Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit:
134.
ARGUMENT:
consciousness negated its one-sided notions and abstracted them - it gave them up -
but the result is the unity of 'being-for-self' and 'being-for-another'
the absolute antithesis is posited as a self-identical essence
being-for-self and being-for-another are the content as well as the form of the
moments in reciprocal relation
but being-for-self and being-for-another are the content itself since the antithesis in its
truth can have no other nature than the one yielded in the result - that the content
taken in perception is true - belongs in fact only to form - in the unity which is
dissolved
the content is likewise universal
no particular content could fail to fall within this unconditioned universality
in general to be for itself and to be in relation to an other constitutes the nature and
essence of the content - whose truth consists in it being unconditionally universal
COMMENTARY:
I would put that Hegel's unconditioned universal which he argues constitutes the
nature and essence of content - is effectively an abstraction that is empty of content -
and is a theoretical devise designed to empty content from perception -
for it is true that in the unconditioned universal there is no negation -
the reason for this - is I suggest - there is nothing to negate
the unconditioned universal is being put up as a category of knowledge that has no
content - it comes at the end of a rather tortuous logical route
what it amounts to is this - that reflective consciousness reveals perceptual
/ conceptual posits as ultimately without epistemological content - that is as unknowns
what I have put is that the object of consciousness is unknown - reflection on this I say
- simply - finally reflects this reality -
this is the reality of the 'unconditioned universal'
in the meantime - between immediate perception - the perceptual unknown - and the
reflective unknown - is the operating reality of consciousness in the world
it is between the unknowns of perception and reflection that the world we deal with -
with all its features in tact - is to be found
veridical reality and its interpretations - is the world we operate in
the illusion of knowledge is the operating basis of consciousness in the world
consciousness is aware of the uncertainty of its posits - and finally of the relation that
creates them - and yet at the same time recognizes the absolute necessity of these
posits
these posits - which finally comes down to consciousness and its object - are real -
though uncertain - they are the 'foundations' of the world we operate in
they are nothing more or nothing less than operational posits
consciousness can never escape consciousness - to have any sense of itself - it must
hold itself as object -
this holding of the self as object - this subject positing itself as object - reveals a
complete absence of self knowledge
self knowledge I would suggest is an operating illusion of consciousness