To show how a particular reference and its context differ let me go back to one example I have been using.

We are observing two colleagues in a medical lab discussing a procedure. One says to the other “This should work”.. The particular reference is the ‘this’. The context that makes this reference intelligible is the wealth of shared knowledge about medicine and lab procedure.

In this way the context can be distinguished from the particular reference. And I think it should be evident enough that this context is not ontological. It refers to what the two colleagues know. As such, context enables one to understand the significance of the ‘this’ as stated. Without understanding the significance one cannot even know what the ‘this’ is referring to.

And even when talking about space and time as contexts, it is what we know about how moments function as temporal or spatial that informs any particular direct reference. A point in time signifies differently than a point in space. We need to know this difference to intelligibly say ‘now’ or ‘here’.

As for the moments of a dialectical unity, in any speculative derivation we begin with the moments given as separate and then find that they cannot be kept separate but instead mutually implicate.

This is particularly evident in Being where, for example, there is something and other which when taken as if determinately distinct opposed moments exhibit their fluidity as one moment calls forth the other. The moments as distinct cycle and show themselves as equivocal. The unity has to do with the form, not the content. The form is one, but the moments of this form are two.

We also can easily see this with being/nothing and finite/infinite. In talking about one moment we find ourselves talking about the other. But this fluidity only works if the moments can be distinguished. Only as distinguished can they then be shown to mutually implicate.

Thus, Hegel tells us that being and nothing are both absolutely the same and absolutely different. They are the same fluidity but are only the same as fluid if they can still be viewed as absolutely distinct.

So, we do not begin with a unity and then have the understanding mistakenly analyze the unity into moments. In Being, we begin with the moments and create the unity by thinking what each moment implies with respect to its opposed determination.

The deeper question you mention needs to be properly posed. It is as follows: what justifies Hegel calling his exposition a test of sense certain cognition if he does not allow this cognition to function as it normally does by employing its full capacities? What justifies an exposition of a cognition that in your words “doesn't acknowledge all its capacity” if it can only function as does ordinary sense certain cognition if it does acknowledge all its capacities?

In short, what justifies a pinched and nonfunctional conception of sense-certain cognition? What is Hegel testing if he is not testing ordinary sense certain cognition? I take this to be an important question that can be answered.

You seem to wish to deny that this question that has been raised and continues to be raised is a question worth bothering about. In my view, your explanation for why there is no problem is unconvincing. You are not seriously engaging these scholars who have and continue to raise this question.

In particular, you have not explained what accounts for the difference you note between a fully functioning sense certain cognition and one that does not work to full capacity. Who even draws this distinction? Hegel never does.

Hegel is quite content to talk as if sense certain cognition is being refuted even though nothing about direct sense reference has changed as a result of Hegel’s supposed refutation. So, we need to explain what is really happening.

This question writ large and applied to the Phenomenology in general is the question.. What is the Phenomenology about and what is really happening over the course of the exposition? These questions remain open and are acknowledge as open by Hegel scholars.

One problem with Paul’s reading is that it does not address an interpretive issue. My reading does.

In particular, I try to address what seems to be the unspoken presumption that the opposition of consciousness as the issue of the Phenomenology seems not to address the opposition between the reader and natural consciousness. My reading attempts to show that this is the opposition at issue throughout the exposition. And when the Phenomenology is read with a particular interest in this issue the exposition appears very different than it does if this issue is ignored as it typically is by Hegel scholars.

For me, the issue of sense certain cognition is current but not in the way you understand current. It is not current to philosophical issues about direct reference. Instead, it is current as the first stage in Hegel’s account of how absolute knowing makes its appearance.

It certainly is not primitive as Paul has attempted to argue. It is not a grunt. It is primitive only as the first stage in the self-development with a reader who does not know that the exposition is to be about his own knowing.

This is to be an exposition that as speculative will involve a cunning where the actor will unwittingly generate a truth that is only recognized as such by the reader by means of a recollection. While in process, the reader will be learning things about his own knowing.

For example, when he gets to Spirit, he will be told that the prior stages have been moments of Spirit. But only at the end will he be able to recollect what he has been learning in stages as the truth about his own absolute knowing.

So, as you note, while sense certain knowing is active in all of us - it is the most radical demonstration of what is a constant problem of finite intellect which is how to pair what is with the significance of what is - there is no education going on that enables us to overcome what remains a basic truth of finite intellect.

If you think that we learn something from Hegel’s demonstration that enables to overcome a problem, then please state what this might be.

Finally, for the second time, your interpretive principle is that truth does not first appear as error. So, if there is what seems to be an error either we have made a mistake or the author has made a mistake.

According to my interpretive principle we should accept what Hegel says as he says it. And if what he says is evidently at odds with ordinary sense certain knowing then we should not shy away from acknowledging this fact. Nor should we assume that Hegel has made a mistake. He means his version to be at odds with ordinary practice. It is left to us to figure out why.

So, when I point out the error, you deny that there is any error. Thus, I say that for you fear of error is fear of the truth.

• Alan