Half Hour Hegel

Idk, I used to watch him regularly about 3 years ago. His Kierkegaard and Nietzsche lectures were great. This was back when he would pretty much reply to everybody's comments and it was just a comfy place to learn. Now Veeky Forums got a hold of him and I've seen some shitposting in his comment sections and for some reason it bothers me. Like the dude is doing so much for that platform and I wouldn't want this shithole to scare him off or anything. Let's just stick to that homosexual Clifford Sergeant, eh fellas?

A couple of things. For one, his notion of truth is Substance that is subject. A subject is something that we attach qualities to in order to find out what it is; it takes qualities into itself. A substance is what it is, and it produces qualities as a result. But the qualities produced are not the substance itself. The substance "negates" itself; it produces something that it is not. So in Hegel's mind, a substance negates itself; the only way to bring those qualities back into itself is by also being a subject. It's a clever definition, but I think it's wrong. Truth, in my opinion, should be Substance that produces qualities, but instead of those qualities teaching us what the substance is, instead we figure out what the qualities are by realizing they are from the substance. The substance itself simply is what it is. I could be convinced I'm wrong on this one though.

The second, much simpler one, is that in his introduction Hegel criticizes the idea that cognition is an instrument or a medium, and says we should reject this view by instead claiming cognition is the Absolute. I think this is wrong.

The third is that Hegel starts off his phenomenology with sense-certainty, which he describes as the knowledge that it is. So we don't know what something is, we just know that it is. He makes claims about how implicit in sense-certainty is that there is a difference between "I" and the "This" being cognized, and the contradictions that result from that. I don't think that a being which only operated in sense-certainty would make that distinction. I think humans do, mainly because we don't actually ever use sense-certainty.

His discussion on perception is pretty insightful in my opinion, but again presupposes more than what it allows. Perception gives us knowledge that it is, and allows us to specify to some extent what it is through our senses. Hegel points out, rightly so, that we perceive things as one object, but also as collections of properties. So is the object one or many? If it's one, and we see it as many because of how consciousness works, then why do we see objects in general as being distinct from one another? I agree that humans are unsatisfied by this, but an animal which only uses perception wouldn't care. It would go on using perception. Similar remarks go for his "Force and the Understanding."

The reason this is an issue is because Hegel shows that each stage of consciousness isn't capable of going beyond itself. So we get to consciousness being conscious of itself, and he makes some very esoteric arguments about what that entails. But consciousness is somehow able to go beyond itself to Reason. I think the main flaw is that he claims consciousness is capable of being perfectly conscious of itself; when I think about myself the very fact I can "learn" things about myself shows that I haven't cognized myself in my entirety.

There's other stuff, but that's the meat of it.

>I don't think that a being which only operated in sense-certainty would make that distinction. I think humans do, mainly because we don't actually ever use sense-certainty.

I'm by no means a Hegel expert and I don't follow Sadler, but I might be able to respond to this. I'm also not sure if I fully understand what your position is here so forgive me if I misunderstand you.

But if I'm right, I think you're wading into Hegel's method in the PhS (his phenomenological build-up, through various proposed models of cognition, to the minimum aspects of what he thinks constitutes a Subject), without following him in shedding your "metaphysical" preconceptions (of "what consciousness is," "how it works," etc.) and really starting from the ground up as Hegel does.

The point Hegel is making is that a model of sense-certainty, as something self-sufficient that could take place as a form of cognition (say, if all the "higher" parts of the cognizing Subject were suspended) is internally incoherent. There COULD BE NO "being which operated only in sense-certainty," a subject that only "experienced" sense-certainty. It's an incoherent idea from the get-go. We do use sense-certainty in positing the not-I, but it's only part of the movement of consciousness. You have to imagine the idea's bare minimum necessary aspects, the abstract concept, without letting your mind pad out any additional details and turn it into an EMPIRICAL scenario.

