Hegel and the Other: A Study of the Phenomenology of Spirit

Introduction: Structure and Method of the Phenomenology

Introduction Structure and Method of the Phenomenology
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a long, difficult, and obscure text. In this introduction I want to begin with a broad overview of its structure, approach, and method so as to try, as clearly and simply as possible, to explain how I think it is organized, what it is trying to do, and where it is trying to go. I want to introduce issues, questions, and problems that will be taken up in subsequent chapters. At this point, I do not intend to find solutions or reach conclusions. In my view, the Phenomenology should be thought of as divided into three parts: part 1 (Individual Consciousness), part 2 (Cultural Consciousness), and part 3 (Absolute Consciousness). These are my divisions; Hegel himself divides the text into a preface, an introduction, and eight chapters that are arranged under three sections. My part 1 (Individual Consciousness) includes chapters I through V. The first three of these chapters, “Sense-Certainty,” “Perception,” and “Force and the Understanding,” Hegel gathers together as Section A, which he entitles “Consciousness.” Chapter IV, “The Truth of Self-Certainty,” alone makes up Hegel’s Section B, which he entitles “SelfConsciousness .” Chapter V, “The Certainty and Truth of Reason,” together with the rest of the chapters (chapters VI through VIII) make up Hegel’s Section C, which he did not give a title of its own. Under my part 2 (Cultural Consciousness), I include one chapter, chapter VI, entitled “Spirit.” And under my part 3 (Absolute Consciousness), I include two chapters, chapter VII, “Religion,” and chapter VIII, “Absolute Knowing.”  1
The expressly proclaimed task of the Phenomenology is to educate ordinary consciousness—to raise it to the level of what Hegel calls “science” (PhS, 3, 15–16, 50/GW, IX, 11, 24, 56).1 What we have in the Phenomenology, then, is a movement from the simplest form of knowledge—sense knowledge, sensation (Hegel calls it “sense-certainty”)—all the way to absolute knowing, that is, total, complete, all-encompassing knowledge. But “knowledge” is really too narrow a term. “Consciousness” would be better. What Hegel explores in the Phenomenology is not just epistemology, metaphysics, natural science, and theology , but desires, attitudes, and morality, as well as social, cultural, political, and religious practices, values, awareness, and aspirations. Part 1 deals with individual consciousness—its attitudes, awareness, vision, behavior, and so forth. Part 2 deals with society, politics, a culture, a whole world and its consciousness. Here, the “I” becomes a “we” (PhS, 110/GW, IX, 108), and we get a much more complex collective awareness— the attitudes, behavior, visions, practices, consciousness, and aspirations of a culture. Part 3 deals with absolute consciousness, which gives us an even higher, more universal and total perspective, seemingly a God’s eye perspective —the religious consciousness, identity, and groundedness of a culture. At this point it is impossible to define or explain the absolute. But we might provisionally point out that it is usually taken to be absolute in several senses: (1) As for the traditional conception of God, absolute knowing grasps absolutely all reality—it is total. There is no reality except what is present to absolute consciousness, no thing-in-itself left outside, nothing at all outside. (2) It is also absolutely true, not just in the sense that it involves no errors or illusions, but in the older sense of “true,” as when one speaks of a “true friend,” that is, one who lives up to the concept, the ideal, the essence, of friendship (L, 51–2, 305, 354/SW, VIII, 89–90, 372–3, 424). It is truth fully realized—the highest truth. There is nothing higher. (3) It is also absolutely present to consciousness. It is not merely implicit or in potential. It has been actualized, fully manifested, in appearance. (4) It is also absolute freedom. It is not other to me, outside, an obstacle. It is not heteronomous. I am fully at home with it. It is absolutely mine—my very identity. 2  Hegel and the Other 1 2 3 Individual Consciousness Cultural Consciousness Absolute Consciousness I. Sense-Certainty VI. Spirit VII. Religion II. Perception VIII. Absolute Knowing III. Force and the Understanding IV. Self-Consciousness V. Reason The Phenomenology, as it proceeds, sets out different forms of consciousness for our examination. It orders them from the simplest to the most complex , from individual consciousness to absolute consciousness, and it...