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SUBJECTIVE : , CONSCIOUSNESS, AND WILL Willem deVries

THE TEXTS scholars. To some degree, this situation derives from the fact that one part of the PSS, Hegel’s of Subjective Spirit (PSS) the Phenomenology of Spirit – the middle occupies an important place in his system. The third that sits between the Anthropology and system has three major parts: the Logic, the the – corresponds to the first five Philosophy of and the Philosophy of chapters of the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit Spirit. The Philosophy of Spirit itself has three ( PhG ) with the same title. The literature on parts: the PSS, the Philosophy of Objective PhG is massive, and the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Absolute Spirit. the 1830 Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical The PSS, then, stands at the transition from ( Enc ) gets lost in its . nature to spirit and thus contains important Effectively, many Hegel scholars substitute material concerning the relation of nature the 1807 volume for the PSS when think- and spirit. Furthermore, objective spirit con- ing about Hegel’s system. PhG is far more cerns the various forms of relation among detailed than the Phenomenology in Enc agents within a rational society; subjective (though Hegel clearly changed his on spirit analyses the elements necessary for or some issues after writing the former), and is presupposed by such relations, namely, the a text of sweeping vision. The historical as structures characteristic of and necessary to well as systematic contexts of PhG and Enc the rational agent. The PSS analy- differ. It is a major interpretative challenge in ses the fundamental nature of the biological/ Hegel scholarship to understand the relation spiritual individual along with the between the large, complex, and sometimes cognitive and the practical prerequisites of ungainly PhG , which was billed as an intro- human social interaction. duction to Hegel’s systematic philosophy, and Given the importance of Hegel’s PSS, the the compressed, telegraphic Phenomenology level of scholarly it has received is of Spirit that occupies a place within the disappointing. Only his philosophy of nature encyclopaedic system. The focus here is currently receives less attention from Hegel solely on the latter.

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THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN (Descartes, for instance, defends such a claim INDIVIDUAL: SOME HISTORICAL at the end of the Second : see CONTEXT Descartes Oeuvres [AT] VII:33.) is identified with the processes of composition The concern to understand the nature of the and analysis operating on . Our knowl- human individual that dominated early mod- edge of the and characteristics of ern philosophy from Descartes and Spinoza material bodies is taken to be mediated by through Locke, Hume and Kant is also the of our own mental states, thus central concern in Hegel’s PSS. But Hegel remaining always more problematic than approaches the issue in a radically different -knowledge. way from his pre-Kantian predecessors. I will These assumptions were shared broadly start by summarizing the common assump- among Kant’s predecessors, but there were tions shared among Kant’s predecessors. numerous specific differences. The rational- Pre-Kantian thinking about the individ- ists believed that the simple ideas are highly ual’s relation to the material natural world, abstract and innate in the very structure of the internal resources native to and the mind, and that a great deal of knowledge the basic prerequisites of human relation- about the fundamental structure of the world ships adopted a common generic theoreti- is encoded in them, affording insight into cal framework that we can call (following necessary truths concerning the supersensible Locke) ‘the new way of ideas’. This frame- realm and our spiritual nature. The empiri- work assumes a deep ontological distinction cists, in contrast, thought that the simple ideas between extended material objects (bod- are particular sensory images, from which all ies) and immaterial, thinking or experienc- our other ideas are derived or compounded ing objects (). 1 Bodies are thought to by de facto faculties (such as innate abilities interact according to rigorously mathema- to compare or to abstract ideas) in accord- tizable and exceptionless laws of nature of ance with certain laws of association. The the kind being discovered by the then emerg- dialectic of empiricist thought led empiricism ing new sciences of astronomy, mechanics to a rather unhappy scepticism according to and optics. Causation is generally conceived which conclusions that reach even a little of along mechanistic lines, and teleological beyond the cannot be justified, and the causation and explanation are also generally only necessities we can cognize are trivial. rejected. Minds, in contrast, contain (consist Kant began to revolutionize this frame- of?) ideas , usually characterized in terms of work. He enriched the framework of ‘ideas’, their representational content, that interact distinguishing in a meaningful way between according to normative rules of .2 Ideas sensory and conceptual representations, and are taken to have a fundamentally composi- employing the logical forms of judgement to tional structure: there is a supply of simple provide a more sophisticated notion of the ideas that can be compounded into complex relationships among representations. He rec- ideas – though the forms of composition rec- ognized that representations in a judgement ognized in this framework were quite limited. are combined with a modal force that signals It is also a standard pre-Kantian assumption that the combination is not merely subjec- that minds have some form of immediate and tive association. Kant argued that the innate transparent access to the ideas they contain. architecture of the mind determines certain

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complex representations to be necessarily characteristics, abilities, etc.? Hegel rejects true. Yet he also argued that these judge- this reading: the philosophy of subjec- ments can hold true only of the phenomenal tive spirit ‘is concerned with of world revealed by sensory . The human truth, with that which is true in and supersensible realm remains beyond our ken. for itself, – with essence itself as spirit’ (Enc Kant thus tried to validate more knowledge §377). Merely including knowledge of the than the empiricists thought to be obtain- characteristics and foibles of those around us able (namely, knowledge of the necessary is also ruled out by this test. The philosophy structure of the phenomenal realm), without of mind looks for the truly universal across acceding to rationalist metaphysical preten- all humans. Hegel then identifies two ways sions concerning the supersensible realm. this universal project has been approached But Kant remains mired in a highly dualis- recently: first, so-called rational psychology; tic framework: the distinction between the second, empirical psychology ( Enc §§377–8). phenomenal and the noumenal cannot be Both these approaches are faulty, however, overcome, so that human beings can neither because mired in the ‘categories of the under- know the nature of as it is in itself, nor standing’. This means that certain aspects can they know themselves as free, rational, of the under consideration are moral agents. In the end, Kant denies knowl- regarded as ‘separate and fixed’ (Enc §378A) edge to make room for . and form an independent basis from which all other aspects are to be derived. Empirical psychology reaches towards the universal by generalizing from empirical SHIFTING THE : observation of particular spiritual faculties: HEGELIAN REVISIONS In empirical psychology, it is the particu- Hegel is deeply dissatisfied with both larizations into which spirit is divided the and the which are regarded as being rigid in their limitation, so that spirit is treated as a employed by his predecessors, so dissatisfied mere aggregate of independent forces, that he proclaims that ‘’s books on each of which stands only in reciprocal the soul, as well as his dissertations on its and therefore external relation to the special aspects and conditions, are still by far other. ( Enc §378A; Petry translation the best or even the sole work of speculative adapted) interest on this general topic’ ( Enc §378). why Hegel is so dissatisfied Empirical psychology however cannot dem- with his predecessors’ paradigm is important onstrate the ‘harmonious integration’ of the to grasping his approach. powers or faculties it discovers, that is, the Let us start with Hegel’s complaints about necessary unity they must exhibit in order to methodologies commonly used in the philos- exist as powers of a unified spirit. ophy of mind. The philosophy of spirit aims Rational psychology or pneumatology at cognition of spirit itself; it is the execu- concerns itself, not with empirical research tion of the ‘absolute command, Know thy- and data, but ‘with abstract and general self ’. Is this an injunction to know oneself determinations, with the supposedly unmani- in a narrow : What are my particular fest essence, the in itself of spirit’ (ibid.; Petry