Some of your issues with his ideas on the self-transparency of reason are definitely important but I don't think Hegel thinks we can have perfect self-knowledge in the sense of a comprehensive knowledge of all contents of memory. He is mainly talking about self-consciousness in the sense of fully recognising the unity and freedom of subjectivity as the I, as consciousness, as "what I really am." Hegel is DEFINITELY vulnerable to all kinds of critiques of false consciousness and hermeneutics of suspicion but I don't think it's quite in this way.

> A substance is what it is, and it produces qualities as a result

In the Preface Hegel makes clear that this production as generation is what a subject is for him. Subjects do, substances simply are. What one finds in investigating substances, however, is that they are precisely processes, that is, doings. For a substance to >be< is for it to generate itself by its own power of negation against all otherness, that is, it must be a subject that can self-enclose (abstract) and maintain that enclosure. Every single substance you can consider, whether mental or material, necessarily shows this power of negation active in and through it. The subject for Hegel is negativity itself since it is the self-generation of substance. See this: empyreantrail.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/phenomenology-of-spirit-substance-as-subject/

>Truth, in my opinion, should be Substance that produces qualities, but instead of those qualities teaching us what the substance is, instead we figure out what the qualities are by realizing they are from the substance. The substance itself simply is what it is. I could be convinced I'm wrong on this one though.

Chapter 1-3 of the Science of Logic refute this as a legitimate link as a conception of absolutes.

>The reason this is an issue is because Hegel shows that each stage of consciousness isn't capable of going beyond itself.

But each form of consciousness >is< able to go beyond itself. This is >human< consciousness we're talking about, not a lower being's consciousness. Each form sees its error, and in seeing the problem it immediately has the springboard for the transcendence. In realizing there is a problem, consciousness has already managed the transcendental leap that turns its former cognition into the object of a new cognition.

> when I think about myself the very fact I can "learn" things about myself shows that I haven't cognized myself in my entirety.

But this is precisely the glorious trick: this self-correction is the self-transcendence enabled by what we seek the entire way: absolute knowing is operative implicitly in this transcending. We could know we were wrong only because we have already at hand the absolute cognition which allows the upward transcendence of knowledge which can know itself.

This user gets it more than less. Hegel's method requires starting from a ground up of letting go of presuppositions and diving into a problem, taking it seriously, and realizing the trap from within. The trouble you're having is your resistance to enter the problem and take it seriously. You can criticize Hegel externally, but Hegel's whole deal is an immanent derivation which requires an equally immanent critique. This stuff is on a level which is near incomparable to anything else produced in philosophy.

I agree that what allows each shape of consciousness to go beyond itself is the fact that it's human consciousness. My issue is that if you actually drop all the presuppositions about consciousness, and accept it as the stage it's at, it doesn't actually go beyond itself. sense-certainty does not go beyond itself unless its really just human consciousness restricting itself.

The glorious trick you speak of is indeed a trick. When you think of yourself, the idea, the conception, the whatever you call it that you think about is not actually you. I do not recognize the conception of myself as having free will. I do not seek to subjugate my conception of myself. If anything, my consciousness of myself is always lacking, I might even say infinitely lacking.

There are other issues to take with his self-consciousness. Suppose we can accurately think about ourselves. Why is it that this "other" would reflect back into us? Why wouldn't it think of a third other? And then a 4th?

I'm not resisting entering the problem. Hegel makes this assumption, and I disagree with it.

As to your mention about the Science of Logic, I'll have to read what he says. It's next in my book list.

>low key

>Hegel makes this assumption, and I disagree with it.
But he doesn't. You do.

>My issue is that if you actually drop all the presuppositions about consciousness, and accept it as the stage it's at, it doesn't actually go beyond itself.
But that's because you assume this is not human consciousness. Nowhere at all has Hegel said this is anything other than >our< consciousness. This is no silly idea such as looking for 'consciousness as such'. You aren't bacteria, you aren't a bat, you cannot even play at that restriction. You're a human, and you are engaging forms of human conceptions. Consciousness is a form of self-conception, not something else such as experience. To say that Sense-Certainty can not overcome itself is based on an assumption that this is not human cognition, but some other cognition.

