Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit (Introduction, sec. 77-78)

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In this thirty-fourth video in the new series on G.W.F. Hegel's great early work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, I read and comment on the seventy-seventh and seventy-eighth paragraphs of the text, continuing our study of the Introduction.
Hegel addresses the matter of the development of the dialectic in these paragraphs, discussing the stages -- Gestalten -- that consciousness must pass through on its way to knowledge, or the life of the Spirit.
He also addresses again the question of skepticism -- an ever-present possibility for any given consciousness, but a cul-de-sac on the way of dialectical development. Skepticism does, however, play a vital role in placing consciousness into a despair from which it must emerge, getting it past natural consciousness, reliance upon authority, and assertion of the perspective of the self
In this video series, I will be working through the entire Phenomenology, paragraph by paragraph -- for each one, first reading the paragraph, and then commenting on what Hegel is doing, referencing, discussing, etc. in that paragraph.
This series is designed to provide an innovative digital resource that will assist students, lifelong learners, professionals, and even other philosophers in studying this classic work by Hegel for generations to come. If you'd like to support this project -- and also receive some rewards for your support -- please contribute! - / drgbsadler
I'll be using and referencing the A.V. Miller English-language translation of the Phenomenology, which is available here: amzn.to/1jDUI6w
The introductory music for the video is: Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita in D minor for solo violin, is available in the public domain, and can be found at musopen.org.
#Hegel #Phenomenology #Philosophy #Idealism #German #Dialectic #Spirit #Absolute #Knowledge #History

[@GregoryBSadler]

some Hegel commentary for a chilly November evening. . .

[@MrMarktrumble]

Thank you. The truth measures authority, and any opinion that I may hold uncritically. Reading Descartes in grade 10 changed my life.

[@derekburfoot317]

thank you, your series will be very helpful for me in making this works

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@adoesntequala5871 You're very welcome!

[@jonathanjonsson9205]

Wow, it never occurred to me until watching this video that Gestalt is the archaic past participle of 'stellen'. The step metaphor makes more sense now. We even have it as a loan word in my native language (Swedish) and I never thought about the etymology. Amazing the things that das natürliche Bewusstein overlooks :)

[@forlotta2066]

Daily exercise to get ur brain /fit/: - Watch 5 of these lectures a day, each time reading the relevant sections before and after - When finished with a chapter, read it independently and try to understand it wholly Got to read BIG to get BIG

[@GregoryBSadler]

That would be a tough regime! Love the slogan!

[@robertjacobs3133]

What he is talking about is the process of 'self knowledge' and remembrance of one's own 'Spirit' within one's soul. Have a look at this for better examples: canyoustandthetruth.com/how-can-we-escape-the-matrix/ canyoustandthetruth.com/what-does-agathon-mean/ canyoustandthetruth.com/2010-04-27-07-03-15/ canyoustandthetruth.com/2010-04-04-01-23-13/ have a look at that book to see if it sits right with you 'spiritually'.

[@omgnotaflake]

Great video Gregory. Thanks!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@Itsunobaka]

Excellent series. I've been working through The Phenomenology for some time and am in The Observation of Organic Nature now, so these are a real lifeline. Hoping you'll be able to help me consolidate the stages in my mind when you get to the book proper, but I'll keep chipping away at it until then.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, keep at it -- eventualllllyyy we'll get to that section. It might be a while, though!

[@lyndonbailey3965]

'The way of despair' this reminds me, specifically, in the narrow sense of science when great failures of grand projects have turned out to be, counter-intuitively, the fertile ground for great leaps forward in unexpected directions. This goes beyond science too.

[@lyndonbailey3965]

Its an interesting question, in terms of the drive towards intellection, whether the questioning brings about despair, or whether despair brings about questioning

[@bodywithoutorgans3942]

78 is one of my favorite parts of the entire text. That part about the "added conceit that is innate." How often do we trust our convictions simply because they belong to us? Or that if we don't understand something it must be wrong? This impulse leads to a great amount of folly.

[@GregoryBSadler]

It does indeed -- much that is contingent and cultural comes to assume the status of the "natural"

[@lyndonbailey3965]

Foucault in some ways seems like one of those exemplars too, by questioning if power is necessarily and only 'negative, constraining' and by questioning if truth and power might have an inverse to the usual relationship and by questioning if power might be as importantly constructed through non-political institutions etc, he seemed to tear up a lot of scripts. You could argue, of course, that that had as much to do with Bataille, Canguilhem, and other thinkers from whose well he was drawing.

[@ngogol1748]

A few years ago, the systems biologist Uri Alon did a great TED Talk about the need to "get lost" in the process of research, for a while. He called this moment of total despair, where nothing in your research makes sense anymore, "the cloud". I find there a similarity between Hegels "despair" and Alons "cloud". What I find so interesting about this idea is that is not just described as a psychological or biographical phenomenon, but that Hegel (and Alon) seem to acknowledge that this moment of despair is somehow a necessary moment in the whole development.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I'd avoid drawing too strong analogies between thinkers with very different approaches. I'm skeptical myself of these sorts of insistences about how everyone's research or study has to go.