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translation adapted). The problem is that We see here as well that method and meta- rational psychology assumes that its job is physics cannot be kept entirely separate. The to demonstrate the simplicity, immateriality of understanding is both a method – and of the soul. atomistic analysis and reconstructive compo- sition – and a metaphysics – the assumption These questions, true to the general char- that the world is fundamentally a composite acter of the understanding, in that they of determinate atoms with fixed properties took spirit to be a thing, assumed these combinable in fixed and determinate ways. It categories to be static and fixed. As such takes reason , which is more than mere under- the categories are incapable of express- standing, to appreciate the creative negativity ing the nature of spirit however, for far from being anything static, spirit is abso- operative in the world. lute unrest, pure activity, the negating or Hegel cites the recent discovery of ‘ani- ideality of all the fixed determinations of mal magnetism’ – what we now call hypno- the understanding. (Enc §378A) tism – as an empirical confirmation of the inadequacy of the attitude of understand- I especially want to emphasize here Hegel’s ing.3 ‘This has discredited all the rigid dis- criticism of rational psychology for treating tinctions drawn by the understanding, and it spirit as a thing . Of course, the pneumatolo- has become immediately obvious that if con- gists did not think that spirits are physical tradictions are to be resolved, a speculative things, but they did think of spirit as a deter- consideration is a necessity’ (Enc §379). It is minate thing entirely separable from one’s worth looking at what Hegel took hypnotic body. In Hegel’s view, this dualism makes phenomena to show. He devotes to them in unintelligible the relation between the natu- §406, as Petry notes in the Introduction to ral, physical side of humans and their spir- his translation of PSS (vol. I, p. lviii), ‘the itual aspect. For spirit most extensive and detailed exposition of any one topic in the Philosophy of Subjective is not abstractly simple, for it differenti- Spirit, and one of the most extensive exposi- ates itself from itself in its simplicity, nor tions of the whole Encyclopedia’. Hegel took is it already complete prior to its being hypnotism seriously, despite its having an air manifest, an essence maintaining itself of charlatanry about it already in the early behind the range of its manifestations, nineteenth century. for it is only truly actual through the determinate forms of its necessary self- The understanding is at least capable of . This [rationalist] psychology apprehending, in an external manner, the imagined it to be a thing, a soul standing other conditions and natural determina- in a merely external relation to the body, tions, as well as the conscious activities but [in truth] it is inwardly connected of spirit. It can also grasp what is called with the body through the unity of the the natural course of things, the external . ( Enc §378A; Petry translation connection of cause and effect, by which, adapted) like finite things, it is itself dominated. It is however evidently incapable of ascrib- As long as we are tied to the separate and fixed ing even credibility to the phenomena of categories of the understanding, an apprecia- magnetism, for in this instance tion of spirit’s true nature is beyond reach. it is no longer possible for it to regard

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spirit as being completely fixed and that apparently distinct spiritual items like bounded in place and as well as by different sensations, , and the postulated connection of cause and actions can be what they are only in effect. It is therefore faced with what it of their role in the self-realization of the cannot regard as anything but an incred- absolute; this point of view entails seeing ible , the appearance within sen- the world-whole as a spiritual phenomenon. suous existence of spirit’s having raised itself above extrinsicality and its external This is not to say that in the explanation connections. (Enc §379A; Petry transla- of each individual thought or action refer- tion adapted; cf. GW 25/1:161) ence must be made to its contribution to the self-realization of the absolute. But regard- The seems to be roughly this: the under- ing an as a , or regarding standing treats things as compositions of a particular behaviour as the expression of externally related objects, bound together a thought or as the execution of an action, by spatio-temporal and causal relations. To presupposes that these phenomena fit into an extent, the activities of spirit can be so a highly differentiated and teleologically understood, but this misses their essence. organized world-order. A related though less This is evident when it comes to hypnotism. radical view can be seen in the rise of exter- Hypnotic phenomena in which, for example, nalism in contemporary . one person what another eats or acts in ‘Content ’ as defended by Burge immediate accord with another’s will, cannot (1979) and ‘active externalism’ as defended be accommodated within the paradigm of the by Clark and Chalmers (1998) both reject understanding. Hegel thinks that the holism the possibility of identifying mental states of the spiritual and the rational, in distinc- atomistically, based solely on what is ‘in the tion from the atomism of the understanding, head’, whether that is construed physically comes to the fore in such phenomena. as what is within the boundary of a person’s Interestingly, the phenomena of hypno- skin or skull, or mentally in terms of what is tism are still not well understood, though ‘present to consciousness’ at a moment. 4 The hypnotism is a very real and interesting con- very architecture of mentalistic language dition. Few today would boldly assert that it involves essential reference to the environ- will remain forever impenetrable to scientific ment and social context, so minds and their investigation, but one point made by Hegel states cannot be treated as atomistically iso- remains viable even today. This is precisely lated ‘things’ separable from and independ- the anti-atomist claim that spiritual (or, as ent of their environment. The boundary we now call them, ‘mental’) phenomena will between the mental and the social begins to not be made intelligible using bottom–up, evaporate, as it does in Hegel’s concept of atomistic methods alone. Even starting with spirit. We no longer think of hypnotism as mental atoms, such as pre-Kantian ideas , an example of the mind’s extension beyond will not enable an atomistic explanation of the boundaries of the skull, but the larger spiritual phenomena, because the realm of point Hegel draws retains its interest in con- the spiritual or mental is essentially holis- temporary philosophy of mind. tic in structure. Hegel that the With this in view, one can make sense notion of the spiritual is so tied to a sys- of Hegel’s claims that spirit is the ‘truth tematic and teleological view of the world of nature’ (Enc §381), that its essence is

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freedom (§382) and that its determinateness individuality and the communality of is manifestation (§383). Let us take these in rational agents. This characterization, of reverse order. course, goes beyond the boundaries of sub- Manifestation amounts to self-revelation, jective spirit into the realms of objective but point for Hegel is that there is and absolute spirit. Yet it is a clear corol- ultimately no distinction between the form lary to Hegel’s position that subjective spirit and the content of the manifestation. Spirit could not exist as something ‘really distinct’ is, indeed, manifest in things unable to recog- (in Cartesian terms) from the kind of body nize their own , things which are humans possess or from the kinds of social therefore at best partial or imperfect mani- structures peculiar to humans. festations of spirit, such as nature. Yet spirit The PSS is divided into three major parts: itself manifests itself to itself and thereby Anthropology, Phenomenology of Spirit and knows itself. It does this by finding itself in Psychology. Each of these is itself divided an ostensibly other. into a further triad with at least one more subordinate level of triads below that. The For spirit, rather than losing itself in text of Enc is notoriously abstract and tel- this other, maintains and actualizes itself egraphic; even supplemented by the mate- there, shaping its internality by turning rial from Hegel’s lectures, it is challenging to the other into a determinate being com- trace a coherent web of claims and justifica- mensurate with it, and by thus sublating tions in this text. In the following I sketch a the other, the determinate and actual dif- ference, reaching concrete being-for-self, systematic overview of the problems Hegel determinate self-revelation to itself. This was responding to and of the positions he revelation is therefore itself the content of developed. It is worth pointing out, in light spirit, and not some form merely added of the fascination exerted by the 1807 PhG , from without to the content of spirit. that when the volume was written, Hegel ( Enc §383A; Petry translation adapted) had not yet developed the conceptions of anthropology and psychology that came Effectively, we come to know ourselves as to frame the phenomenology in the mature spirit, and thus we actualize spirit, in shap- system. His conception of these disciplines ing the world into a site appropriate for was initially developed during his time in and responsive to our free, rational activity. Nuremberg (1808–16). Thus, the system- Spirit realizes itself (in both senses of actual- atic context of the phenomenology changes izing itself and knowing itself) ever better by significantly between the early tome and the tuning the world to its purposes. The free- mature system. dom that is the essence of spirit is not a mat- ter of being cut off from and independent of nature, but of being at home in the world because spirit has transformed the world’s 1. THE ANTHROPOLOGY material reality into an expression of itself and is able therein to sustain and support the The Anthropology, the first major division rational activity that it is. Such freedom is of the PSS, encompasses 24 paragraphs fully actualizable only in a well-structured, (§§388–412) in both the second and third cultured society that recognizes both the editions of Enc . It concerns spirit in its

