Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit:
129.
ARGUMENT:
thus the object in pure determinateness (essential being) is overcome just as surely as
it was in its sensuous being -
from sensuous being it turned into a universal - but this universal originated in the
sensuous and is conditioned by it - and thus not a truly self-identical universality at all
- but one affiliated with opposition
for this reason the universality splits into two extremes of singular individuality and
universality - into the One of the properties and the Also of 'free matters'
these pure determinatenesses seem to express essential nature itself - but they are only
a 'being-for-self' that is burdened with 'being-for-another'
as both are essentially in a single unity - what we have no is an unconditioned
absolute universality - and consciousness for the first time enters into Understanding
COMMENTARY:
what we have from Hegel is a series of descriptions of the object - and he believes that
the incompatibility of these descriptions - the fact that they 'contradict' each other - is
really because the object itself is contradictory -
first as I pointed put earlier contradiction is a relation between propositions - that is
descriptions of the world - it is not a fact of the object of these descriptions -
it is just that the object is described variously
now there are a number of ways of accounting for this
my view is that the object itself is unknown - and that consciousness gives it
characterization in the form of description
now consciousness itself is essentially uncertain - hence possibility - possibility of
description - and the fact of various descriptions
you might say that the object of consciousness is still (perhaps eternally so) - but
consciousness is not - it is not stillness -
granted it reaches for definition - definitiveness - absoluteness - stillness
this you might say is the desire of consciousness
but it is a desire that is never satisfied just because consciousness itself is without
definition - indefinite - unessential and contingent
perhaps it is desire that is definitive - not that desired
we might say the object - the objective world - a world of things - suggests a
stillness - and consciousness follows that suggestion - but in terms of that suggestion
the result is always futile
I've got a little away from myself here -
my point is that really Hegel is not in his metaphysics of the object addressing the
object at all - rather what he is doing is characterizing the movement of consciousness
Hegel confuses the object of consciousness with consciousness
also he assumes that consciousness knows what is the case
the truth is rather that consciousness never knows what is the case - hence
metaphysics
