Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit (Sense Certainty, sec. 98-101)

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In this forty-first video in the new series on G.W.F. Hegel's great early work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, I read and comment on the ninety-eight, ninety-ninth, hundredth, and hundred-and-first paragraphs of the text, beginning our study of the first portion of the section "Consciousness," i.e "Sense Certainty".
Hegel now turns to discuss the "Here," i.e. spatiality of sense-objects. It turns out again that mediation and negation are involved, and that the Here is a universal. Sense-certainty thus reveals that its essence is pure being, or abstraction.
It turns out that the object of sense is not what is essential, nor is it even the universal as such, but the universal as grasped by the "I", the knowing and sensing subject. We then have to look how the "I" functions in sense-certainty, and again a splitting or duality emerges -- there are multiple "I"s involved.
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 No. 1 in Bm, BWV 1002, 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 Hegelian dialectic for a Saturday night, continuing the examination of sense-certainty -- moving from the object of sense, to the universal, and then to the perceiving "I". . . or is it "I"s?

[@MrMarktrumble]

the Cartesian co-ordinate of three dimensional space is merely three number lines. You could also consider a series of unities of the three number lines along another numberline that tracks the changes in time. For Hegel, the "this" contains all "here"s, "now"s...and "I"s. mine: "Activity of mind"....or the hammering of building a house? Boethius replaces the experience of time with an experience of space. NO Protagorus!( to perceive is to be true). First person "I" started claiming priority, and now second person "I" can claim priority ( myself and the other in the boat). Augustine thought that we can perceive ourselves...but Kant didn't....thank you

[@GregoryBSadler]

Where are you getting that Boethius replaced time with space? That's not at all what is going on in the text. Augustine -- and augustinians in general (Anselm is a prime example) don't think we can perceive ourselves fully. The rational mind can grasp itself, by way of making an image of itself for itself, which it partly coincides with. Hegel's not interested here in the mathematization of space (that's not why I brought up dimensions here), but in what is involved in experience of sense objects -- what is, you might say, "built in" but not apparent in the experience. One feature of that is that one can shift from one object to something related to it.

[@MrMarktrumble]

I was thinking about the relationship between time, space and subjectivity (which Hegel is discussing here).( this also why the question of self-perception the "residue" of sense certainty came up. Do we really re-present an image ourselves to ourselves, or are we just present? auto to auto..I have to review this...)And yes, Hegel is not discussing the mathematization of space, it is an alternative. I think I may want to read Whitehead's Concept of nature (from the little I know of it). But I am fairly certain I am following the dialectic, I understand the argument. Thank you.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Notice that here, it's not so much "self"-perception (i.e. perception of me as engaged in perceiving) as something that seems less determinate, more generic, the "I". It's going to take some time before we get to anything recognizable as you or me. "Do we really re-present an image ourselves to ourselves, or are we just present?" -- so. . . that's a key question, not just for Hegel, but for earlier thinkers (like Anselm, who I mentioned earlier). In general, it's through some mediation of an "image" (or whatever you'd like to call it) that we are present (to ourselves). Even with someone like Descartes, who seems at first glance to make the mind something self-transparent and reflexive, the fact that we can represent and figure that activity of the mind in language means hat implicitly, there's some sort of image at work. . . .

[@MrMarktrumble]

Yes, Hegel is dealing with the generic. While I have read the beginning ( and other chunks )of the Phenomenology a few times, I have never read it as a whole from beginning to end to the end. ( the map at the end of book is good too)Some sections I have read many times, others, not at all. So perhaps I should shut up and listen before commenting. Thank you very much for acting as a guide through this. You are confirming what I do know, elucidating what I didn't get, and teaching me what I did not know.

[@Mevlinous]

What’s beautiful about this is, this description of unfolding of spirit is not just theoretical. Much of what you have been explaining here has been unfolding in my life. It makes me wonder how Hegel could have possibly had such a clear grasp of all this unless he underwent these changes as well. It’s like your whole consciousness is turned inside out, what was thought to be the outside world, is actually part of you, being the essence. Initially it began as a subject object dichotomy, with a clear inner “observer”, but now the observer is seen to be a lens. I am going to have to really go through this to truly understand it in its complexity. It’s feeling very right.