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immediate unity with nature and the natu- higher-level phenomenon. But the impor- ral organism. This form of spirit Hegel calls tance of sensation cannot be sold short: ‘soul’. Both the unity of and any distinction between nature and spirit or organism and Everything is in sensation ; one might spirit at this level is not for spirit . Spirit is also say that it is in sensation that every- here still not conscious of itself under any thing emerging into spiritual conscious- ness and reason has its source and origin , description. ‘Anthropology’ seems, then, for the source and origin of something a strange title for this segment of PSS, for is other than the primary and we tend to think that the distinctive trait most immediate manner in which it of humans is their self-consciousness, their appears. Principles, etc. must be of themselves as conscious and in the heart, they must be sensed , it is not spirited creatures. This is exactly what is not enough that they should be only in the considered in Hegel’s Anthropology. Rather, head. ( Enc §400R) the focus here is on embodiment , on the way in which qualities and characteristics of This passage is both a bow to what is true humans that appear, at first blush, to be sim- in empiricism and an acknowledgement ply natural have spiritual significance and that one cannot stop with empiricism’s express the spiritual. These qualities must immediacies. ultimately be understood as having their true One of the faults Hegel regularly finds , not in the self-externality of causal with empiricism is its general atomism, and processes among distinct spatio-temporal this echoes throughout the Anthropology. objects and states, but in their participation Hegel thinks of living as complex in the processes of self-realization in which beings that are significantly more unified spirit expresses and fulfils itself. Racial dif- than other physical objects. ferences, differences in temperament and character, the ‘natural’ processes of growth In the there is already a display and development, sexuality and wakeful- of a centre effused into the periphery, a ness are all discussed at the beginning of the concentration of differences, a self-devel- Anthropology as phenomena that are, of opment outwards from within, a unity course, natural, but equally spiritual, that is, which differentiates itself and brings to be understood in terms of a larger whole. itself forth out of its differences into the The greatest amount of in the bud, and consequently into something to Anthropology is devoted to discussing sensa- which we ascribe a drive . . . In the animal tion and . Understanding the nature of organism externality is more completely the sensory is a challenge to any philosophy, overcome, for each organ engenders the and Hegel’s attempt is complex and some- other, being its cause and effect, means and end. Each member is therefore obscure. We need to be clear at the out- simultaneously its own other. What is that Hegel does not take sensation and more, the whole of the animal organism feeling to be uniquely human; also is so pervaded by its unity, that nothing have sensation and feeling. As we will see, within it appears as independent. Since Hegel even identifies what makes something each determinacy is at the same time of sentient. He also distinguishes between mere an ideal nature, the animal remaining sensation and feeling, which is a slightly the same single universal within each

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determinacy, it is in the animal body that way for the whole organism to tune its con- extrinsicality shows the full extent of its dition to a specific aspect of the world. Thus, lack of truth. ( Enc §381A) sensations are not objects of awareness, but components or aspects of acts of aware- There are strong reverberations here of Kant’s ness. Further, these states occur because they characterization of as something occupy a particular point in a sensory range we must attribute to organisms. Hegel thinks that is significant for the whole organism. that the greater unity of the animal accounts This is consistent with Hegel’s general strat- for its being sentient. ‘Sensation is precisely egy of arguing that something first seen ato- this ubiquity of the unity of the animal in mistically from the bottom–up, reveals a very all its members, which immediately commu- different identity when seen in a holistic (and nicate each impression to the single whole’ teleological) context from the top–down, (ibid.). Hegel’s most complete attempt to and that it is the top–down identity that is, explain the nature of sensation appears in the in the long run, the more important. This unfinished manuscript of a projected book- also helps explain what Hegel means when length treatment of subjective spirit: he insists that ‘everything is in sensation’: to the extent that we have truly appropriated an If neutral water is coloured, for exam- idea, no how abstract, it will make a ple, and is in this quality or condition, difference in our immediate sensory encoun- then it would be sentient if it differed ters with the world. Someone who cannot from this its condition not only for us or, feel moral indignation or does not feel a what amounts to the same thing, merely gut-wrenching sensation when betrayed may according to possibility, but rather if, at the same time, it differed from itself as be able to think about , but is not a so determined’. Differently expressed: moral person, not someone whose very being the genus colour only exists as blue, or is informed by morality. ‘In general, as a certain specific colour; in that it is is the individual spirit living in healthy part- blue, it remains the genus colour. But if nership with its corporeity’ (Enc §401R). the colour as colour, i.e., not as blueness I have gotten ahead of the game here by but at the same time as colour persisting introducing already the notion of feeling. in opposition to itself as blue colour—if Hegel distinguishes relatively clearly between the difference between its universality sensation and feeling only in the third edition and its particularity were not simply for of Enc : us but existed within itself, then blue colour would be a sensation of blue. Linguistic practice happens to provide us ( GW 15:234; Petry translation revised)5 with no thoroughgoing distinction between sensation and feeling. Nevertheless, we do tend to speak not of a sensation of right, The idea seems to be that sensations are self and suchlike, but of a feeling for what peculiar because, although they are in one is right, of self-awareness . . . [W]hile sen- sense simply properties of sensory organs, sation puts more emphasis upon the pas- what they are as sensations depends cru- sive aspect of feeling . . ., i.e., upon the cially on their occurrence in the context of immediacy of feeling’s determinacy, feel- a complex organic whole, namely as particu- ing refers more to the selfhood involved lar properties of sense organs that provide a here. (Enc §402R)

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What we call the feeling soul . . . is nei- to direct . Hegel discusses a ther confined to the immediate sensu- number of pathological phenomena in this ousness of sensation , [e.g., to a proper or section of the Anthropology. When things common sensible] and dependent upon are going well for us, when we correctly immediate sensuous presence nor does it perceive or anticipate the world around us relate itself to what is wholly universal , and respond to it appropriately, everything which can be grasped only through the mediation of pure thought . ( Enc §402A; seems simple, and the complexity of our Petry translation adapted) connection to the world fades from sight. It is when our normal, relatively happy inter- The notion of feeling allows Hegel to ascribe course with the world, ourselves and others a kind of content to a that is breaks down that the complex architecture neither the determinate singularity of a of the mind becomes visible. proper or common sensible nor the objec- There are extensive discussions of dreaming, tivizing universality of concept. A feeling of ‘magnetic somnambulism’, and of mental of moral indignation is not yet a concept of derangements of various kinds in these sec- moral indignation, but it is more than a par- tions of the Anthropology, for in all of these, ticular proprioceptive sensible. There will Hegel thinks, there is a breakdown in the be some proprioceptive sensible involved in ‘healthy partnership’ between an individual the feeling, but what it truly is can be under- spirit and its corporeity. stood only in terms of a larger context. That There is no room here for a detailed review feeling is an immediate, embodied response of Hegel’s discussions of the pathologies of to a situation that conflicts with morality mind, but he was clearly concerned with and by someone in whom a moral upbringing aware of the cutting-edge empirical and clini- has inculcated both moral habits and some cal work of the time. conception of morality. Purely sensory com- At the end of the Anthropology, Hegel pro- parisons and discriminations, such as those vides a lengthy and significant discussion of we make when discriminating colours or habit . Prior to this, he treated the unity of the analysing flavour notes in a fine wine, are bodily and the spiritual in terms of individ- tied to the structure of our sensory organs. ual phenomena, sensations and feelings that, Feeling, by contrast, has a much broader though bodily, have to be seen as an expres- range. Craftsmen acquire a feel for their sion or manifestation of something larger materials, politicians a feel for the mood of and higher, a spiritual reality. Habit provides the public. Whereas in the purely sensory a form in which the organism can gain some cases we are passive, accepting the deliver- freedom from the sensuous particularities of ances of sense (or to ‘read’ such sense and feeling while becoming a still bet- deliverances), in feeling often a great deal of ter expression of spirit. Habit is, indeed, a experience, training or knowledge is uncon- mere form itself; any kind of content, good sciously active. or ill, progressive or regressive, effective or This permits Hegel to discuss the impor- ineffective can be embodied in a habit. tance of preconscious comparisons and dis- criminations in our cognitive and conative The essential determination of habit is architecture. Preconscious abilities to com- that it is by means of it that man is liber- pare and distinguish, however, are not open ated from the sensations by which he is