The Phenomenology is about >youliterally cannot< transcend their limits? Yeah. The truly stupid are incapable of seeing their limit, hence they can never transcend it.

So, how many levels of post-hoc ergo propter-hoc are you guys on right now?

I realize for Hegel the idea that he makes literally no assumptions about consciousness is important for him, but its wrong. I've listed one he makes, out of many he makes.

Consider that no human in history has ever only operated in terms of sense-certainty. Human beings operate using sense-certainty, perception, and the understanding simultaneously. It's implicit in their being human. But not all humans have operated with this idea of self-consciousness Hegel claims is true. So if certain shapes of consciousness have been present for the entirety of human history, but only smart humans can engage in the self-consciousness Hegel speaks of, then that should indicate to you that the previous forms are human consciousness, while the shape of consciousness he speaks of is not.

Furthermore, the claim that he speaks purely of human consciousness is false. For him there is no true distinction between animal and human; they are all Spirit. The consciousness of a human is just the particular consciousness of Spirit. A better argument against me is that the consciousness we're dealing with is not human at all, but something greater, which is precisely the conclusion Hegel comes to.

I appreciate your response. An example of a being that could operate purely with sense-certainty is a bacteria. It has no concept of itself, it doesn't distinguish between senses, it has no understanding. It's responses to different stimuli are a product of instinct; not of consciousness.

In fact, another interesting argument to make against Hegel is that if you take sense-certainty and stop there, that level of consciousness achieves the unity he seeks already. The bacteria has no concept of self; everything is in implicit unity because there is no distinction.

>I appreciate your response.

This is why I hang out on Veeky Forums. We're in the Internet Thunderdome of Tranny Porn and you can still find vaguely respectful decorum. I'm otherwise lurking this one, don't mind me.

What presupposition is Hegel making? The forms of consciousness are >our< presuppositions, not his. His final and only genuinely positive form in the Phenomenology is the final recollection of how it was possible.

>Consider that no human in history has ever only operated in terms of sense-certainty. Human beings operate using sense-certainty, perception, and the understanding simultaneously.

But Hegel does not claim they ever did. This is beyond obvious. What you are not aware of is that Sense-Certainty DOES actually exist as an absolute conception of ourselves: it is the conception of the mystics. The mystics do not themselves operate on this but do declare this is in fact the truth: that all thought is is a an reference to 'it' which is 'here' and 'now'.

Hegel redevelops Sense-Certainty, Perception, and Understanding in the Philosophy of Spirit in a positive non-presupposed form, not as forms of cognition which are strictly human, but are in fact pre-human and >pre-conceptual An example of a being that could operate purely with sense-certainty is a bacteria

That you get this and do not get how this is transcended is amazing. We too undergo this cognition for a very brief moment of our lives, and the difference is that we are a being that is already equipped to transcend it. Seeing that the Phenomenology is about the experience of Spirit, of >uswe have long transcended< consciousness as such, of course >we< transcend it. That's how it works. This is not in fact our absolute, we can see something more and demand something higher.

I'm sorry to pollute a nice thread but does any of you guys (you all seem quite knowledgeable) have a link to Coplestone's History of Philosophy?

I think I need to make clear this is important: The Phenomenology is itself presuppositionless within itself, but is not presuppositionless in its actuality. It is important to grasp that this is >our< phenomenology of coming to know. Hegel is well aware of this, and at some point you are meant to realize this as well. Given that the being that is inquiring into this question is one that has already had this entire history given to it, a history that >has already long been transcended in a struggle of flesh and bone left to it in dead thoughts and stonesnecessarily

I'd say up to Descartes or something like that, I find it harder to find good sources on ancient and medieval philosophy and I'm afraid I lack historical knowledge of those periods. Then, if you have all of it I appreciate it, you know, for the sake of completeness.