[@ngogol1748]

@@GregoryBSadler Thank you for your comment! I agree that Hegel and a biologist of our times differ in a lot of aspects regarding their attitude to the scientific progress. And I see the danger of trivializing Hegels argument, if that is part of your concerns! For sure, Alon does not work or think in a Hegalian way. However, the observation that scientific progress goes along with a road to despair and that this part cannot be skipped or worked around easily, this seems to me to be consistent between so different approaches. Alon seems to argue for the necessity of such a "cloud" because a scientist has to unfold and change parts of his assumptions to understand a phenomenon better. I find it plausible that even in normal phases of scientific progress something like this has to occur regularly, on a subtle level. I am still wondering if this re-wiring of assumptions and empirical observation is necessary for any kind of scientific finding. More generally, I wonder if Hegels processual thinking on science is fruitful for our understanding of working and producing knowledge. Isnt there a true value in Hegels thinking for our reflections on how we evaluate past knowledge and come to new knowledge? Maybe, I made it clearer how and how not I would like to make use of analogies.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@ngogol1748 It's likely both of them are wrong about the need to pass through despair or whatever other phrase you want to use. As to whether Hegel's thinking about Wissenschaft is useful, no need to wonder since you can study him and find out for yourself

[@ngogol1748]

@@GregoryBSadler Well, first I will finish watching the videos you made on the introduction (at least) and then read the passages as a whole. :)

[@pooialalbakhsh7277]

Hi I have two questions: Can we consider different disciplines(Math, physics, ...) under the conceptual umbrella of natural consciousness, since they are passed on directly/indirectly (text books or lectures) to people and in each era they had their own specific shapes? (I want to know if phenomenal knowledge is a different concept from natural consciousness or not?) and can we consider shapes for the true knowledge (the Absolute knowledge / Truth)? or it cannot be constrained by shapes. I mean do we have, for example, 20th century Truth or we have just Truth. Thanks

[@asgilb]

I'm very interested in what you said about Soul and Spirit because right now I'm doing work on the young Georg Lukacs (before he was a Hegelian Marxist) and his whole schtick was precisely that modernity was a time of pathological subjectivism, where weltanschauung is fragmented and arbitrary, and all paths out to any absolute source of value are blocked. He talks about "consciousness of the Soul" in terms of awareness of this condition, but "poverty of Spirit" in terms of being unable to respond to it... But, yeah, when you mentioned that Gnostics had employed these concepts, it interested me. Do you have any recommendations about how to become introduced to them?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, if I had to pick just one interesting, decent interpretative work on them -- though it's a bit old, I'd look at Hans Jonas' The Gnostic Religion

[@ligottifan1]

Love this. I'm gonna go the opposite direction of the posts and remove all eloquence from my exegisis. Hegel seems to be saying, "Dude, you gotta have some intellectual balls to do Philosophy. Ain't no punks in this game." So in Hegel's approach, no intellectual safety net when walking the tightrope of philosophy. Also, didn't this start with like 30,000 + views. Why are we down to a thousand in change? Is it related to the ain't no punks interpretation of section 78?

[@GregoryBSadler]

That means there's 1000 or so people who have continued on in the series up to this point. It's also a factor of the fact that people who link to the series often just link to the first video.

[@lukemccrae1617]

The notion of an ideological “pendulum swing” comes to mind here as an example of natural consciousness. It’s easy to label the journey of someone seeking truth wherever it leads them when they end up ultimately doubling back to where they started. While the truth of the journey is anything but two dimensional

[@lyndonbailey3965]

Is natural knowledge somewhat if a relative concept, that is, for a journeyman scientist, a science educator might appear to be espousing natural consciousness, for a cutting edge scientist, the average academic is dabbling in natural consciousness, for the science educator, the science journalist is not doing real science and so on, or is there a concrete boundary between natural consciousness and 'true' science?

[@skwbtm1]

I think Johann Goethe did what Descartes did too, except as literature. If you read his autobiography you might notice that.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Introducing methodological doubt? Coming up with an evil genius then dispelling it, in favor of a reliable God? Distinguishing between body and mind (and God)? Which thing that Descartes did do you see Goethe doing?

[@skwbtm1]

Gregory B. Sadler I see him doing it throughout his whole autobiography. In a much more entertaining way.

[@GregoryBSadler]

What I asked you about was which point of comparison you're making, not so much where it is in the autobiography.

[@dwroberts1001]

That road of despair sounds a little like the 'dark night of the soul'. I guess it is a "purification process" to be stripped of any 'ground' to your individual sense of knowing in the face of the apparent nature of the absolute. Is that what you meant by this comment? It's not just a matter of starting on the work of science wherever you find yourself, but you need to have passed through a deeply humbling experience to strip your consciousness of the dross in order to do that work. In order to develop a mind of clarity.

[@GregoryBSadler]

David Roberts I'd say that in this case, the metaphor is apt. But, it's something that consciousness is going to have to go through multiple times in the work -- and it is not always an initial experience, but one that arises as things get revealed to be way different than how one took them to be