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affected . . . [H]abit is what is most essen- Since the soul, within its thoroughly tial to the existence of all spirituality formed and appropriated corporeity, is within the individual . It enables as the being-for-self of a single subject, the subject to be a concrete immediacy, this corporeity is externality as a predi- an ideality of soul , so that the religious cate in which the subject relates only to or moral etc. content belongs to him as itself. This externality exhibits not itself, this self , this soul, and is in him neither but the soul of which it is the sign . ( Enc merely . . . a transient sensation or pres- §411; Petry translation adapted) entation, nor as an abstract inwardness cut off from action and actuality, but In the human species, the natural organ- as part of his being. (Enc §410R; Petry ism has become both sign and expression of translation adapted) something that is, like all signifieds, distin- guishable from it. Indeed, the organism is not Through the development of habits, we are even a terribly good expression of spirit: less in the thrall of particular feelings: we can become inured to ; we can postpone [B]ecause this [human] shape is some- pleasure. A self that is no longer a merely thing immediate and natural in its exter- immediate responsiveness to the world can nality, [it] can therefore only signify spirit in an indefinite and wholly imperfect begin to emerge. We can think of the manner, being incapable of presenting through the Anthropology along the follow- it as the universal it is for itself. For the ing lines. The significance of individual states animal, the human shape is the highest of the organism for the organism itself can appearance of spirit. For spirit however, only be seen by taking a systematic look at it is only the first appearance of itself, their place in the overall fit of the organism and language simultaneously its more into its environment. Some states are general, perfect expression. (Enc §411R; Petry such as those that track time (like biological translation adapted) clocks), but some express particularities of the organism. For instance, animal organisms Language, however, does not receive explicit all have a sense of self, of their boundaries, of consideration until later in the Psychology. where they are in relation to their environ- Still, there is an abstract unity, the centre of ment (e.g. as prey and predator) or a sense gravity around which the otherwise disparate of who they mate with. Such ‘self-feeling’ is bodily, sensory and habitual characteristics of unconscious and highly particularized to the the organism are organized. This unity differs moment. In acquiring habits, the organism from these disparate characteristics, which it can begin to abstract from this direct immer- excludes from itself. Yet by being their unity sion in nature and build for itself a ‘second or universal, it is incapable of existing apart nature’. Without it, a distinctively human from them: nature would not be possible. The Anthropology culminates in what In so far as the soul has being for abstract Hegel calls ‘the actual soul’. It is at this stage, universality, this being-for-self of free I believe (though Hegel does not explicitly universality is its higher awakening as say so), that humanity goes beyond anything ‘ I ’ or abstract universality. For itself, the available to animals, which are never fully soul is therefore thought and subject , actual . and is indeed specifically the subject of

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its judgement. In this judgement the ‘I’ epistemologically motivated found, excludes from itself the natural total- for instance, in Bishop Berkeley or in the phe- ity of its determinations as an or nomenalism of Mill. In the framework of the world external to it , and so relates itself Encyclopaedia Phenomenology, however, the to this totality that it is immediately objects of consciousness are indeed treated as reflected into itself within it. This is con- internal constructs of spirit. The determina- sciousness . ( Enc §412; Petry translation adapted) 6 tions of soul – the sensations and feelings dis- cussed in the Anthropology – are, in and for themselves, without objective reference for Hegel here identifies consciousness with soul . The feeling that embodies one’s indig- an abstract point of unity that stands over nation at a social slight, for instance, is not against a de facto disparate manifold in sense for the soul itself a recognition of or response and feeling. This echoes Kant’s conception of to a social slight – that aspect of this deter- consciousness as a unity of manifold repre- mination of soul is for us , for some external sentations and prepares the move to the next or reflective viewer cognizant of its larger, part of the PSS, the Phenomenology of Spirit, objective context. The body considered in the which considers the appropriate forms for Anthropology may express spirit, but at the the normative or de jure unification of the level of soul spirit cannot yet interpret itself determinations found within spirit. or its state. The Phenomenology investigates a new and more complex way in which a human relates to itself. The high level of structure 2. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT and integration present in what Hegel calls ‘the actual soul’ effectively enables a new A. THE IDEA OF A PHENOMENOLOGY kind of reflexive relation to itself. We have to take seriously the remark quoted above The Phenomenology of the PSS occupies that ‘the “I” excludes from itself the natural 26 paragraphs ( Enc §§413–39). This is two totality of its determinations as an object more than the Anthropology, but there is con- or world external to it , and so relates siderably less supplementary material in the itself to this totality that it is immediately Additions. The lecture notes show that Hegel reflected into itself within it’ ( Enc §412). kept increasing the amount of lecture time The abstract unity of the organism – which spent on the Anthropology at the expense of we now call the ‘I’ – stands over against the other parts of subjective spirit. the soul’s particular determinations (spe- The Phenomenology is narrowly focused cifically the sensations and feelings) which, on examining subjective spirit’s relation to from the point of view of the ‘I’, are now appearances. Since subjective spirit is some- regarded as independent, natural objects thing that both appears and is appeared to, that are not the ‘I’’s own determinations this imposes structural requirements on it but external to it. Spirit must now con- that are examined dialectically in this seg- sciously return to itself by coming to see ment of the PSS. Hegel’s absolute idealism itself in those apparently external objects. is in many ways deeply realistic in its meta- It thereby returns as well to the larger physics and has little in common with the world when it sees these determinations of

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itself as nonetheless also expressions of the from and independent of the material deter- truth of the world. minacies of feeling, which it represents in Clearly, the Encyclopaedia Phenomenology turn as objects distinct from and independent echoes Kant’s critical philosophy. The phe- of itself. These objects appear to it as imme- nomenological point of view shares with crit- diate, simple others. ‘Of the object therefore, ical philosophy the notion that the world we sensuous consciousness knows only that it is sense and experience is a reconstruction from a being, something , an existing thing , a singu- (or is it a construal of?) our sensory and feel- lar etc. Although this consciousness appears ing states. Thus, Hegel asserts: ‘The Kantian as the richest in content, it is the poorest in philosophy is most accurately assessed thought’ (Enc §418R). Consciousness can- in that it is considered as having grasped not long stay in this framework: spirit as consciousness, and as containing throughout not the philosophy of spirit, but From this standpoint I become aware of merely determinations of its phenomenol- this unit [a conglomeration of sensations ogy’ ( Enc §415R). The difference between and feelings] in an immediate and singu- larized manner. It enters my conscious- the two, however, is that Kant thought that ness at random, and disappears out of his approach entailed that our knowledge is it again. To me it is therefore something confined to the merely phenomenal: things as which, with regard to both its existence they are in themselves remain forever beyond and its constitution, is simply given, so our ken. Hegel instead locates the construc- that I know nothing of whence it comes, tive activities examined in the phenomenol- the derivation of its specific nature, or of ogy within a broadly monistic world. That its claim to truth. ( Enc §418A) objects necessarily appear to us under certain constraints, Hegel thinks, does not entail Sensuous consciousness, as such, is utterly that we have access to merely phenomenal unfocused, a mere assurance of being objects. Rather, to the extent that the con- but unable to put its finger on anything. straints under which objects appear to us is a higher and more adequate appropriately capture constraints on the form in which consciousness escapes this objects themselves, to that same extent we scattered, unfocusable form. can know the truth of those objects. The very One specific difference between the treatment same organizing structures and principles of sensuous consciousness in the Encyclopaedia that are active in the rational mind are also Phenomenology and its treatment in PhG active and determinative in the world itself. needs mention. In Enc , Hegel no longer thinks The rational mind has access to the truth, not that sensuous consciousness is concerned with merely to the appearance of truth. The world spatio-temporality, the here and the now , which is in itself what it appears to be to the fully plays a significant role in the arguments of the developed rational mind. Sense Certainty chapter in PhG . These argu- ments expose the ultimately conceptual struc- B. CONSCIOUSNESS AS SUCH ture of indexical reference; in Enc , however, the application of spatio-temporal representations (i) Sensuous consciousness to sensory experience is proclaimed to be the The organism has achieved the brute ability to province of , which is treated later in represent itself (the ‘I’) as something distinct the Psychology.