Ok so you agree that we don't transcend sense-certainty because we started there, we transcend it because we already possess the capacity for these "transcendent" shapes of consciousness. The bacteria is not capable of gaining the ability to perceive, for example. Humans do not have the ability to gain full self-consciousness. In fact, its my inclination that no physical being could possibly do so. How could you? If consciousness is finite in any way, it cannot be aware of itself fully; simply put a finite box cannot contain itself.

Hegel says consciousness is infinite because it always goes beyond its limits. This isn't a satisfactory proof that its capable of infinite awareness. I'm sure you can think of a mathematical sequence that infinitely increases, but does not actually reach infinity. If anything, the mere fact that human consciousness seems to consistently fail at this very point we're debating, self-consciousness, indicates to me that it is quite finite.

If you could find an epoch of human history where human beings were only sense-certain, that would indicate the ability of sense-certainty to transcend itself, because obviously we perceive things now. You cite the mystics, but refute yourself by admitting that they do not operate on it. Its similar to Hegel's point about the Skeptics who don't live by constantly refuting themselves; it indicates that they have a criterion already present that stops them from being permanently skeptical.

Similarly, you cannot find an epoch of human history where human beings only possessed sense-certainty and perception. Everyone, even "stupid" people, even many people who are mentally disabled have a tendency to generalize; to seek out connections between things. When a human being does not have the capacity to understand, it's because their brain is physically incapable of doing so.

But we get to self-consciousness, and it seems human beings really have a problem creating a mirror image of themselves, grappling with it for dominance, etc. All of the previous shapes of consciousness seem very familiar to us, but not this one. Everyone is familiar with the idea of thinking about themselves, but nobody seems to have any experience with the struggle between consciousnesses Hegel posits.

In order for this stage of consciousness to be human, it would be necessary that most humans are not capable of it, which is contradictory. Furthermore, notice that previous stages did not require this infinity of capacity. Sense-certainty only needs to grasp the one thing and say "it is". Perception only needs to grasp the one thing, and its various qualities. Understanding only needs to grasp various particulars in order to find a general unity. Self-Consciousness only needs to grasp one thing, but that thing is more than it can fully grasp, because that thing is the same size it is.

>Self-Consciousness only needs to grasp one thing, but that thing is more than it can fully grasp, because that thing is the same size it is.
The way I understand it you can get around this. You just need to acknowledge that in many ways the competing consciousnesses are identical, so all they need to worry about is identifying the differences, reflecting into their origins and only branching out into related problems when they appear (what this requires is not constant, absolute self-awareness, but only that they will recognize that those problems exist when they are right in front of them). Consciousnesses, in this way, transform each other a few units of information at a time, until they reach the point where that transformation shifts into a higher-order qualitative change.

You have a concept of infinity Hegel does not, and which was at the time not the general concept of infinity. Infinity does not mean exhaustive detail of an endless repetition, it means boundless conception. Infinities are structures that are unities of self-transcendent finites that return to themselves, that go out of themselves only to be thrown right back.

You still keep misunderstanding the shapes of consciousness. These are >logical< orders of what are possible conceptions of cognition. The mystic does not live with sense-certainty, but comprehends themself and the world according to it. Remember that the Phenomenology is about conceptions of cognition, not about actual life. If anything, that's what makes these impossible to hold as absolute: life and experience outstrip them and force a transcendence.

>But we get to self-consciousness, and it seems human beings really have a problem creating a mirror image of themselves, grappling with it for dominance, etc.

The master-slave relation is a historical form of self-understanding, not self-consciousness itself. Right before it Hegel lays out the basis for this in the mirror structure of recognition and the split of consciousness into two self-consciousnesses. The point of the struggle for life and master-slave is that despite these being failures of recognition, there is there nonetheless a functioning true recognition on the side of the slave. The slave recognizes a consciousness outside it, it has consciousness as its object in the master, thus they achieve self-consciousness unwittingly.

Don't mistake the Phenomenology for what it isn't: it's not about how we actually know or what we actually are. It is about how we have conceived of ourselves coming to know and what we think we are.

>In order for this stage of consciousness to be human, it would be necessary that most humans are not capable of it, which is contradictory.

