Unhappiness: Dialectic Terminable and Interminable

The purpose of the present work is to analyze Hegel's Unhappy Consciousness in light of the psychoanalytic conceptualization of the relation Subject-Other. The analysis will investigate unhappiness on two counts: its relation to Hegelian dialectic and the possibility of its coming to an end. Examining Hegelian unhappiness through the prism of psychoanalytic thought will allow us to formulate a crucial distinction between the philosophical (Hegelian) and psychoanalytic (Freudian, Lacanian) approaches to unhappiness as they relate to the arch-concepts of knowledge, possibility, negation, and end.

The first part of this work will be dedicated to the investigation of these arch-concepts through two main and opposing readings of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind—that offered by Kojève (1980) and that posited by Hyppolite (1974). These contending readings will be used to highlight the central argument of this work, that unhappiness is not situational or transitory but, rather, structural and thus cannot be negated by consciousness or overcome by dialectic.

That unhappiness is structural bears certain implications on the possible modes of dialectic between the Subject and the Other. The present essay shall look at psychoanalysis's primary dialectic—analysis—and examine its treatment of "the end" (of analysis). The possibility or impossibility of the end of this dialectic will then be incorporated into the greater discussion of unhappiness.

A. The End of Philosophy?

Alexandre Kojève's (1980) famous reading of Hegel's Phenomenology describes the actuality of the end of philosophy. For Kojève, the possibility of the end of dialectic is of little concern, as in his reading of Phenomenology Hegel reaches far beyond the end of dialectic to articulate the end of philosophy at large.

The actuality of the end of philosophy is possible thanks to the ontological status of negation. In being ontological rather than formal, negation posits the difference into the process of consciousness's becoming, and by that it necessitates, according to Kojève, the concrete possibility of the negation-of-negation (Aufhebung). It is the possibility of the negation-of-negation that allows for the final and required identity between Self and Substance, an identity that is not, according to Kojève (1980, 233), tautological because of the ontological status of negation.

By being a mediator between the object and consciousness, this negation enables, from the start, the process of consciousness's becoming. In other words, what ensures Phenomenology's dialectical status and its coming to an end is negation and precisely consciousness's a priori ability to remember the effects of negation throughout the dialectic process: " Memory is what makes Man's auto-negation concrete, by making a new reality from that negation . . . instead of annihilating himself and 'disappearing' by a 'pure' or 'abstract' negation of every given whatsoever, real or thought" (Kojève 1980, 233).

The final identity between Subject and Substance, which is introduced by the concrete possibility of negation and consciousness's ability to remember negation's effects throughout the dialectic process, points toward the end of dialectic as the whole of what is to be negated and the whole of what is to be remembered. What enables the absolute end of dialectic, the dialectical totality, is introduced by Kojève (1980, 202-3, 216) via consciousness's successful acts of negation. Negation functions both as the driving force of dialectic (consciousness's freedom) and as a restraint for it. It is negation that puts an end to the possibility of another negation and thus prevents Phenomenology from being another thesis.

In order to clearly delineate the boundaries of the question of the end in its relation to negation, which is so crucial to the question of unhappiness (which will be discussed in greater detail further on), let me reiterate Kojève's definition of the a-dialectical status of Hegelian dialectic: " Hegelian discourse is dialectical to the extent that it describes the real Dialectic of Fighting and Work, as well as the 'ideal' reflection of this Dialectic in thought in general, and in philosophical thought in particular. But in itself Hegelian discourse is not at all dialectical: it is neither a dialogue...