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(ii) Perception The truly internal has however to be The drive hidden within the phenomeno- defined as concrete , as internally differen- logical spirit is, of course, the drive to know tiated . Grasped as such it constitutes what itself, which underlies the dialectic of all of we call law , for the essence of law, whether referred to external nature or to the ethi- subjective spirit. Spirit certainly cannot find cal world, consists of an indivisible unity, itself or its equivalent in the scattered mani- a necessary internal connection of differ- fold of singularities that dominates sensu- ent determinations . . . Laws are the deter- ous consciousness. In spirit’s experience, the minations of the understanding dwelling mere ‘somethings’ of sensuous consciousness within the world itself. It is within laws become things it perceives , that is, loci of therefore that the understanding con- many distinct properties related to a com- sciousness rediscovers its own nature and mon focus. The sensuous determinations so becomes its own opposing object. ( Enc spirit finds given to it are now organized for §422A; Petry translation adapted) it in accordance with certain categories that classify and relate them together into struc- The understanding takes the truth to con- tured objects and events. sist in the (invisible) laws that knit together the various objects, properties and relations [Perception] starts with the sensuous that appear to consciousness. But the under- certainties of single apperceptions or standing does not yet see that the organizing observations, which are supposed to be principles it now identifies as the truth are, in raised into truth by being considered in fact, its very own. Thus, a new kind of object their connection, reflected upon, and at is now appropriate, an object that is itself a the same time, turned by means of cer- tain categories into something necessary consciousness. and universal, i.e., . ( Enc It is worth pausing a moment here to make §420R) it clear that from within the Phenomenology, the ‘stages’ of spirit being traversed do not sim- Hegel says that this is the standpoint of ply replace each other seriatim . Someone who ordinary consciousness and of most of the perceives structured objects with variegated sciences, and that it marks the boundaries properties does not cease to have sensuous pres- of Kantian philosophy. This last seems a entations; someone who experiences the world bit contentious: many interpreters think as a particular instantiation of universal laws Kant’s philosophy achieves at least the does not cease to see propertied things; and level of the understanding, to which we someone who becomes conscious of other con- now turn. sciousnesses in the world around her does not cease to experience a world of external, prop- (iii) Understanding ertied things governed by laws. In each case, Consciousness becomes aware in perception the world is enriched with new, more complex that the objects it encounters are appear- kinds of objects, and consciousness’ relation to ances , so it begins to focus on the internality its objects is equally enriched with new, more underlying and uniting the manifold appear- complex forms. Progress in these realms is ances: ‘This simple difference is the realm of cumulative, and consciousness is driven to ever the laws of appearance, their quiescent and more complex forms of thought to make sense universal likeness’ (Enc §422). of the complex world it encounters.

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C. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS Notice that these independent objects are objects of the kind appropriate to conscious- Having just pointed out the cumulative ness, things in the material world that submit nature of the progress in the Phenomenology, to the activity of spirit. The paradigm case of I now have to qualify those claims. Spirit overcoming such objects is consuming them. itself, in the broad sense that includes nature ‘Desire is therefore generally destructive in its and history, is the truth of things. Ultimately, satisfaction, just as it is generally self-seeking nothing is external to spirit. Thus, in Hegel’s in respect of its content, and since the satis- view, all knowledge is ultimately spirit’s faction has only been achieved in singleness, self-knowledge. That spirit is complete within which is transient, it gives rise to further itself and need (and can) to relate itself to desires’ ( Enc §428). The satisfaction of con- nothing other than itself, however, is not yet sumption is ever only temporary, constantly a fact for the phenomenological conscious- renewing the drive for more. To escape this ness or self-consciousness. As consciousness, endless progression of desire and satisfaction, spirit cannot see itself as a complete totality a different object and a different relation to it and remains burdened by an apparent other. must be found by self-consciousness: another The phenomenological self still sees itself as self-consciousness, self or ‘I’. set over against an other, and even when this other is its equal, their deeper unity is not yet (ii) Recognitive self-consciousness apparent. The dialectic of self-consciousness Self-consciousness (still not yet made fully is the overcoming of the apparent particu- explicit) is prepared to encounter another larities that divide self-consciousness. self-consciousness: ‘Within the other as “I”, I have not only an immediate intui- (i) Desire tion of myself, but also of the immediacy of The self-conscious self finds itself confronted a determinate being which as “I” is for me with an external object that it takes to be, in an absolutely opposed and independently fact, a nullity; self-consciousness is driven to distinct object’ (Enc §430; Petry translation make this object its own. ‘Here . . . desire still adapted). I intuit myself in the other insofar has no further determination than that of a as I recognize that the other is the same as drive , in so far as this drive, without being ‘I’, a self-consciousness. We are, Hegel says, determined by a thought , is directed to an ‘a single light’. Nevertheless, he claims that external object in which it seeks satisfaction’ this view contradicts the equally apparent ( Enc §426A). Hegel portrays this as arising fact that this other is opposed to and inde- from the fact that self-consciousness is still pendent of me. ‘Through this contradiction, also consciousness. That is, spirit at this point self-consciousness acquires the drive to dis- contains the ‘contradiction’ of having an play itself as a free self, and to be there as independent object external to it (the struc- such for the other. This is the process of rec- ture of consciousness) while also being cer- ognition ’ (ibid.). tain that it is itself the truth and related only But the process of recognition is, Hegel tells to itself (the structure of self-consciousness). us, a struggle. These two self-consciousnesses Its initial attempt to overcome this contradic- are, in their immediacy, distinct from and tion is to try to simply overcome the exter- impenetrable to each other. This immediacy nal object and make it its own: this is desire. is represented principally in the fact that they

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are spatio-temporally distinct living bodies preempts any crude form of the struggle for beset with contingencies: different talents, recognition. dispositions, and abilities, different appetites In a famous turn-about, it is the servant or desires, etc. These consciousnesses initially who provides the key to further progress relate to each other via their distinct bodies towards the fulfilment of self-consciousness. but possess a drive to find the sameness, the The master ‘is involved in his self-seeking, common identity they implicitly recognize. sees in the servant only his own immediate In order to do this, they need to overcome will, and is only recognized in a formal man- their immediate differences and negate their ner by a consciousness lacking in freedom’ natural, organic existence. They need to ( Enc §435A). The master has not truly met show each other that they are free beings, not his equal in the servant; he has not found merely the pawns of their natural existences himself in his other. But the servant cannot be (nor are they ready to be the pawn of the self-centred, ‘his desire acquires the breadth other consciousness). This dialectic takes the of not being confined to himself , but of also form of a struggle between these two con- including that of another . It is thus that he sciousnesses: ‘Each self-consciousness imper- raises himself above the selfish singularity of ils not only the of the other but also itself. his natural will’ (ibid.). It merely imperils itself however, for each is equally committed to the preservation of its This subduing of the servant’s self- life, in that this constitutes the existence of seeking constitutes the beginning of the its freedom’ (Enc §432). The of one of true freedom of man. The quaking of the singularity of the will, the feeling of the antagonists in a struggle for recognition the nullity of self-seeking, the habit of yields no progress, no movement towards a obedience, – this constitutes a necessary more satisfactory resolution of the ‘contra- moment in the education of everyone. diction’ driving these interactions. If one of ( Enc §435A) the antagonists yields in the struggle, how- ever, a new dynamic is set up: the relation- The master remains in thrall to his own natu- ship of mastery and servitude. The forces ral impulses; the servant learns to control his. at work here – the struggle for recognition This is the beginning of human freedom. The and the eventual dominance of one party servant controls his natural impulses, at this over another – Hegel tells us, account for the point, only for the sake of the single, contin- beginning of states and governments. But the gent will of the master, not yet for the sake of idea that states began among humans in a vio- a truly universal rational will; but the abil- lent struggle for recognition does not mean ity to subordinate oneself to another will is that states are legitimated by this violence. an essential part of full recognition. This is a The legitimation of the state, as Hegel shows lesson the master must also somehow learn. in Objective Spirit, lies elsewhere. Even so, This lesson, once learned, makes possible the Hegel insists that the struggle for recognition transition to universal self-consciousness . 7 can occur only in a state of nature, where there is no government. For, in his view, the (iii) Universal self-consciousness institution of the state – even a faulty, tyran- In universal self-consciousness, the contingent nical state – already embodies the recogni- peculiarities of distinct are not tion of the citizens. The existence of a state lost altogether, but they are subordinated to