Most humans do have this experience, it happens in early infancy where the assumption of the other is not given but must be shown and enacted. The struggle for life is nothing but an extreme form of the presupposition of a living being that believes it is the absolute. Experience teaches that one is not absolute, and the ultimate show of another consciousness is its resistance against us, its denial that it is our mere object. You're taking something structural to be literal, which none of this book is.

he's a stoic dont worry user

Also would like to add that the master-slave is also a logic of the consciousness of conquest and war.

>An example of a being that could operate purely with sense-certainty is a bacteria.
>The bacteria has no concept of self; everything is in implicit unity because there is no distinction.

I normally would agree to disagree when there's this much of a disagreement - when you that hit point of "Well, it's clear we each take a very different tack to this problem/text/whatever, so we're probably not going to have a meeting of the minds here. And there's nothing worse than getting bogged down in a back-and-forth with someone, where you're talking at cross purposes."

But I really think you should at least keep this disagreement in mind, don't make your mind up about it completely, if you ever return to Hegel again in the future. Because the reading you have made of Hegel is wrong (IMHO), but importantly, the WAY that it's wrong is going to prevent you from reading not just Hegel but any text with a phenomenological method.

I'm not saying you're wrong so that you'll agree with me, or concede to being wrong, or some other meaningless shit like that. I'm saying it because I think you are missing the key insight of Hegel's argument, one that has very large ripples not just in his work but in German idealism and modern philosophy of science. I hope this doesn't come across as condescending at all.

You absolutely need to bracket out your metaphysical and empirical presuppositions in following Hegel's iterative account of what constitutes the MINIMUM THRESHOLD OF CONCEPTUAL DETERMINATION for an abstract idea of "a thinking subject" that is not internally incoherent or self-contradictory. I say "bracket" and "metaphysical and empirical presuppositions" here in the exact sense that Husserl uses them in his eidetic reduction and bracketing of the common sense attitude, which might help you to understand more what Hegel is doing here, because it's basically the same thing.

You CANNOT respond to Hegel's argument with an empirical response like "that's what a bacterium does." I do not say this out of an appeal to authority or by fiat, but rather because that's simply just not what Hegel is doing. Hegel can be attacked on many grounds in his phenomenology - most notably that he is bracketing out *some* common sense, but not *all* because he has a naive ontology of apodictic rationality, so he thinks he can present a necessarily coherent definition of something that would hold true for all subjects. But he can't be attacked by saying "x is what bacteria do," because Hegel would simply say "we're not talking about whether 'x' is something that concretely exists in the natural world; we're talking about whether 'x' is conceptually coherent as a thing that could be done by anything at all." And Hegel is doing this precisely to CLARIFY the concepts of what consciousness *is* - a project that has huge implications, for example, on whether and how we can talk about the cognition of bacteria, animals, and so forth.

Again, I'm not defending Hegel's approach dogmatically, in part because I think he is outright wrong about a great many things, especially in light of 20th century phenomenology (though I also think his thought can be recovered through phenomenology).

I am just telling you: You are misapprehending his whole project.

He is dead wrong about the monolithic stability and transparency of our concepts. But if we suspend this, if we go along with Hegel in good faith and TAKE "concepts" in the way Hegel took them, which we should do for the sake of understanding his line of thought, then the empirical reply of "that's what a bacterium does" is literally non sequitur. It is neither here nor there.

Again, Hegel is taking various candidates for what could constitute the minimum threshold of a MERELY ABSTRACT conceptual determination "mind." He doesn't care about what the mind is, or what it's doing, or "who" is doing it. He's saying that before you can talk about bacteria at all, before you can talk about ANYTHING that a mind is doing or experiencing, you have to have a coherent concept of what mind actually is.

You can certainly argue that self-certainty is a sufficient concept of mind, but you can't prove this a posteriori by reference to an empirically existing organism because Hegel's whole point is that our a posteriori judgments about that organism would be determined by concepts which we would first have to clarify.