarise Wahl. The skeptical suspense of judgement has left us with a beyond that is a blank canvas. On my reading, there is at first an opposition of a manifold, shifting, changing consciousness and a simple, unchangeable nature or essence [Wesen]. We take ourselves to stand on the inessential side, but wish to liberate ourselves from its superfluity. The very constancy of the divided consciousness’s relationship to the unchangeable itself brings stability to it. We raise our eyes to the eternal [as in the Psalms], but this raising makes us aware of our own individuality. The eternal in consciousness itself takes on individuality. The very path back and forth becomes familiar to us, but the moment of difference remains predominant. At first, God is an alien judge and we feel outcast; but secondly, there emerges a relationship; and thirdly, at last, a kind of joyful reconciliation and individual and universal. 

 

Wahl’s commentary takes in some wider points. He argues that the unity of consciousness is the cause of its affliction. He echoes Hegel in speaking of “this unfortunate consciousness that is born of skepticism” (164) The synagogue announces the church. The progression of the book is from:

• Material hostility (master and servant)
• Spiritual struggle (unhappy consciousness)
• Unity of Spirit.

This he describes as the movement form Montaigne to Pascal, a move from skepticism to piety.  He finds many veiled references to Christianity. The ground of Christianity was prepared by skepticism and Judaism, which proclaim duality and immediate unity respectively. Consciousness has sought a new starting point in the East. He speaks of the Psalms turning to Lamentations and mentions Job and Ecclesiastes. He says: “Pascal at Port-Royal is an image, more than an image, of Christ in the Garden of Olives.” (167) Pascal was a famous French convert to an intense Christian faith. His use of French examples highlights the universal scope of Hegel’s analysis. [The use of the ancient world as a palimpsest of modernity is a feature of the Phenomenology. – SC]

 

Christianity

 

More to follow

Stephen Cowley

 

 

From: 'Stephen Cowley' stephen.cowley@... [hegel]

Sent: Monday, October 8, 2018 12:04 PM

To: hegel@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [hegel] Some thoughts on Jean Wahl

 

 

Romanticism and Irrationalism

 

One of the most striking features of Wahl’s interpretation is his assimilation of Christianity to Romanticism. He speaks for example of a “religious emotion of love” in Hegel’s idea of spirit, which he later rationalised, without eliminating. This he calls “this romantic basis and this Christian blueprint of his thought” (248). In Hegel’s later thought, he says: “We can always find however, still living, these primitive elements of his thought, which for us make up the greatest part of the value, even if they risk bursting the framework of the system.” (250) This is an echo of the view that Hegel’s early sense of movement and life was later frozen into the rigid categories of his logic. To some extent this is simply of reflection of ideas taken over from Wilhelm Dilthey. Wahl writes for example:

 

“The young man who had dismissed Christianity in the name of Kant, who had then thought to reconcile the thought of Christ and that of Kant, at almost the same time as Friedrich Schlegel wished to hellenize the Fichtean philosophy, had been led, at least momentarily, to dismiss Kant in the name of Christ. However, he retained something very precious from Kant: this idea of an a priori synthesis, which perhaps, in a sense, is embodied in the union of two natures.” (241)

 

(Message over 64 KB, truncated)