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the mutual recognition of the individuals. In extent generally objective, determinations this form of self-consciousness, the freedom of the essence of things, self-consciousness and fundamental equality of all humans has constitutes reason, which as this identity, become explicit. ‘This form of consciousness is not only the absolute substance , but truth as knowledge. (Enc §439) constitutes not only the substance of all the essential spirituality of the family, the native country, the state, but also of all – of While Kant insisted that the categories do not , friendship, valour, honour, fame’ ( Enc (and could not) apply to things as they are in §436R). Our social in general rest on themselves, Hegel proposes a more powerful universal self-consciousness; mutual rec- interpretation of reason. In his view, the fun- ognition of a shared and common nature damental nature of the world is determined provides the ground for the co-operation by the fact that it is the self-actualization of and co-ordination without which humans spirit. The structural principles that we use could not long live. It is, unfortunately, only to organize the phenomenal world of our imperfectly realized in far too many societies; sensory experience, and which constitute bigotry and other forms of the of the ourselves as finite, subjective spirits, are ulti- universality of freedom and equality among mately identical with the structural princi- remain a persistent and recalcitrant ples that are embodied in the natural and the fact of human life. intersubjectively social worlds, the principles Self-consciousness has found itself in by which infinite spirit actualizes itself. Our its other. It has come to see that the funda- finitude, the fact that we are each a subjective mental structures of the objects it has found spirit, does not cut us off from the world; it outside it are, in fact, the same as its own means only that we are imperfect and incom- fundamental structures. Hegel means this lit- plete actualizations of spirit. erally: the forms of organization that subjec- This view enables us to see ourselves once tive spirit, in its drive to make sense of itself, again as embodied in and continuous with has imposed upon the sensory material with the natural world; it enables us to investigate which the Phenomenology originally began our own activities and powers: this is carried have been the same forms of organization out in the Psychology. that are present everywhere in nature and in consciousness itself. Thus the subjective and particular has been unified with the objective and universal. This unity Hegel calls reason . 3. THE PSYCHOLOGY

D. REASON The Psychology occupies 41 paragraphs (Enc §§440–81), significantly more than either Hegel’s treatment of reason in the the Anthropology or the Phenomenology of Encyclopaedia Phenomenology is a mere two Spirit. The opening paragraphs (§§440–4) paragraphs. He re-emphasizes the identity of discuss the general nature of the (finite) spirit the subjective and the objective. reached at this stage and the specific con- cerns of psychology as a discipline. They also As the certainty that its determinations are draw the distinction between theoretical and not only its own thoughts, but to the same practical spirit.

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Spirit here is still subjective in the sense A. THEORETICAL SPIRIT that it is particularized into distinct individu- als who possess the simple and immediate We cannot separate theoretical and practical unity of organism and spirit that is the soul . spirit absolutely; they are necessarily related. At the same time, they also possess the com- Neither of them is ‘a fixed existence, sepa- plex but abstract organization of internal rate from the other, as if could be states that makes itself congruent with the devoid of intelligence or the activity of intel- structure of external , that is, they ligence could be devoid of will’ (Enc §445R). possess (self)-consciousness. Psychology aims Neither should we take the various ‘faculties’ at a non-abstract self-knowledge, knowledge or ‘powers’ (we could as well speak of ‘capac- of the specific modes of activity by which ities’) that analysis attributes to theoretical subjective spirit can grasp its concrete reality spirit to be discrete existences, nor should and realize concrete freedom therein. we take theoretical spirit to be a mechanical aggregation of independent parts. These fac- Psychology is therefore concerned with ulties – intuition, recollection, , the faculties or general modes of the etc. – are moments in theoretical spirit, ‘the activity of spirit as such , — intuiting, activities having no other immanent signifi- representing, recollecting etc., desires cance; their only purpose being the concept etc. . . . The content, which is raised into of cognition’ (ibid.). 8 , consists of its sensations, just as its intuitions are changed into repre- To an extent, the dialectic of theoretical sentations, and representations imme- spirit replicates the dialectic we witnessed in diately into thoughts etc. (Enc §440R; the phenomenology, beginning from the sen- Petry translation adapted) sory and rising once again to reason. But in the phenomenology, the development occurs Hegel rejects the notion that the distinc- via changes in the apparent object of con- tion between theoretical and practical spirit sciousness. In theoretical spirit, it is spirit can be understood in terms of passivity and itself that develops. It understands ever better activity. Spirit is always active. Theoretical its own nature, a fact that enables it to have spirit can appear passive, because it takes up an increasingly rational grasp of the world what is present or existent, while practical around it. Hegel distinguishes between knowl- spirit has to produce something that is not edge ( Wissen ) and cognition (Erkenntnis ): already existent. But, Hegel points out, there is a tremendous amount of activity involved Cognition must certainly be distinguished in rationally understanding something, from mere knowledge , for even conscious- and conversely always something passive ness is already knowledge. Free spirit is not content with simple knowledge how- involved in the constitution of our desires ever, for it wants to cognize , that is to say and drives. Perhaps we are, then, better off to know not merely that an object is and distinguishing theoretical from practical what it is in general as well as in respect spirit, not by level of activity but in terms of its contingent and external determina- of whether the object is supposed to deter- tions, but to know what it is that consti- mine the subjective state or the subjective tutes the determinate substantiality of the state is supposed to determine (or create) the nature of this general object. (Enc §445A; object. Petry translation adapted)

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The phenomenological spirit, for all it else; on the other hand spirit, in grasping its knows, just happens to have the right ways to object not only as external but as self-exter- engage the objects it encounters. Theoretical nal , projects it into the forms of space and spirit develops the ability to aim at and to time. I mentioned earlier that Hegel changed cultivate – on purpose! – a thoroughly ration- his mind between 1807 and the period of the alized, self-reflective conceptual or theoreti- encyclopaedic system about just when spatio- cal framework for dealing with the world. temporality appears in spirit’s objects – and Theoretical spirit aims to comprehend the in 1817 this even happens one stage later, world, no intellectual holds barred. in ‘Representation’ (Enc 1817 §373). My guess is that space and time show up only (i) Intuition here because Hegel thinks of them as pre- We begin at a familiar place, though in cise and quantifiable, even metrical. Spatio- a new key. Theoretical spirit begins with temporal determinations can be elaborated immediacy: sensation and feeling. ‘Now, in in endlessly precise ways and related to each the third and final instance, feeling has the other with mathematical precision. They are significance of being the initial form assumed the rational elaboration of self-externality, so by spirit as such , which constitutes the unity they make their appearance within subjective and truth of the soul and of consciousness ’ spirit only in its final, rational stage, even if ( Enc §446A). As Hegel insisted in our previ- they appear as immediate determinacies. ous encounters with the sensory, everything These moments are brought back together in is present in sensation and feeling. intuition proper:

Cultivated , true sensation is the sen- Intuition . . . is a consciousness which sation of a cultured spirit which has is filled with the certainty of reason , its acquired consciousness of specific differ- general object having the determination ences, essential relationships, true deter- of being a rationality [ein Vernünftiges ], minations etc., and it is into the feeling of and so of constituting not a single being such a spirit that this adjusted material torn apart into various aspects, but a enters, i.e., acquires this form. Feeling is totality , a connected profusion of deter- the immediate, also the readiest form, in minations. ( Enc §449A) which the subject relates itself to a given content. ( Enc §447R; Petry translation Intuition promises insight into the substance adapted) and unity of things, their rational connect- edness. Even so, the form of intuition must Cultivated feelings are crucial to the good be superseded if spirit is to achieve a fully human life, but the form of feeling, mired in explicit comprehension of things. immediacy and open as it is to good content In intuition, spirit is still very much focused and bad, does not live up to the thoroughly on the object it grasps, but a simple turn of rational ideal of theoretical spirit. Further attention introduces a new dialectic. development is called for. The simple immediacy of intuition is Spirit . . . posits intuition as its own , broken in the next stage. On the one hand, pervades it, makes something inward attentive spirit now takes responsibility for of it, recollects [erinnert ] itself within it , distinguishing its object from everything becomes present to itself within it, and

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so becomes free . By thus passing into no longer has the complete determinacy of itself, intelligence raises itself to the stage intuition, and is arbitrary or contingent, of representation . (Enc §450A; Petry being generally isolated from the external 9 translation adapted) place, time and immediate context in which intuition was involved’ ( Enc §452). Images (ii) Representation are somehow stored in spirit, unconscious in Hegel develops the dialectic of represen- some ‘night-like abyss’ but available for tation more thoroughly than any of the on the right cue (and not necessarily avail- other in the PSS. Whereas most able for conscious recall). Hegel denies that other parts of the text go three layers deep ‘particular representations are preserved in (e.g. I. Anthropology / A. The Natural Soul particular fibres and localities ’ (Enc §453R; / 1. Natural Qualities), and the other parts Petry translation adapted). (One thinks of of theoretical spirit go four layers deep, modern claims that use non-local, dis- Representation goes five layers deep (e.g. tributed representations.) I. Psychology / A. Theoretical Spirit / 2. Such abstract images acquire a fully deter- Representation / a. Recollection / i. The minate being, however, only when they are Image). This shows the importance Hegel brought into relation to an intuition, which placed on these concepts and the care with puts them then in indirect relation to the which he thought about the issues. The fol- world itself. Such images are, like Hume’s lowing overview account cannot follow the ideas, a constant flow within us, enriching dialectic in all its detail. our current experience with echoes of the In representation there is still always past. ‘The more cultured the person the less some sensory aspect, though its significance he lives in immediate intuition, in that in all diminishes in the course of representation’s his intuitions he lives at the same time in rec- development. Intuitions, considered not as ollections’ ( Enc §454A). transparent of the world, but (b) Imagination. In imagination, spirit rather as subjective states whose semantic gains increasing power over its representa- relation to the world is open to question, tions. The representations present to spirit are also representations. Representations are no longer simply evoked by external cir- are mental states that do not purport to be cumstances, but begin to express spirit’s own transparent revelations of the immediately content. Furthermore, spirit is able increas- present. The three stages of representation ingly to analyse and synthesize these repre- are (a) recollection (Erinnerung ), (b) imagi- sentations, to pull them apart and put them nation ( Einbildungskraft ) and (c) together in new ways. ( Gedächtni ß). Hegel’s descriptions of the imaginative (a) Recollection. In intuition, the sen- power of spirit are reminiscent of those of sory presentation is taken as transparent Hume and Hartley, but he criticizes think- revelation of the disposition of things here ers who rely on the notion of the associa- and now – arguably, indeed, as identical to tion of ideas to explain the shape of our that disposition. In recollection, the sensory mental lives. The supposed laws of associa- presentation is isolated, abstracted from tion are no laws at all and do not, in fact, that context and freely available to spirit – determine any particular course of mental Hegel calls this an image (Bild ). ‘This image events.

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Representations, as Hegel conceives them, loosened the hold of immediacy on itself to already have the form of universality about be able to use linguistic signs in a creative them. They are abstract, without fixed rela- and self-expressive fashion. tion to individuals in space and time. They (c) Memory. Recollection and imagina- are not atomistically determinate beings in tion are a process of gaining greater control their own , but draw their significance over the intuitive material, of subordinating from their role within spirit’s individuality. what is present in intuition to spirit’s own So Hegel does not think that it is a problem purposes. This process is repeated again at a that particular representations can have gen- higher level in memory, where it is performed eral significance, something that bothered on those intuitions that are signs, particularly the British empiricists. linguistic signs. Given our ordinary uses of Intelligence is increasingly able to express the terms, ‘memory’ does not seem much dif- itself ever better in its representations, first ferent from ‘recollection’, but Hegel is play- via symbolic representations and then in ing here on the fact that the German word signs. Hegel calls this capacity ‘phantasy’. for memory, ‘Gedächtniß ’, shares the same Symbols share some characteristic of the root as the word for ‘think’ (Enc §464R). thing symbolized, as when the eagle symbol- Language is the form most suited to the izes courage; but signs are arbitrary. In these expression of thought, so memory is prima- developments spirit comes to be able to give rily concerned with language. itself a determinate and concrete expression and therefore existence. This ability to give The name lion enables us to dispense its own content – itself – determinate expres- with both the intuition of such an ani- sion free from ties to the immediate environ- mal and even with the image of it, for in that we understand it, the name is the ment is for spirit an important step towards imageless and simple representation. We absolute freedom. The most important prod- think in names.. . . Memory is however uct of sign-making imagination is clearly lan- no longer concerned with the image, guage, about which Hegel has a great deal drawn as this is from intuition, from the to say. Language is a multi-layer affair, in immediate unspiritual determinedness Hegel’s view: of intelligence, but with a determinate being which is the product of intelligence If language had to be handled in a con- itself . . . (Enc §462R; Petry translation crete manner, the anthropological or adapted) rather the psycho-physiological (§401) standpoint would have to be referred Memory therefore represents another impor- back to for its lexical material, while the tant step in spirit’s climb out of its immer- standpoint of the understanding would have to anticipated for its form or gram- sion in the sensory towards its freedom, in mar. ( Enc §459R) its ability to determine and express its own content. In language, thought acquires a Effectively, then, Hegel thinks that while determinate and objective being – which is the materials and the formal framework essential to its reality. Hegel is also dismissive for language are provided by earlier stages of the notions that being tied to language is a of subjective spirit, it is only in the produc- defect of thought and that truth is somehow tive imagination that spirit has sufficiently ineffable.