[@GregoryBSadler]

So there's two things to say. 1. Hegel's philosophy is both practical and theoretical. It goes back and forth between them. 2. That "he's writing to me" is a common experience . . . at points. Sooner or later, we all get off the dialectical train, or we become "Hegel has everything right" people

[@psychonaut689]

@@GregoryBSadler or we become Adorno

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@psychonaut689 There's only one Adorno

[@psychonaut689]

@@GregoryBSadler Or are there many? (I'm making jokes). More seriously I was interested in your comment about people either becoming true believers or getting off the dialectical train - this sounds like a dialectic itself. Can we really escape Hegel's system? I've read some of Negative Dialectics and don't understand it well enough to make a confident assertion, but wonder if it offers a third option, so to speak.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@psychonaut689 I'd say there's lots of ways to get off and also keep what you want from Hegel

[@pd12tuck5]

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that the "I" also determines the now, probably because time is made into a convertible unit around the globe so we are all supposed to be in the same "now", we just call it different things. The timezones is a good example, however I also think it looks like relativity theory has come down on the side of Hegel. The "now" for the person orbiting the black hole is fundamentally different for the now of the person on earth, the conversion of time can happen, but only to put it into a common unit. The reality shown would be totally different: the person around the black hole would after a certain period of time age totally differently than the person on earth. You could quantify it in years, but the "now" for each person would be totally different according to their experience.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, there are different nows for different people and situations. And "time" is a word with multiple senses

[@QuintessentialQs]

I mostly keep commenting to exteriorize my own thoughts as I go through this book and lecture series. But I think I am starting to grasp something. It seems like the experience of the night, or the tree are immediate. But, it requires almost no inquiry to show that they are ephemeral and subordinate to the universal, non-sensory experience of the "now" and the "here". And the "now" and the "here" don't exist anywhere outside of consciousness as universals, so it's within consciousness itself that we can have, and confirm, and know from every angle, a "sense certainty", or an experiential certainty of the "now" and the "here", whereas the exterior object is communicated to us mediated by universal. I am certain there is a "here" and a "now" because I experience them. Unmediated. Those things exist entirely within the sphere of my consciousness. The here and now act as media for particulars, but I can't have the same kind of certainty about those sensory moments that I do about the universal here and now. This seems to place the bedrock or foundation of knowledge on the ideal, universal, and interior rather than the material or exterior?

[@MirMuzafarTalpur]

HERE and NOW are the universal categories. Regardless of One 'I' or Many 'I'. This is my understanding of Hegel......correct me if I am wrong

[@dantheman6008]

Is Hegel's treatment of here and its relationship to language a bit analytic? I may be reading too much into it.

[@jamesdyer2393]

So, he is saying that consciousness is somewhat like a flicker film....in each frame of an old black and white film there is no motion, it is a still image, but in the totality of those frames flickered in succession, it is what it originally negated: motion. If I try to refer to a feather, I cannot because the feather has already gone into the past and become a thing that was, and a thing that was IS not, therefore the Thing is Notted.....but it's not Not, so it IS....? I LOVE Hegel. In other words, we cannot think outside our thinking.....when I look into the sky and see the moon, it is not the moon, it is my mind's representation of the moon. Something like that? I keep going back through these early chapters of sense-certainty, perception, self consciousness, and then skipping force and the understanding, hoping that I can circumolocute what he was trying to say in that chapter......it isn't just abstract nonesense, but I can't understand it.

[@eatsbugs4577]

Does does Hegel (or the translator) use "immediacy" to mean the temporal notion of something happening now, and the idea of "without mediation?" I get the since that it does, but I want to be sure I'm not muddling up my thinking. Thanks.

[@GregoryBSadler]

No. It can also refer to not being mediated.

[@lyndonbailey3965]

26:00 -27:00 basically every internet argument ever ha!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Indeed!

[@psychonaut689]

I'd like to realise the implications of Hegel on the therapeutic method.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You'll need to know Hegel quite well then

[@psychonaut689]

@@GregoryBSadler Well quite. My PhD, if I get around to it, will be in the area of psychotherapy and philosophy. I'm sure your videos will help, many thanks.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@psychonaut689 You're very welcome