Hegel's Phenemenology of Spirit:
159.
ARGUMENT:
superficially this inverted world is the opposite of the first in the sense that it has the
latter outside of it and repels that world from itself as an inverted actual world - that
the one is appearance and the other the in-itself - that the one is the world for another
whereas the other is the world as it is - what tastes sweet is really or inwardly sour
but such antitheses as inner and outer - of appearance and supersensible - as of two
different kinds of actuality - we no longer find here
the repelled differences are not shared between two substances - this would result in
the Understanding withdrawing from the inner world
the one side or substance would be the world of perception again in which one of the
two laws would be operative - and confronting it would be an inner world - just such a
sense world as the first - but in the imagination - it would be exhibited as a sense
world without its characteristics
but in fact if the one posited world is a perceived world - and its in-itself - as its
inversion is equally thought of as sensuous - the sourness would be the in itself of the
sweet thing - and it would thus be a sour thing
COMMENTARY:
Hegel introduces the idea of inversion
in the context of the consciousness and the non-conscious - it is an interesting idea
there is a neat logic to the idea that consciousness is the inversion of the non-
conscious - that what we 'see' is the inversion of what is -
while logically neat the idea has no content - what is inverted - is just what is (not
inverted) - in a different position - a different way of seeing - the same thing
the metaphor is geometrical
the relation of consciousness and non-consciousness can be seen as an issue of
position - but not in such a simplistic way - that is it is not just a matter of reversal
I have argued that consciousness is internality - the internal dimension of an entity
(that has an internal dimension) - and that this is a fundamentally different
philosophical position to the substance arguments of the Cartesians and the
materialists (brain-identity theorists)
I argue we understand a thing fundamentally in terms of its dimensions - that the
substance approach ought to be abandoned -
that is we can know a thing - whatever it is - dimensionally -
that consciousness recognizes itself as internal - and sees its body as external
and that the notion of the unity - as unity - is unknown
so yes my own argument about mind and body is meta-geometrical -
the issue is dimension not substance
dimensions do not interact - they are the formal characteristics of a thing -
and that which has two dimensions is a different kind of thing to that which does not -
or that which is one-dimensional is effectively non-dimensional
thus metaphysically speaking there are two dimensions - the entities that are so
constructed are those entities that have an inside and an outside
internality - the second dimension
we variously describe this internal dimension as 'mind' 'consciousness' 'spirit' - even
'soul'
the essential nature of such an entity as a unity of dimensions - is unknown
we describe the unity in either internal and external terms
there is no non-dimensional language - no way to approach the unity as unity
what we have here is the unknown manifested two dimensionally
this is where we begin
