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This is a paper I wrote for my History of 19th Century Philosophy Class. It's an interesting look into just how nonsensical Hegel's philosophy is.
In the 19th century, one of the most important and influential philosophers was G.W.F. Hegel. On careful inspection of the passages of his writing, important details and consequences of his philosophy can be drawn. Specifically, two passages in general offer particularly important information on Hegel’s philosophy. Both passages refer to a process of dialectic by which two opposites, a thesis and an antithesis, contradict one another and bring rise to a third, a synthesis. In the first passage Hegel discusses the conflict between being and nothing through which a synthesis, becoming, arises. Similarly, in the second passage, Hegel discusses another set of two conflicting opposites, this time the existence of two self-consciousnesses. With this passage, Hegel puts forth the idea the only way to know one’s own self-consciousness is through the perception of it by another self-consciousness. At the same time however, there is a sense in which one’s self-consciousness is said to be one’s own instead of another.
In this paper, I will elaborate on each of these two passages. My contribution to this topic will be an objection to what is discussed in Hegel’s first passage. First, I will discuss the dialectic of Hegel’s first passage in which the thesis of pure being and the synthesis of pure nothing result in the synthesis of becoming. Second, I will discuss the confrontation between one self-consciousness and another self-consciousness that he discusses in the second passage. Following this, I will pose an objection to the content of his first passage as well as formulate a potential response he could give to that objection.
With the first passage Hegel explains the conflict between pure being and pure nothing and how they give rise to becoming. As he states “Pure being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither being nor nothing, but that being – does not pass over but has passed over – into nothing, and nothing into being…each immediately vanishes in its opposite” (class handout). The first part of this being-nothing dialectic is the concept of being. According to Hegel, being is an empty concept that can not be understood apart from nothingness. Being is such an abstract concept that it seems to have very little or even no content since it does not refer to anything in particular. For example, when we use the proper noun ‘Socrates,’ it can be said that this noun is rich in content because its use immediately refers us to something in reality. On a higher level of abstraction, when we use the word ‘furniture,’ there is less content being conveyed because it does not immediately point to an object in reality but rather a generic concept of many objects in reality. Since the concept of being is said to encompass all of reality, all that is, Hegel says that it is the most abstract and therefore it contains very little or no content. Thus, in a way, being is actually nothing. While being seems to actually be nothing, nothing is actually being in some respect according to Hegel. Or, in other words, how could we possibly understand the concept of nothingness if it were not something? We would be unable to meaningfully refer to something that does not exist without the property of nothingness being said to be something. The result of this is that the concept of nothing really must have some sort of being to it. Thus, being is really nothing and nothing is really being.
In addition, Hegel concludes that being is also being and nothing is also nothing. While earlier Hegel stated that being is really nothing because it is an empty concept, there is another sense in which Hegel is saying that being is said to be something existing as opposed to not existing. Also, nothing is said to be not existing as opposed to existing. The idea here is that being can be understood as being through its relation to nothing and nothing can be understood as nothing through its relation to being. Thus, Hegel states that being can be understood as both being and nothing, and nothing can be understood as both nothing and being. The net result of this contradiction between the concept of being and nothing is what Hegel refers to as becoming. As he puts it, “Their truth is, therefore, this movement of the immediate vanishing of the one in the other: becoming, a movement in which both are distinguished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself” (class handout). Therefore, through the dialectic of the thesis (being) and antithesis (nothing) a synthesis arises: becoming according to Hegel’s first passage.
In Hegel’s second passage he discusses the nature of the human self-consciousness and the conflict it has with another self-consciousness. As he states, “Consciousness finds that it immediately is and is not another consciousness, as also that this other is for itself only when it cancels itself as existing for itself, and has self-existence only in the self-existence of the other” (19th Century Philosophy Text, 44). The meaning of this statement is that one can not really understand one’s own self-consciousness except through the perception of your self-consciousness by that of another self-consciousness. Thus, self-consciousness only has existence through its recognition by another self-consciousness. But also, at the same time, the self-consciousness that is recognizing your self-consciousness must also be recognized by your self-consciousness in order to have existence. What Hegel is saying here is that one’s self-consciousness is really only the recognition of you by another self-consciousness and that their self-consciousness is really only your recognition of their self-consciousness. Therefore, there is a mutual recognition between two self-consciousnesses that allows for their existence to occur.
At the same time however, there is a sense in which my self-consciousness is more than just the recognition by another self-consciousness because of the fact that in order for another to recognize something, there must be a something for that person to recognize. As he states, “Each is the mediating term to the other, through which each mediates and unites itself with itself; and each is to itself and to the other an immediate self-existing reality, which, at the same time, exists thus for itself only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another” (19th Century Philosophy Text, 44). What’s being said here is that at the same time my self-consciousness is both my self-consciousness and another self-consciousness, and another self-consciousness is both another self-consciousness and my self-consciousness. Therefore, self-consciousness is said to be both my own consciousness and the consciousness of another at the same time in Hegel’s second passage.
In writing this paper I have accomplished the goal of elaborating on Hegel’s two passages in which he discusses the dialectic between being and nothing as well as the conflict between my self-consciousness and another self-consciousness.
Now I will contribute to this topic by providing an objection to the ideas presented in Hegel’s first passage. I have one major objection with Hegel’s being-nothing dialectic; specifically, his standard by which one determines the richness in content of a concept. While Hegel believes that an abstract concept is not rich in content because it fails to point to particular items in reality, I would argue that abstract concepts are richer in content because they subsume, and therefore refer to, a larger number of particular objects in reality. Using the example I discussed earlier, if one were to use the term ‘Socrates,’ one would only be directly pointing to one particular; thereby not conveying much content about reality to another individual. If however, one were to use the concept of ‘furniture,’ one would be conveying much more material about a larger number of existents in reality. In regards to Hegel’s being-nothing dialectic, I believe that this objection refutes his claim that the concept of pure being is empty because it does not convey any content. On the contrary, the concept of being conveys a lot of content on the grounds that it subsumes every single particular in reality that has the property of existing. Therefore, Hegel’s claim that pure being is really nothing is incorrect in my view.
Hegel, in response to this objection, would most likely attempt to defend his standard for determining the richness in content of a concept. While it is true that the more abstract a concept, the more particulars in reality that it subsumes, nevertheless those abstract concepts fail to provide significant qualitative information about each of those particulars but rather only give us quantitative information. The concept of ‘furniture’ allows us to have more quantitative information about the particulars of reality, but it omits the qualitative information, such as the individual characteristics that it alone has, about each particular concrete that is subsumed under the concept. Because of this lack of qualitative information, the more abstract a concept, the less rich in content it is. Therefore, I believe that Hegel would respond by defending the idea that the richness in content of a term is based on its ability to present qualitative information about concrete individual existents in reality.
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