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But memory is also puzzling. Its final stage thought. Pure thought recognizes that it is what Hegel calls ‘mechanical memory’, in alone , and neither sensation nor representa- which all that is present to spirit is a series tion , is able to grasp the truth of things’ (Enc of meaningless words. Spirit here ‘posits §465A; Petry translation adapted). itself as being, the universal space of names Pure thought is not incompatible with, but as such, i.e., as senseless words’ (Enc §463). rather builds upon representation, intuition Hegel thinks that it is significant that we can and soul. There are three stages of thought: learn things by rote, but it is difficult for us understanding, judgement and comprehend- to see just what this significance is. A parallel ing or syllogizing reason. Understanding with an earlier stage of spirit offers itself. At (note that this term is also used to name a the end of the Anthropology the abstract ‘I’, stage in the Phenomenology) is essentially empty of all particular content, was opposed classificatory, subsuming the singular under to the sensory material encapsulated in the categories. Judgement is always thought of by soul but now ejected from and opposed to Hegel as involving essential relations – both the ‘I’. This provided the point of transition connections and differences count – among to the Phenomenology, during the course of categories. In the final stage of comprehend- which the ‘I’ recovers its content by discov- ing, the necessary ties between the singular, ering itself in the world. I suggest that the the particular and the true universal come mechanical memory marks a similar point in into focus. Comprehending reason grasps spirit’s progress. The material content avail- not only the full structure of the universal, able here, language, is in principle distin- but also why it particularizes itself the way guishable from thought itself. Thought does it does. In pure thought, thought is its own not occur in any particular language, but is object; it is both form and content. Spirit is rather expressed in language. The possibility ready, at this point, to think out the of of rote learning emphasizes the distinction logic where, in fact, these are spelled between the pure internality of thought and out in much greater detail. the externalized internality that is language. B. PRACTICAL SPIRIT Intelligence purifies itself of the limited- ness within it; with the , the signs The practical spirit under discussion in these and the sequences also become a matter paragraphs is subjective , still concerned with of indifference, . . . This constitutes the the internality of the individual. Nonetheless, transition to thought, the being of this it can be made sense of only in the light of the purity of intelligence, which has divested itself of images, of determinate presenta- objective reality of spirit, which is a life of tions, and at the same time posited pure freedom in a rational society. Furthermore, indeterminate self-identity as being. (Enc although this section on practical spirit fol- §464A) lows the section on theoretical spirit, we have to think the developments of theoreti- (iii) Thought . After all this preparation, spirit cal and practical spirit as coordinated and is finally ready to think in the full-fledged simultaneous. In coming to see how well it sense of the term: ‘We are always think- has come to fit the world, theoretical spirit in ers, but we only fully know ourselves as turn discovers how well the world has come such when we have raised ourselves to pure to fit it. In its general shape, practical spirit

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recapitulates themes we have encountered a particular drive comes to dominate all the previously, moving from something appar- others: this is a passion . There may be many ently immediately given in spirit, through the different subjective and contingent ways to diremption of that immediacy into a mani- resolve the conflicts among our drives and fold, and finally finding a higher unity. The inclinations, each of which demands our level of Practical Spirit, however, is higher attention and response, but not all of which because it is informed with thought. can be fulfilled. ‘The immanent reflection of (i) Practical feeling . Practical feeling is spirit itself is however to overcome their par- similar to feeling as we have encountered it ticularity as well as their natural immediacy, before: it presents itself as immediately sin- and to endow their content with rationality gular with a ‘natural, contingent and subjec- and , within which they have being tive content’ (Enc §471). Practical feeling as necessary relationships, rights and duties ’ includes moral , inclinations such ( Enc §474R). This ‘reflection’ of spirit begins as benevolence, and, as we have seen with here in subjective practical spirit as the will earlier levels of feeling, is crucial to living an distinguishing ‘itself from the particularity engaged existence in which one’s rationality of the drives, and plac[ing] itself above their pervades one’s whole being. But the form of multiple content as the simple practical feeling, immediacy, does not force of thought’ ( Enc §476; Petry translation a rational content upon practical feeling. So adapted). This process culminates, however, practical feeling ‘can also be onesided , ines- in objective spirit. In this abstraction from sential, bad’ (Enc §471R). Bad practical feel- the immediacy of its drives, subjective spirit ings often get the most attention, because the begins to gain the ability to choose among its good ones have a content that more properly drives and inclinations, to exercise a reflective ‘does not constitute feelings, but rights and judgement over its activities. This Hegel calls duties, the self-determinations of spirit in ‘willfulness’ (Willkür ). At this level subjective their universality and necessity’ (ibid.). spirit is still a welter of disparate drives and Most important here is that in practical inclinations, over which it tries to exert some feeling there are two moments: the immedi- control and into which it attempts to intro- ate determinacy of feeling, which seems to duce some overall coherence. Achieving such come from without, and the determinacy that coherence is happiness . is posited by spirit as that which ought to be . (iii) Happiness . Happiness is an ideal in Agreement between these two moments is which a coherent balance among one’s drives pleasant ; disagreement unpleasant . Indeed, has been achieved, sacrificing some wholly or there are different kinds of pleasure and in part for the sake of others. But happiness displeasure (e.g. joy, contentment, remorse), is not a form of objective unity in practical depending on just how the given condition spirit: ‘since happiness has affirmative con- agrees or disagrees with the ought posited by tent only in drives, it is they that arbitrate, spirit. and subjective feeling and whim which have (ii) Drives and wilfulness . 10 We have, of to decide where happiness is to be posited’ course, many drives and inclinations, and ( Enc §479). Though happiness is an ideal, it would be impossible to satisfy them all. an ought-to-be, it can still take on subjec- Which of our drives and inclinations, then, tive and contingent shapes, depending on do we pursue? Sometimes, in some people, one’s given nature. But both the particularity

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of our drives and the abstract singularity of rich, historically developed, ethically struc- wilfulness ‘have their truth in the univer- tured, free society. How the interactions of sal determinacy of the will in itself, i.e., in these developed individuals play out in the its very self-determining, in freedom ’ ( Enc intersubjective arena of the social world is §480; Petry translation adapted). examined in the Philosophy of Objective Spirit. C. FREE SPIRIT

Free spirit is the unity of theoretical and NOTES practical spirit: spirit that knows itself as free, as at home in the world. It recognizes 1 How deep the ontological divide goes was open its immediate and particular determinations to debate: Descartes thought the distinction but subordinates them to its own universal was between two fundamentally different kinds of substances, Spinoza located it at the level of essence, thus pursuing its essential purpose, the basic attributes of the one substance he rec- the full actualization of freedom itself. Thus, ognized. The empiricists, who had trouble with spirit now moves on to Objective Spirit, the notion of substance generally, still treated which imprints its rational essence on the the mind/body distinction as exhaustive and of world around it. The full idea of freedom is, the greatest signifi cance, even when one of the two was treated as ultimately illusory. Hegel thinks, a relatively late human acquisi- 2 Hume’s attempt to replace the normative rules tion. The ancient world and the orient never of reason with natural laws of association leads grasped this idea, but Christianity introduced him into a sceptical cul-de-sac. it and it comes to fruition in modern society. 3 ‘Animal magnetism’ was brought to popular attention in the late eighteenth century by the [The] relationships [of family, civil soci- Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer. The hypnotic state was originally thought to be ety, and state] are formed by means of related to and was thus also called ‘som- [the divine] spirit and constituted in nambulism’ (a mistake also responsible for the accordance with it. Through that exist- word ‘hypnotism’). ence the character of ethical life infuses 4 The loci classici of both versions of externalism the individual, who then, in this sphere are, respectively, Burge (1979, pp. 73–121) and of particular existence, of present sen- Clark and Chalmers (1998). sations and volitions, becomes actually 5 This unfi nished manuscript is translated in free . ( Enc §482; my translation) Petry (1978, vol. 1). The passage quoted is on page 123. 6 The word translated as ‘ego’ by most English translators, one should remember, is simply the fi rst person singular pronoun ich . 4. CONCLUSION 7 The stages of Stoicism, Scepticism and the Unhappy Consciousness, which appear in PhG , In the PSS, phenomena concerning individual are not mentioned in Enc . 8 human organisms that appear originally nat- The notion of ‘moment’ here is derived from physics, in which motion is treated as a vector ural but become increasingly complex and quantity analysable into distinct ‘moments’, distant from animal immediacy are inter- each parallel to one of the spatial axes, even preted in terms of their contribution to the though there is no ‘causal reality’ to the vec- development of individuals capable of par- tors associated with the different moments of ticipating in and contributing to a culturally force.

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9 Petry translates Vorstellung as ‘presentation’. a whole series of acts: ‘Trieb . . . is a form of However, following most translators of Hegel volitional intelligence [and] goes forth from and Kant, I use ‘representation’. the sublated opposition of what is subjec- 10 Both Petry and Wallace/Miller translate tive and what is objective, and as it embraces Triebe as ‘impulses’. But we tend to think of a series of satisfactions, is something of a impulses as temporally unique events, while whole , a universal ’ (Enc §473A). This is why Hegel clearly thinks of Triebe as informing I prefer ‘drive’.

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