Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit:
148.
ARGUMENT:
the inner world has come into being for the understanding only as the universal - still
unfilled in itself
the play of Forces has the negative significance of being in itself nothing - its positive
significance is as a mediating agency - but this is outside of the understanding
the inner world through the mediation fills itself out for the understanding
what is immediate for the understanding is the play of Forces - but what is True for it
is the simple inner world
the movement of Force is therefore the True
what is present in the interplay of Forces - the soliciting and the solicited is the
immediate alternation of the determinateness that constitutes the sole content of what
appears - either a universal medium or a negative unity
it ceases immediately on its appearance in determinate form to be what it was on
appearing -
by appearing in a determinate form it solicits the other side to express itself - the latter
now what the first was supposed to be
but these two relations are again one in the same - and the difference of form is the
same as the difference of content
in this way there vanishes all distinction of mutually contrasted Forces - the
distinction between these Forces - soliciting and solicited - passive and negative -
collapses into one
there are no Forces - nor a determinateness of being - nor a stable medium and unity -
nor diverse antitheses
what there is in this absolute flux is only difference as a universal difference - or the
difference into which the many antitheses have been resolved
this difference as a universal difference - is the simple element in the play of Force
itself and what is true in it - it is the law of Force
COMMENTARY:
the inner world - is consciousness' reflection on its object -
its object is that which is to consciousness immediately unknown
the inner world - is just the characterizations given to the object by consciousness
and these characterizations or descriptions are decisions regarding how to operate with
the object
such operational decisions will always involve provisional definitions and strategies
for action
what is immediate for the understanding is the unknown -
which is to say consciousness' awareness that it cannot fix its object in a determinate
manner
and indeed the realization that it has no theory of what such a fix - such
determinateness amounts to
and further that any theory of determinateness even if provisional - is without
foundation or basis
this is to say the object despite its appearances is unknown
and further that the appearances themselves have no basis in knowledge
what Hegel calls the state of flux is just the fact of the unknown as a relation between
consciousness and the world
the relation is uncertain - appearance is uncertain
