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- Sep 3Paul,I didn't object to your 'restart' idea -- and after Stephen concurred with you, I did feel that I did too at some level, and when you thanked Stephen for concurring with your new way of looking at it, I realized that I'd perhaps missed out on the utility of your term 'restart' and almost wrote a line back to you as soon as I read yours to Stephen.My issue is not also with seeing the master slave dialectic as historically ancient. My objection, if you re-read my argument, is about seeing it as only a historical analysis. I insist it is a pattern of consciousness, in a developmental history of the concept (i.e., Notion), and this history is driven by Spirit that becomes explicit through a speculative logic. There is no guarantee when and how, or even if, empirical history will follow the concept. Hence the pattern is never quite left behind in diverse empirical histories. There are many relationships through history which echo its pattern, with traceable effects of that consequence.Your point on Hinduism noted and accepted.BestSrivatsIn response to the Mon02Sep2019 post by Srivats:> ...If we read slavery as in prehistoric Africa, and let it> go at that, we have no lead into the transformation of> the slave consciousness into stoicism (common noun,> following Eric), of which Stoicism may be a determinate> development.>> Best> SrivatsWell, Srivats, let me focus on just that part of your objection to my "restart" explanation of Hegel's PhG change from the ending of his section on Consciousness (chapter 3) to the beginning of his section on Self-consciousness (chapter 4).I have long argued this year on the topic of the Unhappy Consciousness, which is one of the eventual results of the evolution of Self-consciousness from its rude beginnings in the Master/Slave relationship.I have argued that the Unhappy Consciousness is not Christian, as most scholars in the past 200 years have claimed -- rather -- it refers to Self-consciousness thousands of years earlier than Christianity.Although the roots of Religion are profoundly difficult to trace -- we do have hints and clues from living Religion, there in India. I have argued that Religion in India today is often a viable model from which to understand Religion in cultures long gone -- for example, ancient Persia, ancient Babylonia, ancient Assyria, ancient Egypt and ancient Sumeria.Detailed accounts of the "wrong" Religion practiced in those ancient cultures can be found in the Old Testament. The polytheism -- the idols at the altar -- the austerities -- are all still living in modern Hinduism. So, we can say something about it.I have tried to reveal proto-Stoicism in Buddhism -- but it is equally visible in Sankhya practice. In any case, my point is that proto-Stoicism is much older than Buddhism or Sankhya.Thus, in my reading, the Unhappy Consciousness can be found in the Far East and in the Near East thousands of years before Christianity. In the same way, proto-Stoicism can be found there, too.Now I can return to the Master/Slave issue. For Hegel, the resolution of the Master/Slave conflict is the appearance of the Stoic Consciousness.I don't read this as the Stoic philosophy of Zeno of Citium (300 BC). I read this as the Stoic Consciousness defined by Hegel -- the synthesis of the thesis (Master) and the antithesis (Slave).The Stoic is that Self-consciousness who is both Master and Slave in one -- Master of Self only -- and Slave of self only. Such Self-mastery is a Religious Ideal that we can detect in tremendously ancient civilizations.In fact, the origins of the Stoic Consciousness may also be prehistoric -- I don't think we have a clear trace of its original root.Thus -- the Master/Slave consciousness is prehistoric (as Hegel says in his World History) and also the Stoic Consciousness is prehistoric. The Unhappy Consciousness, as far as I can see today, appears with the most ancient civilizations that we know -- of which we have written records. Sumeria. Egypt. Assyria. Babylonia. Persia. India.All best,--Paul--R Srivatsan
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