Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit:
III. FORCE AND THE UNDERSTANDING: APPEARANCE AND THE SUPERSENSIBLE WORLD
132.
ARGUMENT:
seeing and hearing have been lost to consciousness - and as perception consciousness
has arrived at thoughts - which it brings together in the unconditioned universal
if this was an inert simple substance - it would be one extreme of being-for-self - for
it would be confronted with non-essence - but if so it would be unessential - and
consciousness would not have escaped the deceptions of the perceptual process
however this universal has returned into itself out of conditioned being-for-self
this unconditional universal which is the true object of consciousness - is still just an
object for it
consciousness has not yet grasped the notion of the unconditioned as Notion
it is essential to distinguish the two -
for consciousness the object has returned into itself from its relation to another and
has become Notion in principle - but consciousness is not yet for itself the Notion -
and consequently does not recognize itself in that reflected object
for us this object has developed through the movement of consciousness and
consciousness is involved in that development - and the reflection is the same both
sides - there is only one reflection
but since this is movement consciousness has for its content objective essence and not
consciousness as such
consciousness shrinks away from what has emerged and takes its essence in the
objective sense
COMMENTARY:
clearly Hegel wants to argue that self-consciousness or consciousness of
consciousness - consciousness holding itself as object - is an outcome a development
of consciousness' movement
in general on this issue I wish to say consciousness is self-consciousness
that it makes no sense at all to speak of awareness that is not in some sense aware of
itself
all awareness is self-aware
and I argue this is just what distinguishes consciousness from its primary object - the
non-conscious
the conscious dimension of an entity is the internality of that entity - the non-
conscious - the externality - is in the first place the body and then the external world the
body exists in
also it is clear that this primary distinction of consciousness and non-consciousness -
of internality and externality - mind and body - is only possible because consciousness
is aware of itself
it is this awareness (of self) that is at the basis of notion - of distinction
consciousness just does distinguish itself and it can only do this if it is aware of itself
and here too is the foundation of logic - for it is in consciousness' awareness of itself
that negation is introduced -
because of its awareness and the distinction this implies - consciousness is thus aware
of what it is not
and this 'what it is not' - is the basis on which - the 'other' is recognized and defined
just a note - it is important to see that consciousness does not as many philosophers -
principally Descates - have thought - see the body primarily as its negation
consciousness recognizes itself as internality - consciousness sees itself as the internal
dimension of an operating unity - the non-conscious dimension of which is the body
so in this sense consciousness sees the body as itself revealed
and itself as the body hidden
the unity which is consciousness and non-consciousness - that is in a non-dimensional
sense - is unknown
