On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 6:55 AM R Srivatsan <r.srivats@...> wrote:

Sure Paul,

I can do that.  Let me start with a couple and then go from there.

quote

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major but implicit transition, almost a sea change, that occurs in §§217-32, where self-consciousness, in its phase as the unhappy consciousness, somehow passes over into reason. If we can identify and describe this "somehow," then we may come to a better grasp of what Hegel
means by, respectively, self-consciousness and reason, and thus gain keener insight into his entire project."

[...]

The main point, or rather the goal, for servile self-consciousness becomes how to escape misery and gain meaningful happiness. Through the dialectic of work in §195, it develops useful skills, so that it can survive without the master while the master cannot survive without it; but its body is enslaved or controlled, its work is co-opted, and its products are appropriated. Only its mind remains free.It thus uses its mind, i.e., it takes advantage of the only freedom that it has left, to rationalize or justify its servitude and to try to mitigate its misery. The servant has experienced ultimate fear; the master has not. The consequences of this difference

become clear in §196. Just as psychiatric patients must "hit bottom" before they can begin to "bounce back," so only the servant is capable of rising; the master can only fall. Servile self-consciousness tries two strategies in apparently logical succession: first, stoicism (with a small "s"), in which it merely exercises its "simple
freedom" (einfache Freiheit) by resolving to ignore its bondage and to defy anything that oppresses it; then, skepticism (also with a small "s"),' in which it denies or doubts the reality of whatever it chooses and eventually "annihilates" (vernichtet) everything outside itself—as Hegel summarizes in §206. Both attempts are rather
juvenile and foolhardy, like spitting into the wind. Both fail. Stoicism is essentially reactionary and empty; skepticism is essentially a falsification of reality; neither can create self-sufficiency. Thus servile self-consciousness turns toward religion for salvation.

In §217 Christian self-consciousness embarks on the Crusades to seek the living spirituality of Christ in the Holy Land, but it fails, finding instead only dead relics of Jesus, apostles, martyrs, and saints. The Near East is, after all, no longer the living Holy Land of spiritual history, or the locus of salvation, but only a mute testimony to what was once its Heilsgeschichte. This quest for unchangeable essence (unwandelbares Wesen), unchangeable consciousness (unwandelbares Bewusstsein), and unchangeable individuality (unwandelbare Einzelnheit) is doomed from the start, insofar as each of these goals is self-contradictory and cannot possibly be real. Essence, consciousness, and individuality are all necessarily dynamic; they cannot be
unchangeable. Consciousness, especially, by definition, must be in constant flux. In order to be consciousness at all, it must be conscious of something, and the very act of being conscious of something entails a change within consciousness. Self consciousness thus learns that it must seek spiritual healing inside spirit itself, not
in the physical or geographic realm.

So, having failed in this world, self-consciousness turns its spiritual quest toward the other world. It seeks its other, its universal master, its eternal lord, in the other world, the forever beyond, the Jenseits. But, as Hegel says, this is precisely where this other cannot be found, since the Jenseits itself cannot be found. The nascent
reason of self-consciousness thus tells it to seek spirit where spirit is, in this world, not in mere things or locations, but in living this-worldly actuality. It does not yet know what this means. In §218 self-consciousness retreats into its own feeling, which it will eventually recognize as groundless and idiosyncratic. But at this stage it is desperate for spiritual health and assurance. It feels shattered, worthless, and alienated, bifurcated between its existential self, upon which it is fixated, and its spiritual self, which it passionately and unconditionally desires. Wallowing in its bifurcation {Entzweiung), it reaffirms its resolve to seek the unchangeable other, which would be holy precisely because of its unchangeable universality. Thus self-consciousness is, in §219, "an actuality broken in two" {eine entzweigebrochene Wirklichkeit).
In §220 self-consciousness recognizes and tries to come to grips with its own lack of self-sufficiency. It imagines that, just as it surrenders itself to the unchangeable, so the unchangeable would surrender its Gestalt to it. But this is impossible. Surrender is also a type of change. Self-consciousness does not yet recognize

this impossibility—that the unchangeable could surrender anything to either it or any other entity. Since the object of its quest, the unchangeable, cannot, qua unchangeable, accommodate itself to self-consciousness in any way, this particular self-consciousness must therefore accommodate itself to this universal. Thus it is
left with no pride, self-respect, or self-sufficiency, and is just as confused, alienated, and bifurcated as before.
In §221 self-consciousness is still mired in the same impossible fantasies that would later prompt Hartshorne to argue against the superlative attributes of God. It is still looking for something "unchangeable"—and there is nothing inherently wrong in that—but, as it will later discover, it is looking in the wrong place, i.e., the Jenseits, while it should be looking in, perhaps, the realm of mathematics. Instead of turning back into itself {in sich zurückkehren) in this active world {das tätige Diesseits) and relying on its own resources, individual self- consciousness rejects itself and moves away from itself into the other extreme {in das andre Extrem zurück), the pure universal, the absolute power, the unchangeable essence in the Jenseits. As it continues this quest in §222, it thanks the universal for surrendering its Gestalt, and thus imagines mutual self-sacrifice {gegenseitiges Sichaufgeben). It still does not realize that—given what we have already said about "unchangeable consciousness" being a contradiction in terms—what it seeks in the Jenseits is not even really a "consciousness" at all. It has gained nothing by its part in the sacrifice, but, by its own self-renunciation, has lost its individuality."

More in my next

Srivats

On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 3:11 AM Paul Trejo petrejo@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Srivats,

Would you be willing to type in the paragraphs that most closely remark upon our recent discussion of the Unhappy Consciousness in particular?

All best,

--Paul

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On Thursday, August 1, 2019, 11:40:45 PM CDT, R Srivatsan r.srivats@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Dear Friends,

I was going through my library of Hegel/Hegelian texts and found a copy of Eric v d Luft's paper "From Self-Consciousness to Reason in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: 

Aporia Overcome, Aporia Sidestepped, or Organic Transition?", IPQ Vol. 53, No. 3, Issue 211 (September 2013) pp. 309-324 doi: 10.5840/ipq201353332

I am not sure exactly how I got hold of the paper, but I think Eric sent me a copy on request when he announced its publication.  In any case, I didn't have the equipment to read it until now, and it is indeed a delayed delivery worthwhile!

Eric hasn't participated directly in these recent discussions, but his account of the relationship between the unhappy consciousness, the unchangeable and reason is forceful and convincing. His paper is rich and textured with historical references and background that make it worth reading.  If anybody is interested I can share a copy and we could discuss a few of the points (to the best of my ability).

Best

Srivats

--

R Srivatsan
Flat 101, Block C, Saincher Palace Apartments
10-3-152, Street No 2
East Marredpally
Secunderabad
Telangana 500026
Mobile: +91 77027 11656, +91 94404 80762
Landline: +91 40 2773 5193

--

R Srivatsan
Flat 101, Block C, Saincher Palace Apartments
10-3-152, Street No 2
East Marredpally
Secunderabad
Telangana 500026
Mobile: +91 77027 11656, +91 94404 80762
Landline: +91 40 2773 5193

--

R Srivatsan
Flat 101, Block C, Saincher Palace Apartments
10-3-152, Street No 2
East Marredpally
Secunderabad
Telangana 500026
Mobile: +91 77027 11656, +91 94404 80762
Landline: +91 40 2773 5193