- Aug 5Hi Bill,About the question of transitions -- true they are temporal and one can ask how important they are from the perspective of the absolute. To quote Hegel at his most obscure here, "Essence is infinity as the supersession of all distinctions, the pure movement of axial rotation, its self-repose being an absolutely restless infinity; independence itself, in which the differences of the movement are resolved, the simple essence of Time which, in this equality with itself, has the stable shape of Space." (Miller 106). So not only would a temporal succession be out of place, so would a spatial pattern -- both are equally finite. However, since the Phenomenology is about the transition, such an indulgence in the finite would be warranted, necessary.I fully see what you mean by the presence of these in earlier chapters -- I noted them uneasily and realized that Hegel uses them without comment since we followers can't comprehend the Absolute that is always with us until we get to the Absolute (or so his hope is). In any case, whether the comprehension of these transitions in the early chapters after reading the whole work (successfully) is an indication of achieving the perspective of the Absolute, or is merely a short- circuit I don't know.
See my response to Paul on the general versus particular in the UC -- as implied.SrivatsI believe Eric shared his paper with us; I have a copy as well.
First, I'm a little sceptical of the need for transitions as it is usually pictured. If the true is the whole, then the idea of a transition (say from UC to Reason) is a quasi-transition that may appear necessary to the Understanding but is in truth an abstraction. And if the shapes of consciousness are compared to pictures in a gallery, then we shouldn't expect seamless transitions from one to the next -- even in a curated collection. Taking the Phenomenology as such a gallery might be incomplete, but I don't think it's false.
But, more particularly, the transition from UC to Reason can be seen already to be underway in Part A: Consciousness. To recall, the structure of the book, at the highest level, is A, B, C. Part A is Consciousness; B, Self-Consciouosness; and C doesn't have a separate title but it begins with Reason -- it's more about Spirit.
What's interesting in this structure to me is that Reason emerges at the end of Consciousness. Some of the themes we find in Reason were previously in Force and Understanding. Inner and Outer is one; the beyond, so important to UC, is also found in Force. The preeminent aporia at the end of Force is that consciousness can't recognize how, as we find in Reason, it can conceive its self as everything ("for it is certain that it is itself reality, or that everything actual is none other than itself," 232). In this way, the Self-Consciousness part (B) fills in a gap in the account, even though this gap is still in need of work in Reason, but it's no longer an empty beyond. Force deals with inorganic science -- physics -- mainly, Reason with organic -- again mainly, because the truth of the inorganic is also found here in the organic.
See in particular 144 (Force and Understanding, Miller):
"144. Within this inner truth, as the absolute universal which has been purged of the antithesis between the universal and the individual and has become the object of the Understanding, there now opens up above the sensuous world, which is the world of appearance, a supersensible world which henceforth is the true world, above the vanishing present world there opens up a permanent beyond; an in-itself which is the first, and therefore imperfect, appearance of Reason, or only the pure element in which the truth has its essence."145. Our object is thus from now on the syllogism which has for its extremes the inner being of Things and the Understanding, and for its middle term, appearance; but the movement of this syllogism yields the further determination of what the Understanding descries in this inner world through the middle term, and the experience from which Understanding learns about the close-linked unity of these terms.""146. The inner world is, for consciousness, still a pure beyond, because consciousness does not as yet find itself in it. It is empty, for it ,is merely the nothingness of appearance, and positively the simple or unitary universal. This mode of the inner being [of Things] finds ready acceptance by those who say that the inner being of Things is unknowable; but another reason for this would have to be given. Certainly, we have no knowledge of this inner world as it is here in its immediacy; but not because Reason is too short-sighted or is limited, or however else one likes to call it -- on this point, we know nothing as yet because we have not yet gone deep enough~but because of the simple nature of the matter in hand, that is to say, because in the void nothing is known, or, expressed from the other side, just because this inner world is determined as the beyond of consciousness."
Consciousness has to find itself (in the account) as self-consciousness before, it can start to know this inner world of things, this beyond, as reason, and the very Reason it lives with in the Concept.
About Eric's footnote 9 (quoted by Srivats):
"In Hegel and Skepticism (Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1989), p. 62, Michael N. Forster fails to understand Hegel's dialectic from the life-and-death struggle through the stage of the unhappy consciousness because he considers Stoicism and Skepticism each with a capital "S," i.e., as specific historical movements in philosophy instead of—as Hegel here intends—general psychological strategies of self-consciousness as it tries to weasel out of the effects of its self-defeating submissive attitude. Forster looks in vain for some historical correlate to the master/servant dichotomy and, finding none, erroneously concludes that "the account of the transition from this social phenomenon to the intellectual phenomena Stoicism and Skepticism looks rather thin and unconvincing."
What strikes me here is that Eric recognizes that stoicism and skepticism in Self-Consciousness as "general psychological strategies of self-consciousness," while the paper interprets UC as medieval Catholicism, Crusades, etc. -- that is, as a family of historical particulars. I've argued earlier in this interminable discussion of UC precisely that UC is a general strategy rather than a historical particular.
The whole historical interpretation, that the shapes of consciousness follow a historical path (they certainly appear in history) that is recapitulated in the structure of the Phenomenology, is also contradicted by the appearance of physics as it appears in Force and Understanding.Bill
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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).
BestSrivats--R Srivatsan
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--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
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