5.2.08

Hegel 134

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